Fluent Essays

Reading two scholarly articles and then to write a 200-300 word response in which they compare and contrast both the arguments and the sources used by the two authors. ._sabin_face_of_roman_battle.pdf ._lendon_early_roman_warfare_single_combat_and_the_legion_of_maniples.pdf model_1.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview The Face of Roman Battle Author(s): Philip Sabin Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 90 (2000), pp. 1-17 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/300198 . Accessed: 26/03/2014 13:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Roman Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 132.177.228.65 on Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:56:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE FACE OF ROMAN BATTLE* By PHILIP SABIN I. INTRODUCTION Our perspectives on ancient history can sometimes be significantly affected by contributions from scholars of other disciplines. An obvious example from the military field is Edward Luttwaks I976 book on The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. Luttwak is a respected and insightful commentator on modern strategic issues, and his distinctive contribution was to analyse Roman military affairs in terms of modern concepts such as armed suasion and the distinction between power and force.1 His book has prompted considerable debate among specialist ancient historians, and although much of this has been critical of his ideas (largely due to the alleged anachronism of applying them in the Roman context), there is no doubt that the injection of this new dimension has helped to influence subsequent thinking on Roman imperial defence.2 Also in I976, another modern scholar, John Keegan, published his work on The Face of Battle. Keegans distinctive contribution was to move beyond the previous euphemistic discussions of battle mechanics between opposing units, and to focus in detail on the experience of individual front-line soldiers during the key phases of combat. His book did not address the ancient world at all - his first case study was Agincourt, over a millennium later. However, Keegans basic approach inspired other scholars to turn the same analytical techniques upon ancient battle, and his work received generous acknowledgement at the start of several of their subsequent studies.3 The main benefits of this inspiration have come in our understanding of Greek hoplite battle. Scholars such as Anderson and Pritchett had already produced important modern studies of this topic, and newer contributors like Hanson and Lazenby have taken the subject even further.4 A lively academic controversy has developed over whether hoplite clashes took the form of a close-packed shoving match (the othismos), or whether they were characterized more by looser individual duelling. Closely linked to this has been extensive (though still not particularly conclusive) speculation about exactly how the depth of hoplite formations was translated into an advantage in battle, even when carried to the apparently ridiculous extreme of a Theban column fifty ranks deep at Leuctra (Xenophon, Hell. 6.4.I 2). Successive scholars have weighed in behind one theory or another on these various issues, and the result has been, if not an emerging consensus, at least a much better appreciation of the evidence and of the complex practical and psychological factors involved.5 Rather surprisingly, ancient historians have paid much less attention to similar combat mechanics in Hellenistic and Roman times, even though the details of Roman military organization and battle formations have attracted considerable scholarly * I am very grateful to all those who have helped with the development of my ideas, through successive seminars at the Institute of Classical Studies, and in particular to Adrian Goldsworthy, Alexander Zhmodikov, and the Editorial Committee of JRS for their detailed comments on initial drafts of this paper. I For examples of Luttwaks more modern writings, see his Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (I987), and Toward post-heroic warfare, Foreign Affairs 74/ 3 (I99S), I09-22. 2 The debate is well summarized in E. L. Wheeler, Methodological limits and the mirage of Roman strategy,Journalof Military History57 2I5-40. 3 (I993), 7-4I, Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (I989), ix-xiii, xx; V. D. Hanson (ed.), Hoplites. The Classical Greek Battle Experience(i 99 I), xvi; A. B. Lloyd (ed.), Battle in Antiquity (i 996), Vii-Viii. 4 See J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon(1970); W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, 5 vols (I97I-9 i); Hanson, op. cit. (n. 3); J. F. Lazenby, The Spartan Army (i 985). 5 For excellent summaries of the contending arguments, see R. D. Luginbill, Othismos: the importance of the mass-shove in hoplite warfare, Phoenix 48/I A. K. Goldsworthy, The othismos, (I994), si-6i; myths and heresies: the nature of hoplite battle, War in History 4/I ( 997), I-26. See V. D. Hanson, The Western Way of War. This content downloaded from 132.177.228.65 on Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:56:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2 PHILIP SABIN interest since the days of Delbruck, Kromayer, and Veith (and even earlier).6 Like Polybius (6. I9-42) and the tactical theorists of the Imperial period, modern writers on the Roman army at war tend to focus on marching, encampment, sieges, and overall battlefield deployment rather than on the nature of combat at the sharp end. However, this neglect of the combat experience itself is now beginning to change, as several scholars (including myself) have started to address for the Romans the kind of questions highlighted by Keegans more bottom-up approach, focusing on the perspective of the individual fighting-men.8 The literary and archaeological evidence available for such a study is certainly comparable to that which we have regarding hoplite warfare, and, once it is approached in a similarly systematic way, it allows us to draw some interesting conclusions regarding the Roman battle experience. Although the title of the present article is deliberately reminiscent of Keegans pioneering work, I will not attempt in such a short compass to cover anything like the range of topics which he addressed in relation to his three selected battles. Ancient historians applying Keegans techniques to hoplite clashes as a generic phenomenon have been able to do so only through paucity of evidence and through the comparative simplicity of such clashes, and even then they can be accused of downplaying changes over time and the contribution of other troop types. The much larger Roman field engagements involved far more complex tactical and grand tactical manoeuvres (including the enigmatic operation of multiple infantry lines), to the point where it is even possible to analyse individual engagements like Cannae and Cynoscephalae as freestanding case studies.9 Roman battles also entailed more significant employment of combined arms tactics than in traditional hoplite warfare, and there is no space here to do as Keegan did and survey all the possible combat interactions of one arm against another, especially since Roman cavalry warfare has already received significant attention from other scholars.10 Instead of trying to cover all these different aspects, I will focus more narrowly- on the Roman counterpart of the othismos debate, namely on the question of what form close range clashes between massed heavy infantry took in the Roman period. Although other factors like skirmishing and grand tactical encirclements had become more prominent than in hoplite times, the decisive element in the great majority of Roman battles remained the confrontation between the legionaries and their infantry opponents. Since legionaries fought enemies as diverse as Celtic swordsmen and Greek pikemen, as well as engaging in the symmetrical confrontations more characteristic of the hoplite era, one must expect to find significant variation in battle mechanics. However, important common themes do emerge, and by synthesizing the evidence which we have of these diverse engagements, primarily from the many classic battles of the middle and late Republic, I will attempt to show that Roman infantry combat must have taken a very different form than either the othismos image of hoplite warfare or the dramatic and chaotic sword duels of Hollywood epic might suggest. II. SOURCES OF EVIDENCE Sadly, we do not possess for Roman battles anything like the soldiers eye view which memoirs give us for more recent military history. Battle poetry, like that by 6 See H. Delbruck, History of the Art of War, i, Warfare in Antiquity (trans.I975); J. Kromayer and G. Veith, Heerwesen und Kriegfuhrung der Griechen undRomer(i 928). 7 See, for example, J. Peddie, The Roman War Machine (I994); C. M. Gilliver, The Roman Army at War (I 999). 8 See, in particular, A. K. Goldsworthy, The Roman chs 4-6; Army at War, I00 BC-AD 200 (I996), P. A. G. Sabin, The mechanics of battle in the Second Punic War, in T. J. Cornell, N. B. Rankov and P. A. G. Sabin (eds), The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, BICS Supplement 67 (I996), 59-79; A. D. Lee, Morale and the Roman experience of battle, in Lloyd, op. cit. (n. 3), I99-2I7; A. Zhmodikov, Roman Republican heavy infantrymen in battle (IV-II centuries BC), Historia 49/I (2000), 67-78. 9 See M. Samuels, The reality of Cannae, Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen 47 (I990), 7-29; N. G. L. Hammond, The campaign and battle of Cynoscephalae (I 97 BC), JHS i o8 (i 988), 60-82. 10 See K. R. Dixon and P. Southern, The Roman Cavalry (I992); A. Hyland, Equus: The Horse in the eadem, Training the Roman Roman World (I990); Cavalry. from Arrians Ars Tactica (I 993); Goldsworthy, op. cit. (n. 8), 228-44. This content downloaded from 132.177.228.65 on Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:56:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE FACE OF ROMAN 3 BATTLE Homer and the lyric poets or by the anonymous bards of the Celtic and Germanic peoples, can sometimes provide similar vivid anecdotes, but surviving Roman examples are too stylized to be of much help.1 However, we do have several more indirect types of sources, which in combination cast significant light on the experience involved. Most important are the many battle pieces contained within ancient literary accounts of Roman history. Some of these, such as Livys descriptions of fourth-century engagements, are of highly dubious provenance, and may have simply been invented for literary or patriotic effect.2 However, others seem to be based on much more reliable evidence, either tracing back ultimately to eye-witnesses of the battles concerned or else written by an eye-witness, most crucially of course Caesar himself. One must never discount the possibility of literary distortions in even the most plausible battle piece, but a greater problem for our present purposes is that, apart from occasional anecdotes, the writers rarely go into detail on the actual tactical mechanics of the fighting. They resort instead to euphemisms, of the kind which have been used throughout military history and which Keegan tried to deconstruct for later battles when he analysed exactly what processes such as driving back the enemy really involved.13 One might hope for more specific details from a different category of literary sources, namely the various tactical treatises produced in the Roman era. Unfortunately, the writers often had limited military experience and produced derivative compilations based as much on Hellenistic as on Roman military practice. Our most detailed firsthand account of the deployment of a Roman army - Arrians battle order against the Alans - describes a special circumstance in which the Roman infantry formed a continuous phalanx to counter enemies who were mounted rather than on foot.14 Although there are some useful snippets in the works of theorists such as Onasander and Vegetius, these writers do not clearly elucidate the low level tactical details of infantry combat any more than the historians do.15 Archaeology contributes to our understanding of Roman infantry battle by giving us a clear idea of the arms and armour involved. Far more equipment has survived from Imperial than from Republican times, but since the basic pattern of legionaries protected by an open helmet, body armour, and tall curved shield and armed with heavy javelins and a short sword persisted throughout, this does not matter too much for present purposes.16 Much has been made of how Greek hoplite equipment like the closed Corinthian helmet and the unwieldy round shield projecting off to the bearers left made frontal charges by a massed phalanx the only way to fight, but even this interpretation depends on literary evidence like Thucydides famous account of the first battle of Mantinea (5.66-74) as much as on equipment analysis alone.17 Roman equipment was clearly much more flexible than that of hoplites or of Hellenistic pikemen (cf. Polybius I8.30-2), making it even harder to deduce actual fighting methods from the static remnants we possess. However, the depiction of combat on reliefs like those from Adamklissi and Trajans Column offsets this problem to some extent, and when used in combination with other sources, the archaeological evidence does help us to tackle the overall jigsaw puzzle.18 The final relevant category of source material consists of extrapolations from more recent experience. It is obviously perilous to draw comparisons with the much better 11 See H. van Wees, Heroes, knights and nutters: warrior mentality in Homer, in Lloyd, op. cit. (n. 3), i-86; P. A. G. Sabin, Maldon AD 99I, Slingshot I 8I (I 995), 26-3I - 12 See P. G. Walsh, Livy. His Historical Aims and Methods (i 96 I); T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome (I995), I-30. For an excellent survey of the impact of different styles of analysis among ancient writers, see J. E. Lendon, The rhetoric of combat: Greek military theory and Roman culture in Julius Caesars battle Classical Antiquity i8/i descriptions, (I999), 13 273-32914 See E. L. Wheeler, The legion as phalanx, Chiron 9 (I 979), 303-I 8. 15 A useful discussion of the treatises as a genre is B. Campbell, Teach yourself how to be a general, YRS 77 (I 987), I 3-29. See also Gilliver, op. cit. (n. 7). 16 See M. C. Bishop and J. C. N. Coulston, Roman Military Equipment (I 993). 17 See J. K. Anderson, Hoplite weapons and offensive arms; V. D. Hanson, Hoplite technology in hoplite battle, in Hanson, op. cit. (n. 3, I99I), I5-37, 63-84. 18 See Goldsworthy, op. cit. (n. 8), 2I7-I9; P. Connolly, The Roman fighting technique deduced from armour and weaponry, in V. A. Maxfield and M. J. Dobson (eds), Roman FrontierStudies I989 358-63. This content downloaded from 132.177.228.65 on Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:56:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions (I99I), 4 PHILIP SABIN documented infantry clashes of the gunpowder era, since military technology has changed so much over the intervening centuries. However, the instincts and psychological pressures affecting massed formations of troops in close proximity to similar opposing formations are unlikely to have changed anything like as much over what is an insignificant interval in evolutionary terms. Hence, several recent scholars have made good use of modern findings regarding the psychology of men in battle as a contribution to their analyses of ancient morale.19 When a pattern emerges from the ancient evidence about human behaviour in combat, it has greater credibility and resonance if it chimes with modern experience - Caesars description of men slipping away from the rear of his hard-pressed cohorts at the Sambre (BG 2.25) is a case in point, since this accords exactly with how Napoleonic infantry columns seem to have broken from the back rather than the front.20 Even in combination, these various types of sources do not paint a clear picture of what Roman infantry combat involved (any more than the equivalent Greek evidence conclusively supports or refutes the othismos theory, or shows exactly why formation depth was such an asset). However, the sources do provide enough clues to enable us to reconstruct the overall parameters of Roman infantry clashes, and thereby to set up certain yardsticks against which contending models may be tested. To use a scientific analogy, ancient infantry combat is rather like a black box - we cannot discern its internal workings directly, but by observing different inputs and outputs, we may construct and evaluate various hypotheses about what is going on inside. I will now explore the outward features of the black box by discussing several key parameters about which the ancient evidence is reasonably clear. III. OVERALL CHARACTERISTICS Four features in particular set the context for any attempt to explain the mechanics of Roman infantry combat. These are the duration of the clashes, the casualties inflicted on both sides, the mobility of the two fighting lines, and the role played by supporting ranks behind those initially engaged. I will discuss each of these four features in turn. As regards duration, Roman infantry clashes were sometimes decided very quickly by one side giving way at (or even before) the first shock. Livy describes this happening to the Romans themselves at the Allia and Herdonea, and to their enemies at Ibera and Agrigentum (5.38, 23.29, 25.2I, 25.40). Goldsworthy cites several similar instances from late Republican and early Imperial times, and argues that such quick decisions were commoner in these periods than in earlier or later eras of Roman history.21 More usually, however, Roman infantry battles involved a drawn-out engagement before either side finally broke and ran. The crucial question is, was the duration of these more prolonged engagements generally measured in minutes or in hours? Our sources certainly speak in terms of the latter. Livy explicitly describes particular Roman battles as lasting several hours (e.g. 22.6, 23.40, 24.15, 25.I9, 27.2, 27. I2), Plutarch (Aem. 22) says that Pydna was decided unusually speedily in just one hour, and Vegetius (3.9) claims that battles were usually resolved in two or three hours. One might suspect that these statements by later writers are ill-informed, or include other phases such as preliminary skirmishing as well as the actual heavy infantry clash. that an isolated However, Caesar makes very clear in his account of Ilerda (BC I.45-7) contest between several cohorts of legionaries could indeed last as long as five hours. Even more conclusive is the evidence from the internal clock provided in a significant number of Roman battles by manoeuvres at the grand tactical level. To take just the most striking examples, it must have taken at least an hour, and probably a lot longer, for the Gallic and Spanish cavalry at Cannae to beat the Roman cavalry, ride 19 See, in particular, the various essays in Lloyd, op. cit. (n. 3). 20 See J. Keegan, The Face of Battle (I 976), I 7 I -4. 21 See Goldsworthy, op. cit. (n. 8), 2OI-6idem, Legionaries and warbands: an historical overview, Slingshot I99 (I998), 9-I4. This content downloaded from 132.177.228.65 on Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:56:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE FACE OF ROMAN 5 BATTLE round to the other wing to see off the Italian cavalry, and then to take the Roman infantry in the rear (Polybius 3.I13-I6). The same applies to Nero at the Metaurus, moving his infantry from the Roman right wing round the back of his own armys left to assail the Punic right from behind ... Purchase answer to see full attachment