Biblical Lists

[Ironhand]

Re: the Chariot: Mass production might be a lot older than we think. There is some evidence that quinquereme parts were prefabricated and assembled on site, which would go far to explain how the Romans were able to build fleets so quickly n the First Punic War, and it might go back as far as the Greek triremes of the Persian Wars period. The same method might well have been applied earlier to chariots, which could be stored in border fortresses and assembled and crewed when needed.

[hazelbark]

Re: the Chariot: Mass production might be a lot older than we think. There is some evidence that quinquereme parts were prefabricated and assembled on site, which would go far to explain how the Romans were able to build fleets so quickly n the First Punic War, and it might go back as far as the Greek triremes of the Persian Wars period. The same method might well have been applied earlier to chariots, which could be stored in border fortresses and assembled and crewed when needed.

But you also have to factor in the size of these cities. They weren't that large. It certainly would be a smart stroke to have this option, but I am not convinced "mass" production approached anything like the Roman/Greek world ability to focus on this task.

On the other handd your theory would help justify the records of what seem like inordinately large numbers of chariots at karkah/Quaqar etc.

[Ironhand]

But you also have to factor in the size of these cities. They weren't that large. It certainly would be a smart stroke to have this option, but I am not convinced "mass" production approached anything like the Roman/Greek world ability to focus on this task.

On the other handd your theory would help justify the records of what seem like inordinately large numbers of chariots at karkah/Quaqar etc.

I absolutely agree that the Bronze Age City States didn't have the resources or the social structure to "focus" like the Graeco-Roman world did. I was thinking more in terms of Egypt, the Hittite Empire, or Assyria, which probably had the resources at least.

[Kineas1]

Jut to be the devil's advocate, I think what we know of Minoan/Mycenaean temple states suggests that they were vastly more focused than the Greco-Roman model--or could be, as authority was more centralized. It is at least possible that the Knossos temple complex was entirely autocratic and directed the production of the entire skilled labour pool. Anything like the detailed inventories of chariot parts and wheels smacks of a highly centralized logistics system, which suggests a very efficient (or tragically inefficient) support system.
The Greek model included a great deal of individual effort for individual gain, although they were capable of very rapid expansion, especially of navies (I think that somewhere I have a really good article, never published, from a grad student at U of Leeds, on Athens capability for rapid expansion of the fleet. Hit me off line and I'll send a copy to those interested--if, er, I can find it.)
Not sure I accept that for Romans--(here's an opportunity for me to talk about something I know nothing about, and Niceas to walk all over me) didn't the loss of all those suits of mail at Teuterbergerwald cause them to switch to to the lorica segmenta? That doesn't argue for efficient factories..
Hmm. Or does it? i guess that they made the switch. Did romans have the water wheel? Who made all that armour, anyway?
I read a short academic article the other day that said that, in effect, the Mycenaeans didn't need to produce ANYTHING because they were the most efficient and best-placed pirates in history, and that they controlled the flow of bronze and the trade by water throughout the eastmed. Interesting theory. Also worth noting that, unless the Pylos and Knossos Linear-B tablets are lying, they seem to have had a bunch of chariots, whatever their population. The towns were small, but the population was roughly the same as in Classical Greece, or so I've read. So a larger agricultural/rural population, which historically means better soldiers...

Of course, it was the Bronze Age...

[Niceas]

Not sure I accept that for Romans--(here's an opportunity for me to talk about something I know nothing about, and Niceas to walk all over me) didn't the loss of all those suits of mail at Teuterbergerwald cause them to switch to to the lorica segmenta? That doesn't argue for efficient factories..
Hmm. Or does it? i guess that they made the switch. Did romans have the water wheel? Who made all that armour, anyway?

Maybe hideously off topic, but although I've seen speculation to that effect, but Bishop and Coulston speculate that gladitorial armor may be the inspiration. They mention, but do not speculate on the ease of manufacture of plate vs. mail. Certainly mail never stopped being used--and it begs the question on why the segmentata armor dispappears in the 3rd century AD, by which time the Romans were establishing the fabricae that are noted in the Notitia Dignitatum.

[Kineas1]

The older I get, the more I suspect the cultural outweighs the efficient every time. Maybe at some point it was cheaper to enlist new legionaries than to provide armour for the old ones...

I'd like to make a note on the difference between mass produced and interchangeable. Advanced cottage industry (maybe there's an economists term for this and I don't know it) such as Rome and early 18th C england had allow you to produce the pilum or the brown bess in huge numbers, and they're all alike. Ditto chariot wheels in Pylos and Knossos 9probably produced in pairs, but almost certainly "mass-produced" given the linear B.
But not interchangeable. So in a colt patterson revolver, every single part can be dropped into any gun off that assembly line--and ditto with most manufactured goods. But NO PART of the brown bess is interchangeable--so the lock off one can't drop into another without luck, and no screw off any lock will fit in any other screw hole, and so on--ditto the lorcia segmenta, right? And the chariot wheels will probably go on any chariot in the inventory--but you can't interchange spokes when one breaks, or tires, or use one wheel from one pair with a wheel from another pair.
It's an important difference, because the latter (interchangeable) solves the logisitical nightmare of the former...

: )

[Niceas]

The older I get, the more I suspect the cultural outweighs the efficient every time. Maybe at some point it was cheaper to enlist new legionaries than to provide armour for the old ones...

Again, probably way off topic.

Interesting idea. Certainly there were units recruited to replace the losses at Teutoburgerwald, if Cheesman is correct, and the Cohortes Civium Romanarum are examples of this, and apparently were also raised due to the Pannonian revolt of AD 6-9. Maybe those fellows got the new armor (if indeed the segmentata is a result of needing lots of armor fast). There is a XXXIII Voluntarium C.R. recorded in Germania Superior, which, given the 30 cohorts of legionnaires lost by Varus, puts it in the ball park for numbers of replacements. Augustus left those guys the same donative amounts as legionnaires in his will, so its assumed their status was equal.

Your point on interchangeable vs. mass produced is a wet sock that people need to be hit with from time to time, There were no machine tools in the ancient world.

[Kineas1]

Always happy to be a wet sock...

hmmm.

[Kineas1]

Re: the Chariot: Mass production might be a lot older than we think. There is some evidence that quinquereme parts were prefabricated and assembled on site, which would go far to explain how the Romans were able to build fleets so quickly n the First Punic War, and it might go back as far as the Greek triremes of the Persian Wars period. The same method might well have been applied earlier to chariots, which could be stored in border fortresses and assembled and crewed when needed.

But you also have to factor in the size of these cities. They weren't that large. It certainly would be a smart stroke to have this option, but I am not convinced "mass" production approached anything like the Roman/Greek world ability to focus on this task.

On the other handd your theory would help justify the records of what seem like inordinately large numbers of chariots at karkah/Quaqar etc.

I must have missed the beginning of this debate, but Mycenae/Achaea offers some semi-hard numbers on chariots and chariot maintenance via the Linear B tablets.

John Chadwick (Myc. World, Cambridge 1976) lists the total of chariots at Knossos as "around 200." looked at another way, from the fragments available, the palace/temple alone had 246 chariot frames and 208 sets of wheels--and this leaves out the 100+ documents that (to me) suggest the existence of a "non-palace" force (feudal? or something else?) which has to report on its fitness/material state of readiness, with each chariot guy (I'm avoiding terms like "knight" or even "Equeta" because the evidence is so sketchy) apparently responsible for his own chariot and armour. So Knossos, the richest center in Crete (not a Mycenaean mainspring) can field at least 208 chariots and possibly 5-600.
At Pylos, the only other center with records (so far) we have no chariot listing like the Sc series at Knossos, but we do have a listing of chariot wheels (Sa series) and harness and fittings (Sb) and while the number is meaningless because so fragmentary, my count from Palmer (Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek texts, Oxford, 1998 ed) lists at least 50 pairs of wheels at the palace, as well as what appear to be 36 chariot "baskets" (AN 1282) and which may state that the palace at Pylos has 36 men engaged in the manufacture/repair of chariot harness/tack (or 90... or some other number. hey--I'm just quoting the evidence). Many records show the possession/issue of bronze corselets per chariot.
Any reasoning within such limited datasets is dangerous, but what the heck, it was a long weekend. Let's go with bottom numbers, and say that Knossos has 200 chariots and Pylos has 50. Now, let's multiply that times the city-states in Mycenaean Greece. How many? Well, if you take the ship list in the Iliad as a list of the palace centers (and some do, and some don't) there's around 25 listed (29 is my count, not all with place names.) At 50 chariots each (minimum) you have an Achaean army with 1250 chariots. That seems like a reasonable BOTTOM number, and I'd argue that every year, the archeology makes the ship list look better and better... Of course this assumes that all the Mycenaeans cooperated--and maybe they did, and maybe they didn't. But just judging from what we know about Crete and the Hittites and Egypt, 1000 chariots really doesn't seem to extreme for even a coalition.
Also worth noting that while some folks still think that the Med was sparsely populated even in the Bronze Age, I think that the majority opinion (I may be wrong, but it's the majority I hear from..) thinks that Bronze Age population levels were as high as Classical ones, or even higher, at least in some places.

Hard to know. It was the Bronze Age.

[sjwhite72]

Biblical list, I thought that this would be Egypt to return from the Babylonian Exile?
I am interested in the Ancient Hebrew, Joshua, and the Cannanites and Philistines.
Number wise, heavy on slingers and spearmen, light on swords, material availablity.
Being in Egypt as long as they were, how much do you think the Egyptian military would have affected their tactics?
Steve

[hazelbark]

Biblical list, I thought that this would be Egypt to return from the Babylonian Exile?
I am interested in the Ancient Hebrew, Joshua, and the Cannanites and Philistines.
Number wise, heavy on slingers and spearmen, light on swords, material availablity.
Being in Egypt as long as they were, how much do you think the Egyptian military would have affected their tactics?
Steve

While I am not sure they were studying or serving in the Egyptian military. And certainly wouldn't have any positive experience with chariots.

[Kineas1]

Apologies--I used Biblical as a "period" which is absurd, as the Bronze Age was at least two millennium old when the first words of the bible were written. Perhaps this thread should have been called "Homeric Lists" instead...

[sjwhite72]

How about spliting the topic into Pre-Peloponnesian and Pre-Hellenistic Near East?
I think that would work because the phalanx, if memory serves, was not used.

Until Alexander the Great, I do not remember seeing references to the use of phalanx troops.

[nikgaukroger]

Until Alexander the Great, I do not remember seeing references to the use of phalanx troops.

Odd as the hoplite formation was the phalanx.

[Kineas1]

The word phalanx "line or array of battle" occurs too often to be cited in Homer--at least 60 times.

p. 404, Lexicon of Homeric Dialect

[sjwhite72]

Wow, I knew that the ISO regulations took precedent in my mind, but man that has really put a wrench into the monkey works of my history knowledge. I will keep quiet until I reread the Illiad.

[Kineas1]

I've been an ancients player and "fan" for 30 years, but about six years ago I decided to go back to school and learn Classical Greek. On the first day of class, the crusty old professor who teaches first years (mostly divinity students) asked, "How many of you are learning Greek to study the bible?" A bunch of them raised their hands. He smiled. "You're in for a shock," he said. "A lot of what you think you know in the bible just isn't there."

Well, I wasn't learning Greek for the bible, but he might have said the same thing about wargaming. Learning Greek has been the most upsetting experience of my hobby life--because nothing seems to be as it was back when I knew everything in 1999... The use of the word Phalanx is just one of those things...

[ars_belli]

Yep... unfortunately, there is a lot of 'received wisdom' in wargaming that appears to have been based on poor English translations of ancient texts... or worse. It is definitely an eye-opening experience to read the sources in their original languages.

Happily, the authors of FoG appear to have remedied those past errors, at least in the areas for which I can read the original sources.

Cheers,
Scott

[sjwhite72]

What is the most accurate way of defining the difference in phalanx.
What I mean is fighting in line vs. fighting in a block with long spears.

[Kineas1]

Somebody could write a book.

The short answer is that it was an all purpose word for battle array, and no particular formation should ever be read into it in any period. Below, I offer half a dozen examples, from about 370BC to 150BC or so, and a couple of Homeric definitions so you can see how little the meaning changes. It is a catch all word, but usually it means "all the heavy infantry of the army" or "all the guys formed close together in the center." To reinforce this, it's entertaining to see how Caesar uses it to describe Gauls and Germans. [Latin Phalangem]

Georg Autenrieth, A Homeric Dictionary alphabetic letter f, entry fa/lagc
phalanx, line of battle, column. (4.73)

A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect
Phalanx--A line or array of battle. In places, the lines or ranks

Demosthenes, Speeches 1-10 speech 9, section 49
On the other hand you hear of Philip marching unchecked, not because he leads a phalanx of heavy infantry, but because he is accompanied by skirmishers, cavalry, archers, mercenaries, and similar troops. (2.89)

Dinarchus, Speeches speech 1, section 74
When Timolaus, the friend of Demosthenes, was corrupted and took bribes from Philip, when the traitor Proxenus commanded the mercenaries enlisted at Amphissa and Theagenes was placed in command of the phalanx, a man of ill luck and, like the defendant here, open to bribes. (3.85)

Diodorus Siculus, Library book 15, chapter 32, section 6
But when the Thebans would not come down to meet him, he withdrew the phalanx of infantry, dispatched the cavalry and light-armed ranks to plunder the countryside unhampered, and so took a great quantity of spoil. (2.47)


Diodorus Siculus, Library book 15, chapter 55, section 2
So then, by arranging his phalanx in oblique formation, he planned to decide the issue of the battle by means of the wing in which were the elite. (2.29)

Diodorus Siculus, Library book 15, chapter 55, section 3
When the trumpets on both sides sounded the charge and the armies simultaneously with the first onset raised the battle-cry, the Lacedaemonians attacked both wings with their phalanx in crescent formation, while the Boeotians retreated on one wing, but on the other engaged the enemy in double-quick time. (2.35)

Polybius, Histories book 1, chapter 33
The heavy phalanx of the Carthaginians he stationed at a moderate interval in the rear of these. (5.98)

Xenophon, Anabasis book 1, chapter 2, section 17
When he had driven past them all, he halted his chariot in front of the centre of the phalanx, and sending his interpreter Pigres to the generals of the Greeks, gave orders that the troops should advance arms and the phalanx move forward in a body. (7.63)

Xenophon, Anabasis book 2, chapter 3, section 3
Then after he had arranged the army so that it should present a fine appearance from every side as a compact phalanx, with no one to be seen outside the lines of the hoplites, he summoned the messengers; and he himself came forward with the best armed and best looking of his own troops and told the other generals to do likewise. (4.27)

Xenophon, Hellenica book 3, chapter 4, section 23
Therefore, after offering sacrifice, he at once led his phalanx against the opposing line of horsemen, ordering the first ten year-classes of the hoplites to run to close quarters with the enemy, and bidding the peltasts lead the way at a double-quick. (4.61)

Hope that helps.