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Greetings Dakkites,

I wanted to talk a bit about some dedicated Ancient Warfare topics to help me grow my learning and understanding of the topic. It is an area that interests me a lot, but I am not an expert on it by far. There is always much to learn and more to talk about!

When talking about Ancient Warfare, I tend to bucket it into 1177BCE- The end of the Bronze Age until the Fall of Rome around 420CE. That is a lot of space and ground to cover, but also let's use discuss wide ranging topics from Sumer, Assyria, Greece, Successors, Rome, Carthage, and beyond!

I am going to throw out a couple of topics to help get discussion started:

1. Did early Romans ever use a hoplite phalanx?

2. What does it mean when Xanthippus re-organized the Carthaginian military into the "Macedonian" style?

3. What did the Roman Navy look like before the first Punic War?

4. What made Cyrus the Great of Persia so successful?

5. How did Chariot Warfare work?

Feel free to talk about any of these topics or start your own for discussion! Citations are not needed, sources are always helpful! Primary and secondary are both welcome!

I look forward to some good discussion and learning a great deal!

Interesting topic mate.

Have just moved country so do not have any sources to hand so will have a crack through memory only.

1. Livy tells us yes, at least from the time of Severius till the Social wars (Polybius?).

2. Hard to know with out all the context of the quote but it could be either he made them more professional/drilled or changed the arm of decision to the cavalry from the infantry. He did both but don't know which is being talked about.

3. No idea, would struggle to think of them having a navy at all at least until after the Social War.

4. Like all other "the greats" subjugated a load of people! Took over the Median and Lydian empires at least, also like Alexander was to do later he showed alot of respect for his subject peoples and did not try and change their customs nor religious practices.

5. Depends upon country, Britains used theirs basically as mobile/mounted infantry whilst, say Persia, used theirs as line breakers.

What do you reckon? In the same vein;

6. Was Julius Caesar as good as his later reputation was to make out?

7. What was the most important battle of the Ancient World?

8. Was fear of the Gauls (Celts) a more defining trait of Roman expansion than securing grain supply?

Regarding Roman Hoplites:

I seem to recall some finds that looked to be Hoplite style equipment and some statuary that seemed to reflect the idea that they were hoplites.

However, there has been some argument lately that instead of the "traditional" Greek Hoplite battle line, they tended to fight in "swarms" with a combination of of Peltast/javelin throwing troops and Hoplites. This seemed to think they fought less like a Phalanx and more like Iberians?

Like you the details are from memory.


Regarding Cyrus, yes he did subjugate a lot of people. I think why he is so well respected and recalled is very much for the reasons you state. He was a light hand and let people keep doing what they were doing. However, this is really meaningful when you contrast it to the outside rulers who came before. The Assyrians and the Neo-Babylonians who copied a lot of Assyria's Imperial policies. Cyrus brought a new approach to the issue.

Likewise off the top of my head...


1) Yes, the Triarii were the last hold out vestiges.

2) Not super clear, I would say at the least, paid soldiers (vs levy and loot) and a professional Cav. (Tellingly the only "home troops" (Poeni) that Hannibal took into Italy was the Cav.)

3) "3 row boats and an angry troop of boy scouts!" The Romans were said to be good on rivers, not so on the sea. Their Marines were well regarded though.

4)Politics. Cyrus was able to make allies out of enemies, and unite a huge empire. He made the big choices like making the official language of the Empire Aramaic, rather than the language of the invader.

5) Nobody knows. Some were likely "battle taxis" that let elites wear heavy armor, but stay "fresh". Some were archery platforms, and scouts, like Cav that followed. Some seem to be regarded as "shock" cav, meant to break up formations.


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6) I'd say...yes? IMHO

7) Manzicurt? Hard to say I am guessing you are asking about Europe?

8)I would say Yes. That constant fear is what forged Rome into "An Army, with a State attached". And was why the Romans treated war as "to the death!' and never wanted to surrender.

I’ve heard arguments that Cyrus’ real skill was administrative, that the governing structures of his Persian empire stayed mostly intact for over a thousand years, and were often adopted by conquerors much like China’s bureaucracy.

Also, I believe the Persians were against slavery due to Zoroastrian beliefs, which likely made a difference in how the empire was perceived compared to Assyria, Babylon, Egypt and even the Greeks. Whom would you prefer to get conquered by?


For chariots, they were essentially cavalry of all forms before horses were bred sufficiently in strength. The northern peoples seemed to prefer heavier chariots and striking with pikes and spears and javelins where the Egyptians used lighter, more maneuverable chariots like horse archers. The Battle of Kadesh is really interesting in terms of chariot warfare.

I have a hard time believing the Romans had no navy, even if only a vassal navy or fleet of conquered ships. They were heavily inspired by the Greeks, and would have understood the significance of naval power.

1. Did early Romans ever use a hoplite phalanx?

They had something similar called the phalanx legion which was similar to the Greek phalanx. It was primarily heavy infantry divided into principes, hastati, and triarii. Lower class citizens fought as skirmishers. The equites class fought as cavalry.
The phalanx legion had a frontage of 500 men and a depth of six ranks. It was used from the 6th to 4th centuries BCE.1
The Manipular Legion which followed is the legion that expanded the Republic. So this type of Legion organization did the heavy lifting until its replacement by the cohortal legion at the end of the 2nd century

3. What did the Roman Navy look like before the first Punic War?

Nonexistent. They had to build one from nothing. Being inferior as sailors, the Romans played to their strength in close combat, and so fought boarding actions. They developed the corvus boarding ramp to this end. 2

6. Was Julius Caesar as good as his later reputation was to make out?

Being that Gaius Julius Caesar was his own best propagandist, and his writings are used in First Year Latin courses the world over, it is hard to fight the bias that he was one of the “Great Captains.” Chapter 4 of Ancient and Medieval Warfare says “yes.” 3

I have a corollary to this question. Was Pompey the Great (Julius Caesar's rival), really that great a military leader? His Roman contemporaries certainly thought so. Yet at least to my reading in general Roman history textbooks, it seems like he was actually an adept political opportunist. He managed three different times to get himself named as supreme commander in three campaigns that were all but won, replacing the man who had actually done the work. So to me he seems like a clever manipulator, but says nothing of his talent as a field commander. And then when he was forced to fight JC at the Battle of Pharsalus, he got curb-stomped. {To be fair to him, Pompey knew JC's troops were starving. Time was on his side, but his allies wanted the glory of a battle, not the sure if dull victory. So Pompey fought a battle he did not want to, with a numerical advantage, but with tactics well known to his foe, and against seasoned veterans.}

8. Was fear of the Gauls (Celts) a more defining trait of Roman expansion than securing grain supply?
Yes. Fear of the Celtic peoples was a common element around the Mediterranean. Reputedly, the concept of panic (root in the name of the god Pan) came from the fear a Celtic army struck in Greek armies, who usually fled. Although the Romans feared the Gauls, and they did have the early humilation of Rome itself being conquered by Brennus in 391 BCE, they eventually moved past it. Much of Gaius Julius Caesar's military reputation is built on the bodies of dead Celts.

1. Chapter 3, Ancient and Medieval Warfare, West Point Military Series, Thomas E. Griess, editor, Avery Publishing Group, 1984
2. Chapter 3, Ancient and Medieval Warfare, IBID
3. Chapter 4, Ancient and Medieval Warfare, IBID

When I refer to the Roman Hoplites, I am referring to very early Republic and prior to the Triplex Acies. I have read some thinking that the first Samnite War put paid to the Roman Hoplites completely as the Roman Phalanx (of the Greek model) was no good against the Samnite's mountain guerrilla fighting style.

Further potential evidence of the Romans using a Greek Phalanx is that their rival "local" super power, the Etruscans made us of it. Therefore, after being an Etruscan City-state before throwing off the Kingship and become a Republic it makes sense they would use a similar military style.

That led to the development of the Triplex Acies as Ancient Hamster describes.



I also find the idea that the Romans had no Navy hard to believe. After all, the Pyrrhic Wars in Rome were kicked off when Roman ships sailed around into Tarentum. I think it was 5 IIRC.

If the Roman Navy was a huge joke, why would this trigger the Greeks of Tarentum so much? I think they did have a decent sizes Navy that was a regional player. However, it was nothing compared to what Carthage had.

The whole idea that they found 1 ship, copied it, and then could suddenly mass produce a navy and sailors without any prior ship building or sailing skill before is unpersuasive to me, despite what Polybius says.


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Regarding Chariot Warfare, I can't shake the feeling that chariots were used just like later Cavalry to be..... not exactly compelling. I mean chariots have a different ability to wheel and maneuver than a single rider on a horse. 2-4 horse chariots can not stop and turn on a dime like a mounted man with some skill. That was an advantage to moving to cavalry, as well as the reduced material cost of equipping a single cavalry man versus a chariot team.

In addition, there are great references to how many chariots had "chariot runners" that accompanied them. Therefore, Chariots probably could not out pace a man on foot as they had no shocks to absorb the bumps.

Finally, who is the target of an attack in chariot warfare? Is it the driver, the horses, the cart, or the guy with the weapons? If you are a Hititte with a spear in the back of a chariot, what is the attack angle of the chariot? In the diagonal of the approach? How do you get close to a chariot with an archer when you have a big pole? How do groups of chariots operate together on the battlefield since they do not act as a a single unit?

There are so many questions about how chariot warfare "actually" operated in the details that the simple archery platform, battle taxi, or shock just do not address.

 Easy E wrote:
I also find the idea that the Romans had no Navy hard to believe. After all, the Pyrrhic Wars in Rome were kicked off when Roman ships sailed around into Tarentum. I think it was 5 IIRC.

If the Roman Navy was a huge joke, why would this trigger the Greeks of Tarentum so much? I think they did have a decent sizes Navy that was a regional player. However, it was nothing compared to what Carthage had.

The whole idea that they found 1 ship, copied it, and then could suddenly mass produce a navy and sailors without any prior ship building or sailing skill before is unpersuasive to me, despite what Polybius says.

Ten ships reputedly, although the sources are even more unreliable than usual. {Sightseeing? Really? While there is a rebellion by the Italic peoples in the same year?}

Now there might be a more detailed monograph on the early Roman navy, but the West Point book is not it. It is very general and basic. {I do not recommend it. By even posting questions in this thread, the poster demonstrates more knowledge than is provided in Ancient and Medieval Warfare. This is literally at the level of, "There were three Punic Wars." I am not kidding. Had I known it was this basic, I would not have bought it back then.}

BTW, Easy E, it's fine to just refer to me as "Hamster" if you need to refer to my posts.

 Easy E wrote:
When I refer to the Roman Hoplit
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Regarding Chariot Warfare, I can't shake the feeling that chariots were used just like later Cavalry to be..... not exactly compelling. I mean chariots have a different ability to wheel and maneuver than a single rider on a horse. 2-4 horse chariots can not stop and turn on a dime like a mounted man with some skill. That was an advantage to moving to cavalry, as well as the reduced material cost of equipping a single cavalry man versus a chariot team.

In addition, there are great references to how many chariots had "chariot runners" that accompanied them. Therefore, Chariots probably could not out pace a man on foot as they had no shocks to absorb the bumps.

Finally, who is the target of an attack in chariot warfare? Is it the driver, the horses, the cart, or the guy with the weapons? If you are a Hititte with a spear in the back of a chariot, what is the attack angle of the chariot? In the diagonal of the approach? How do you get close to a chariot with an archer when you have a big pole? How do groups of chariots operate together on the battlefield since they do not act as a a single unit?

There are so many questions about how chariot warfare "actually" operated in the details that the simple archery platform, battle taxi, or shock just do not address.

I don’t mean exactly like horse cavalry, but in the same role. Chariots were used to scout and send messages. Light chariots were used as archery platforms, while heavier chariots were used to break infantry lines. The Hittites used their chariots to scatter Egyptian infantry and then the Egyptian chariots used their reach and maneuverability to stay out of striking range of the Hittites’ chariots and slaughter them with arrows. Mycenaeans favored chariots that were heavy, and used long pikes. The Assyrians had light and heavy chariots for different roles, and developed horse and camel cavalry.

From what I understand, chariotry never fully recovered from the Bronze Age Collapse, and was gradually supplanted by horse and camel cavalry.

If even the adjusted numbers for chariots in battle are to be believed, they must have operated in units or formations.

@Bob- How many people do you think were involved at a battle like Kadesh? How many chariots?

That is part of the rub. I think the actual sizes of some of these ancient battles could not have been that large, considering the small town I am from has more people than many of the City-states of the era.

This would impact how many Chariots they could field and how big a Chariot "unit" was. I am sure there are some solid numbers and estimates out there, but they are escaping me at the moment.

The method of estimation I’ve seen the most was “take whatever Ramses 2 said and divide it by 10.”

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The method of estimation I’ve seen the most was “take whatever Ramses 2 said and divide it by 10.”

This, then subtract between 10 and 50% because no army is ever 100% operational. Even so that is a Lot of chariots. They had to be organised in some fasion...maybe each noble clan operated together, maybe by stable, so the horses know each other by sound and smell. Nobody really knows, because this kind of information was so well known, nobody thought to write it down.

I have a corollary to this question. Was Pompey the Great (Julius Caesar's rival), really that great a military leader? His Roman contemporaries certainly thought so. Yet at least to my reading in general Roman history textbooks, it seems like he was actually an adept political opportunist. He managed three different times to get himself named as supreme commander in three campaigns that were all but won, replacing the man who had actually done the work. So to me he seems like a clever manipulator, but says nothing of his talent as a field commander. And then when he was forced to fight JC at the Battle of Pharsalus, he got curb-stomped. {To be fair to him, Pompey knew JC's troops were starving. Time was on his side, but his allies wanted the glory of a battle, not the sure if dull victory. So Pompey fought a battle he did not want to, with a numerical advantage, but with tactics well known to his foe, and against seasoned veterans.}

I would tend to agree - Pompey did very well in the periods of strife and there is even suggestions his "great" campaign against the pirates merely involved him buying them off and/or resettling them. Although I still feel that his patron Sulla is ignored too much - he was a capable general as well as a Dictator who retired alive, satisfied with what he had done - although he actually laid the ground work for the destruction of the republic by those who came after him with Pompey saying

"If Sulla could, why can't I?"

and he had a wonderful epithet.

“No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.”

 Mr Morden wrote:

I have a corollary to this question. Was Pompey the Great (Julius Caesar's rival), really that great a military leader?


I would tend to agree - Pompey did very well in the periods of strife and there is even suggestions his "great" campaign against the pirates merely involved him buying them off and/or resettling them.

Which is still no small feat! I mean, we still have problems with pirates today, and resettling them has not worked out that well.



Regarding Chariot Warfare again-

Yeah, I am thinking how did a unit of chariots 'tactically' operate? Did they sweep forward as one wave, then peel at a certain distance? Attack in echelon? Unit by unit charge? How do they coordinate a wheeling maneuver to not crash into other chariots or their runners? Did shock tactical operations look different then archery tactical operations?

This would be a great place for computer simulations or actually building some chariots and trying them out to help us understand more.

Here is what Wiki says about the numbers involved at Kadesh....

Egyptians:
20,000-53,000 men
(half engaged)

16,000 infantry
2,000 chariots
4,000 men

Hittites:
Somewhere between 23,000–50,000 men

Somewhere between 15,000 –40,000 infantry
(not engaged)
Somewhere between 2,500–10,500 chariots
Somewhere between 9,000–11,100 men

I am trying to imagine what 2,000 chariots operating together would even look like.

I enjoyed the Osprey book about Kadesh. I had read accounts in other books, but they pretty much took Ramses’ description at face value. The Osprey book talks a bit about the kinds of difficulties you discuss, indicating the battle was far from ideal for both sides. The turning radius might have beena consideration for why the Hittites did not turn and finish off the Egyptian infantry of P’re corps, might not have even meant to engage with them in the first place. They also mention the dust kicked up by so many chariots causing problems for intelligence gathering and communication.

There are books that go far more in-depth I’m sure. Unfortunately, most of the history books I’ve picked up discuss such things as battle tactics in general terms at best, so Osprey has been my preferred source.

I seem to recall somebody got the funding to build a light chariot and try it out. I think on Discovery? But, the horses were not trained for warfare, or chariot use. So big grain of salt, plus, only one chariot.


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Mike lodes?

Regarding the navy of the Roman Republic: Know the Romans has this to say, "Twenty ships were constructed to assist in the conquest of Campania, to the south of Rome." In the prior sentence, the year given is 311 BCE, so 47 years before the First Punic War. That makes more sense than Polybius, and agrees with the ancient account for the start of the Pyrrhic War.

There is a monograph, The Navies of Rome by Michael Pitassi for sale at Amazon US.

I think about the Logistics involved in feeding and supplying 2,000 chariots while in the field and it just feels like those numbers are too high. Granted, Logistics are not my specialty.

However, a Chariot crew is 2-3 dudes that all need food and water. Then you have 2-3 horse per, but you also can probably not keep them in harness "all the time" on your chariot. They need food and water too. Then, you need it multiple times per day.

I am assuming, 10 logistics personnel (maybe chariot runners act as logistics people too?) to every fighting chariot and you are getting 20,000 Logistical personnel for the Egyptians! If you need 1 logistics person for every 10 infantry then you have another 2,000 people.

That means you have almost half the fighting force in Logistics, and then they arm up to soldier later or do they just fall back when battle is imminent?

Kadesh was a bit of a hash, so were the infantry the Logistics folks under arms too?

I imagine they would fight unless they were valuable specialists. The book described the logistics train as fairly huge, but the part that got me was the use of multiple routes and staggered marches, so that no two corps ended up camping or foraging in the same spot during the journey.


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Could it be possible that supplies were sent by boat, and this was just so common along the coast it isn’t mentioned? Some of the mercenaries seem to have arrived (or been hired) by sea for example.

An excellent thought. We see the Persians and later Diadochi using a "support" fleet in the area later as well. That makes a lot of sense.

Also, regarding the Navy...... the mystery of the Corvus. We have an idea of what it was, and how it worked from Polybius.

However, was it really that big of an innovation? If it was so great, why did Rome stop using it? Was it ever "actually" a thing, or was it all a fanciful invention of the author?

 Easy E wrote:
I think about the Logistics involved in feeding and supplying 2,000 chariots while in the field and it just feels like those numbers are too high. Granted, Logistics are not my specialty.

However, a Chariot crew is 2-3 dudes that all need food and water. Then you have 2-3 horse per, but you also can probably not keep them in harness "all the time" on your chariot. They need food and water too. Then, you need it multiple times per day.

I am assuming, 10 logistics personnel (maybe chariot runners act as logistics people too?) to every fighting chariot and you are getting 20,000 Logistical personnel for the Egyptians! If you need 1 logistics person for every 10 infantry then you have another 2,000 people.

That means you have almost half the fighting force in Logistics, and then they arm up to soldier later or do they just fall back when battle is imminent?

Kadesh was a bit of a hash, so were the infantry the Logistics folks under arms too?

Logistics was also known as the "camp followers" For fighting horse you should assume 6 to 12 horses in reserve for every one in the fight, horses are easy to injure, even by mistake, and you can't have your fancy war machine stop because a hoof got hurt. To get some ideas, Cav manuals from the civil war should exist, and have that sort of info available (how much fodder, water, etc)

 Easy E wrote:
Also, regarding the Navy...... the mystery of the Corvus. We have an idea of what it was, and how it worked from Polybius.

However, was it really that big of an innovation? If it was so great, why did Rome stop using it? Was it ever "actually" a thing, or was it all a fanciful invention of the author?

I am not sure they did stop using it? As I understand it, the corvus was pefect for the Roman way of war and enabled them to use their infantry in naval battles to their advantage. They also had catapult launched grapples to get the ships together. In the same way that Viking Longships are are not designed to ram or otherwise engage enemy vessels and often clashes between scandanivans at sea often took place with the ships lashed together I think.

Their technology somewhat advanced as the Republic and the Empire grew and maratime peoples became part of it.

Once they had defeated Cathage they never really (?) had to fight a major sea power except during civil wars and against priares - who sometimes had small fleets of their own.

There are alot of myths about ancient warships - like the idea they were crewed by slave oarsmen when the opposite was true.

Going back to Carthage and the "Macedonian" model .... this Spartan Mercenary and General Xanthippus is a pretty interesting idea. However, is he just a Roman construct to basically sling shade that the Carthaginians need to bring in an outsider to compete with the Roman armies?

After all, the term "Punic" is a Roman slur against the Phoenicians so why not expect the Roman sources to throw shade whenever they can?

 Easy E wrote:
Going back to Carthage and the "Macedonian" model .... this Spartan Mercenary and General Xanthippus is a pretty interesting idea. However, is he just a Roman construct to basically sling shade that the Carthaginians need to bring in an outsider to compete with the Roman armies?

After all, the term "Punic" is a Roman slur against the Phoenicians so why not expect the Roman sources to throw shade whenever they can?

Apparently Roman slinger bullets had very obscene messages on them - some of the less offensive ones included:

Crack your teeth”, “Catch”, “For Pompey’s backside”, and “This is an unpleasant gift.” Some of the messages were indecent – one bullet was found that said, “Attack Octavian’s a&^ehole.”

Some interesting stuff here:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/messages-missiles-here-sugar-plum-you-003708

Why would the Romans want to throw shade? All that would do is lessen their own achievements, either by making them out to be even worse/more incompetent when they lost or making their victories less impressive. Not sure that a Greek writing at the time of the Roman occupation of Greece would be too enamored of the idea either. Though it could be that Polybius did exaggerate Xanthippus's effect upon the Carthaginian military to big up the Greek reputation.


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 Ancestral Hamster wrote:

6. Was Julius Caesar as good as his later reputation was to make out?

Being that Gaius Julius Caesar was his own best propagandist, and his writings are used in First Year Latin courses the world over, it is hard to fight the bias that he was one of the “Great Captains.” Chapter 4 of Ancient and Medieval Warfare says “yes.” 3

This is what interested me the most, I have just finished reading his Gallic war and if you read it with a critical eye it actually makes Caesar out to be quite a tit. He seems to fight more battles to secure his grain supply than anything else, he frequently makes forays into further areas without securing his lines of communication, let alone actually pacifying regions (re. Egypt during the Civil War!) and he not infrequently gets out maneuvered. It seems that during the Gallic Wars/Invasion of Britain/Foray across the Rhine he relies far too much on the fighting ability and sturdiness of his infantry and whilst this may not be a bad thing in and of itself it could have very easily led to real disaster numerous times. Scipio was much in the same mould during his campaigns in Iberia. If GJC had come across one of the greater military minds of the time the results might have been very different as thinking about it did he fight anyone of any real ability? Pompey was past it and suffering from cancer and very nearly still beat him at Dyrrachium, Vercingetorix was able to do much and at Gergovia got really lucky but it was already too little and too late. He managed to loose at Ruspina (trying to find supplies again!) but that was against Labienus whom I would argue was a far better commander than GJC was.

Recently read "In the name of Rome" by AdrianGoldsworthy and he makes the intersting point that although most Roman generals were mainly politicans and often now considered "Amateurs", the standard of generalship through the ages was pretty good. There were the incompetants to match the genuses but they aquited themselves pretty well having mostly learnt their trade on the job.

That's pretty true of any General in the period that wasn't a mercenary though isnt it? They all had some schooling in the basic tenants of their culture's way of fighting but they had to make it up as they went for the most part. Its one reason why the real innovators, lucky buggers and good stand out so much. Not sure if the Romans had a better or worse rate of producing adequate generals than anyone else.

I had a question, if there are any experts on Roman military equipment here?

I was reading about the Praetorians campaigning for Otho against Vitellius during the year of the four Emperors, but couldn't find any clear guidance about their shields.
Most models and pictures show the Praetorians of this period with the oval shield, but I've read other comments about the oval shield being used for bodyguard work and that they would have used the legionary rectangular shield when on campaign?

 Mr Morden wrote:
Recently read "In the name of Rome" by AdrianGoldsworthy and he makes the intersting point that although most Roman generals were mainly politicans and often now considered "Amateurs", the standard of generalship through the ages was pretty good. There were the incompetants to match the genuses but they aquited themselves pretty well having mostly learnt their trade on the job.

I also think we hear very little in the sources about the failures.

@Ingtaer- Polybius may be a Greek, but he is still a Romanophile. Secondly, it is possible HIS sources on Xanthippus were the ones throwing shade? Perhaps a stretch, but I tend to question the primary sources a bit more than others. I do not take them as gospel, but sometimes it is all we have to go on.