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Greatest Warrior
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Message 1.Β
Posted by kenny (U14325701) on Thursday, 4th February 2010
Dear History Writers
I am writing to ask for opinions about a programme relating to deadliest warriors.
One episode was a Spartan vs a Ninja..Though the programme had the Spartan winning an outcome I would very much disagree with.
I am a reader of Ancient warriors Greeks,Romans,Macedonians and Spartans. It seems to me that the movie and the Hot Gates Leonidas rearguard action gives too much credit to Spartan warriors or indeed its over rated one dimentional way of fighting.
For me it takes more than guts been beaten and abused into toughness does not make the ideal soldiers...Its a myth that Spartans never surrendered im pretty sure they did.On one occasion the Sparatan warriors were indeed rescued by their slaves only to be rewarded by executions as the Spartans couldnt trust them.
More than once the Spartan kings took bribes and used religious excuses not to fight where as the rest of the Greeks not including Sparta defeated Persians at Marathon.
They get to much credit for the hotgates..There were at least 10 000 Greeks holding that bottle neck and am quite confident had it not been for Ephialtes the Persians would never have got through.
Finaly great soldiers and warriors in my opinion have Tactics discipline and a Great leader..Spartans had great discipline sometimes a great leader but hardly tactics...They were one dimention fron loader soldiers.Turn them or get behind them and they are prett weak.
Any opinions please.
Kenny -
Message 2
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Thursday, 4th February 2010
I don't think you'll get much argument that a solitary Ninja could probably defeat a solitary Spartan. Indeed, I recall a story that a Spartan was once challenged to show off his fighting skill and refused on the grounds that Spartans fought as a unit, not as individuals.
Hoplite warfare in general was fairly one-dimesnional but then, it was effective, as proven several times against lighter armed Persian troops.
While the Spartans certainly suffered defeats and some may have surrendered, I think this was later in their history, with their first notable defeat being at Leuctra. Before then, the other Greek city states certainly regarded Sparta as the pre-eminent military power in Greece.
As for leadership, then what you say could be said of many armies. The Spartans were certainly careful not to throw men away unless they thought there was good reason and their "religious" excuses were just that, excuses. Perhaps they genuinely believed it, although I think we can only speculate as to the real reasons why they thought it was not necessary to fight at Marathon. However, don't forget that the Athenian attempt to conquer Sicily was defeated when the Siciians sent to Sparta for help, and Sparta (allegedly) sent only one man, who nevertheless licked the local army into shape and eventually won. They clearly did have men who were capable of military greatness.
After saying all that, I think that comparing warriors from different cultures and times can only be an exercise in idle speculation. Not everyman of every army would be capable of fighting to the same level of ability, so the results of any staged one on one combat would be quite arbitrary. -
Message 3
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 5th February 2010
Indeed comparing warriors from different times is only speculative.
When we mean a Ninja against a Spartan what do we mean? Naked and armless? Armed with the same weaponry? Armed with their traditional weaponry?
A naked battle would be 40-60%. A ninja would be a bit more swift but then being Japanese, of much less muscular volume than a Spartan, so if he missed the first time, he would be simply clamped and strangled to death. Note that Greeks too had their form of armless fighting, the pangkration, which can be seen as a combination of kickboxing and karate - and expecially Spartans were considerably trained in it since kids, thus the ninja would not have any considerable advantage in terms of armless fighting experience.
If they had similar weaponry, it would be 50-50%.
If they used their weaponry (i.e. the Japanese with the spear-sword and long-katana and Spartan with spear and short sword), it would be a 70%-30% in favour of the Japanese since his arms were more suitable for one-on-one fighting while Spartan weaponry was striclty to be used in a phalanx.
However, if the question was on say 500 ninjas against 500 Spartans, I cannot see how ninjas could do anything against Spartans, I would give a 90%-10% in favour of Spartans. -
Message 4
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 5th February 2010
I also do not understand the over-emphasising on Spartans. It is, I guess, like the over-emphasing on the "Athenian" philosophy when Athens was never any hot-spot for philosophy and had hosted only the 2-3% of all ancient Greek philosophers, namely only Socrates and Plato.
Spartans saw their heyday between 600 and 400 B.C. But that was all. Despite their fame, they had not done really anything exceptional, not that they were not really good fighters, but because they were so few... maximum 8,000 (at best!!!!) citizen-soldiers. The rest were you average quality forced-allies, slaves, immigrants etc. Athenians had beaten them in pitched battles in the Peloponesian war and Thebans a bit later really crashed them. Had Spartans dared fight against Macedonians they would be simply crashed. Macedonians were by far the best Greek army of the ancient times, while even in the single level, Macedonian warriors were of considerable training since they lived a life not of continuous military training, but of continuous war with invading northern Thraecian and Illyrian tribes (and as both Greek and Roman writers attested, Thraecians and Illyrians were pretty capable warriors).
There were a large number of other cities that provided with excellent warriors. Aetolians faced expertly the huge Gaulic invasion. Thessalians had formed a formidable cavalry unit, inspiration to Philip II's cavalry. Syracusians in Sicily using some 110,000 allied force had resisted to an invading Carthagenian army of more than 300,000 all used together... when later Romans having 3 times the total force of Syracusians and their allies could not cope easily with the invasion of 40,000 Carthagenians. These were no mean feats. And of course, it was Athenians that crushed the Persians repeatedly. It was only them at Marathon, it was them at Salamina and even in the battle of Plataies it was Athenians that had the difficult part of facing... the Thebans (the most dangerous part of the Persian army) while Spartans showed their prowess against the uninterested Persians who only dreamt of returning back home...
Do not get me wrong. I quite like Spartans. But there is no way anyone can convince me they were anytihing exceptionally better than the rest. They formed a compact, well trained, professional unit with solid fighting skills and strategies but that is all. Not any magic. They proved to be as "mortals" as just any other on battlefield.
However in my opinion, be Spartans over-rated, really, the most over-rated army ever is by far that of Romans. The Roman army was nothign more than a collection of often badly dressed/equiped forced allies and mercenaries that managed to lose (often catastrophically) ALL 1st contact battles with all the nations they had faced. An amazing defeat rate that they could overcome only thanks to their excellent political skills that ensured them an endless source of soldiers...Even their famous discipline, was nothing more than a death threat to all those who would not follow orders to the maximum (Romans just executed for fun - anyway most soldiers were not even Roman, they were disposable on will...).. so no different to the Persian one - it is just that good-old European racism cannot admit that it calls Persian discipline as a "slave-master" thingie and Roman discipline as a "proof-of-character" thingie... in fact Persians had more character as they were not executed if they left the battlefield. -
Message 5
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Friday, 5th February 2010
Some excellent points there, Nik, but I think you are a little unkind to the Romans when you say they lost all first contact battles with new people they came across. They did not lose when they invaded Britain, nor do I recall them losing in their conquest of Judaea.
Hpwever, I think ther ear esom esimilarities ot be drawn between the Romans and the Spartans, although not in scale. Both were professional, trained armies whose usual opponents were made up of a small warrior elite supported by ranks of farmers-turned-soldiers for one campaign. -
Message 6
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 5th February 2010
Hehhe Tony.. let me be harsh on my beloved Romans -mind you I love also Romans, but mainly for their excellent politics. In the military, not they were not bad at all! I just feel the rope has gone too much to the left and so I drag it with force to the right to restore its position in the center.
I view the qualities of the Roman army more in areas of peace-time military preparations, diplomacy, organisation, provisions rather than a mere collection of soldiers placed in order to go to battle - i.e. the case of the extremely small Spartan armies. And if we remain in the fantasy-battles "What would 20,000 Spartans do against 20,000 Romans" answers are easy "Of course they would eat them for breakfast" but the real questions are "Could there 20,000 Spartans ever exist?" or... "Wouldn't 20,000 Spartans kill first each other long before they would think of going anywhere else". Afterall the Spartan system was developed out of the desperate "locking" of Spartans into a system themselves had not even imagined in the beginning: i.e. ruling over a much greater number of enslaved tribes than they could normally do. Giving them political freedoms would mean the end of political rule of Spartan citizens. Giving them physical freedom would mean their military end sooner or later. Maintaining such a military system would be like walking on the edge of the cliff all the time. -
Message 7
Posted by kenny (U14325701) on Friday, 5th February 2010
Thanks Guys
Much appreciated all your replies...With regard to the programe I mentioned...Both soldiers were equiped with their own relevent weapons. I have to say if the Spartan faced the Ninja head on then hes got a chance...But the Ninja stealth stuff could have him shooting poison darts ito the Spartan all day long without knowing where the Ninja was...Alas Ninja is stealth brains and elusive...Spartan guts and brawn loses every time for me.
Nik I appreciate your notes regarding Spartan Military prowess.As I said for me Leonidas last stand is over the top...We both know it was a bottle neck with thousands of Greek allies. I for one dont believe A Hannibal, Caesar or Even Alexander would have tressed it let alone broken through...The Greeks were good solid hoplite troops and could have helt Thermopalia indefinately.
I cant agree Romans were overated...They were succesful for a long time...Fair enough the standards went up and down...I think the Main fault with Roman Armies were mostly arogant ignorant and inept Commanders. The High classed horse sitters taking Roman armies and enemies for granted...With great leaders the Romans were unstoppable.
Hannibal spent 10 years trouncing Inept Roman armies badly led...It took a real general like Scipio to clip Hannibals wings who I believe was little more than an Ambush merchant. I doubt Caesar would have continualy been out foxed by Hannibal -
Message 8
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Saturday, 6th February 2010
Kenny,
At the risk of going off-topic, I must disagree with your assessment of Hannibal. While I belive you are correct in your assessment that Julius Caesar would not have been so badly caught out by Hannibal, to parapharse a modern saying, Hannibal could only fight the people he was up against.
Yes, he ambushed the Romans at Trasimene, and set a trap for them at Trebia, but isn't that what all good commanders want to do? Why fight your enemy on equal terms? Cannae was a stand-up fight and he still won, even though vastly outnumbered.
When Scipio won at Zama, Hanibal's army was a shadow of the one he had commanded earlier and he had lost his most important arm, the Numidian cavalry, who had gone over to the Romans. Hannibal was reduced to relying on elephants, which were no longer the threat they had once been because the Romans had learned how to cope with them. Scipio was a superb commander and used the tactics he had learned from Hannibal to turn the tables.
As for Nik and his Romans versus Spartans, the nearest we can come to that is probably Cynosphelae where the Romans faced the Macedonian army. 1 - 0 to Rome.
Tony -
Message 9
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 6th February 2010
TonyG well no, the Kynoskefales & Pydna battles where Roman legions struggled to beat the Macedonian phalanxes are not a good example. Let alone the earlier Thermopylae battle agains the Syrian army of the Seuleucids (Seulecids had an amzaing army for onducting sieges but apart from that, the pitch army they had sent in Greece was a low quality amalgam of acceptable (but not the best) quality macedonian phalanxes (made out of Greek mercenaries working for Seleucids) accompagnied by... iranian cavalry, asiatic cavalry archers, a few indian elephants and lots of amateur light infantry, mostly Minor Asian people (Greeks and hellenised Phrygians, Lydians etc.) that mainly came there as... settlers (people promised new land to join up the army).
For the two battles that Romans fought directly against the Macedonian kingom, just like the case of the earlier Thermopylae battle, we cannot even talk clearly about "Roman legions". Romans had already more than 70% of Greek allied or positively positioned neutral (the only Greeks opposing were the Macedonians, the Epirots, the Corinthians and half-heartedly 2-3 others). More interestingly, the 2 Greek greatest naval power of the times, Rhodes and Pergamon were already 150 years old Roman friends - and much of th Roman navy was provided by them so that practically there was no major Greek navy opposing the Romans but the majority of the navy of the hellenic world was already working for them - verifying the hypothesis that the very expansion of the Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean was a Greek product (explaining why there was hardly any revolution ever afterwards...)! The Roman troops sent in Greece were actually completed by many Greeks in their ranks and we cannot imagine Roman generals telling us the extend of Greek participation in these battles as they had to claim full scale of the victories for obvious political reasons back at home as well as abroad. What is for sure is that a very important - and certainly the most active - part of the "Roman legions" were actually Greeks obviously not fighting as legions but as medium-light infantry (a kind of a light flexible phalanx - that was the fashion among Greek armies in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.).
And what happened - surprisingly in both battles - was that the kings were betrayed repeatedly by the companion cavalry, made out of all the aristocratic families of the kingdom which opposed the kings' populist politics and wanted a return in the old pre-Philip II system of "equal aristocrats". If we take account that the cavalry was the heart of the Macedonian phalanx system together with the fact that the cavalry in both battles fled the battle we can never establish any supposed superiority of the "Roman legions" over the Greek armies, and that even if we ignore the role of the Greek allies in the Roman army.
There is no question on the role of cavalry and no-one can ever argue on that when what followed in the kingdom of Macedonia right the next day of the battle was that "....groups of pro-Roman citizens would roam around the cities hunting for pro-king and anti-Roman citizens, arresting them and surrendering them to the hands of Romans for execution..."... so you understand what was going on and why it had nothing to do with any external conquest of Macedonia by any Roman army.
Is it really a coincidence that the Romans had to take out the Numidian cavalry to beat Hannibal? It is just that Romans would avoid speaking on that and that later a generally pro-Roman stance of most historians would simply continue to downplay this "coincidence" of the Romans buying the Numidian and the Companion cavalrys in all these battles.
But to the military expert, Romans won only strategically, not militarily nor tactically the armies of Carthagenians and Macedonians. But afterall that is how you win a war, having a good army is just a simple detail in the overall picture.
The above are not to say that the Roman army was not any good. It was a fairly goos army, not anytning exceptional but simply what the Roman state needed: a massive army, armed cheaply, of some reasonable training and effectiveness and with death-penalty imposed discipline. If failing, there should be always more to follow so even after losing 9 battles they could win the 10th and go on win the war. -
Message 10
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Sunday, 7th February 2010
Nik,
I think we are closer in agreement than our posts perhaps suggest. I bow to your superior knowledge of all things Greek, and I agree that the Romans were masters at dividing and conquering, bringing in allies from various peoples to help augment their own army which, at its core, was simply heavy infantry.
Having said that, I don't entirely agree with some of your conclusions. The Greek states were notorious for their in-fighting and I cannot disputethat there would be strong pro-Roman facitons, but I would suggest that the reason there were no revolts against Rome had as much to do with the fate of Corinth in 146 BC than anything else. Was it not Plutarch who wrote advising a younger colleague who was setting out on a life of politics, "Do not forget that the Roman heel is always just above your head"? -
Message 11
Posted by kenny (U14325701) on Sunday, 7th February 2010
Nik and Tony
Your posts about Romans and Greeks are very good and I would say all or most good and valid points. One thing we cant take away from Romans is basically there resourceful ness one way or another the Roman Empire outlasted any other.
we could of coarse argue many details about Roman Military power..I have to say the Roman Formations if drilled and use right even today we would have to be good or very disdiplined to hold it or break it.
I think we agree they used the devide and rule code very well...To be honest Rome didnt have to divide the Greeks they were always so...Even when they had the opportunity to divide and rule longer with Alexander The Great and his legecy they were soon back at eack others throats.
I think Greeks and hellenism takes far too nuch credit as a great thinking cradle of thinking etc...but to be honest and no offence to nic they maybe have been philosophers but as a whole pretty stupid and corrupt...The Greeks take far too much credit for the helenisation of the east where as most greeks had absolutely no desire to go fighting in persia and its fair to say most had there fair share of Persian back handers.
Hannibal yes a great commander but stil to me a trickster. Canae he fained retreat and boxed the Romans and his cavalry were decisive in chasing off the useless Roman Cavalry and smashing the Roman rear.
I feel the Romans main weakness were mainly inept or even stupid commanders and took the Roman numbers for granted and underestimated enemies...Hannibal was an advisor and active following the punic wars and to my memory was very unsuccesful
kenny -
Message 12
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 8th February 2010
Hmm TonyG, while very demonstrative indeed, the case of Corinth was not necessarily what gave an example to the rest of the Greeks not to do anything.
First of all, had a minimum 60% of Greeks (even inside their most powerfull state, Macedonia) been at least neutral in the Roman-Macedonian war, Romans be-them conquerors of all Italy, would find it 10 times more difficult to bend the Macedonian resistance. Had they not the employment of Greek navies (and we cannot say that Greeks were forced into it - a forced navy is simply 10 times worse in war than a forced cavalry!!! for obvious technical reasons) Romans would had simply to subdue first all of northern Balkans till reaching the Greek states in the south and arguably they would lose like all the rest before them as Romans alone had nothing more to present than Persians or Gauls other than a better organisation and more disciplined armies.
After the Roman conquest, had the Greeks been unsatisfied with the situation they would simply rebel. But there was only 1 rebellion in Minor Asia in the 1st B.C. century which was of very local scale and the rootcauses were local - yet it had managed to clear off in a matter of days the local Roman guards (mostly local militia like everywhere in the region). Since the rebellion remained local it was easily subdued. The reality is that the bulk of the Greek world was satisfied under the Roman leadership. Let alone that some cities like Athens, Sparta, Rhodes, Pergamon (not the majority of course), did not even view Romans as conquerors but as usefull allies. The case of Sparta could be that they continued to view Romans as allies till the very end of the ancient Roman Empire, well into early Byzantine times when they were attacked by Goths and then got christianised by force!!! Athens hardly ever paid the tax that other regions were paying due to special allowances by a series of Emperors. Other regions as Rhodes regarded the tax as their contribution "to the alliance" while they maintained their autonomy doing 10 times more business than earlier on. Despite that the Roman conquest showed a large wave of destruction for many Greek states like Epirus, Macedonia, Corinth and hellenistic kingdoms - the bulk of the Greek world simply thrived. We can see that by the excavations, all Greek cities - including even cities of "those few enemy Greeks" Macedonians, like Thessaloniki, were thriving under the Romans. Why change something that was judged as extremely successful?
Had the Greeks opted to rebel that would lead to the old small-states structures implying they would have again to undergo a huge series of civil wars, not any attractive case for them. There was no notion of rebelling as the nation of Greeks to create one Greek Empire since the notion of nation for Greeks was never synonymous with any need of concentrating all the nation in 1 state/Empire (even panhellenists like Isocrate or Alexander only talked about co-operating greek states, not even a federation, never about 1 greek state). Moreover, afterall, the Roman Empire was almost that: a kind of a greek space as the whole east spoke Greek, not Roman and it was Greeks that implicitly ruled - not so much as military leaders or Emperors, but as administrators, thinkers, teachers, artists etc. Just note that for many Asian nations the word "Roman" did not enter well into their language prior to late Roman if not early Byzantine times (and that only through being the title of the Byzantine kings) since they tended to confuse Greeks and Latins (they hardly saw the difference since they rarely saw any pure Latins there anyway, the bulk of the mercenaries were Greek and hellenised populations of the east - one of the main reasons why the east was never latinised).
But in a fantasy world where a large part of Greeks had decided to rebel, there is no reason to believe that the Romans had any chance of surviving outside Italy. Having destroyed Carthage the other main shipping power of the Mediterranean, the main naval nation remaining were the Greeks. Romans never became themselves a naval force. The Roman Empire was never a naval Empire (while its continuation, the Byzantine Empire was strictly a naval Empire, one of its underlying Greek colours). Had a large part of Greeks rebelled - but be it a nice mix of mainland Greeks (Macedonians, Spartans, Aetolians & Achaians) with a nice mix of maritime Greeks like Rhodians and Pergamians) - Romans would simply be outsted from the Aegean world in a matter of weeks if not days. Roman local militias, like in the case of Minor Asian 1st century B.C. revolution, would be simply massacred by relatively badly armed rebels. But then taking in charge of the navies - already a large part of the overall Roman navies - the Greeks could easily make sure that Romans would not come around. Certainly Greeks could built weaponry from scratch but certainly could not train their armies to the same quality of older Greek armies like Macedonians and Spartans but then certainly they would not even need that quality as their navies would be enough to make sure that no or few of the Roman army would land in Greek shores. Given that Romans would be outsted from Greece there is no reason to imagine that the eastern regions (central-eastern Minor Asia, Middle East and Egypt) would wish, after such a blow to their prestige, to remain faithfull to Romans and would instantly opt for independence led by regional leaders, local chiefs (Armenians and Iranians in the borders with Parthia, Greeks and Hellenised ones in Minor Asia and Egypt but then often even by Roman aristocrats). In such a scenario, Romans at best would had kept possesion of Italy, Spain and western North Africa being increasingly based on northwestern Europe and Northern African recruits to fight off the eastern danger. Having not the best of the navies in case of continuing warfare they would lose some bases here and there, especially in the Mediterranean islands (Sicily, Malta, Corse etc.) and they would come back for more only if they would had developed their own native fleets.
Now one would say "would Romans permit such a scenario"? Of course not! They were not idiots, they had not created an Empire for nothing! In the case of such a rebelion they would put out the fire long before sending their armies to put down the rebels. That means that prior to sending an army to put down the rebels they would just make sure that all the neighbours remained faithful and that was most easily down by "oiling" the machine (i.e. giving something more ro receive the much needed fidelity). And down to the basics, they were more rich and in case of giving much more than any little region alone would dream of acquiring. While we do not know the details, the case of the Minor Asian rebellion was most possibly could be down to that (I just make an educated guess here). This was not of course a strategy followed only when dealing in the Aegean region but pretty much all over the Empire. Byzantines took the tactic to a whole new different level (ex. paying directly the enemies not to move etc.). In that way Romans rarely even needed to prove how decisive they were when dealing with rebellions. -
Message 13
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 8th February 2010
Kenny, it is really hard for people today to imagine the notion of "being Greek" back then and that mainly thanx to the notion of "nation" today. Most European nations no matter if really largely based on pre-existing nations, were finally formated on the basis of the states, of being ruled by leaders whose politics formed gradually the local populations even if they derived from a combination of different populations. Perhaps the best example is France which combined the ancient Gauls, the Bretons (actually not very native populations, since many of them came from Cornwall), the Franks, the Burgundians, the Normands, the Basques, the southern Latin (and whatever Greek leftovers). And not to hide this from you, even the old nation of Greeks was in a way formated back in the 19th century, though that mainly meant more "expelling out" and forgetting populations of Greek ancestry rather than including more in the structure.
So for many people this poses a problem: when we can talk about 1 French nation from the 15th century onwards how on earth can we talk about 1 Greek nation when Athenians and Spartans hated each other more than modern Greeks and Turks hate each other?
The answer is simple. The word nation anciently had the same meaning with the Greek word "ethnos". The word "ethnos" maintained largely its initial meaning that the word "nation" has lost. "Ethnos" makes reference to many things like common language, common religion, common culture but above all it makes a solid reference to common ancestry, some kind of ancient link among the populations belonging to the same "ethnos". However, as you see that is only that. No more. It does not say that all these populations have to be under the same leadership. Hence 1 "ethnos" can be divided into different states and make wars.
No strange notion back then and down to the basics pretty much most "ethni" were on that. As anciently as in 4000 B.C., one of the first nations, Sumerians, were fighting intra-ethnic wars. Chinese did it (2-3 of the 8 ancient kingdoms that constituted later the main 4 and later 1 Chinese Empire were of the same ethnic kind of "Han" populations but fought with each other just like with any other), Japanese had done it despite the presence of 1 Emperor (only in the name), Italic tribes had done it too, Gauls were doing it, Germans were doing it... pretty much anyone. Thus in that Greeks were far from being any exception.
The main reason of having a difficulty in understanding this is that simply most of the modern nations trace their direct ancestry not so long ago or back to Empires while the likes of modern Greeks (no matter whatever you believe on them! - and I will not be hurt if you believe otherwise) can recognise their past in a collection of fiercely warring states of differing cultures as much as Spart was different to Athens and Thebes to Pella.
This thing still perplexes people and quite often it is the basis of nice funny propagandas like the Turkish that calls the Ionian Greeks as pre-Turkish population, nothing to do with Greeks so as to cut any links of Greeks in Minor Asia, Bulgarians that called Macedonians as... Thraecians so as to demand lands in the geostrategic northern Aegean (nowadays Bulgarians recognise the Greek ancestry of Macedonia but it is their serbobulgarian offspring, ex-jugoslav FYROM that continues the game albeit by creating artificial identities) and even belatedly Albanians calling themselves descendants of Illyrians, phase-shift the positioning of Illyrians from Montenegro and Bosnia down to Greek Epirus and Macedonia and pretty openly also themselves demand half of Greece!!!
At the end of the day it is up to you to define it. If you are a Turk, a FYROMian or an Albanian it is out of question that you are going to tolerate hearing Greeks that they are the oldest nation in the Balkans. It can't be more obvious the "why". Then, if you are an American diplomat it is out of question that you are going to tolerate listening to Greeks claiming that they are the oldest nation in the region when you see Greeks being so close in signing deals with the Russians: obviously you will support and even fund every cheap and down to the basics ridiculous propaganda by Turkey, FYROM or Albania.
But for the independent researcher, things are clear. There is nothing strange with 1 ethnos being devided in different states and making war with each other. Greeks simply took intra-ethnic war to whole different levels - and in fact, I can tell you that we have long ago accepted that it is a nasty trait of our tribe... civil strife and war. The Greeks' worst enemy is the Greeks'. Romans, Catholic crusaders and Ottomans were not any external enemies but internal enemies. Greeks continued to hold the sceptres of civil war even in modern days as we are one of the few nations that managed to do a civil war during the 2nd year of our liberation struggle as well as a horrible civil war while fighting the Nazis (between patriots and communists) not to mention fighting each other when Turks were carrying out the genocide of all Greek populations in Minor Asia.
Trust me there is nothing particularly strange in all that. -
Message 14
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 8th February 2010
the most over-rated army ever is by far that of Romans. The Roman army was nothign more than a collection of often badly dressed/equiped forced allies and mercenaries that managed to lose (often catastrophically) ALL 1st contact battles with all the nations they had faced.Β
I guess it depends which period roman army you're talking about. But that's a fair description of roman armies sent against the hellenistic kingdoms. The Romans performed poorly initially, but that's to be expected from armies raised from citizen levies and trained briefly (mostly with threats of punishment for running away) sent to face battle hardened professionals. It didn't help that generals were political appointments and successful ones often denied the chance of a second campaign by their political opponents in Rome.
An amazing defeat rate that they could overcome only thanks to their excellent political skills that ensured them an endless source of soldiers.Β
And very effective it was too! The Roman aims of war were often extreme too. That reserve of manpower allowed them to fight on, and on until the other side was destroyed.
it is just that good-old European racism cannot admit that it calls Persian discipline as a "slave-master" thingie and Roman discipline as a "proof-of-character" thingie... in fact Persians had more character as they were not executed if they left the battlefield.Β
Nik, did you mean "old-fashioned racism" rather than "good old racism"? I'm reading Adrian Goldsworthy's "Roman Warfare" and Roman discipline is certianly not something he avoids nor is it dressed up as character building these days. Perhaps in the past, when public schools beat discipline into children, the Roman army's terror-induced discipline was admired, but certainly not today. Most books do recognize that the Roman punishments were extremely harsh, extremely cruel and frequently arbitrary. And they do note that Roman staying power on the battlefield was often induced by fear of retribution from their own side if they ran. -
Message 15
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 9th February 2010
Hehe Cloudji... as I said, I drag the rope to bring it to the center. Roman armies were not at all bad, these people knew how to fight. But I emphasise that what they did they did it mainly by following step by step consistent policies in external affairds, above all the gradual inclusion of allies and conquered people.
The word "racism" coming out of me is not very harshs (I use the term lightly as I really do not give much importance on its perceived "negative" side - at the end of the day according to racism the worst racists are... our mothers and fathers! hehe). I only wanted to emphasise on the double standards (and in the "western" literature I have to put Greeks too for emphasising too much on the beloved myth of "free Greeks" and "slave Persians" which should be corrected to simply "Greeks defending their lands" and "Persians attacking").
But here in the case of Romans you correct me saying that it had been always mentioned "what kind of discipline Romans had" thus it is mostly our own perception on military discipline. Correction accepted and thanks.
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