Sacred Band

Brainsnaffler · Post by **Brainsnaffler** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:09 am

Just a quick question. In the Carthaginian army lists, would you say the Libyphoenician cavalry could be depicted as the Sacred Band, or could the Spanish Cavalry be used?

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:46 pm

As far as I am aware the sacred band were hoplites not cavalry.

Brainsnaffler · Post by **Brainsnaffler** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:11 am

Predominantly they were yes, but I have read a book on carthage which stated there were also elements of cavalry, and the Osprey 121 book shows a picture of a Sacred Band standard barer mounted.

Brainsnaffler · Post by **Brainsnaffler** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:12 am

BTW, love the Cthulhu quote!

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:41 am

Brainsnaffler wrote:Predominantly they were yes, but I have read a book on carthage which stated there were also elements of cavalry, and the Osprey 121 book shows a picture of a Sacred Band standard barer mounted.

News to me - do they give a reference as to where they got the idea from?

Brainsnaffler · Post by **Brainsnaffler** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 5:04 pm

Osprey Men at Arms 121 has a picture of one on horseback as described (Plate D I think).

I got it wrong about the reference being in a book, but I did find it on this website (scroll to the bottom under Cavalry):-

http://fanaticus.org/DBA/guides/Paintin ... gII32.html

So, the historical accuracy may not be completely there, but there are refrences to them

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 5:41 pm

Excuse my scepticism but an unreferenced web page isn't going to convince me

More importantly Duncan Head's "Armies of the Mecedonian and Punic Wars" only mentions infantry sacred band and I'd place for more trust in him than an Osprey or DBA web page.

WhiteKnight · Post by **WhiteKnight** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 7:37 pm

I think a "Sacred Band" of Carthaginian citizens is hinted at in Plutarch's Life of Timoleon as a body that fought to the last man at the Battle of Crimesus in 340 BC. This was in the early era when the Carthaginians, by Plutarch's account, were still using chariots. He suggests that of the army of 70 000, only 3000 were citizens of Carthage. He gives them iron breatplates, bronze helmets and white shields, and on foot.
The Wikipedia entry, unattributed, suggests the "Sacred Band" did not exist as such after 310BC.

Martin

Brainsnaffler · Post by **Brainsnaffler** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:06 am

I must concede my point I'm afraid. I was sure I read it in a fully referenced non-fiction book, but cannot find it so I now conclude with yourself - there were no sacred band cavalry.

Still, learned something new eh

Seldon · Post by **Seldon** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:40 pm

well in any case going to your original point, I believe that the libyphoenician cavalry refers to Carthaginian noble citizen cavalry and hence some kind of hellenistic cavalry ( similar to a mounted sacred band ) would work better than spanish cavalry

Seldon

Quintus · Post by **Quintus** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:25 pm

Agreed re: the Hellenistic style.

The Liby-Phoenician or Punic citizen cavalry reappears in this list as a crack unit (or at least high quality, i.e. "Superior") when I don't recall them being good at all. They performed disappointingly at the Great Plains and at Zama. However it might be argued that they were able to occupy the pursuing Roman cavalry at the latter battle almost long enough for Hannibal's veterans to beat Scipio's infantry, but I wouldn't have rated them as anything higher than "Average".

I would be interested to know if they were much used on campaign.

Seldon · Post by **Seldon** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:54 pm

Well, I could see it going either way. I've seen a couple of times some mention of poor horsemanship on the Roman side and I can see the authors understanding their opponent carthaginian citizen cavalry being superior by comparisson.

The information regarding carthaginian forces is so poor due to the destruction of Carthage and the main historians talking about the punic wars being pro-romans that it is hard to pinpoint details.

Should Numidians be superior or average, should roman equites be undrilled or drilled, I think it is not easy to take a definitive approach as to these questions and given the importance that Hannibal put in Cavalry due to his military studies of Alexandrian tradition I can understand why the authors would make the choices they made.

We will all have our own views.

That being said, I always find it very interesting when the authors explain their thoughts regarding army design.

seldon