A "New" Video of Roman Battle Tactics

[Easy E]

Greetings,

I ran across this "new" (6 days old when I say it) video about Roman Battle Tactics:



It posits that there are three main elements of Roman Battle Tactics that determine what a battle may actually have looked like:

1. Low Casualties until the rout
2. Battles were mobile, not static battle lines
3. Romans had some way to rotate in fresh troops

The video seems to try to use primary sources when possible, but it doesn't really address that many of the works they mention are of vastly different time periods.  Roman warfare and techniques were not static.  It evolved considerably based on the realities of any given time frame.  The kingdom of Rome fought very differently than the Republic and the Republic fought differently than the Empire, and the Late Empire was vastly different than the Early Empire.  To roll all those into one "model" of Roman warfare is a huge flaw. 

The video does put a lot of emphasis on the psychology of battle, based on "WW2" research which I feel is a huge flaw in the argument.  The claim that modern psychology has not changed from "ancient" psychology is..... speculative at best.  After all, the Ancients had a wildly different outlook on life, a different relationship with death, and a closer experience of slaughter than post-Industrial citizens. I mean, the moving picture greatly changed how "modern" humans dream and see the world around them.  Why would we assume that ancient and modern psychology would be remotely similar?   

Of course, we will never really know and can speculate at best.  I would be interested in your thoughts on the video as well. 

[cadbren]

Some good stuff to ponder. He makes three points but doesn't say anything about the third. It would be really interesting to have heard the various theories on how the troops were rotated out mid battle.

As he points out, even fit soldiers can only fight for short periods of time so the enemy isn't always swinging weapons at you. During these lulls might be when the Romans were able to swap out the front line for fresh troops.

[Easy E]

I think he is planning a part two to cover that in greater detail.  I am interested on what he has to say.

[ithoriel]

I'm intrigued by the idea that battle lines clashed in bits and pieces rather than as a whole, with what were almost local raids on the enemy being conducted by the bold. Intrigued but far from convinced.

My time spent fencing at school and uni makes me certain that troops could not possibly have chopped and hacked at each other for hours - and no one was trying to kill me! However committing sections of the line sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I too will be interested to see part two and see what he has to say on the relief of front rankers but I fear that short of excavating new evidence from the field or from the world's extensive archives we will never truly know how it was done.

As a wargamer I am sometimes glad to be able to say,"I may not be right but you cannot prove me wrong!" 

[Easy E]

Here's part II of the series. 



I did not find this one as interesting as the first, but it does talk a bit more about the "Mobility" of Roman warfare. 

It also discusses how they may have replenished troops.  I found their discussion on this topic.... not very fulfilling.

[carlos marighela]

"The claim that modern psychology has not changed from "ancient" psychology is..... speculative at best."

As Sextus Freudius is alleged to have remarked: 'Sometimes a scytale is just a scytale.... now tell me all about your relationship with your mother'.

[carlos marighela]

By the by, SLA Marshall's claims on combat participation, have been shown to be either erroneous or at best readily overcome by adequate training. Men Against Fire has been pretty comprehensively debunked over the years. It was a completely non-scientific study with extremely dubious methodology, if you can call it that.

If the video creators are basing their central thesis on  Men Against Fire it's about time they read something a little more current, perhaps starting with Grossman's On Killing.

Given that basic level of scholarship I would be inclined to take the whole thing with a grain of salt as it seems to be a central conceit of the first episode.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Marshall’s findings remain basically valid, hardly thoroughly debunked. I think most criticisms of him are from those who looked upon his writings as being some sort of personal besmirching of American fighting-men or has a political side to it. As late as 1986 his book was required reading for ROTC cadets, as I can personally attest.   Reviews of his work in 1990 found his notes basically matching his published statements. 

I do want to look at the book On Killing you mention

[carlos marighela]

The most potent criticism of Marshall is his methodology or lack thereof, not the relative merits of US military prowess, which, frankly speaking, has never been particularly stellar anyway. I don't subscribe to the view that Marshall made up his claims but the fact remains that it is not a scientific study.

Grossman, essentially takes Marshall's thesis as his start point but then attempts to demonstrate how training, indoctrination/ battle inoculation can overcome the tendency to act passively. There are criticisms that can be made of Grossman's work, particularly some of the latter points he attempts to make about the effect of the media and cinema in de-sensitising and making acts of violence more acceptable  and plenty have been made but it is a thought provoking read and well worth picking up a copy.

With regard to the topic at hand the creators of the video make the point themselves that the average Roman legionnaire was subject to a lengthy training regime, no doubt more brutal and every bit as realistic as modern methods, which rather undercuts their attempts to apply Men Against Fire to the mindset of the average Roman soldier, leaving aside whatever can be said about the relative issues of close order conflict, the absence of the 'lonely battlefield' etc, etc.

[carlos marighela]

By the by, another one to add to your list on the psychology of killing in group settings, albeit in wildly different circumsatnces is Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Grossman, essentially takes Marshall's thesis as his start point but then attempts to demonstrate how training, indoctrination/ battle inoculation can overcome the tendency to act passively. There are criticisms that can be made of Grossman's work, particularly some of the latter points he attempts to make about the effect of the media and cinema in de-sensitising and making acts of violence more acceptable  and plenty have been made but it is a thought provoking read and well worth picking up a copy.


I believe creating training to overcome the low fire ratios was the whole point of Marshall’s book in the first place. 

As for Romans, i believe the gladiator fights were specifically done to help instill a propensity to kill in the average citizen.  I think ancient cultures knew that the
at the majority of soldiers, particularly levies, didn’t want to get too close to the enemy and probably saw equal numbers of holding back unless goaded forward by a variety of means.  I don’t think that short lifespans made them ultimately value their personal lives less, but glory might well have been perceived as having a slightly lesser cost if you died in battle in your twenties or thirties compared to a “natural”death at 40, but it was still death and something feared.

[FreakyFenton]

"Hold up guys, the Centurio has sounded the replacement whistle, we can't do anything while they shuffle around awkwardly."

I agree with the others here that we can only guess from the historical particles that have been delivered to us or have been found as well as take witnesses into account. As this can be a mixed bag in regards to sources and their credibility, not just from current historians, but people who would write these events down in their times if at all write and not just report by word of mouth, we are left to make educated guesses and leave everyone to their own while avoiding outlier opinions. And forever a problem of ancient history.

On another hand, ahistorical equating of modern battle tactics to ancient battle tactics always seems far fetched and frankly weird in my opinion. Moreso the statement of him adding "an accurate portrayal of roman battle tactics". Accurate according to who? Accurate would be better substituted with possible portrayal of roman battle tactics. (As well as the clips of riding through heavily forested areas, which was a faux pas for fear of hurting the horse and in turn the rider.) However the likening of roman fighting to the behaviour of riot control groups toward other groups makes an interesting point and I can get behind the idea of this dynamic battle described therein.

His three points of casualties were low until the rout, the battles were mobile and a system of replacing men seem to be rooted in common sense however. Furthermore I would add to the points others have made. Roman soldiers knew of Decimation, similiarly, Roman spirit was different (they did make fun of their disabled, and what is often lauded as a high culture had -as others have pointed out- commercialised killing as a public event.).

The point made about the quality of centurions depending on their propensity for violence or their aggressive nature seems interesting? As we often later find discipline to be better as units that solely relied on aggression for aggressions sake had high losses and often didn't endure in the field (.i.e. Waffen SS units who excelled in violence but where sub standard apart from that factor to use another ahistorical comparison.) Curiously I find the use of the Optio as the ancient equivalent of the napoleonic Spieß or Pike amusing, as this concept seemed to have endured quite considerably. Similiarly the point of the standard bearer as a rallypoint or nucleus of the unit I definitely agree with as this was similiarly employed in Napoleonic warfare for instance.

I do usually not comment on such things, as it can easily spiral out, but I find the points made interesting and have now returned a third time to amend my post and add things that stuck out to me.

I do however like the discussion that developed from this and am curious to see what others might comment.

[Easy E]

Another interesting book about the psychology of killing that is directly related to Ancient Combat is this book:



It argues that ancient people were actually much closer to carnage and violence than "modern" people and were therefore more 'hardened" to it.  Sacrifice and butchery were part of day to day life, and gore was typically up close and personal if you wanted to have a meal.  It is a direct repudiation of the idea that Men Under FIre would apply at all to an ancient people. 

The actual thesis is more expansive than what I wrote, but this is an element of the larger thesis:

What draws our species to war? What makes us see violence as a kind of sacred duty, or a ritual that boys must undergo to become men? Here the author takes on a journey from the elaborate human sacrifices of the ancient world to the carnage and holocaust of 20th-century "total war." Ehrenreich sifts deftly through the fragile records of prehistory and discovers the wellspring of war in an unexpected place—not in a killer instinct unique to the males of our species, but in the blood rites early humans performed to reenact their terrifying experiences of predation by stronger carnivores.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Maybe WW2 and later are not as applicable to learn from due to the plethora of long range, and thus impersonal weaponry used, but how about the Napoleonic period or other horse and musket?  There are more than a few recollections of participants observing lines of opposing cavalry passing through each other without a casualty inflicted on either side.  Infantry were found to have very few wounds from the bayonet and the willingness of a force to stand in the face of an opponent’s charge usually came down playing a game of chicken with the charging force.  When one side  broke and ran, it anlmost anlways occurred well before bayonet reach of the combatants. Only in street fights or obscured terrain did things go mano a mano.

[LoxIslay]

I always find amusing how psychology of a Roman soldier is compared to modern people. I doubt that there is a society that wealthy, that religious and militarized today, with such a common ideology. And I doubt that there was one in the last centuries.
The social and economical aspects of live are so different. Alone the fact to life and be born in a big family would give the ancient Roman soldier a different perspective on killing for protection. To serve in the army was also not a duty, but a pillar of the ancient live, that earn you wealth and recognition.
For sure most people still would only kill as much as needed to succeed or survive. I think wars with gunpowder are especially hard to compare to other periods, but for sure you could compare certain aspects from them. The most Importen thing doing so, should always reflect which aspects forced the soldier to behave like this.
Why do we see so many hand to hand combat weapons and designs in ww1, even though the artillery defined this war?
Why did Prussian cavalry charge into their death in the Franco Prussian wars? why did poor Nobels became mercenaries cavalry in the 16th century? And why did napoleonic cavalry didn’t kill each other more effectively? What is the social background rank and mindset of these soldiers? There they likely to earn reputation or status or money by killing or did they protect families their home? Did they see a chance to climb the social ladder through being an effective soldier? Or did they think that an Artillerie shell could end there live in seconds and using a bayonet on the poor guy in front of you would matter?

In the end there will always be more questions then answers. For sure there are always similarities in history, but as the society developed so the did the psychology of the soldier. The human health changed so much over the centuries. We live longer, fight different diseases, are able to cure them and end the live of millions.
Just imagine you are 20 again and compare how it would have been to be a 20 year old soldier in Rome, in the time of your own twenties and now as a young lad in Ukrain. Would you fight, what would you want from your future, how big or small is the world etc.