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Katalana

Date: Sunday, 17.Jan.2010, 21:08 | Message # 1

Lieutenant

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Thought I would say hello.

I'm a 31 yr old Scot, living in the Netherlands. I look after the house and my 3 yr old son, while doing an inburgeringcursus, which is teaching me to be Dutch. So far it seems to consist of being incredibly tight about money and obsessed with education levels. Joking. Kinda.

I've been playing computer games since the Sinclair Spectrum 48k, though this is my first graphical MMO. Utopia was my first love in MMO, but as it was realtime and persistent, it was a little bit too much too handle.

I, too, love military history, ancient at least, perhaps because of the complete confusion about everything. How did the Greeks fight? No one has any proof whatsoever, and the standard view makes no sense. How did the Romans fight? No one knows cause our best evidence comes from someone who thought that 'lowering the spears to attack' meant 'dropping the spears and attacking with swords', Livy, about the Battle of Cynocephali, when talking about the Macedonian phalanx. I could go on, but I think it is fascinating, truly.

Katalana comes from my Utopian name, Katalan, which came from sources such as Raymond Fiest's Magician where Pug's wife is called Katala, and Kirk Douglas's film 'The Vikings' where the witch is called Katala. So it is a feminisation of a masculinisation of a feminine name. Is that clear? Good. I would hope so.

Constant

Date: Monday, 18.Jan.2010, 23:48 | Message # 2

Big Boss

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Welcome aboard smile

. That thing about how actually ancient armies fought bothers me too. Like you know, what actually did the Greeks do with their spears during fight?

Katalana

Date: Tuesday, 19.Jan.2010, 13:43 | Message # 3

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Thanks for the welcome. You have all made me feel very much at home here.

Greek warfare is something of a mystery to me. For example, the Spartans spent their entire lives training manoeuvres and other battle techniques, so it seems impossible that they just walked together and shoved each other until one side was pushed off the battle field or broke. Also at Thermopylae on the last day the Spartans left the narrowest part of the pass so as they could kill more Persians. If the Greek phalanx was just the same as the Macedonian with shorter spears. lengthening the line would have weakened its ability to kill Persians. The flip side of this that Epaminondas won victories over the Spartans by deepening his lines, at times to fifty men deep, with which he could smash through the Spartan phalanx. So weight of numbers must have played a part as well.

It is interesting to note that the Greek phalanx appears to have been the ancestor of both the Macedonian phalanx and the Roman legionaries. However it seems that it is the accepted view that it was entirely dissimilar to the Roman system and nearly identical, saving equipment, to the Macedonian. I feel that it was somewhere between the two, and probably superficially resembled the Romans far more, as the Macedonian phalanx came about from a revolution in military techniques, whereas there is nothing to suggest about Roman military history that there was ever a revolution rather than evolution and fine tuning.

I feel a little bit silly discussing this with you guys as you probably know so much more than I, having no education in the field of history, but as I say it fascinates me, and given half a chance, I will bore you with my half baked ideas.

Constant

Date: Thursday, 21.Jan.2010, 23:32 | Message # 4

Big Boss

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Nothing silly about discussing it, i studied history, but must say im no profesional in this part, even when i like ancient Greek and Roman history. I must say you wrote some really good points. From what i know main Epameinondas invention was concentration of main forces on one spot of enemy formation and crushing through it, so definetly, depth of formation must have impact. About Spartians at Thermopyles, well as far as i know Greek spear was like 10cm longer that Persian, so that maybe compensated lack of depth a little bit, also it was really desperate situation, which needs desperate plans. About Romans, well as much as i like them, they were more coping then inventing, eg. their warships were exact copies of Cartaginian, their sword come from Hispania (Spain), heavy cavalry from Partians and steppe tribes (mainly Skytes).

Katalana

Date: Tuesday, 26.Jan.2010, 13:50 | Message # 5

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I think that it was also that the Greeks had the advantage in their upbringing. Nearly everything in Greek male life was about the agona, I think it is spelt, the contest between men. If the advantages that the Greeks had in their day was simply their equipment, then anyone could have used it and the Greeks would not have spread out all round the Mediterranean as the foremost heavy infantry of their day. I think that they were just physically better suited to the rigours of close hand to hand combat. Something I think that is supported by the Persians ease of conquering the Ionian Greeks in Asia Minor, who would have seemed to be just that bit more lazy than their mainland counterparts. There is an anecdote that some dude promised that he could beat the Persians, and led the Greek fleet in gruelling training day after day, until the Ionians had had enough and got rid of them. A few months later the Persians turned up and crushed the Ionian fleet and army.

A parallel could be drawn with the English and Welsh longbows, giving the equipment to anyone didn't help, it required a lifetime of training to use the weapon.

Ah, and I love the Romans. I could talk for hours and hours about them.

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