How continuous was combat?

[Patrick Waterson]

I suggest that we would have to factor in that much of the soldier's combat activity was essentially defensive, it being most men's objective to survive and perhaps kill an enemy than to take risks and get injured or worse. An interesting indicator  of this is the casualty levels of victorious  armies which are generally low percentages of the forces engaged . That, I suggest, tells us that killing during the phase when troops faced each other was relatively light.

Concur.

The side that was fittest and lasted longest would have a considerable advantage, let us remember the description of the battle of Caesar against the Suebi, where the Germans are so exhausted that all they can do is lock shields and await the Romans killing them.

And it is noteworthy that in Caesar's and Ammianus' descriptions of intense fighting, Romans collapse from wounds and barbarians from fatigue.

There are some modern comparators that we might use.
In a game of rugby ...
Boxers ...
In an Association football match ...

I would suggest these are not comparators for heavy infantry fighting.  Football and rugby are akin to skirmishing; boxing to duelling.  The closest comparator to heavy infantry fights we get in our day and age are demonstrations, and even these are a long way off because of the inexperience and lack of organisation on one side and the inhibitions against lethality on the other.

So by analogy I would suggest that ancient warriors indulged in rapid bouts of energy sapping action, punctuated by rests that occurred when mutual exhaustion  slowed the combatants to the point where attacking became too risky and both sides defaulted to defence and catching a breather.

If this were the case one would expect far more frequent references to such intervals in fighting in our sources, e.g. 'while both sides were in an interval of rest, Caesar/Hannibal/Alexander moved to the other wing to bring up reinforcements'.  I would suggest that action, while it might be rapid, was only energy-sapping for those untrained to fighting or who were fighting in a climate more enervating than that to which they were accustomed.

If one side was fitter than the other and perhaps better protected, they  would be able to sustain risky, but aggressive actions fir longer than the opponents and would start to kill more men. When the opponent notices this they step back to gain respite.  If they are very tired and the victors have the energy to follow up the retrograde motion would become a route. I envisage the whole unit, perhaps the whole battle line acting as one in this because the consequences of being isolated are likely to be deadly. If those near you fall back, you drop back with them.

This disparity in fatigue levels, sometimes coupled with climate, was the Roman ace in the hole in several battles against barbarians, e.g. Vercellae.  As Plutarch notes (Caius Marius 26.4-5):

"The Romans were favoured in the struggle, Sulla says, by the heat, and by the sun, which shone in the faces of the Cimbri. For the Barbarians were well able to endure cold, and had been brought up in shady and chilly regions, as I have said.  They were therefore undone by the heat; they sweated profusely, breathed with difficulty, and were forced to hold their shields before their faces. For the battle was fought after the summer solstice, which falls, by Roman reckoning, three days before the new moon of the month now called August, but then Sextilis. [5] Moreover, the dust, by hiding the enemy, helped to encourage the Romans. For they could not see from afar the great numbers of the foe, but each one of them fell at a run upon the man just over against him, and fought him hand to hand, without having been terrified by the sight of the rest of the host. And their bodies were so inured to toil and so thoroughly trained that not a Roman was observed to sweat or pant, in spite of the great heat and the run with which they came to the encounter."

Endurance training matters.  Greeks did it.  Romans did it.  Macedonians probably did it.  Their opponents, as far as we can judge, usually did not (Carthaginians may be an exception).  While this was by no means the sole cause of Greek and Roman military superiority, it was on occasion an important one.

[RichT]

e.g. how long does it take for 50,000 or so Carthaginians to dispose of around 70,000 surrounded Romans at Cannae?  Rather more than fifteen minutes, one would presume.

But this isn't exactly what we were talking about - slaughtering more or less demoralised and disorganised fugitives (or would be fugitives) is not the same as face to face high intensity combat. No doubt pursuits also could last a long time. But in this case there certainly wouldn't have been 50,000 Carthaginians standing face to face with and banging away at 70,000 Romans - quite a lot of people on both sides must have spent quite a lot of their time doing nothing - waiting their turn, milling about, trying to get away. This makes the combat discontinuous (even though something was no doubt always happening to someone somewhere).

Sports comparisons are useful up to a point - but again I would question hit rates. Boxers land more or less telling punches several times a minute. If boxers had weapons, fights would last a lot less long (or a lot longer, since they might avoid each other - but avoidance in mass formations is tricky without the lulls that the dynamic standoff proposes).

Given that Greek and Roman material is pretty much worked out and if there was decisive evidence it would have been found by now, what would be useful is comparative material from other periods - anything on the duration of combat or evidence for lulls and disengagements (by heavy infantry).

One example springs to my mind, from James II's account of Edgehill:

"The foot being thus engaged in such warm and close service, it were reasonable to imagine that one side should run and be disordered; but it happened otherwise, for each as if by mutual consent retired some few paces, and they stuck down their colours, continuing to fire at one another even till night"

(Quoted in Carlton, Going to the Wars p 117)

Though he thought this "a thing extraordinary" and that "the rawness and inexperience of both parties had not furnished them with skill to make the best use of their advantages."

[RichT]

Diodorus' "the army turned and fled in utter rout" is a translation of egeneto panteles trope tou stratopedou, which appears to mean the camp (presumably camp followers, primarily helots seeing their masters beaten for the first time) dissolved in utter rout, not the army.  While stratopedon can mean by extension an encamped army, is it at all usable for an unencamped one?

Yes, usable, and no, needn't mean camp or camped. The sense of this passage requires the fighting forces:

Diod 15.56 "For as the corps of élite outdid them in feats of courage, and the valour and exhortations of Epameinondas contributed greatly to its prowess, the Lacedaemonians were with great difficulty forced back; at first, as they gave ground they would not break their formation, but finally, as many fell and the commander who would have rallied them had died, the army (stratopedon) turned and fled in utter rout. 3 Epameinondas' corps pursued the fugitives, slew many who opposed them, and won for themselves a most glorious victory."

And it's a common usage in Diodorus, e.g. looking no further than book 15:

Diod 15.52 "As the soldiers were marching out from the city it seemed to many that unfavourable omens appeared to the armament (stratopedon) ... but Epameinondas, deigning them no reply, led forth his army (stratopedon), thinking that considerations of nobility and regard for justice should be preferred as motives to the omens in question."

Diod 15.68 "He arrived in Corinth, added to his number Megarians, Pellenians, and also Corinthians, and so gathered a force (stratopedon) of ten thousand men."

Diod 15.71 "When they had now abandoned hope, Epameinondas, who was at that time serving as a private soldier, was appointed general by the men. Quickly selecting the light-armed men and cavalry, he took them with him, and, posting himself in the rear, with their aid checked the enemy pursuers and provided complete security for the heavy-armed men in the front ranks; and by wheeling about and offering battle and using masterly formations he saved the army (stratopedon)."

Diod 15.85 "Both sides eagerly drew together for the decisive conflict, their armies (stratopedon) in battle formation, while the soothsayers, having sacrificed on both sides, declared that victory was foreshadowed by the gods."

I don't see the rout as incompatible with some of the Spartans getting back to the camp and grounding arms. Xenophon's account, as is trivially obvious, belittles the Theban victory and glosses over the Spartan defeat, but the facts seem perfectly compatible (maybe some Spartans did consider a death or glory rematch - but as it didn't happen we can't infer much from it).

[Erpingham]

If you look at medieval examples, there are some problems.  One is the rarity of consistent estimates of the length of battles.  Even if we know how long a battle was it may not help.  The armies stood to when it got light but didn't start fighting for several hours.  After a period in the middle of the day when there was serious fighting, the remains of the two armies stood watching each other until late afternoon.  So the battle could be recorded as a couple of hours or dawn to dusk.

Another issue was a tendency to record things episodically rather than temporarily, leading to at best a non-linear narrative.  Some episodes happened at the same time to different people, some at different times.  So one reading looks non-continuous, another of continuous action across a field.

On a grand scale, fighting clearly did work in phases, as there was a tendency to deploy in depth and send troops in one division after another.  On the smaller scale of individual combats, it is harder to see, perhaps because fights were short enough not to need rests, perhaps because ebb and flow just wasn't recorded.

One of the clearest examples I'm aware of is the fact that an eye witness account of Nevilles Cross states that the English attacked the Scots shiltrons several times and were driven back before they finally beat them.

[RichT]

I don't think the importance of fatigue and endurance contributes much either - levels of fatigue vary according to the intensity of the activity as well as the endurance of the athletes/fighters. I can run for two hours quite effortlessly, but sprinting for one minute leaves me totally knackered. I recall TV reconstructions of fighting (probably featuring Mike Loades) in which vigorous one on one duelling exhausted the participants after three minutes.

It may be this is another hidden consensus - perhaps we all agree that face to face combat could be quite low intensity, with an emphasis on keeping formation, covering yourself (and neighbour) with your shield, and staying alive, rather than frantic slashing and bashing. As such this sounds like a sort of 'continuous lull', not different in any important way from the lulls of the dynamic standoff model, just carried out a little closer to the enemy.

[Patrick Waterson]

It may be this is another hidden consensus - perhaps we all agree that face to face combat could be quite low intensity, with an emphasis on keeping formation, covering yourself (and neighbour) with your shield, and staying alive, rather than frantic slashing and bashing. As such this sounds like a sort of 'continuous lull', not different in any important way from the lulls of the dynamic standoff model, just carried out a little closer to the enemy.

The problem with this approach being that as soon as you encounter someone who takes attacking really seriously (gaesati, berserkers, Caesar's legionaries facing Ariovistus' Germans) the hidden consensus shatters.  What mayt matter more is what you are trained or accustomed to do, and how energy efficient this is.

Gauls vs Romans, Dionysius XIV.17-19 (or 10, depending on layout).  Fatigue differential, at least for these chaps, really matters - and is accentuated by the energy-intensive abandon of Gallic strokes against the energy-efficient Roman technique.

"(17) Now the barbarians' manner of fighting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic procedure, quite lacking in military science. Thus, at one moment they would raise their swords aloft and smite after the manner of wild boars, throwing the whole weight of their bodies into the blow like hewers of wood or men digging with mattocks, and again they would deliver crosswise blows aimed at no target, as if they intended to cut to pieces the entire bodies of their adversaries, protective armour and all; then they would turn the edges of their swords away from the foe.  (18) On the other hand, the Romans' defence and counter-manoeuvring against the barbarians was steadfast and afforded great safety. For while their foes were still raising their swords aloft, they would duck under their arms, holding up their shields, and then, stooping and crouching low, they would render vain and useless the blows of the others, which were aimed too high, while for their own part, holding their swords straight out, they would strike their opponents in the groins, pierce their sides, and drive their blows through their breasts into their vitals. And if they saw any of them keeping these parts of their bodies protected, they would cut the tendons of their knees or ankles and topple them to the ground roaring and biting their shields and uttering cries resembling the howling of wild beasts.  (19) Not only did their strength desert many of the barbarians as their limbs failed them through weariness, but their weapons also were either blunted or broken or no longer serviceable. For besides the blood that flowed from their wounds, the sweat pouring out over their whole bodies would not let them either grasp their swords or hold their shields firmly, since their fingers slipped on the handles and no longer kept a firm hold. The Romans, however, being accustomed to many toils by reason of their unabating and continuous warfare, continued to meet every peril in noble fashion."

Note the reference to 'military science' (sophias tēs en hoplois), indicating that a fair amount of thought went into keeping men functional during ongoing combat, and energy efficiency seems to have been an important part.  The Romans appear to have adopted a belt-and-braces approach to the question of combat persistence, on the one hand carefully training their troops to keep their movements as energy-efficient as possible while also developing their endurance, and on the other having one, and later two, lines to take over if the combat was longer, more intense or more exhausting than the first line could manage.  The reason for putting the hastati in the first line would seem  to be that their age group had the best stamina.

I can run for two hours quite effortlessly, but sprinting for one minute leaves me totally knackered.

This is because sprinting causes one to use anaerobic respiration.  Doing so in a fight is a short passport to collapse, and only the most panicked, excited and undisciplined of armed men 'go anaerobic' when fighting - plus the odd iaijutsu practitioner and, it must be noted, numerous easily-exhausted sportsmen.

Diodorus' "the army turned and fled in utter rout" is a translation of egeneto panteles trope tou stratopedou, which appears to mean the camp (presumably camp followers, primarily helots seeing their masters beaten for the first time) dissolved in utter rout, not the army.  While stratopedon can mean by extension an encamped army, is it at all usable for an unencamped one?

Yes, usable, and no, needn't mean camp or camped.

OK, settles that point, thanks.

I don't see the rout as incompatible with some of the Spartans getting back to the camp and grounding arms. Xenophon's account, as is trivially obvious, belittles the Theban victory and glosses over the Spartan defeat, but the facts seem perfectly compatible (maybe some Spartans did consider a death or glory rematch - but as it didn't happen we can't infer much from it).

I think it is more the other way around.  Plutarch's Agesilaus infers that numerous Spartans ran and were condemned as cowards, hence Agesilaus opted to let the law sleep for a day'.  The problem here is the punishment Plutarch describes for the 'cowards'.

"For such men are not only debarred from every office, but intermarriage with any of them is a disgrace, and any one who meets them may strike them if he pleases. Moreover, they are obliged to go about unkempt and squalid, wearing cloaks that are patched with dyed stuffs, half of their beards shaven, and half left to grow." - Agesilaus 30.3

Xenophon's description is rather different:

"For in other states when a man proves a coward, the only consequence is that he is called a coward. He goes to the same market as the brave man, sits beside him, attends the same gymnasium, if he chooses. But in Lacedaemon everyone would be ashamed to have a coward with him at the mess or to be matched with him in a wrestling bout. [5] Often when sides are picked for a game of ball he is the odd man left out: in the chorus he is banished to the ignominious place; in the streets he is bound to make way; when he occupies a seat he must needs give it up, even to a junior; he must support his spinster relatives at home and must explain to them why they are old maids: he must make the best of a fireside without a wife, and yet pay forfeit for that: he may not stroll about with a cheerful countenance, nor behave as though he were a man of unsullied fame, or else he must submit to be beaten by his betters." - Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 9.4-5

Nothing is mentioned about half-shaven beards or patched cloaks.  Even in Xenophon's Agesilaus the 'let the laws sleep for a day' pronouncement is not recorded, although it would have been much to the credit of Xenophon's hero.  I begin to wonder if it, and the whole story of a Spartan rout at Leuctra, may be apocryphal.

There are other problems with any supposed Spartan rout at Leuctra.  How, if a rout occurred, did they bring back the body of Cleombrotus?  Why does Xenophon not mention a rout?  He quite freely describes Spartans routing after a long harassment by Iphicrates' peltasts near Lechaeum (Hellenica IV.5.17), having previously noted how the Spartans had chided their allies for being afraid of peltasts (idem IV.4.17), which demonstrates that he does not keep silent for fear of putting Spartans in a bad light.

It looks as if someone may have embellished the story of the Spartan fall-back to their camp under pressure and misrepresented it as a rout.

One of the clearest examples I'm aware of is the fact that an eye witness account of Nevilles Cross states that the English attacked the Scots shiltrons several times and were driven back before they finally beat them.

This is one of the factors to consider: if a moving attacker is trying to defeat a non-moving defender (cf. Hastings), an ebb and flow is the natural course of the fighting.  Injudicious commitment of additional troops in confined surroundings, as at Crecy, Agincourt and Dupplin Moor, means that the leading portion of the mobile but disadvantaged attacker is trapped by its own reserves and unable to do anything significant except die in place.  Halidon Hill was just the one charge followed by collapse.  Poitiers saw each French battle try in turn as opposed to the whole army having repeated goes.  Verneuil saw the Scots fight and die in place without a break.

[Erpingham]

I'll venture one of those summary comments about the hidden consensus

People accept that discontinuity or continuity depends on the troop type we are dealing with.  Certain troops are more ebb and flow than others.  We have focussed on heavy infantry, which are not immediately identified with this idiom. Cavalry and skirmishy types are a different kettle of fish.

Endurance is important and seems to have two elements - training/experience and fighting style.  Steady, energy efficient combat style can be maintained longer than frenzied wild slashing. 

This does not, of course, answer the question whether fighting was continuous or not but does I hope help to focus on what areas we can accept and what areas need further exploration.

[RichT]

Leuctra

I begin to wonder if it, and the whole story of a Spartan rout at Leuctra, may be apocryphal.

Even if we discount Diodorus 15.56 "at first, as they gave ground they would not break their formation, but finally, as many fell and the commander who would have rallied them had died, the army turned and fled in utter rout."

and Plutarch Pelopidas 23 "At this time, however, since the phalanx of Epaminondas bore down upon them alone and neglected the rest of their force, and since Pelopidas engaged them with incredible speed and boldness, their courage and skill were so confounded that there was a flight and slaughter of the Spartans such as had never before been seen."

we still have Xenophon Hell 6.4 "Yet despite the fact that many had fallen and that they were defeated... The polemarchs, however, seeing that of the whole number of the Lacedaemonians almost a thousand had been killed; seeing, further, that among the Spartiatae themselves, of whom there were some seven hundred there, about four hundred had fallen; and perceiving that the allies were one and all without heart for fighting, while some of them were not even displeased at what had taken place.. all thought it best to recover the bodies of the dead by a truce, they finally sent a herald to ask for a truce. After this, then, the Thebans set up a trophy and gave back the bodies under a truce".

This is as clear and straightforward a description of the defeat of one hoplite army by another as you could hope to find. It compares closely with, to pick an example at random, Solygia:

Thuc 4.44 "After holding on for a long while without either giving way, the Athenians aided by their horse, of which the enemy had none, at length routed the Corinthians, who retired to the hill and halting remained quiet there, without coming down again. [2] It was in this rout of the right wing that they had the most killed, Lycophron their general being among the number. The rest of the army, broken and put to flight in this way without being seriously pursued or hurried, retired to the high ground and there took up its position. [3] The Athenians, finding that the enemy no longer offered to engage them, stripped his dead and took up their own and immediately set up a trophy."

But you propose to discount this straightforward understanding of Leuctra, presumably just so as to retain your strictly literal reading of the verb 'otheo' in this context. Well, fine. Nothing more to say.

[Patrick Waterson]

I'll venture one of those summary comments about the hidden consensus

People accept that discontinuity or continuity depends on the troop type we are dealing with.  Certain troops are more ebb and flow than others.  We have focussed on heavy infantry, which are not immediately identified with this idiom. Cavalry and skirmishy types are a different kettle of fish.

This is mainly because of the emergence among some classical scholars of the idea that heavy infantry fighting took place in spurts rather than as a continuous engagement, and it is this school of thought I particularly wished to address (and disprove).  Cavalry actions, as Philip Sabin observes in Lost Battles, tend to be faster in pace and tempo, and in reaching a result even if that result is a break-off rather than a decision.  Cavalry against infantry also act pretty much at their own pace and in their own time, and may need multiple attempts and/or a bit of help from their missile-armed friends.

The problem that has arisen (one may remember a few discussions on Ancmed of yore) is that there is an increasing tendency for some to model heavy infantry combat as if it were skirmisher combat, with subunits moving out to exchange missiles and dropping back as it suits them - does WMWW ring a bell?   This approach presents a rather bizarre view of the way heavy infantry formations engaged, and has its roots in the idea that infantry lines of battle were very tentative in the way they closed and remained in contact - something I do not see as being borne out by historical accounts.

This particular aspect of the topic is heavily Romanocentric, for which my apologies, but unless we take seriously the implications in our sources that Roman infantry combat was protracted and up close and personal without letup whatever the hindrance (unless rain stopped play, as it did at Ilipa in 206 BC) we risk losing entirely our touch with reality when considering how such armies operated.

Endurance is important and seems to have two elements - training/experience and fighting style.  Steady, energy efficient combat style can be maintained longer than frenzied wild slashing. 

This does not, of course, answer the question whether fighting was continuous or not but does I hope help to focus on what areas we can accept and what areas need further exploration.

All eminently reasonable.  Would it make sense to delve into a few source accounts of battles and comment upon what we think is revealed about the character of the fighting?

Leuctra

This is as clear and straightforward a description of the defeat of one hoplite army by another as you could hope to find.

*Sigh* I am not disputing that the Spartans were defeated at Leuctra, merely questioning, by matching a reliable contemporary and soldierly source against the differing accounts of later compilers who lacked military experience, whether the later accounts had imbibed more flavour than accuracy and inserted a rout where there was in fact a protracted falling-back.  That is all.

[RichT]

Fair summary, Anthony.

The endurance thing doesn't seem to get us anywhere.

Patrick:

[Using anaerobic respiration] in a fight is a short passport to collapse, and only the most panicked, excited and undisciplined of armed men 'go anaerobic' when fighting

And yet you have pasted a lot of quotes showing assorted barbarians doing just that. So if barbarians fought like this (and leaving aside the generalisations required) then fights among barbarians must have been of short duration (minutes?). If Romans had a more efficient style, then they could outlast barbarians, but what does that prove? It doesn't set any limits on the length of time fights actually took, nor tell us anything about whether or not fighting was continuous.

Arguments for discontinuous fighting rest on three pillars:

- endurance: 'battlefield clock' evidence suggests fights of an hour or more duration; we have reason to doubt whether anyone could fight for that long - inefficient barbarians certainly not, while for efficient Romans we have no data, but it still seems doubtful to many.

- casualties: assuming even minimal levels of lethality and competence, fights measured in hours must surely have caused much higher casualties than are actually recorded (for the victors, or the pre-rout losers).

- psychology: close quarters face to face combat is a psychologically demanding and unstable situation - it seems doubtful it could be sustained for hours.

Phil Sabin's dynamic standoff model therefore proposes that the default state is not close contact, but separation at a short distance  with flurries of combat from time to time and place to place. I sort of suggested a possible alternative consensus where the default state is close contact but with very tentative, low intensity combat. There's plenty of room for variation from time to time and case to case, some being more or less inclined to get stuck in and fight 'barbarian style' - but such fights when they occurred must have been of short duration. I also suggest that (for example) hoplites fought continuously and at high intensity, but for very short periods; while (for example) Romans fought intermittently with fallings back, missiles and discontinuous combat, over longer periods.

In order to 'disprove' the dynamic standoff model, you have to do more than quote some battle accounts and say 'look, no lulls' since we all know there are no explicit references to lulls (if there were we could all go and do something else more worthwhile). And you have to do more than quote acounts suggesting Romans fought more efficiently than barbarians, since that doesn't prove anything either way. You can copy and paste battle accounts all day but it won't do anything to address the underlying issues (which is why comparative material seems to offer some help).

FWIW I'm not totally convinced about dynamic standoff as I've said - but I'm also not at all convinced by hour long high intensity melees. I await hard evidence or strong rational arguments with interest (if little hope).

[aligern]

Sorry, but I do not accept the rejection of the modern sporting analogies. Boxers do not generally land several telling blows in a minute. If they do ths then the opponent will go down quite quickly. Head blows disorientate and lay the victim open to blows that are undefended and will cause concussion. Body blows leave an opponent breathless and again unable to respond. Most of the time blows are parried ir dodged, if only by leaning backwards so they land without much force. Two warriors fighting with sword and shield can fight longer, but they have to hold the shield and parry with it and wield a weapon. Watch one of those programmes where men who are OK hack at tree trunks with axes. They do need rests, but then they are back again. The rugby analogy is quite good because it is most unlike skirmushing...well for the pack anyway. Richard may have wafted around on a wing, but the pack have strenuous cobcerted pushing to do and spend a lot of time smacking into or being smacked into as they tackle or try to gain yards and get the opposing team to expend two men on them and thus create an overlap. Both these activities have rests of various lengths inserted into them, but still a time of 45 minutes to 90 minutes is enough for the highly trained athletes concerned.
I still see that actual fighting time will be limited and restricted and rests will be necessary. Think of Ariovistus'Germans against Caesar who became so exhausted that they were reduced to standing with overlapped. shields whilst the  legionaries had to pull the frnation apart to get at them.
Punctuated flurries gives us another mechanism  which works in that both sides must withdraw to rest and if the Romans are carrying out line relief they need a separation and tohave time to do this. When both sides withdraw those hat are fitter or advantaged by armour, morale, or being uphill will be first to move. That suggests that where a side is more reluctant to engage the new point of contact will move backwards for them each tome. That would explain some of the very long fall backs that occur in battles, even of pike formations. I just cannot conceive that close order infantry formations can move backwards whilst in contact for several hundred yards, those on the retrograde would be falling over. So the Helvetii recoil say ten or twenty yards, recuperate and then the Romans, who have also paused, come on again, taking the ground. The action is going to have to be interrupted by pauses, because even if it is of a more sparring, parrying and looking for openings nature, the men will become exhausted and they must not get to this state because then they are liable to make deadly mistakes.
Roy

[Dangun]

- casualties: assuming even minimal levels of lethality and competence, fights measured in hours must surely have caused much higher casualties than are actually recorded (for the victors, or the pre-rout losers).

An important observation IMHO - low lethality is inconsistent with long engagements.

Casualty data from sources could be converted into casualty per minute or casualty per square metre per minute, and I would suspect - having not done the work - that it suggests they weren't trying or they weren't trying for very long.

I suggest that we would have to factor in that much of the soldier's combat activity was essentially defensive, it being most men's objective to survive and perhaps kill an enemy than to take risks and get injured or worse.

I think there is a problem with this logic. I don't think that the risk of death necessarily outweighs the risk of trying to successfully resolve combat in such a way that there is overwhelming tendency to passivity. Stay on the battlefield long enough and the probability of being a casualty rises toward 100%.

[Patrick Waterson]

Fair summary, Anthony.

The endurance thing doesn't seem to get us anywhere.

Patrick:

[Using anaerobic respiration] in a fight is a short passport to collapse, and only the most panicked, excited and undisciplined of armed men 'go anaerobic' when fighting

And yet you have pasted a lot of quotes showing assorted barbarians doing just that. So if barbarians fought like this (and leaving aside the generalisations required) then fights among barbarians must have been of short duration (minutes?). If Romans had a more efficient style, then they could outlast barbarians, but what does that prove? It doesn't set any limits on the length of time fights actually took, nor tell us anything about whether or not fighting was continuous.

Au contraire, actually looking through the accounts quoted reveals some important details.

1) Casualties are not extracted - casualty extraction would be a priority during a lull or even a hypothetical low-intensity contact, not least for the casualties themselves.

2) Exhausted barbarians do not get a chance to stagger back and recover - they flop in place.  Ergo, the discontinuity in combat required for the 'dynamic standoff' model or the lack of serious pressure implied by the 'tentative low intensity' approach have to be lacking to deny them the chance to drop back rather than down and out.

3) The battle against the Insubres in Polybius II.33 specifies that the Romans lacked any room for manoeuvre, in particular their customary falling back manoeuvres.  Ergo, the hastati were in continuous combat from first to last.  The lack of breaks (and for that matter standoffishness) is evident from the fact they only had to get inside the sweep of Gallic swords once.

Arguments for discontinuous fighting rest on three pillars:

- endurance: 'battlefield clock' evidence suggests fights of an hour or more duration; we have reason to doubt whether anyone could fight for that long - inefficient barbarians certainly not, while for efficient Romans we have no data, but it still seems doubtful to many.

- casualties: assuming even minimal levels of lethality and competence, fights measured in hours must surely have caused much higher casualties than are actually recorded (for the victors, or the pre-rout losers).

- psychology: close quarters face to face combat is a psychologically demanding and unstable situation - it seems doubtful it could be sustained for hours.

A fair summary.  Of these, only the second seems to have any real foundation in source material, so we may as well examine it here.

It is worth bearing in mind that casualties recorded for a classical battle usually involve only the dead.  For a winner or pre-rout loser, these will usually be a small percentage of the total - just how small this can be is illustrated when Josephus gives killed and wounded from a day-long fight at Jotapata:

"Now when the next day an assault was made by the Romans, the Jews at first staid out of the walls and opposed them, and met them, as having formed themselves a camp before the city walls. But when Vespasian had set against them the archers and slingers, and the whole multitude that could throw to a great distance, he permitted them to go to work, while he himself, with the footmen, got upon an acclivity, whence the city might easily be taken. Josephus was then in fear for the city, and leaped out, and all the Jewish multitude with him; these fell together upon the Romans in great numbers, and drove them away from the wall, and performed a great many glorious and bold actions. Yet did they suffer as much as they made the enemy suffer; for as despair of deliverance encouraged the Jews, so did a sense of shame equally encourage the Romans. These last had skill as well as strength; the other had only courage, which armed them, and made them fight furiously. And when the fight had lasted all day, it was put an end to by the coming on of the night. They had wounded a great many of the Romans, and killed of them thirteen men; of the Jews' side seventeen were slain, and six hundred wounded." - Jewish War III.7.5 (Whiston chapters)

Not every battle saw a dead-to-wounded ratio of 17:600, but it shows how small the total of dead can be even when both sides have trying quite hard for a whole day.  Conversely, other whole-day fights can result in heavy losses on both sides or the near-annihilation of one side.  The moral would seem to be that deaths are not necessarily an indicator of intensity of fighting.

Phil Sabin's dynamic standoff model therefore proposes that the default state is not close contact, but separation at a short distance  with flurries of combat from time to time and place to place. I sort of suggested a possible alternative consensus where the default state is close contact but with very tentative, low intensity combat.

I would prefer to suggest close contact with non-tentative combat in which experienced warriors and soldiers would use superior skill and stamina to advantage, as this is what is suggested by our source accounts.

There's plenty of room for variation from time to time and case to case, some being more or less inclined to get stuck in and fight 'barbarian style' - but such fights when they occurred must have been of short duration.

Unless reinforced by a continuing flow of rear-rankers or fresh formations.

I also suggest that (for example) hoplites fought continuously and at high intensity, but for very short periods

Agree about high intensity, but periods seem to have been variable: short at First Mantinea, rather longer at Marathon or Delium, or for that matter Plataea or Athens' first battle near Syracuse.  Of course, one is left with just high-intensity combat all the way if one disregards the tendency to revert to a shoving match to force a decision.

while (for example) Romans fought intermittently with fallings back, missiles and discontinuous combat, over longer periods.

My reading of the sources is that each line fought continuously until wearied, then dropped back through the next line for relief, handing over in mid-fight.

FWIW I'm not totally convinced about dynamic standoff as I've said - but I'm also not at all convinced by hour long high intensity melees. I await hard evidence or strong rational arguments with interest (if little hope).

Might I also encourage searching for such information oneself?

I still see that actual fighting time will be limited and restricted and rests will be necessary. Think of Ariovistus' Germans against Caesar who became so exhausted that they were reduced to standing with overlapped. shields whilst the  legionaries had to pull the formation apart to get at them.

Which indicates that however necessary rest periods might have been, they did not get them.  We get these levels of exhaustion on the battlefield precisely because participants do not get a chance for discontinuity and rest.

Punctuated flurries gives us another mechanism  which works in that both sides must withdraw to rest and if the Romans are carrying out line relief they need a separation and to have time to do this.

Actually no: the Roman line relief system was designed to execute reliefs in mid-combat.  Otherwise they would not even need a line relief system; they could just feed in fresh troops during the 'separation'.

I just cannot conceive that close order infantry formations can move backwards whilst in contact for several hundred yards, those on the retrograde would be falling over.

And taking losses as a result, which would explain the high Spartan casualties at Leuctra, for example.

So the Helvetii recoil say ten or twenty yards, recuperate and then the Romans, who have also paused, come on again, taking the ground. The action is going to have to be interrupted by pauses, because even if it is of a more sparring, parrying and looking for openings nature, the men will become exhausted and they must not get to this state because then they are liable to make deadly mistakes.

This is worth examining (see Gallic War I.25).  Caesar took up a position on higher ground and sent away his army's horses, or at least those in his vicinity - not an action that suggested he envisaged a follow-up or a pursuit.  His men broke up the Helvetii attack, and:

"At length, worn out with wounds, they began to give way, and, as there was in the neighborhood a mountain about a mile off, to betake themselves thither."

Caesar would have been diffident about pressing them, considering how he had deployed a somewhat nervous army in an uphill position, and slowness to follow up amply explains the Helvetii's ability to retreat back to their 'mountain' without the Romans exerting pressure.  (This is a change to what I had previously thought, derived from re-examining the material.)

A lack of any contact during the retreat, intermittent or otherwise, seems illustrated by:

"When the mountain had been gained, and our men were advancing up, the Boii and Tulingi, who with about 15,000 men closed the enemy's line of march and served as a guard to their rear, having assailed our men on the exposed flank as they advanced [prepared] to surround them; upon seeing which, the Helvetii who had betaken themselves to the mountain, began to press on again and renew the battle."

Hence the sequence is explained by: Helvetii attack defending Romans uphill and fail; Helvetii fall back without contact and Caesar belatedly follows up; Boii and Tulingi spring their attack; Helvetii close and re-engage; a long and vigorous fight is had by all.  Caesar himself:

"Thus was the contest long and vigorously carried on with doubtful success. When they could no longer withstand the attacks of our men, the one division, as they had begun to do, betook themselves to the mountain; the other repaired to their baggage and wagons. For during the whole of this battle, although the fight lasted from the seventh hour [i.e. 12 (noon) 1 P. M.] to eventide, no one could see an enemy with his back turned. The fight was carried on also at the baggage till late in the night ..." - Gallic War I.26.1-3

I suggest the "no one could see an enemy with his back turned" might apply only to the renewed fight once the Boii and Tulingi had arrived and not to the retreat of the Helvetii to the mountain (which might save us from having to envisage the Helvetii walking backwards a mile or so).  This still leaves a long and unremitting midday-to-eventide struggle before a decision was reached.

[RichT]

Well I agree with you Roy (I think, since I'm not totally sure what you are saying). The boxer analogy as I took it was more about lethality than exhaustion - if boxers had swords (and shields) how long would bouts last? I don't think boxers with weapons could fight for hours, not (just) because they would be exhausted, but because if in all that time they hadn't landed a single telling blow, they weren't really trying.

I think we have two options:
- fights lasted a long time, but there were breaks for breathing, resting, relieving or whatever
- fights lasted a short time

I don't think anybody whose opinion matters believes that fights were long, vigorous and with high lethality.

My money is on the second option (short fights) if anyone cares. This fits with the sources, the psychology, the human endurance and the lethality. It has problems with the battlefield clock, but then maybe the battlefield clock needs adjusting. But it's a big complicated subject and like all big complicated subjects is not susceptible to short simple answers.

[Erpingham]

We might use a wargames analogue here.  When rules were based on strict time and ground scales, one could total the length of the game in minutes.  If take a real battle and consider how long it would last if everyone went at it full speed and with full lethality, it would be over much quicker than the recorded lengths.  The obvious conclusion is that battles were fought in a more measured way (or could be - there do seem to be some very quick battles).

I'm only vaguely familiar with the battle field clock concept, but some of the discontinuity must be down to the "phasing" of fights.  As I've said, this is easily seen in many medieval battles.  But it is clearly there in some of the Roman examples (even more so if you are in the camp that doesn't accept line relief happened in contact with the enemy).  Gaps between phases may have been short but they will have provided some of the required recuperation time.

In terms of the combats themselves, I do think sporting endurance examples do give us some pause for thought.  Boxers should give us some inkling of the "barbarians" perhaps and how long you can sustain full on violence before exhaustion sets in.  Though we should perhaps recall that bare-knuckle fights could last considerably longer.  I think I would agree with Patrick (it does happen) that pitch sports like rugby and football are more like a looser form of combat, as even for a rugby forward, a lot of the time, you are changing position with close action rucking, mauling, scrumming etc. interspersed.  That said, I can't think of any competitive sports which involved continuous close contact for extended periods.