Rome versus Pyrrhus

[D B Campbell]

I must declare I am very surprised by this response. You are an academic as should be like myself aware of the criticism that exist given by modern historians regarding the validity of ancient writers. The academic journals are full of such criticism, and as an academic, you know of their existence, as you would have read many of them. I do not name names as I see no point to it, as I find it unfair to list a few names from a multitude of names. But if you are wanting of examples, here a but are a few from hundreds: ... etc

Your original criticism was of scholars who bend the sources to support their own theories. I don't see any of that in the snippets you quoted. Just the usual cut and thrust of debate. Bending evidence is quite a different thing, implying dishonesty: I just wondered if you could actually support such a serious allegation.

Caesar (Civil War III 91) claims a century consisted of 120 men and at the outbreak of the civil war, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon with the 13th legion, Plutarch (Caesar 32) claims Caesars only had 5000 men. So how does Ross Cowan reconcile his legion of 80 men per century with Caesar’s 120 men per century, and Plutarch’s 5000 man legion with Cowan’s 4800 man legion? We are missing 200 men.

I might equally ask how you reconcile Caesar's 120-man century with Plutarch's 5000-man legion. They can't both be right. (Or can they?)