Whom the gods Would Destroy

[JOHN THURSTON]

This thread relates back to the opning thread on "Spartacus".

Of course many of you have seen the series thus far, and it should be noted that Quintus Batitatus was portrayed as a different type of person altogether in Kubrick's Movie.

Of course the Cohortal Legions were correctly portrayed in Kubrick's movie.

However, the Marian Reforms seem to have been the moving force that changed the Roman army from the manipulat Legion to the cohortal legion.

The necessity for slavery as an institution is a grim one, Why do I say that.

No civilization that did not have access to cheap labor ever really seemed to florish for long.

Ships of war and moument structures were two items for which expert and not expert slave labor was needed.

In the case of the Athenian Navy, the rowers sould have been citizens, but the ships themselves probaly would have been with substantila aid from slaves.

The Spartans have a whole minor race, of sorts: the Helots,

It was theorized that in dire times Helots might be pressed into the military, but I doubt this. Also in Republican Rome, the Legions would have been made up of those at least "nominally" citizens.

A Legionary was an expensive man to train. He had to learn the sword, Phalangites did not focus on this. the Legionary had to be a "missile warrior", and it is a time consuming affair to learn to throw the Pilum and the Lighter Javelins. The Typical Greel or Easten Phalangite did not have to masr throwing skills. Moreover the "Pilum was more than a mere javelin. I penetrater Plywood, mail, shield and men with equal alacrity.but its range was limted because of its weight.

My Model Pilim, with the long thin "shank" would pierce 5 ply plywood at 15 meters easily. Sometime legionaries to the rear eith passed thier pila forward to the from rank, or were armed with lighter Verutum (javelins) or the lancea to arc over the front ranks.

The "Lancea" a Xyston type weapon with a leaf shape point was another weopon with which the legionary had to become familiar.

From the size and shape of the wound in the side of the man protrayed by some" unknown process" on the shroud on Turin was apparently made with the short spear Lancea,

Marcus Licinius Crassus was a roman of great avarice. anecdotally, he amassed his great fortune by forming and equipping a fire brigade.

Rome in Crassus' and Caesar's time was a city made out of wood. Crassus's brigade would not commence quenching any fire until a price had been agreed on with the owner.

Well, we pay taxes for the service-quien sabe/

Crassus, Spartacus, Caesar, Marius, Batiatus, Pompey the Great were all comtemporaris of a sort. Casesar was too young and relatively inpecunious to hae been made the master of any expedition against Spatacus.

I out time machines and machinery are our slave, so thus it was a very frightening matter for a power such as the up and coming Republic.

Citizens and patricians alike would have been watching the 1/4 to 1/3 of the populace (I use the term loosely) that were an integral part of Roman society as much as 'labor saving" devices are a part of ours. We stand ready to go to war to defend that which fuels our engines do we not?

So, with Pompey in Spain, Marius in his later years, and Caesar too young the rich Crassus was picked to put roman society back on its intended "manifest destiny" Sulla's status at this time is not known to me, but I believed ha passed away at the end of the War against the Republic's other boogy man, King Mithridates V of Pontus.

to make a preliiminary short preface to the campaign to save rome, the so called Garrsion of Rome (perhaps 900 to 2000 men) was sent to area of Vesuvius. Legions were not allowed into the city, although Sulla had brought them in, earning the ever lasting hatred of the Senate.

Crassus saw his shot for fame and, not for the last time, he grabbed for it.

With his riches he was probably in good stead to raise armies from the orinary urban (and non property owning) citizens of rome itself. When Marius first recruited men from what was called "the head count" instead of staying with the requirement that a legionary own property and have the necessary funds to equip himself , as had been the tradition for 300 years of the Republic, and outfitted these "Head Count Legions" and Rome's and his own expense, it did not make him friends in the Senate.

So here we are with Rome's most wealthy and avaricious patrician at the head of an army he raised and equipped probably at his expense preparing to March on an army of slaves whose numbers included trained gladiators and ex Legionaires who may have fallen on hard times.

Why might the latter be the case? Well, in earlier campaigns, the Legions were close to home. Now, bound for at least ten years, perhaps overseas, a legionary might come home to find his lands taken for taxes and his wife and children in poverty among the poor of rome's Urban Head count.

More to follow.

J