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Re: status of slinger in Roman Army. (Read 1539 times)
funda_iucunda
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Watt den een sin Uhl is
den annern sin Nachtigal.

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Re: status of slinger in Roman Army.
Dec 5th, 2006 at 4:07pm
 
That's indeed an interesting speculation. However, Spartacus himself and his first comrades were gladiators. They were used to man to man fight rather than anything else. But when the uprising spread all around Italy many slaves and poor people joined them. And so it is very likely that they had a great number of slingers. But that is rather a tacticle advantange. The social and political success was based on the surprise and the mere masses of slaves joining this "social explosion". There are estimates that during several times in antiquity on 1 free man came 10 slaves. For me that sounfds a little bit to much. But for a society that did not estimate working with own hands the need of slaves was as urgent as - lets say - the need of electrical appliances today. Imagine your coffee machine stops to work (hard enough Lips Sealed), not speaking about it starting violent riots Shocked
Thats the reason why the Romans didn't press the slaves to military service. They avoided to teach them how to overthrow their masters. All soldiers were at least free men and in later times got additionally the status of a roman citizen. What I want to say is that the slings influence to that uprise very likely is limited to tacticle advantages in the battle. The slingers in regulary forces had a low status because they were poor. But they were at least in times of the Republic proud of their freedom and citizenship, and they were high above the masses of slaves without any rights.

funda iucunda

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