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godofthunder9010: No, you're correct when you say the Phalanx was a battle formation and not a weapon (not before the late 20th Century anyway!). As I mentioned in a previous posting:
The Pilum came in a couple of flavors, but it was primarily a throwing weapon - a javelin. The Roman Army did make use of thrusting spears, the Hasta, on more than one occasion, but those were different than the Pilum. |
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They were battle-hardened veterans who hardly ever went home, I have read. And they were absolutely relentless. For insurrection against the occupation of Rome they would crucify men along the roadside from town to town.
And having destroyed Jerusalem for rebellion against Rome at the last quarter of AD1, they performed holocaust on the Jews without mercy, and cleared the land completely. THEN - over a few hundred years, they kept returning at intervals and repeating the medicine - another holocaust each time - just to make sure it stayed fixed. Making your way back to start again did not work. Worse than the Sopranos! |
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Agreed. Battle, travel hardened professional soldiers. I suppose that the pre -WW11 armies of the British Empire were somewhat like that. Professional, experienced, highly trained and unemotional.
There is an exhibition regarding their presence in Northumbria, guarding our northern borders from the Picts, in autumn of this year in London. It contains recently unearthed personal documents of the Roman soldiers stationed there, letters home etc, very detailed, very personal, very human accounts of soldiers abroad by their own hands. There is a very good book recounting it. |
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Quote:
However they failed to copy the techniques of the invading tribes of the East, was this due to their number, fierceness or what? |
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