John Lord
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 03: Ancient Achievements
Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud capital,–nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a prouder civilization,–the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man? The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.
AUTHORITIES
Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius, Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen, Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.
THE MILITARY ART
WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE
1300-100 A.D
In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.
The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of men,–envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness. Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.
But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings, either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.
One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.
Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies in Asia Minor.
After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats, of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.
It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits of heroes are the pith of history.
The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field of battle.
We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.
This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris, showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to orders,–the first principle in the science of war, which no successful general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests. After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor, conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown, or sought glory in distant expeditions.
We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.
The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon, although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots. The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us that they were named according to the arms they bore,–as "bowmen, spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers." These regiments were divided into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor; the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet, and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield, about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end. The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length, with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze, hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,–the charioteer, and the warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.
"The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry," says Wilkinson, "were divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,–the former chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called upon to break through opposing masses of infantry." The infantry, when employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields, under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the Romans a thousand years later.
It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns, were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural pursuits.
More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies, or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of armed men.
The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under constitutional forms of government.
The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline, introduced the phalanx,–files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight ranks,–sixty-four men,–closely locked when the soldiers received or advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was less solid than that of Sparta,–Miltiades having decreased the depth to four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,–but was more efficient in a charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence, the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible, as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by Miltiades at Marathon.
Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep, which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number, all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons, and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the enemy's line,–a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes, a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep, with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor. This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They had learned two things of great importance,–a rigid discipline, and a concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander, the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and smaller phalanxes.
In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect. The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East, the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.
The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had an intense esprit de corps; he was bound up in the glory of his legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength. When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities. Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must have been the military science that could reduce a place of such strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II., Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians, were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.
The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits. Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions they were capable of any privation and fatigue.
The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the republic–such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the civil contests–made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,–from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in the various provinces.
The main dependence of the legion was on the infantry, which wore heavy armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the right leg, and on the left arm a buckler, four feet in length and two and a half in width. The helmet was originally made of leather or untanned skin, strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look. The crests served not only for ornament, but to distinguish the different centurions. The breastplate, or cuirass, was generally made of metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used. The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt, and reached above the knees. The shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry was not round, like that of the early Greeks, but oval or oblong, adapted to the shape of the body, such as was adopted by Philip and Alexander, and was made of wood or wicker-work. The weapons were a light spear, a pilum, or javelin, over six feet long, terminated by a steel point, and a short cut-and-thrust sword with a double edge. Besides the armor and weapons of the legionary, he usually carried on the marches provisions for two weeks, three or four stakes used in forming the palisade of the camp, besides various tools,–altogether a burden of sixty or eighty pounds per man. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged together. The general period of service for the infantry was twenty years, after which the soldier received a discharge, together with a bounty in money or land.
The cavalry attached to each legion consisted of three hundred men, who originally were selected from the leading men in the State. They were mounted at the expense of the State, and formed a distinct order. The cavalry was divided into ten squadrons. To each legion was attached also a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and fifty-five of the smaller,–all of which discharged stones and darts with great effect. This train corresponded with our artillery.
The Roman legion–whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in the early ages of the republic, or six thousand, as in the time of Augustus–was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of Hastati (raw troops), Principes (trained troops), Triarii (veterans), and Velites (light troops, or skirmishers). The soldiers of the first line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes, was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was composed of tried veterans, in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were placed in the rear; these formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops, employed on out-post duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati were so called because they were armed with the hasta, or spear; the Principes for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve. The Triarii were armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of iron,–so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches. It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire, when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets, and carried a sword and dagger. The select infantry were armed with a long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw, a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were also furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.
