Which is the Best.

[w_mullender]

Republic: Scipio
Late Romans: Aetius
Between: tough choice maybe Ceasar or the general of Augustus(forgot his name in each case not Varus
)

 

[Agelastus]

Originally posted by w_mullender
Between: tough choice maybe Ceasar or the general of Augustus(forgot his name in each case not Varus
)

Agrippa? Tiberius? Drusus Germanicus? Drusus Germanicus' son Germanicus? You've got a few capable generals to choose from. Nero's general Corbulo should perhaps also get a look-in from the Julio-Claudian period.

None of them are a match for Caesar though, or even possibly some of his legates.

 

[unmerged(3004)]

Originally posted by w_mullender
Republic: Scipio
Late Romans: Aetius
Between: tough choice maybe Ceasar or the general of Augustus(forgot his name in each case not Varus
)

Agrippa, you mean, best known as general of Augustus.

 

[w_mullender]

Originally posted by MaL


Agrippa, you mean, best known as general of Augustus.

Of course!

 

[unmerged(5773)]

Caesar

i consider Caesar to be the most overrated commander in Roman, or even world, history. Taking a look at his Civil War battles first,

Ildera was fought against spanish legions whose commander was in Greece. Where's their motivation to fight?

Dyrrachium was a blunder that was only saved by Pompey's inability to grasp the situation.

Pharsalus was a well fought battle, though against inferior troops.

Alexandria was a waste of 8 months and nearly cost Caesar his life by getting involved in an inconsiquential Egyptian power struggle.

Thapsus was won by an assault by troops who Caesar ordered not to attack.

Munda was a mopping up action.

None are great victories won by tactical skill, nor were any save one fought against an experienced commander.

In the rest of his career, Zela was well fought, while Gaul was an "illegal" (Caesar had no authority to leave his province) campaign against a country of no threat to Rome.

While Caesar was eventually victorious, he came too close to disaster too many times for me to consider him to be a great commander. Also, consider that the main source of information we have on his campaigns was witten by him. It's not that I don't consider Caesar to be a good commander, I just don't see how he can be ranked as one of the greatest in history.

 

[unmerged(199)]

None are great victories won by tactical skill, nor were any save one fought against an experienced commander.

Think you need to check your history books again.

I just don't see how he can be ranked as one of the greatest in history.

Becuase he tended to win rather consistently, perhaps?

 

[Ebusitanus]

Have to agree with "strategy" here...That kind of critique is just too easy..give me one of your "great commanders" and surely I will do also that nice hinsight thing you seem to do so well.

 

[Agelastus]

Re: Caesar

Originally posted by Africanus
Munda was a mopping up action.

Since Munda was probably the hardest fought (and largest) battle of the Civil War, you're being rather harsh here.

As Strategy said, Caesar tended to win his battles. That's the main mark of a great commander, especially given the reasonable calibre of some/many of his opponents.

I note you don't actually mention the most appropriate engagement of the Civil War for illustrating your point either!

 

[unmerged(5773)]

JC

Re: Strategy (both)

Caesar's strategy was good, leading up to his victories, but his tactics were not impressive, just ordinary.

He was rash in several instances which could easily have cost him the success he won. The Civil War could have ended after pharsalus, but it stretched on for three more years.

To quote B H Liddell Hart, foremost military strategist of this century, "Caesar was hardly more than an able "sepoy general" until Ildera and Pharsalus, and, as he himself is said to have remarked, he went 'to Spain to fight an army without a general, and thence to the East to fight a general without an army.' And even so, Caesar found himself, owing to an unwise dispersion of force, twice forced to fight under the handicap of inferior strength. In the first, at Dyrrhacium, he suffered defeat, and though he atoned for it at Pharsalus, this single first class victory is a slender basis on which to build a claim to supreme generalship."

I would rank Caesar in the top five of Roman commanders, I just have a problem with people calling him the greatest of the Ancient World (no one specifically here, just in general).

 

[unmerged(4273)]

Originally posted by strategy
None are great victories won by tactical skill, nor were any save one fought against an experienced commander.

Think you need to check your history books again.

I just don't see how he can be ranked as one of the greatest in history.

Becuase he tended to win rather consistently, perhaps?

I don't feel one way or the other about Caesar, but I do think that the tendency to win consistently means nothing unless the quality of one's opponents are considered...

You wouldn't exactly give the moniker of 'Grand Master' to a chess player of 40 years who has been 10 games a day every day for 20 years and never lost -- against five year old opponents.

Just a note to point out that even a bunch of fool's gold can look pretty valuable if it is sitting in the midst of a vast, contrasting pile of ashes.

 

[Agelastus]

Originally posted by Heliumgod
Just a note to point out that even a bunch of fool's gold can look pretty valuable if it is sitting in the midst of a vast, contrasting pile of ashes.

Vercingetorix (I think Strategy and I have had this argument before) and Pompeius Magnus were certainly able opponents. Ariovistus was an experienced warrior, but not in the Roman style. Metellus Scipio and Gnaeus Pompeius were only competent (Roman politics at work again, in two senses-they had to have military experience, but were leadere for political reasons), but both had the able Labienus to lean on.

His opponents were not incompetents-but neither were they his equals (but how many "great" generals ever do face another great general, certainly in the Classical era?)

 

[unmerged(5773)]

Originally posted by Agelastus


His opponents were not incompetents-but neither were they his equals (but how many "great" generals ever do face another great general, certainly in the Classical era?)

Well... I didn't intend to bring it up, but Scipio Africanus faced a fellow "great" one, and won, at Zama. But that's another story.


Pompey was certainly past his prime, as his bumbling in Greece showed.

V and A may be good, may not, we only have one source on them, I think (correct me if I'm wrong), but they were not commanding armies that could match a legion. Caesar excelled at killing Gauls and Germans. Do people call Napoleon great because he beat the Mamelukes, or because he beat the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians?
This is why I am focusing on Caesar's civil war campaigns.

 

[unmerged(2539)]

, I think (correct me if I'm wrong), but they were not commanding armies that could match a legion. Caesar excelled at killing Gauls and Germans.
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Are there not several insatances in where legion sized forces are severaly handled and indeed wiped out under independant Roman commanders during the Gallic campaigns? evidence i contend that they were capable of creating the circamstances needed to ofset the advantages the Romans were acustomed to having.

Hannibal, you know ive stil got the prettiest horse..

 

[unmerged(5773)]

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca
,
Are there not several insatances in where legion sized forces are severaly handled and indeed wiped out under independant Roman commanders during the Gallic campaigns? evidence i contend that they were capable of creating the circamstances needed to ofset the advantages the Romans were acustomed to having.

Are they battles, or ambushes? A leader's ability to avoid ambush depends on his recon ability, not skill as a general. If a commander can force battle between legions and unorganized troops, he cannot (well, hardly can) lose. it is the act of getting battle on your terms that is the difficult part. In this Caesar was successful, for the most part.

 

[unmerged(199)]

For all that I love Lidell Hart (for his wonderful euology of Scipio), one has got to remember that all of his writings are propaganda pieces of his own strategic doctrine (the indirect attack stuff that crops up all over his writings). Just like Dodge.

For what its worth, I think "who was the greatest" discussions generally rather pointless as well, because it all depends on what one considers as the criteria of a great general (land mass conquored? most victories? undefeated only?, etc.). And I certainly never would classify Caesar as the greatest; one of the greats, maybe.

As for the Gauls and Germans, I think people have a tendency to underestimate them and their leaders quite a bit. Consider for example, the battle against the Helvetii, were Caesar's troops - assaulted on a hill by the Helvetii and beat the Gauls. The Gauls then retreat to a "mountain" a mile away, but as the Romans press after them, the Boii and Tulingi ambush them in the flanks and the Gauls counter-attack, this time with a height advantage.

Luring an advancing enemy unto unfavorable ground, and then taking him in the flanks... hmm, this sounds very much like the tactics one might attribute to a great general doesn't it? Of course it might be pure accident (I think not); but I do think people are a bit too prone to writing off the Gauls and Germans as barbarians - completely forgetting that all of our sources come from Romans and Greeks.

Pompey's strategy during the Civil Wars wasn't bad, IMO; he was primarily let down by his subordinates and trumped by a man whose risk-taking was incredible, and who somehow always managed to get away with it.

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Edit - inserted Caesar into the text in line 4 above. I'm not that megalomaniac.

 

[Agelastus]

As an aside, considering other periods than Caesar's, then the Gauls/Germans were quite capable of beating legions in pitched battles. The best example, since it was fairly close to a straight up fight, is Arausio.........where up to eighty thousand Roman troops and camp-followers are supposed to have been slain by the Cimbri et al.

Hence the importance of generalship.........