Virgil61

On close inspection the phalanx is less disciplined actually. The ability of a legion to adopt different formations and tactics is a sign of both better discipline and training not less. It's easy to teach a large group of men how to stay a large formation marching for example, I've done it. It takes more time, effort and discipline to get them to respond to a myriad of formations and commands. It takes even more time than that to teach individual sword-skills typical of a Roman soldier. Legion training is much more resource intense. The phalanx isn't so remarkable really, it's the perfect citizen-soldier army. No complex formations to learn, simple effort and on flat ground it's perfect, but it's also a one-trick pony. Unfortunately the world isn't all flat and it's vulnerable to the simplest tactic of them all--fix and flank. No, Alexander took over the world with the phalanx and excellent cavalry acting as the flanking arm. And outmaneuvering is it's weakness, it relies on the enemy to be static in their approach, it can't respond to quick changes on the battlefield. As long as they're in front of you that's great. There's more to Pyrrus than just Pyrrus. He was hired by the Greek cities of southern Italy who had been having serious difficulty with the Romans, presumably using the phalanx themselves. I'm not sure where you get the Greek states defeating the Romans in a 'majority of battles' but the defeat of Macedonia and its phalanx army put a stop to any speculation. The Illyrians used phalanxes as well as the Seleucids and both were defeated by legion formations as well. I've never read having swordsman between the phalanx formations as being any sort of standard practice. You have the Illyrians, Phillip's Macedonians, Antiochus' Seleucids, Perseus' Macedonians, the Greek revolts and the Italian Greeks as examples, all using phalanxes and beaten by the legion system in the end (which is all that matters). One can make all the excuses one wants to about 'careless' generals or Greek complicity and so on but in the end it's the constant application of a flexible legion system against a slow-moving and static phalanx that wins the day.

I'll ressurect this old thread instead of starting another. I've got pretty ecletic taste w/over 2000 albums, cds and tapes, probably closer to 3000 now, ranging from classical, jazz, country, reggae and rock. Love the old classic rock guitarists like Duane Allman, Rory Gallagher, Hendrix, Mavishnu Orchestra etc., late '70s early '80s punk/hardcore--Ramones, Clash, Pistols, Wire, Black Flag and Meat Puppets--as well as Johnny Cash, Neil Young, White Stripes, the Dead's Dick's Pick's, Drive-By Truckers, etc. What was I listening to today? I'll come clean and admit it: Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Neil Diamond. There, I said it. Sort of corny and sometimes schlocky in their heyday but all artists that have sort of re-invented themselves showing the inner core of talent they've always (apparently) had. Dolly Parton's cd 'Little Sparrow' and 'Those were the Days'. This ain't the Nashville Dolly of the '80s, all glitzy and glamour. She's went way back to her roots w/a bluegrass backing. It's far closer to roots-country--especially 'Little Sparrow' than modern Nashville garbage. Loretta Lynn's 'Van Lear Rose' sounds more like alt.country then that Nashville sound as well. Jack White of White Stripes produced it and gives it a bit of an alternative edge incuding some guitar work and a duet. The woman is in her 70s and this album rocks. Neil Diamond's '12 Songs'. Yeah, Neil Diamond, known for some real glitzy and schlocky songs like 'Sweet Caroline', 'Crackin' Rose' and 'Song Sung Blue'. He was always a talented songwriter, he wrote 'I'm a Believer' for the Monkees for example. Rick Rubin, the hip-hop and metal producer and the guy who brought Johnny Cash back into the spotlight with his American Recordings a few years ago, produced this. Diamond spent a year writing these songs. Rubin put him in a studio, added Tom Petty's band The Heartbreakers as background musicians, pushed the instruments back in the mix and made him play guitar while singing to keep him from his tendency to get bombastic. The guy can write a song and Rubin keeps a reign on him resulting in some pretty good music. About as close to Dylan or classic Elvis Costello in songwriting abilitiy as Diamond will ever get. I was impressed. Anyway I'd give Loretta Lynn a listen, she comes closest to modern 'alt rock' sensibility, any album in the last five years from Parton if you like roots-country or bluegrass and Diamond if you like Costello/Dylan type songwriting. If you told me ten or twenty years ago that I'd listen to any of them (well maybe Loretta Lynn) I'd have laughed you out of the room, but it's good to see old talents reinventing themselves successfully and actually being relevant.

Virgil, are you claiming that Robert Conquest is a propagandist? Furius used it to describe Fuller and Hart's pushing of a particular and basically correct point of view. I didn't really like it's use so I called it "propaganda of sorts" (ironically Conquest worked what we'd call today 'information warfare' during the cold war). Having said that if you're interested in continuing the Conquest thread in the after-hours forum, there are some serious criticisms of him.

Ursus, did you see my concept Hermes shirts I posted in the gallery? Good review Pantagathus, thanks for posting it.

The point I was trying to make is that very few, historians or military men besides Fuller and Hart, of that era were generally writing history that delved 'under the hood' of the dynamics of military history in the same manner that recent writers have. Fuller and Hart have their own counterparts in other historical fields whose approach was similar in that they were essentially correct but their writings functioned as propaganda of sorts; for example see anything by Robert Conquest on the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union.

Love Goldsworthy but frankly the criticisms he made, while well founded, only reflect the way historical writings were approached by historian in all fields as well as military men of those eras as well. Keegan and others who began to delve into the organization, culture, motivations and psychology of soldiers and military history were following a more recent trend that historians in every field were beginning to address in the '60s. Parallel approaches in other historical fields like social history, the impact of the politics and economics on everyday people, how social organization impacted contemporaries and so on were breaking out at the same time if not before the Keegans and others came on the scene of military history.

I thought it was funny, don't know if I'd go outside with it though! I was partial to "Ides, shmides".

I like it. If you wanted to advertise the site you could always have www.unrv.com written on the white background underneath that logo.

I personally favor t-shirts that don't have a logo on the front and center but one on the upper left side of the shirt. They strike me as less gaudy. Putting something like this Roman coin from Rome around the time of the Republic during second Punic War, with Jupiter and Winged Victory, where the pocket would be is very a cool look for a t-shirt and perhaps a latin slogan on underneath or on the back.

It was that site forum going down that led me to UNRV of all things.

Don't knock Starbucks, as much as I hate to admit it their House Blend is pretty good. Even had it shipped to me in Iraq. 'Course they're on every city corner here in the US (there's one a block away from me and another one three blocks from that one!).

An indication of just how important the Romans thought of the effectiveness of ballistae to devote those resources to them. From JC's description of the reaction of the tribes to them in Britain to their depiction on Trajan's column they were as important on the battlefield as they were in sieges.

I think Caldrail's hit it squarely on the head. The Roman method of professional organization and emphasis on training at its high point vanished. I don't think they influenced later armies so much as they were the first to harnass the 'fundamentals' of organizational psychology, leadership and management as it pertains to warmaking (small groups training/fighting together to improve unit cohesion and loyalty, NCOs at the 'company' level allowing a certain flexibility complimented by organization, a professional army, incentives for success such as rank and loot, logistics, etc.) At it's most fundamental army's are just gangs of men; he who can organize them to get the most efficient performance and apply their violence (keeping an eye on the variable of technology) where needed usually wins. The Romans at their height got it done better than anyone, but those principles were still valid and I think were 'rediscovered' later. Them's high-faluting concepts when you're talking about groups of men who--when victorious--raped, pillaged and looted often sticking the heads of the defeated on sticks, but the point still stands.

And he's the real thing too. I've seen him on several news channels.

Nicely done and very interesting, I've seen it before and they've really changed the site for the better. Wish they'd show more varied American Southern accents. After living there for a decade and a half I've found that North Carolina accents vary from a distinct coastal region dialect to the mountain dialect, and a Tennessean sounds different from a South Carolinian. Has anyone else living in the South found this to be true?

Interesting. I'm reading "The Collapse of Complex Societies" or I should say slowly plowing through it (not quite bedtime reading). It covers something similar on a larger basis including the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Since you've asked I'll let let you in; Uncle June's alzheimer's is going full bore now, he's seeing old enemies and mistook Tony for one. Very odd episode, not sure if it's the last episode of the season played first or what. Not much going on w/Chris this episode. There's more rats running around as well.

As near as I could tell he said something similar to 'die Malenga' or 'you're dead Malenga' in some Napolitano Italian dialect-slang. I saw that. They did say that there HBO's on-demand is a lot more common now than two years ago and that might explain a lot of it. I'm sure DVD sales will still be strong.

I've got the hardcopy of it, simply excellent. I'd like to see Polybius, JC or Josephus--among others--given the same treatment.

I add a third recommendation. It is a must read if just for the simple fact it's influenced a generation or two of scholars and is part of that body of literature that every self-respecting student of Rome should eventually read, agree with it's thesis or not. Which reminds me I haven't read it in years, might be time for a re-visit.

Happy Birthday Cato, old enough to (sort of) know better, young enough to learn new tricks. Say hello to the other John Birchers for me!

Allow me to present a partial counter-argument. Tactics and organization don't quite make an army by themselves. It begs belief that a dozen or more different tribes with minimal state infastructure could support and conduct the large scale manouvers of the early Roman legions, practiced forced marches, constructed well-built daily fortifications as a rule while on movement, used a cadre of NCOs like centurions to command and control smaller units, applied consistant procedures on weapons training and so on and so on. Certainly if one takes even 50% of Vegetius at any value contemporaries in the later empire understood they'd lost a step. While he may not have had the military experience he didn't write in a vacuum and his manuscript would've been subjected to some scrutiny, he seems to know enough that he could claim older training methods hadn't been utilized for quite some time. I think the evidence is pretty indicative that the later legions weren't of the same quality of the classic legions of the Principate, not that they were all bad by any means but their glory days were long behind them.