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How tall was your average Spartan? What about other ancient peoples of the region?
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Dec 1, 2012 19:26
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:I apologize if something like this has been asked before, but the thread's huge. I read an interview with Gene Wolfe about his Latro books where he said that he thought the Spartans were far worse than the Nazis, and were basically incomprehensibly awful people. Such horrible people that it's difficult to understand today. He referred to the massacre of the helots, which as I understand is just a "might have happened, we aren't sure" event. He's got some weird views on things, so I'd be keen for somebody who knows a lot of Greek history to give me some stories or explanations that might give me a better idea what the Spartans were like than the weird glorified version of Sparta from 300. I've recommended Plutarch a bunch in this thread, but the Life of Lycurgus is an explanation of (supposed) Spartan laws and customs, talks about Helot Hunting Day, and so forth. I certainly wouldn't take it at face value, but I think it's a good source for what ancient people thought Sparta may have been like, and, at the very least, is a primary source for a lot of tall? tales about Sparta. (A good introduction into how much fun some of the ancients might have been having with their literature is to read Life of Lycurgus and then read Plato's Republic. Or so I think, anyway.)
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Dec 1, 2012 19:28
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achillesforever6 posted:But weren't they somewhat more progressive with their women's rights than Athens. I mean still gently caress those assholes, but I thought I heard Sparta had better rights for women compared to Athens. Well, "better than Athens" about women is a pretty low bar. But yeah, all the men lived in barracks until they were 30 something or something, and the women had to stay home and keep house, only keeping house meant, like, going to market and managing helots and doing most anything a regular, non-fascist Greek male would do day to day. But yeah, not all of the boohoo Sparta poo poo is slander. Xenophon was basically the most pro-Spartan Athenian in the world. He even sent his sons to train in the Spartan system. The offer was made by King  the Second, Xenophon's bro.Xenophon also records that when the Spartans were running low on citizens to fight, they extended an offer of freedom-for-fighting to the slave class. Then the rounded up the two thousand most eager candidates and killed them because, obviously, if they wanted freedom that badly they'd be trouble makers. Now, Xenophon didn't flip poo poo about the casual slaughter of 2000 people who just want freedom and are on the cusp of achieving that. It's only slanderous because we've got a very different moral system. So yeah, short version is all that   Hooahh! What is your profession was only possible because the Spartans had built a chattel slavery society beneath them and the fact that their male citizens spent every moment of their lives training for war was only made possible and necessitated by a huge slave underclass kept in line by fear.
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Dec 1, 2012 19:40
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achillesforever6 posted:But weren't they somewhat more progressive with their women's rights than Athens. I mean still gently caress those assholes, but I thought I heard Sparta had better rights for women compared to Athens.
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Dec 1, 2012 21:24
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Charlie Mopps posted:If you want a society that was truly progressive (for ancient times), you have to look at the Etruscans. Women were threated pretty much as equals by them, leading to the Greeks and Romans writing all kinds of poo poo about how they were sluts (because they were not confined to the house and mingled with people of the other sex in public). I also love their style of sarcophagus, which is really sweet. Source?
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Dec 1, 2012 22:59
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Since this is now the ancient history thread, does anybody know anything about warfare in south-east Asia? In highschool history everything south of yunnan and east of Bangladesh appears as a sort of grey unlabelled blob, which is too bad cause there was a lot of cool stuff happening there! In Indonesia the Majapahit ruled an enormous sea empire from the island of Java. The empire formed in the wake of a Mongol invasion of the island that destroyed their local rivals. The empire would until the 16th century when it is destroyed by rising Muslim powers.  What I want to know is how did people fight fight in this region? It's easy to find basic histories online but I can't for the life of me figure out the Khmer empire organized their armies, or what naval combat looked like in the Straits of Malacca. Does anyone have any resources with this info? I don't even know where to begin looking.
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Dec 2, 2012 04:54
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I know virtually nothing about it so this is just conjecture, but I'd imagine contemporaneous Indian militaries might be a good place to start looking. I'm interested to know what people think of what this man says here (I haven't read through the entire military history thread yet so apologies if it's been posted there already): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmaYtNW_wR8 It's in regards to how Greek phalanxes would fight each other. Rather than what I've always heard (okay I've only ever read a few books about wars in Classical Greece but each of them said it)- that the two sides would shove at each other as a wall of shields until one broke, he says they would have generally stood off actually using their spears to poke at each other. It sounds pretty convincing to me; they aren't well armoured in places that would be most vulnerable while shoving, and the first lines would basically always die- and considering they were conscripted Greek citizens rather than crazy bloodthirsty barbarians or martial :HONOUR: Romans, ridiculous battlefield heroism and glory and stuff isn't going to appeal to them in the same way continuing to live is. Koramei fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Nov 26, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2012 05:25
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Squalid posted:Since this is now the ancient history thread, does anybody know anything about warfare in south-east Asia? In highschool history everything south of yunnan and east of Bangladesh appears as a sort of grey unlabelled blob, which is too bad cause there was a lot of cool stuff happening there! In Indonesia the Majapahit ruled an enormous sea empire from the island of Java. The empire formed in the wake of a Mongol invasion of the island that destroyed their local rivals. The empire would until the 16th century when it is destroyed by rising Muslim powers. There is a book that is perfect for you. It's called Southeast Asian Warfare 1300-1900 by Michael W. Charney. I have a copy myself, but it costs around $300 on Amazon and isn't especially easy to find elsewhere. Your best bet is to track it down through a library. It goes exactly into things like organization of armies and naval warfare. This is still helpful for getting info on the pre-1300 military history because warfare was generally waged the same way. I haven't read it, but there's also a book from 1952 called Ancient Southeast Asian Warfare by H.G. Quartrich Wales that Charney mentions. One important thing to keep in mind is that while older histories try to paint Southeast Asia as just simply being a mix of Chinese and Indian culture, the reality is that they were doing a lot of things that they developed themselves and the influence of China and India is overstated. I'm not an expert, but I'll try to summarize some interested points from Charney's book. Generally most Southeast Asian warfare was fought by peasant levies who would be drafted by the monarch during a campaign. Otherwise there was a small standing army. The countries in the area were "mandalas", essentially a circle with a major city that is the center of all authority, and authority is more dispersed the further away. Angkor in Cambodia or Ayutthaya in Thailand are good examples of this. It was similar to the feudal system in Europe in some ways. Vietnam is more influenced by China, so they have a system where administration was handled by bureaucrats. Soldiers were called up to take an oath to fight for their village or local lord. It's a bit hard to generalize about equipment that soldiers because it really differed between different parts of the region. But elephants were usually a very important part of armies, while cavalry's usage increased and decreased over time. Firearms are very important starting from the late 1400's, but that's outside the scope of this thread. Warfare was generally seasonal. peasants would be called up to fight a short campaign of a few months, in order to be able to return back to the fields to plant in the fields. One interesting thing that took place in the Buddhist countries was that men would try to avoid fighting by becoming monks, who were exempt from being drafted. I haven't read the chapter on naval warfare yet, so I can't help you with that. But I hope this info was useful for you.
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Dec 2, 2012 06:25
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Koramei posted:I know virtually nothing about it so this is just conjecture, but I'd imagine contemporaneous Indian militaries might be a good place to start looking. He makes some interesting points but he doesn't seem to have much real evidence. So to support his claim that each side would stand off to stab at a distance he says the front lines would want space to maneuver. Maybe, but with 20 guys pushing behind you unable to see what's going on it doesn't matter how much space you want. He believes they may have used their spears underhand, but how does he explain all vases on which soldiers hold their spears over their head? His ideas definitely seem worth considering, but also feel incomplete on their own. To Chi Ka posted:Thanks 
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Dec 2, 2012 08:56
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Squalid posted:He makes some interesting points but he doesn't seem to have much real evidence. So to support his claim that each side would stand off to stab at a distance he says the front lines would want space to maneuver. Maybe, but with 20 guys pushing behind you unable to see what's going on it doesn't matter how much space you want. He believes they may have used their spears underhand, but how does he explain all vases on which soldiers hold their spears over their head? His ideas definitely seem worth considering, but also feel incomplete on their own. I for one have never been satisfied by the "pushing" concept. It's just no way to fight at all. What's the point of all that gear and discipline if you're going to throw it away and fight like a maniac at point-blank? Why would the first rank even carry a spear at all? The front ranks of the "pushers" would get decimated, but the biggest selling point of the phalanx style was that it yielded low casualty rates. I think that the whole debate can be boiled down to some academics taking the idea of a shield-wall rather too literally. If fighters have no room to maneuver, armored or no, then casualties are going to start mounting extremely quickly. It's just impossible to defend yourself when you get into knife-fighting range. And that kind of slaughter-house battlefield just isn't supported by history. Formations of hoplites running together and then crashing into an enemy formation would just be a bunch of this - messy and difficult to control: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B95By9w2MWA My impression of a phalanx battle is one that is fairly conservative and defensive in nature. It's the only way to explain the length of these battles, particularly the ones where the odds were stacked. You've got lines of hoplites with heavy armor that is designed to protect against spears stabbing from the front. Your front line uses underhand spears to fend off the enemy line and avoid disruption. They're supported by the previous three ranks who stab over their shoulders with overhand spears to break the enemy line, using the length of their 8-foot spears to their advantage. And the deep formations steady the ranks in front of them by holding onto their cuirass backstraps, and are there to step up and maintain the formation when one man falls. Kaal fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Dec 2, 2012 |
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Dec 2, 2012 09:46
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Squalid posted:...The empire formed in the wake of a Mongol invasion of the island that destroyed their local rivals. The empire would until the 16th century when it is destroyed by rising Muslim powers.... Wait...huh!? A Mongol invasion of Indonesia!? I know they were to central Europe, India, China etc, but I'd never heard that went that far South East. I wouldn't have thought horse arches from the Steppe's would be able to advance through jungle and oceans that far.
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Dec 2, 2012 12:36
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Comstar posted:Wait...huh!? A Mongol invasion of Indonesia!? I know they were to central Europe, India, China etc, but I'd never heard that went that far South East. I wouldn't have thought horse arches from the Steppe's would be able to advance through jungle and oceans that far. I always thought the Mongols were effectively turned back by the jungles and mountains, but I'm looking at the Times history atlas and it's showing "Mongol incursions and limited Mongol control" from Bengal to Vietnam and down the coast, and attacks on Burma about then. How limited and for how long, it doesn't say. And Encyclopaedia Britannica posted:The founder of the [Majapahit] empire was Vijaya, a prince of Singhasāri (q.v.), who escaped when Jayakatwang, the ruler of Kaḍiri, seized the palace. In 1292 Mongol troops came to Java to avenge an insult to the emperor of China, Kublai Khan, by Kertanagara, the king of Singhasāri, who had been replaced by Jayakatwang. Vijaya collaborated with Mongol troops in defeating Jayakatwang; Vijaya then turned against the Mongols and expelled them from Java. That's pretty cool, though given the long sea voyage and the way the Yuan empire was run, I'd bet it was Chinese troops and boats with a few Mongol officers, rather than shenanigans with junks full of horses...
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Dec 2, 2012 13:57
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House Louse posted:That's pretty cool, though given the long sea voyage and the way the Yuan empire was run, I'd bet it was Chinese troops and boats with a few Mongol officers, rather than shenanigans with junks full of horses... Yes, I think the "Mongol invasions/incursions" mentioned here are basically "Chinese military involvement from when there was a Mongol dynasty ruling China", so this is more likely how it went down, rather than horsed archers setting off on ships to charge into the jungle.
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Dec 2, 2012 15:47
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Squalid posted:He makes some interesting points but he doesn't seem to have much real evidence. So to support his claim that each side would stand off to stab at a distance he says the front lines would want space to maneuver. Maybe, but with 20 guys pushing behind you unable to see what's going on it doesn't matter how much space you want. He believes they may have used their spears underhand, but how does he explain all vases on which soldiers hold their spears over their head? His ideas definitely seem worth considering, but also feel incomplete on their own. He goes into the vase paintings a bit here; it's a very limited sample but there does seem to be a mix of underhand/overhand depicted, and his reasoning for most of the overhand ones is that it's a more dramatic pose and the vase painters wanted pretty vases more than accurate ones (hence them often being naked and not carrying battle equipment and stuff). More on underhand/overhand spears here too. Regarding your first point, and I'm not sure how to explain this away, I'm just curious: How would the sides know when to route? If they weren't able to see (and especially in the blinding Corinthian helmets with dust in their faces and clashes of battle deafening them I can very much imagine that they weren't able to see), the only way I could see them knowing when it is time to go is when literally all but like 3 or 4 lines of them are dead. The way we know phalanxes just seems to be completely inflexible and almost always resulting in both sides getting virtually obliterated. I just can't imagine the pre-Macedonian Phalanx being the dominant form of warfare in much of the Mediterranean for centuries when the commanders know that the course of the battle will be completely impossible for them to shape and will almost always leave a great deal of their city's fit young men dead on the field. Can somebody explain to me how this is what scholars concluded it to be like? And actually in general, how did the populations of the ancient world cope with the horrendous casualties we hear? Because it doesn't make sense to me. Also while we're on the topic, can somebody give a summary of how warfare in the Khmer Empire/ Indonesia worked? If Southeast Asian warfare wasn't so dependent on Indian/ Chinese influence, I imagine it would have been shaped by the Jungle and all that? Would they have set piece battles in the way we know them? Because that would seem to favour ambushes and skirmishes a lot more.
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Dec 2, 2012 18:01
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Koramei posted:Also while we're on the topic, can somebody give a summary of how warfare in the Khmer Empire/ Indonesia worked? Elephants. And some more Elephants after that.
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Dec 2, 2012 19:00
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Koramei posted:He goes into the vase paintings a bit here; it's a very limited sample but there does seem to be a mix of underhand/overhand depicted, and his reasoning for most of the overhand ones is that it's a more dramatic pose and the vase painters wanted pretty vases more than accurate ones (hence them often being naked and not carrying battle equipment and stuff). More on underhand/overhand spears here too. It's rout. Goddamn it. I swear to god there is something in the goonhive mind that can not get that right. Anyway, big casualties were not usually a big thing unless the winning side had a big advantage in cavalry and rode down the routing side. I think it's Xenophon's Anabasis where the Greeks are all despairing that "We don't have cavalry: if we win, hardly any of them will die! But if we lose, we'll be killed to a man!" (Note, Xenophon was a bit of a cavalry fanboy, but he's probably not exaggerating that much.) There are other battles where Thucydides will report a couple thousand soldiers lining up each side, a big titanic clash, one side breaks, and there's maybe 50 dead total. So in short, no one thinks everybody died in every battle that'd be silly. Those sorts of battles tend to be horrific, exceptional, and game changing. The massacre of the Athenians at Sicily is pretty terrifying; they'd been marching under arms without water for a few days and finally came across a stream. They stampeded towards the water while the Syracusans and Spartans fell on them, and many we still desperately lapping at the water as it turned red with the blood of their friends. e: re Elephants. Dunno about Indonesia, I can see them being used in local fights but shipping elephants around seems inefficient. I do know that elephant duels were A Thing. One man 'driving' king/hero/general with big gently caress off halberd in the canopy, maybe an archer but now I think I'm maybe mixing it up with chariot warfare. Duels were probably a pretty heavily romanticized thing, but going elephant to elephant (or at least telling people about that) with another king was a pretty standard way of cementing legitimacy. the JJ fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Dec 2, 2012 |
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Dec 2, 2012 19:42
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the JJ posted:It's rout. Goddamn it. I swear to god there is something in the goonhive mind that can not get that right. Holy poo poo I feel really stupid now. In my defence it is not a word that comes up often in normal conversation. quote:So in short, no one thinks everybody died in every battle that'd be silly. Those sorts of battles tend to be horrific, exceptional, and game changing. The massacre of the Athenians at Sicily is pretty terrifying; they'd been marching under arms without water for a few days and finally came across a stream. They stampeded towards the water while the Syracusans and Spartans fell on them, and many we still desperately lapping at the water as it turned red with the blood of their friends. This was more me saying that if the people had no room to maneuver and were being forced forwards, as we might expect with the whole shield-bashing rather than spear poking thing, the only way it could turn out is with horrendous casualties. I remember reading that the each of the engagements in a battle would be short, only a few minutes long at a time before backing out for a moment and clashing again. How would they be able to back out if there are 20 guys behind them pressing forward? Stampede mentalities do not work well for battles. It's another reason the traditional view of battles with hoplite phalanxes just doesn't make sense to me; and the more I hear about it the worse it seems.
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Dec 2, 2012 20:05
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Source? The worst text is from Theopompus (quoted by Athenaeus), who is obviously full of poo poo: quote:Sharing wives is an established Etruscan custom. Etruscan women take particular care of their bodies and exercise often, sometimes along with the men, and sometimes by themselves. It is not a disgrace for them to be seen naked. They do not share their couches with their husbands but with the other men who happen to be present, and they propose toasts to anyone they choose. They are expert drinkers and very attractive. Also, Aristotle remarked that men and women dined together, which is supported by murals found, just like there are paintings found of women joining men at games, indicating a far greater public life for women compared to especially Greek women. And another thing, the Etruscan mentioned both the father and the mothers name in inscriptions. And the woman could keep using their own name instead of taking on the husbands name. Sure, its all not the most solid evidence ever, but the negative reactions you can find here and there towards Etruscan women in Greek and Roman sources are pretty telling. Its a shame Claudius' history of the Etruscans didnt survive, as im wondering what he would have written about it.
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Dec 2, 2012 21:09
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Koramei posted:Holy poo poo I feel really stupid now. In my defence it is not a word that comes up often in normal conversation. I'm not seeing why the idea of the two phalanxes keeping spearlength apart is weird. No one would want to break formation to push ahead since they would get stabbed by like 5 people. The rear lines would not shove the front lines forward if the idea was to stay spearlength away from the start. As men died and tired, the winning side would inch forward as the front line takes a step or two, with the rear lines stepping up in sequence. Routs would start from the rear, not the front, as too many of the men in front died, and the rear hoplites turn and run. Alternately cavalry smashes the rear or side of the phalanx, causing confusion and chaos as the opposing side move forward, stabbing as they go, and the rear troops run away from the cavalry. This fits with how the casualties are described. Light during the fighting, but exponentially worse afterwards. As for the over vs underhand spear debate, the lack of ability to parry, and the ease of knocking aside the other spear is what convinces me that the overhand was a rarity, or the position the rear troops held their spears to stab over the front line if the sides closed or they were fighting non phalanx troops.
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Dec 2, 2012 21:33
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Koramei posted:Holy poo poo I feel really stupid now. In my defence it is not a word that comes up often in normal conversation. Don't feel stupid, I think it's just some sort of voodoo curse because everyone on this forum seems to do it. quote:This was more me saying that if the people had no room to maneuver and were being forced forwards, as we might expect with the whole shield-bashing rather than spear poking thing, the only way it could turn out is with horrendous casualties. I remember reading that the each of the engagements in a battle would be short, only a few minutes long at a time before backing out for a moment and clashing again. How would they be able to back out if there are 20 guys behind them pressing forward? Stampede mentalities do not work well for battles. It's another reason the traditional view of battles with hoplite phalanxes just doesn't make sense to me; and the more I hear about it the worse it seems. I remember reading somewhere that routs start from the rear first, so that might be part of it, but yeah, I think it's just that when a lot of people are thinking about these things they're not necessarily born and raised with spears and stuff. Even if they weren't Spartan all Greek citizens were expected to know how a phalanx battle would go, so no one bothered to explain it. Cut to a few millennia later and what sounds good can sometimes become 'common' 'knowledge' without a whole lot of critical thinking going on. I think the currently accepted view is that people would form up ranks deep, probably march within spear poking range but not shoving range, and proceed to poke. If they guy in front of you gets poked, you pull him back for medical attention (if applicable) and take his spot. Best troops go on the right (normally) and battles sometimes ended up rotating, which is sorta weird if you think about it. Sometimes thinner, longer lines were the way to go (Athens at Marathon), other times, putting a bunch of your best men in a big block could win (Thebes vs. Sparta). Maybe, maybe, they fought in shifts, which would really be the only way a deeper line could be a benefit unless a. you were having a rugby scrum or b. you were planning on a lot of people in the front ranks dying, and you were planning on winning by having the other guy run out of men.
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Dec 2, 2012 21:43
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This one's a little out of the way of the thread thus far, but the 7th century's still Ancient, right? I'm wondering if anyone can talk about the spread of Islam. Reading Wikipedia, it seems the Islamic caliphate had spread all the way from Mecca to the Iberian peninsula within 50 years of Muhammad's earliest reported revelations. Could someone throw some interesting light on how this came to be? Edit for a map, showing the expansion under the Ummayad dynasty. Mitthrawnuruodo fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 15:56
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Mitthrawnuruodo posted:This one's a little out of the way of the thread thus far, but the 7th century's still Ancient, right? I'm wondering if anyone can talk about the spread of Islam. Reading Wikipedia, it seems the Islamic caliphate had spread all the way from Mecca to the Iberian peninsula within 50 years of Muhammad's earliest reported revelations. Could someone throw some interesting light on how this came to be? There's a thread started by a guy about that specific topic, but basically, timing is everything. The united Arab tribes needed somewhere to expand, and the Roman empire and Sassanid Persia had just finished fighting a brutal war, Rome was exhausted and Persia had collapsed. Persia barely put up a fight and Rome managed to scrape up an army by the most extreme exertion... and then it was wiped out in a decisive battle in Syria. Without any major power to stop them, they just keep expanding... Until Tours (739), Talas (759), where they reached the limit of their expansion. Then they get "invited" to help sort out a civil war in Spain, and they end up staying there for ~600 years... timing was everything. Of course, it wasn't all so cut and dried, they had Berber revolts, Shiite revolts, Ethiopian invasions to deal with. And the Ummayad tax policy is usually cited as the reason why Islam was able to spread so quickly; but it also contained the seeds of their demise.
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Dec 3, 2012 16:34
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sullat posted:And the Ummayad tax policy is usually cited as the reason why Islam was able to spread so quickly; but it also contained the seeds of their demise. Going down the rabbit hole...what as the Ummayad tax policy, and why did it help and also bring about the end?
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Dec 3, 2012 18:31
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WoodrowSkillson posted:I'm not seeing why the idea of the two phalanxes keeping spearlength apart is weird. No one would want to break formation to push ahead since they would get stabbed by like 5 people. The rear lines would not shove the front lines forward if the idea was to stay spearlength away from the start. As men died and tired, the winning side would inch forward as the front line takes a step or two, with the rear lines stepping up in sequence. Routs would start from the rear, not the front, as too many of the men in front died, and the rear hoplites turn and run. I take it the shoving match isn't nearly as much of a consensus among historians as I'd previously thought though. the JJ posted:Maybe, maybe, they fought in shifts, which would really be the only way a deeper line could be a benefit unless a. you were having a rugby scrum or b. you were planning on a lot of people in the front ranks dying, and you were planning on winning by having the other guy run out of men. The deeper line is still useful for morale though; the more guys you have, the less aware the ones at the back will be of what is happening at the front, so the less inclined they will be to run away. Although if it's as flexible as I'm advocating for they might have a better idea. I don't know, the whole system is confusing to me. Mitthrawnuruodo posted:Could someone throw some interesting light on how this came to be? Actually though that idea had a potent effect on Byzantine Rome at the time. "Clearly if they are gaining so much ground they must have pleased god. Let's persecute everybody using icons to win back his favour!"
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Dec 3, 2012 18:39
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Koramei posted:I don't think it's weird to use the spears to stand off, so that's exactly my issue with it. The whole shoving match thing we're told about would only work if people were to get carried away. Even discounting that it makes no use of the spears, when the soldiers are all shoving away they won't be paying much attention to anything else. Not to mention that with 20 guys pushing on each side, those that are in the centre will, even if they manage to not have their necks slit or something, be undoubtedly crushed to death. I think the answer is 'no one really thinks they did shoving matches?' You're basically reiterating points from that reenactor video someone put up, but I don't think anyone here looked at that and went 'what a dumbass.' quote:The deeper line is still useful for morale though; the more guys you have, the less aware the ones at the back will be of what is happening at the front, so the less inclined they will be to run away. Although if it's as flexible as I'm advocating for they might have a better idea. I don't know, the whole system is confusing to me. quote:Because Islam is the one true faith and its followers are blessed by god الحمد لله Gotta love the iconoclasts.
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Dec 3, 2012 19:15
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the JJ posted:I think the answer is 'no one really thinks they did shoving matches?' You're basically reiterating points from that reenactor video someone put up, but I don't think anyone here looked at that and went 'what a dumbass.' I was the one that posted that  . Plenty of people think they did shoving matches. Every book I've read about it in (admittedly not all that many) has said that, the History of Rome podcast said that, they did that in 300, the guy in the video said people say that. It is not something that nobody thinks, and that nobody here thinks that is only perhaps indicative of what scholars think rather than authors that write for the general consumers like myself. And I went to pains to come up with my own points thank you very much. Koramei fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 19:38
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Comstar posted:Going down the rabbit hole...what as the Ummayad tax policy, and why did it help and also bring about the end? Muslims pay the lowest rate. Non-Muslims pay a much higher rate. The cost-conscious monotheist switches to Islam in a generation or two. So tax revenues plummet. They change the policy so that Arab Muslims pay the lowest rate, Non-Muslims pay the highest rate, and converts (and their kids) pay a rate somewhere in the middle... riots break out at the unfairness of it all, the Umayyid dynasty is unable to control the empire and the Abbasids take over. The first few Abbasids were less dependent on the Arab power-base, and so were able to establish a longer-lasting empire (although the edges started breaking away fairly quickly).
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Dec 3, 2012 19:50
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More interesting hoplite commentary by Mr. Lindybeige. His arguments against the existence of linen armor (too expensive to make, not strong enough, and without any real historical support) seems quite persuasive. In addition, I'd say that linen armor would be extremely difficult to repair when damaged, since you can't really patch it. And his point about Greeks prioritizing belly armor is good supplementary evidence in favor of spears being wielded underhand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PuaUR3cFps
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Dec 3, 2012 20:33
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Koramei posted:I was the one that posted that the idea appealed to me because if you can push through an enemy's formation you will completely break them they'll have no choice but to flee. Still thinking about it some more the problems he identifies with this sort of combat are pretty glaring. The point about guys getting crushed could be serious if you had enough guys pushing. I definitely can't imagine that sort of combat lasting for hours. I think i'd like to hear under what circumstances he does believe shoving occured.
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Dec 4, 2012 00:03
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Squalid posted:the idea appealed to me because if you can push through an enemy's formation you will completely break them they'll have no choice but to flee. Still thinking about it some more the problems he identifies with this sort of combat are pretty glaring. The point about guys getting crushed could be serious if you had enough guys pushing. I definitely can't imagine that sort of combat lasting for hours. I think i'd like to hear under what circumstances he does believe shoving occured. You can ask on his video, he'll respond. I think what you said is one such example though- if one side thinks they have a significant advantage they can rush forward to try and force a rout. But then maybe it doesn't work; the other side doesn't rout, instead trying to hold their ground by pushing back, and so begins the shoving match. (and everybody dies)
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Dec 4, 2012 00:24
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Koramei posted:I was the one that posted that Huh. Well, I'd never seen that in any textbook, Oxford's ancient history, or academic article on hoplite war. And 300 is, well, 300. I mean, what did people think of the Macedonian two handed pike phalanx? 'Poking not shoving' is a bigger paradigm shift than 'poking but from further away.' I don't really see any need to refute the idea that Xerxes was a 7 foot tall and rode around on rhinos. I guess my baseline for 'pop hist' understanding is set about Rome: Total War levels. Game must be... well, old at this point, and it's got phalanxes fighting via underarm poking. And their 'Ptolemaic' Egypt is so laughably awful that you know they would gone with 'public perception' over realism if they thought they could get away with it/it were more fun. Squalid posted:the idea appealed to me because if you can push through an enemy's formation you will completely break them they'll have no choice but to flee. Still thinking about it some more the problems he identifies with this sort of combat are pretty glaring. The point about guys getting crushed could be serious if you had enough guys pushing. I definitely can't imagine that sort of combat lasting for hours. I think i'd like to hear under what circumstances he does believe shoving occured. Well yeah, but generally speaking, inflicting massive casualties at the cost of massive casualties of your own would cripple your agricultural base and leave you with a poo poo army, pissed off restive lands to deal with, and neighbors who didn't just throw all their men into a meat grinder. Like I said, decisive, even disastrous battles could result in maybe 1 in 100 casualties all round, even after the pursuit. Also, why would they 'have' to flee? You've just pushed through the enemy line, yay, now... oh the guys either side of them have turned and now we're getting surrounded. Like, a break through where you can turn and envelop either side is go but you're also achieving one of the enemies big goals for them, so unless you do it real fast you've done nothing but get yourself flanked.
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Dec 4, 2012 00:30
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the JJ posted:Huh. Well, I'd never seen that in any textbook, Oxford's ancient history, or academic article on hoplite war. And 300 is, well, 300. I mean, what did people think of the Macedonian two handed pike phalanx? 'Poking not shoving' is a bigger paradigm shift than 'poking but from further away.' I don't really see any need to refute the idea that Xerxes was a 7 foot tall and rode around on rhinos.
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Dec 4, 2012 02:03
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Mitthrawnuruodo posted:This one's a little out of the way of the thread thus far, but the 7th century's still Ancient, right? I'm wondering if anyone can talk about the spread of Islam. Reading Wikipedia, it seems the Islamic caliphate had spread all the way from Mecca to the Iberian peninsula within 50 years of Muhammad's earliest reported revelations. Could someone throw some interesting light on how this came to be? We've talked about this some in the other thread, and more discussion would be awesome. Other people have answered the question really well, but I'd add that the starting point was that Islam united the different tribes in Arabia, so that they were organized under a central government, and although there was a ton of political infighting, were able to devote more time to expansion than fighting each other.
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Dec 4, 2012 06:18
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Can anyone tell me how left handed people were treated in the ancient world?
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Dec 4, 2012 08:38
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Big Willy Style posted:Can anyone tell me how left handed people were treated in the ancient world? I doubt that there were many, particularly anywhere using a Grecian phalanx system where everyone needed to be right-handed. Left-handedness can be trained out of a person with repetition, and I say that as someone who is left-handed. In a world where everything from the weapons to the farm-tools had to be used right-handed, I don't think that there was a lot of room for south-paws. The French actually had some very interesting statistics on the matter, since they were one of the last Western nations to keep forcing their students to write right-handed. Kaal fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Dec 4, 2012 |
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Dec 4, 2012 09:31
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One thing has always made me wonder about the Eastern Roman Empire: how were they able to survive so long? From what I understand, from the 5th century on they were under nearly constant attack, both on the European side and in the Middle East / Turkey. You have Justinian eventually and he substantially enlarges the border for a bit, but it's completely unsustainable expansion that falls apart shortly after he dies. But it seems they were never really given much of a break, especially since they weren't on speaking terms with the Catholic Church. Aside from the fact Constantinople itself was especially hard to attack, was there some particular secret to their success, like a particularly adept ruler(s) who pushed back against the incursions and created sustainable borders, or was it a case of no one really caring enough about them to put the Empire out of its misery for 1000 odd years? Another question: are there many remaining records about how people living in areas formerly dominated by the Western Empire saw the Roman era? I've heard a bit about how they thought they were constantly in the shadow of a far grander civilization than their own, especially in the Italian peninsula, but nothing too concrete.
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Dec 4, 2012 09:58
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Sylphid posted:
The collection of states the formed in the former Western Empire didn't inherently have a bone to pick with them, most of the Catholic/Orthodox schism was theological and fought with pointed treatises. For their part, the Persian/Islamic forces to East weren't perfectly united or overwhelmingly powerful either. The Roman Empire was, as a whole "constantly under attack" for about, oh, all of existence, it's just that the equilibrium leaned more toward the Romans than the other way round. This slowly reversed, finally culminating in the Ottoman capture of Constantinople. It helps when the Muslims invade France and then those darn Franks and Germans decide to go beat up the Saracens for you. When the West 'fell' they really couldn't be arsed to prop it back up, especially with that uppity barbarian Bishop in Rome causing all this ruckus. They made a few attempts to hang onto the bits they could reach easily by sea (southern Italy) but it just became too much of a bother, especially with the Sassinids to deal with. Then the Arabs all united and everyone was all oh gently caress oh gently caress oh gently caress until they had to settle down and sort out their own issues, including the digestion of Persia and these pesky Turks who they kept bringing in to fight for them and then they'd take power and... anyway, if your empire wasn't falling apart at the seams and your neighbors were, it was time to go on the warpath! If not, well, maybe you can all pray that a common enemy will unite? The East wasn't really in decline when the West fragmented, and they pretty much swung back and forth between contraction and expansion as the fortunes of the world changed around them.
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Dec 4, 2012 11:10
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sullat posted:Then they get "invited" to help sort out a civil war in Spain, and they end up staying there for ~600 years... timing was everything. Of course, it wasn't all so cut and dried, they had Berber revolts, Shiite revolts, Ethiopian invasions to deal with. And the Ummayad tax policy is usually cited as the reason why Islam was able to spread so quickly; but it also contained the seeds of their demise. Tangentially related to this, does anyone know more about Ethiopian incursions in Arabia? I know that at various points they controlled large parts of the Arabian peninsula and I remember reading some years ago a legend about an Arab army that galloped into the sea and drowned because they were too scared to face the invading Ethiopians, but dunno much more on the subject.
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Dec 4, 2012 12:04
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Also about Ethiopians (not in ancient times tho) I remember reading about how they sent a delegation to europe and, after meeting the pope, they went and also visited the antipope in Avignon. That was pretty funny to me, like a "hmm, let's hear what the other guy has to say" thing.
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Dec 4, 2012 12:11
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lil sartre posted:Tangentially related to this, does anyone know more about Ethiopian incursions in Arabia? I know that at various points they controlled large parts of the Arabian peninsula and I remember reading some years ago a legend about an Arab army that galloped into the sea and drowned because they were too scared to face the invading Ethiopians, but dunno much more on the subject. The Christian Ethiopians invaded and overthrew the Jewish king of Yemen c. 550 AD or so. He is said to have perished by galloping his horse into the sea. After that, they attacked the pagan Meccans (because they pooped in the Ethiopian's big church), but the desert trip was too muchfor the Ethiopian 's elephants, so they turned back. Supposedly that was the year Mohammed was born. Later c.800 or so, they invaded the Arab coastline again, but were soundly beaten and the Arabs counter-invaded pushed them back into the mountanious highlands.
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Dec 4, 2012 12:57
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