You spent this long waiting to reply, and this was the best you could come up with? You still haven’t replied to most of my outstanding posts, so I’m going to focus on the important stuff here.
It's not like I spent that time thinking about you, though I suspect that you wished I was ?
Plutarch's use of robbers later is indeed a bit odd, but it's odd because he already told us that Sertorius had transformed them from robbers into soldiers. Let's not get away from the actual point here, which is the quality of the men Sertorius received. On this point Plutarch is very clear, and his random reference to them as robbers later, while a touch odd, in no way alters the very clear quote here to that effect:
In consequence of these successes Sertorius was admired and loved by the Barbarians, and especially because by introducing Roman arms and formations and signals he did away with their frenzied and furious displays of courage, and converted their forces into an army, instead of a huge band of robbers
The idea we'd dismiss this crystal clear quote by Plutarch because of a random reference to them as robbers later is silly. Plutarch might well be using the term in a literary way in the second instance, but the plain meaning of the sentence above is apparent to anyone objective. More to the point I already explained to you what Spanish rebellions looked like prior to Sertorius arriving in Spain. The locals would be angered by some local injustice, kill the local council of their town, and declare a rebellion. The Romans would then send an army under Titus Didius or some such and the rebellion towns would be razed/sold into slavery, etc. There hadn’t been a conventional victory against the Romans for basically 2 generations (almost 60 years). The Spanish tribes didn’t field armies anymore, which is why Plutarch is explaining the significance of Sertorius taking some random bandits and transforming them into real soldiers (whether we call them robbers, bandits, brigands, etc, is not relevant; what’s relevant is they weren’t an army in any real sense). Appian similarly refers to Sertorius raising an army from the local populace, not being gifted an existing one. So your claims that Sertorius just took over an existing rebellion as some kind of figurehead is totally wrong. His situation was nothing like Phillip’s, who actually did inherit an existing state and army; a flawed state and army, but nothing like Sertorius hopeless situation.
Actually, the original point was that Sertorius didn't create men from nothing. He had the advantage of previously being governor of Spain, and was well liked by the natives during that time. He was invited to Spain and awarded full powers (absolute authority) over the Lusitanians, and many tribes went over to him. Sertorius conquered others who resisted him (Plut. Sert. 11.1).*
Anyway, here is the original quote:
Duke Valentino said:
Sertorius' army was decisively non-Roman, but the formations, training and discipline he instilled into his forces was Roman. The government Sertorius installed, including a senate, along with Roman education for noble children, was Roman. The Lusitanians and most other tribes willingly gave him total command over them. Sertorius didn't create them from nothing. In fact he was governor of Spain beforehand, and already had a reputation among the Spanish. This, coupled with his exile and mercenary actions saw him being invited to Spain.
As for the 'robber' tangent. I don't believe I tried to claim that Sertorius took over an existing rebellion or existing "army". Please link me saying that. If not, stop putting words in my mouth.
He turned them into soldiers, sure, but only Perpenna's actual legions could be trusted to effectively take on the legions of Metellus and Pompey in battle. By the time the rest of Perpenna's legionary infantry are presumably killed at Saguntum, Sertorius is unable to deliver a pitched battle ever again. He had to use his troops like robbers because they were essentially robbers. Sure, they were organised in Roman fashion and trained to respond to Roman signals, but Sertorius, as Matyszac demonstrates in his book was heavily reliant on his Roman legions provided by Perpenna to deliver a decisive action in the field. And when Sertorius failed to do that twice as Sucro and Saguntum, he no longer had that option.
His situation was nothing like Phillip’s, who actually did inherit an existing state and army; a flawed state and army, but nothing like Sertorius hopeless situation.
The 'army' Philip inherited was basically a mass of infantry who had no armor and fought like peltasts. The cavalry were the only notably good aspect of his army, and even then they weren't well organised, and were very low in number. Clearly they weren't enough against Bardylis when Perdiccas faced him down, despite Illyrian armies typically having little to no cavalry.
The issue here is that later on in your response, you link me Wikipedia and claim
"The Macedonians had conventional armies of cavalry, hoplites, etc, fighting conventional battles. Can you please provide me with the source material, either ancient or modern, that demonstrates the Macedonian infantry were equipped/fought as hoplites? This Wiki article seems to be relying completely on one Sekunda and a bit from Errington, none of whom are among the more established authorities, such as Hammond.*
In particular, one depiction of a Macedonian infantryman in hoplite armor does not mean that the Macedonian army were equipped as hoplites, or even fought as such. Of course, the kings had their own bodyguard, who were naturally hoplites, hence the origin of the depiction. No scholar who specialises in Macedonian history will tell you that the Macedonian infantry were armed or even fought as hoplites of the Greek city states. Such an infantry force would not be losing battles consistently to border tribes.*Although I could not find Sekunda's "The Macedonian Army" which is cited on the page, I did manage to get a hold of his "Alexander's Army". Let's have a look at the first part of his section for "Philip's Army":
Philip dealt with the northern tribes first. Like his own army, these tribal levies were but lightly equipped - peltasts armed with javelins and light shields.
There it is. It's utterly ridiculous that you're invoking Wikipedia to claim: "The Macedonians had conventional armies of cavalry, hoplites, etc." Nor does any other Macedonian history authority claim the Macedonian infantry were hoplites.
Extremely ironic coming from the person strongly opposed to encyclopedias for proper historical debate, yet resorts to using something as, or even less, credible to prove a point. This is seriously embarrassing for you.
Also, what is a "conventional army" ? The Macedonian forces, when raised, were of course conventional compared to the other armies of the Balkans, but it wasn't conventional relative to the Greek hoplite armies to the south.
It's also very odd to call Macedonia a state. It could be called a state, as many papers and books have noted, after Philip's amazing centralisation and reformation policies. Before that, the princes of Upper Macedonia were semi-independent and every Macedonian king had to try and bring them under his fold. The eastern districts were literally monarchies that the Macedonian king had very loose control over. The only solid control a Macedonian king had was the main plain of Macedonia. Beyond that, much of his rule was sort of an 'overlord' position over various little monarchies and princedoms. I don't think you actually understand the politico-geographic situation of Macedonia during the fourth century.
Please provide the relevant source material to prove Macedonia was a state before Philip's centralisation policies. Are you going to link me Wikipedia again?
Phillip knew how the Greeeks fought. He took advantage of that. See what I did there? You also need to stop with this “it was all theoretical!” stuff. Sertorius ability as a general was theoretical until he became a general. As it happens he became a general before getting to Spain, but that doesn’t mean he should somehow be penalized for that. It’s just a bizarre argument you need to let go. All generalship is theoretical until you become a general.
Philip spent a clear majority of his military campaigns fighting against tribal forces and even Scythians, which included the need to adapt to mobile skirmishing in harsh climates. Campaigning against hoplite forces comprised the smallest part of Philip's military career. Sertorius was in his 40's when the Sertorian War began, and from his first recorded campaign in 105 BC (age 18) to the beginning of the Sertorian war (age 43) he had been serving relatively frequently in the military for about 25 years,
which is longer than Philip's whole reign.
Let's make a comparison:
a. Sertorius, 43 years old, 25 years of military experience takes Spanish tribes and trains them in the Roman military system which he has known for his long military career.
b. Philip, 23 years old, 0 years of military experience creates a whole new system of warfare upon taking the throne after the death of his brother (Hellenistic Warfare/Alexandrian hammer and anvil tactics).*
Sertorius, no doubt as Caesar and pretty much any other aspiring officer would have read the campaigns of Alexander, Scipio, Hannibal etc. Philip on the other hand did have the examples of Epaminondas, Pelopidas, Iphicrates etc. but these men come nowhere close to the former examples.
Where Sertorius with a boat load more experience managed to adapt Roman formations and tactics to suit fighting in Spain against superior resources his enemy could throw at him, Philip had no practical experience yet created an entirely new form of warfare distinct from anything seen in Europe. That his army was just an extension of Greek warfare, as purported by you, has no foundation, as will be shown further down when we get into more detail concerning the Macedonian army.
I’ve said time and again that the most impressive thing on Phillip’s resume by far, to the extent it is a feat of generalship, is his military innovations. Nobody suggested Sertorius was innovating a new military system (well, you did when you tried to claim out of thin air that he was specially “cross training” his men, but there is no evidence of that), obviously the nature of the problems faced by Sertorius and Phillip were not identical. That doesn’t mean Sertorius challenges were somehow lesser though, quite the contrary. Sertorius did indeed have experience in the Roman military system, but his enemies were also Romans! If Phillip had to go off and fight Greeks with the same quality of army as him he’d have been in big trouble. He’d have been totally screwed if he had to face the numerical and strategic disadvantages Sertorius was up against.
Goldsworthy seems to believe Sertorius' men
were cross-trained:
In spite of its mixed composition, Sertorius also imposed Roman standards of discipline throughout his army. All of his troops were organized into cohorts. Most were equipped in Roman fashion, but all were well trained and drilled both as individuals and as formations.
If Perpenna's legionaries weren't cross trained, the Spanish levies were. They could fight as guerrillas or in cohorts, though their performance against regular legionaries was naturally substandard.*
Philip and Sertorius are hard to compare, since their situations and time periods are so different, but as the user Dan Howard posted in this thread, if Philip was brought into Roman times, it's hard to see how he'd be inferior to many of the star Roman generals. On Historum, about 69% have voted Philip a greater leader than Sulla, who's reasonably high on the Roman list as is, and most writers who specialise in Macedonian history concur that Philip is immensely underrated as a general due to the spotlight of his son.
It’s pretty damn obvious what it means. Phillip was of the royal family. He was potentially in line for the throne. He would naturally be able to attract the loyalty and support of a great many of his subjects, who were a relatively unified people. No, it wasn’t totally unified or totally perfect, but Macedonia had been able to function as a state sufficiently over past decades/centuries to do plenty of things, including fighting numerous wars. Again, Phillip’s situation was far from perfect, but it was relatively straightforward for him to become King and inherit the existing infrastructure of the state. He was able to immediately put together a sizeable army, and use it to fend off the only immediate foe he faced (3000 hoplites). He had the resources to buy off some other potential threats, and within a year his Kingdom had the resources to see him march to war against the Illyrians with a superior army to their one. After one battle they fled and he had the other half of his Kingdom back, and the resources from that. You and others have portrayed Phillip as being beset by enemies on all sides, but in reality he had few determined enemies, just the usual enemies of opportunity that all the city states of the time potentially acted as to each other.
Again with the sweeping generalisations, most likely backed up by a Wikipedia article. In no way was Macedonia a 'relatively unified people'. Perhaps in the fact that they identified as Macedonian, but in terms of royal control over the kingdom? Hardly.
You and others have portrayed Phillip as being beset by enemies on all sides, but in reality he had few determined enemies, just the usual enemies of opportunity that all the city states of the time potentially acted as to each other.
Myself and "the others", such as perhaps any historian writing about Philip's reign? Let's look at some:
Philip’s most urgent need in 359 was to neutralize the threats to his vulnerable kingdom, and he did so with speed and determination.
Worthington, 29.
When Philip II ascended the throne at the age of 23 in 359 BC, Macedonia was in danger of being engulfed by wild barbarian tribes to the north and wily Greek cities to the south. They exploited her internal weaknesses: there were other pretenders to the throne, and authority could be exerted over the semi-independent principalities of Upper Macedonia only intermittently. Philip had to expand the power of the throne or be swallowed up by the difficulties surrounding him...
Sekunda, The Army of Alexander, 4/
In the weeks after the Macedonians' crushing defeat by the Illyrians, with usable manpower seriously depleted and morale at its lowest, Philip's army was of little use. Apart from its reconstruction, there were two immediate necessities. First, some priority had to be found in dealing with many demands. Second, with throne, frontiers and sovereignty all under challenge, Macedonia had an insistent need of friends. The last years of Perdiccas' reign had left her with few, and that, together with his great defeat, had exposed her to the hostility of all. Philip's first months were thus taken up with a flurry of morale raising and diplomacy (Diod. xvi.3).*
His success against such odds offered a striking foretaste of the dominant methods and the remarkable achievements of his reign.
Ellis, Philip's Early Reign, CAH
By the time Philip came to the throne in 359, civil war, dynastic murders, and military disaster had brought Macedonia to the brink of dissolution.
Bradford, With Arrow, Sword and Spear, 101.
The Macedonians were in the direst of straits... Philip was literally facing danger from every quarter.
Ray,*Greek and Macedonian Land Battles of the 4th Century B.C., A History and Analysis of 187 Engagements, 86.
Philip came to power… when Macedon was threatened by dissolution, deliberated by a decade of dynastic feuding and crippled by military defeat at the hands of the Illyrians.
Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great, 6
Philip’s future looked nearly hopeless.
Griffith, 202.
Seldom can any state have so nearly approached total dismemberment without utterly disintegrating.
Ellis, 44.
the collapse of the Macedonian kingdom seemed to be almost inevitable.
Hammond, 22.
It's not just the fact that Philip inherited a uniquely precarious position, he was the first Macedonian king period that actually centralised his authority and eliminated the semi-independent monarchies and princedoms. And he did through a variety of very innovative and creative means. But since we're talking about generalship skills, in the first few years Philip was able to ambush Argaeus, and more importantly define Hellenistic Warfare in his battle against Bardylis, a precursor to the battles of Alexander and his DIadochi. A very underrated and important battle.
His unideal situation is nothing compared**to the horrific odds Sertorius faced. He could command no natural loyalty from the Spanish tribes, who shared nothing with him in terms of culture, language, ethnicity, shared experience, etc. He was in fact their natural enemy (a Roman). He started with a trivial number of men given the size of the lands we’re talking about, and had to win this alien and restless people to his side by his own merit and strength of personality, not because he war born into royalty. While Phillip had immediate access to armies and treasure on assuming the throne, Sertorius had to raise armies from the local populace and teach them to fight in a manner totally alien to them. They had no experience fighting in conventional armies whatever. They were bandits/robbers, not soldiers. Most importantly, Sertorius faced an implacable foe from the get-go, one who would never give up, who had far more resources than him, and who would keep sending more soldiers until he was destroyed. It was also a foe who was highly competent, whose own base of operations and source of strength he could not touch, and who massively outnumbered his initial forces.
This is seriously undermining Philip, in particular:
and had to win this alien and restless people to his side by his own merit and strength of personality, not because he war born into royalty.
This is basically saying that Philip didn't have the merit and strength of personality to unite his kingdom, and instead relied on his status as a member of the royal family. Except the ancient and modern sources all attribute Philip as an extremely charismatic man. Where previous Macedonian kings could hold some sort of nominal control over the princes and petty monarchies of Upper Macedonia and the western districts, Philip was the first king to make them completely subservient to him. You're acting as if Macedonia was a single state, when in fact it wasn't. Philip had to prove himself as king upon taking the throne, and implying that he relied solely on his royal status to establish his authority is hogwash.
The analogy you made, granting that it was an analogy, is and was ridiculous. You described a large conventional army as “sheppards armed with kitchen utensils”. It’s laughable. More to the point, from the very first battle Phillip had armed and begun to train his men as new style Phalanx soldiers, so while it was ridiculous of you to describe previous Macedonian soldiers in this way, those weren’t the soldiers Phillip went to war with in any event. The ones he fought with were properly armed soldiers, something I’ve noted in quotes before despite the ridiculous claims a “discursive” reading of the text, as opposed to the ordinary one, is appropriate.
You’ve already been schooled on this; over to Salaminia’s old post:
It really doesn't do to take a source out of context. Diodoros 16.2 is a discursive passage the only purpose of which is to set the scene by describing the situation of Macedonia in 360/59 when Philip either takes the regency or usurps the throne. Diodoros describes events from the defeat of Philip's father, Amyntas, by the Illyrians through his hostage years in Thebes and down to his taking the reigns of Macedon. All this simply describes the background.
The next chapter is similarly discursive wherein Diodoros summarises Philip's methods and character. He says that Philip was not cowed and sought to bolster the confidence of the Macedonians. He goes on to say that Philip was courteous in his relations and examples that with his treatment of both the Athenians and Paionians as well as the Thracian king. Diodoros also contends, as you seem to, that Philip created the entire Macedonian army out of thin air. It is plain this did not happen and was an achievement of his rule. Given the parlous state of his treasury, we are expected to believe that Philp bought off the Thracian and Paionian kings and then, with the change, created and fitted out out an entire army with weapons and a armour.
These are summary passages and, if we take it as written absolutely chronologically, then Philip would seem to have both copious quantities of money and time. In fact, it is possible that he forestalled Bardyllis by accepting a marriage enforced upon him (Audata, an Illyrian princess) while managing to confront the Athenians and their mercenaries with that force he'd been left with by Perdikkas. The building of his army would take longer and move apace once Bardyllis was defeated and, more so, his acquisition of the Mt Pangaios silver mines (356). It is then that Philip, with 1,000 talents per year in income, had the money (and land / men) to achieve what Diodoros anticipates in his discursive passage.
At this time (360/59), he likely had little more than the forces allocated to him by Perdikkas to guard the area given him (possibly Amphaxitis as Hammond and others have supposed). These he clearly had to exhort following the crushing defeat. On top of that he had to attempt to get others to join him, given he was not legitimately in line. How many came to his side immediately we don't know, other than the garrison withdrawn form Amphipolis. But this is no Macedonian army of great numbers and that which he took to face Bardyllis, a year later, are hardly all to be supposed to be a complete new model army fully furnished by a state that was coining in bronze as opposed to Bardyllis' silver tetradrachms! The number of that army also tells us much - 10,000. It is likely Philip's picked troops are those he already had and which were trained and armed as would be the entire Macedonian infantry levy in following years. On their numbers we are only guessing.
But to add to this, some scholars on the nature of Diodorus’ passage:
[Describes the changes Philip makes as described by Diodorus] … Philip’s military reforms did not happen overnight but, rather, continued throughout his reign.
Worthington, 37.
Ephoros' account (in Diodoros) of the first months of the reign lays heavy stress on the action taken by the king to reorganize, arm and train the Macedonian armed forces. In particular he singles out the infantry for mention.35 We need not imagine that the evident transformation of Macedonian military capacities was anything but an arduous, expensive and protracted process; and it certainly took place over a good many years.
Ellis, Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism, 52.
Our major source for the early reign (Diod. xvi.2-4) lays overmuch emphasis on the first weeks and months of what can only have been a gradual and lengthy process of innovation and training.
Ellis, CAH, Philip’s Early Reign, 360 – 357 BC, 734.
These three quotes should be sufficient, but more can be provided if you’re not satisfied. But I can assure you that the academic consensus is that Diodorus’ passage is discursive, and all the changes explained were not immediately magicked into existence on the whole Macedonian Army in one year.
As for the initial confrontation against Argaeus, I know of only one author, Gabriel, probably the least reliable since he’s highly speculative on multiple accounts, that believes the Macedonian army was reformed during that time. The others, from what I’ve read concur that Philip was still using the old Macedonian army. The sources imply that Philip ambushed Argaeus, which explains why his substandard force of infantry levies were able to stand up against seasoned mercenaries.
I’ve ignored most of your slabs of text about the Macedonian army because it’s something that is so well known it shouldn’t be in dispute. Yes, there was a Macedonian army before Phillip. Yes, many of Phillip’s changes were extensions of existing things in Greek warfare. You can read the cliff notes version here, I don’t see any reason further sources should be necessary for something so well known:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonian_army
Tactical improvements included the latest developments in the deployment of the traditional Greek phalanx made by men such as Epaminondas of Thebes and Iphicrates of Athens. Philip II improved on these military innovators by using both Epaminondas' deeper phalanx and Iphicrates' combination of a longer spear and smaller and lighter shield. However, the Macedonian king also innovated; he introduced the use of a much longer spear, the two-handed pike. The Macedonian pike, the sarissa, gave its wielder many advantages both offensively and defensively. For the first time in Greek warfare, cavalry became a decisive arm in battle.
Yeah see, this is the problem when you cite Wikipedia. Information on the development of the Macedonian army is not common knowledge, and therefore needs to be cited with proper references. You fail to meet this requirement. May I also remind you of “Historum’s Guide to Posting” ? Link:
http://historum.com/announcements/46025-posting-guide.html
To be frank, citing Wikipedia, especially on a topic that has a plethora of academic papers and books dedicated to it, is just wrong. Don’t criticise the Cambridge Ancient History, written by scholars in their field of study, then link me Wikipedia because the development of the Macedonian army is “well known”.
And what a hypocritical thing to say. If Sulla’s campaign in the Social War was the turning point for the Romans, I wonder why I’ve never read anything on Wikipedia, the Cambridge Ancient History or a variety of books I have on the subject to that effect. Even look at the ancient sources, which we all have access to. Appian doesn’t claim it, Orosius doesn’t claim it, Diodorus (a contemporary) puts Strabo and Sulla on at least equal footing, though it’s obvious Strabo is the senior referred to in the passage.
We can all excuse a link to Wikipedia in a light debate as is typical for most threads. But not in this thread.
This bizarre claim that the Macedonian army prior to Phillip didn’t fight in wars, and was indistinguishable from the bandit tribes of Spain, is high comedy. There had been a string of civil wars in Macedonia in the past decades; wars with actual armies. The shattered army Phillip inherited included the survivors of a battle against the Illyrians in which 4000 Macedonians were killed. Phillip’s brother Alexander, during his reign as King, fought successful wars against both Pausanias and (initially) Thessaly, capturing Larissa. Google and you’ll see military campaigns from previous Kings, from Alexander’s father, to his predessor. Archelaus is described as having done much to strengthen and build up the military infrastructure of Macedonia by Thucydides, which included forces like hoplites and cavalry (not “sheppards with kitchen utensils”). Most Macedonian Kings tended to engage in wars of some sort. Often losing, sometimes on the side of other powers, but conventional warfare was not some alien concept to Macedonia prior to Phillip. They might have been inferior to the other Greek states, but they were an actual country with actual armies and resources, not bands of robbers from disgruntled tribes. The comparison is just ludicrous. I’m sure you’ll try to backtrack, but aside from the sheppards remark you’ve now called “an analogy” I don’t know how I’m meant to take these sorts of remarks seriously; “What conventional wars did Macedonia fight? …The fact is that the Macedonians and Lusitanians were in the same boat when it came to no history of discipline or proper soldering”. It’s just a preposterous comment. The Macedonians had conventional armies of cavalry, hoplites, etc, fighting conventional battles. The Lusitanians and other tribes were not fighting any battles whatever. They were brigands, robbing and killing locals, not fielding conventional forces in open battle. The Spanish tribes hadn’t fought or won a real battle against the Romans for almost 2 generations, and that was at a time when the Roman armies in Spain were much smaller than the time of Sertorius.
I never claimed Macedonia didn’t fight wars, I asked, essentially, what “conventional” means? You seem to throw around the term a lot.
Google and you’ll see military campaigns from previous Kings
I’d rather look at Diodorus or a modern author than “google it” and use Wikipedia, which you clearly are using to gather this information. The military stuff you’re talking about there is heavily truncated and biased, no doubt again you’re shortening Wikipedia. None of what you said is not well represented, and I suggest you read Diodorus and perhaps purchase or find online some books on Macedonia. The CAH can be found for free on archive.org if you’re interested.
I literally have no idea what point you are trying to make here. The only issues it seems to touch on are these:
1)****The degree to which Sertorius was outmanned and outgunned, and
Plutarch’s figures are clearly tallied in a very specific way at a very specific time to make out like Sertorius was ten times and more outnumbered.
2)****The relative difficulty of Sertorius achieving a base of power in the first place
The latter isn’t exactly about generalship, but let’s talk about it too.
Already been covered (yeah, I can do it too).
Again, baffled by this weird comment. Should we be criticizing him if he was able to convince men to fight for him for free? I’d have thought that was more, not less, impressive. He didn’t have the luxury of a an existing treasury with which to hire mercenaries and buy off enemies (and whatever the state of Macedonia’s weakened throne was, we know it had enough wealth to do these things because on assuming the throne Phillip immediately did them).
My original point was this:
Sertorius also had an army and the ability to pay/recruit more men. He had 3,300 troops, and in a short space of time recruited more than double that into his starting forces. He also presumably didn't have to pay his men either. Philip didn't either, he chose to. So I don't see your point.
That Sertorius was capable of paying his own men is my point. This is clearly evident when we see Sertorius personally paying for Spanish noble children to attend school, as well as handing out valuable rewards. This was probably funded in part by the gold Perpenna brought with him. Later on during the war, Sertorius received a substantial sum from Mithridates as part of their deal. His pirates also heavily prevented Metellus and Pompey from gaining supplies.
The Lusitanians, as I explained, were not an army. The 4000 Sertorius was able to quickly recruit were grossly outmanned and outclassed by the Roman foes arrayed against them. In contrast we’ve already discussed how Phillip’s army, on assuming the throne, probably outnumbered the force of hoplites he fended off. The Macedonians hadn’t been terribly successful in past wars, but they’d had the odd victory, and were a genuine conventional army, armed as such and arrayed as such. After achieving that one victory over a half-hearted and poorly led pretender, Phillip was able to spend a year consolidating and preparing and arming his men with no interference at all really. After that he was able to lead over 10,000 men against the Illyrians, who sued him for peace, not the other way around. I bet Sertorius would have loved such circumstances. “Gee, all I’ve got to do is beat this one comparable sized foe in battle, then they’ll leave me alone for a year to build up my strength and when we next fight I’ll have an army that is quantitatively and qualitatively stronger, and they’ll sue me for peace. If I win, I get all of Spain and they give up forever. If I accept the peace deal I keep half of Spain and keep building my strength up. Sweet”. Sertorius foes were of the “we will never leave you alone, never give up, and keep sending armies against you until you and your rebels are all dead, and all of Spain is ours again. No negotiations, no nothing.”
Part of this is addressed above. Your little monologue is based on the assumption that Sertorius was constantly outnumbered on all fronts all the time in Spain, because you’re willing to just indulge in Plutarch’s romantic depiction of Sertorius. When Sertorius defeated Fufidius, there was only for opposition from the Romans that of the other governor, who’s forces, like Fuf. can’t have been more than two or three legions. Again, Plutarch romanticises the odds by misrepresentation.
Did you even read that? Julius was guarding a pass that Annius clearly needed to go through to get to Sertorius (it was on the previous line you deliberately excluded from your quote). Annius “large force” almost certainly outnumbered Sertorius, so holding this fortified pass was crucial. Once Julius, and his 6000 men, were lost due to treachery, and the pass undefended, Annius, who had previous been stuck, just advanced with his “large force”, and Sertorius has to withdraw his suddenly indefensible position with 3000 men. Sertorius didn’t lose to him, but he’s not god. He can’t always win every battle against the odds. He had to retreat due to treachery, obviously he was relying on Julius to hold the mountain pass.
For the love of. Julius is his subordinate. He got himself killed. Whether you want to call him crappy or unlucky is irrelevant. If you prefer blame the “crappy” subordinate who betrayed Julius. He’s one of Sertorius subordinates too! One can’t help but feel for the terrible quality of people under poor Sertorius command. He assigns Julius to defend a mountain pass, and one of his other subordinates betrays him and the men abandon the pass.
For Annius’ force, Plutarch only tells us that it’s a “large force”. Brunt assigns it as at least two legions, if not three. Even if it was four legions, that’s roughly 15,000-20,000 men. Surely Sertorius with 9,000 men was capable of matching those odds? Considering how puffed up he is by Plutarch. Regardless, Annius’ successor Fufidus as governor seems to have had probably only 2 legions himself (Brunt). The maximum a governor of the time had was typically 3 legions, and since Sulla was forced to demobilise most of the legions at Colline Gate, we can only assume Annius was sent with 2-3 legions, at most 4. Scullard believes Annius had 2 legions.
Sertorius can certainly win battles, but his resume on the pitched battle front against Metellus and Pompey was poor. Two draws/defeats.
I’m not subscribing to the Romantic “Sertorius was SO good, but his subordinates lost him the war” crap. Philip took men like Parmenion and Antipater, presumably important chieftans of the Macedonian nobility, and turned them into capable soldiers. This is like blaming everyone but Napoleon for the Waterloo campaign. Take that nonsense out of here.
Again, there was no effective guerilla warfare going on prior to Sertorius arriving, not in the sense you mean it. The warfare was asymmetrical in the sense that they were not fighting in conventional battles head on, but nor were Roman armies being picked off man by man. A typical Spanish “rebellion” was killing some locals in your town who were sympathetic to Rome in your town, and either trying to take over the town or fleeing into the wilds and becoming robbers. If you tried the former, Rome besieged the town, and either razed it or killed all males of a fighting age and sold the rest into slavery, or you survived as a robber, hoping to pick off caravans, merchants or travelers, etc. The legions were not being warred upon at all, that was a long, long time in the past.
This is just a pointless block of text that confirms the basic principle of what I wrote: “They just needed to be properly coordinated and organised to bring out their effectiveness on a larger scale, just like the companion cavalry had to be disciplined, equipped and trained to work as tactical units instead of heroic Iliad fighters, or the Macedonian peasantry in much the same way.” The Lusitanians and others knew the land, knew how to execute robberies/quick attacks on a very small scale. Sertorius brought this onto a larger scale.
In the post I quoted in my last post, you asserted the following about the Roman soldiers in Spain; “A lot of these legionaries were probably raised in Spain itself by the governors”. There is no evidence any of them were. This was a bogus and invented claim to support your next bogus and self-serving claim, two sentences later, that “It's also doubtful as to how many of these legions were actually veterans and not fresh recruits.” You lied in other words. Again. Just like when you claimed firstly that Sertorius men were mainly guerilla fighters, and he wasn’t a conventional general. Then, when the sources were presented showing you were wrong, you tried to claim that his men were cross trained, which was another lie (because there’s no evidence in the sources for some special cross training his men underwent, making it an invention to support your view). Personally I’d feel very confident there were many more veterans among the Roman forces for the following reasons:
1)****Sertorius forces were mostly raised from Spain, and the men here by definition had zero experience in conventional warfare. His initial 3000-ish men, and Perpenna’s men (who didn’t arrive until he’d taken most of Spain over) would have been the only ones who could possibly have been veteran.
2)****We know Pompey’s men at least were veterans (both because we’re told they were, and because he’d led them on campaigns before, and because he inherited forces who had just fought in a civil war successfully).
3)****Rome was awash with veteran soldiers at this point in time. Scarcely any of the legions in Italy hadn’t fought in the extensive wars of the preceding years. It would frankly have been harder to recruit green soldiers in Italy at this time. Sulla also knew the quality of Sertorius, he was hardly likely to send raw recruits against him to secure one of Rome’s most important provinces (especially not after repeated set backs).
Since you’re keen to get to the “root” of the problem, lets look at what you said:
Caesarmagnus said:
Yeh. Against 128,000 professional soldiers. You do understand the difference between professional soldiers, like the "best in the world" Legions, and some local Spanish recruits right? God I hope so.
My problem, is that I assumed the 120,000 foot soldiers were all legionaries, which you choose also to accept. However, further insight after reading Brunt’s Italian Manpower has changed my mind considerably. He estimates that the total number of legions Metellus and Pompey had was 11-14 in total, which includes the 2 legions of reinforcements sent after Pompey’s letter to the senate. Using his rule of thumb for 4,000 per legion (as legions were barely ever at full strength) we get 44,000 to 56,000. If we are generous and give Metellus and Pompey some 5,000 for each legion on average, we arrive at 55,000 to 70,000. So at maximum, the total number of legionaries Pompey and Metellus commander
over the entirety of the war is 70,000 legionaries.
However, we must remember that this is summing up the troops of Metellus and Pompey. You’ve stated in the past that this supposed force of 120,000 foot plus more was BEFORE Pompey. Well, good luck explaining to us how the two governors along with the 5 or 6 legions Metellus had amounted to 120,000 legionaries. The thing is, they’re not all legionaries. Plutarch does not make the distinction either.
Plutarch says that Sertorius had to contend with armies amounting to 120,000 foot, 6,000 horse, and 2,000 archers and slingers;10 the figures may be exaggerated, and in any event must relate to the time of the largest concentration of troops in the peninsula and include numerous native auxilia.
Brunt.
The whole point of my contention is that the 120,000 foot couldn’t all have been legionaries, let alone veterans, which is what you’re leaning towards. The problem isn’t how prevalent veterans were in the Roman legions, it’s how many of the alleged 120,000 foot were actually legions, and not auxilia.
Given there were no conventional armies or generals in Spain whatever prior to Sertorius arriving, it’s hard to imagine how else he’d have learnt the art of Roman war. Magic perhaps?
Spann seems to believe Hirtuleius came with Sertorius when he initially fled from Spain. We don’t know for sure since there is pretty much no information on the man. But assuming that Sertorius trained him up from nothing is not the correct way to go about it. So, I will restate my question: You claim Sertorius trained Hirt. from scratch in the art of war. Can you please provide a reference from Plutarch to support this, or is this an "unobjective fanfiction" ? Ironic.
No, the logic holds fine:
1)****Hirt was good enough to defeat lesser Roman generals without Sertorius, but
2)****He was soundly defeated against better ones
3)****Sertorius was good enough to fight off, and often defeat, these better generals despite his inferior numbers/soldier-quality, but
4)****Without Sertorius to directly lead them his men did very badly against these better generals
That’s exactly what you’d expect. It’s why Hirt lost. Sertorius was able to train up recruits on the fly who were good enough to defeat mediocre Roman generals, under his leadership or (sometimes) under others, but without his direct leadership the inferior quality of men he had simply couldn’t succeed against superior Roman generals.
Then there’s nothing to argue about, I thought you implied differently.
This is just an outright lie. Not only are we referred to unnamed battles that happened, but we have some specific examples, and I cited some of them to you repeatedly, including the battle after Calagurris and Sertorius defeat of Metellus where Thoranius was killed. In the latter case, I ran through exactly how the sources demonstrate it to be a battle, and pointed out that you clearly don’t understand what a battle is. In the former case any ordinary reading of the text indicates a battle took place. Nothing in the sources indicates some kind of ambush or skirmish, indeed Metellus was camped there already and would have had look outs, etc, to see Sertorius coming on the heels of the retreating Pompey who had marched there to join him. For the objective readers, the quote is here. Nothing about it indicates some sort of guerilla attack. He attacked their forces and killed 3000 of them. There is no reason for us not to assume this is just another of the “many battles” both Plutarch and Orosius refer to having already taken place. Your characterization of the war as consisting of only 2 actual battles between Sertorius and the Roman forces is just a debunked lie you’ve been called on dozens of times now. Fundamentally dishonest on every level. We know there were a bunch of battles before Metellus got there, we are told of “many battles” Sertorius won over Metellus by two sources, and we know of at least some other battles he won besides the two larger ones you refer to, a few of which I alluded to above. We don’t know nearly as much as we’d like to about the battles Sertorius fought, but we are reliably told they happened.
Yes, there were only two pitched battles mentioned involving Sertorius and Pompey/Metellus. The other battles are not described as full-scale battles, simply, battles, where limited forces were committed/used. If Metellus was constantly losing pitched battles, then he wouldn’t have had an army left. He was losing smaller actions, most likely Sertorius raising sieges, ambushing lone cohorts or detachments etc. This is what I mean.
I’m going to stop there, because there’s no point correcting you ten times if you’re going to lie about the sources presented to you ten times. You are writing an alternative history from your imagination basically.
No, I’m not letting you side-step stuff you don’t want to discuss. Resposting it:
Caesarmagnus said:
The claim he refused to face the two in battle is simply an invention on your part. The sources do not say that at all. You also literally can't "force a junction" of your armies (as you call it) without offering battle. In order to punch through the enemy lines of an army that has you surrounded, you need to offer battle (in fact you are actually engaging in a battle when you do so). If he was willing to fight before he lost a bunch of men, and still willing to fight after he lost a bunch of men and was under siege, then it's unclear why he'd be afraid to fight after punching through their lines and getting reinforcements. He clearly didn't fight them, but that might have been because they refused to offer battle, or just because it made better strategic sense to force them to split and start taking back/re-securing territories they'd been chipping at (all a reasonable decision, if it was the case, which we don't know).
He didn't have the resources to risk pitched battles. Sertorius apparently fought at Sucro because he managed to isolate Pompey, and he was basically forced by Pompey and Metellus to offer battle at Saguntum.
In this particular instance, he forced his way to his reinforcements. We don't know how Metellus and Pompey's armies were arranged. Since they were under the impression that they had cornered Sertorius and were preparing for a siege, their forces certainly were not drawn up for battle, and probably weren't expecting an aggressive sortie either.
Caesarmagnus said:
We don't know that more weren't sent. But more to the point, one reason more might not have been sent beyond those 2 extra legions could be because so many men had already been sent, and were already in the field, that they didn't feel they needed to send more yet. Rome wasn't about to abandon Spain, it was too important, so while they were under a financial crunch at the time and reluctant to spend, when push came to shove they would send yet more men and money (as they did; first the existing armies protecting Spain, then another 128,000 men, then Pompey's armies, then 2 more legions. Doubtless if more were needed in a few years, they'd have sent more too).
I could simply apply your logic against you, "we follow the sources, and the sources don't explicitly state any more than 2 legions sent after Pompey threatened the senate".
? See it yet?
Caesarmagnus said:
Sertorius doesn't have that kind of manpower...
Plutarch:
Sertorius, then, since all the peoples within the river Ebro were unitedly taking up his cause, had an army of great numbers, for men were all the whole coming to him in streams from every quarter
Among many other passages that have been quoted tirelessly to demonstrate Sertorius had a lot of available manpower to draw from.
The real interpretation of course, is pretty impossible to make. It’s obviously a lie, or a fact that’s only true in a certain context or point of view. It’s literally when Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader killed Luke’s father, but twice as bad.
