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I have only discovered this thread, and hence come very late to this discussion. My good friend Paralus has covered most points in his answers, but I can still add one or two details.

If you want to see how Philip/Alexander's un-uniformed troops looked, then for almost photographic depictions, see the freizes from the Agios Athanasios tomb. Fortunately there are some excellent photos of these posted elsewhere here on Pothos.

You also asked about how light infantry 'evaded' when posted in front of a phalanx etc. Here is a likely interpretation. If you read the manuals, you will see that the Macedonian phalanx had three formations. 'Normal' order ( which had no special name ) with each file of 16 on a four-cubit (6ft) frontage. This was how they marched, advanced, etc.
In this formation there was plenty of room for light infantry to slip down the 'lanes' between the files

Once close to the enemy, they would move up into 'close' formation ( called 'pyknosis') to fight, with the rear half of each file now 'closing up' to give each 'half-file' a two cubit (3 ft) frontage. The depth is now 8, with each unit's overall frontage unchanged. ( Only once are we told in the sources of the depth of the phalanx in action, namely at Issus, where they fought 8 deep)

This idea of fighting in close order in half-files is accepted by many authorities on Greek and Macedonian warfare, including the late Peter Connolly, and J.K. Anderson.

BTW, there was a third 'super close' formation called 'synaspismos' ( touching shields) where the depth halved again, to produce each quarter-file on a 1 cubit frontage, the men with their two-handed pikes standing side-on. Peter Connolly demonstrated this formation was perfectly possible, and easy to perform. This formation was primarily defensive, for so packed they could not manouevre .

For an alternate interpretation of Alexander's ( and the Persian ) formation at Gaugemala, see the 'rhomboid' I postulated on p. 81 of "Warfare in the Classical World" by John Warry, Salamander, 1980 ( I was responsible for everything apart from the main text ).

Xenophon wrote:I have only discovered this thread, and hence come very late to this discussion. My good friend Paralus has covered most points in his answers, but I can still add one or two details.

thanks for reopening the thread. it gives me an opportunity to update those who were interested.

the model is about 40% complete, including the complete right wing and the second line phalanx. 4 foot long, with more than 1200 figures, it is beginning to look quite impressive. unfortunately, it doesn't photograph at all: each figure is only 6mm tall (= half a thumb nail high) - too small to be impressive in close up and in the overview photos just look like brown dots on sand.

what does work very well is a video-walk-around and when I'm back from abroad in a few weeks, I'll try upload one to youtube.

Xenophon wrote:if you want to see how Philip/Alexander's un-uniformed troops looked, then for almost photographic depictions, see the freizes from the Agios Athanasios tomb. Fortunately there are some excellent photos of these posted elsewhere here on Pothos.'

I am about to paint the main phalanx, the most fragile part of the model: the model figures I bought are very detailed, but the sarissas aren't to scale, so I've opted to use dressing pins. That means painting (another) 560 dressing pins and then glueing them onto each figure ...

The photos on the tomb show clearly that our notion of ancient greece as bleached-marble-and-linen-white is clearly wrong. THe question it doesn't answer is whether the phalanx would have been "uniformed" for combat - ie would colours of cloaks, cuirass, chiton, painting on helmet have been the same? IIRC, Oliver Stone opted for the uniformed look, the consensus here was that it wasn't likely.

So far, the only units I have given a colour-coded uniform are the companion cavalry and the Prodromoi.

Xenophon wrote:You also asked about how light infantry 'evaded' when posted in front of a phalanx etc. Here is a likely interpretation. If you read the manuals, you will see that the Macedonian phalanx had three formations. 'Normal' order ( which had no special name ) with each file of 16 on a four-cubit (6ft) frontage. This was how they marched, advanced, etc. In this formation there was plenty of room for light infantry to slip down the 'lanes' between the files.

Slipping through the lanes makes a lot of sense.

I re-watched "Rome", the HBO series recently and the opening sequence shows how soldiers could even shuffle through those lanes in what looked like "close order".

Xenophon wrote:For an alternate interpretation of Alexander's ( and the Persian ) formation at Gaugemala, see the 'rhomboid' I postulated on p. 81 of "Warfare in the Classical World" by John Warry, Salamander, 1980 ( I was responsible for everything apart from the main text ).

gone on the wishlist for next month ordering

Chris.