The aftermath of a battle

Dear EB historians,

having regarded "the aftermath of battle" by Nate among the EB loading screens, I came to think of what was the aftermath like in EB timeframe? Were the victors running over the battlefield killing the wounded enemies, depriving them of their properties? Did anybody take care of the wounded? How was that organized, I have heard that the Romans for example had doctors with the legions, what about other factions? I'd like to know because in the game we never actually take care of the wounded of course, the battle ends when the enemy is dead.

There is an acillary called "chichirgeon" (SP??) and all your wounded comes back. Not everyone dies in the game.

I'm no historian, but some things just seem logical. Battle equipment was too expensive to waste on dead enemy bodies - it's certain that the dead were robbed. I would also be surprised if the local bandits didn't try to steal some things - after all, the battlefield is very large and at the end of the battle one side is chasing the another - it's a one big, chaotic mess... Well, the wounded most likely were screwed, as the medicine wasn't really advanced in the Antiquity and besides, even "friends" from their own army would like to take some of their equipment - life is brutal. IIRC, more advanced medical treatment after the battle was nonexistent until Napoleonic times.

Romans had one of the best field medical personnel before 19th century .. before romans and after them the wounded would most likely to die after the battle few days/weeks later ..
in the napoleonic times the things weren't any better ..
it was Crimean war when things started to change ...
as war as i can remember :book:

i was under the impression romans did not study medicine as much as other peoples. what sort of medical procedures did they practice?

Roman medicinal equipment, or equivalant standard, was used up until late medieval period. Aka, it didnt improve for centuries, it just sort of levelled off.

I'm not sure but I don't think Rome had any sort of progressively advancing understanding of medicine just a few bright bulbs that figured out alot of things within their lifetime and passed their knowledge on in text rather than training a bunch of people to think like them and figure out more stuff. The first century Galen comes to mind.

I think that there's good evidence for cosmetic surgery(text), eye surgery(tools), traction beds for broken bones(text), hospitals with segregated wings for different illnesses, and the much over-hyped drilling holes in your skull to relieve stress(evidence of individuals surviving long after surgery).

From the accounts I have read, the aftermath of battle was mainly a race to secure loot- from the enemy camp or the bodies themselves (the camp is better, since there will be food, cattle and maybe gold, which are all easier to sell on than dented bronze helmets). Usually any enemy smart enough to run past the camp would not be pursued.

I don't know if it was common to take slaves from the battlefield. It certainly was common when towns were taken. If you were taking slaves than perhaps a bit of medical care spent on the enemy might pay dividends. If you aren't going near a slave market any time soon, and don't have merchants following you (don't know about early armies, but that did happen later) then it is best all round to kill anyone you got your hands on. You'd either have to guard them or let them run away to fight you again.

As someone (and they were probably Greek or Roman, I can't remember) said, the battlefields are the best training for a surgeon. People will pay well to have a medical man around when they're fighting. Medical knowledge in this period was fairly effective, but since the Egyptians had effective medical treatments long before the EB period, and the work of Galen was central to medieval practice, it's hard to say anyone really advanced medicine very quickly until the nineteenth century.

From the battle field warriors take the enemy camp while the camp-followers take the field of battle.

My friends' brother, who is history major told me once that in ancient battles, victorious armies would take all the equipment from the defeated enemies and stabbed their dead bodies again.

I guess, the equipment is exepensive so they would rob enemy bodies for war equipment.:smash:

I remember reading a history book from the library on Anglo-Saxons(out of EB's timeframe) that said the chainmail armor that was used in the dark ages was able to defend against cuts and slashes, but wasn't quite as good at absorbing the impact of a blow, which could result in bruises and broken bones.

Anyways, it said that this armor was helpful in that way, because while cuts and open wounds were things that had high mortality rates, the Anglo-Saxons were somewhat good at mending broken bones.

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Originally Posted by Senatus Populusque Romanus

My friends' brother, who is history major told me once that in ancient battles, victorious armies would take all the equipment from the defeated enemies and stabbed their dead bodies again.

I guess, the equipment is exepensive so they would rob enemy bodies for war equipment.:smash:

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The Rhodians got enough bronze from the heliopolis and the Maks to build a giant friggin statue.:beam:

Fair enough, but the good chainmail armour was iron. XD

I thought it was considered common knowledge that after battles the winning side tended to strip the dead of anything useful .


I wonder how many romans came back from Macedon with a Sarissa , lino thorax and stuff like that as booty .

In Europe during the late middle ages up until more recent times, people would go out onto the battlefield, chop off the gentals of the dead, desicate them, and ground them up to sell as fertility powder to aristocrats.

Same thing happened to Tut's bits apparently during WWII.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...icle398218.ece

The loss of Tut's 'bits' is a myth. A recent body scan of the body proved they are still intact.

In the Iliad, Homer describes any Greek soldier who kills a Trojan immediately stripping him of his armour, and gaining glory for it. Although this is a little before our time frame, I'm sure that something similar would have happened in EB-time. As has been said above, good armour is expensive, and metal is always worth scavenging, wherever you can find it.

On battlefield medicine, one thing that the Egyptians, then Greeks, then Romans and so on were quite good at doing was setting and healing broken bones. One thing that there weren't good at was treating infected wounds. That's why chain mail was so useful. Even though it wouldn't stop a club breaking your arm, it would often (but not always) stop a blade slicing you open.

I think of the aftermath of a battle pretty similiar to the aftermath of an unusually large concert or a festival. As in festivals there are people scavenging for empty bottles and such, local villagers must have been the next in line after the victorious soldiers had taken all the expensive and convenient stuff like weapons, shields and money. Maybe this was done just before tossing the body into the funeral pyre, so that nothing valuable would go to waste. As for casualties, I figure the guy next to you dragged you to an aid station if you got seriously wounded. I doubt there was an army that didn't have auxiliaries to take care of the injured. I also doubt there were any organized effort to take care of the enemy casualties. The fate of them were probably decided by the soldiers who found them.

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Originally Posted by iwwtf_az

i was under the impression romans did not study medicine as much as other peoples. what sort of medical procedures did they practice?

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The romans employed mostly Greek doctors as combat medics as far as I can remember.

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Originally Posted by MarcusAureliusAntoninus

The loss of Tut's 'bits' is a myth. A recent body scan of the body proved they are still intact.

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SHould have known better than before trusting a British news source.:dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

SHould have known better than before trusting a British news source.:dizzy2:

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Even though I am not a Brit myself, I can say that "The Sun" is known throughout Europe as ehmm... not the most reliable source for the truce. It has done, and still does with every issue, major damage to the good reputation that the British press has gained aboard by BBC and Times (in particular in Germany).

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Originally Posted by konny

Even though I am not a Brit myself, I can say that "The Sun" is known throughout Europe as ehmm... not the most reliable source for the truce. It has done, and still does with every issue, major damage to the good reputation that the British press has gained aboard by BBC and Times (in particular in Germany).

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Konny, good reputation and the bbc in the same line???

Out of time frame, but medieval Russians (or Kyjevians) did not chase rooting enemy. they stood on the battlefield as sign of their dominance and victory.

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Originally Posted by konny

Even though I am not a Brit myself, I can say that "The Sun" is known throughout Europe as ehmm... not the most reliable source for the truce. It has done, and still does with every issue, major damage to the good reputation that the British press has gained aboard by BBC and Times (in particular in Germany).

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I wouldn't wipe my arse on "The Sun". It is a xenophobic, right-wing, scare-mongering shit-rag read by builders and people too stupid to read a paper without tits in it.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

SHould have known better than before trusting a British news source.:dizzy2:

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It was long believed that Tut was missing his 'bits' because when he was first found it was quite obvious that he had them. Now it is hard to tell. Since the CAT scan prooved they are still there, the going theory I heard is that he had a metal rod installed after death to give him a perminent erection, and it was that rod that was stolen/went missing. EDIT: (But I don't recall where I got that info, so don't take my word for it.)

Thank you all for the replies. I just wondered if anything organized happened, especially with the injured of your own (victorious) side. For example, in the bit tedious but otherwise very good movie Alexander, there is some kind of "field hospital", were the wounded are getting medical treatment or even a hit with a hammer and an iron stick in the head for quick pain relief. Did the Makedonians really gave euthanasia? From the Romans I have heard that they buried their personal belongings into holes in the ground before a battle. Because the enemy shouldn't find and take it?

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Originally Posted by cmacq

Konny, good reputation and the bbc in the same line???

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Here in Germany the BBC has an outstanding reputation for some reason.

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Originally Posted by cmacq

Konny, good reputation and the bbc in the same line???

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Here in Italy BBC is seen as a model for state-owned tv networks.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

SHould have known better than before trusting a British news source.:dizzy2:

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The rediscovery (in 2007) was also reported in the British media. Be fair. If it was such a myth then why would anyone mention spotting them on a scan? It was thought that Tutankhamen's nadgers has been pinched sometime around the second world war. It just turned out to not be true later on.

That said, I will not read the Sun.

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Originally Posted by cmacq

Konny, good reputation and the bbc in the same line???

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Yep.

I recall in Herodotus that the victorious side would usually bury their own dead, and sometimes allow the enemy access to the battle site for the same purpose. Those were formal engagements between forces sharing a common culture. Despite that I'm sure stripping the dead, especially the enemy dead was a commonplace. There are numerous references to trophies of arms in temples all over Hellas and Italy: even the gods got their cut of the loot.

I imagine arms and personal effects were looted as legitimate prizes among all cultures. IIRC Roman generals were entitled to a major share of loot from a campaign (eg the arms of a defeated enemy general, such as the spoilum optimum claimed buy one of the Metelli in Augustan times), with his legionaries entitled to expect a cut, and the balance going to the state, but I think that varied over time with soldiers getting bigger and bigger "donations" from generals eager to buy loyalty for political purposes.

I think "civilised" armies would be more diciplined about looting, waiting until the battle was over, but tribal warriors probably saw loot as the point of war (and perhaps their only paypacket). Didn't Darius' Skythian cavalry dash off after Alexander's camp at Gaugamela while the fight was still in progress? If only they'd had a decent contract worked out by their union rep, the battle might've panned out differently...

In EB 3.0 I wonder if we'll see a dsiticntion between civilised and barbarian troops refelcted in a propesity to unrestricted looting (not to mention pillaging)? I know, I know, its hardcoded...still a guy can wish....