Quote:Bryan post=357748 Wrote:"The horsemen of the ala milliaria rode around around the wings of the infantry, nearly colliding with the ala dextra. Luckily, the lead turmae reigned in, turned and veering off further away, following the path of the Roman Ala quingenaria already in pursuit of the Gallic ala"
A good copy-editor would pick up nonsense like that immediately and mark it for revision. Consistency with sense is the name of the game. There is no need to descend into anachronistic squadrons, troops, or regiments (which is not to say they don't have their place; they are just not necessary to make sense out of nonsense).
Mike Bishop
Would you ever choose to use simpler descriptors for ancient nouns? Can a gladius just be sword? Can a large body of horsemen just be a squadron? I used the Roman and Macedonian words before (
Ala and
Ila) and while it would seem to be correct to separate the two in a work of non-fiction, in a novel I think it would come out clumsy, especially when both refer to 200-300 horsemen in a unit. Generally, for a sourced historical work meant primarily to educate, where the use of anachronistic words or presentism, to attempt to give modern values to an older concept, It should be discouraged. But even some esteemed authors like Phil Sidnell and Jeremiah McCall, both writing about the history of ancient cavalry, both used the term squadron. I found it less "offensive" than if they had used regiment, battalion, company, platoon, or squad. For some reason troop or squadron just doesn't seem as wrong...
For the sake of flow and ease of reading in a novel set in a historical time period, primarily meant to entertain, secondarily to educate, would the use of such words be so out of line? I'm of the opinion that if it doesn't need to be in a foreign language, than don't write it in a foreign language.
Future info to add to confusion:
From one source, the etymology of
Turma is "sworm."
Squadron is "square" from Latin
squadra/exquadra
Troop is Latin
troppus for "flock"
Ala is "wing"
