Ancients Forgetting Tactics and Stirrups

[RJMooreII]

Why does it seem like the ancient world shows a dearth of tactical/equipment manuals and formal military training schools?
The Persians are still using practically useless and extremely expensive chariots when they fight Alexander. After Alexander the Near East and Greece slide back into simple phalanx tactics, seemingly forgetting the combined arms approach. The Germans have heavy cavalry until near the end of the empire. Everyone in the world seems to periodically forget how to use horse archers.

It seems like it would be trivial to send some scholars around to pick up information on the various units and tactical methods from both scribe recorders of the battles and from retired military men. Likewise, highly detailed records of battles (your own, at least) would allow you to dissect and compare tactics. Both of these would be extremely useful for developing specialized military schools to train officers in combined arms approaches. Yet it never seems to happen until the late Roman era. Although the Romans were highly drilled there just doesn't seem to be a detailed 'school of tactics and units' one will find in pretty much any country in the world today.

Likewise, why was it so hard for people to invent the stirrups? Mongols had had them for a long time, and the Chinese since the 5th century. Some people used stirrups as early as 800 BC but never seemed to have realized their military applications and the technology just fades away.

It seems to me a stirrup is an obvious invention. When you're on a horse and bracing your legs will naturally push out to try to find purchase. Hell, you do it when you try to pull a heavy object from a chair. All you really need is a cross-support saddle and a rope, neither of which should have been beyond the mechanical prowess of the Persians or Greeks, especially considering that a bunch of illiterate barbarians seemed to have figured it out a thousand years before Europe.

 

[Dachs]

Why does it seem like the ancient world shows a dearth of tactical/equipment manuals and formal military training schools?

Because you haven't read Xenophon or Asklepiodotos or Appianus or Ailianos Taktikos or Polyainos or Onasandros...

After Alexander the Near East and Greece slide back into simple phalanx tactics, seemingly forgetting the combined arms approach. The Germans have heavy cavalry until near the end of the empire. Everyone in the world seems to periodically forget how to use horse archers.

Most of this stuff seems stereotyped and not actually true, as if you read it from Tarn or another author from sixty or seventy years ago. It seems hard to argue that anybody "forgot" how to employ combined arms by just taking a brief glance at the wars of the Diadochoi. The Battles of Paraitakene and Gabiene, or Ipsos, or Raphia, or the famous engagement at Sellasia...all involved coordinated masses of infantry of various qualities, cavalry, and indirect fire units. Some of those battles even involved artillery. And those are only the most famous narratives. Historians like Nick Sekunda have shown how, even deep into the Roman period, the Hellenistic armies were developing new tactical instruments and modifying their approach to fighting as different circumstances impinged on them. The armies of Alexander did not employ thureophoroi or kataphraktoi. Alexander didn't have the use of armored thorakitai like the corps developed by the Seleukid monarchs in the middle of the second century BC. Things like that.

Now, on the issue of "Germans" and heavy cavalry, um, there's precisely zero reason to think that "Germans" had better heavy cavalry than the Roman Empire for any period of time, ever. Dunno where that came from. Probably the same place that LightSpectra got it.

And, of course, Roman and Greek armies all employed horse archers of various stripes; individual cases of failing to engage them properly hardly speak for the majority of military experience (Appianus in particular has a lot to say about this in his discussion of the Alans). I mean, a huge part of the reason that events like Carrhae go down in history is because they were unusually disastrous. You can't pick engagements like that or Adrianople and call them representative, and then declare that the [Roman/Makedonian/Ptolemaic/Seleukid/Baktrian/Attalid] armies sucked at internalizing and channeling collective military experience because of these highly unusual military disasters.

Likewise, why was it so hard for people to invent the stirrups? Mongols had had them for a long time, and the Chinese since the 5th century. Some people used stirrups as early as 800 BC but never seemed to have realized their military applications and the technology just fades away.

It seems to me a stirrup is an obvious invention. When you're on a horse and bracing your legs will naturally push out to try to find purchase. Hell, you do it when you try to pull a heavy object from a chair. All you really need is a cross-support saddle and a rope, neither of which should have been beyond the mechanical prowess of the Persians or Greeks, especially considering that a bunch of illiterate barbarians seemed to have figured it out a thousand years before Europe.

Pft. The same thing could be said for a steam engine, the three-field system, the astrolabe, and gunpowder. I mean, what's so hard about inventing something anyway?

Part of the reason that the stirrup wasn't adopted really early by everyone is that it wasn't a war-winner or even a particularly key military advantage. Stirrups improve lateral stability and little else; they do not transform a cavalryman from an impotent simp into a world-conqueror. Effective shock cavalry existed long before the invention of the stirrup, as did effective horse-archer cavalry, skirmisher cavalry, and mixed units. The stirrup was not a revolutionary advantage that changed the face of mounted warfare, as Lynn Swann once hypothesized. It was certainly handy, but nothing outrageously special.

 

[RJMooreII]

Because you haven't read Xenophon or Asklepiodotos or Appianus or Ailianos Taktikos or Polyainos or Onasandros...

I've read Xenophon, but that is nowhere near a modern tactics book or officer's training manual. It's not organized or systematic, it has basically no theory and it doesn't make any pretence of detailed analysis of equipment, regions or tactics.

Now, on the issue of "Germans" and heavy cavalry, um, there's precisely zero reason to think that "Germans" had better heavy cavalry than the Roman Empire for any period of time, ever.

It was supposed to say 'don't have heavy cavalry'. Here I am just questioning why the Germans didn't adopt the obvious heavy cavalry units, since they later dominated Europe.

The same thing could be said for a steam engine

The ancient Greeks did invent a steam engine, it was just useless because it required so much highly expensive bronze to be safe for pressure that it would barely produce enough power to move itself and would never pay its own weight in labor. Slaves were cheaper. You need a serious advance in iron metallurgy and mass production before a steam engine becomes workable, even if you know how to make one function.

the three-field system, the astrolabe, and gunpowder.

Soil chemistry, mechanical relations and chemistry. Not nearly as obvious, nor as obviously useful, as having something to stick your foot into when you're on a horse.

Part of the reason that the stirrup wasn't adopted really early by everyone is that it wasn't a war-winner or even a particularly key military advantage. Stirrups improve lateral stability and little else; they do not transform a cavalryman from an impotent simp into a world-conqueror. Effective shock cavalry existed long before the invention of the stirrup, as did effective horse-archer cavalry, skirmisher cavalry, and mixed units. The stirrup was not a revolutionary advantage that changed the face of mounted warfare, as Lynn Swann once hypothesized. It was certainly handy, but nothing outrageously special.

It can be a huge advantage in two circumstances: when using a very heavy lance and when using a large compound bow. With stirrups you can fire a 7' recurved composite bow while standing and riding. That'll let you kill most any unit, armored or not, from a distance while taking very low casualties. Ergo, the Mongols and the Japanese. Being able to fire standing allows you to use a larger bow, gives you a wider arc of fire and a better line of sight.

 

[Dreadnought]

Well, part of what you said about Rome isn't completely true.

While they didn't have any formal "handbook" or other such literal tactical database in the training of their soldiers, part of Rome's strength was its flexibility, especially in the republic. Second Punic War, for example: "Well, the Carthaginian cavalry are destroying our own cavalry forces, so it'll be wise to more thoroughly train our own cavalry while also recruiting talented mercenaries."

Besides, the republic had the unofficial strategem of their three layered battle line, which is pretty close to the modern equivalent of a tactical school.

Ancient history isn't my forte, however; for example, before I read this thread, I thought the stirrup was a very important invention for warfare, but I guess taht is not the case.

 

[Dachs]

I've read Xenophon, but that is nowhere near a modern tactics book or officer's training manual. It's not organized or systematic, it has basically no theory and it doesn't make any pretence of detailed analysis of equipment, regions or tactics.

Um, Xenophon wrote one of the the first military manuals in history. Not talking about Anabasis, Kyropaideia, Hellenika, or Memorabilia here. Ever heard of Hipparchikos e Peri Hippikes?

It was supposed to say 'don't have heavy cavalry'. Here I am just questioning why the Germans didn't adopt the obvious heavy cavalry units, since they later dominated Europe.

Because there wasn't much pasturage in Germania Magna, and little organized society to maintain horse-warriors with all of their many needs? They may as well have employed camels.

The ancient Greeks did invent a steam engine, it was just useless because it required so much highly expensive bronze to be safe for pressure that it would barely produce enough power to move itself and would never pay its own weight in labor. Slaves were cheaper. You need a serious advance in iron metallurgy and mass production before a steam engine becomes workable, even if you know how to make one function.

Soil chemistry, mechanical relations and chemistry. Not nearly as obvious, nor as obviously useful, as having something to stick your foot into when you're on a horse.

It's um, only obvious to somebody who already knows what a stirrup is and what it does, which is the point. Hindsight is 20/20.

It can be a huge advantage in two circumstances: when using a very heavy lance and when using a large compound bow. With stirrups you can fire a 7' recurved composite bow while standing and riding. That'll let you kill most any unit, armored or not, from a distance while taking very low casualties. Ergo, the Mongols and the Japanese. Being able to fire standing allows you to use a larger bow, gives you a wider arc of fire and a better line of sight.

Son, look at the performance of heavy lancer cavalry before the introduction of the stirrup. You've got a hard on for Alexander - did you forget about the hetairoi? Or the Iranian dehkans? Kataphraktoi of all stripes? A stirrup sure helps lateral stability when you've got a kontos or xyston, but it's not going to be a decisive technical advantage whereby all non-stirrup-using cavalry is automatically boned by stirrup-using cavalry. (There's almost never any such thing as a "decisive technical advantage" anyway, in warfare of any age, except for possibly modern air combat.) Similarly, did the Huns need stirrups to employ their own bows, described (incorrectly) by Peter Heather as a key military advantage over bows employed in Roman Europe? (No.)

 

[RJMooreII]

The Romans were certainly highly flexible and well trained; even so imagine how much simpler it would be for their commanders if they just kept a running codex of military organization and arms; listing the major weapon types, their variants, their employment in the field, where assorted auxiliary and specialist units can be recruited, etc. It's just strange to me how unsystematic most of the ancient works are; Aristotle is almost bizarre for actually having sustained topics.

Son, look at the performance of heavy lancer cavalry before the introduction of the stirrup.

I'm not saying they were useless before the invention of a stirrup. Just that when you are carrying a heavy lance a stirrup saddle with a high pommel makes your life about ten times easier; even if it doesn't add a ton to your shock value it is going to save you a lot of labor just trying to hold your pole up and stay mounted.

Similarly, did the Huns need stirrups to employ their own bows

No, but if they had encountered a reasonably sized contingent of Japanese archers with Yumi they would have been annihilated. Being able to use such a huge, powerful bow from a standing position enables you to punch through plate armor without even stopping. Granted the bow design itself is a huge advantage, but even the Mongols could have shredded the Huns.

Xenophon's The Cavalry General contains some useful general advice, especially for ensuring your horsemen are familiar and organized, but it does not have the sort of manual thoroughness that a similar Napoleonic manual would have. It's not that the ancients never conveyed tactical advice or analysis of arms it's that they don't seem to have organized it in a systematic way.

 

[civ_king]

The Romans were certainly highly flexible and well trained; even so imagine how much simpler it would be for their commanders if they just kept a running codex of military organization and arms; listing the major weapon types, their variants, their employment in the field, where assorted auxiliary and specialist units can be recruited, etc. It's just strange to me how unsystematic most of the ancient works are; Aristotle is almost bizarre for actually having sustained topics.

I'm not saying they were useless before the invention of a stirrup. Just that when you are carrying a heavy lance a stirrup saddle with a high pommel makes your life about ten times easier; even if it doesn't add a ton to your shock value it is going to save you a lot of labor just trying to hold your pole up and stay mounted.

No, but if they had encountered a reasonably sized contingent of Japanese archers with Yumi they would have been annihilated. Being able to use such a huge, powerful bow from a standing position enables you to punch through plate armor without even stopping. Granted the bow design itself is a huge advantage, but even the Mongols could have shredded the Huns.

Xenophon's The Cavalry General contains some useful general advice, especially for ensuring your horsemen are familiar and organized, but it does not have the sort of manual thoroughness that a similar Napoleonic manual would have. It's not that the ancients never conveyed tactical advice or analysis of arms it's that they don't seem to have organized it in a systematic way.

1) Life isn't a video game thus you don't make a Prima guide to it...

2) Yumi came hundreds of years after the Huns...

3) They refined Strategy Handbooks over two thousand years...

 

[RJMooreII]

1) Life isn't a video game thus you don't make a Prima guide to it...

Most modern military forces have the equivalent of several thousand indexed Prima guides; covering everything from sniper rifles to jungle stealth to obscure crappy swords natives might have.

2) Yumi came hundreds of years after the Huns...

I'm aware it's anachronistic, not to mention geographically ludicrous. I'm just using the Samurai as an example of how you can use a much stronger, larger bow from a much better firing position if you have stabilized stirrups; the Huns would have been able to use better bows with more flexibility if they had had stirrups.

3) They refined Strategy Handbooks over two thousand years...

It's more of a general thing with ancient non-fiction works, from Heraclitus to Cicero. Very much all over the place. The main exceptions seem to be philosophy and religion texts, the latter are often very well organized and topical (the Avestas and Vedas come to mind).

 

[civ_king]

Do you realize how annoying it was to make books during that time period?

 

[RJMooreII]

Do you realize how annoying it was to make books during that time period?

Tedious, still, vast swaths of records get pumped out. If they can bother to make a record of every asinine 1/2 denarii transaction you'd think they could manufacture either a manual or a set of replaceable scrolls for use in military instruction and reference for battles or recruitment of certain types/regions.

This is probably more hindsight 20/20 than the stirrup thing, because I know the obvious advantages of organized repositories of minute technical data. The stirrup concept occurred to me before I rode a horse, not related to horses but simply from the observation that if I am sitting on my bed and I want to push or pull heavy things it helps if I hook my legs into the sheets first. I can't imagine I'm the first person to notice this, and the principle of the stirrup is exactly the same plus the stability advantage.

It's funny, when people think about writing in the Ancient world they think religion and philosophy. In fact most of it is mundane lists of goods, deeds of sale, accounting, etc.

 

[Plotinus]

It's more of a general thing with ancient non-fiction works, from Heraclitus to Cicero. Very much all over the place. The main exceptions seem to be philosophy and religion texts, the latter are often very well organized and topical (the Avestas and Vedas come to mind).

But this is true of most cutting-edge works. Systematisation comes in when people write textbooks, not when they do new research, and that's as true today as it was in antiquity. You say that ancient philosophical texts are well organised (although you earlier said that Aristotle was unusual in this regard), but this is mainly true of textbooks such as the Didaskalikos of Alcinous. Compare that to the writings of Plato, which he aims to introduce and which aren't systematic at all. Or, again, consider the Outlines of Pyrrhonism of Sextus Empiricus, also a textbook - although in this case we don't have the earlier works that he was summarising. Usually, though, the textbooks either haven't survived or aren't widely studied or read - in both cases because they're not very interesting. So we have a skewed view of what ancient writings were like.

 

[wolfigor]

IMHO, in ancient time creating and updating books was extremely tedious and expensive.
The literacy rate was low as well... I assume (may be wrong) that ancient relied more on a system based on apprenticeship: new recruits learn from veterans.
If I'm not horribly wrong, young boys from noble roman families were attached to generals to learn the basics.

About the invention of stirrup, or better the lack of it, may be due to various factors.
In first soldiers may not have used large bows, and their relatively small bows were handy enough on horse without stirrup.
It would take a quite wide "jump" to think about cavalry formations with stirrup armed with long&powerful bows, and the tactics to use them.

It's very easy in hindsight, but at the time would have been somehow more complicated.

Probably adoption of stirrup was limited by tradition and resistance to change.
I can imagine a veteran cavalrymen saying: "stirrup? can't you ride like a man?"
"ok... I could use a larger bow... but I don't have any... just forget those damn stirrup and lets go fight"

 

[nato2101]

Does the stirrup really only give an advantage for horse archers? I have never ridden a horse so I don't know much about it, but it seems to me it would also help with a sword, it allows the wielder to put a lot more strength in the blow without overbalancing (especially against infantry where they would need to slash downwards)

 

[Laurwin]

Does the stirrup really only give an advantage for horse archers? I have never ridden a horse so I don't know much about it, but it seems to me it would also help with a sword, it allows the wielder to put a lot more strength in the blow without overbalancing (especially against infantry where they would need to slash downwards)

Before the stirrup, there were different types of saddles for the extra stability needed in battle. The proper battle stance of a mounted knight would mean that you are almost standing in the saddle with the stirrups, pretty steadily when compared to no stirrup and some form of horned saddle for instance that of the Romans. I'm not a real expert on this but I'd imagine it would be very hard to actually drag down a mounted and armoured knight from horseback, unless you really skewer the horse itself.

Haven't ever ridden on a Roman saddle, have ridden a horse once, and I sucked at it, didn't fall off though, but it was difficult to figure out how to command the damn thing, it was like a try-it-out thing during a school trip long time ago

Considering the movement of the horse (walk, trot, canter, gallop), stability needed for actual hand to hand combat with a sword or something like that (because your spears and lances either shatter or become entangled in the enemy's body, one use weapons basically), you can probably perform better with stirrup since you don't have to focus so much effort in stabilising yourself on horseback and can better react to the actual fighting, and controlling the horse with your other hand on the reins (and use a shield if you have one)

 

[aelf]

You might want to check out this book. Might not be very historically rigorous, but should give you some idea about the history of military thought.

Also, you might want to learn a bit about the difference between tacit knowledge and codified information. AFAIK, generalship was considered an 'art' for most of history and did not lend itself well to codification, especially if you take into account the costs relating to the organisation of the information. Simply put, there wasn't much reason or incentive to think of generalship as something that was not primarily learned inside of practice, not worth justifying the costs of codifying and organising the knowledge anyway.

 

[RJMooreII]

Does the stirrup really only give an advantage for horse archers? I have never ridden a horse so I don't know much about it, but it seems to me it would also help with a sword, it allows the wielder to put a lot more strength in the blow without overbalancing (especially against infantry where they would need to slash downwards)

It's useful to all riders, combatant or non-combatant. However, as Laurwin indicates, being able to stand or nearly stand in your saddle is extremely useful for range, flexibility and power in a saddle (remember, most of your striking force comes from the legs, compare swinging a hammer while twisting your hips to swinging a hammer when sitting on your ass in a chair). It is especially useful to horse archers since having a higher line of sight, a raised position and good bracing enables you to use long composite bows with power comparable to an English longbow, though for speed related reasons most horse-archers use one with a shorter and lighter draw. Still, the Mongols used bows in the 160lb range, which is double what most archers I know shoot.

@Aelf: Van Creveld is great, his book The Rise and Decline of the State is a real page turner for the political anthropologist.

 

[sophie]

It's funny, when people think about writing in the Ancient world they think religion and philosophy. In fact most of it is mundane lists of goods, deeds of sale, accounting, etc.

This is pretty much true of any time period.

 

[civ_king]

It's useful to all riders, combatant or non-combatant. However, as Laurwin indicates, being able to stand or nearly stand in your saddle is extremely useful for range, flexibility and power in a saddle (remember, most of your striking force comes from the legs, compare swinging a hammer while twisting your hips to swinging a hammer when sitting on your ass in a chair). It is especially useful to horse archers since having a higher line of sight, a raised position and good bracing enables you to use long composite bows with power comparable to an English longbow, though for speed related reasons most horse-archers use one with a shorter and lighter draw. Still, the Mongols used bows in the 160lb range, which is double what most archers I know shoot.

@Aelf: Van Creveld is great, his book The Rise and Decline of the State is a real page turner for the political anthropologist.

I know people who shoot 160lb. they win in the badass category by shooting while riding bareback

 

[RJMooreII]

I know people who shoot 160lb. they win in the badass category by shooting while riding bareback

I'm certain it can be done, but it's a Hell of a lot easier with stirrups. Also, a stirrup and certain kinds of saddles allow you to hook your feet and use the bow from the side or underside of the horse, which gives you a lot of cover and a huge arc of available shots.

 

[civ_king]

I'm certain it can be done, but it's a Hell of a lot easier with stirrups. Also, a stirrup and certain kinds of saddles allow you to hook your feet and use the bow from the side or underside of the horse, which gives you a lot of cover and a huge arc of available shots.

If you're within 100ft of him and he wants you dead you are dead.