caldrail

You need only ask S. No I didn't. I said that there were no established methods of communicating that were all inclusive and reliable. There wasn't. A great deal is made of Roman signalling (which did exist in imperial times) but even that required line of sight or to be audible above the considerable tumult of tens of thousands hacking each others extremities off, and in any case, that signalling wasn't designed for the battlefield. Neither do we see any evidence for widespread use of couriers or runners. No doubt such means were employed when the occaision demanded, but the formal courier organisation such as found in napoleonic battlefieds did not exist - the ancient armies weren't that sophisticated nor for that matter, so spread out as in later times. Unlike Rome, Carthage had no large citizen base. Plenty of people living amongst them, nominally obedient to their government, but Carthage could not raise a large enough citizen-based army because of that. Therefore they recruited anyone willing to fight, and as often happens in these xases, that meant cash incentives. Carthage was after all wealthier than Rome. It's farmland was richer, it's tax base effectively larger, and in the early days close trading links with Britain meant they almost had a monopoly on the manufacture of bronze. By the time the Iberian campaign had ground to a halt, Carthage also had access to silver mines which funded Hannibals campaign in Italy.

No, we have differences in opinion. They weren't ballet routines either. Excellent. So no more "Exquisite synchronicity" please? Neither was it absent by default; those may be the reasons why I didn't state either. Oh? And what form of communication was being used? How did Hannibal send and receive messages from fast moving cavalry hundreds of yards away from a scene of carnage and pandemonium intent on seeing off an enemy formation? Do you know? Because if such a form of communication existed in 216BC, we'd all like to know about it. Do you know what a battlefield is? It's a co-operative riot. That's all. The imagery of Hollywood and imagination is all very well, but the battlefield is a place where a large group of men has met another to fight it out. For real. With all the blood, agony, and fear involved. There will always be men eager to commit violence. There will always be those who disdain violence. Most will be at the battlefield because it was expected of them, for one reason or another. Courage is a desirable asset in fighting men, but what is courage? Without fear, how can a man be courageous? He's merely confident, and very few warriors are so fully confident that they can attack without adrenalin making them brave. There are no established means of communicating on the ancient battlefield that have all inclusive properties and reliability. There are practical limits to the number of men a single commander can wield during all the noise and chaos of a fight. Thats not an assertion, that's millenia of military experience and human behaviour. You might use all manner of things - flags, horns, drums, whatever... In the heat of battle, a soldiers senses are restricted by his viewpoint, his equipment, his situation. You cannot guarantee a message will be received, not even today, with all the benefits of instant telecommunications on campaign. That a leader was able to enquire of three or four units is all very well, but what was the situation? Were they busy fighting or standing idle waiting for action? Were they close, in sight of the man, or far away hidden by foliage and dust? Were horsemen available to carry word? Did someone run there and back? Who responded? Was it leader or was he too busy leading the fight? Leading a group of men into battle isn't a sophisticated thing. It's about leadership, or in a more primitive way, dominance and example. Riots only surge forward when a braver man rushes the police. So to a Roman centurion fights from the front, not directing his men from the rear, a task left to senior officers who might be solely occupied in ensuring the men of that unit don't turn and run. The availability of message bearers isn't necessarily your means of communication. Most armies in the ancient world had hardly time to get used to fighting alongside each other. It takes experience for that army to operate efficiently. Why else was Hannibal so blessed? He was using veterans of the spanish campaign and experienced mercenaries (sorry, but he did). They understood what was required for that reason, not because some message was sent by means unknown. History is about what we know. You can speculate all you want, but please don't attempt to convince me know better by suggesting something existed that left no record or mention. Clearly that was not always the case; just remember what I did actually write and check on Pharsalus. Good. But study of one event does not illuminate you to the variance and averages of others. The image of ancient generals stood around a table in a breezy cool tent pointing daggers at brightly painted maps is laughable. Without the presence of that commander on the field, within reach of his men, an important factor of leadership and morale is lost. So many times armies have begun to crumble because they began to hear their leader had been cut down, only to see him reveal his presence in some way and rally them on. Would a hardened warrior, a man capable of hardship and violence, be impressed with a general stood on a hill a mile away? I don't think so. Ancient armies are nothing like as sophisticated as our modern viewpoint suggests. Certainly the elements of behaviour are relatively similar, but the organisation of armies was in it's infancy, and for that matter, so was the science of communication which too often proved to lacking throughout military history, right up to the present day. Thats an assumption. The act of communicating in one instance does not imply this was readily available on all battlefields at all times and distances. Nor does this imply active communication. It merely implies that the commander was able to retrieve information from seperate units there and then.

No battle is. They simply aren't chess games, and in ancient warfare individual initiative of the unit commanders counts for a great deal. Indeed, the Romans made a virtue of it. No, not impossible, but not present by default. Some means had to be arranged beforehand and it was far from sophisticated. Remember that Caesar was often in the front line himself and couldn't direct his troops. At other times, he was too busy rallying a wavering cohort to worry about the battle as a whole. His own description of the Gallic Wars is illuminating and represents the view of a switched on commander in a very organised army for its time. The superior cavalry was something Hannibal had already reckoned on. He knew how bad the Roman horsemen were. What he would have told them was to see of the Roman cavalry then come back and seal the gap; don't pursue the Romans over the horizon. That the punic cavalry responded as required displays a modicum of discipline and adherence to the gameplan, but their superiority does not include telepathy. Hannibal took a risk. He was hoping (and quite possibly crossing his fingers) that the Romans would behave as he predicted, and that his units would be able to manoever also. Generalship in the ancient world is as much gambling as skill, but then, generalship in war was never a sure thing.

Black holes are the stuff of sci-fi legend. Inescapable gravity carries with it a dread of inevitable disaster should that malignant object ensnare your vessel. Some stories talk about passing through a black hole to distant parts of the galaxy, though quite how you pass through an object that couldn't be physically denser is rarely explained. I found a more serious explanation of black holes in a science magazine the other day. Interestingly, scientists are trying to find ways of researching 'event horizons' without having to approach a real one (It's a bit dangerous, you see, and the research would take an awful long time to come back). It turns out that such analogues do exist. The behaviour of light in a fibre optic cable can be made to simulate the effects of an event horizon. So too can water in a bath. By pushing water faster than ripples naturally spread, you create analagous physical conditions to gravity waves on the event horizon of a black hole. So be warned the next time you take a bath. Push water too hard and you might be sucked down a plug hole. Black Hole of the Week It seems our Ministers of Parliament have been been spending a lot more of our taxpayers money than we realised. After all the campaigns and advertising to catching benefit fraud and dole cheats, isn't it right that dubious claims by Ministers should be treated the same way? Or is there one law for the poor, another for the rich? That's the problem with money disappering down a black hole. Eventually someone notices.

There was little tactical advantage to that, and no, no-one bothered to gather left handed soldiers together. Left vs right matches are equal. Neither has an advantage over the other. Nor was training against such an opponent fighting with the other hand readily available to the majority of gladiators. I suppose there may have been a 'suprise' element to a gladiator matched against a left handed fighter for the first time but that would have been the point of the combat in the first place, to heighten the drama and provide spectacle. Up to a point (no pun intended). I don't have any first hand experience of training with swords so I can't answer that. Clearly the Romans thought otherwise.

And it was performed by thousands of men, not just by a personal combat of Hannibal vs. Varro. Not all the battle events could have been predicted in advance; the officers' initiative was evidently often required. It was undertaken to a pre-arranged plan. What do you think Cannae was? A rehearsed ballet? The unit leaders had been briefed and knew what was expected before the battle began. If events went wrong... Tough. You lose. Thats how battles are fought Scylla. It's a risk, not a game of chess. Scylla, Cannae wasn't Waterloo. There wasn't any communication system at all. Hannibal, like every other ancient general, had determined what they plan was before the battle began. He had very little means of changing his plans once battle started. This wasn't a table top wargame, nor a straight forward chess match. So yes it can be understood without the need for an "effective means to communicate with them to direct them on the fly". It helps if you understand battle communications in the first place. Ancient armies were simply not that sophisticated. Even the Romans, with their much vaunted signals, were often little better. Yes they did. It really is very simple. The ends of the middle formation would have known exactly where to stop because they would have reached the ends of the columns on either side. The remaining men would have seen the blocks to their side halt. Or at least their commanders would have. That's all that was needed Scylla. It didn't take a genius to sort it out although arguably one did. The return of the cavalry was well timed by "exquisitely synchronised"? How exactly can you synchronise a cavalry unit chasing another way off in the distance. Please don't shrug and say they must have had some mysterious radio set. I simply won't accept it. If you want me to check out your posts, you'll need to be much better informed about battlefield organisation than you at present. I would suggest you get hold Greek and Roman Warfare by John Drogo Montagu. It's a good deal more erudite about the circumstances and capabilities of ancient generals.

In some way a thread on Cannae has mostly derived into an analysis of unsubstantiated statistics No-one's pinning any blame as far as I can see, but we do have to realise that without the relative skills of the generals and their decisions immediately before the battle, the result could well have been very different. The influence of single commanders in ancient battles is very important, and not limited to the Punic wars. The strengths and weaknesses of one side against another are all very well, but the victory at Cannae is down to one simple point - the Romans were enveloped and disordered. That was due to a crafty plan designed by Hannibal, not by quick thinking of many armed men. Even the punic cavalry knew they had to close the rear once the roman horsemen had been seen off. They rode directly there, and in no way could Hannibal have had an effective communication with them to direct them on the fly.

Keep your eyes on China. They have ambitions in space and whilst not as bad as North Korea, they aren't about to let a few domestic problems stop them from hogging all that potential propaganda

Thank you, I will. In the meantime, I would like to point out something about Hannibals army. I have mentioned that generals needed to be politicans as well as leaders and warriors. When Hannibal was voted as general, there were troops already in Spain, those who had conquered Iberian territory under Hamilcar. Now the more statute may have noticed the quote from Appian earlier and wondered if all Hannibal needed to do was take control of those soldiers already in Spain. In theory, that would be correct. However, the troops involved are not regular soldiers in a modern army. They're groups of armed men who agreed, for one reason or another, to campaign in Iberia. Now it's fairly certain that Hannibal had to raise troops of his own, and the issue of mercenaries has been discussed. The available soldiers already in Spain are not part of a formal army. Some of their leaders no doubt had reasons to be loyal to Carthage, others loyal to their pay, or perhaps some had reasons to find Rome worth fighting. Many would found the prospect of looting the rich Italian interior a very tempting prospect. The point is that Hannibal could not simply click his fingers and order the troops across the Alps - he needed to persuade them to undertake that endeavour with the usual promises of victory and spoils. What we have then are layers of loyalty. The individual soldiers look to their own commander for guidance, a man who in punic armies was one of their own, and that man looked to Hannibal for guidance. The Carthaginian soldiery were therefore a collection of armed groups, not an assembly of regiments in a national army. It's an important concept to grasp. In ancient times there is a co-operative aspect to handling large numbers of armed men, and generals were often men who were able to manipulate personalities as much as hand out military orders.

I happened to spot a document in the reference library yesterday. It's a glossy colour planning proposal for Swindon's eastern development. Basically, Swindon is a town built on the left of a north/south road, the A419, which follows the route of a Roman road. Now they want to build on farmland to the right, the east of the A419. It's certainly a large development and clearly another step in the road to making Swindon a 'city'. Is that a good thing? The local politicans of course have pound signs in their eyes and are swelling their heads with ideas of becoming more important. It is true that for a while at least, the building work will employ lots of people. I don't actually think it will make any positive change for us ordinary plebs. I do note of course that the area is a flood plain. Given the recent evidence of how built up areas contribute to our flooding problem in this country, one wonders if anyone has realised that the hatched areas marked on the map are those designated from farmland, not asphalt covered estates. Still, they're the experts. It is a shame incidentially that I don't see any mention of preservation for the site of Durocornovium, our local lost Roman town, which will find itself buried by this new development. For a town that proclaims so much civic pride, they seem to be very choosy about what they're proud about. Swindon From The Back Window Sniff... Smoke?... I went to the back of the house and looked out, but there was no sign of a conflagration anywhere. This was in the evening. The sky was still blue although it was getting dark, the sun now below the horizon leaving a very pale rosey glow behind the dark blue-grey clouds littering the sky. A series of streetlights in the distance gave off a very strong amber shine. The row of terraced houses across the corner of the Old College site showed some sign of habitation. I notice that the people leaving in the attic apartments there don't bother closing their curtains at night. Since they can't be seen from the street, I suppose they don't feel the need. Perhaps they're too busy. In one window I spotted someone making rythmic movements. Life goes on I guess. As yet, the grafitti mice haven't come out to play. The white fence around the Old College hasn't any space left for more 'tags' has it? So tonight they'll be off somewhere else, cocking their little legs aginst any vertical surface with a spray can of paint. In the distance, out of sight, the echoes of a young man displaying his manhood as loudly as possible. I'll be stepping over the contents of his stomach tomorrow morning. A motorbike races along a street somewhere with it's engine screaming. And, if I'm not mistaken, that was the sound of breaking glass. They want to build more of this?

No. He considered foreign levies as 'mercenaries', which would have been a prevailing view of many people at the time. The fact these men came from territories that Carthage had influence over is neither here nor there. The fact is Carthage did not have a large enough body of citizens to raise a home army of sufficient size required for the campaign against Rome, nor did they wish to in order to avoid the catastrophic economic effects of casualties. A latin name. So what? They were still liveried mercenaries, foreigners fighting for Rome, and only after completion of service contracts were they offered citizenship as a reward. Thats because you're applying a strict definition of what a mercenary is. Mercenaries, as I've told you before, might be military professionals or simply thugs with swords. In any case, if they made an arrangement that hostages would be provided as part of their contract, then that's what they did. Or was it a custom of the people involved? Because people sometimes take the money and run. Soldiers at this time weren't paid a weekly paycheck. They were given lump sums when convenient or by arrangement.

It is true that the legions required a right handed swordplay because the post Marian heavy infantry formations dictated that only a narrow slot between shields was available in close order, besides any militaristic requirement to conform. Gladiators are a different matter. Fairness in combat was very important to the sport. A one sided fight was viewed as undesirable (even if the reality of professional matches was that experts were pitched against novices more often than not) and the question of fighting right handed was expected. That was how fighters were trained, and gladiatorial classes were very specific in their allowed attributes. Now if a left handed fighter is introduced, we see something different. Instead of sword on shield, sword on shield as the basis of a fiar fight, we see sword on sword, shield on shield. A dangerous fight, since the shield cannot be used to defend against sword thrusts as normal. The gladiators must move quickly to avoid thrusts instead, perhaps using their shields to 'push-off' their opponent or distract him. What we get is a potentially fast paced fight but also one that might end very quickly. In fact, the concern of left or right handed swordplay was important, and the betting may well have increased mightily at this novel and rare set-to.

No, it isn't. You seem to see the term 'mercenary' in a very particular light. Mercenaries vary - they always have - from highly skilled professionals like Xanthippus to scumbags who want a quick sheckel. You also seem to see the Carthaginian army as something intrinsically worthy and thus find reasons to depict it as such. I notice your own evidence for your standpoint is rather scant - One could just as easily claim your own view is propagandist. As for analysis, there is no way of determining the exact composition of Hannibals army nor for that matter the exact motivation for the troops joining him. Your reliance on ploitics might be applicable to the leaders of the various groups under his command, but it might not. The Romans themselves drew attention to the "Wages of War". One inescapable facet of ancient warfare is the profit gleaned from it. Unlike today, where warfare is a costly venture, the booty and slaves obtained by conquest far outweighed the costs involved. Cash was therefore a singularly important motive for fighting. It isn't hard to imagine that many of the Carthaginian leaders were also so motivated - history has provided more than enough examples and the same motives provide the impetus to the private military industry, a sector of economic growth since WW2. A little lateral thinking might help you Scylla. Human beings aren't fundamentally different from today. In any case, you seem to regarding ancient armies in a modern light. The pyramidical national armies of today didn't exist back then. Even the Romans, with a passion for organisation, did not create such armies until the late empire. Until the reorganisations of Constantine, a legion was an army, and during the Punic Wars, the Consuls each led a legion into battle - a 'consular' army. That the Romans needed more troops was down to circumstance - a matter of expedience. Ordinarily such numbers of troops was neither required nor desirable. The armies of the ancient world were not generally organised into regiments of a coherent force. They were collections of associated contigents, nominally independent of each other, but serving a particular war leader. Politics and leadership were essential parts of ancient warfare before the general reached the enemy. He needed to ensure his troops turned up. Sometimes this is provided by a common cause. The problem here is that personal motives often become more important to the individual than the group, and indeed, money is one root cause for this, and, as I have already noted, one of the primary motives for ancient warfare. Carthage did not maintain vast numbers of troops. They simply had no reason to do so. They therefore had no national army as we understand it. Once the hostilities began, troops were raised from allies and the marketplace as needed (or as possible? Not everyone wanted to fight at any one time, and notice that although contingents of punic allies answered the call to arms, the allies themselves remained as quiet as possible). Appian reinforces this point. Having collected a large army of Celtiberians, Africans, and other nationalities, and put the command of Spain in the hands of his brother Hasdrubal, he crossed over the Pyrenesees mountains into the country of the Celts, which is now called Gaul, with 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 37 elephants. He passed through the country of the Gauls, conciliating some with money and some by persuasion, and overcoming others by force. Appian's History of Rome: The Hannibalic War Having collected a large army? Now understand what that means. He didn't pop down to the nearest barracks and ask the senior commander to come out and play. Hannibal was voted as general in view of his work in Spain, which netted Carthage considerable wealth in terms of precious metals and local economies. He was able to offer financial incentive to attract the 'mercenaries' to his side. Indeed, some have noted the loss of the Spanish silver mines was one reason for Hannibals campaign drawing to a close. In short, Hannibal hired on anyone who was interested in fighting for money. Such an occupation was common in those times. Agreed. The ancient world was a violent place and a man with a sword was as good as any other. The 'superbly trained legionary' had yet to emerge from the Marian Reforms a century or so after, and for the Romans, training mostly amounted to experience in the hastatii. The fact that punic troops were capable does not imply high standards of military expertise in the manner we expect today. They were fighting on level terms with men no better trained or experienced than themselves on average. Again you imply a regimental air to these troops. Not so. Fighting was a common endeavour in those times (have human beings changed at all?) and the troops mentioned excelled for particular skills. They were not rounded soldiers, cross trained in many disciplines. They were men willing or ordered to fight who happened to be relatively good at something. Perhaps the incorrect image of Roman invincilbility is distorting the image of Carthaginian capability? So what? The Romans were useless at many of those things, because their own native populations hadn't the experience of it. So they employed people who did. Auxillaries were after all official liveried mercenaries. They weren't Roman citizens. The same arguement applies to the aggregation of such troop types under the banner of Carthage. They hired those troops because they were good at one thing or another. Football teams for instance hire individuals because they might be good goal scorers, not because they're good at everything connected with football. If you wish to analyse ancient armies you need to do so objectively, and avoid modern connatations of pyramidical organisation, training, esprit-de-corps, nationalism, training, and discipline. In short, throw away the romantic image of ordered ranks marching across the sand. War is a gritty business then as now, and one driven by cash. Inferring motives to punic troops isn't as hard as you think. It's a matter of human behaviour and circumstance which the ancient authors have kindly portrayed. The only problem I see is that you want an elegant intellectual answer. There isn't one. Greed, aggression, and hatred. Works every time.

Some gladiators fought left handed - a rare and interesting style because of the 'mirror' fighting it produced. The emperor Commodus was apparently left handed too and was said to have been proud of mastering left hand technique for the arena.

In the broadest sense a mercenary is someone engaged in paid military activity other than service of their nation. The modern word is used in translation but to all intents and purposes any warrior hired to fight falls within that term. As regards levies, that was never a point of contention, as you will see if you read the article I posted a link to. It makes no difference. Most of the troops available to Hannibal were raised for the war in one way or another - the term 'mercenary' in this context is a convenience, if somewhat innaccurately applied to some of his forces, but all his troops, regardless of origin, were hired for the campaign as opposed to being allocated from a non-existent Carthaginian state army. This is the problem with the Carthaginians. They had little standing army, if any, and did not have the same martial qualities to their culture as demonstrated by the Romans. If Carthage needed an army, it needed to raise them with cash. The issue of levies should also be put in context, for it's unlikely these men would serve for long without reward, whereas the Roman troops had a strong 'patriotic' element to their endeavour. This is somewhat ironic of course given how personal wealth was such a marker of status in Roman culture. However, such wealth was of course important only when greater wealth was available and exposed to public scrutiny in displays - which of course meant the upper classes. For the lower classes, at least those who could claim citizenship and thus be eligible to serve in the legions, service gave something of a symbolic stature. For the men serving Hannibal, there are mixed motives. Certainly few cared specifically about Carthage itself, thus the prospect of fighting and and looting were instead primary motives for the men regardless of any political affiliations of their leaders. Don't underestimate the lure of violence as an end in itself. Ethics and morality in the ancient world were far more cutthroat than today, and many mediterranean cultures saw virtue in the warrior lifestyle.

Back when I started music, you basically had a choice of instruments. Good, expensive ones, or cheap rubbish. Music keyboards especially conformed to this pattern. That was the era when electronics were really starting to make themselves felt. The rubber pads of a ZX Spectrum micro-computer for instance. Not for me. I paid three times as much for a Dragon 32 because it had a decent keyboard. Nonetheless, a cardboard and polystyrene package containing a Spectrum arrived at our house one morning. My father, not being too much interested in this new-fangled computing thing, rang the company up and told them they'd delivered it in error. Oh don't worry, just throw it away they said. So pleased were they the lost item had been found that they sent him another by return post. Now the musical instrument world had the same sort of problem. A mate of mine owned a terrrible plastic box with yellow printed keys. It made the most horrendous noises known to science, and eventually, under the stress of my amused curiosity, began to emit random unintended noises that bore no relation to the control settings. It just sat there on the floor making it's own mind about what to do until we unplugged it. Things have improved since then. Makers of cheap musical instruments have improved the quality of their gear noticeably. Buy a more expensive keyboard and a whole hidden world of electronic possibility reveals itself. I was mightily impressed to try a Korg thingy worth about a cool

From wikipedia.... Army According to Polybius, Carthage relied heavily, though not exclusively, on foreign mercenaries,[7] especially in overseas warfare. The core of its army was from its own territory in Africa (ethnic Libyans and Numidians, as well as "Liby-Phoenicians"

Julius Caesar banned daylight deliveries of goods to businesses, so until his reign as dictator, the streets had plenty of carts and draught animals. Afterward, deliveries were made at night when the streets were clear of citizens going about their business. Horses? Not for pulling wagons. Horses are relatively rare and expensive to keep. Your heroes, travelling with them, are going to attract attention. I don't actually know about stabling. For the purposes of your story, I doubt anyones going to mind too much if your heroes find a stableman willing to look after the animals for a few sestercii. A rich mans slave making money on the side? Would that be the source of the big argument? The rich man thinks the horses are his? Your image of insulae isn't far wrong. They were cramped buildings, often jerry-built on the cheap, prone to fire, rat infested. The cheapest quarters (and given the extortionate rents usually demanded, that's an exaggeration) were the loft. Freezing cold in winter, blistering hot in summer. People were sharing rooms to save money. No cooking facilities, you took your dough to the baker to have baked for you (he very kindly stamped your name in the loaf to ensure the right bread was handed back). Water needed to be carried upstairs from an outside source, a well or a fountain.

Regarding Carthaginian troops... http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7653

A myth, caused by the introduction of superior and more consistent training from the Marian Reforms onward. The Roman legions of the time weren't as well trained as their image depicts. Furthermore, the work of Vegetius tends to reinforce this image but incorrectly, since he collated all the various training methods used over the centuries and implied this was standard since the beginning. Not so. The Roman legion at the time of Cannae still used the 'consular' style formation of hastatii, principes, and triarii, each composed of increasing age and experience. Nor was the Roman legion at this time a permanent institution. Legions were formed for the annual season or a particular campaign. They were, to all intents and purposes, a militia until 107 BC. PS - Before I forget, I should point out that some of the Carthaginian mercenaries were very good troops, the gauls in particular were well regarded.

The Carthaginian campaigns in Italy from the Punic War II had many parallels with WWII Operation Barbarossa; an invading army with vastly superior net military performance that is nevertheless utterly contained and neutralized by an immense and painful logistic effort from the invaded power. No similarity whatsoever. Barbarossa was a landgrab, the Punic Wars a struggle for commercial dominance between rival cities. Furthermore, the ugly face of racism was a contributory factor, there were two very different political ideologies at work (though both were, admittedly, dictatorships). The Punic Wars were fought between oligarchic democracies. Most of the examples of undefeated armies for comparable lapses that eventually lost their wars (eg, the French in Spain in the early XIX century or the Americans in Vietnam in the middle XX century) were facing mostly irregular forces and controlling most of the disputed territory, including almost all the main urban centers; the Romans preserved a fully functional state that remained in control of most of Italy even after Cannae. Because Hannibals campaign was not directed at capturing territory. The whole point was to force the Romans to consider surrender. - The Fabian strategy, basically the Roman version of scorched earth. Nonsense. The Fabian Strategy was a delaying tactic to buy time. The Russian 'scorched earth' policy did that, but also forced Germany to extend their supply lines to breaking point across terrain rendered useless to them. The odds were clearly favorable to the Roman side at 218 BC, and it's an outstanding tribute to the military abilities of Hannibal and his army that they were able to hold the Romans against the ropes for so long. Hannibal must have understood at the outset of his campaign that he had a limited time to complete his objective. If you want modern comparisons, the concept was similar to Japan attacking Hawaii. An intended knock-out blow, but disastrous in the long term if the objective wasn't successful. Hannibal attempted to subdue Italy enough to force the Roman senate to seek terms. He didn't need to conquer territory (which he couldn't hold onto), only subject the Romans to a defeat bad enough to convince them that surrender was the best option. The senate had members made of stronger stuff. There's simply no way Cannae 216 BC can be reconstructed as any modern battle, let say like Waterloo 1815; our main sources are irremissibly biased and confused by their own propagandistic agendas: Cannae is the most studied battle ever. The reconstructions are available in the press, right off the shelf. The alternative explanations are all very well but where's the evidence? Cannae's account is atypical for being described mostly from the Carthaginian standpoint; Naturally, since Hannibal is depicted as the noble adversary, the leader with initiative, and forms the focus for that sequence of events. The description of the Lybian units armed with captured Roman weapons is particularly problematic, because they have been usually regarded as phalanx-like (ie, lancer) units, which would have then been hardly adequately trained for the use of the Roman gladius. Roman style weapons were in common use in the mediterranean. As today, military fashion tends to spread. On the Roman side, the main problem would be the deliberate attribution of absolutely all the responsibility for the disaster to Varro, presumably for being both a novus homo and a survivor, as if there were no other three commanders with consular or proconsular powers in the field; Standard Roman practice was to swap command of an aggregated army between the senior commanders. On the day of Cannae, Varro was the man in charge. Since his lack of operational insight led directly to their defeat, he can hardly be declared innocent of failure. the dispassionate review of the raw facts of the campaign show no manifest disagreement from any commander, a hardly surprising fact as they were presumably following direct Senate's indications. Hardly. The two generals at Cannae, Paullus and Varro, were representing the Senate and appoinrted to command in the field. The Senate had no direct control over events. In fact, the plurality of command seems like a better explanation for the mostly delayed and uncoordinated Roman response. Nonsense. Roman maniples were expected to use their initiative, not to rely on HQ. During the battle, the maniples did indeed respond to their situation by wheeling to meet the enemy flanks, and ironically it was this that broke the coherence of the Roman formation and with it any chance of Varro retaining control of his army. Contrary to the prudent Polybius, ancient historians as a whole tended to give the full (or almost full) responsibility for any battle's outcome to the commander on the field. Of course they did. The commander decided on the course of action the army was to take. His decisions, made before the battle, directly affected it's outcome. It's a mistake to see ancient armies as being directed by generals in much the same way as Napoleon might. Once battle began, the ancient general had little control and may well be involved in the fighting personally, and if needed to rally troops, his viewpoint was very restricted and consequently the actions of individual partitions becomes noteworthy. However, no sensible junior commander is going to upstage his general by claiming his actions won it. That's an accolade a gratified general might accord if he felt the honour was worthy... and politically safe. Knowing better than that, we can reasonably infer that the overall quality of the legionaries and their training was in one of its lowest points ever in 216 BC, after the huge veterans' slaughtering of the previous two years and the exhaustive recruitment; Italian allies overall proportion probably raised to 2/3 from a regular

Tony Blair once told us that he wanted everyone in Britain with an internet connecrtion. Now Gordon Brown is proclaiming "The Digital Revolution" and telling us that he sees the internet as an essential part of life, as much as basic services like gas, electricity, and water. The government sees this internet growth as part of their plan for recovery from the recession. Well that's nice isn't it? Ordering breakfast by email to the missus, sending that spreadsheet to the kids so they know what chores to do today, and firing up Microsoft Dog-Walking Sim 2009, before logging on to your employers network and watch everyone you've never met compete for the biggest excuses of the day. The government doesn't miss a trick does it? All this internet is great but you have to pay for it. Here in Blighty we only get free internet service if we pay for something else we usually don't want. A couple of years ago they laid all the fibreoptic cables in my area. Subsequently I've been bombarded by colour pamphlets telling me all this television, radio, telephone, mobile telephone, and tons of gigabytes download allowance is available for the low low price quoted. Then six months later you get to pay full whack. They're already talking about the "digital divide", where some households have broadband and others don't. They really don't seem to grasp that some people have the money to pay for this service, and some don't. No, that's wrong, they do grasp that, but they don't want to foot the bill for this initiative when the public can spend their way out of recession for them. The "digital divide" isn't eventually going to be who has a broadband link or not, but who can pay. Then again, why worry whether Britains poor can log on? They've no money to spend. Rush Hour of the Week What a lovely morning. The sun is shining, everyone seems happy to go about their business, and there's a mad rush to get into the library. Of course The Flash is always first up the stairs these days - he's finally realised that rushing around the coffee bar serves no useful purpose - but it seems now others are falling prey to that contagious mood. Not me. I'm too relaxed. I'll just saunter to my favourite PC, and... Huh? Booked? Aww pooh... Okay, lets find another available computer... Booked... Booked.... Busy.... Not working.... Booked.... Okay. I'm starting to panic. Unless I find a free computer soon, the government will send me a red letter demanding to know why I haven't logged on....

Why would victims of disease be beheaded? Given that these remains were in the territory of the Durotriges tribe, who weren't exactly friendly to Roman interests, and that the remains date from Vespasians conquest of the area, it's hard not to reach a certain conclusion.

The chance of finishing Rome was the entire point of the campaign. As to whether it was a 'real' chance, Hannibal was gifted leader willing to lead his mercenaries on a harsh journey across alpine Europe and tackle the Romans on home ground. Obviously, he considered the possibility real. Even considering his hatred of the Romans, he wasn't stupid. For that matter, he came a lot closer to victory than is generally realised. Rome was in a state of panic. Don't be drawn into thinking Hannibals campaign was aimed at mere military conquest. That wasn't the point. The real point, the 'real' chance of victory against Rome, was to make Rome feel helpless, to bring it to it's knees, to force it to seek terms. Close, but no cigar.

It's signing on day again, my fortnightly ritual designed to ensure my search for gainful employment is suitably renumerated. The process involves submitting evidence that you've actually done something to deserve handouts. I can see why they do that - the government don't want to pay people for sitting on their backsides - but the jobsearch booklet you have to fill in with all the details of the search creates a sort of pedantic 'schooltime' atmosphere. The claims advisors come across like frustrated teachers, some very authoritarian, others more sympathetic. A list of todays new vacancies proved to be a dissapointing collection of occupations I have no skill, experience, or ambition of. No pressure she tells me. Nonetheless, it feels like a test. To her credit, she did attempt to bolster my morale. "I'll see you next time... unless you get a job." Young Couple of the Week Occaisionally you get people at the library who are so engrossed in their own business that they forget no-one else wants to hear it. There's a young couple in the next booth. He keeps on trying to tease his girlfriend whilst she keeps on trying to wear the trousers. What makes it worse is that now that this young man has now reached puberty, so he has that annoying resonance in his voice that no matter how quietly he speaks you can still hear that monotone humming. Luckily a security guard wanders by and they stop punching each other. Ahhhhh.... Peace and quiet to let me carry on with my business.... Oh no. She's arguing again.... How many times do I have to cough before they realise I'm about to demonstrate my unsubtle temperament? The girlfriend notices my hard stare... Take the hint lady. She punches her boyfriend to stop the arguement. He of course takes that as a challenge....