A Question on Roman man to man fighting.

[Jaron Bernstein]

Robert,

One problem in studying the roman way of personal individual combat is this; we have lots of RMA manuals from the 1200s onwards on RMA techniques. "hold your sword like this, and put your left foot here" "grab his elbow this way" type stuff that you need to revive such an art from its essential saltes (hat tip to HPL <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> ). That detailed instruction is missing from the roman era. Not to say that the romans didn't also have an art just as good for individual fighting. The vikings did too I would wager. But you need straw to make bricks with and I am unaware of roman (or viking) written manuals that go into such detail on individual fighting. If you want broader small unit tactics, operational art and strategy, then by all means there are great roman sources. But there is no roman equivalent to Lichtenauer or Fiori I am aware of. So you can say that gladiators were good fighters. They sure were. But we can't replicate their training in terms of specific techniques as accurately as we can those for a knight.

[Rod-Thornton]

"Well, the Roman Gladiators were basically slaves for the soul purpose of entertainment."

-Historical records would disagree with this popular misconception. Remember gladiatorial sport occurred over centuries. Many were not slaves at all, but "men of means" and of class. Roman law actually had to address the problem for both freemen and citizens (two VERY different groups) by decreeing that gladiators would have to relinquish their ability to serve in the Senate...and history records circumstances where a number of politicians gave up their positions to fight in the arena, where celebrity, status and a very different form of prestige were given (like our modern sports celebrities).

In light of the original question, and this fact, there were a great many gladiatorial schools (like there are "training camps" in sports today) run by wealthy partisans...I wonder why we cannot find a fightbook of methodology in the private sources (even if not in officially sanctioned Roman army records) to display techniques. Surely they must have recorded them for reproducibility of their students who competed. My thoughts are that they would have appeared more in the form of training regimen/logbooks than maybe in a direct instructional manual, per se.

One thing already touched upon though, was the bias given towards soldiery and quality of person by Rome. In the book about the Roman army, "Storming the Heavens," official state records were quoted as allowing later non-citizen rabble admission to the legions as depletion, and the costs of maintaining a geographically larger empire taxed available upper-class agrarian citizenry from which the legions drew armies from. Still, all the reference sources quoted in that work, when examined, offer little of direct individual methods.

[Corey Roberts]

Personally, I think discussions like comparing Romans to Medieval warriors and so forth is somewhat of a futile argument. It is like comparing apples and oranges. The Roman way of war, was effective for it's time. But we must remember that the methods of war changed over the centuries, with new advances in technology, the Roman method of fighting became obscolescent. One of the major changes that occured near the end of the Roman Empire which changed the nature of combat altogether was the advent of the stirrup for cavalry use. The Romans did not have stirups. The stirup made cavalry more effective, and had the effect of making the old Roman way of fighting no longer applicable. We can see the historical trend of increased cavalry effectiveness in examples like the Huns. Also, just because Medieval armies were not organized like those of the Romans does not mean they were disorganized. Medieval armies did not simply "Mass into one big formation" as stated. They did in fact have a chain of command. With the nobility and knights acting as officers, the lesser nobles were like lower officers and commanded less men, while the higher nobility were in fact the higher order officers. Instead of having a Legate, who commands a Senior Tribune, who commands lesser Tribunes, who command Centurions, Medieval armies had kings, commanding dukes, commanding barons, etc. In most cases it is pointless to compare people from one historical period with another. By virtue of the fact that Medieval armies are simply more technologically advanced by benefit of existing later in history, I would have to disagree with the assertion that "The Romans would win because they divide their armies into smaller units." Medieval armies did this as well. Also in regards to the statement "The fighting troops { of the Romans] this way therefore were more manouvreable" Is true of the greek macedonians but not true of Medieval Europeans. By virtue of having faster more manouvreable cavalry (thanks to stirrups and sadles) a Roman units much less versatile formation wouldn't stand a chance. I would have to say that a medieval army would crush the Romans simply based on superior technological advantage if nothing else. It's not that the Romans would be inferior, just that they would be outdated and outmoded. Also on an individual basis a Medieval warrior would be better protected and better armed by nature of superior technology. I simply cannot see a Roman legion holding up against a massive cavalry charge as seen at Ascalon or standing against a hail of arrows as seen at Agincourt. (Niether of which would a Roman army have ever faced in their entire history.)

[s_taillebois]

No doubt conjecture about differing periods is quite subjective. As far as medieval armies beating a Roman army. That, depends on the context of "Roman".
The Byzantines considered themselves as Roman's, and culturally they were correct in their beliefs. Like the overall culture their military had evolved considerably since the Augustan, or Antione eras. That said, a "Roman" army did hold its own agaisnt other medieval armies, repeatedly...despite Manzikert, the Crusader sacking of Constantanople...and somehow managed to survive until the dawn of the modern era (1453 when the Turks finally knocked off the Byzantine empire).
One of the problems about talking about Roman military tactics (or their culture as a whole) is that they were around in one form or another for so very long. 1500 some years as a major military influence leaves a lot of room for change. Greek infantry tactics, Macedonian tactics,Parthian armour,Chinese/Mongolian stirrups, Gaullic swords, Greek Cataphracts, Parthian/Persian/Arabic mounted archery tactics,Turkish bows...none a specifically Roman innovation, but all part of Roman military history.

[Corey Roberts]

Good Point, which is why it is always so futile to try and compare peoples from different time periods, as far as the Romans that I was refering to in context of my response, I was refering generally to the Roman army any time before the 4th or 5th centuries A.D as this seemed to be the period(s) being refered to in previous posts. But definetley it would be interesting to look into how the Roman way of war evolved and or blended with other methods to develop into what became Medieval methods. It's too bad so much of the actual methods of fighting from this period, and earlier is lost to us.

[Mike Chidester]

And since what we're studying is the martial arts of the Holy Roman Empire...

[Stacy Clifford]

I generally take "Roman" to refer to the time when Rome was still the capital of its own empire, and "Holy Roman" or "Byzantine" to mean after that.

[Gene Tausk]

Uhhhh...actually the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, was centered at Constantinople or Byzantium and was completely different from the HRE.


----------------&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;gene tausk
SFS
Study Group Leader - ARMA Southside Houston

[JeanryChandler]

I generally take "Roman" to refer to the time when Rome was still the capital of its own empire, and "Holy Roman" or "Byzantine" to mean after that.

As with many things in Roman history, this can actually be quite hard to define, nor is the idea of linking the HRE to ancient Rome as foolish a concept as it might appear on the surface.

Rome itself, the city, was considered a slum due to it's hordes of welfare dependant poor, and all-but abandoned in the mid-Imperial era by the Emperors, the government, and most of the Aristocracy. The de-facto capitol moved to Ravenna, and then a variety of other spots around Northern Italy, depending on the whim of the Emperor and other factors.

When Rome was sacked by the mixed barbarian army under the Goth Alarik in the 5th century (410 AD?) the Roman governement wasn't initially that alarmed, it turned out to be a big PR disaster after the fact but not much of importance was actually lost there.

Jeanry

[s_taillebois]

Quite true, and after Diocletian split the empire for administrative reasons, the Eastern half eventually considered the goings on in the west, as a hapless 'poor cousin' who couldn't managed its affairs. Much of the empires affluence, and much of its workable military resources were in the east.
Partially becuase of the Parthian's (and later on the Saracens, Turks and etc.)-partially because that's where the money was...
Although, the Emperors in Constantanople did try to keep a presence in the west, it was as much a symbolic/status thing as anything else.
On another tack, I'd wonder if there are Byzantine training manuals in some corner of Russia or Turkey. Individual fechtbuchs like in the west, I'd doubt, insofar as the Byzantine empire was essentially a religious police state. (plus they didn't survive until printed books became common...although ironically the Byzantine exiles floating around Italy, just before and after the fall...provided a lot of the content for the Italian printers) But their martial style didn't seem to affect the Italians much...mayhaps because the fighters probably had died before the walls of Constantanople?)

[JeanryChandler]

thats an excellent question actually, because a lot of literature does survive from the Byzantines, I've personally read the Alexiad and a compilation of 5 other Imperial diaries from that period.... (all of which contain a lot of interesting details on military matters, though their language can be very confusing, due to the very complex nature of their organization and their using technical terms rather interchangably among other things...)

JR

[s_taillebois]

Interesting problem. Without getting into some very obtuse research the only overtly "Roman" martial influence on the Italians seems to have been an affectation for meshing somewhat classical looking garb onto the contemporary military gear of the area. And they kept doing this well into the era of the further effective development of the gun.

[Stacy Clifford]

I know, I was only referring to the time period, since both the Byzantine Empire and the HRE developed after what we think of as the original Roman Empire began to break down.

[Gene Tausk]

Yeah...I know that you know.

Just yanking your chain....


<img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />


----------------------gene tausk
SFS
Study Group Leader - Houston ARMA Southside

[Robert Rolph]

just saw the six first episodes of the HBO series Rome, and wondered if, or how much, we know about the technics they used in man to man fighting during the first centurys of the first millenia here in Europe?

Is there anything out there one could look into?

Why one might ask. Well I pesonaly think that the influence Rome had (and has) on the western civilisation in general, Rome must have had it´s influence on the Martial Arts of The West too. And in this case it could be beneficial for a WMA fighter and scholar to learn as much as possible of the roots of his art, just as we try to learn the foundation of longswordplay going back as close as possible to the verses of Johannes Liechtenauer in order to understand the masters following him during the centuries.

Then again few Swords call to me like the Gladius do, so it might boil down to that I want to learn how to use one.

Keep up the good work all fellow brothers and sisters out ther!

Martin

I know that the Roman foot soldiers were trained very hard with full load of heavy gears as they would, going off on a campaign. Most of the time, they had to walk all day to get from one location to the intended destination as quickly as possible! Not only that...they had to build all sorts of engineering marvals! For example...the Roman collasium, the roads (which, by the way, are still used today by the people), bridges, etc...in very short amount of time! We, today, wouldn't be able to build what they had built, given the amount of time they had, with the manual tools they used! That's is why they had very little armors, that could be taken off and put on very quickly! To compensate, each one carried a very large shield, that could be used to form formidable walls, standing side by side. Their spears were so deadly it would go through the armors and the shields quite easily...that they would render the enemies' shields and armors useless. Not only that, once impaled, the spears could not be pulled out to prevent the enemies from using them against them!