Yes.
I am not saying they DIDNT fight, just that they were not trained to fight.
And he'll, didn't Rome have people that didn't fight and were just farmers and the like?
Meme Thread for Both Posting and Discussing Memes
- Thread starter Captain X
- Start date
I am not saying they DIDNT fight, just that they were not trained to fight.
And he'll, didn't Rome have people that didn't fight and were just farmers and the like?
Well yes. Rome was an empire, and had reasons to not want the subject peoples to be good at fighting.
In my initial post about this topic, I was thinking more of the Greek city-states, or of earlier, more primitive times.
Back in the days when every man in your village, whatever else he normally did, knew how to win a fight.
Last edited:
I would say definitely really primitive times then fir sure
There's a reason Mars was also the god of Farmers.
He started out that way and was adopted as war along with farming due to the addition of Greek ideas.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
It was easy for Rome to integrate the concepts, because of their cultural ideal of the citizen-soldier. The armed freeholders who constituted both the body politic and the corpus of the military formed the backbone of the Republic, and later of the Empire.
I did not know that, but it makes its own kind of sense.
It's easy to simply avoid conflict as a hunter-gatherer or a nomadic herdsman - just move away.
But once you put land under the plow and start growing food that you will use to survive through winter, you are of necessity committing yourself to a stance of "Git Orf Muh Land!" towards anyone else who comes along and wants to do something else with the field where you just planted your potatoes.
Last edited:
King Arts
Well-known member
In early Rome no the citizen soldiers were highly thought of. It’s only at the end of the republic where a professional army comes in.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
This is how it's sold to Jews. The actual just shoves Jews in the White category.
Umm... no?
As recently as the 19th century this was the norm, especially in America. In the 18th century America this was even stated explicitly: "...what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials." Militias were common across the entire US, with all men above the age of 16 expected to be ready to be called up and serve and typically met in formation about once a month to drill.
So the idea that all men should be ready and willing to fight was even something common in the modern era. It was only in highly stratified societies with strong class divisions where you saw the idea of people who's calling did not involve fighting while there was an explicit warrior class who did fighting. You'll not we have special names for farmers in such societies: "serf", "peasant", and "slave."
This meme can be used basically daily since 2016 now...
King Arts
Well-known member
Hilarious loved them all.I
The only slaves who had to really fight (as opposed to entertainment like Roman gladiators had to do) that I know of were Muslim nations the Janniearies and Mamuluks were technically slaves since they were people owned by the sultan but practically their standard of living was as good as knights and they were frequently the ruling class. Historically the fighters and those who had weapons were treated pretty well.
Add black guards of muslim Caliphs in Spain.But yes,they all lived in very good conditions.
Only slaves who fought and were treated shitty was soviet and other commie soldiers during WW2 and later.
It's not even slaves had to fight, but that only (or primarily) slaves can fight. The point of slave soldiers is to separate the people with arms and training from the population as a whole to prevent rebellion or revolution. Ideally the army can't revolt because they are despised by the people, and the people can't revolt because they have no arms and training and the despised soldiers will eagerly crush them.
Slave soldiers are just one method of creating an armed caste separate from and despised by and despising the entirely demilitarized people. Every autocratic empire in history eventually reaches this same conclusion. And it's the empire's founding core population that its elite and rulers want to demilitarize first, not subject peoples because they are the ones best able to overthrow the elite. The Roman Empire demilitarized italians and made an army of provincials and foreign barbarians. The Islamic caliphate demilitarized arabs and made an army of turkish, caucasian, and black slaves. This serves the interests of the elite until it doesn't. The same Italy that formed army after army even as Hannibal crushed each and bled to eventual total victory was completely defenseless as bands of a few hundred or thousand unpaid barbarian mercenaries roamed around.
This phenomenon is not a development over history, but rather a cycle over each state's rise and fall as elites turn from leading to exploitation.
King Arts
Well-known member
Really? Can you provide some information on Rome doing that?
Anyway I don't remember where I heard this but I do know that there was a story about a king who did conquer a people and the people kept rebelling and were difficult, and the king was planning to kill them off but an advisor told the king that instead to make the men of that nation women(figuratively) he said that if the men of that nation could be made to wear gold and silks and learn art and poetry instead of wearing simple clothes and learning of hunting and riding then the people could never rebel against him and would be weak.
Not that art and poetry makes you weak, as long as that is not ALL you've learned. I did forget where the story came from so I don't know if it was a Persian king or whatever.
DarthOne
☦️
I'm not sure I understand it.