12-10-2011, 06:16 AM
Quote:Mainly because the Greeks were not as unique as they'd wish you to think. See the Carians, for example. Scythians, Arabs, Aethiopians, Celts, Iberians... All extremely common mercenaries, not just the Greeks. The enormous success is more due to them being available in huge numbers rather than any uber-advantage in tactics and technology.
Says who?
Your comments sometimes are unbecoming of the seriousness of this forum. Is this thread an effort to downgrade anything the Greeks invented or offered to the world or to seriously enquire on specific items/tactics/armor/weapons as to whether and to what extent were they invented or further developed by them?
What you consistently fail to understand is that most peoples of the ancient years were to a great degree unique. They wore their own traditional garments, they had their own peculiar art, their own techniques in ironsmithing and most other crafts, their own peculiar weapons and tactics, their own political systems, traditions, religions, burial customs, morals etc. The fact that our western society seemingly nurtures more respect towards the Greacoroman civilization and its peculiarity is that it deems itself its direct descendant. It has nothing to do with the Greeks being the inventors of everything, it has to do with the Greeks being the inventors of many things we use or hold dear today. In those eras, the Greeks would be as unique as most other peoples.
Greek warfare was indeed unique in its tactics, mentality, armament etc. The Greeks developed their own school of war not because they were superior minds but because EVERYONE in those times did so... Persians, Lydians, Carians, Egyptians, Scythians, Thracians, Celts, Indians, Romans... all had unique styles and tactics and for some reason they STUCK to them. If your question is why, then the answer is complex but can be summarized as it being easier and more effective to stick with what you know, what has worked and what you trust to copying something that may or may not work, it is because most ancient peoples were set in their ways and could not overnight change military traditions that they followed for centuries en mass. These are but some of those reasons. Adopting small things was common, more was rare to EVERYONE, not just Greeks.
As to who was the first man to forge himself a sword or spear, I think that the matter is of no importance at all. Inventing a certain weapon does not mean that you just made it from scratch. It could just mean that you designed a form of an already existent weapon/armor/shield adopted to the tactics that best suit you and your tribe. So, of course the Greeks did not invent the shield, but they DID invent THEIR shields. And it seems that the Greeks, being a warlike people that had access to every new thing in the known world were more probable to adopt a certain piece of armament than any other people around.
Now, there were times when the Greeks were indeed (as of course we know from Greek sources) considered the best troops around. You might attack the sources as biased, that is your choice, but these are the exact same sources that also praise other nations in various historical eras as well. That the Greek art of warfare was excellent we do not need books to prove. It is proven by the military exploits and expansion of the Greeks of the time. If Greeks did not excel in war, then we would probably never have heard of them, nor would they have left the legacy they did. Of course making such comparisons would be completyely irrelevant to this thread, but, if genuinely interested, you could start a relative thread.
In my opinion you mix up uniquness with influence. The Greeks were not "more unique". They just influenced US more than others. THIS is why we look up to their culture that much. For the Chinese or the Indians, the Greeks are but some alien civilization of average importance. Again, do NOT mix up influence with uniquenss and do not use sarcasm when not joking, because it can easily be mistaken for disrespect.
