Obviously it's just a wild guess ... just to talk.
but if a whistle is useless (for various reasons) during a battle would probably be very useful to a commander for training and exercises.
Again, just my little observation and totally without foundation ... what do you think of my fanciful hypothesis?
Quote:Setting aside the noise of battle, I don't think it's fair to say that the enemy could sow confusion by tooting merrily along on their own whistles.
On this topic, could the enemy sound trumpets to cause confusion amongst the troops - especially in a civil war where both armies were using the same instruments (and assuming they were trained to follow the same signals)?
I can't recall any instance of this happening, whereas there's numerous references to trumpets being used to give a false impression of numbers and location.
But it's clear from some instances that armies could get easily confused, especially in civil wars where everybody was wearing - roughly - the same equipment.
E.g. Ser. Sulpicius Galba accidentally ended up sandwiched between Antony's lines at Forum Gallorum and was mistaken on his return for an enemy by his own troops (Cicero, ad Fam. 10.30), Onasander (6) mentions that armies came to blows after mistaking the own rearguard for an enemy, as happened to Vitellius whose army nearly panicked when they saw their rearguard arriving (Tacitus, Hist. 2.68).
All of these, and the well-known instance of soldiers of Vespasian using shields of legionaries of Legio XV to approach and dismantle a catapult(Tacitus Hist. 3.23), are of course visual clues and, except in the last case, the results of confusion and not an attempt to deceive.
But I'd imagine that once units lost of each other through bad weather, terrain, fog, dust, nightfall (there's a reason night usually stopped the fighting, after all), or having outflanked or breached enemy lines and gotten more or less entangled, would the soldiers have realised whose side was sounding, say, a retreat?
For fun, attached an image from "Asterix Légionnaire" where a similar scenario occurs. :wink:
[attachment=1726]scipion.jpg[/attachment]
Translation: "Finally Scipio, having lost heart, orders a retreat... Julius Caesar is the victor." Scipio: "Oh blast it. We'll leave. Sound the retreat". First cornicen: "I take orders only from Caesar!" Second cornicen: "Shut up. He's talking to me!"
[Despite this attempt at levity by introducing a comic, the rest of the text is still written as seriousness.]
Quote:Not all whistles sound alike! Quite the opposite, in fact.
What causes whistles to sound differently? Assuming some kind of mass-production, would the whistles still sound distinctly different, or could a whistle captured from an enemy (in a parallel to Tacitus 3.23 mentioned above) have been used? Apologies for going off rather far into the realm of speculation, considering it's been established that the noise would have negated the effect of whistles at any rate.
Max
M. Caecilius M.f. Maxentius - Max C.
Qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatetur
- Q. Ennius, Annales, Frag. XXXI, 493
Quote:if a whistle is useless (for various reasons) during a battle would probably be very useful to a commander for training and exercises... what do you think of my fanciful hypothesis?
A pretty good fanciful hypothesis! I thought the same actually - on a training field, less noisy (probably) than a battlefield, whistles could be used to duplicate the horn calls, without having to turn out the cornicen and alarm everyone with the real thing!...
This is a good time to mention your own reconstruction whistle I think. You say it's 'pretty loud', but how loud is it compared to a modern whistle?
The 'pea whistle' was only invented in the 1880s, giving the loud piercing note we associate with whistles today - this was the sort used in the first world war, and by sports referees. I assume an ancient whistle would give a much softer sound, more like a flute.
Incidentally, I had a quick check on military use of whistles, and it seems the British light infantry used them from the 1790s. An 1899 drill manual says that they're only used for calling attention to the officer before he gives an order; the US army rejected a suggestion to adopt them in 1879. So - old, but not that old!
Quote:But it's clear from some instances that armies could get easily confused, especially in civil wars where everybody was wearing - roughly - the same equipment.
This has been a problem for armies throughout history! Aside from wearing some sort of sign or badge, the use of passwords seems common - which is one of the reasons why the tessarius was such an important role, and why the punishment for giving away the password was so harsh! In a battle, of course, the enemy would soon discover your password and start shouting it back at you, but at least it would give some initial advantage.
To Ben/Parthian Bow: I have Centurions and optios using whistles in mine as well. Although a cornicen/bucinator assigned to each Century or cohort could be used for such a task. To Ventus Draconis: It might get confusing with several of these instruments going off at the same time unles there was a unit preamble (Like the Killer Angels book describing the Dan Butterfield bugle preamble:'you hear that call, you know the next one is for your!) I would also point out that the absence of a thing does not necessarily preclude it's existance. Unless you go digging around the blue mud of Vindoland (spell?) wooden whistles aren't going to survive two millenia, but they sure make sense! Perhaps they are not mentioned in contemporary accounts because their use was taken for granted? I don't remember Josephus mentioning them though.
On a related note, I'm currently reading Anthony Riches 'Wounds of Honour'. Its an OK read, a few inaccuracies ... but the jarring thing for me is reading about the big battle when the soldiers all grab each others' belts to steady themselves, complete with whistle blowing - seems to all be lifted straight out of HBO's ROME. :-( :-(
What I don't understand is why people see the need to believe that the Romans would even want to relieve the entire front line at one time.
Ex. A Roman is stationed in the front rank and is facing off with an enemy warrior. He ends up getting wounded severely, the ranker behind him takes his place as they pull the wounded man to the rear. Seconds after the new front rank soldier squares off a Centurion, who is is probably busy himself fighting, decides to blow a whistle/signal the cornicen/wave the standards/etc and suddenly the fresh fighter is relieved by another soldier from behind. Sounds a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Plus the centurion supposedly fights alone in front right of the century and has no one to relieve him.
Couldn't it have been simpler? You put your best and most aggressive men in the front ranks and attack. The rear of the ranks are filled with the less than enthusiastic men who are chucking pilum and providing morale to the front rankers by their presence. The optio is stationed at the rear to keep these individuals from running away.
When the aggressive warrior from the front get too tired or are wounded/killed they are relieved individually by the man behind them. When the century (prior) seems to be loosing its fighting spirit or momentum another century behind them (centurio posterior?) takes over by pushing their way through the files since a few sources say the Romans fought in open ranks (Polybius). Entire front ranking century is now fresh and the attack continues.
It seems to me from reading a few of the ancient sources that the Romans generally were the ones using brute force tactics of attempting to steam roll the enemy line. Off the top of my head I can only remember a few battles where Romans were stationary and took an enemy assault: Aquae Sextiae and Pharsalus.
Hi Nathan,
thanks for having recalled my whistles post.
Regarding your question, I have not compared my whistle with modern whistles but I remember they were very noisy.
Consider that when I was made them closed in my garage I try dozens of times and my neighbor about 50 meters told me he heard their sound in his closed house.
Now I have asked at some re-enactors that have my whistles...
@Mithras: I really enjoyed Wounds of Honour. I don't remember the soldiers gripping each other's belts in HBO Rome, but regardless of whether they did or not, it didn't seem out of place to me in Riches' book. Either way, it's not inconceivable.
@MDF: this is why I want one of your whistles! Will be emailing you - thanks for all the images.
I had no idea that this topic would arouse so much interest!
I would like to add that I have had most of the Roman orders directed by trumpet etc. I have only used whistles for the first command to charge/attack/respond to an enemy charge. In fact, I've used it so Spartacus can get his men all to rise up from ambush at the same time when attacking Varinius' forces. Now that's definitely a possibility in my mind, and there would be NO noise of battle to deaden the sound.
Ben Kane, bestselling author of the Eagles of Rome, Spartacus and Hannibal novels.
Eagles in the Storm released in UK on March 23, 2017.
Aguilas en la tormenta saldra en 2017.
Quote:An 1899 drill manual says that they're only used for calling attention to the officer before he gives an order
Iam not doing roman reenactment. But I do have some exerience with late medieval periode fighting with a polearm/pike unit. We use wood whistles before the "officer" gives his order just like descriped in the quote. It really helps the men in the line focus on the order. Without the whistle the order is much more likely to be drowned out by the sound from the combat.
I have no idea if the romans used it, but it works with a 30man unit so I do believe it would have help the centurions too.
From Brent Nielsen to Bryan: The Centurion doesn't stand alone in front. That is only for parade. He is posted on the right or the center as the situation presents. He more than likely had the optio signaling (however it was done, whistles, drums, cornicae, bucinarae) for the rotation. During his 'break' the centurion was DEFINETLY not be bent over, hands on knees, suckng wind! In my mind, he does what all current company grade officers and NCOs do in any modern army, he checks on the men, analizes the situation, gives encouragement, figures the next course of action, while insuring the best fighters (like first stringers in a football, basketball or whatever game), get a break, before they have to go in again. We can argue, discuss, speculate for days on how this may have been executed. However it occurred, whether on command by rank or by individual movements, it happened. I would propose this: rookie units probably relieved the front ranks on command. Veteran units, accustomed to the high death rate in the Centurionate, established a 'battle rythmn' over time. Like modern troops (needing fewer and fewer orders or directions from superiors who could be dead and not positioned to tell them what to do) they may have reverted to a standard operating proceedure (inherent in all aspects of the Roman military), and carried on! There is the Pharsalus example; with Gaius Crastinus dieing, but his soldiers carrying on, to back me up. There is the Teotubrgwald (spell?) example to tear me down.
From Brent to Bryan and Parthian Bow: The Centurion doesn't stand alone in front. That is only for parade. He is posted on the right or the center as the situation presents. He more than likely has the optio signaling (however it was done, whistles, drums, cornicae, bucinarae, whatever) for the rotation. During his 'break' the centurion was DEFINETLY not be bent over, hands on knees, suckng wind! In my mind, he does what all current company grade officers and NCOs do in any modern army, he checks on the men, analizes the situation, gives encouragement, figures the next course of action, while insuring the best fighters (like first stringers in a football, basketball or whatever game), get a break, before they have to go in again. We can argue, discuss, speculate for days on how this may have been executed. However it occurred, whether on command by rank or by individual movements, it happened. I would propose this: rookie units probably relieved the front ranks on command. Veteran units, accustomed to the high death rate in the Centurionate, established a 'battle rythmn' over time. Like modern troops (needing fewer and fewer orders or directions from superiors who could be dead and not positioned to tell them what to do) they may have reverted to a standard operating proceedure (inherent in all aspects of the Roman military), and carried on! There is the Pharsalus example; with Gaius Crastinus dieing, but his soldiers carrying on, to back me up. There is the Teotubrgwald (spell?) example to tear me down.
Exactly why does an SOP have to be complex? Why does everything have to be written down and endorsed by Caesar himself before a century can perform it?
Why do we need to put the values of our current military system (extremely complex and ridiculously dangerous and often based on actual science) and put it in an ancient time?
I just think that we make things more difficult than they need be.
On a side note that first scene from "Rome" was pretty cool, definitely got me interested. But knowing what I know now it would have been more interesting to see them face off against Gauls with shields that fought in some semblance of order or cohesion. You know, like how Caesar mentioned it. And if the Romans charged and threw pilum too, kind of hard to do either with someone grabbing your belt from behind.
Either way agree to disagree.
Quote:What I don't understand is why people see the need to believe that the Romans would even want to relieve the entire front line at one time.
Ex. A Roman is stationed in the front rank and is facing off with an enemy warrior. He ends up getting wounded severely, the ranker behind him takes his place as they pull the wounded man to the rear. Seconds after the new front rank soldier squares off a Centurion, who is is probably busy himself fighting, decides to blow a whistle/signal the cornicen/wave the standards/etc and suddenly the fresh fighter is relieved by another soldier from behind. Sounds a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Plus the centurion supposedly fights alone in front right of the century and has no one to relieve him.
Couldn't it have been simpler? You put your best and most aggressive men in the front ranks and attack. The rear of the ranks are filled with the less than enthusiastic men who are chucking pilum and providing morale to the front rankers by their presence. The optio is stationed at the rear to keep these individuals from running away.
When the aggressive warrior from the front get too tired or are wounded/killed they are relieved individually by the man behind them. When the century (prior) seems to be loosing its fighting spirit or momentum another century behind them (centurio posterior?) takes over by pushing their way through the files since a few sources say the Romans fought in open ranks (Polybius). Entire front ranking century is now fresh and the attack continues.
It seems to me from reading a few of the ancient sources that the Romans generally were the ones using brute force tactics of attempting to steam roll the enemy line. Off the top of my head I can only remember a few battles where Romans were stationary and took an enemy assault: Aquae Sextiae and Pharsalus.
IIRC, it is mentioned by Goldsworthy, that Greek phalanx practice was to put best & most steadfast men into front and back ranks. Latter prevented front tranks to flee so easily (and apparently also optio & tesserarius behind ranks helps too).
My personal opinion is that replacement of front rank happened during lulls in combat, since it was rare to have continuous clash, that would have been physically impossible. More likely battle consisted of series of clashes between lines/units with periods of small pauses in between.
(Mika S.)
"Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." - Catullus -
"Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit."
