LegateLivius

You can't got through a Youtube clip of a boat being rowed by slaves ancient Greece and the Roman empire without someone getting hissy fitty about the historically wrong portrayal of rowers being slaves and then going on a diatribe about how in reality men who rowed boats in voyages, trading and commerce, and military expeditions would have been professional freemen. And that any captain worth his salt would look for professionals because despite what movies show illiterate untrained slaves lack the necessary skills to rowing giant boat in the galley class and larger particularly military battleships monsters. So I'm asking does rowing actually require a lot of knowledge and specialized skills? Obviously its already a hard thing to do just going by movies but is it more than just brute force? Why not just teach slaves the skills? Since most rowers were paid professional crews I'd assume that means the specific knowledge needed for moving large ship with oars is far more complicated than just lifting, dropping, and pushing the oar backwards?

Something so common among today's society is how people have a tendency to laugh at how so many old religions especially pagan polytheistic ones that existed before Christians had a god or goddess for seemingly petty stuff such as Silvanus being the patron god of trees. That its common to see devout Abrahamics especially hardcore Christians and Muslim fundamentalists to mock say Egyptian paganism for having a patron god of perfumes, Nefertem. And its not just the hardcore religious who feel this way, that many atheists and other irreligious types also often comment its ridiculous that Celtic religion had a god dedicated to pigs, Moccus. So it makes me curious why old religions before Christianity had so many deities devoted entirely to minor things such as Syn the Goddess of Locks in Scandinavian religion who all locksmiths in the Viking era revered as an all powerful entity and Fornax the Bread Goddess of the Roman Empire. Whats the reason behind this? Was it actually an important thing not to sneer at (as modern humans do) that for example that across East Asia that there exist multiple deities whose sole purpose is for hot baths? Or that West Africa had a god for drums? Was it actually a big deal that so many ponds across Europe once had an entity specifically devoted to each pond and worshiped in reverence for being patron of that small pond not featured in national maps?

Saw the above post and now I'm just as curious as the OP who created it. So can anyone give their take about morale and early gunpowder loudness?

My family is from Portugal. Grandma and Grandparents still take Latin language mass, believing it to be the only legit form of mass....... Now my Avos are pretthy nationalistic, to the point they have been accused of white supremacy by modern woke crowds. Even discounting how seemingly patriotic they are about being Portugeuse, they hold many old views like homosexuality being a great evil, using condom condemns to hell, and so many "rightwing beliefs".............. Yet despite that they will treat statue of nonwhite Jesus used by Brazillians with utmost sacredness, they had prayed to a Lady of Guadalupe statue without hesitation, and despite their bragging about Portuguese pride they treat everybody black, Vietnamese, and so on with complete respect. Even allowing my sister to marry a MidEastern person who attends an Eastern Catholic Church and treating one of my cousins who's dark skinned and half Guatemalan with utmost equality as a family member. However as I said earlier they only attend Latin mass church. They genuinely believe that Language was the one sole thing that kept the whole Church united and Vatican 2 Open a permanent damage to the Church by creating more ethnic strife bby allowing the use of different langauges. That Latin as the sacred liturgy was what keep people from all different churches and races using a variety of art traditions from the stereotypical desert Hispanic design of architectural building to the Lady of La Vang who looks very Vietnamese.............. That the Church as united through Latin and the language effectively shut people from beinging controversial issues to mass such as illegal immigration from non-English countries and white supremacy and ethnic segregation in France and other nations where French is an official language. So they believe despite John Paul II's benevolent intentions, officially allowing Vernacula Mass has destroyed Church unity and is a big reason why stuff like BLM and Latinos refusing to learn English are getting hacked into the Church......... That said I know Eastern Orthodoxy on the fsurface seems dicided by ethnicity...... Yet any devoute Orthodox Christian shares the same views as my grandparents where despite being proud of their ethnicity, they'd ultimately believe we are all human and despite nationality, race, and ethnicity were are all equal under the banner of one church.... And that this is pretty much the stancce of the Orthodox council that all humans within the CHurch are ultimately all human beings equal under the eyes of God........... SO it makes me curious. Oothodox Christianity from what I can read fromt he beginning had always been a supporter of the Vernacular and the Church believes local language liturgy reflects just how much mankind is equal in God's eyes and respectful of all the different cultures under Eastern Orthodoxy. I even seen some theologians in Orthodoxy point out to the Tower of Babel as proof that God does not want a united language in the united Churchh but wants a variety of language used in mass across the entire Orthodoxy. Yet Eastern Orthodoxy is very rigid in art traditions. Where as you have Churches in Peru of Mary wearing Incan clothes and even the Biblical people being represented as different races in a single Church (like a church in Juarez having a white Jesus Christ yet all Mary statues are the nonwhite Lady of Guadalupe) as well as apparitions of Mary appearing as a black woman or an infant Jesus appearing as person from Prague.............. Eatern Orthodoxy demands all MAry icons to appear the same, all Jesus crucifixes with similar appearances, etc. Not only is the Orthodox Church's position is permanent about the racial appearance of Jesus in Church art, they even pretty much only allow one specific style of art. 2D art. Almost all entirely icon with a few glass stains and perhaps a sculpted stone work or two. But all are completely 2 Dimensional and created to show Jesus, Mary, and the Biblical figures looking like a Jewish Palestinians or Hebrew. Unlike Catholicism where you have paintings, marble statues, colored figurrines, and a whole hell of variety of art styles ina single church in addition to the diversification of Biblical figures to represent local population's cultures and ethnic demographs. But somehow despite the reigid art approach, Eastern Orthodoxy is the Church that learned to appreciate vernacular mass centuries early on in Christian history while Catholicism was so harsh about a single language in mass and otehr sacred rites.. And one thats already been dead for centuries by the time of the Crusades, Latin...... So I ask why? Esp since so many people wrongly assume Eastern Orthodoxy is a racist denomination full of segregation or at least orthodoxy is full of ethnic strie in Churches. I seen people assume that they cannot go to a Serbian Orthodox Church if they are not Serbian because they think its a completely different denomination from Ukraine and based on bigotry whether you are Serbian or not sums up what people assume Orthodox Churches are like. Despite what my grandparents believe about Latin being encessary for the Church's unity, I myself find it bizarre it took so long for local language to be used in mass considering how diverse Catholic art tradition is about different cultures and how Catholicism has a tradition of different nationalisies and ethnic groups attending a single parish even in very racist places like Australia. Why did these trends happen?

So many ages ago when I was playing Age of Empires, the very first mission of Caesar's campaign was to wipe out a fleet of pirates. I lost a few times and I remember the Defeat screen saying that because Caesar used his own private fundings for the military expedition, he is pardoned and won't face imprisonment, loss of military and political leadership, and nmnost importantly a lawsuit from the Roman government for loss of warships..... But it sstated something the Republic will take over in battling the pirates since Cesar's defeat alerted the Senate just how big of an issue the pirate attacks are. When I won the campaign, it emphasizes just how big a boost it is to Caesar's career that he managed to wipe out the entire pirate coalition. In addition I finally watched the entire Once Upon a Time In China series for the first time in completeness rather than just stopping at the 3rd movie the last few times I seen the film over the past decades. The 4th movie had Jet Li on the mission to capture the pirates and he doesn't simply use the police but gets an entire militia and round up 50 volunteers so they can capture one of the heads through abn unexpected ship counterattack. He then uses the captured pirate leader to gather intel and attack the pirate base with an elite cadre of volunteers and then continues holding the elader hostage awaiting for the rest of the pirate fleet to attack the enarest town in retaliation for ransacking their unprotected base and in expectation they will try to free their leader by attacking the local prison. He has the complete militia force of over 200 to fortify the town and a big battle takes plae as over 400 pirates besiege the town....... So this makes me wonder........ Were pirates so huge a deal that not only do local militaries like Jet Li's character in Once Upon A Time in China have to mobilize a military force to defend against them but even a brilliant military mind like JUlius Caesar have to be sent in sometimes to battle them? Oh I almost forgot, Ben HUr even has a battle between Greek pirates and the Roman Navy that ended with not just the ROman deeat but the Admiral's ship being destroyed and it kicks off the whole reason why Massala was even able to become a charioteer. Because he saved the admiral from drowning, the Roman militaryman takes him in as an adopted son and gives him funding to become one of the best chariot rider throughout the whole empire. Is this actual realistic? That actual professional navy could lose to a bunch of ragtailed pirates in an engagement? For a long time I couldn't believe Caesar actually had been sent to fight pirates until I learned recently the event was real. And ditto with the idea of a Roman fleet facing defeat from pirates....... Just how far fetched is Once Upon A Time in China sending Jet Li to mobilize a militia to defend a community from pirates? Was piracy really the big a danger?

My medieval buckler replica, made through old school blacksmithing by a HIstorical European Martial Arts (often abbreviated as HEMA) group, just arrived by mail today. It reminds me of a statement I saw a HEMA practitioner made........ I am curious, why is the weapon just as important as the shield is in defensive action? I cannot tell you how people often think of using sword and shield as simple as "wait for the enemy sword to land on your shield, let the sword bounce from impact, and you immediately follow with a strike against your now defensive enemy who's still trying to recover his grip on his sword from the impact". Seriously popular media portrays it this way from movies such as 300 to video games such as Legend of Zelda and live TV such as Deadliest Warriors. Even and educational sources and serious academic studies portray it this way. Can't tell you how many times I seen the History Channel have people test the effectiveness of a shield by banging swords, warhammers, and other heavy weapons against them and there are videos of university experiments you can see on Youtube where they test a shield's effectiveness in precisely the same manner. So I am confused.What is meant by the above quote? I mean if scientists and historians with PhDs are saying a shield is enough for defensive action and the sword is pretty much a purely offensive weapon, why is there a need to learn parries, feints, blocks, etc as you stated in your earlier post? I mean real university experiments portray defensive moves with sword and buckler as merely "let it land, bounce off, than follow up with a sword cut or thrust) as universal standard when it comes to discussing about defensive actions! Is there more to it than simply putting your shield to cover the area that you anticipate will be hit and simply awaiting to hit it while standing still like a stop sign on an intersection? Since Roman sword and shield go hand in hand in Roman swordsmanship reconstruction, I thought to ask here in this forum.

Important to point out in France, people weren't genocided for being Gauls but because they wouldn't surrender. Some of Caesar's most important legions were made up of plenty of recruits from modern day France. And Caesar wanted to grant citizenship to loyal Gaullish soldiers. If Cleopatra had been stubbornly open at resisting Caesar, similar atrocities would have taken place in Egypt. If Caesar's campaign in Britannia had been solidified and the tribes continued to fight, whole villages would have been wiped out. Caesar's brutality was not out of blind hateful racism nor was it done simply for the kicking fun of it. Its motive was around horrifying but effective pragmatism.

One of the cliches about the Battle of Hastings is that the Battle was won Because the Fyrd Militia repeatedly broke out of the Shieldwall to chase the Norman cavalry who suddenly start retreating only to turn around and counterattack or run away further for the rest of the Norman army to hack these isolated Anglo Saxon individuals. In fact the first time this happened in the battle it wasn't even an intentional feign retreat by the Normans-they actually suddenly fled out of panick because they thought their king William was killed and thus when some Fyrd militia broke out to chase them they really had the momentum against the Normans and had Harold sent his entire army to attack and not just these individuals who disobeyed orders, there's a good chance they would have won Hastings. William had to follow the demoralized Norman knights back tot he main army when he actually wanted to press a full cavalry charge and remove his helmet to show he was alive. And it was his infantry who killed some of the early berserking fyrd. IN fact it was from this actual real full on retreat that William observed what happened and decided to test it a few more times and ultimately saw this to be the key ti winning the fight. So he used retreat than counter attack fryd who leave the Anglo-Saxon shield wall over and over and eventually it weakened the Anglo-Saxons enough that he was able to do the killing blow. Now this sounds like typical disorganized poorly trained Medieval Warfare esp since one army was composed almost entirely of militia....... Except in the first major battle of the Vietnam War, Ia Drang....... When the 7th Cavalry Regiment entered the field, one platoon against Colonel Hal Moore's orders spotted some NVA patrols and proceeded to chase it. That unit would get pinned down and spark the first firefight of the whole battle. So while Ia Drang was ultimately won, that specific units suffered the heaviest casualties of any unit. It was like despite all the training for jungle warfare, that platoon's officer suddenly just went "enemy! Lets chase it down!" So it makes me curious. Why is it so difficult to stay in formation and resist the lure of chasing enemies? Why do even disciplined armies suffer from resisting this urge? The Romans even had very heavy specific death sentences for troops who go out on their own to fight of the enemy as one of their most important rules! Forget that, even modern armies of the highest quality like Americans in Vietnam suffered from this! Is it really that hard to obey orders and not chase down fleeing scouts after your unit's sniper killed another one nearby?

Saw this post on Reddit. So I'm now intrigue. Are the Scutum and other military shields much harder than we assume to use in formation and far heavier than people think? Is the weight a major factor in victories from enemies of the Empire esp barbarian tribes in an extended battle?

So many Sword Reconstructionist like ScholaGladiatoria Who Runs a Youtube Channel claim that the Gladius is one of the least effective swords on its own..... That a Gladius user will lose to other sword styles 95%+ of the time according to another Sword Revivalist Metatron on one of his Youtube videos........ But ScholaGladiatoria and Metatron and practically every other Historical European Martial Arts enthusiast online states when you add a rectangular Body size shield into the equation, the Gladius becomes one of the flatout most effective swords and easily a contender for most noob friendly with minimal moveset (think attacks commonly used in formations like stab stab maybe a few cuts stab so common in shield wall fighting).......... But this brings one single but extremely significant detail..................... What about infantry Scouts? And lone defenders in a military building like sentry towers and a small 3 story barracks? Cramped camps? I bring this up because a o you can find on Reddit and Quora multiple users pointing out that Scouts not only would have been used to disorganized combat outside of formation but even single one on one fighting but a lot of times they'd even drop out shields because they'd be too difficult to bring across wild environments like rocky roads full of potholes and caves. Another user also pointed at during the Siege of Rome after the disaster at the Allia Battle, the Celts manage to sneak into a Rome past the watchtower and the Roman miltiai were int for a surprise and had to rush last minute to the hidden pathway the Celts were sneaking into, many of them leaving their shields behind as they rushed. They managed to hold off and force the more heavily armored Gauls who all had shields and other heavy stuff because they were fully pumped up for battle to retreat,killing a surprising so many that ultimately it was the straw that broke Brennus's back and after a female days with some skirmishes in between, he made truce to leave Central Italy in exchange for Gold. So it makes me wonder how much the claim that a shield was necessary to fight with a Gladius even outside o formation is true? Considering the accounts of foot scouts in wars in the Middle East foot scous would travel much lighter because of the heat including dropping large straps of armor and still defeating more individualistic warrior cultures like the Hebrew Zealots and Armenian cavalry harassers in unorganized out-of-formation fighting and a lot of sieges fighting in places too cramped for shields to be used like stairways across towers or inside a bedroom in a Roman barracks or at a bandit's lair climbing a steep hill into caves but Roman infantry still wininig without shields........... Is this claim so common among HEMA and other historical sword recontructionists a massive hyperbole?

Question where do speccialist position goes? I remember reading somehwere that certain units were far more skilled than a typical grunt in the Legions. There's posts on reddit about how scouts would have been far more skilled in single combat because of the nature of their job disallowed using formations much of the time (on top of being far tooooo fewwwwww anyway for formations to matter). To the point they even had to learn how to be effective with a single weapon like a club (even small knives in some mission) in hand alone without any shields because they would travel through narrow mountain passages and thick forests on foot and caves and other places where shields were to bulky to carry around. Some scouts even dropped Gladius for lighter weapons like pointed darts for the sake of silence and light baggage and they'd master footwork and dodging movements and aiming at weak points and other individual skills to kill armored enemies with longer superior weapons. Also is there any truth that cavalry in general would be more skilled with swordplay than the average grunt? A few videos by Youtuber Metatron stated something about cavalry practising hitting dummies while riding out alone and these sword cosntructionits online all emphasize the nature of cavalry meant the skill minimal to operate with a unit is far higher. So Equistes and other cavalry would have had much more practise as individual swordsmen than most recruits in the sword and shield rectangular blocks. A History CHannel documentary even stated Praetorians all would have been amstere swordsman superior than most professional gladiators. So is there sorta a specrtrum of solo skill level depending on unit a recruit was assigned to?

This scene from Alex Kingston's Role As Boudicca in an old movie aired on iTV from the 2000s explains it all. https://forcedcinema.net/video/emily-blunt-and-leanne-rowe-gang-raped-in-boudica/ I had chills just typing it and no readily available image on Google Search of the Bed Device that was used from the movie is available. So that horrifying scene is best as it shows as I couldn't type a description of the whole scene and almost vomited as I was typing. NSFW its extremely brutal so be prepped if you choose to watch it. That said did horrific devices like this actually exist irl? Did the Roman Legions actually employed it as stock equipment in their camp as part of SOP?

Very late response and I hope you still lurk here to read my response. But yes its one of the downfall of the Roman Empire but paradoxically one of the reasons the Roman Empire survived so long. A great introductory book is The True Believer by Eric Hoffer. Its not specifically on the Roman Empire but he does note some universal factors that led to the downfall of civilizations among which he quotes events in the Roman Empire. I'll try to look for quotes. But I hope you are here to see my post. Go read The True Believer and you will see how much education and the elitist intellectuals both destroyed and ensured the survival of the Roman Empire.

Well I have read stuff in Medieval Hagiography saying the Church had succeeded in civilizing warlike backward pagan savages like the Scots which is where the Roman Empire most definitely failed in. I'm not siding with the Church at all as I'm a heretic who personally has apostasized but I can see their point considering Germany started becoming civilized and the country began to develop real infrastructures like bridges, roads, farming communities, etc after the country was converted due to the efforts of various saints. Even in the uninhabitable north full of wilderness. I mean Church influenced converted Sweden and Northern Europe as well as Ireland and Poland and so many places the Romans never got conquered territory and the histories of those places esp Ireland and Poland credits the morals and social order the Church has created in those places as the whole reason they turned from mostly uninhabitable places into civilized kingdoms (I'm not talking about hagiography either but actual history written down and put in school textbooks by the now mostly secular governments of those places). As an example, Romans absolutely failed to spread their architecture, economic model, court system, etc into Scotland but the Church not only converted the whole region but Scottish culture basically became a Roman Catholic one using architecture and so on that was often originating in Italy (and based on some Roman concepts just as the Empire was falling) is what the Church historians and Medievalists meant when they claim the Church succeeded in many areas where the Roman Empire completely failed in. Even the Scandinavians failed to leave a touching mark on Scotland when they attempted colonization and raids and they even stopped going there out of fear due to Scots being so violent and savage even by VIking standards............. Yet the Church was able to convert the whole country and instill Catholic civilization in it and Scotland would be a Roman Catholic country at the core until the Protestant Reformation. Lets not forget the Catholic influence has far expanded further than the Roman Empire ever did outside of Europe........... South America? Brazil alone is as large as the USA which is in the same ballpark as Europe's total landmass even discounting Russia and we are not counting the rest of the world where every nation has a diocese as well as colonies elsewhere like Catholic majority countries today in Africa. But Latin America is proof of how further Church influence has surpassed Rome at its peak on the world. I'm not pro-Church in fact I truly hate Catholic teachings But reading Hagiography that Medievalists have recommended seems to bring me into Saints and Church authority emphasizing how barbarians who Rome failed to civilized were converted into Catholicism and not even by invading armies but by missionaries who roamed far across Europe including famous Saints like Patrick of Ireland. They make a good argument about barbarians refusing to adopt Roman culture yet were successfully convinced to convert to Western Roman Christianity.

I mean if you see a map of religion in Europe the places that are mostly Protestant today are the same exact places the Roman Empire could never subdue into a permanent territory. The same cities that are Protestant majority in Netherlands are in the North, the same places the Romans could never develop colonies under their sovereignty as an example. While the predominantly Catholic places of Europe today almost the entire places Rome successfully held as colonies until the decay around the 300s and its fall in the 400s. Just look at Southern Germany which was the north most that the empire was able to expand into and you will see the regions that Roman administration ruled over are the same exact Catholic arts of Germany while the Protestant parts are all in the north. In particular the strongest Protestant places of Germany are in the Northwest which would contain the location the defeat at Teutoburg would have taken place in.. England can even qualify because England became a Roman colony and than was abandoned but remain Roman influences for a while until Germanic invaders took over and Germanize the country. Yet the Germanic people of England would be the most Roman-like barbarians of Europe who weren't directly into the sphere of the Roman Empire. To put a parallel with religion England was one fo the most religious kingdoms of Europe, so devout into Catholicism was England that they sent some of the most volunteers after France and Germany to fight into the Middle East several English kings were the head leaders of several Crusades. England was so fanatical that when Henry VIII tried to reform English Christianity after cutting England's diocese from Rome, riots broke out and the loyalty of English Catholics would be one of the prime issues that went close to destroying the newly Protestant English kingdom until Cromwell expelled all Catholics from the country during the English Civil War. And even than after becoming Protestant the Church of England was a bizarre hybrid of Catholic and Protestant doctrines, being considered the "most Catholic" of the dominant Protestant denominations, even much more than the Lutherans, esp in Church art and buildings and religious practises (creating their own unique takes on Catholic stuff like the rosary replaced with Prayer Beads) while also blending in Protestant doctrines like predestination as part of the newly formed "Anglican" Church's teaching. Thus making very eerie parallels to Rome's status as a place that was colonized by Rome but quickly fell to Barbarians shortly afterwards including a complete invasion by a Germanic tribe that altered the DNA and culture of the pre-Roman Celtic Britons-yet also keeping elements of Roman culture like architecture despite apparent Germanization of the whole country. Once we get into the map of Catholic and Eastern Orthodox countries........ To start off go see the most Eastern countries that are still Catholic today before you start reaching the Orthodox majority parts of Europe. They are islands in Greece........ The same islands the Western Roman Empire continued holding after the Empire was divided into two despite being so far away in Greece! Prractically every major domain of modern Orthodox Christianity were all territory of the Eastern Roman Empire. While the Catholic countries near the Orhtodox nations like Hungary were part of the Western Roman Empire. If we want to go into another parallel, the Western Empire never had any significant contact with people from modern day Russia but the Eastern Empire began to develop trade routes after the division and onto the Middle Ages the contact of the Byzantine Civilization with pre-Christian Russians was so great that they not only had solid trade routes but frequent cultural exchange and direct interventions with each other like sending soldiers over to one another for help, sending priests into Russia, etc and as we now know Russia is now culturally and Orthodox Christian country. Not just that but Russia would become the most fanatical follower of Eastern Orthodoxy, waging wars against the Catholic Europe and various Muslim civilizations esp the Ottomans in an attempt to prevent the fall of Eastern Orthodoxy and defend remaining free nations but even waging offensives into Ottoman territory in an attempt to free Ukraine and other places conquered by the Turks. If there's one more very scary pattern I noticed........ All the countries that would become white European superpowers during the Age of Colonialism.......... France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, and Germany are either Catholic or have a roughly equal Catholic-Protestant plurality. Were all important colonies of the Roman Empire. In particular Spain, Portugal, and esp France were the three most important hubs of the Roman Empire outside of Italy and of utmost essential commercial territorial, and military holdings of the Empire. Spain would conquer an entire continent and create the first white Colonial Empire while Portugal would later separate from a union and hold a large chunk of South America in what is now one of the largest countries in the world. A nation so large its as big as the USA, Brazil.And Portugal would conquer a modern nation in Africa and various bits of land in Asia. While France would become a global superpower that would conquer many places in Africa and Asia as well as once holding a large part of North America. Even England qualifies because of the bizarre hybrid nature of Anglicanism and would create the largest empire I ever seen. So I have to ask why are the places the Western Roman empire hold as permanent territory until the decay near the start of the Dark Ages all so Catholic today? With its three most important colonies Portugal, Spain, and France once being the most fanatical strongholds of Catholicism in the Medieval Ages and Renaissance period (even being more devout than Italy as a whole would often be across history)? Is it a simple coincidence that after England, the three most important and largest colonial powers were both once the most Catholic kingdoms of Europe and the most important territories of the Roman Empire? In addition despite the rise of Byzantium, why did regions the Western Roman Empire held East of Italy remained Catholic all the way today despite the 1054 schism? It doesn't make sense that the few Catholic islands in Greece were able to survive with allegiance to Rome considering how the Byzantines would do reprisal towards Catholicism! Esp if you see Romania which uses a Romance Language and was very near Italy and important colony and later given to the East would become Orthodox Christian despite the heavy influence of Roman culture into it esp Latin on modern Romanian! What is the reason why the division between Catholics and Orthodox is almost exactly the same today as the division of the West and East empires? Why is the Protestant and Catholic regions of Europe pretty much exactly the same as the divide between Roman territory and unconquered Germanic barbarian lands?