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Last Updated: March 27, 2000

Contact: Chris Brantley, brant@erols.com.

Special Feature -- Book Reviews

John Warry's Warfare
in the Clasical World
(Part II)

Reviewed by Paul Rice

Warfare in the Classical World : An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons, Warriors and Warfare in the Ancient Civilisations of Greece and Rome, by John Warry.

Chapter VI - Alexander's Successors and the Later Greek World

Well, Alexander was a shooting star, and died without naming a successor. Woe to the world. Alexander's empire split into 5 geographical sub-empires, all competing for control. The political situation pretty much is the military situation. Connolly didn't cover Alexander's successors at all.

Warry's sources are many, including Diodores and Plutaarch. This chapter is kind of a glue chapter, or a breather if you will. It lightly touches the two battles of Ipsus and Raphia. He discusses fortifications, sieges, and seigecraft; helmet evolution; mercenaries; war elephants; heavy war galleys; and Carthage makes its first appearance, as well as a few other powers. The campaign of Rhodes ties together the naval, siege, engine, and mercenary aspects nicely. Turns out that after Demetrius gave up his siege of Rhodes, he left his various towers and seigecraft scattered around the place, and out of the scrap metal the locals built a monument to winning the battle -- The Colossus of Rhodes!

Warry gives a 2/3 page summary of tactical innovation from 500 to 300BCE. It's really quite impressive when you realize that about two hundred years later -- after the change from Roman maniple to cohort formation -- the west will not see much more tactical innovation for over a thousand years!

My opinion is that DBA/M underestimate the combat worth of elephants. I think the real disadvantage of them is not on the battlefield, but in the logistics of feeding, maintaining, training, and transporting them. Warry states that one elephant every 20 to 50 meters could stop a cavalry charge. The psychological effect of charging elephants on unprepared men must have been alarming. To protect these valuable assets from the slings and arrows of skirmishers, elephants were accompanied by a cloud of light troops. Warry suggests that the best way to defeat an elephant is with another elephant. Any of this sound familiar? Recognize the parallel?

Seems every source I read which contains elephants (must be at least 5 -- of course they could all have the same source documents) discusses the very real concern of the elephants going berserk [apologies to my Berserker ancestors] and being as much a threat to friend as foe. DBA doesn't cover this either.

Warry gives a detailed OOB for the battle of Raphia, 217 BCE (simultaneous w/ Punic Wars).

Chapter VII -- Pyrrhus of Epirus and the Roman Republic

With Pyrrhus, Plutarch is the main source, as well as Hieronymus. For early Rome Warry relies heavily on Livy, and a few others.

The author apparently doesn't have much of an opinion of Pyrrhus, and slams him at every opportunity. Pyrrhus invades, and campaigns through southern Italy and Sicily, winning battles against Romans, Carthaginians, and lesser tribes, but incurring so many casualties that he could never get a decisive victory. Pyrrhus experiences a few fog of war episodes worth reading. Just to get things started, in his initial invasion (the heel of Italy), most of his fleet gets blown south of the heel and is basically out of the picture. Even when he wins, Warry finds an excuse for the victory or downplays its significance.

As late 20th century Americans we sometimes take for granted the perspective of a stable global superpower, and forget that most of history is about little countries/ tribes/ princes in a constant state of turmoil with their neighbors. With the political situation Pyrrhus walks into, this reader is reminded of the Greek city-states constantly fighting amongst each other anytime the Persians were absent (and sometimes when they were present!), of 15th century Italy, for that matter of the high middle ages with every local prince duking it out with his neighbors, and of current day third world countries. Pyrrhus tries to use these differences to his advantage, and the city states certainly use him.

This book does not cover the history of early Rome near the extent of Connolly's Greece and Rome at War, and merely glosses over pre 4th century. A section of the chapter is dedicated to the brief time when Rome and Carthage were allies (when Pyrrhus was a common enemy)! I did not know this.

Warry touches upon Camillus, and gives detailed diagrams of the maniple formation in action, agreeing with Connolly. Alas, he gives no dates at all for Camillus! Likewise, he presents a detailed picture of the organization of the Roman army at various times. This alone makes this book as good a reference for Roman armies as for Greek. There is a pictorial description of the evolution of early Roman helmets, as there was earlier for Greek.

A legion has a front of 200-250 yards. That may not sound like much, but picture a wall of men about two football fields long, maybe 24 men deep, all in chainmail, carrying large shields and gladius. Prior to gunpowder, could anything survive in front of them? In close order there are 3 feet between men.

The Mamertines, whose future destiny fates them to forever be viewed about as favorably as Serbian Nationalists in 1914, make their first appearance.

Chapter VIII -- The Punic Wars and Roman Expansion

Warry's sources for this interesting period are Polybius, Livy, and Appian, et al. Amazingly, he manages to fit all three Punic Wars and Cynoscephalae and Rome's conquest of Greece into one chapter. It's quite compressed. He covers Hannibal and the 2nd Punic War as well as can be expected considering the space crunch. If you aren't familiar with the Punic Wars and the campaigns of Hannibal, I recommend them to you. Most educational, and good reading. Connolly covered 2PW in much greater detail. (Bath wrote a book on Hannibal.)

Warry provides detailed OOBs for Lake Trasimene, Cannae, Zama, and Cynoscephalae. [I caution the reader to not immediately go hog wild and create scenarios based on just Warry, but rather to compile from multiple sources, and apply judgement; and for that reason among others, have not listed the OOBs here. I've compared three or four sources and usually get very different results. Chris's DBA pages see a good number of scenarios submitted by readers with all attention given to speed, and practically no attention given to quality or accuracy, and with virtually no listed sources. "Do your homework." A scenario that merely provides a paragraph of history, a reference or two to terrain, and uses the existing DBA army lists might as well be fantasy between elves and dwarves. DBAers should note these detailed OOBs point out that DBA army lists are merely vast simplifications.]

For what it's worth, Connolly constantly refers to Hannibal's African veterans as "pikemen."

Hannibal's usual method was to sell Roman prisoners as slaves, and (after disarming them) to give Italian prisoners a good meal, and then release them to return to their village to spread the word of Hannibal's magnificent deeds, or possibly to join up with the African.

Warry skips Hannibal's "oxen with torches at night" escape, and Gerunium.

Cannae receives an entire page, and Zama about 2/3 of a page. He presents both battles in a standard way -- no surprises.

Warry skips Ilipa and The Great Plains.

The corvus and Roman heavy warships get an entire page. Roman weaponry, seigecraft, and camps are also discussed.

The book gives a nice graphic sketch of how a battle between pike and pilum/ gladius would progress.

The chapter ends with the campaign against the Numidian King Jugurtha. Most Roman-Numidian issues seem to be concluded by treachery, poison, or bribery, as opposed to battle. Oh well.

Starting with this chapter review and in subsequent chapters I begin to integrate various sources, including Warfare in the Classical World, John Warry; Greece and Rome at War, Peter Connolly; The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar, introduction by Jane Gardner; Columbia's History of the World, edited by John Garraty and Peter Gay; Hannibal's Campaigns, Tony Bath; and Armies of the Carthaginian Wars 265-146 BC, Terence Wise. To a lesser ex tent, Ancient Civilizations by Carlton Hayes and James Hanscom. My review is not so much a book review as it is a history of Rome.

Chapter IX -- Marius and Sulla

[a.k.a., Paul tries to simplify Roman politics]

140 BCE (613 Anno Urbis Conditae) -- Far to the east in a world the west has never heard of, an event occurs which centuries later will have great impact on Europe. The Chinese defeat the Huns, who begin to move west.

Warry's sources are Sulla's memoirs, Plutarch, Sullust (no relation), Cicero's speeches, Appian, and to a lesser extent Flavius Josephus and a few others. A word about sources if I haven't written it before. I was a high school lad when I read Connolly for the first time, and learned that one can not always trust Livy, Polybius, or whomever. Every writer has an opinion. Some are able to suppress their opinions to a large extent and just present the facts. Others are writing for a political agenda, and will intentionally distort the facts, or lie (which our Loser in Chief refers to as "mislead"). Books I have read about the ancients usually comment about this, and try to compensate for this. With both Rome and Greece, it was frequently family based, in that a writer would support a particular family or clan and denigrate another. Think of them as political parties.

Part of the problem is that Warry writes about campaigns, not in chrono order. The next few chapters overlap considerably. I have tried to reassemble in chrono order. I have also brought in material from other references to fill in gaps and glue things together.

Rome was still a republic, but basically functioned as an aristroacry. About 133 BCE (620 AUC) Tiberius Gracchus, an agricultural socialist reformer, championed the unemployed farmers (put out of business by the recent acquisition of Sicily and Carthage's bread belt) in a class struggle which was already brewing between the plebians (land holding masses) and patricians (upper class). Into this roll in that the government is giving away bread to the starving masses. This spilled over into civil unrest and bloody mob scenes. Tiberius was killed, and his brother Gaius Gracchus took up the related cause of the equites, formerly the cavalry class, now slipping in social strata since the cavalry role was filled by Germans and Gauls.

Gaius was politically outmanuevered, and in true Roman form, killed in 121. Columbia's History of the World goes into the remarkably complex socio-econimcs of Roman agricultural policy. This is the timeframe when Roman politics start to get almost as complicated as Whitewater. It will stay that way until the collapse. I don't pretend to understand most of it. From Columbia's HOTW:

"...the Gracchi brothers...advocated...resettlement of small farmers on public land (hitherto rented to senators at minimal rates)" [which they turned around and rented at high profit] "... and provision of grain at less than market rates to feed the Roman poor, pending their resettlement. The longest lived of these measures was the last: most of the Roman mob preferred poverty and indolence in Rome to the hard work of a small farmer, and when one party began to bribe them with public money, the other could not offer less, so cheap grain gradually became free grain, and other "relief" measures went on increasing through the centuries until the imperial government broke down." [and this is from a liberal book]

I don't know if I've mentioned yet the unusual Roman political system where Tribunes (elected by the plebians) had very few powers, but one was the power of veto. In fact, any Tribunes could veto the action of another Tribune. Most unusual.

Perhaps this is a good time to mention an observation about titles. The Romans had a propensity to maintain a titled office for a thousand years. Over the centuries, the roles and responsibilities of that office would be completely different than what they were a few hundred years earlier, but the title would still remain the same.

112-104 BCE Marius and his quaestor Sulla (a patrician) kicked the Numidians around and added another brick to the Roman empire. Marius, as C-in-C, got credit and a tribute for the victory, and Sulla got his nose out of joint.

Meanwhile, a German tribe, the Cimbri, left Jutland and headed south, along with the Teutones (Teutonic? teutoburger?) and the Ambrones. The Romans had had bad experiences with Germans moving south, and so in 113 sent an army north of the alps. The Cimbri defeated the Romans at Noreia, but after this battle the three tribes headed west to the Rhone rather than south into Italy. In 105 Roman armies marched north from the Roman colony Massilla (Marseilles) and were soundly defeated at Arausio. Marius was given a second consulate in 104 and sent north to see what he could do. Wisely, he trained his army first.

Marius completely reformed the army, the first major reforms since Camillus. He reorganized, changing from the maniple formation to the cohort formation. He eliminated velites, and equipped everybody the same. The legion was now about 4800-6000 strong, depending on your source and whether you count supernumeraries, with six centuries per cohort, and 10 cohorts per legion. Apparently he was also the first to introduce the concept of the non-returnable-pilum, through the use of the wooden peg, later improve upon by other generations. The evolution of the pilum gets a half page of sketches. The terms triarii, hastati, principes, and maniples remained only as administrative terms. Almost three pages are dedicated to the new army and their equipment, including detailed sketches of the evolution of Roman helmets. The army became more mobile, and troops were expected to hump their own gear. Full kit for "Marius' mules" (dogfaces) is estimated at 80-100 lbs. Other sources estimate it at 60-70 lbs. ugh.

Marius also simplified the various standards to the eagle. Standards and banners receive over a page.

According to Warry, Marius was the first general to promise land grants to legionnaires upon retirement. This of course led to soldiers giving allegiance to their general, not to the Republic, one of the most crucial steps in Rome's history. Of course, in order to have land to give to the soldiers upon retirement, a general needed to conquer land. This then was Rome! Marius also recruited from the proletariat (those who contribute nothing to the state but children; i.e., non land holders) for the first time, and thus secured the support of the Popular Assembly. Marius was elected to an unprecedented six consulates.

Marius danced with the German tribes for a while, then clashed at Aquae Sextiae in 102, and annihilated the Teutones.

In 101, with 50,000 men he defeated 300,000 Cimbri (including non-combatants) at Vercellae, possibly one of the most influential battles in western history. For unlike previous German tribes which successfully sacked Roma and were gone as soon as they got the loot, the Cimbri had their women, children, animals, and entire culture with them: they were looking for a place to "stay."

Marius, one of Rome's finest generals, was accorded honors only given to Romulus and Camillus in Rome's previous six hundred years. But as soon as he wrapped up the war in the north, he turned to politics, and was a dismal failure. One is reminded of Ulysses S. Grant.

About 100, Gaius Julius Caesar was born.

In 91 BCE, Rome's Italian allies broke out in civil war, referred to as the "Social War". Sulla, a favorite of the Senate, who by this time had been a quaestor, a legatus, a praetor, and a governor (hence building a career), led Roman troops in the "social war" in southern Italy and was highly successful. Marius fought in the north to good effect.

Mithridates, king of Pontus (now northern Turkey), knew a good opportunity when he saw one, and took this time to expand his empire, scooping up Roman lands in Asia minor and the Aegean.

Back in the Social War, Rome got the upper hand, and negotiated out of strength. Roman citizenship was bestowed on all of Italy -- and the Italian coalition's rebellion fizzled. The war was over.

In 88 BCE the Senate appointed Sulla consul, but party politics intervened, and the Popular Assembly gave Marius command of the war against Mithridates. Incensed, and with six legions in Campania, Sulla's first act as consul was to march on Rome. He took the city, became de facto dictator, and purged Roma of his opponents.

Marius wasn't happy about this, and civil war broke out again. He managed to escape Roma with his skin, and fled to Africa.

Sulla had himself officially appointed dictator, just to be legal about it, and went off to fight Mithridates.

These were good days to be a soldier: business was booming. Fighting Mithridates in the east, Gauls and Germans at the northern border, expanding in Africa, maintaining an army in the already conquered areas, and -- oh yes -- fighting fellow Romans and Italians back home. Remember those unemployed farmers? Well, the unemployment problem was solved.

When Sulla left to campaign in the east, Marius recruited his loyal veterans, took Roma, had himself appointed to a seventh consulate, and purged Rome of his opponents and Sulla's supporters. Hard to believe, he died of alcoholism.

Sulla brought five additional legions to the number already in Greece. He besieged Athens, "cut down sacred groves to provide timber for his siege works and appropriated the wealth of Greek temples treasuries to defray costs." At one point, "sappers of the two sides met underground and fought a desperate battle with their spears amid subterranean gloom." Sulla won

In DBA terms I'd call an early Pontic army: 1xKn, 1xCv, 2xLH, 1xSCh, 4xPk, 1xAx, 1xBw and 1xPs. DBA's #58 Pontic is close. This army actually wore gold and silver on top of their armor. At Chaeronea (87) "...the scythe-wheel chariots were a complete fiasco, provoking the Roman soldiers to open laughter and ironical applause." The Romans won -- Sulla reported 100,000 enemy KIA, and only 12 Roman MIA. Clearly, he was applying some spin here. Sulla won the next battle at Orchomenos in 85 against the Pontic general Archelaus. Sulla was big on entrenching. At one point the Pontic archers "were reduced to using their arrows as swords."

Even though Marius died, the Popular party remained in power, raised a few legions and sent them to Greece in 85 under Flaccus to crush Sulla. His deputy Fimbria assassinated him and took over. Sulla now found himself between Fimbria's Romans and Mithridates' Pontic army. He made peace with Mithridates -- basically a 'cease fire and you can keep what you've gained' treaty, and turned his attention to Fimbria. Immediately he began recruiting Fimbria's army. Fimbria committed suicide, and Sulla took over his legions.

With Marius dead, Cinna was the Popular favorite and up to four consulates. His daughter Cornelia married one Gaius Julius.

Sulla then landed in Italy at the head of a large army, defeated the Samnites, a Popular army, and other republicans, and recaptured Roma (in his command was a young man named Gnaeus Pompeius, later known as Pompey the Great). He instituted a series of purges, created enemies' lists and massacred anyone even vaguely opposing him. Caesar just barely escaped. By this time the average citizens were probably thinking, "What happened to our republic?" Sulla died of disease in 78, ending this chapter of history.

One of Sulla's able admirals in the east was Lucullus, who performed admirably (pun) in the Aegean.

The Gauls are covered fairly well.

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