Rome (the TV series)

[lobf]

I was watching the very first episode of this series and they showed the Roman armies fighting in a formation where they were in a block and the front row rotated to the back on a signal. Does anyone know whether they fought like this?

Fact is, nobody knows for certain how a battle-line acted. HBO presented one idea in their show.

boxers try to land huge hits on their opponents, and this takes considerable energy (too).

No we don't. There's much more technicality than just throwing the biggest blows you can.

There was indeed a rotating system. However I can't remember horns or how it precisely worked. But I rember that it was used.

I think you have a tendency to present hypothesis or hearsay as fact. You can't say you know how it works because nobody does.

[Caligula]

I know this is a little off topic about the Rome TV series, but is this Series any good, I was going to buy it as both seasons are on sale in my area. I've never been able to watch it.

[Vorian]

I know this is a little off topic about the Rome TV series, but is this Series any good, I was going to buy it as both seasons are on sale in my area. I've never been able to watch it.

It's a great series...my favourite character was Octavian's mother. She is simply the most entertaining, ambitious, cruel anti-heroine I have encountered and she has some great lines.

[Celtic_Punk]

not all of the men in the unit would pull back, triarii would kneel down to avoid them commiting to the fight too soon

[Rotondom1]

According to Adrian Goldsworthy, a Roman scholar who has written many books on the Roman military, fights are seldom as we would think they are. Clearly they weren't the individual one on one melees seen in Hollywood, but I think everyone here knows that According to Goldsworthy, fights were not constant affairs. 2 armies of 20,000 soldiers or more might take 5 hours for the battle to reach a conclusion, and certainly you didn't have soldiers fighting for 5 hours straight! Although I don't think it is entirely accurate to compare it to boxing. It certainly wasn't no walk in the park!

There were frequent lulls in the battleline, when two armies were suitably exhausted that they backed away from each other, sometimes no more than 5 meters. Here they would catch their breath, throw missiles, taunt the enemy, or try to goose themselves up for another charge. These lulls were actually quite frequent, as Goldsworthy notes that few actual casualties occured during the Melee, and that most of the slaughtering done was when one of the armies routed. This is why generals were picky about their battles almost to the point of excessiveness. What the position of the sun was, if there was an incline on the battlefield, if his soldiers had eaten a good breakfast, etc. Some times two armies would form up in their battle formations, stand there for a few hours and be called back to the camp without fighting! The little things added up and the importance of morale was key; what separated a great general from a bad one was knowing how and when to pick your battles. Incidently, that's why the Romans lost the battle of Adrianople; Emperor Valens had marched his Romans nearly 10 miles without water and led the charge right in the heat of the day against Gothic warriors who had been resting in their camp all morning.

Any way, in light of this observation, I think it is wholly plausible that during the lulls in the battle, Centurions would call for their soldiers to rotate. However, I also believe that only the most disciplined armies were probably capable of such a feat in the heat of the melee (they wouldn't have needed Optios in the back goading on stragglers with a vine cane if they didn't!), especially in the din battle where the screaming, clattering of metal, the enemy in front of them, and the ungodly stench of the slaughter would have been overwhelming the soldier. However, if there was one Roman Army in its history who would have been disciplined enough to pull off such a manuever, it would have been Caesar's legions, who had spent 8 long years fighting Gauls and by then were hardened veterans.

Anyway, I loved HBO's Rome. You'll never see a more historically accurate portrayal of Rome, character liberties notwithstanding. Gods, they were merciless on Mark Anthony!

[||Lz3||]

I also saw the documentary about boudica... It was broadcasted by The history channel, there they miention the rotation and also some kind of wedge formation like

----A----A---- A-------
.---AA--AAA--AA-----
---AAAAAAAAAAA---

[Victor1234]

Incidently, that's why the Romans lost the battle of Adrianople; Emperor Valens had marched his Romans nearly 10 miles without water and led the charge right in the heat of the day against Gothic warriors who had been resting in their camp all morning.

One would think the fact that the Romans charged to attack a fortified camp on top of a hill, and the timely arrival of the Gothic heavy calvary, would have had more to do with the loss than whether the Romans marched 10 miles to the battle and attacked during the heat of the day or not.....

[Rotondom1]

One would think the fact that the Romans charged to attack a fortified camp on top of a hill, and the timely arrival of the Gothic heavy calvary, would have had more to do with the loss than whether the Romans marched 10 miles to the battle and attacked during the heat of the day or not.....

I'm not saying that tactical blunders didn't factor in, but consider that it wasn't entirely unknown for Roman soldiers to take a camp or to fight against considerable odds. In Caesar's Gallic Wars, he mentions soldiers actually having to climb a steep incline in order to reach the enemy. I'm not saying that the Romans were invincible, though they at times certainly thought they were, and Valens had probably counted on the Romans to take the camp before the Gothic cavalry returned, something that wasn't going to happen, given that the Romans were already tired by the time they were facing fresh Goths. I'm not saying that there were not other reasons for the loss, I'm not trying to be difficult because I agree with you, I am merely suggesting that morale plays a significant, albiet subtle, role on the battlefield.

I doubt that this was really the way the fighting was done. First of all it would have been impossible to be done with a classical Greek phalanx, and most of the armies around the Mediterranian were based on the classical phalanx in one or the other way. Battles between these armies were more a "pushing match", according to what we know about it. It can also be excluded to be a kind of special Western European style of fighting (Celtic-Roman), because the Celts in particular were known to break if the first assault was not successfull.

Greek Hoplites were specifically designed to be pushing matches, making them the exception to the rule. Furthermore, Macedonian phalanxes were designed to pin the enemy in place so that the cavalry could smash into their side and do the real damage. But when faced with Romans, at least at the battle of Cynoscephalae, Phillip V ordered his pezhetairoi to use their swords instead of their sarissas, indicating that Romans perhaps were not as vulnerable to the pinning/pushing motion of the phalanx as eastern soldiers might have been. This suggests at least some form of fluidity on the Roman's part.

And the image of Celts tiring easily and retreating quickly is a fallacy. Celts were tremendous warriors (later in the Empire's history, almost the entire army were composed of Gallic-Romans and Illyrians). The reason that Romans were more likely to win a prolonged conflict was because of the triplex acies system which constantly replenished fatigued troops with fresh soldiers from the reserves, while the Celts had no such system. However, there were many battles between Romans and Celts that were prolonged, such as the Battle of Bibracte during the Gallic wars, which according to Caesar started around noon and lasted until nightfall.

Armies in hand-to-hand combat seprating and reforming would also require some kind of "gentlemen agreement" that the party who had the upper hand would not pursue the enemy while he falls back and keeps up the fighting. Not to mention a very high degree of discipline, because soldiers that once started retreating can only be made to advandce again with severe difficulty - if at all.

Does the undescribable horror of the melee which keeps the soldiers of both armies on the knifes edge of panic count for anything? It's not necessarily two sides tipping their hat to each other and walking away. battles were more fluid than that. It would have been simply breaks in the combat line where troops were having to muster their own courage to recommit to the fray. There were battles that were described as being a crush, when the soldiers of either side were being literally pressed up up against one another (which is why the Romans prefered the short sword, I'm not saying that they didn't exist!), which also suggests that because these battles were specifically mentioned for their intense melee (I forget which ancient writer's quote that is, I'll look it up later) a crushing pushing match may not necessarily have been the inevitable outcome

[konny]

There were frequent lulls in the battleline, when two armies were suitably exhausted that they backed away from each other, sometimes no more than 5 meters. Here they would catch their breath, throw missiles, taunt the enemy, or try to goose themselves up for another charge.

I doubt that this was really the way the fighting was done. First of all it would have been impossible to be done with a classical Greek phalanx, and most of the armies around the Mediterranian were based on the classical phalanx in one or the other way. Battles between these armies were more a "pushing match", according to what we know about it. It can also be excluded to be a kind of special Western European style of fighting (Celtic-Roman), because the Celts in particular were known to break if the first assault was not successfull.

Armies in hand-to-hand combat seprating and reforming would also require some kind of "gentlemen agreement" that the party who had the upper hand would not pursue the enemy while he falls back and keeps up the fighting. Not to mention a very high degree of discipline, because soldiers that once started retreating can only be made to advandce again with severe difficulty - if at all.

Throwing missles during the phase of "pause" can also be excluded because either the close combat soldiers who were also equipped with missles would have spent them before the first contact, like the Romans, or they would have been either equipped with javelins or close combat weapons like Makedon phalangites.

These lulls were actually quite frequent, as Goldsworthy notes that few actual casualties occured during the Melee, and that most of the slaughtering done was when one of the armies routed.

This obersvation perfectly fits to what is known about hand-to-hand combat in other periods: it usually did not happen! In most occasions one party would give way before the clash.

Assuming that this psychological momentum worked the same in Ancient times as did in the 18th or 19th Century because the men were the same humans, we can define the reactions of several armies to it:

- Greek: The rear ranks of the phalanx were not aware what was going on on the frontline and kept pushing foreward. That prevented the front ranks from giving way; and when both sides used this tactic it resulted in the named "pushing match" that lasted until the rear ranks of one side started wavering and stopped pushing. There was a lot of fighting along the front line, but because only a fraction of each side was involved into it (and because these soldiers there were the best armoured) casualties were low during this phase.

It is clear that (a) this way of fighting was superior to lesser packed formations because the phalanx won't give way before contact and so forces the non-phalanx opponent to do so. And (b) that the classical phalanx was doomed when facing an enemy with longer spears in a similar formation, because the rear ranks would push the front ranks into the pikes.

- Roman: The lesser experinced and lesser equipped Hastati giving way to an better equipped and otherwise stronger opponent was allready calculated in. They would be able to retreat through the lines of the Principes (better equipped, more experinced) and so the Roman army would be able to present a (psychological) fresh frontline to the opponent. If that also gave way the Triarii, as the unit with the highest moral in EB terms, would point their spears to the enemy.

- Celtic: When the Celts were the army who would most likely break when their first assault was not successfull, they seemed to have based the entire battle on that effect: "We charge, and either the enemy is frightened enough to turn and run, or he doesn't than staying and fighting won't help either"


Under this aspect fighting in the Ancient times wasn't so much different than in later times (until the invention of advanced fire weapons in the later 19th Century):

The armies were alinged and fought with ranged weapons for a longer time. Note that unlike the Romans, the major part of the infantry in successor armies was not equipped with ranged weapons. That's the reason why these armies were so fond of archers and slingers. After some time one line, both lines or parts of the lines would start moving foreward. Pikemen in dense formation would be able to keep the enemy at bay - cavalry in particular - but would be butchered to the last man if outmanouvered.

Of hand-to-hand fighting there would have been little, but soon one side would give way. That might be controlled and disciplined on a pre-arranged second line, or as a wild rout. As soon as one side started running it would have been slaughtered.

[Vorian]

- Greek: The rear ranks of the phalanx were not aware what was going on on the frontline and kept pushing foreward. That prevented the front ranks from giving way; and when both sides used this tactic it resulted in the named "pushing match" that lasted until the rear ranks of one side started wavering and stopped pushing. There was a lot of fighting along the front line, but because only a fraction of each side was involved into it (and because these soldiers there were the best armoured) casualties were low during this phase.

I have to disagree with one part. Most phalanxes were about 10 men deep, it's not impossible for the rear to see what's going on at the front.

[NarcosCatolicos]

I think you have a tendency to present hypothesis or hearsay as fact. You can't say you know how it works because nobody does.

Who are you to say that what I say is hearsay. And btw, what tendency? Do I know you? What I say comes from the same documentary someone else saw on the history channel about Boudica.

Also, Goldsworthy states in his book "Roman Warfare" that Romans constantly used their shield to bash to create room and/or destabalize their opponent, sometimes killing them outright. Also the Roman army in the time of Boudica was very different from the armies seen in the first Punic war so I'm sure the rotating system wasn't used in the earlier wars.

[lobf]

Who are you to say that what I say is hearsay. And btw, what tendency? Do I know you? What I say comes from the same documentary someone else saw on the history channel about Boudica.

I was replying to Moros. Looking back on it, it's not stated in a way conducive to a level-headed argument anyways. My apologies for that.

The point is, as far as I know, that tactics at that level aren't addressed directly by any primary sources. Thoughtful guesses can be made, but it can't be said with certainty "that's how it was done."

[NarcosCatolicos]

Ooops can't believe how I misread that!
*Cowers in shame*

[The General]

No we don't. There's much more technicality than just throwing the biggest blows you can.

I didn't say there wasn't technicality involved, I merely argued, that boxing's dynamics differ from shieldwall-shieldwall (or well, the Western European-style of combat back in the EB day).

More 8 than 10. But even three close packed lines wearing decorated helmets would make it impossible for someone standing behind them to see what's going on.

Too true.

Not to mention if there were taller guys in front of you - if they can limit visibility in a (movie/"real") theater where the benches are in inclining rows, they sure as hell will do that on flag ground.

[Vorian]

I don't mean they could see clearly but at least they could figure out if they were losing or not.

[konny]

You missed the point: They were responsible for winning or losing. As long as they were pushing everything was fine - if they did not push the formation into pikes. As soon as they stopped (for what reason ever) they lost.

[Cadwalader]

Not to mention if there were taller guys in front of you - if they can limit visibility in a (movie/"real") theater where the benches are in inclining rows, they sure as hell will do that on flag ground.

I wonder if they tried to get the best places in the phalanx? And if a hoplite was unlucky and got the place right behind Argyros with his big-ass plume, he would tap his back and ask him: "hey, can you take that off for a second? I'm trying to watch the battle"?
Some things we take as completely modern are old as the pyramids.