Fireside this week! Apologies for having so many of these so close together, but the recent car troubles I’ve had have eaten into my time quite a lot. At the same time I am getting ready for the annual Society for Military History conference coming at the end of next week. In an effort to make a virtue of necessity then, I’ll muse a bit on the topic of the roundtable at SMH that I am moderating, “Warfighting other than Battle in the Late Classical and Hellenistic World.” We seem to have gotten more Percy pictures lately, so here is Ollie resting a bit after a hard day’s worth of resting a bit ..read more

This is the second part of the fourth part of our four(ish) part (Ia, Ib, IIa, IIb, IIIa, IIIb, IVa) look at the context between the Roman military system based on the manipular legion and the Hellenistic military system structured around the Macedonian sarisa phalanx in the third and second century BC. Last time we discussed the first major clash of these systems outside of Italy, the Second Macedonian War (200-197), concluding that while the Roman system of fighting does seem to have provided a tactical edge, the larger operational and strategic advantages provided by Rome’s broader military ..read more

Fireside this week! Apologies for having two of these in a row, but as I noted last week, I’ve had some unexpected (but good) travel, which has made a bit of havoc in my schedule and I am still trying to catch back up. Nevertheless, I wanted to use this week’s fireside to muse a bit on a topic I think I may give a fuller treatment to later this year, which is the disconnect between what it seems many ‘radical traditionalists’ imagine traditional Roman values to be and actual Roman cultural values. Percy was not thrilled that I had to be out of town for several days. He is, in fact, quite a cre ..read more

Fireside this week! The ACOUP schedule might end up being a little unstable for the next few weeks as the coincidence of illness, the dense part of the teaching semester and unexpected travel are playing havoc on my schedule. I can only promise that we will finish the series on the failure of Hellenistic armies, but that it may be a bit before we do. Percy would like to know why you are so close to his window, which he uses to keep guard against the birds outside. For this week’s musing, I want to muse briefly on the seemingly perennial ideology of isolationism, in the context of the United St ..read more

This is the first part of the fourth part of our four(ish) part (Ia, Ib, IIa, IIb, IIIa, IIIb) look at why the thing to use to beat a Macedonian sarisa phalanx is, in fact, a Roman legion in the third and second century BC. Last time, we finished our look at the third-century successes of the phalanx with the career of Pyrrhus of Epirus, concluding that even when handled very well with a very capable body of troops, Hellenistic armies struggled to achieve the kind of decisive victories they needed against the Romans to achieve strategic objectives. Instead, Pyrrhus was able to achieve a set of ..read more

Fireside this week! We’ll pick up looking at some of the successes of Hellenistic armies next week. Percy, having found a use for some of my books. And of course, less I miss a chance to note, at the top of the pile there is the Brill’s Companion to Diet and Logistics in Greek and Roman Warfare, in which I have a chapter (the whole volume is excellent). For this week’s musing, I wanted to take the opportunity to expand a bit on a topic that I raised on Twitter1 which draw a fair bit of commentary: that fascists and fascist governments, despite their positioning are generally bad at war. And le ..read more

This is the second part of the second part of the second part of our four part1 look at the great third and second century BC contest between the Romans and the heirs of Alexander, asking the question, “What can defeat a Macedonian sarisa-phalanx?” Last time, we started looking at the Romans with an in-depth look at the Roman tactical system. This week, we’re going to slide up the systems of military analysis, looking at the operational and strategic advantages the Romans also enjoyed, in addition to their tactical edge. Now I think at the beginning it is worth saying something about ‘edges’ a ..read more

This is the first part of the second part of our four? four part1 look at the great third and second century BC contest between the Hellenistic armies of the heirs of Alexander and the Roman legions. Last time, we looked at the Hellenistic army as a complete system, incorporating not just the famed Macedonian sarisa-phalanx, but also light and medium infantry and a decisive cavalry-striking force. This week, we turn to the Romans to look at how the Roman legion of the Middle Republic is structured and its tactical system. Then, for the second half of this part (next week) we’re going to zoom o ..read more

This is the second part of the first part of our four part1 look at the context between the Hellenistic army and its Macedonian phalanx and the Romans with their legions. Last week, we looked at the weapons, organization and fighting style of the Macedonian phalanx, the infantry core of the armies of the Hellenistic world, the heirs of Alexander (and, indeed, of Alexander’s army too). This week, we’re going to turn to the rest of the army, because the Macedonian phalanx never fights alone and isn’t the decisive arm of the army in any event. Instead, the Macedonian phalanx sat as the core of a ..read more

This week on the blog we are starting what is a planned four-part series looking at the twilight of Hellenistic warfare and the triumph of the Roman legion. Our core question is a really common one: why was the Roman legion able to decisively defeat the Hellenistic sarisa-phalanx? It’s a question that crops up on social media frequently, usually in the form of someone tweeting or posting something along the lines of this: And of course a lot of folks use that as an opportunity to give joke answers (machine guns! cruise missiles!), but what struck me was that on the original tweet and both my ..read more