Was Vercingetorix a Genius? - Page 16 - Historum

**beorna** · June 29th, 2012, 12:26 PM

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Originally Posted by sylla1

Ooops; sorry for missing your commentary on the Nantuates et al; my fault

Such things happen

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Originally Posted by sylla1

We fundamentally agree here on our respective skepticism and main conclusions.
Any figure from ancient sources is a priori questionable, particularly enemy casualty figures, and especially huge numbers.
And of course, being someone else there has never stopped anyone from unashamedly inflating numbers; just ask Herodotos.

Yes, scepticism is allways important, not only for ancient sources

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Originally Posted by sylla1

Even nowadays, I'm pretty sure you are well aware of the often extreme divergences on the reports of casualties of let say the Eastern Front of WW2, and the real problems to objectively select any particualr alternative...
Just imagine the conditions by Classical times.
Exactly how was anyone going to objectively verify the reported numbers of casualties of the Helvetii, the Suebi of the Natuati from some remote battlefield in Gaul?
And exactly who?

Yes, all those figures are of course estimations, the 120,000 for the Germanics even more than the 22,000 for the Ariovist army. Losses of the enemy could be counted after a battle, but of course only, when the Romans had won, for the 12th legion of course this was not the case, so 10,000 losses are more than questionable. All we can do is to hope to come as close as possible to the truth, but we'll never know it.

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Originally Posted by sylla1

In fact, please remember that for the obviously exceptionally huge figures reported for the Helvetii coalition, CJ Caesar carefully recorded that he had purportedly relied on no one else than the Helvetii themselves, his information suppossedly coming from some timely and nothing short of extraordinary Greek inscriptions in some tablets.
At face value, even poor ol' CJ Caesar at the very field had no valid alternative source for such information, and no better option than to rely on such wondeful coincidence.

That's cesar's style. You can find it all over the commentarii. Whenever he is not sure, whenever he is faking, somebody else gave the information. For example reports Cesar, that he showed mercy with the bellovaci, because the were once the clients of the Aedui. Besides the fact, that I would like to know, how 60,000 warriors can be clients of 35,000 (if Cesar's figures are true), this claim is just an attempt to blame the Aedui for a misjudgement of Cesar. And there are several other incidents like this.
For the helvetii list, yes, what a lucky incident. True, not true? At least we don't know.

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Originally Posted by sylla1

BTW, that's the obvious reason why CJ Caesar and other commanders tended to exaggerate fundamentally on the numbers of the deaths and not of the captives...
Namely because the latter were sold as slaves and the earnings were accountable for, and therefore much more readily verifiable.

True.

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Originally Posted by sylla1

Not to mention the British campaigns, which were openly denounced as a failure by Caesar's opponents.

Yes, that's one of the interesting aspects, if we ask for the time, when the commentarii were written or published. Several officers are blamed for mistakes during the campaign and surprisingly they appear later as supporters of Pompeius. Of course we can't say whether they changed the side after they were blamed or were blamed cos they changed the side, the later is more probable, but we don't know - again.

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Originally Posted by sylla1

Yup, reporting the appearance of Golden Dragons in the middle of the battlefield would have been probably a bit difficult for Caesar and other Classical first-hand chroniclers; down from that, the chances of creative Maths, make-up and even plain forgery were still immense.

creative math is good

Quote:

Originally Posted by sylla1

And of course, inflating the own favorable numbers was ostensibly just the game that everybody played.
Just check out the numbers reported for let say the Eastern campaigns of LC Sulla, Cn Pompeius Magnus or Cn Octavius aka Augustus, clearly coming mostly directly from analogous self-reported military memoirs (hypomnemata)

yes, cesar is just one of a lot and even one of the modest.

Dawson567 · July 4th, 2012, 12:19 PM

I guess there will always be speculation.

**emperor of seleucid** · July 5th, 2012, 08:04 AM

I can't take anyone who thinks Vercingetorix could that many men seriously.

Cavanboy · July 5th, 2012, 08:07 AM

ahh emperor, your unbanned, welcome back

i missed your funny remarks

Dawson567 · July 5th, 2012, 08:55 AM

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Originally Posted by Cavanboy

ahh emperor, your unbanned, welcome back

i missed your funny remarks

seconded, Let's see if he can stop name calling.

Cavanboy · July 5th, 2012, 09:01 AM

"If we use your reasoning, then 300 Spartans defend against one million persians according to Sources and killed half of them."

Thats my favourite comment of seleucids

But I still do not see how vercs army could have been that big, Rome had a larger population than the gauls.

**emperor of seleucid** · July 5th, 2012, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavanboy

"If we use your reasoning, then 300 Spartans defend against one million persians according to Sources and killed half of them."

Thats my favourite comment of seleucids

But I still do not see how vercs army could have been that big, Rome had a larger population than the gauls.

Some people would actually believe that Alexander faced 3 Million Persians and killed 90% of them.

Some people on this forums estimate that there could have been 300,000 Gauls even though they probably don't even have a feeling of how much 300,000 is and how they could field in a battlefield.

We have proven them wrong using Historians as backups, but there are still people who are too lazy to read realistic figures

**emperor of seleucid** · July 5th, 2012, 10:00 AM

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Originally Posted by Davidius

If you consider that the non combatants were expelled from the fort to die on the hillside then I think maybe 15000 civillians and 30 - 40,000 warriors besieged.
In the Gaulish relief force? Perhaps as many as 150,000, maybe more.

No, read our arguments about how it's logistically near impossible.

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Remember that this is the last throw of the dice for the Gauls and as a society where martial prowess was the only true measure of a man, I think that many would have heeded the call of Vercingetorix.

That gives them more reason to quit rather than fight to death. Most Gauls accept Roman rule and would not further take risks let alone fight to death. Martial prowess was second while farmer was first in Gaulish culture.

Even if they fought to death, they would have had 150,000 soldiers.