Biggest fraud in the antiquity
>>18753517The Guan Yu of the West. It downright bizarre how much the ancients themselves glazed him despite him never achieving anything and having a crappy military record. I could get it if he had accomplished something in other areas than military, and thus they wanted to prop him up (similar to how Washington was a mediocre general but gets forgiven because of his political career) but he didn't. He was a bog standard petty warlord who ruled a tiny irrelevant shithole like a hundred others in the Hellenistic Period. Yet we have Hannibal, an general with some actual notable successes, ranking him in the top 3 of all time.
PRÖÖÖÖÖÖH
>>18753555He had aura.
>always victorious regardless of the costHe was an inspiration to many
>>18753555>we have Hannibal, an general with some actual notable successes, ranking him in the top 3 of all time.have you thought there might be a reason for that>yeah but i conquered all mediterranean provinces in fifty turns in rome total war 2 so...
>famous bust depicted him wearing a helmet>died because a granny threw a tile on his head after he took his helmet offLmao
>>18753517Can't take him seriously after this
>>18753555>we have Hannibal, an general with some actual notable successes, ranking him in the top 3 of all time.Hannibal also failed to win the war despite some very major tactical victories. The general's job is to win the war, winning battles is only a means to that end, not an end in and of itself. Hannibal is also overrated for this reason
>>18754395>losing to Hellenistic Sparta
>>18754402Hannibal may have been far from perfect, but he actually did win a long series of genuinely impressive victories against superior forces that would have ended any other contemporary Mediterranean polity except Rome (just goes to show you how Rome being able to levy infinite troops was such a game changer). So it makes sense that he gets some respect even if he wasn't able to end the guys that literally no one else was able to end. Pyrrhus on the other hand? Not one actually impressive victory. Even the tactical victories he does win are done so by just throwing meat waves at peer or weaker opponents to such waste it literally created the term "Pyrrhic Victory".
>>18753555Hannibal is overrated because Romans wanted to hype him up to seem like the greatest general who ever existed. The truth was that the Republic had few competent commanders at that time. The propaganda worked, and Africanus, Hannibal's superior in every regard, was underrated due to Roman socio-political attitudes.
>>18754409>just goes to show you how Rome being able to levy infinite troops was such a game changerOr its just roman propaganda
>>18754417No Rome's ability to levy troops in a way no one else in the Hellenistic world could is a very well recorded phenomenon and is the reason they were able to conquer all the successor states, not just Carthage. Cathage's expensive mercenary based system and the Successor States system of a small racial elite/nobility based system of obtaining soldiers were extremely fragile and could buckle after a single (even victorious) battle. The Roman system of near universal free male mandatory service, combined with Rome applying the same system to their non-Roman subjects (The Successors states conversely did not like allowing conquered peoples having military forces under arms) meant that Rome could field practically the whole male population of the Italian peninsula on the cheap. They simply discovered a way of maximizing their ability to harvest manpower that their enemies were generally unwilling to risk.
>>18753555He was prolific, he quite literally went to war with everybody he could. He fought with a relatively fine track record in battle but he picked enemies he had absolutely no chance of winning. He was never, ever going to beat Rome or Carthage, two superpowers with a dozen times more men and resources he had. He attempted to conquer Macedonia and failed because his enemies were far more powerful than he was, and his wars against the Greek leagues were a losing battle. He was at heart a mercenary king, he was not incompetent and was a skilled commander. He just fought generals with enough skill to combat him and up against states that could crush him with sheer resources. >>18754417Until modern 19th century conscription, Central Italy under the Roman Republic was the most militarised urban region on Earth. They conscripted men at the same rate as nomadic societies. The Samnites, Etruscans and other Central Italian peoples engaged in this practice, which was one of the reasons the Romans took so long to defeat them.
>>18754403>>18754395>Ancient Era of PrussianCan't blame him.
>>18753517Compare his record against Rome to that of Macedon, Seleucids, Pontus, etc. He was an excellent general but a dogshit leader, fighting a superior military.
>>18754498>Until modern 19th century conscription, Central Italy under the Roman Republic was the most militarised urban region on Earth. They conscripted men at the same rate as nomadic societies. The Samnites, Etruscans and other Central Italian peoples engaged in this practice, which was one of the reasons the Romans took so long to defeat themI don't believe this, Roman sources claim giant armies for everyone involved, Cimbri supposedly had larger armies than far more organized Germanic armies of late antiquity.All numbers are made up
>>18755378Also why can some societies just "decide" to be ultramilitarized? There is a justications for nomads, why couldn't a random medieval population just replicate this at a smaller scale?
>>18755378>Roman sources claim giant armies for everyone involvedThey really don't. Especially in their wars in the East, where armies were almost always in the range of 15-25,000.>Cimbri supposedly had larger armies than far more organized Germanic armies of late antiquity.The very easy answer is that 1, they didn't know the true number of the Cimbri and 2, they were inflating it. An army of 300,000 would have starved to death before they even started to march. The single largest army in pre-modern history was 70,000 large under Julian, and roughly the same size under Xerxes. The peoples of Late Antiquity like the Cimbri were people on the move, they wouldn't have been gathering more men to fight because just about all of them were already fighting. Technology or 'organisation' does not somehow make them able to conscript more men than they have.>>18755381>Also why can some societies just "decide" to be ultramilitarized?They don't. No society decides that, otherwise they would all be doing it. It took Central Italian society centuries before they settled into a society geared for nearly nothing but military mobilisation and war.>why couldn't a random medieval population just replicate this at a smaller scale?How would they do that? How would they compel their aristocracy to agree, how would they compel their population at large to agree? They would have to fully restructure their society to accomplish this. 12th century England, and much of Western Europe had duties, were compelled by social rules and laws to do each other work, there would be significant opposition to any changes, let alone one so large. Mass mobilisation in Central Italy was not an everlasting thing, with the end of the endless warfare engaged by the Roman Republic, the system ended, and in two generations from Augustus to Nero, the system ceased to exist. If a society was not constantly at war it could not maintain it.
>>18754550this
>>18755715I don't buy this, the Roman republic after the 2nd Punic war was never truly threatenedIt had no reason to be ultramilitarizedNor did you justify how Italy even got there, you just argue that it just so happens Samnites and other were ultramilitarized in such an unique waySurely we would find countless more examples in other parts of thw world or even just Europe? What's special about 4th century Italy?
>>18755782>It had no reason to be ultramilitarizedBy going to war constantly it did. nearly 20% of the population was engaged in some form of military service. Being threatened has nothing to do with it.>Nor did you justify how Italy even got thereThere are a few factors, but it would be better to say why it diverged from a place like Greece, they were both regions of city states, and the Greek cities did engage in mass mobilisation, albeit at far smaller scale. The Central Italians had formed themselves into leagues at a far earlier stage, probably around 500BC and eventually had clear leadership in a few of them like Rome with the Latins. Because of that alone, they could already bring to mass multiple times more manpower than the Greek leagues of the time like the Delian and Peloponnesian ones. Another factor was they simply didn't regard citizenship as all that important amongst each other.Early Central Italian citizenship seemed to be transitory and existed based on which city you happened to come to or aligned yourself with, rather than a tightly constricted privilege as with Greek cities. The Romans saw no issue in giving out citizenship or quasi-citizenships en mass to the point maybe half of Central Italy was composed of Roman citizens. Other Italian states had the same obligations regardless, unlike say the Athenian Empire, they owed no taxes or tribute to Rome, their primary obligation was to engage in warfare for Rome.The elites of Central Italy were well aware of their society and actively wanted it to continue, one of the reasons for war in Illyria was that they believed that it was important for young men to go to war, in a sort of use it or lose it way. >Surely we would find countless more examples in other parts of thw world or even just Europe?Yet we don't. Because there is no other region on Earth which engaged in the same level of mobilisation while being a highly developed urban society.
