I don't particularly enjoy treading on territory which isn't quite within the limits of my own personal expertise, but isn't De Bello Gallico somewhat... biased?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mulcebar
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I don't particularly enjoy treading on territory which isn't quite within the limits of my own personal expertise, but isn't De Bello Gallico somewhat... biased?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mulcebar
Ancient and ancient. Usually no older than the colonial rule.Quote:
Originally Posted by antisocialmunky
It is nteresting though that only in the middle of the 2nd century BC did the Romans face their first derth of volunteers for service in the legions. Except for the 2nd Punic war when everybody available was drafted.
Brunt and Harris has some insights on this.
I might add some personal one of slight use.
Rousing speeches work.
As some of you might know, I am a Viking Fighting Re-enactor,
unlike SCA we fight with steel weapons, blunt copies of what
our ancestors use. And we fight in a highly organised system,
cause it is quite dangerous;-)
At Moesgaard south of Aarhus, Denmark, every year around 350
of us from all over the world meet to train for a week and
conclude the week with 4 big Line Fights during the weekend
where both sides go to the field to win, with a tactic,
reserves, detailed plans, high organisation... basically this
is the closest thing you will get to a real fight of the
sorts, and often dangerous. Last year a German fighter had a
sword penetrate the eye socket and 2-2.5 Cm into his brain
:-(
But, before we go on we have the rousing speech, being a
tactician and organiser of our own group group I have
sometimes given it, more often recieved it and I tell you it
WORKS! A good orator can whip up a sentiment so strong that
when combined with your hunger to beat the enemy, the
adrenaline and training it puts your blood on fire,
literally, your heart pounds, you blood race, you roar with
bloodlust at appropriate moments with your brothers-in-arms.
We would go out there and fight even were it life or death.
The fear comes when you stand there in line looking at the
opponents, then you look left and right at your mates and
seeks confidence- and in my case continue to whip them up.
Conclusion is, at least in what we do, battle rhetorics in
rousing speeches work. If you add to that a general warlike mentality, more familiarity with death and perhaps some hatred of your enemy, you will fight and afterwards you will be happy to have survived, while most of the time in battle you will not think too much, just fight on reflexes..
An interesting perspective is Egil Skallagrimsson's Saga, he was a psycho, yet thrived and was hailed as a hero...
Oh and BTW, I do not know the name of the Californian scholar putting athletes in Hoplite armour and letting them fight, concluding that as they were exhausted in 45 mins, no battle in Greece can have lasted much more (I heard of this experiemnt on the H-War list from another scholar).
But though interesting in theory, the experiement is of no practical value. It is all about training what you do, I have seen athletes joining our fighting and get exhausted very fast until in a year or two they had the right condition for fighting with our kit. Interesting the ones best suited for it from start are carpenters, masons etc.
Suffice it to say, if you are trained well and know what you do, you can fight for hours. Though not in the FULL-ON style Hollywood depicts or we do in our show-fights for audiences. You have to pace yourself...
Back on topic I just saw Rome for the first time, it is not too bad in fact despite many ahistoricities it does give the general gist of the root cause of the downfall of the republic (which I have outlined here https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...23#post2122423 ). In the first episode after their skirmish with the captors of Octavian Pullo bashes somebody to pieces to get some gold (possibly teeth? I watched a bad online streamed version), just as some scavenger later cuts off Brutus' ring (nevermind that the Phillipi depiction is quite ahistorical), there you have it. The face of warfare post-battle.
I think it's funny how the thread mutated from "The horror of ancient warfare" into "The horror of poop."
I am puzzled, who is talking poop? Or am I missing a subtle humoristic hint?
Check the beginning of the thread.
Ha ha ha, yes and the guilty party is YOU!! ;-)
What? It's true, you know.Quote:
Don't forget the smell of feces. Lots and lots of feces.
TBH, that's the one thing I hate about ancient warfare. All the dead men with feces in their underwear and around their abdominal wounds. Smells really bad.
Also, an army that has been marching for a long time will probably have "the honey of unwashed anuses" mixed in with its general smell (it makes me feel sorry for the guys who have to climb the ladders).
Somewhat, but from what I understand, Caesar wasn't biased in that way - he might try to disguise his motives in his writing (particularly in de bello civile, when he had to defend his choice to go to war with the senate), but from what we understand, his description of what actually HAPPENED is dead on. So I'd say he's a credible source for these purposes. -MQuote:
Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah
Ps. don't worry about treading outside your own personal expertise, I do it a fair bit myself. Only means you learn something new. ~;)
Really? I suppose that explains why it's always taken as a credible source, a fact which always puzzled me.
Caesar was a great man. On every fifteenth day of March, I take the liberty of wearing a makeshift laurel wreath in his honour.
Caesar's army contained many prominent Romans that would be in correspondence with home, so the senate would have a pretty good idea of what was going in Gaul. In fact, I recall that Cicero in of his speeches demonstrated a detailed and very up-to-date knowledge of the events that beset an army operating in cis-Alpine Gaul, although this may not have been the norm. The point is though that Caesar was not beyond easy communication in Gaul, and could not have made up his own stories without the home-front finding out. Hence his account had to be accurate. On the other hand, it's unlikely that his own officers would have spoken out if Caesar made them look good, so we should not take his story as gospel truth either.
Cicero's brother served with Caesar in gaul, I think as Tribune of the 10th legion that was caesar's favorite, so Cicero would have a good picture indeed of happenings there.