07-05-2007, 09:23 AM
The feats mentioned in the first post could hardly be exceeded, I think. So instead of offering worse performance I only have the task begrudgingly to entertain some doubts, sry. :wink:
The feats are really, ähm, hard to believe. Is it from Polybios? Normally one of the best sources available, but hard to believe in this case. (when I read the post first time, it was a performance of 90 km a day for 10 days??).
While 90 km a day for 10 days is, sorry, more or less impossible, 69 km a day for 15 days is only ... hard to believe. When we look at the sometimes better documented marching performances of the armies of the Napoleonic times, we see that a pensum of 30-35 km a day was a forced march, about 23 km a good march. That being for mixed units of a greater scale than the 7000 Romans; of course the greater the slower. Extreme marches of troops composed only of one arm of the service could reach 60 km a day. That were absolute exceptions for short periods. The corps of Davout marched 122 km in about 45 hours before the battle of Austerlitz. Some soldiers slept during parts of the battle because of exhaustion.
When such marches were done the rate of casualties was enormous. A Prussian corps in 1813 of about 40000 men had casualties of 6000 men due to a forced march of 30-35 km a day over several days. So if the 7000 Romans marched like it was said, only a certain proportion would have reached the goal in my opinion.
And that would have been not that desaster because, as far as I know (but I'm not sure at the moment), Hasdrubals army of about 30000 was already faced by a four legion army of about 40000 even without the southern reinforcements.
Nevertheless a great performance of will and power by the earlier Romans. No wonder they beat every foe in the longer run. And I never believed that the imperial Roman soldiers were better than their predecessors.
The feats are really, ähm, hard to believe. Is it from Polybios? Normally one of the best sources available, but hard to believe in this case. (when I read the post first time, it was a performance of 90 km a day for 10 days??).
While 90 km a day for 10 days is, sorry, more or less impossible, 69 km a day for 15 days is only ... hard to believe. When we look at the sometimes better documented marching performances of the armies of the Napoleonic times, we see that a pensum of 30-35 km a day was a forced march, about 23 km a good march. That being for mixed units of a greater scale than the 7000 Romans; of course the greater the slower. Extreme marches of troops composed only of one arm of the service could reach 60 km a day. That were absolute exceptions for short periods. The corps of Davout marched 122 km in about 45 hours before the battle of Austerlitz. Some soldiers slept during parts of the battle because of exhaustion.
When such marches were done the rate of casualties was enormous. A Prussian corps in 1813 of about 40000 men had casualties of 6000 men due to a forced march of 30-35 km a day over several days. So if the 7000 Romans marched like it was said, only a certain proportion would have reached the goal in my opinion.
And that would have been not that desaster because, as far as I know (but I'm not sure at the moment), Hasdrubals army of about 30000 was already faced by a four legion army of about 40000 even without the southern reinforcements.
Nevertheless a great performance of will and power by the earlier Romans. No wonder they beat every foe in the longer run. And I never believed that the imperial Roman soldiers were better than their predecessors.
Wolfgang Zeiler
