Rome TW is almost totally unhistoric - evidences and answers

[conon394]

Duke
If you disagree, prove it
My point about Alexander was that he did in fact have good cavalry, good enough to always beat the Persians, etc. Half of Alexander’s cavalry was Greek.
When that half turned on Macedonia and joined the Greeks during the Lamian war, it beat the Macedonians 3 times in a row. Ergo, the Greeks cannot be said to have poor cavalry in aggregate.

[conon394]

Emperor Umeu 1

"greek cavalry was weak, that's just the way it is. they never used cavalry in the hoplite era, and after they didn't really learned how to train good cavalry as they were mountain people, ever saw good horses in them mountains where there is no grass to graze."

Edit: I think You’re almost completely wrong (no personal slight is/was intended, just looking to provoke a good debate).

Check the battle of Delium, the campaigns of Epaminondas. The Lamain war, the armies raised by Dionysius of Syracuse in his wars with Carthage.

The Greeks in general chose not to try and use cavalry as a decisive arm, rightfully so, without stirrups, horse shoes, with a minimal saddle and lacking the large horses of Medieval Europe cavalry simply could not challenge quality heavy infantry in the Classical World. This fact does not mean they neglected cavalry just that they did not try and use it where it was useless.

[The Stranger]

Emperor Umeu 1

"greek cavalry was weak, that's just the way it is. they never used cavalry in the hoplite era, and after they didn't really learned how to train good cavalry as they were mountain people, ever saw good horses in them mountains where there is no grass to graze."

Edit: I think You’re almost completely wrong (no personal slight is/was intended, just looking to provoke a good debate).

Check the battle of Delium, the campaigns of Epaminondas. The Lamain war, the armies raised by Dionysius of Syracuse in his wars with Carthage.

The Greeks in general chose not to try and use cavalry as a decisive arm, rightfully so, without stirrups, horse shoes, with a minimal saddle and lacking the large horses of Medieval Europe cavalry simply could not challenge quality heavy infantry in the Classical World. This fact does not mean they neglected cavalry just that they did not try and use it where it was useless.

yes but the fact that they almost never used cavalry in the HOPLITE ERA wich is true, means they have to catch up with a lot of info about cavalry tactics and uses and training etc.

in greece native horses were rare, because it was a mountain country so if they had horses they were small and not capable of carrying heavy armoured soldiers, so they used it for skirmish actions.

so the people were not weak, ofcourse with some training and good horses they could be a elite unit, but the native greek horses were weak. but in the lands of Macedon there was more space and a better place for horses to live and they had a rich landowning society as the romans to be rich enough to buy horses. in greece there was no space to have a large landowning aristocraty

[Watchman]

The ancient Greeks actually had many of the same problems as the Vikings would later have in regards to cavalry; cultural emphasis on infantry and seafaring, a geography ill-suited for raising horses or for that matter serious cavalry warfare, a comparative geographical isolation from the haunts of the better war-bred strains, and social factors. Most of those also feed each other - basic low quality of force-flesh encourages emphasis on infantry, enhancing the status of the social strata that said infantry is recruited from which in turn discourages developing a stronger cavalry arm. Decent war mounts are expensive to breed and train, after all, and have little other use; moreover, if the local lifestyle doesn't by itself encourage horsemanship and riding, considerable amounts of specialized training are required for the rider too.

AFAIK the Greeks never really picked up the Macedonian cavalry doctrine, not in the least due to their geographical considerations but also because what cavalry Philip and Alexander now did raise from Greece (they seem to have preferred Macedonians and Thessalians, and the Greek settlements in Asia Minor) was promptly shipped for service abroad and didn't have much influence locally.