Top 30 History Changing Mistakes Pdf Notes

Most important mistakes that had changed the history of the world and also important to have knowledge of these mistakes for CSS Examination.

                                       1
                               AMBITION
            The Mistake That Made the West
            499 BCE
It can be argued that this mistake set into movement the events that created and preserved Western culture as we know it today. This is why it is included here a bit out of chronological order. The world as we know it today all began with a very bad judgment made by the tyrant of the Ionian city-state of Miletus. His name was Aristagoras, and his mistakes began a chain of events that are still being played
out today. The city of Miletus was located on the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea, in an area known as Ionia. That entire coast was controlled by Persia, and the tyrant and historicity owed both allegiance and taxes to Darius I.
To understand Aristagoras’ mistake you need to take a
look at the world as it was in 499 BCE, more than 2,500
years ago. The fastest means of communications was a
message sent by horseback, and it took weeks for
communications from Darius I to reach a distant city such as
Miletus. It also took months for Darius to raise an army from
the heart of the Persian empire and march it to a distant
satrapy, a Persian province, such as those on the Aegean
coast. Miletus was in the boonies, the far end of the empire.
What this meant in practical terms was that the tyrants,
men in absolute control of an area or city for Darius I,
operated on their own as kings, called satraps.
There was also a lot of competition among the Persian
satraps. Everyone wanted to look good so that they could
be promoted to more prestigious and comfortable positions
in the capital of Babylon. The problem for this particular
satrap was that Greek Aegean cities like Miletus were
neither important nor prestigious. Men such as Aristagoras
needed to do more than just be competent to get noticed;
they needed to do something spectacular that attracted the
attention and approval of a distant emperor. Only then were
they given more control of a richer and more important
satrapy or even a coveted position in the Babylonian court.
Off the coast of Ionia, in the Aegean Sea, is the island of
Naxos. This island had on it a city-state in what we would
call today the sphere of influence of Persia. Darius had
appointed a tyrant to rule in his name and collect taxes. Yes,
even at the dawn of civilization it was all about taxes. But
being farther from the center of the Persian empire than
even Miletus, the men of Naxos felt that they could throw
out the tyrant Darius has assigned, and the island was too
far from the capital for him to react. So Naxos declared its
independence and executed the satrap. Being separate and
independent lowered their taxes and gave the city’s
merchants more freedom to trade where they wanted.
Those economic considerations were the more likely source
of inspiration for the revolt rather than any philosophical
need for freedom or democracy as we think of them today.
At the time, the rights of men or the right to rule were
vague concepts at best, but self-interest was just as strong
a motivator then as now.
Aristagoras saw this nearby revolt as an opportunity. If he
could recover Naxos for Persia, that might earn him some
real credit with Darius. At a minimum, he could add the
island to his satrapy, increasing his own importance and tax
revenue. But the tyrant of Miletus had a problem. He could
raise an army, but Naxos was an island, and he had no ships
with which to transport his men to Naxos. To solve this
problem, he cut a deal for the loan of the fleet controlled by
the satrap of the larger and richer Lydia. This deal had a
double advantage. That satrap, Artaphernes, happened to
also be Darius I’s brother. His involvement guaranteed that
news of Aristagoras’ victory would make it to court. Then
the tyrant hired one of the top admirals of the day,
Megabates. He was an experienced and proven commander
for the expedition. It was a good move right up until
Aristagoras publicly insulted the seaman. In revenge,
Megabates warned the citizens of Naxos that the invasion
was coming. The island armed and prepared its defenses
and put away food supplies, so that by the time Aristogoras’
ships arrived, the islanders were more than ready to deal
with the invading soldiers. After four months of frustration
and defeat, Aristagoras and his army were forced to retreat
back to Miletus.
This created a very serious problem for Aristagoras. In
exchange for the use of his fleet, the tyrant of Miletus had
promised the brother of the emperor a large portion of
spoils from Naxos. He had also agreed that after he
conquered Naxos, he would use the same army to assist in
the conquest of the city of Euboea and the area around it for
the Lydian satrapy. But having failed to conquer Naxos and
with his army crippled, Miletus was in no position to conquer
anyone else, and he had no loot to divide. This put
Aristagoras in a very difficult situation. He had made these
promises to Darius’ brother, not just another local leader.
The probable result of his military failure on Naxos was
going to be, at the very least, exile and most likely
execution—in a very unpleasant manner.
Aristagoras must have been a tremendously persuasive
speaker. Knowing he was going to suffer at the hands of the
Persian empire, he convinced the people of Miletus to revolt
against Persia. Cultural differences and distance may have
helped. The people of Miletus were culturally Greek and had
more ties to and trade with the cities of Greece than to
distant Babylon. Then the soon-to-be-former tyrant of
Miletus was able to convince a few of the other former
Greek colonies ruled by Persia, also on the eastern Aegean
coast, to join in and follow his leadership. His success in
persuasion was even more impressive considering that the
whole situation followed from Aristagoras’ being unable to
crush an identical revolt by the Greek-speaking people of
Naxos.
As the new leader of the Greek revolt, Aristagoras then
looked for allies. He offered gold and trade rights in order to
entice assistance from cities on the Greek mainland. Sparta
turned him down, but Athens and Ephesus decided to
support the revolt. There had to be some element of pride
or financial benefit for this, considering that the Persian
empire was unrivaled in power and size at that time. It is the
equivalent today of Italy offering military support to the
residents of Bangor, Maine, in a revolt against the United
States. A tremendous mismatch at best. Still, two of the
leading cities of Greece sent ships and soldiers to Ionia.
Even though he wanted to assist his brother, there was
nothing Darius I could do quickly. It took time to gather an
army and even more time to march it halfway across his
empire. A joint Ionian, Athenian, and Ephesian army
marched on Sardis, the capital of Lydia, ruled by
Artaphernes, the emperor’s brother whom Aristagoras had
stiffed after his failure. The Greeks and rebels managed to
surprise the city and were inside before an effective defense
could be offered. Artaphernes and his soldiers retreated into
the Citadel, a castlelike area in the center of the city, and
held out. The Greek and Ionian army then pillaged the rest
of the city. The Greeks set Sardis on fire, and the brother of
the Persian emperor could do nothing but watch as his
capital burned around him.
Not long after Sardis lay in ashes, Darius I’s army arrived
to assist his brother. It managed to catch the retreating
Greek army and quickly defeated it. They killed or enslaved
most of the rebels, including Aristagoras. Only the Athenians
were able to escape this fate by hurriedly boarding their
boats and sailing back to Athens.
The Persian emperor and his family never forgot what the
Athenians did. Up until then, the Greek cities had been
considered too poor and too remote to be worth conquering.
The burning of Sardis had dramatically demonstrated that
the Greeks should be considered a threat to the Persian
empire, and the Persian empire could not and did not
tolerate threats.
If Aristagoras had not overreached himself, insulted his
admiral, and then led a revolt to save his own hide, it is
quite possible that Persia would not have paid much
attention to the relatively poor and small Greek cities
beyond that empire’s border. If Athens had not meddled in
another country’s revolt, then the world would be most
different. The mistakes Aristagoras made, from insulting his
admiral to starting a self-serving and hopeless revolt, began
the Greco-Persian wars that included the Battle of Marathon,
the famous stand of the 300 Spartans, and eventually
Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia. Without the
impetus of the Persian threat, Philip of Macedon might never
have been able to unite Greece. Western culture might
never have been forced to grow to greatness. The much
greater Persian empire could have continued to dominate
the Western world for centuries longer than it did, and the
world today would look very different. It would have been a
world in which the Persian values of subservience to the
state and a strong central ruler were more important than
the Greek values involving personal rights and pride in
individual accomplishments. The world is as it is today all
because a local Persian politician, ruling a city at the far
edge of the empire, got too ambitious.
                                                       2
                                      AHEAD OF HIS TIME
                                      A Pharaoh Goes Too Far
                                      1390 BCE
Some great thinkers are years ahead of their time, whereas
others are millennia ahead of theirs. Pharaoh Akhenaten
proved to be the latter when he took on Egypt’s most
powerful icons, the gods. Had he succeeded, the world
might have experienced a large-scale movement of
monotheism a thousand years before the Hebrew Bible was
written. Instead, his overzealous tendencies virtually buried
his newfound faith. This was a time when the pharaoh was
considered a god, so it took a lot of effort for the Egyptian’s
living god and messenger to the other gods to alienate
almost his entire population, but somehow Akhenaten
managed to do just that.
Akhenaten inherited a vast empire when he came to
power in 1390 BCE. His father, Amunhotep III, set up
diplomatic relations with the surrounding kingdoms and
created an era of peace and tranquility. This golden age in
Egyptian history gave rise to the cult of Amun-Ra, who was
praised above all other gods because he brought great
abundance to the Fertile Crescent. As Amun-Ra’s status
increased, so did that of his priests. They controlled onethird of the country’s wealth and soon became as powerful
as the pharaoh himself. Amunhotep must have recognized
the threat because he started showing interest in the god
Aten, and when the pharaoh favors a god, the people
generally follow suit. This is probably just what Amunhotep
hoped for. Whatever his plan, he would not see it come to
light. When he died in 1352 BCE, Akhenaten took up the
reins under the name Amunhotep IV; however, in just a few
short years, he turned the Egyptian world on its ear.
The first noticeable change that occurred after the
succession came in the form of art. Depictions of the royal
family at this time have a surprisingly realistic look. The
pharaoh and his wife, Nefertiti, were shown with full,
shapely bellies and thin torsos. They were also seen playing
with the royal children and kissing them. In every way, she
was shown to be his equal. Compared to modern times
when members of royal households have their own talk
shows and presidents spend nights on late-night talk-show
circuits, this seems rather minuscule. But in ancient Egypt,
this was sheer vulgarity.
This was only the beginning. Next, the pharaoh changed
his name from Amunhotep, meaning “Amun is satisfied,” to
Akhenaten, meaning “one who is beneficial to Aten.” This
slap in the face to the priests of Amun-Ra was a direct
challenge. Akhenaten began closing the temples to Amun
and redistributing funds given to them by the government.
Like the priests who said only they could communicate to
Amun-Ra, the pharaoh said he was the son of Aten and had
a direct line of communication with him. He went one step
further by abandoning the old gods and declaring that Aten
was the only god. The plural form of the word “god” was no
longer used. Put in perspective, this would be like today’s
Congress passing a law forbidding people to watch
television.
These drastic changes were still not enough for the new
pharaoh to ensure power over the people. The priests of
Amun retained significant influence in the capital city of
Thebes, so Akhenaten undermined them even more by
moving the capital to a more remote location in the desert.
He called his new capital Akhetaten, meaning “the horizon
of the sun.” Tens of thousands of people were expected to
make the move to what must have seemed like a wasteland.
Mass building projects began almost immediately. The new
city would have all the amenities: palaces, lakes, and, most
important, the temple to Aten. Much of the country’s
resources were tied up in new building projects. In fact, so
much of Akhenaten’s efforts went into building his new city
that he forgot the importance of maintaining the good
relations that his father established with the neighboring
countries. Lines of communications and diplomacy were all
but broken.
In the twelfth year of Akhenaten’s reign, tragedy struck.
His beloved Nefertiti suddenly disappeared from all records.
The reason for this is a bit of a mystery, but what is known
is that Akhenaten launched a full-scale war against AmunRa and his priests. He tried to eradicate all traces of the
name Amun. He even went so far as to defile his father’s
name by scratching out the “Amun” from Amunhotep. All his
energies turned toward the destruction of Amun. Akhenaten
began to neglect the needs and will of his own people. The
country slowly began to spiral downward. Blame for this was
laid on Akhenaten for angering Amun-Ra, but the jilted god
soon had his revenge. In 1336 BCE, Akhenaten died, leaving
his nine-year-old son, Tutenaten, as his successor. People
began to flee back to Thebes in droves, and all construction
at the new capital city stopped.
Immediately after Akhenaten’s death, the priests of
Amun-Ra reestablished their dominance in the community.
Then they went to work on the young pharaoh. Gaining
control over the naive leader proved to be an easy task.
They pressed him into changing his name to Tutankamun,
meaning “the image of Amun.” Tutankamun then issued a
statement, under the “guidance” of the priests, faulting his
father for Egypt’s decline. Akhenaten was declared a
heretic. All images of him and his queen were defaced or
destroyed, and the capital city was knocked down stone by
stone. The name of Akhenaten was erased from Egyptian
history and his father’s god, Aten, was reduced to a minor
status.
Akhenaten’s dream of monotheism through the god Aten
never came to fruition. By pushing his new religion too
strongly, Akhenaten guaranteed its failure. Had he been a
better and wiser pharaoh, this might not have been the
case. Certainly a thousand years later another monotheistic
religion that was introduced from the bottom up and against
great resistance, Christianity, joined Judaism as a
monotheistic faith.
Of course, this is not the end of the story. How, you ask,
do we know anything about Akhenaten? The answer lies in
the very stones used to build the city of Akhetaten. These
small stones, called talatat, were much smaller than the
ones used to build the pyramids. They could be easily
transported, allowing building projects to progress at a
faster rate than before. Unfortunately, they could also be
destroyed with the same swiftness. After dismantling the
abandoned city, workers used these same talatat as filler for
buildings in Thebes. As a result of being able to study the
stones and even reconstruct sections of the original walls
they came from, we now know more about Akhenaten’s
dynasty than perhaps any other Egyptian dynasty. But the
stones were not the only thing uncovered by modern
archaeologists. In 1922, Howard Carter made the discovery
that has yet to be matched, the tomb of the boy king,
Tutankamun. Hidden in the glory of the magnificent riches
hung a depiction of King Tutankamun and his wife. Etched in
pure gold, the king and his wife stand basking in the rays of
the sun god, Aten.
                                                      3
                                            SHORTSIGHTED
                                           Divided We Fall
                                           1020 BCE
The Jewish kingdom began its rise to being a regional power
under King Saul in 1020 BCE. His successor, David, raised
the status of Israel to that of a major local power using a
combination of diplomacy and military successes. It was
David who truly united the twelve Israeli tribes into a single
kingdom, with its capital city at Jerusalem, when he
defeated Ishbaal in 993 BCE. David was followed by
Solomon, who ruled—well, okay, I have to say it—wisely
until 931 BCE. At that point, Israel was a rich and fairly
powerful state tied by treaty with all its neighbors, and it
was more than capable of defending itself. Israel under
Solomon was a rich trading crossroads; it had developed its
copper and other metal industries, and many new cities and
towns were founded and old ones fortified. It was under
Solomon that the Temple in Jerusalem was built.
The problem arose after Solomon died. To begin with,
Israel was prospering, but the Jewish people under Solomon
had been subjected to an ever-increasing burden of taxation
to pay for defense (including a strong army) and the Temple.
So when Solomon died in 931, there was an open rebellion
by the ten smaller northern tribes. Under the leadership of
Jeroboam, a former court official, they split with the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin and founded a kingdom in the northern
half of the formerly united Jewish land and established the
new capital at Samaria. The two remaining tribes formed
the new nation we call Judah, which was ruled by David’s
son Rehoboam and whose capital remained Jerusalem;
Judah continued to be ruled by the descendants of David.
Somehow during the split, the Jewish people lost the size
and prestige needed to stay an important regional power.
Less than 200 years later, the Kingdom of Israel was
defeated by the Assyrians, and its people were scattered
throughout the Assyrian empire, where they soon lost their
identity. These are the ten lost tribes. Judah managed to
hang on for more than another century before it was
overwhelmed by the Babylonians, in 586 BCE. By deciding
to split apart, the Jewish tribes may have dealt with
immediate problems, but they forever lost the opportunity
to become a realm strong enough to survive. Had the
kingdom not split, the Jews would likely have been able to
maintain themselves as a nation and a people. After all,
Judah was able to survive its fall to the Assyrians, and a
united Jewish kingdom might have done so as well. Who
knows what such a state might have achieved?
                                               4
                                   MISPLACED TRUST
                                   A Slave Changes History
                                   480 BCE
It was a time when civilization in the West was divided
between two cultures. The largest was the Persian
centralized empire, which was based on having an allpowerful ruler with little regard for the individual. The other
culture was much more dynamic, but smaller and poorer; it
was the emerging democracy of Greece. In spite of the fact
that there were places in ancient Greece with dictatorial and
oppressive city-states, such as Sparta, individual heroism
was honored. It is a divide we still see today in the different
values found in Iran, Iraq, and the other nations that are
descended from ancient despots, and Western cultures that
are descended from the Greek traditions.
In 480 BCE, things had not gone all that well for Xerxes,
ruler of the Persian empire, particularly in regard to his
invasion of Greece. His object was to revenge his father’s
loss at Marathon and to incorporate the impudent and
pugnacious Greek city-states into the Persian empire. The
free city-states were both a direct threat and a threatening
example to the many diverse peoples in his empire,
especially those of Greek descent.
The war had started well, with the construction of a
remarkable bridge across the Hellespont (the Dardanelles
now dividing modern-day Istanbul). This bridge still is
considered one of the great engineering achievements of
ancient times. The crossing was followed by the rapid
conquest of Macedonia and a number of smaller Greek
cities. Then Xerxes’ army marched south along the coast of
Greece to Athens. Numbers in ancient battles are often
exaggerated, but it is likely the Persian emperor had as
many soldiers in his army as there were residents of the city
itself. The people of Athens had fled to the safety of the
Aegean islands, many to the nearby island of Salamis. The
resistance of the few Athenians who had instead retreated
to the city’s citadel was easily squashed. Then the most
important and richest city in Greece was burned to the
ground. This may well have been in belated revenge for the
burning of the Lydian capital (see page 4) twenty years
earlier. But Xerxes’ destruction of Athens had come only
after his army took painfully high losses while forcing the
pass at Thermopylae against the 300 Spartans and 6,700
other Greek warriors, mostly from Thespiae. These losses
led to extremely low morale among the men of the Persian
army, including the generals.
The Persian army continued to march southward, easily
conquering smaller cities along the coast, while being well
supplied by a steady stream of ships sailing from many of
the empire’s ports, just across the Aegean Sea. Control of
the seacoast was important because cargo ships were the
only way Xerxes could supply his massive army. There
simply was not enough food and fodder in all of northern
Greece to keep his army fed. The need for the Persians to
maintain this naval supply line was perhaps the only
vulnerability the greatly outnumbered and often
argumentative Greeks could exploit.
Since the time when Xerxes broke through at
Thermopylae, there had been a series of violent storms on
the Aegean Sea. Because there had to be a steady stream
of supply ships and triremes to guard them, there was
always a good part of the Persian navy at sea. The result
was that more than a third of the navy had been lost in the
storms. This, however, still left Xerxes with four times as
many warships as those of all the Greek cities combined.
Things seemed to be looking up for the Persian emperor. It
was the era of oared galleys, triremes, and larger vessels,
and men rowed into battle and sunk their opponents using
massive bronze rams. The Greek city-states had gathered all
of their ships into one fleet, totaling about 370 triremes,
under the command of Themistocles. Being so outnumbered
meant that a battle in open waters just guaranteed they
would be flanked, surrounded, and sunk. All of the Greek
ships had fled into the narrow waters between the island of
Salamis and the shore near Piraeus. There, in true Greek
fashion, the captains vehemently debated whether to fight
or flee in the hope of a decisive land victory that might
come when the Persians fought an even more badly
outnumbered Greek army led by Sparta. This army was
preparing a defense at the narrow entrance to the southern
peninsula of Greece, the Peloponnesus.
The remaining Persian fleet still consisted of over 1,200
triremes, all manned by Phoenician, Greek, and Egyptian
sailors who were experienced in battles fought on the open
sea. Many of the Persian ships were also much larger, if less
maneuverable, than the Greek ships, and they often held
more than twice as many warriors. Those extra soldiers on
the larger Persian ships were a significant factor at a time
when the only two naval tactics were ramming and
boarding. So Xerxes had every reason for confidence. His
fleet was much larger than that of the Greeks, who were
understandably reluctant to sail out into battle. They
seemed to be cowering in the narrow passage even as the
Persian emperor watched from the heights above. Xerxes
was so confident that he had a throne built and scribes
ready to record the names of his captains who distinguished
themselves in the upcoming victory.
Understandably, Xerxes was more worried about the
Greek triremes slipping out the other side of the straits than
of losing the sea battle. He anticipated a retreat by the
Spartan captains by sending a large contingent of Egyptian
triremes around Salamis to close the “back door.” Even with
them gone, Xerxes had a three-to-one advantage in number
and larger ships; plus time was on his side. As long as the
Greek fleet was penned up, his army could be supplied
without interference as it moved down the Greek coast. If it
broke through to the Peloponnesian peninsula, there would
not even have to be a naval battle. And with the Greek fleet
trapped between his ships, there was nothing to stop that
march, and the Greeks knew this. All Xerxes had to do was
wait for the Greeks to come out and watch the slaughter.
It was at this point that a slave named Sicinnus appeared.
He had been Themistocles’ personal servant. When he
swam ashore, he demanded to see Xerxes. The emperor
met and questioned the escaped slave, who informed him
the Greek fleet was in disarray. Disagreements were so
intense that there was a good chance that the largest
contingent, the Athenians, would side with the Persians in
hopes of mercy and future prominence in a Persiancontrolled Greek satrapy.
There is no way to understand why Xerxes chose to
change his strategy of waiting for the Greeks to emerge
based on the words of one escaped slave. Perhaps it was a
case of overconfidence. Certainly Sicinnus was telling the
emperor what he wanted and expected to hear. It would not
be the first time that the fractious Greeks were arguing with
one another, and they were easy prey. Xerxes’ decision to
believe Sicinnus was a mistake that changed history forever.
It was time, Xerxes thought, to end the standoff and
complete his conquest while the enemy was divided and
unready. Preparations were made for the Persian ships to
enter the straits the next morning.
The problem for the Persians was that it was all a lie.
Sicinnus was devoted to Themistocles and was soon both
rewarded and freed by the Athenians. Later, he set up his
own successful business in Thespiae, where he became a
full citizen. Xerxes really should have gotten the hint and
called the attack off when Sicinnus disappeared that night.
But he didn’t.
The Battle of Salamis
So the next morning, based on no more than the word of
an escaped slave of the enemy admiral who was nowhere to
be found just hours after speaking with him, Xerxes ordered
the Persian navy to enter narrow waters between Salamis
and the Greek mainland. Rather than being in conflict, every
Greek ship was prepared and ready to follow Themistocles’
battle plan.
Rowing with the oars of one ship almost touching those of
the trireme on either side, in a solid line formation 100
galleys wide, the Persians entered the Straits of Salamis. It
certainly was a slaughter, but not the one the Persian
emperor expected. In the tight waters, the larger Persian
ships could not maneuver as well as the smaller Greek
triremes. Persian ship after Persian ship was rammed and
sunk. Except when ramming, the nimble Greek ships easily
stayed away from the Persian vessels, meaning the extra
crew and soldiers on them were of no use. When another
line of large Persian ships poured into the straits, they met
the same fate. The larger size of the empire triremes, which
would have been a great advantage in open water, had
proven to be a terrible disadvantage. Persian morale
plunged, and fleeing ships broke up the formation of the
reinforcements that were entering the battle, making them
vulnerable to being attacked on both sides. So these ships
too were rammed and sunk by the nimble Greek vessels.
Incidentally, the Egyptian ships that had been sent around
the island of Salamis to block the back of the straits had
been scattered by a storm before they could get into
position. All Xerxes could do was sit on his throne and watch
as his navy and his plan for conquering Greece were both
destroyed.
More than 200 of the best ships in the Persian navy,
thousands of veteran sailors and soldiers, and even Xerxes’
brother were lost. Most of the Persian sailors whose ships
were sunk could not swim and drowned. Those who made it
to the shores of Salamis were killed on the beach by Greek
warriors. The Persian ships that managed to withdraw from
the straits were not in any shape to continue the battle or
the war.
Without the fleet, the large Persian army could not be
supplied. Worse yet, with the Greeks dominant in the
Aegean Sea, they could sail north and destroy the bridge
across the Hellespont—the bridge that was Xerxes’ and his
entire army’s only line of retreat. Leaving a large force in
northern Greece, Xerxes led most of his army out of Greece
before it starved in place. The remaining army, however,
was defeated the next year at Platea.
Because the emperor of Persia acted on the word of a
slave, he sent his entire fleet into the Straits of Salamis,
virtually guaranteeing Greece would remain independent. If
he had not listened to Sicinnus, Persia might well have
triumphed, and the cradle of Western culture would instead
have become a relatively poor, backwater province of
Eastern culture. The world as it is today—including the
historic predominance of democracy, our Roman culture,
and Christianity—simply would have never been. But they
all do exist because Xerxes made the fatal mistake of
believing exactly the wrong man at the wrong time.
5 and 6
AMBITION AND SUPERSTITION
Risking It All

415 BCE
It took two very different mistakes to destroy the power of
Athens, but with great effort the leaders of that city made
them both. There are few wars that contain as many military
and political mistakes as the Peloponnesian War fought
between Sparta and Athens. From the very beginning of the
war, when Sparta completely misjudged Athens’ response to
their invasion, until the whimpering end of Athenian power,
the entire conflict was a tragedy of errors. This war, due to a
nearly unending series of mistakes, misjudgments, and just
plain egotism, lasted twenty-seven years and ended only
when Athens found a way to lose. But even among so rich a
selection of errors, two stand out that changed everything
and took Athens, in one year, from the edge of victory to
total defeat.
Until the Battle of Mantinea, in 418 BCE, Athens had been
winning its long war with Sparta, who was being financed by
Persia. After the Spartan victory at Mantinea, several cities
had been forced by Sparta to quit the Delian League (an
alliance of city-states dominated by Athens), cutting back on
the manpower and taxes available to Athens. By 415 BCE,
the city’s leadership had devised a plan that they hoped
would give them back the edge.
One of the Greek cities supporting Sparta was Syracuse,
located not in Greece, but on Sicily. This island just south of
Italy contained a number of cities that had grown from
Greek colonies. As large and nearly as prosperous as
Athens, the distant city was a tempting prize. Syracuse had
occasionally supported Sparta in the war, and it was a
source for selling supplies and ships to the primarily landbased military power. The Athenians decided that knocking
out Syracuse would restore momentum to their side. Not to
mention that looting the rich city would pad their flagging
treasury.
Another Athenian hope was that while most of the cities in
Sicily maintained a cautiously neutral stance, if the largest
city on the island fell to Athens, the others would have to
join the Delian League. This would greatly increase the
resources Athens would have to finance future battles. The
risk involved by invading was that Athens would force those
cities into the Spartan camp until Syracuse fell. They had to
win fast and they had to defeat a powerful city far from their
own bases. A few leaders maintained that the whole venture
seemed like a serious mistake. The skeptics thought there
was no reason to extend the war to somewhere so far from
Greece, fighting against a powerful city that would add to
but was not really vital to Sparta’s power. Furthermore, the
naysayers argued that Syracuse was the other leading
democracy among Greek city-states, making the moral
justification of the attack very tenuous. They maintained
that there was very much to lose and not much to gain in
attacking Syracuse. And they were, history shows, painfully
correct.
So why did the expedition to Syracuse happen at all? Part
of the reason has to be desperation by the Athenians to find
some strategy that could end a war that had already gone
on for sixteen years and seemed destined to continue
forever. That is twice as long as the United States fought in
Vietnam or has been in Iraq. Another reason was that old
inspiration for disaster: ego. Alcibiades, a notoriously selfserving politician, had managed to become a major
influence in the Athenian Senate. To further aggrandize his
position he needed to lead a successful military expedition.
Many argued against attacking Syracuse, but in the end,
Alcibiades persuaded enough citizens to support the attack
for it to happen and for him to be in charge of it.
A fleet carrying just under 9,000 veteran soldiers landed
on Sicily in 415 BCE. They approached several of the smaller
cities near Syracuse, requesting that they be allowed to
base there, but all of them refused. Still, Syracuse was
unprepared, and when the Athenian fleet was able to sail
right into the city’s harbor, the populace was thrown into a
panic. But for some reason, perhaps simply because there
wasn’t enough glory yet, Alcibiades did not attack
immediately. The Athenians instead sailed off and managed
to capture Catana, a small city located a half day’s rowing
from Syracuse.
At about this same time, politics intervened, and
Alcibiades was recalled to Athens to stand trial for sacrilege.
The trial never occurred because Alcibiades fled to Sparta.
Command passed to a notoriously cautious commander,
Nicias, who had opposed the entire Syracuse venture. He
did not attack Syracuse. Instead he sent the bulk of the fleet
and army off to rampage and threaten along Sicily’s
northern coast, but the cities there were not intimidated,
and none joined Athens. After they returned to their original
camp, the Athenian forces managed to lure Syracuse’s army
to move near the base at Catana, but even after defeating
them, the Athenians were unable to pursue the fleeing
enemy soldiers due to a lack of cavalry. They could not win
even by winning. Soon winter came, with the invading
Athenians no closer to conquering a quickly arming
Syracuse, and the other cities of Sicily avoided involvement.
The next year, Nicias attempted to surround Syracuse
with a wall that would have cut the city off from supplies of
food and wood. The long siege and the reputation of the
Athenians sapped the will of the citizens of Syracuse. Before
the Syracusans could act, a Spartan commander, Gylippus,
arrived, and his leadership restored Syracusan morale.
Nicias knew only of the falling faith of the Syracusans and
failed to realize the situation had changed. Within a few
months, the Athenian efforts to build the wall were stopped,
and forts were erected to ensure the city’s supplies. But
even though Nicias’ strategy had been prevented, the
Athenians held on. By 413 BCE the Syracusans had hired
7,000 mercenary soldiers. Then the Athenian commander
discovered that the Sicilian city was in the process of
building and manning a substantial navy.
Nicias asked to be relieved of command due to illness and
strongly suggested the whole invasion be withdrawn.
Instead, the Athenians decided to double their bet by
sending a second fleet and 5,000 more hoplites (citizensoldiers) to Sicily. Yet even the new troops failed to force
Syracuse into surrendering.
Finally seeing that there was no hope of success, Nicias
announced the entire expedition would return to Athens.
This meant failure, but he prevented the failure from being a
total disaster. That was a good decision, but a subsequent
mistake nullified it and changed history.
Before the Athenians could return to their ships, there was
an eclipse of the sun. Nicias was superstitious, as most
Greeks were, and he saw this as a sign and ordered the
retreat to be halted. Fear of the anger of the gods, often in
the form of storms that could sink entire fleets, was great.
So when a soothsayer advised that the Athenians wait
“thrice nine days” before departing, they did.
The Syracusans did not simply wait for the invaders to
leave, though. They fought a sea battle and managed to
destroy a number of Athenian triremes. By this time, the
Athenian fleet was anchored near Syracuse on the far side
of the city’s harbor. With morale soaring after defeating
what was a portion of the best navy in the world, the
Syracusans used ships chained together to block the exit
from the harbor, trapping all of the Athenian ships. With
their ships trapped, the Athenian army was trapped as well.
An attempt to break the blockade failed. With supplies
running low and morale running lower, Nicias ordered a
retreat to Catana, which Athens still controlled. He split the
army into two columns, made up of about 20,000 men each,
and they marched toward the small city. By now the bulk of
Athens’ army was in the two columns. Sicilian troops
blocked every road, bridge, and pass, slowing the retreat to
a crawl. Each column was pressed from behind by the main
Syracusan army and harassed from all sides. With only
6,000 men still alive, Demosthenes surrendered his column.
Nicias had less than a thousand soldiers left when he too
surrendered. After four years of bitter siege, the leaders of
Syracuse were not feeling benevolent. Of the 7,000
survivors only a few hundred ever saw Athens again. Most
were worked to death in Syracusan stone quarries. Athens
paid a high price that it never recovered from by invading
Sicily. It was a totally unnecessary mistake that was done for
all the wrong reasons, to the wrong people, and carried out
in the wrong way.
That delay of twenty-seven days to retreat, for no other
reason than superstition, changed the entire Peloponnesian
War. Athens never recovered from the loss of more than
12,000 hoplites and twice as many rowers and light infantry.
Sparta proved unable to replace Athens as the politically
dominant city in Greece. The military dictatorship had lost
too many of its highly trained hoplites in the war as well.
Rather than a strong central leadership, such as Athens had
provided for Greece before the war with the Delian League,
the Greek world was once more split owing to jealousy and
constant bickering among the city-states. This left the area
vulnerable to the eventual conquest of one Philip of
Macedonia.
Athens might have survived Alcibiades’ mistake in starting
the invasion if it had not been for Nicias’ miscalculation.
Without the first mistake caused by the ego of Alcibiades,
Athens likely would have continued to win the
Peloponnesian War and maintained its dominance of
Greece. Without Nicias superstitiously forcing that lastminute, highly risky delay, the army and fleet would not
have been lost and the mistake of attacking Syracuse would
have embarrassed, but not crippled, the city-state. Had
Athens not been drastically weakened on Sicily the world of
the ancient Mediterranean and our world today would have
been totally different.
If Athens had stayed strong, there would have been no
Macedonian domination under Philip and so no Alexander
the Great. Persia, playing a key role in Greek politics, might
well have remained an intact Eastern empire for centuries
longer. Instead of becoming the dominant culture in all the
lands from Egypt to Babylon, Greek culture and democracy
might well be a footnote rather than a force in history. That
their city’s defeat and collapse led to the ideals of
democracy and Greek values later being spread to all of
Europe and Asia would likely be of little consolation to the
people of Athens, who paid a very high price for both
Alcibiades’ and Nicias’ mistakes.
7
COWARDICE
How to Lose an Empire
331 BCE
In 331 BCE, Emperor Darius III made a decision during the
Battle of Gaugamela (fought near present-day Irbīl in
northern Iraq). His army greatly outnumbered his
opponent’s, and he was fighting where and almost when he
wanted. At the point Darius lost it all with one bad decision,
the Persian emperor still had plenty of uncommitted troops
and the other side was on their last reserves. Almost
everything still favored Darius, except that he had an
immediate and personal problem. The opposing commander
was leading a charge directly at the king of kings, and that
commander was Alexander of Macedon.
Alexander’s charge was a grave threat to Darius, but at
that point, the rest of the fighting was actually going well for
the Persians. On the Persian right, they were pressing back
the Greeks, who were commanded by Alexander’s top
general, Parmenion. The Persian center was only lightly
engaged except directly in front of the throne from which
Darius was commanding the battle. There the elite
companion cavalry, and a number of the best Macedonian
phalanxes, had reversed a march across the Persian front
and were cutting their way toward the emperor. Virtually no
Greek forces faced the much larger Persian army’s left.
A few years earlier, in the Battle of Issus, Darius had fled
when the battle seemed lost. He had hurried back to
Babylon with no ill effect on his control of the heart of his
empire. There he raised a newer and much larger army. He
intended to use that superior army to defeat Alexander in
the current fight. Darius’ survival was politically important.
Being a Persian emperor was a highly personal position; for
Alexander to claim the throne and be recognized by the rest
of the empire, he had to capture or kill Darius III. Perhaps
the fact that he fled at Issus with no problems encouraged
the emperor to think he could flee again without it being a
disaster. Or maybe, although he was a most capable leader
and politician, Darius III was just a coward when physically
threatened. Whatever the logic or reason, before the
Macedonians even got close to his throne, the Persian
emperor got into a chariot and fled the battle.
There were more Persian infantry covering Darius’ retreat
than there were phalangists, the heavy infantry who carried
the thirteen-plus-foot-long metal-tipped pikes known as
sarissas and who endured the burden of the “push” that was
the basis of the fighting in Alexander’s Macedonian army.
And Parmenion was in the process of being mauled by farsuperior Persian infantry and horsemen, and almost half the
Macedonian army was in danger of being destroyed. So
decimated were Parmenion’s troops that Alexander had to
use his entire attack force to assist the hard-pressed left
side of his army. This command decision was made all the
more difficult because Alexander knew that all he had to do
was eliminate the king of kings to win a clear victory.
Fortunately, since the leadership of Persia was a very
personal thing, when word got out that Darius III had run
away, the rest of his army either backed off or fled outright.
The Battle of Gaugamela
By almost any standard, Darius was not losing the battle
when he hurried away. He still had plenty of uncommitted
forces that could have been called on, including a large
number of cavalry. If he simply moved to another location
and had his army continue to fight, he might even have
won. Certainly he would have punished the Macedonian
army, which was already at the end of a very long supply
line with few reinforcements expected, and at the point
where it could not effectively occupy the capital. Alexander
the Great might today instead be known as the Alexander
who overreached himself and failed. But for whatever
reason or personal flaw, Darius did run and run hard. He was
still fleeing when he died weeks later at the hands of his
own generals. Because he abandoned the Battle of
Gaugamela, the Persian threat to Greek culture was ended,
and the world as we know it, democracy, heroes, and all,
came to be.
8
LACK OF PLANNING
The Death of Alexander the Great
323 BCE
Of all the historical figures to have the identifier “the Great”
tagged onto their names, Alexander the Great is one who
really lived up to the title. No other leader has been able to
cross cultural boundaries or capture the imaginations of
world leaders like he has done. He has stood the test of
time. His tactics are still taught in military academies all
over the world. He has become the measuring stick by
which all others have compared themselves. When Julius
Caesar came across a statue of Alexander, he fell at its feet
and wept, marking how the great conqueror had
accomplished more by his death at the age of thirty-two
than Caesar himself had at the time of viewing the statue.
Why does Alexander still have this immortal grip on us? If he
was so great, why did his empire collapse? For one simple
reason . . . Alexander did not name a successor. The vast
empire that he created fell apart because he was unwilling
to pass on the gauntlet.
Philip II of Macedonia had his hands full when his wife
Olympias gave birth to a son in 356 BCE. The overzealous
mother named her son Alexander, meaning “the lion.” Most
mothers believe their firstborn sons will rise to greatness,
but Olympias believed her son was the son of a god. Philip
himself doubted the child’s lineage when he supposedly
spied his wife in the embrace of a serpent, a creature of
which Zeus often took the form. Philip had to be sure. He
sent an emissary to the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The
oracle answered that Zeus should be revered above all
other gods. She also said that Philip would lose the eye
through which he saw his wife with the serpent. Two years
later, Philip lost his eye.
Stories such as these are probably legends created long
after Alexander’s death, but they do lend merit to
Alexander’s belief that he was the son of Zeus: a seed no
doubt planted by his mother, who wanted more than
anything to secure her son’s place on the throne. Philip had
many wives, and Olympias was a foreigner. If Philip married
a Macedonian woman and the union produced a son, that
son would become the rightful heir. Olympias knew that if
her son was believed to be a god, then no one would dare
challenge him.
Alexander grew up in the capital of Pella and attended a
prestigious school. He trained in athletics and learned how
to fight and be a leader. He also studied academics as well
as philosophy and ethics. Philip provided only the best for
Alexander. He even supplied the greatest philosopher of the
day, Aristotle, to tutor him. Alexander relished all that
Aristotle taught him. He once said, “My father gave me the
gift of life, but Aristotle taught me to live well.”
He also learned to love well. In his youth, Alexander
befriended a young man named Hephaestion, whom many
believed was also his lover. For the rugged King Philip, the
idea of having an effeminate son as an heir was an
embarrassment. So he had prostitutes brought in for
Alexander to “sample.” Although Alexander later became
involved with several women and eventually married, he
still remained close friends with Hephaestion for most of his
life.
Philip may have had doubts about his son’s sexuality, but
he had no doubts in his son’s ability as a leader. In 338 BCE,
Philip put the eighteen-year-old Alexander in command of
the 2,000-man Companion Cavalry. It might have been a
risky move, but in the end it paid off. Philip found himself
facing the Athenians as well as their Theban allies in a place
called Chaeronea in central Greece. When the Athenians
moved toward Philip’s forces, they left a gap between their
army and that of the Thebans, who stood their ground.
Alexander wasted no time. He charged his cavalry in
between the two armies, encircled the Thebans, and wiped
them out. Not one was left standing. The Athenians in the
meantime were outmanned by Philip’s Macedonians and
surrendered. The victory at Chaeronea gave Philip control of
all of Greece. It should have been the beginning of a great
father-son alliance, but Philip did something that threatened
Alexander’s succession. He got married . . . again.
This time, Philip married a twenty-year-old Macedonian
woman named Cleopatra. (Not to be confused with the
famous Egyptian queen of the same name.) If Cleopatra
produced a male heir, this Macedonian prince would rule
after Philip’s death, while Alexander would be reduced to
the rank of general and would have to take orders from his
younger brother, the king. Alexander was not about to see
that happen, and neither was his power-driven mother,
Olympias. Tensions in the family grew high.
On the night of the wedding feast, when all the men were
full of spirits, Attalus, the uncle of the bride, proposed a
toast that the union would result in a legitimate heir to the
Macedonian kingdom. To which Alexander replied, “What do
you take me for, a bastard?” He then threw his wine in
Attalus’ face. Philip started toward Alexander, tripped, and
fell down. Alexander scoffed, “This is the man that wishes to
cross from Europe into Asia, yet he cannot even pass from
one couch to another.” These words, spoken in anger,
severed the father-son relationship. Alexander did not have
the chance to reconcile with his father. In 334 BCE, just after
the birth of his son to Cleopatra, Philip died, killed by one of
his own bodyguards. At the tender age of twenty, Alexander
became ruler of a vast Greek empire.
Alexander had one goal upon rising to the throne—and
that was to fulfill his father’s dream of conquering Asia and
the Persian king Darius. He massed 40,000 troops and
transported them across the Dardanelles (the Hellespont), a
feat unheard of in his day. Darius did not encounter
Alexander at sea. Had he done so, events might have taken
a different turn. Darius’ navy was three times as large as
Alexander’s. In the end, Darius refused to fight the “Greek
boy” head-to-head. Instead he sent his Greek mercenary
general, Memnon, to face the young upstart.
Memnon chose the Granicus River as his battleground.
When Alexander crossed the Granicus and defeated
Memnon’s forces, Darius realized he was facing a man, a
man who believed himself to be invincible. Alexander led his
armies from the front, wearing plumes in his helm. There
was no mistaking his identity. He made himself the target of
all who would dare to fight him. Darius would not make the
same mistake again. He gathered an army of 600,000 men
and made his way toward Issus. Although modern historians
believe the number of troops to be closer to 100,000,
Alexander’s forces of 30,000 to 40,000 men were still
greatly outnumbered. Having far fewer troops, and his
supplies cut off in the midst of the engagement, seemed to
matter very little to Alexander, who managed to crush
Darius’ army. Upon which Darius fled for his life.
Alexander didn’t wish to be seen as a tyrant. He thought
he was the son of Zeus, and gods flourish in praise. He
allowed Darius’ family to keep their status and live as they
had always done. They kept their servants and were under
his protection. Darius wrote Alexander a letter offering
friendship, his daughter’s hand in marriage, and all the land
west of the Euphrates. He also offered to pay ransom for the
Persian prisoners. Alexander responded by telling Darius he
should not address him as an equal, but as the king of all
Asia. His first move as the new ruler of Asia was to try to
conquer the island fortress of Tyre. The Babylonian king,
Nebuchadnezzar, tried for thirteen years to break through
the walled defenses and failed. Alexander did it in seven
months. He built a half-mile-long causeway across the water
leading to the fortress. His troops penetrated the wall and
killed 8,000 people. The rest were sold into slavery—so
much for not looking like a tyrant.
After crossing into Egypt and officially being pronounced a
god, Alexander once again came head-to-head with Darius.
In what is now known as the Battle of Gaugamela,
Alexander defeated the forces of the Persian emperor
because Darius III had a flaw that cost him everything (see
pages 24-26). After which, the Persian empire really did
belong to Alexander. He took over the palace at Persepolis
and captured 180,000 talents of gold. Considering that one
talent was 57.5 pounds of gold, the amount was almost
obscene. It was the greatest treasure ever captured.
Alexander was easily the richest man in all of the known
world. He celebrated with a night of drunken revelry, during
which the palace was burned down and men wreaked havoc
inside the city. Many of the soldiers felt like they had
achieved their ultimate goal, but Alexander’s lust for
conquest was not yet satisfied. He decided to turn his troops
toward India.
Alexander had a fascination for unknown lands. These
exotic places had a lot to offer a man with a great many
lusts. The women were strange, mysterious, and excitingly
beautiful. Alexander fell passionately in love with one in
particular, Roxanne, the daughter of a Sogdian baron whom
he had captured. No doubt it came as a great surprise to
Hephaestion and the other men when he decided to marry
her. Alexander became completely engulfed in the culture.
He donned white robes, and gave the order that his men
should kiss his hands and prostrate themselves or kneel
before him, for the sake of “appearances.” In Greece, this
was an act reserved only for the gods. When Alexander’s
historian refused, Alexander had him executed.
Alexander’s lust for battle was challenged to the extreme
when he encountered a most formidable foe: elephants.
King Porus used the creatures to great advantage and
nearly defeated Alexander and his troops. In the end,
Alexander managed to overcome Porus, but at enormous
cost. His advisers agreed that the best move would be to
return to Greece. It was not the advice Alexander had hoped
for. He did, however, turn his army back, but not without
taking every city in his path. It was during one of these
encounters that Alexander received a near-fatal wound. He
was shot through the lung with an arrow. He eventually
recovered and left India.
Back in Greece, Alexander received an even worse blow
than that of the arrow. In July 324 BCE, his beloved
companion Hephaestion died from a fever. Alexander threw
himself into grief. Many felt this was ultimately the cause of
Alexander’s untimely demise. He was never the same. Two
years later, Alexander also succumbed to fever. He lingered
in his sickness for eleven days. His men worried. Who would
take his place? Could anyone take his place? Would any one
man be able to hold the vast empire together? At his
sickbed, the men leaned over and asked the all-important
question, “To whom do you leave your empire?” With his last
breath, Alexander uttered words that have since become
famous: “To the strongest.”
The empire did not go to the strongest. In just twelve
years, it was divided between twenty different rulers, each
with his own agenda. If Alexander had only known what
those words would cost the empire he fought so hard to
establish, the world might have been a different place
indeed. Assuming he had named an heir and the Greek
empire had survived under one government, then much of
the conflict over the next thousand years would have been
unnecessary. A strong, unified empire, stretching across
Europe and Asia, would have existed 500 years before the
establishment of the Roman empire. Had Alexander’s
multicultural views become the norm, the world could have
avoided much darkness.
9
SPLIT COMMAND
Tradition Destroys an Army
216 BCE
One of the worst defeats in Roman military history was due
not to just bad generalship but rather to an antiquated
command system that begged for disaster and got it. The
mistake that lost Rome 50,000 legionnaires in 216 BCE, and
almost cost the city of seven hills control of Italy, had its
basis in a problem that had occurred ever since there were
Greek city-states. In times of war it is necessary to put a
great deal of power, such as command of an army, in the
hands of one man. This man was known to the Greeks as a
“dictator,” a word that has come down in time with
amazingly little shift in meaning.
The problem that the Greeks found with dictators was that
if you put control of the army, the navy, the administrators,
and the treasury in the hands of one man, he may be
reluctant to let go of all that power. What do you do with a
man who has all the power and won’t let go? The answer
was often that there was nothing anyone could do, and
trying to get rid of a dictator could have fatal consequences.
So to avoid this trap, the Roman Senate created two equal
consuls, who were effectively co-dictators, in the theory that
they would counterbalance each other. When not together,
the two consuls would separately command the legions with
them. The problem and mistake was what happened when
you united the entire Roman army into one force, such as
was the case at Cannae.
You cannot have two commanders giving orders. But the
Senate did not want one commander to become superior
because he alone would control all of the legions. Then
there was nothing to stop a victorious consul from marching
on Rome at the head of his army and taking over. So the
solution Rome used was to have the two consuls take turns
being in command. One consul would be in charge, and then
he turned over control of the entire army to the other consul
the next day.
At Cannae, the two consuls were very different men with
opposing attitudes and motives. Aemilius Paullus was an
experienced soldier, and he was a survivor of the trouncing
Hannibal had given the Romans two years earlier in the
Battle of Trebia. He was a cautious leader who understood
that most of his soldiers were inexperienced and much of
Hannibal’s smaller army were blooded veterans. He took a
very conservative approach and avoided battle except on
terms that greatly favored his army. One of those terms was
mandated by the fact the Roman army had plenty of
infantry but very little cavalry. Hannibal had four times as
many horsemen as the Romans. Most of his cavalry men
were both more heavily armored and more experienced
than Roman horsemen, and all of them were much better
trained and disciplined. In response to this weakness,
Paullus kept the Roman army camped in the hills near
Hannibal so that if the Carthaginians attacked, his superior
cavalry would be of little use.
The other consul was Terentius Varro. He was a member of
the Roman Senate and not a soldier. Though shown later to
be brave, even resourceful, Varro had an agenda beyond
just keeping Hannibal at bay. He was part of a Senate
faction that had for two years been frustrated by the tactics
used by Fabius, appropriately called “the Delayer,” after the
defeat at Trebia. For two years as consul, Fabius had
avoided major battles with Hannibal while the Roman army
was being rebuilt. But this meant Hannibal had been free to
wreak a lot of destruction and destroy a lot of estates all
over Italy. His tactics frustrated a good many Senators who
constantly demanded more direct action. Varro also needed
a victory while he was in command to enhance his prestige
in the Senate. So where Paullus wanted to play it safe and
fight in the hills, Varro wanted to force a battle where he
was sure the superior Roman army (50,000 soldiers versus
40,000 for Carthage) would prevail.
For a few weeks, the two armies camped only a few miles
apart. Hannibal was anxious to do something before his
supply situation in hostile territory got worse, and Paullus
was willing to wait until Hannibal came to him. But here is
the rub: Paullus was in command only every other day. For a
while he convinced Varro to go along with the waiting. But
pressure from Varro’s allies in the Senate and his own
ambition made the inexperienced and overconfident consul
anxious to have at it.
Finally, on a day he was in command and Paullus could do
nothing, Varro moved the entire Roman army out of its
strong position in the hills and onto the level ground near
what is now called the Ofanto River. When Paullus took over
command the next day, the deed was done. They could not
retreat without being attacked in the rear by Hannibal’s
horsemen. Because of Varro’s impatience, the Romans
would be forced to fight where Hannibal’s cavalry had all
the advantages. So, being Romans, they attacked.
The Romans moved against Hannibal in a massive column
that slammed into the Carthaginian center. Their plan was
to break through the center and then turn on both flanks.
With superior numbers, the Romans were confident of
success and would pit their numbers against the
Carthaginians’ best troops. This simple plan and large
formation also was easily within the capabilities of an army
made up of mostly inexperienced legionnaires and
commanders. It was almost a return to the days of the
phalanx. The problem was that Hannibal had not, as was
normally the case, put his best troops in his center. In fact
he put his worst infantry, the brave but undisciplined Gauls,
there. This meant that at first the Roman juggernaut pushed
forward over the bodies of dead Gauls, but, at the same
time, it left the real strength of the Carthaginians
untouched.
The massive column rolled forward and began to push the
Gauls back as expected. But elsewhere the plan fell apart.
Instead of holding the flanks long enough for the infantry to
smash through the enemy center, the Roman horsemen,
protecting the troops from the sides, fled almost without a
fight. In fact, most ran right past the fortified camp and
some didn’t stop until they were back in Rome. This left the
light infantry that remained on the flanks exposed and
almost defenseless before Hannibal’s horsemen. They too
were driven off, exposing both flanks. Still the Romans
pushed forward, and the Gauls were close to breaking. Only
then, with nothing to slow them, did the Carthaginian
commander order his best unit, his Spanish Infantry, to curl
around and attack both flanks of the thickly massed Roman
infantry.
This was long before the time when the Roman legion was
a highly trained and incredibly flexible military machine. The
massive Roman column could do nothing but push harder,
hoping to literally fight their way out by breaking through
the Gauls. But at just the wrong time for it to happen, the
Carthaginian armored horsemen returned from chasing off
the Roman cavalry and slammed into the back of the thickly
packed Romans.
The most experienced Roman soldiers made up the last
lines of the attacking column, and they turned about, met
the Carthaginian charge, and held it. But to do this they had
to stop moving and plant their pikes facing the rear, away
from where the Romans were attacking. This brought the
entire Roman army to a dead stop, and the operative word
there is dead. Packed fifty men deep to ensure they broke
the center, this awkward Roman formation, which
resembled a phalanx without the spears, meant that most of
the Roman soldiers could not fight until the men in front of
them had been killed. Since most of the men were now
totally surrounded by the Carthaginian army, all they could
do was wait to die. And 40,000 did, though Varro, who had
caused the battle to be fought, escaped and even
distinguished himself when he reorganized the survivors.
The Carthaginian losses were in the hundreds, mostly
expendable Gauls.
Cannae is often considered one of the most one-sided
victories in history. All the more amazing as it came against
a Roman army that would go on in the next four centuries to
conquer the Mediterranean world. But the battle was really
lost because of where it was fought, which gave every
advantage to the brilliant Hannibal. A mistake that was
forced on Paullus by a system that put an inexperienced
politician in command of the entire Roman army at just the
wrong time.
10
PRIDE
An Offer They Should
Not Have Refused
204 BCE
In 204 BCE, the war with Rome was not going well for
Carthage. The city had lost its final holdings on Sicily and
other islands. Spain, the merchant city’s main source of
mercenary armies, had fallen. Now Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio,
the same Roman commander who had defeated their
armies in Spain, had landed a large Roman army near the
city itself. Making things worse was that one of the
Carthaginians’ closest allies in Africa, Massinissa, had
changed sides and had led his experienced cavalry to join
the Romans. He brought with him several thousand
horsemen, nicely rounding out the Roman order of battle.
Carthage gathered an army and called on its remaining
major ally, Syphax, and his army and moved to defeat
Scipio. But in a night attack, the smaller Roman army and its
ally routed and then slaughtered the camped Carthaginians.
There was only one response left for the great merchant city
that had been fighting Rome for more than a decade. They
recalled Hannibal and the last army they had left from Italy.
Hannibal Barca and about 15,000 of his veterans slipped
past the Roman fleet and soon were in Carthage. At this
point, Scipio made the city a proposal. He was under
pressure from an untrusting and jealous Senate and wanted
the war over before they could recall him to Rome. So Scipio
made the city a very generous offer that would not only
have allowed Carthage to keep its merchant fleet, a major
source of the city’s wealth, but would also have left it a
large degree of independence and even a small fleet of
warships. Carthage would not again be a military threat to
Rome, but it could remain an economic powerhouse,
wealthy from trade and manufacturing.
The city of Carthage was now at war with a Rome that
controlled the entire western Mediterranean. They no longer
had their main source of soldiers, their manpower was
limited, and one of their key allies had changed sides. Even
if they defeated Scipio, they would not, and probably could
not, win the war. Rome, which had proven amazingly
resilient, would simply send another army and then another
until they finally won. But the return of Hannibal and his
veterans gave the people of Carthage hope. The city’s
leaders flatly refused the Roman commander’s offer.
A few days later Hannibal and Scipio’s armies faced each
other near Carthage. Hannibal’s army had elephants and his
core of veterans. The Roman army had its flexible and welltrained smaller units and superior cavalry.
The Battle of Zama
Hannibal’s Carthaginians were formed into three lines
each behind the other. The legions were in long columns
made up of maniples, numbering between 100 to 180 men.
They lined up not shoulder to shoulder but behind one
another in long columns. This was unusual because the
legion normally deployed in a checkerboard formation that
allowed for maximum maneuverability or in a line to allow
the most soldiers to fight for the frontage.
The battle began when Hannibal ordered a charge by the
war elephants that were spread all across the Carthaginian
front. It was hoped the large beasts would disrupt the
Roman formations and scatter its cavalry. But like most
animals, these elephants ran along the line of least
resistance. Those that were not frightened or driven away
by javelins simply hurried down the open spaces between
the columns while their riders were fired at from both sides.
Worse for the Carthaginians was that the elephants,
charging the Roman right, were actually turned around by
the noise and pain. Instead of disrupting the Roman cavalry,
they slammed into their own Numidian horsemen, who were
protecting the Carthaginian left flank. Observing this
happen, Massinissa charged his larger cavalry force and
infantry against the disorganized Numidian horsemen. The
Numidians broke and ran almost immediately. Seeing this,
the Roman horsemen on the other side of the battle charged
as well. There was a violent melee and then the
Carthaginian cavalry abandoned Hannibal’s right flank as
well. The Carthaginian flanks were open to attack, but since
both Roman forces followed the enemy horses off the field
in pursuit, these flank victories did not determine the battle.
For a while, the Roman successes simply left the field to the
infantry. This was good news for Carthage because they had
45,000 soldiers to Rome’s 34,000.
Hannibal ordered his front line to charge Scipio’s Romans,
who, with the threat of elephants gone, had re-formed into a
solid front. That first line consisted of mostly Gauls:
individually brave but not skilled at fighting in a unit. They
smashed into the Romans, and the fighting degenerated
into man-to-man combat. They were doing what Hannibal
hoped, breaking up the solid Roman front.
For some reason Hannibal’s second line, made up of newly
trained Carthaginians, failed to advance and take advantage
of the Gauls’ attack. Seeing they were not being supported
but were left to die in front of the Romans, the Gauls turned
and fled. But the unmoving line of Carthaginians refused to
open to let them pass. Needless to say, the Gauls now were
sure they had been betrayed and began attacking
Hannibal’s second line. The two Carthaginian formations
were still fighting when the front of the Roman army,
Scipio’s hastati (a class of infantry), slammed into them
both. When the second line of Romans, the principes, joined
in the fighting, the surviving Gauls and Carthaginians of the
second line were both routed.
The retreating Carthaginian second line then ran directly
toward the last of Hannibal’s formations. This was a line
formed by the veterans who had come back from Italy with
him. They knew that if they broke formation to let the
fleeing Carthaginians through, the Romans advancing just
behind the fugitives would tear their line apart. So, they too
held solid against their own retreating soldiers. For a second
time, one of Hannibal’s lines fought against the other as the
Romans advanced behind it.
By the time Scipio had re-formed and moved his maniples
to attack Hannibal’s veterans, the fugitives who had
survived from the broken two-thirds of the Carthaginian
army had either died or escaped around the edges of the
final line. From having a numerical advantage in infantry of
four to three, the odds against Hannibal had now changed
to a disadvantage of two to one as his 15,000 veterans
attempted to defeat more than 30,000 legionnaires. And for
a time they held, fighting off twice their number and not
even being pushed back. But then the Romans’ two
victorious cavalry forces returned to the battlefield. Both
slammed into the back of those Carthaginian veterans.
Surrounded and outnumbered, the last and best of
Hannibal’s army died. Hannibal himself fled into Carthage
and then into permanent exile.
Scipio, soon to be known as Africanus in honor of his
victory, approached the walls of Carthage, but lacked siege
artillery. He could besiege the city, but that would take
months and the Senate was likely to call him back anytime.
So again he offered terms, though not as generous as those
he had been willing to give a few days before. Now Carthage
did not have a single army left. The oligarchy that ruled
Carthage had no real choice but to accept. Among these
terms was the provision that Carthage could never again
wage war without the Roman Senate’s permission. The
peace agreement guaranteed that the city survived but also
ensured Carthage could not rise again to greatness or be a
threat to Rome. They ignored a basic rule of diplomacy that
is all too often ignored: If you have everything to lose and
winning will not win the war, accept any peace you can get.
Having lost two wars to Rome, the merchant princes of
Carthage should have known better. But less than fifty years
later, the city hired another army of mercenaries and
attacked a Roman ally in Africa—an ally that they felt had
betrayed the city. Rome’s reaction was not only to conquer
the city but effectively to eliminate it. Although it was one of
the most successful merchant cities in history, Carthage
never seemed to realize that it had a good deal when it
really mattered.
Had Carthage survived as a major economic presence in
the Mediterranean, the city might well have slowed or
changed the expansion of Rome. Certainly its mercantile
philosophy and family-centered social structure would have
been more present in today’s Western culture as opposed to
the patriotic and state-centered ideal that we have all
inherited from Rome.
11
PERSONAL AMBITION
Political Suicide
133 BCE
Tiberius Gracchus was born with just about as noble a
pedigree as a Roman could. The Gracchi were an old and
wealthy family. His grandfather was Publius Cornelius Scipio
Africanus, the Punic War hero who finally defeated Hannibal
Barca. He was married to another blue-blooded noble,
Aemilia Pulcher, and the future looked good for young
Tiberius Gracchus.
In 137 BCE, the young noble was appointed quaester,
chief quartermaster and financial officer, for his brother-inlaw, Scipio Aemilianus, in a campaign in Hispania (Spain).
The war did not go well, and the entire Roman army was
trapped. With his brother-in-law dead, Tiberius took charge
and managed to negotiate a peace treaty with the local
tribes that saved the lives of thousands of skilled Roman
legionnaires. But rather than praising his efforts, many
Senators condemned Gracchus, and the body even voted to
nullify the treaty. It was the beginning of a battle between
Gracchus and the Roman Senate that changed, and
damaged, the empire forever.
Feeling alienated from the nobles who controlled Rome’s
Senate, Tiberius Gracchus turned to the common people.
What he saw angered him. For years the noble families had
been grabbing up all the small farms. Often these were the
farms of soldiers who were serving in the empire’s wars of
conquest. With no male to work the land, many went into
debt or were unable to pay the rising taxes. Then the farms
were snatched up by the nobles, many of them Senators,
and the people became slave labor to work the estates. This
meant that when a soldier returned from the wars he would
likely find himself and his family homeless and destitute.
These penniless and unemployed former soldiers then
flocked into the cities, especially Rome, hoping for work.
So in 133 BCE, a bitter and idealistic Tiberius Gracchus
campaigned for and was elected to one of the two positions
of tribune of the people. It was his job to represent the
needs of the people to the Senate. He immediately began
agitating for land reform. He tried to limit the amount of
land any one person or family could hold. The attempt failed
since there was simply no one to tell the Senators they
could not acquire more land for themselves. He then called
for all newly captured lands and any confiscated lands to be
divided up between the former farmers. This, he explained,
would both provide a living for the urban poor and create a
pool of landowning farmers who could serve in the legions.
It was a good idea, for the farmers and Rome, but not for
the rich families controlling the empire.
The Senate refused to act on the proposed laws. On a
personal level, the enmity between Gracchus, who
constantly harangued for the lower classes in Rome and
stirred them up, and the Senators, who benefited from the
status quo, became vicious. When the Senators managed to
pressure the other people’s tribune, Marcus Octavius, into
vetoing the land reforms, Gracchus first forced his fellow
tribune out of office, illegally, in most scholars’ opinions.
Then he used his power, as the person who officially opened
the temples and markets, to shut down the city. With what
was effectively a strike supported by the people, Rome
ground to a halt. Vital services were not maintained, and the
food supply dwindled. Riots threatened, and the masses
were angry.
The Senate reluctantly accepted the changes in the land
laws and appointed an Agrarian Reform Commission to
implement the new laws. Then they gave that commission a
budget so low it could not actually do anything. It seemed a
beautifully bureaucratic way to kill changes that would cost
the Senator’s families a fortune. That ploy worked for a
while until one of the client kings, Attalus III of Pergamum,
died and left his kingdom and large personal fortune to
Rome. Forcing leaders to do this was one of the main ways
the empire took direct control of an area without having to
conquer it. It was not an unusual bequest, but then
Gracchus hijacked it. Against all law and precedent, because
he felt the greater good required it, the tribune used Attalus’
fortune to implement his land reforms. The real problem for
the Senate was not the loss of land or the illegal actions of
the remaining tribune. What frightened them was that
Gracchus then had a large and fanatic following among the
common people. He had enough of a following to gain more
control of the city of Rome than the Senators. Furthermore,
he continued ranting against the Senate, declaring that it
was acting only in self-interest.
There was a very real chance that Tiberius Gracchus could
use the mobs of Rome combined with the reluctance of the
legions to intervene against their fellow citizens to make
himself dictator. Effectively, he already controlled most of
the city through the mobs. Soon rumors were heard of
Gracchus being seen wearing purple robes, such as the old
kings had worn before the Senate replaced them. But the
Senate had found a way to deal with the upstart tribune
within the system. He had clearly broken the law in driving
out Octavius so he could override the veto of the land
reforms. As Gracchus’ one-year term as tribune (yes, just
one year; he had been busy) ended, the young populist
announced he planned to run for reelection. This was an
unusual but not unprecedented event.
Soon, with the election in full swing and Gracchus
appearing before large crowds all over Rome, his trial in the
Senate began. The tribune began promising the crowds
much more radical changes. These included shortening the
time men needed to serve in the legions in order to get the
free land; allowing common people, not just the Senators, to
serve as jurors in major cases; and opening Roman
citizenship to allied peoples who served in the legions or
otherwise aided Rome. These ideas may not seem radical
today, but when combined with the threat to the power of
the Senate he already represented, this was truly radical
stuff and a direct threat to their power and wealth.
On the day Rome voted, feelings were at a fever pitch as
the trial continued. In the street in front of the Senate, a
threatening crowd grew. Soldiers were called in. The trial
became more of a series of threats and counterthreats, with
tempers running high. Finally, dozens of Senators came off
their benches and literally beat Tiberius Gracchus to death
with the legs of their chairs. The Roman Senate was made
up of some very tough men, and you can see they were
willing to kill to protect themselves and their power. This
was something Julius Caesar should have been aware of a
century later when he usurped their power, but that was
another mistake and not just his. The tribune’s body was
thrown into the Tiber to prevent any embarrassing funeral,
and the crowd in front of the Senate Building was violently
dispersed by the army.
When word of Gracchus’ murder spread through Rome,
many parts of the city rioted. In an ironic attempt to protect
themselves, the Senate quickly approved almost all of
Gracchus’ reforms. This helped to quell the riots and restore
their support among the population. The mistake of
murdering the populist leader effectively forced the Roman
Senate to concede to everything the tribune had demanded.
Because of these changes, power in Rome gradually shifted
from the noble families to the masses and the army. The
people who lived in Rome began to learn that they were
more powerful than the Senators who ran their government,
and the army learned that they could control who among
different factions controlled the Senate. Because of
Gracchus’ willingness to ignore the laws, combined with the
Senator’s greed and then fear, Rome did not have a truly
stable government for almost a century. And that century
ended in the civil wars. In 49 BCE, Gaius Julius Caesar used
the support of the mobs and his legions to take complete
control of all of Rome, and the power of the Senate was lost
forever.
12
PLAYING TO THE ENEMY’S STRENGTHS
Trapped in Alesia
52 BCE
The Battle of Alesia in 52 BCE was the final conflict that
determined whether the Roman or the Celtic way of life
would dominate northern Europe. It was the culmination of
the five-year conquest of Gaul (France, Belgium, Denmark,
and Luxembourg) by Gaius Julius Caesar. The entire war and
Julius Caesar’s intelligence and courage were made famous
even as it was fought by that brilliant bit of self-serving
propaganda, Caesar’s Gallic Wars.
In 60 BCE, three men agreed to share control of Rome.
These were Crassus, Pompey, and Julius Caesar. While
theoretically equals, each strove to be the first among
equals. Crassus was very rich. Yes, the old phrase “rich as
Crassus” refers to him. Crassus had also proven himself a
competent general by defeating Spartacus and his slave
rebellion. Pompey also was a proven general, having won a
number of victories in the name of Rome. The younger Julius
Caesar had the greatest need to prove himself and the most
to gain.
So Crassus went off to Syria, where he managed to get
himself killed while losing two entire legions to the
Parthians. Pompey mostly stayed in Rome. He was already
rich with the spoils of his earlier victories and had a great
reputation. Caesar saw where the greatest opportunity was
and chose to take over the province known as Transalpine
Gaul. This was really the most northern parts of Italy and
much of the south coast of France. This province gave him a
base from which he could conquer the rich lands of the
Gallic tribes.
From 58 BCE until Alesia, Julius Caesar defeated one Gallic
tribe after another. While not happy about the situation, no
one tribe or local alliance could stand against his army of
more than 50,000 highly trained legionnaires. It wasn’t until
Julius Caesar was in northern Italy dealing with Roman
politics that all the Gauls found themselves a leader. This
was the charismatic and often brilliant Vercingetorix.
Through strong oratory and good politics, Vercingetorix
managed to get almost all the tribes in Gaul to swear to
follow him into rebellion. That summer, the Gallic leader put
tens of thousands of his warriors through a regimen of
training. Then in the late fall, he led his army against the
Roman garrison at Orleans (then called Cenabum). The city
fell, thousands of Romans were killed, and Caesar suddenly
had a major problem. His political strength came from being
the conqueror of Gaul, and Gaul was looking very
unconquered. To make things worse, Vercingetorix was a
very good general, and he had chosen Orleans because the
city was the main Roman grain storehouse. His army was
now living off the Roman army’s supplies, and Caesar’s
legions could expect short rations without them. In fact,
Vercingetorix used food as a weapon throughout his
rebellion, often effectively using scorched earth tactics
against Caesar. Ironically, starvation would ultimately cause
his surrender.
Caesar rushed back to Gaul and united the legions that
had been spread out in winter quarters. For the rest of the
winter, Caesar either chased Vercingetorix or captured the
cities that were in rebellion. After capturing Loire, today’s
Paris, the Roman army turned toward the richest city still
controlled by the rebelling tribes, Provence. Vercingetorix
correctly guessed Caesar’s intentions, but the mistake he
made was in how he reacted, and that reaction was what
lost the war.
To understand the mistake Vercingetorix made, you need
to look at the strengths of the two sides. You have the
Romans, who were technological, highly organized, and
efficient at fortification and siege weapons. The Roman
soldier was not individually a great warrior. He was smaller
and shorter than most Gauls and carried a far shorter sword.
One-on-one, the Gauls often won any fight. But the Romans
never fought in a “heroic” manner involving individual
duels. Fighting as part of the Roman legion, they could take
on twice their number or more and be assured of victory.
The Gallic warriors were a different breed. They were
warriors and not soldiers. While Vercingetorix’s training had
helped make them more effective as an army, personal
heroics were still highly valued. They were not experienced
at siege warfare, and while quite capable of building
fortifications, they were not as adept in attacking or holding
them. This is demonstrated by the number of Gallic cities
that had fallen to Caesar that decade. The Gauls were
masters at moving quickly and hitting hard.
Knowing where Caesar was going and that he had an
army about twice as large as the Romans’, Vercingetorix
moved his army to a strategic point along the route to
Provence. Then he made a move that almost ensured
defeat.
The city of Alesia had great natural defenses. It was set on
steep cliffs with rivers on two sides. Vercingetorix knew that
the Romans could not just bypass his army or it would
attack them from the rear while they besieged Provence. So
if they could not go past, he assumed they would have to
stop and lay siege to his army, held up in what was perhaps
the best defensive position in Gaul. What he did not realize
was that by doing this, he was in a situation that played into
just about every strength of the Romans, while neutralizing
the personal courage and endurance that set apart his own
forces.
Julius Caesar did arrive at Alesia and found more than
100,000 Gauls entrenched in the city and ready to resist any
attack by his 60,000 Romans, auxiliary, and German cavalry.
He could not leave that large an army in his rear.
Vercingetorix was right; Caesar could not continue to
Provence. It was also obvious that attacking the high walls
of Alesia with almost double their number in defenders
behind them would have been suicidal for the Romans.
So Caesar did not attack.
Instead he ordered his army to begin building a wall
around the entire city. Crossing two rivers and fronted by a
twenty-foot-deep trench, Caesar’s inner wall ran for ten
miles and completely cut off Alesia. There was a tower
every 120 feet and all sorts of traps and sharp objects
scattered in front of the wall that served to break up any
Gallic attack. And the Roman legionnaires could dig. Every
night they fortified their camps within walls made from
stakes they carried on the march. The walls around Alesia
soon proved as immune to attack as the walls of that city
itself.
So the Gauls waited vainly for a Roman attack that never
came. By locking himself up in a city, Vercingetorix had
managed to take a great field army and trap it inside Roman
walls. He had turned it from a battle of swords and spears to
one of shovels and picks. He had managed to put his larger
army in a position in which they had to fight on Roman
terms, and no one could dig, build, or defend any wall better
than the Roman legionnaires.
When it became obvious he was under siege and unable
to break out, the Gallic leader sent out riders to summon all
the warriors not trapped in Alesia to come to his relief. They
got out just before the first wall was completed, but not
without the Romans learning of their mission. Knowing that
someday another army would most likely appear to relieve
the siege of Alesia, Caesar ordered yet another wall built.
This wall faced outward and ran for fourteen miles. By the
time the relief army arrived, the second wall was finished. It
all came down to a climactic battle fought among the
Roman walls.
Vercingetorix also now had a serious problem: Inside
Alesia they had run out of food. He had already driven out
the women and children, whom Caesar refused to let pass
out through his walls. So they starved, exposed just below
the city’s walls and in sight of their husbands and fathers.
The Gauls had to break through both walls and free
Vercingetorix’s army or starvation alone would force it to
surrender.
Over 200,000 more Gauls, less well organized but ready to
fight, appeared outside one section of the walls. The
Romans were facing perhaps nearly 300,000 Gallic warriors
inside and out with 40,000 legionnaires and 15,000 other
auxiliaries, including 5,000 Germanic horsemen. They were
outnumbered six to one, but they were fighting their kind of
battle. The battle was fought on Roman terms and amid the
Roman fortifications. Even so, the final confrontation at
Alesia was a close thing and only a last-minute charge by
the Germanic cavalry saved the day.
The relief army was stopped, broken, and scattered. The
men in Alesia remained trapped and starving. A few days
later, Vercingetorix personally rode into the Roman camp
and surrendered his army. His 90,000 warriors became
slaves and never again did the Celts of Gaul resist rule by
Rome.
Vercingetorix made one mistake in an otherwise brilliant
revolt. He voluntarily trapped his army inside Alesia in a
position that played to the Romans’ strengths and nullified
his own. Had Caesar attacked, the Romans would have
suffered terrible casualties, but in war you should never
assume the enemy will do what you want. Had the Gallic
army of 300,000 warriors met Caesar in an open field, they
might well have triumphed. If Vercingetorix had not made
the mistake of locking his army inside Alesia, France, then
the world today would have a lot more Gaul and a lot less
Roman in it.
13
NO GOING BACK
Most Useless Cut of All
44 BCE
In 458 BCE, when the consular army of Rome was besieged
by the Aequins, the Senate declared a state of emergency
so they might elect a dictator to save them from their peril.
They chose Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus to take up this
noble cause. He defeated the Aequins in one day, led a
triumph through Rome, and shortly thereafter returned to
his quiet, peaceful life as a farmer. Though most people
today have not heard of Cincinnatus (aside from the city
bearing his name), he had quite an important role to play in
history. In the eyes of the Roman republic, he was the ideal
citizen. He took command when the country needed him
most, and he gave it up just as easily when the danger had
passed.
In the glorious days of the republic, citizens recited the
accounts of Cincinnatus as a reminder to those seeking
absolute authority. Not all who listened heeded the
warnings. Gaius Julius Caesar, for example, took far more
interest in stories about fighting men like Achilles and
Alexander the Great than he did in those about part-time
warriors like Cincinnatus. He believed leadership must be
determined by might, and in 49 BCE he exercised that might
when he crossed the Rubicon with his army and marched on
Rome. His army then controlled the city, and the mob
adored him. After Caesar’s exploits in Egypt, his influence
increased again, and he became even more powerful.
Certain members of the Senate thought that he meant to
take total control, and they came to the conclusion that he
had to be stopped at all costs. So, on the Ides of March 44
BCE, these members stabbed Caesar to death on the Senate
floor, thus ending the reign of the would-be dictator and
stamping out any possibility of empiric rule. With Caesar’s
threat gone once more, the Senate would rule the empire.
Well . . . not exactly. In fact, the death of Julius Caesar had
the opposite effect and forever put an end to the great age
of the Roman republic.
Rome became a republic in 509 BCE when the people rose
up against the last of the Etruscan kings, Tarquin the Proud,
and deposed him. Although they rebelled against their king,
the people still saw the need for supreme authority. So, they
gave this power to two consuls who served one-year terms
of office. Each had the power to veto the other, and neither
could change the laws without the other’s permission. The
government also included a Senate made up of the fathers
of the community, or patricians. In the fifth century BCE, the
government created the Tribunate of the Plebes in response
to outcries by the plebeian class. Similar to the House of
Commons, this branch consisted of a plebeian assembly and
a tribune. The plebeian assembly included all the plebes of
Rome, and they elected the tribune, who served one-year
terms and had the power of veto, which by the way means,
“I forbid.” The system seemed flawless, but it did not take
into account humankind’s hunger for power.
Rivalries grew rampant in the government with each man
vying for his own political gain. These rivalries came to a
head in 91 BCE after the assassination of the newly elected
tribune, Marcus Livius Drusus, who had some radical ideas
like extending citizenship to all cities on the Italian
peninsula. Needless to say, “Power to the people” was not in
vogue at that time. Ten years later, antagonisms flared up
again because of contention between two men, Lucius
Cornelius Sulla and Gaius Marius. Sulla wanted to
strengthen the power of the Senate, but Marius resisted
him. Upon being elected consul in 88 BCE, Sulla had his
authority undermined when Marius tried to take command
of the army from him. Although Sulla was in Naples
preparing to go to war against the king of Pontus, whose
forces were encroaching on Rome, he elected instead to
turn back to Rome and lead his forces into the city to face
Marius once and for all. It was the first time in history that a
Roman commander led troops against the city.
Sulla proclaimed himself dictator and remained in the role
even after the death of Marius years later. He retired from
politics in 79 BCE, but not before he had packed the Senate
full of his friends, giving them more authority, while
decreasing the power of the tribunes. Sulla’s rise to power
put a sour taste in the mouths of the government officials,
and they vowed to prevent any future recurrences. So, to
curb the enthusiasm of overzealous generals, new laws
were put into place. In spite of these laws, a new golden boy
rose up through the ranks and won favor with the Senate.
Gnaeus Pompeius, better known as Pompey the Great,
became consul despite being underage and having never
before held office. He immediately rescinded one of Sulla’s
laws, thereby restoring authority to the tribunes. Pompey
seemed to be paving the road to his own dictatorship.
However, after defeating the Mithridates of Pontus, Pompey
disbanded his army and waited for an official invitation to
enter the city in triumph. Although the Senate granted him
a triumph, they refused to honor the agreements Pompey
had made with foreign monarchs, and they did not approve
the land grants for his veterans. Pompey formed a secret
alliance with two other men who had been slighted by the
Senate—Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gaius Julius Caesar.
Crassus is perhaps best known for his part in squelching
the slave rebellion led by Spartacus. Caesar, of course,
needs no introduction. In what became known as the First
Triumvirate, the three members sought to use their
influence to control choice offices and military commands.
They did not seek total control. But, as is often the case, the
appetites grew with the taking. Each man gained his own
victories and jealousy soon began to rear its ugly head.
After the death of Crassus in 53 BCE, Pompey and Caesar
launched campaigns to destroy each other. While Caesar
gained status from his military victories in Gaul, Pompey
consolidated his power in Rome. Through their persuasion,
the two men used the Senate as pawns to gain the upper
hand in their personal feud. Pompey convinced the Senate
to order Caesar to disband his army. It was the final straw.
Caesar’s famous march across the Rubicon was in direct
response to Pompey’s vie for power. With the exploits of
Sulla still fresh in their minds, most of the Senate fled, along
with their ill-prepared leader. Caesar pursued Pompey
through Spain, Greece, and finally Egypt, where his old rival
and in-law was promptly stabbed to death as soon as his
feet hit the dry Egyptian land. The assassin worked for the
boy-king Ptolemy, who feared befriending Pompey on
account of Caesar and also feared letting him escape.
Ptolemy ruled Egypt alongside his alluring sister, Cleopatra,
and we all know the scandal she caused. So Caesar became
involved with the beautiful, exotic woman from a far-off
land; he wanted to be worshiped as a god and wanted
absolute power.
When Caesar returned to Rome, his authority far
surpassed that of the Senate. With this power, he
accomplished a great many deeds. He pardoned many of his
old rivals, including Cicero, and had them reinstated into
office. He created jobs for the poor and put a tighter leash
on crime, and he corrected many problems in the empire’s
administrative system. He planned roads, and he even gave
us the Julian calendar. Many Roman nobles concerned
themselves less with Caesar’s accomplishments and more
with his motives. They suspected that, like Sulla, Caesar
sought to make himself dictator. In fact, his unlimited power
coupled with the fact that Caesar believed himself to be a
god, left very little doubt in the minds of the people as to his
plans. He would not be willing to simply step down from
such a powerful position. This is what convinced certain
members of the Senate in 44 BCE that the only way to put
an end to Caesar’s reign would be to put an end to Caesar.
The conspirators should have taken a page from their own
history, because looking back from the time of Drusus it
becomes evident that the death of a dictator did not always
guarantee the fall of the dictatorship. There would always
be someone waiting for his chance to rise up and seize
power. In the case of Caesar, three men rose up to take his
place. This Second Triumvirate was made up of Caesar’s
friend Marc Antony, who ruled in the east; Caesar’s greatnephew and heir, Gaius Octavius, who ruled in the west; and
one of Caesar’s lieutenants, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who
ruled in Africa. As with the First Triumvirate, each one of
these leaders had his own personal agenda, and each
wanted absolute authority.
The only deed they accomplished together was punishing
the conspirators in Caesar’s assassination. After that, it was
every man for himself. Octavius seized power from Lepidus
in Africa, and he took over total control of the Italian
homeland, which the three had originally ruled together. He
then set his sights on Antony and produced a document that
was allegedly Antony’s will and read it aloud before the
Senate. The will bequeathed all of Rome’s interests in the
east to Cleopatra. The enraged Senate gave Octavius
permission to revoke Antony’s power and wage war on
Cleopatra. Octavius crushed the infamous duo, after which
the two lovers reportedly committed suicide. The Battle of
Actium finally put an end to the constant civil wars that
beleaguered Rome. Unfortunately, it also put an end to the
Republic. For the next 500 years, Rome would be ruled by
one supreme authority, known as “the Caesar.”
What Gaius Julius Caesar’s assassins failed to realize was
that the power of Rome lay in her army. Control the army,
and you control Rome. Numerous great generals who rose
up through the ranks, many of them not even Italians, were
able to become emperor of Rome just because they had an
army behind them.
When Julius Caesar died, he was at the peak of his
popularity with both the army and the people of Rome. But,
as modern-day polls have shown, popularity waxes and
wanes. Today’s star is tomorrow’s has-been. Before his
murder, Caesar’s health was already failing him. Eventually,
his funds would have run low. And, it is likely that the
people’s esteem for him would have run out when he failed
to solve all the problems his predecessors had wrestled
with. From this position, the Senate could have then
undermined their dictator’s authority and regained control
of the army. With the Senate as the head of government,
Rome might have avoided the rise of despotism altogether,
and the names of insane radicals such as Caligula and Nero
would have faded into oblivion.
14
GOTTA KNOW THE TERRITORY
Varus’ Lost Legions
9 CE
The worst loss of Roman legions in the history of the empire
came about because just one man had poor judgment. That
man was Quinctilius Varus. In 9 CE, the Roman empire was
still expanding. Julius Caesar had conquered Gaul up the
Rhine, and other Roman commanders had later expanded
the conquest under Augustus until they nominally controlled
much of today’s Germany. Yes, at the high point of Roman
expansion the empire did rule Germany . . . just not for long.
Quinctilius Varus had been a very competent governor of
Syria. He had even led some small, but very successful,
military actions there. Mostly, he was an administrator.
Governors in the Roman empire were expected to enrich
themselves with a piece of the tax revenue along with
delivering large amounts of gold and silver to Caesar
Augustus in Rome. Most of the ways they did this would get
you arrested today, and Varus had proven he was very good
at squeezing taxes out of the rich merchants and large
estates of Syria. His reward for success, when his term as
governor ended, was to be given another province to
govern. Unfortunately for Rome, this one was Germany.
The basis of the mistake that cost Rome their legions was
really the differences between the two provinces. Syria was
a settled, highly civilized, and wealthy province. Germany
was none of those things. Where Syria had great cities,
some a thousand years old already, the German tribes were
mostly seminomadic. Even their villages tended to be
temporary. While Syria had been ruled by distant empires
for most of its 2,000 years, the German tribes were fiercely
independent and resented the new intrusion of Roman rule.
Finally, Syria was a land with plenty of gold and silver,
whereas Germany was metal poor and wealth was often
measured in cattle, not coins.
The basic mistake that Quinctilius Varus made was to take
the way he had successfully governed in Syria and try to
apply it to the very different German province. Soon he was
pressing very proud and independent German chiefs to send
him taxes they did not have the coinage to pay. Augustus
really didn’t have an interest in Varus sending him his cut of
swine and cattle—a mistake, but one that could be
corrected. Varus’ real error was not to realize how badly he
was governing and what the reaction to that would
inevitably be. To give the governor some excuse, he was
encouraged to think all was well by a German noble, named
Arminius, who worked in Varus’ provincial court. Arminius
had been trained by the Roman army and commanded
auxiliaries so well that he was even made a member of the
Equestrian order: a Roman noble. In reality, Arminius hated
Roman rule, and while making every effort to show Varus
how popular a governor he was, the German commander
was organizing a revolt.
The Roman governors of Germany tended to spend their
summers in the center of the province near the Weser River
and in the fall move to a more civilized location on the Rhine
for the cold months. It was in the fall of 9 CE, and the
oblivious Varus and his three veteran legions prepared to
make their march back to the Rhine camp. Just before they
started, Arminius suggested to Varus that they change their
route so they could march through a few areas that had
been threatening revolt or were refusing to pay taxes. Varus
agreed, and the column of 15,000 legionnaires and perhaps
10,000 followers set out on the last-minute route.
The history-changing difference was that the new path
went through the densest part of the Teutoburg Forest. This
was important because the Roman army’s strength was
fighting in formation with coordination between units. The
German warrior was unskilled at fighting in any formation,
but he was brave and very effective among the thick trees
and broken terrain.
As soon as the march started, Arminius rode ahead to
scout the way. In reality, the deceptive German went out to
command an ambush by more than 25,000 German
warriors. They were swarming toward the narrow paths the
Romans would have to take and waited ready to pounce.
When they did, the legionnaires were unable to move into
their familiar, cohesive formations. Also burdened with
defending the thousands of civilians cluttering their column,
the three veteran legions were torn apart in hundreds of
small ambushes and attacks. Even their cavalry was unable
to fight its way clear of the woods, and they were eventually
surrounded by an ever-increasing number of German
fighters. Varus was wounded and committed suicide, almost
every man in three legions was lost, and never again did a
Roman army try to occupy any land beyond the Rhine River.
The disaster of Teutoburg Forest marked the end of Roman
expansion. Augustus was said to have panicked. He forced
conscription of enough men to form legions to meet a
German invasion that never came. Arminius was unable to
get the extremely independent and proud Germans to
cooperate, unless a Roman army actually invaded Germany
itself. Eventually, Arminius was assassinated by other
Germans in 21 CE. But Augustus did not know this and
spent months fearing the barbarians were coming. He is
said to have not cut his hair or shaved, often calling out in
frustration for Quinctilius Varus to give him back his legions.
Rome never returned to Germany. Germania remained
unique, and German culture was never Romanized like those
of France and Britain. Would the steppe barbarians have
been able to sweep through a Germany that combined
German courage with Roman military skill? If Varus had not
lost the province, would Rome still stand today? Certainly
the entire history of Europe would be totally different if
Quinctilius Varus had ruled Germany well. But he did not,
and Caesar Augustus lost a province and his legions.
15
THE HIGH COST OF THE EASIEST WAY
Leaded
30
Sometimes, a mistake, even one that changes history,
comes from ignorance, not stupidity or bad judgment. But
even with that said, in this case, the difference between
intent and ignorance does not make the consequences less
disastrous.
A simple and economical decision made by the city
planners of Rome may well be the most important cause for
the fall of the Roman empire. The mistake happened
because the magistrates who ruled the city of Rome found
what appeared to be the ideal solution to a problem. That
problem was how to supply water to all the buildings and
fountains in the city.
As the city of Rome grew, eventually surpassing a million
residents, the water problem grew acute. The majestic
aqueducts, which still thrill twentieth-century tourists, could
carry plenty of water from the mountains to the city. The
problem was how to spread that water out among its users.
A solution was found: an ideal metal that was malleable and
easily made into pipes. These pipes could be made cheaply
enough to allow their use all through the seven hills.
The problem was that this metal was lead. Yes, it’s the
same material that requires tearing down walls in houses or
apartments if a few flakes of lead-tainted paint are found
there. But back then, lead looked like the perfect choice. It
was relatively inexpensive (always a bureaucrat’s concern),
could be easily rolled flat and then curled into pipes of all
sizes, and its low melting point meant that the joints could
be welded shut with nothing more than a good campfire.
Lead pipes seemed the ideal solution to getting the water
from the aqueducts to the people. The problem was that
these same pipes were effectively poisoning the entire
population of Rome. More important, they were extensively
used in the palaces of the major Roman families and the
emperor. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
(CDC’s) description of the symptoms of lead poisoning
pretty much says it all:
HOW CAN LEAD AFFECT MY HEALTH?
The effects of lead are the same whether it enters the body
through breathing or swallowing. Lead can affect almost
every organ and system in your body. The main target for
lead toxicity is the nervous system, both in adults and
children. Long-term exposure of adults can result in
decreased performance in some tests that measure
functions of the nervous system. It may also cause
weakness in fingers, wrists, or ankles. Lead exposure also
causes small increases in blood pressure, particularly in
middle-aged and older people and can cause anemia.
Exposure to high lead levels can severely damage the brain
and kidneys in adults or children and ultimately cause
death. In pregnant women, high levels of exposure to lead
may cause miscarriage. High-level exposure in men can
damage the organs responsible for sperm production.
Organ failure, brain damage, a lower birth rate, anemia,
and weakness—quite a list. Now, when a good portion of the
population of the capital of an empire suffers from mild to
severe symptoms, you have a crippled population.
Remember all those mad emperors from Caligula on?
Drinking lead-contaminated water has to have contributed
to their cognitive problems. So what appeared to be the
ideal solution to a practical problem most assuredly
weakened Rome and the other major Roman cities.
16
… AND DENARII FOOLISH
Destroying Your Economy
55
This mistake is one made over and over by great nations
and empires. It is hoped that our current leaders have
learned from history. The mistake here is using inflation to
pay the bills. Now, before the use of paper money, which
was introduced hundreds of years ago by Muslim rulers to
great success, all money was in coins. Today when we work
with coins, the pureness is guaranteed and enforced, but it
is easy to forget that this was not always the case. This is a
mistake that history has seen time and time again. Perhaps
the temptation is just too great. Recently Zimbabwe printed
itself into a situation in which there were days when the
value of its currency would halve every hour. The Weimar
Republic, in post-World War I Germany, created
hyperinflation by just printing all the money they needed
and hence decreasing the deutschemark until it was
effectively valueless. Weimar’s government was voted out
of office, and the Nazis were voted in on the promise to fix
the economy. We all paid a high price for that inflationary
spiral. The caliphs made this same error, and it crippled
Islam, ending its most vibrant and expansive period. But if
you go even further back, you will find that this mistake was
yet another factor that brought down both the original and
later the Eastern Roman empires.
The original economic strength of Rome was built on land.
As the empire conquered more countries, more land was
available to produce more goods, and the economy grew in
proportion. Adding to the empire’s coffers was the sale by
the state of captured soldiers or even families from newly
conquered areas as slaves. Then the empire stopped
expanding, and most of the land was already owned by the
major families. With no more slaves or land to sell or grant,
the wealth of the government had to come from taxes.
Initially, being able to tax the rich families suited most
emperors well. Those rich and influential noble families were
the only real counterbalance to his power as emperor. So
being able to tax them into poverty reinforced his own
position by eliminating any competition. It was not too
subtle economic warfare. And, of course, as always, the
poorer classes much preferred the rich and noble families
carry all of the tax burden.
But by the time of Emperor Nero, the well was running dry.
The rich weren’t very rich anymore, and without them to
create new income, by hiring the workers and buying from
artisans, the entire Roman economy was slowing down. So
to raise the money needed for the army and his court, Nero
had to start taxing the poor and middle classes. This action
slowed the economy even more, and it did not make the
leader very popular with the masses, and that was even
before the fire.
Nero, though, had grand plans for rebuilding the city of
Rome in marble and erecting a palace for himself that would
embarrass a modern Dubai emir. But with tax income down,
there just weren’t enough coins—or silver to make new
coins—to pay for all of his plans. Nero’s solution was to mint
silver coins that weren’t all silver. This practice is called
“debasing the currency.” This policy caused some inflation
and unrest during his reign. Soon the older, undebased
coins were being treated as more valuable, and they were.
Nero’s debasing of the Roman currency set a precedent that
many future emperors were happy to follow. By the reign of
Claudius II Gothicus in 268 CE, the actual silver content of a
“silver” denarius was less than 1 percent. There was not
enough silver in a Roman silver coin to mine it if it had been
ore. In value, the debased coins were the same as that of
paper money today. They were a promise and symbol of
wealth, but they had no intrinsic value. And the emperor
found himself in a never-ending loop. With the coins worth
less, the emperor needed more to pay for his army and
bureaucrats. But if he minted more debased coins, the value
of each coin was less. So he had to create even more coins
with even less silver, and so it goes. The ever-creative
Romans had managed to find a way to have both useless
coins and runaway inflation.
The long-term effect on Rome of three centuries of
gradual, and occasionally not so gradual, inflation was that
the empire could afford to support fewer soldiers who were
less well trained. It meant that governors had to press their
provinces even harder to produce ever-increasing demands
for more of ever-less-valuable coins to fill their treasury. The
collapses of the Western Roman empire and, a thousand
years later, of the Eastern or Byzantine Roman empire were
not caused directly by debased coinage, but the practice
certainly contributed.
It would be nice to think that knowing all of this might
mean that modern governments would not make the same
mistakes. Here is some food for thought: Seventy years ago
the U.S. dollar was first devalued when the Federal Reserve
Bank decided to raise the cost of an ounce of gold from
$20.67 to $35 per ounce. Then thirty-five years ago, the
value of gold or silver was totally detached from the U.S.
dollar. That was called “going off the gold,” and later the
United States went off the silver standard. It was then that
the bills marked as silver certificates were withdrawn from
circulation. That was because technically they could be
turned in at a Federal Reserve Bank for silver coins or bars.
Since then, nothing has actually supported the U.S. dollar,
or most other currencies, beyond the faith and promise of
each government.
Just like the Roman denarius, the gradual debasing of the
value of the U.S. dollar has continued without slowing. With
inflation and the growing price of gold, the dollar can buy
only 10 percent as much gold as it could have in 1971. That
means in terms of hard exchange, the United States has
debased its currency 90 percent in the last forty years. With
the deficit increasing, the spiral of inflation threatens. It
seems we may have learned the wrong lesson from Nero.
17
OVERCONFIDENCE
Destroyed by a Victory
70
What have the Romans ever done for us? The Jews of the
first century CE asked themselves that very question.
Despite the obvious benefits so aptly pointed out in the
opening scenes of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, the Jews
were not willing to give up all they held sacred for the sake
of progress and profit. All the roads, running water,
education, and medical attention in the world could not take
the place of their religion. But for a time, it seemed that
even a 3,000-year-old religion might not be able to
withstand the might of the Roman empire.
Judea during the time of the early Roman empire was a
volatile place. In addition to being inhabited by a people
dead set on removing the Roman occupants, it was also
filled with opposing factions within the Jewish community.
One of these factions in particular used radical and violent
means to try to push out the occupying forces. These
Zealots grew tired of the religious leaders like the Pharisees
and the Sadducees playing puppet to the Roman rulers.
They also resented the corrupt reigns of incompetent
political hacks who were the procurators that Rome had
chosen to rule over Judea. Tensions came to a head around
66 CE, when the procurator, Gessius Florus, took seventeen
talents of gold from the Temple treasury. That was a
massive amount of wealth. Public outcry from both within
the walls of Jerusalem and outside spread like wildfire.
Florus answered this outcry by allowing his soldiers to
pillage part of the city. In response, the city’s masses rose
up against their Roman leaders and drove them out of
Judea. Gessius Florus fled to the protection of another
Roman garrison on the coast in Caesarea.
The people of Judea had more to contend with than
corrupt government officials. Herod Agrippa the younger,
who was king of Judea, had the right to nominate the high
priest in Jerusalem. The Herod dynasty is sometimes a
confusing one to follow, as they weren’t very innovative in
naming their heirs. So, just to clear things up, this particular
Herod was the nephew of Herod of Chalcis, the one
mentioned in the Bible in Acts 25 and 30. Although he
claimed to live by the laws of the Jews, Herod Agrippa lived
with his uncle’s widow, and he spent most of his time in
Rome, relishing the pagan lifestyle within the capital city.
The Zealots despised Agrippa and believed the only way
to counter his oppressive regime was to start an open
revolt. The Zealots demanded three things. All sacrifices to
appease the emperor had to stop because they were in
direct conflict with God’s law, the sanctity of the temple had
to be preserved, and—most important—Judea had to have
its independence. These were the only acceptable terms,
and to show they were serious, the Zealots took control of
the Temple in Jerusalem, while the less fanatical Jews held
the rest of the city. The rebels immediately refused and
forbade others to make the sacrifices required by Rome.
Agrippa attempted to put the revolt down with the forces he
had on hand. The Zealots led a Jewish army that first
defeated Agrippa’s force of 3,000 horsemen and then later
took the fortress of Masada.
Rome could not let any revolt go unpunished lest other
provinces follow suit. They sent in the governor of Syria,
Cestius Gallus. He tried and failed to quell the rebellion.
When Gallus saw how heavily defended Jerusalem was, he
hurried back to Antioch. On the way, rebel forces ambushed
the unsuspecting governor and his escort. The last part of
Gallus’ return to his capital was more in the form of a
panicky rout.
With each Roman defeat, the rebels grew in strength and
number. The Zealots, under command of John of Gischala,
soon controlled most of Jerusalem. Josephus commanded
the forces of Galilee. This is the same Josephus who would
later write Bellum Judaicum (The Jewish War), giving us our
main source of information about the revolt. Josephus
gathered and trained troops, fortified cities, and set up an
administrative body in Galilee, which was able to operate
separately from Jerusalem.
The previous failure of Agrippa and then Cestius Gallus
embarrassed Rome, so Flavius Vespasian was sent in to
squash the rebellion once and for all. Vespasian was an
experienced field commander who had been ousted from
Rome for falling asleep during one of Nero’s infamous
poetry readings. Apparently the general’s lack of couth in
court did not carry over into his military career. He massed
troops in Antioch while his son, Titus, brought in more troops
from Alexandria. The two forces met and merged on the way
to Judea in Ptolemais. The news of the approach of a large
force of Romans reached Josephus, and he fled to the
fortified city of Jotapata with his followers. The unprotected
land outside of the cities fell into Roman hands without a
single blow being dealt.
Vespasian focused his attention on Jotapata. The siege
lasted forty-seven days. Josephus, along with forty of his
men, took refuge in a cave. When their position was
revealed to the Romans, Josephus decided to surrender;
however, his companions did not allow it. So, Josephus had
another idea. Every third man would kill his closest
neighbor. When the last two men were left standing, they
would draw lots to decide which man would kill the other.
The last man would kill himself. This meant that only one
man would break Jewish law by committing suicide. Of
course, Josephus was one of the last of two men left alive.
He stated in his writing that it was God’s will, but it could
have simply been the result of someone who could perform
simple mathematics. Josephus was taken prisoner but was
later released. He lived out the rest of his life in Rome.
After taking the city of Jotapata, Titus also captured the
cities of Tiberius, Taricheae, Gamala, and the Zealot base of
Gischala. John of Gischala fled, and by 67 CE all of Galilee
was back in the hands of the Romans. Most of Judea was
also now under Roman control, leaving the holy city of
Jerusalem as the final key to crushing the rebellion. But
Jerusalem would not be an easy nut to crack. The fall of
Galilee gave the Zealots a stronger position within the
Jewish community. They assumed control of all of the city as
well as the Temple. That wasn’t the only obstacle the Roman
general faced. Troubles in Rome and infighting among the
would-be emperors meant Vespasian would delay attacking
Jerusalem for the better part of a year. Only after he had
secured his place in the Roman hierarchy was he free to
deal with Jerusalem.
Vespasian had to stay in Rome, so he sent his son, Titus,
to retake Jerusalem and so finish what he had started. In
April 70, Titus began his direct assault on Jerusalem. He
stunned the Zealots by breaking through the first wall in a
mere fifteen days and the second after only eight days. The
third wall was quite another matter. Fifteen feet of stone
separated the Roman troops from the inhabitants on the
other side. Titus built massive siege towers, seventy-five
feet tall, in an attempt to send his men over the top. Each
tower could carry dozens of troops. The Jews answered this
new threat by tunneling under the walls of the city to attack
the troops inside the great towers.
They managed to cripple or destroy them all. So Titus
came up with his most ruthless plan. Taking a note from
Julius Caesar, he had a 4.5-mile-long wall built completely
around the city. If the Jews wouldn’t surrender, he would
starve them into submission. Just like at Alesia a century
earlier, the Roman wall meant no supplies could reach the
inhabitants within. All Titus had to do was to wait.
Then an unexpected disaster happened. The tunnel that
the Jews built to try to infiltrate the siege towers collapsed.
In doing so, it undermined a section of the third wall.
Several meters of wall collapsed into rubble. The city was
now vulnerable. Roman legionnaires stormed through the
city, taking out years of frustration on the inhabitants. In the
end, the Temple was destroyed and hundreds of thousands
of Jews were killed. The rest were sold into slavery.
Some Jews saw this as divine punishment for those who
had practiced the Roman ways. Others became even more
bitter. With its main population center gone, the Jewish state
became a province. Whatever the case, the destruction of
the Temple of Solomon devastated the Jewish community.
The rebellion that sought to empower the Jewish people
instead resulted in their near destruction. They fought for
their beliefs and the things they felt were theirs by right as
God’s people. They wished to honor their God by refusing to
make sacrifices to other gods, they wanted independence,
and, most of all, they wanted to preserve the most sacred of
God’s holy places, the Temple in Jerusalem. Instead,
thousands were enslaved, many more were killed, and the
Temple was destroyed. The heart of the Jewish people was
no more. A once-strong and -vigorous people were broken
and scattered. Their history changed forever because the
Jewish people thought that a little bit of military success
meant they could take on, most literally, the rest of the
known world.
And what happened to all the gold and other artifacts that
were stolen from the Temple? Vespasian used it to finance
one of Rome’s most powerful symbols, the Coliseum.
18
TAKING THE EASY WAY
The Great Divide
324
When the Roman emperor Diocletian decided to divide his
realm into an eastern empire and a western empire, he did
so in order that his forty-four provinces might be more
easily governed. He obviously had never read anything on
Roman history; otherwise he would have known that every
time the empire had been divided to make it more
manageable, it resulted only in civil war or invasion. But it is
unlikely that Diocletian knew his history, because he was
illiterate. The requirements for being emperor had vastly
deteriorated since the time of Marcus Aurelius. Diocletian
proved his ability as a military commander, but his inability
to learn from the errors of his predecessors would cost his
citizens greatly, eventually lead to civil war, and hasten the
collapse of Roman rule in the western half of the empire.
Diocletian had grown anxious about the growing number
of barbarian invasions in Gaul. He had already created a
mobile army to deal with the situation, but he decided that
the best way to handle it would be to have a stronger power
base in the west. He appointed his close friend Maximian as
his co-emperor to rule from Gaul while Diocletian would rule
from Nicomedia in Asia Minor. In doing this, he set up a
structure that was supposed to ensure peaceful succession
to each office. The two emperors would be called Augustus,
and they were to pick a successor who was not a son, no
matter how competent the son might be. Diocletian then
chose two co-regents, who would be called Caesar. Galarius
became the Caesar in the east and heir to Diocletian, while
Constantius ruled with Maximian as the Caesar in the west.
With separate leaders, separate armies, and even separate
tax collectors, the Roman empire became in effect two
empires.
Emperor Diocletian’s plan to partition the Roman empire
There was still the risk that family ties would interfere with
his plans to ensure that the Caesar would become the
Augustus. To keep the family ambitions of each man in the
tetrarchy at bay, Diocletian “requested” that their sons live
in his court. One of these sons was Constantine, the son of
Constantius. Although the sons were virtually hostages,
Diocletian treated them well. Despite being illiterate, he
gave the boys the best education and even made sure they
learned Greek. Constantine eventually became one of
Diocletian’s most trusted soldiers, but the Augustus grew
uneasy. The emperor had issued the Great Persecution
against the Christians and, although Constantine himself did
not fall into the sect, his mother did. As one of the
emperor’s top men, he had witnessed many atrocities under
the new edict. When the aging emperor fell ill, he failed to
include Constantine in the exchange of power. Constantine
realized for the first time what his position had been. He
was a mere hostage and was also expendable.
Constantine fled to Boulogne in Gaul to meet his father.
His arrival could not have been better timed. Constantius
then ruled over Spain, Gaul, and Britain. In Britain, his father
faced an uprising of the always unruly Picts. So father and
son went to Britain together. Constantine soon won the
favor of his father’s army by leading them in defeating the
Picts. When his father died in 306, the army recognized
Constantine as their new leader. They chose wisely. Not long
after, when the Barbarian Franks invaded Gaul, Constantine
led the cavalry charge against them and defeated them.
Constantine celebrated this victory with a triumph that
marched through the streets of Trier. The citizens loved him.
While Constantine was gaining support in Gaul and
Britain, a usurper rose to power in Italy and North Africa.
Maxentius had taken over by promising lower taxes and free
grain. (He is not to be confused with Maximian, who was
one of the original tetrarchy.) When the people realized the
promises he made would be delivered only to the wealthy,
they began to revolt. Riots broke out all over Rome.
Constantine saw it as his duty to overthrow the upstart and
restore order. He formed an alliance with Licinius, who now
controlled the eastern half of the empire. Together they
rallied their troops to fight their fellow Romans just outside
Rome. This was exactly what Diocletian had sought to avoid,
civil war.
On the eve of battle, Constantine is said to have seen the
Greek letters chi and rho appear in the sky (the first two
letters of the word Christ). He heard a voice say, “Under
this, you will conquer.” Constantine had witnessed the
resilience of the Christians when they were undergoing
persecution by Diocletian. Rather than discouraging the
faith, the number of Christians had grown at an enormous
rate. It is possible that Constantine saw a people whom he
could use to help win the empire. Whether it was motivated
by politics or a spiritual awakening, Constantine ordered his
men to paint the Christian symbol on their shields. Together
the forces of Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Milvian
Bridge. Constantine had the head of his enemy paraded
around the empire. With this single victory, Constantine
became the sole ruler of the western empire.
Despite Constantine’s victory, there was no peace. The
alliance Constantine formed with Licinius broke down. As the
conflict between the two rulers grew more tense, Licinius
found a way to strike out against his nemesis in the west.
Like Diocletian before him, he persecuted the very sect of
people whom Constantine had claimed as own: the
Christians. The persecutions were not founded on religious
divergence; they were purely political. Licinius saw the
Christians as Constantine’s people. For nine more years,
tensions between the east and west worsened until the
antagonism came to a head. Once again the country was on
the verge of civil war.
The battle that would decide who would take possession
of all the vast expanses of the Roman Empire took place at
Chrysopolis in 324. Constantine defeated Licinius’ army and
became the sole emperor. Because Constantine’s sister,
who was married to Licinius through the previous alliance,
had begged for mercy for her husband, Constantine spared
him, at least for a while. But he later had his enemy killed
while imprisoned.
With his enemies annihilated, Constantine could focus on
what meant the most to him: his new Christian empire.
Because the brunt of economic and military activity in the
empire took place in the northeast, he decided to establish
a new capital on the site of the former Greek city of
Byzantion. He chose the location because of its great
strategic advantage. It lay near the Mediterranean Sea and
the Black Sea and allowed access to Anatolia and the
Danube. He changed the city’s name to Constantinople. The
city became his obsession. He focused all of his resources
on building roads, elaborate cathedrals, schools, and more
secure walls. He transformed the city into the jewel of the
east. It became a center of knowledge, wealth, and
prosperity. It was cosmopolitan. It was Christian. But, most
of all, it was Greek. The split Diocletian began was
complete.
After Constantine’s death, his capital city continued to
flourish. But the Latin-speaking west did not. The empire
was politically and culturally split due to language
differences, philosophical differences, and eventually
religious differences. Power struggles developed between
the pope in Rome and the patriarch in Constantinople.
These would eventually lead to the Great Schism in the
Church. By 395, the empire was officially split yet again.
Without the support of the east, the west fell prey to
barbarian invasions and was lost in the sixth century. This is
often seen as the end of the Roman empire. But it was not
until 1453, when the Turks took Constantinople, that the last
and long separate eastern half of the empire truly ceased to
exist.
Once Diocletian split the Roman empire, it changed
everything. The rich east even diverted barbarian invasions
toward the west. Diocletian’s dream of an efficient and
divided but cooperative empire was a nightmare that
doomed the western half of the Roman empire. Had the
empire stayed united, Rome might have had the resources
and strength to survive for centuries more, like Byzantium
did. At first it was more efficient for Diocletian to divide up
the empire. But for millions, the split was a mistake that
doomed them to a millennium of darkness.
19
FIGHT YOUR OWN WARS
Who Will Watch the Watchers?
375
By the late fourth century, the Roman empire stretched
across Europe and Asia and contained many diverse
cultures and races. Despite that, officials still had
reservations about embracing the barbarian people of
Germany and inducting them into the army. Those who
revered the illusion of a classic Rome resented that the
world was changing rapidly. It would yet again change for
the worse with the invasion of the Huns and a few
benchmark decisions that, now looking back, were probably
not in the best interest of the empire.
It all started in 375 when the Huns attacked the
Ostrogoths in the Black Sea region. The Visigoth king
Fritigern believed his people would be targeted next, and he
appealed to Emperor Valens for help. He asked the emperor
to allow his people to settle in Roman territory just south of
the Danube. Valens resisted at first, but then he relented on
the condition that the Visigoths would disarm. In exchange,
Rome would provide food for the new refugees. It seemed a
mutually beneficial solution. But Valens had not counted on
the hatred of his own people, especially the hatred veteran
Roman soldiers held toward the Germanic people. Once the
Visigoths had settled, they had to endure mistreatment by
their Greek neighbors and the Roman soldiers. They also
had to endure hunger. Valens had known there was not
enough extra food, but had made the deal despite this.
The following year, Fritigern and his Visigoths revolted.
The culturally linked Ostrogoths joined them in their
struggle. Valens was killed. Later, Emperor Theodosius
persuaded the Ostrogoths to leave Roman territory as the
Huns moved eastward. He provided settlements for the
Visigoths in what is today Bulgaria. Theodosius also offered
them new lives as soldiers in the Roman army. Being a
Roman soldier paid enough to feed their families, and many
Goths accepted. With the increasing pressure on the borders
generated by the Huns, the integration of the Germanic
people into the eastern and the western armies took place
at a rapid rate. The Latin and Greek soldiers resented the
new arrivals. The empire had been fighting the barbarians
for more than 400 years. This longtime hatred of Germanic
and Steppe peoples would not simply vanish because they
were suddenly allowed to serve in the army.
In 395, the Visigoths elected Alaric as their king. Many
considered Alaric an activist for his people. When supplies
once again ran low, he led them farther into Europe in
search of food and grazing land. At the same time, another
disgruntled barbarian decided to rise up against Rome.
Radagaisus marched his Vandal-Burgundian army across the
Danube and into the Alps. They had to be stopped. Stilicho,
the Frankish-Roman military commander, set out to subdue
them. He did so without a battle. Rather than stamping
these people out, he incorporated many of them into the
army.
Alaric and his Visigoths took advantage of the distraction
caused by Radagaisus and moved into northern Italy.
Stilicho turned his sights on the Visigoths. Radagaisus saw
his chance to make a nuisance of himself once again. In
405, while Stilicho busied himself against Alaric, Radagaisus
and his Vandals made way for Hispania and settled on
Roman lands. Alaric did not want to be left out in the cold,
so he and his people followed the Vandals onto the Iberian
peninsula in hopes of gaining new lands and better
opportunities.
Rome was outraged. Someone needed to take the fall for
this massive blunder. The emperor in the west, Honorus,
decided that Stilicho was the cause of all of Rome’s
problems with the barbarians and ordered his assassination.
Tensions grew within the army until it finally split between
the two rival factions. The split was along ethnic lines
between the long-term Roman citizens and the new
Germanic recruits. Roman soldiers began murdering the
families of their German counterparts. The Germans left to
join Alaric. Without the Germans to fill the ranks, Italy was
without an active army.
The situation was less than agreeable. For the next four
years, Alaric and the barbarian tribes continued to settle in
Hispania and even northern Italy. Without an active army,
the emperor resorted to bribery to keep Alaric from sacking
Rome itself. But Alaric didn’t necessarily want to destroy
Rome. What he really wanted was to be a part of the
empire. He wanted his men to be reintegrated into the
army, he wanted provisions, land his people could live
peacefully on, and he wanted all the benefits of being a
citizen of Rome. Honorus refused. It turned out to be a poor
choice. Honorus fled to Ravenna.
Rome elected a new emperor for the west. Attalus proved
to be far more accepting of the barbarians. He believed that
the integration was inevitable and would benefit Rome. He
agreed to Alaric’s demands of reintegration and food. There
was just one problem. Rome had no extra provisions. When
Attalus failed to meet Alaric’s demands, the Visigoths led an
attack on Rome. By this time, the Roman army was totally
dependent on Germanic troops. There were simply not
enough Romans left who would or could fight to protect the
city. In 475, the barbarian chief Odoacer replaced the
Roman emperor with himself. By filling their army with
Germanic recruits, the western Romans forgot the hardlearned lesson that the army controls who is emperor. Had
they not depended on the often troublesome barbarian
tribes for defense against effectively more barbarian tribes,
perhaps Rome and the Western Roman empire might have
survived. But instead, the citizens of Rome let others
become their defenders and soon found that those
defenders became their masters.
20
NOT-SO-FREE-FIRE ZONE
One Arrow
378
In 378, a single soldier, not even an officer, made a mistake
that greatly hastened, and perhaps even led directly to, the
final destruction of the Western Roman empire. It all started
far away in the steppes of Asia. This is the traditional home
of most tribes of horse barbarians, and among others, the
Goths had started there before moving into eastern Europe.
The Goths were tough, but they migrated toward the
borders of both Roman empires (Byzantine and western)
because a much nastier bunch of barbarians were pushing
them. These were the Huns, as in Atilla the Hun, who were
destined to wreak havoc across most of Europe a generation
later. But at this time, the Huns were still a distant threat,
and the Goths were on Rome’s border asking to cross and
settle into territories then controlled by the western empire.
They were split into two groups: the eastern Ostrogoths and
the western Visigoths. As described in Mistake 19 (see
pages 77-79), Visigoth leaders met with Roman officials and
asked permission for their people to enter Roman territory. It
was agreed that if the men left their weapons behind, the
Goths would be welcome. It was also agreed, since there
would be no chance for the Visigoths to raise crops, that
Rome would provide them food to get by until the next
harvest.
The entire population migrated; hundreds of thousands of
men, women, and children, with tens of thousands of
warriors among them, crossed into the Roman empire. Even
though they had not agreed to the deal, the other large
group, the Ostrogoths, under pressure from Hun allies and
caught amid the confusion, also crossed over the river that
marked Rome’s boundary. It became obvious fairly quickly
that there simply was not enough food available for the
Romans to keep the Goths supplied. Starving, the Visigoth
tribes began taking what food they could find, often
pillaging the villages while doing so. A near-constant fight
between small groups of Goths and small Roman units
erupted. To try to deal with the problem the two Roman
governors requested a meeting with all of the Visigoth
leaders. The meeting was a ruse with the intention of
assassinating all of the Visigoth leadership, likely as a
prelude to enslaving the hungry and (they hoped) leaderless
Goths.
The assassination attempt failed, miserably. The Visigoth
leaders escaped, their army was soon reinforced by the
Ostrogoths, and open warfare resulted. For months, both
sides sparred, small bunches of horsemen raiding and then
ambushing one another, as infantry units defended the
larger Roman towns and cities. Finally, Emperor Valens
arrived to take control of the war. He hoped to win a
decisive battle that would crush or drive the Goths away.
The Visigoth king Fritigern offered peace if the Romans
would allow his people to virtually take over the province of
Thrace. This was rejected by Valens, who collected a large
army made up of both cavalry and infantry. Fritigern also
gathered the Goths, but once more offered to negotiate.
At this point in history, the Goths as a people were almost
as civilized as the Romans and were actually more literate
than the Roman citizens of Gaul. Their leaders were angry,
but they also saw that both sides had more to lose than win.
They did not really want a war or a battle whose loss would
destroy them as a people. Even if they won, they were just
weakening a potential future ally against the Huns. What
the Goths really wanted was a safe place to settle. This is
later shown by the fact that the Goths did unite with what
was the last real Roman army to face down and defeat Atilla
and the Huns eighty years later. The Visigoths may not have
liked Rome, but they feared the Huns more.
The two armies met near Adrianople and camped in sight
of each other. It was agreed that Valens would send a
delegation into the ring of wagons that formed the
Visigoths’ camp. Remember, this was a movement of the
entire Visigoth people, and in that camp were not only
warriors but also families. Each side, not without cause,
watched for betrayal and formed up their horsemen, ready
to attack as needed. But Fritigern seems to have been more
than ready to talk peace. Then a small mistake doomed
Rome.
As the Roman delegation rode toward the Visigoth camp,
they had to be nervous. Their side had just used a similar
maneuver in an attempt to assassinate the very leaders
they were riding to meet. Around them, thousands of
horsemen armed with bow and lance stood poised to attack
one another. For months, both sides had been fighting
small, bitter battles and rarely taking prisoners.
Maybe it was in response to some sort of unusual
movement on the wall of wagons as the Romans
approached. Or maybe he saw an old enemy. One of the
soldiers, who was acting as the bodyguard for the Roman
delegates, fired an arrow, one arrow only, toward the
disturbance. The other guards may have fired then as well.
None survived to say if they did or did not. The Visigoths
reacted with a shower of arrows. Most of the Roman
delegation fell, and the survivors fled.
Seeing this, the Roman cavalry charged the Goths’ camp
from their position on both flanks of the infantry. The
horsemen were unable to break into the Visigoth camp they
surrounded. The bulk of the Visigoth and Ostrogoth heavy
cavalry, well-armored men on fresh horses, had returned
late. They had been waiting out of sight, behind a small
wood, to one side of the battlefield. These armored
horsemen charged first one, then the other force of Roman
cavalry. Assailed by arrows from the wagons and attacked
from behind by thousands of armored warriors, both groups
of Roman horsemen fled. This left the still-unformed and
badly trained Roman infantry at the mercy of the entire
Gothic army. About 40,000 men died, and the power of the
Western Roman empire was broken forever. Roman armies
became less and less Roman and more and more barbarian.
The vaunted infantry of the legions was shown to be gone.
Rome never again ruled more than parts of Italy, and within
a century, the city of Rome itself had fallen twice and the
barbarian Odoacer held the meaningless title of emperor.
If that one arrow had not been fired, there was a very
good chance that peace could have been achieved. It was
the Visigoths, who had valid claims and concerns, who had
asked to talk, and it was very much in Valens’ interest to
have them as allies and not enemies. Without the disaster
at Adrianople, Rome would have remained stronger and
much more capable of defending itself. A Rome that still had
a real army with Gothic allies might have maintained the
high level of culture and literacy the Romans and Goths
shared. The centuries that followed the Battle of Adrianople
are described as the Age of Barbarians and the Dark Ages.
Except for one arrow fired by an anonymous bodyguard,
those times might have been much less barbarous and far
less dark.
21
HIRING OUT HOME DEFENSE
We Are Here to Help You . . .
425
Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is just your enemy
too. In the early part of the fifth century, Roman occupants
withdrew from Britain to defend Gaul and Italy from the
invading barbarian tribes. They left behind a defenseless
land with an uncertain future. The lack of a strong
government and military presence sent the country spiraling
into chaos. Bands of Picts, who dwelled on the north side of
Hadrian’s Wall, began raiding villages on the south side.
They took food, slaughtered countless Britons, and robbed
the local homes and churches. Without the support of the
Roman legions, British chieftains felt they could not stop the
plundering and raids. So, they hired Saxon mercenaries to
come over and quell the troublesome people of the north.
They soon learned to regret their decision.
Not much is known about the details concerning the
events, but according to tradition and the Venerable Bede,
the story goes something like this . . .
In about 425 there lived a king named Constans, who had
as his most trusted adviser the lord Vortigern. The king had
lived his life in a monastery and therefore knew nothing of
the affairs of state. So Vortigern managed the country on his
behalf. It didn’t take long for Vortigern to figure out that if he
ran the country, he might as well be king. He concocted a
plan to usurp the throne from the pious King Constans.
Vortigern first persuaded the king to put the treasury in
his care and then asked for control of the cities and their
garrisons. He convinced the king that the Picts planned to
invade and would be aided by the Norwegians and the
Danes. Vortigern told Constans that the best way to avoid
this would be to fill the court with Picts who could act as
spies against their own people. The real reason Vortigern
wanted to pack the court with Pictish nobles was that he
knew they could be easily bought. When they arrived,
Vortigern treated them with favoritism. Once he had their
loyalty, he told them that he planned on leaving to seek his
fortune, as he could not live off of the measly allowance the
king provided him. The outraged Picts decided to take action
against the king. They broke into his bedchamber and cut
off his head. Vortigern played the part of the grieving friend
well. He ordered the execution of all involved in the crime.
This played well with the Brits, but when word got north to
the Picts, they wanted revenge.
Vortigern not only had to contend with the fact that he
had made an enemy of the Picts, but he also had made an
enemy of Constans’ two brothers, Aurelius Ambrosius and
Uther Pendragon. (They both had fled to Brittany, but
returned to play a part in the story later.) Hengist and Horsa,
two Saxon leaders, appeared off the coast of England in
what likely was supposed to be a raid. The Saxons landed in
Kent with a band of fully armed warriors. Rather than
gathering men to repel their invasion, Vortigern saw this as
an opportunity. He invited the two Saxon bands to fight for
him in exchange for land and money. It seemed like the
perfect match.
Together, the trio won many victories over the Picts, and
in return Vortigern granted Hengist land in Lincolnshire.
Hengist told Vortigern that to keep the enemy at bay he
must send for more men from Germany. He was given
permission to do so. As if that were not stupid enough, the
king also made Hengist an earl and allowed him to build a
castle stronghold. The newly appointed earl named his
castle Thongceaster.
If you think Vortigern acted foolishly so far, just wait. It
gets worse. Vortigern fell in love with Rowena, the beautiful
daughter of Hengist, and asked for her hand in marriage.
Hengist agreed, but only if the king would give him the
county of Kent to compensate for his loss. All involved
totally ignored the fact that Kent already belonged to Earl
Gorgon, who was also sworn to Vortigern’s service and
must have been furious. Vortigern then appointed his newly
acquired father-in-law as his chief adviser. He also gave
Hengist’s sons land between Hadrian’s Wall and the
southern part of Britain as a buffer between the raiders and
his own people. While all this was happening, the number of
Saxons settling in Britain increased daily. They owed loyalty
only to Hengist. It became clear to every Briton except
Vortigern that Hengist planned to take over.
When the British nobles voiced their concerns to Vortigern
he ignored them. But if things continued, the nobles realized
they would lose all of their lands to the Saxons. So, they
declared Vortigern’s son Vortimer their king. Vortimer
immediately set about driving the Saxons away. He fought
and won many battles. In one of those battles, Horsa, the
other leader who had arrived with Hengist, was slain. Many
Saxon warriors had to flee back to Germany, often leaving
their women and children behind. The family members left
behind were usually enslaved. Soon all of the Saxon warriors
and leaders were back across the Channel. Upon hearing of
all this, Rowena decided to take revenge on Vortimer and
had him poisoned. When news of Vortimer’s death reached
Hengist, he raised an army and set sail back to Briton. When
he arrived, he sent a message to Vortigern, who was king
again. Hengist told him that the army had been brought
over to deal with Vortimer, and he claimed he was unaware
of Vortimer’s death. The two leaders arranged to meet with
their top barons at Amesbury Abbey to negotiate terms.
A tradition was that no one brought weapons to a negotiation.
The British nobles obeyed the tradition, but the Saxons did
not. Once the meeting had begun, Hengist and his men
pulled out their daggers and cut the throats of the unarmed
Britons.
At this point, the story slips into legend, with tales of
Merlin the wizard is woven throughout. Vortigern did not die in
the massacre but was killed later by Ambrosius, the exiled
son of Constans. The legend does have a ring of truth to it, if
only a literary one. It conveys the feelings of betrayal that
the Britons felt toward the Saxon invaders, and it provides
archaeologists and historians with a possible explanation for
the sudden shift of power and the mass migration of the
Saxons. The tale also offers a moral. So for all you men and
women out there with plans of world domination, take a
lesson from Vortigern, not to mention Rome: Never hire
someone to fight your enemies. And if you do so, don’t allow
them to achieve greater strength in numbers. The leader
with the biggest army almost always ends up as king.
22
BLIND OBEDIENCE
Another Time
771
In many ways, the European Union is an attempt to set the
clock for Europe back just over a thousand years. In 771,
Charles became the sole king of a relatively small German
kingdom whose capital was Aachen. In fifty-three military
campaigns, and by having the distinction of being one of the
most competent administrators in history, he was able to
carve out an empire that was larger than anything Europe
had seen since Rome. He worked hard all his life to create a
prosperous and united kingdom, generally succeeding.
Literacy grew, and the economy of central Europe, including
today’s Germany and France, surged. But law and tradition
waited to doom first united Europe.
The law that put an end to one of the brightest periods in
the Dark Ages was a long tradition that attempted to deal
with the often murderous rivalry between the heirs of a king
or other noble. This law decreed that any kingdom or
noble’s holding was to be divided between all of the sons of
a king. This may help minimize the rivalry between siblings,
but it also meant that large viable kingdoms and fiefdoms
were split and split again.
This was going to happen to Charlemagne’s empire on his
death, but all the possible heirs except one, Louis, died
before their father. So Louis became the sole ruler of the
empire and also did a good job of ruling. Unfortunately, he
also did an equally good job of begetting sons. His three,
Pepin, Lothair, and Louis, all proved ready and anxious to
inherit their third of the kingdom. They even accepted that
they would have to share with their two brothers. But in 823
Emperor Louis’ second wife had a fourth son, Charles. When
Louis tried to change his will so that the new son got a
fourth part of the empire, the older sons organized a revolt
within the palace. The conflict simmered and likely
threatened to become an open civil war. Louis tried to meet
with Lothair, hoping to restore their relationship. When he
arrived at the meeting place, all three of the older sons were
there with their supporters. They forced Louis to abdicate.
At this point, the empire was split into three parts, never to
be united again.
Had the law been different, with one son inheriting, the
history of Charlemagne’s family might well have been
bloodier and all of Europe much more peaceful. If his empire
had not been split apart by a tradition that created rival
kingdoms every generation, a united Europe might have
been the norm. Millions of deaths could have been avoided
if the wars between the nations formed from the pieces of
his realm would not been fought. The unity that the
European Union strives for might well have been achieved a
thousand years earlier. That law, created to keep peace
within a family, was a terrible mistake for Europe, and the
continent paid for it with a millennium of chaos and war.
23
BAD PRIORITY
Family over Future
1001
There are many descriptions of Vikings written around the
year 1000. Perhaps the mildest of them described the
fearsome Norsemen as violent and impulsive. Most use very
graphic and negative terms, which are used today to
describe psychopaths and worse. Basically, the Vikings’
the main pursuit for over two centuries was raiding, plundering,
and taking over other people’s lands. The land stealing
becomes more understandable if you consider the poor,
rocky soil and frigid weather that dominates Scandinavia. So
it took a real effort to stand out among the Vikings as being
the most violent of them all. But one Viking was just that,
and he was banished twice until he ended up living at the
far western edge of the entire European world. This Viking
was called Eric the Bloody. Eric the Red is the more
tempered translation, which is suitable for consumption by
schoolchildren. Eric the Bloody managed to get himself
banned to remote Iceland and then from all but a corner of
that small island. But even after killing several neighbors in
what should have been easily settled disputes over
boundaries, the man had enough charisma to gather a
group of followers and lead them even farther west. They
settled on an island he called, more for good PR than reality,
Greenland. The name stuck.
The settlement had Eric the Bloody as the acknowledged
leader so at least there, no one could banish him again. The
settlement thrived for a while, and Eric raised two children.
These were Leif, called for obvious reasons Ericson, and
Freydis Eiriksdottir (Eric’s daughter). Leif too was a leader
and explorer. When old enough, he gathered a crew and
sailed west again. It is likely Leif had heard accounts of a
rich land to the west from native traders and fishermen. And
after a surprisingly short sail, the Viking party landed on
what must have seemed a verdant landscape after frozen
Greenland. Leif named it Vinland, the fertile land.
As was the Viking habit, they decided to take the land
where they had arrived as their own. Leif’s followers showed
this by laying out a town and building stone houses. This
upset the local people, who eventually attacked the
settlement. They drove the small party back to their ships.
The season was late so they returned to Greenland. This is
when we first hear about Freydis, whose rage changed
history. At this point she is a hero—well, heroine—fighting in
the rear guard and helping hold back the far more numerous
Native Americans until the boats could be launched.
Women, particularly the daughters of higher-class Vikings
were trained to use weapons. Since the men of a village
might be away for weeks at a time raiding, this was almost
a necessity.
Not long after his two children returned from Vinland, Eric
the Bloody died. Leif took over as ruler of Greenland. He no
longer could take the time to go exploring. But Vinland was
not forgotten and another, stronger expedition formed to
return there. There were more ships sailing west this time,
and the way was known. They may have started together,
but the ships sailed at different speeds, and some arrived
sooner than others. Unfortunately for two families, their ship
arrived earlier than the one Freydis was on. There was
another Viking tradition. In abandoned lands, the first to
arrive got to take their pick of the houses. Normally, those
would be Saxon or British homes from which the owners
fled, but the rule was applied to Vinland as well.
So when Freydis arrived at the site where she had been a
hero, there was a problem. She was the daughter and sister
of the king and the hero of the retreat. Evidently, Freydis had
her heart set on taking the largest and, most likely, best made of stone houses. But the two families who had
arrived earlier had already moved into the one she had
chosen. So Freydis ordered them out. They said no. The law
was on their side. There was likely a real confrontation and
many unfortunate things were said. It ended with Freydis,
and possibly her personal guards, killing the two men who
had moved in first.
This was not good, but seemingly within acceptable limits
for the daughter of Eric the Bloody in 1001. Remember, this
was a violent culture and her brother was king. But then
Freydis didn’t stop. She ordered those with her to also
slaughter the wives and children of the two men. When they
refused to do this, she grabbed an ax and did the deed
herself. It was a rage truly in the tradition of her father. The
murder of women and children was also highly unlawful,
even among the Vikings.
The colony was not off to a good start. By fall, perhaps by
plan, everyone returned to Greenland. This put Freydis’
brother, who was also her king, in a bad position. By law,
she was a murderer. Like most highly armed cultures, the
Vikings took the law very seriously. Killing men was one
thing, but killing the rest of their families was too much.
There were never enough Vikings, and mothers and children
were highly valued. He should have executed her, but if he
did, there was another complication. To avoid a serious
shortage of siblings in such an ambitious and violent
culture, there were strict laws about killing off anyone in
your own family as well. Whatever Leif did, he was going to
break a law. If he broke the law, there was a good chance he
would be ousted as king. So he chose instead a
compromise. Freydis was banned from Greenland. Then he
ordered that the colony was never to be returned to or even
spoken of. The entire incident was hushed up.
The Vikings never did return to Vinland. It was five
centuries later when Europe again “discovered” the
Americas. How different this world would have been if the
Norsemen had settled and stayed. The Native Americans
most likely would have absorbed European technology and
culture in smaller doses. Without rifles and cannons, there
was no way for just a few Europeans to be able to come to
dominate or destroy the native cultures on two continents.
At the very least, northern Europe, not Spain, would have
benefited from the wealth of the new continent. The world
of today became a far different place, all because a
thousand years ago Freydis flew into a rage.
24
FOOLISH PROMISE
Godwinson’s Offer
1050
When William the Conqueror came over from Normandy in
1066 and defeated the English forces, it came as a great
surprise to many, especially his adversary, Harold
Godwinson, whose father had sought the appointment of
Edward the Confessor was king. However, the greater shock
came after the battle when William launched a campaign to
wipe out the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Danish cultures that had
been established in England and replace it with that of the
Normans.
The lead-up to this battle, which took place in Hastings,
began years before, after the death of King Canute in 1035.
Canute came to England as a conqueror but embraced the
Anglo-Saxon culture and way of life. His death marked the
beginning of the end of the Anglo-Saxon empire. The hopes
of the people lay in Canute’s three sons, but they proved to
be ignorant and boorish. Many eyes turned toward the sons
of the dead king’s widow, Emma, and the previous king,
Ethelred. The two princes descended from the line of Alfred
the Great. The elder son, Alfred (named for his famous
ancestor), possessed many fine qualities. He was brave,
charismatic, and well-liked. Edward, on the other hand, was
monkish, pious, and had no aptitude for administrative
duties. And, because of his family’s exile in Normandy, he
had been raised as a Norman.
At this time, another man began his rise to power. He was
Godwin, earl of Wessex and leader of the Danish party. He
wanted total control over the English people and he wanted
it under the Anglo-Danish system. When it came to pursuing
these goals, his treachery knew no bounds. When the exiled
prince Alfred came to England under the guise of visiting his
newly widowed mother, Godwin had him arrested. Then he
had Alfred’s attendants slaughtered and the prince blinded.
It is certain that the prince’s brother, Edward, would not
have forgotten the incident, and it is even possible that he
could have been planning his revenge from the moment he
found out about it.
Although Canute’s sons succeeded him, their reign was
short-lived. They died within six years, and once again
England had no king. In this vacancy of power, Godwin
stepped up to the plate. He had great political influence, but
he lacked the support of many of the Saxons. So, he came
up with what he thought would be the perfect solution. He
decided that the best way to unite the Saxons and Danes
and consolidate his power would be to make Edward king. A
monarch from the line of Alfred the Great would rally the
people, but Godwin would be pulling the strings. He
believed Edward would be easily manipulated, and through
Edward, he could spread his sphere of influence.
When Edward appointed his Norman friends to high
positions, Godwin allowed it only to a point. To prove his
allegiances lay with the English and not the Normans,
Edward begrudgingly married Godwin’s beautiful daughter
Edith. It is likely this was what Godwin had in mind all along.
With his daughter as queen, his descendants would inherit
the kingdom. The bitterness of his brother’s plight must
have raced through his mind when Edward decided to defy
his overbearing father-in-law. He would destroy any chance
Godwin had at being the sire of kings. He refused to
consummate his marriage to Edith. Edward lived a pious,
monkish life, which earned him the name “The Confessor.”
His favor increased in the court, especially among the
Normans. He gained allies and in 1051 was able to oppose
Godwin sends him and his family into exile. He also
dismissed his own queen.
During the time of the Godwins’ exile, it is believed that
William, duke of Normandy, paid Edward a visit. It was
during this visit that Edward supposedly offered the
succession to William. Considering Edward’s history with
Godwin, it seems more than possible. When word got out
about the crown being offered to a Norman, Edward lost
favor with the English lords. Godwin managed to win back
some of the support he had lost and even mustered troops
in Flanders. He then strong-armed the king into letting him
return. The king took Godwin and his sons back and gave
them their old rank and titles. It didn’t take long for Godwin
to exercise his authority. Upon his return, many of the
Normans lost their titles and land. When Godwin finally died
in 1051, those dispossessed lords nourished hopes of
regaining their former status. These hopes never saw
fruition.
Godwin’s eldest son, Harold, stepped forward to fill in the
gap. Like his father before him, Harold ruled England from
behind the scenes. Harold held his authority with virtually
no opposition, despite the unrest that plagued the court
between the Normans, Saxons, and Danes. The only direct
resistance came from his own brother, Tostig, who quickly
won favor with the king. Tostig befriended many of the
Norman lords, which endeared him to Edward. He received
the earldom of Northumbria, which invoked jealousy of
Harold. The two brothers were at odds, which may have
been the king’s intention all along. Perhaps Edward had
been far underestimated by the Godwinsons. Whatever his
intention, Edward managed to drive a wedge between
Harold and Tostig.
Although Harold’s relationship with his brother had been
severed, Harold would find new friends in an unlikely
source. In 1064, Harold’s ship ran aground off the French
coast. The count of Ponthieu took Harold prisoner and held
him for ransom. William sent a request to the counter asking
for the release of the English king’s thane. Harold soon
found himself in the court of Duke William. The two had a
genuine liking for each other and quickly became friends.
Through this friendship, certain alliances were formed. According
to the chronicle depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, William
proposed that Harold support his claim as the heir to the
English throne. In exchange, Harold would be made earl of
Wessex and be given William’s daughter in marriage.
According to tradition, Harold took an oath of fealty to
William promised not to make any attempt to claim the
crown. The oath was taken on an altar that hid the bones of
St. Edmund within it. Oaths taken on sacred relics were
considered unbreakable, no matter what the circumstance.
Toward the end of Edward’s reign, the country began a
downward spiral as the different factions fought among
themselves. The Anglo-Danish council, who believed they
spoke for the entire populace, weakened the power of the
monarchy without strengthening their own administrative
body. Local chieftains began intriguing and pursuing their
own interests, and feuds broke out all over the country. In
this chaos and uncertainty, Edward took to his deathbed.
With his last breath, he allegedly named Harold as his
successor, despite having already promised it to William,
the duke of Normandy. Conveniently, Archbishop Stigand, a
staunch supporter of Earl Godwin, had been present to
confirm the announcement. Edward the Confessor died in
January 1066. (The Church later canonized him and he
became England’s foremost saint until replaced by St.
George.) Disregarding the oath he took at William’s court
and the fact that he had no hereditary claim, Harold took
over as king. Things quickly got complicated. Much of
England accepted Harold as their king, but the royal houses
of Europe and the Church in Rome did not. In William’s eyes,
it became his duty to overthrow the usurper. So, he crossed
the Channel and with a little help from Harold defeated the
Saxons.
25
RUSH INTO BATTLE
In a Hurry to Lose
1066
Harold Godwinson, king of England, had something to
prove. Edward the Confessor had died without having an
heir. So the Witan, a council of nobles, named Harold king.
He was not a unanimous choice and could not claim that he
had a divine right to the throne. The closest he got to royal
blood was that Edward had been his brother-in-law. To many,
this meant that the rule of England was theirs and was
available for the taking. Two men decided to do just that.
Harold’s brother, Tostig, also claimed the throne. If
Harold’s blood was good enough to be that of a king, so was
his brother’s. To support his claim, Tostig turned to an old
enemy of England, Harald Hardrada, the Viking king of
Norway. In Normandy, another man had reason to claim the
throne of England as well. This was William, duke of
Normandy. William, through persuasion and politics,
managed to get Pope Alexander II to support his claim. In a
religious age, this made recruiting knights and soldiers
easier and guaranteed the support of the clergy. Both were
needed to invade the island and enforce one’s claim.
Tostig and Harald landed first near modern-day York. The
new English king hurried north accompanied by his huscarls
— ax- and shield-wielding warriors sworn to his service—the
only professional soldiers he commanded. The King
gathered further fighters from the local militia, the fyrd, until
his army matched that of the Vikings in size if not quality.
After marching 200 miles in five days, Harold was able to
surprise the normally canny Norwegian king and Tostig at
the Battle of Stamford Bridge. It was September 25, and the
the battle was a tough and costly fight, with Harold Godwinson
losing nearly 1,000 dead or wounded huscarls, cutting his
personal guard and the island’s only full-time military force
by a third.
Just a few days later, on October 1, Harold got word that
William of Normandy had landed his army near Hastings.
The southern fyrd had already been called up, so it was
ready to join up with him and his huscarls. But Hastings was
more than 300 miles away from York. Having exhausted his
army in the march north, the English leader now had to
make a decision. If he did not react quickly, William the
Norman would be able to establish a strong position. This
would be particularly true if William captured a few cities.
But perhaps another thought lay behind the new king’s
mistake, one that may have cost him and the Saxons
England. Elected without royal blood, Harold had to show
everyone that he was capable of defending England and
worthy of being the first of a new line of Saxon kings. To do
that, he may have felt it necessary to act before William
could do much damage to what was one of the richest parts
of his kingdom.
For whatever reason, Harold not only began moving south
but hurried toward Hastings in an even greater rush than he
had gone north a week before. This had two negative
effects. The speed of the march meant that many of his
lightly wounded, or just plain exhausted, huscarls could not
keep up. Even riding at that speed was punishing. The
hurried march also meant that hundreds of fyrd and local
nobles who might have joined the Saxon army were unable
to do so.
When Harold arrived near Hastings he again did not
pause. The Saxon king formed his army on Senlac Ridge and
prepared to battle William. Even though he fought on home
ground and in defense of the land, the new king’s haste
meant that the two armies were of about the same size.
The Battle of Hastings
Harold and his warriors at first stood and beat back the
Norman attacks. But the fyrd who were fighting on the right
of the Saxon position attempted to pursue a feigned retreat,
and they were ridden down by William’s mounted knights.
Eventually, more than anything else, the Normans wore
down and then broke the Saxons. Exhausted and
outnumbered, the huscarls died fighting. Harold was hit by
an arrow in one eye, and with his death, the Saxon defense
collapsed. He had hurried to his death. Had Harold hesitated
until he could gather a much larger army, he might have
held England. William of Normandy had no reinforcements
to match those Harold could have called from all over
England. Harold risked everything in the hope of a quick
victory that would ensure his position on England’s throne
forever. But in his haste, he, and the Saxons, lost everything.
It is impossible to determine how much the exhaustion of
his best troops, the huscarls, affected the battle. But William
was able to finally break the Saxon formation and went on
to become known as William the Conqueror (an
improvement on his former commonly used name, William
the Bastard). Harold, king of the Saxons, had rushed to
defend his new throne and, in the effort, lost all of England.
The Battle of Hastings marked the end of the SaxonDanish rule in England. It also marked the beginning of a
cultural revolution. Unlike Canute, who embraced the Anglo-Saxon culture, William sought to wipe it out. He replaced the
Saxon and Danish nobles with Norman nobility, handed
out land grants to his men, and he implemented Norman
law. Great building projects took place all over the British
Isles, and the crude dwellings of the Saxons gave way to
magnificent Norman Cathedrals and castles. These changes
helped establish England as a formidable power, but it was
surely not the future Earl Godwin had in mind when he
appointed Edward the Confessor as king. Godwin sought to
make England a nation of Saxons and Danes, getting rid of
the Norman influence altogether. Instead, his underhanded
tactics and treatment of Edward ended up paving the road
to the destruction of the very culture he fought so hard to
preserve and ensured that the Norman kings and not the
Saxons would go down in history as the great kings of
England.
26
SELF-INTEREST
King, Not Country
1086
In 1186, the land of Outremer was thriving. Outremer in
French translates basically to “across the seas.” The
kingdom had been founded by Christian crusaders in 1098.
Its income from trade was substantial. This provided the
money needed to construct a strong line of castles and
fortified cities that protected the kingdom of the Holy Land
from the constant threat posed by Islam. In the age of great
castles, those of Outremer were among the most powerful
and imposing.
The former king, a leper, had just died, and Guy of
Lusignan was elected king by nobles and military orders. He
was not a generally popular choice and was painfully aware
of his lack of support among those who controlled the bulk
of the Christian knights. Unfortunately, some of those
knights were also his biggest problem. Even before Guy had
taken the throne, some of the nobles had begun raiding the
trade caravans of the Islamic merchants. Along with being
bad for business, this broke the treaty between the Christian
and Islamic kingdoms. The attacks were most definitely a
cause for war and also a demonstration that Guy of
Lusignan did not really rule most of his new kingdom.
Threatening the Christian kingdom and its new king was
Salah ad-Din Al-Ayyubi, who ruled the Islamic world from
Damascus to Cairo. He is known as Saladin in Western
history. He had risen to power mostly because of his military
skills and charisma. Saladin had won his way to general and
had become the most important military leader of the
Fatimid caliphs. Eventually, he was so well-thought-of that
he was elevated to the throne left vacant when the last
caliph in Damascus died without an heir. Even as caliph,
Saladin remained a relentless warrior with notorious
cunning; he was also known for his strong sense of honor
and for protecting the common people. His reputation for
chivalry was famous even in Europe. Although the leader of
the largest Islamic empire of his time, he is remembered
even today as being the fair and just protector of several
nearby Christian lands that had also suffered at the hands of
the crusaders.
Saladin could not allow the attacks on his merchants to
continue. The raids were both an act of war and a challenge.
When Guy proved unable to restrain his subjects, war was
inevitable. But it was not the decision to go to war that put
Guy of Lusignan on the list of people who made the greatest
mistakes in history, but it was how he fought that war. Once
more we have a case in which a leader takes an army that
has tremendous strengths and puts it in a position where
those strengths are unusable and the enemy’s strengths are
emphasized instead. And once more we see this happen
because of a king who put his own interests before those of
his nation.
The castles of Outremer, and her walled cities, were thick,
strong, and almost impregnable to any weapon Saladin
could command. This was before the use of gunpowder and
a fifteen-foot-thick, forty-foot-high wall enabled even a few
dozen men to hold off hundreds. The main field strength of
the Christian army was their heavily armored knights. The
chain mail and metal armor of the Christian knight meant
that on a similarly armored horse, he was nearly
invulnerable to the arrows that were the primary weapon of
most of Saladin’s horsemen. The armor also served the
knights well in resisting all but the most skilled thrusts and
slashes of the familiar curved cavalry sword that was used
in close combat by Saladin’s light cavalry. The disadvantage
of the armor was that Outremer is located in one of the
hottest climates in the world. Being in the armor too long
made a knight vulnerable to dehydration and heat stroke,
both of which could be fatal.
Most of Saladin’s Islamic army was made up of unarmored
horsemen who shot bows from the saddle. Backing up these
horse archers were more heavily armed and armored nobles
and their followers. Even these wealthy horsemen wore only
relatively thin and light armor. Although less protected, they
were also less vulnerable to the heat. Perhaps the most
important difference was that Saladin’s army was at least
five times the size of the largest force Outremer could
gather.
In his castles, Guy of Lusignan and his kingdom could
easily repel any attack by any number of Islamic horse
archers and nobles. But he was new and not established on
the throne. Guy needed not only to repel any attacks but
also to demonstrate he was a strong leader. By doing this,
he would have rallied the support he needed to maintain his
throne and gain the upper hand on Outremer’s highly
independent nobles. So instead of waiting for Saladin to
throw himself against stone walls, Guy decided to gather an
army, the largest he could, and go out and defeat Saladin in
battle. But to gather enough trained soldiers and knights,
the Christian king had to strip all of the garrisons from the
castles. This meant that if he lost, there would not be
enough men to defend the massive and expensive
fortifications. It would be an all-or-none risk, not for the good
of Outremer, but for the benefit of King Guy.
On July 2, 1186, the largest army Outremer had ever seen
marched out with King Guy at its head. To ensure the
righteousness of their cause, monks carried a piece of the
True Cross in front of the army. That relic was considered the
greatest treasure in the kingdom. Behind them, they left
castles, often garrisoned by less than a dozen men, and
cities with just enough men-at-arms to maintain order.
Between the Christians and Saladin was a stretch of
brutally dry desert. Almost as soon as the Outremer army
entered the dry wasteland, they came under continuous
attack by Muslim horse archers. Each attack forced the
column to slow or stop until knights could gather and drive
the light horsemen off. By evening, the Christian army had
traveled less than half as far as planned. They were still
several hours short of any wells. But marching in the dark
left the column even more vulnerable, so it was decided to
make a dry camp. This is significant because it meant their
horses also went thirsty or drank up much of the water that
was on hand.
By the second day, the lack of water was becoming a real
concern. What few wells the army could use were unable to
supply enough water for such a large number of men and
horses. Saladin’s horse archers caused few casualties, but
the constant threat of arrow fire meant that everyone had to
stay in their armor, metal or padded. The hot sun and a lack
of water soon caused men to collapse and horses to
flounder. Anyone left behind was killed. By the end of the
second day of marching in armor in the desert heat, the
forces of Outremer were reeling with exhaustion and thirst.
As the sun set, the army staggered up two hills, the
largest of which was said to have a good well at its top.
These hills were named the Horns of Hattin. There was no
relief. Saladin had collapsed the stone walls surrounding the
well into it, making the water below impossible to reach. In
the distance, the Christian army could see two lakes that
were less than two hours’ march away. They contained more
than enough water to relieve any thirst and replenish their
supply. The problem was that Saladin’s entire force waited
between the knights and the lakes. But the position on the
Horns of Hattin was strong because the steep hills were
easy to defend and slowed any mounted attacks. So Guy
ordered yet another dry camp.
By morning, the Islamic army had completely surrounded
the two hills and the army on them. Trapped with no water,
the knights and men-at-arms endured hours of a near constant rain of arrows. They could barely move within the
camp, much less organize to fight a major battle. Horses
began to die from heat and thirst. Men soon followed. A few
of the nobles gathered their followers and tried to break out.
Balian of Ibelin and a few hundred knights actually cut their
way through the surrounding horsemen and managed to
escape the trap. He turned to see if he could help relieve
those still inside and was confronted by ten times his
number of Islamic riders charging toward his small force. He
wisely turned and fled, eventually becoming one of the few
survivors. Reginald of Sidon led another breakout and also
escaped. He was the last to do so.
After hours, a good number of the Outremer infantry had
endured enough. They formed themselves into a solid mass
of men and tried to push their way through to the lakes and
the precious water. Every one of the hundreds of men was
slaughtered before they even got close to the water.
Saladin then ordered his horsemen to attack the hills. One
attack was beaten back, then another, and another. But the
waterless defenders lost more men with each charge. By the
end, only a few hundred knights remained able to fight
when yet another charge overwhelmed them at the top of
the hill. Many of the fallen Christians were found to be only
lightly wounded and many had passed out from dehydration
and heat stroke. Most of these were revived and spent the
rest of their lives as slaves building stone walls around
Cairo, Egypt. In the weeks that followed, with too few
defenders, most of Outremer’s castles and cities had no
choice but to surrender when Saladin approached.
Guy of Lusignan had fought the war in the way that he
needed, but he risked losing all the kingdom to Saladin. And
lose it he did. It was almost 200 years before the last
Outremer holdings on Cyprus were captured, but after Guy
put his army in a position that played to the enemy’s
strengths, the end was inevitable. The original goal of so
many crusades, Jerusalem, was lost forever, and the history
of the Middle East became a tale of only Islam.
27
SHORTSIGHTED
Constantinople and Bust:
The Fourth Crusade
1204
Venice in the late twelfth century was a unique place.
Although it had originally been a Byzantium port, it grew to
be a world power through commerce and trade. In a time
when feudalism was at its peak, this mercantile city ran
much more like a modern business than a medieval city.
Rather than being ruled over by a king, Venice had a ruling
council of nine men, who behaved more like a board of
directors than royal advisers. At the head of the council sat
the CEO, the doge. Most of us have heard the title of
Venice’s elected ruler, but few grasp the importance the
doges played in the history of the Western world. One doge
in particular, Enrico Dandolo, instigated an act that had
resounding repercussions throughout the medieval world as
well as our world today—the sacking of Constantinople.
What did the doge have against Constantinople? Quite a
bit as it turns out. In addition to holding a monopoly on the
markets in Germany and northern Italy, the Venetians also
set up trade with eastern Europe and the Muslim world.
They traded for silk and spices. In exchange, they
manufactured ships and became the world’s leading
exporter of glass and ironworks. Their focus on a maritime
economy ensured Venice’s rise in status over Genoa and
Pisa. The Achilles’ heel in their great enterprise was the
Byzantine empire. To trade with the East, merchants in
Venice had to pass through Constantinople. In 1183,
Andronicus Comnenus seized power as emperor in
Byzantium and revoked all permits for Venetian merchants.
This put Venice’s status as the leader in world trade in
jeopardy. Just when the city started to feel the pinch of
economic pressure due to its limited commerce, an
opportunity presented itself.
In 1201, Pope Innocent asked for the doge’s help in
transporting men and supplies for another expedition to the
Holy Land. He intended to send his crusading armies into
Alexandria in Egypt. The pope wanted to avoid asking for
too much help from the European princes because it might
call into question his authority. And, he did not wish to upset
the Holy Roman empire. The doge was more than willing to
help with the expedition . . . for a price. After all, business is
business. He asked for half of everything captured in the
expedition, and he wanted money up front. In exchange, he
would provide transport and fifty Venetian galleys to escort
the crusaders on their venture. The following year, 11,000
crusaders made their way to Venice under the leadership of
Boniface de Montferrat. However, Montferrat put the
expedition on hold because the crusaders could not pay the
huge sum the doge asked for. The doge was first and last a
businessman. He knew that having 11,000 men camped
within the city would not be good for business. So, he
offered an alternative.
Hungary had recently captured the Venetian city of Zara
off the Adriatic coast. Lacking the military strength to
recapture it, the doge saw the chance to use the crusaders
for his own interests. He offered to postpone the initial
payment in exchange for the crusader’s help in taking back
Zara. Many of the crusaders were outraged at the concept
of fighting their fellow Christians, and the king of Hungary
had fought in previous expeditions to the Holy Land. The
doge took up the Cross, not because of a strong religious
conviction, but because he saw a chance to manipulate the
crusaders into thinking he was a man for their cause. In the
end, they relented. Thousands of Venetians also joined the
expedition. This was not a holy expedition led by the pope.
It was a business venture led by the doge of Venice.
In October 1202, 200 Venetian ships made way for Zara.
They arrived in November and laid siege to the city. After
only two weeks, the people of Zara surrendered. This was
not the expedition that Rome had in mind—Christian
fighting against Christian. The pope excommunicated all
involved. The crusaders did not wish to lose their souls in an
endeavor to appease the doge, so they petitioned Rome,
saying that they had no choice in the matter. The pope lifted
the ex-communication for all except Doge Dandolo and his
men.
Meanwhile, a situation arose in Constantinople that would
work in favor of the doge. The emperor, Isaac, had been
blinded and imprisoned by his brother, Alexius, who took the
throne as Alexius III. Isaac’s son, also called Alexius, went to
Zara solicited help from the Venetian and crusader forces.
What he offered in return was too irresistible to refuse. The
Byzantine Church would be placed under the authority in
Rome, huge financial incentives were offered to all who
helped, and 10,000 soldiers would accompany the crusaders
to Alexandria in Egypt, which was the original destination,
after all. The doge could not have been happier.
The Venetian and crusader forces arrived off the coast of
Constantinople on June 24, 1203. They soon captured the
suburb of Galata, which lies just north of the city across the
Bosphorus. Then they launched a simultaneous land and
sea attack on Constantinople, which failed. Despite the
failure, Alexius III became frightened and fled the city.
Advocates for Isaac freed him and returned him to the
throne. Isaac and his son ruled together. They recognized
immediately that they had a serious problem. They would
have to abide by the terms agreed to in the treaty. Alexius
went throughout the city raising funds to pay the crusaders.
In the meantime, anticrusader sentiment raged throughout
the city. The citizens revolted. Isaac and Alexius were killed
and the anti-Western figurehead Ducus Murzuphlus took
over as Alexius V. He immediately made it clear that he had
no intention of paying the crusading forces anything.
Doge Dandolo took full advantage of the situation to
persuade the crusaders to attack the city. On April 12, 1204,
the Venetians penetrated the walls of the city. What they
and the crusaders did to their fellow Christians was
unconscionable. They looted homes and churches,
murdered and raped the citizens, and held a thanksgiving
service, after all, was said and done. The clerics who were
involved in the expedition justified the action by saying it
was done to reunite the Church. Although Pope Innocent did
not authorize the action, he did not condemn it either. No
doubt he saw the act as beneficial to the Western Church.
The act would not be beneficial to the Church in the long
run. The Byzantine empire disintegrated and was replaced
by small, autonomous Greek and Latin provinces. Without
the strong presence of the Byzantines, the Turks were able
to easily take Constantinople, giving them a gateway into
Europe.
28
PRIDE
Baiting the Barbarians
1300
This mistake involves two great rulers whose lands and
ways were very different. It is a story of how one insulting
mistake changed the lives of every person in Europe and
Asia. It begins with a cruel show of power and ends in
millions of deaths.
The first of these rulers was Ala’ ad-Din Muhammad, the
emperor of the Khwarezm empire. In the thirteenth century,
the Khwarezm empire controlled all of central Asia, including
today’s Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. This was a rich
kingdom for it controlled the Silk Road on which all of the
trade from China flowed. The taxes paid by the merchants
supported palaces and gardens that were the wonders of
their time. Khwarezm was also a powerful empire with as
many as half a million men, most well-equipped and
thickly armored horsemen, in a full-time army. Its capital at
Samarkand was a center of learning and wealth, featuring
many acres of magnificent gardens. It was unquestionably
the wealthiest and likely best-armed nation in the world. But
having the best-armored and largest army does not always
mean you will win every battle.
The second leader was a very different man, though he
too commanded a magnificent army. At this time, his highly
organized and mobile army was in the process of
conquering northern China. This was the man known to his
people as “the Perfect War Leader,” or Genghis Khan.
Genghis Khan had spent most of his life uniting the Mongols
and other steppe tribes into a single force. At this point in
history, the Mongols also controlled a stretch of the
incredibly profitable Silk Road. This was the section that ran
between China and Khwarezm across the Mongolian
steppes. With his armies busy in wealthy and populous
China, Genghis went to great efforts to ensure all of the
caravans that ran on this route traveled safely—and paid
substantial taxes for the privilege. For some time, this
courtesy was returned by the Khwarezm as it seemed to be
in everyone’s self-interest. Genghis Khan showed how
pleased he was with the arrangement by sending gifts and
messages of friendship to Ala’ ad-Din Muhammad.
Then the Khwarezm got nervous. The Mongols were being
too successful in conquering areas of China. They feared
they would be next. A friendly barbarian was one thing, but
one who was successful in battle could be a threat.
Suddenly, and likely accurately, it was decided that the
growing number of Mongols who accompanied the caravans
from China were spies. The result was a series of attacks on
suspected caravans not by bandits, but by Khwarezm soldiers.
Genghis Khan was not happy. He had gone to great
lengths to protect the Khwarezm merchants and their
caravans in his lands, but suddenly Khwarezm was
slaughtering his merchants. He sent a caravan with an
ambassador and other important Mongol nobles to
Samarkand to protest. When it arrived, the Mongol
ambassador demanded not only that the attacks stop but
that Ala’ ad-Din pay restitution for the goods and lives
already lost.
For weeks, the Khwarezm emperor did not formally
respond. The details of this time have been lost, but we can
surmise. Perhaps the Mongol ambassador became strident
or maybe the Khwarezm just felt secure with a half-million-man army, a border protected by high mountains, and the
bulk of the Mongol army still busy in China. Or maybe Ala’
ad-Din just had a sadistic sense of humor. Whatever the
reason, his response was clear not only in its meaning but
also in the total disdain it demonstrated.
The emperor gathered up everyone from the Mongol
party, and in front of his court lit their beards on fire. Since
the men had full beards, it seems likely every face was
horribly scarred and many of the Mongols were blinded.
Then, to make sure the message was clear, the Khwarezm
emperor also beheaded the ambassador before sending the
survivors back to Genghis Khan. It was an insult, a direct
and unequivocal insult. It was also one of the ways you
declared war. This was also perhaps the greatest mistake
any ruler has made in history.
Genghis Khan moved as quickly as possible, avoiding the
normal passes between the two lands and taking a different
route. In 1219, almost 100,000 horsemen were suddenly
within Khwarezm while that empire’s army was still waiting
to stop Genghis in the wrong place. Within a matter of
months, those 100,000 Mongols had completely obliterated
five times their number of Khwarezm soldiers. In retaliation,
every city in the empire was not just conquered but
destroyed, and its population was killed or enslaved. Mostly the
people were mercilessly slaughtered. Glorious, rich,
sophisticated Samarkand was turned into rubble, and every
man, woman, and child inside the city was slain. By the end of
Genghis Khan’s attack, there simply was no more
Khwarezm. As much as three-quarters of the population
were dead. Not a single city remained in the heart of the
empire; there was no army, and its ruler had fled. Ala’ adDin Muhammad is said to have died of fright 2,000 miles
from Samarkand, still hounded by 20,000 Mongol riders led
by their most brilliant commander, Subotai.
So great was the destruction caused by this burning of the
beards that even today lands that were fertile centers of
civilization 700 years ago are still impoverished tribal areas.
If Ala’ ad-Din had instead placated Genghis Khan, the
Mongols might well have not felt the need to turn west.
Poland and Hungary would have been spared a crippling
invasion, Russia would not have suffered from centuries of
debilitating occupation and NATO would not now be fighting
in the wastes of Afghanistan.
29
SUPERSTITION
The Black Death and the
Revenge of the Cats
1348
The Black Death was one of the worst pandemics in human
history. It led to one of the most self-defeating slaughters in
history. Cats were rumored to be the source of the plague. In
those panicky times, no more than a rumor was needed. All
over Europe, the house cats were slain. Cat lovers today can
take consolation in the slaughter along with the ghosts of
murdered cats. They had their revenge in the form of
millions of additional Europeans succumbing to horrific
death.
The killing of tens of thousands of cats during this time,
encouraged primarily by the Catholic Church, caused the
flea-infested rodent population in Europe to soar. Those rats
most likely carried the bubonic plague, passing it on to
humans through fleas that had been on the host rat,
becoming infected, and then biting humans. There were no
insect sprays and no protection. Fleas and other pests were
everywhere in the newly growing cities all over the
continent. It is estimated that perhaps half of the population
in Europe succumbed to this horrendous death from 1348 to
1352.
The bubonic plague was the most common type of
infection seen during the Black Death. It was characterized
by black spots on the chest and black swelling under the
armpits and at the tops of the legs. The buboes, or swollen
lymph nodes, turned black, oozed pus, and bled. Of those
contracting the disease, four out of five died within eight
days. The second most common type of infection seen at
this time was the pneumonic plague, which affected the
lungs, causing the victims to choke to death on their own
blood. This type of plague had about a 95 percent mortality
rate. The plague struck and then killed so quickly that the
Italian writer Boccaccio said its victims often “ate lunch with
their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise.” It
is no wonder that even the hint of the plague caused a
panic. Not only did cats suffer, but often Jews and other
minorities were blamed and murdered.
Now, cats were not always considered the “diabolical
creatures” that Pope Gregory IX declared them to be in a
papal letter in 1232. The ancient Egyptians had developed
elaborate ways to store large amounts of grain and other
food. Rats and mice were attracted and could damage much
of the crop. The Egyptians found that cats were natural
predators of the rats and could be used to protect the stores
of food. Cats eventually moved into Egyptian households,
and they became thought of as godlike and were revered
and worshiped. Eventually in Egypt killing a cat was
considered an extremely serious offense, punishable by
death. The Romans were introduced to cats by the
Egyptians and were the first European group to keep
cats primarily as pets. But the animals were still valued for
their ability to keep rodent populations down.
The Black Plague first surfaced in Mongolia, spread to
China, and was brought over to Europe on merchant ships.
During the early thirteenth century, cats began to be looked
at with suspicion. The pagan Egyptians had venerated them
and the pagan Romans valued cats. The Catholic Church
was determined to root out heretics and eliminate paganism
in Europe. In medieval society, cats were already somewhat
misunderstood for their aloofness and independent nature.
If you do not handle kittens, they become quite feral as
adults. That makes them good hunters, but wary of humans.
Pope Gregory IX first made an association between cats and
the devil. The Church focused on the Albigensians, a group
the Church leadership suspected of worshiping the devil.
During Satanic masses, it was alleged that the devil took the
form of a black cat. It was said that the Albigensians were
required by Satan to kiss the back side of the black cat
during the mass. The concept of “a familiar” also coincided
with the persecution of the Albigensians and other heretical
groups during this time. A familiar was a supernatural being
who could take many shapes, and it was believed to be
something Satan gave to witches and other devil worshipers
to facilitate evil acts. Cats were thought of as a common
familiar. In fact, manuals that were developed to help
authorities hunt witches often cited that ownership of a cat
was compelling evidence that the cat’s owner was actually a
witch.
During this time, if a person was declared a witch, he or
she was condemned to burn at the stake. If this happened,
the cat was burned along with its owner. Many commoners
became afraid of being accused of witchcraft, so they killed
or got rid of their own cats. Cats were slaughtered by the
tens of thousands in cities and villages across Europe, and
the domestic cat population came close to being eliminated.
Some in the aristocratic class were less vulnerable to the
superstitions wracking Christianity. They kept their cats
exactly because of the animals’ ability to reduce or
eliminate the rat population in and around their homes. Of
course, they had no idea that the rats actually carried
disease, but having some of those cats in the homes of the
aristocracy certainly helped keep the plague from wiping
out many in the upper classes. The mass killing of cats
preceded the arrival of the infected rodents, greatly
compromising the barrier between humans and the rats.
Many people during that time believed that the devil
granted witches the power to exact revenge for any slight
threat. This made them, and their familiars, a source of
fear. It was thought that a witch’s revenge could devastate
large portions of a country. So when things went wrong, the
witches and their cats took the blame. Between 1300 and
1700, persecution of witches was at its peak in Europe. It is
not surprising that this persecution coincided with
successive waves of plague, which wracked the continent.
The Black Death was certainly the most devastating of all
of these plagues. Not only did it decimate the population,
but it also was the catalyst for profound social and economic
changes. In western Europe, landlords had to compete for
peasant labor, providing increased wages or even freedom
for the peasants. When peasants demanded higher wages,
and the landlords refused, revolts broke out in England,
Italy, Belgium, and France. Many historians have suggested
that the roots of capitalism took hold at that time. The
disease also had a profound effect on the Catholic Church.
So many believers had prayed for deliverance from the
plague and killed their cats. When those prayers weren’t
answered, the power of the Church and its numbers
declined, and a new period of philosophical questioning
emerged. The resulting social upheaval started an era of
contemplation and concentration on the arts, music, and
literature. The Renaissance had begun.
If it weren’t for the domestic cat’s existence in Europe and
the sheltering of those cats by the aristocracy there, even
more than half of the population could have been wiped out
when the Black Death peaked between 1348 and 1350. The
disease had enormous social, economic, and religious
consequences, including the end of feudalism and the rise
of the Renaissance. It took Europe’s population several
hundred years to recover from the devastating impact of the
disease. And the severity of this loss could have been
dramatically reduced had it not been for the fear-mongering
of religious leadership at the time.
Some superstitions about cats, which started in the panic
seven centuries ago, still remain. These include such
baseless notions as crossing the path of a black cat bringing
you bad luck, cats being a threat to newborns, and cats
being familiars to devil worshipers. It is no coincidence that
the more cats were demonized and the more their owners
were viewed as possible witches and heretics, the more
widespread the Black Death became. Cats were the first line
of defense against the real carrier of the plague.
30
STUBBORN PRIDE
The Same Old Way
1415
In a show of British understatement, when asked to describe
his victory at Waterloo over Napoleon, the duke of
Wellington said, “He came at me the same old way, and I
beat him the same old way.” That description only
somewhat fits the Battle of Waterloo, but it completely
summarized the identical mistake made by two French kings
in fighting against the English sixty years apart.
The first time the French made the mistake was at the
Battle of Crecy. If being in the right always meant victory,
then Edward III, the king of England, should have lost at
Crecy—badly. A few years before, in 1327, the last of the
The capetian line of French kings died. Edward III had perhaps
the best claim to that throne. But the claim was sure to be
contested by some of the most powerful French lords, and
his success was far from assured. Since he was already king
of England and could lose his control of the rich French
duchy of Aquitaine, trying for the throne seemed like a bad
idea. Edward instead supported Philip Blois, who became
Philip VI. A few years later, Edward changed his mind and
started what is now known as the Hundred Years’ War.
(Which actually lasted 116 years.)
In 1346, Edward III landed in northern France. A city he
owned in the south of France was under siege, and he
hoped to draw most of the attackers away. The way he
chose to attract their attention was to lead a chevauchée
across France. The chevauchée involves leading your army
across an area while burning, pillaging, raping, and torturing
as much as possible. Edward’s army left devastation from
the coast to near the walls of Paris. Another incentive for a
chevauchée was that you also pillage anything of value, and
the king got a large cut of the loot.
Philip and the rest of France were outraged at Edward’s
raid. Thousands of knights, and every peasant they could
arm, rallied to the king. Edward, with at most 11,000 men
left, and fewer than 2,000 knights, found himself in the
middle of a hostile France, pursued by perhaps 20,000
knights and 40,000 men-at-arms and armed peasants. He
turned and ran for the Channel and safety.
The English backtracked as fast as they could; the French
were often only a few miles behind them. Edward and his
raiders almost got trapped against the Loire River but
slipped over a ford Edward bribed a local peasant to show
him. This gave his tired soldiers a short rest near the village
of Crecy-en-Ponthieu. It was there, late in the day, that the
French army of 60,000 caught up with his 7,000 archers,
2,000 knights, 1,500 skirmishers, and 500 lightly armored
horsemen.
Edward formed up his outnumbered army into an arc, with
one flank protected by a deep stream and the other by the
thick trees of the Crecy Forest. It was only a few hours
before sunset when the bulk of the almost formless mass of
French knights and soldiers had gathered across a wide field
from the English. In their front were about 6,000 Genoese
crossbowmen the French king had hired to counter the
English archers. Just as the French knights began to form up
for an attack, there was a heavy thunderstorm. It drenched
both sides and the ground in between them.
Eventually, the crossbowmen moved toward the waiting
English. It is surprising that, though they outnumbered the
English six to one, the French made no effort to go around
the position prepared by the English with pointed stakes;
the entire French army just waited to charge in and
slaughter the men who had done such terrible things to
their land. The Genoese marched slowly toward the English
until they stopped to fire their crossbows. But they stopped
too far away for their bolts to do any damage to the English.
The range of the longbow was much farther and the rain
of arrows that answered the Genoese’s single volley was
deadly. Hundreds died, and the remainder turned and fled.
After seeing the crossbowmen break through the first line of
French knights, the horsemen could be restrained no longer.
They charged forward, some riding down the retreating
Genoese. But as they churned through the mud, the
longbowmen began to fire.
The English archers could fire from six to eight arrows per
minute. At that rate of fire, an archer could have another
arrow in the air before his first one landed. Firing high, their
first arrows fell from the sky almost vertically and easily
penetrated the quilted padding protecting the knight’s
horses. As the riders got closer, the arrows came in at a
lower trajectory. Even at more than 200 yards away, a shaft
fired from a longbow could penetrate the thickest armor
worn by a knight. Several thousand French knights, many
having already lost their mounts, were met by thousands of
deadly arrows. Hundreds died, and the rest were forced to
retreat. The men who were still on horseback joined
thousands of fresh knights, just minutes later, in another
charge across the muddy, body-strewn field. After they were
driven back another charge formed, and then another.
The French made no fewer than a dozen charges. A few
reached the barricaded archers, but they were driven back
by the dismounted English knights. Charge after charge
continued until the bodies in the mud were so thick they
slowed down the later attacks. By the time it was too dark
for further fighting, 1,500 French knights were dead along
with more than 10,000 of their less well-armored footmen.
Fewer than 100 Englishmen were lost.
The English stayed in their position all night, and sure
enough, there was another charge the next morning by
knights who had arrived after dark. It too failed miserably.
Edward was able to retreat with the loot from his
chevauchée. It could be said that the tactics used by the
The French army was deeply flawed and a deadly mistake, but
they weren’t organized enough to characterize the mistake
as a tactical one. French chivalry was out of control. When
they saw an enemy, they attacked; no tactical decisions
were involved. It was such a colossal mistake that after
Crecy the days of the mounted nobility were numbered. But
at least it was a new mistake . . .
Sixty-five years later, in 1415, another English king, Henry
V, was being pursued across France. He had landed months
earlier with more than 10,000 men, but after a tough siege
and after a large number of men decided to return to
England, he had begun his own chevauchée across France
with just under 6,000 soldiers of all types. In Paris, the
French king John and his constable had appealed to the
chivalry of the French. The army they gathered totaled more
than 40,000: a quarter of these was mounted, knights. This
time, the English were brought to the bay near the village of
Agincourt.
Once more an English king formed his men into a
crescent. Again there were woods on the English right, and
this time the town of Agincourt was anchored to their left.
The two armies formed up, thousands of French knights
anxious to attack, but this time the French king managed to
restrain his men. Maybe he had learned enough from history
to not make the same mistake that had been made at Crecy.
Henry could not wait for the French. They could easily
send a column around to the rear of his position that was
larger than his whole army. He had to force a battle then
and there. To do this, Henry advanced all 6,000 men toward
the 40,000 angry French men. The French knights must
have watched in amazement as the audacious British
approached. The English army stopped a mere 200 yards
from the unformed mass of French horsemen. They were
standing less than a minute’s ride away. There was no hope
of retreat or escape.
Something needs to be mentioned at this point. There was
another deterrent to attacking any set position with cavalry
that day. The English on foot recorded sinking up to their
boots in the sucking soil even before the battle began. Mud
churns, and in the later French charges some of the
survivors mention their horses sinking up to bellies and
being barely able to move at all: unable to move as arrows
rained death upon them.
The small English army then stopped and planted pointed
stakes in front of the new position. The French, possibly still
wondering what the English were doing, just waited. The
stakes were ready very quickly when Henry V signaled for
the longbowmen to begin firing. Each of the thousands of
arrows fired in the next minutes could hardly avoid hitting
someone in the ranks of the closely packed French position.
Just sitting and taking the casualties was too much for the
proud horsemen. The knight’s reaction was to ignore their
king and charge the English. The chivalry of France surged
forward just as they did at Crecy. Hundreds died as they
were met with a cloud of arrows just as the earlier French
chivalry had. Again, there was nothing lacking in the
courage of the French. They charged and pressed forward
under the archer’s hail of death. It must have seemed to the
French that this time they were winning. Several times
groups of armored men actually reached the English
position and had to be driven off in hand-to-hand combat.
The battle was so undecided that the English at one point
had to slaughter noble prisoners worth many fortunes in
ransom. This was almost unheard of at the time. After all,
you might be the one captured next week.
The French dead were said to be stacked taller than a man
stood. In front of some of the stakes and during the lulls in
the fighting, the English bowmen ran out between the lines to
recover arrows as their supplies ran low. Finally, the French
could stand no more, and their army retreated. On the
ground in front of the 6,000 English lay more than 5,000
knights and nobles. Many of the greatest names in France
had been slain. So many knights had died that French
chivalry never again was able to dominate that nation’s
neighbors with their massed, armored charges. At least as
many common soldiers died with them.
King John of France likely never ordered that initial charge
at Agincourt. Every military man in France was familiar with
Crecy. The impetuous knights most likely acted on their
own, repeating the disaster from two generations before.
That makes the suicidal charge by the French at Agincourt a
mistake that they had no excuse for. Many knights and
nobles did know better and charged anyhow.
Agincourt effectively ended the Age of Chivalry. Had the
French crushed the English and 10,000 mounted men
survived it, history might be very different. How it would be
different is another question. There was a good chance that
King John would have returned the favor with a reprise of
William the Conqueror’s invasion of England. Certainly, the
French had enough to avenge. A French-dominated England
would mean a history so different it can only be speculated
on. Without the English tradition of the rights of man, would
the revolutions of 1776 and 1789, which changed how
nations were ruled forever, have even happened? If King
John and his knights had not made the same mistake again,
would we all be toasting each night to “the king” and
perhaps speaking in French?

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