Comments on: Why do we wear pants?

By: Scipio Americanus

Scipio Americanus — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:46:19 +0000

What makes you say that, Isegoria? :P

Honestly, though, they aren’t a core interest of mine. I’ve heard that you can go through life knowing a little about everything or a lot about some very specific thing (those being two points on a spectrum, of course). I’ve set myself the life task, with full foreknowledge of my inevitable failure, to know a lot about everything.

It helps to be trained in a hard science, I’ve found; good framework for careful reasoning and consideration of sources.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:29:09 +0000

I’m beginning to think you have some interest in the Punic Wars, Scipio.

By: Scipio Americanus

Scipio Americanus — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:46:44 +0000

Interesting stuff and seems reasonable enough, but he really over-eggs the pudding when it comes to the Roman cavalry inferiority. It’s true that they weren’t that great, but he describes them as though they barely even bothered to show up on the battlefield. The Numidians weren’t some sort of gods on horseback; Hannibal just knew what to do with them. Turchin even says that but then invalidates the statement by saying “As long as the Numidian horse riders fought on the side of Carthaginians, they trounced Romans, again and again,” as though it were due to their innate abilities rather than Hannibal’s skill in employing them.

Also, what the heck is he talking about with the Romans winning only Zama in the Second Punic War? What about Baecula, Ilipa, and Beneventum, or does stripping Carthage of some of its most valuable territories not count? Or how about the many sieges, major and minor, that allowed them to retake the cities Hannibal had captured? The war could hardly have gone on for more than a decade if they hadn’t.