Huge thanks to Dr. Goldsworthy for joining us today. As an avid reader of his books and a big fan of his on appearance on "Time Commanders", this has been a great honor. I'm also happy to hear that some of our work is of benefit to his own studies and look forwards to ongoing collaborations! What would you all like to see us work on or discuss? For now check out his own TH-cam channel: www.youtube.com/@AdrianGoldsworthytheAuthor
I love his books, fiction and non fiction. You can make happy just talking to each other about anything Roman related but for me nothing would be better than a discussion about De Bello Gallico.
Arausio would be also a very interesting topics for this kind of project. I think it is very much overshadowed by Cannae but it may have been an even worse disaster and it had in my opinion even farther reaching consequences than Cannae. Much that happened in the first century BC has roots in the Battle of Arausio.
@InvictaHistory I taught Ancient History for 45 yrs. One day you are authoritatively stating the difference between fact and fiction, and the next some Bugger digs up a crucial piece of evidence that proves the fiction might just be right and the fact is now just a possibility. ie - we dig up a building I Pompeii Reggio V last year that completely disproves the suggested date of the eruption and supports the winter date by way of a wall scribble.
Mentioning Time Commanders is a trip. For many of us Dr. Goldsworthy and the game Rome Total War are responsible for getting us into the classical period altogether.
I also have all of Mr. Goldsworthy’s book all of his nonfiction I also read his Novels not historical fiction just wonderful books. A great historian who freely admits what he knows and what no one knows by the evidence we have. Vindolanda is perhaps my favorite novel in my 350 Audiobooks library. Great characters exciting and funny as well “Hold my sword” read all 3 books you will laugh out loud when you read that line.
Dr Goldsworthy is a historian I was reading already as a young boy. I am now a historian myself, specialisation on the Rusdian civil war, but always with a big interest in Rome and Carthage. This is the TH-cam video of the year for me!
Oh, fascinating topic. How easy is it to find sources? Is a lot locked up in Russian vaults? Any books on it you can recommend? That conflict has always intrigued me.
@@TypdersichderTypnenn Coherent summaries are rare, but the war produced several waves of exile groups that produced lots of memoirs. „Western“ sources a for me more trustworthy since they did not undergo Soviet propaganda cleansing. Popular writer especially on Unraine is Timothy Snyder. Then Stanley Payne: „Civil War in Europe, 1905-1949“; Jonathan Smele: „The ‚Russian‘ Civil Wars 1916-1926“
@lutzcasper5285 thanks for the suggestions! Yeah, many parts of the war seem to be clouded in myth. Problem with western authors relying solely on exile memoirs is that the exiles also had very clear agendas. Would be lovely if historians could get access to all the sources, including the old soviet archives that must still exist somewhere, to get a clearer picture of the conflict.
It's true. He needs some production lessons if he wants the maximum amount of viewers. For me, his knowledge outweighs such concerns. Great channel. Some of the best Roman content!
@@InvictaHistory Goldsworthy's production value is perfect as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't want him to trade in any time he spends researching and talking about things he knows, for him doing video editing.
@@greghall4836 Neither would I, but maybe he could use someone who would help him in visuals. Knowledge is great, but in some cases visualizing all of this is pretty hard. So having good visual aids would be helpful.
Fantastic video, very credible and fascinating discussion. Seeing how each of you have approached the discourse with respect, research and grounded speculation has also given me immense respect for both invicta (and Julian particularly) and Professor Goldsworthy. Keep providing this outstanding content!
What a great video! Dr. Goldsworthy is such a pleasure to listen to and I really appreciated the presentation you gave him as well as yourself. It was a very pleasant balance! Hope to see more collaborations like this going forward!
I went to the ‘Society of Ancients’ Wargames reenactment depiction of the ‘Battle of the Sabis’ back in 2003 where I personally met Dr Adrian Goldsworthy… really nice guy btw and a pleasure to of met him in person and using my legionaries in our game was simply fantastic. We had a question time about what really happened at the battle… and whenever an audience member asked him a question regarding what happened/ tactics, etc etc, Dr Goldsworthy answer was: *“WE DON’T KNOW”* 😂😂😂😂😂
Great presentation. Kudos to Dr Goldsworthy for coming on and discussing the issues. Julian’s model, I think, just can’t realistically capture individual behavior in the arena, so to speak, where on the Roman side discipline and intervals begin to break down and the Romans compress into a mass in the center. His model has the legions and their subunits neatly maintaining their intervals even as they all come into contact. Can’t have happened that way.
My husband has spoken to Dr Goldsworthy many times regarding the Dacian Wars and the late roman army , Dr Goldsworthy is on of the outstanding minds in the world when it comes to Roman History, this is excellent stuff , kind regards from Brisbane Australia
I always respect the fact that he will say if something is unknown, but he doesn’t leave it at that, and explains why various theories do or don’t make sense in filling in the gaps of historical knowledge.
Hans Delbrück was one of the earliest historians to reconstruct ancient battles on physical battlefields to propose what actually happened. For Cannae, Delbrück has a different conception for the Roman formation: deep and narrow. The main infantry 70 men deep and only 800-900 meters wide given 55,000 main infantry. And not with the legions stacked up one behind the other, but the entire group arranged by age classification, i.e. hastati, principes, and triarii.
I agree, the Romans probably had the frontage of a typical consular army (2 double legions wide) but were four times deeper, actually an axis of velites, 4 axis of Hastati and 4 of Principes, plus another axis of Triarii, so instead of the standard "triple axis" (plus velites), they were deployed in 9 axis (plus velites). In such a deployment the frontage of the infantry totals 0.8 miles or 1.3km, perhaps even less than 1km if the subunit gaps were reduced or ommited. Such an extra deep formation better explains what unfolded, rather than a wider one: if the Romans were in a wider formation, the Carthagenian deployment, with half their numbers, would then be too thin to be able to stop them! A board game from GMT games pictures this deployment on scale rather well. th-cam.com/video/E_Zk5mu-Kz4/w-d-xo.html
We desperately need a podcast like this that brings on ancient historians for an hour plus to talk. There’s endless topics and fascinating historical things to talk about.
I haven't read Spartacus, I'll add it to my list, thanks! I've read Pax Romana. There are a few names used in the Vindolanda series that he took from real but not famous people featured in Pax Romana. Little details that made me enjoy the books even more. Now i want to read them again! Enjoy them when you find the time!
@@celsus7979 I also made a comment regarding his novels Vindolanda is one of my all time favorites. Great characters exciting story that moves right along. I wish he would spend more time in this genre. His newer nonfiction contains to much we just don’t know. Until we get new evidence upon which we can move history forward I say more novels please.
How awesome is Goldsworthy. Incredibly intelligent, insightful and humble. Cannae must be understood from the perspective of humanity / crowd dynamics.. not too dissimilar to Battles like Agincourt
Great video. Have you considered running your model with Goldsworthy’s extra compressed infantry and deeper cavalry lines? It would be interesting to see how this affects the mechanics of the battle. If it miraculously now matches the historical telling then maybe that’s a light suggestion that Goldsworthy was right after all. Or if not much changes you can be even more confident in your conclusions.
@@EldenRingClipsAndCriticalHits yeah, the whole conclusion that it's hard to encircle the whole roman army comes from the assumption that the line is so wide, reducing it by half would hugely reduce the perimeter needed and the distance that the cavalry and irregulars need to get behind roman lines
there is another model of cannae in which the romans pushed all their reserves into the center after the two cavalry wings broke, probably out of desperation, hoping to end the battle before they were enveloped, they broke through in a disorganised mass since all the formation was lost in the attempt. Hannibals reserves weren't on his wings but hidden behind the front, they swept in to the roman penetration from each flank and halted their momentum
Lesson learned: Amateur historians shouldn't be so quick to dismiss a professional historian. "This doesn't make sense" is not a scientific argument. Common sense is a red herring. These were uncommon men, acting under uncommon circumstances. If you base your arguments on "common sense", you end up with fanfic. Scientific facts rarely conform to common sense.
I think a very important thing to consider when modelling the effect and usual operation of both ranged skirmishers and cavalry is the basic motivation of fear. The cavalry doesn't want to commit or bunch because each individual is then liable to get 'caught', but each cavalryman that positions close to the line can control a long meterage of enemies simply by threatening each man's life with superior reach and maneuverability. Likewise each skirmisher doesn't want to get into range as the entire enemy front can then throw javelins in return, without having to split their targeting. Skirmishes with javelins "taking hours" to me indicates a prolonged game of cat-and-mouse where each line bulges forward trying to goad the other into overcommitting to suffer a decisive hail of javelins.
This is terrific! Thank you Dr. Goldsworthy for taking this new look. The older records were not by "military historians" - they didn't exist. The gist is that Cartharingians gave ground in the front, the Romans pressed in, and like a rugby scrum packed in trying to break through - when the wings collapsed and they were squeezed and lost cohesion and the survivors fled the field.
A thought I had watching this is that the cavalry did not need to physically block the Romans' rear. "Encirclement" seems to me that they Roman's were completely surrounded by men and physically blocked, but that doesn't need to be true. The cavalry simply need to make a barrier which no man can survive running through. If running away means instant death from cavalry, then men will stay in the safest place: the block of friendly troops. Which means that you don't need a cavalry force that can stretch the entire length, but just enough to have bands of troops cantering by killing anything that tries to escape.
@AngerAndScience The role of the cavalry is to break the formation of already fleeing by their presence and distance attacks with thrown weapons. One is not used to be attacked from the rear and so it shatters and shakes the will to fight and just basic survival sets in
the center controlled back peddle will cause a sort of sink drain of opposition formations funneling to the center who cant see. The flanks that are the very last to make contact dont gain ground at contact unintentionally flow to center from the illusion of greater forward momentum being first to engage is still moving forward causing a herd mentality to draw to the false illusion of forward momentum of a center charge breaking through and men following the direction of the motion only to expose the flank units from its reserves
Imagine being a soldier in the roman army looking around and seeing so many men marching with you and then being a carthaginian and seeing that army marching towards crazy people did this
I don't know much from Adrian Goldsworthy but he is referenced in Dan Carlins Hardcore History all the time, so I've heard the name many times, good to finally put a face with a name.
Haha! Welcome to Dr. Goldsworthy!!! I'm a massive fan and obvious patron of his TH-cam channel. Watch any of his videos, And at the beginning he will say I plan on doing this in 30 40 minutes 90 minutes later he still going and probably has another 4 hours he could lay down lol.
@@MichaelParks-h8d So am I and I was just making a silly little reference to exactly what he always says in his videos. I really enjoy his long format videos and cant really get enough :)
His thoughts about cavalry are very interesting to me. It's obvious that cavalry and infantery are different but the question is in exactly which aspects they differ. I had never thought about having different depths for their formations before
Shouldnt we just think of skirmishers as these units that were deployed onto the battlefield by both sides to cover the process of both armies deploying their formations? So when I think of how they did it and placed their signifiers at the correct distances from each other had their regiments form up, re-adjust and correct positions, pass orders. This just take a lot of time and while doing it the army probably is very vulnerable. Therefore commanders just send out their skirmishers in large formations that cover the entire plain to make sure the battlefield remains contested but that the opposing force cannot harass you and keep you from deploying properly?
The deserved influence of John Keegan's "Face of Battle" lives on. Although Keegan doesn't at length discuss ancient battles he looks at Agincourt (albeit a battle on a much smaller scale to Cannae) which also ended up as a battle of encirclement ( with the French themselves closing the rear with the advance of their second line sealing the fate of their colleagues ) and comes to similar conclusions about ranges, horses, infantry, archers. For instance, I suspect that slingshots at Cannae had the same effect as archers as Agincourt - a disruptive weapon, not a killing one, by forcing the Romans to keep their heads down, increasing the command and communications problems within the maniples. Keegan also discusses the disintegration of armies into crowds during his chapter on Waterloo, where he also mentions, as alluded to in the video, that there was a very limited viewpoint of each individual soldiers ( cannon smoke = Cannae dust !) . A big caveat: Keegan wrote "Face of Battle" way back in the 1970s and I would doubt some of his conclusions stand up fully today but as a starting point in the understanding of the mechanics of battle, there is still none better.
@bonetiredtoo Cannae is a battle of 130.000 men and Acincourt may be 20.000 and they are in no way similar. It is a bit like Acincourt, Waterloo and Dunkirk are the only three military concflicts theat are alwayas compared to everything else.
One of the things I'd love to see is something where you go through a few iterations with someone like Dr Goldsworthy and try out some ways of setting it up - for instance from this if you did compress the cavalry like he was mentioning, can you then fit this into the space he was initially marking out? That's where I think this goes from being interesting and a better way of visualizing the battle to a way to then not just study but test out theories about the battle - and potentially even empower new thought on some battles.
I'm a bit surprised figuring out what happened in a Roman battle is a bit more complicated than just "well, look at what Caesar/ Livy/ Polybius/ Appian said and just animate it"
The "crescent" clearly was made of three segments: Celts-Iberians-Celts. The Iberians would fight well but know how to retreat orderly, the Celts would just charge forward mindlessly. Everybody seems to think that Hannibal was unaware of the peculiarities of his "generic Phoenician" mercenaries, which were not Phoenician or Carthaginian almost at all but were made of different vassal and allied nations, each with their own fighting style. Hannibal just made them do what they did best.
The center is actually the most important segment as they must give ground without breaking and in fact at a certain point need to stop giving ground which causes the Romans to be literally trapped in a band of steel.
@@robertartiga7 - That's why you need "civilized" high quality troops there who know how to retreat orderly and are just not stormtroopers, like the Celts were suppossed to be (very brave but not very good at maneuver and faint).
Werent horses of the ancient classical era a bit smaller? Ive read they werent the same full size warhorses we have today. Would this impact anything if true? I wonder
i could see a more hearth shaped (not as pointy) roman army forming during the battle. when the center is moving forward the space is getting filled by flank or reserve troops eager for battle.
Dr. Goldsworthy's question about how Hannibal was able to anticipate the basic outlines of the Roman deployment is well-taken, but also, I think relatively easy to answer; the army the Romans brought to Cannae wasn't sufficiently drilled up nor were its component parts sufficiently integrated with one another for any other deployment to be practically feasible.
Now thats some interesting stuff, a full blown critique of method, sources, visualization and interpretation. I have had history of antiquities at university, this is considerably more detailed and refined.
One possibility for the retreat part is a question of how the fight happens If the fight is done by the soldiers in a side being either pushed back or retreating as he get tired behind his fellow soldiers, and when that happens he goes back to rest a bit behind the rest waiting for his turn again, not really on a rational way of asking "you fight now Im tired" but natural, may lead to a situation where the Romans are pushing back the center because of something like a rally point for them to recover to be further behind as ordered by Hannibal trying to hold the Romans, alternatively they can be giving ground because of the more men the Romans have, the greater depth allowing them to circle their men with a greater pace. In those times they get behind friends the Skirmishers may try helping either side soldiers with water and allowing for a quick rest. Maybe even some type for first aid for wounds
26:15 i think he might be in on to something, not the the influce of economus but varro draw up his lines similar to Regulus or n the battle of the Bagradas river (if memory serves) maybe Hannibal did have a plan for a situation like that and based hos tactics off of this.
this is perhaps the most famous and most studied of battles.....i did drop the videolink in adrians youtubesite, i dont know if he spotted it, or wether he found your video of other means or his own..either way, just glad that there is more examination of what is perhaps acknowledged as the most masterful battle of all time[if true] i shall enjoy the discussion and looking forward to the result :P [winks]
Thanks for an interesting debate. I have a copy of De. Goldsworthy's book "The Complete Roman Army" and treasure it when I need to understand the structure, administration, equipment and logistics involved with the typical legion in the later imperial period. I've also have a copy Peter Connolly's book "Warfare in the Ancient World" which helps me to envision strategies and tactics of different armies throughout ancient times and how they evolved. I was enthralled with the presentation the whole time.
It's still hard for me to accept Cannae as we're told it happened from Polybius and Titus. They both are too far removed from the event for me to be comfortable with the accuracy of what they're reporting. All the modeling is also too clean, too organized. For the size of the Roman force to be defeated by the Carthaginian force, I think that things had to have been even less standard than what is being depicted. I don't even know if I want to believe that the casualties were so high, I'm more inclined to believe that most of the Romans ran away rather than slowly being cut down for hours and hours and hours. Just think about how exhausting that would be, first of all. By the 50 thousandth Roman soldier being cut down in the encirclement it's hard for me to not imagine the Romans breaking out of that. Of course, the battle clearly had a massive impact and was spoken of for generations and generations, so some devastating defeat had to have happened, but I'm really not sold on the numbers that we've been told both in terms of deployment, and in terms of casualties. I'm wondering if maybe by Polybius' time the numbers were already greatly exaggerated - reinforced by time and the severity of the defeat.
Dr. Goldsworthy does actually talk about the accuracy of these accounts which includes evidence they consulted with more contemporaneous sources, descendants of survivors, and possible Greeks who had accompanied Hannibal on his campaigns
@@InvictaHistory No "eyewitness" can account for any amount or number and "eyewitnesses" are wrong all the time even in a simple car accident with 4 witnesses. They come out with five different accounts. What we got are narratives that are formed at camp fires over and over and over. History is to sort out the result of the telephone game.
Great video. A single factor is left unadressed: ancient battles were FORMATION battles. Even the fluid manniple was a formation fighting in a certain organised way. What Hannibal obviously (because of the outcome) did, was to DISRUPT the Roman formation beyond repair! While keeping his army's formation in a far better and functional state. Essentially, the Romans were utterly disrupted and started to fight either individually or in improvised units. And if you disrupt a crowd, panic settles in. People in the middle can't know what is happening, are compressed from all directions, orientation is lost, people not knowing where the enemy and where safety is. Sources explicitly state that the Romans became so crumped together they could no longer move their sword-arms. In such a state, if you are either in a cul-de-sac or a shandwitch, it doesn't make much difference, you are bottled in by enemies all around you. It's game over...
I woud really like to see a model with farm houses, hedges, orchards, ridges, dust and so on. I think that would give us a better understanding of the level of command and control possible. I think these perfectly flat battlefields make it seem too easy to maintain large perfect complex formations.
Years ago there were some computer generated models simulating crowd surges. There was an infamous football crowd surge that crushed a bunch of people. Maybe that can be incorporated into your Unreal model. A massive Roman army funneled into a small area negates their fighting capabilities. My question to this scenario is how would Hannibal’s army hold the line for a Roman Army to compress and crush itself?
All they had to do was terrify the front lines to stop the advance. Then the rear lines just crash into the front lines. The Romans after all had their greenest troops in front.
When I watched the previous video, it put me in mind of depictions of the solar system, where you are meant to just know that the whole thing has been compressed gives you no visual sense of scale.
I wonder did the inverted crescent simply lead the Romans to engage diagonally and then shorten their lines, while the Libyans could attack them on the flanks, exacerbated by the Carthaginians' feigned retreat in the bow. The Romans might not have panicked because they thought they were winning in the centre, which they thought was what mattered.
![[UNCUT] เก็บ "สจ.โต้ง" เอี่ยวมาเฟีย รู้ตัวคนบงการ ก่อนสั่งลั่นไก I คนดังนั่งเคลียร์ I 13 ธ.ค.67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/o-J_p62D40w/mqdefault.jpg)
Huge thanks to Dr. Goldsworthy for joining us today. As an avid reader of his books and a big fan of his on appearance on "Time Commanders", this has been a great honor. I'm also happy to hear that some of our work is of benefit to his own studies and look forwards to ongoing collaborations! What would you all like to see us work on or discuss? For now check out his own TH-cam channel: www.youtube.com/@AdrianGoldsworthytheAuthor
I love his books, fiction and non fiction. You can make happy just talking to each other about anything Roman related but for me nothing would be better than a discussion about De Bello Gallico.
He's the best. Thank you for having him. Great collaboration.
Arausio would be also a very interesting topics for this kind of project. I think it is very much overshadowed by Cannae but it may have been an even worse disaster and it had in my opinion even farther reaching consequences than Cannae. Much that happened in the first century BC has roots in the Battle of Arausio.
Will you be bringing him back say for some other battles like Caeser at Pharsalus
@InvictaHistory I taught Ancient History for 45 yrs. One day you are authoritatively stating the difference between fact and fiction, and the next some Bugger digs up a crucial piece of evidence that proves the fiction might just be right and the fact is now just a possibility. ie - we dig up a building I Pompeii Reggio V last year that completely disproves the suggested date of the eruption and supports the winter date by way of a wall scribble.
“If we conclude I was wrong about everything we have learned something.” This is why he is an excellent historian.
this is the mindset of a scientist, and a mindset that more people should have
@HorizonOfHope Being so passionate about something that being wrong is more exciting than being right. Most people will never be so lucky.
@@nemlas85 " *this is the mindset of a scientist* "
Interesting, that his mindset is embodied by a Christian.
A historian rather than a his storian!
@@bakters christians hate when they are wrong
Mentioning Time Commanders is a trip. For many of us Dr. Goldsworthy and the game Rome Total War are responsible for getting us into the classical period altogether.
yep yep
Oh wow! Adrian Goldsworthy! I love this guy!
Me too!!! I've got basically all his books and am sooooo thankful to now be in a position to actually chat together! Best Christmas present
@@InvictaHistoryI’m so jealous!
I also have all of Mr. Goldsworthy’s book all of his nonfiction I also read his Novels not historical fiction just wonderful books. A great historian who freely admits what he knows and what no one knows by the evidence we have. Vindolanda is perhaps my favorite novel in my 350 Audiobooks library. Great characters exciting and funny as well “Hold my sword” read all 3 books you will laugh out loud when you read that line.
Dr Goldsworthy is a historian I was reading already as a young boy.
I am now a historian myself, specialisation on the Rusdian civil war, but always with a big interest in Rome and Carthage. This is the TH-cam video of the year for me!
Oh, fascinating topic. How easy is it to find sources? Is a lot locked up in Russian vaults?
Any books on it you can recommend?
That conflict has always intrigued me.
Can you recommend any good books on the Russian Civil War? I know some, but there don't seem to be a whole lot available at my university.
You want to pop by his own channel.
@@TypdersichderTypnenn Coherent summaries are rare, but the war produced several waves of exile groups that produced lots of memoirs. „Western“ sources a for me more trustworthy since they did not undergo Soviet propaganda cleansing. Popular writer especially on Unraine is Timothy Snyder. Then Stanley Payne: „Civil War in Europe, 1905-1949“;
Jonathan Smele: „The ‚Russian‘ Civil Wars 1916-1926“
@lutzcasper5285 thanks for the suggestions! Yeah, many parts of the war seem to be clouded in myth.
Problem with western authors relying solely on exile memoirs is that the exiles also had very clear agendas. Would be lovely if historians could get access to all the sources, including the old soviet archives that must still exist somewhere, to get a clearer picture of the conflict.
This is so great! Never thought I`d see Goldsworthy here! What a collab!
This is awesome. Reading Goldsworthy is what sparked my lifelong interest in Roman history.
Same!
This is really refreshing and exactly how its supposed to be - constructive conversations instead of bitching and entrenched discussions
Goldsworthy actally has his own youtube channel as well
content is awesome but the production value and thumbnails are... uh... academic
It's true. He needs some production lessons if he wants the maximum amount of viewers. For me, his knowledge outweighs such concerns.
Great channel. Some of the best Roman content!
@@InvictaHistory Goldsworthy's production value is perfect as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't want him to trade in any time he spends researching and talking about things he knows, for him doing video editing.
@@InvictaHistory That is the appeal for me. I
@@greghall4836 Neither would I, but maybe he could use someone who would help him in visuals. Knowledge is great, but in some cases visualizing all of this is pretty hard. So having good visual aids would be helpful.
Fantastic video, very credible and fascinating discussion. Seeing how each of you have approached the discourse with respect, research and grounded speculation has also given me immense respect for both invicta (and Julian particularly) and Professor Goldsworthy. Keep providing this outstanding content!
About time Dr. Goldsworthy collaborates with you guys. He is the best historian for this period for my money!
HE DID IT. THE MADLAD ACTUALLY WENT AND GOT GOLDSWORTHY ON!
-Dr: You have 1,5 hour of life. What would you like to do?
-Me: ...
The crossover I wasn't expecting but the one I needed
What a great video! Dr. Goldsworthy is such a pleasure to listen to and I really appreciated the presentation you gave him as well as yourself. It was a very pleasant balance! Hope to see more collaborations like this going forward!
Dr. Goldsworthy has a channel now with long form episodes that are FASCINATING!
I went to the ‘Society of Ancients’ Wargames reenactment depiction of the ‘Battle of the Sabis’ back in 2003 where I personally met Dr Adrian Goldsworthy… really nice guy btw and a pleasure to of met him in person and using my legionaries in our game was simply fantastic.
We had a question time about what really happened at the battle… and whenever an audience member asked him a question regarding what happened/ tactics, etc etc, Dr Goldsworthy answer was: *“WE DON’T KNOW”* 😂😂😂😂😂
Haha glad you mentioned that as he shared the same anecdote with me as we chatted before this recording
Great presentation. Kudos to Dr Goldsworthy for coming on and discussing the issues. Julian’s model, I think, just can’t realistically capture individual behavior in the arena, so to speak, where on the Roman side discipline and intervals begin to break down and the Romans compress into a mass in the center. His model has the legions and their subunits neatly maintaining their intervals even as they all come into contact. Can’t have happened that way.
I’m midway through Dr. Goldsworthy’s book on the fall of the Roman Empire! Fantastic scholarship.
Love to see an expert open to discussion and criticism of ideas in order to further the mission of understanding.
My husband has spoken to Dr Goldsworthy many times regarding the Dacian Wars and the late roman army , Dr Goldsworthy is on of the outstanding minds in the world when it comes to Roman History, this is excellent stuff , kind regards from Brisbane Australia
I always respect the fact that he will say if something is unknown, but he doesn’t leave it at that, and explains why various theories do or don’t make sense in filling in the gaps of historical knowledge.
Hans Delbrück was one of the earliest historians to reconstruct ancient battles on physical battlefields to propose what actually happened. For Cannae, Delbrück has a different conception for the Roman formation: deep and narrow. The main infantry 70 men deep and only 800-900 meters wide given 55,000 main infantry. And not with the legions stacked up one behind the other, but the entire group arranged by age classification, i.e. hastati, principes, and triarii.
I agree, the Romans probably had the frontage of a typical consular army (2 double legions wide) but were four times deeper, actually an axis of velites, 4 axis of Hastati and 4 of Principes, plus another axis of Triarii, so instead of the standard "triple axis" (plus velites), they were deployed in 9 axis (plus velites). In such a deployment the frontage of the infantry totals 0.8 miles or 1.3km, perhaps even less than 1km if the subunit gaps were reduced or ommited. Such an extra deep formation better explains what unfolded, rather than a wider one: if the Romans were in a wider formation, the Carthagenian deployment, with half their numbers, would then be too thin to be able to stop them! A board game from GMT games pictures this deployment on scale rather well. th-cam.com/video/E_Zk5mu-Kz4/w-d-xo.html
We desperately need a podcast like this that brings on ancient historians for an hour plus to talk. There’s endless topics and fascinating historical things to talk about.
Love Adrians work! Thought Caesar and Pax Romana were excellent and I'm currently reading Phillip and Alexander, impressed so far.
His Vindolanda novels are good too! All the little drops of knowledge about life back then poured in to great characters and story.
@celsus7979 they're currently sitting on my (exceptionally long) to read list, excited to get to them. Ben Kanes Spartacus books got me into the genre
I haven't read Spartacus, I'll add it to my list, thanks!
I've read Pax Romana. There are a few names used in the Vindolanda series that he took from real but not famous people featured in Pax Romana. Little details that made me enjoy the books even more.
Now i want to read them again!
Enjoy them when you find the time!
This guy has written fascinating and excellent books on military history.
And excellent novels. I highly recommend the Vindolanda series.
@@celsus7979 I also made a comment regarding his novels Vindolanda is one of my all time favorites. Great characters exciting story that moves right along. I wish he would spend more time in this genre. His newer nonfiction contains to much we just don’t know. Until we get new evidence upon which we can move history forward I say more novels please.
How awesome is Goldsworthy. Incredibly intelligent, insightful and humble.
Cannae must be understood from the perspective of humanity / crowd dynamics.. not too dissimilar to Battles like Agincourt
I was addicted to Time Commanders as a child
Me too. They should really bring it back.
This was not the cross over I asked for, but the crossover I needed! My favorite Roman historian meets one of my favorite TH-cam channels! 🙏
Great video. Have you considered running your model with Goldsworthy’s extra compressed infantry and deeper cavalry lines? It would be interesting to see how this affects the mechanics of the battle. If it miraculously now matches the historical telling then maybe that’s a light suggestion that Goldsworthy was right after all. Or if not much changes you can be even more confident in your conclusions.
@@EldenRingClipsAndCriticalHits yeah, the whole conclusion that it's hard to encircle the whole roman army comes from the assumption that the line is so wide, reducing it by half would hugely reduce the perimeter needed and the distance that the cavalry and irregulars need to get behind roman lines
A true historian. And a true scholar love it. more of this type of content love open minded talks with scholars
I see Goldsworthy I press play. 👍
50:14
"Because the people who do it aren't socially important."
"Okay, so we can move onto the next phase."
👌
What a treasure. Completely enthralling from start to finish, thanks for this!!! Adrian's a great watch too on his channel.
there is another model of cannae in which the romans pushed all their reserves into the center after the two cavalry wings broke, probably out of desperation, hoping to end the battle before they were enveloped, they broke through in a disorganised mass since all the formation was lost in the attempt. Hannibals reserves weren't on his wings but hidden behind the front, they swept in to the roman penetration from each flank and halted their momentum
Lesson learned: Amateur historians shouldn't be so quick to dismiss a professional historian. "This doesn't make sense" is not a scientific argument. Common sense is a red herring. These were uncommon men, acting under uncommon circumstances. If you base your arguments on "common sense", you end up with fanfic. Scientific facts rarely conform to common sense.
I think a very important thing to consider when modelling the effect and usual operation of both ranged skirmishers and cavalry is the basic motivation of fear. The cavalry doesn't want to commit or bunch because each individual is then liable to get 'caught', but each cavalryman that positions close to the line can control a long meterage of enemies simply by threatening each man's life with superior reach and maneuverability. Likewise each skirmisher doesn't want to get into range as the entire enemy front can then throw javelins in return, without having to split their targeting. Skirmishes with javelins "taking hours" to me indicates a prolonged game of cat-and-mouse where each line bulges forward trying to goad the other into overcommitting to suffer a decisive hail of javelins.
This is terrific! Thank you Dr. Goldsworthy for taking this new look. The older records were not by "military historians" - they didn't exist. The gist is that Cartharingians gave ground in the front, the Romans pressed in, and like a rugby scrum packed in trying to break through - when the wings collapsed and they were squeezed and lost cohesion and the survivors fled the field.
A thought I had watching this is that the cavalry did not need to physically block the Romans' rear. "Encirclement" seems to me that they Roman's were completely surrounded by men and physically blocked, but that doesn't need to be true. The cavalry simply need to make a barrier which no man can survive running through. If running away means instant death from cavalry, then men will stay in the safest place: the block of friendly troops. Which means that you don't need a cavalry force that can stretch the entire length, but just enough to have bands of troops cantering by killing anything that tries to escape.
@AngerAndScience The role of the cavalry is to break the formation of already fleeing by their presence and distance attacks with thrown weapons. One is not used to be attacked from the rear and so it shatters and shakes the will to fight and just basic survival sets in
the center controlled back peddle will cause a sort of sink drain of opposition formations funneling to the center who cant see. The flanks that are the very last to make contact dont gain ground at contact unintentionally flow to center from the illusion of greater forward momentum being first to engage is still moving forward causing a herd mentality to draw to the false illusion of forward momentum of a center charge breaking through and men following the direction of the motion only to expose the flank units from its reserves
Imagine being a soldier in the roman army looking around and seeing so many men marching with you and then being a carthaginian and seeing that army marching towards crazy people did this
I don't know much from Adrian Goldsworthy but he is referenced in Dan Carlins Hardcore History all the time, so I've heard the name many times, good to finally put a face with a name.
Most reaction videos I have seen on TH-cam where in the range of 15-20 min. Adrians reaction was 1.5 hours - and he kept it short! :)
Haha! Welcome to Dr. Goldsworthy!!! I'm a massive fan and obvious patron of his TH-cam channel. Watch any of his videos, And at the beginning he will say I plan on doing this in 30 40 minutes 90 minutes later he still going and probably has another 4 hours he could lay down lol.
HBO show Rome*
@@MichaelParks-h8d So am I and I was just making a silly little reference to exactly what he always says in his videos. I really enjoy his long format videos and cant really get enough :)
Riveting stuff. I’m a huge fan of Adrian’s work. It’s extraordinary how far this channel has come. Great content.
His thoughts about cavalry are very interesting to me. It's obvious that cavalry and infantery are different but the question is in exactly which aspects they differ. I had never thought about having different depths for their formations before
Simply awesome. One of the best history chanels from abstandpoint of sources and academic rigour
I read his book How Rome Fell. I really enjoyed his works! That's actually pretty cool!
Awesome discussion! Dr. Goldsworthy is my favorite author.
Shouldnt we just think of skirmishers as these units that were deployed onto the battlefield by both sides to cover the process of both armies deploying their formations? So when I think of how they did it and placed their signifiers at the correct distances from each other had their regiments form up, re-adjust and correct positions, pass orders. This just take a lot of time and while doing it the army probably is very vulnerable. Therefore commanders just send out their skirmishers in large formations that cover the entire plain to make sure the battlefield remains contested but that the opposing force cannot harass you and keep you from deploying properly?
I think so too. Skirmishers doesn't need formations so they can trade shots and flexibly fight to screen and fend off harassments.
So cool of him to come on and discuss this!
These are great. Love that I found this channel.
Amazing seeing Dr. Goldsworthy here!
The deserved influence of John Keegan's "Face of Battle" lives on. Although Keegan doesn't at length discuss ancient battles he looks at Agincourt (albeit a battle on a much smaller scale to Cannae) which also ended up as a battle of encirclement ( with the French themselves closing the rear with the advance of their second line sealing the fate of their colleagues ) and comes to similar conclusions about ranges, horses, infantry, archers. For instance, I suspect that slingshots at Cannae had the same effect as archers as Agincourt - a disruptive weapon, not a killing one, by forcing the Romans to keep their heads down, increasing the command and communications problems within the maniples. Keegan also discusses the disintegration of armies into crowds during his chapter on Waterloo, where he also mentions, as alluded to in the video, that there was a very limited viewpoint of each individual soldiers ( cannon smoke = Cannae dust !) .
A big caveat: Keegan wrote "Face of Battle" way back in the 1970s and I would doubt some of his conclusions stand up fully today but as a starting point in the understanding of the mechanics of battle, there is still none better.
@bonetiredtoo Cannae is a battle of 130.000 men and Acincourt may be 20.000 and they are in no way similar. It is a bit like Acincourt, Waterloo and Dunkirk are the only three military concflicts theat are alwayas compared to everything else.
This was great! Awesome collab with Dr. Goldsworthy!
That was really enjoyable . Very informative and done in a very impressive , intelligent and engaging manner . Cheers chaps !
Lovely to see two scholors treating History as the Science it deserves to be. Bravo.
One of the things I'd love to see is something where you go through a few iterations with someone like Dr Goldsworthy and try out some ways of setting it up - for instance from this if you did compress the cavalry like he was mentioning, can you then fit this into the space he was initially marking out?
That's where I think this goes from being interesting and a better way of visualizing the battle to a way to then not just study but test out theories about the battle - and potentially even empower new thought on some battles.
Yo Professor Adrian! Fan of both channels, especially Adrians videos!😊❤
Holy crap you got the man myth and legend of Roman history himself!
I saw the title, and without reservations exclaimed,... Holy (Excrement). Instantly clicked, What an incredible collaboration!
A very entertaining discussion. Thanks to both of you.
9:41 did the skirmishers destroy fences and other farming stuff ahead of the main armies ?
Interesting thought!
I keep an eye on both these channels.
However, I haven't even got through all of the original video yet!
This is fantastic!
Time Commanders was a good bit of fun, although I only saw the season with Richard Hammond. What a surprise to hear mention of it here!
I'm a bit surprised figuring out what happened in a Roman battle is a bit more complicated than just "well, look at what Caesar/ Livy/ Polybius/ Appian said and just animate it"
Amazing, I remember seeing Adrian in many documentaries about Carthage and Rome, very cool 🎉 The good old days when Rome Total War first launched
Wow. Neat follow up.
The "crescent" clearly was made of three segments: Celts-Iberians-Celts. The Iberians would fight well but know how to retreat orderly, the Celts would just charge forward mindlessly.
Everybody seems to think that Hannibal was unaware of the peculiarities of his "generic Phoenician" mercenaries, which were not Phoenician or Carthaginian almost at all but were made of different vassal and allied nations, each with their own fighting style. Hannibal just made them do what they did best.
The center is actually the most important segment as they must give ground without breaking and in fact at a certain point need to stop giving ground which causes the Romans to be literally trapped in a band of steel.
@@robertartiga7 - That's why you need "civilized" high quality troops there who know how to retreat orderly and are just not stormtroopers, like the Celts were suppossed to be (very brave but not very good at maneuver and faint).
This was a great video. Very entertaining and informative.
Anyone here read Lazenby? How well has his analysis held up over the last few years?
Dr goldsworthy is an unbelievable expert. Just astonishing knowledge
Thanks for the video, really good collaboration and trying to get to the facts of these things.
Werent horses of the ancient classical era a bit smaller? Ive read they werent the same full size warhorses we have today. Would this impact anything if true? I wonder
i could see a more hearth shaped (not as pointy) roman army forming during the battle. when the center is moving forward the space is getting filled by flank or reserve troops eager for battle.
Dr. Goldsworthy's question about how Hannibal was able to anticipate the basic outlines of the Roman deployment is well-taken, but also, I think relatively easy to answer; the army the Romans brought to Cannae wasn't sufficiently drilled up nor were its component parts sufficiently integrated with one another for any other deployment to be practically feasible.
Now thats some interesting stuff, a full blown critique of method, sources, visualization and interpretation. I have had history of antiquities at university, this is considerably more detailed and refined.
Do you ever think to yourself "jeez, I'm a nerd.."? I do. It's fxcking great!
Didnt expect this at all super excited to watch this
This is excellent! Thank you!
Master Adrian Goldsworthy!!!
This Is what a react vid should be. Invite the other party AND debate all options.
Suggestion. Do the same with other battles, even better if know the order of battle, like more modern ones. That video was so entertaining.
One possibility for the retreat part is a question of how the fight happens
If the fight is done by the soldiers in a side being either pushed back or retreating as he get tired behind his fellow soldiers, and when that happens he goes back to rest a bit behind the rest waiting for his turn again, not really on a rational way of asking "you fight now Im tired" but natural, may lead to a situation where the Romans are pushing back the center because of something like a rally point for them to recover to be further behind as ordered by Hannibal trying to hold the Romans, alternatively they can be giving ground because of the more men the Romans have, the greater depth allowing them to circle their men with a greater pace.
In those times they get behind friends the Skirmishers may try helping either side soldiers with water and allowing for a quick rest. Maybe even some type for first aid for wounds
26:15 i think he might be in on to something, not the the influce of economus but varro draw up his lines similar to Regulus or n the battle of the Bagradas river (if memory serves) maybe Hannibal did have a plan for a situation like that and based hos tactics off of this.
Dr. goldsworthy has a youtube channel?! Happy days
this is perhaps the most famous and most studied of battles.....i did drop the videolink in adrians youtubesite, i dont know if he spotted it, or wether he found your video of other means or his own..either way, just glad that there is more examination of what is perhaps acknowledged as the most masterful battle of all time[if true] i shall enjoy the discussion and looking forward to the result :P [winks]
Thanks for an interesting debate. I have a copy of De. Goldsworthy's book "The Complete Roman Army" and treasure it when I need to understand the structure, administration, equipment and logistics involved with the typical legion in the later imperial period. I've also have a copy Peter Connolly's book "Warfare in the Ancient World" which helps me to envision strategies and tactics of different armies throughout ancient times and how they evolved. I was enthralled with the presentation the whole time.
It's still hard for me to accept Cannae as we're told it happened from Polybius and Titus. They both are too far removed from the event for me to be comfortable with the accuracy of what they're reporting. All the modeling is also too clean, too organized. For the size of the Roman force to be defeated by the Carthaginian force, I think that things had to have been even less standard than what is being depicted. I don't even know if I want to believe that the casualties were so high, I'm more inclined to believe that most of the Romans ran away rather than slowly being cut down for hours and hours and hours. Just think about how exhausting that would be, first of all. By the 50 thousandth Roman soldier being cut down in the encirclement it's hard for me to not imagine the Romans breaking out of that. Of course, the battle clearly had a massive impact and was spoken of for generations and generations, so some devastating defeat had to have happened, but I'm really not sold on the numbers that we've been told both in terms of deployment, and in terms of casualties. I'm wondering if maybe by Polybius' time the numbers were already greatly exaggerated - reinforced by time and the severity of the defeat.
Dr. Goldsworthy does actually talk about the accuracy of these accounts which includes evidence they consulted with more contemporaneous sources, descendants of survivors, and possible Greeks who had accompanied Hannibal on his campaigns
@@InvictaHistory No "eyewitness" can account for any amount or number and "eyewitnesses" are wrong all the time even in a simple car accident with 4 witnesses. They come out with five different accounts. What we got are narratives that are formed at camp fires over and over and over. History is to sort out the result of the telephone game.
Great video. A single factor is left unadressed: ancient battles were FORMATION battles. Even the fluid manniple was a formation fighting in a certain organised way. What Hannibal obviously (because of the outcome) did, was to DISRUPT the Roman formation beyond repair! While keeping his army's formation in a far better and functional state. Essentially, the Romans were utterly disrupted and started to fight either individually or in improvised units. And if you disrupt a crowd, panic settles in. People in the middle can't know what is happening, are compressed from all directions, orientation is lost, people not knowing where the enemy and where safety is. Sources explicitly state that the Romans became so crumped together they could no longer move their sword-arms. In such a state, if you are either in a cul-de-sac or a shandwitch, it doesn't make much difference, you are bottled in by enemies all around you. It's game over...
I woud really like to see a model with farm houses, hedges, orchards, ridges, dust and so on. I think that would give us a better understanding of the level of command and control possible. I think these perfectly flat battlefields make it seem too easy to maintain large perfect complex formations.
Random, but what application is being used to display the organized pages of data? Thanks in advance!
15 seconds in and i love that guy ❤
To me, this just sounds like there weren't as many Romans at Cannae as history recorded.
Years ago there were some computer generated models simulating crowd surges. There was an infamous football crowd surge that crushed a bunch of people. Maybe that can be incorporated into your Unreal model. A massive Roman army funneled into a small area negates their fighting capabilities. My question to this scenario is how would Hannibal’s army hold the line for a Roman Army to compress and crush itself?
All they had to do was terrify the front lines to stop the advance. Then the rear lines just crash into the front lines. The Romans after all had their greenest troops in front.
JUST finished Caesar a few days ago, reading Augustus now 👀😬 an honor!
Awesome!!
When I watched the previous video, it put me in mind of depictions of the solar system, where you are meant to just know that the whole thing has been compressed gives you no visual sense of scale.
Wargaming the battle with miniatures (1 man to 50 scale)using Impetus the cavalry are the key to a Carthaginian victory every time.
incredible vid
I wonder did the inverted crescent simply lead the Romans to engage diagonally and then shorten their lines, while the Libyans could attack them on the flanks, exacerbated by the Carthaginians' feigned retreat in the bow. The Romans might not have panicked because they thought they were winning in the centre, which they thought was what mattered.