When fire-arms in the seventeenth century were made more usable and handy, it was soon perceived, that troops provided with them in greater proportion, and drawn up with a larger front, had such decided advantages over the deep masses arranged in the old fashion, and armed for the most part with pikes, that it was thought wiser, if the soldier could have the necessary individual training, to submit to the disadvantages which sometimes could not be avoided in an engagement with deep masses. In the same way Iphicrates, about the hundredth Olympiad, had considered, that the phalanx could only be overcome either by an overwhelming increase of the masses and of physical power, that is, by increasing the depth of the ranks and the strength of the spears, or by picking out and training the individual for a service, which held a middle place between that of the phalangite and the arquebusier. It must have appeared that with the former system both parties would again be on an equality after a short time, as those who suffered would, with the most ordinary degree of common sense, adopt the innovation, the only difficulty of which consisted in the management of the spears: the second could not be applied in the case of a militia, but afforded decided advantages to mercenary troops when permanently assembled.