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Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

irishtimes.com

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Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#11

Post by ergothus »

jake-low wrote: post #5

My public-school education (in the US) definitely never taught the subject. My history classes were divided into clearly-delineated "units" of study with no overlap. "First let's learn about Mesopotamia. Agriculture, Hammurabi, etc. Now recite what you learned on a test. Good, now we're moving on. Greece. City-states, marble statues, Olympics. Another test. Moving on. Rome..." My "Earth Science" class was structured…

Ironically, my US education was just as bad about modern events. 4th grade we covered the American revolution. 5th was American revolution and civil war. Each year covered the previous material with (a little) more depth, yet I had WW I twice and WW II and Korea once (12th grade). Vietnam wasn't covered at all, much less anything since then. And I went to a GOOD high school. I fear what poor ones teach.

Not that Vietnam or the WW II aftermath is at all relevant to modern politics. /s

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#12

Post by Spooky23 »

emodendroket wrote: post #2

I don't know about little-known.

Schools vary, but usually this conflict isn't really presented much in survey classes.

The highlights of education on Greece usually focus on Alexander the Great for a day or two, phalanx, the various figures of Athens, Athens vs. Sparta. Rome usually is some chat about the origin myth, "they were a republic", the Punic Wars, specifically Hannibal, Ceasar, transition to empire, random facts.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#13

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

>After a few weeks of marching and countermarching by Philip and Flamininus in central Thessaly, battle was joined (almost by accident) at Cynoscephalae, hills known as The Dogs’ Heads. Invincible on flat ground as long as its flanks were protected, the phalanx was dangerously exposed on hillsides. Highly manoeuvrable, veterans of the Hannibalic war, the legionaries wreaked a terrible slaughter.

One of the big factors at Cynoscephalae and later at Pydna was the extreme flexibility and how much initiative junior officers had. At Cynoscephalae, the turning point of the battle came when a junior Roman officer saw that one of the halves of the phalanx was still forming up, and immediately sent Roman units against that unready part of the phalanx, routing them, and then crashing down on the rear of the other part of the phalanx that was actually winning against the Romans. At Pydna, Lucius Aemilius Paullus the Roman commander was able to give the general order to exploit the gaps, and let the various unit commanders implement it.

The combination of Roman training combined with the tactical flexibility stood Rome in very good stead for centuries.

As an aside, it is not necessarily the unit, but the commander who knows how to put it to great use that matters. Alexander the Great used an army of which the core was the phalanx to win battles over many, many types of terrain. He knew how to use the phalanx well in combination with calvary and light infantry to devastating effect.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#14

Post by cellis »

How is this little known? If anything, this is too known. What I wish, but is impossible, is that there were more documented stories of the conflicts of e.g. Native Americans or Native South Americans, before European Settlers; early wars in Africa; or wars in the extremes of the Artic between early tribes. I have listened to all of Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" ( which any student of history will fall in love with ), and the only limitation is that he can only recount histories that are documented, which sadly doesn't extend to most pre-European-influence civilizations.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#15

Post by lvoudour »

jake-low wrote: post #5

My public-school education (in the US) definitely never taught the subject. My history classes were divided into clearly-delineated "units" of study with no overlap. "First let's learn about Mesopotamia. Agriculture, Hammurabi, etc. Now recite what you learned on a test. Good, now we're moving on. Greece. City-states, marble statues, Olympics. Another test. Moving on. Rome..." My "Earth Science" class was structured…

Anyway, if I have a point, it's this: never underestimate the inadequacy of the US primary education system.

That happens everywhere it's not an American thing ( btw, the article is from an Irish newspaper), there's too much to cover in so little time. But learning shouldn't stop when we graduate, I can't blame school for my adult-life shortcomings, I got the basics and that should be enough IMHO

On the subject of the article, it's definitely not as popular as the punic wars or Caesar's conquest of Gaul, but then again what is?

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#16

Post by Spooky23 »

ergothus wrote: post #11
jake-low wrote: post #5

My public-school education (in the US) definitely never taught the subject. My history classes were divided into clearly-delineated "units" of study with no overlap. "First let's learn about Mesopotamia. Agriculture, Hammurabi, etc. Now recite what you learned on a test. Good, now we're moving on. Greece. City-states, marble statues, Olympics. Another test. Moving on. Rome..." My "Earth Science" class was structured…

Ironically, my US education was just as bad about modern events. 4th grade we covered the American revolution. 5th was American revolution and civil war. Each year covered the previous material with (a little) more depth, yet I had WW I twice and WW II and Korea once (12th grade). Vietnam wasn't covered at all, much less anything since then. And I went to a GOOD high school. I fear what poor ones teach. Not that Viet…

It all depends on the State. New York mandates a certain number of hours to cover the Irish Potato Famine, but of course there is little/no context to it.

I had some great high school history teachers who pushed the envelope on diverging from the standard crap. By the time my brother got to high school, those guys retired, and the Global Studies Africa unit consisted of a day about slave hunters and watching Shaka Zulu.

A brief reference to Gandi sufficed as the history of India. One of my brothers' buddies gave a presentation about what they learned that year with a slide that said "Gandi thought that salt cost too much".

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#17

Post by elorant »

jake-low wrote: post #5

My public-school education (in the US) definitely never taught the subject. My history classes were divided into clearly-delineated "units" of study with no overlap. "First let's learn about Mesopotamia. Agriculture, Hammurabi, etc. Now recite what you learned on a test. Good, now we're moving on. Greece. City-states, marble statues, Olympics. Another test. Moving on. Rome..." My "Earth Science" class was structured…

It's not just the US educational system. I doubt any country's education teaches kids everything. For example in Greece history lessons are dominated by our history as you would expect. It's 50% Classical Greece, 30% Byzantium and 20% for the rest of the world which is pretty much European history and a bit of Mesopotamia. We learn nothing about Asian cultures or American ones. And this is to be expected. Every country teaches the history of those that affected them most.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#18

Post by beat »

For an interesting coarse overview of this stuff, I've been reading The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan. It's a sprawling world history, from earliest recorded history to the present (I'm currently between WWI and WWII), based on the idea that the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center of civilization. Northern/Western Europe was an impoverished, uninteresting backwater until the discovery of the New World (which precipitated a major economic shift, thanks to the tremendous gold reserves that Spain exploited, affecting world currency markets).

The author makes interesting arguments that the area is the center of civilization even in modernity. For example, he argues that the main cause of WWI was British fear of a resurgent Russia taking India from them - not German aggression, as is commonly understood by Eurocentric views of history.

At any rate, the book is full of epic, sweeping battles, the ebb and flow of great cities like Constantinople and Baghdad, the rise and fall of empires. Highly recommended if you like this stuff!

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#19

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

lou1306 wrote: post #10

Irony was a double-edged sword in this case. Sure, the Greek city-states were now subject to Rome. On the other hand, Roman civilization was deeply affected by Greek culture, which was arguably far superior. Horace said it best: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit (once defeated, Greece conquered its savage captor)

> Greek culture, which was arguably far superior.

The Romans put up a valiant rearguard action against cultural aggression, what with forbidding permanent theaters, favoring the native blood sports, etc.;-)

Unfortunately, pretty soon all the aristocracy was hiring the pedagogues, watching the shows and reading greek, and that was that.

Umm, reminds me of something. Can't quite put my finger on it.

(Plus, that uncouth Macedonian lout had sprayed a top layer of Hellenism over much of the former Persian empire - that helped a lot too.)

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#20

Post by jandrese »

beat wrote: post #18

For an interesting coarse overview of this stuff, I've been reading The Silk Roads: A New History of the World , by Peter Frankopan. It's a sprawling world history, from earliest recorded history to the present (I'm currently between WWI and WWII), based on the idea that the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center of civilization. Northern/We…

Franz Ferdinand was a fall guy.
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