Innholdsfortegnelse for AW XIV.6 i Ancient Warfare Magazine

EDITORIAL - Then and now Anyone who has ever published anything will recognize the feeling of getting that first copy back from the printer. It’s a great feeling, and then you open it up and spot a typo or realize you should have done something differently. It’s good to be critical of your own work, I’m sure. If you’re in magazine publishing it can be strangely startling to look at a copy that, by the time you see it, feels old already while the next edition is clamouring for attention. It’s different with issues from a long time ago, however. Incidental articles excepted, we’ve only had an Assyrian theme once before. That was issue V-4, published in 2011. It feels like rediscovering my own work. It looks different, that’s for…

The beginnings of Urartu were humble. The mountains and valleys of eastern Anatolia harboured many small kingdoms that were periodically raided by Assyrian expeditions. In the late twelfth century BC, Tiglath-Pileser I bragged of defeating no less than 23 kings in this area. Possibly banding together to defend themselves, a kingdom emerged, probably in the tenth century BC, whose rulers referred to themselves as “Kings of Nairi”. The Assyrians called the land Urartu. Its first recorded king is Arramu (r. 858-844). The King List (see text box) shows that all kings had relatively long reigns, implying stability although there were probably crises and civil wars or feuds within the royal family. On a statue of Rusa I (r. 735-713) from Musasir an inscription states “With two horses and one charioteer…

The first Assyrian cavalrymen appear on the palace reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) from Nimrud. These cavalrymen were represented in pairs: one of them was a horse archer in pointed helmet, while the other cavalryman was equipped with a rounded shield and spear. The armoured cavalrymen appear on the palace reliefs of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC). They wore scale-armour waistcoats (at that time made of iron plates) and the characteristic Assyrian pointed helmet. It seems that the two cavalry arms, the cavalry lancers and cavalry archers, were separated at that time. Only the soldiers of the cavalry bodyguard were equipped with both a lance and a bow. It is important to note that the armoured cavalry lancers were represented as fighting in pairs, which at that point means that…

Armed Force in the Teispid-Achaemenid Empire Past Approaches, Future Prospects By Dr. Sean Manning ISBN: 978-3515127752 Franz Steiner Verlag (2021) - €74.00 www.steiner-verlag.de Sean Manning is on a mission. He has spent several years immersed in the military history of the Achaemenid Empire and this excellent, major contribution to the literature of ancient warfare is based on his doctoral thesis. He started out (the journey is well documented on his website http://bookandsword/.com) with a feeling that "the scholarship on Achaemenid armies in English was repetitive and fell apart at the first gentle question." His conclusion from a comprehensive review of the research and more general studies published over the past 120 years is that most scholars have been overdependent on classical literature as their main source. He traces this back…

The Assyrians fought to impose divine Order on the world and any who opposed them were considered the forces of Chaos. From the reign of Sargon II (722-705 BC), cavalry became the decisive arm of the Assyrian armies that brought divine Order upon the world. Here we see an Assyrian cavalryman of the 8th century BC armed with thrusting spear and wearing an armoured waistcoat and the typical conical helmet of the Assyrian cavalryman, fighting hand-to-hand with an Urartian royal guard who is unarmoured but has both a shield and typical triangular sword as well as a bowcase. Scenes just like this played out many times across several centuries as Assyria and Urartu fought one another again and again in an unending cycle of Order versus Chaos (depending on whose…

We read, hear and think about war on a regular basis, and when we do, this book argues, western thinking ‘turns and returns to ancient Greek writing on the subject’. The chapters in Part 1 (‘Rethinking the Ancient, in View of the Modern’) discuss how modern experiences of warfare can prompt us to explore ancient wars in new ways. In Part 2 (‘Rethinking the Modern, in View of the Ancient’), contributors consider the ways in which ancient warfare might illuminate aspects of the modern. A third section (‘Other Moderns, Other Ancients’) analyses past uses of ancient texts on warfare, paving the way for a discussion in the Epilogue of the Theater of War project, which uses Greek drama to engage military and civilian communities in discussion of issues, such as…

In contrast to Eumenes, Quintus Sertorius began his career in a more conventional fashion, undergoing a formal Roman education before joining the military to serve initially as a tribunus militum under Servilius Caepio. Like Eumenes, Sertorius was considered a relative outsider in Roman politics, coming from the Sabine town of Nursia. Whilst having citizenship and the patronage of established Roman nobiles, the label of novus homo would be used against him throughout his career. Sertorius in uncertain times Demonstrating resilience as one of the few survivors of the military disaster of the Battle of Arausio in 104 BC, swimming across the River Rhone to escape, Sertorius’ career took a less conventional course when he became a spy amongst the Cimbri, reporting back to Gaius Marius. His ability to blend in…

In 714 BC, Sargon II (r. 722–705 BC) invaded the Kingdom of Urartu and fought against its king, Rusa I (r. 735–714 BC). Sargon’s predecessor, Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745–727 BC), had recognised the rising threat that Urartu posed, and Rusa had backed a rival in the kingdom of Mannea who overthrew the Assyrian candidate. Several other states joined this rebellion against Assyrian authority. Sargon prepared and, in 716 BC, he retook Mannea, which surrendered unconditionally; the other rebel client states soon followed suit, probably exceeding Sargon’s hopes. He reclaimed or took over Mannea, Karalla, Allabria, and Kishesim, and his armies marched over 600 miles (965 kilometres). Sargon’s armies included cavalry, heavy infantry, archers, levies, Gurrean spearmen, and Itu’ean archers, and the further into new territory they progressed, the more violent…

CENTURION AUTONOMY ON THE BATTLEFIELD, 218 BC – AD 73 In the writings of Livy, Caesar, Plutarch, Appian, and Josephus, centurions are frequently credited with superhuman acts of daring valour; they were the first to scale walls, assault the interlocked shields of a phalanx, or sacrifice their lives for their unit. Indeed, while many of these anecdotes could be dismissed as fanciful embellishments, the sheer volume of accounts of centurions vainly throwing themselves into the teeth of battle indicates that either Polybius’ characterization of the ‘ideal’ centurion was inaccurate, or the Roman army did a poor job of recruiting, training, and promoting ‘ideal’ centurions. In an attempt to rationalize this contradiction, many modern scholars make the argument that the Roman army, as an institution, was designed to promote individual acts…

THE ANCIENT ASSYRIANS By Mark Healy Osprey, 1991 ISBN: 978-1855321632 This volume in Osprey’s Elite series uses the typical format of history and analysis combined with photographs and colour plates (by the revered Angus McBride) to evoke and give a flavour of how the ancient Assyrians fought from the tenth century BC down to the seventh. THE CAMPAIGNS OF SARGON II, KING OF ASSYRIA, 721-705 B.C. By Sarah C. Melville University of Oklahoma Press, 2016 ISBN: 978-0806154039 Melville analyses each of Sargon Il’s campaigns in the sixteen years of his rule as he sought to extend Assyrian territory and secure his throne. Under Sargon II, Assyrian armed forces - infantry, cavalry, and chariotry - won victories in all types of terrain and against enemies of many different kinds, forging an…