How about flaming pigs ? coat the poor animals in tar, ignite and send them on their way to disrupt elephants charging?

@Loc

Thanks. I forgot about the leather armor and I didn't know about the swords. Anyway, I was looking at it in terms of Roman competence in close-in fighting versus Mongol competence in speed and longer range.

well you can compare actual historical battles, between the late Roman Empire, and the Huns who were very similar to the Mongols. Although this was very much the age of decline and the Romans relied heavily on allied "foederates" such as the Visigoths, when faced with determined and organised foot the Hunnish cavalry was not the unstoppable invincible force it was purported to be; I give you the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains as an example.

in short, the classic Roman heavy infantry formations and tactics were usually proof against cavalry if well-led, prepared and on beneficial ground. Where these factors were lacking, such as Carrhae or Adrianople, the Romans suffered dreadful defeats against cavalry.

Attila the Hun: Died of suffocation from the blood of a nosebleed in his sleep.

Catalaunian Plains.... you mean Chalons? I suppose you could use this in analogy but the combatants were not purely Romans vs. Huns. It was Romans with some Franks and Visigoths versus other Franks, Vandals, Visigoths and Huns.

But I get your point.

ok even as i wrote it i knew the Catalaunian Plains wasn't the best example, because it was an allied army of which the Romans formed only a part, and the Visigoths did most of the real fighting. There is some doubt as to the combat effectiveness of the Romans at this stage, because some accounts from the Visigothic side claim that the Romans held to their ancient formations but would not or could not fight. But the Western Romans were led by their last successful general, Aetius, who was de facto ruler of the Western Empire, and of undoubted military ability, and after whose death the Western Empire collapsed pretty quickly. So I'd say thats prob Visigothic peevishness and that the Romans at Catalaunian Plains did their bit

The Romans had plenty of experience dealing with cavalry armies and usually beat them, over a long period from Republic times to the late Empire. Thus the Romans didnt really feel the need to adopt cavalry in large numbers until rather late in their history. Before the 4th century Roman cavalry was largely made up of allied auxilaries and prisoners-of-war, and acted as little more than scouts, mounted patrols, and a cavalry screen for armies on the move.

it does illustrate my point though. btw it's never been conclusively proven that Chalons is the site of the battlefield, it's just generally accepted that it's the most likely place. No-one knew the exact site of the Teutoberger Wald battlesite until a few years ago, and there's still lots of debate as to whether Mancetter is the site of Boudicca's defeat. I've been to the site a few times (it's not very far from where I live, about 50mins drive) and I'm undecided, but it's a strong contender.

Teutoberger massacre. Yeah. The lost imperial eagles.

I always believed that it had happened. I surprised to learn that some felt that it was too much of a hoary legend and exagerration of a more minor skirmish level incident. Couldn't believe it when they said that. It was chronicled by Romans who, as a group, hated to fess up to failures after all.

Anway, I didn't realize there was any question about Boudicca's battle sites.

But how might a physical inspection by such as yourself tip the balance? Are you an archaeologist too? Seriously though, do you do a survey or something to match up descriptions of terrain with the "locus in quo?"

Teutoberger Wald was absolutley true. The Romans kept the anniversary of the defeat as a day of national mourning for centuries. One of those things everybody knew about but no-one ever discussed much. During the German Imperial period in the last century, a huge statue of Arminius (Herrmann) was erected overlooking the supposed battlesite, but in fact the actual battlesite turned out to be a dozen miles or so to the south. And when excavated, a great deal of Roman military equipment was discovered, well preserved in the mud, including a lot of cavalry officers masks and a lot of civilian artefacts, and most conclusively none of the Roman remains extent beyond a corrall of whicker-topped earthworks, exactly as described by the few Roman survivors of the massacre. Also there were few bones found in the actual battle area, but lots found in burial pits nearby, thus confirming the report of Germanicus and his foray to recover the remains of the fallen Romans and bury them decently after the human sacrifices by the Germans. So the Romans were led through the forest to a prepared killing-ground, it didn't just "happen."

as to Boudicca, no-one has ever conclusively proved Mancetter or anywhere else to be the site of her defeat. The battlesite, although unidentified, is described by the Roman historians as a semi-circle of hills, with sloping ground leading down to a stream with woods at either side. Mancetter is fairly rural and fits this bill quite well, but it's hard to visualise. As far as i know no-one has actually ever excavated. i tried to recreate it visually on paper from the descriptions then went to see of there was any resemblance, going into the site from the A5. well yeah, but there are a lot of similar places too. I always thought it would be more likely to be further south-east towards St. Albans (Verulamium) or south, Bicester way.

Mancetter is a few miles out of Staffordshire, it's about 8miles past Tamworth on the A5 and a pleasant drive too. It's also only a short distance away from Bosworth battlefield blimey Ed, you'd have a field day (no pun intended)

edit - so I take that you don't believe that Attila was murdered by his captive-wife, Hildico, during the night? And soooo you probably don't believe that Attila was turned back from Rome by the Pope, either?

Edited by - Tawakalna on 1/29/2004 1:26:04 PM

Pope no, Hildico, maybe.

After all, it was his wedding night and he was stinking drunk. Also, no longer the young warrior. I could see an older and drunker man chasing around a young thing and getting winded. She probably swatted him on the nose at one point, hence the nosebleed. He totters backward and lies down to catch his breath and drops off. No worries for him. After all, he's Attila.

She waits for him to fall asleep and then smothers him with a pillow which she somehow discards without a trace after the fact.... the smothering being facilitated by the quantity of blood that also may have trickled down into his lungs but at least may have clogged up the glottal area.

you're just a big ol' cynic with no sense of historical romanticism, you urnbanite New Yorker you..

LOL

Well between your curmudgeonly ways and my cynicism, it's a wonder we can have any laughs at all!

Tactics aren't the everthing Taw. What about the Gauls? They did not have the benefits of modern tactics, and yet held back the Romans for ages. And the Germanic tribes; they spelled the end of the Roman Empire, and they too did not have the discipline or tactics that the Romans did. Still, it could be argued that since the Roman Empire was in decline prior to the victory of the Germanic tribes, it was just good timing on their part.

for all that the Empire had been long in decline, it was military defeat on the field of battle that finished it off. This in purely military terms (there are lots of other contributory factors, but let's keep it simple) was due to a combination of uninspired leadership and the losses caused by continuing civil wars, a growing hostility between Romans and Germans in the military, a terminal decline in the quality and quantity of recruits, the loss of primary recruiting areas to invasion and depopulation, the movement of capitals/primary bases away from threatened frontiers, and the division of the Empire into two mutually competitive halves.

true, the Romans of the 4th and 5th centuries weren't much in the way of Scipios or Marius's, but then their opponents weren't exactly Hannibals or Jugurthas, were they?

having said that, the period of decline and the loss of the West also saw (rather ironically) the beginning of the career of the finest Roman general of all, Belisarius, who's abilities surpassed those even of Pompey, but was handicapped by an army lacking the abilities and discipline of its forebears, and a cynical and suspicious master who rarelyprovided the men and resources necessary to undertake the grandiose schemes of reconquest.

As to Esq's Gauls, well pls remember that for a long time they were tactically and numerically superior to the Romans of the Early to Mid Republic, but after the capture of Rome and Siege of the Capitolium by "Brennus" and the shame of Caudine Forks, the Romans pretty soon outclassed the Gauls in terms of quality of training and tactics, and with the general unification of Italy under Roman rule and the Romanisation programme, they were able to field numerically balanced armies, and once they actually set out to hammer the Gauls, did so. At almost any time for a good century before Caesar the Romans could have moved into Gaul and taken it (as he did) but there were diplomatic and political issues that prevented this from taking place earlier, not military ones. remember that Roman generals were also equally politicians and empire builders, and a delicate balance of power had to be maintained

Edited by - Tawakalna on 1/30/2004 3:47:08 AM

Yeah. Once Cisalpine Gaul was brought under Roman rule, things changed. Caesar's foray into Transalpine Gaul was just a matter of what was left to make a political splash and career for ol' Gaius since the more choice Eastern Mediterranean targets were already spoken for by his rivals.

strictly speaking, of course, he was a total traitor.