Soldiers Lives through History - The Ancient World

327 Pages·2006·4.71 MB·English

by  Richard A. Gabriel

Soldiers' Lives through
History: The Ancient
World
Richard A. Gabriel
Greenwood Press
S oldiers’ Lives through History _
T e Ancient World
S oldiers’ Lives through History
D ennis Showalter, Series Editor
T e Ancient World
R ichard A. Gabriel
T e Middle Ages
C liff ord J. Rogers
T e Early Modern World
D ennis Showalter and William J. Astore
T e Nineteenth Century
M ichael S. Neiberg
T e Twentieth Century
R obert T. Foley and Helen McCartney
S oldiers’ Lives through History _
T HE ANCIENT WORLD

R ichard A. Gabriel
S oldiers’ Lives through History
D ennis Showalter, Series Editor
G REENWOOD PRESS
W estport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gabriel, Richard A.
T e ancient world / Richard A. Gabriel.
p. cm. — (Soldiers’ lives through history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–313–33348–3 (alk. paper)
1. Soldiers—History—To 1500. 2. Armies—History—To 1500. 3.
Military art and science—History—To 500. 4. Military history,
Ancient. I. Title.
U29.G22 2007
355.009’01—dc22 2006029538
B ritish Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
C opyright © 2007 by Richard A. Gabriel
A ll rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
e xpress written consent of the publisher.
L ibrary of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006029538
I SBN: 0–313–33348–3
F irst published in 2007
G reenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
A n imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
w ww.greenwood.com
P rinted in the United States of America
T e paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
I nformation Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F or Suzi, always,
and for John and Ann Moriarty, dear friends,
and Gerry Gagne, the smartest man I know.
C ONTENTS
S eries Foreword ix
Introduction xi
T imeline xiii
p art i:
military life
O ne: Origins of War 3
T wo: T e Soldier 9
T ree: Recruitment 17
F our: Manpower 25
F ive: Rations 31
S ix: Equipment 39
S even: T e Camp 49
E ight: Discipline and Punishment 57
N ine: Weapons 65
T en: Armor, Helmets, and Shields 77
E leven: Chariotry 85
viii Contents
T welve: Cavalry 91
T irteen: Logistics and Transport 97
F ourteen: Strategic Range and Endurance 107
F ifteen: Tactics 111
S ixteen: Military Staff s 119
S eventeen: Siegecraft and Artillery 123
E ighteen: Death and Wounding 131
Ni neteen: Infection and Disease 139
Tw enty: Injury 147
T wenty-one: Medical Care 153
p art ii:
ancient armies
T wenty-two: Sumer and Akkad (3500–2200 b .c.e. ) 163
T wenty-three: Egypt (1580–960 b.c.e .) 169
T wenty-four: T e Mitanni (1480–1335 b .c.e. ) 177
T wenty-fi ve: T e Hittites (1450–1180 b .c.e. ) 183
T wenty-six: T e Canaanites (1500–900 b .c.e. ) 187
T wenty-seven: T e Philistines (1200–900 b .c.e. ) 193
T wenty-eight: T e Israelites (1100–921 b .c.e. ) 197
T wenty-nine: Assyria (890–612 b.c.e. ) 203
T irty: China (1750–256 b.c.e .) 209
T irty-one: India (1200–120 b.c.e. ) 215
T irty-two: Classical Greece (600–338 b .c.e. ) 223
T irty-three: Persia (546–323 b.c.e. ) 231
T irty-four: Imperial Greece (356–323 b.c.e. ) 239
T irty-fi ve: T e Successors (323–168 b .c.e. ) 245
T irty-six: Republican Rome (500–28 b.c.e. ) 251
T irty-seven: Carthage (814–146 b.c.e .) 257
T irty-eight: T e Barbarians: Gauls, Germans, and Goths
(58 b .c.e. –445 c.e. ) 263
T irty-nine: Imperial Rome (9–450 c.e .) 271
B ibliography 279
I ndex 297
S ERIES FOREWORD
T e song “Universal Soldier” has been a staple of peace rallies since the 1960s. Written
by Buff y Sainte-Marie and performed by Donovan Leitch in 1965, when it became
popular, the song indicts the soldier as war’s agent, unlike most other songs of its type,
which cast the soldier as war’s victim: “He knows he shouldn’t kill / And he knows he
always will. …”
T e killing, of course, goes on apace. Sometimes it will be by neighbors once thought
of as friends, as in Rwanda during the 1990s. Sometimes it will be by bureaucratic
utopians who see the path to the future obstructed by Jews in Hitler’s Germany—
or by class enemies in Stalin’s Russia—or by people who wear glasses in Pol Pot’s
C ambodia. Sometimes it will be by zealots who expect to gain paradise by dying while
killing o thers, like the Crusaders of the Middle Ages, or today’s Jihadis.
H istorians are currently engaged in a debate on the existence of a “Western way of
war,” which distinguishes the West from the rest of the world, and arguably defi nes
Western civilization as well. Underlying that debate, and structuring it, is the q uestion
of whether there is a distinctively Western soldier. Victor Davis Hanson writes elo-
quently of free men voluntarily committing themselves to conquer or die in order that
they might return to the homes they saved. Critics such as John A. Lynn in B attle:
A History of Combat and Culture assert the cultural specifi city of approaches to war
in both Western and global contexts. T e ancient Greeks, for example, sought quick
decisions because of particular values emphasizing individual worth and independence.
Nineteenth-century Europe’s concept of the decisive battle was infl uenced heavily by
a Romantic high culture as opposed to specifi c military factors, such as rapid-fi ring
weapons and mass armies.