Historical Battles in Ancient & Medieval Bharat

[ramana]

Salar Jung Museum in Hyd had some famous swords. There was one belonging to Aurangazeb.

Windos Castle museum had many swords from India.

[Rahul M]

Armen, may be they didn't want to sell swords ? that's not unthinkable.
correct me if I am wrong but the japanese were not quite keen on selling their swords in the medieval period. I don;t think the mongols sold swords either, although they were quite well known for ironworks.
it is a fact that Indian armies were much more sword based for a long time than those elsewhere, which is a step in military evolution that takes place when the average swordmaking skill starts producing swords that are as reliable as the average spear. europe reached this stage with the late roman republic, the middle east a little later while Indian armies were already primarily sword based by the time of alexander.

[Lalmohan]

rahul - primarily or as part of mixed arms units? there are clear advantages in spearmen vs swordsmen in some circumstances

also - are you saying that the macedonian phalanx was due to poor sword quality? (compared to the later roman sword based fighting formations)

[peter]

Arment wrote:
"This is why Damascus, Viking and Japanese swordsmiths are well known and not Indian smiths."

Peter replied:
"Would have to disagree. Crucible steel was developed in India. It was exported to Damascus by Indian merchants before Christ and from there it came to be known as Damascus. Just like Arabic numerals. Originally from India, made popular in the west by/through Arabs.

You've completely missed my point. If you look at my previous post, I never said that Indians didn't have good steel. What I said was Indians didn't have outstanding swordsmiths.

No. Invention of crucible steel in India was an accidental consequence of the desire to make "hard" and "sharp" swords. India had/has a caste of people who are known as "lohaars", literally those who "deal" with "loha" or iron (and other metals too). They were the swordsmiths and made other weapons too (besides ploughshares etc) and were the ones who invented the crucible steel technology.

There isn't any sort of historical record of swords from (say) Bangalore, Kerala, being of superior quality and of much demand in the middle-east. But there are names such as Masamune, the smiths of Bizen, Muramasa, Ulfbehrt, the smiths of Solingen etc. who were known for the quality of their blades.

Can you please put a date to these names?

Curved swords seem to gain popularity in India only after Moghul rule started, as they brought curved swords from Persia.

How can this be true when Bana in Harsha Charitra mentions use of Talwar? Also, as you alluded above w.r.t cavalry, just to extend your point, Indian armies had a big component of cavalry and curved sword is an indispensable item for cavalry men in the Indian context.

(..snip..)
There may have been some limited talwar use before Muslim rule, but honestly, just go to a museum and observe the old weapons from before islamic period, as well as old paintings and sculptures. Majority of them show straight swords. Wouldn't say that the arabs invented the curved sword either, they might have been influenced by the Mongols.

Would you know how these swords have been dated? Dating metal ain't easy! The Delhi iron pillar has not been dated precisely yet! Though it is standing since at least the time of the Guptas! And lastly absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Bana is quite acceptable as a source for the presence of talwar in India prior to the arrival of Arabs.

We have a tendency to club all "intelligence (ok maybe most)" arriving into India from outside!

[ramana]

ArmenT, I thought the Toledo was a center for swords due to the Moorish conquest of Spain. The migrated from Damascus. And we know the origins of Damscus steel.
The craft passed on to Solingen in late middle ages.

[Rahul M]

rahul - primarily or as part of mixed arms units? there are clear advantages in spearmen vs swordsmen in some circumstances

there are roles which are more suited to spears, primarily defending against cavalry and defending choke points. but against each other, it is more or less accepted by now that everything else being same, swordsmen beat spearmen.

also - are you saying that the macedonian phalanx was due to poor sword quality? (compared to the later roman sword based fighting formations)

partially, yes. military practice is as much a factor of technology as of tradition and the greeks had a very strong hoplite tradition.
however, please remember that phalangites also carried a kopis and were as skilled with those as with spears. which means that while philip kept and modified the hoplite tradition he was also adopting the swords. the romans too started off as a hoplite army and switched to swords which they saw as superior.
the 'barbarian' armies of gaul and germania were near completely spear based, with only the king and a handful of nobles being able to afford swords. there was another celtic tribe who were famous for their large swords, which however suffered from a problem that those frequently got bent in battle, signifying poor sword making skills.

[Singha]

what about axes. the scots were famous for fighting with two headed axes and pole-axes (the germanic leader in gladiator too wielded a pole axe) ... and their bearish builds permitted some control over such a heavy weapon I suppose.
you an see it @ 2:00 here - definitely a badass character
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD_tv2NGdgk

my reading of history tells me a lot of roman opponents were former allies who had been used a buffer forces or paid off to be munnas. others had units which had formerly served in the roman army and then changed sides or deserted.
so some of them were quite well aware of roman tactics, eqpt and weaknesses. sometimes they scored spectacular victories like in battle of the teutoborg forest when a alliance of germanic tribes destroyed 3 legions and camp followers.

the parallel in modern times is America trying to maintain its fraying empire using unreliable and double crossing allies like Pakistan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... urg_Forest

Varus's forces included three legions (Legio XVII, Legio XVIII, and Legio XIX), six cohorts of auxiliary troops (non-citizens or allied troops) and three squadrons of cavalry (alae), most of which lacked combat experience with Germanic fighters under local conditions. The Roman forces were not marching in combat formation, and were interspersed with large numbers of camp-followers. As they entered the forest (probably just northeast of Osnabrück 52°24′38″N 8°07′46″E), they found the track narrow and muddy; according to Dio Cassius a violent storm had also arisen. He also writes that Varus neglected to send out advance reconnaissance parties.

The line of march was now stretched out perilously long — estimates are that it surpassed 15 km (9 miles), and was perhaps as long as 20 km (12 miles).[28] It was then suddenly attacked by Germanic warriors armed with light swords, large lances and narrow-bladed short spears called fremae. The Germanic warriors surrounded the entire Roman army and rained down javelins on the intruders.[31] Arminius, who had grown up in Rome as a citizen and become a Roman soldier, understood Roman tactics very well and could direct his troops to counter them effectively, using locally superior numbers against the dispersed Roman legions. The Romans managed to set up a fortified night camp, and the next morning broke out into the open country north of the Wiehen Hills, near the modern town of Ostercappeln. The break-out cost them heavy losses, as did a further attempt to escape by marching through another forested area, with the torrential rains continuing. The rain prevented them from using their bows because sinew strings become slack when wet, and rendered them virtually defenseless as their shields also became waterlogged.


The Romans then undertook a night march to escape, but marched into another trap that Arminius had set, at the foot of Kalkriese Hill (near Osnabrück). There, the sandy, open strip on which the Romans could march easily was constricted by the hill, so that there was a gap of only about 100 m between the woods and the swampland at the edge of the Great Bog. Moreover, the road was blocked by a trench, and, towards the forest, an earthen wall had been built along the roadside, permitting the Germanic tribesmen to attack the Romans from cover. The Romans made a desperate attempt to storm the wall, but failed, and the highest-ranking officer next to Varus, Legatus Numonius Vala, abandoned the troops by riding off with the cavalry; however, he too was overtaken by the Germanic cavalry and killed, according to Velleius Paterculus. The Germanic warriors then stormed the field and slaughtered the disintegrating Roman forces; Varus committed suicide.[28] Velleius reports that one commander, Praefectus Ceionius, shamefully surrendered and later took his own life,[32] while his colleague Praefectus Eggius heroically died leading his doomed troops.

Around 15,000–20,000 Roman soldiers must have died; not only Varus, but also many of his officers are said to have taken their own lives by falling on their swords in the approved manner.[28] Tacitus wrote that many officers were sacrificed by the Germanic forces as part of their indigenous religious ceremonies, cooked in pots and their bones used for rituals.[33] However, others were ransomed, and some of the common soldiers appear to have been enslaved.
Reconstruction of the improvised fortifications prepared by the Germanic tribes for the final phase of the Varus battle near Kalkriese

All Roman accounts stress the completeness of the Roman defeat. The finds at Kalkriese, where, along with 6,000 pieces (largely scraps) of Roman equipment, there is only one single item — part of a spur — that is clearly Germanic would seem to indicate minimal Germanic losses. However it must be taken into account that the Germanic victors would have removed the bodies of their fallen, and their practice of burying their own dead warriors' battle gear with them must have contributed to the lack of Germanic relics. Additionally, several thousand Germanic soldiers were deserting militiamen who wore Roman armour (which would thus show up as "Roman" in the archaeological digs); and in fact the Germanic tribes wore less metal and more perishable organic material.

The victory over the legions was followed by a clean sweep of all Roman forts, garrisons and cities — of which there were at least two — east of the Rhine; the remaining two Roman legions, commanded by Varus' nephew Lucius Nonius Asprenas, were content to try to hold that river. One fort (or possibly city), Aliso, fended off the Germanic tribes for many weeks, perhaps a few months, before the garrison, which included survivors of the Teutoburg Forest, successfully broke out under their commander Lucius Caedicius and reached the Rhine.

[ramana]

Halberd was what ended the knights.

[ArmenT]

ArmenT, I thought the Toledo was a center for swords due to the Moorish conquest of Spain. The migrated from Damascus. And we know the origins of Damscus steel.
The craft passed on to Solingen in late middle ages.

Yep, Toledo gained a lot of knowledge because of the Arabs, but there were other areas of Europe that were well known as well, especially regions of Germany and Austria, from well before the middle ages. Incidentally, one of those areas was the Rhineland area (where Solingen belongs to), where they were exporting swords and axes to many of the Carolingian kings' enemies, such as the Vikings and Slavs, because there are records of the kings trying to stop them from the 8th and 9th century AD.

I'll write a longer article about these guys later.

@peter: I'd actually typed all the dates of some of those manufacturers out, but the forum logged me out right before I hit submit and I lost my post . Most of the dating is because the smiths in question inscribed the year of manufacture on the blade and quite a few of the Japanese ones came with official court documentation showing the exact date of manufacture and describing them to very minute details (Japanese were big into documenting quality swords). Some were also dated by radio-carbon dating the wooden handles.

As for the Indian swords, I guess they dated the handles as well, or dated them based on inscriptions on the swords or based on other artefacts found in the same area, which could be reliably dated. Carvings and paintings are a lot easier to date as well and they show straight swords (I haven't seen one that shows a curved sword, maybe you have? If so, I'd like to see a picture).

[Lalmohan]

singha-ji, thanks for that example - the clear lesson was that the romans if not in terrain of their choosing and unable to create fortifications or manoeuvre in formation were vulnerable to brute force. indeed the iceni in brittania did exactly the same thing with another legion on the march, and then went on to sack many roman towns, including londinium and slaughter, impale and rape romans - to avenge the rape of the daugthers of boudicca their queen. (there is a black ash layer beneath the soil of london marking that sacking)

by contrast, when the romans finally defeated the iceni, one lone legion on the brink of disaster, strung out in the open between forts, slaughtered about 100,000 celtic warriors and their families. the legion formed with its back to a hill and sides protected by forests and allowed the iceni to attack full on. butting up against the shield wall, the celt's lances and long swords were constricted in the narrow space, whilst the legionaires could stab forward with their short swords protected behind their shield formations. as more and more iceni joined the fight, the front ranks grew ever more congested and the legionaires were able to stab their way through the press of the celts, eventually driving them back across the open fields in disarray, their war chariots long abandoned. in typical roman fashion, they massacred any they could find.

[Singha]

imo the romans are a bit more lionized than they should be because they have been anointed as the bedrock of western civilization. so all they did and the greeks did is deemed as innovative, disciplined and chankian, even if it was not so.

in terms of fast moving manouver warfare , adjusting of plans to the occasion, using time and space to confuse, guile, long range weapons and long range of attack there have been better armies like the core hordes of the great Khan - imho.

they did not overlap in time so we do not have a battle between a few legions and some mongol hordes to compare.

the persian immortals could also be a handful.

but if rhinos had been domesticated, then zulu or nubian warriors astride a army of 100,000 rhinos , using rhino hide shields and spears , backed by 50,000 african war elephants would be the ultimate symphony of destruction.

[Lalmohan]

the romans encountered parthians - horseborne light archers in the mongol mould, and were destroyed
but there were other factors too

added later
recently on a building site in england, archeologists found the body of a young girl who appears (from her lying position) to have been bound, forced to her knees and then executed within the ruins of a celtic village and then hastily buried in situ. it is being cited as an example of roman 'war crimes'. similarly on hadrian's wall in northern england, there are remains of the skulls of executed prisoners or enemy combatants - possibly done by auxilliary celts, who had a skull collection fetish as part of their religion. there are some amusing grafiti of legionaires (from the modern day danube belt) complaining about the cold and rain on the scottish frontier!

[Singha]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carrhae

seems like a mi of "tanks" (heavy armoured cavalry) and "IFV" (light horse archers) routed the immobile infantry of the roman legions.

if the king khan himelf had been alive in such an era, he would no doubt have relished locking horns with the romans in the caspian basin and turkey....

[ArmenT]

singha-ji, thanks for that example - the clear lesson was that the romans if not in terrain of their choosing and unable to create fortifications or manoeuvre in formation were vulnerable to brute force.

That's true of practically every war by every civilization in history. If a General doesn't ensure that his soldiers have an unfair advantage over his enemies, he isn't doing his job very well. Well, there was also the factor that the Romans were betrayed by one of their very own, because Arminius was a trusted adviser of Varus and an officer of the Roman army to boot and he led them into the trap and then changed sides. So, while Hermann the German is regarded as a patriotic figure among the Germans, the Romans considered him as their "Jaichand".

It is a fact that the Romans weren't as invincible always and they got beat by a number of other people (parthians, jews, carthagians, germanic tribes, celts etc.) in some encounters. However, the strength of the Romans lay in the fact that they were usually able to learn from their mistakes and conquer their enemies.

[Singha]

political and economic stability, stable agriculture, grain supplies from african colonies, ability to trade unhindered with the red sea and beyond via mastery of the seas, a professional class of politicians and military leaders with people trained from early adolescence under mentors, fighting wars far away from the core homeland of Italy or constantinople area...all these played a part in the longevity and ability to come back from defeats.

its the same as Massa in the last century - a secure and safe homeland with vast natural and human resources, mastery of the peripheral seas....they may lose some blood in foreign wars but face no real threat to their core pride lands.

I think civilizationally the problem with even the most powerful indian empires (barring a select few) was we did not adopt the idea of having a zone of buffer states and allies and always fighting wars in that zone or even beyond rather than waiting for the enemy to ravage the weak vassals in that buffer zone and march on our core area. the romans and chinese were wise enough to do that and gained benefits from it. they were proactive enough to station lines of legions at the doorstep of potential enemies or at strategic points in the peripheral lands.

not sure what was lacking in our thought process or religious beliefs that kind of made kings think of afghanistan as our boundary and that too lightly defended. why not invade persia ? ravage the CAR ? sack myanmar ?

today our thoughts are to meekly defend what little we have got of the himalayan front. if the chinese can entertain thoughts of grabbing indian territory inspite of us being a proven nuclear power, why not we lay claim to swathes of tibet and yunnan by drumming up some document from the depths of hampi and have a overt strategy of fighting the next war within china only and retaining whatever we get ?

mental and cultural aggression has to precede physical aggression.

[Rahul M]

armen, the view that arminius was a roman officer is contested. not all accept it.

the strength of the romans lay primarily in two factors, a large population base that could accept huge losses in men and still field more armies * (the campaign against hannibal is a fine example), in time this was also augmented by the armies of the occupied people, the auxilia. the second was the willingness to learn from their enemies and from their defeats.
* armies, not just bodies of men like darius did at gaugamela. a relatively simple standard training regimen that made the ordinary roman legionary a good soldier in large groups but not necessarily the best individual fighter was indispensable to the roman war machine. the deliberate series of reforms leading up to marius was an example of this evolution, to create a system capable of fielding large number of soldiers.

that said, like any other army they also suffered numerous defeats due to incompetent commanders and lack of innovation against enemies who operated differently from what they were accustomed with.

[Singha]

who formed the roman army ? was it citizen and auxiliary volunteers or each landed noble was expected to permanently supply a number of men for the army on a permanent basis or each noble was expected to contribute people for a few months of a year?
was there a full time professional corps and then augmented by these "tribal lashkars" when war was imminent?

were all of the 30 or so legions trained and equipped to a uniform std or there were some elites and some regular?

I believe the old indian kings used to have a smallish professional army supplemented with a territorial army/levy of sorts when the next intruder came over the border.

the mughals and deccan sultanates probably kept huge standing armies staffed exclusively with imported soldiers from CAR/persia/afghanistan/arabia?

[sanjeevpunj]

who formed the roman army ? was it citizen and auxiliary volunteers or each landed noble was expected to permanently supply a number of men for the army on a permanent basis or each noble was expected to contribute people for a few months of a year?.........................

I am quoting wiki here:

Until ca. 550 BC, there was probably no "national" Roman army, but a series of clan-based war-bands which only coalesced into a united force in periods of serious external threat. Around 550 BC, during the period conventionally known as the rule of king Servius Tullius, it appears that a universal levy of eligible adult male citizens was instituted. This development apparently coincided with the introduction of heavy armour for most of the infantry. Although originally low in numbers the Roman infantry was extremely tactful and developed some of the most influential battle strategies to date.
The early Roman army was based on a compulsory levy from adult male citizens which was held at the start of each campaigning season, in those years that war was declared. There were probably no standing or professional forces. During the Regal Era (to ca. 500 BC), the standard levy was probably of 9,000 men, consisting of 6,000 heavily-armed infantry (probably Greek-style hoplites), plus 2,400 light-armed infantry (rorarii, later called velites) and 600 light cavalry (equites celeres). When the kings were replaced by two annually-elected praetores in ca. 500 BC, the standard levy remained of the same size, but was now divided equally between the Praetors, each commanding one legion of 4,500 men.For more please read the entire wiki link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_army

[Lalmohan]

also, the roman empire rebuilt itself many times, despite the sack of rome itself by various vandals, goths and huns... i suppose having an alternate power base in constantinople was crucial to this ability to regenerate. the other factor is that rome endured for a very long time, longer than most empires. its legacy is so entrenched on the northern and western peripheries of the empire (Germania, Gaul, Britania) because this was the first time these savage peoples had encountered a large urban civilisation that also could read and write - and had an all crushing military-administrative machine that took over everything - and was then copied and held them together during the dark ages. the finds of roman records on hadrian's wall are also very interesting - very detailed military administrative records of troops, equipment, operations, communications - even down to the garrison commander's wives organising parties, etc., amazing attention to detail

singha - the roman legionaires were the core troops. i think you could enlist and fight your way up through the ranks and be given roman citizenship and a pension if you were a savage. i believe many later roman leaders came up this route

indian kings had different classes of regular troops with considerable training in arms and formations, generals were supposed to have studied arthshastra and there were admin officers and supply corps, etc. these were augmented by local levies - who had less arms and training. in times of war, kshatriya fought kshatriya and there was no scorched earth devastation of enemies.

[sanjeevpunj]

Slightly OT, but the Gauls (led by Asterix and Obelix) were a PIA for the Romans!

[Singha]

the british seem to be the confluence of three rivers of fighting people
- the ancient celt, wessex, pict types who had been around forever
- "germanic tribes" like teutons, angles, jutes, saxons who came from germany,belgium,denmark
- "vikings" from scandinavia who started with raiding and pillaging and eventually settled into scotland and some islands like faeroe,shetland,orkney islands .. I guess this is where the redhead gene in scotland comes from.
all three races of large bearish people , used to hostile weather , hard drinking and hard fighting

they can be quite a PITA when they have to be.

another berserk strain is the visigoth , the western goth who spread aross the alps into spain. I believe lot of the blondes in spain and france today are of visigoth lineage. I think they also formed the core of the Gaulish clans who gave a rather hard time to rome and the gauls also defeated attila the hun...a solid wall of visigoth horse cavalry turning the flank and overrunning the massed hunnic ranks...in the melee old king theodoric fell his horse and died though...

[sanjeevpunj]

The Battle of the Hydaspes (JHELUM) River was fought by Alexander the Great in 326 BC against King Porus of the Hindu Paurava kingdom on the banks of the Hydaspes River (Jhelum River) in the Punjab near Bhera in what is now modern-day Pakistan. The battle resulted in a complete Macedonian victory and the annexation of the Punjab, which lay beyond the confines of the defeated Persian empire, into the Alexandrian Empire.
Alexander's tactics to cross the monsoon-swollen river despite close Indian surveillance to catch Porus' army in the flank has been referred as one of his "masterpieces".[15] Although victorious, it was also the most costly battle fought by the Macedonians.[16] The resistance put up by King Porus and his men won the respect of Alexander[17] and Porus became a loyal Macedonian satrap beyond Alexander's death.
The Macedonian army continued its march eastwards, but exhausted by marches in the monsoon season mutinied soon after, when Alexander made plans to cross river Hyphasis (Beas River) farther into India. After some short, yet victorious campaigns against Indian clans residing along the Indus, securing his rule and founding cities that would serve as outposts and trade centres, Alexander would return to Babylon.
The battle is historically significant for opening up India for Greek political (Seleucid Empire, Indo-Greeks) and cultural influence (Greco-Buddhist art) which was to continue for many centuries.

[Lalmohan]

singha - the modern english are a mix of angles, saxons, vikings, and northern french (franks - a goth offshoot)
the welsh and scots are celts with an infusion of viking in the scots, with the welsh - they may be closer to the original inhabitants than the others, some suggestion of north african genes. the irish are celts
the english (saxon invaders first drove the celts out of england once the romans left), but created a hybrid romano-saxon civilisation. the vikings traded and raided with them over the years, eventually settling in large numbers along the eastern coast - "the danelaw" as it was known - with the saxons being driven back into the "counties" - wessex (west saxon), essex (east saxon) and so on (kent is named after the cantii - the roman name of a celtic tribe from that area). the saxons and vikings eventually stabilised into "england" - although scandinavians continued to raid. in fact harold had to beat a norwegian raiding force in the north before force marching down south to meet william's landing in kent. harold fought hard, but once he got hit (in the eye) the saxon shield wall broke and the normans were able to press home the advantage

the norman's were frenchified vikings who had originally settled in normandy. it is this hybrid - franco-saxon-viking stock that comprises the core of england as we know it - and explains why england and france were mortal enemies for generations - basically the same set of nobles fighting over common real estate on both sides of the sea. eventually the english normans made peace with their saxon subjects and created a new nation, whilst the french began to dominate the continent until the rise of the germans many centuries later

[ramana]

Lalmohan very concise history of Western Europe. Didn't know you are a historian too!

Add to the fact that German tribes / Goths fought among themselves too often and led to the delay in rise of Germany till Bismarck.

[Rahul M]

singha ji, levy usually means citizens forced to join the army on pain of death. throughout its history, that category was never prevalent in India.

about Indian armies, quoting from elsewhere on the net.

what I meant was that the compulsory levy was unknown in India, still is and AFAIK has always been the case throughout history.

there were four basic sources types of troops :--
>> maula or hereditary (core of the standing army, coming from families serving in the army for generations. rarely demobilised. in the mauryan army, there was an elite group of maula troops called antarvamsik or the king's own guards who were never demobilised)

>> bhrta or volunteer territorial army, raised and trained for yearly campaigns and demobilised when the campaign was over. was probably stiffened with a certain amount of maula troops in each unit as senior NCO's. usually the same troops were enrolled as far as possible so these units developed some level of veterancy as well.

>> shreni or those employed from professional mercenary guilds. these were usually from tribes that lived by selling their skills of war. they were considered very competent and disciplined in battle but loyalty was a little suspect. unsurprisingly they cost more as well. alexander was very eager in recruiting the services of one such guild in the regions west of sindhu river (indus). he killed most of them in retaliation when they refused.

>> mitra or allied was the last category. which was contribution from allied kings. I think we can ignore it for our purposes as also categories like amitra (surrendered enemy troops) etc.

the main point was that all soldiers in India were professional soldiers during the time being of the campaign, for some it was the only profession while for others it was a second profession.

soldiers were paid very handsomely (the exact rates are available) and war booty was a rare bonus given on the wishes of the commander, not a right. the state also used retired soldiers as a colonising and economic tool by making them gifts of land lying uncultivated. in return, they were expected to send one of their male members to the army in addition to paying normal taxes.

coming to romans, they, like the greek cities before them had a system where only the landed gentry could join the army, it was considered a privilege because of war booty. they were also expected to bring their own weapons and armour. the army was built on the hastati frontline (least experienced troops, least armour, armed with swords) followed by the principes with similar weapons and a little more armour and experience. the most experienced triarii armed with spears formed the 3rd line or reserve. in addition, the equites, who were a very small social elite, supplied a tiny cavalry force, which wasn't much good. even this cavalry had a tendency to dismount and fight on foot. this whole arrangement was mirrored 1:1 by similar forces from their italian allies, except cavalry, where the allies supplied a larger (and arguably better trained) contingent.
this was the situation when the romans fought carthage. see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_ref ... an_reforms

after their conquests in north africa, they were fighting on many fronts and faced an imminent crunch in number of people who were eligible to become soldiers. marius expanded the eligibility rules to include the landless romans (and later granted citizenship to other italians) and for the first time in roman history formed a standing army.
he also abolished the 3 class composition and formed uniform legions based on a single type of soldier. weapons and armour was provided by the state.
this basic structure continued through the end of the republican era to the days of roman empire. the italic allies were now included in the main roman army but their places were taken by the conquered people, who formed the auxilia.

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ramana ji, you missed the holy roman empire.

[ramana]

Well the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman!

However it stabilised Central Europe.

[Rahul M]

yes, it was mainly germanic. which is why I made that comment.

>>...... led to the delay in rise of Germany till Bismarck.

[ramana]

Again even though it was germanic, it did not lead to rise of Germany.

For example Shivaji and the Peshwas established the Maratha empire but not Marathi empire which is what Bal Thackrey wants to!

[Rahul M]

ok !

[Lalmohan]

for a practical example of variability in the english - geoff boycott is from yorkshire, a region which is mostly saxon and viking - you can hear in his accent how english used to be spoken. down south, in the norman conquered lands people speak the queen's english, all thanks to the french influence! the story of robin hood is very much a tale of saxon's resisting norman occupation - sherif of nottingham and king john are the norman oppressors whilst the dispossessed nobleman robin locksley takes to the forest to survive. king richard the lion heart is seen as the unifying king who brings the old and new together. richard - i believe spoke mostly in french

anyway, back to the romans - it seems now that the romans didn't abruptly leave britania, but the power of rome did go. locals set themselves up in the roman model and there was peace for longer than people imagined. at this time, britania was actually quite multi racial with people from all over europe, north africa and the middle east and even central asia. there is a theory that king arthur and his knights were defecting sarmatian horsemen from the retreating roman army - levies who were forced to do military service for rome in the far extremes of the empire

[ramana]

The Keira Knightley version of King Arthur was based on the Sarmatian guards of the Roman legions.

[ArmenT]

armen, the view that arminius was a roman officer is contested. not all accept it.

Odd, everything I've read and watched about him say that he had served enough years in the Roman army to have gained Roman citizenship (which wasn't normally given to non Romans unless they'd served in the military) and also had gained the title of a Roman nobleman. Do you have any links that say otherwise? Thanks in advance.

Since we're deviating from the thread topic of historical battles in India, would it be useful to open a separate thread about general ancient military tactics perhaps?

[Lalmohan]

The Keira Knightley version of King Arthur was based on the Sarmatian guards of the Roman legions.

yes indeed it is
it seems that aishwarya has made a king arthur film in 2007
and this summer "The Eagle" releases - which is about another lost legion story, set north of Hadrian's Wall - promises to be quite good, although it appears to be more about the US in Eye-rak than ancient Rome!

[Lalmohan]

i think its time for a serious hindi movie to be made about the guptas and the huns. gritty realistic CGI enhanced sets and battle scenes. the huns can be a non-communal 'other' enemy that fits the traditional barbarian mould yet avoids any reference to the turushkas. we can have a hero out to restore his family's honour, a heroine who joins him in secret, betrayals, court intrigue and evil evil villians, etc., etc.

[Singha]

the irish have some dna relation to people in the northwest of spain called galicia province. the celts i mean. perhaps they emigrated up to ireland from that part of spain long long ago...it is not that far.

[tsarkar]

Not sure whether its true,

I read long time back (20-22 yrs) that the Pashtuns were descendents of the Huns who had settled there after the Gupta's had driven them out of India. They retained their Hunnic tribal culture, and raiding/looting was seen as a legitimate profession. They joined every invader for the next 1500 years. Also, Islamic influences did not dilute the strong tribal culture. It was written by a British officer serving there last century.

[Lalmohan]

the irish have some dna relation to people in the northwest of spain called galicia province. the celts i mean. perhaps they emigrated up to ireland from that part of spain long long ago...it is not that far.

0
yes galicians are celtic
as are the bretons in france (they make a big thing about asterix!)
theres a few other celtic pockets around in europe

[Singha]

if Kushans were centered around afpak and Kanishka had a major city in peshawar (pushpapura) then Kushan blood would be in that region too. Kushans were a branch of YueChi nomadic peoples of western china who were chased from their original homeland and moved to the west, then into India.

being the x-roads of history the afpak region is likely to have all sorts of people incl greeks, persians, baghdadis, arabs, mongol stock, trans caspian peoples, turkic tribes....everyone had their hand in the cookie jar/monkey trap and passed through at one time or another. romany moving west from india would have left some settlements too. then wandering artisan tribes who had special trades like blacksmithy and pottery....blessed with this mixed gene pool and religious influences from every major religion, the pakis could have made something of themselves....but they picked the worst qualities of each and ended up in the current mess.

[ramana]

Not sure whether its true,

I read long time back (20-22 yrs) that the Pashtuns were descendents of the Huns who had settled there after the Gupta's had driven them out of India. They retained their Hunnic tribal culture, and raiding/looting was seen as a legitimate profession. They joined every invader for the next 1500 years. Also, Islamic influences did not dilute the strong tribal culture. It was written by a British officer serving there last century.

Olaf Caroe's book "The Pathans".

http://www.pashtunforums.com/The-Pathans.pdf

I think last name Gul is a variant of the Hun name Kul. So Mast Gul and hamid Gul are Hunnic descendents. And boy have they descended!

[UBanerjee]

History Channel series on the Mughal Empire, it is very long (2 hours). I've only watched the first 20 minutes or so so far, but it seems quite well done.