the use of the drum - military cadence

[Tarbicus]

at the moment there is a discussion going on that the same word in
the 6/7th cent. means a pipe. Maybe cause the bag is also of leather...

Sounds like we could have evidence then for a Roman Bagpiper which Duncan will like!

Indeed, it is not as clear-cut as we might hope. Under Athenian homicide law, a man might be "killed with tympana": the tympanon at that time appears to have been a device of torture or execution.

Yup. Bagpipes, an instrument of torture.......

8)

[Tarbicus]

So, sculpturally (and on some coins) sometimes the soldiers were in step and sometimes not. There's no easy way to determine why the one sometimes, and the other at other times.

Just like some monuments show legionaries wearing gear that looks like the stuff actually dug out of the ground, and some monuments do not :wink:

[Magnus]

Well, some have said that Trajan's column was made/sculpted by artisans who may never have seen any "real" Roman soldiers, since they were forbidden to enter the city under arms, but that the Adamklissi metopes were carved by actual soldiers. The quality of the art is less on the latter, but some things like segmentata are more accurate on it. Not many agree that the segmentata, for example on TC is correct when compared to the archeological finds.

Actually, it's not just Trajan's column, I have pictures from the column of Marcus Aurelius as well as others. Again, the majority points to out of step...And it's impossible to tell what the original artists of T's C observed and didn't.

I fall in on the side that says there were some occasions when they did, and some when they didn't. In really close order, like say, a testudo on the move, I can't see how that could easily work out of step, since the feet/bodies are really close together. It can work, but only if all the soldiers take "baby steps", which would be painfully slow going.

Have you ever done a Testudo out of step Dave? I take it your answer is no...I have and it works fine. One doesn't need to take baby steps. The problem as always is spacing. For some reason reenactors are always attached to the back of the person in front of them, instead of spacing things out a bit more. The other thing you need to ask yourself, is that IF they did move in step, was it done on instinct or was it trained? :twisted:

Difficult to say in either regard, however, I feel that this is where some experimental archaeology comes in handy.

[Paullus Scipio]

Magnus wrote:

Actually, it's not just Trajan's column, I have pictures from the column of Marcus Aurelius as well as others. Again, the majority points to out of step...And it's impossible to tell what the original artists of T's C observed and didn't.

...true enough, but it should be pointed out that the soldiers in the Trajan's Column illustration you posted ( who are Legionaries/Praetorians, by the way) are shown crossing a bridge , led by Trajan himself (scene CI ). Since time immemorial marching troops always 'break step' when crossing bridges, so as not to set up resonance in the structure. Elsewhere on the column, troops including Praetorians and Legionaries seem to march 'in step' ( including another bridge- crossing scene! - but different sculptors did different scenes ) , and ALL the scenes of bodies of troops at Adamklissi, both marching and in battle, show troops 'in step'. It should be noted that the troops of the Greek Phalanx, and certainly the Spartan one, had been recorded as marching 'in step' as long as 600 years before, again both on the march and in the advance to battle, as well as doing this to music, in order to facilitate keeping step. Since the early Roman Army had used Hoplite Phalanxes, it is therefore possible the Roman Army had been marching 'in step' for at least 500 years by Trajan's time......

[M. Demetrius]

The other thing you need to ask yourself, is that IF they did move in step, was it done on instinct or was it trained?

For me, at least, as already stated, I'm in the camp of "sometimes they did, and sometimes they didn't". I could add the corollary that I think it was trained. It's not usually seen (for example in a shopping center) that untrained people walk in step, but I haven't been everywhere, so can't say if it's instinctual in other environs. In Texas, most folks walk out of step unless instructed to do otherwise, and when they do, they have to really think about it. Marching band training comes to mind: it takes quite a while to get the whole band to stay in step...in time is not so hard, because of the drums, etc (which we have concluded weren't evidenced in Roman military marching) but for everyone to be on the same foot at the same time seems to take some training.

Marching in testudo (albeit a small one, for lack of personnel) out of step, I caught the heel leather of the guy in front of me, and the guy behind me nicked my ankle, causing a sore, oozing wound. After we decided to do it in step, nobody else got stepped on. Maybe we were closer than some others practice that maneuver: it would depend on how much the scuta are overlapped, I guess.

But this is digressing from drums again, eh?

[Sean Manning]

So, sculpturally (and on some coins) sometimes the soldiers were in step and sometimes not. There's no easy way to determine why the one sometimes, and the other at other times.

Just like some monuments show legionaries wearing gear that looks like the stuff actually dug out of the ground, and some monuments do not :wink:

Although the thing there is, we can compare the art to the artifacts and prefer the art that matches the artifacts. There isn't anything similar with "did they march in step or not" unless a Roman drillbook which is clearer than Vegetius turns up in Egypt one day. You reenactors seem to disagree about whether or not its necessary.

Apparently Lipsius, who wrote the first modern book on Roman warfare in 1595, was convinced the Romans marched in step. But he might have been influenced by how he though soldiers in his own day should fight, because he wanted them to use his book for advice.

[Robert Vermaat]

Are we not 'marching' away from the topic of this discussion? Proof of the military use of the drum?

Apparently Lipsius, who wrote the first modern book on Roman warfare in 1595, was convinced the Romans marched in step. But he might have been influenced by how he though soldiers in his own day should fight, because he wanted them to use his book for advice.

That might very well have been the case. It's the same for the 'Romans in uniform' discussion - modern conceptions projected back in time.

[Paullus Scipio]

Robert wrote:

Are we not 'marching' away from the topic of this discussion? Proof of the military use of the drum?

...I thought that this thread had already established that there is no evidence for Roman use of drums in a military context? :? wink: :wink:

[Magnus]

Military cadence is part of marching in step...of all the digressions on RAT this one is at least in the same context.

[M. Demetrius]

There are many ways to get a rhythmic sound without drums, if such a sound is desired. A stick on a shield boss. Two sticks hit together. A sword hilt or blade against a scutum. A regular honk of a cornu or tuba. A vitus across the back of an out-of-step soldier. :lol:

If the Romans desired for a regular sound to be heard without a drumbeat, they could have achieved it. Did they? I don't know.

Does a column of men need an external rhythmic beat to stay in step? No, not really. The sound of the feet impacting the ground and the clanking of bits of gear is enough.

Cadence is an interesting word. Latin for it is "clausula numerosa", which as best I can translate it literally would be "little enclosures by (or maybe to) the numbers"--not sure if the ending is ablative or dative--which comes from Harper Collins Concise Latin Dictionary. Another way to translate it might be "numbered measures". Either of those would certainly fit the word cadence as we understand it today.

Maybe someone better trained in Latin can provide a better rendering.... :?:

BTW, Sean, there are quite a few more military refs concerning training, commands and formations/drill than Vegetius' De Rei Militari, but of course you know that. So far, no "This Is How We Teach Recruits To March" scrolls/wax tablets have been discovered (if any ever existed), or any translations of them from a later time, for that matter. Probably would settle lots of things if such a book were found, wouldn't it? And it would probably start arguments we haven't even thought about yet, too, eh? :wink:

[Rumo]

Clausula (nominative) is the last part of a sentence having a specific rhythm , probably it alone can be translated by 'cadence'.

[M. Demetrius]

Don't get me wrong, folks, I'm in no way advocating the theory that the Romans used some kind of called cadence. I don't know if they did, ever.

*IF* they ever did, it would have more likely been on some form of "parade around and impress the Emperor", and not on the campaign trail, I believe. There may have been some form of commands called at a formal gatherings or parades somewhere, but on the battlefield the sizes of the battle groups, and the distances involved, without real amplification, and the din of gear, voices screaming curses on the enemies and oaths to their own deities, battlecries, screams of pain, etc., would render the voice of anybody pretty inaudible and irrelevant.

Trumpets and visual signals are mentioned in sources, and the sound of a trumpet will often carry above the noise of hoofbeats, etc., which is why the armies of the world have used them for many centuries: it works.

Not as a cadence, but we have used the flats of gladii across the shield boss as we advance, beating out a rhythm as we close in on a crowd (not immersion events, but public). Is that accurate for Romans? Hard to know. But the crowd liked it, and in those events, that is what we were there for--to please the hosting agency by exciting the visitors.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I am sure I read somewhere in the sources that the Spartan/Greek flute players were used to create a rhythm
to march and row with. Why not the armies?