Assorted Historical Questions - Gertrude et al, ask them here!

[fenix3279]

Here's another one about armor. The helmet of a modern soldier protects the wearer's head by sitting around the skull, supported by straps, rather than on it. That way, the energy from a blow isn't transfered to the wearer's head. How did the ancient helmets do this? A thin sheet of metal alone isn't going to do much to protect your head. You may not suffer any gashes but you will risk getting a concussion or your skull cracked. There are probably very few surviving good quality specimens today so I'm sure this is all best guess. Did they have padding of some sorts? Thick leather or maybe wool to absord the blows? Someone I know once said the Imperial Gallic helmet rested on the brow of a soldier and the rest of the helmet was lifted around the skull. I also heard the Spartans used their own hair, tied in a kind of bun, as padding when they wore the heavy corinthians.

[QuintusSertorius]

The cursus honorum was certainly not the best way to enrich yourself in Ancient Rome. It was a way to turn money into political power, what of course would in return fill the treasury with even more money, provided one was successfull.

On the lower levels there was a fair chance of making some money what always depended on the superior magistrate (the one with the Imperium). The Aedile was in fact the office with the "negative balance guarantee", and many ruined themselves on their way to Praetor.

Senators beeing in dire depth, despite the income requirements to become Senator in the first place, was in fact a serious problem. And no doubt that corruption was the logical consequence of it. Caesar is in fact a good example of the monetary pressure many newly elected Praetors had been in to plunder their provinces. That did certainly not add to the stability of the Republic. On the other end we have an example like Marius who really bought his way up to the top, as a nobody with nearly unlimited money.

Another example would be Pompeius, who was in no way member of the traditional ruling class of the Republic but used his money to field an army on his own expenses and hired this army to the Senate in return for political power, like becoming high commander in Spain without even beeing Senator, leave alone Praetor.

But that's pretty much my point; that a political career wasn't the aim of most of the equestrian class, but only a very narrow sub-section of it. For most even relatively wealthy men, there were less risky means of making a living that didn't also put you at physical risk as politics increasingly became violent towards the end of the Republic.

Being "in trade" or simply running your estates might not be glamorous, but it didn't get you killed for the alliances you made. And wouldn't bankrupt you either.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Here's another one about armor. The helmet of a modern soldier protects the wearer's head by sitting around the skull, supported by straps, rather than on it. That way, the energy from a blow isn't transfered to the wearer's head. How did the ancient helmets do this? A thin sheet of metal alone isn't going to do much to protect your head. You may not suffer any gashes but you will risk getting a concussion or your skull cracked. There are probably very few surviving good quality specimens today so I'm sure this is all best guess. Did they have padding of some sorts? Thick leather or maybe wool to absord the blows? Someone I know once said the Imperial Gallic helmet rested on the brow of a soldier and the rest of the helmet was lifted around the skull. I also heard the Spartans used their own hair, tied in a kind of bun, as padding when they wore the heavy corinthians.

Well going by an example I know of: the Roman imperial legionary (I am talking post Augustus, but I guess it would be commonplace earlier too) would wear some sort of cloth underneath his helmet. If not as additional protection, at least to make the thing less uncomfortable: it really doesn't balance too well on your skull.

I have worn a replica helmet, and that thing was incredibly top-heavy and consequently unstable (it wouldn't fall of my head, mind you but it would keep 'wobbling' annoyingly); virtually all it's weight was litterally on top of my head and it didn't even fit (in fact it would've fit nobody due to the way it is constructed: unless of course your skull resembles a -perfect- cylinder from the top).

[Visitor13]

Somewhat out of EB's timeframe - is there any consensus on who the Picts actually were? Celtic people? Pre-celtic ones? A mixture of both?

You see? I'm putting more faith into you guys than any other source

(also I'm too lazy to go the library)

[Cartaphilus]

I believe that Picts were celts (or their culture was celtic), not the strange people that Robert E. Howard imagined.

[Spartan198]

The same way u see in the game, the same way the Celts & many others hold it.

It had a horizontal grip in the boss like this:

http://www.wildfiregames.com/0ad/pag...res/scutum.jpg

http://www.ancienttouch.com/1309.jpg

http://www.wulflund.com/images_items...-bobigny_2.jpg

The convex (or is it concave? ) scutum always looked too heavy to be gripped like that.

... Maybe I'll have to buy a reproduction and hold it to judge that for myself.

[Tellos Athenaios]

The Roman rectangular infantry shields are remarkably light.
The cavalry auxilia however weren't as fortunate: their shields are damn heavy.

I've held both. Nijmegen.

[keravnos]

Here's another one about armor. The helmet of a modern soldier protects the wearer's head by sitting around the skull, supported by straps, rather than on it. That way, the energy from a blow isn't transfered to the wearer's head. How did the ancient helmets do this? A thin sheet of metal alone isn't going to do much to protect your head. You may not suffer any gashes but you will risk getting a concussion or your skull cracked. There are probably very few surviving good quality specimens today so I'm sure this is all best guess. Did they have padding of some sorts? Thick leather or maybe wool to absord the blows? Someone I know once said the Imperial Gallic helmet rested on the brow of a soldier and the rest of the helmet was lifted around the skull. I also heard the Spartans used their own hair, tied in a kind of bun, as padding when they wore the heavy corinthians.

They wore this,


a felt cap, which was used to absorb the heavy stroke of each blow. Over that felt cap, they wore the helmet.

How the thureos was held, from a Thraikian tomb,

[QuintusSertorius]

The Roman infantry shields are remarkably light.

You call 20lbs light?

[konny]

But that's pretty much my point; that a political career wasn't the aim of most of the equestrian class, but only a very narrow sub-section of it. For most even relatively wealthy men, there were less risky means of making a living that didn't also put you at physical risk as politics increasingly became violent towards the end of the Republic.

Being "in trade" or simply running your estates might not be glamorous, but it didn't get you killed for the alliances you made. And wouldn't bankrupt you either.

That is true - if we asume that making money was the first concern of the eques. I think it is fair to assume, that in this class there had been these and those men. Some beeing content to make a talent, others trying to achive political power, even if that might include losing (or better investing) parts of their treasury. In fact the political tensions between Eques and Senators were an important factor in the social struggles throughout the Republic (take the Gracchian judical reforms for example).

[Olaf The Great]

I have one "assorted Historical Question".

Did late Parthians(after thy took persia) speak some sort of Steppe Language, or Persian?
Or were they speaking Persian even before that?

[MeinPanzer]

How the thureos was held, from a Thraikian tomb,

Well, the grips of the shields shown on the Kazanluk tomb (which seem to be two central loops for a standard grip plus a single larger loop on the top and bottom of the shield) are totally unique when it comes to evidence for the thureos, and when considered along with a few other aspects of these shields, it seems likely that they were not thureoi but a native Thracian development. Almost every other source that shows the thureos being held shows a horizontal grip like that of the Kasr el-Harit shield, which was almost certainly the norm.

[keravnos]

Well, the grips of the shields shown on the Kazanluk tomb (which seem to be two central loops for a standard grip plus a single larger loop on the top and bottom of the shield) are totally unique when it comes to evidence for the thureos, and when considered along with a few other aspects of these shields, it seems likely that they were not thureoi but a native Thracian development. Almost every other source that shows the thureos being held shows a horizontal grip like that of the Kasr el-Harit shield, which was almost certainly the norm.

Well, according to the reconstruction of the whole of the tomb, you are right. The norm was certainly for the thureos to be held with a horizontal grip. According to the reconstruction however, the rest of the shields shown must be called "thureoi" as well, because the side which faces the enemy is indistinguishable from a normal thureos. Either that or the graphic reconstruction artist is in error.


compare the above with the "normal" thureos and how it was held.

http://www.wulflund.com/images_items...-bobigny_2.jpg

This seems to indicate that the complete answer to how the thueos was held is this. In the big majority of the cases it would be held with a horizontal grip, but in a small minority depicted above in the Thraikian tomb (Yes it is the Kazanluk tomb, thanks for that) it would be held with a horizontal grip. I have some reservations, however, about the accuracy of the reconstruction shown above and I would ask that it should be taken as it is, a reconstruction, NOT the real thing.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You call 20lbs light?

No: the oval scutum certainly isn't light; however the rectangular one is remakably light. I trust it to be not actually very light at all; but in any case you don't get the impression to hold very much weight when lifting a Roman rectangular scutum.

[The Persian Cataphract]

I have one "assorted Historical Question".

Did late Parthians(after thy took persia) speak some sort of Steppe Language, or Persian?
Or were they speaking Persian even before that?

They spoke "Pârnîg" or in English terms, Parnian, a poorly attested language belonging to the eastern substrates of Parthian Pahlavîg (Pahlavî), a north-western Iranian language, which set the precedent for Sassanian Pahlavîg, a south-western Iranian language. Whatever the case, Justin mentions that the language of the "Âpârnîg" resembled a mix of Scythian and Medean tongue, which is itself an ambiguous claim but helps to clarify the ease in transition when the Greater Iran had began to phase out the common usage of Old Persian, and the rise of Middle Persian which was largely a produce of Partho-Sassanian culture.

[Dhampir]

You call 20lbs light?

It's not heavy.

[MeinPanzer]

Well, according to the reconstruction of the whole of the tomb, you are right. The norm was certainly for the thureos to be held with a horizontal grip. According to the reconstruction however, the rest of the shields shown must be called "thureoi" as well, because the side which faces the enemy is indistinguishable from a normal thureos. Either that or the graphic reconstruction artist is in error.


compare the above with the "normal" thureos and how it was held.

http://www.wulflund.com/images_items...-bobigny_2.jpg

This seems to indicate that the complete answer to how the thueos was held is this. In the big majority of the cases it would be held with a horizontal grip, but in a small minority depicted above in the Thraikian tomb (Yes it is the Kazanluk tomb, thanks for that) it would be held with a horizontal grip. I have some reservations, however, about the accuracy of the reconstruction shown above and I would ask that it should be taken as it is, a reconstruction, NOT the real thing.

This is an artist's error. The man behind those reconstructions (Christopher Webber, for his Osprey title on the Thracians) was unsure how to recreate the shields and so he interpreted them as thureoi, much like he interpreted the sicae they are carrying as full rhomphaiai.

The majority of shields shown on the Kazanluk tomb are unique: they are faced in bronze with no rim or spina, have some sort of horizontal marking across the vertical median of the shield, have two bumps like an "apple-bottom" on the top and bottom edges, and the aforementioned grip arrangement. This is all extremely similar to the find of a bronze shield face from Kyustendil which dates to the same period as the tomb.

Nothing other than the oblong shape of these shields indicates any link with the Italic family of shields that includes the thureos, and their appearance in this tomb predating the Galatian invasions indicates that they were most likely a Thracian innovation. As such, these should not be taken as thureoi and thus are not representative of the grip of that shield.

However, it should be noted that there is one shield from the paintings which is totally different from the others and which is more difficult to account for. In the other "duel" or meeting scene, one man carries a shield which looks very much like a thureos. This shield is quite different from the others in that it is longer and narrower, being less rounded and oval-shaped and that it has a spina (but no boss). This certainly appears to be a thureos and may well be (how it would have reached Thrace by this time is unclear), but a distinction should be made between this type and the type carried by every other figure on the paintings (note that we don't know how the grip was oriented on this figure's shield, unfortunately).

[paullus]

my only picture that shows the other "meeting scene"--if by that you mean the scene on the opposite wall with the two facing infantrymen, one kneeling, one standing--is not very good quality, but I don't see anything irregular about it. I assume you're refering to the kneeling soldier, since we can see the grip side of the shield of the standing one. On the other hand, from my (poor) picture the kneeling soldier's shield looks like all the others to me, while the standing soldier's shield is curiously a slightly different color, and may have that different shape to which you're refering. I also can't see the loops for the grip.

By the way, I've assumed those loops may have something to do with holding the javelins, but unlike in Webber's illustration, the javelins held by the warriors only actually go through the central loop, not the outer two. Any thoughts?

[MeinPanzer]

my only picture that shows the other "meeting scene"--if by that you mean the scene on the opposite wall with the two facing infantrymen, one kneeling, one standing--is not very good quality, but I don't see anything irregular about it. I assume you're refering to the kneeling soldier, since we can see the grip side of the shield of the standing one. On the other hand, from my (poor) picture the kneeling soldier's shield looks like all the others to me, while the standing soldier's shield is curiously a slightly different color, and may have that different shape to which you're refering. I also can't see the loops for the grip.

Here's a comparison. This kind of shield (also carried by the two figures on the image posted above):

Compared to this kind:


The difference in shape isn't too great, but the spina is totally different. You can also see in this picture some of the traces of the loops for the shield of the standing man.

By the way, I've assumed those loops may have something to do with holding the javelins, but unlike in Webber's illustration, the javelins held by the warriors only actually go through the central loop, not the outer two. Any thoughts?

I've toyed with the idea that they could have been some method for attaching the shield to the arm while employing the rhomphaia two-handed. It's quite striking that the Kazanluk paintings and the shield from Kyustendil are both late 4th c. BC-early 3rd c. BC in date, which is exactly the dating range in which we find the only actual examples of rhomphaiai. I've never examined this hypothesis too closely, though, and it's obviously speculative in the extreme.

[QuintusSertorius]

No: the oval scutum certainly isn't light; however the rectangular one is remakably light. I trust it to be not actually very light at all; but in any case you don't get the impression to hold very much weight when lifting a Roman rectangular scutum.

Fair enough, I was just thinking of what something that weight would be like after a few minutes holding it up.

Sure 20lbs is easy to move from one place to another over the course of a few moments, even one-handed, moreso a lighter, smaller shield.

It's not heavy.

Hold it in a ready position for a half an hour and say that.

[The Persian Cataphract]

It's not heavy.

You must also realize that wrists tire quicker than your upper arms; Twenty pounds is more than sufficient to put your grip strength at a severe test after prolonged usage. One must never forget one rudimentary maxim of human strength: You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Anyone who has done some wrist and grip exercising with an unloaded bar-bell knows how tough it can get. Kettle-bells are an even better example.

[paullus]

thanks, MP, that's a much better picture. Interesting theory on the rhomphaia, though it doesn't seem any of these carry rhomphaia...their blades seem--and granted I'm not looking at EVERY soldier to confirm--to be sica, or the one-handed falx (in general, more sharply curved than the rhomphaia blades we have). If that were the purpose, wouldn't it be more useful if the loops were perpendicular to the spine of the shield, rather than parallel?

[MeinPanzer]

thanks, MP, that's a much better picture. Interesting theory on the rhomphaia, though it doesn't seem any of these carry rhomphaia...their blades seem--and granted I'm not looking at EVERY soldier to confirm--to be sica, or the one-handed falx (in general, more sharply curved than the rhomphaia blades we have). If that were the purpose, wouldn't it be more useful if the loops were perpendicular to the spine of the shield, rather than parallel?

I agree that all the weapons depicted on the Kazanluk tomb seem to be rhomphaiai, but I thought that maybe these were just standard attachments for such shields in case the bearer wished to use it with a rhomphaia. The Kyustendil shield was found in the same region of southwestern Bulgaria where almost all excavated examples of rhomphaiai have been discovered and has also been dated to the very early 3rd c. BC.

I've thought about the orientation of the loops a bit and I think that perhaps with the two loops in the middle section of the shield being quite close to either edge, the bearer might have been able to hold it almost diagonally (this is a little hard to explain, but imagine putting your arm through one of the loops on either extremity of the shield and then through one of the two central grips), though I have no idea how practical that would have been. Again, this is just a hypothesis which is obviously speculative in the extreme.

I forgot that one of the warriors from the Alexandrovo tomb paintings also carries this type of shield and traces of loops can also be seen there:

[Elmetiacos]

Somewhat out of EB's timeframe - is there any consensus on who the Picts actually were? Celtic people? Pre-celtic ones? A mixture of both?

You see? I'm putting more faith into you guys than any other source

(also I'm too lazy to go the library)

"Picts" is a term which wasn't used until the late Roman Empire. Nobody's really sure who it even meant. It's fairly certain that a P-Celtic language was being spoken in much of Scotland, but when you get to for instance, Ptolemy's list of towns of the Vacomagi tribe (in the vicinity of Aberdeen and Banff in Scotland) they're names like Tamea and Alata which don't look very Celtic and there are also baffling Ogham inscriptions which seem to say things like ETTUCUHETTS AHEHHTANNN HCCVVEVV NEHHTONN. The answer is that at least some of the inhabitants of "Pictland" were Celts but perhaps not all.

[Socy]

I have a question that's been bugging me for quite some time now. Pardon me if it's an "easy" historical question, but seeing that I'm not as educated in ancient history as I'd like to be I feel that I might aswell go ahead and ask it .

In the Diadochi kingdoms, Ptolemaic Egypt and Arche Seleukeia are the two kingdoms I'm thinking most about, did any locals got enlisted into the more hellenic units such as say.. The Pezhetairoi? I mean, I know that alot of Hellens/Macedonians etc migrated to the east in the wake of Alexanders conquest, but seeing that the Diadochi waged many wars and that the Hellens were quite important in their military war-machines I think its logical to assume that many actually died in combat aswell. So to deepen the question; Were the losses that the Hellenic population took in the Diadochi Kingdoms "easily" recovered beacuse the Hellenic population was so large that it could reproduce pretty quickly and recover losses from war in lets say a decenium or two, or was it necessary for the Diadochi to enlist locals into the more core Hellenic forces? The reason that I ask is beacuse many unit-descriptions in the game seems to suggest that locals such as the Ioudai, Syrikoi etc. were enlisted in the Pantodapoi Phalangitai as to keep them from getting any true military power (Seeing as they could revolt against their Hellenic overlords), but if the Hellenic population started to dwindle would the Diadochi simply use the Pantodapoi as a substitute to the more reliable Pezhetairoi or would the start to incorporate locals?

For clarification! The world "Hellen" in this text refers to people from the greek mainland, Macedonia etc. Hope you understand!

[Visitor13]

"Picts" is a term which wasn't used until the late Roman Empire. Nobody's really sure who it even meant. It's fairly certain that a P-Celtic language was being spoken in much of Scotland, but when you get to for instance, Ptolemy's list of towns of the Vacomagi tribe (in the vicinity of Aberdeen and Banff in Scotland) they're names like Tamea and Alata which don't look very Celtic and there are also baffling Ogham inscriptions which seem to say things like ETTUCUHETTS AHEHHTANNN HCCVVEVV NEHHTONN. The answer is that at least some of the inhabitants of "Pictland" were Celts but perhaps not all.

Great, thanks

[Hax]

Perhaps out of the timeframe, but where does the name Scotland come from?

[Obelics]

i think something realated with the Scoti, there's a wiki page abaut it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti

[Spartan198]

Latin names have always confused me, so would somebody tell me if this is right --

Gaius - Middle Name
Julius - Family Name
Caesar - First Name

Is that correct? If not, could somebody explain where I'm wrong?

[QuintusSertorius]

Latin names have always confused me, so would somebody tell me if this is right --

Gaius - Middle Name
Julius - Family Name
Caesar - First Name

Is that correct? If not, could somebody explain where I'm wrong?

Not really.

Gaius - praenomen which is equivalent to our given names. For a long time there were a limited number of them.

Julius - nomen, which describes what main family group he's from. Roughly equivalent to a surname.

Caesar - cognomen which started out as a nickname either to distinguish someone from others with the same name (since father, son and grandson could all have the same name). Eventually became heridary, especially useful for some of the larger notable families, like the Caecilii Metellii which had lots of members and many branches to it.