Looking for a bloodless victory

[koechlyruestow]

I once read and then lost a quote from an ancient writer, Roman I believe, which contemptuously referred to the type of victory that, according to the Romans, was common among the Orientals, Parthians and Persians: instant surrender to or flight from or defection to the victorious party, in other words, a bloodless victory won without any serious fighting. I've been scouring Curtius, Arrian, Plutarch, Cassius Dio, but until now, to no avail. Does anyone recognise the quote I am referring to?

[Michael Kerr]

Hi Eduard, I can't be sure but I think it was Virgil "The Georgics" but haven't found it.

Regards
Michael Kerr

[Sean Manning]

I think that there was a "Tearless Battle" between the Spartans and some of their Greek enemies in the fourth century BCE. Xenophon claims that none of the Greeks in Cyrus' mercenary army died at Cunaxa, but this is probably pan-Hellenic propaganda or a fuzzy memory after the horrible losses during the katabasis. He returns to the idea that barbarians will not stand up to Greeks in the last chapter of Cyropaedia.

Tacitus also has a mocking description of a civil war amongst the Parthians, but I have not read it recently.

[koechlyruestow]

Michael, Sean, thank you, I've been going trough the annales and the georgics on the web, though until now with no success. I will keep on trying. I also found a refernce in Curtius on a bloodless victory, but is was Diadoch period.

[Macedon]

In Greek texts, the term "tearless battle / adakrys mache or polemos" indeed crops up, often in the various lexica of the Roman times. Examples of its use would include :

According to an oracle delivered by Zeus Dodonaeos, the Lacedaemonians would fight a tearless battle in their war against the Arcadians. After this, the Lacedaemonians engaged the enemy and gained a victory with no losses. This battle took place at the junction of the Eutresian and Melean road.

“ὁ γὰρ Δωδωναῖος προεῖπε Λακεδαιμονίοις πολεμοῦσι πρὸς Ἀρκάδας, μάχην ἄδακρυν ἔσεσθαι• συμβαλόντες δὲ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐνίκησαν μηδενὸς ἀποθανόντος.”, Plut., Παροιμίαι αἷς Ἀλεξανδρεῖς ἐχρῶντο, centuria.1, s.49, l.2

"διότι πόλεμος οὗτος Λακεδαιμονίοις ἄδακρυς ἔσται" Diod.15.72.4.1.

Archidamos, the son of Agesilaos, defeated the Arcadians with assistance sent by the tyrant of Sicily in the so called tearless battle, named thus, because no man in his army fell , while many of the enemy were slain.

“μάχην ἄδακρυν ἔσεσθαι• συμβαλόντες δὲ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐνίκησαν μηδενὸς ἀποθανόντος.” Plut., Παροιμίαι αἷς Ἀλεξανδρεῖς ἐχρῶντο, centuria.1, s.49, l.3

and

“Ἀρχίδαμος δὲ ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ, τὴν ἐκ Σικελίας ἥκουσαν παρὰ τοῦ τυράννου βοήθειαν ἔχων, ἐνίκησεν Ἀρκάδας τὴν λεγομένην ἄδακρυν μάχην• οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἔπεσε τῶν μετ’ αὐτοῦ, συχνοὺς δὲ τῶν ἐναντίων ἀνεῖλεν.” Plut., Agesilaus, ch.33, s.3, l.2

Plutarch also uses it to describe the victory of Aemilius Paulus against Perseus at Pydna, although the Romans are supposed to have lost some men.

“Παῦλος Αἰμίλιος ἀπὸ Περσέως καὶ Μακεδόνων ἄτρωτον στρατὸν ἄγων καὶ νίκην ἄδακρυν θριαμβεύων” Plut., De fortuna Romanorum (316c–326c), Stephanus p.318, s.B, l.5

[koechlyruestow]

It is a pity I cannot retrieve it, because it shows that the bluffing and posing that the Romans only knew too well, was associated with oriental warfare, and denounced in this context. Roman generals were just as prepared as oriental generals to line up their men without having any intention to actualy fight, but as soon as an oriental did this, it was typically oriental.

It reminds one of the Romans charging Parthian or Persians cavalry, who then turned and ran "shamefully", without however the Romans trying to pursue them, because they only knew too well they would be slaughtered if they did (as was Crassus' son). After this Roman "victory" the Iranians would soon reappear and recommence harassing the Romans with their arrows.

[koechlyruestow]

I suspect this topos of the oriental bloodless victory has a lot to do with the nature of cavalry.
Here is a good one from C. Ardant du Picq, colonel in the French army, with experience from the colonies, the Franco-Prussian war and the Crimean war:

"Pourqoi joue-t-on si mal de la cavalerie? (Il est vrai que l'on ne joue pas mieux de l'infanterie.) Parce que son rõle est tout mouvement, tout moral, moral et mouvements tellements liés, que les mouvements seuls, sans charges souvent, sans action physique d'aucune sorte, mettent l'ennemie en retraite et, si on le suit de près, parfois en déroute. Cela est une conséquence de la rapidité de la cavalerie pour qui s'en sait servir."

Why is the cavalry used so badly? (It is true that the infantry is not used much better). Because its rõle is all about movement, all about morale, morale and movement linked to such an extent that movement alone, often without charges, without physical action of any sort, makes the enemy retreat and, if you keep close on his heels, often flee. That is the consequence of the speed of the cavalry for someone who knows to make use of it.

Charles Ardant du Picq Études sur le combat (reprint Paris 2004) 150

[Macedon]

I kind of need to understand what your question is about.

Certain eastern nations used attack and retreat tactics that were "unconventional" as a means to fight a pitched battle (although similar tactics were of course used by other cultures, like the Numidian horse-javeliners or infantry skirmishing tactics employed by many barbarians and non-barbarians, like the Aetolians). In effect they refused to fight one, which was of course sometimes a cause for accusation for the various authors who sometimes portrayed them as cowards but most often as just different. It is true that when they disappeared from the battlefield, even with very few losses, their more conventional enemies celebrated a victory, for in their minds/culture/need to encourage their troops, they had secured the field and the dead and thus they had gained a victory in battle according to their customs. I do not remember to have seen a specific term describing these battles in Greek texts but I have seen many texts discussing these tactics, how efficient they were, how the general planned to counter them - or were unable to -. So, if it is a specific term you are looking for, I unfortunately do not know it, but if it is the understanding of such tactics by the ancients you want to discuss, then, in my opinion, they were generally not scorned, they were respected and feared.

[koechlyruestow]

Hi Macedon,

I am looking for a quote, I believe of Roman origin, contemptuously referring to the bloodless victories gained by the orientals in, I believe, their wars among each other. So a line or a couple of lines by some classical author, not a specific word.
I know that is rather vague, but you never know, someone might have just seen it.

By the way, I think you are holding the wrong end of the stick about this, if you do not mind me saying so.

It do not believe it were the soldiers who were fooled. The hoplites and legionaries might have been outraged when their more nimble opponents refused to come to close quarters with them, but if they vainly charged their opponents in the blistering heat without being able to harm them, they knew very well things were bad.

It suspect it were the folks back home who could be fooled. I do not need to tell you that the texts of our sources are not journals or battle reports, they are literature. Even when they were soldiers, our classical authors had to adapt the facts to moral demands and political expediency, which might have brought them to occasionably giving a narrative about an unsuccessfull encounter with a "Partian shot/ karr ba'd all farr" opponent a moralising slant of pretended ignorance of what that tactic was for and a somewhat more positive twist of the outcome than was consistent with what the author knew to be true.

[Marja]

I take it we're talking about three very different things:

1. Situations where one side surrenders/disintegrates without coming to battle, especially if this happens on the edge of battle. Maxentius' victory over Severus, perhaps?

2. Situations where one side disintegrates during battle, and the other side suffers few or no losses.

3. Situations where one side refuses battle.

Were you asking about the first? Sorry I can't think of Persian vs. Persian examples.

[koechlyruestow]

Exactly, the first one. And I believe the quote was about, I am sorry I cannot be more specific or even certain, about a civil war among the Parthians.

[Sean Manning]

I had a look through the Packard Humanities Institute database for the set phrases "incruenta victoria" (in any word order) and "sine sanguine" (that order). None of the passages which I found seems to fit (usually we hear that something was not an incruenta victoria), so you may want to look at Greek authors. My Greek is not good enough to remember their cliches for this sort of thing.

[Lyceum]

Have you tried Pontius amongst the Samnites in Livy? Not exactly what you're looking for I dare say but I seem to remember something and it may ring a bell.

[koechlyruestow]

Yes, that was a bloodless victory too (though some Romans slacking to go under the yoke were pummeled and even killed) but I could not find anyone describing it literally as such, and it is described more with shame than with contempt (I've read about a 10th century Turkish soldier Alptegin who, after bottling up a Berber army in Ascalon, allowed them to return to Egypt, but not without having to walk under his sword and spear, hung up in the south gate).