[Discuss] remove "Orders"

[John P. Murphy]

On Feb 4, 2008, at 8:38 AM, Jaune Cosula wrote:

>
>
> 2008/2/4, Timothy Collett <danaris at mac.com>:
> On Monday, February 04, 2008, at 08:10AM, "Jaune Cosula"  
> <cosula at gmail.com> wrote:
> >That isnt army then.
>
> That *is* the army.  It's not a MODERN army, but it is an army.
>
> Romans had strict chain of command which made them so damn good,  
> and that was adopted to every army after that.

This is not really true; the "strict chain of command" was only for  
the soldiers.  The commanders often did as they pleased, though they  
were frequently tied to more powerful commanders.  Like most powers,  
the Romans went through periods with more or less control over their  
armies, but even at the peak Roman commanders (The Latin word Dux, or  
commander, gives us Duke) held enormous discretionary power over  
their armies -- which were widely considered theirs and only loosely  
Rome's -- bound by ties of blood and loyalty, rather than obedience.

Julius Caesar is the prime example of this sort of thing.  His Gallic  
campaigns were not ordered by the Senate, but undertaken privately to  
enrich himself and bring himself political power.  He not only  
crossed the Rubicon to occupy Rome, but warred with his fellow  
Generals.  Much of Roman history was the same.

A good BattleMaster Duke should consider himself a potential Caesar:  
his army is there for his personal enrichment, and only secondly for  
the good of the realm.

John
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://news.battlemaster.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20080204/978e2524/attachment-0001.htm