Nearly always driven in, they fought, nevertheless, with a tenacity that they never showed under any other command.
Thucydides characterizes the combat of the lightly armed, by saying: "As a rule, the lightly armed of both sides took to flight." [20]
In combat with closed ranks there was mutual pressure but little loss, the men not being at liberty to strike in their own way and with all their force.
Caesar against the Nervii, saw his men, who in the midst of the action had instinctively closed in mass in order to resist the mass of barbarians, giving way under pressure. He therefore ordered his ranks and files to open, so that his legionaries, closed in mass, paralyzed and forced to give way to a very strong pressure, might be able to kill and consequently demoralize the enemy. And indeed, as soon as a man in the front rank of the Nervii fell under the blows of the legionaries, there was a halt, a falling back. Following an attack from the rear, and a mêlée, the defeat of the Nervii ensued. [21]
CHAPTER V
MORALE IN ANCIENT BATTLE
We now know the morale and mechanism of ancient fighting; the word mêlée employed by the ancients was many times stronger than the idea to be expressed; it meant a crossing of arms, not a confusion of men.
The results of battles, such as losses, suffice to demonstrate this, and an instant of reflection makes us see the error of the word mêlée. In pursuit it was possible to plunge into the midst of the fugitives, but in combat every one had too much need for the next man, for his neighbor, who was guarding his flanks and his back, to let himself be killed out of sheer wantonness by a sure blow from within the ranks of the enemy. [22]