Early Italian Warfare

[Jim Webster]

wealthier class was not only the one with best armor and weapons, it was the one who had most time in the day to train, so it was the best trained. Probably they were noblemen or anyway land owners. So why should they not stay in the front?

Remember the wealthiest would be cavalry anyway and out of this discussion

Whilst they might have had time to train, there is little evidence that they did other than at sport in the Gymnasium. Most of the evidence for formal training seems very late
Which is fair enough, they had plenty to do without playing soldiers
Jim

[RobertGargan]

I am not sure the Certosa situla is describing a complicated class system.  Maybe we are looking at allies, mercenaries or poorer warriors.   I read somewhere that the cavalry was the best element of the army and I presume the contribution of the nobility.  The landowning class - of varied wealth - could afford the cuirass/corset and the poorer citizens just shield and an offensive weapon.  I like Andrew's simpler approach to the social class system and a single phalanx with no reserves.
The pictorial evidence seems to show armoured warriors in the hoplite type armour right up until the end of their independence.   
Greeks and Italians fought side by side - Romans and Cumaeans (hoplites most probably) - against the Etruscan enemy.  I can see elements of the Roman and Etruscan landowning class adopting Greek armour and copying part of the hoplite line of battle but evolving weaponry to fit their geography - javelin and looser formation on rough terrain.
Robert

[andrew881runner]

wealthier class was not only the one with best armor and weapons, it was the one who had most time in the day to train, so it was the best trained. Probably they were noblemen or anyway land owners. So why should they not stay in the front?

Remember the wealthiest would be cavalry anyway and out of this discussion

Whilst they might have had time to train, there is little evidence that they did other than at sport in the Gymnasium. Most of the evidence for formal training seems very late
Which is fair enough, they had plenty to do without playing soldiers
Jim

http://www.ilportaledeltempo.it/?sezione=AC&art=etruschi&sub=4
(Google translator again)
the typical day of an etruscan nobleman involved war training or hunting as primary activities, exactly as middle age noblemen. In the ancient period, they used chariots which needed a lot of training for sure. Same for hoplites or first class, who probably were not elite noblemen but landowners class anyway. Etruscans were good warriors, they based their power on raiding seas and they were in almost constant war with  nearby populations, so I guess they trained for war somehow and spent some time for it, especially upper classes. Surely they were not super trained warriors as Spartans, since etruscans were basically people who loved life and its pleasures, eating, drinking, playing, doing sport, making  love ( and almost unique feature in ancient world, women played an active role in society), but war played an important role for ancient world so they trained for it, no doubt (probably more than Greeks who preferred gymnasium and physical training rather than war training, as Romans noticed).

[andrew881runner]

I am not sure the Certosa situla is describing a complicated class system.  Maybe we are looking at allies, mercenaries or poorer warriors.   I read somewhere that the cavalry was the best element of the army and I presume the contribution of the nobility.  The landowning class - of varied wealth - could afford the cuirass/corset and the poorer citizens just shield and an offensive weapon.  I like Andrew's simpler approach to the social class system and a single phalanx with no reserves.
The pictorial evidence seems to show armoured warriors in the hoplite type armour right up until the end of their independence.   
Greeks and Italians fought side by side - Romans and Cumaeans (hoplites most probably) - against the Etruscan enemy.  I can see elements of the Roman and Etruscan landowning class adopting Greek armour and copying part of the hoplite line of battle but evolving weaponry to fit their geography - javelin and looser formation on rough terrain.
Robert

living in Tuscany land of Etruschi I can assure you that there is not this rough terrain you imagine. There are a lot of valleys, a lot of flat places (where I live, Florence, I hardly see some Hills in the far distance), some mild hilly area, and a limited central area running in the middle of the peninsula with mountains. Not this rough terrain. Having been to Greece, I noticed that it has generally more rough terrain than Italy, or etruscan part of Italy. So why should they adapt phalanx to a terrain less rough than theirs? [emoji6]
Even these idea of javelin, I accept it but I don't find the necessity of javelins in "rough terrain" because there would be not. In reality, most places I have seen would be very good for big phalanx battles, maybe better than Greece.

[aligern]

Mostly the art evidence shows rich people, artefacts they imported and bought made by Greek craftsmen, expensive decorations for their tombs, expensive decorated saecophagi for their ashes. Then we get  of Greek myths showing Gods and heroes in Greek kit. Of course the armour deposited in rich men's  tombs tends to be rich men's armour and might often be for cavalrymen.

Robert, look again at the Certosa Situla. Does it show the nobles of three tribes in differentiated costumes meeting up? No I  don't see that there. It seems to show one unitary set of civilian characters and three variations of infantry equipment, One of these variants has a crested helmet and the other two look like  classes of troops with  cheaper kit.  I sort of feel that if you believe that these warriors represent different tribes then you should be able to adduce some sort of evidence from the piece itself to justify that or from other pieces to show that this is a common, or at least not unique treatment.  I am with you on the javelin and their own Italian weapon development.

Andrew, yes Tuscany is mostly rolling hills, though there are mountains , the area is not as rugged as Greece and perhaps that is a good reason for them not having phalanx warfare as that style developed where there are small plains  and good flank protection so that cavalry were generally less important, except for the Theban plains and Thebes had more and better cavalry than the rest of the Greek city states. Etruria being more open it would have made sense to have a more flexible system with smaller units and reserves and good cavalry and this is how some of  us see the Etruscans operating.

That the Etruscans operated in classes seems highly likely partly because of evidence such as the Certosa Situla, but in large part because Rome is an Etruscan colony and it is highly likely that the system of wealth based classes that pertained at Rome was an Etruscan system.
Roy

[Jim Webster]

http://www.ilportaledeltempo.it/?sezione=AC&art=etruschi&sub=4
(Google translator again)
the typical day of an etruscan nobleman involved war training or hunting as primary activities, exactly as middle age noblemen. In the ancient period, they used chariots which needed a lot of training for sure. Same for hoplites or first class, who probably were not elite noblemen but landowners class anyway. Etruscans were good warriors, they based their power on raiding seas and they were in almost constant war with  nearby populations, so I guess they trained for war somehow and spent some time for it, especially upper classes. Surely they were not super trained warriors as Spartans, since etruscans were basically people who loved life and its pleasures, eating, drinking, playing, doing sport, making  love ( and almost unique feature in ancient world, women played an active role in society), but war played an important role for ancient world so they trained for it, no doubt (probably more than Greeks who preferred gymnasium and physical training rather than war training, as Romans noticed).

Guesses are nice but if the writer had quoted sources it would have been nicer.

Jim

[Erpingham]

Robert, look again at the Certosa Situla. Does it show the nobles of three tribes in differentiated costumes meeting up? No I  don't see that there. It seems to show one unitary set of civilian characters and three variations of infantry equipment, One of these variants has a crested helmet and the other two look like  classes of troops with  cheaper kit.  I sort of feel that if you believe that these warriors represent different tribes then you should be able to adduce some sort of evidence from the piece itself to justify that or from other pieces to show that this is a common, or at least not unique treatment.  I am with you on the javelin and their own Italian weapon development.

I think the Certosa situla has been accepted in the past unquestioningly as a class based system.  But then, the Etruscan phalanx has also been pretty unquestioningly accepted.  If we are throwing things in the air, lets look at it again.  It shows a parade, perhaps religious - a common motif.  Most others I have seen don't show groups with different equipment.  That maybe because they concentrate on the elite classes and the Certosa situla is the only one that is realistic.  Or it may be that this represents an alliance of tribes, all distinguished by their kit, and the others represent Etruscan reality.  I could be convinced either way.

As to whether you can have a phalanx without a certain culture, I think I would point out that democracies, oligarchies and the Spartan kingdom had phalanxes.  There were mercenary phalanxes.   Given that width of sub-cultures, do you really have to be a Greek to do this?  It could be much more like a Successor phalanx, Imitation legionaries or non-Swiss pikemen in the late middle ages - the package may have started in a cultural context but it became an exportable commodity.  That said, I wouldn't say we have necessarily got a slavish copy of a Greek phalanx in Etruria.  As I've said above, the balance of the visual evidence, some of the remarks in Patrick's historical quotes and some archaeology all point to the continued presence of multiple spears, multi-purpose or throwing types, in use by hoplite-type warriors.  Nor can we say that the Etruscans would have used their phalanx-like  body in the almost ritualised combat style of Classical Greece (noting in passing that hoplite phalanxes engaged in non-ritualised combats with non-Greeks).  These people could have stood at the back and watched their lesser classes do the fighting like some predeccesor of the Old Guard, or they could have led from the front.

[aligern]

I genuinely do not know where there is an example of non Greeks forming a genuine Greek hoplite phalanx.  Celts and Germans make formations that are described as phalanxes, but that only seems to be a frontage of overlapping shields, or by then has phalanx become the word for any close order packed formation?

I thought about Carthaginians, but then they have the shield and Greek armour, but is the latest balance of opinion that they have a  longche  pairing as weaponry?
The Persians hire Greeks, interesting as one would have thought that having such resources the Great king could hire the trainers, make the kit and out Greek the Greeks.

There may well be something that hits true in what Mark says here. It has echoes of points that Victor Davis Hanson makes that there is a self reinforcing culture to do with the phalanx and it is about equality and submitting the individual to the mass and an attitude to giving it to the enemy in the face.
I say submission of the individual, but not in a slavish Persian way, the phalanx is about the submission of free men by choice to this close packed sweaty mass that depends upon collective action for its success.
I am tempted by the idea that this is cultural and dies not easily transfer. As to different social structures, well, the Romans still thought of themselves as free men, distinguished by their liberty from the slavish Parthians even when they were under a severe military contract and ruled by despotic madmen.

Roy

[Erpingham]

I think we are caught in a tangle modern Western Way of War concepts.  If you define a "true" phalanx as only formable by free-born Greeks, then a priori neither Etruscans or Carthaginians could have one.  But Greek historians seem to use phalanx to mean close-packed infantry formation and hoplite to mean armoured-infantryman (presumably, they hadn't read Victor Davis Hanson ).

Perhaps we should call what the Etruscans and Carthaginians had a "pseudo-phalanx" to show that it used hoplite kit but didn't have the social structure or necessarily the exact tactics of a Greek one?

[Patrick Waterson]

That Livy and Dionysius buy into a legendary Roman past with one hero founder should not surprise us.

Could you elaborate on the reasons for thinking this?  Also which hero is assumed to be the founder, please?

Patrick, in the description of the battle with Manlius, the Etruscans are cited as having mercenaries  in the army which you adumbrate as Greeks. Is there a reason why these are not Italian mercenaries?

Dionysius calls them 'xenoi', which in ordinary usage would only be applicable to Greeks.  The non-Greek mercenaries would be under those he calls 'misthophoroi'.

In the Wiki entry for Servius T there is a suggestion that he may have been an Etruscan mercenary called Mastarna. Mayhap the Etruscan mercenaries  are Etruscans from other cities that have not joined an alliance to resist Rome, but have allowed their citizens to serve, or maybe they are hill tribe Italians. If they are Greek mercenaries then you will no doubt have a specific reference to this.

As above.  I have never known a Greek author to use 'xenoi' to mean non-Greeks (perhaps someone else does?).

That the Etruscans operated in classes seems highly likely partly because of evidence such as the Certosa Situla, but in large part because Rome is an Etruscan colony and it is highly likely that the system of wealth based classes that pertained at Rome was an Etruscan system.

I would disagree.  The class-based system created by Servius Tullius appears to be unique to Servius Tullius and was not persisted with even in Rome once his reign was over.  It did, according to our sources, give him twenty years of unbroken victory in war, which argues that it was a) superior to other contemporary systems and b) quite probably unique.

This leaves us with no reason to suppose that Etruscan city-states had a 'class-based' system of this nature.  Their art seems more consistent with a Greek-style arrangement in which one had cavalry, hoplites and some lighter infantry, the latter rarely if ever being represented in art but which are referred to in our sources.

The other inhabitants of Italy seem so relatively similar that they are not differentiated.

This - ah - misconception can be refuted by one simple statement of Dionysius:

"For the Volscians had changed all their military tactics after securing Marcius [Coriolanus] as their commander, and had adopted the customs of the Romans."  - Dionysius VIII.67.4

Surely, if the Etruscans are operating as a single line phalanx with spears, not  javelins, then that would be worthy of mention.

Not by Livy and Dionysius, who seem to be political chaps first and attend to military matters almost as an afterthought.  One may note in passing that nobody, not even Polybius (at least in his extant books) bothers to explain the military system of the Carthaginians, so why should they feel a few Italian tribes and cities to be worthy of mention?

I genuinely do not know where there is an example of non Greeks forming a genuine Greek hoplite phalanx.

Dionysius I of Syracuse supplied hoplite equipment to Illyrians for a campaign in 385 BC.  Granted he sent only 500 sets, but they were intended for (and apparently used by) Illyrians.

Lydia is supposed to have used a hoplite phalanx as part of its army (interesting, given the Herodotean tradition that Etruscans originally came from Lydia).

I am tempted by the idea that this is cultural and does not easily transfer.

It did not transfer to Persians, but Lydians and Etruscans seem to have had no problem picking it up.  Lydian hoplites are attested by Polyaenus VII.2.2:

"The Kolophonians had a great cavalry strength and Alyattes, in order to weaken them, entered into alliance with them. In distributing the booty of military expeditions he was ever giving the greater part to the horsemen. Finally, as he was in Sardis, he arranged a magnificent market for them and prepared a double pay. The horsemen, whose camp was outside the city, delivered their horses to the grooms and went inside the walls looking forward to the double pay. Alyattes shut the gates and, having surrounded the horsemen with his own hoplites [hoplitas], cut them all to pieces. Then he gave their horses to his hoplites."

[Patrick Waterson]

Polyaenus' reference to Lydian hoplites in VII.2.2 may be understood as 'proto-hoplites' (whatever those are) or heavy infantry, but the following from VII.8 is unmistakeable, even if it does shed suspicion on the degree of hopliteness of Alyattes' hoplites.

"Croesus, finding that his Greek allies were slow in coming to his aid, chose out some of the ablest and stoutest of the Lydians, and armed them in the Greek manner. Cyrus' men, who were unaccustomed to Greek weapons, were at a loss how either to attack, or to guard against them. The clang of the spears upon the shields struck them with terror; and the splendour of the bronze shields so terrified the horses, that they could not be brought to charge. Cyrus was defeated by this stratagem, and made a truce with Croesus for three months." - Polyaenus VII.8.2

An even more rapid, if perhaps incomplete conversion, was achieved by the Persian rebel Orontes:

"After losing a great number of his allies, who had been cut off in an ambush by Autophradates, Orontes spread a report that a group of mercenaries were on the march to join him. He took care that this message, with every mark of confirmation that he could give it, was communicated to Autophradates. By night he armed the strongest of the barbarians in Greek armour; and as soon as it was day, he posted them in his army amongst the rest of the Greeks, along with interpreters who knew both languages and could repeat the Greek commands in the barbarian language. Autophradates, seeing such a large number of men in Greek armour, assumed that Orontes had received the reinforcements, of which he had been informed. Not wishing to risk a battle at so great a disadvantage, he broke up his camp and retreated." - ibid. VII.14.4

Croesus taught his home-grown hoplites how to fight as hoplites: Orontes was content for his just to look like hoplites.  All of this suggests that adopting hoplite equipment and method is not particularly limited by cultural barriers (it is not necessary to be Greek): where there is a will there is a way!

[aligern]

A necessary corrective on Servius Tullius : http://mythindex.com/roman-mythology/S/Servius-Tullius.html


I do love you for your debating style Patrick. You quote two examples of leaders dressing up their men as hoplites (from the notoriously gamey Polyaenus) and claim that this shows them becoming effective hoplites when all it shows is them dressing up as hoplites, rather as Welsh women   defeated the French invasion at Fishguard.  If You were to dress in SAS uniform it would not make you a trained killer.
Where, by the way do Croesus and Orontes get the hundreds of sets of hoplite armour required for such a rapid conversion?
Then , Loki like,you  slip the Etruscans into peoples that operate a hoplite phalanx, a la Grecque. However, there is no further evidence posted for such a conversion for the Etruscans, save that they too adopt greek style greaves, helmets, shields....another case of dressing up?

Roy

[Jim Webster]

For 'dressing up' as hoplites, you'd probably get away with giving them new shields, as they'd have helmets and greaves which would be good enough from a distance.
For shields I would expect a force to carry a number of spares in their baggage, (We know Roman republican armies did at least once because they issued them).
The trouble is we don't really know how much kit armies carried

Jim

[Mark G]

I'm not talking specifically about democracy, but rather the uniform city culture which contributed to democracy arising.

Put simply, the Greeks don't seen to ever have stratified into many classes in the same way that the romans and i think other Italians also have.
Greeks seem to gave had citizens and slaves, citizens must all provide hoplite panoply.

by comparison
Italians have different equipment requirements for the different classes.

[aligern]

This is by Steven James on Roman Army talk. He is a respectably knowledgeable chap. The piece is, as he says , a little rough hewn, and that explains some of the contradictions, but his conclusions are, I think, interestingly similar to those here.
http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/17-roman-military-history-a-archaeology/319848-etruscan-military-organisation.html