Pertinax Posted July 21, 2006 Report Share Posted July 21, 2006 My error here , Ive welded the two threads and not left a referal point -this is the thread ! Please scroll back , and apologies to GO who found the glitch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pantagathus Posted July 21, 2006 Report Share Posted July 21, 2006 I imagine sprogg2001 is still wondering where their thread is. & thanks for making me look like I was inept at linkage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pertinax Posted July 21, 2006 Report Share Posted July 21, 2006 I imagine sprogg2001 is still wondering where their thread is. & thanks for making me look like I was inept at linkage Nope, inept moderation I fear. I pmd sprog! Ill tidy up the "loop" when everyone has got the drift of where the thread is now working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pantagathus Posted July 21, 2006 Report Share Posted July 21, 2006 Nope, inept moderation I fear. I pmd sprog! Good heavens, mine sounded harsher than I meant it! Of course I was only messing with you Pertinax!. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dominus Rex Posted July 22, 2006 Report Share Posted July 22, 2006 Well first you're stuck with them in the unit, giving them a 'by' or a nice safer place in the rear will be noticed by other soldiers and resented. This gives other soldiers an idea that screwing up or cowardice is rewarded with a safer outcome. Again, you train them up and you assign some of your best troops to behind them; their choice fight or run into your own unit's swords. It's as much a message to 'good' troops as it is to the thumbless ones and word will tend to get out--don't chop your thumb off or it's the front line for you. Whatever you do you do not form them all into their own unit unless you use shame or punishment as the reason. Isolating them as much as possible from each other's influence, putting them under the direction and training of trusted troops has the additional intangible of peer pressure and shame as a tool. Remember, again, you're stuck with these guys and letting them off to a cushier assignment aint' good for the morale of better soldiers. Right, but they are essentially cannon-fodder. They cannot fight as well as the good soldiers so you're wasting bodies... which would then need to be filled again, and with recruitment so bad you NEED to take thumbless soldiers I think you would hinder yourself more in the long run then helping in the short run. Besides, you can say it's a "cusiher job" but they could also be doing all the manual labor. Built the camps, repair walls etc, while the good soldiers avoid it, also, you need those good soldiers up front so besides manual labor, logistics is the only logical place I can see for the thumbless ones to be placed while actually getting some good work out of them. Was recruitment really so bad that they NEEDED thumbless soldiers, or was drafting them more as of a lesson for others, that cutting off your thumb is dumb because you still go to war. Drafting them would certainly send a message to others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost_Warrior Posted July 22, 2006 Report Share Posted July 22, 2006 (edited) Was recruitment really so bad that they NEEDED thumbless soldiers, or was drafting them more as of a lesson for others, that cutting off your thumb is dumb because you still go to war. Drafting them would certainly send a message to others. I think it was a mixture of both Recruitment definitely dwindled at times, though I think they weren't so very desperate that the thumbless guys were the only option. They probably started out doing it to send a message, and ended up realizing that they had a use for them as "cannon fodder" or, more likely, as labor as fewer volunteers showed up. Edited July 22, 2006 by Lost_Warrior Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldrail Posted July 23, 2006 Report Share Posted July 23, 2006 Was recruitment really so bad that they NEEDED thumbless soldiers, or was drafting them more as of a lesson for others, that cutting off your thumb is dumb because you still go to war. Drafting them would certainly send a message to others. Recruitment in the late empire was getting to be a fairly desperate process. Draft dodging was widespread and press gangs operated to volunteer men for service. One emperor decided that two thumbless soldiers were the same as one fit & able soldier so there was no excuse for service. People simply didn't want a military life by that time. Rome was no longer the unified empire of old. People were tired of government interference in their lives and certainly fed up of paying extortionate taxes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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