caldrail

And what are the my stars today? What does the astrological alignment of the heavens have in store for humble Caldrail? Let your childish side come out and play today, dear Libra. Your dreams are in full force so let them lead the way. Enjoy light-hearted conversations with friends about the latest movies and the articles in your favorite magazines. You might want to consider going shopping or getting a haircut as well. This is a good day to improve your general appearance overall. You have a much keener eye for beauty on a day like today. My dreams are in full force? Way cool. So that means I can drive a Ferrari around town and not get arrested as a homicidal maniac? Well I'm off down the Ferrari dealership, having cleaned my trainers. Just show me the fastest reddest car you've got sonny.... No, that's a door.... Oh. Next. Films. I like films. Especially the funny ones.... Well, as light hearted conversations go, maybe that wasn't the best. Shopping... Just paid the bill for a musical keyboard repair, so no joy there. Haircut? Pfah! I'm insulted. As for my appearance, I have my style. Oh yes. Leading the way for pre-geriatric retro-grungies everywhere. A much keener eye for beauty eh? You mean, like that blonde woman downstairs? Oh great. I'm into middle age, my plumbing ain't what it used to be, I'm nearly destitute, no job, no Ferrari, no blinking car at all, and at last I get to appreciate the charms of women? Help. She's noticed me looking... Look away Caldrail or the security guard will eject me from the premises. I doubt he'll be impressed with a neat haircut, fashionably challenging clothes, and clean trainers.... Oh. Star of the Week As a spiritualist, you'd think I'd believe all this 'written in the stars' stuff. Well, there are predictions and then there are predictions. I notice that tv presenters who make documentaries on the subject usually find that the supposedly defined character traits are so generalised that anyone could read an assesment and find a signficant agreement with their own personality. But can watching the stars predict your own future? Yes it can. Go out of an evening and wander about watching the night skies. I predict that you will go on a trip.... A scientifically tested prediction by Caldrail. And I wasn't even drunk....

Polybius wrote his account of events surrounding Cannae fifty years after they occured - still within living memory perhaps, but many sources of information gone. Infact, despite opinions to the contrary, Polybius was not the first original historian of the campaign. That honour must go to the greek Philimon, whose now lost work was the basis of most accounts that followed, including Polybius and Livy. Polybius in fact goes to some length to assure his readers that his work is justifiable, mentioning at one point the discovery of a bronze tablet marked by Hannibal himself and listing his available forces. Was there such a tablet? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Polybius has no supremacist agenda. That concept is a distortion of Roman politics of the day. The Hannabalistic War was a terrible experience for Rome. They were under attack on home soil by a foreign power. Domination of the Mediterranean was at stake. Rome was in danger of losing everything. The threat felt by Rome was tangible. Fabius could not assert a new dictatorship on the Roman public because the senate was under suspicion of prolonging the war deliberately for their own benefit (History of Rome - Mommsen). The senate felt obliged to make an all out effort to stop the delaying tactics of Fabius and deal with Hannibal directly, thus the unprecedented levy of eight legions that year. This was a national emergency, and as such, left an important mark on the Roman psyche. Florus lists the 'thunderbolts from the gos' that struck Rome during the war with Hannibal, and describes Cannae as 'The fourth and almost mortal wound'. Carthage was an enemy bent on their subjection or destruction after all. The idea of slavery was unpalatable to Roman sensibilities. It's worth noting that a Roman citizen forced to obey another man was considered as if enslaved, even if not actually constrained by status for real. Young men in love were 'emotional slaves' of their intended partner. It's an important concept. The Roman Republic was born out of a struggle for freedom from a lking considered tyrannical. Cassius Dio frequently refers to men becoming enslaved by obligation. Rome was master of Italy, but not the empire of later times. It was the head of a federation of similar, if somewhat weaker, city states (perhaps town-states might be more accurate). Cannae produced some far reaching changes. The Roman economy was seriously harmed. One seventh of the available manpower of military age had been killed in that battle alone. Farmland had been stripped of produce. Settlements put to the torch. Slaves and rogues formed bandit gangs in the countryside producing a level of social strife that Romes confederation of italian city states had been intended to stop, only this time, is was the criminal element that became a threat to stable and peaceful times. In fact, many of Romes federated allies told the Senate in no uncertain terms that if they wanted to wage war in future, then Rome must pay for it - they would no longer supply men or funds for military adventures (Hostilities in the Second Punic War began when Rome guaranteed the freedom of Saguntum, under siege from Hannibal as an excuse to provoke Rome to warfare). Polybius might possibly be accused of writing a pro-Roman account, but then what else would he write? Pro Carthage, as Philimon had done? In a city that had suffered to the point where families were introducing slaves as family members in desperation of maintaining the family line? Where eight thousand slaves were levied as soldiers, something unthinkable in a state where serving in a citizen army was a privilege? Where businesses were forced to conduct themselves without profit, for the good of the state? The war with Hannibal was costly. Not just economically, but politcally. The senate had fallen under suspicion from the public. The Roman allies wavered, both during the campaign and afterward, and to preserve the peace that Rome had won, the allies would find themselves with reduced clout and eventually formalised as parts of Roman Italy. That was not a supremacist ideal of Polybius at all. Livy on the other hand wrote his history at the time of Augustus. There is no supremacist agenda there either, even though he lived at a time when Rome was indeed supreme. If anyone should be accused of it, surely it would be Livy, at a time when Rome had "been granted with an empire without limit for all time" by the grace of the gods. He didn't. The image of Rome as a facist state is in no way correct for the time of Cannae. It was a republic, with democratic institutions that encompassed far more of it's population than hated Carthage. They went to war to guarantee the freedom of a town in northern spain, an independent ally that had been granted that status by the Romans, who, it was described by one writer, paid the utmost respect to treaties, and did so against a man from an enemy state that had recently lost a war against Rome, led by a man who had sworn vengeance against the Romans. It's very easy to see Rome as a conquest state, as an aggressor, but the excesses of the late Republic and imperial eras do not apply. . Rome was after all a state in which legality was an important issue. It was one of their founding principles after the immoral behaviour of Tarquinus the Proud. The greedy conquests of personal armies was a matter of the future, not of the time of Cannae, whose army was no more than an annual citizen levy until another century or more had passed.

Sunday dinner with the folks is something I don't mind enjoying. There's a familiarity in the cooking, something I've known since birth, and to be honest, with my parents getting older I do prefer to keep a eye on them. I find it heartbreaking to watch these people I've always known slowly shrivel and weaken. Deep down, I know it will happen to me too. But in between the persistent medical disorders and the increasing clumsiness there are moments of levity. Sat at the table munching away, my mother asked if anyone had been given an extra yorkshire pudding. Erm... No. But only three had been put on plates and four had been made. This can only mean a phone call to Perry Mason... Still, just in case, I'll post photocopied missing pudding notices on local lamposts offering rewards for information. Doublyoo doubleyoo doublyoo dot missing pudding dot com as well. that way if it gets past the police cordon at ports around the country Interpol will be able to trace its movements and return the errant pudding to its owners. If you find a lost yorkshire pudding, please mail me immediately. It's round, well formed, light brown with a biege center. Happy Ending of the Week "Oh..." Said my mother is suprise, "There it is.... (chuckle) It was right in front of me all the time. Fancy that..." Hello? Perry? Yep, call it off mate. The pudding is alive and... Ohmigawd! Someones eaten the pudding!

The Roman historians were biased? Yep. They were. As for 'embarrasing' the events concerning Cannae, thats a daft assertion, and to say they never seriously attempted to study Carthage is also a very poor assesment, although one or two versions are painted in supernatural overtones. They may have arrived at different conclusions than you want to read. That in itself isn't bias, nor less than serious history, it's merely preconception at odds with evidence. That's what is obvious to me. Supremacist agenda? It is true the Romans by the imperial period believed themselves to be lessed by the gods to receive an empire without limit throughout time, but then any successful conquest state would have similar leanings, and since Rome had effectively become the masters of the known world by that time it's hardly any wonder they had supremacist leanings. However... The events at Cannae took place in the context of a struggle for dominance. This is a very important physchological matter when the possibility of your entire culture becoming no more than a pile of ash and rubble arises. Such strong feelings often survive in folk memory, and indeed, so they did in regard to Hannibals campaign. Analyzing Carthage as a society isn't reliant on supremacist teaching. Even if that were the case, careful study could still bring useful information to light. I don't believe biased Roman accounts are all we have to study Carthage with. There is after all archaeology, and works not limited to Roman origin.

Where is the evidence that Carthage uses citizens to man their oars? The armies raised by Carthage weren't citizens Sylla. They were raised by cash. Even those men who could call themselves citizens demanded cash from the Carthaginian senate when they discovered the mercenaries did so. Hardly patriotic sentiment or civic obligation is it? "The fallacy of appeal to prestige" - Sylla, what are you talking about? Anyway, I've plenty of evidence for my assertions, just not enough time to put it together. Sorry if that doesn't suit you, but hey, thats life. As a matter of fact, apart from a lot of info dumping, you really haven't presented much a solid arguement, and arguably, you've made some howlers. Why else would I be contesting it?

I'm talking about priorities. All nation states have them. Other than yours? The information I have, which comes from published works on the subject, suggests that Carthage did not have anything like the proportion of citizens that Rome did at the time. Citizens defend out of public obligation more often than not, so yes, for the record, in front of the whole UNRV community, Carthage lacked a citizen army. Was that simple enough?

I sat down in the office for another job searching session. There's a friendly atmosphere there, and the extra four hours of dedicated internet time is proving useful, if not quite achieving the result I'm looking for. I'm collecting rejection letters from local employers. I hope to have the complete set by Christmas. One of the staff members is H, a somewhat scatty woman who likes to trip over cables. She was sat on the next PC to mine, busy finishing off someones CV. If there's anything you can get from from government agencies and private companies these days, it's a fresh new CV guaranteed to boost your chances of getting that dream rejection letter. She sighed and said "That's it, finished. You'd like her, Caldrail, she's just right for you." Oh? She sends a lot of Dear John letters? Nonetheless, out of curiosity, I reached for her CV to see what sort of person she was, at least employment wise, but then you can never really believe a CV can you? Not that it mattered. With instant reactions, H pulled the CV out of my hand before I could read it. "I should start a dating agency" Said H with some amusement. How about that? The government are setting me up for a date. I can just see the forms now... Application for Personal Relationship PR101.... Name... Address.... Telephone number.... List all my previous girlfriends.... State reasons for breaking up.... Do I have any record of bad habits?.... Situation Update For those of you who have been following the recent illness of my poor aged computer... Now you are concerned aren't you? I notice no-one sent it a get well card. Sniff.... Well, I have some good news. Despite a threatening relapse I have managed to get the old codger up and running, even if he does run with a bit of a limp. Well it's important to me

Sadly, it's essential to realise that Carthage had different priorities to Rome. They had a large navy? Agreed, they did. So if a sizeable portion of the available manpower is pulling oars on galleys, they can't be rounded up to wield swords. Adrian Goldsworthy wrote a book on the Punic Wars that covers this point adequately.

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"