And the dead lay in heaps

[Imperial Dave]

going back to some of the previous comments, heaps of bodies created during a battle seem pretty few and far between unless in canalised terrain such as a ditch and then there would be special circumstances to result in this (ie repeated/fanatical attacks and/or continued pressure from rear ranks).

In terms of bodies after a battle being placed in a heap....thats more likely but again probably (?) facilitated by some form of hole/ditch

[RichT]

Moving away from Dupplin Moor for a moment and returning to our theme, might we look at the circumstances of battles with body heaps to draw thoughts as to why they appear rare in the literature (assuming it is not that they occured everywhere but were seldom mentioned)?

Trouble is, aside from Dupplin Moor and Agincourt there really aren't any battles with body heaps, at least none that have been offered here so far (except the camel wall of Nisibis but we are all (-1) in agreement about that one I take it).

Main reason being no doubt that people run away before they get killed in heaps. So to get any sort of pile up of bodies (of whatever depth - whether several bodies, or double decker bus height) you need people to be unable to run away, and seemingly also it helps to have missile weapons hitting static defenders in the same place.

So:
- Zama - Carthaginian line trapped between Romans and their own second line
- Sambre - Nervii surounded, resolved to fight to the death, and shot at
- Dupplin Moor - front lines pressed by reserves from rear, and shot at
- Agincourt - front lines pressed by reserves from rear, and shot at
- Spotsylvania - same point contested over long (multiple hours) period, and shot at

[Erpingham]

I still hope the classicists among us my address some of the other battles mentioned but they may be sparse on details.

I've been thinking on this and I think it might relate to another controversy (aka debate with Patrick) about inability to follow the natural pattern of ebb and flow.  It seems to happen when troops are trapped in some way.  There is also a degree of fighting in the same place for some time, though this isn't critical.  No heaps of dead seem to be reported at Hastings, for example, where the Normans could fall back (though we do get the "dead held up by the living" quotes about the English). 

I've also been wondering why the phenomenon is not mentioned at Adrianople, a classic example of a "crush" battle.

[Imperial Dave]

I've been thinking on this and I think it might relate to another controversy (aka debate with Patrick) about inability to follow the natural pattern of ebb and flow.  It seems to happen when troops are trapped in some way.  There is also a degree of fighting in the same place for some time, though this isn't critical.  No heaps of dead seem to be reported at Hastings, for example, where the Normans could fall back (though we do get the "dead held up by the living" quotes about the English). 

although we have the (or several) 'Malfosse' incident at Hastings. There is a ditch and possibly ramparts and a headlong rush by cavalry. I am not sure of the exact details but didnt Orderic Vitalis or maybe it was William of
Jumieges say that the nighttime pursuit by the Normans of the A-S infantry come to grief up against a concealed a rampart thus causing the Norman horsemen to fall one upon the other so that they were crushed?

[Erpingham]

The Malfosse incident probably belongs in a sub-category of terrain-induced piles.  There are probably even more incidents of people crossing streams/rivers dryshod over the dead than battlefield piles.

[Duncan Head]

The Malfosse incident probably belongs in a sub-category of terrain-induced piles.  There are probably even more incidents of people crossing streams/rivers dryshod over the dead than battlefield piles.

After Issos:

So great was the slaughter that Ptolemy son of Lagus, who then accompanied Alexander, says that the men who were with them pursuing Darius, coming in the pursuit to a ravine, filled it up with corpses and then passed over it.

Osaka, 1615:

More than 100,000 corpses lay on the field of battle and were so heaped up in the river that they formed a dyke that could be crossed dryshod.

[Patrick Waterson]

I've also been wondering why the phenomenon is not mentioned at Adrianople, a classic example of a "crush" battle.

Actually it is, twice, but the 'heaps' are not presented as interfering with the action, at least not directly.

"In this great tumult and confusion the infantry, exhausted by their efforts and the danger, when in turn strength and mind for planning anything were lacking, their lances for the most part broken by constant clashing, content to fight with drawn swords, plunged into the dense masses of the foe, regardless of their lives, seeing all around that every loophole of escape was lost. [6] The ground covered with streams of blood whirled their slippery foothold from under them, so they could only strain every nerve to sell their lives dearly; and they opposed the onrushing foe with such great resolution that some fell by the weapons of their own comrades.  Finally, when the whole scene was discoloured with the hue of dark blood, and wherever men turned their eyes heaps of slain met them, they trod upon the bodies of the dead without mercy." - Ammianus XXXI.13.5-6

and

"While all scattered in flight over unknown paths, the emperor, hedged about by dire terrors, and slowly treading over heaps of corpses, took refuge with the lancers and the mattiarii, who, so long as the vast numbers of the enemy could be sustained, had stood unshaken with bodies firmly planted." - idem 13.8

The Latin for 'heap' in Ammianus is acervus.  This is also used for a heap of corpses in XVI.12.53 (Allemannic rout at the end of the battle of Argentoratum, probably where the routers meet the river), XIX.1.9 (a heap of bodies around Grumbates' son following an intense missile exchange at the opening of the siege of Amida) and XIX.11.14 (Constantius II surrounding and defeating the Limigantes).  Other uses vary from a heap of troubles to a large stack of fodder and need not concern us, so Ammianus has four battles resulting in heaps of corpses within the span and confines of his surviving history, plus a number of engagements without such phenomena.

As far as I can tell, none of the examples in Ammianus were terrain-induced, with the probable exception of Argentoratum, where the Allemanni could have been heaped once caught against the river.

[Erpingham]

Thanks Patrick.  Not so much unmentioned as not picked up when we were in the info collection phase.

[RichT]

Because the whole point of the initial question was tactically significant heaps or piles, not just bodies on the ground. If we want to make a list of every battle where there were bodies on the ground, we are going to have a rather long list. In many (most) cases we can no more tell how many layers 'heaps' indicates in Latin or Greek than we can in English - less than one deep still constitutes dead laying in heaps (in English).

Another interesting omission is Cannae - lots of dead, few escaping, constrained space.

[Imperial Dave]

Because the whole point of the initial question was tactically significant heaps or piles, not just bodies on the ground. If we want to make a list of every battle where there were bodies on the ground, we are going to have a rather long list. In many (most) cases we can no more tell how many layers 'heaps' indicates in Latin or Greek than we can in English - less than one deep still constitutes dead laying in heaps (in English).

Another interesting omission is Cannae - lots of dead, few escaping, constrained space.

true Rich, going back to the Malfosse incident(s) I cannot find reference to the 'descriptor' of the pile of bodies but I am reasonably certain there was mention of the ditch being filled with horses and men so assume this would be a heap/pile of significant proportions?

[Erpingham]

Because the whole point of the initial question was tactically significant heaps or piles, not just bodies on the ground. If we want to make a list of every battle where there were bodies on the ground, we are going to have a rather long list.

Another interesting omission is Cannae - lots of dead, few escaping, constrained space.

But, as I said earlier, we have a difficulty with many of these battles around cause and effect.  Are the piles a result of tactical significant factors (especially the "trapping" of part of an army in place by foes, friends or terrain) or do they cause tactical effects e.g. the Irish example where combatants had to change the axis of their fight.

It is interesting that both Cannae and Adrianople should feature mounds of dead if the parallel with some of the medieval examples are anything to go by.  Clearly, they did not excite the chroniclers in the same way. 

[Jim Webster]

It is interesting that both Cannae and Adrianople should feature mounds of dead if the parallel with some of the medieval examples are anything to go by.  Clearly, they did not excite the chroniclers in the same way.

Perhaps because ancient historians were used large battles where you got a lot of dead and if the dead fell where two battle lines clashed then you expected to have an area carpeted with them?
Medieval Battles were often little more than brawls and the numbers involved didn't lead to the same sort of effects

[Patrick Waterson]

But, as I said earlier, we have a difficulty with many of these battles around cause and effect.  Are the piles a result of tactical significant factors (especially the "trapping" of part of an army in place by foes, friends or terrain) or do they cause tactical effects e.g. the Irish example where combatants had to change the axis of their fight.

This, I think, is the nub of the matter: 'heaps' of bodies - as opposed to what we might term 'standard corpse coverage' - seem to be the result of a feedback situation in which the bodies start to pile up, which influences or constrains the action, which in turn piles up the bodies.

Another interesting omission is Cannae - lots of dead, few escaping, constrained space.

"As long as the Romans could keep an unbroken front, to turn first in one direction and then in another to meet the assaults of the enemy, they held out; but the outer files of the circle continually falling, and the circle becoming more and more contracted, they at last were all killed on the field." - Polybius III.116.10-11

It looks as if the majority 'died in place' at Cannae, leaving an even carpet of dead, as opposed to stepping - or being pushed - forward to take the place of the fallen.  At the Trebia Hannibal had learned that pushing Romans forward (with Mago's rear attack) gave them the impetus to burst through his forward line.  He did not repeat that mistake at Cannae, or rather he built in a shock absorber to ensure the Romans gained no impetus when he surrounded and squeezed.

[RichT]

Bearing in mind we still really only have two or three examples (Agincourt, Dupplin Moor, Roosebeke, maybe Corcomroe - though as Mick observes this is on a very different scale). It's a good point that Ancient battles were generally on a much larger scale, and with much higher losses (I think it's fair to say?) than Medieval - chroniclers of which (and participants in which) may therefore be more easily impressed by such heaps as there were, hence a bias (which might be the cause of the 14th C pile peak).

As to the heaping phenomenon itself, it seems to be restating the obvious, but the usual options for heavy losses are:

- losers are running away, so bodies are spread widely and thinly
- losers are cut down in their ranks (perhaps unable to run eg Cannae) so bodies are dense but thinly spread
- losers are in place but with no particular time pressures so able to clear their lines (Hastings?)

In order to have heaps you need:

- a ditch or similar feature to fall into (which seems to apply to pursuits)
- (the thing we are really talking about here) men climbing up onto and standing on top of those who have already fallen - and their opponents either doing the same (so subsequent layers are killed hand to hand, fighting on the top of the pile - this may never have happened) or using missile weapons to shoot them. Without this climbing of the heap, there may be some overlap of bodies (since ranks are tightly packed), and this may cause some tactical inconvenience (Corcomroe?, Zama), but there would be no real heaping (the two, three or four deep that we see, assuming we are all (-1) discounting the double decker bus high piles). It's obvious then why it's a rare phenomenon, since climbing on top of a pile of your own dead comrades is not something that would done lightly, willingly or easily (and missiles must then be present to add to the heap). Hence such cases as we have have crowd crushes with pressure from front and rear, and (two cases) intense missile storms (from longbows).