03-03-2005, 10:31 PM
Quote:</em></strong><hr>Hard to pummel someones head clear off with a club, methinks.<hr><br>
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Aye, well, methinks likewise, although I doubt a practical experiment would prove feasible... There is also the small matter of the seven children - the recruitment situation in 200AD having surely not got that desperate, it would seem my last theory is collapsed!...<br>
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(The method of decimation by group beating as described by Polybius would, of course, have had the advantages of symbolically spreading the responsibility for the death amongst the fellow soldiers, and of avoiding the dismemberment or mutilation of the body, which seems to have been a taboo in traditional Roman society (hence crucifixion/hurling from rocks/sewing into bag with snake etc)... by the later empire, though, punishment by beheading, as well as mutilation, seems to have become more common. There is an apocryphal martyr story dated to c.495 of the decimation of the 'Theban Legion' under Diocletian - the story itself almost certainly bunk but the details of procedure possibly having an origin in fact - which describes soldiers being executed 'by the sword'. Well, maybe, maybe... But this is pure speculation...) <p></p><i></i>
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Aye, well, methinks likewise, although I doubt a practical experiment would prove feasible... There is also the small matter of the seven children - the recruitment situation in 200AD having surely not got that desperate, it would seem my last theory is collapsed!...<br>
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(The method of decimation by group beating as described by Polybius would, of course, have had the advantages of symbolically spreading the responsibility for the death amongst the fellow soldiers, and of avoiding the dismemberment or mutilation of the body, which seems to have been a taboo in traditional Roman society (hence crucifixion/hurling from rocks/sewing into bag with snake etc)... by the later empire, though, punishment by beheading, as well as mutilation, seems to have become more common. There is an apocryphal martyr story dated to c.495 of the decimation of the 'Theban Legion' under Diocletian - the story itself almost certainly bunk but the details of procedure possibly having an origin in fact - which describes soldiers being executed 'by the sword'. Well, maybe, maybe... But this is pure speculation...) <p></p><i></i>
Nathan Ross
