To be honest, I think a lot of people like to cite the Battles of Cynoscephalae, Magnesia and Pydna as clear exampled of the legion being superior to the phalanx only to cease investigating these incidents further and discovering the phalanx actually held its own against the legion pretty well.
At Cynoscephalae, the right wing of Philip V's phalanx manage to not only withstand the legionnaires' attack but also push them back and repel them until an unknown tribune took a chance and led a charge into their exposed flanks instead of chasing the routers on the broken Macedonian left.
At Magnesia, Antiochus the Great led a cavalry charge that broke the Roman left and routed the Roman and allied legions stationed there (an event that Livy suspiciously omits in his account of the battle) but instead of wheeling about and charging into the flanks and rear of the Roman and Pergamene army he chased the routing legionnaires back all the way to their camp. Meanwhile, Eumenes II managed to defeat and rout the Seleucid left wing leaving the Seleucid phalanx exposed to attack. The Seleucid phalangites then reformed into a square with the elephants and light infantry in the center, and began making an orderly withdrawal from the field. The legionnaires refused to attack this formidable formation and only did so after several of the elephants panicked under the sniping of the Roman velites and shattered the square of the phalangites, which combined with the assault of the Romans led to a chaotic rout.
Pydna was a battle that initially favored the Macedonians as Perseus' more heavily armored phalangites withstood the pilum and other missiles used by the Romans and once again pushed the legionnaires back. However, Perseus failed to capitalize on this success by holding back the Macedonian cavalry and allowing his phalanx to pursue the Romans into broken and uneven terrain. The legionnaires then took advantage of several gaps formed in the pike-wall and without making any attempt to aid his men or charge his cavalry into the exposed flanks of the legion Perseus fled the field.
In my opinion the Successors, especially the original generation, could've defeated the Romans if they'd exerted more control of their forces and possessed a more heightened sense of tactical awareness but since they blindly believed their soldiers and tactics could overcome any threat they left themselves open to the defeats that eventually led to their extinction.
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