08-29-2017, 12:36 AM
(08-28-2017, 02:56 AM)Michael J. Taylor Wrote: Also note Polybius 10.20.3 (Scipio's training regime in Spain, trans. Paton).
On the following day they were to practise, some of them sword-fighting with wooden swords covered with leather and with a button on the point, while others practised casting with javelins also having a button at the point.
No dummies involved here, nor is it clear to me what the training value of such an elaborate proposition might be. Modern militaries shoot targets molded to look like enemy soldiers (Crazy Ivans in US Army slang), but this practiced developed after WWII out of fears that troops might hesitate to kill human beings if they only training with bull-eye style targets. It is doubtful any pre-modern army had such compunctions, least of all the Romans, who enjoyed watching people be killed in the arena for fun.
I'll add to this that the best training the US military has to adequately prepare combat forces with the mindset for battlefield domination is force on force training. With rifles and tanks, we do it with blanks, lasers and alarms that sound off when the laser triggers them. But the ancients did this as you describe, sparring individually or in large groups as part of mock battles. The pallus was to learn the form to conduct an attack, sparring was to practice it.
