Adequate Aqueducts

In my study of history, it seems that there are at least two kinds of empires: the conquest empire and the sustainable empire. Famous warrior-kings like Alexander the Great forged conquest empires by marching their armies into foreign lands and conquering everything in sight. Alexander's in particular is an impressive conquest empire, but it fell apart as soon as he died, splintering into petty kingdoms ruled over by his former Generals. Sustainable empires, on the other hand, outlast their conquerors and fall into a pattern of subservience and reliance on their master kingdom. Rome had its share of both over the years, but places like Spain, Germany, Asia Minor, Sicily, North Africa, Greece, and regional Italy itself gradually fell into a permanent territorial status.

How does an army win a battle? Tactics. How does a nation win a war? Logistics. How does a country maintain a far-reaching empire? Engineering. Yes, if there's one thing the Romans had a monopoly on, it was practical engineering. Where the Greeks and Egyptians saw religion, the Romans saw potential. They specialized in making mysterious concepts like pi work for both their citizens and their conquered clients. One of their most amazing achievements was the Aqueduct.

In Rome alone, there was probably 500 km of aqueducts, allowing the city to support a million people. Throughout their empire, they regularly built and maintained these massive pipe and stone structures in order to ensure a potable water supply, as well as control over where the local went and who got to drink. When a city rebelled, step one of retaking it was taking the head of the aqueduct and cutting off their supply. Likewise, when Rome was attacked, the first step in defense was deploying the most elite troops to guard the water supply and ensure that a siege would prove too costly to maintain, especially if the attackers could not find a supply of their own.

In order to build a proper aqueduct, the surrounding land needed thorough surveying and measurement. The angles employed to ensure a 'just-right' flow of water were often very subtle, and the slightest overcompensation in the grade would either slow the supply to a trickle or cause an overflow which could lead to a nasty flood.

It is easy to find remains of the aqueducts in many parts of the ancient empire, including Spain and modern-day Turkey. What we see is only a fraction of what existed, and what still exists beneath our feet. Of all the aqueduct and piping laid by the Romans, most was underground and only a small percentage used those famous arches that we see still standing today.

Pax vobiscum

Julius Caesar Part 1: The Early Years

 The Roman Republic had several huge problems by the time young Gaius Julius Caesar was born in 100 BCE. The Patrician Senate was in the midst of a conservative freak-out, fearing the now armed mob that Caesar's own uncle, Gaius Marius, had created by recruiting soldiers from the poor. Though they had fought hard against any reform that would give the Plebeians equal power, they couldn't stop the shift that was occurring right before their very eyes. And when Caesar was about 12, a wholly unprecedented and fearful thing took place: Lucius Cornelius Sulla, incensed at the Senate for trying to grant his command against Mithridates VI to Gaius Marius, used his army to lay siege to Rome and enter the city by force. Caesar later referred to this event when he was looking across the Rubicon years later, pondering the same course of action.

Caesar's early life was probably fairly easy, coming from a wealthy Patrician family and inheriting a massive estate at the age of 16 when his father died suddenly while tying his shoes. However, the social and political unrest in Rome which so frequently erupted in violence soon engulfed even this promising young man, who married another wealthy Patrician and had been named the High Priest of Jupiter. Sulla returned from Asia Minor only to fight another war at home; a purge of the Marian supporters who still opposed him. Because young Gaius was Marius' nephew, he was stripped of his inheritance and his wife's dowry, as well as his office of priest. If not for the pleading of Caesar's relatives who were loyal to Sulla, he may have even been executed. Though he was born a wealthy Patrician, he was now a man with no titles or inheritance to rely upon. So, he did what many young men without title or prospects continue to do today: he joined the army.

He won the Civic Crown, the second highest honor available to fighting men, during a campaign in Asia Minor, and after Sulla finally stepped down as Dictator and restored Consular rule, Caesar felt it safe to return to Rome, though he was little better off financially than when he had left. He entered the legal profession, having a natural gift for public speaking, and made quite a name for himself as a skillful prosecutor. He took on several high-profile cases involving corruption by retired Governors and other officials, gaining convictions most of the time and gaining the adoration of the masses, who were growing ever-weary of the corruption of their leaders.

While sailing to Rhodes to study under a skilled rhetorician, he was kidnapped by Cilician pirates and held for ransom. He continued to act the part of the superior Roman in captivity and even swore to his jailers that he would have them all crucified for this act. They believed he was joking, but after the ransom was paid, he raised a fleet of warships and hunted them down. While they were being held prisoner in Pergamum, the local Governor thought that it made more financial sense to sell them as slaves, but Caesar caught up with the traders who purchased them and saw to it that every last one of them hung on a cross. He had their throats slit beforehand, which is a kindness compared to the slow death of crucifixion. Nonetheless, the message was sent that Gaius Julius Caesar intended to crush his enemies completely, no matter who they were or what efforts were required.

When he returned to Rome he decided to take up politics and was elected Military Tribune, and over the next ten years he continued to climb the political ladder, gaining higher and higher appointments in the Senate. He made many of them nervous with his constant outward support for the memory of his uncle, the late Gaius Marius. In 63 BCE, he convinced a Tribune to prosecute an optimate Senator for a political murder which took place 37 years before. The case ended in a verdict of guilty, the crime itself being treason, and the Senator desperately appealed. During the opening of the appeal, one of the Praetors adjourned the trial temporarily, and Caesar told the Tribune to let the matter drop. His point had been made: do not mess with me.

Unfortunately, the Optimates continued to harry his every step, bringing in accusations of bribery and involvement in coup attempts. The Optimates and the Populares were kind of like political parties, but much less unified than those of today. Basically, the Optimates favored laws and policies that benefited and empowered the Patrician class and the Populares gained power and popularity by supporting policies of reform that could benefit the Plebeians. Remember that Patrician doesn't necessarily mean rich any more than Plebeian means poor. This was a kind of Republican monarchy, with the Patricians claiming descent to the original Senate as their right to rule. It might seem strange that Julius Caesar, a Patrician of the very aristocratic family Julii, would court Plebeians for power, but he was not wealthy like most Patricians. In fact, when he was appointed the Governor of Hispania Ulterior, the southern part of modern Spain, he was up to his eyeballs in debt and wasn't allowed to leave until he had satisfied it. Along came Marcus Lucinius Crassus, a copiously wealthy Senator who wanted Caesar's support against Pompey, the young upstart army commander who refused to play by traditional rules. Caesar agreed, and Crassus paid some of his debts and guaranteed the others, allowing Caesar to enter his new commission.

He secured his province well, defeating many local Celtic tribes in battle, and even earning the right to a Triumph parade back in Rome. However, he had his eye set on Consulship as well, and could only muster enough political clout to enact one of the two. Keeping his eye on the prize, he chose Consulship, and earned it through an election that was dirty on all sides.

We'll talk more about old Gaius Julius next week, but for now let's critically analyze this guy. I have to look upon Caesar with some admiration purely for his ability to rise to the top, regardless of negative personal situations. After all, he was stripped of land and titles by Sulla, and had to re-make himself if he hoped to even survive, much less gain any power. If not for his public speaking skills, we probably wouldn't even know his name. But he took what skills he had and put them to good use, using his status as a Patrician to borrow money and pull strings when he needed to.

That being said, I don't think he is quite the 'pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps' example that some historians have made him out to be. In truth, if he were a Plebeian Tribune and all of this happened to him, he would surely have been killed, not having the family connections to keep him alive. He may have been able to borrow money, but he certainly would have fallen into indentured servitude without a wealthy guarantor. He would probably have been killed or sold as a slave by the pirates who kidnapped him, since he wouldn't be worth a ransom.

Though he was an impressive individual who made the best of his situation, we should not ignore the impact of his title as a Patrician, nor the involvement and help of his family. The fact was, though you didn't need to be a Patrician to be wealthy, you did need to be one in order to be powerful, and all the reforms that the Plebeians had been fighting for politically were still coming to naught because the aristocrats in Rome did not want to really share power. Their stubbornness was their ultimate undoing, as was their use of violence to make political gains. Caesar can hardly be blamed for some of the more thuggish tactics he took later on, since he was not the first Senator to resort to violence when Democracy failed him.

Ultimately, I see Caesar as both an impressive individual and a product of his time. Next Friday, we will look closer at some of his later career and you can decide if he is truly the hero who saved Rome from corruption or the villain who killed the Republic when it no longer suited his political ends.

Pax vobiscum

Famous Friday: Tiberius Gracchus

While Rome was busy establishing dominance over the Mediterranean in the 200's BCE, there were problems on the homefront. Various enemies had abandoned fighting toe-to-toe with the legions in favor of hit-and-run ambushes and guerrilla warfare. However, Roman pride would not allow them to disband a legion until its campaign was finished, so many of the legionnaires were fighting for ten years or longer in places like Spain, Asia Minor, and North Africa. Meanwhile, back on the farm, their wives and children were tasked with caring for their estates, which often fell into ruin.

The wealthier land owners had plenty of money to buy or make slaves (by calling in debts), and they could leave their expansive vineyards and ranches in the hands of capable servants, paying them only food in return for tending their property. Soldiers at the lower end of the middle class who had smaller farms and no money to hire hands or purchase slaves would return from a long campaign to find their animals poached or rustled and their orchards gone to seed. Some tried to make the best of it, seeking work to earn money and reinvigorate their family farm, but work became very scarce with every new batch of conquered slaves that arrived from wherever there was a campaign. These men were unwittingly putting themselves out of work.

This economic crisis is one of the many factors in the Republic's ultimate death, but it is a significant one. The droves of people who later supported Julius Caesar and Augustus after him were the disenfranchised middle class whose farms had been plundered by greedy oligarchs who took advantage of their absence while they were defending Rome from the Barbarians. To my mind, it is the chief failing of the Republic's political structures that they didn't adequately address the needs of those they derisively referred to as “the mob.”

However, some within Rome's political elite tried to enact land and economic reforms before it became such a widespread problem. The Gracchi brothers were two such Patricians who attempted to reverse the injustice of losing one's home while fighting for the Republic. Their payment for these attempts was brutal death.

Tiberius Gracchus, born sometime between 168 and 163 BCE, and served as a military tribune in Spain. Plutarch tells us that while returning to Rome after a campaign, he began to notice the need for reform. He saw the huge tracts of land throughout Etruria (northern Italy) which were being tended mostly by foreign slaves, as well as the smaller farms which had gone into ruin. When he came to Rome itself, he saw several large mobs of unemployed and homeless men wandering the streets looking for work. He knew something had to be done, so when he was elected as Tribune of the People in 133 BCE, he went right to work campaigning for reform. In one of his fiery speeches, he said, "The wild beasts that roam over Italy have their dens, each has a place of repose and refuge. But the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy nothing but the air and light; without house or home they wander about with their wives and children."

This made him popular with the people, but very unpopular with the other Patrician families and Senators, who were all enjoying the benefits of the situation, paying meager sums of money to gobble up the small farms around them when they came to ruin while their owners were away at war. In retrospect, it was quite a nefarious scam that the Senate was running on the people; sending them to war for years so that they buy the land cheap, staff the huge farms with slaves which were captured during these same wars, and profit from the whole scheme. Thus, as they were benefiting so much from the system as it was, they were more than eager to douse this fire of reform.

Believing that the Senate would never pass his reforms, he planned on submitting them instead to the Plebeian Council, since they had some legislative power. The Senate learned of his plan and was deeply offended. In fact, some of the moderate Senators who may have supported these reforms were now firmly against them and against Tiberius himself. They somehow persuaded Marcus Octavius, another Tribune, to use his veto against Tiberius and make him a lame duck. Tempers ran red hot at the Council assembly, as it became clear that Octavius was acting as a tool of the wealthy. The people voted to depose him, and he vetoed them, which probably didn't help matters. Tiberius therefore ordered that Octavius be forcefully removed so they could have a proper vote. In a moment of horrible clarity, Tiberius realized that he had violated the law by using force against a Tribune, something which was very illegal and severely punished since the formation of the Council. So instead of moving forward with voting on his reforms, he moved to basically shut the entire city down until the Senate passed the bills themselves. Businesses weren't allowed to open, temples were closed, and all commerce ground to a halt until the Senate decided to approve his reforms, which they did, but used a parliamentary trick to give his newly-created agrarian commission only minimal funding.

Later that year, King Attalus III of Pergamum died without an heir, leaving his entire kingdom and vast fortune to Rome. Tiberius jumped at an opportunity to give his reforms teeth and claimed part of the inheritance for his commission. The Senate, who was constitutionally in charge of the treasury, saw this as a direct affront to their authority; a check without a balance. They also sought to prosecute him for his unlawful and unconstitutional expulsion of his fellow Tribune Octavius, and waited eagerly for his term to end.

Knowing that the end of his term would likely mean the end of his life, Tiberius ran for re-election as Tribune, making outlandish promises, including giving Roman citizenship to foreign allies. Neither side much liked that particular idea, since the poor were already competing with slaves and didn't want to share the rights of citizenship with a bunch of smelly Barbarians. Quintus Pompeius told the Senate that, since he was Tiberius' neighbor, he knew that the populist Tribune had received royal gifts from a Greek named Eudemus of Pergamum, who prophesied that he would one day be the king of Rome. This, coupled with the testimony of one of Tiberius' cousins who claimed that this Gracchi was amassing power for himself in a play to become King, led the Senators to do something that most of us today feel was a bit . . . drastic.

During the re-election vote, the well-groomed and cultured Patrician Senators followed the accusatory cousin down to where Tiberius was, beat him to death with their chairs and threw his body in the the river Tiber. About three hundred of his loyal followers tried to protect him and were also killed by the malevolent politicians.

Since they had now also violated the law against harming a Tribune, the Senators worked quickly to mollify the Plebeians, who were ready to take up arms against an upper class that was entrenched within the status quo. They agreed to fund the land reform commission, and this satisfied the mob for the moment. At least, until Tiberius' younger brother Gaius came upon the political scene ten years later.

Pax vobiscum

Theology Thursday: The Cult of Artemis

Looking at the statue of the Ephesian Artemis reminds me of when I lived in Japan, as the slender statue looks more like a Shinto deity than a Greek goddess. In fact, if you were to compare the idols of the Greek gods with the statue of Artemis which came from Ephesus, you'd probably think you were looking at completely different religious icons. And, in a way, you'd be right.

Artemis is unique among the Greek deities because she never married or had 'relations' with the other gods. She preferred the hunt to a dinner party, and the human lovers who were lucky enough to win her affection always met with tragic death, sometimes at her hand. She was the goddess of the moon, but the forest and childbirth were also within her realm of protection. Hunters would often lay the skins and horns of their prey upon a tree branch before leaving the woods as an offering so that Artemis wouldn't hunt them down for killing the animals before she had the chance. Women would cry out to her during childbirth in hope of relief from their pain either by the child emerging or receiving a quick death. The Greeks of Peloponnessus, that's the European side of ancient Greece, far preferred Zeus or Ares as their important deities, but for the Ephesians, none other than Artemis would do.

The Artemis image from Ephesus sticks out like a sore thumb in the Pantheon of Greek gods, and that is because that image predates Greek settlement in Asia Minor. It seems that before the Greek colonists came, the Ionian natives had built a matriarchal culture around a fertility goddess whose name has been erased by the fog of time. When the Greeks came and conquered the place, they adopted the image and claimed that it was Artemis, since the Greeks were fond of syncretism (that means incorporating local deities into your religion – word of the day!).

The Greek culture was extremely patriarchal, especially in Athens. Though it is true that Spartan women could own land and personal property (something Athenian women had no right to), this was done mostly out of necessity since the Spartans practiced open marriage. Thus it became necessary for the Greek priests to first break down the matriarchal local religion before they could alter the culture as well. Since the ancient worldview was typically that reality reflected the divine realm, those Ionians who were conquered must have figured that their religion was backwards, and so gave in to the priests and renamed their statue.

Her unique appearance, combined with the need for ancient people to have a lot of children to hedge their bet, made her a popular deity, and her temple in Ephesus was three times larger than the Parthenon temple that the Athenians built for their patron god Athena. In fact, the Ephesian Temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the Ancient world, making Ephesus a huge tourist attraction for people from every corner of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Ephesus being a coastal town, its economy was dependent on trade and tourism, so much so that there was once a riot against Christian missionaries organized by idol craftsmen who feared the sag in their income that a more popular god would bring! You can read more about this uprising in Acts chapter 19, which is a very informative account of the fame of the Ephesian Artemis.

The cult surrounding Artemis, ironically, centered around her virginity. Priests who served this moon goddess would willingly castrate themselves while men who went off to war would swear vows of chastity before the idols and likely keep a pocket-sized version with them as a reminder. While encamped in rugged hills on campaign, I imagine many a veteran Hoplite telling a tale around a cookfire all about a foolish young soldier who broke his vow to Artemis and brought his entire army to ruin. There were many such tales, since the Greeks were so fond of Fables.

Though Artemis was widely beloved, she eventually fell to the cross, as did all her Olympian brethren. Over time, the Roman Empire became more and more Christian through either proselytizing or by political manipulation, and the old gods were cast aside like yesterday's newspaper. Artemis would hunt no more.

Pax vobiscum

Famous Friday: Pomp(ey) and Circumstance

Toward the beginning of the 100's CE, the Roman army was radically redesigned by Gaius Marius, who changed the rules and forever changed Rome. Prior to these reforms, in order to serve in the Roman army, you had to be a member of the upper class, own a significant plot of land, and provide your own weapons and armor. Marius opened the ranks to all classes of Romans, promising land and plunder to whoever signed up. The army was thus transformed from an elite institution into a social ladder by which “new men” could earn money and fame for themselves and climb the class structure. One of these new men was Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, the father of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known by his more common title, Pompey the Great.

Pompey was only nineteen when his father was killed during a Roman civil war. He inherited a massive and wealthy estate and after two marriages, was swiftly climbing to the most powerful ranks of Roman society. His father-in-law, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, had distinguished himself by winning the first Mithridatic war in Greece and Asia Minor, and had several uses in mind for Pompey. Sulla became the Dictator of Rome and sent Pompey to secure the empire from further rebellions and civil strife.

First on the to-do list was Sicily, which supplied Rome with necessary grain. Next was North Africa, Numidia to be specific, where Pompey excelled at achieving victory with his legions. However, this presented a problem when he returned to Rome wanting a triumphal entry because he was a privatus, that is, just a private citizen with no Senate-seat or Senate-given titles and for him to be granted a parade was actually illegal. Sulla decided to allow it only after he and another general were finished with their own parades. When the day arrived, Pompey was embarrassed by a late start because of an incident with an elephant-driven chariot. It seems that the gates of Rome were too narrow for the elephant to fit, so he had to make a few last-minute changes.

A few years after Sulla's death, he asked for the title of Proconsular Imperium of Hispania (that's Spain and Portugal) so that he might crush an ongoing Roman rebellion in that area. The Senate was beginning to fear this young upstart who gloried in military triumphs but seemed to have no interest in becoming a Senator or going the traditional rout of Roman leadership. They also didn't wish to offend the general in Hispania who already held that title, thus giving them another rebellion on their hands. However, as he refused to disband his legions until they agreed to his title, they acquiesced, hoping that perhaps he would meet his end in Iberia. They were mistaken, of course, and Pompey destroyed the rebellion in five years.

Enter Spartacus. While I do plan on writing more about this slave-general in future weeks, this will be minimal. The Third Servile War was underway in Italy, with Spartacus as its leader. Crassus, another future Famous Friday subject, had faced the Gladiator/Slave army and defeated it, killing Spartacus in the process. Pompey was making his way back to Rome, and encountered the remnants of the enemy army, capturing about five thousand of them. He brought them into Rome as his slaves, and claimed credit for wiping out the rebellion for good. Crassus, needless to say, was not amused.

Pompey was then granted his second (but still illegal) triumphal entry by the Senate, who continued to fear the influence he had with the common people of Rome, the mob. In an attempt to domesticate this brilliant warrior, they elected him Consul, despite the fact that it was a Senate-only office and Pompey had never even been elected Senator. He ruled the Senate as a Consul right alongside his fellow Consul and longtime anti-fan, Crassus. It seems that the Senate believed the two would cancel each other out, their fame would fade with time, and they could be swept from office in a few years. Unfortunately, Pompey and Crassus both desired power, and they proved willing to work with even each other to attain it.

Just when it seemed like Rome's enemies had all been contained, the problem of piracy began to re-emerge in the Mediterranean. Two years after his Consul-ship, Pompey was given command of a naval task force designed to obliterate piracy completely. It was another controversial appointment for the still unelected general, but it passed through the Senate albeit by narrow margins thanks to Julius Caesar (who hadn't become Caesar yet). Whether they liked Pompey or not, they couldn't argue with results. Short version of Pompey's naval command: Pirates lose, Pompey wins, no more pirates for awhile. This, of course, made him popular with the masses once again and left his Senatorial enemies wringing their hands over what to do.

Meanwhile, back in Pontus, the third war against Mithridates the Great was going swimmingly well for one Lucius Lucinius Lucullus (who, I'm guessing, didn't appreciate being called 'Lucy'). However, his troops were growing weary and insubordinate after years of fighting without much to show for it, and Rome was starting to doubt his ability to subdue Asia Minor and the East. He had been chasing Mithridates VI around the countryside, only to learn that he had sought refuge at the court of Tigranes II, the king of Armenia. So he sent an arrogant letter to Tigranes demanding that he produce Mithridates, which Tigranes refused. Then, after fighting with the Armenians for a few years, he also failed to capture Tigranes. Thus, he was replaced by Pompey, who chased Mithridates all the way to Colchis, in the northern Black Sea coast. He still didn't capture the last Pontic king, but he didn't waste any time. He set up Roman-style governing authorities to replace the Pontic nobles and went about conquering Syria, Palestine, and Judea. Afterwards, he returned to Rome, had some more parades, and allied with Julius and Crassus to form the Great Triumvirate which would eventually bring an end to the Republic and usher in the age of Emperors. I'll write more about this in a few weeks when we take a look at Julius Caesar.

While Pompey was certainly skilled at all matters military, politics brought about his eventual undoing. The Great Triumvirate worked well while it lasted, but just like the Highlanders, there can be only one. Caesar practically chased Pompey out of Rome, and once he secured his family, he debated where to go next. He decided on Egypt, which was being ruled by the Greek Ptolemies, and fled there with Caesar's Triremes close behind. When he set foot on the shore, he was stabbed to death by the Egyptian “welcoming party.” The Pharoah thought it best to dispatch Pompey and present his body to Caesar, thus preventing a large-scale pitched war in their country.

Caesar, so the story goes, was not happy about Pompey's death, even though they had become enemies. He put his assassins to death and gave Pompey's remains over to his wife, who took his ashes back to his country home in Alba. His reputation was that of a great and famous general who fought for Rome and whose life ended ultimately as a tragedy.

Pax vobiscum

Technology Tuesday: The Scythed Chariot

If you ever read accounts of early white American colonists and their scuffles with the native peoples, you may be surprised to find out just how often the colonists won battles despite being outnumbered by huge margins. Sometimes, this was because the colonists would target women and children instead of warriors, but when they did face native warriors, they won because of weaponry. Now, if you've ever watched a demonstration of a musket from the 1600's, you know that hitting anything with that unwieldy, smooth-bored weapon would be pretty impressive, even from ten feet away. But the shot itself is only half of the musket's usefulness; the other half is the bang. The Native Americans had a natural fear of smoke during battle because fire is an uncontrollable force of nature. The muskets give a loud report followed by clouds of white smoke and even if it didn't cause mass casualties, it usually caused enough fear to lead to a rout within a few volleys, often less. So it was with the ancient world that there were some weapons useful for their practical effectiveness in battle and others which, though they did not inflict great physical damage, caused fear and panic.

One such weapon of fear is the Scythed Chariot, brought to Asia Minor from Persia during the Greco-Persian wars. Civilian chariots were a status symbol in Rome, and in most of ancient Europe. Owning a horse was an expensive venture by itself, much less owning enough to pull you comfortably along in your little convertible boxcar. They were also used in races in the hippodrome, as seen on Ben Hur. The design of the chariot varied considerably depending upon its use, and the Scythed Chariot's use was to plow through tightly packed enemy formations to break them apart and to slaughter men in large numbers.

A typical Scythed Chariot was built very heavy, since it was made for combat. Four horses (usually heavily armored) would pull a large, sturdy boxcar with two or three soldiers inside, one to drive and the others to protect the driver. The wheels of the chariot were large and spoked, and attached to both sides of the axles were one or more three-to-five foot blades. You can imagine the carnage that would ensue if even one of these monstrosities successfully charged a tightly-packed Phalanx.

Spears, and especially the long Macedonian spears, could be effective in slowing the charge, but only by a coordinated defense could these frightening inventions be countered. Each had the charging power of four heavy horses, and even if the first two were injured, the momentum they created would still cause the bladed wheels to tear through men like fire to dried underbrush. Alexander the Great faced them when he pushed into Persia during his conquest, and he formulated an effective containment solution. His Phalanxes would move into an E-shaped formation, focusing the small center column against the vicious chariots. When the densely-packed group would slow the chariot's initial charge, The outside columns would flank it and kill the drivers and horses. This was effective, but costly, and not every center column was able to stand their ground as they needed to.

The Romans had a better counter: move out of the way. Their army was structured like their society; efficient. Their forces were disciplined, and they had a clearly-defined command structure. Their flexible formations gave them a great advantage over these heavy weapons, which were not easily maneuverable.

During the Mithridatic Wars, Mithridates VI made the mistake of using his Scythed Chariots in an initial charge, thinking to thin the Roman lines for his foot troops. Instead, the Romans moved out of the chariots' way at the last second, allowing them to pass through their ranks and into rough ground behind them that they had lined with stakes. Many of the chariots stopped in time, but were pretty easily dispatched by a few Triarii who were waiting for them. The Roman army taunted their Pontic enemy, cheering for the chariots as if they were watching a race. This fearful weapon had failed to bring victory, and Mithridates ended up losing that battle, his troops being demoralized to see their fellow soldiers slaughtered and mocked.

The Scythe Chariot was not finished with history at this point, however, and Mithridates' son Pharnaces II actually utilized them effectively against a Roman army himself much later. However, they were costly to maintain and the fear they created wasn't sufficient to infect Roman troops, so as Rome conquered the East, they fell out of style and practice as a suitable weapon. Eventually, the Romans thought of better things they could place on the chariots instead of blades; siege weapons. Yes, they later strapped ballistae (kind of a big crossbow) to the backs of their wagons and used them as the world's first known mobile artillery.

Pax vobiscum

Military Monday: The Early Army of Mithridates VI

The army of Pontus reflected the Kingdom itself, and even its king: it was a mixture of different fighting men with different styles, cultures, and ideas. In the best of circumstances, this mix led to sweeping victory, but in the end, it led to ultimate defeat. Fancying himself the heir of Alexander the Great, Mithridates VI followed Alex's tendency to augment his army with whatever kind of troops he conquered along the way. While this worked well for Alexander, it should be noted that Mithridates lived considerably longer and this region had been changing for almost three hundred years since the young Macedonian conqueror.

Asia Minor was and remains a land of many peoples. Considered prime colonial ground by the Greeks, it had an unmistakable flavor of Hellenist-style learning, fighting, and worship. However, there were also Persian colonists there, left-over from Darius' invasion years before Alexander. And this is all in combination with the native peoples, who were primarily tribal, though growing more and more agrarian and urban, forsaking their nomadic ways. In order to unite these people, Mithridates would often resort to xenophobia, at least the anti-Roman variety, thus giving them a common enemy. Here, truly, was a wise student in the art of war.

After he had conquered some of the Balkan region to the North, Mithridates looked to securing his borders in the south. So he made plans, along with Nicomedes III, the king of western neighbor Bithynia, to divy up the area called Cappadocia, just south of Pontus, between the two of them. Mithridates' sister was ruling as regent because her husband had just died. Nicomedes, being a cunning king himself, decided to marry the sister instead, leaving one of his sons in charge of the region.

The two men sent representatives to Rome to resolve the dispute, leaving Nicomedes in a position of comfort, thinking that there would be no battle until their dignitaries returned. Mithridates waited for a time, then invaded Cappadacia outright, and its puppet king was killed in the ensuing fight. This enraged the Romans in the area, who helped Nicomedes raid and burn several towns and settlements in southern Pontus as punishment for his invasion.

Mithridates was more than capable of stopping this looting, but instead he allowed it to happen. Nicomedes ravaged the countryside while the Pontic king merely took reports and made preparations. He knew that the Romans would likely move against him on the pretense of aiding Bithynia, and so he spread word far and wide that those villages had been pillaged under Roman advice, thus uniting the varied people of Pontus against Rome, and Bithynia, her handmaiden. Raising an army was easy for him at this point; those who had their crops and livestock stolen by the Bithynian raiders were only too happy to take up a spear and get some of it back, with interest.

Sure enough, the three Roman generals whose armies were in various parts of Asia Minor all moved against Pontus with the hope of quelling Mithridates VI. The three armies were probably about forty thousand each, along with Nicomedes' army which was reportedly fifty thousand foot, six thousand horse. If they had all joined together to take on this rogue Pontic despot, they may have had a chance. But in their anger, and without waiting for orders from the Roman Senate, they took him on individually, along with his army of two hundred and fifty thousand foot and forty thousand horse. He crushed them one by one, capturing their generals and subjecting them to horrible, humiliating treatment.

His footmen were likely Phalanx pikemen at the core, along with lighter armed auxiliaries and javilineers. The javelin-throwers of Pontus were legendary for their accuracy, and the deadliness of their weapons. The horsemen he employed were mostly, probably all, javelin-armed and heavily armored, capable of forming a kind of highly-mobile Phalanx which disrupted enemy formations with missiles before charging home at their flanks. His tactics were most likely pin-and-fork, using the heavy spearmen to hold the enemy in place while his horses harassed their flanks and caused a rout. He may have also had some Scythian horse archers in his ranks, recruited when he defeated them in the Bosporus up north, and if that were the case, their contribution would have been immeasurable. They were a Steppe people; born in the saddle and taught to ride and shoot from a very young age. Their accuracy was high, and their tactics were notorious: they would pretend to retreat in a panic, only to outrun their pursuers while shooting them with their poisoned arrows. No matter Mithridates' tactics, the comparatively small armies of Rome and Bithynia didn't stand a chance.

Because of this conquest, all of Asia Minor was under his control. He moved swiftly to secure the loyalties of Greek colonies in the western regions, and sent representatives to gain alliances with the Greek cities, who had been living almost a hundred years under Roman hegemony. They eagerly agreed, giving Mithridates a buffer region with which to hold back immediate Roman retaliation.

Unfortunately for him, when Rome did retaliate, they took all of Greece back, but signed a treaty with him that left him in control of Asia Minor. Though he accomplished much and did a lot to unify such a diverse group, it seems that their divisions were stronger than a mutual hatred of Rome. Mithridates the Great himself spoke at least twenty-two languages, which apparently was necessary just to communicate with all the captains in his army!

In the ensuing Mithridatic Wars, the Romans repeatedly punished Pontus with their manipular legions and flexible tactics. Eventually, trouble within his own household was Mithridates' undoing as he was betrayed by Pharnaces, his illegitimate son.

Opinion of this warlord varies, depending on the source. Some look upon him as just another petty king trying to build an empire and advance his own name. Others see him as a kind of freedom fighter against Roman imperial oppression. Personally, the jury's out for me. I think he was much smarter than the average despot, yet his cruelty toward Romans, both military and civilian, cannot be overlooked. It should be noted, however, that he never referred to himself with the surtitle “the Great.” That was something the Romans did shortly after he died. It seems that though they were enemies, there was something about this man that they deeply respected.

Pax vobiscum