Virgil61
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Posts posted by Virgil61
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I mentioned corn - as per Gallic Wars. That's where I got the chickpea and lentil from too.
You sure did, I glanced right over it. De Bellum Gallico's quite a treasure trove of info on certain legion practices.
Virgil,
Can you elaborate at all on what Flavius is talking about in terms of legion food being taken from their pay ?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.
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What were the typical rations given to a Republican legionary while on campaign?
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.
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Of course, while Rome was repulsed by the Parthians in several campaigns, the Parthians were never terribly likely to mount a massive invasion of Roman territory. Rome invaded deep within Parthian borders on several occassions and Parthia was never able (or willing to risk?) such an expedition.
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.
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It generally looks like whichever's empire star was waxing, was the one who won battles. Ultimately it was the dissolution of the Parthians that decided the issue.
A quick review of some major battles and seiges:
1) Carrhae (or Harran) - We all know about Crassus and his debacle and Antony's losses. His final failure though left Augutus the task of stabilizing the frontier. Using the diplomatic work Antony had laid out, Augustus succeeded. It wasn't until Severus captured Harran by conquering the Kingdom of Osrhoene that Rome fortified and stayed.
2) Hatra - Trajan seiged the city and lost in 117, Severus gained the city as part of the concessions he won in 198, Rome lost it in 238 and finally the Parthians razed the city in 241 during a conflict.
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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.
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I know I was overstepping the true definition of "crew served" , maneuver unit is strictly correct. May I add another factor in killing power,non-dispersal of the battlefield. Radicalisation of an armies ability to kill remotley or "area deny" lead to armies getting spread over the landscape,so even if you are efficient at killing you tend not to kill in "clusters". Fighting in Roman times was not dispersed, and where it was (guerilla action ) the Legions struggled: I suggest that facing a legion in any sort of compact body was increasing your chances of suffering fatality,given the efficiency of the "usual arms".
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.
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and another rejoinder to Virgil, what do you think of the concept of a century as a "crew served weapon" as opposed to individual fighting men? That has psycological implications as well I suggest.
I was also interested to discuss the relative merits of the range of roman body armour-but thats another thread I think-in relation to wound reduction, impact deflection and likely common wounds.
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.
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What about the Partian bow superiority?(Really from China) Perhaps the Romans did not have the technology to copy it, believe it was a tedious process the Chinese came up with. Armor was made obsolute against it and Roman projectiles could not reach them.
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.
Maybe the real reason the Romans did not conquer Parthia in its prime was maybe it couldn`t. You cannot make the case that like you could in nordic regions(too cold and limmited riches)...Parthia was rich. Plus the legacy of Alexander haunted a few Roamn notables like Caesar.(as you know was fixated about Alexander)I feel perhaps the European writers both then and now had a 'European bias' ? Parthia`s success is sometimes mitigated by what I read in this forum and Eurpoeans elevated. Relative neglect of the Eastern Roman empire(It was Roman) for another example. It seems to me that if Rome could take Parthia they would have loved too,,,correct me if I am wrong but I think Caesar was about to attempt this before his assasination. Not to offend the Eurpoeans but I feel the Romans cared little about Germany west of the Rhine or Scandinavia or Russia though they were fully aware of these. They were interested in stopping German and Hun trnsgressions only. They were intertested in Parthia however..it had everything they could have wanted.
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.
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Are the Italian people really decendants of the ancient Romans or are they an extremely mixed people? Slaves from all over outnumbered Romans plus the army was made up of many different groups. Looking at phtos of ancient Romans it seems that modern Italians diidn`t look like them. (Romans didn`t seem so attractive)
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.
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I don't think Antonius was such a fool - like most Romans he was an amateur, but his rivals and competitors were largely of a similar ilk.
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'."
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..."fire discipline" for pilum discharge, ballistae and offensive use of the scutum and you are walking into a meat grinder.Also careful casualty evacuation and medical care kept seasoned troops "recycled" with minimal waste in the field. Not only did Romans kill more effectivley they also didnt waste manpower.
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.
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Am I correct to infer that opposing archers with archers was very expensive and that Rome's vulnerability to horse-mounted archers would be greatest when Rome was poorest? Also, did Rome have a training regime for archers that was as comprehensive as their training for infantry (i.e., not just training individuals, but training archers at larger units of organization)? Also, what were the best tactics for massing fire while retaining flexibility?
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.
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I too come from a Roman town - in my case, Lindum Colonia, now Lincoln in the UK.
My childhood home was situated right above the principia of the Roman legionary fortress - for a time garrisoned by the famous IXth Hispana - and later the forum and basilica of the Colonia.
In a cellar between our house and the next were columns and part of the pavement from the forum colonnade, eight feet or so below modern ground level. 150 yards away at the end of the street, was a Roman arch - the well-known Newport Arch still straddling a major thoroughfare almost 2,000 years after it was built. It was the north gate of the city.
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Excellent story, just the kind of commentary I was hoping to elicit. Thanks for sharing.
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...beacuse I just do not believe in superior training idea...
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.
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Conclusion: Roman writers did not tell the truth. Also, looking at this from the other side of the Atlantic the only real problems the Romans had was from the Parthians and Hannibal. Europeans seemingly were extremely incompetent against them..accept from an occasional trap. Remember the Romans were severely outnumbered in most battles in Europe with thin supply lines while the natives albetit Celts,Germans,Dacians, Iberians etc. had huge advantages. But and a big but....in Asia the Romans were the incomptent ones against the horse and bow. The Parthians did so much damage that it is incredible the Romans went on after so many large defeats to them. It seems that the best way to beat the Romans was avoid hand to hand combat,simple. ???
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.
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... As for Polybius he is not exactly reliable himself. His grasp of Roman politics is shaky beyond belief for a man who spent so long at the centre of power. Good general and so his battle stuff is usually pretty bang on, but even some of the figures are a little contentious.
Cheers
Sullafelix
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.
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I'll be honest, I don't really like these threads. They stray rather far from anything related to Rome, and become a dissertation on American politics and culture. Liberals and conservatives, secular and religious start to critique each other, and then of course our European and Oceanic friends are just more than happy to tell us what we should do with ourselves.
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.
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Ah, back when I was 35, (*cue music*) "It was a very good year...." (/music: for sanity of others)
I only counted one other person in the post 40 Club...any others?
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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.
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Wait, why would you want to use a pilum when you already have one and its pretty useless since most of the combat is gonna be by the gladius?
Oh, by the way, I remember seeing some documentary about the positioning of the soldiers, not sure if I'm right. Not specifically, at the front is always the newly recruited or little experienced soldiers. The middle is the enough experience soldiers that is guarenteed to hold the line. The last are always the most experienced and valued soldiers who almost have completed their service and most probably will live. And the reserves are positioned somewhere strategic.
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.
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To be quite honest it's highly unlikely as it is Peter Connolly, one of the leading and most published ancient history illustrators and researchers, literally placed by many at the same level as Robinson for his contribution to our understanding of the Roman army over the past 30 years. When he says "I think it was like this" people take a lot of notice. He tends to be quite "exact" about what he publishes and did take advice I believe on the metal used for the pila. ...
Cheers,
Jim.
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.
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to any members who have been in any sort of hard contact sport or actual straight fight,- do you think you would stoop to pick up ,then reverse ,then throw a pilum thrown at you in a life or death fight?
Yes, but you're right to ask it in this way Pertinax, as it's not something one could speculate on if one hadn't been under threat and acted similarly. I wouldn't break it down into three actions though.
Let's remember these aren't hours long fights by the same groups of soldiers. It would be impossible, the physical demands being so high. Sometimes we have difficulty keeping that in mind.
Groups would fight, then one or both break it off and rest, being replaced in line by a different century, cohort, manipule or whatever and who internally would rotate their lines. I suspect those whose units weren't in the immediate fight would be resting, drinking water, encouraging their side, etc. The exact line of combat probably ebbed and flowed. During these resting lulls you could certainly collect spent spears and pilums or other assorted missiles.
While I don't have a strong opinion on the pilum's bending properties I can't imagine that while your units engaged and you're waiting in the 4, 5, 6th rank for your turn at the front line, coming across an enemy spear/javelin/pilum on the ground you couldn't pick the damn thing up and return it to its owners point first.
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G'day All
Recently, whilst reading about the rise of Pontus and Mithridates' attack on the Roman Empire, i found a reference to the "Social War" that Italy was just emerging from when Mithridates attacked. All i know about it is that it was when Rome was compelled to extend Roman Citizenship to include all of Italy. I wonder if anyone can can tell more about the social war?
Ursus and Cato have given some decent background on the Social War and I can add a few interesting points.
For me it's a special event, as I've stated before my family is from the province that was the hotbed of revolt. I'd like to delve into a it bit more but major works on the subject are rare. I can add that by 91BC many of the Roman armies consisted heavily and sometimes predominately of legions from the Italian tribes (I believe they were all set up in manipular legions like the Romans). They are the same tribes that had remained loyal to Rome during Hannibal's invasion. It was in fact a Roman army filled with Praetutii, Frentati and Marrucci that destroyed Hasdrubal's reinforcement army to Hannibal, cutting off his head and throwing it over the ramparts to the Carthaginians. I've read, but forgotten the source, that the Marrucci legions were equal or better than the Roman ones.
The point of the war as other posters have stated was inclusion into the Republic. The tribes; the Marsi, Samnites, Vestini, Paeligni, Picente, Frentati, Praetutii and Marruccini, set up a capital for their confederation in the city of Corfinium whose ruins still exist. The federation elected a Senate and called itself "Italia", the first known instance of that term for a political entity.
The fighting is said to have been brutal with Sulla making a reputation for himself. Part of the problem for the Romans had to have been that there were thousands of Roman citzens in colony-cities living in the tribal areas. As I've posted before my own family is from the town of Guilianova founded as Castrum Novum, a Roman colony in 283BC among the territory of the Praetutii tribe. So these Romans had been living amongst the tribes with Roman citizenship and their enhanced rights for at least two hundred years. This could only have made the situation that much more acute--though there's no surviving evidence knowing the nature of warfare in those times it doesn't take much of a guess that many of these Romans were killed or run off of their lands or their cities laid to siege or that they did the same to the surrounding tribes.
In the end the Romans cleverly dissolved the hostilities by offering citizenship to tribes that did not revolt and tribes that were willing to lay down arms immediately. It's a critical moment in Roman history.
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I voted for the Babylonians...
I have a Babylon story for you.
First look at the picture of Saddam's Palace. Ok, ignore the rubber chicken for humor in the picture. The chicken is sitting on the ruins of Babylon. That's Saddam's palace on the artificial hill in the background. At the corner closest to the ruins--light on the left corner of the palace and shaded on the right corner--at the bottom floor was where I set up my living quarters. Here is a better look at it. I would walk out every morning and shave outside on the corner looking over the ruins of Babylon.
In the picture notice what looks like the river behind the palace, it isn't. It was the original location of the Euphrates when the city existed. The Euphrates is now five miles west of this site so Saddam had a deep canal built to replicate it's location.
This is the view looking down from my outside corner of the palace, the rebuilt portion behind the ruins was done on Saddam's orders. They gathered up precious archeological remains and used them to rebuild a replica right next to the ruins. What a shame.
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...I guess if readers of history aren't alert to this fact, and it takes someone like Parenti to remind them, good for Parenti. It's sort of hard for me to imagine that any adult reader of history should need Parenti's reminder, but (to get back on topic) I suppose some people could forget that Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, for example, were written for an audience that held Caesar's political fortunes in their hands.
It may be hard to imagine but not only do readers need to be reminded so do historians. Readers and writers of history fall in this trap all the time, that's what the whole discipline of historiography is all about--who writes history, what's their vested interest, what's the interpretation, etc.
Roman history has been especially poorly serviced in this regard. Original sources are exclusively from the learned upper-class and the 17-19th century commentators and historians shared similar backgrounds, beliefs in primacy of their own class vested and so on. Add to this the issue of classicists themselves. Their training differs from that of historians whose training varies from economic to social to political and military history. Classicists tend to focus their initial training on languages and literary sources or sometimes archaeology.
This leads to a different sort of history by classicists, sometimes better sometimes not. Reading military histories by the current crop of classicists is a frustrating experience, they show little inclination towards military strategy or tactics, no understanding of organizational leadership and are unable to look at events with a 'soldier's eye'.
I digressed a bit, but Parenti, for all his faults--he can be quite irritating--challenges the basic assumptions of how we have learned Roman history from earlier writers of the last few centures and how these people like Gibbons, Mommsen, et al., have influenced our own contemporary understanding of the Rebublic. He looks at Rome from a different angle, often he's right, sometimes he's wrong, but the process is one seldom applied to ancient history (Fergus Millar is the only one who comes to mind).
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As you are undoubtedly aware - I wrote the favourable review.
I wrote an equally favorable review and he is aware. It's called baiting.
"Baiting" is too tendentious! I simply wanted to go on record with my disagreement, and I mean no disrespect to Germanicus or to you Virgil.
Fair enough.
I'm a bit disappointed you found little to like about the Parenti book. I don't particularly care for his politics but I think he put rather bluntly what many scholars have commented on around the edges. I also think his points, which are good ones for anyone reading history, of 'who' writes history, what their pov is and their own stake in the argument is important whether on Rome or any historical period.
Legionary Rations
in Gloria Exercitus - 'Glory of the Army'
Posted
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.