Re: flu
- From: Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 01 May 2009 17:59:55 -0400
Nobody wrote:
On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:06:17 -0400, Phil Hobbs wrote:
Nonsense. The most famous use of decimation was after the Roman rout at the battle of Cannae. From "Cannae" by Gregory Daly:I guess I've been corrected on this, but I'm appalled that anyone wouldThey didn't; the foot soldiers of the Roman army weren't Romans.
execute one out of ten of their _own_ people.
Er, what in that quote is supposed to be relevant?Because the Roman soldiers executed each other. No "us and them" as you maintained.
I took you're "nonsense" as disputing that the soldiers weren't Romans.
The executions may have been carried out by the soldiers, but the decision
would have been made by the (Roman) commanders. If a unit didn't carry
out the order, they would all have been killed.
By whom? Either by adopting the same strategy at one level up (ordering
the remaining units to kill the non-compliant ones), or failing that by
another legion of another race.
The whole essence of the way that a small nation (Rome) could control a
vast empire lay in their ability to use one subject people against another.
We're probably mostly talking past each other. Being a Roman citizen was different from being a resident of the city of Rome. Most soldiers in the Imperial era were obviously not natives of the city of Rome, but a great many were citizens (and the rest became citizens on being demobilized, iirc).
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
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