• About
  • Armour in Texts
    • English Wills and Inventories
    • French and Burgundian Military Ordinances
    • Greek and Roman Inscriptions and Papyri
    • Lydgate’s Troy Book
    • Murḍa al-Tarṣuṣi
    • Nineteenth-Century Travellers and Researchers
    • Pedro de Aguado on Armour in New Spain
    • Records of the Armourers’ Company of London
    • Rule of the Pourpointiers of Amiens
    • Rules of the Paris Guilds
    • Rules of the Troyes Guilds
    • Rules of the Venetian Guilds
    • Statutes and Privileges of the Armourers and Scabbardmakers of the City of Angers
    • The Book of the Hirelings of the Republic of Florence
    • The Norwegian King’s Mirror
  • My Articles
  • Resources
    • Active Open-Access Venues in Ancient World Studies
    • Building a Website to Last
    • COVID-19
    • Fashion in the Age of Datini
      • Bocksten Cloaks
      • Crossbows
      • Extant Quilted Garments
      • How Heavy Were Doublets and Pourpoints?
      • Sheaths and Sword-Belts
      • The Baggage of a Student in 1347
    • Project TUPPU
    • Reenacting the Archaic and the Long Sixth Century
      • Cooking, Eating, and Drinking
      • Edgetools
      • Firestarting
      • Recipes
      • Replica Edgetools
      • Shoes and Sandals
    • Suppliers for Historical Crafts
  • Support
  • Why no Facebook/Google+/LinkedIn/Tumblr/… buttons?
    • My Social Media Policy

Book and Sword

~ Pontifex minimus

Book and Sword

Monthly Archives: February 2014

Three Ancient Traditions of Tactical Writing

28 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Aelian, ancient, Arrian, Asclepiodotus, drill, Greek, Hittite, Hittite Instruction for the Royal Bodyguard, Hittite Instructions for the Commander of the Border Guards, Jewish, Josephus, Qumran War Scroll, tactics, Xenophon

A forthcoming conference has me thinking about writings on tactics in the ancient world. While the English word tactics indicate a clever way of fighting, the Greek adjective τάκτικη means “having been put into a formation for battle.” In other words, in the ancient world tactics were what we call organization and drill. Ancient and modern critics have complained that tactics in the Greek sense are insufficient education for a soldier, but experienced soldiers tended to recognize that they were necessary.
Continue reading →

Das Boot

23 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ancient, nautical archaeology, Nydam ship

A view along the Nydam ship towards the prow

A view along the Nydam ship towards the prow

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Schleswig. One of the pleasures of the trip was seeing the famous Nydam boat, a thirty-oared galley sunk in a lake around 400 CE. It had apparently been captured in war and was sunk as a sacrifice to the gods in a lake which received sacrifices for several centuries. A Greek would have called it a triakonter, although Germanic ships in the fourth century CE differed from Greek ones in the fifth century BCE in many details.
Continue reading →

Did the Greeks Wear Glued Linen Armour?

14 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

ancient, historical textiles, Iron Age, Jarva type IV armour, Linothorax, reconstruction, spolas, tube-and-yoke

A recent scholarly book argues that ancient Greek soldiers wore body armour of many layers of linen glued together. This would be surprising, since most cultures with linen armour sewed it together, but some people are concerned that Greek images of this armour rarely show stitch marks.* The book briefly cites two 19th century articles as evidence that such glued linen armour has been found.** Many curious readers will not be able to follow up on these references, since the necessary journals are hard to obtain outside of a large reference library, and since the articles are in Italian and German. One perk of studying in Innsbruck is that I do have access to the necessary publications, and I can read German if not Italian. I therefore spent a few hours flipping through online databases and back issues of journals with gilded titles on the spines and „königlich und kaiserlich“ in the stamps on the title page. Because many interested people do not have access to these articles, I have decided to reproduce the key passages with an English summary.
Continue reading →

Djaida, Zarinaea, Rhoxane

10 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient, Medieval

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ancient, Ctesias, Romance of Antar

Dr. Steve Muhlberger in Ontario passed on a link to an Arabic romance of the sixth century CE which Phil Paine posted on his blog (link to Muhlberger’s comments). One story in the romance tells of a young woman who was raised as a boy and a warrior, and what she did when she wished to marry.
Continue reading →

A Comment to Diodorus

08 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Achaemenid, ancient, Diodorus Siculus, Phoenicia

Τέννης δ’ ὁ τῆς Σιδῶνος βασιλεὺς προσελάβετο παρ’ Αἰγυπτίων στρατιώτας μισθοφόρους Ἕλληνας τετρακισχιλίους, ὧν ἦν στρατηγὸς Μέντωρ ὁ Ῥόδιος. μετὰ δὲ τούτων καὶ τῶν πολιτικῶν στρατιωτῶν τοῖς προειρημένοις σατράπαις συμβαλὼν ἐνίκησεν καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους ἐξέβαλεν ἐκ τῆς Φοινίκης.

And Tennes the king of Sidon got himself from amongst the Egyptians four thousand Greek mercenary soldiers, Mentor the Rhodian being general of them. Throwing out the previously mentioned satraps with these and his citizen soldiers he conquered and expelled the enemies from Phoenicia.

Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library 16.42.2

Gloss: The people of Sidon had just rebelled against Artaxerxes III of Persia. Although some historians today insist that hoplites, democracy, and citizenship were uniquely Greek, most historians writing in the ancient world disagreed.

Dress and Armament of the Persian Army

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Achaemenid army, ancient, ancient clothing, illustration, reconstruction

Dr. Stefan Bittner has kindly informed me that the line drawings from his thesis on the Achaemenid army are available at his online photo gallery.

Copies of his thesis, and several other books, are still for sale at his press Bodem Verlag. His book is the single biggest source for Achaemenid kit and clothing, and includes some sketches of how equipment might have been put together. Anglophone reenactors could find those useful even if they can’t read his text.

I may address particular parts of his work in later posts, since I have not found much discussion of his book in English.

The Stone Throwers of Onomarchus

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ancient, artillery, Greek, Macedonian, military, textual criticism

Classicists and Assyriologists spend a great deal of time and energy editing ancient texts, debating which version to use, and carefully noting which they have chosen. A debate about the use of catapults in fourth-century BCE Greece has reminded me why this matters.
Continue reading →

Recent Posts

  • Essentialism, Identities, and History
  • Shameless Plug: The Chronicle of the Good Duke
  • And the Morning Road Leads to Stalingrad
  • The Battle for the Future of the Study of the Ancient World is Bigger than Classics
  • Identities Are Hard to Get At

Recent Comments

Sean Manning on Essentialism, Identities, and…
Sean Manning on Essentialism, Identities, and…
Sean Manning on Essentialism, Identities, and…
russell1200 on Essentialism, Identities, and…
Andrew Hobley on Essentialism, Identities, and…

Archives

  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013

Categories

  • Ancient
  • Medieval
  • Modern
  • Not an expert
  • Uncategorized

Blogroll

  • .. clericus .. making art technological sources accessible
  • A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
  • A Durham Weaver
  • A Fencer's Ramblings
  • A Hot Cup of Joe
  • Aardvarchaeology
  • Active History
  • Ad Astra per Mundum
  • Albrechts Bösser
  • Alec Nevala-Lee
  • An Elegant Weapon
  • Ancient World Magazine
  • Andrew Holt: History, Religion, and Foreign Affairs
  • ANE: Just the Facts
  • Angry Staff Officer
  • Anthropologist in the Attic ~2017
  • Archäotechnik- textile Fläche
  • Archeothoughts
  • Artistic License or Why I Trust No One
  • Aryballos: Cdn Research Grp for Ancient Sport
  • Ask the Past
  • Backreaction
  • Bad Science † 2017
  • Balkan Celts
  • Bibliographia Iranica
  • Boke of the Wardrobe
  • Bow vs. Musket
  • Bread & Circuses ~2016
  • Carolyn Willikes
  • Celsus
  • Classics at the Intersections
  • Constantinus Africanus
  • Dan Cohen
  • Dr. Caitlyn R. Green
  • Dr. Conor Whately: Byzantine (OED) "Intricate, Complicate; Inflexible, Rigid, Unyielding"
  • Dr. Ellie Bennett
  • elamit.net
  • Encyclopaedia Iranica
  • Erik D. Schmidt
  • Erik Kwakkel
  • Ex Urbe
  • Executed Today
  • Forensic Fashion
  • Found in Antiquity ~2015
  • Gates of Nineveh
  • Geocurrents † 2016
  • Great Ming Military
  • Hammered Out Bits
  • Handling the Humanities
  • History From Below
  • Hollow Lakedaimon
  • Hook and Eye
  • Ian Milligan
  • Institute for the Study of War
  • International Armizare Society
  • Janice Liedl
  • jfleck at Inkstain
  • Karen Selk Textile Artist
  • Katafalk
  • Ken Mondschein
  • Kiwi Hellenist
  • Kristina Killgrove, PhD
  • Kung Fu Tea
  • La Cotte Simple
  • Language Hat
  • Languages of the World † 2016
  • Linguistrix
  • Loose Threads: Yet Another Costuming Blog
  • Macro-Typography
  • Magistra et Mater
  • Matthew Amt's Greek Hoplite Page
  • Medieval Manuscripts Blog
  • Milesian Tales
  • Mons Graupius
  • Moonspeaker
  • Muhlberger's World History
  • Neues aus der Gothik
  • Neurodojo
  • New At LacusCurtius and Livius † 2014
  • Paleopix
  • pallia: Katrin Kania
  • Paola Fabbri
  • Papyrus Stories
  • Pen, Book, Sword
  • Persian Things
  • Professeur … Ou Pas
  • Publishing Archaeology
  • Reportret
  • Robin Writes
  • Rogue Classicism
  • Royal Oak Armoury
  • Saewulf (Tumblr)
  • Sardinian Warrior
  • School of the Renaissance Soldier
  • Scott Manning: Historian on the Warpath
  • Shtetl-Optimized
  • Silk Road Gourmet ~2018
  • Sparta Reconsidered
  • Sphinx
  • Sprang Lady
  • St. Thomas Guild
  • Tales of Times Forgotten
  • Tetsuji No Llama
  • The Melammu Project
  • The Royal Road
  • Theoretical Structural Archaeology
  • Tracy's Middle East
  • Traditions of Conflict
  • Violent Metaphors
  • Vortigern Studies
  • Website of a Historical Polymath
  • West's Meditations † 2018
  • Wide Urban World
  • Zenobia: Empress of the East ~2017

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×