06-02-2005, 05:26 PM
Bear with me. I will get to Gladiator later in the post!
Harry Sidebottom's "Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction" has an interesting chapter analysing the "western way of war" versus the "eastern way of war". The author claims that the Greek/Roman style of relying on infantry, favouring conflict resolution through open battles, fighting in coherent units for the community, and so on, is what the Classical world mythologised as the "western way of war". Meanwhile, their enemies tended to favour "cowardly" tactics, like relying on missile fire, ambushes and guerilla warfare, fighting individualistically, for a ruler.
NB the concept of "eastern" warfare could be applied to celtic fighting styles too, or to the mixed-arms forces of Hannibal, so wasn't confined simply to geographically eastern enemies. Ironically, although the Greeks forumulated the idea, the Romans got hold of it and cateogorised the Greeks as cowardly "eastern" style fighters.
This myth of "western" warfare, Sidebottom argues, has persisted through the ages so we still tend to think of, say, modern European or American armies using the "western" way. Incidentally, the author points out that the Romans often didn't follow the "western" way of fighting, but tended to see themselves as doing so, whether or not this reflected reality.
"What does all this have to with the thread?", I hear you ask. Well, the author begins the book by using the battle at the start of Gladiator as an example of western versus eastern styles - the organised Romans, fighting in coherent units, versus the the chaotic, individualistic barbarians. Of course, as he points out, the film Gladiator reflects modern audiences' ideas/myths of "western" and "eastern" ways of fighting, rather than any historical reality.
Harry Sidebottom's "Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction" has an interesting chapter analysing the "western way of war" versus the "eastern way of war". The author claims that the Greek/Roman style of relying on infantry, favouring conflict resolution through open battles, fighting in coherent units for the community, and so on, is what the Classical world mythologised as the "western way of war". Meanwhile, their enemies tended to favour "cowardly" tactics, like relying on missile fire, ambushes and guerilla warfare, fighting individualistically, for a ruler.
NB the concept of "eastern" warfare could be applied to celtic fighting styles too, or to the mixed-arms forces of Hannibal, so wasn't confined simply to geographically eastern enemies. Ironically, although the Greeks forumulated the idea, the Romans got hold of it and cateogorised the Greeks as cowardly "eastern" style fighters.
This myth of "western" warfare, Sidebottom argues, has persisted through the ages so we still tend to think of, say, modern European or American armies using the "western" way. Incidentally, the author points out that the Romans often didn't follow the "western" way of fighting, but tended to see themselves as doing so, whether or not this reflected reality.
"What does all this have to with the thread?", I hear you ask. Well, the author begins the book by using the battle at the start of Gladiator as an example of western versus eastern styles - the organised Romans, fighting in coherent units, versus the the chaotic, individualistic barbarians. Of course, as he points out, the film Gladiator reflects modern audiences' ideas/myths of "western" and "eastern" ways of fighting, rather than any historical reality.
Rob Grainger
