Military History Archive
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Dressed for the Occasion: Clothes and Context in the Roman army
Posted on May 19, 2013 | No CommentsModern images and reconstructions of the Roman soldier’s appearance nearly always show a fully-armed, often grim-looking combatant, wearing helmet and armour and sporting several weapons. -
‘Like a Certain Tornado of Peoples’: Warfare of the European Huns in the Light of Graeco-Latin Literary Tradition
Posted on May 17, 2013 | No CommentsThe paper deals with the art of warfare of the Huns, who invaded Southeast Europe in the last third of the 4th century A.D. and dominated there through the third quarter of the 5th century -
Rome and Parthia: Power Politics and Diplomacy Across Cultural Frontiers
Posted on April 4, 2013 | No CommentsPersia and Parthia were two of the great 'others' that shaped the limits of the Graeco-Roman world, and were also imagined worlds where European values were explored, excluded, and projected. -
Forerunners of the Hattusili-Ramesses treaty
Posted on April 3, 2013 | No CommentsThe Hattusili-Ramesses treaty is known from two main sources. These are texts in Egyptian hieroglyphs preserved on the walls of the temple of Amun at Karnak and of the Ramesseum, and of some fragmentary cuneiform tablets in Akkadian, discovered at the Hittite capital of Hattusa, the modern site of Boghazk -
Was the Peloponnesian War inevitable after 435 BC?
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsBased heavily on the account of the Greek historian Thucydides, the paper outlines the events leading up to the outbreak of the 2nd Peloponnesian War in 435, and analyzes whether the outbreak of the war was inevitable -
Sexual Peculiarities of the Ancient Greeks and Romans
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No CommentsThis study looks at ancient Greek and Roman sexual practices from the point of view of their (implied) differences from modern western practices. There are eight major themes: sex and status, the ubiquity of sex, the body, body modification, violence and pain, having sex, viewing sex, and transgressions. -
On War and Games in the Ancient World
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsNot surprisingly, at the Olympic Games and other such festivals, boxing matches sometimes ended with the death of the defeated opponent. Other Olympic sports were almost as brutal; they included the pankration, a form of unarmed combat in whichanything was allowed other than biting and gouging (a rule that was not always strictly observed). -
The Ownership and Disposal of Military Equipment in the Late Roman Army
Posted on March 3, 2013 | No CommentsUnfortunately, relatively little evidence survives concerning the ownership and disposal of military equipment in the late Roman army. However, a particularly valuable document in this respect is a letter dated AD 401 which authorizes the discharge of eleven members from an ala stationed at Psofthis in Egypt. -
The Greatest Generals of the Second Punic War
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsHannibal Barcas and Scipio Africanus have been compared often by many authors, but only a few have studied both in depth and even fewer have actually compared them in a fair and equal manner. -
Ammianus and some Tribuni Scholarum Palatinarum c. A.D. 353-364
Posted on February 4, 2013 | No CommentsIt is my intention here to draw together such information as Ammianus provides about the scholae in order to demonstrate how, in a number of cases in particular, it is possible to reconstruct an almost complete list of their commanders for the period c. 353-364.
