Were the Roman and Greek soldiers one and the same?

"""GREEK""" Soldier.

>>1636999
So you're saying the city-states had different arms and armor technology?

Look, the panoplia and lorica hamata are different armors, their shields have different shapes.

Beyond the individual soldier and his equipment, formations, deployment, training, recruitment, garrisons, army hierarchies, were all different processes.

Even the martial culture is different, fighting for the institution called polis and fighting for the institution called professional army aren't the same thing.

They look similar because they are people living in the ancient world.

>>1636998

For a basic history lesson, then yes. They were one and the same. They were both citizen soldiers trained and armed in heavy infantry fashion and drilled to fight in unison.

Were they differed on a macrohistorical scale is their logistics. The romans had a near endless supply of manpower to draw from and were much more inclined to suffer a few defeats if that meant that they could come back better and stronger. The greeks were prone to surrendering since essentially the entire hellenistic world were sharing the same pool of manpower.

>>1637026
>hellenistic

I don't think you know what this means. Hellenistic Greece begins after Alexander the Great.

>>1637042

Yeah, I know!

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seperated at birth???

>>1636998
>One used swords
>One used spears
No.

>>1636998
>To me, it would look like the common Greek and Roman soldier were equal foes in military technology even before Rome's conquest of it.

No, because the Phalanx is very inflexible, Greeks were almost always at a loss in military tactics since they had almost no cavalry, archers, or skirmishers, only the Macedonians changed that for a very short while, before Persia, the Greeks would agree to fight in small tight spaces fit for phalanx warfare so they could have a shove match and see who breaks first so they could all go back to farming/crafting/fishing e.t.c. The Romans on the other hand used flexible legions combined of light, medium and heavy infantry, hastati, principes and triarii, during the early stages, they had tons of skirmishers and generally a more diverse field army. Sure by this time the Greeks had lighter troops like ekdromoi, and they used cavalry, peltasts and other skirmishers, they still couldn't face Rome.

>>1636998
The Romans were pretty similar to Greeks during their earlier stages.

>all these gross oversimplifications
Fucking /his/ I swear.

>>1639850
Fuck off Total War baby. If you even dare to open your mouth I will smash your face in.

>>1639850
ITS JUST A GAME
IVE SPENT YEARS NECK DEEP IN FUCKING BOOKS PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE ME WANT TO GO ON A SHOOTING SPREE

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>>1639850
remenber the time the germans tribes used phalanx

Yes and no. Early Republican Romans used the phalanx but later it was replaced by the more flexible maniple system. Also Romans used slightly different kind of weapons like the pilum.

The Romans and Greeks fought in very different manners with very different equipment.

The only similarity is that they both used organised, training based warfare.

>>1640142
>>1641039
He's actually more or less correct. The Romans beat the pike phalanx because the Greeks came to rely on it too much and forgot that it was only good with combined arms.

>>1637010
Yes.

You also need to be much more specific.

A roman soldier from 250BC would be much different to a Roman soldier from 350AD.

As a Macedonian soldier from 500BC would be different from a Macedonian soldier from 100BC.

>>1639382
which TW?

>>1642096

top is rome 2

bottom Attila

>>1642094
No they didn't you fucking ignorant retard. The Hellenistic states had huge amounts of cavalry, light infantry and other kinds of troops. The problem was that none of these kingdoms had the manpower to fight Rome. Macedon had to resort to conscripting a male from every family in the kingdom while hiring mercenaries and still had less troops then the Romans. Rome could throw bodies at the enemy and drown them in blood while a single defeat meant disaster for Hellenistic kingdoms.

>>1643120
Actually the Greek states had very limited cavalry at the time of the roman conquests.

>>1641423
Almost everyone who relied on infantry engaging in close combat used it to varying extents. It's literally one of the oldest and simplest formations.

Get close together, shields front, spears out. Done.

>>1642094
They literally only beta the Seleucids because the selucids fell for the elephant meme.

As it turns out, hellenes could indeed form pike squares and shit on any romans who tried to attack them.

>>1643146
Plenty of cavalry at magnesia, cynosephale, and pydna.

Have you considered reading a fucking book?

>>1643445
>For a basic history lesson, then yes. They were one and the same. They were both citizen soldiers trained and armed in heavy infantry fashion and drilled to fight in unison.
>Were they differed on a macrohistorical scale is their logistics. The romans had a near endless supply of manpower to draw from and were much more inclined to suffer a few defeats if that meant that they could come back better and stronger. The greeks were prone to surrendering since essentially the entire hellenistic world were sharing the same pool of manpower.
>elephants are a meme
nice meme.

>>1643470
Elephants were absolutely a meme. expensive, unreliable, prone to inflicting defeat on their owners, interfered with your own cavalry, simple to counter if your opponent has seen them before.

>>1643146
>greek states

You mean those tiny federations that struggled against Macedon? Macedon had trouble building a large cavalry force after most Macedonians left for the Seleukid or Ptolemaic kingdoms.
>>1643514
Elephants had their uses and all first rate powers used them, including the Romans.