3rd centrury Roman infantry tactics - Stephenson vs Cowan

[Anonymous]

I often wonder why Ian concentrated on the spear tactics only in his book while he was aware of a lot of archaeological artifacts such as pilum and the Dura rectangle shield from the 3rd century. I think he just wanted to emphasise the changes that did take place throughout the 3rd century. I also think he was limited to the amount of space and number of illustrations for his book, otherwise he would have also discused more traditional methods with extra illustrations of pilum armed troops with either oval or rectangle shaped shields plus segmenta armour.<br>
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I could be wrong, Ian could have been influenced by his other past hobby of late Roman and Saxon battle reenactment where there is a heavy emphasise of fighting in shield walls with long spears. Mind you, he was good and never showed any mercy even to prisoners as he gleamed with excitment as he role played their execution. <p></p><i></i>