IN THIS ISSUE: Conquerors of Italy - The Early Roman Republic
A N C I E N T
WARFARE
VOL VII, ISSUE 3
Conquerors of Italy:
the Early roman republic
With:
• the First Samnite War
• roman defeat at the Caudine Forks
Also:
• Diversity in ancient armies
• Who were the Gaesates?
And much more!
www.ancient-warfare.com
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Karwansaray Publishers
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A N C I E N T
WARFARE
Publisher: Rolof van Hövell tot Westerflier
Editor in chief: Jasper Oorthuys
Editor: Josho Brouwers
News editor: Lindsay Powell
Proofreaders: Damien Butler, Ross Cowan,
Jona Lendering, Arianna Sacco
Marketing & media manager: Christianne C. Beall
Contributors: Matthew Beazley, Ross Cowan, Massimo
Drago, David Krätzer, Jona Lendering, Mark McCaffery,
David A. Mitchell, Michael Taylor, Edwin de Vries,
Gareth Williams.
Illustrators: Ganbat Badamkhand, Carlos García, Julia
Lillo, Milek Jakubiec, Brendan Keeley, Angel García
Pinto, Sebastian Schulz, Johnny Shumate.
CONTENTS
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News and letters
Contributions in the form of articles, letters, reviews,
news and queries are welcomed. Please send to
the above address or use the contact form on www.
ancient-warfare.com.
The Roman army
defeated
Livy and the Caudine Forks
THEME
Conquerors of Italy
The Early Roman Republic
6
The Early Roman
Republic
Historical introduction
40 Fabius and phobos
A strategy using fear
42 Of tribes and nations
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Website: www.ancient-warfare.com
34
Diversity in ancient armies
10
The fast-working
historian
Livy and his sources
14
Fetiales and the Law
of Nations
48 The Gaesates
“Wild young lycanthropic
warriors”?
How the Romans
justified their wars
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18
Rome confirms
the Republic
The Battle of Lake Regillus
53
Reviews
Books and games
24 Populus
Military and political
organization
26 Rome’s rise to
dominance
58 On the cover
The First Samnite War
Ancient Warfare is published every two months by
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ISSN: 2211-5129
Printed in the European Union.
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NEWS & lEttErS
A letter on the Battle of Kadesh
Dear Editor,
First of all, my sincere congratulations for the level and the
quality of the contributions published on Ancient Warfare:
they are generally excellent. However, I have some reservations on the article ‘The Battle of Kadesh’, published in issue
VII.1. I have a general comment and a couple of specific
points.
Kadesh has been the subject of many debates and interpretations and there are still a lot of doubts about the true
result of the battle. The article has no ‘constructive’ approach
to the subject and simply reports acritically the Egyptian
version of the event. Also, the general reference framework
seems quite foggy and lacking essential details. As an example, at the end of page 29, suddenly ‘the Nearrin, a group
of mercenaries’ arrive: who are they? Where do they come
from? Why do they arrive in that moment? Nothing. Many
of the most experienced readers including me know the
answers, but I consider inappropriate this kind of scientific
approach.
At the beginning of the text, the statement ‘Egypt’s capital
was situated at Memphis’ is not correct. During the reign
of Ramesses II, the major reference texts are quite clear.
I quote: “During the first half of the Eighteenth Dynasty
Thebes functioned as the undisputed center of religion and
power. With a clear intention to rival Thebes, Akhenaten, as
part of his cultural revolution based on the Aten religion,
placed his residence, programmatically named Akhetaten,
‘The Lightplace of Aten,’ in what had until then been a
culturally untouched region in which the physical structure
of the countryside had a special symbolic significance”
(Morenz 2008, pp. 252–257).
With the end of this very individualistic religious and
cultural set-up, the residence was returned to its traditional
location in Thebes. In the politics of the Nineteenth Dynasty,
the Delta became more important. This was, in part, due to
intense Asiatic contacts, but was also a result of the ancestry
of the Ramessid family itself. For this reason, the old Hyksos
capital Avaris was rebuilt as the new ‘Ramesses-City’,
Pr-rams-s(w); see the Blackwell Companion to Ancient Egypt,
p. 102.
Furthermore, Thebes is considered capital city in Egypt
of the Pharaohs: An Introduction by Alan Gardiner (Oxford
1961, chapter 10). The Cambridge Ancient History states:
“the Ramesside kings maintained Thebes as the state and
religious capital and Amun as the national god, for his influential priesthood had to be propitiated; the Ramessides were
an upstart line of rulers, and it was important for them to
have the support of the powerful corporation which served
the god of Thebes” (ed. 2008, vol. 2, part 2, pp. 222).
Just to complete the whole framework, the idea that
Memphis was the capital may derive from the fact that
“when not abroad with an army the kings of the Nineteenth
Dynasty seem to have spent most of their time in either
Per-Ramesse or Memphis“ (Cambridge Ancient History, ed.
2008, vol. 2, part 2, p. 225–226), but this should be interpreted correctly.
Finally, in the text there is no mention of the fact that
the date of the battle is still debated: for example Osprey’s
Kadesh by Mark Healy uses the ‘higher’ date of late May
1300 BC, following the chronology proposed by Cambridge
Ancient History. Arthur Ferrill, in The Origins of War, places
it in 1285 BC. In my opinion, a reference to these different
possibilities is necessary and appropriate.
Best wishes and congratulations again on your magazine.
Fabrizio Savi
Response of the author
Dear Editor,
Here is a brief and final response to the points raised by Mr
Savi.
At the time of writing, 6 June 2013, I have still not
received my copy of issue VII.1 of the magazine and am
unable to comment on its general content.
As a professional Egyptologist, I am clearly obliged to
take a concise and ‘scientific’ approach to the subject of
military life in ancient Egypt. Within the short framework
of this article, I attempted to present a brief account of the
Battle of Kadesh and present the relevant details derived
from the Egyptian sources. As a historian it is not my place to
embellish or embroider the facts: especially when those facts
are clearly presented by the ancient Egyptians themselves!
Ancient Warfare has an intelligent readership: I leave it to the
4
interested reader to draw their own conclusions about the
outcome of the battle, or to undertake further research using
more comprehensive and academic texts. I would be happy
to suggest further reading if anyone wishes to contact me.
Akhetaten does not mean ‘The Lightplace of Aten’. Akhet
(3ht – transliterated ‘ar-ket’) has a definitive translation,
namely, ‘the horizon’. Therefore we translate Akhetaten,
‘Horizon of the Aten’.
Thebes was indeed the religious capital of Egypt.
Egyptologists will distinguish the administrative capital of
Ramesses II in three ways; they will refer to Pi-Ramesses,
Memphis, or ‘the north’. I take the lead from Professor Ken
Kitchen, largely recognized as the foremost expert on the
Ramesside Period, when I describe Memphis as the capital of
Egypt. We cannot always interpret the administrative system
of ancient Egypt through methodical and modern thinking.
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