Here’s what battles REALLY looked like | Modeling Roman Combat

Can only imagine the terror millions of men across history must've felt as they sat in formation, watching an enemy formation slowly close distance. We live good lives, comparatively

man that "calm before the storm" moment when Caesar's men stopped right before the charge to reform must have been insanely scary for the guys facing them. Imagine a sizable body of fully armored men jogging/sprinting towards you just to come to a full stop like 20 meters away, reform into a perfect line, and start advancing at a controlled pace. I'd fucking shit myself.

I love those movies and shows where they show two ancient armies marching up to each other in perfect formation, only for both sides to break ranks and charge at each other like the whole thing was only for show.

This video was made to be a first-of-its-kind, that dives into a topic that fascinates us all, but is nowhere to be found - the reality of ancinet warfare. This video took weeks to make, and every second of it was done for the purpose of everyone's enjoyment and knowledge. What's better is that Part 2 is half way done, and will be release in 1-2 weeks!

I've always thought that battles looked much more like riot control and group fights than hollywood style free for all or Total War robotic battles where units don't care about their own self preservation. In riot control for example you can see how protesters and police always keep a clear line between themselves at the start, throwing stuff at each other (rocks, molotovs, fireworks - flashbangs, smoke, water) with some small groups at times trying to cross the no-mans-land and fight before retreating or being pulled back by their allies that don't want to start an engagement, while other times instead you see that as the two masses move the shape of the no-mans-land changes with perhaps a confrontations starting at a point or two in the lines where from there it would expand as more people get involved in the fight, eventually encompassing the whole line as a full engagement starts, other times you would see one group be overwhelmed and run away with the other beginning a chase and violently attacking the retreating group (and even here this point is probably where generally the most damage is given) only for the retreating group to eventually regroup, make a new line to contrast the rushing group and counterattack to save their surrounded allies. You see similar things happen during football fans clashes though the engagements are a bit different because there is less formation fighting but still I think that it's no coincidence that often times riots and riot police tactics are often compared to ancient tactics (group formations, testudo, spear walls etc) because the nature of the engagement, technology used usually and the group psychology that controls the two masses should be fairly similar to ancient battles with the difference of course that in the past there was a much greater killing potential by both sides

You can still see the reluctance to get into a fight even in sports today. In fencing, for example, specifically in epee, there's a passivity rule that punishes the fencers if no points have been scored after a minute of fencing, which is quite common because neither fencer wants to give up a hit. The massive runaway scores then happen because the trailing fencer has to force attacks to get back into the game or be defeated by the clock. Obviously, this doesn't always happen, but when skill levels are close it's quite common. The rule itself was even created after a particular team engagement where the fencer in the trailing team knew he wouldn't be able to attack to regain points, whereas the fencer in the leading team saw no reason to attack in the first place, because it would only risk his team's lead. Consequently, they simply ran down the clock doing nothing at all. IIRC, this match (a world championship final or semifinal) was meant to be a demonstration of the dynamic nature of fencing to the IOC to convince them to keep it in the roster. Oops.

One thing that bothers me about this. Combat veterans. It seems to me the video is going on the idea that all the combatants are of the same experience. Not bragging just using my own experiences as a 22 year veteran. My first combat experience was in 1983 in Grenada. I was 20 when the first round whizzed by me I pissed myself. In retrospect I was glad it was raining. Fast forward 20 years and several combat tours to AFG 2003 , I was a SFC leading a 10 man patrol. We were pinned down by a force of at lest platoon strength who had good cover and were a 100 meters up a mountain with RPGs and at lest 1 NSV heavy machine gun. I had 3 wounded and we were taking cover in a small ravine . I half expected them to over run us. All we could really do is conserve ammo and wait for air support which I had called in. Out of the 10 men I had with me only 3 had taken fire before. We had been like this for 15 min or so and I looked down the line and saw 2 of these men were side by side and one was laying on his back the ravine being at an angle eating an MRE while his buddy kept look out. When he was finished they swapped places. When the second had finished I called them over. I had them go down the line and let the other 4 men have a break doing the same thing. Me being the first. My point with this long story is that soldiers will look to those who are fighting with them especially the ones with experience on how to act a lot of times before looking to their leader. I saw this time and time again. You get use to being in a life or death situation and it becomes your normal outlook on the world. My best example is being in a FOB and getting some decent sleep and the FOB came under mortar attack. I woke up listened to see which direction the fire was coming from and how close it was. Seeing that it was not coming close to me I went back to sleep, sleeping through the whole thing. In a Roman battle line for every 80 men there was a Centurion and by all accounts they lead from the front. Each Legion having approximately 59 Centurions. Also the whole front line was the lest experienced men and the deeper you went into the line them more experienced the soldier. With all the inexperienced men looking to the Centurion sand those with more experience than them for guidance. Do not under estimate the effect to training. It 's not a normal thing for one person to kill another. That is were training kicks in. I had an instructor to us one time tell us just that. And he was there to teach us otherwise. When your mind shuts down in combat and it does your training kicks in. All of this turns into morale. The most important thing in combat. At the time the Roman military was the best trained, best disciplined and equipped military of it's time. I call into question the statement that a whistle could not be heard over the din of battle. If 20 soldiers can hear my command to cease fire while modern weapons are being used and while wearing helmets that provided some hearing protection the Romans could hear a whistle. Those around the Centurion most certainly could. Who more than likely would use some sort of hand signal to those in front of them to get them to switch places. As I did as a paratrooper when finishing the soldier who was in front of me equipment check after we stood up minutes before we went out the door by smacking his helmet a couple times. You cannot hear a thing in the jump bay of a C-130 with 2 doors open or the rear door open, it's as good as being deaf. Going back to discipline and morale. I doubt very seriously that there was much there was much screaming or talking in the battle lines of a Roman legion, I point to discipline and training. In hand to hand combat there is little if any talking it takes to much air, energy and breaks your concentration. Do you see Boxers or MMA in a fight talking or yelling at each other in the ring. They might in a clinch. The idea of yelling while running into combat is stupid and mostly a Hollywood thing. A Roman front line while moving to engage would have been silent and moving no more than at a military pace. I only ran in combat for one thing only to get out of the line of fire. The Romans knew well the effect of morale. The sight of a Roman battle line coming at you no sound other than them walking, while maintaining formation would rattle all but the best trained soldiers. Look to warfare in the Napoleonic era and WW 1 trench war fare to see good examples of training and discipline. There are other things these are just the things that came to me first. My apologies for such a long post. I like to explain things when disagreeing it saves misunderstandings. Thanks for reading till the end. I am going to go get a beer and some popcorn ready for all the Carl's to tell me how wrong I am etc.

It's an amazing to see how different this is than Hollywood's representation of Roman battles. The psychological aspect that you have captured is absolutely spine chilling. Awesome video, can't wait to see part 2!

oh I already know I'm gonna bust with this video

This taught me more about battle and war than absolutely anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I always felt that the missing piece was self-preservation when it came to battles and war in media. The idea that people don’t understand that everyone wants to win but no one wants to fight or die. But it makes so much more sense. Also the feeling of almost no battle being a close one in matchmaking in video games or sports is an amazing observation.

So glad to see you tackling these challenging but deeply interesting topics!

Great material! Thanks a lot! :) Can't wait to see the continuation!

I’m actually happy you covered this! This would mold greatly with writers and reenactments of battles for ages to come with this perspective!

I recommend anyone interested in this topic to read the text "VISUAL EVIDENCE FOR ROMAN INFANTRY TACTICS" by Dr. Michael J. Taylor, as well as his "ROMAN INFANTRY TACTICS IN THE MID-REPUBLIC: A REASSESSMENT".

I actually did my dissertation on this exact subject at university, where I looked into the importance of soldier psychology in ancient warfare, even comparing some of Rome's training excercising with modern improvements made in training between WW2 and Vietnam. This model is excellent and I find myself agreeing with 99% of it. I'm glad models like these are steadily becomming more and more accepted.

Thank goodness, I have had the question of what frontline combat in ancient/medieval battles looked like for forever, I'm so glad you are making these vids!

I was curious about that for a loooong time, thank you for explaining it in a simple way.

Excellent video and animation about a very interesting and unknown topic, looking forward to part 2!

Cant wait for part 2!! Amazing stuff.. in movies they always portrait it as large casualties on both sides, brave soldiers on both sides but it is much more likely most soldiers were fearful and just tried to survive.

An excellent video. As someone who studies and practices the ancient battle/duel techniques, this information is invaluable. It really does help paint the picture of a realistic and accurate battlefield. Simply learning the techniques of fighting is not enough as the psychology and strategy are much more important. Thank you very much for this. P.S. Would you consider doing a video of the effects of cavalry charges upon infantry? I know it wasn't as common for the Romans but I often wonder how a cavalry charge would be executed and how effective they were against a formation of soldiers.