An Analytical Viewpoint

Relief depicting Persian spearmen Metatron, for those who don’t know of him, has made many excellent videos on YouTube regarding historical events and peoples.  He specialises in Japanese and Ancient Roman history, but regularly answers questions on other historical periods. In one of his videos, he gives his view of why the Romans used swords instead of spears, as most warriors and soldiers did in antiquity. He proposed that the Romans chose swords instead of spears because of the equipment of the opponents that they fought.  Most of them, he said were barbarians rather than the armoured men of later eras.  He rightly stated that the Romans would have quickly adapted their army to an armoured threat if they had to face one.  He gave an example of the Roman legions quickly employing the manica (arm guard) in response to the Dacian falx. While he makes a good point about Roman adaptation to the threats they faced, the hypothesis that the Roman soldiers fa...

Bust of Plato Eloquence is generally a good quality of good public speaking.  However, it can occasionally serve to confuse issues and mislead people who confuse ‘winning’ a public debate with being factually correct.  This is a particular problem associated with demagogues.  In the United States, presidential candidates are often those with legal experience and can hold their own against another speaker with less education in rhetoric.  An experienced debater who is obsessed with winning will resort to less intellectually honest methods to win over a crowd, including saying things which are outright false in order to render his opponent speechless. A less eloquent, but more knowledgeable opponent might make better use of internet dialogue to make their points if they are unused to the nuances of public debate.  This can include those who know they have the information to counter a point but do not have it on the tip of their tongue.  Theirs is o...

For the majority of the history of warfare, the shield has featured prominently.  It was mostly used by infantry and then by archers and cavalry.  It had great utility in deflecting blows and protecting the user from missiles.             With such great utility, how did it decline in usage? Some might say that gunpowder small arms had something to do with it.  The fact is that shields were increasingly discarded by close combat troops prior to the widespread adoption of firearms. A shield was typically made from wooden slats (or wicker in some Middle Eastern constructions) and covered with rawhide for extra reinforcement and protection. Some early depictions of the shield in massed combat were Assyrian reliefs showing spearmen with large tower shields protecting archers and slingers.   Assyrian soldiers The Persian Sparabara functioned in the same way.  The use of the shield was never ...

Adolf Hitler 1933 - Wikimedia commons What if this would be mass murderer had died in his cradle or a World War 1 trench or had been assassinated in the early days of fascism? This type of question is common for anyone speculating whether the second global conflict could have been averted.  Another question is whether or not Germany would have fallen if their leader had died in the early stages of the war.             It is almost certain that a second global conflict would have occurred because of several factors.  Germany was a changed and traumatised country after the First World War.  Many felt that the terms of the Versailles treaty were too harsh to be imposed on a country impoverished by a major war.  Along with the Versailles treaty came a poisonous notion: the stabbed in the back myth.             This myth posited that the German armed forc...

Gandhi's salt march Non-violent civil resistance is a wonderful idea whose utility cannot be underestimated.  In theory and practice, the authority which does not lead by consent will naturally lose its foundation.  If the non-violent civil resisters are brutalised , then the authority loses all vestiges of legitimacy since legitimacy stems from honorable action and popular consent. However, it is not a principle that can work universally.  Non-violent civil resistance worked well in India for a number of reasons. The first is the population in India outnumbered the British expatriate class and administration by over a thousand to one.  Secondly, the vast geographical expanse between India and England was a further deterrent to keeping India.  Keeping India could only be justified (from an economic perspective) if the risks and losses from such a distance could be mitigated or exceeded by the resources gained from ruling.  Furthermore, the adminis...

Bows have seen active service in armies for thousands of years prior to the introduction of gunpowder.  When Blackpowder weapons became prevalent, they quickly superseded and eventually replaced the bow as the missile infantry weapon.  How did this occur and why? Were there any battles in which the bow and musket competed against each other? Bowvsmusket.com is specifically dedicated to this topic, detailing the unnamed blogger’s views on why the bow was completely inadequate compared to the musket.  He cites battles, opinions by gunpowder era figures and uses these to form his conclusions on the matter.  The two myths that he declares busted are: ·        That bows outranged muskets significantly ·        That muskets replaced bows because they were easier to train with The first has reasonable credibility, within a certain context, while the second has no rational basis. Range of Muskets ...

Andean sling - Img source Wikimedia commons This is a question that crops up in forums and discussions about ancient combat.  Slingers were described by the ancients in very positive terms.  Suddenly they were no longer present.  There are scanty records of sling combat post-antiquity and many explanations have been postulated for their demise. The first is that slings were replaced by bows.   Bows became predominant simply because they were better, more precise, farther reaching etc. The problem with this theory is that while both slings and bows are biodegradable, the oldest discovered bows (Holmegaarde, 6000 BC) predate the oldest sling discovered (2500 BC, Lovelock cave) by thousands of years.   The theory also discounts all written evidence concerning the sling.   Slings were crude but powerful weapons which could project missiles much further than an archer could shoot an arrow.   Long range throwing also depended on the type of ammun...

Tutankhamun embraces Osiris Ancient Egypt is in dispute. Although we can now more accurately devise the racial profile of ancient Egyptians, it seems as if many believe it is still up for grabs, with multiple supremacist groups claiming to be direct descendants.   The motives behind the claims are obvious.  Egypt has a long, sophisticated history dating back to the late Sumerian period.  The pyramids are numerous and constructed with precision. Great Pyramid of Giza   They made early contributions to mathematics and technology and were one of the first states in history.  All racist beliefs (and many nationalist ones) have a sense of superiority and uniqueness ingrained in their narratives and this is where the trouble lies.  To support many claims, researchers have looked at head shapes of statues and mummies and the skin tones of people on paintings and frescos.  But how valid are any of these methods of determination? The...