[Randolph Howard]

[Daniel Parry]

Afternoon Randolph

Good luck with the messer technique and also with the dissertation. Interesting idea to draw philosophic principles from such a physically descriptive and apparently (stress on the apparently) objective writer. But then he does show a lot of his sympathies regarding the radical democracy either blatantly (re the Athenians' inability to make decisions) or in between the lines (his seeming disapproval of Alcibiades' behaviour but his clear liking for his undemocratic leadership style). I suppose also the times he was living in, the fact that he went to the scene of a lot of events and the very immediate and dangerous situations Athens and Sparta faced may have inclined him to a more real politik approach than those of the more academic Platonic school. In that sense he was probably more Kate Adie than Jeremy Paxman. Sounds like a good topic.

I couldn't place the quote but having spent years at school and university trawling through Thucydides it seemed like a very likely statement (if paraphrased) by him. Typically morose. Reminded me of that old man character in The Fast Show who walks out of the door saying 'Knowing my luck..........' and steps into a 5 foot deep puddle. I can imagine him seeing the ships collide and saying 'Oooh bugger'.

Daniel

[Randolph Howard]

[Daniel Parry]

Evening Randolph,

I wasn't suggesting that Thucydides' personal opinions detracted from him being a good source as an objective observer of the times, rather the opposite, that some may have considered him too objective an observer from which to extract a subjective philosophal outlook. I don't agree with that, and think you are entirely right to try and exract a philosophic principle from what he wrote. As I said i think it's a good topic. Before I venture further I would add you have me at a disadvantage as it's 13 years since I opened many of these books but I shall continue for the sake of enjoyable conversation (correct me if I'm wrong on any point as I'll have to drag some dusty volumes from the shelves to enter into any substantive debate).

On democratic principles and Alcibiades' leadership I would see a strong similarity between the incompetent execution of the generals you mention and Alcibiades' recall from Sicily (as i remember something to do with him and his friends smashing the genitals off the Hermes statues while out on a bender, which ultimatley may have been a reason for his going over to the Spartan side). Until that point the Sicilian Expedition was going OK so it wasn't his election as general under democratic principles which caused the failure but rather the classic in-fighting amongst the assembly and accusations which recalled him and stopped him doing his job as a general with total power - thus both failures of the radical form of assembly. I always felt it was Thucydides' opinion that it was this inconsistency in leadership as a result of the Athenian democracy that caused the upset in campaign success. IE Alcibiades' ascendency may have been through democratic processes but what was required for his ultimate success was a consistent leadership guarantee regardless of the opinions of those at home, a guaranteed leadership which was fundamentally against the principles of the Athenian assembly. So in that sense both the execution of the generals and the failure of the Sicilian Expedition after Alcibiades' recall could have been atributed in Thucydides' mind to the same problems of the tidal opinions of the assembly and influenced his disaffection from the Athenian system.

I suppose my main challenge to the abuse of power argument is that Thucydides maybe was aware that such an abuse could occur but was far more aware that inconsistent leadership in a campaign could be fatal. So he was more afraid of the failings of the system of radical democracy per se than the dangers of popularity which might arise from it.

On Perikles as the Platonic philosopher king ... have to think on that one. But wasn't one of Plato's criteria that he wouldn't want the job ? I think Perikles probably did want the job.

A great pleasure to chat

Daniel

[Jean Thibodeau]

Randolph;

Just want to say that I am enjoying this topic and thanks for starting it and the interesting historical analysis.

[Hisham Gaballa]

I don't know much about 16th century European weaponry, but didn't the landsknechts use a short sword called the baselard? Are there any descriptions of how that was used?

[Daniel Staberg]

The interesting fact that both Machiavelli and Oman leaves out is that the Spanish swiftly abandoned large scale sue of the sword and buckler and armed the men with pikes instead. Indeed the "many more" fights and battles aluded to by Oman in p. 110 are strangely absent from the remainder of his book. Of course at a closer examiantion of battles fought after Ravenna this is no longer strange since the sword and buckler never again played such significant in a large scale battle. Machiavelli was very much in favour of the sword-and-buckler and wasted no opportunity to extoll their virtues while glossign over their weakness and failures. He was quite lucky in that he never had to apply his theories in an actual battle since he would have been in for several rude surprises

Ravenna and the Macedonian defeat at Pydna 168 BC is a good example of the vulnerability of pike phalanx disordered by terrain or obstacles. At Ravenna the Landsknechts had to cross a trench and go over a wall and/or through a series of "war carts" equiped with spears and scythes as well as mounting heavy arquebuses, all under heavy fire, before they could get to "push of pike". It was when the pikemen of both side engaged in a furious fight that the sword-and-buckler men got stuck in as described. Some recent reserach by Spanish historians has suggested that the Swordsmen were not specialist troops but rear rank pikemen who dropped their pikes and went in with sword and small buckler instead.

As in the earlier fightign around Barletta the sword and buckler combination enjoyed success when fighting a disorderd formation of pikemen involved in an assult of a fortified position. When sword-andbuckler men faced well ordered pikes in the open as at Seminara in 1495 they were quickly overrun by the pike phalanx and scattered. Under certain (special) circumstances the sword combined with a buckler enjoyed a clear advantage over the pike but outside those rare circumstances the sword was at a disadvanatge so in the end the pike won out.

The Roman defeat of Philip V at Cynoscephalae had more to do with the flexibility of the Roman tactical system rather. than any automatic superiority of the Gladius when facing of against the Sarissa. Cynoscephalae was a rare event in ancient times, what today is called a "meeting engagement" in which they two armies had to deploy and fight at the same time. The Macedonian right wing was able to form up and the Romans (as always) were unable to stand up to the superior weight of a formed phalanx. However the Macedonian left wing was disoered due to the difficult terrain were it had to deply and befor eit was fully formed the Romans struck them with a rapid assult involving not only legionaires but also cavalry and war elephants. As the Romans began to pursue the defeated Macedonians an enterprising tribune took command of the entire 3rd Roman line, the Triarii and led them in an attack on the rear of the until then victorious Macedonian right wing.

At Pydna, 29 years later it was once again the superior flexibility of the Roman system combined with a phalanx disordred by rough terrain which lead to the crushing Macedonian defeat.

A couple of good introductions to the battles of Cynoscephalae & Pydna
http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/cynocephalae-197bc.htm
http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/pydna.htm

Now the Roman fightign technique centered around use of the gladius combined with the pila played an important part in creating the tactical flexibility I mention above but both depended ehavily on each other and were not without weaknesses.
The looser Roman formation with their short weapons were just as vulnerable to good cavalry as the Spanish swordsmen 1700 years later as was proved at Magnesia when the Selucid cataphracts went through a legion like a hot knife through butter.
A stand up fight against a well ordered phalanx on level ground was also a fight in which the legions found themselves at a disadvantage though the Roman way of war gave them two abilites which lessend this disadvantage.

1. The Roman legions possesed a resilience which was until then basicly unknown among heavy infantry, under frontal preasure a Roman legion would bend but it would take a lot of effort to break it. At it was once the enemy formation was broken that a phalanx inflicted most casulities on the enemy.

2. Unlike the pike armed phalanx the Romans fighting with pila and gladius tended to cause a larger number of casulties during actual fighting before an enemy formation was broken. And these casulties were inflicted on the front ranks of the opposign phalanx which conatied the best and most skilled men. This led to Phyrrus famous complaint about another victory against the Romans would be utter ruin. Not becaue he was losing a lot of men but because those he lost to such a high degree was irreplaceable veternas and NCOs.

The resilience and flexibility of the evolved legion combined Tomes superior manpower made the Romans almost unbeatable on the strategic level. They could loose a lot of battles and legiosn and still keep coming while their enemies often only had one army. Once the Macedonians or Seleucids lost a battle they were basicly defenceless since their core troops were few numbers and hard to replace. The carthagians had greater resrouces which allowed them to sustain heavier losses but even they say the quality of their armes decline as they lost battles while the Romans were able to sustain the quality of the legions in the face of repeated defeats and even improved thanks to lessons learned the hard way.

Oops, this got quite long, apologies for the lecture
/Daniel

[Randolph Howard]

Please forgive the late reply- don't get the internet at weekends- only at work!

Jean- Merci.

Daniel P, hear hear!,

I think you're pretty close to the mark with Alkibiades- despite his flaws he is depicted as being enormously talented, and in throwing him away in the way that they do the Athenians reveal the woeful disadvantages which the radical democracy carried for a state at war. This is what makes Perikles such an awsome figure in the text- the people never go through in getting rid of him, even when they're really angry (about the fortification of Dekelea in Attica for example). They are perhaps decieved: Thucydides tells us in 2.65 that "in what was nominally a democracy, power was really in the hands of the first citizen". So Perikles effectively overrides the democracy, and provides the stable leadership which, as you pointed out, Athens so fatally lacked- but he also avoids acting like a tyrant: the fictitious figure certainly has elements of the benign dictator, even though I'm sure the real man quite enjoyed the job!

Daniel S,

A more comprehensive post I never did see! Pydna is the perfect example of the flexibility of the gladius armed legions (but from what you say it was lucky the Macedonians didn't have hoards of Companions!). Something I've never been able to explain however, is how the Romans could sustain the losses they did. I figured it was something to do with the political system- when the fate of the army if bound to the personality of an individual king, defeat reflects badly on the monarch- his authority is diminished, or if killed wiped out (of course), and the loyalty of troops and nobles starts to waver... But in the Roman Republic, one consul might be defeated or even killed, and his career ended, while the senate, the Republic itself, remains unaffected: sovereignty is bound within the ethos of the republican state rather than the individual autocrat, and so cannot be brought down by individual misfortune in thwe way that Alexander's empire was ofter his death.
What I fail to understand is where the early Romans got all the men to lose repeatedly to Hannibal and live to fight another day!!
Any clues?


Always a pleasure, guys,

R.

[Sam Barris]

[Daniel Staberg]

[Daniel Parry]

What we omitted to say, Randolph, looking at your recent joining date was the necessary 'welcome'to the site. Or at least I did. So.......'Welcome'. And keep the good questions coming. Very thought provoking stuff.

Yes, Perikles as primus inter pares, but as you say he had more of the benign about him than others who have had that tag attached to them.

Daniel

[Randolph Howard]

Thanks- glad to be a part of it.

[Randolph Howard]

Sam-

Machiavelli's argument for the effectiveness of loyal native militia is well supported by his use of examples such as the English (archers and billmen for eg) or the french gendarme military systems. However, it leaves questions with regards to the military needs of a city state, including early Rome. A city state in italy probably could not field enough men for a force capable of defensive operations against hostile neighbours AND the major european powers- let alone offenseive moves. That is absolute conjecture on my part, but seems probable when simply comparing the populations of, say, Florentine territory with France, and the fact we know that Macchiavelli's citizen force was in the end ineffective in asserting Florence's independence (thanks myArmoury ).
My main impetus lies in the example set by Rome itself. Of course, with so many 'allies' providing troops, the Romans were bound to eventually be forced into a social war unless it ceased simultaneously exploiting and militarily empowering (a strengthening which was warned of by Cicero) its subjects- by for example extending citizenship. We must at the same time recognise, however, that Machiavelli's militia system had already failed the Romans, whose numerically limited citizen army (in the Greek tradition) had been swept aside, with their city, by the Gauls in 390BC. Perhaps a social war was a small price to pay for the influx of troops which allowed Rome to win an empire, or are there sigificant differences between the Classical and Machiavellian citizen armies which disable the comparison?

[Jean Thibodeau]

Randolph;

A citizen soldier would have to leave his farm take his weapons and join his unit in times of crisis: If a campaign lasted for years you would have to have some rotation of troops or you would eventually have a lot of unhappy citizen soldiers.

In a purely defensive war when the " Barbarian " hordes were literally at your door I don't think a citizen soldiers would go back to his farm as long as the danger remained: That would be like just turning your back on your neighbours and would do nothing to keep your farm or family safe.

When war becomes " Imperial " with long range political goals far removed from immediate survival citizen soldiers would balk at staying in a campaign while the weeds grew on their farms.

At the other extreme is the paid mercenary who fights for profit or for the " glory " of it and has no patriotic allegiance to the people he is fighting for. ( French Foreign Legion in a possible modern context. ) On the plus side casualties don't upset your population and you can give dirty jobs to mercenaries even against your own population.

The middle ground is the citizen soldiers whose full time job is the military or a Feudal system were the peasant majority supports a specialized and highly trained fighting elite. The bargain made is that the warriors will spend their lives to protect their people at the price from the people that they become an elite with better food, clothes, property i.e. power.

When not abused it is a fair bargain between those who do nothing but fight, train, and die and those who are protected from attack at the cost of supporting this elite with their sweat and labor.

In any case I hope you find this useful as general theory that can be supported or contradicted by history.

[Daniel Parry]

We're dipping our brushes in a wide range of cultural paint pots here aren't we. I think what Jean says about the balance between trained armies, warrior elites and citizen levies is correct in that essentially it comes down do a soccial contract view of societal structure. Whichever the system, each party has to know his responsibility and do his bit as it were.

I think the risk of internal conflict within Rome due to empowerment and enfranchisement both socially and militarily of client state populations was not just a risk run but a risk which had to be run. Aside from the failure of early Roman citizen armies, Rome probably realised two things in this respect: firstly that a trained professional army was more readily available in emergency and more efective in the field; and secondly that whether they were enlisted as citizens in the legions or as non-citizen auxilliaries, local forces were essential if Rome was to manage an empire of its size. This is not just an issue of numerical forces in the field but one of affiliation. They couldn't permanently hold down a reluctant empire without giving something in return, and Rome probably hoped that the economic and social stability benefits of enfranchisement would make client states or provinces willing to be a part of and fight for Rome and a necessary risk. To a degree I suppose they were right as most challenges came from outside the empire.

Didn't the medieval Italian states use quite large numbers of mercenaries or routiers in their conflicts (and also get held hostage by them practically)?

I've been reading a bit recently on the Saxon Fyrd and the pros and cons of a levied army which draws people away from the agricultural infrastructure. A tricky balance to be sure.

Daniel

[David Black Mastro]

Hello Daniel,

[Felix Wang]

The nature of Renaissance armies was rather different than Roman ones, which may have influenced the success of native militia forces. Roman armies mostly had three types of soldier - legionaries, cavalry, and varying numbers of light or lighter-armed infantry. There were some specific additions at one time or another, but the basic types didn't change much, and weren't highly differentiated and specialized. Renaissance armies, on the other hand, were quite highly specialized - as David's post about pikes, targetiers, and missile troops reflects. Light and heavy cavalry did quite different things, and artillery was a new thing (yes, the Romans had ballistas and catapults with their legions, but these didn't play the critical role a Renaissance artillery battery could play.). Training and equipping different types of troops certainly made things harder for Renaissance army-builders than Roman ones. Two of these types were extremely expensive - the heavy horse and the artillery. The disparity of cost between raising these expensive troops and the cheaper ones was far greater than anything the Romans faced. I suspect this made a native militia-based army more difficult to create - one has to create vastly different types of soldiers out of local resources. (Artillerymen were not proper soldiers in this period, of course, but the problem persists.) The cost of creating an artillery train was a huge strain for a medium-sized Italian state, as compared to the Kingdom of France.

[Daniel Staberg]

[David Black Mastro]

Daniel,

[Randolph Howard]

Daniel P,

Yes- the Italians seem to have been shafted by Mercenaries rather a lot. With regards to recruitment I'm not sure what other choices they had if they couldn't field enough native troops. I'm utterly ignorant of this period really, so I'll let these guys fight it out!

It's out with the books again...

R.