12-10-2011, 07:24 PM
Quote:@Macedon Man, you misunderstood me - my point is that they weren't the only popular mercenaries.
The thing is that your point is not understandable.
You wrote : "Mainly because the Greeks were not as unique as they'd wish you to think. See the Carians, for example. Scythians, Arabs, Aethiopians, Celts, Iberians... All extremely common mercenaries, not just the Greeks. The enormous success is more due to them being available in huge numbers rather than any uber-advantage in tactics and technology."
..the Greeks were not as unique as they'd wish you to think...
What does that mean? Why did they wish us to think they were unique? Why weren't they? As a comment this sounds sarcastic/disrespectful.
..All extremely common mercenaries, not just the Greeks...
Who said they were not? And if they were, we only know it because the Greeks wrote it down. Again, what is the point of this comment? Did anyone say that the Greeks were the only mercs around?
...The enormous success is more due to them being available in huge numbers rather than any uber-advantage in tactics and technology...
Now this, apart from totally unsupported, is actually contrary to what you just claimed! You said that others were as common to act as mercenaries and then you claim that the Greeks were available in "huge" numbers while the others were not? And all that just to support that there was nothing in terms of armament or tactics that made them a better choice as heavy infantry? This whole argument is absurd. Or is it an effort to justify their success as conquerors? In which case your argument sounds even more lacking in evidence... huge numbers of Greeks expanding against small tibes?????
Different peoples, different war traditions, were the Rhodians and the Balearics not superior slingmen? If they were was it only because they had better slings? Did the Spartans not for some reason enjoy a fame of superior ability among the Greeks for years? Or the Athenians, especially in the sea as mariners? Or the Persians in the east? Or the Romans? Is it just the Greeks on the whole that you claim to have had nothing that made them different from the rest of the world or does your argument encompass Roman, Steppes, Byzantine etc warfare as well? Can you really be advocating that Greek art of warfare was not different and as such could not be superior (or inferior or anything) to others? Only by somehow being different can you be better or worse. Even among the Greeks, even among two states with exactly the same look of arms, technology and tactics studied there could be huge differences in matter of discipline, resoluteness, sense of duty and honor etc. Such qualities were not separate from the cultural and sociopolitical reality of the state and could make a nation/tribe/state/societal group more able in war.
You wrote : "It was, just like everything else that ever existed."
Now this came as an answer to "well, muscle cuirass wasn´t invented by greeks?"
Again.. sarcasm... as if someone had claimed here that EVERYTHING that ever existed was invented by Greeks... And no actual answer, like "yes it was" or "no it was not"... What is more sad is the fact that you had already been told by that time that sarcasm should not be used in this way, especially if not clearly put among certain boundaries and in a clear context.
You wrote : "Suggesting there is something not invented by Greeks is simply laughable."
By whom? You kept on propagating the same position while NO ONE here supported such an absurdity.
etc etc etc..
You also wrote about the Romans : "I did not mean adoption on the scale of the Romans - they lived quite well off Celtic and Iberian weapons and Samnite tactics."
It seems that you are all to ready to deny any influence the Romans or the Greeks might have on Celts and Iberians (and any other "barbarian") but ready to accept that they had indeed invented everything... Why is that? The Romans called their sword gladius hispaniensis, but it was not actually the weapon of the Iberians... We say that they adopted Samnite tactics only because of some short comments, while having no idea of what these tactics were and whether they indeed did so. You have to understand that to adopt does not (does rarely) mean to copy! Adopting something only entails taking the general idea and developing it in whatever way you think fit. A khophesh is not a kopis, a hoplon shield is not just a round shield.
Peter, if you want your point to be taken seriously you have to be serious yourself. What you might have started as a thread to "probe the community" could have evolved to a highly educating thread. Members did post some very informative examples of how Greeks adopted foreign technology and practices using both archaeology and literature as evidence. Please, go along that path and stop trying to be sarcastic towards an opinion anyways NOT advocated by the members of this forum. I would also suggest you try to compile more detailed posts in the future, so that it can be easier to understand both your point and your tone.
