A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This is the second part (I) of our series looking at the structure of the Carthaginian army. As we discussed last time, while Carthage has an unfair reputation for being an 'un-military' society, its military system was one of the highest performing in the ancient Mediterranean, able to produce vast and effective armies waging war … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part II: The African Backbone
This is the first part of a series looking at the structure of the Carthaginian army. Although Carthage has an (unfair!) reputation for being a country of "peaceful merchants who tended to avoid wars," Carthage was, I will argue, without question the second greatest military power the Mediterranean produced - eclipsed only by Rome. If … Continue reading Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part I: Finding Carthaginians
This week we're going to look a specific piece of early Roman military equipment, the humble bronze pectoral, which it turns out is surprisingly tricky for us to confidently reconstruct, in part because the period of its use that most interests us (the run from c. 264 to c. 146 where Rome is winning its … Continue reading Collections: Reconstructing the Roman Pectoral
This week we're going to take a look at mercenaries in the ancient Mediterranean world! This was one of the runners-up in the latest ACOUP Senate poll, coming out of quite a few requests to discuss how mercenaries functioned in antiquity. In order to keep the scope here manageable and within my expertise, I am … Continue reading Collections: Ancient Mediterranean Mercenaries!
This is, at long last, the last part of our four-part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, Intermission, IVa, IVb). last time we looked at the social status of hoplites and the implications that had for the political and social structure of the polis and even the very basic question of how many people there were … Continue reading Collections: Hoplite Wars, Part IVb: Training Hoplites?
This is the last part of our four-part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, Intermission, IVa, IVb) on the debates surrounding ancient Greek hoplites and the phalanx formation in which they fought. We've spent the last two entries in this series looking at warfare quite narrowly through the lens of tactics: hoplite spacing, depth, fighting style, … Continue reading Collections: Hoplite Wars: Part IVa, The Status of Hoplites
This is the second half of the third part of our four-part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, Intermission, IVa, IVb) discussing the debates surrounding ancient Greek hoplites and the formation in which they (mostly?) fought, the phalanx. Last week, we discussed the development of hoplite warfare through the Archaic period (c. 750-480). Our evidence for … Continue reading Collections: Hoplite Wars, Part IIIb: A Phalanx By Any Other Name
This is the third part of our four-part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, Intermission, IVa, IVb) discussing the debates surrounding ancient Greek hoplites and the formation in which they (mostly?) fought, the phalanx. Last week, we looked at how the equipment which defined the hoplite - hoplite (ὁπλίτης), after all, means 'equipped man') - and … Continue reading Collections: Hoplite Wars, Part IIIa: An Archaic Phalanx?
This is the second part of what looks like it'll be end up as a four part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, Intermission, IVa, IVb) discussing the debates surrounding ancient Greek hoplites, the heavy infantry of the Archaic (800-480) and Classical (480-323) periods. Last week, we outlined the contours of the debate: the major points … Continue reading Collections: Hoplite Wars, Part II: Hoplite Equipment, Hoplight or Hopheavy?
This is the fifth and final part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the structures of life for pre-modern peasant farmers and showing how historical modeling can help us explore the experiences of people who rarely leave much evidence of their day-to-day personal lives. I've been stressing … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part V: Life In Cycles