The mechanism of Roman line relief

[RobertGargan]

Andrew, there are many representations of hoplites in Etruscan art on painted pottery vases, plaques, statuettes and terra-cotta friezes from the fourth to the third century BC.  Although the hoplite held a high profile in warfare he was probably never the only troop type.  Certainly there are enough images of the hoplite to indicate the long spear phalanx formed a significant part of Etruscan warfare.
Robert

[aligern]

http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A2KLktkGgNpToFQA4KdNBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTIybXBscmlmBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM1ZmU5M2MwMDBiYTQ3OGFmZGVjMTczYjUxNzZjZWNiOQRncG9zAzYEaXQDYmluZw--?back=http%3A%2F%2Fuk.images.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3F_adv_prop%3Dimage%26va%3Detruscan%2Bpainted%2Bvases%26fr%3Dipad%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D6&w=736&h=947&imgurl=media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com%2F736x%2Fce%2Ffb%2F3a%2Fcefb3a0f63fd3f5518418b2782df4042.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F302444931196802739%2F&size=112.7KB&name=%3Cb%3EEtruscan%3C%2Fb%3E+%3Cb%3Epainted%3C%2Fb%3E+%3Cb%3Evase%3C%2Fb%3E+detail+print%3A+Europe+snd+the+bull&p=etruscan+painted+vases&oid=5fe93c000ba478afdec173b5176cecb9&fr2=&fr=ipad&tt=%3Cb%3EEtruscan%3C%2Fb%3E+%3Cb%3Epainted%3C%2Fb%3E+%3Cb%3Evase%3C%2Fb%3E+detail+print%3A+Europe+snd+the+bull&b=0&ni=21&no=6&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=11g68rnqs&sigb=13ia4cvjt&sigi=12dabl82c&sigt=12chf91oe&sign=12chf91oe&.crumb=jTgb/Z24i3i&fr=ipad
If the above link works it will take you to an Etruscan vase showing what looks like a hoplite with aspis and Greek helmet holding two javelins. Now that is evidence for greek armour style, but I would not take it  as evidence of a 'long spear phalanx'
I did like your point about 'not the only troop type, though!
Roy

[Erpingham]

Here's some for situla fans :

The Arnoaldi

http://www.sassuolo2000.it/2011/10/10/nuovi-prestiti-per-il-museo-archeologico-di-bologna/

The Benvenuti

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/illustration/benvenuti-situla-detail-showing-a-prisoner-being-led-stock-graphic/148357965

[Patrick Waterson]

I think you are undervaluing  the job of many academics. There are thousands, maybe hundred thousands people over there doing an analytical job comparing original sources and I cannot believe they use only secondary sources or ignore what is different from main accepted interpretation.

Then you need to meet some academics and read some papers.  Seriously.

Basically the job of every academic is exactely this, to take into account all. different interpretations, compare it and make a conclusion with deep analytical motivation.

Yes, but in practice there are severe limits on what one is allowed to compare, and in what way.  Talk to retired academics and you will learn that the strictures of orthodoxy are just as unforgiving as in a major religion.  In many ways, discovery is considered less desirable than conformity, which is one reason why so much allocated budget produces so little useful result.

There are people very acknowledged, very clever, very much trained to do this kind of effort on a level which a common person who decides to be more informed on a subject cannot reach, exactly as a professional athlete will be always much superior to any common guys who wants to try a new sport. Simply because it is his job, he dedicated years to it, he is naturally better in that thing (otherwise it would not be his job).  So when you want to discredit a generally accepted idea, you can, but you have to do a very hard analytical job.

Actually it is less a matter of analysis (though this is an utterly essential component) than starting a new fashion.  Jurassic Park did for palaeontology what years of trying by Doctors Horner, Bakker and Ostrom could not: in one of the most significant scientific volte-faces of the twentieth century, the 'heretical theory' of warm-blooded, bird-related dinosaurs became accepted fact.  But what does this tell us about the "very acknowledged, very clever, very much trained" academics before Drs Horner, Ostrom and Bakker?

Surely there are some academics who don't do well their job and limit to repeat what they have learnt. But I cannot believe that there are not a good amount of academics who do their job and compare sources and find the most accurate interpretation from them.

You will ... 

It is not that good academics are incapable of analysing evidence and drawing conclusions: they are, given the opportunity, very good at it.  The fault lies in the way it is done, in the habits of thought that stifle truly rational enquiry in favour of insipid in vacuo theorising.

[aligern]

I love the Sassuolo Situla, different types of shields in groups, all with a pair if javelins, including guys with something very like an aspis and crested helmet!
Roy

[Mark G]

The problem is, andrew.
Those books you refer to, which we all saw versions of many years ago too, have no evidence behind them.

When we try to prove this "fact", we find nothing behind it except a vague notion that Greeks came first, Greeks went to parts of Italy, therefore Italians fought ad Greek hoplites until Rome changed things.

When we start with period evidence, we find a different picture. Roy covers it nicely, he is worth re reading again.

It is also worth noting that the greeks themselves change over time too, not just from hoplites to phalangites, but before that.

The evidence we find discredits the old truth.
When you look at this history of that old truth, it is usually based on very bad simplifications or myth.

Hence, patrick asks each time for the source you used, because 99% of those sources are going to be ones someone here knows has been roundly discredited, and we can then demonstrate that to you, so your research can gain a stronger footing for the next thing you want to look at.
 

[RobertGargan]

Roy,
The Etruscan black-figure amphora, circa 300 BC, looks like a classical Greek hoplite encounter.  The varied body armour could be linen or leather as well as a scaled corslet.  I presume the hoplites formed the core of a respectable Etruscan army.  I take your point that a hoplite could just as well throw a javelin or spear.
Robert

[Erpingham]

I love the Sassuolo Situla, different types of shields in groups, all with a pair if javelins, including guys with something very like an aspis and crested helmet!
Roy

Interesting, isn't it?

They even have a cavalry component

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/etruscan-civilization-bronze-arnoaldi-high-res-stock-photography/103024605

It would appear that a weapon set of helmet, shield and two dual purpose spears has some background in this area.  Yet we also seem to have others with thrusting spear and shield.

[Mark G]

Consider the known quote on the Macedonians seeing the w wounds inflicted by romans in a skirmish before their first major battle and being dishertened by the savagery of the wound.

Years of reading that in academic but not military histories told me this referred to gladius wounds.

Actually, it was a cavalry spatha.

But why let that truth get in the way of a simple narative of roman i fantry being better equipped and more deadly, which was how all the historians had copied it from their secondary sources for generations.

[Justin Swanton]

Granted, but just how much clarification do non-textual sources bring? My own take is that at the end of the day we rely 90% on the primary textual sources for our picture of the past.

Well, one factor is how many primary textual sources do we have for a period.  Take Etruscans.  We are pretty much entirely limited to sources by non-Etruscans.  So the art and artefacts of the Etruscans themselves take on a particular signifcance.

And there's the problem. Where there are few or no reliable textual sources, the battle/civilisation/nation in question remains wrapped in mystery - even if the art and artefacts have something to say.

[andrew881runner]

Granted, but just how much clarification do non-textual sources bring? My own take is that at the end of the day we rely 90% on the primary textual sources for our picture of the past.

Well, one factor is how many primary textual sources do we have for a period.  Take Etruscans.  We are pretty much entirely limited to sources by non-Etruscans.  So the art and artefacts of the Etruscans themselves take on a particular signifcance.

And there's the problem. Where there are few or no reliable textual sources, the battle/civilisation/nation in question remains wrapped in mystery - even if the art and artefacts have something to say.

few primary sources? well maybe few, but we have some sources, even with translation to carthaginian in one case. Not reliable? why? we know very  well etruscan alphabet, grammar and a lot of words. Some Latin words too have etruscan origin. [emoji6]

[Erpingham]

But we have no works by Etruscan historians or poets that shed a light on the way they make war.  Just about everything we have are inscriptions of various sorts, many of them short.  Even if we dug up (or may have already dug up) inscriptions which speak of military ranks, as Roman tombstones sometimes do, would we know what the ranks meant?  My limited reading round this suggests, for example, that we know the names of a lot of types of magistrate in Etruscan but we don't know what their functions are.

[Duncan Head]

Consider the known quote on the Macedonians seeing the w wounds inflicted by romans in a skirmish before their first major battle and being dishertened by the savagery of the wound.

Years of reading that in academic but not military histories told me this referred to gladius wounds.

Actually, it was a cavalry spatha.

Actually, the "academic historians" were quite right. Livy specifically says it was the Spanish gladius:

With the view of doing more to win the affections of his men and make them more ready to meet danger on his behalf, Philip paid special attention to the burial of the men who had fallen in the cavalry action and ordered the bodies to be brought into camp that all might see the honour paid to the dead. But nothing is so uncertain or so difficult to gauge as the temper of a mass of people. The very thing which was expected to make them keener to face any conflict only inspired them with hesitancy and fear. Philip's men had been accustomed to fighting with Greeks and Illyrians and had only seen wounds inflicted by javelins and arrows and in rare instances by lances. But when they saw bodies dismembered with the Spanish sword (gladio Hispaniensi), arms cut off from the shoulder, heads struck off from the trunk, bowels exposed and other horrible wounds, they recognised the style of weapon and the kind of man against whom they had to fight, and a shudder of horror ran through the ranks.

And it was about two centuries before Roman cavalry started uising the spatha, anyway.

[Mark G]

spatha was wrong, but cavalry swords none the less.

Liv. 31 33

[8] The consul was equally at a loss; he knew that the king had left his winter quarters, though ignorant of the region to which he had marched. He too sent out cavalry to scout. These two cavalry forces, coming from different directions, after they had wandered long and aimlessly over the roads in the land of the Dassaretii, finally met on the same highway. Neither was unaware, since they heard the sound of men and horses from far off, that the enemy was approaching. [9] So, before they came in sight of one another, they had prepared horses and arms for [p. 101]battle, nor was there any delay in charging as soon5 as the enemy came in sight. Not unequal, as it chanced, in either numbers or courage, since both consisted of picked men, they fought on equal terms for some hours. [10] The weariness of men and horses ended the struggle without a decision in favour of either party. Of the Macedonians, forty troopers fell; of the Romans, thirty-five.

...
Liv. 31 34
Philip, thinking that he would do something to secure the affection of his people and increase their readiness to encounter danger on his behalf [2] if he undertook the burial of the cavalrymen who had fallen on the expedition, ordered their bodies brought into camp, that the funeral honour might be seen by all. [3] Nothing is so uncertain or so unpredictable as the mental reaction of a crowd. What he thought would make them more ready to enter any conflict caused, instead, reluctance and fear; [4] for men who had seen the wounds dealt by javelins and arrows and occasionally by lances, since they were used to fighting with the Greeks and Illyrians, when they had seen bodies chopped to pieces by the Spanish sword,1 arms torn away, shoulders and all, or heads separated from bodies, with the necks completely severed, or vitals laid open, and the other fearful wounds, realized in a general panic with what weapons and what men they had to fight.

notes
1 The long and heavy sabre, adapted to slashing blows, carried by Roman cavalry: cf. Dion. Hal. VIII. 67.
The short infantry weapon, used for both cutting and thrusting, was called gladius Hispanus in XXII. xlvi. 5.

Livy. Books XXXI-XXXIV with an English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935

A cavalry skirmish involving cavalry weapons, and not infantry stabbing swords.
a point the translator also took time to point out.

[Patrick Waterson]

Well ... in Dionysius VIII.67.5 the Roman cavalry of the 5th/4th century BC carry 'xiphesi makroterois' (long swords), and as we assume that Roman infantry had rearmed with the gladius Hispaniensis by the time of the war against Macedon we might with some justification assume that the cavalry had, too.

Whether the cavalry's gladius Hispaniensis was identical to that of the infantry is another question, which I should not care to attempt to answer.  Livy does however explicitly use the term for the Roman cavalry's swords, so the prima facie interpretation would have them the same.