Early Italian Warfare

[Mark G]

the axes inside the fasces always intrigued me. 

clearly symbolic, they seem a lot more so if the axe was a symbol of the Etruscan cities, which Rome banded together to be stronger than.

if the etruscans did limit their political power to those 12 cities, and Rome was an Etruscan colony which wanted to be bigger than just a town under the 12...

something we can never now, of course, or even test a little.

[andrew881runner]

the axes inside the fasces always intrigued me. 

clearly symbolic, they seem a lot more so if the axe was a symbol of the Etruscan cities, which Rome banded together to be stronger than.

if the etruscans did limit their political power to those 12 cities, and Rome was an Etruscan colony which wanted to be bigger than just a town under the 12...

something we can never now, of course, or even test a little.

I guess there are already many interpretations of that symbol, there are many books over there  that me and you will never read or hear about. Etrusco Roman society is rather well known even if there are very few dubious points.

[Patrick Waterson]

the axes inside the fasces always intrigued me. 

clearly symbolic ...

I think it is more to do with the Roman 'old-style execution' (see Caesar, Gallic War VI.44, where Acco the Gaul is condemned to this fate), which if I remember correctly involved fastening the naked victim to a forked stick, thrashing him within an inch (2.54 cm) of his life with the rods and then cutting off his head with the axe.

The lictors carrying their bundles behind the consul were thus a stark reminder to all who saw them that you obey the consul's authority or we shall beat you to a quivering pulp and then cut off your head.  That seems to have been the only symbolism involved before Mussolini got hold of the idea of using them for his insignia.

As technology advanced and the empire succeeded the republic, this process was replaced by the scourge plus crucifixion, a process which broke fewer bones but nevertheless hurt more.  Human ingenuity should not be underestimated.

[Duncan Head]

See here for a suggestion that the Etruscan use of the Greek aspis didn't make them Greek-style hoplites - using the axe as one example of why they weren't.

I've just noticed that the chapter in question is available in full, including illustrations, here.

[Mark G]

Andrew,

You might like to scan thucidides on Mantinea for some inspiration for revising your hoplite battle video.

Thuc. 5.70

After this they joined battle, the Argives and their allies advancing with haste and fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly and to the music of many flute-players—a standing institution in their army, that has nothing to do with religion, but is meant to make them advance evenly, stepping in time, without breaking their order, as large armies are apt to do in the moment of engaging.

he goes on to talk about the lines inclining to the right as well.

[aligern]

Thank you for the Ross Cowan article Duncan,  He comes down decisively on the side of Etruscans being looser order than Greeks and using missiles and then vertical cutting sidearms. His summary of their style is Livy 9:39 5-11 which I take to be :
9.39]The following day, after fresh auspices had been taken, the Dictator was invested with his official powers. He took command of the legions which were raised during the scare connected with the expedition through the Ciminian forest, and led them to Longula. Here he took over the consul's troops, and with the united force went into the field. The enemy showed no disposition to shirk battle, but while the two armies stood facing each other fully prepared for action, yet neither anxious to begin, they were overtaken by night. Their standing camps were within a short distance of each other, and for some days they remained quiet, not, however, through any distrust of their own strength or any feeling of contempt for the enemy. Meantime the Romans were meeting with success in Etruria, for in an engagement with the Umbrians the enemy were unable to keep up the fight with the spirit with which they began it, and, without any great loss, were completely routed. An engagement also took place at Lake Vadimonis, where the Etruscans had concentrated an army raised under a lex sacrata, in which each man chose his comrade. As their army was more numerous than any they had previously raised, so they exhibited a higher courage than they had ever shown before. So savage was the feeling on both sides that, without discharging a single missile, they began the fight at once with swords. The fury displayed in the combat, which long hung in the balance, was such that it seemed as though it was not the Etruscans who had been so often defeated that we were fighting with, but some new, unknown people. There was not the slightest sign of yielding anywhere; as the men in the first line fell, those in the second took their places, to defend the standards. At length the last reserves had to be brought up, and to such an extremity of toil and danger had matters come that the Roman cavalry dismounted, and, leaving their horses in charge, made their way over piles of armour and heaps of slain to the front ranks of the infantry. They appeared like a fresh army amongst the exhausted combatants, and at once threw the Etruscan standards into confusion. The rest of the men, worn out as they were, nevertheless followed up the cavalry attack, and at last broke through the enemy's ranks. Their determined resistance was now overcome, and when once their maniples began to give way, they soon took to actual flight. That day broke for the first time the power of the Etruscans after their long-continued and abundant prosperity. The main strength of their army was left on the field, and their camp was taken and plundered.

Whilst the tenor of the above is maniples and missiles I would not claim that it is absolute  confirmation . I was a little concerned at the point at which Ross Cowan was explaining that Etruscan armour was fitted to a looser style than hoplite armour when the only necessity for hoplite style was the aspis and helmet as Duncan showed in AMPW.  I don't think that Cowan deals with the issue if Etruscan long shields, either, but over all, I am heartened by his view on Etruscans as not being some sort  of imitation hoplite, but an Italian fighting style, in Greek and imitation Greek and Italian kit.
Roy

[Duncan Head]

One of my reservations about the Cowan thesis and similar suggestions is: precisely how far is the suggested style "non-hoplite"? Hans van Wees argued that the fully-developed close-order Greek hoplite phalanx was a phenomenon only of the fifth century, and that earlier hoplites fought in a looser style, some using throwing-spears and sometimes mixed in with light troops. Adam Krentz, I think it was, argued for hoplites normally fighting on a four-cubit/six foot frontage, whicih would be loose enough for individual combat.

If you accept either of these (and I am not inclined to accept Krentz, not so sure about van Wees) then the difference between Greek and Etruscan-Italian combat may not be as great as we might think. Though even a loose vanWeesian Greek phalanx is not articulated into maniples.

[Erpingham]

I think to an extent it is partially how rigidly you define your picture of a phalanx.  Mark and to an extent Roy have a definition which is not just about combat style but social organisation.  Clearly, Etruscans can't be a phalanx because they have the wrong social organisation.  If we talk about troops moving around in close order with similar armour to the Greeks, the Etruscans might have a phalanx.  We know that the "true" phalanx could fight with throwing spears in its early development (for at least a couple of hundred years, as I understand it) then type of spear isn't the critical issue.  Phalanxes didn't just scuttle slowly forward, shields locked either.  We have classical phalanxes running at the enemy over a couple of hundred metres.  So, what is the big difference postulated about Etruscans that makes any kind of phalanx impossible?  Is it that they fight in an Italian Way of War, which is more missile skirmishing than any self-respecting phalanx?

[aligern]

What I was reacting to, at the beginning of this daughter thread was the portrayal of Etruscans as being like the phalanx of the Greeks in the period of Thucydides because they are wearing Greek or Greek inspired equipment.

If I had a thesis about the Etruscans it would be that:
1) They have different classes in the army , top chaps have aspires, Greek kit, lower classes have scuta and lesser armour in an Italian belt and disc style.
2) All Etruscans fight with two throwing or a throwing and dual purpose spear.
3) Etruscan organisation is probably cohorts rather than maniples, made of the different classes by city.
4) Roman methods are developments of Etruscan methods and the Roman revolution, if there is one, is to give the triarii spears as well as their top class Greek inspired kit.

I just think that leaping to the idea that the Etruscans are copying the Greeks tactically because the armour they wear looks Greek is a poor line of logic.
That the Greeks start out with hoplite kit and yet use javelins is an interesting twist and conforms to the view that there is an overall Mediterranean way of War in using the javelin, though I doubt that anyone in hoplite kit is running back and forth with them.....one run into combat is allowed.


I could buy on item 2 that its a large area with lots of cities (12 mothers and their daughters) so there may have been spear armed troops too. By spear I mean a spear that does more of the job of a doru rather than a longche.

Roy

[Duncan Head]

2) All Etruscans fight with two throwing or a throwing and dual purpose spear.
... I could buy on item 2 that its a large area with lots of cities (12 mothers and their daughters) so there may have been spear armed troops too. By spear I mean a spear that does more of the job of a doru rather than a longche.

It is interesting that on the Aristonothos krater's scene of naval combat, the weapons of Greeks and Etruscans seem to be identical - both have a single spear that looks to me to be levelled in an overarm thrust rather than prepared to throw (http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/AristonothosKrater.html; see also this article).

Do we have any other artistic sources for actually Etruscans in battle  - preferably on land, and other than heroic single combats in mythological scenes, that is? Is there anything that indicates, or alternatively that rules out, a phalanx, or that throws light on spear usage?

I just think that leaping to the idea that the Etruscans are copying the Greeks tactically because the armour they wear looks Greek is a poor line of logic.

Of course the later Romans seem to have thought so, as well:

The Etruscans used to wage war against us armed with bronze shields and arrayed in a phalanx, not arranged in maniples. We changed our equipment and adopted theirs, and arraying ourselves in battle against them overcame them, though they had long experience of fighting in a phalanx formation.

[Patrick Waterson]

He [Cowan] comes down decisively on the side of Etruscans being looser order than Greeks and using missiles and then vertical cutting sidearms. His summary of their style is Livy 9:39 5-11

Two observations here.

1) The combat mentioned is in 310 BC; it is applicable to late 4th century Etruscans (who now, belatedly, seem to be getting together as a federation) but not necessarily to earlier Etruscans.

2) Cowan assumes that "The javelin is a weapon of fluid open order combat. The kopis and axe, being weapons of individual combat, were not appropriate to the close-order phalanx of the Greek hoplite."

This is a flawed set of assumptions.  The javelin, kopis-equivalent and axe were all used by late-Roman legionaries, cf. Ammianus' account of Adrianople (Ammianus XXXI.13).  We also see close-order Egyptian infantry with javelin and khopesh or hand axe.  I would advise ignoring this conclusion of Cowan's as it simply does not hold water.

[Mark G]

To be fair though, you might also advise ignoring it just because it was written within the last two thousand years, eh pat.

(joking)

Which is the best van wees to look out for his thesis on that aspect of hoplite warfare?
it sounds intetesting

[andrew881runner]

Andrew,

You might like to scan thucidides on Mantinea for some inspiration for revising your hoplite battle video.

Thuc. 5.70

After this they joined battle, the Argives and their allies advancing with haste and fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly and to the music of many flute-players—a standing institution in their army, that has nothing to do with religion, but is meant to make them advance evenly, stepping in time, without breaking their order, as large armies are apt to do in the moment of engaging.

he goes on to talk about the lines inclining to the right as well.

thanks for the source, I will try to make something more historical, that was only a first attempt. I was playing as Athenian against Ai as Spartans so I could not make Spartans advance. I put Ai to defensive mode so it stayed where it was, otherwise if it was offensive it would have probably done some caothic mess, not advancing in line as it should. If you have the game and want to play with  me I could make something better for sure, maybe using more historical armors.
For the flute thing, I knew that, but could you find me some spartan flute music (pyrrhic songs, I guess that was the name?)? it would be very cool indeed to recreate a phalanx battle in all details with real sounds and music. I have always loved the idea.

[Duncan Head]

Which is the best van wees to look out for his thesis on that aspect of hoplite warfare?
it sounds intetesting

Greek Warfare: Myth and Realities (Bristol UP 2004).

The main response to vW, re-arguing for hoplites in close order from the start, is Adam Schwartz, Reinstating the hoplite: Arms, armour and phalanx fighting in Archaic and Classical Greece (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009). Both books are well worth reading.

[Duncan Head]

2) Cowan assumes that "The javelin is a weapon of fluid open order combat. The kopis and axe, being weapons of individual combat, were not appropriate to the close-order phalanx of the Greek hoplite."

This is a flawed set of assumptions.  The javelin, kopis-equivalent and axe were all used by late-Roman legionaries, cf. Ammianus' account of Adrianople (Ammianus XXXI.13).

Well, I don't know if that's as cut-and-dried as one might think, though I agree that the javelin certainly isn't limited to "fluid open-order combat". Someone's supposedly using axes on both sides at Adrianople, but there's no telling that the Roman axes are the weapons of legionaries and not auxiliaries or cavalrymen. (The only Late Roman illustration of an axe I can think of, apart from those in the Notitia drawings, is carried by a  mounted officer.)

And if you are saying that kopides, javelins and axes are compatible with a Roman tradition of spear-throwing legionary swordsmen, then I suspect Cowan would agree, and would situate the Etruscans in precisely that tradition: heavy infantry but nonetheless more individual than the hoplite phalanx. Although he doesn't explicitly say so, he seems to be placing them as forerunners of the Roman tactical style rather than as Greek copyists.

I'm currently undecided. What I would love to see is a good nunmerical analysis of Etruscan spearheads - can we, as Roy envisages, see javelins or proto-pila or some sort of throwing-spear in most surving panoplies, or are hoplite-style thrusting-spears common? But I don't think you can rule out Cowan's idea as easily as Patrick suggests.

We also see close-order Egyptian infantry with javelin and khopesh or hand axe.  I would advise ignoring this conclusion of Cowan's as it simply does not hold water.

I'm not sure we really know how close an order the Egyptians usually operated in.