Innholdsfortegnelse for AW XV.6 i Ancient Warfare Magazine

EDITORIAL – Power in the north The reasons for Alexander the Great's attraction are plain as day. Here was a young king who burst out of Greece and in the space of a few years toppled the Persian empire, and in a few more marched his army all the way to India. He then marched all the way back and died, still young, at the height of his power. It's a story made to be remembered. And yet, if you consider what his father managed before him, it's obvious the apple didn't fall far from the tree. The youngest son of the king of a minor northern kingdom may never have expected to rule his own land. But when his brother died in battle, Philip became king when he was…

ANCIENT BATTLE FORMATIONS Swanton here makes a careful study of the primary sources of the principal formations of the ancient world, determining their composition, function and efficacy. Exploring in a new way the battle-winning formations of heavy and light infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots, Swanton explores how these formations bolstered the individual's soldier's willingness to fight. He examines especially formations used for massed infantry: the Greek hoplite phalanx, the Macedonian sarissa phalanx, and the Roman triplex acies. Swanton re-evaluates the sources of these well-known formations in new ways to shed fresh light on how they were organized and how they worked, challenging many conventional notions. He reaches some surprising conclusions such as that such formations consisted of continuous lines in open order, with file spaces wide enough to allow embattled…

We also have evidence of Domitian's Dacian campaign in the remarkable tombstone of Tiberius Claudius Maximus (AE (1985) 721) from Philippi in Greece. Tiberius tell us that he had served in Legio VII Claudia Pia Fidelis in Domitian's Dacian War, winning promotion as well as decorations. He later also served in Trajan's Dacian campaigns, and it was Maximus who brought the decapitated head of Decebalus back to the emperor; this event was even recorded on Trajan's column (see AW 15.1).…

REVIEWS By Sonya Nevin ISBN: 978-1350157590 Bloomsbury Publishing (2022) – £24.99 www.bloomsbury.com In The Idea of Marathon, Sonya Nevin endeavours to clarify the political and cultural landscapes of the Greek and Persian worlds that gave rise to the conflict at Marathon. Predominantly following Herodotus, Nevin emphasizes the definitive roles played by the dominant historical figures in both Greece and Persia. In Athens, the Cimonids are identified as the family more involved than any other in the Battle of Marathon. This focus on the influence of individuals continues as focus moves to Sparta, with the conflicting roles of kings Cleomenes and Demaratus influencing Spartan tendencies towards anti-Persian alliances. After a brief foray into the dynamics of the late sixth century BC, attention then turns to Persia. Nevin admits that our knowledge…

The excavations at Vindolanda in northern Britain have long produced exciting finds. The year 2022 was no exception. From the Period I fort (ca. AD 85-92), a decorative copper alloy strap adornment or terminal was recovered. It may have been part of a horse harness or the rider's own panoply. When found, the heart-shaped object still retained its original yellow-gold colour. A copper alloy arrowhead was uncovered from the Period IV fort (AD 104-120), when it was occupied by soldiers of Cohors I Tungrorum. It was found with a meat hook and an animal bone. A copper alloy cavalry junction loop, dated to ca. AD 117-120, was also retrieved. The artefact would have been affixed by two rivets to a leather strap as part of an assembly in a horse's…

SPECIAL In ancient cultures, it's clear that leading from the front was an essential facet of command. Societal traditions, military demands, and personalities all figured. Some, like Alexander the Great, were admired but ultimately critiqued for their recklessness. Others, like Julius Caesar, took pragmatic risks in defined circumstances. Contemporaries critiqued the relative benefits and heightened risks of such actions. Though there were always battlefield imperatives, the reasons for leading in person were not exclusively military. Some made their reputations – in politics and war – by leading from the front. Others lost far more than that. Let's see why commanders led from the front. Homeric ideals and spolia opima Powerful cultural drivers influenced ancient societies in warfare and command behaviour. Dominating Hellenic and Roman culture, some ideals of ancient leadership…

The Dacians had long been considered a threat to the borders of the Roman empire; with a boundary along the Danube, their territory threatened the borders of the province of Moesia. Under both Augustus and Nero Dacians had been settled within Moesia. In the year of 69, the Roxolani and Iazyges (Dacia's neighbours) invaded across the Danube and were repelled. On that occasion, the governor of Moesia had been killed fighting the Iazyges. Vespasian had then reorganised the frontier and began building several new fortifications, basing legions at Carnuntum and Vindobona. Thrace was made a province, and the army of Moesia now consisted of four legions. Titus and Domitian continued this policy and it may have been Domitian who was responsible for the increased presence (and status) of the Danubian…

By Andreas Konecny and Nicholas Sekunda (eds.) ISBN: 978-3851612714 Phoibos Verlag (2022) – €89.00 www.phoibos.at This collection of eleven papers commemorates the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Plataea (or indeed Plataiai) fought in August 479 BC. This was indeed “a battle which shaped history”, as Sekunda opines in his preface. Plataea is also a battle that has been analysed many times. After a brief introduction by Konecny (“The road to Plataiai”), topics are covered in three sections. These include the prominent individuals in the first section – Xerxes, Pausanias, and Aristides are dealt with by Ian Macgregor Morris (also referred to as Macgregor-Morris), Mardonius by Josef Wiesehofer. This is followed by a section on “Strategy and tactics” (Greek logistics by Nicholas Sekunda, topography and tactics by Konecny, the ‘face’…

Dear sir, It's exciting to see the new diploma fragments from Perrhe (Turkey) (AW XV.4, p. 6), and we look forward to the official publication in due course. From the excellent photograph, it appears that the diploma was issued under the Syrian governor Gargilius Antiquus (his name is visible on line 9), who was consul in AD 119, following his governorship of Arabia, and whose career was crowned by the coveted proconsulship of Asia in AD 134/5 under Antoninus Pius. Any governorship of Syria, a more important province than Arabia, but less so than Asia, would naturally have fallen somewhere between those dates. Although the diploma was not (as your correspondent writes) issued to a veteran named Antiquus, it is difficult to tell from the photo whether the name of…

An immersive event such as this provides for experimental archaeology and the collection of experiential data that helps us understand how elements of the hoplite panoply could have been worn or used under often harsh conditions such as long marches under the Greek summer sun, in physical clashes between hoplites, in minutiae of drill and deployment. Paul Bardunias and Giannis Kadoglou devised a series of experiments designed to provide data on the manner in which the cohesion of large groups of men breaks down and reforms as they deploy and advance to battle. We also ran a series of experiments in front of a live audience to demonstrate the crushing force generated during a pushing phase of battle known as othismos. In this way we educated those in attendance about…

THEME: The rise of Macedon Mountainous northern isolation saw Thessaly regarded as ‘semi-Hellenized’, with its own separate, stratified society that was considered decades behind Greece developmentally. Geography also endowed the region with the largest stretches of grassland in Greece, enabling it to produce grain for export and horses, with Thessalian cavalry considered Greece's best. Rich and populous, Thessaly's potential was ruined by internal divisions. The area was divided into four administrative regions called tetrads: Pelasgiotis, Phthiotis, Thessaliotis, and Histiaeotis, dominated by aristocratic landowners. The Thessalian polity also incorporated surrounding peoples in Perrhaebia, Magnesia, Achaea, Dolopia, Ainis, Malis, and Oetaea as subordinate perioeci (“dwellers around”). There was also a subjugated underclass called the penestae, who may have had a role similar to the Spartan helots. The history of these social and…

THEME: The rise of Macedon Peltasts were mobile, fast-moving, lightly armed and armoured skirmishers, named for the small shield they carried, the pelta, that might have been circular or crescent shaped. The key strength of peltasts was their ability to hurt heavy infantry without injury to themselves. Their light armour, usually no more than a helmet and possibly greaves, meant they could run at their enemy, throw their javelins, and quickly withdraw to safety. When the enemy had lost enough men and was tired and becoming disorganized, the peltasts would close-in for hand-tohand combat with their curved knives and if they were wealthy enough – short swords. Some early peltasts were also equipped with long spears like the Bronze Age Greeks. Alternatively, they would set ambushes in difficult terrain, such…

MILITARY THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE AGE OF XENOPHON By J.K. Anderson University of California Press, 1970 ISBN: 978-0520015647 First published in 1970 and still a classic of fourth century warfare, Anderson is a first stop for any history of the way wars were fought up to the dawn of the Macedonian age to give a context for how the new juggernaut arose and the Greece into which it sailed, inexorably. Revisiting Anderson's scholarship is always rewarding. A COMPANION TO ANCIENT MACEDONIA Edited by J. Roisman and I. Worthington Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 ISBN: 978-1405179362 Featuring essays commissioned from established scholars and new voices, this Companion explores the political, military, social, economic, and cultural history of Macedonia from the archaic period through to the end of the Roman period. It gives both…

Diodorus tells us (16.3.1-2) that it was Philip who introduced improvements in the organisation of Macedonian armies and introduced new a formation, equipment and tactics. There is no sound reason to reject this. The formation was the phalanx, made up of some 9,000 (9,216 if we seek precision) phalangites or pezhetairoi (“foot-companions”). The phalanx was organised into six taxeis (sing. taxis), each with 1,500 men (or 1,536) each recruited from men of one of the six regions of Macedonia. In usual circumstances, this formation was drawn up sixteen ranks deep, although it had remarkable tactical flexibility. Here we see the left-most man of the Macedonian phalanx with his sarissa and pelte shield. The sarissae of the men behind him extend beyond him offering additional offensive threats whilst he is the…