barca

If their primary weapon was the thrusting spear, one could argue that they reverted back to a phalanx. Having said that, they had better armor and swords, so they should not have had the vulnerabilty of the Hellenistic infantry.

I brought up this issue in the Adrianople thread. One can only imagine what Marius would have done. How would his legions have performed against Fritigen's Goths. These Goths had already been within the empre for a long time and had ransacked the armory. Their weapons and armor were much more advanced than those of the Cimbri and Teutons.

Can you give me a source fro the Spartans vs Visigoths? It is a widely held assumption that the Hellenistic military system deteriorated after Alexander and Pyrrhus, but how much clear evidence is there of this. The Hellenistic kingdoms fought against each other, so they had to constantly be on edge, and work on strategies to constantly improve their systems. Pyrrhus was able to defeat the Roman Legions in 2 out of 3 battles, but I somehow doubt that these legions were anywhere near as advanced as those of Scipio, Flaminius, or Paulus. In the Punic War I, the Carthaginians used Hellenistic style warfare to defeat Roman Armies at leat once. It was not until Punic War II that the Roman and Carthaginian forces developed the advanced systems that empahsized mobility along with the deadly effects of the Gladius at close quarters. I suspect that they developed these systems from their experiences in Spain. Despite their rivalry amongst themselves, the Hellenistic Kingdoms were still able to mobilize large armies to confront the Romans (Cynocphelae, Pydna, Magnesia) and the Romans defeated them handily every time. THere was always an excuse. At Cynocephalae, Philips army wasn't fully lines up, at Pydna there wasn't enough cavalry and the phalanx advanced too far into rough terrain, At Magnesia the land was flat and there was more than adequate cavalry as well as light troops, but they weren't able to put it together despite the presence of Hanibal as an advisor. Much later Mithradates seemed to have the same problem in his wars with the Romans. Pyrrhus never had to face these more advanced legions, and he probably would not have been able to win a single battle against the likes of Paulus or Sulla. My point is that I don't think that their system really declined, but the Roman system evolved to surpass the Hellenistic system. Do we know of any post Punic War II battles where a Hellenistic army defeated a Roman legion?

Were they really decadent? The Hellenistic world was probably the most advanced civilzation of the time. As for the ease at which they were beaten militarily by the Romans, there was something about the Macedonian system that made it exquisitely vulnerable to the Roman legions. Many of the late Hellenistic kingdoms still had great success against numerous opponents, but they fell apart against the Romans and were subject to wholesale slaughter.

Thanks for pointing that out. I knew I had read that before, but I couldn't remember where.

A friend of mine who is a Pediatric Urologist brought this information to my attention. I am interested in knowing just what were the attitudes of the Pagan Romans toward the Jews who were circumcised. http://www.cirp.org/library/restoration/hall1/

Not controversial at all. There is no evidence that the legions present at Adrianople were in any way elite. Far from it, they represented a cross section of available troops, good or bad. The best of them had been taken ahead by Sebastianus as a raiding force ahead of the column. Not controversial? It seems to me that it was a very controversial topic on the Adrianople thread. Is there any evidence that they were not elite? If you look back on some of the posts on the Adrianople thread, you'll find controversy. For example, your friend sylla made numerous comments about the relative effectiveness of the late Roman Army "My general impression (just that!) is that the general average performance of the armies of both the Romans and their enemies tended to progressively improve year after year, given the slow but real advance in tactics and weaponry. Besides, once the Roman conquest stopped (mainly for logistic reasons) and the Imperial borders became fixed, a permanent quasi-Darwinian selection of the Roman enemies took place there. After the first phase, Roman armies ought to progressively increase as long as the emperors stubbornly tried to conquer even more and never retreat." I believe his point was that the Roman Army was constantly evolving in order to adapt itself to changing conditions. One also has to take into account that many of Fritigen's Goths had experience with the Roman military system. They had also been within the empire for about 2 years and had access to many resources, including the armory. I agree that Sebastianus had great success with smaller missions, but didn't he subsequently join up with Valens' army at Adrianople?

This is a controversial and very important point. there are many who believe that the army that was annihilated at Adrianople was an elite force, which included the top military leaders of the Empire. It was hard enough to replace the troops, but even harder to replace the the leaders. There were perhaps hundred of thousands of additional troops in the empire, but only few of top quality. I believe Vegetius was describing the status of the Roman Army after Adrianople. Julius Caeser also had to give speeches to his men to rouse the to fight against Ariovistus.

Whatever their formation was, Julian provided much better leadership. His army seemed to have things under control. They responded well to the attempted ambush, and when the front line was penetrated, they were able to mobilize their reserves. These two battles were only a few years apart. I would think that the composition of the Roman armies at Strassburg and Adrianople were similar. The big difference was leadership.

How about the comment by Andy Whitfield (Spartacus) when he said the Romans were "supposedly" more civilized than those noble savages.

I recently read Alessandro Barbero's Day of the Barbarians, and he has a good description of the battle of Adrianople. I get the impression that they advanced in very close order, almost like a hoplite phalanx, and they were unable to mobilize reserves to protect their flanks. It may have just been a consequence of poor leadership in that particular situation. You may be able to get more information on the late Roman Army from Ammianus: http://www.amazon.com/Later-Roman-Empire-D...7854&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Later-Roman-Empire-D...7854&sr=1-1

Alexander had a similar plan for the future development of the phalanx. Only the first 3 ranks would carry the sarissa, and light infantry with bows or javelins would be behind them. I don't think he ever got a chance to try it out in battle, and his successors abandoned this experimental formation. http://books.google.com/books?id=nTmXOFX-w...ile&f=false

Has anyone read this book by Lars Brownwoth? http://www.amazon.com/Lost-West-Forgotten-...n/dp/0307407950

I am interested in comparing the strategies of the Macedonian and Byzantine combined arms forces. It seems to me that the main difference was more offensive (Alexander) vs defensive (Belisarius). I picked Alexander as the best example of the Macedonian system. There is a general assumption that later Hellenistic armies had lost the flexibility of Alexander's system. I picked Belisarius as one of many great Byzantine generals, but feel free to use other Byzantne leaders as examples.

Here's a good description of the Byzantine Scoutatoi http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Medieval/war...tleTactics.html In some ways a throwback to the pre-sarissa hoplite phalanx. The intermediate length spear, the relatively large shield, and the close order. The main difference being better armor and sword for effective one on one fighting once they came into close quarters with opposing infantry. And I agree that theirs was a very effective system, and their infantry often fought from a defensive position, delivering an effective counterblow. They did not take the aggressive advance movements of the Swiss and other pike units of the later middle ages. The Byzantine system worked very well for the most part, but they didn't do too well against the Normans at Durrazo in 1081.

Nice article. I didn't understand the following statement, "Now the Byzantines came into direct contact with the Seljuks, whose fighting style of mobile horse archery they were unfamiliar with." Were the Seljuk horse archers any different than the horse archers that the Byzantines had faced before?

It is generally assumed that the Romans actually outnumbered the Arabs at Yarmouk. Would you agree with the following statement made by a previous poster? "From a purely military standpoint, a most critical contributor was definitively the command of Khālid ibn al-Walīd, a tactician of the same magnitude as let say Timur or Alexander Magnus." http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10534

Here's a good description of the role of the hypaspists: http://books.google.com/books?id=rR88jF6ta...der&f=false and more: http://books.google.com/books?id=nTmXOFX-w...ink&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=S6J5yOnPC...dna&f=false The importance of the flexibility of the Roman maniple system is overstated, and we really don't know enough about their relative flexibilities. What really made a difference for the Romans was the gladius which was vastly superior to any Greek sword. So once they got into close quarteres, the Romans had a distinct advantage.

The Theban Left Wing smashed the Spartan Right Wing and then turned right to roll up the rest of the Spartans. The sacred band also went along side the Theban left to protect its flank, and it also turned to the right after the Spartan Wing was destroyed.

It seems to me that the Hellenistic system was supposed to do the same thing. It worked for Alexander. He used the mobile hypaspists as a flexible bridge between his companion cavalry and the phalanx. Later Hellenistic armies weren't able to apply this method against the Romans, perhaps because of the quality of the opposition. At Magnesia, the winning Seleucid cavalry overshot the battle line and broke off from the rest of the army.

Their eastern opponents had not only horse archers, but heavy cavalry as well. On numerous occasions macedonian-style phalanxes held their pikes upward at an angle to deflect arrows or other missiles going their way. A good example was The Pontic phalanx at Chaeronea II.

The precise interpretations of that maneuver seem to vary with different sources. I do find it interesing how that deep Theban column was able to turn without losing its cohesion.

Here's a description of the advancing columns: http://books.google.com/books?id=8dmBNpj1A...lon&f=false Generally there were three columns advancing in some sort of echelon. The columns in the rear provided support for the advanced columns. Why the Hellenistic commanders weren't able to grasp the concept of echelons to support their flanks is what I don't understand. Hannibal understood this concept, but the Greeks certainly didn't.

My understanding is that in Hellenistic armies the purpose of the cavalry was more offensive than defensive; the so-called hammer and anvil effect. Flank protection was supposed to be provided by the some more mobile infantry units. Unfortunatelly these moble infantry units never were able to hold their ground very well, and the heavy Roman infantry was able to strip them away from the flank of the phalanx. This bring up the question of the "brazen shields" at Chaeronea II. What sort of infantry were they? Were they the equivalent of Alexander's hypaspists, who were supposed to function as a flexible bridge between the companion cavalry and the phalanx? Whatever they were, they didn't hold up too well against the cohorts as they were driven back in a route. And regarding flank protection of the phalanx. Certain formations don't need it. As I mentioned before, Alexander had circular formations, but I don't know if he actually used these formations in battle. However, the Scots did use these circular formations very effectively against cavalry: http://scottishhistory.suite101.com/articl...ttish_schiltron The English were only able to break these formations by using the longbow (Falkirk)