[split] Psychology of the Roman soldier

[ValentinianVictrix]

Jaroslav, I think you have completely missed the point I made about conditioning.

Conditioning can make you do things that normally a person would never do. I wont dwell on the obvious concentration camp guards example but instead point you to the infamous 'Prisoners and Guards' experiment which was carried out in 1971 and was abandoned after just 6 days because it was too successful (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_p...experiment). If that experiment established that conditioning of civilians could turn them into terrible people willing to inflict brutality upon others in just a few days, imagine what six months basic military training will do to a man or woman.

From my reading of ancient history it is apparent that ancient man was conditioned to be able to slaughter all those who he was told to slaughter, whether man, woman, child or animal. And they would revel in the doing of it. They would also often brutalise the very civilians they were tasked to protect, to the extent in the Roman Empire civilians dreaded legionaries being based in their cities because this exposed the civilians to beatings and rape.

Roman society conditioned its military to do things our modern societies would baulk at (although there are some countries that seem to still follow the ancient codes in this respect!) and as such we cannot put our mindset into theirs.

[JaM]

then why didnt they slaughtered others? I posted the statistics.. losses in direct combat were incredibly low.. 5% (or less) for entire battle, that sometimes could take several hours is not that much.. Plus, im not saying they would not kill enemy when there is a chance to kill him... i'm telling they would not put themselves in danger just to score such hit... they would instead keep their cover, and only strike when  enemy cannot strike them..

Of course they would not hesitate to slaughter others if opportunity was presented... losing side lost typically 40-50% of original number, but up to 35-45% of that number was dealt when losing army fell into retreat...  chasing men wouldn't be threatened by routing enemy as they were while fighting in formation, so they would be more likely to butcher them, and this was typical no matter the era... same thing happened with Line infantry in 18.century, who often butchered routing enemy with the same ferocity (British at Culoden caused majority of Scottish casualties when they pursued routing highlanders for example...)- butchering the enemy on rout was said to be somewhat combat stress relieving experience of some sort...

so no, im not questioning willing to kill, i'm questioning the willing to kill the enemy no matter the personal consequences...

[ValentinianVictrix]

I too have questioned the very low rates of casualties given for the victors as opposed to the vanquished, the 5% total seems about right in this respect. But, you have to figure in the fact that perhaps these figures were fiddled with by the historian who wants to put over to his audience the fact that his societies brave soldiers were much better at fighting, and hence surviving than the enemy they fought who were slaughtered in droves. But even if the casualties quoted were accurate, we have no idea how many injured men were unable to fight after being wounded and who either ended up being invalided out of the army or who recovered and fought in later conflicts. I'm guessing that figure is much higher than the death casualty rate, say as high as 15% of the army total. So for a Late Roman army of 25,000 men a 5% death rate would be 1250 killed, and a potential 3750 wounded/out of action. This seems about right to me, and 20% total dead/incapacitated would explain why after a major battle it took time for another campaign to be conducted.

I think we also overestimate how effective swords, spears, javelins etc were at penetrating armour and shields, especially when ranks were closed and you could not fully extend the arm to use those weapons. And not made any easier by your opponent not wanting to just stand there and take the blow!

[JaM]

I too have questioned the very low rates of casualties given for the victors as opposed to the vanquished, the 5% total seems about right in this respect. But, you have to figure in the fact that perhaps these figures were fiddled with by the historian who wants to put over to his audience the fact that his societies brave soldiers were much better at fighting, and hence surviving than the enemy they fought who were slaughtered in droves. But even if the casualties quoted were accurate, we have no idea how many injured men were unable to fight after being wounded and who either ended up being invalided out of the army or who recovered and fought in later conflicts. I'm guessing that figure is much higher than the death casualty rate, say as high as 15% of the army total. So for a Late Roman army of 25,000 men a 5% death rate would be 1250 killed, and a potential 3750 wounded/out of action. This seems about right to me, and 20% total dead/incapacitated would explain why after a major battle it took time for another campaign to be conducted.

I think we also overestimate how effective swords, spears, javelins etc were at penetrating armour and shields, especially when ranks were closed and you could not fully extend the arm to use those weapons. And not made any easier by your opponent not wanting to just stand there and take the blow!

Actually, both Sabin and Zhmozdikov mention amount of wounded to be similar to the amount of killed, so 10% in total. Also a lot of battles between Roman Legions had casualty rates even below that 5%, while it was not uncommon to actually spare opposite Romans, and instead wipe out any auxillary that were present on opposite side - at least that was what happened at Pharsalus where Caesar stressed out to not kill fellow Roman citizens. ( i guess those heavily wounded would die anyway so they would be counted as dead,while those wounded lightly would be not even counted - even in more modern times, as wounded were usually counted those who needed medical attention and survived, yet a lot of men treated themselves if wounds were not serious )

and regarding armor, ad Dan mentioned, no infantry weapon held in one hand would be able to penetrate armor used at that time, most hits would go into unprotected areas..

Yet, your last sentence is exactly what i'm talking about - nobody in his sane mind would just stand and allow enemy to hit him, just to get an opportunity to hit somebody else as well... that was actually my whole point in this discussion. People use armors and shields to be protected, and they would use these things to be protected.

[Bryan]

I too have questioned the very low rates of casualties given for the victors as opposed to the vanquished, the 5% total seems about right in this respect. But, you have to figure in the fact that perhaps these figures were fiddled with by the historian who wants to put over to his audience the fact that his societies brave soldiers were much better at fighting, and hence surviving than the enemy they fought who were slaughtered in droves. But even if the casualties quoted were accurate, we have no idea how many injured men were unable to fight after being wounded and who either ended up being invalided out of the army or who recovered and fought in later conflicts. I'm guessing that figure is much higher than the death casualty rate, say as high as 15% of the army total. So for a Late Roman army of 25,000 men a 5% death rate would be 1250 killed, and a potential 3750 wounded/out of action. This seems about right to me, and 20% total dead/incapacitated would explain why after a major battle it took time for another campaign to be conducted.

I think we also overestimate how effective swords, spears, javelins etc were at penetrating armour and shields, especially when ranks were closed and you could not fully extend the arm to use those weapons. And not made any easier by your opponent not wanting to just stand there and take the blow!

I think the easiest ways to explain the low casualty rates is to look at the number of total combatants present and compare them to the number of combatants serving in the front ranks of the battle line. Unless the enemy is extremely capable with missiles, ranks three and after will face little actual danger in the clash. I did the math earlier in another thread, JaM ignored it (as he does when the evidence counters his opinions). 

Sumer to Rome doesn't say 5% casualties for everyone before a rout, they say 5% for winners. Losers suffer typically suffered higher casualties, much more so if they routed instead of conducting an organized disengagement.  

Let's say that there are 300 Hoplites. They are formed up in a "typical" eight ranks deep formation, which means they have 37 full files, and one half file somewhere. So we'll just call it 38 for argument's sake. It means out of 300 hoplites there are 38 front rankers, 38 second rankers. That is 76 men in the "danger area." So the winning side of 300 hoplites suffers 5% casualties, which comes out to 15 hoplites. Likely, they'd come from those first two ranks, not ranks three through eight. Out of 76 men in the front two ranks that means they wouldn't actually suffer 20% casualties, so in man in five is dead or severely wounded. 

I included a picture below to illustrate this. Direction of travel is downward.  Ranks 1 and 2 suffer 1 in 6 casualties, 20% of those being death. Rank three suffers three casualties. All told the unit suffers its 5% casualties but you can see that the front ranks suffer pretty greatly. If the 300 hoplites actually fought a tough battle and suffered 10 percent casualties, an even higher number of the front ranks would be colored red, going up to 40% of all the front two ranks. 

For a Roman force, it would look a bit different, with the triplex acies being a typical Republican formation, with the addition of skirmishers, cavalry, and the quincunx gaps. But the same applies with them as well, out of all the infantry maniples in the battle, only a small percentage of them will actually be fighting in the front ranks, and they will likely be the ones who suffer the highest percentage of casualties, while most of the rest of the force will be relatively safe unless somehow they end up in the front line, or else the unit breaks and routs.

[CNV2855]

Bryan, I don't doubt you served in the military. My dad was a military father, and he was strict as hell. Even though he had been out of the army for years, you could definitely see it in almost every aspect of his behavior. I know that military men look down on civilians, and just how good the training is. I'm not disputing that at all. But people behave differently in crowds than they do alone, and this is known as crowd psychology.

The best way to get a grasp of melee warfare is to watch riots.

You could say the legions were effectively trained so wouldn't behave like a mob and while this may be true, not all of the armies pre-industrialization were well trained. A lot of battles probably resembled mob vs mob. I'd also argue that the legions were probably a well-trained mob. The people in the front would be less fearful and they'd keep better order, but the mechanics are still roughly the same.

Look at the police that face off the mob. That's probably a good representation of the legions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77JrZBnTC8Q

I've never seen a riot where civilians clashed with the police for a long period of time, there's always some standoff distance. Let's also consider that it'd be IMPOSSIBLE for an army to fight for 6 days straight if soldiers couldn't back up to rest. Just like boxing (weighted/padded gloves) swinging with a weapon is absolutely exhausting and could only be kept up for probably 15 minutes.

[Bryan]

That video is hilarious, dude gets shot by a paintball gun and acts like it's 5.56 ball.

[ValentinianVictrix]

There is absolutely no correlation between the Police controlling mob violence and an ancient battle, this has been discussed on RAT a number of times in the past. Mobs by their very nature are attackers of opportunity and tend to break apart very quickly unless their overwhelming numbers causes them to lose total control which can then lead to a near suicidal frenzy of violence.

When you have two armies facing off, conditioned for battle, then its in an entirely different league.

[JaM]

Actually, there is some correlation, but depends on how disciplined were opposing armies. Various barbarian tribes didnt had any sort of advanced combat tactics, and their combat behavior was very close to what you can see in riots, just a bit more bloody. Plus, this behavior explains quite well the luls on the battlefield, notion to break the combat and withdraw from direct contact  to reform,restore strength and morale and attack again..

And lets not forget that not all riots are the same, there are some groups of hooligans that actually specialize on fighting with the police, these guys usually come well prepared with own shields, sticks and helmets.. Video Chris posted was showing relatively calm protest...

look any footage from Ukraine 2014 for example  - REMOVED BY MODERATOR  -  just be warned, its quite drastic (mostly ending)

[MonsGraupius]

If you want to understand what it might be like to be in a battle with the Romans, I suggest watching a few videos:

This video shows and organised gang fight with moderate violence. Starting with two reasonably well formed lines, which disintegrate immediately on contact. It lasts about. It also shows the distinctive posturing and "open" style fighting which tends to develop.
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This video shows protestors apparently trying to do a lot of damage to police "lines" and has a mixture of both police and rioter "close formations" with huge bars being wielded in a way that would be of severe concern to anyone. This is arguably as close as well get to a fight with a real threat of violence between closed formations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZZDq8S6bhA

This shows the behaviour of well formed lines to heavy missiles (but no threat to their shields)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCl5F043ClM

This one shows a rioter using a massive "flamethrower". This time the police lines are clearly unhappy with idea of being burnt and this probably shows behaviour under heavy fire of repeatedly move forward and retreat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMi7Jkay0fY
I'd suggest a (wavering) Roman army would have looked pretty similar in the face of something like a horse charge.

To see what a horse charge or other spearhead movement would look like on a less cohesive force I suggest this video:


But .... I hear someone say ... none of this is realistic as it's very different when people have swords!!

So to get an idea of what a battle with swords may have looked like and how the action ebbs and flows I suggest the following:

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Which all gives the impression that battles were very quick - people advanced quickly, retreated quickly and left a few bodies. But the reality of a battle as opponents get caught and dealt with would be more like this butchery:
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And finally, just to show that much of the behaviour we see above (note the Chinese Mafia filing up the stairs to do battle) I suggest watching this short clip:
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[JaM]

those last videos, especially that knifing, only issue there is, that victims are unarmed while attacker has a knife - in situation where both sides are armed, i guess the whole motivation for attack would be less profound and attacker would be not charging blindly against the defender. And if we add the formation factor into this, it would be a bit strange expecting anyone to throw himself to enemy shields with intend to hit somebody, just to be cut down by multiple people in that formation quite easily...  (similarly, protesters kinda dont expect Police force wanting them to kill them, so they actually have additional motivation for such behavior due to that knowledge.. i guess they would be behaving quite differently if policemen were there to kill them)

I think its quite similar to what bayonet combat is described - bayonet is very effective at killing, being practically a short but heavy pike, while opponent wore no armor, so was practically defenseless against it. Yet, opposing soldiers had bayonet as well, so both sides had means to kill each other, and neither side had an advantage of resisting the attack, which meant  morally weaker side would rather turn and run, than stand and risk being possibly stabbed by bayonet....

If you look at statistics from Napoleonic era, there are no known examples where two formation of men would clash in bayonet fight in open terrain.. Bayonet fights happened mostly in broken terrain, where one side had advantage of some defensive works, that gave them cover, and was also common in small unit skirmishes, but practically every single bayonet charge ended up by one side routing and running away prior to actual contact..

Of course, Ancient battles are different, while weapons are as effective, they actually have effective means to protect themselves - Scutum and possibly some lorica would be good enough to provide necessary protection to be able to survive the contact. Yet, i really doubt that majority of soldiers would be completely careless of own defenses and would attack the enemy not looking at own(unit) protection first..

---

and one additional thing regarding actual recorded event - During battle of Heraclea, Pyrrhos and his cavalry tried to attack Roman legions as they were trying to cross the river, just to be counter-charged by Roman cavalry. Dionysios mention one of Roman cavalry (seeking for Gloria), personally charging against Pyrrhos, ignoring his bodyguards, managing to strike him down from his horse. Bodyguards quickly killed him, but this quickly convinced Pyrrhus to give his ornamented armor and cloak to one of his companions so he would not be targeted like this again. Anyway, while this clearly shows some Romans actually performed such suicidal things.. later at Ascullum, when Pyrrhos was informed some others have volunteered for such thing, he gave order to not take prisoners in case such called attack would be done.. Point is - this was seen as something extraordinary,worth mentioning by ancient historians... not as something that could be expected of ordinary rank and file soldier within the legions.. Plus, usually those who attempted such things, didn't usually survive..

[MonsGraupius]

those last videos, especially that knifing, only issue there is, that victims are unarmed while attacker has a knife - in situation where both sides are armed, i guess the whole motivation for attack would be less profound and attacker would be not charging blindly against the defender. And if we add the formation factor into this, it would be a bit strange expecting anyone to throw himself to enemy shields with intend to hit somebody, just to be cut down by multiple people in that formation quite easily...  (similarly, protesters kinda dont expect Police force wanting them to kill them, so they actually have additional motivation for such behavior due to that knowledge.. i guess they would be behaving quite differently if policemen were there to kill them)

The key is that in all these violent conflict, individuals are just "going with the flow" (except the bystanders). Also much of the behaviour is highly ritualistic: a whole crowd standing very evenly spaced in almost identical poses "mouth off" or "hurling missiles" at police. Much of it looks as if the crowd are being choreographed, but it appears that people are just following the lead of others.

However, as I thought about the video of the multiple slashings of the individual - it occurred to me that they weren't trying to kill him so much as "cut him" - that is to say - each one had to have left a cut on him and the last vile creature failed many times before leaving.

Again we have a ritualised attack - which perversely appears intend on not killing the enemy - just injuring.

But that is very different from the Romans. Based on historical accounts of similar armies and their effect the type of battle that iron-age tribes usually engaged in would have been very much a "stand off". With two armies sizing each other up from across a field, groups of individuals occasionally pushing forward to throw spears or attack small groups on the opposition - and then at some point the two groups would meet and few would die - but most would return home with "battle wounds"  - to show the girls at home. It would all continue with waves of advance, skirmishing until one or other side would then think better of continuing the battle and move back. They'd then have a look around to see how the rest of their tribe were doing and depending on the overall battle would push forward to posture again or start going back and retreat.

But despite all the noise, movement, whilst they'd be a lot of wounding there would be relatively few deaths.

In contrast, a battle with the Romans would be very different. The none Roman side would start by posturing like before. Then eventually, rather than as a small band, the whole Roman front lines would engage. As in any normal iron-age battle, there would be a hell of a scrap - but instead of a few dead and many "battle wounds" and both lines retreating, the Roman killing machine would leave a huge number of the attackers dead or mortally wounded and only the non-Romans retreating.

And my guess is that the Romans would then dispatch (i.e. hack to death) any enemy wounded right there in view of the enemy after each charge.

This would be as much a shock, as if we saw a policeman in Britain pull out a gun and kill a car thief in cold blood.

[Robert Vermaat]

After discussing the recent videos posted here with the forum Administrator, we have decided to remove all videos showing graphic violence. Please do not post any videos showing killings, knife fights or anything similar. There are forums for those but RAT is not one of them.

Also, having followed this dicussion, which shows a great lack of referrals to real sources about combat psychology, the discussion is now under observation and may be moved to the OT section.

[JaM]

Maybe in ideal conditions, facing some barbarian rabble it could be like this.. but, It would be hardly so easy in Republican times, with levy legion. Also, i would not entirely underestimate barbarians, there were multiple mentions of Celts keeping good cohesion, and even be able to reform from single line into double line while facing sudden appearance of Roman forces from their rear..

Plus, any civil war battles where legions faced legions would be unusually bloody with both sides having similar tactics, yet the opposite is true, and actual casualties for winning side were remarkably low.  Winner usually took losses during the active phase of fighting, therefore its is not that far off assuming these losses would be quite similar for both sides, if equipment and training is same or on similar level.

Similarly, when facing Macedonian at Pydna, Roman casualties were also remarkably low, Romans did not charge the pikes disregarding the own safety (except for Paelignians who suffered the majority of casualties at Pydna), but instead, slowly gave ground until Phalanx advanced too far and actual holes were opened..


Anyway, we actually have a lot of mentions by ancient historians about the combat stress and its effect on men. On academia.edu, there is a work written by Yulia Ustinova and Etzel Cardeña - Combat Stress Disorders and Their Treatment in Ancient  Greece, where they state that:

The Greeks knew how horrible the sight of the battlefield was.
The power of paralyzing fear, phobos, was masterfully depicted by
Homer: his heroes were stricken or frozen with horror or burst into
tears at the sight of the enemy (Iliad 13. 85–88, 279–283, 394,
436–438; 16. 403; Van Wees, 2004). In the 7th century BC,
Tyrtaeus wrote that “no man is good in war unless he can bear the
sight of blood and death” (West, 1993 fr. 12, 10–11, translation
M. L. West). Fear caused by the sight of the enemy, loud chattering
of teeth, losing control of the bowels, clanging of armor of the
shuddering soldiers occurred all too often, and even experienced
officers were not immune to terror (Thucydides 5. 10; Aristophanes
Peace 241; Polyaenus Stratagems 3. 9. 4; Plutarch Aratus
29. 5–6).

Authors at the end of that work came with this conclusion:

Notwithstanding the difference in cultural and social conditions
between us and ancient Greece, combat-related mental disorders
existed two thousand and several hundred years ago, as they do
today. In practical terms, the idea that they could be prevented by
means of social conditioning proved to be false: acute and chronic
psychological disorders can result from exposure to combat stress.
This risk may be reduced but not entirely eliminated. On the other
hand, the fact that modern therapeutic methods appear to have
been used in Greece is reassuring, because it indicates that modern
Western approaches to the psychological treatment of trauma are
not entirely culturally dependent and may be applied to the treatment
of trauma with patients from different cultural traditions.

[ValentinianVictrix]

This is quite a good article on the topic- http://www.terrapsych.com/whywefight.html

Also John Keegan's 'The Face of Battle' is a worthy read.