Siege Mentalities

...That did not mean the Greeks imitated Homeric warfare in detail: Cultural influence was tempered by reality...

...Chariots, for example, remained the stuff of legacy...

...It is, however, a book about "why" rather than "what," "when," and "how...

...Epic structured and focused the "primordial competitiveness" Lendon describes as characteristic of Greek culture...

...Every era defines ultimate truth in its own way...

...This important book is a reminder that surface similarities can conceal profoundly, essentially different, matrices, and that, by extension, surface differences may be mere bumper stickers concealing common underlying values and desires...

...The Greek phalanx with its short spears yielded to the sarissa-carrying Macedonian version, which in turn fell before the pilum-and-gladius Roman legion...

...Lendon contrasts this pattern with the development of Greek warfare at sea...

...Lendon makes a provocative and convincing case that the Greek way of war was essentially shaped by Greek reverence for Homeric epic...

...Lendon calls this a history of methods of fighting on land in the classical era, from the Age of Homer through the 4th century b.c...

...Lendon's presentation is also a useful jab at the neophiliacs who dominate 21st-century military systems...

...It is a simple lesson, but one too often taught in blood and fire...

...Instead of seeking fresh paradigms, the Greeks and Romans consciously poured their new wine into old bottles...

...they borrowed...

...We can cite examples almost at will...

...it was, rather, the growing influence on Roman commanders of Greek military works emphasizing the importance of tactical and operational flexibility...

...Lendon shows that innovation, even in the basic and familiar structure of the legion, came slowly, and was not influenced by operational considerations...

...The regimental system is widely considered the basis of the British Army's demonstrated ability to punch above its weight...

...On the whole, however, the absence of epic models left Hellenic ingenuity unrestrained...

...In contrast to the modern world, technology was a limited factor in antiquity...

...On one level, Soldiers & Ghosts is an elegant inversion of the argument for a distinctive "Western way of war" based on the idea of progress...

...Academic and uniformed "reformers" have responded by eviscerating it...

...Yet Lendon's earlier question echoes: Had the Romans adopted a progressive, "Western" approach to innovation, would the long-run consequences for Europe have been positive...

...The chronic Greek ineffectiveness in siegecraft, according to Lendon, reflected in good part an unwillingness to copy from contemporary military systems outside the epic tradition...

...Even the primary tools of war, swords and spears, shields and bows, changed only in detail...

...Political science emphasizes its noun and neglects its adjective as it seeks ever more rigorous methodologies...

...Clever deployment, rapid maneuvering, and outright trickery were the characteristics of Greeks at sea...

...But by the 4th century b.c., the Roman infantry had adopted a spear-and-shield kind of fighting that was, in many ways, a throwback to the original hoplite tactics...

...The crucial factor in change was not the cohort's greater handiness, as observed by Roman pragmatists...

...But few Greeks saw a distinction between evaluating and adapting Homeric warfare and fighting in the most effective way possible...

...But more often than not, they adapted by looking backward: finding something that had worked previously and updating it...

...Economics and sociology threaten to become branches of higher mathematics...

...He emphasizes synergy between virtus, aggressive courage, and disciplina, the ethic of restraint, in shaping Roman military conduct and structure...

...In contrast, America's military establishment and its intelligence community are not merely trained but conditioned to focus on analyzing war in the context of hard data which can be described specifically...

...In warmaking, as in every aspect of their lives, the Greeks and Romans innovated...

...That usually means material expressed in quantitative form...

...Epic gave Greek soldiers inspiration and legitimized the ways they actually fought...

...He asks, rhetorically but provocatively, what would have been the consequences had Greek military history, as well, developed a "progressive" approanch to land war...

...they adapted...

...The manipular legion conquered an empire despite its long list of tactical shortcomings: Its replacement by the cohort system came after the Mediterranean basin was under Rome's sway—the very time a modern army would be most likely to continue proven institutions and methods...

...In military matters particularly, the Greeks and Romans not merely respected but revered the past and its heroes—the "ghosts " of the title...

...by Dennis Showalter This controversial study, well researched and well reasoned, invites comparison with the works of Victor Davis Hanson, Josh Ober, and Adrian Goldsworthy because of the fundamental questions it raises about the nature of ancient war...

...In the classical world, Lendon suggests, the most powerful engine for innovation was an admired image of the past...

...Cultural factors are considered anecdotal storytelling, mined from a grab bag of "unscientific" communications, useful to add tone and context to presentations, perhaps, but at the risk of misleading by irrelevance...

...Ancient peoples were perfectly capable of thinking in terms of military progress: of new methods and new weapons replacing old ones...

...History has lost touch with the liberal arts in an effort to replicate the mentality of the physical sciences...

...The business world has its bottom lines and quarterly reports...

...The "geometric spirit" of the 18th century and the biological determinism of the 19 th have given way to printouts and spreadsheets...

...Its contribution is not its discussion of campaigns and battles, but Lendon's perceptive analysis of why change in warfare occurs, and the ramifications of his answers...

...They only reinforce an image of tunnel vision that, in turn, invites more mirror-imaging: projecting values and attitudes onto other societies as opposed to studying and analyzing their cultures...

...The Greek way of war in general had less and less to do with Homer...

...In the empire's later years, however, Rome sought to reverse decline by recreating an epic past, as opposed to seeking inspiration there...

...It is almost amusing to be reminded that two of the West's most formidable military cultures achieved greatness while consciously under the spell of the past...

...This perspective is hardly confined to the upper levels of government...

...Lendon's conclusion also represents a fundamental challenge to the technocratic present-mindedness that currently informs American strategic planning and policy formation...

...There, too, some ritual elements persisted...

...Far from prefiguring defeat, the Roman army's persistence in maintaining ancient ways of doing things was, for centuries, fundamental to its military success...

...The ways of using them did vary according to time and place, but there was no pattern of what later historians (and solDennis Showalter is a professor of history at Colorado College...

...The Romans were no more progressive than the Greeks in their methods of warmaking...

...diers) would call "progress...

...Experience, the Peloponnesian War in particular, strongly suggests that Greek society might have destroyed itself through internecine conflict...

...Psychiatry turns from the couch to the prescription...

...The United States Army seems well on the way to institutionalizing flux as its organizational principle...

...Lendon does not ignore the effect on military change of economic and social forces, or the complex and cutthroat politics of the later republic and empire...

...Ultimately, however, he turns to the Romans' profound love of the past...

...While these thinkers are often visibly conservative, relative to their wider societies, they insist on infinite and continuous innovation as the touchstone for military effectiveness...

...Men fought beside the shades of their ancestors for an inherited ethic...

...The resulting antiquarianism only made matters worse: The ghosts won, and Rome fell...

...Greek armies improved by using tradition as a guide...

...War, Lendon asserts, is a manifestation of culture—arguably its ultimate manifestation, because if wars are not won, the culture becomes extinct...