02-12-2014, 10:16 AM
Quote:" . . .Only yesterday I saw an army better trained that any chorus (Themistius was present at Valens headquarters during the offensive of 368). Homer is obviously quite outdated in admiring Menesthenes as one fit to handle infantry and cavalry. The poet did not know the ordered movement of your phalanx, the instinctive understanding of your cavalry or those trained to live with their weapons, nor was he ever struck with joyful amazement at such a sight. He would, I believe, mock the story of the line and dove, having seen the mobile archers who, leaving the reins to their steeds, shoot more accurately than those with their feet on the ground . . ."
It is also tempting to see in this one of the first moments going towards new dominant troop Type during early Byzantine times-Roman horse archer.Interestingly also Procopios mentions Homer when he praises combat ability of horse archers of his days.
