06-15-2008, 01:27 PM
Salvete,
I've followed this thread for some time with great interest and want to add my two pence now.
Another problem with the "artefact-based" approach is, that it can cause something what social scientists call path-dependency. Path dependency forces thinking in a subtle way into certain directions, which are hardly to overcome.
As to the uniformity of legions it's often argued that the uniform look on representations is propagandistic and wouldn't apply to reality. I don't agree here. If on all representation the empire wanted to depicted its soldiers as uniform, it surely made an effort to match up its troops in real as well. If it always reached this goal is another question of course, but generally it had the ressources to achieve this. Uniformity has further an important socio-psychological effect on humans, which is and was every hierachic military system based upon. De-individualisation. A very important factor in the enforcment of discipline. And discipline is that a professional army distinguishes from a bunch of mercenaries. Especially the Roman Army.
That in my opinion speaks further against a big diversity in appearance is the fact, that's even more difficult to produce a line of products (e.g. tunics, shields, helmets) that look different, than some that look the same. There may have been surely differences in details (e.g. color shades, enblems, ornaments on armour), but the overall-look was most probably uniform.
I've followed this thread for some time with great interest and want to add my two pence now.
Quote:If you make up ideas first, then you will find yourself hunting for proof for these.Christian, even though this is sadly an often recognised phenomenon within scientific communities in every disciplin, one cannot say that one or the other method is better, if both are excercised properly. In fact the scientific system generates theories for hundreds of years with deductive (roughly theory-based) and inductive (experimentally/artefact-based) procedures. Its a special problem of natural sciences and also archaeology - due to its nature of course - that it is way too much focussed on the inductive approach. From a statistician's POV for example all finds being made have hardly ever turned up in (statistically) significant numbers, so as to justify our believes about how widely things were spread back then. So generating hypothesis - within reasonable limitations of course - is perfectly fine and is just the way knowledge has been generated successful since ever. And sadly for 99-odd % of all what happened or was made in antiquity never any evidence will turn up. And a hypothesis (e.g. interpretation) can't be dismissed simply, just because there's no hard evidence to support it. Any hypothesis can and must be temporarily accepted as long there is no way to proof it wrong by contrary evidence. Its a basic rule of science. For example there is no way to proof an elephant enblem on a shield is wrong. Its simply impossible to falsify. I must admit here that some methodology scientist (e.g. Karl Popper) in the 80's argued that no hypothesis should be allowed that can't be falsified, but they are/were a minority and have no influence nowadays in the scientific community.
Another problem with the "artefact-based" approach is, that it can cause something what social scientists call path-dependency. Path dependency forces thinking in a subtle way into certain directions, which are hardly to overcome.
As to the uniformity of legions it's often argued that the uniform look on representations is propagandistic and wouldn't apply to reality. I don't agree here. If on all representation the empire wanted to depicted its soldiers as uniform, it surely made an effort to match up its troops in real as well. If it always reached this goal is another question of course, but generally it had the ressources to achieve this. Uniformity has further an important socio-psychological effect on humans, which is and was every hierachic military system based upon. De-individualisation. A very important factor in the enforcment of discipline. And discipline is that a professional army distinguishes from a bunch of mercenaries. Especially the Roman Army.
That in my opinion speaks further against a big diversity in appearance is the fact, that's even more difficult to produce a line of products (e.g. tunics, shields, helmets) that look different, than some that look the same. There may have been surely differences in details (e.g. color shades, enblems, ornaments on armour), but the overall-look was most probably uniform.
[size=85:2j3qgc52]- Carsten -[/size]
