10-21-2010, 01:20 AM
I really am getting rather exasperated with all these vague assertions based on the purest speculation, and wishful thinking. I have repeatedly asked you to provide evidence for these but you never provide anything like it, instead just making wilder and wilder assertions.
Accordingly, I am going to be brief.
1. Pausanias, writing in the second century AD was quite wrong about the Sarmatians, or if we wish to be charitable, exaggerating. They, like other steppe nomads, may not have had a profusion of metal but from the earliest days, (6 C BC) grave finds include iron spearheads and arrowheads, as well as swords, daggers, horse bits and furniture. They also had plenty of bronze - many bronze objects such as mirrors etc appear as grave finds. And of course there was a profusion of gold. The clothes of the chiefs and wealthy among them were covered in gold applique and decorations. Many excavated graves ( over 100) contain iron and bronze scales from body armour, varying greatly in size from 2x1.5 cm to 8x2 cm. There are also plenty of bronze and iron helmets - as they moved west, they adopted first Greek helmets to their needs, and later celtic mail and helmets, as well as their own - like the spangenhelm. The earliest Sarmatian mail comes from the Kuban and dates to the 1 C BC, used at first combined with scales. By the end of the I C AD/early 2 C AD, complete mail corselets were in use - the time of the Trajanic wars.
In literature, Tacitus ( Histories I.79) describes Sarmatian armour in 69 AD as:
2. I asked you if you could look into archaeological evidence for Dacian mail in the late first/early second century AD, instead you make the unsupported assertion that 'chainmail depicted there confirmed by archaeological finds from Dacian tombs'. Presumably that is a reference to my post - but that is for 200 years previously! The only people on the Dacian side we can be sure used mail are the Roxolani ! ( from grave finds - see above)
POST PROPERLY PROVENANCED EVIDENCE/SOURCES FOR YOUR ASSERTIONS!! ...otherwise they are just fantasy and wishful thinking.....
3. I very much doubt that intact bronze mail shirt you posted was 'find in a Dacian tomb', and certainly NOT one of those I referred to - to begin with, if you read the reports above, you will see that it was Dacian funerary practice to thoroughly destroy weapons before burial, for both religious and practical reasons ( making it useless to any potential grave robber).
GIVE PROVENANCE! Where was it found? In what context? What date? Without this it is useless, and may even be a fake.....
I get the impression you were not aware of these finds of mail until I posted them!
4.
5. "logical to assume"...."I read somewhere"..."no reason to think" ....etc are just that ASSUMPTIONS.....where's the EVIDENCE? Also, I have surely given enough examples (e.g. about the Sarmatians above) to show that a holistic view must be obtained - to rely on a single representation, or even a single literary source, can be folly.
6. "..assume (falxmen) used an armour" ????? Read the thread again, Dan's post in particular..... :lol: :lol: :lol:
7.
More assumptions? EVIDENCE PLEASE!!!.....all Rome's enemies received Roman deserters - but that does not mean all her enemies adopted Roman methods or 'cloned' Roman organisation. The Gauls and Germans too had standards, and musical instruments to signal with - no-one in their right mind would suggest they were organised along Roman lines. Why should the Dacians be any different?
What "King's troops" ? - we don't even know if Decebalus had a bodyguard! "Permanent Army...and professional soldiers"? There is no evidence that Dacia had a permanent army, and in fact the social and economic structure that we know about would preclude such a thing !!
The only possible 'professionals' were Roman deserters. Dio reports that Decebalus had been recruiting south of the Danube "for he had been acquiring the largest and best part of his force by persuading men to come to him from Roman territory" - most likely from among those 100,000 Dacians driven out of their homes and given refuge by Rome in the 60's AD, therefore not 'professionals'. There is no evidence that the Dacians were any more "technologically advanced" than the Celts/Gauls or other Barbarian peoples. The only catapults they had seem to have been "captured engines" ( and Roman engine makers) from Fuscus
(according to Dio's account).
There is really much more to be refuted, but I can't be bothered.......like Matt I leave you to your Myth/Fantasy of 'Greater Dacia' extending from the Black sea into Germany, with its trained and professional army on a par with the Legions of Rome, and its armoured Dacian 'falxmen' capable of cleaving their way through the Legions....etc etc
Accordingly, I am going to be brief.
1. Pausanias, writing in the second century AD was quite wrong about the Sarmatians, or if we wish to be charitable, exaggerating. They, like other steppe nomads, may not have had a profusion of metal but from the earliest days, (6 C BC) grave finds include iron spearheads and arrowheads, as well as swords, daggers, horse bits and furniture. They also had plenty of bronze - many bronze objects such as mirrors etc appear as grave finds. And of course there was a profusion of gold. The clothes of the chiefs and wealthy among them were covered in gold applique and decorations. Many excavated graves ( over 100) contain iron and bronze scales from body armour, varying greatly in size from 2x1.5 cm to 8x2 cm. There are also plenty of bronze and iron helmets - as they moved west, they adopted first Greek helmets to their needs, and later celtic mail and helmets, as well as their own - like the spangenhelm. The earliest Sarmatian mail comes from the Kuban and dates to the 1 C BC, used at first combined with scales. By the end of the I C AD/early 2 C AD, complete mail corselets were in use - the time of the Trajanic wars.
In literature, Tacitus ( Histories I.79) describes Sarmatian armour in 69 AD as:
Quote: .....the dismounted warriors were weighed down by their body armour...made of iron plates (ferreis laminis) or toughened leather(praedurio corio)
2. I asked you if you could look into archaeological evidence for Dacian mail in the late first/early second century AD, instead you make the unsupported assertion that 'chainmail depicted there confirmed by archaeological finds from Dacian tombs'. Presumably that is a reference to my post - but that is for 200 years previously! The only people on the Dacian side we can be sure used mail are the Roxolani ! ( from grave finds - see above)
POST PROPERLY PROVENANCED EVIDENCE/SOURCES FOR YOUR ASSERTIONS!! ...otherwise they are just fantasy and wishful thinking.....
3. I very much doubt that intact bronze mail shirt you posted was 'find in a Dacian tomb', and certainly NOT one of those I referred to - to begin with, if you read the reports above, you will see that it was Dacian funerary practice to thoroughly destroy weapons before burial, for both religious and practical reasons ( making it useless to any potential grave robber).
GIVE PROVENANCE! Where was it found? In what context? What date? Without this it is useless, and may even be a fake.....
I get the impression you were not aware of these finds of mail until I posted them!
4.
Quote:Hmm, i really doubt Bastarnae ever used a falx, which is clearly a Dacian weapon, pointed by pretty much all evidences. In fact i doubt that Bastarnae ever participated to this wars, and is a confusion betwen them and Burii, a possible germanic tribe bearing the same name with a Dacian one.:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: No comment !! Buri? You've been reading Wiki again. The reference in Dio to 'Buri' is to the Dacian tribe of that name, not the Germanic tribe, who, according to Tacitus (Germania 43) lived "in a galaxy far,far away" from Dacia..... :lol: :lol:
5. "logical to assume"...."I read somewhere"..."no reason to think" ....etc are just that ASSUMPTIONS.....where's the EVIDENCE? Also, I have surely given enough examples (e.g. about the Sarmatians above) to show that a holistic view must be obtained - to rely on a single representation, or even a single literary source, can be folly.
6. "..assume (falxmen) used an armour" ????? Read the thread again, Dan's post in particular..... :lol: :lol: :lol:
7.
Quote:Dacian army was a trained and organized one, ....For example in this image
http://www.mnir.ro/images/colectii/075-063b.jpg
apear Dacian flags, the usual dragon with a wolf head, and others similar with Roman "vexilla", meaning that Dacian army was organized in units around those flags, similar with Roman organization. After all Decebalus received lots of desertors and, during Domitian, military instructors, and Dacians learned for sure from them the Roman army organization and training style
In this image
More assumptions? EVIDENCE PLEASE!!!.....all Rome's enemies received Roman deserters - but that does not mean all her enemies adopted Roman methods or 'cloned' Roman organisation. The Gauls and Germans too had standards, and musical instruments to signal with - no-one in their right mind would suggest they were organised along Roman lines. Why should the Dacians be any different?
Quote:Yes, as i said it wasnt probably all the army armoured, just nobles and king troops probably, the ones who formed the permanent army and who was professional soldiers
What "King's troops" ? - we don't even know if Decebalus had a bodyguard! "Permanent Army...and professional soldiers"? There is no evidence that Dacia had a permanent army, and in fact the social and economic structure that we know about would preclude such a thing !!
The only possible 'professionals' were Roman deserters. Dio reports that Decebalus had been recruiting south of the Danube "for he had been acquiring the largest and best part of his force by persuading men to come to him from Roman territory" - most likely from among those 100,000 Dacians driven out of their homes and given refuge by Rome in the 60's AD, therefore not 'professionals'. There is no evidence that the Dacians were any more "technologically advanced" than the Celts/Gauls or other Barbarian peoples. The only catapults they had seem to have been "captured engines" ( and Roman engine makers) from Fuscus
(according to Dio's account).
There is really much more to be refuted, but I can't be bothered.......like Matt I leave you to your Myth/Fantasy of 'Greater Dacia' extending from the Black sea into Germany, with its trained and professional army on a par with the Legions of Rome, and its armoured Dacian 'falxmen' capable of cleaving their way through the Legions....etc etc
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
