Soldiers, Citizens, And The Symbols Of War


Book Description

In this comprehensive overview of ancient warfare, Antonio Santosuosso explores how the tactical and strategic concepts of warfare changed between the beginning of the fifth century B.C. and the middle of the second century B.C. and why the West-Greece, Macedonia, and Rome-triumphed over the East-understood geographically as Persia or ideologically




Soldiers, Citizens, And The Symbols Of War


Book Description

In this comprehensive overview of ancient warfare, Antonio Santosuosso explores how the tactical and strategic concepts of warfare changed between the beginning of the fifth century b.c. and the middle of the second century b.c. and why the West—Greece, Macedonia, and Rome—triumphed over the East—understood geographically as Persia or ideologically as Carthage. He also shows how the role of warrior related to the role of citizen and how the symbols and propaganda stemming from war emphasized and promoted the values of Western societies.When considering the evolving role of the citizen as warrior, Santosuosso finds that these roles were indistinguishable from each other in the earlier stages of classical Greece. The Peloponnesian War, however, challenged this system by introducing new army types, such as mercenaries, peltasts, and light infantry. Soon after, Macedonia introduced the cavalry, thrusting it, along with heavy infantry, into a place of prominence and diminishing the complementary roles of citizen and warrior typical of earlier times. Later, the advent of the Roman legion continued this evolution, altering again the place of the citizen in ancient society.Rich in analysis, Soldiers, Citizens, and the Symbols of War is a valuable and accessible source for students of ancient warfare and classical society and provides thorough coverage of the major battles of antiquity—Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, Sphacteria, Leuctra, Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela, Synoscephalae, Pydna, Trebia, Cannae, Ilipa, and Zama.




Warfare in the Ancient World


Book Description

Warfare in the Ancient World explores how civilizations and cultures made war on the battlefields of the Near East and Europe between the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia in the late fourth millenium BC and the fall of Rome. Through a exploration of twenty-six selected battles, military historian Brian Todd Carey surveys the changing tactical relationships between the four weapon systems - heavy and light infantry and hevay and light cavalry - focusing on how shock and missile combat evolved from tentative beginnings in the Bronze Age to the highly developed military organization created by the Romans. The art of warfare reached a very sophisticated level of development during this three millenia span. Commanders fully realized the tactical capabilities of shock and missile combat in large battlefield situations. Modern principles of war, like the primacy of the offensive, mass, and economy of force, were understood by pre-modern generals and applied on battlefields throughout the period. Through the use of dozens of multiphase tactical maps, this fascinating introduction to the art of war during western civilizationÕs ancient and classical periods pulls together the primary and secondary sources and creates a powerful historical narrative. The result is a synthetic work that will be essential reading for students and armchair historians alike.




Storming The Heavens


Book Description

In the closing years of the second century B.C., the ancient world watched as the Roman armies maintained clear superiority over all they surveyed. But, social turmoil prevailed at the heart of her territories, led by an increasing number of dispossessed farmers, too little manpower for the army, and an inevitable conflict with the allies who had fought side by side with the Romans to establish Roman dominion. Storming the Heavens looks at this dramatic history from a variety of angles. What changed most radically, Santosuosso argues, was the behavior of soldiers in the Roman armies. The troops became the enemies within, their pillage and slaughter of fellow citizens indiscriminate, their loyalty not to the Republic but to their leaders, as long as they were ample providers of booty. By opening the military ranks to all, the new army abandoned its role as depository of the values of the upper classes and the propertied. Instead, it became an institution of the poor and drain on the power of the Empire. Santosuosso also investigates other topics, such as the monopoly of military power in the hands of a few, the connection between the armed forces and the cherished values of the state, the manipulation of the lower classes so that they would accept the view of life, control, and power dictated by the oligarchy, and the subjugation and dehumanization of subject peoples, whether they be Gauls, Britons, Germans, Africans, or even the Romans themselves.




TRADOC Pamphlet TP 600-4 The Soldier's Blue Book


Book Description

This manual, TRADOC Pamphlet TP 600-4 The Soldier's Blue Book: The Guide for Initial Entry Soldiers August 2019, is the guide for all Initial Entry Training (IET) Soldiers who join our Army Profession. It provides an introduction to being a Soldier and Trusted Army Professional, certified in character, competence, and commitment to the Army. The pamphlet introduces Solders to the Army Ethic, Values, Culture of Trust, History, Organizations, and Training. It provides information on pay, leave, Thrift Saving Plans (TSPs), and organizations that will be available to assist you and your Families. The Soldier's Blue Book is mandated reading and will be maintained and available during BCT/OSUT and AIT.This pamphlet applies to all active Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard enlisted IET conducted at service schools, Army Training Centers, and other training activities under the control of Headquarters, TRADOC.




Soldiers' Lives through History - The Ancient World


Book Description

Once warfare became established in ancient civilizations, it's hard to find any other social institution that developed as quickly. In less than a thousand years, humans brought forth the sword, sling, dagger, mace, bronze and copper weapons, and fortified towns. The next thousand years saw the emergence of iron weapons, the chariot, the standing professional army, military academies, general staffs, military training, permanent arms industries, written texts on tactics, military procurement, logistics systems, conscription, and military pay. By 2,000 B.C.E., war was an important institution in almost all major cultures of the world. This book shows readers how soldiers were recruited, outfitted, how they fought, and how they were cared for when injured or when they died. It covers soldiers in major civilizations from about 4000 B.C.E. to about 450 C.E. Topics are discussed cross-culturally, drawing examples from several of the cultures, armies, and time periods within each chapter in order to provide the reader with as comprehensive an understanding as possible and to avoid the usual Western-centric perspective too common in analyses of ancient warfare.




Roman Military Disasters


Book Description

Over some 1200 years, the Romans proved adept at learning from military disaster and this was key to their eventual success and hegemony. Roman Military Disasters covers the most pivotal and decisive defeats, from the Celtic invasion of 390 BC to Alaric's sack of Rome in AD 410. Paul Chrystal details the politics and strategies leading to each conflict, how and why the Romans were defeated, the tactics employed, the generals and the casualties. However, the unique and crucial element of the book is its focus on the aftermath and consequences of defeat and how the lessons learnt enabled the Romans, usually, to bounce back and win.




Killing for the Republic


Book Description

How Rome's citizen-soldiers conquered the world—and why this militaristic ideal still has a place in America today. "For who is so worthless or indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of polity the Romans . . . succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government—a thing unique in history?"—Polybius The year 146 BC marked the brutal end to the Roman Republic's 118-year struggle for the western Mediterranean. Breaching the walls of their great enemy, Carthage, Roman troops slaughtered countless citizens, enslaved those who survived, and leveled the 700-year-old city. That same year in the east, Rome destroyed Corinth and subdued Greece. Over little more than a century, Rome's triumphant armies of citizen-soldiers had shocked the world by conquering all of its neighbors. How did armies made up of citizen-soldiers manage to pull off such a major triumph? And what made the republic so powerful? In Killing for the Republic, Steele Brand explains how Rome transformed average farmers into ambitious killers capable of conquering the entire Mediterranean. Rome instilled something violent and vicious in its soldiers, making them more effective than other empire builders. Unlike the Assyrians, Persians, and Macedonians, it fought with part-timers. Examining the relationship between the republican spirit and the citizen-soldier, Brand argues that Roman republican values and institutions prepared common men for the rigors and horrors of war. Brand reconstructs five separate battles—representative moments in Rome's constitutional and cultural evolution that saw its citizen-soldiers encounter the best warriors of the day, from marauding Gauls and the Alps-crossing Hannibal to the heirs of Alexander the Great. A sweeping political and cultural history, Killing for the Republic closes with a compelling argument in favor of resurrecting the citizen-soldier ideal in modern America.




Cannae


Book Description

Gregory Daly's enthralling study considers the reasons that led the two armies to the field of battle, and why each followed the course that they did when they got there. This striking and vivid account is the fullest yet of the bloodiest battle




War and Peace in the Western Political Imagination


Book Description

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. The study of war in all periods of prehistory and recorded history has always commanded the attention of historians, dramatists, poets and artists. The study of peace has, however, not yet gained a comparable readership, and the subject is attracting an increasing amount of scholarly research. This volume presents the first work of academic research to tackle this imbalance head on. It looks at war and peace through the ages, from the Classical world through to the 18th century. It considers the nature and advocacy of war and peace both from an historical perspective but also a philosophical one, particularly looking at how universal peace, which began as a personal philosophy, became over the centuries a political philosophy that underpins much of modern society's attitudes towards warfare and militarism. Roger Manning begins his journey through history by looking at the Greek martial ethos and philosophical concepts of peace and war in the ancient world; moving through the Roman empire's military advances, he explores the concepts of war and peace in the medieval world and the Renaissance, with the writing of Machiavelli and Erasmus; finally, his account of the search for a science of peace in the 17th and 18th centuries brings the book to its conclusion.