Was the stereotypical Gladius Completely Useless Without the Stereotypical Scutum or Some other Rectangular Shield?

[LegateLivius]

So many Sword Reconstructionist like ScholaGladiatoria Who Runs a Youtube Channel claim that the Gladius is one of the least effective swords on its own..... That a Gladius user will lose to other sword styles 95%+ of the time according to another Sword Revivalist Metatron on one of his Youtube videos........ But ScholaGladiatoria and Metatron and practically every other Historical European Martial Arts enthusiast online states when you add a rectangular Body size shield into the equation, the Gladius becomes one of the flatout most effective swords and easily a contender for most noob friendly with minimal moveset (think attacks commonly used in formations like stab stab maybe a few cuts stab so common in shield wall fighting)..........

 

 

But this brings one single but extremely significant detail.....................

 

 

What about infantry Scouts? And lone defenders in a military building like sentry towers and a small 3 story barracks? Cramped camps?

 

 

I bring this up because a o you can find on Reddit and Quora multiple users pointing out that Scouts not only would have been used to disorganized combat outside of formation but even single one on one fighting but a lot of times they'd even drop out shields because they'd be too difficult to bring across wild environments like rocky roads full of potholes and caves. Another user also pointed at during the Siege of Rome after the disaster at the Allia Battle, the Celts manage to sneak into a Rome past the watchtower and the Roman miltiai were int for a surprise and had to rush last minute to the hidden pathway the Celts were sneaking into, many of them leaving their shields behind as they rushed. They managed to hold off and force the more heavily armored Gauls who all had shields and other heavy stuff because they were fully pumped up for battle to retreat,killing a surprising so many that ultimately it was the straw that broke Brennus's back and after a female days with some skirmishes in between, he made  truce to leave Central Italy in exchange for Gold.

So it makes me wonder how much the claim that a shield was necessary to fight with a Gladius even outside o formation is true? Considering the accounts of foot scouts in wars in the Middle East foot scous would travel much lighter because of the heat including dropping large straps of armor and still defeating more individualistic warrior cultures like the Hebrew Zealots and Armenian  cavalry harassers in unorganized out-of-formation fighting and a lot of sieges fighting in places too cramped for shields to be used like stairways across towers or inside a bedroom in a Roman barracks or at a bandit's lair climbing a steep hill into caves but Roman infantry still wininig without shields...........

 

Is this claim so common among HEMA and other historical sword recontructionists a massive hyperbole?

[caldrail]

Weapons are linked to usage. A single weapon used in an optimal way can be effective, but if used with a method or circumstance it wasn't intended for, it might not.

Now regarding the gladius, firstly recognise that our primary evidence for its effectiveness is that the Romans used versions of their shortsword for around six hundred years.

The gladius is optimised for use with a shield and preferably as a stabbing or thrusting weapon between shields in a mass unit frontage. It wasn't a battle winner as such - the Romans have a long record of defeats, and they themselves note that discipline was their key advantage.

[James Lawrie]

I'm highly dubious that short swords are ineffective or the least effective weapons.
ScholaGladiatora seem to get their bee in a bonnet about many things which seem to work only for them such as their spear obsession. Remember, HEMA is a cesspit of pet theories and personal rivalries and unsupported theories like this balloon in them.

Short swords persist long into history, weapons that last that long tend to have a viable use. Short swords seem to work well in very close combat and are effective at keeping yourself dragged down and stabbed with a dagger, one of the prime dangers of that sort of fighting (along with having your head stove in by a honking great stone someone threw into the air). Short swords even persisted into the era of white harness and long basilards were common among the Swiss and the katsbalger among the Landsknechts. 

[Aldarion]

On 9/11/2022 at 1:40 AM, LegateLivius said:

So many Sword Reconstructionist like ScholaGladiatoria Who Runs a Youtube Channel claim that the Gladius is one of the least effective swords on its own..... That a Gladius user will lose to other sword styles 95%+ of the time according to another Sword Revivalist Metatron on one of his Youtube videos........ But ScholaGladiatoria and Metatron and practically every other Historical European Martial Arts enthusiast online states when you add a rectangular Body size shield into the equation, the Gladius becomes one of the flatout most effective swords and easily a contender for most noob friendly with minimal moveset (think attacks commonly used in formations like stab stab maybe a few cuts stab so common in shield wall fighting)..........

 

 

But this brings one single but extremely significant detail.....................

 

 

What about infantry Scouts? And lone defenders in a military building like sentry towers and a small 3 story barracks? Cramped camps?

 

 

I bring this up because a o you can find on Reddit and Quora multiple users pointing out that Scouts not only would have been used to disorganized combat outside of formation but even single one on one fighting but a lot of times they'd even drop out shields because they'd be too difficult to bring across wild environments like rocky roads full of potholes and caves. Another user also pointed at during the Siege of Rome after the disaster at the Allia Battle, the Celts manage to sneak into a Rome past the watchtower and the Roman miltiai were int for a surprise and had to rush last minute to the hidden pathway the Celts were sneaking into, many of them leaving their shields behind as they rushed. They managed to hold off and force the more heavily armored Gauls who all had shields and other heavy stuff because they were fully pumped up for battle to retreat,killing a surprising so many that ultimately it was the straw that broke Brennus's back and after a female days with some skirmishes in between, he made  truce to leave Central Italy in exchange for Gold.

So it makes me wonder how much the claim that a shield was necessary to fight with a Gladius even outside o formation is true? Considering the accounts of foot scouts in wars in the Middle East foot scous would travel much lighter because of the heat including dropping large straps of armor and still defeating more individualistic warrior cultures like the Hebrew Zealots and Armenian  cavalry harassers in unorganized out-of-formation fighting and a lot of sieges fighting in places too cramped for shields to be used like stairways across towers or inside a bedroom in a Roman barracks or at a bandit's lair climbing a steep hill into caves but Roman infantry still wininig without shields...........

 

Is this claim so common among HEMA and other historical sword recontructionists a massive hyperbole?

On 11/10/2022 at 5:02 PM, James Lawrie said:

I'm highly dubious that short swords are ineffective or the least effective weapons.
ScholaGladiatora seem to get their bee in a bonnet about many things which seem to work only for them such as their spear obsession. Remember, HEMA is a cesspit of pet theories and personal rivalries and unsupported theories like this balloon in them.

Short swords persist long into history, weapons that last that long tend to have a viable use. Short swords seem to work well in very close combat and are effective at keeping yourself dragged down and stabbed with a dagger, one of the prime dangers of that sort of fighting (along with having your head stove in by a honking great stone someone threw into the air). Short swords even persisted into the era of white harness and long basilards were common among the Swiss and the katsbalger among the Landsknechts. 

Do keep in mind however that they never were primary or at least sole weapons. Short swords were a part of the weapons system, which combined throwing spear, large shield and a short sword. Usage of short sword was dependant on pila, with Roman legionaries acting more like heavy skirmishers.

With late legions, we see spear become a primary close quarters weapon, while ranged attack was done by using darts (plumbata) and archers.

But yes, usage of short sword does seem linked to usage of rectangular scutum. When Romans transition to round shields and shield walls, we also see them switch to thrusting spears and long swords.

Thing with warfare however is that you cannot reduce it to a competition of weapons systems. People matter - wars are contests between people, first and foremost, and deciding factor in battle are morale, tactics and training, with weapons being somewhere at the bottom.

[caldrail]

Roman tactics were minimal to say the least and their training was far from the martial art some people want it to have been, though the relentless repetition and practice "by the numbers" (that's straight from Roman sources by the way) were effective.  I've always maintained that half of warfare is psychology but bear in mind the Romans were very certain about this - they stress their one chief advantage was discipline.

[Aldarion]

On 12/17/2022 at 10:20 AM, caldrail said:

Roman tactics were minimal to say the least and their training was far from the martial art some people want it to have been, though the relentless repetition and practice "by the numbers" (that's straight from Roman sources by the way) were effective.  I've always maintained that half of warfare is psychology but bear in mind the Romans were very certain about this - they stress their one chief advantage was discipline.

Eh, depends on what "Romans" you are talking about, exactly. What you wrote here is true for certain periods of Republic and early Empire... but late Republican legions were extremely tactically flexible, and when you look at the stuff that late Roman and Byzantine armies regularly pulled off... Roman tactics could get extremely sophisticated when need be.

[caldrail]

I disagree completely. There's little or no evidence that Rome used complex tactical manoevers - their command and communications were nothing like as sophisticated to allow it, nor did the Romans want that sort of complexity. Give a commander more choices, he risks more errors of judgement. One only has to look at the chaotic deployment of Valen's army at Adrianople to realise how poor Roman battlefield skills were by that time.

The later Roman tactical nous wasn't based on official training or policy, nor was it uniform across the entire military - it was the result of native skills that already existed. Also, Vegetius didn't write a military manual in the reign of Valentinian, he wrote a treatise to select which practises of former times should be made standard - implying the old standards of training had gone.

Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to flee, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all.  - Nea Historia (Zosimus)
 

Bear in mind that the late Roman armies were ever more dependent on cheaper foreign mercenaries and many units went unpaid, seeking civilian jobs to make ends meet or simply vanishing.

[Aldarion]

21 hours ago, caldrail said:

I disagree completely. There's little or no evidence that Rome used complex tactical manoevers - their command and communications were nothing like as sophisticated to allow it, nor did the Romans want that sort of complexity. Give a commander more choices, he risks more errors of judgement. One only has to look at the chaotic deployment of Valen's army at Adrianople to realise how poor Roman battlefield skills were by that time.

 

I don't think we can extrapolate anything from Adrianople alone. That is like judging the Byzantine army by that one mismanagement at Manzikert. Premodern armies were extremely sensitive to leadership qualities, and Valens was simply a bad general.

Post-Hunnic Roman Army (5th, 6th and 7th centuries) utilized horse archers rather extensively, including the Hunnic mercenaries. This alone would, I think, disprove the assertion that they lacked sophisticated command and control, because horse archers pretty much require it to be effective.

Narses' tactics at battle of Casillinum, for example:

(Of course, Narses may have been an exceptionally good commander - but army still had to be versatile enough to actually allow for such tactics).

[caldrail]

Sophisticated command and control? How? How did one guy receive information and relay orders back dynamically? Didn't happen, it was all localised with an overall plan in the background if it was possible to formulate one before the battle and make junior commanders aware of it.

And yes, we can extrapolate from Adrianople like any other battle, especially since you attempted to do the same.

Valens was not a bad commander. He was dealing with courtiers and commanders at odds with each other. New boy Sebastianus had been brought in to replace the existing army leader Trajanus who was still among the court with Valens, who had to make a number of speeches to his very reluctant army just to get them to march at all.

But realise Valens didn't want the battle. The Trajanus faction had spoken in favour of battle, Sebastianus wanted skirmishers to whittle the Goths down and force a surrender. Seb blew it trying to stay in Valens favour too enthusiatically, and he felt it necessary to turn in favour of battle too in order to take the wind out of Trajanus. Even then, what Valens wanted was a negotiated surrender.

Fritigern, the Goth leader, wanted to play for time so the cavalry out of foraging would return to boost his numbers, and this was why Valens was given wrong information from his scouts and spies.

Here's the thing. One Roman cavalry unit arrives so late the Goths think the battle is beginning and loose off volleys of arrows. The Romans think the Goths have started the battle and react, beginning an assault on the Goth camp which was repulsed. Valens had no control over this. No Roman commander would have. because units were acting under their own cognizance  on both sides. That was normal in ancient warfare.

These days we take command and control almost for granted, but if you care to notice, even during the recent difficulties in Eastern Europe C2 is not easy. Not just because of enemy interference, but because of poor training , poor equipment, and a general lack of cooperation. If we can't get it right after thousands of years of military activity, what makes you believe the Romans somehow mastered the art when Vegetius, almost a contemporary of Adrianople, admitted to his sponsor Valentianian that the Roman legions were not as good as they had been?

Edited January 14, 2023 by caldrail

[Aldarion]

12 hours ago, caldrail said:

Sophisticated command and control? How? How did one guy receive information and relay orders back dynamically? Didn't happen, it was all localised with an overall plan in the background if it was possible to formulate one before the battle and make junior commanders aware of it.

Things are obviously relative. What was "sophisticated C&C" back in antiquity would be children-level today. But Byzantine army for example was capable of forming an infantry square, having cavalry attacking from said infantry square in a pincer maneuver, and retreat back to protection of the square following the attack if said attack didn't break the enemy.

Or look at what Alexander did at Gaugamela:

https://kosmossociety.chs.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Gaugamela-One.jpg 

Romans during the Principate did avoid such complex maneuvers, but late Roman army was capable of them. Look at the Battle of Strasbourg for example:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=battle+of+strasbourg&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

Something like this would be completely outside the capability of your average Greek phalanx. Hence, "sophisticated command and control". although obviously limited communications would have required most of this stuff to be preplanned (aka "if the enemy does X, you do Y"). I doubt commander would have immediate control over any part of his army other than maybe reserve and his own escort.

12 hours ago, caldrail said:

And yes, we can extrapolate from Adrianople like any other battle, especially since you attempted to do the same.

Valens was not a bad commander. He was dealing with courtiers and commanders at odds with each other. New boy Sebastianus had been brought in to replace the existing army leader Trajanus who was still among the court with Valens, who had to make a number of speeches to his very reluctant army just to get them to march at all.

But realise Valens didn't want the battle. The Trajanus faction had spoken in favour of battle, Sebastianus wanted skirmishers to whittle the Goths down and force a surrender. Seb blew it trying to stay in Valens favour too enthusiatically, and he felt it necessary to turn in favour of battle too in order to take the wind out of Trajanus. Even then, what Valens wanted was a negotiated surrender.

Fritigern, the Goth leader, wanted to play for time so the cavalry out of foraging would return to boost his numbers, and this was why Valens was given wrong information from his scouts and spies.

Here's the thing. One Roman cavalry unit arrives so late the Goths think the battle is beginning and loose off volleys of arrows. The Romans think the Goths have started the battle and react, beginning an assault on the Goth camp which was repulsed. Valens had no control over this. No Roman commander would have. because units were acting under their own cognizance  on both sides. That was normal in ancient warfare.

Thanks, but even so, nothing you have described shows that late Roman army was in any way inferior to army of the Principate, or incapable of - for the time - sophisticated maneuvers. It just shows us a lot of confusion and politicking, the same thing which doomed the Romans at Manzikert.

[caldrail]

Why did Vegetius write De Re Militaris? What does it contain? If you can't acknowledge that, your opinions are no use to me.

[Aldarion]

On 1/14/2023 at 5:45 PM, caldrail said:

Why did Vegetius write De Re Militaris? What does it contain? If you can't acknowledge that, your opinions are no use to me.

Vegetius believed that Roman army had declined in discipline and was thus decisively inferior compared to its Principate predecessor, and outlined how to fix these issues.

But just because he believed that doesn't mean it is true. Roman army of the Dominate may have been inferior to army of the Principate in carrying out its task - but that does not mean the army itself was inferior, because the overall situation was completely different. Basically, enemy gets the vote.

[caldrail]

You'll have to do better than that.

Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to flee, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all. - Nea Historia (Zosimus)