French citizen, freshly retired, from public service. I have studied public law and political science.
My family is almost as American than French, many members being American citizens.
My centers of interest are history, political science, science fiction and heroic fantasy. Last, I have been a table top role player for more than 30 years.
a table top role playerWhat's that?
Thanks very much for you welcoming
Table top roleplaying games: The ancestor is Dungeons and Dragons.
More precisely :
A tabletop role-playing game or paper role-playing game, simply called role-playing or RPG by its practitioners, is a board game in which the participants together conceive a fiction by the interpretation of roles and by narration, within the framework of the constraints of the game that they impose on themselves, usually with the help of a game master.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabletop_role-playing_game
Beautiful
@morgan, Well, okay than, feel free to profile me.
Dinosaur would not be out of place.
Though I can say I’ve actually played Dungeons and Dragons, lordie must of been '93, so I do know what role-playing games are. :-p
Not sure where to post this:
I have much enjoyed our exchanges theses last months.
I will be off net from to day up to the 5th of august.
See you
See youBe well!
M2 essay finished and sent to my research director.
Rome and the Little War, 509-201 B.C.
257 pages, including appendices, and tables, 110,643 words, 674,545 characters, spaces included.
Now, i am on vacation !!!
Congrats Morgan!
Good luck with that.
300 years worth of a “little war”. Sounds interesting.
Many interesting things. Among them 
The first legend is that Porsenna did not take Rome, but in fact he did. Livy gives a proof, when the tells that the Romans gave him the marks of kingship.
For me the population of Roma was very small up to the middle of the 4th century. And, in the 5th century it could not mobilize more than 2 legions, roughly 8 000 men, who fought in phalanx with a mix of individuals duels. And this army cannot be mobilized often as men are needed in the fields.
Roman war against its neighbors was mainly a mix of raids and counter-raids by individual leaders, pillaging and destroying. Livy and others transfer in the past much of what they know.
the sacrifice of the Fabii on the shores of lthe Cremere, in 477 B.C., is a hoax. They have been caught while raiding Veian territory.
The time between the battle of Trasimene; 21th of June 217 B.C. and 2th of August 216 is a very interesting confrontation of 2 small wars.
Hannibal pillage and destroy large parts of Italy with 3 ideas
he needs the spoils to pay and feed his army.
he wants to show that the Romans cannot protect their allies, and punish them for not defecting to him,
he wants to impose to the Romans a battle which he thinks will be decisive.
The Romans harass him and block the way to Roma, to restrain him and evade the battle.
In fact, the Senate and the Roman public opinion will want a battle to settle the conflict, it will be Cannes, and a crushing defeat.
But Roma will not accept the peace offers of Hannibal and will win.
Interesting.
I’ll admit I only have a superficial understanding of ancient history.
Seems like the same old crud, stupid big boys with big toys, playing big D games and trying to be king of the hill.
But I guess that’s what humans and great civilizations are all about.
Build up the tower just to tear it down again.
Weirdly for me the most mysterious and fascinating part of ancient military operations, is about army sizes and battles with, reportedly, many thousands, when not, tens of thousands of men in a single battle (not necessarily in your time period or area for that matter) And how did they feed that many big soldiers with huge appetites that needed to get satisfied. Then, dealing with water and poop and bodies and feeding all the animals besides all the hungry support staff. Heck how do you communicate with ten thousand soldiers when all you have is trumpets and runners?
I naturally assume an awful lot of exaggeration was/is going on, so I take such claims with a huge grain of salt.
How much evidence is there to support the various ancient claims of battles involving tens of thousands of men?
Might you have any thoughts on that?
First, the numbers of fighters in a battle are often exaggerated, sometimes tenfold.
Sometime, we have the right numbers as for the battle of Cannes in 216.
On the other side:
In 480 BC, Xerxes personally led the second Persian invasion of Greece with one of the largest ancient armies ever assembled. Victory over the allied Greek states at the famous Battle of Thermopylae allowed the Persians to torch an evacuated Athens and overrun most of Greece. However, while seeking to destroy the combined Greek fleet, the Persians suffered a severe defeat at the Battle of Salamis. The following year, the confederated Greeks went on the offensive, decisively defeating the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea, and ending the invasion of Greece by the Achaemenid Empire.
The numbers of troops that Xerxes mustered for the second invasion of Greece have been the subject of endless dispute because the numbers given in ancient sources are very large indeed. Herodotus claimed that there were, in total, 2.5 million military personnel, accompanied by an equivalent number of support personnel.
The topic has been hotly debated but the modern consensus revolves around the figure of 200,000 or 300,000–500,000.
From Wikipedia contributors. (2022, July 27). Second Persian invasion of Greece. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:53, August 8, 2022, from Second Persian invasion of Greece - Wikipedia
Gaugamela:
The Battle of Gaugamela, also called the Battle of Arbela, took place in 331 BC between the forces of the Army of Macedon under Alexander the Great and the Persian Army under King Darius III. It was the second and final battle between the two kings, and is considered to be the final blow to the Achaemenid Empire, resulting in its complete conquest by Alexander.
According to Arrian, Darius’ force numbered 40,000 cavalry and 1,000,000 infantry,[36] Diodorus Siculus put it at 200,000 cavalry and 800,000 infantry,[38] Plutarch put it at 1,000,000 troops[39] (without a breakdown in composition), while according to Curtius Rufus it consisted of 45,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry.[40] Furthermore, according to Arrian, Diodorus and Curtius, Darius had 200 chariots while Arrian mentions 15 war elephants.[36] Included in Darius’s infantry were about 2,000 Greek mercenary hoplites.[7]
Modern estimates:
It is possible that the Persian army could have numbered over 100,000 men.[33] One estimate is that there were 25,000 peltasts,[33] 10,000 Immortals,[34] 2,000 Greek hoplites,[7] 1,000 Bactrians,[7] and 40,000 cavalry,[6] 200 scythed chariots,[35] and 15 war elephants.[36] Hans Delbrück estimates Persian cavalry at 12,000 because of management issues, Persian infantry less than that of the Greek heavy infantry, and Greek mercenaries at 8,000.[32] Warry estimates a total size of 91,000; Welman 90,000; Engels (1920); Green (1990) no larger than 100,000 and Thomas Harbottle 120,000.
Wikipedia contributors. (2022, July 31). Battle of Gaugamela. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:56, August 8, 2022, from Battle of Gaugamela - Wikipedia
Second the logistic needs of an army are and were enormous.
It has been computed that a legion needed daily, 4, 5 metric tons of grain plus the needs of the men and animals for the logistics, and an army uses also meat, cheeses, vinegar, wine and so.
Some armies needed great quantities of meat and cheeses. Usually, an army could transport roughly 9 days of food.
Wood was needed for the romans for their camps and for everyone, to cook.
An army of 40 000 men needed daily a minimum of 80 m3 of water for the men and 600 m3 of waters for the animals.
Needs were covered by transports, chariots and animals, merchants going with the army, pillaging and foraging. Foraging was needed for wood, water and hay for the animals.
The enemy logistic was a prime target for harassing. The ancients tell many episodes.
I’ll go with Rufus, still it’s mind blowing.
How does one image a million soldiers marching across the countryside?
Makes me think of the clashes in the Hobbit movie, bet those endless hordes didn’t even add up to a million figures.
It boggles my mind.
I mean now much of that water was needed for the animals carrying the water. And so on.
In most situations, water and wood were obtained near the camp.
for Instance, before the battle of Cannae , Hannibal had his camp on one side of river Aufidus. A big roman camp was on the same side of the river, and a smaller camp on the other.
Hannibal sent cavalry to harass the water bearers. The Romans had the choice between retreat and battle. Neither choice was good.
Morgan, do you have anything up on the web?
Sorry, not yet.
I must present my work to the jury beginning of September. And my work is in French.
I am happy that you be interested.
I deeply regret that there be not a space dedicated to History. You gave me a link but I was busy and I lost it before i could use it.
Anyway, i would be happy to exchange about any historical topic with any one interested. .
Others have also mentioned this.
Hello and welcome know that it is great to have more members ;D.
I defended my M2 dissertation in front of the jury, and I obtained a mark of 16/20
You can use the “Humanism” sub-forum. That nicely encompasses human history.
