I need an ancient PrepHole warfare thread. Discussion and aesthetics.
From persian wars 499 bc to Punic wars 143 bc
I need an ancient?
I need an ancient PrepHole warfare thread. Discussion and aesthetics.
From persian wars 499 bc to Punic wars 143 bc
For me it’s alexander at Gaugamela and Hannibal at cannae
The peloponesian wars were also kino
The breakout from Plataea always gives me chills and a swelling sensation in the core of me soul. Absolutely would make a great movie if played straight from Thucydides, but you just know some commie would be cast as director and they would work in some way to make it pro-commie/anti-white/"there-are-no-western-heroes"/"muh-strong-female-protagonist-of-the-people" shit.
A true to source, non-woke miniseries of the Pellopenesian war is one of my simple desires.
Even one of the just the Corinthian war if one wants to be less ambitious. Just give me accurate depictions of classical Greek warfare and politics.
My dream is a movie about Marathon that is mostly historical, but also includes some of the legends surrounding the battle. Stuff like Philippides speaking with Pan, Theseus showing up, the hoplite with his dog, and things like that.
If you didn't already know this (ie if you're a zoomie), the movie "The Warriors" is inspired by this and is straight 70s kino, highly recommended.
Warriors is the Anabasis.
You see, this is exactly the kind of shit I am not interested in. We turn an inspiring "against-all-odd-miltary-adventure" involving tactics and battles and men into some shit about minorities and women and gang violence in the hood. I did not find it to be KINO at all. It was shit which draws detail from the Anabasis such that one of the characters is named Cyrus and he was a sort of leader.
Scipio Africanus, he never lost
The Carthaginians were cool, the ancient Greek hoplites were also neat
the carthaginians literally sacrificed their own children and rome was right to destroy them.
>the carthaginians literally sacrificed their own children and rome was right to destroy them.
>Roman authors claim that the Carthaginians sacrifice their firstborn
>Roman authors also record Hannibal as being his father's firstborn
>People still believe the Roman web of lies
>It is roman so it is a lie
Away with your silliiness
Yeah, about that.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=honorscollege_anthro
To add to this, it seems no tophets have been found in their Spanish territories.
https://www.tharros.info/text/1303/en
Now consider that Hamilcar didn't sacrifice Hannibal and that some people say that the Barcid family originally came from the Greek colony of Cyrene. I wonder if the Barcids weren't Greek or at least Hellenized Phoenicians and simply didn't take part in the child sacrifices. That could partially explain why the Barcids fucked off to Spain after the 1st Punic War and didn't have much to do with Carthage until the 2nd war.
It's worth noting that the Barcids, especially Hannibal, did not act in the typical way that Semitics do. After the 2nd war, Hannibal basically ended corruption in the city so that the could pay the Roman war reparations, but was then forced to leave after the seething Punic nobles tried to sell him out to the Romans.
I love Cyrene
A city on a slope crowned by the old Pantheon
The theater and library are famous
Hanging gardens from terraces, lots of eating places and cafes, food is mainly meat seafood and vegetables
The gentle breezes of North Africa and the deep rich soil.
In the distance the port full of boats from all nations of antiquity and their gaudy sails
At the gates camel riding traders from Garamantes and Egypt
So safe ancient people could walk around after dark
garden gnomes are banned too by Titus
Far away from the brutal warfare of Berbers
Its Cyrene for me
For me it's Sybaris.
*BUUUUUUUUUUUUURP*
Pardon.
If your culture is to sacrifice 1stborns, surely you would start counting at the second child right?
"These don't look like barbarians to me. Let's see what they can do." King Pyrrhus on observations of a Roman Republican camp. What did he see bros?
He saw the Sons of Romulus organized using the Maniple system and not the teeming mass of unorganized Barbarians he expected.
From what I recall, the problem with the Pyrrhic Wars was, well, they were Pyrrhic. Pyrrhus won every military confrontation with the Romans. The problem was Rome was too big. They could recover from every battle they lost against the Greeks, but the Greeks couldn't recover from their own victories.
Textbook case of an unwinnable war.
Honestly I blame the Greek city states in Italy more then Pyrrhus. They wanted the Epirot to deal with the Romans but didn't really want to contribute themselves. They also got super uppity when Pyrrhus started trying to organize them and station garrisons in their cities. Sure Pyrrhus was just using their peril as an in to create a western Empire of his own, but why invite him to aid you in the first place if you are just gonna sit on your hands. I guess they wanted Pyrrhus to smack the Romans around just enough to be left alone again.
I think a problem of the old world was not enough realpolitik.
Also the fact that they were not really a united Front, each city had it's own leaders with their own opinions, there wasn't any sort of universal agreement when the message got sent to Pyrrhus in the first place. They didn't want to get subjugated by the stinky Roman Barbarians but the idea of getting put under Pyrrhus's thumb wasn't attractive either.
I'm seeing a modern parallel to it. China (Rome) vs the United States + Asia-Pacific allies (Epirus + Greek Italian league).
Sorry to sound like a "no fun allowed" retard, but modern china has so little in common with the rise of the republic, it's comical.
Also modern warfare is pretty different to ancient times, to a point that you can argue that the US is too far ahead in the tech race.
Advances in AI will make things even worse. Unless China manages to fix their fucked up environment and invents a nobel way to wage war that somehow vears US overwhelming firepower, they're doomed to be kwarhezmia after Ghengis started to chimp out.
The US is similar to Epirus in that it has both a highly professional military and cutting edge technology, but lacks the necessary quantity and willpower to extend and contain China. Also, unreliable allies. Meanwhile, even by losing just a few thousand troops is enough for the people to consider pulling out of the hypothetical Asian war (this has happened numerous times since 1945).
I think you underestimate the resources the US has at it's disposal and how wobbly the current situation for china is.
Rome was until the late republic food secure.
Modern china is one recession away from people starving.
I understand you want to make parallels, but culturally alone China has so little in common with Rome, you might as well compare them to medieval Danes.
China has the willpower to continue the war even if it had to resort to cannibalism to feed its army. The US pulled out of Afghanistan after just losing a few thousand personnel. The US military is a paper tiger, totally devoid of proper support from the public, with fifth column far-left/far-right all over the country, and corporations eager to betray/move elsewhere for profit.
>China has the willpower to continue the war even if it had to resort to cannibalism to feed its army
Is this supposed to sound good?
>The US pulled out of Afghanistan after just losing a few thousand personnel.
After 20 years.
>The US military is a paper tiger
kek
>totally devoid of proper support from the public, with fifth column far-left/far-right all over the country, and corporations eager to betray/move elsewhere for profit.
Got any data to even indicate your headcanon is valid at slightest?
>China has the willpower to continue the war even if it had to resort to cannibalism to feed its army.
Post your gun with timestamp, chang. It doesnt matter how many of your men you let starve, it wouldn't win you your first war against an outside power in FIVE HUNDRED YEARS.
>Willpower
Doesn't matter if your industrial base is one blown up dam away from collapse.
>USA army &Navy is a paper Tiger
The common misperception with the USA is that since you are oublicly allowed to point out flaws, that the flaws will never be fixed. The US is bot a third worl potemkin army. Look at the battle of Conocco fields. If you don't have a way to shut down the US airforce, you will die
>fifth columnists/traitors
As if the US state security services don't know how to deal with retards when push comes to shove.
>companies do what they want.
I thought so too, then Putin did the funny last year and suddenly almost all US companies left russia. Even corpos with big investments like Mc Donalds or Exxon. Zeihan was pretty on point when he said:"Companies can do dumb stuff because the US state department allows them to do that."
Sorry chang, but China ain't gonna beat the US in a straight up fight. You're just mithridates for the next president to take out.
Ur gay
>t lacks the necessary quantity and willpower to extend and contain China.
This is a child's understanding of China. There is no force on this planet capable of providing a challenge to the United States in an open engagement until it has a civil war or becomes so monstrously degenerate it cant even keep half of it's current fleets floating.
Pyrrhus was an old head, an inheritor of the Greek military tradition used to bring Persia to it's knees. Of course when going to meddle in Italian affairs he would see himself as being both culturally and militarily superior to a bunch of regional upstarts like the Romans. When he arrived and saw them in the field however they seemed a lot more organized and well drilled then he had been led to believe. The Samnite wars had turned the Romans into into a pretty well oiled machine. The anecdote you are referencing could also just be something made up after the Romans bloodied Pyrrhus in the field, a cute little story to make it seem like the great Pyrrhus saw it coming. Roman Historians love sucking Pyrrhus's knob because being able to say you fought a great Greek Warrior King to an impasse comes with a lot of international clout. The Romans were not just beating Samnites or the wider Latin League, they were going toe to toe with a famous Alexander like conqueror who brought a proper Macedonian Phalanx and Indian War Elephants to Italia.
>These don't look like barbarians to me. We'll see what they can do.
A reasonably well ordered camp. It wouldn't have been in that classic rectangle shape that Romans are known for since it wasn't developed yet
By Jvpiter what is that?
>tfw no cute bloodthirsty amazon wife
Muh Queen of the King of Kings
Phyrrus was the only Greek who won such victories against the Romans. Was he that much better than the others, or did the Romans just adapt their tactics better in the future.
Pyrrhus was definitely a cut above the rest, you don't get a reputation for being a six foot tall giga-chad cutting people in half down the middle with a single blow and always leading your men from the front unless it's at least partly true. All the Diadochi larped as Alexander but Pyrrhus truly lived up to the Hellenistic hype. The dude loved a good scrap and his men loved him for it, evidenced by the fact that they were willing to follow him on just about any strange foreign venture he put his mind to.
The fact that all the successors continuously larped as Alexander while Alexander was just larping as Achilles will never not be funny
Larping is a core part of human nature. Every society is larping as another, that society was larping as another, and so on.
Achilles < Diomedes
Alexander was greater than Achilles. The successors were mostly embarrassing.
And then someone's grandma domed him with a roof tile. History is pretty funny.
Less ironic than you think. The only way to kill his is by taking him by surprise
The later successor kingdoms got lazy. Alexander had all sorts of support units for his phalangites such as hypaspists, peltasts, and so cavalry. The later Macedonians in particular don't seem to have payed as much attention to these support units and instead went all in on pikes and heavy cav. The Selucids had good support units, but they were all retards except for Seleucus I and couldn't have won against the Romans if they'd had planes and tanks.
That's not to downplay Pyrrhus though. The man ate, slept, and breathed war. It was literally all he would talk about and he would often change the subject to war whenever he was at a feast or something like that. He absolutely would post here were he alive today.
Imagine Pyrrhus' shitposts after he adjusts to current year. It would be magical.
IIRC he was different from everyone else because, like Alexander the great and the ancient Greek hero's of the trojan war, he personally led soldiers into battle instead of staying behind and just giving commands like most generals and kings. He defiantly would be shitposting.
Movies and TV make it seem like the leader of armies leading troops into combat was more common than it really was.
>Stannis in game of thrones being the worst example I can think of, makes no sense for him to do that
>the leader of armies leading troops into combat was more common than it really was.
Many leaders in antiquity fought with their men, especially Hellenistic kings who were all larping as Alexander. Pyrrhus wasn't particularly special in that regard, he was just a better warrior, both personally and tactically, than any of his peers. The only commanders I can think of off hand who didn't make a habit of fighting at the front are Hannibal Barca and Julius Caesar. Even then, both of them definitely fought personally at various times, especially Hannibal who had been an officer under his father and brother since he was a teenager, and would always command from as close to the front as the feasibly could.
Probably a mix of both and likely more and more of the latter as the years passed by.
>Probably a mix of both and likely more and more of the latter as the years passed by
To be fair, some of them lasted a lot longer then they should have, even the pathetic destinies of being promoted from Roman satraps to Roman provinces are impressive when you consider how they started.
ol Julius personally led a charge a couple of times
Caesar also fought as an infantryman in Spain as a young man, there is a story of him being a jidge for a trial and a guy recognizes him as having saved his life during a battle.
What's the point of the silly protuberence on top of their helmets?
Looks cool. Simple as.
The Phyrgian is probably my favorite of the Greek helmets, especially with the beard.
Based. I love the phyrgian. and the boeotian is beautiful also. hellenic age was glorious
Helmets of the era often imitated popular hat styles. This one was modelled after the Phrygian hat which had a long, soft, conical apex.
Other hat-derived helmets are for example pilos and Boeotian ones. Some city states made a point of using helmets resembling their "national" hats.
Lazy or they did not understand Alexander's military as Alexander understood them?
I don't really think the defeats of the Successors at the hands of the Romans were attributable to either lack of supporting arms or formation. There are basically three big key battles the Romans won, Cynoscephalae, Magnesia and Pydna.
Cynoscephalae saw Philip's phalanx beat back the Romans while on a hill (yet brainlets will still tell you phalanxes disintegrated if on anything that wasn't a flat plain). The Roman victory was owed to their capable use of elephants, Nicanor's failure to form up his wing and the unnamed tribune attacking Philip V's wing at the crucial moment. No matter the formation or support, I don't think any army could reasonably be expected to survive being flanked like that.
Magnesia was won by the Pergamene cavalry and Antiochus not doing a single intelligent thing, instead choosing to fuck off the battlefield to attack the Roman camp, the exact same thing he did at Raphia, which he also lost.
And Pydna sees Perseus completely failing to deploy his cavalry, possibly because he was away from the battlefield to offer sacrifices thinking he'd already won, returning far too late. Meanwhile, the phalanx lost its cohesion while pursuing the retreating Romans.
You're attributing it more to just incompetence then? I can certainly see that, especially with such shining examples of it as Perseus and the Selucids. I do differ when it comes to Cynoscephalae though.
>Nicanor's failure to form up his wing
This sort of thing is exactly what i was talking about. Alexander would have had cavalry and other troops ready to move in and engage the Romans while Nicanor formed up. Phillip V did exactly this on his side of the field which is why he was successful early on, but where was Nicanor's support? You mention elephants as a reason for the Roman victory, but the successors knew how to deal with elephants and Nicanor probably could have had he had the proper support.
It's a mixture. Pyrrhus was considered one of the greatest generals of all time by Hannibal Barca of all people, so if that does say something, I dunno what will. Regarding Rome, they didn't exactly have tactics especially during the Republic era, instead they had insane levels of logistics and human capital. The Pyrrhic and Punic wars are just a series of entire Roman armies being killed to a man, only for Rome to shit out another one until they eventually win.
this picture shows partly why Greeks (and other ancients) lost to the Romans
that overhead swing of the sword is slow, the roman legionary closes the distance, bangs his shield at the bottom of the other shield to make a gap and plunges his gladius into the armpit and stomach a few times within a few seconds. soldiers after him all crash the bottom of their heavy shields on this suckers head until the face becomes mush
By the time of Marius the legions had the stabbing thing down to a science. Usually they'd use their shield to pin down their opponent in front of them and then stab the guy in front of their right hand man.
On top of that, the trained cohorts could rotate their soldiers so every guy was equally tired during a battle.
During Trajan's time the Centurions even had a system to rotate their entire battle line cohorts out and switch in a fresh reserve.
Also loads of fixes artillery support with ballistae abd other shit due to op roman logistics.
Four
Diadochi
Wars
and the Babylon war
Are the two parts of the Sarissa merely held together by gravity and friction?
I would imagine that if both parts are just put together without any pegs, that the upper part would come loose rather quickly.
hard to say, not many have survived without rotting. I would not be surprised if they had some kind of wooden wedge to put in the middle bit that jams the parts together so they will hold strongly. Kinda like how you attach an axe head into the shaft. Should be easy to implement.
I'm sceptical with the wedge solution, as the Sarissa could be collapsed into two pieces. And removing such a wedge seems quite hard.
Pic rel are the metal parts of a Sarissa found in Vergina. And the sleeve is apparently completely solid.
>Ancient
>500 BC
What would you call the Bronze age then?
Booba
>Some folks are born
>Made to wave the aquila
>Hoo, they're equestrian blue
>And when the band plays "AVE TO THE CAESAR"
>Ooh, they point the ballistae at you
>Lord
>It ain't me, it ain't me
>I ain't no patrician's filius
>It ain't me
>IT AIN'T ME
>I ain't no felix filius
>I aint no praetorians son, no no
>I'm just a plebian one
you had one fucking job
TOTAL CARTHAGO DEATH
You won't do shit bitch. Fight me in real life if you're so tough, you won't.
What would you have painted on your aspis PrepHole?
I've always been partial to the gorgon with its tongue sticking out, but I might have also went with a dolphin.
Swazi. Or hydra.
Cant go wrong with a cat themed war implement
Probably a bird. I like birds
Probably a gorgon
>until late Middle Ages
romaboo penultimae detected. Romaboo ultimae would say Europe still hasn't recovered. .
Ayo ma bro busting out da clay pots
No cap that shits gay yo
Post more of Mycenaean kino
If you want to discuss history go to PrepHole, most people on PrepHole only know about “history” through deadliest warrior and Lindybeige
Wasted trips.
You're fucking retarded. PrepHole is easily one of the worst boards on this site and you've either never browsed it or are one of the subhuman haplomorons and/or &humanities gays who uses it regularly.
PrepHole hates lindybeige and deadliest warrior hasn't been mentioned here in a decade.
Why should I hate Lindybeige?
Because he doesn't ever know what he's talking about.
On further thought, I did remember that a Greek general defeated the Romans before the gates of Carthage after the Romans issued ridiculous peace terms. But that wasn't a Greek army and was a one time thing, not a campaign like Pyrrhus waged. The guy knew when to collect his check and bail.
Xanthippus of Sparta.
>guy knew when to collect his check and bail
Look up Masinissa.
>Punic wars
CARTHAGO DELENDA EST
________________________________________
CARTHAGO DELENDA EST
FUCK GREEK gayS
SPQR FOREVER
Tribune (DXL)
Quaestor (DL)
Aedile (DLV)
Praetor (DLVI)
Consul (DLIX)
Censor (DLXX)
"Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is useless to let go the reins and then expect her not to kick over the traces." - Me
Would you survive as a skirmisher? Slowly building up captured armor to join the spear infantry?
Nah fuck that. Maybe being a slinger would be ok, but I don't want to get close enough to throw javelins unless I have armor.
I barely survive a fishing trip on a calm lake. I'd be better suited for camp chef or something
Im too femmish boish to be anything but passed around
You would use your young age, light encumberment and athleticism to move faster than heavier infantry. Your projectiles keep you at range which means you already have a head start in the foot race to escape to safety. Your biggest enemy is cavalry as they can out run you, but that is why you rely on heavy infantry and your own cavalry to support you when you are finished with your mission. You don't ever have to become heavier infantry. Light infantry can scout and sustain themselves more efficiently than others.
Poorfag cope
Cute toes
I’d die for sure but I’d take plenty with me first but eventually I’d meet my match.
Most skirmishers would just throw their javelins or use their slings/bows once or twice then got the fuck out of there as the mainline forces closed in.
Knowing Greeks, the phallic "head" of that helmet is surely intentional?
I think we need more plumpy delicious cocks in warfare.
If anyone here is interested in reading more about Pyrrhus, here's Plutarch's Life of Pyrrhus.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Pyrrhus*.html
It's such a shame that Pyrrhus' own books didn't survive to the present because he wrote several war manuals and personal accounts of his own campaigns. Hannibal Barca is known to have studied these books quite extensively.
There's something funny to me about 2 separate accounts describing, not without detail how Pyrrhus' teeth have no gaps and are fused together
I suppose that's the price you pay for a magic spleen curing toe.
>One of them ran forth far in advance of the rest, a man who was huge in body and resplendent in armour, and in a bold voice challenged Pyrrhus to come out, if he were still alive. This angered Pyrrhus, and wheeling round in spite of his guards, he pushed his way through them — full of wrath, smeared with blood, and with a countenance terrible to look upon, and before the Barbarian could strike dealt him such a blow on his head with his sword that, what with the might of his arm and the excellent temper of his steel, it cleaved its way down through, so that at one instant the parts of the sundered body fell to either side This checked the Barbarians from any further advance, for they were amazed and confounded at Pyrrhus, and thought him some superior being.
Literal anime character.
I sorta understand why other Greek Kings’ soldiers would desert during campaigns in order to join up with Pyrrhus instead, the guy was larger then life.
Greeks won against Barbarians because they were much better armored and practiced combined arms. but their armies were small, logistics were meh, and they did lots of homo sex so its Patricians for me
Their recruitment sucked. By only limiting their armies to citizen militia they also limited the types of threats they could organically face by themselves.
Didn't they field slave (helot) conscripts as well?
Only when they were low on man power and facing an existential crisis. Usually slaves/helots would just perform logistical duties. If you had a 5k Greek army you probably had 5k to 10k helots supporting them.
Greek armies really were not that small after the Classical period though. During the Diadochi your average Hellenistic army was around 20,000 to 50,000 men strong. Even the Greeks who did retain their city state centric worldviews understood they needed to form bigger and bigger coalitions to compete with the proper Hellenistic states of the time.
Romans could field 90 000 men after losing 2 battles before, just 80 years after Successor Wars.
And yet in the decisive battle ending the Roman war with Macedon (Cynoscephalae) it was 25,000 vs 25,000, in the decisive battle in which Rome bullied the shit out of the Selucids (Magnesia) they where either outnumbered by 2 to 1 or it was an even match up of 50,000 to 50,000. I definitely agree that Romans are better at bouncing back from defeats and replacing loses but to call the Greek armies they faced too small just isn’t true.
Conditions in the field don’t always allow for full forces to be brought to bear against each other. In the third Macedonian war Rome was winning until the Macedonians consolidated their forces and slapped them at the battle of Callinicus. Rome then had to do some
consolidation and reinforcement of their own before ultimately winning at Pydna.
At Pydna though it was still roughly 47,000 Macedonians against 40,000 Romans and their elephants. The Macedonian force was plenty big to compete, the Roman Maniple is just better at adapting than the pike phalanx.
Roman barbarian frothing at the mouth and throwing his unit’s standard deep into the Phalanx in order to force his men to push through only for them to get PIKE’D. Had to retreat to rough ground to even compete.
Yeah, they simply had an endless amount of well trained people to throw at the problem, First and Second Punic Wars being the exemplars of their capacity to adapt and overcome.
Incredible that a millennium later, European states would consider a loss of 20 Knights as a major thing.
>European states would consider a loss of 20 Knights as a major thing.
Don't forget the instant disappearance of other cultural specifics such as mass produced factory goods including fabrics, glass, ceramic, steel and brass tools and ornaments, multiple storied buildings, paved roads, international trade, diplomacy, literacy and the written word, representative art, public works, sanitation, complex machines like hoists and jacks, and so forth. It was rather shocking to discover that outside of mechanization, Roman Empire subjects had a life almost as modern as our own, and how far the European societies fell when it collapsed
the los of those knights wasn't because there weren't more men at arms to go out and fight but because they where the nobility running things.
Just as how shocked rome was when ever a consul and a bunch of senators got killed
>he instant disappearance
lol no
>your list
non of those where lost tough
>roman lived an almost modern live outside of mechanization
lol
You see digs all over Europe and britain where the medieval layers are crude pottery, 3rd grade art project garden gnomeelry and Saxon mud walled round houses and right under those are Roman mosaic and tile floors, brick walls, glass bottles and metal luxury items from all around the Empire. It's a damn steep cliff the West fell of and denying it is stupid. Only Rome itself and the Eastern Empire remained anything like civilized in Europe after 472 until the late middle ages. Paris was a cowshed after the Roman's left
>3rd grade art project garden gnomeelry
>Saxon mud walled round houses
>all of Europe is the britiain and the northern part of Western Europe
you claim that the ability to produce all those things got lost all the a once with the fall of the western empire.
and all you have "oh but anglo-saxon longhouses aren't roman villas".
The romans had alreadly left the area years before the fall or rome and before abandoning it the level of the material culture had already been degrading.
>Paris was a cowshed after the Roman's left
Paris wasn't even an important roman center. And roman paris got sacked several times while still under roman rule.
you have at best a plebs understanding of the period.
the fall of western roman empire wasn't an on/of switch being flipped. People didn't forget everything and people developed a lot of new things. The changes weren't universal with for instance the difference between those parts that kept late roman law and those that adopted germanic legal codes. ect ect
>you claim that the ability to produce all those things got lost all the a once with the fall of the western empire.
Objectively they couldn't because a lot of things necessary to maintain the kind of lifestyle and standards of living Romans had went away as soon as the Empire fell due to the sudden closing of trade routes. Pottery and clay tiles alone disappeared practically overnight and you don't find them any more in archeology, conversely, you start seeing a decline in the health of people of the time, their skeletons start shrinking, they are more bent and full of poorly healed fractures, and they start showing signs of parasites. Their ability to feed themselves, conserve food or even live in clean and safe houses just went away.
>and all you have "oh but anglo-saxon longhouses aren't roman villas".
>The romans had alreadly left the area years before the fall or rome and before abandoning it the level of the material culture had already been degrading.
Roman culture had been declining for a long time in Britain and indeed they weren't even there anymore when the Empire fell but the loss was still felt and sent ripples all over the ancient world. It was a proper collapse of civilization at large that took at least 50 to 100 years to stabilize and pitch back up, at least three generations of Europeans in every country saw nothing but decay and destruction happen before their eyes.
I don't get why meds think the Romans civilized northern Europe, as soon as the romans were pushed back and the western empire fell all of the places conquered by rome were conquered by people that rome couldn't conquer
They inherited Europe and made Europe straight again
And you talk about their house building techniques, you only have to look at the colosseum to see the primitive habits of the roman
It looks like it was built by early man
>I don't get why meds think the Romans civilized northern Europe, as soon as the romans were pushed back and the western empire fell all of the places conquered by rome were conquered by people that rome couldn't conquer
There's nothing Rome reached that didn't have lasting changes and returned to the way it was, the main reason Germanic tribes were capable of competing with Roman armies is that they had such prolonged contact with Romans many Germans served in the legions and adopted their structure and culture, the Roman legions became a culture of its own separate from the Roman civilian wolrd due to being posted in the frontiers for centuries. Germanic culture is just legionary culture with chieftains and their retinue mimmicking the structure of Auxiliary commanders and their troops, their legal framework and customs as well, the biggest example of this are the Franks but the Goths developed almost straight out of Roman military tradition.
>They inherited Europe and made Europe straight again
Romans had to beat Christianity into the Germans who adopted it later
>And you talk about their house building techniques, you only have to look at the colosseum to see the primitive habits of the roman
>It looks like it was built by early man
Brickwork is something that specifically couldn't have been made in northern Europe before Rome came around because the specific mixture of clay and ash to make bricks consistently wasn't available to them, Romans used volcanic ash both for concrete and brick to put up structures quickly and that would endure drastic temperature changes and earthquakes, the main reason Roman ruins survive to this day is precisely because their concrete self-seals better than modern concrete.
I just picked up the Landmark series for some of the Greek authors. I’m going to start with Herodotus.
I'm going to say it: Spartans are overrated. The thracians were a superior warrior-culture and the athenians have them beat ito socio-economics.
Very Based, they knew how to prove to the boss they were earning their keep.
Whats with the weird sword spears
Those are Falx
but why are they all straight in the picture? Isnt the defining quality of a Falx that it isnt straight?
They’re rhomphaia. Basically just a straight falx.
Pretty sure the small bit of curve in that first picture in question is just hidden in neck meat from the severed heads.
Farm tools
All team switching, Polis-less Thraciggers get the spear.
Fuck being cav at this time. Riding bareback sucks.
The Athenians definitely have them beat in the departments of industrialized pedophillia and the exaltation of prostitutes to the level of greater influence than senators.
What is the common diet on soldiers back then on the march?
Bread was first and foremost, as it was with most ancient armies. After that, dried meats and fruits were very common. Anything beyond that would depend on what was local to the region you were marching through.
As an aside, Alexander really liked ice cream and presumably ate in when campaigning in snowy regions.
>Ask for ancient warfare
>Describes classical warfare
Fag.
>We've just landed here with Legio X on what the troops are calling "Big J"
>It's an ugly nation, a garden gnome nation
I would love to see this in Latin.
servitium confirmat civitatem
plus scire vis?
Do you like your shield to be rectangular, round, or oval?
Hexagonal
>Hexagons
Can you garden gnomes cool it with the hexagons for one fucking second. Jesus christ it's always Black Cubes this and Hexagons that. We get it.
Fuck you both, Crescent!
Reeeee!!!!! Why are the garden gnomes always winning! It's been this way since Moses in 1,600!
>Be Rome at height of its extent under Trajan.
>Fight series of wars with tiny desert kingdom full of religious fanatics and their "one God."
>Just one of these wars kills 750,00-1.3 million people in your empire, a not insignificant proportion of the whole and more than all your wars with barbarians over two centuries."
>Finally overcome the garden gnomes.
>End up worshipping their one God within a century anyhow.
>Be Persia at height of Muslim empire
>Little gnomish fanatic community revolts.
>Lose
>Be successor of Alexander with most powerful kingdom.
>Little tiny gnomish kingdom revolts due to religious autism
>Lose.
garden gnomes were OP back then due fanaticism and religious zealotry that would make ISIS blush.
And yet the comic tier kvetching was still also a thing.
And people say the Bible doesn't have humor lol.
>Seleucids
it was all downhill from Ipsus
>be super tough guy Spartans
>"No you move."
>"If you come."
>ebin
>get raped by gay super homo soldiers from Thebes
What did they mean by it?
Guys, I had a vision of the far future when another group of super tough guys called the VDV also got raped by a group called "HATO super homos."
homo make you strong
Was ancient warfare really as deadly as media makes it seem? I remember before deploying thinking I was gonna see thousands dead but it wasn’t anything like that
I think the main difference between ancient and modern warfare is the type of wounds everyone was taking the amount of violence per square mile. Ancient battles happen over the course of a few days at one location, with everyone who dies usually taking on massive stab wounds from spears and short swords which would bleed them quit literally like a stuck pig, leaving most corpses pale white and galleons of blood soaking into the ground. Modern battles take place over the course of weeks on fronts many miles long. Deaths are caused by men usually being exploded in some way or riddled with multiple bullet wounds. Fragmentation organ failure caused by the explosions and Bullet exit wounds tear the shit out of bodies in modern war.
In a lot of inter Greek hoplite warfare before the mass adoption of Cavalry casualties usually were pretty low. As soon as a route started the routers would usually throw down their armor and weapons and thus easily outrun their pursuers maintaining their arms in hand. Thats why the Spartan mother told her son to come home with his shield or on it, and why after most Greek victories they took the arms and armor of their foes and stacked it into a big pile as a display of their victory.
That is to saw there was usually a lot more armor and weapons laying on the ground then actual Greek dead. This is also why the experienced drilling and discipline of the Spartans was so prized. Being able to rally and withdraw in good order avoided having to throw down all ones equipment in a mass panic.
It’s also a reason the Spartans stayed to die at the Hot Gates. Since the Persians had cavalry someone needed to buy time for the rest of the Greeks to withdraw in good order without fear of being run down by Persian horsemen.
>and why after most Greek victories they took the arms and armor of their foes and stacked it into a big pile as a display of their victory.
At a chariot game hosted by King Herod and visited by Augustus Caesar, there was the traditional spoils display like you say: shield leaning against spear and so on, ornamenting the track. Commemorating some victory. The Hebrews saw this display and were insulted and shouted and stirred.
They took insult because they thought the displays were nude statues Lol, in Greek/Roman style. Caesar loled and the totems were taken down.
fucking cancel culture man
>a couple of millennia ago people were killing each other face to face in shiny bronze armor
>now people are killed by carboard rc places
Where did war go so wrong?
The thing that really bothers me is how bureaucratic things are today. A random guy could go out and become a king if he was bold and shrewd enough. That just couldn't happen in the modern world.
Gunpowder was truly a mistake.
>A random guy could go out and become a king if he was bold and shrewd enough. That just couldn't happen in the modern world.
Do you really think this doesn't happen?
The world isn't run by presidents or anyone democratically elected
How do you cope with never being as PrepHole as the byzantines?
The top auto complete for "Did the Romans" is "Did the Romans fight the Vikings". Little do they know that Vikings fought for the Romans to unbelievable success.
Say hello to the legionary for the next century
>The second segmentata disappears
It's... it's over...
It didn't actually. New segmentata wasn't made of course, but some of the Spanish legions were wearing it into the late 300s.
Honestly though, fuck segmentata. SQVAMATA chads rise up.
Scale armor needs to become iconic of late Rome like Segmentata is for high empire, it's just too aesthetic
For me it's Late Dominate>Polybian Republic>Early Republic>Late Principate/Early Dominate>Marian Republic>Early Principate
Is there a chart for this?
Not to my knowledge.
jesus fuck, late roman equipment is so kino
Hey lindy how r u
I know this is an ancient warfare thread but I have to ask. Did they ACTUALLY do tacking on gambesons like in pic rel around the 14th century? Or is this just modern fantasy larp shit? The reason why im asking is that im making an aketon to go under a brigandine atm.
I thought that look came from people conflating brigandines/jack of plates with gambesons.
Then its bullshit?
No. Waste of metal, and a misconception because Gary gygax was retarded.
Ok thank you.
So
How did Roman troop cycling work?
*TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET*
We don't actually know, and there's reason to think it didn't actually happen as a large scale thing, but rather as individual men rotating within the unit, or as entire maniples simply filtering forward through the lines and telling them to fuck off to the rear.
Basically nobody who's actually been in an infantry block AND read the primary sources is buying the HBO whistle bullshit. It's utterly impractical when you're chest to chest in a shield fight to just fuck off and hope the guy you're engaging doesn't immediately knock you on your ass or follow you.
>hope the guy you're engaging doesn't immediately knock you on your ass or follow you.
I always thought this too. It seemed to me that an enemy could just stab you on the switch.
Well in battles weren't there natural pauses where the lines disengaged after a while to catch their breath/reorganize for a charge? I suppose that could be a good time for swapping out tired men.
I remember one battle between German (Teutonic, I think) and Polish knights where they would clash 3 or 4 times, pausing inbetween long enough to exchange captives/wine.
found the battle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Koronowo
Yeah natural pauses are a thing, a d you could conceivably change lines then. It's still risky, buy nowhere NEAR as suicidal as rotating your entire front while engaged the way people like to imagine happened.
>Basically nobody who's actually been in an infantry block AND read the primary sources is buying the HBO whistle bullshit. It's utterly impractical when you're chest to chest in a shield fight to just fuck off and hope the guy you're engaging doesn't immediately knock you on your ass or follow you.
Wouldnt the guys behind you move up first before you pull back? Actually werent battles not a constant line of contact but two lines standing in front of eachother and intermittently pushing then bouncing back?
I dont think there'd be full on pauses as much as an alternating between melee and skirmishing, you could move a full block of infantry up while the currently engaged ones pull back a few paces or are covered by a few barrage of missiles, a ton of battles were won thanks to soldiers pursuing a fake out retreat and being shot to pieces.
>Wouldnt the guys behind you move up first before you pull back?
Not enough room, unless everyone is extremely disciplined and drilled in procedures. That is really where the Romans excelled. We have the same thing today, when a unit replaces another in the front line; again, it's a manoeuvre that requires training and drill and the successful execution of it is what sets apart a good army from a shit one.
Remember that: a shit army isn't one that doesn't know how to do something, it's one that fucks up while attempting it.
>Actually werent battles not a constant line of contact but two lines standing in front of eachother and intermittently pushing then bouncing back?
Yes
If you've ever been in a gang fight or a riot, the rioters is how most undisciplined troops behave; riot cops is more how the Romans or other good armies were like.
>you could move a full block of infantry up while the currently engaged ones pull back a few paces or are covered by a few barrage of missiles
Again this is dependent on a disciplined withdrawal instead of running away in relief, and the covering forces being accurate in providing cover fire and inflicting casualties. If the retreating forces- which you must remember comprise tired and wounded men - withdraw in a rush, or the supporting troops are unable to effectively deter pursuit, well that is how a front line breaks.
>a ton of battles were won thanks to soldiers pursuing a fake out retreat and being shot to pieces
More battles were won when a part of the line ran for their lives and opened up a gap. In fact that is usually how ancient battles conclude.
Most likely maniples conducting a passage through lines, which if done in an orderly and controlled fashion would indeed be quite war-winning
Unironically the best depiction of a "checkerboard" infantry assault is Gladiator's opening battle.
The problem is that (surviving) ancient writers were unable to describe it adequately and historians are nearly total armchair retards who don't know anything close to military practice because why would gayy nerds lost in the past ever overlap with the modern military?
Greenhorns in front, veterans second and senior/NCOs third.
The tyros would lead the charge and the 2cnd and 3 lines were to make sure they didn't fold out of fear, either by prodding them along or taking up the slack where men went down to hold the line.
When Rome had finished subjugating Greece I wonder if when they levied from them if the men fought as hoplites, or were told to fight more in the Roman style?
bump i haven't read
I heard julius caesar was a gay that bottomed
The Myconeans and their dendra panoply was peak dunking on the poors.
This thread made me read up the fall of Rome and by God does it hit hard. Not that I want to live as a dirt poor peasant more likely to die before I hit 40 but those were really interesting times. To see all those proto European nations among Rome and proto mongols would have been fucking thrillng
do you think there were ever any 1v1 duels between 2 sarissa pikemen
Probably not sadly. There were a lot of duels in the era of the Diadochi, but most of them seem to have been fought with swords.
They probably didn't have pike vs pike techniques in antiquity but they were an actual thing in late medieval
I'd rather be in bronze age Germany-Poland c.1250 BC
get PrepHole
I recognize the Boeotian influence, but what is this?
Thracian
ate my pic