Sarissa
Long spear used by Macedonian army / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The sarissa or sarisa[note 1] was a long spear or pike about 5 to 7 meters (16 to 23 ft) in length. It was introduced by Philip II of Macedon and was used in his Macedonian phalanxes as a replacement for the earlier dory, which was considerably shorter. These longer spears improved the strength of the phalanx by extending the rows of overlapping weapons projecting towards the enemy. After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the sarissa was a mainstay during the Hellenistic era (4th–1st centuries BCE) by the Hellenistic armies of the diadochi Greek successor states of Alexander's empire, as well as some of their rivals.
For the Bronze Age Hittite city, see Kuşaklı. For the moth genus, see Sarisa (moth).
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/Makedonische_phalanx.png/320px-Makedonische_phalanx.png)