Virgil61

I don't think there's anything wrong with striking per se. The Unions behind it helped bring in some great reforms you and I don't have to worry about. And laborers should be allowed to leverage in mass their common needs. It's as much a part of the capitalist process as corporations. What ticks me off about NYC is the fact the strike is illegal and the Union broke the law as well as screwing over hundreds of NYC businesses who depend on this Christmas business to make the year profitable. The government of NYC and the Union would have been made to go to a mutually agreeable arbitrator to settle the issue in lieu of the right to strike. Striking is a fine and legit approach to leveraging against companies if legal and like everything in life timing is everything.

I've read of DNA studies which indicate that Northern Italians have DNA traits in common with Celts and Ligurians in pre-Roman times with little trace of commonality with Germans. Since the crucial DNA markers (forgotten the name) are carried down by the mother not the father it may indicate Lombards males intermarried with the locals much more often than their females. Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Petrarch, all Tuscans, might disagree with that.

What battle did Alexander the Great fight where he moved his cavalry laterally hiding a few hundred slingers following alongside them and was shadowed by the Persian cavalry? He suddenly made a charge into the rear flank of the Persian foot exposing the slingers who unloaded on the Persian cavalry to prevent their pursuit. Slingers firing individually could be an big irritant but doing so in mass--several hundred small missiles coming at you at high velocity--must've been hell.

Congrats. I just became the youngest grandfather I've ever met at 44. My son, who's half Italian (my half) and half an amalgam of European--English/Scots-Irish/French/etc or Heinz 57 as we used to say--decided to give him my Grandfather's first name as his son's middle name: Fioraivante. Not gonna go over well in school I tried to explain. My favortie female names in Latin are Claudia, Veronica, Stella and Ursula. My favorite name is Zoe for a girl but it's Greek not latin.

Yes, add Olga, Svetlana, Nadya, Anastasia, Tanya and Ludmilla and you have 99% of the names of every woman I ever met while living in St. Pete's.

Protein is required for physical activity and muscle building but nothing near the rates that present day bodybuilders saturate themselves with. The Romans needed lean and mean endurance for marches and combat longevity, not a lot of muscle. And remember we're talking about soldiers on campaign not in garrison training where the meals were probably better. I agree that they probably do overstate the bad diet, foraging must have made up for quite a bit nutrition. The writers probably compared soldiers diets with their own fairly ample ones and couldn't figure out how someone could live without stuffed doormice and chamber pots to vomit up in.

You sure did, I glanced right over it. De Bellum Gallico's quite a treasure trove of info on certain legion practices. Virgil, I've only got the same info from web sites but no attribution. I'll bet it changed during the Principate when soldiers began to recieve much better pay for loyalty.

I'm rather suprised no one's mentioned cornmeal as the basic staple of the Republican legions. JC certainly hints to this in his works when he describes over and over again the importance of gathering corn for the legions. This cornmeal is basically a type of thick yellow grits called pulmentum and is still found today on the tables of Italian families called polenta. It's very versatile and you can add whatever else is available to eat with it. It's hearty peasant food that's not changed much over twenty-five hundred years and if you've never eaten it pick up some. Along with pasta I grew up on the stuff. I've also read that hardtack was a staple of marches as well. Of course the bottom line is on the march they'd eat whatever was available through foraging. Here's a rather interesting list of foods in the garrison at Vindolanda during the Principate. Keep in mind it's not a legion but an auxiliary unit and it's not on campaign but in garrison.

They did try a partial invasion of Roman client states just after Antony's debacle. They combined with rebellious legions under Labienus, the last of Brutus' republicans, to take Antioch [i think was still a client state] and invade Syria but were finally defeated in a series of encounters and the heir to the throne of Parthia killed.

The Parthian empire fell to the Sassanid Persians and that takeover was to a large extent because of the final Roman sack under Septimius Severus weakening the Parthians. The continuing conflict in the East was now with the Persians. I understood the Persians to be a distinctly different animal than the Parthian empire hence they weren't included, but I'm no expert on them.

More meat for the meat grinder. I think if you faced anyone with any missile capabilities from archers to ballista to slingers, you'd best make sure you spread your men out a bit to lessen the chance of casualities. That's probably the secret of the pilum's success, being lobed seconds before contact when groups are attacking in masse on to the Roman lines.

A century as a crew served weapon? Maybe I'm too literal minded on this one because I'd use the same definition the Army uses; a weapon manned by more than one soldier. I'd classify only weapons such as the ballista each century was issued as a crew-served weapon. A century I'd classify as the smallest self-contained 'maneuver unit' in a legion capable of applying the it's primary weapons systems to the enemy (gladius/pilum). I'm not as up to speed on Roman armor as I'd like although in "The Battle that Stopped Rome", Peter Wells has an excellent chapter on wounds and carnage on the ancient battlefield.

That Roman armor wasn't up to the task is based on one line from Plutarch (I think) on Carrhae. That same Roman armor seemed up to the task when legions drove Parthian from Syria and Asia Minor in the same decade after Carrhae. The Parthian bow superiority didn't seem to help them any then. Like the Phalanx, the Parthians were a bit of a one-trick pony--a tough trick--but, like the phalanx, once the Romans figured out how to defeat it, the problem for the Parthians had was they had no other tactical answer. The bow superiority thing seems to be the argument of war gamers. Be that as it may, the bow superiority seems to have mysteriously only been availble to the Parthians at Carrhae. Even in their driving off and mauling of Antony's legions the Parthians seemed wary of Roman archers and missiles. The logic of "bow superiority" means you have to explain every other Roman victory over Parthians, some that occured in the same generation as Carrhae. I'm repeating myself but the Parthian capital was sacked at least three times, that's not bias that's fact. The sacking by Septimius Severus broke the back of their empire financially and the booty captured has been speculated to have enriched the Romans enough that the financial problems the empire was beginning to incure were put off for a generation. If that doesn't convince you I'm not sure what will. Around 1/2 of Roman legions and auxiliaries were occupied with defensive and offensive operations against them from the Danube to northern Britain. That's a lot of resources devoted to a region the Romans "...cared little about...". The main issue with Parthia wasn't the need to conquer them, it was Armenia. Look at a terrain map of far eastern Turkey and northern Iraq--where the old Armenian empire was located--it's strategic location controlled access to both Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. It was the struggle for control of this region that started many of the Parthian/Roman wars and usually nothing to do with conquest.

Some Italian geneticists conducted a DNA study a few years back. They determined that by the results the population is similar to what it was about in the fourth century BC. Even more interesting in another study a University of Toronto team found that present day Italians living in the province of Tuscany were closely related by DNA to the Etruscans who lived there in pre-Roman times. The question is interesting and a topic on it would be very interesting.

I've always thought the best comment on Antony comes from a German historian named Christian Meier in his biography of Casear; "Antony was an excellent 'second-man' who wanted to be a 'first-man'."

Interesting. Fire discipline is a huge issue even today, poor discipline can ruin a carefully planned mission. What struck me is your casualty evac comment. I was the company 1st Sergeant in Iraq and I was a stickler on assigning and training a cas-evac team for combat operations to get wounded out of the line of fire and into a medic's hands or to the rear for treatment. It's not just to keep veteran's recycled, it's so the legionarre or today's soldier knows that if they're wounded they won't be left to die--they'll be taken care of. Studies were done after Vietnam that the knowledge that wounded would be a priority was a great consolation to the average soldier. Again, the Romans intuitively knew their stuff long before everyone else. Although it can be overstated, some aspects of soldiering just never change.

I'm not sure of the cost to be honest. Antony, who was successful at first in invading Parthia and as a result of a couple of bad decisions was forced to retreat while being continually harassed by the Parthians. This was only a few years after Crassus and I don't think Rome was all that much richer at that point. What kept Antony's army from total annihilation seems to be the fact he'd brought more archers which saved him from a Crassus like disaster (though the Romans were mangled very, very badly). Most foot or horse archers were auxiliaries. At one point--under the Late Republic and early Empire-- most of the Roman foot archers were from Crete, though I'm not sure how long that was the standard. I'll find out who the horse archers were although--suprisingly--Parthian horse archers (probably mercenaries) are recorded to have fought for Rome against the Germans! I vaguely recall something about archery training but I'll bet it was left to the auxiliary experts to carry out. Looking at Arrian's set-up I suspect archers were interspersed behind the line infantry and among the cavalry, although any good commander would probably vary his mix depending on his resources, the terrain and the enemy encountered. What comes to mind immediately is using slingers as a quick-reaction force to assist archers behind the lines in massing fire and/or perhaps a reserve of horse archers in the rear but they're just guesses. And let's not forget another missile asset, the types of ballista--that nasty piece of equipment--the smaller versions spread out one per century. As much for psychological effect as anything else; seeing a bolt the size of a tree branch take out your buddy on your right had to be unnerving.

Excellent story, just the kind of commentary I was hoping to elicit. Thanks for sharing.

Apparently you've never been in the military. Systematic organized training is everything in an army and the Romans were superior to a large extent because their system trained at the individual, small-unit and large-unit level. While other cultures might have trained individuals there's no evidence they entered into any systematic organized training regime dealing with medium or larger groups. The Parthian argument has been debunked a long time ago, see my answer to your thread on this. As for Neanderthals, I don't know what to tell you.

Welcome to the forum rvmaximus. Please do us a favor and split your commentary into paragraphs to make comprehension easier. One pf my biggest pet peeves and one of the biggest fallacies out there is that the Romans could not take on the Parthians because of their tactics and win. That simply not borne out by the facts. I've addressed this before and even Romanophiles have fell for this old saw, mainly because of the disaster at Carrhae due to Crassus ignoring the advice of his military tribunes. What isn't spoke about is the victories against Parthian invasions into Syria and Asia Minor soon after Carrhae or the fact that a combined force of Parthians and rebellious Roman legions was defeated and expelled from Antioch. Thoughtful Roman generals had no problems against the Parthians. Under Nero, Corbula forced them to acquiesce to the Roman choice for the Armenian throne. The Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, was sacked several times in the 2nd and 3rd centuries by Trajan, Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus. The last sack it can be argued led to the final disintegration of Parthia and made the Roman treasury flush with cash. The Romans learned how to adapt to Parthian tactics and overpower them. The answer seems to be simple, bring a lot of missiles--archers, ballista, etc. to neutralize the Parthian advantage. Arrian, a military tribune of Trajan's who accompanied him in Parthia, gives us an example in his description his force facing the Alans, of what sort of tactical mix might have been used in Trajan's defeat of the Parthians. Note the large numbers of archers and horse archers mixed in the force. The legions that faced the Huns were a different sort of army than the legions who'd lost at Carrhae and had later sacked Ctesiphon. For some reason, probably due to the reputation of Carrhae, the myth of Parthian dominance has been repeated for centuries even though the evidence shows that the Parthians had a hell of a time dealing with the legions and came out second best a majority of the time.

I'd have to disagree with you on Polybius. His writing is on par with Thucydides in the attention and importance he tries to give to the truth. He may not be perfect but he's among the most accurate of the ancient historians. At one point he devotes a chapter commenting on the importance of research and verification, attacking another historian whose research was negligable. His take on Roman politics was biased but he was dependent on the good graces of Scipio's family.

Right on the mark. My only comment is what an officer I worked with in Iraq used to say; "Don't hate the player, hate the game". Too much player hating going on vis-a-vis the U.S. I think. On this particular subject I'll just say that while pointing out parallels between the U.S. and Rome can be fun, it's also an intellectually lazy way to interprete history. It doesn't take much analysis to draw parallels and everyone walks away feeling clever about themselves. The truth is one can draw 'parallels' between the U.S. and over a dozen other states in history.

I saw Black Sabbath when Ozzy was on his last legs as lead singer, I actually watched the "Gong Show", think the original SNL is the best and, though not in high school at the time, vividly remember watching Cronkite commenting as the last choppers left the US Embassy in Saigon. In other words, yeah, I'm in that club.

Take a century for example with an 8 or 10 or 12 man front with several ranks deep, the number depending on the terrain, enemy, tactics of the day etc. They've thrown some or all of their pilums in the initial first contact. While the first rank is fighting, the next rank is getting ready to engage assuming there's no melee. That a soldier in the middle or rear ranks is going to pick up a spear/javalin or whatever that might have been thrown in their direction and return it back point first isn't a stretch of the imagination. One has to believe it happened. The legion you're speaking of is one from the early-mid Republic generally known as a manipular legion.

I don't mean to be a contrarian but I guess it's in my nature. I've always been highly skeptical of classicist's interpretations ancient military history. They get as much wrong as they do right at times in my opinion. For the most part they lack a "soldier's eye" in interpretation and have little insight of small unit leadership or of the dynamics of military organizational structure mostly as a result of little military experience themselves. My two favorite examples to illustrate this are of Trajan's column and the attack on Masada. A current scholar from England has made a reputation out of his study of Trajan's column. He's insisted, and gotten a lot of nodding approval on this as cutting edge stuff, that the column shows Roman Legions weren't used in battle often but rather as combat engineers. While it's true the column shows Roman soldiers constructing forts and foraging and the auxiliries as fighting his lack of experience lets him down. Soldiers then and today don't spend the majority of their time fighting, they spend them on details, constructing defensive fortifications then or filling sandbags and digging defensive pits today, the Romans foraging for supplies and contemporary soldiers unloading them from trucks, and so on. Anyone designing the column would have been either directed by someone with experience or been someone themselves with experience and the column would show it. Looked at in that light it doesn't show that Roman soldiers rarely fought or were used exclusively as combat engineers, it shows that soldiering hasn't changed; most of it consists of tedious day-to-day details of soldiering that haven't changed much rather than combat which then as now, consists of a small proportion of a soldiers life. Another scholar insists that the timeline in Josephus' detailing the attack on Masada is incorrect, his strongest argument being that the Roman commander insisted his soldier go to bed early the night before. His argument being there'd be so much to do in preparation. I'd understood the Roman commander's intent immediately--hell one of my privates would have understood it. One of the common directives given by officers and NCOs today to their troops is to go to be early the day before a major mission as to have them rested for the next day's mission. Like the imagines on Trajan's columns some soldiering techniques never change. Classicists seem to miss these "soldier's eye" details over and over again to the point where I've come to view their works with mixed interest and skepticism. I'm not sure what the answer is, but as I've said before, a few years in the military to understand it's organzational psychology, imporatance of training and small-unit and large unit principles of leadership (in a broad sense none of these have changed much) might go a long way for an aspiring classicist in military history. One of the classicists I do admire is Adrian Goldsworthy who seem to "get it" much more often than not. How would you rate Connolly (who is more than just an illustrator I believe) relative to Goldsworthy? Is he really worth a read and what would you recomment? He's certainly written volumes on the legions and is one of the few big names I haven't read yet. Anyway you're posts are generally informative and I apologize for derailing the discussion a bit and about the my rant, I just had to get that off my chest.