How continuous was combat?

[RichT]

As mentioned in other contexts, our sources give the impression that in battles wounded dropped in place and stayed there until the battle was over.

That depends what our sources are. As we've already seen in this thread:

Appian BC 3.68 "No blow missed its mark. There were wounds and slaughter but no cries, only groans; and when one fell he was instantly borne away and another took his place."

Appian BC 4.128 "The slaughter and the groans were terrible. The bodies of the fallen were carried back and others stepped into their places from the rear ranks."

Always assuming Appian has any credibility, of course.

I love the way you move from Romans training with a weighted sword hitting a post to the Roman doing this 'all day'. Is there any evidence for that?  Or even any evidence that they did not take breaks in this all day exercise.

See Josephus above. They are exercised to the extent that neither labour nor the fatigue of battles can tire them, however long that takes, with great diligence as if it were in time of war.  Exercises are bloodless battles.  Battles are sanguinary exercises.  There is no distinction between 'training' and the real thing except for the amount of blood being shed.

Which is an entirely circular argument. Romans did as much training as the nature of fighting required (plus a bit, since they are supposed to be so good), but that doesn't tell us much about the nature of fighting (other than that it was best to train for it).

The 'all day' part came from Vegetius not Josephus, earlier in this thread:

Vegetius: "We are informed by the writings of the ancients that, among their other exercises, they had that of the post... They exercised them with these at the post both morning and afternoon." (1.11 - Eoque modo non tantum mane sed etiam post meridiem exercebantur ad palos)

Patrick:

Note the apparent duration of the exercise: "morning and afternoon".  Did this involve breaks, apart from the customary midday meal?  Vegetius does not say.

So Patrick's interpretation of "morning and afternoon" is "all morning and all afternoon, with a break for lunch". My interpretation would be "twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon (duaration of exercise unspecified)". The fun part about history is that the evidence can be interpreted in different ways.

Pharsalus provides an interesting case study.

Caesar BC 3.92 f. "Between the two armies, there was an interval sufficient for the onset: but Pompey had given his troops orders to keep their ground, that Caesar's army might have all that way to run. This he is said to have done by the advice of C. Triarius, that the enemy's ranks might be broken and themselves put out of breath, by having so far to run; of which disorder he hoped to make an advantage. He was besides of opinion, that our javelins would have less effect, by the troops continuing in their post, than if they sprung forward at the very time they were launched; and as the soldiers would have twice as far to run as usual, they must be weary and breathless by the time they came up with the first line.... Caesar's soldiers entirely defeated Pompey's hopes, by their good discipline and experience. For, perceiving the enemy did not stir, they halted, of their own accord, in the midst of their career; and having taken a moment's breath, put themselves, a second time, in motion; marched up in good order, flung their javelins, and then betook themselves to their swords."

We don't know how big the space between the armies was, but presumably not a vast distance, nor how fast Romans ran into battle, but running twice the normal distance was expected to produce tactically significant levels of tiredness, even for our superbly trained Roman supermen, a disadvantage avoided by resting a little. There is no quantitative data to be had from this, just an impression that tactically significant tiredness could arise fairly quickly. How does running for, say, a few minutes (guess maybe 100 metres in 30 seconds, a steady run, for maybe 500 metres), compare in causing tiredness to fighting with swords for hours? We wonders.

(Crossed posts, oh well)

[Erpingham]

The "wounded staying in place" is an interesting argument.  Two accounts of Hastings, for example, say the wounded remained in the shieldwall until the Saxon's pursued the fleeing Normans down hill.  What does this tell us though?  By consensus, we have agreed that cavalry/infantry battles were non-continuous.  Why had the wounded not collapsed before?  There are, in fact, two possible reasons.  First, these are just the wounded of the latest round.  Second (more interestingly) men stayed in place while they could offer resistance in defence but were in no fit state to chase the enemy down the hill.  Thinking the battle won, they collapsed in place.  Interestingly, Le Baker's version of Poitiers specifically mentions the taking of the wounded out of the line and placing them under bushes and hedges to the rear in a pause between phases of battle which again may hint that wounded stayed with their units until there was a break in combat.  After all, in a medieval battle, medical care seems not to have happened till after the battle back at camp.

Another possibly interesting point is Clifford Rogers, talking about the Hastings example, states that in fact this was a cliche originally derived from Lucan's Pharsalia.  I leave it to you classicists to find whether the original is at all relevant to discussions.

[Duncan Head]

Why had the wounded not collapsed before?  There are, in fact, two possible reasons.  First, these are just the wounded of the latest round.  Second (more interestingly) men stayed in place while they could offer resistance in defence but were in no fit state to chase the enemy down the hill.  Thinking the battle won, they collapsed in place. 

Third option: shieldwalls (and phalanxes?) in contact are too tightly-packed for wounded men to get easily to the rear. Appian's Roman formations aren't quite so closely jammed.

[Patrick Waterson]

Always assuming Appian has any credibility, of course.

Appian himself is running counter to what appears to be customary Roman practice.  As noted earlier, when Caesar's two legions on baggage guard arrived at the Sambre campsite and laid into the Nervii:

"By their arrival, so great a change of matters was made, that our men, even those who had fallen down exhausted with wounds, leaned on their shields, and renewed the fight" - Caesar Gallic War II.27.1

He gives the impression that apart from 'leaning on their shields' they did not have to move to rejoin the fighting, and says nothing about them having been taken aside or away.

Ammianus about Argentoratum:

"Yet frequently the Roman, driven from his post (pulsus loco - may mean 'borne down in place') by the weight of armed men, rose up again; and the savage, with his legs giving way from fatigue, would drop on his bended left knee and even thus attack his foe, a proof of extreme resolution." - Rerum Gestarum XVI.12.48

Two things here: the Roman soldier, once again, only has to rise up to rejoin the fighting - and the barbarian drops in place from fatigue, with no apparent rest break taken.

Pharsalus provides an interesting case study.

... We don't know how big the space between the armies was, but presumably not a vast distance, nor how fast Romans ran into battle, but running twice the normal distance was expected to produce tactically significant levels of tiredness, even for our superbly trained Roman supermen, a disadvantage avoided by resting a little. There is no quantitative data to be had from this, just an impression that tactically significant tiredness could arise fairly quickly.

Pharsalus is an interesting case, because Triarius' cunning plan hopes to 'ut primus excursus visque militum infringeretur aciesque distenderetur', which means distort/disrupt the line of battle and vitiate the 'vis militum', which means the strength or force of the soldiers; it does not mean their breath.  The idea seems to be that they are keyed up for a simultaneous N paces run and volley followed by out swords and close with impact; by doubling the running distance to their release point (2N paces) the idea is to put them off their stroke and mess up the volley and incidentally disrupt the formation.

The translation is thus misleading (not to worry, happens to me too).

[aligern]

Sorry Patrick, but your comments on Caesar and Ammianus on Argentoratum would seem to rely upon the exhausted combatants standing or kneeling within arms reach of one another so that they can resume combat without moving.  This doesn't look likely, because, to borrow your technique of romantic reconstruction, any man on either side who had the energy could just reach out and kill their exhausted opponents.  However, it is joyful to perceive that you do grasp that when tired by fighting the two sides can mutually agree to cease combat .

Perhaps you could accept that Caesar and Ammianus are simply being brief rather than describing in full the armies pulling back a little to recuperate.
Roy

[RichT]

The translation is thus misleading (not to worry, happens to me too).

Well it happens to the best of us, but not to me on this occasion I think. The first sentence you consider could indeed be interpreted as you interpret it, but two lines later Caesar says:

"simul fore ut duplicato cursu Caesaris milites exanimarentur et lassitudine conficerentur."

Which is quite clear. Here's an alternative translation (Loeb):

"He is said to have done this on the advice of G. Triarius, in order that the first charge and impetus of the troops might be broken and their line spread out, and that so the Pompeians marshalled in their proper ranks might attack a scattered foe. He hoped, too ... that by having a double distance to run Caesar's soldiers would be breathless and overdone with fatigue."

So a little bit more sophistry will be required to negate the second sentence.

The Sambre offers other snippets of evidence too:

"Their arrival wrought a great change in the situation. Even such of our troops as had fallen under stress of wounds propped themselves against their shields and renewed the fight ... The enemy, however, even when their hope of safety was at an end, displayed a prodigious courage. When their front ranks had fallen, the next stood on the prostrate forms and fought from them; when these were cast down, and the corpses were piled up in heaps, the survivors, standing as it were upon a mound, hurled missiles (tela) on our troops, or caught and returned our pila"

So even at the end of this putative static fight in which the lines separate so little that the fallen wounded just have to stand up again to resume fighting in place, there is an exchange of missiles.

The problem with these sorts of discussions is taking two scraps of information (Caesar at the Sambre, Ammianus 400 years later) and using them to talk about "customary Roman practice". Much more evidence must be collected before you can start talking about what is customary - and most of the hard work has been done by Goldsworthy, Koon, Zhmodikov and no doubt others. It really is worthwhile gaining some familiarity with the secondary literature, if only as a convenient route into the primary.

[Patrick Waterson]

The first sentence you consider could indeed be interpreted as you interpret it,

Translated rather than interpreted, my learned friend.

but two lines later Caesar says:

"simul fore ut duplicato cursu Caesaris milites exanimarentur et lassitudine conficerentur."

Which is quite clear.

Actually not in the way my learned friend thinks, and it provides an insight into Caesar's men's combat techniques.

Examinarentur does indeed have the meaning of becoming breathless and/or to weaken, while lassitudine indicates faintness or weariness.  This suggests that by Caesar's time legionaries, or at least Caesar's legionaries, were putting a real sprint into their javelin hurling and actually getting into anaerobic respiration territory (Catulus' ran in at Vercellae, but either they were better trained than Caesar's or - much more likely - they had a more leisurely run-up), otherwise there would seem to be no point to giving them a free gift of twice the distance with which to add impetus to their missiles.  By coaxing Caesar's men to double their run, when their normal distance would just dip them into anaerobic respiration, their anaerobic demand would be more than doubled and (temporary) exhaustion - easily cured by a fifteen seconds' deep breathing, but Pompey was not planning to give them that recovery time - would have taken the edge off their volley and charge.

Caesar's men, however, were so used to their customary techniques that rather than go the extra twenty or so paces they sensed something was wrong, stopped, moved up and initiated the process at a more amenable distance.

So thanks, this adds a bit of insight into Caesar's men's techniques, and indicates why Triarius or whoever proposed what on the face of it looks to be a pointless and self-defeating measure: it would work only if Caesar's men were accustomed to a greatly accelerated run-up to add power to their javelin throw (this may help to explain why at Munda their pila volleys were so much more effective than those of their opponents).

I think we may have discovered something.  Of course the idea that Caesar's men would get 'fatigued' as opposed to temporarily out of breath from an anaerobic sprint from running a few dozen paces is total nonsense (at that rate the Pompeians would have been on their backs after five minutes at Ilerda), so I am surprised my learned friend ever countenanced such a thought.

The Sambre offers other snippets of evidence too:

"Their arrival wrought a great change in the situation. Even such of our troops as had fallen under stress of wounds propped themselves against their shields and renewed the fight ... The enemy, however, even when their hope of safety was at an end, displayed a prodigious courage. When their front ranks had fallen, the next stood on the prostrate forms and fought from them; when these were cast down, and the corpses were piled up in heaps, the survivors, standing as it were upon a mound, hurled missiles (tela) on our troops, or caught and returned our pila"

So even at the end of this putative static fight in which the lines separate so little that the fallen wounded just have to stand up again to resume fighting in place, there is an exchange of missiles.

Any why was there an exchange of missiles?  Because "the corpses were piled up in heaps," and the heaps were too high for hand weapons to reach up or down to 'service' the foe.  Note that the surviving Nervii were atop the heaps, not behind them - I leave it to the imagination to reconstruct attempts at discontinuous combat up and down piles of corpses higher than a man can reach, and am surprised that my learned friend would even countenance such an idea.

The problem with these sorts of discussions is taking two scraps of information (Caesar at the Sambre, Ammianus 400 years later) and using them to talk about "customary Roman practice". Much more evidence must be collected before you can start talking about what is customary - and most of the hard work has been done by Goldsworthy, Koon, Zhmodikov and no doubt others. It really is worthwhile gaining some familiarity with the secondary literature, if only as a convenient route into the primary.

The point about taking these two particular pieces (which are not scraps, but elements of detailed description) is that they demonstrate the same process in action four hundred years apart.  Are we really to believe that the Romans and their opponents gave up fighting in place after Caesar, only to return to it in the days of Constantius II?  If we had more sources of Caesar's and Ammianus' military credentials covering the interim then we could expect more such descriptions, and indeed more insights into Roman battle practice.  But whose descriptions does Koon derive his suppositions from?  Livy's.

Sorry Patrick, but your comments on Caesar and Ammianus on Argentoratum would seem to rely upon the exhausted combatants standing or kneeling within arms reach of one another so that they can resume combat without moving.  This doesn't look likely, because, to borrow your technique of romantic reconstruction, any man on either side who had the energy could just reach out and kill their exhausted opponents.

I am just pointing out what our respected military authorities say, men who were there and in the middle of the action, or were contemporaries of those who were.

For what it is worth, between concentrating on the man in front and the peripheral vision constraints imposed by helmets and/or warrior tresses and/or sweat in the eyes, front rankers may easily fail to see someone getting up within a couple of feet of them.

However, it is joyful to perceive that you do grasp that when tired by fighting the two sides can mutually agree to cease combat .

This presumably refers to Neville's Cross.  If Sir wishes to push this any further than that particular battle he might be asked to provide evidence.

Perhaps you could accept that Caesar and Ammianus are simply being brief rather than describing in full the armies pulling back a little to recuperate.

As they are in the middle of detailed battle descriptions, the answer is no.  I would anyway like to see how the Nervii could pull back from and return to a position atop a mound of corpses too high for hand weapons to reach.

[Erpingham]

It is quite 8interesting to see the discussion of how the Romans fought as interpreted by different people.  I am however begin to struggle with a problem I recall from the WMWW debate, which covered similar ground (and the same sources).  There is so much dodging, parrying, detailed debates about the meaning of sentences, that the position of the parties becomes obscure.  We all know the story of the blind men and the elephant - if we are constantly only aware of uncontextualised bits, the shape of the whole may elude us.

I think I have some idea of Rich's position from the secondary sources he quotes.  Roy clearly believes in quite short energetic burst of combat with mutual separations to a short distance (missile distance? spear-poking distance?) at intervals.  I'm less clear on Patrick's position.  Patrick clearly believes in the Romans using a steady technique to give longer endurance.  Wounded men continue to fight from the ground or leaning on shields.  There is ultimately line relief but this takes place during active hand-to-hand combat.  Barbarians are expected to conform to this combat style, even though they exhaust themselves, sweat and are dazzled by the sun.  Romans seem to sprint into combat, throwing pila as they come (does everyone throw both pila at this stage?). They then slow down and fight in a more measured way.   It is unclear what is happening at the micro level - are men exchanging places in the ranks?  What is the role of the small unit organisation of the Romans, if any, in combat?

Time perhaps for some line relief (whichever your favourite model) and a chance to present cohesive psitions?

 

[RichT]

Patrick:

Translated rather than interpreted, my learned friend.

Ah, but I am sufficiently learned, my young (?) apprentice, to know that all translation is interpretation (yes, even when you do it). Some day you too may acquire this wisdom.

I invited some sophistry to apply to the sentence in Caesar, but you have exceeded my wildest expectations! Congratulations - I did not think I could be surprised any more.

As a small point of information, yes Koon's interest is chiefly in Livy, but he has interesting comparative chapters on Polybius and Caesar. Worth reading for anyone interested.

Good summary Anthony; we will always wander off into arguing over the meanings of single words (not least because it's useful to correct errors of fact and those inevitably tend to be at the small scale). For my part I don't have a cohesive position to present as I don't know how Roman infantry combat worked, and am not sure there is enough evidence to know for certain. I have been defending the dynamic standoff against importunate attacks, and I have my own hunches, but that's all. A clear statement of Patrick's interpretation, sweating, sprinting, fighting wounded, continuous combat, line relief, weary barbarians and all might be useful - ideally, Patrick, in your own words, not just a cut and paste of sources which we then have to fall to arguing over. Just so as we know where we stand, or kneel, or lie prostrate.

[Dangun]

Since the multi hour melee (genuine, actual fighting, in toe to toe combat, multi (more than two?) hour, melee, and leaving aside 'line relief', since non-Romans presumably didn't do it) is being proposed as a viable theory by Patrick, I would extend Nicholas' 100 hoplite thought experiment - imagine two 8 rank deep lines fighting each other, and causing, over the course of the combat, 50% casualties each (including killed and significantly wounded) - much higher casualties than are ever attested, but let's take a worst case, and assume there were lots of unrecorded wounded. Now if the battle lasted 1 hour 20 minutes (to keep the sums simple), then each file leader (whoever is file leader at the time) is scoring an effective hit (killing or wounding) once every 10 minutes. If the combat goes on longer, then hits are naturally less frequent - in a two hour melee, there would be one hit every 15 minutes, three hours, once every 22 minutes, and so on. Now while this sort of fighting would doubtless be very energy efficient, it bears no relation to any of the fighting I have ever seen or imagined (in combat sports, re-enactments, riots, TV and film reconstructions) and (more to the point) it doesn't sound at all like the descriptions of combat that exist, which all sound more violent, continuous, vigorous and dangerous than one hit every ten minutes or more would suggest. This is the fundamental problem (aside from any other considerations) I have with multi hour melees.

Sorry, very late... traveling in Korea and Japan.
But I had to say... well put, I feel this dissonance too.

On casualty rates I did say at the beginning that most of a frontbrank soldiers efforts will go into defensive or cautious actions rather than risky attempts to kill an opponent.  It is in his interest to slash or thrust in a way that might get advantage, but will not over extend him, or unnecessarily exhaust him.  We have raised, several times the record that the winner in an ancient battle suffers very few casualties compared to the loser, even when the armies are similar in weaponry and tactics. Also, if battle normally resulted in the extinction of the front ranks then who would stand there?

May I ask, what is the source of this idea?
Its not unreasonable but is it logic or sourced?
It sounds a bit like "never get out of the trench". But the soldier knows that just being in the trench is a risk and it is "logical" to take a risk and attacking because that might get you out of the trench for good. There must be some probabilistic process going on in the soldiers head, unconsciously...

[Patrick Waterson]

Patrick:

Translated rather than interpreted, my learned friend.

Ah, but I am sufficiently learned, my young (?) apprentice, to know that all translation is interpretation (yes, even when you do it). Some day you too may acquire this wisdom.

Actually that is not quite true: some translation is misunderstanding (occasionally even when I do it).

Good summary Anthony; we will always wander off into arguing over the meanings of single words (not least because it's useful to correct errors of fact and those inevitably tend to be at the small scale). For my part I don't have a cohesive position to present as I don't know how Roman infantry combat worked, and am not sure there is enough evidence to know for certain. I have been defending the dynamic standoff against importunate attacks, and I have my own hunches, but that's all. A clear statement of Patrick's interpretation, sweating, sprinting, fighting wounded, continuous combat, line relief, weary barbarians and all might be useful - ideally, Patrick, in your own words, not just a cut and paste of sources which we then have to fall to arguing over. Just so as we know where we stand, or kneel, or lie prostrate.

Would my learned friend like to begin with Early Republican (509-c.437 BC), Livian (c.437-311 BC), Polybian (c.311-c.107 BC), Marian (c.107-c.58 BC), Triumvirate period (58-31 BC), Early Imperial (31 BC-AD 196-ish) or one of the later periods?  There are some constants more or less throughout, but also a number of important detail differences.

To answer (or hint at answers) to Anthony's questions (sensible questions, Anthony):

I'm less clear on Patrick's position.  Patrick clearly believes in the Romans using a steady technique to give longer endurance.  Wounded men continue to fight from the ground or leaning on shields.  There is ultimately line relief but this takes place during active hand-to-hand combat.  Barbarians are expected to conform to this combat style, even though they exhaust themselves, sweat and are dazzled by the sun. 

Barbarians seem happy to thrust themselves into combat, presumably trusting to individual skill and valour combined with deep formations.  They are of course better placed to take on Romans in temperate home climes rather than hundreds of miles from home in sunny Italy.  With some (e.g. the Gauls of northern Italy) the penny eventually drops and they confine themselves to ambushes in hilly or wooded terrain, a habit which is also beneficially employed by the Eburones when they wipe out one of Caesar's legions and of course by Arminius in AD 9 when he picks off not just one but three legions under Varus.

Romans seem to sprint into combat, throwing pila as they come (does everyone throw both pila at this stage?).

If this means, does everyone in the unit (century or maniple) throw pila at this stage, the answer looks like yes.  Caesar in particular appears to treat the pila shower as a single simultaneous event along the length of the army, or at least its infantry component, followed by melee immediately thereafter.

They then slow down and fight in a more measured way.   It is unclear what is happening at the micro level - are men exchanging places in the ranks?

Strange to say, apparently not.  One gets the impression that the man in front fights until he drops, then the next in file takes over.  This is less cruel than it seems because the chance of an armoured infantryman acquiring a fatal wound in frontal combat does not seem to have been that great: more often, men appear to have collapsed as a result of blood loss from minor wounds - in essence, they fainted and the next man took over.

What is the role of the small unit organisation of the Romans, if any, in combat? 

Almost certainly two roles: cohesion and reaction capability.  Josephus comments on this:

"... and the readiness of obeying their commanders is so great, that it is very ornamental in peace; but when they come to a battle, the whole army is but one body, so well coupled together are their ranks, so sudden are their turnings about, so sharp their hearing as to what orders are given them, so quick their sight of the ensigns." - Jewish War III.5.7  (Oops, quoted something - sorry!)

The Spartans had a similar arrangement whereby, as Thucydides comments, much of the army consisted of 'officers under officers'.  This provided high levels of cohesion and discipline and the ability of the whole formation to react with rapidity and precision.  So, in a nutshell, I see the roles of centuries and files as taking cohesion and smoothness of operation right down to the 8-man level, a sort of organisational nanotechnology.

[Dangun]

Strange to say, apparently not.  One gets the impression that the man in front fights until he drops, then the next in file takes over. 

Interesting. But from where do we get this impression?
It simplifies the analysis, because estimating when one man drops is easier than for an organisation that is constantly refreshing and relieving.

[Erpingham]

To answer (or hint at answers) to Anthony's questions (sensible questions, Anthony):

One does one's best

[Patrick Waterson]

Strange to say, apparently not.  One gets the impression that the man in front fights until he drops, then the next in file takes over. 

Interesting. But from where do we get this impression?

From the quotes earlier mentioned, particularly about men who had previously fallen (from fatigue, blood loss or both) getting up to rejoin the fighting and the fact that mounds of bodies managed to pile up during Caesar's fight against the Nervii.  Neither seems practicable if casualties were being withdrawn/removed or if men were falling back to take breaks and re-engaging on a new line.  There is also negative information - I have yet to find any reference (outside Appian) to casualties being extracted and replaced as a matter of course.

Such an arrangement does, as Nicholas points out, have the advantage of simplicity.  It also means that nobody is breaking ranks and hence unit cohesion, either hustling wounded/exhausted troops to the formation rear or abandoning places in their files to take casualties to a dressing station or equivalent.

[aligern]

The man in front fights until he drops?? Unbeleivable! Incroyable!  Once agan the examples given are  subject to other interpretations. For example, the whole of one unit could have been killed over several rounds of contact and then another unit comes  up to replace, or and more likely, the wounded have fallen back and filtered out leaving only the dead and the still fighting. So the Sambre, unfortunately, proves nothing.......except it may prove that Caesar was capable of writing that would have achieved him a position as an author at Marvel comics .  Its along the lines  of his , all the Nervii are wiped out, which oddly enough has them rebelling again next year.

Roy