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Bryaxis Hecatee

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Everything posted by Bryaxis Hecatee

  1. Bryaxis Hecatee
    The answer to your question must be searched in the fear and more importantly lack of will to train of the later roman legionaries. From the mid of the second century AD onward the legionaries did not want to submit to the training required by the use of the gladius, which needed a higher level of skill to be used properly than the spatha of the cavalry or the germanic longer swords. Also they did not have to come as close to their enemies as with the gladius and that suited them well. Later ( 5th century ) the roman army went even further and dropped it's armor "to be more mobile" ( we are then at the time of the comitatenses units ). This was in fact a consequence of the large barbarisation of the empire's armies at the time. This in turn led to the armies of the dark ages, then of the carolingian renaissance and middle ages. With time, in late middle ages, the infantry learned back the lessons learned by the romans and took heavy armor back on until firearms came and changed the face of the world of war.
  2. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Well their is one of the Asterix book which also has vikings coming to France... But I won't tell you more, you'll have to find it for yourselve The trouble of Asterix is that it shows a vision of the gaul which is now a bit too old and too stereotyped, but it's still funny. But Asterix is not the only european comic set in the time of Caesar, you also have the Alix comic by J. Martin. And there is also the excellent Murena comic which is set in the time of Nero.
  3. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Well two things to answer you Gaius Octavius : The start of the year : indeed for quite some time the year began in March with the Consuls taking office. But as the legions fought longer and further away from home it was decided to begin the year earlier on the first of January so that consuls may do some work in Rome and reach their command before the start of the military season in March. A trace of this past still exists in the name of the month like December ( from decem, latin for ten ) which became the new twelfth month of the year after the reform but kept his name. About the varronian system it is the system used to calculate the roman calendar from the year computed by Varro as the year of the foundation of Rome. Years in this calendar are years Ab Urbe Condita ( A.U.C. ). But the varronian system was not the only one computed in antiquity and is not always used by the authors, so one must always check which system his source uses in order not to commit a mistake in datation.
  4. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Well the Palladion, this small wooden statue of Athena kept in the Erechtreion, would do nicely for me. Her chryselephantine statue by Phidias too, but I've got no garden to place it and my room would be too small
  5. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Also it has been long shown that the year 0 ( or rather the year 1 ) was a later reconstruction by a monk in the late roman empire, monk who did something wrong in his calculations which, when remade by modern scholars, gives a date of birth around 6 or 7 AD, one of the sources being the Josephus extract already given and it's mention of a census.
  6. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Caldrail I must contradict you here about the barbarian technology and it's influence on combat tactics. It is long known that the Gallic way of warfare was dictated by it's long sword which often broke in combat if we accept informations such a those given by Livius where he describes battles between romans and Gauls where in some instances the battle was won due to the Gauls sword breaking on the roman shields and swords, making them defenceless : the problem was not the metal ( which was better ) but the design which called for long strikes coming from the top on the ennemy and was long and very slim, thus making it easy to bend. Study of weapons dedicated by Gauls after a victory also showed this weakness in Gallic weapons. Also the long Gallic sword called for some space around the fighter in order for him to use his weapon, and the roman warrior with his much shorter gladius was able to enter inside the minimum area needed by the Gaul and thus kill him. It's only under the Empire, with the gradual decrease in quality of roman troops ( including roman swordsmanship ) that the roman infantry adopted the spata, long sword of the cavalry, thus negating one of their advantages ( later we'll even see the roman army abandon it's armor, making it's soldiers most vulnerable to arrows ).
  7. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Well first women could own properties, even if she had to have a protector in order to draw contracts and make buisness. About the status of the victim, if your translation is complete then it is about both citizens and peregrine ( but not slave since they have no sex, being objects ).
  8. Bryaxis Hecatee
    What makes me think about the usefullness of direct roman control on the area outside of purely economical elements ( metals and other products of the area ) is the late empire situation were the lack of control of the coast forced the romans to devellop a network of fortress on the gallic coast to prevent saxon raids in Gaul. Also the exemple of the much later Vikings shows us what would have happened to roman Gaul had the british coast not be under control : with both sides under control the thought of raids was put out of the ennemies mind.
  9. Bryaxis Hecatee
    The historia has long been treated as a fiction based on reality but not usefull for the study of the history of the period. But currently we see a current which gains weight that tends to take it much more seriously. In fact the ancient vision came from the article of DESSAU, H.,
  10. Bryaxis Hecatee
    One of the value of the occupation was also the fact it secured the coastal side of Gaul : this was the original reason of Caesar's expedition on the island ( beside prestige ) and this might well have been one of the reasons for the romans at the time of Claudius. Also it provided access to badly needed mineral ressources which were important for the economy of the whole western half of the Empire. Thus I think the romans did not loose their money when they went inside Britain, but it's sure they would have been much better off had they been able to invade Scottland.
  11. Bryaxis Hecatee
    The make up of the units is not really important in determining the style of warfare, at least in this debate, for the western way of warfare was not something dependent on the units ( roman army sport all kinds of troops for example, including elite horse archers, elite foot archers ( and maybe even crossbow units ), manoeuvre force, all that you want, and the style of a Caesar for example is more a battle of movement than a static warfare. What makes the western warfare in comparison to the so called eastern warfare is the way the war is supposed to go in the mind of the generals. Chinese and roman generals are here on the same way of thinking : bringing the enemy to a final battle, if possible in the best conditions in order to prevent loss of friendly forces. The so-called eastern way of war is not based around those pre-requisites but focus on skirmish and attrition of enemy force. To have a good exemple of this take a look at the Mithridatic wars in the 1st century BC between Rome and Pontus allied to Armenia. There we see the romans walk thousands of kilometers in order to bring a fleeing enemy to battle while this enemy only wants to cut of roman supply and starve the enemy in the countryside, deeming it's stronghold safe enough from the invaders. This is the way Parthia fought too for a long time ( with the additional element of city siege ), before settling for another kind of army around the 3rd century AD. China adopted a similar doctrine and it is in fact natural to adopt such a doctrine for any structured sedentarized power with empire dreams : the Inca did the same, as did the Aztecs. Only the weaker powers without enough manpower or the nomadic tribes did not fight this way.
  12. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Now I think they are some assumptions here about roman infantry and medieval cavalry which seems a bit wrong to me. Let me explain : roman infantry was trained to meet cavalry, even heavy cavalry, from the time of Augustus until the fall of Constantinople to the knights. They had formations designed to withstand heavy cavalry charges, as shown by the fightings in Dacia under Trajanus ( who had to fight armored cavalry where both men and horses wore armor ) and in Parthia ( Cataphractes and Clibanarii cavalry forces ) : a macedonian phalanx like front could be presented to the knights, behind which regularly armed legionaries would be able to throw their heavy pilum on the knights whose armor would be pierced. And a barrage of pilum is enough to halt any cavalry charge ( as shown by Caesar's defeat of the Pompeian cavalry led by Labienus ) What could be more of a threat would be British longbows and French or Italian crossbows. Those weapons could indeed get through armor and hurt the roman legionaries. Except that unlike medieval units the roman infantry did have good shields with the scutum as they had good formations ( the so called turtle formation ). Thus they could walk toward the enemy formation without sustaining too many losses especially if they own support units, mostly archers but also field artillery ( which was not used by medieval armies but could be quite deadly and mobile : think about Caesar's ballistae and Trajanus carroballistae ) which had a good rate of fire and as great if not greater a range than British longbows. Thus in the end I think that between numbers, training, armor, equipment, formations and leadership the roman army would best most if not all the medieval armies. As for siege craft the medieval fortifications would not have been such a problem to the roman army. When one sees what was done in Massada or in Dacia one understand the greatest advantage of the roman in siege operations : the existence of a specialized corp of engineer whose task in live was to build and destroy things, including walls and fortifications. Something which did not really exist until rather late in the M-A.
  13. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Many good things were said here but none has really put the finger on what makes Western Warfare : the will to resolve the conflict by open battle and open battle only. This and only this makes the western way of war which must be opposed to an eastern way of warfare which resolves more about defeating the enemy by any available mean. During the 20th century all structured countries did adopt the concept of western warfare, building armies with tanks, planes, and other tools of the trade that were produced in order to reduce the enemy fighting force in the field. Then came the war in Vietnam between the USA and the north-vietnamese communist state and Afghanistan between the USSR and the local forces which put another kind of warfare back in the spotlight : asymmetrical warfare, also called guerrilla or terrorism when civilians are deliberately targeted. Those wars, especially the second, showed to elements outside of any state structure that they could beat armies built on the western model of war. The western way of war has also created a set of rules that compose the military view of honor and right way to fight, which is very different from the military view of tribal or clannic or "terrorists" or "rebels" fighters. It must be noted that the chinese way of warfare is in many ways very similar to the western way of war, and developed independently for other reasons than the western way of war which, as was already said, came from the Greek hoplite way of fighting.
  14. Bryaxis Hecatee
    To study the women of the Empire you should look for the books by Marie-Therese Rapsaet Charlier. She's one of the main scholar on women of the senatorial class during the Empire and wrote many books on the subject which have been translated in the English ( her latest one has been translated in 5 languages if I remember well ). While her "prosopography of the women of the senatorial order" might be too technical the book "the women in ancient rome" by Danielle Gourevitch and her is excellent and recent since the French edition only dates from 2001.
  15. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Well first it'd be better if you could narrow your search parameters a bit since the imperial army's auxiliaries are quite a bit different from republican units which were either sent by other's nations or formed from mercenary companies. During the republic those auxiliaries were not really organized in structured units, they used their own structures and more importantly equipments but were under orders from a junior roman officer. Under the empire those units were better organized in units of either 480 or 800 men ( cohorts ). No specialized slingers units are knows but archers units are attested. Those units were lead by roman officers too.
  16. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Had Hibernia been conquered we'd see at least one administrative city and the area would have been made a province of it's own. But no mention in the texts speak about what would have been a feat equal to Caesar's british expedition and no remain of a roman city was ever found in Ireland. Thus one may doubt about any roman settlement in the area. But what might very well have been is a mixed local and foreign traders settlement that would have exported the island's ressources for roman luxury commodities ( wine ). Kind of an emporion but not a colony.
  17. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Caesar went against the Helvetii for two reasons : - it threatened the peace and the balance of power in his area of responsability and weakened the current switzerland so much it could provide an easy way of invasion for german armies ( do not forget the great scare of the Cimbri and Teutones whose memory was still well alive in Rome ) - Caesar had a personnal grudge against a people who had humilied some of his family relatives whose honor he had to clean. Then after he had done his job against the Helvetii ( who, we shall remember, had asked permission to cross the Provincia ) he was drawn against Ariovistus and then decided that since his forces were in theater, the lands good and the area rich and already well known by the roman traders ( to whom he was probably indebted ) he should conquer the area. For one element one has to bear in mind is the fact that the interior of Gaul was much better known by the romans than the interior of the Balkans and trade with the area much more important thus the change of plan made a lot more sense than usually thought by some.
  18. Bryaxis Hecatee
    One must note that thanks to the laws of Sulla Caesar had very early access to the senate : first when ordained priest by Marius ( since his title included access to the senate, he must have been one of the yougest one to enter ( at least formally ) this body ( if not the yougest ), then he came back with the crown when he was not even 20...
  19. Bryaxis Hecatee
    I like Julian II the Apostate very much and indeed consider his operations in Gaul as a very good campaign as difficult if not more difficult than those of Germanicus and other leaders of the high empire but he did make great mistakes during the Persian including the burning of his fleet and before that missing the capture of Ctesiphon because of a lack of discipline of his force. These doomed his campaign and his death ( to a sarracen whose services had been paid by either the persians or the christians and whose's spear was able to do the damages it did because in his haste Julian had forgotten to put his armor before going to the battle ) only meant that he did not see the consequences of his errors.
  20. Bryaxis Hecatee
    The question of any far eastern religion influence on the greaco-roman world is currently a hugely debated topic between the scientists but the current common view is that if maybe some elements of it could have got from India to Greece as early as the 6th or 5th century BC the whole religions did not come, only maybe some ideas ( but could'nt those idea have come simultaneously in two minds thousands of kilometers appart... ). Thus the answer would be no, no boudhism of other far eastern religion in the lands of the Imperium Romanorum, only maybe some slight early influences.
  21. Bryaxis Hecatee
    From what I gather from the courses I had at the university the first monastries are evolutions from the anachoresis, the life of the ermits who lived in the desert, and appear as an evolution of a christian practice. We must look toward Egypt to see the first monasteries in the Mediteranean world, they were first a consequence of the same valleys being the place were all the ermits went. Then some got the idea to put in common some of their task and to elaborate rules to live together. For indeed what does characterise the monastic life is the isolation from the rest of the world and the live under a rule that direct every move in the life of the monk. Temple of Isis, by being built inside of the cities and in contact with it, cannot be described as monachal and the presence of scriptoria and other work rooms isn't a pecularity of the temples of Isis : many collegia, religious or not ( professional associations for exemple ), had in their compound ( called Schola ) learning rooms, libraries, dining rooms, ... I hope it answers a bit more the original question.
  22. Bryaxis Hecatee
    You seem to think of greed as the money part of the deal, but you forget an important point for post-marian armies : the fact that the soldiers were poors from the cities who lacked any way of living after decommissioning and thus relied on their general to get a land bill in the senate that would give them a place to live after their military service. They are also other factors. The pompeian legions for exemple, raised by the father, disbanded, re-raised by the son during the civil war were armies built around clientship relation in Picenium were the family was most powerfull. The pompeian army was thus a bit different of the usual roman army. All armies of the late republic were not loyal to their general either, as show the story of Lucullus in the East who had to stop his pursuit of Tigranes because of his army's mutiny. So the question of the relationship between the general and his force is a complex one mixing personnal feelings with what I'd call economic concerns of the soldiers. Especially since the army's pay was not really huge, it was the bounty which made military service attractive in the late republic. As for the imperial period and the loyalty of units to their commanders to the point they followed them in rebellions against the emperor well it is another topic that I'll try to answer later.
  23. Bryaxis Hecatee
    I'm not really sure catapults of any kind could at this period do such damages to walls, their purpose until the middle ages' trebuchet was to clean the top of the wall from ennemy troops and cause destruction inside the city, including by sending fire over the wall, not the do holes in the wall, a task that was for the tunnels and the battering rams. The reason is the rather light weight of the projectiles. Also, if I may comment your picture, the scales are wrong : the wall is too low for a structure build in regular stones as the one you have and the towers not massive enough. Also a wall like this would probably have a ditch in front of it, especially in the 1st century BC ( to which I'd date your picture due to armor design ). It could be a representation of an italian city besieged during the civil war, like Alba Fucens which was besieged by roman style equiped Socii. The defenders would then be romans soldiers. The adventage with such a description would be the fact you can find picture of the Alba Fucens walls rather easily on the web and in books.
  24. Bryaxis Hecatee
    I don't currently have my Goldsworthy's book on roman generals but my Oxford Classical Dictionary
  25. Bryaxis Hecatee
    Your points are true indeed but I think you tend to underestimate the amount of communication between Rome and the army : a lot ( if not all ) of Caesar's soldiers were literrate, it was required in order to be able to read order or passwords for exemple. And we know they sent messages back to their family, and quite often too. Sure the officers did this more than the common soldiers, but still the amount of letters must have been rather high, higher than usually thought. Thus the facts could be checked and thanks to Cicero's letters we have a point of comparison between caesarean and other version of the same events during the gallic campaign. And they show that the caesarean version is not very far of what his legates said in private to their friends in Rome. So sure they are elements that are to be taken with caution, numbers of ennemies slain and captured being one exemple, but in the main the commentaries are rather a good source of information.
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