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A unit is not an army. After the adoption of the Marian legion, every soldier was a paid professional. Not just a couple elite groups, everybody.
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Sep 23, 2012 05:07
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Also as mentioned, the Spartans were elite upper class warriors supported by a slave class. They were not paid soldiers employed by the state. They trained and drilled and such, but they went home at the end of the day, not to the barracks. Most other armies of the day had similar arrangements. I think a short definition would be an army, not elite units, an army of soldiers that are recruited, paid, equipped, and supported by the state.
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Sep 23, 2012 05:14
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Also as mentioned, the Spartans were elite upper class warriors supported by a slave class. They were not paid soldiers employed by the state. They trained and drilled and such, but they went home at the end of the day, not to the barracks. Most other armies of the day had similar arrangements. Spartan men didn't go home at the end of the day until they reached a set age; only older Spartan men lived with their families. I think a having a publically owned slave class support you would qualify as being state-supported, but I do appreciate that Spartans were different in the sense that they were not subordinate and employed by a non-military class. At any rate, most other armies the Spartans encountered, at least during the 5th century, did not have similar arrangements. quote:I think a short definition would be an army, not elite units, an army of soldiers that are recruited, paid, equipped, and supported by the state. In the sense that the fighting ranks consist 100% of full-time, long-term enlisted soldiers? That definition of a standing, professional army would exclude the Spartans, given that they used the lower classes and allies in their armies a lot. Spartans would still be professional soldiers, and the idea that Marius somehow changed soldiers for the first time from farmers to professionals would still be wrong, but the general claim makes sense now. I take it that after Marius, the Roman armies did not use part-timers at all in their ranks?
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Sep 23, 2012 05:39
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The Romans would hire mercenaries but after Marius there were no non-professionals in the legion. The generals were still politicians for quite a while, but even that ends in either the 300s or 400s CE, can't remember which. The east maintains professional armies while the rest of Europe goes to the feudal levy/knights/mercenaries system for the next thousand years or so.
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Sep 23, 2012 05:43
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Agesilaus is actually discussing things in detail on a more or less fact-by fact basis? So he actually IS serious about that whole WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS (TM) thing? And I consoled myself by believing that was only a cheap trolling account 
SavageGentleman fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Sep 23, 2012 |
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Sep 23, 2012 11:34
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SavageGentleman posted:Agesilaus is actually discussing things in detail on a more or less fact-by fact basis? That can be pretty interesting though, I mean even if he's wrong, he's interested and knows some stuff- or at least he can bring up some good stuff to discuss. The whole standing army deal was informative to me. Let's not make too much fun of him, dude's channeling Cicero.
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Sep 23, 2012 12:57
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Barto posted:Let's not make too much fun of him, dude's channeling Cicero. Can we show our respect by cutting off his hands?
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Sep 23, 2012 13:05
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That's why I'm not giving him any poo poo this time.  It's an interesting discussion both about how the Roman military worked and the way history is categorized and viewed.
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Sep 23, 2012 13:06
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The question is, is he actually Grumblefish's rereg or just some other random dipshit who feels like trolling?
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Sep 23, 2012 13:21
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I think we can all agree that the Spartans are just kinda weird. Speaking of primary sources though, what's the consensus on the accuracy of Procopius' Secret History? Accurate description of a decadent palace, or the 6th century equivalent of Glenn Beck?
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Sep 23, 2012 15:08
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Agesilaus posted:What's the definition of a professional army that is "commonly accepted" for in Classics and History departments at universities? See below. Agesilaus posted:You seem to be saying that the Spartans maintained a professional army in this post, so are you agreeing that it is wrong to say that Marius was the first to institute this sort of thing? If so, then how is it the "commonly accepted" position that there wasn't a professional army until Marius? I also don't understand the relevance of saying that Spartans didn't have a choice; that may be true, but it doesn't change the nature of the Spartan life style. No, I am saying that it might look kind of like a professional army in the sense that they were essentially always a standing army due to the citizen lifestyle, BUT what we mean when we say professionalized army is "standing army, soldiers paid by salary/stipend instead of just a share of booty taken, equipment provided by state." Is that good enough? The major difference is the mode of payment. Grand Fromage posted:Do you have a link to this? I'm intrigued, I've always read that the Palatine settlements are from the 8th century. That would be cool if they're that much older. Yeah those ones are but I guess some bronze age stuff has been found also in the area? I'm getting this from Cornell, T. The Beginnings of Rome. London: Routledge, 1995. p. 72.: Cornell posted:One point on which there is said to be substantial agreement between the tradition and the archaeological evidence is the foundation of Romulus' settlement on the Palatine, dated byu the Romans themselves to the mid-eighth century BC. The discovery on the Germalus (one of the summits of the Palatine) of iron-age huts dating from phase III of the cultura laziale was once thought to have vindicated tradition in this instance. But we now know that permanent occupation of the site began long before, and that the hut foundations are not the earliest evidence of settlement, even on the Palatine itself, where material from phase I has been found in a deposit beneath the huts, and an isolated phase I cremation burial was unearthed under the House of Livia, between the Germalus and the Palatium.83 This evidence, together with the phase I burials in the Forum, indicates that the site was inhabited from around 1000 BC.84 Notes: Cornell, p 415-6 posted:83. C. Ampolo, CLP (1976), 144-5. The cremation grave under the house of Livia is reported in G. Carretoni, BPI 64 (1954), 299; E. Gjerstad, Early Rome III (1960), 72. I can find no evidence to support M. Pallottino's statement that 'the summit of the Palatine was already occupied by vast concentrations of huts in the Early Iron Age'(my italics): Italy before the Romans (1979), 202. I'd be interested to hear what current archaeologists think. I trust Cornell for most things generally but I'm surprised I haven't read it anywhere else. e: While I'm doing this, he does also say on p. 187 that Roman soldiers were paid a stipendium from the end of the 5th century on. He cites Crawford Coinage and Money (1985), 22-3. Ancient source: Livy 4.36 & 5.2. Eggplant Wizard fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Sep 23, 2012 |
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Sep 23, 2012 15:13
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Eggplant Wizard posted:e: While I'm doing this, he does also say on p. 187 that Roman soldiers were paid a stipendium from the end of the 5th century on. He cites Crawford Coinage and Money (1985), 22-3. Ancient source: Livy 4.36 & 5.2. If I remember correctly this was done because the Romans were seiging Veii and it required year round garrisons around the city. This was devestating the soldiers farms and families, so the city paid them to prevent armed soldiers turning against the city. The pay was inadequate at best, but it did set a precedent.
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Sep 23, 2012 19:20
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Can you guys sum up the Greek/Roman relationship? It confuses me a bit. I just assumed they were always rivals. Then different language and alphabet. Why didn't they just make them speak Latin? I assume the wealthy folks of Rome spoke Greek.I know Rome kind of came about after they had their glory days. And that they stole a ton of, well, everything from them. Did Rome just let them do their own thing towards the end? Nostalgia4Dogges fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Sep 23, 2012 |
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Sep 23, 2012 20:03
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Christoff posted:Can you guys sum up the Greek/Roman relationship? It confuses me a bit. I just assumed they were always rivals. Then different language and alphabet. Why didn't they just make them speak Latin? I assume the wealthy folks of Rome spoke Greek.I know Rome kind of came about after they had their glory days. And that they stole a ton of, well, everything from them. Can I sum it up? Sure. "Complicated, and often presented overly simplistically." I'll try to go as short as possible but I have a lot of feelings about this, especially regarding the "stealing." The Greek Side
The Roman Side
tldr: Rome didn't steal stuff from Greece. They participated in a much broader Mediterranean environment where Greek culture had a huge influence everywhere. Rome no more "stole" Greek cultural elements than Alexander did, or than Americans stole pretzels from the Germans. Religion: This is a hard one for people to get their minds around in our monotheistic world, but basically, for a pantheistic society surrounded by pantheistic societies... all gods are gods. A stranger's pantheon is probably mostly just different names for the same kinds of gods, so why not combine their stories and rituals with yours? This is called syncretism. "Oh, you guys have a father god? Ours is Iuppiter. Yours is Zeus? Neat. Wow, your Zeus sure gets around, heh. Those stories are great; I'm totally going to share them, except I'll use our names for stuff." In the same vein, if you encounter a stranger's god who doesn't seem to match up with anyone in your pantheon, well, probably a good idea to look into that more and consider bringing him in. Romans didn't have an Apollo as such, so they worshiped the Greek one. Herakles sounded super neat, so they picked him up too, just as very very very many other peoples in Italy did. It's also worth knowing that an awful lot of stories in Greek myth either parallel or have clearly descended from more easterly traditions. We just don't hear so much about how Apollo was a middle eastern type dude before he was a Greek one because the Greeks didn't even know it themselves, probably. Language: Romans didn't pursue any policy of forced cultural assimilation. People learned Latin because they needed it to communicate with Romans. Greeks by and large didn't really learn it because the higher class Romans had been educated in the Greek mode (see above on Civilization = Greek civilization), so they already knew it. Romans didn't go around learning Gallic or Oscan, but they happened to know Greek due to its historical and continuing status as a prestige language. One thing that fucks up people's understanding of the ancient world is the constant dichotomy-making between Rome and Greece. That's due more to the Western Tradition of Romano-Greek cultural elements as foundational to our own society than it is to any historical reality. (e: and a weird Roman inferiority complex in regards to Greece) WoodrowSkillson posted:If I remember correctly this was done because the Romans were seiging Veii and it required year round garrisons around the city. This was devestating the soldiers farms and families, so the city paid them to prevent armed soldiers turning against the city. The pay was inadequate at best, but it did set a precedent. Yes, true. e: I forgot my map 
Eggplant Wizard fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Sep 23, 2012 |
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Sep 23, 2012 22:49
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The artistic phase before this is sometimes called the "Orientalizing Phase" because Greeks were adopting artistic motifs & myths and stuff from their eastern neighbors. Who's stealing now?)
From here we also see lots of interest in Greek culture among Roman elites, partly due to: more travel by armies; contact in Sicily during Punic Wars; acquisition of Greek colonies by 264 BC; booty (Greek art and poo poo brought back to Rome); increased contact through Greek immigration (and enslavement) or embassies to Rome... etc. Greek stuff is still culturally The Cool Thing and now Rome is The Cool Kids politically so they sure as hell are gonna have The Cool Thing.
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Christoff posted:Can you guys sum up the Greek/Roman relationship? It confuses me a bit. I just assumed they were always rivals. Then different language and alphabet. Why didn't they just make them speak Latin? I assume the wealthy folks of Rome spoke Greek.I know Rome kind of came about after they had their glory days. And that they stole a ton of, well, everything from them. Towards the end the Greeks were Rome. Byzantium and all that. 
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Sep 23, 2012 23:01
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Grand Fromage posted:That's why I'm not giving him any poo poo this time. Yeah, I learnt a bit as well because of the discussion. I had never taken the time to notice or consider the idea that the Roman army consisted of a fully-fledged professional, standing force, rather than a standing, public force that would rely on large, temporary levies when going to battle. Similarly, the Hellenic forces I can think of almost always had a significant number of amateurs fleshing out the lines and the skirmishers, and many of the later, huge armies were significantly funded/rewarded by booty as well as the barbarians who would be bribed with such booty or foreign money. The Han Chinese standing army I mentioned was just a sort of home-guard army, for military expiditions they're still relying on large public levies. If you go prior to Han, they were clearly using levies during the Qin and Warring States period; the Book of Lord Shang for example spends a lot of time talking about how the government should employ its population in an endless cycle of farming and fighting. Eggplant Wizard posted:No, I am saying that it might look kind of like a professional army in the sense that they were essentially always a standing army due to the citizen lifestyle, BUT what we mean when we say professionalized army is "standing army, soldiers paid by salary/stipend instead of just a share of booty taken, equipment provided by state." Is that good enough? The major difference is the mode of payment. But it seems the strongest difference is that the Romans were creating an army that was entirely professional, not that the soldiers were publically funded and received equipment from the state. A few examples have been mentioned in this thread where soldiers prior to Marius were receiving public funding and equipment rather than bringing their own toys and living off the booty, but all those examples were of forces that would employ large numbers of amateurs in times of conflict. Anyway, is anyone here especially knowledgeable about the nature of the Successor State armies? They obviously had elite standing units, including foot, cavalry, and elephant brigades, but on the other hand in times of war they did use levies and did take a lot of booty by pillaging places. However, didn't Roman soldiers take a lot of booty? I recall instances where Roman generals allowed their troops to run rampant and enrich themselves, so what was the regular way for Romans to divvy up booty post-Marius? Did the Romans simply create a system where booty was never more than a reward that could be done without? Also, someone mentioned that Roman generals remained politicians post-Marius; wouldn't the generals be part of the army? If so, you have Spartan armies being led by a hereditary professionals thanks to the dual monarchy, and Roman armies with temporary leaders. Then again, it's obvious that some of the Roman politicians were in the field for such lengthy periods of time that they may as well be full-time, professional generals. Eggplant Wizard posted:(e: and a weird Roman inferiority complex in regards to Greece) Can you blame them?  (nice post btw) EDIT: For anyone who is interested in Roman history and also likes playing video games, here's a turn-based title that's dedicated to some sense of accuracy, Alea Jacta Est: http://www.ageod.com/en/ageod-games/35-pre-order-alea-jacta-est-base-version.html It has the conflict between Marius and Sulla, as well as a few other Roman civil wars, the Spartacus Rebellion (if you pre-ordered, but they're apparently going to add it to the regular version later), and the wars with Mithridates. It was just released yesterday, it's getting good reviews, I enjoy it, and the grognard game thread seems to like it, too. (link to rockpapershotgun review: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/21/the-flare-path-diecast-romans/ ) Agesilaus fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Sep 24, 2012 |
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Sep 23, 2012 23:44
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Agesilaus posted:However, didn't Roman soldiers take a lot of booty? I recall instances where Roman generals allowed their troops to run rampant and enrich themselves, so what was the regular way for Romans to divvy up booty post-Marius? Did the Romans simply create a system where booty was never more than a reward that could be done without? The generals distributed any booty collected however they wanted. In order to keep the troops happy it was generally an equal payment of coin or similar. I'm sure individual soldiers absolutely picked up stuff and took it for themselves, but I don't know how much of that would end up in the general pool or not. It's not just the Romans, either; booty was like half the reason for war in the ancient world. It's cattle raiding on a huge scale.
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Sep 24, 2012 00:54
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Armies looting poo poo contributed heavily to the Roman economy in some periods. Soldiers being paid a bonus with the loot was standard practice if you didn't want to get assassinated by some angry centurions. Large parts of the loot would often be put into public works by the general who led the expedition, helping his political career along. The Colosseum's easily the most famous of these, built with the money from looting Judea. The generals later did spend significant amounts of time in the field, but it was still part of the political world. It wasn't the old system of consuls being the generals and swapping command days and that poo poo--they knew that didn't work--but leading an army was still a fundamentally political appointment for a long time and a way to make a career. There were some instances of a soldier rising up to be a general but most of them were aristocrats that did it as part of their expected duties. Eventually the obvious problem of having your politicians running around with armies gets somewhat taken care of by legally separating the political and military worlds. This is part of why medieval Rome doesn't have constant civil wars the way classical Rome did.
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Sep 24, 2012 01:16
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Grand Fromage posted:The generals later did spend significant amounts of time in the field, but it was still part of the political world. It wasn't the old system of consuls being the generals and swapping command days and that poo poo--they knew that didn't work--but leading an army was still a fundamentally political appointment for a long time and a way to make a career. There were some instances of a soldier rising up to be a general but most of them were aristocrats that did it as part of their expected duties. Eventually the obvious problem of having your politicians running around with armies gets somewhat taken care of by legally separating the political and military worlds. This is part of why medieval Rome doesn't have constant civil wars the way classical Rome did. By "medieval Rome" you mean the Byzantines? They had plenty of civil wars. Some of them were succession conficts for the throne, but a bunch were led by the army trying to overthrow the civilian political regime (e.g., the Doukas) because they kept making GBS threads up the themes system that kept the army funded.
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Sep 24, 2012 03:00
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sullat posted:By "medieval Rome" you mean the Byzantines? They had plenty of civil wars. Some of them were succession conficts for the throne, but a bunch were led by the army trying to overthrow the civilian political regime (e.g., the Doukas) because they kept making GBS threads up the themes system that kept the army funded. Did they? I don't know much about that era but from what I've read it didn't seem like there was anywhere near the level of civil strife that classical Rome endured. Lots of infighting and assassinations but not so much giant armies roaming the countryside battling. But that's from a minimal amount of reading on the subject. And yes, we use medieval Rome in this thread, not the B word. 
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Sep 24, 2012 03:08
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Grand Fromage posted:Did they? I don't know much about that era but from what I've read it didn't seem like there was anywhere near the level of civil strife that classical Rome endured. Lots of infighting and assassinations but not so much giant armies roaming the countryside battling. But that's from a minimal amount of reading on the subject. Ah, OK. There wasn't any analogous period to the chaotic period Marius and Augustus, with huge armies led by politicians roaming the lands in their bid for power, but in the decades prior to Manzikert, the army tried to overthrow the emperor a few times, until the emperor essentially disbanded it and decided to rely on mercenaries. Then they had to hire the Turks to get rid of the mercenaries, the crusaders to get rid of the Turks, and so forth.
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Sep 24, 2012 03:45
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sullat posted:Ah, OK. There wasn't any analogous period to the chaotic period Marius and Augustus, with huge armies led by politicians roaming the lands in their bid for power, but in the decades prior to Manzikert, the army tried to overthrow the emperor a few times, until the emperor essentially disbanded it and decided to rely on mercenaries. Then they had to hire the Turks to get rid of the mercenaries, the crusaders to get rid of the Turks, and so forth. Can you write more about this? Like I said I'm mostly useless with this period and just as interested as other people reading might be.
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Sep 24, 2012 04:55
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mediadave posted:Was there ever (so far as we know, of course) any attempt to bring back the republic? And if not, why not? Not really. Early on the fiction of the republic was able to keep people from stirring up too much trouble (and those who openly didn't buy it tended to end up dead). After a while everyone adapted to the new system and no one seriously wanted to go back to it. First thing to remember is 99% of the population had no stake in it either way. If you're a soldier or a fisherman or a farmer in Sicily it doesn't really matter what form of government you're under. As long as the grain shipments are flowing and your taxes aren't crushing you, you probably don't give a poo poo. The people at the top adapt to whatever the political circumstances are and learn to exploit them, so once a couple generations had lived under the principate why would they even want to go back? They have plenty of options to gain power, and hell, now they have the dream of ultimate power in a way that wasn't possible under the republic. There was intellectual nostalgia now and then and there may have been some people with a republican ideology, but there was never any serious attempt to roll things back. There were some attempts to revive old republican values, as there was a common belief (especially in the crisis times) that there was some fundamental set of Roman values that had been lost, causing the empire to degenerate, and by returning to them the empire could be saved. But none of those ever went as far as to actually want to restore a republican system of government.
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Sep 24, 2012 06:46
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Agesilaus posted:Anyway, is anyone here especially knowledgeable about the nature of the Successor State armies? They obviously had elite standing units, including foot, cavalry, and elephant brigades, but on the other hand in times of war they did use levies and did take a lot of booty by pillaging places. The successor state armies were far more organised then their predecessors. We know from what little information survived, that the Ptolemaic, Antigonid and Seleucid empires maintained professional soldiers(guard units) of varying sizes, however most of the army was still reservists, but it seems they were most likely equipped by the state, and paid wages. We see similar structures in the Archaen and Ateolion league, and other states that followed the Macedonian military system One of the more detailed examples that sources provide is the Seleucid army, during the late reign of Antiochos the great, the royal army consists of Katoikoi, who are military settlers that are found all over the empire, from Syria to Persia, they receive farm land, and tax breaks they would receive regular pay when on campaign. The Katoikoi would go to Apamiea(A major city , that was the military heartland of the empire, which consisted of the city itself and plenty of military citadels the location of the treasury as well as the studs for the elephants and apparently 30000 Nisean horses) in Syria to receive their military training and equipment, this had a few purposes as this would send some Katoikoi all the way from Media or Persia. They would get their training as well as been placed very closely to the Seleucid royal family, to instill a sense of loyalty as well as organising them efficiently, eventually they would return home, and essentially act as reservists for whatever reasons in the future. The katoikoi were essentially the semi regulars that provided the majority of the heavy cavalry and heavy infantry Then we have the guards, which consisted of the argyraspidai and the hypaspistai who were elite infantry units, numbering 10000 all together. Then the two cavalry guard units the agema and the hetairoi, the agema were recruited from Medians and the hetairoi from Syro-Macedonains, both units were 1000 strong. All the guards were professional soldiers which remained active all during the year, and were garrisoned wherever the king happened to be at that particular time, they received a high regular wage and farmland as well as equipment from the state, eventually they would retire and go to the reserves, and new recruits would take their place Then there is mercenaries, and militia as well as light infantry and cavalry, which was recruited from all over the empire, and most likely received regular pay as well. When the army mobilises for whatever reason they would gather at a organised area usually in Syria before heading off. This doesn't mean that every single reservists is called up, only those that are needed. Other states had similar structures for example the Antigonid army had a guard cavalry unit the sacred squadron numbering around 700, and around 5000 foot agema.
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Sep 24, 2012 10:10
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Grand Fromage posted:Can you write more about this? Like I said I'm mostly useless with this period and just as interested as other people reading might be. Sure. Basically, the underlying problem was the "theme" system that the medieval Romans used to support their armies. The peasant-soldiers were given an allotment of land, enough to feed a family and allow them to afford decent arms & armor, so long as they were able to provide a soldier when the empire needed one. This meant that the empire could call up a well-equipped semi-professional soldier who supported himself when they needed. The land-owning nobility hated this, of course, since having peasants "own" land limited the size of their estates. Legally, that land couldn't be sold, mortgaged, or otherwise encumbered. So whenever pro-nobility emperors were in power, the peasant-soldiers were pushed off their land, leading to military coups, and whenever pro-military emperors were in power, the estates of the landowners were reduced in size as land was given back to the soldiers, leading to palace coups, riots, and noble rebellions. The specific details are full of sex, betrayal, and more eye-gouging than you can shake a pointy stick at, but that's underlying reason for the domestic instability of the 800-1100 period. Well, that and the Arab/barbarian invasions. Things really started to break down during the reign of Constantine X (1059-1067), however. As head of the Doukas family, one of the wealthiest landowners in Anatolia, he undid all the reforms of his predecessor, which led to several military revolts by unpaid soldiers. After narrowly surviving one, he decided to essentially disband the army, and would rely on mercenaries and private armies financed by the nobility to fend off the raids by the Normans and Turks. This worked about as well as you'd imagine. When his successor, Romanos IV (1067-1069) came to power (by romancing Constantine X's widow), he found that the remnants of the army was literally armed with staves and pitchforks. He tried to rebuild and re-equip the army while also dealing with invasions by Robert the Weasel and Alp Arslan, which led to the fiasco at Manzikert, where the mercenaries refused to fight, the Doukas's private army deserted mid-battle, and Romanos IV was captured and forced to pay a huge ransom. But on his way back to Constantinople, Constantine X's brother, John Doukas, used his army to seize power, installed his nephew Michael VII as emperor, and had Romanos IV blinded and abandoned. He then tore up the treaty with the Turks. The mercenaries that had deserted at Manzikert set up a little kingdom in the middle of Anatolia. John Doukas tried to drive them out, but his mercenaries went over to the other side, and he was captured and the leader of the mercenaries set John up as a puppet claimant to the imperial throne. Michael VII then had to negotiate with the Turks (Alp Arslan had died by then), granting them swathes of eastern Anatolia and Armenia, and in return, they helped defeat the renegade mercenaries and "rescue" his uncle. Michael was eventually overthrown by Nicephorus II, who was then overthrown by Alexis Comnenus. Alexis had the brilliant idea of asking the pope to convince the major western European powers to drive the Turks out of Anatolia. The pope responded by calling for the crusades to drive the Arabs out of the Holy Land, not quite what Alexis had in mind, but hey. The deal was that the crusaders were supposed to return the captured land to the Byzantine empire, but they decided to set up their own independent kingdoms instead. This led to a hundred years of infighting, the "Great Schism" between Catholic and Orthodox, embarrassing defeats, and eventually the sack in 1204. The Greek Despots of Morea and Trebizond eventually figured out that in order to actually win wars and defend territory, they had to have their own armies, and managed to recapture Constantinople, a broken shell of what it used to be. They had to grant embarrassing trade concessions to the Venetians and the Genoese, but the empire was restored! Most of this comes from Norwich's history of Byzantium. It's a good read; the 800-1100 period is pretty entertaining reading, and is often left out of American history curriculums, since as Gibbon put it, "gently caress da Byzantines and their contributions to Western history".
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Sep 24, 2012 15:26
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The Spartans where a standing army. They where however, not a professional standing army by any true sense. They where honestly closer to the Janissary or the Manluks slave-soldiers then professional armies of post-Marian reform Rome.
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Sep 24, 2012 16:56
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By tradition, fungible loots (coin, specie, gold artifacts easily melted down, etc) were accounted for by the SPQR treasury, shares to be distributed at the end of campaign. Generals got a large cut of that. Pillage rights were what a soldier could carry, tying back into earlier questions about the Roman baggage train. There's every reason to believe that the train functioned, at times, like a way for soldiers to exchange pillaged goods for coin on account. This would be a large "undocumented" "Marian" reform, since early-mid Republican legionaries bring their own wagons and presumably pile them up. You'd see a reduction in take home pay, since they'd be selling to middle men on the spot instead of wagon training loot home and selling in the off season. Slaves to be sold were the right and keep of the commander alone. Some of them would share it out, others kept it all.
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Sep 24, 2012 17:14
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I have a question: Since I'm interested in Assyrian history, what did the Romans know about the Assyrian Empire? I now the Assyrian Empire collapsed as Rome was barely founded (Around 7th century BCE), but the Romans should have had contact with the Babylonians who had fought them, or at least found something leftover from the Assyrians after they expanded eastward.
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Sep 24, 2012 20:29
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Does anyone have examples about the size of the shares between different ranks? Like legionnaire 1 share, decurion 2, centurion 4 and so on. I've tried to find out how big the share sizes were in different armies and so far these are the only ones I've found:quote:Egil's Saga Chapter 14 - Thorolf again in Finmark. quote:A general History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates (1724): quote:Distribution in Royal Navy in Napoleonic wars: Sagas suggest that vikings usually shared loot equally. Only difference seems to be that ship owners got some extra and king got his share. But they usually gave a lot of it back to troops. Pirates' officer got sometimes a bit bigger shares. For example captain could get two shares. If you know about other historical sharing systems, please post them.
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Sep 24, 2012 21:46
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Okay, restarting the 'professional' army chat. Athenian navy, circa Peloponnesian War. Discuss.
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Sep 24, 2012 23:23
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the JJ posted:Okay, restarting the 'professional' army chat. I can try to field this topic. In earliest times, ships were used almost exclusively as transports and so they were primarily constructed to ferry as many men as they could as fast to a battlefield as possible. From there, people started trying to steer ships close to enemy ones so they could attack the other soldiers with arrows and javelins, and even make crude boarding attempts. Eventually, it was determined that the ship itself could make a pretty awesome weapon if you crashed one ship into another, so ship design focused on two things: maneuverability and hull strength. (Using your ship as a big fuckoff ram was a bad idea if its hull would splinter on impact, obviously.) The apex of this ship design was called the 'trireme' and was the principle warship in the Athenian navy at the time of the war. As you can imagine, in order to be successful at crashing your big fuckoff ship into an enemy ship that was probably doing its best to avoid having this happen required a great deal of skill on the part of the crew. I'll talk more about this in a bit. First, here's a drawing of a trireme.  The ship's ram (embolos, 'thing for thrusting') is on the right of the drawing. The other things pointed out on the legend are the prora (prow), istos (mast), pedalion (rudder), and aphlaston (curvy thing at the aft of the ship). Triremes were built in a 9:1 length:beam ratio, so for every 9 units long, it was 1 unit wide. On the bottom center picture, you can get a general picture of how the oars were set up - one crew was in the depths of the hull, while another was positioned above them, and the top crew was positioned on outriggers at the top of the hull. Because the topmost crew were the only ones who could actually see what was going on outside the ship, they were the elites of the rowing crew, responsible for guiding the other men to keep the strokes in proper rhythm. Each row of rowers, then, was a team of three guys (top, middle, bottom); the Greeks called the ship a 'trieres', which could be a reference to something like 'three-work'. A standard trireme held around two hundred people, which meant that those two hundred men were crammed into a ship that was about 120 feet long and 15 feet wide. There were 170 rowers, a squad of hoplites and archers who functioned as marines, and some support crew. Athenians tried to keep their fleet battle-ready at all times and were masters of naval engineering. This isn't so much of a surprise, considering that the fundamental design of a trireme is something of a paradox - you have to build a ship that's fast enough to crash itself into an enemy ship but also tough enough not to destroy itself at the same time. One of the ways they achieved this was through constant dry-docking - often, the crew would pull the ship up onto land during periods of rest to avoid the ship becoming waterlogged, which contributed to keeping the ships fast. Skilled crews were very valuable. Generally speaking, these were free men hired on as wage laborers, though slaves were used in some exceptional circumstances. Trieme commanders would offer substantial incentives and bonuses to try to put together and retain expert crews, but defection from one crew to another was commonplace. (My personal mental image of this is something like the NFL, with star free agents commanding huge signing bonuses.) Athens tried to combat this by paying half up front and half at the end of a campaign. Men in the lower two berths of oars were paid a standard workman's wage, while the men in the topmost berth were paid more. Like all of Athens' military positions, the position of a trireme commander was filled by election. The state provided the vessel, but the elected commander was expected to pay for his crew, arming, and maintaining the trireme out of his own pocket. This is one reason why the Athenian empire grew - rich Athenian dudes were in charge of the navy and had paid for the privilege; rich dudes everywhere want to turn a profit on things they've paid for, so when a bunch of ship commanders got together, they likely talked about ways to put the navy to use to get more money. Once they'd worked out a scheme, they could bring it before the assembly and have the city vote on it - sometimes to good effect, and other times to disastrous effect (as in the campaign against Sicily). As for whether or not it was professional, well - "professional" is a strange term, to my mind. The Athenians fought a long war against the Persians, then had a brief period of imperial expansion, and then fought a generation-long war against the Spartan league. Can we say something that popped up out of nowhere, accomplished a lot of great things, and then faded away again once it was no longer needed is "professional"? I suspect that the men who signed on early to be trireme crew, didn't die, and stayed on with it got to be very good at what they did and could make a lot of money doing it, and the war lasted long enough that a man who was a young adult at the outbreak would be pretty old by the time Athens was defeated, even to the point where he might be able to say that he had devoted the entirety of his working days to serving on triremes. But outside of the context of wartime, those positions wouldn't have existed. There wasn't an institutional "Athenian Navy", pay and opportunities were different in different ships and under different commanders, and so on.
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Sep 25, 2012 01:13
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When they lost their entire navy at Syracuse, they were kinda hosed. The ships could be replaced, it was the 20,000 veteran rowers that couldn't.
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Sep 25, 2012 01:45
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sullat posted:When they lost their entire navy at Syracuse, they were kinda hosed. The ships could be replaced, it was the 20,000 veteran rowers that couldn't. ... they still fielded a powerful and successful navy after the "tragedy", so the idea that they lost their entire navy or couldn't replace their sailors is wrong. Athens had a large number of ships in reserve that were not lost in Sicily, and a large amount of money put to one side. The Athenians won naval engagements after Sicily, such as Cyzicus and Arginusae. The Sicilian Expedition was a disaster from the Athenian perspective, but it wasn't really the end of their great naval strength. Agesilaus fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Sep 25, 2012 |
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Sep 25, 2012 02:41
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Libluini posted:I have a question: Probably little. The Assyrians were such gigantic, unbelievable assholes that they united the entire Middle East against them and were wiped out. Utterly, completely obliterated. They were wiped out so efficiently that barely any memory of them existed. The best evidence of this is in Xenophon, there's a part where the army is resting in the ruins of an unbelievably massive city. They ask the locals who built it and nobody has any idea. What we've figured out later is the city was Nineveh, the capital, and Xenophon is there two centuries later. Nobody remembered. Until expeditions of the 19th century, very little of the Assyrians is known. They're mentioned in the Bible and there are a couple other stories floating around but the empire basically disappears from history after its destruction. The Assyrian people remain and there's always an area called Assyria, but the actual empire is just gone. Caveat here is that I don't know of any Roman writings about Assyria. It's possible there was more knowledge at the time and our knowledge of that knowledge has vanished, but from what I've read and from Xenophon I suspect Assyria was very thoroughly wiped out. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Sep 25, 2012 |
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Sep 25, 2012 02:52
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Grand Fromage posted:Caveat here is that I don't know of any Roman writings about Assyria. It's possible there was more knowledge at the time and our knowledge of that knowledge has vanished, but from what I've read and from Xenophon I suspect Assyria was very thoroughly wiped out. Thought not Roman, 1st century BC Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus included a brief history of Assyria in his universal history (focusing mainly on Ninus, Semiramis and the fall of Nineveh), and Xenophon's contemporary Ctesias had a history of Assyria included in his Persian history (fragments remain). Neither are celebrated as especially accurate in their observations or interpretations of the Assyrians, or probably anything else.
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Sep 25, 2012 03:56
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Tao Jones posted:I can try to field this topic. Awesome! Thanks for the post. However I would like to direct your attention to the true "apex" of ancient naval engineering: Ptolemy IV's Tessarakonteres quote:Ptolemy Philopator built [a ship] of forty banks of oars, which had a length of two hundred and eighty cubits, and a height, to the top of her stern, of forty-eight; she was manned by four hundred sailors, who did no rowing, and by four thousand rowers, and besides these she had room, on her gangways and decks, for nearly three thousand men-at‑arms. But this ship was merely for show; and since she differed little from a stationary edifice on land, being meant for exhibition and not for use, she was moved only with difficulty and danger. However, in the ships of Demetrius their beauty did not mar their fighting qualities, nor did the magnificence of their equipment rob them of their usefulness, but they had a speed and effectiveness which was more remarkable than their great size.
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Sep 25, 2012 04:04
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Kaal posted:Awesome! Thanks for the post. However I would like to direct your attention to the true "apex" of ancient naval engineering: Ptolemy IV's Tessarakonteres Entering that quote is one of my few contributions to wikipedia. See also, Herakles having sex with a snake woman.
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Sep 25, 2012 04:18
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Tao Jones posted:Skilled crews were very valuable. Generally speaking, these were free men hired on as wage laborers, though slaves were used in some exceptional circumstances. Trieme commanders would offer substantial incentives and bonuses to try to put together and retain expert crews, but defection from one crew to another was commonplace. (My personal mental image of this is something like the NFL, with star free agents commanding huge signing bonuses.) Athens tried to combat this by paying half up front and half at the end of a campaign. Men in the lower two berths of oars were paid a standard workman's wage, while the men in the topmost berth were paid more. Heh. Thanks for the write up, though I knew most of that already. I was just remembering this with regards to the definition of 'professional' laid out and the differences between the Legions vs. Sparta. I just remembered the rowers needing to get paid so they could go to market/cities holding markets being a big deal in Xenophon. e: to clarify, this is because the military triremes were not cargo ships. Agesilaus posted:Entering that quote is one of my few contributions to wikipedia. See also, Herakles having sex with a snake woman. Oh must simply be so proud.
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Sep 25, 2012 04:49
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Navies are a bit different because the nature of ships requires specialized training and experience. It's a lot easier to just get dudes with spears to stand in a line. Of course a good army requires every bit as much training and experience.
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Sep 25, 2012 04:57
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I think that Tao Jones also hit upon another key issue - these sailors were veterans surely, but they weren't professionals in the modern sense. They were very capable, but at the end of the war they went home. They didn't have the kind of organization and uniformity of a professional force. If you compare the Athenian navy to that of the Carthaginians, you'll see the striking differences that are the result of institutionalization.
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Sep 25, 2012 07:48
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