10-14-2011, 07:05 AM
Well, reading through the evidence, theories and suppositions expressed so far, I have the impression that if you were sitting together over a pint of beer you would probably have concluded that there were certainly gaps of some unstated width between units on some occasions at least but no specific mention of them on others. I have no problem with any of this but would add to the mix that whether gaps existed, how many there were and how wide each would have been would have been down to how the general decided to deploy his army. I am not about to try to second guess how Scipio Africanus, Fabius Maximus or Scipio Aemilienus might have viewed the tactical options in front of them. For that matter, despite having read Caesar I am wary of trying to assume how he would have seen the options*. I spoken with enough generals, brigadiers and colonels myself to know that what appears in a press release may be very different to what happens on the ground and what one senior officer will feel is best may not be the same as what another senior officer would choose to do.
What I would say though, is that any deployment decided on by a general who knew what he was doing would be decided on the basic of tactical considerations. I do not believe that the Roman army was always deployed in the same way but I do believe that the soldiers would have been trained to be able to carry out the tactical demands of their officers.
I think that less imaginative commanders would have deployed in what they felt was a tried and trusted manner but many, more gifted commanders would have varied their tactics according to the prevailing tactical considerations.
We do see a variety of tactics used in the examples cited above. We see gaps left for cavalry to ride through; we see narrow gaps between what appear to be cohesive units; we see gaps filled with skirmishing soldiers used as ruses; we see multiple battle lines and we see apparently independent cohorts. I don't think there is much chance of either of you managing to set all of these things within a single tactical layout. Rather, they are all examples of tactics Roman commanders could employ in response to the tactical demands, using the skill-sets of the soldiers at their disposal.
I am a bit concerned that there are a few too many assumptions in this thread. A couple of examples should demonstrate what I mean.
" "Caesar had three lines, four cohorts out of each of the five legions formed the first line. Three more from each legion followed them, as reserves: and three others were behind these." 1:83
Meaning each legion controlled its own battle space with the cohorts within broken up to form different lines. "
Fine - no problem with this, but to extrapolate from this that there must be a gap between each legion, as you have done previously, is to uggest things not present in the original text. What he did in Spain may not be the same as what he decided to do at Pharsalus. Therefore each example serves only to tell us what was done on a particular occasion but not what was done on other occasions where different conditions might have suggested different tactics to a commander.
"Ahhh, okay...my argument is that gaps existed. That separating units makes sense. That if fighting against a solid line, whether straight or snake shaped would be easily broken by using independent and flexible combat units that each have a mind of their own (centurion) that could fight and maneuver in different ways when necessary (again I gave examples of this)."
Separating units with gaps may indeed make sense in some situations but a solid line might make sense in some other situations. Independent units might well work brilliantly against some enemies in particular formations but might be disasterously defeated against the same or a different enemy in a different formation. To say that what works on one occasion must therefore work on every occasion or that what might break and be defeated on one occasion will break and be defeated on every occasion are a couple of assumptions too far for my liking. There are numerous factors involved in why a unit might or might not break under combat conditions: new tactics on the part of their opponents quite possibly, but also the weather and ground conditions; weakness from losses or wounds carried over from earlier battles in a campaign; good or bad leadership; whether or not they had had breakfast (on at least one occasion); what other units are seen to do; and a whole host of other factors. It is worth remembering that Roman armies did not always win, meaning that Roman units using Roman tactics could also be broken.
As to maniples having minds of their own in the form of their centurions, I am uncomfortable with this. There is a difference between leadership and command. The centurion's job surely would be to lead and inspire his men, rather than to make tactical decisions. These are the preserve of the commander and the working out of these tactics once the battle is joined is down to his sub-commanders, who have already discussed them with him at the council of war. Therefore the decision to make a tactical manoeuvre would not rest with a centurion. That is what tribunes were for surely. The centurion makes sure his unit carries out the orders he has received from the tribune, who has his orders and knowledge of the battle plan from the general. This, however is getting close to the mechanics of how to do things, which I intend to address further down.
"So, we do not need units (and here I understand that you do not mean legions but cohorts and maniples again) being detached from each other to "feel" or "act" like units. We could have such models, but we do not have to, as you strongly suggest."
I am not a believer in everything being either this or that, but it has to be acknowledged that almost every ancient army was composed of separate units, each of which had its place in the battle line, so the unit identity of maniples was not unique to the Romans. It would have been a feature of every unit in every army. Just because you have different units in an army, it does not mean that they cannot fight next to each other. In fact, judicious placement of units might allow differently equipped units to protect or support each other, surely a feature of Hellenistic warfare and all that descended from it, as well as the earlier Persian and probably Assyrian armies, many of which were very successful. There is little to suggest that any of these employed gaps between units, yet each unit would have been able to fight in its own way. The same must surely be able to apply to the Romans, if a commander decided it should be so.
Moving now to the mechanics to how to put tactical decisions into action, which actually interests me more.
First and foremost, I am convinced that the importance of training cannot be underestimated. I think that one very important reason for Marius' success was that he was able to take his new army to the north of Italy and give them several months of training, meaning that when they took the field, much of what they lacked in battlefield experience they could make up for in discipline and training. Although the armies of the second century BC would not have been able to spend as much time as Marius did on training, the mixture of experienced men with first time soldiers, combined with training on the Campus Martius and when opportunity allowed during campaigns, would have ensured that every unit would have a fairly good practiced repetoire of drill moves which would allow it to move where it needed to, both on the march and on the field of battle. Each unit (and as the smallest tactical unit used we should assume this to be each maniple) would have to be able to turn left or right as a body, march whilst maintaining their ranks and files in good order, march and stand in both open and closed order, march both forwards and backwards in good order, charge in good order, and open and close gaps, as well as knowing the technique for relieving a unit in the front line and being proficient in the use of their weapons and equipment. Added to that, they may also have received training in the use of scaling ladders and other siege techniques. I would think that the use of artillery would have been concentrated in the hands of experienced men under the leadership of experienced and professional engineers, and separated off from the general levy making up the legions.
How would the men in the maniples have known what to do though when required? Effective communication is key to controlling action, but those of us who are used to portraying Roman soldiers will all be familiar with the limitations of the human voice. Even in a unit of twenty men it can be hard to hear spoken or shouted commands, especially if it is a windy day.
However, we know that the Romans had standards and trumpets/horns. I can think of no reason to suggest that these would not have had practical battlefield applications. The obvious use of standards is to provide rallying points for disordered units, but what it lass well recognised is that standards could also be used as a means of recognition and communication. By the use of different elements and colours every units standard could be distinctive and would allow a commander, either the overall commander or the relevant subordinate, to identify which units were where. Add to this the possibility for standards to be moved in ways which would enable rudimentary communication (up and down movements, side to side movements and revolving movements) and you have the beginnings of a system which will allow a commander to transmit commands to individual units.
Next we need to look at the use of trumpets. These would allow an order to be instantly communicated to an entire unit, and it is entirely possible that a series of commands which might otherwise have been issued verbally would have been translated into a set of distinctive 'bugle' calls which would need to be learnt by the soldiers. The battlefield could be a noisy place though and there might be many trumpets being blown by both sides at any one time. Therefore I would suggest that each unit would have had its own distinctive prefix call, which all the men would be attuned to.
As a model of how communication could be used on a noisy battlefield to give orders to specific units I would propose the following purely theoretical example.
1/ Commander A has deployed his units in the way which in his view best suits the tactical conditions but then sees a weakness in the enemy line. He decides to move his left wing into a curve to draw vulnerable enemy units forward and then outflank them. To do this he needs to move the maniples at the far end of the first legion, which is holding the left wing. This was always a part of his planning and he has positioned units on that flank who he knows have the training to accomplish this if the opportunity presents itself.
He needs to send the message to them to make their move. However, as he has many individual units in his army he cannot possibly have sufficient signals in his repetoire to give them each an individual signal. In addition to this, some will be a long way away and will not be able to see his standards or hear his trumpets clearly. Additionally if he had a multitude of standard movements for different units this could become confusing and different units might become confused about who an order was meant for. Therefore, the general needs to keep his list of 'contacts' small. They will therefore be his subordinate commanders.
2/ Commander A therefore has a group of trumpeters blast out the signal for the first legion, causing Sub-commander B, who is commanding the legion, to look towards him. Sub-commander B has his standard move in a prescribed way to indicate that he is paying attention. By means of movements of his standards or trumpet calls from his trumpet battery (or possibly a combination of both), Commander A communicates the orders to Sub-commander B, who, having attended the council of war the day before, knows what he needs to do. Due to the already noisy nature of the battle, trumpet communication over longish distances needs to be kept to a minimum.
3/ Sub-commander B has his own trumpets blast out the signal for Tribune C, who was not at the council of war but has been briefed on the various possibilities for how his maniples will be used. Tribune C (who is in charge of maniples 1,2 and 3) hears his 'call signal' and looks towards Sub-commander B. Sub-commander B indicates by a particular combination of movements of his standard (which can, of course, be seen over the heads of other men if Tribune C is on foot) which of the potential options is to be put into action and which units are to be moved. Using the standard to communicate this avoids the possibility of extraneous noise confusing a complex trumpet call. It is also unlikely that the enemy commander will have the detailed knowledge of the code used by the standard bearers to be able to interpret the orders himself, so the orders can be communicated without the enemy knowing anything more than that something is being communicated at the left hand end of the Romans' battle line.
4/ Tribune C has his trumpeter give the 'call sign' blast for maniple 1. The optio in the rear rank hears this and shouts along the file for the standard to be moved in response. Tribune C then has his standard moved in such a way as to tell cohort 1 to wheel around to the left to outflank the enemy unit on receipt of a further signal. This information is passed forward to the centurion and his trumpeter so that the appropriate bugle call can be sent as soon as the signal is received. Maniple 1's standard is moved in the prescribed way to indicate that the message has been received.
Tribune C contacts maniple 2 in the same way and tells them to drop back six paces on receipt of the signal, in order to encourage the enemy unit to surge forward. The message is transmitted in the same way.
Tribune C then contacts maniple 3 in the same way and tells them to wheel backward slightly to the right on the signal, so that its left edge stays level with maniple 2.
As the movement of maniple 3 will compact maniple 4, maniple four is sent a bugle call to tell it to expect a planned movement into its left by maniple 3, thus avoiding the possibility of maniple 4 thinking maniple 3 is in retreat and panicking.
5/ Once the maniples all have their orders (which may have taken a couple of minutes to communicate), Tribune C sends a bugle call to give the signal to maniples 1,2 and 3 to move according to their orders. The three centurions have their trumpeters give the appropriate bugle calls and the soldiers, who all know the drill manoeuvre to match each bugle call, automatically respond with their prescribed unit movements. Maniple 1 wheel to the right whilst maniple 2 drops back and maniple 3 wheels back so its left end remains level with maniple 2's frontage. The enemy unit moves forward in response to what it takes to be a retreating foe and then finds itself being outflanked on its right by maniple 1 and compressed on its left by maniple 3. Caught in this trap the enemy unit starts to suffer heavy casualties and breaks, causing panic in the units adjacent to it.
If any of the Roman maniples get into difficulty particular movements of their standards can be used to signal this to Sub-commander B, who can see from the standards which units are in trouble and can send maniples held in reserve to the right place to support the embattled units.
I think that with a well drilled army and an established system for battlefield communication such as I have suggested, which allows for the general to use his sub-commanders to manage their areas according to his wishes but by their execution, almost any of the manoeuvres we know they employed could be arranged and carried out, led at the point of contact by centurions but ordered and arranged by senior officers commanding them.
I would welcome your thoughts.
Lastly, Macedon,
"Actually, 80 cohorts would regularly form 8 legions, 10 cohorts nominal strength each. "
Sorry about that. Yes I know there should be ten cohorts per legion. I was writing late at night when I should have been asleep. Thanks for pointing out the mistake.
*Caesar's commentaries show some evidence of having been 'tidied up' somewhat for the audience in Rome and De Bello Gallico may in fact be the republished collection of his annual governor's reports, which might explain some of the minor inconsistencies between the books. Bellum Civili must be seen as the work of someone who was not only fighting a war but also running an effective propaganda machine. Reading through Cicero's letters to Atticus and others, it is obvious that Caesar has generalised some details or shifted the dates things happened in order to retrospectively produce a better story. We don't have Caesar's letters unfortunately but we do have numerous mentions in Cicero's letters to other people of things Caesar has told him in letters and which he thus has knowledge of, written on dates which often seem to conflict with the dates or orders of events mentioned in the commentaries. This means that what we read in Caesar has been subject to his retrospective editing and this may also apply to how he claims to have seen things at the time. It is also worthy of mention that if you read many modern translations of Bellum Civilica, you will see the Spanish War, The Alexandrian War and the African War listed as if they are also works by Caesar, but in fact they are by Hirtius and others. The African War (or was it the Spanish War - I haven't read either recently and all of my university notes are a very long way away) is neither a work of great technical nor literary merit and its author (who is an almost blindingly fervent supporter of Caesar) has been suggested as being one of Caesar's centurions (the quality of his Latin in about equal to the quality one might expect of the written English of a modern sixteen year old who has been excluded from school for several years and spent the whole time playing video games).
Crispvs
What I would say though, is that any deployment decided on by a general who knew what he was doing would be decided on the basic of tactical considerations. I do not believe that the Roman army was always deployed in the same way but I do believe that the soldiers would have been trained to be able to carry out the tactical demands of their officers.
I think that less imaginative commanders would have deployed in what they felt was a tried and trusted manner but many, more gifted commanders would have varied their tactics according to the prevailing tactical considerations.
We do see a variety of tactics used in the examples cited above. We see gaps left for cavalry to ride through; we see narrow gaps between what appear to be cohesive units; we see gaps filled with skirmishing soldiers used as ruses; we see multiple battle lines and we see apparently independent cohorts. I don't think there is much chance of either of you managing to set all of these things within a single tactical layout. Rather, they are all examples of tactics Roman commanders could employ in response to the tactical demands, using the skill-sets of the soldiers at their disposal.
I am a bit concerned that there are a few too many assumptions in this thread. A couple of examples should demonstrate what I mean.
" "Caesar had three lines, four cohorts out of each of the five legions formed the first line. Three more from each legion followed them, as reserves: and three others were behind these." 1:83
Meaning each legion controlled its own battle space with the cohorts within broken up to form different lines. "
Fine - no problem with this, but to extrapolate from this that there must be a gap between each legion, as you have done previously, is to uggest things not present in the original text. What he did in Spain may not be the same as what he decided to do at Pharsalus. Therefore each example serves only to tell us what was done on a particular occasion but not what was done on other occasions where different conditions might have suggested different tactics to a commander.
"Ahhh, okay...my argument is that gaps existed. That separating units makes sense. That if fighting against a solid line, whether straight or snake shaped would be easily broken by using independent and flexible combat units that each have a mind of their own (centurion) that could fight and maneuver in different ways when necessary (again I gave examples of this)."
Separating units with gaps may indeed make sense in some situations but a solid line might make sense in some other situations. Independent units might well work brilliantly against some enemies in particular formations but might be disasterously defeated against the same or a different enemy in a different formation. To say that what works on one occasion must therefore work on every occasion or that what might break and be defeated on one occasion will break and be defeated on every occasion are a couple of assumptions too far for my liking. There are numerous factors involved in why a unit might or might not break under combat conditions: new tactics on the part of their opponents quite possibly, but also the weather and ground conditions; weakness from losses or wounds carried over from earlier battles in a campaign; good or bad leadership; whether or not they had had breakfast (on at least one occasion); what other units are seen to do; and a whole host of other factors. It is worth remembering that Roman armies did not always win, meaning that Roman units using Roman tactics could also be broken.
As to maniples having minds of their own in the form of their centurions, I am uncomfortable with this. There is a difference between leadership and command. The centurion's job surely would be to lead and inspire his men, rather than to make tactical decisions. These are the preserve of the commander and the working out of these tactics once the battle is joined is down to his sub-commanders, who have already discussed them with him at the council of war. Therefore the decision to make a tactical manoeuvre would not rest with a centurion. That is what tribunes were for surely. The centurion makes sure his unit carries out the orders he has received from the tribune, who has his orders and knowledge of the battle plan from the general. This, however is getting close to the mechanics of how to do things, which I intend to address further down.
"So, we do not need units (and here I understand that you do not mean legions but cohorts and maniples again) being detached from each other to "feel" or "act" like units. We could have such models, but we do not have to, as you strongly suggest."
I am not a believer in everything being either this or that, but it has to be acknowledged that almost every ancient army was composed of separate units, each of which had its place in the battle line, so the unit identity of maniples was not unique to the Romans. It would have been a feature of every unit in every army. Just because you have different units in an army, it does not mean that they cannot fight next to each other. In fact, judicious placement of units might allow differently equipped units to protect or support each other, surely a feature of Hellenistic warfare and all that descended from it, as well as the earlier Persian and probably Assyrian armies, many of which were very successful. There is little to suggest that any of these employed gaps between units, yet each unit would have been able to fight in its own way. The same must surely be able to apply to the Romans, if a commander decided it should be so.
Moving now to the mechanics to how to put tactical decisions into action, which actually interests me more.
First and foremost, I am convinced that the importance of training cannot be underestimated. I think that one very important reason for Marius' success was that he was able to take his new army to the north of Italy and give them several months of training, meaning that when they took the field, much of what they lacked in battlefield experience they could make up for in discipline and training. Although the armies of the second century BC would not have been able to spend as much time as Marius did on training, the mixture of experienced men with first time soldiers, combined with training on the Campus Martius and when opportunity allowed during campaigns, would have ensured that every unit would have a fairly good practiced repetoire of drill moves which would allow it to move where it needed to, both on the march and on the field of battle. Each unit (and as the smallest tactical unit used we should assume this to be each maniple) would have to be able to turn left or right as a body, march whilst maintaining their ranks and files in good order, march and stand in both open and closed order, march both forwards and backwards in good order, charge in good order, and open and close gaps, as well as knowing the technique for relieving a unit in the front line and being proficient in the use of their weapons and equipment. Added to that, they may also have received training in the use of scaling ladders and other siege techniques. I would think that the use of artillery would have been concentrated in the hands of experienced men under the leadership of experienced and professional engineers, and separated off from the general levy making up the legions.
How would the men in the maniples have known what to do though when required? Effective communication is key to controlling action, but those of us who are used to portraying Roman soldiers will all be familiar with the limitations of the human voice. Even in a unit of twenty men it can be hard to hear spoken or shouted commands, especially if it is a windy day.
However, we know that the Romans had standards and trumpets/horns. I can think of no reason to suggest that these would not have had practical battlefield applications. The obvious use of standards is to provide rallying points for disordered units, but what it lass well recognised is that standards could also be used as a means of recognition and communication. By the use of different elements and colours every units standard could be distinctive and would allow a commander, either the overall commander or the relevant subordinate, to identify which units were where. Add to this the possibility for standards to be moved in ways which would enable rudimentary communication (up and down movements, side to side movements and revolving movements) and you have the beginnings of a system which will allow a commander to transmit commands to individual units.
Next we need to look at the use of trumpets. These would allow an order to be instantly communicated to an entire unit, and it is entirely possible that a series of commands which might otherwise have been issued verbally would have been translated into a set of distinctive 'bugle' calls which would need to be learnt by the soldiers. The battlefield could be a noisy place though and there might be many trumpets being blown by both sides at any one time. Therefore I would suggest that each unit would have had its own distinctive prefix call, which all the men would be attuned to.
As a model of how communication could be used on a noisy battlefield to give orders to specific units I would propose the following purely theoretical example.
1/ Commander A has deployed his units in the way which in his view best suits the tactical conditions but then sees a weakness in the enemy line. He decides to move his left wing into a curve to draw vulnerable enemy units forward and then outflank them. To do this he needs to move the maniples at the far end of the first legion, which is holding the left wing. This was always a part of his planning and he has positioned units on that flank who he knows have the training to accomplish this if the opportunity presents itself.
He needs to send the message to them to make their move. However, as he has many individual units in his army he cannot possibly have sufficient signals in his repetoire to give them each an individual signal. In addition to this, some will be a long way away and will not be able to see his standards or hear his trumpets clearly. Additionally if he had a multitude of standard movements for different units this could become confusing and different units might become confused about who an order was meant for. Therefore, the general needs to keep his list of 'contacts' small. They will therefore be his subordinate commanders.
2/ Commander A therefore has a group of trumpeters blast out the signal for the first legion, causing Sub-commander B, who is commanding the legion, to look towards him. Sub-commander B has his standard move in a prescribed way to indicate that he is paying attention. By means of movements of his standards or trumpet calls from his trumpet battery (or possibly a combination of both), Commander A communicates the orders to Sub-commander B, who, having attended the council of war the day before, knows what he needs to do. Due to the already noisy nature of the battle, trumpet communication over longish distances needs to be kept to a minimum.
3/ Sub-commander B has his own trumpets blast out the signal for Tribune C, who was not at the council of war but has been briefed on the various possibilities for how his maniples will be used. Tribune C (who is in charge of maniples 1,2 and 3) hears his 'call signal' and looks towards Sub-commander B. Sub-commander B indicates by a particular combination of movements of his standard (which can, of course, be seen over the heads of other men if Tribune C is on foot) which of the potential options is to be put into action and which units are to be moved. Using the standard to communicate this avoids the possibility of extraneous noise confusing a complex trumpet call. It is also unlikely that the enemy commander will have the detailed knowledge of the code used by the standard bearers to be able to interpret the orders himself, so the orders can be communicated without the enemy knowing anything more than that something is being communicated at the left hand end of the Romans' battle line.
4/ Tribune C has his trumpeter give the 'call sign' blast for maniple 1. The optio in the rear rank hears this and shouts along the file for the standard to be moved in response. Tribune C then has his standard moved in such a way as to tell cohort 1 to wheel around to the left to outflank the enemy unit on receipt of a further signal. This information is passed forward to the centurion and his trumpeter so that the appropriate bugle call can be sent as soon as the signal is received. Maniple 1's standard is moved in the prescribed way to indicate that the message has been received.
Tribune C contacts maniple 2 in the same way and tells them to drop back six paces on receipt of the signal, in order to encourage the enemy unit to surge forward. The message is transmitted in the same way.
Tribune C then contacts maniple 3 in the same way and tells them to wheel backward slightly to the right on the signal, so that its left edge stays level with maniple 2.
As the movement of maniple 3 will compact maniple 4, maniple four is sent a bugle call to tell it to expect a planned movement into its left by maniple 3, thus avoiding the possibility of maniple 4 thinking maniple 3 is in retreat and panicking.
5/ Once the maniples all have their orders (which may have taken a couple of minutes to communicate), Tribune C sends a bugle call to give the signal to maniples 1,2 and 3 to move according to their orders. The three centurions have their trumpeters give the appropriate bugle calls and the soldiers, who all know the drill manoeuvre to match each bugle call, automatically respond with their prescribed unit movements. Maniple 1 wheel to the right whilst maniple 2 drops back and maniple 3 wheels back so its left end remains level with maniple 2's frontage. The enemy unit moves forward in response to what it takes to be a retreating foe and then finds itself being outflanked on its right by maniple 1 and compressed on its left by maniple 3. Caught in this trap the enemy unit starts to suffer heavy casualties and breaks, causing panic in the units adjacent to it.
If any of the Roman maniples get into difficulty particular movements of their standards can be used to signal this to Sub-commander B, who can see from the standards which units are in trouble and can send maniples held in reserve to the right place to support the embattled units.
I think that with a well drilled army and an established system for battlefield communication such as I have suggested, which allows for the general to use his sub-commanders to manage their areas according to his wishes but by their execution, almost any of the manoeuvres we know they employed could be arranged and carried out, led at the point of contact by centurions but ordered and arranged by senior officers commanding them.
I would welcome your thoughts.
Lastly, Macedon,
"Actually, 80 cohorts would regularly form 8 legions, 10 cohorts nominal strength each. "
Sorry about that. Yes I know there should be ten cohorts per legion. I was writing late at night when I should have been asleep. Thanks for pointing out the mistake.
*Caesar's commentaries show some evidence of having been 'tidied up' somewhat for the audience in Rome and De Bello Gallico may in fact be the republished collection of his annual governor's reports, which might explain some of the minor inconsistencies between the books. Bellum Civili must be seen as the work of someone who was not only fighting a war but also running an effective propaganda machine. Reading through Cicero's letters to Atticus and others, it is obvious that Caesar has generalised some details or shifted the dates things happened in order to retrospectively produce a better story. We don't have Caesar's letters unfortunately but we do have numerous mentions in Cicero's letters to other people of things Caesar has told him in letters and which he thus has knowledge of, written on dates which often seem to conflict with the dates or orders of events mentioned in the commentaries. This means that what we read in Caesar has been subject to his retrospective editing and this may also apply to how he claims to have seen things at the time. It is also worthy of mention that if you read many modern translations of Bellum Civilica, you will see the Spanish War, The Alexandrian War and the African War listed as if they are also works by Caesar, but in fact they are by Hirtius and others. The African War (or was it the Spanish War - I haven't read either recently and all of my university notes are a very long way away) is neither a work of great technical nor literary merit and its author (who is an almost blindingly fervent supporter of Caesar) has been suggested as being one of Caesar's centurions (the quality of his Latin in about equal to the quality one might expect of the written English of a modern sixteen year old who has been excluded from school for several years and spent the whole time playing video games).
Crispvs
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers. :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:
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