Bryaxis Hecatee

The main difference between galleys and ocean going ships was also the hull form : galleys were designed with flat hulls for frequent beaching and were thus badly suited to strong currents and heavy waves which are frequent in the ocean but rather less in the mediterranean (especially the waves are less powerful). What we see of rhine river craft or danubian river craft shows that the roman could build better suited ships : But not all their ships were built with such a design : On both ship rowing power was considered as the main power source. Using row banks like the one on the first of the two reconstituted ships also had the disavdentages for ocean going ship that waves could come underneath and make pressure that could overturn the ship (especially the flat bottomed ones), with the other side's weight making the ship capsize even more quickly.

I'm not sure the author's all that much at fault for the editing process, but some of the mistakes could indeed be his. As for the content in itself, it's truly a book to read only if you want to go deeper than usual and question the accepted reading on events and peoples of the time, even if you don't accept everything at the end. But I would probably not invest in the book for a private library, it might be better to go to your local library and loan it there instead. and, GPM, thanks : I try to be fair in my reviews and bring out the bad as well as the good, so I hope I achieved my gaol.

the testudo was a formation during which soldiers were thight packed and vulnerable to any issue with the ground. It was very slow to move in such formation and the closeness of the men meant they heated far more quickly than usual. Thus the formation would not be standard formation. Also roman training emphasised giving the soldier enough room to use his sword and shield, not giving a continuous front during the whole battle like the classical greek phalanx. Thus one should expect testudo to be indeed mainly intended to approach a city wall (where heavy projectiles density was expected and where the testudo was thus a good protection, especially if some of the soldiers thus protected in the middle of the formation carried ladders or fascinae or other siege tools) and when facing archer-cavalry, especially against the Parthian (it was probably the formation used by Crassus legions to try to protect themselve). Testudo against cavalry might not have been very effective, a more classic approach like the one described in Amien Marcellin might be the best kind of protection (closer to the germanic shield-wall). Finally, one has also to check which testudo formation you're speaking about...

Size was really not a problem for the ancient shipwrigths, grainships from the alexandrian to pouzzole or ostia line and the mega-warships of the hellenistic period (which could go to 16 ranks of oarsmen and use catamaran double-hulled designs) give us proof of that. And indigenous designs like the Venetes ships Caesar had to fight in the area of Britany could serve as a basis to create the right kind of design for the tidal sea conditions.

I don't know of any specific map, but just a word of advice : be careful of the date of the map. I remember my roman epigraphy teacher telling us she once had problems with colleagues because she had used an older book as a source which gave city names that were no longer in use following sometimes very violent conflicts (like the Balkan war...)...

soldiers might indeed have bought wine on the way, but the official drink on the march was water and wine was mainly kept by the unit's logistical support, one of it's uses being medical. Water could and did indeed sometimes bring diseases, and could also carry poison left by the ennemy : denying someone's water by putting dead animals in the wells was a common tactic.

The roman navy was far from being either technologicaly advanced or even powerfull, being often left to rot at the end of a war and using mainly mid-sized units whose design stayed almost the same for half a millenary, with the republican forces sometimes numerous (about 200 to 250 ships) and more often much smaller (about 50 to 100 ships, less than Athens in it's decline). Also Rome often made use of the local navies of the various cities with which it had treaties or exerced it's domination upon. The vaunted "corvus" of the first punic war was only a tool used to diminish the impact of inferior seamanship and might even have been suppressed from roman ships after that date, with maybe a revival during the second triumvirate period. Indeed the period between the Rubicon crossing and Actium was probably the time at which the roman had the most ships, with the battles around Sicily being some of the biggest ever fought at sea, rivaling in scale with the largest battles of the Peloponnesian war (which used slightly smaller ships). As for the imperial fleet, the mediterranean one was rather small (on the order of 100 ships probably) and mainly for police usage, with the specific river fleets (Rhine, Danube, ...) being possibly larger but made of smaller ships. The above does not mean the fleet did not play a role in Roman history, but it was much less important than the legion. You'll probably want to read "Hellenistic and Roman Naval Wars 336BC-31BC", published by Pen and Sword, for which I review I wrote should soon by published on UNRV : it will give you a good idea of the importance of the roman fleet, especially in light of the other navies of the period.

Professor Mayor, As you've stated elsewhere you introduced I fresh view on ancient texts and looked for rationale behind the myth. Such was also the stated approach of scholars like Dumezil who also explained, on another level, the very monsters and "oddities" you've studied. While Dumezil looked for the structure you seem to have looked to the details, seeing things none saw before and keeping close to the realia where others searched for underlying links between cultures and evolutions in human civilisation. After your work, do you think those authors looking for structure followed a sound method while examining the same text you read and do their conclusions look sound for you ? Do you intend to re-examine the evidences in such a structuralist approach ?

even for beers you must remember that it was not in use much outside of the northern provinces and Egypt, it was not a drink for "true romans"

Thanks to both of you !

Hi Nephele, thanks ! Let's just say that any day which isn't bad should be treasured as no one knows what the next day will be like... but a day where I can afford to buy 4 new books can be considered as good so that shall do

Caesar's case was specific as it was the official state treasuary (which was kept in a temple) that he took when he captured Rome, and I don't remember any other roman temple pillaged by him. But otherwise it was indeed comon for generals to take money in sanctuaries, but I've always wondered (and been to lazy to check) how many time it was force-seized instead of loaned under more or less pressure. Because temples were, one must remember, the main financial powers of the ancient world and the first bankers in the mediteranean as is shown as early as classical greek period. also many treasuaries of the ancient temples were not money but art object which could often not be cast into bullion or was worth more as art than as bullion. In such a case the temples who helped the defeated leader might get plundered by the victor in civil war to ornate some building he was building to commemorate for his victory, or simply tell the temples they would not see their money back even if it was captured when the foe the temples had supported was defeated. If I remember well we see exactly this kind of behaviour from Octavius/Augustus after the defeat of the conspirators, and also after the defeat of Marc Antony. These comportements are different from the ones of the barbarians.

Tack s

Thanks docoflove1974, the important is not the day in itself but it's come back as they say

Danke sch

Thank you Melvadius, it shall be a day at work as usual but at least we got a lot of sun here in Brussels so it should be cheerfull

If I remember well Colleen Mc Cullough in her novels put Vercingetorix as one of the allied cavalrymen that campaigned with him during the first part of the war, where he'd have learned some things. But in practice I've never seen scientific elements on the topic.

If I remember well not all areas of the forum are taken into account for the post count

I'm sorry to say Viggen, but truly German is not a nice sounding language it also shows that it's been long since I last read or listened to it, for I can only understand one word out of two in these videos... bah, I shall probably get better at it soon since I'll have to speak dutch for my new job

Thanks for the opinion of Mr Amt. I must say that I still wonder if late-republican pila, with their weakened fixation, might not have an issue going through even the light bronze shielding. But to come back to what you were saying, I'd say both quality and especially quantity of heavy cavalry. Otherwise you might easily find yourself in a Pharsale like situation where the light screen of infantry of Caesar was able to repel the light and medium cavalry of Labienus.

history of the coverage and what's new on rogue clacissism

What I'd be curious about is the vulnerability of a classical hoplon shield to a pilum. Tlassical greek heavy shield was much heavier than anything including, I think, the roman scutum. Metal facing, thick wood, ... this might prevent the kind of damages we've seen the macedonian and other peoples suffer from. Macedonian troops had indeed gone to lighter pelte shield, and gauls and other nations also had mostly lighter shields.

Yes. The Macedonians would even be able to deflect parts of the pila inside their forest of sarissas .

During the pre-alexandrian but post-classical warfare period after the war of the Peloponese he increased slightly spear lenght, lightened armor, replaced the traditionnal hoplite shield by peltast light infantery shield and had his forces trained in manoeuvres and small groups tactics, his force showing itself able to destroy a spartan force of about 600 elite heavy spartan hoplite. It is only later that Philipp II and Alexander would lengthen even more the spears of their men and coalesce them in huge blocks which were supposed to act as an anvil for the cavalry's hammer. An original macedonian phalanx/cavalry mix could also do the trick, since by the time of Pyrrhus the macedonian armies had lost their heavy cavalry complement (especially the western forces, although eastern forces had still enough access to horses to field multithousand horses strong units). Finally one may also think that greeks could hire numbers of scythian or other horse-mounted archers to harmstring the roman forces. But the best way would probably to cut the romans supply without changing one's army too much : a man without food will not be able to fight well fed men, whatever his training or tactics.

Brindisium and Pouzzole, yes...