Why did Greeks and Romans hate archers so much when they were so essential to Egyptian and Persian warfare?

archers were always the worst in chivalry.

>Egyptian warfare
>archery

t. Gawain

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pítati

Please don't shitpost out of ignorance.

Because they were absolute dog shit when not fighting armies made up largely of other archers or very, very lightly armed infantry.

Yes, this is why the archer centered Persians were able to defeat the greeks, who fielded nothing but heavy infantry, at marathon and platea. Kiting is real, just like in your vidya.

Marathon was some serious Zhuge Liang shit (or an accident), Platea, well, we had way more moarle after the battle of Salamina.

t. Musfaal-al yaldizan.

Egyptian archers were pretty low in numbers, most missile troops used by native Egyptians were slingers.

Persian troops did hold their own for awhile against the Greek heavier infantry even when engaged in close combat at Marathon and Platea, the issue was foreign and auxiliary non-Iranian troops routing and the wings eventually collapsing leading to them getting encircled.

Archers are better at harassing heavy armored infantry and then using cavalry units to charge and strike massed infantry. Like Surena did with a small number of archers and horsemen at Carrhae

>the wings eventually collapsing leading to them getting encircled.
This is why some historians consider the "tactics" of Miltiades an accident.

Do they really?

The fact that you think platea and marathon were fought the same way tells me you know absolutely fucking nothing about the subject.

>Persian troops did hold their own for awhile against the Greek heavier infantry even when engaged in close combat

They managed to fail to break a half-strength greek center at marathon. This despite a 200 meter run in 40-80 pounds of gear on the part of the almost certainly disordered Greeks.

At platea, they got engaged frontally and fucking died in windrows specifically because their method of war failed utterly to allow them to do anything but die slowly. Once the first line of shield bearers died, they were reduced to trying to grab at the spartans spears and rush them.

>carrhae
Yes, because foot archers and horse archer behave exactly the same and use the same tactics, and you will, of course, always catch the heavy infantry on a route march through the desert with no water while you literally have a camel train worth of spare arrows.

Yes, Athenian morale in particular was sky fucking high after watching their city burn... twice.

Yes. There's no evidence for the greeks even having anything near that level tactical thought at the time. .

Even if Miltiades planned it, the Greeks themselves had absolutely zero training in the sort of large scale maneuver needed to pull off that sort of encirclement.

Archers only army didn't exist during Alexander's days. What they had was light hand stone throwers with very limited range and accuracy.

Why is it when people talk about "Romans" in terms of warfare they sort of default to the Late Republican period and ignore everything else outside of that

Roman and some greek generals were assblasted about fighting fairly

Cannae is a example of this, they just couldn't understand that there was more to war than just fighting fairly and trying to be a hero

The strategy of fabian after the disaster of cannae was seen as a pussy move by romans because they couldn't understand why they couldn't engage hannibal in open battle

Anyway, Rome used more and more skirmishers as they became better and more disciplined armies, slingers, javelin skirmishers, mounted skirmishers, you name it

Muh Júlio César and Octávio César and shiet

Used to be that the punnic wars were fiercly studied, sounds like the education sistem as really gone down or it's being held down on purpose

>punnic
Punic
>fiercly
Fiercely
>sistem
System

You missed the full stop at the end of your sentence.

Cause Easterners are a bunch of decadent faggots. You don't want to do the same thing that a bunch of decadent faggots do, do you?

>Cannae is a example of this, they just couldn't understand that there was more to war than just fighting fairly and trying to be a hero
Romans had very little intrest in "fair."

Cannae actually made sense- they outnumbered Hannibal to an absurd degree, the tactics he used were utterly unheard of, and his center had been broken by smaller armies in the past.

They weren't looking to fight fair. They were looking to swamp him with men.

You are absolutely correct about their views on fabian, however.

with fairness i don't mean equal forces, i mean "in fair ground" with no tricks, no surprise tactics, no ambushes, no concealed blade, man against man, etc

In that case, you're entirely correct. Though it should be noted that his is actually pragmatic of the Romans- they almost universally had enough manpower to grind down any foe, and they lacked the training to have a deep tactical pool at that point in history. Open battle with the classic triple line steamroller was reliable in a way nothing else was.

That's not to discount the cultural factors, mind you. Frankly, they're probably more important.

Are you retarded or really just this passive aggressive only on the internet?

>40-80 pounds of gear
Yeah, no. Despite the fact that the laziest men alive came up with the supposed weight of the Greek panoply, this is just wrong.

Most Greek bronze armor is about 2-3mm thick, which makes it al weight probably closer to 25-30 pounds. Granted, I'll add 5 more pounds for the sake of argument.

>retreat of the 10k
>harassed by missiles constantly in enemy territory
>still make it out alright
sure sounds like an effective counter to heavy infantry

Didn't some archer troop pelt a macedonian phalanx from the rear with arrows until they ran out and still didn't manage to get anything of worth done?

Most of the archers in Egyptian armies were Nubian mercenaries / slaves depending on the period

Kinda curious, did they use bows only for hunting? Greeks had a bunch of famous mythological archers to begin with, be it gods like Apollo/Artemis, or heroes like Herc/Odysseus. It's weird they didn't use them more

>Romans hate archers.
No?

They just had dogshit skirmishers initially for the job of ranged warfare.

Once they had access to better archery training (namely the east), they started formally training shitloads of specialist formations of them.

To say nothing of horse archers which eventually became an important arm in the Roman arsenal.

Y'all play too much Total War

>The key to understanding the situation is a verbal exchange, recorded by Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book IV, 40), between an Athenian and one of the captured Spartiates. The Athenian mocked the prisoners by saying that the “real Spartans” were the dead. The Spartan answered: “spindles (by which he meant arrows) would be worth a great deal, if they distinguish brave men from cowards.”
The Greeks used them, but you were leaving yourself open to getting burnt like this. Of course by the end of the Peloponnesian War the idea that a war should be fought honorably was kind of a joke.

it takes longer to train an archer than it does to train an infantryman
their adversaries already had an advantage in infantry numbers, so they focused on combating that advantage with quality

Archery culture only survived strongly on the islands didn't it? Baleares, Crete and maybe Rhodes were all good at it.

Rhodes and the Baleares had slingers.

Crete and Syria is where Rome got their archers from.

That was some Warriors shit, minus James Remar trying to rape a cop.

das rite

Are you referring to Xenophon? Even he says they were losing men when the Persians restorted to guerilla tactics and scorched earth policies.

>essential to Persian and Egyptian warfare
>Romans make Egypt a province and BTFO Parthia/Sassanids on many occasions
>Alexander conquers both Greece and Persia
Stop talking shit. Archers have never been 'essential' to fighting in those areas.

>Romans make Egypt a province and BTFO Parthia/Sassanids on many occasions
And just as often the Romans got BTFO out by them. Pic related

>Alexander conquers both Greece and Persia
By catching a crumbling Empire with ineffectual leadership flat-footed and bum-rushing him so badly that his empire collapses. It was as much a fortune of good timing as it was individual initiative.

When Crassus tried it, they thoroughly fucked his army in the ass and killed him by pouring molten gold down his throat.

>AI is actually attacking your pikes

When I played RS2 the AI just ignored my pikes and rushed my flanks but then I just surrounded them with the pikes. Fucking AI ruining my cinematic moments.

>parthia
>persian

The Sassanid empire was so garbage it couldn't even defeat the Eastern Roman empire.

>Just as often
Ctesiphon was repeatedly sacked, Rome not so much. Only Shapur ii ever had really significant successes against the Romans.
>Crassus
Was a total retard, who refused to charge the enemy, got all his experienced Gallic cavalry slaughtered and whose strategy involved waiting for the enemy to run out of arrows. Even the Parthians themselves didn't expect the harassing force they sent to slaughter or rout the whole army. Stick Trajan or Cassius in charge and the Roman legions win consistently.

>Ctesiphon was repeatedly sacked
And repeatedly abandoned as Rome dramatically over-extended itself and usually suffered massive casualties on the pull-back for a net loss and a return to the stalemate status quo. It's no different from Napoleon having to pull out of Russia with his tail tucked between his legs even though he made it all the way to Moscow.

>Trajan
"Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters"

> Roman legions win consistently.
Hannibal's legions won consistently, that doesn't mean that they were translating short term military success into long term political success.

>usually suffered massive casualties
Aside from Julian the Apostates campaign I don't know when else this has happened.
>long term political success
Thread is about archers as being 'essential' to warfare in the regions of Egypt and Persia, not Roman political failures.
>Short term military success
>military success
Indeed.

>Aside from Julian the Apostates campaign I don't know when else this has happened.
Virtually the entirety of Crassus's army was wiped out through a combined use of horse archers and cataphracts

Trajan's conquests were totally unsustainable and ended up needing to be abandoned.

Valerian was made into Shapur I's bitch after having his entire army of elite praetorians wiped out.
>Thread is about archers as being 'essential' to warfare in the regions of Egypt and Persia, not Roman political failures.
>Indeed.
Victory in war isn't necessarily a game of who can win the most battles but a game of who can outlast who. That's the lesson that Hannibal Barca, Julian the Apostate, Robert E. Lee, the Axis powers, and Manny Pacquiao had to learn the hard way. Persians horse archers would not have been wanting to lob their arrows at legionaries in heavy armor, they went around the legions and shot the baggage trains hauling them food and equipment, letting the scorched earth and middle-eastern sun do the rest

>Crassus
Never got to Ctesiphon
>Trajan
didn't suffer massive casualties, didn't HAVE to abandon his gains, that was Hadrians move (a wise move but one that only paid dividends centuries later)
>Valerian
Was a total disaster, whose army was crippled by disease and who wishes he sacked Ctesiphon.
And I totally agree with you about Persians using the desert and the sun to achieve complete victory, but my main point is this: Archers have not ever been necessary for victory in Persian territory - horse archers, especially fighting in the 'parting shot' method are extremely useful, but both Romans and Greeks have achieved great successes there, let alone the eventual Islamic conquests (though the Sasanians were a spent force by then)

>Ctesiphon was repeatedly sacked.
Ctesiphon was sacked once under the Sassanids, Carus claim was never attested and the vast majority of other times it happened was under the Parthians/Arsacid dynasty, not the Sassanids. Also bare in mind their capital was only 60 miles away from the border with Rome/Byzantine.

The Sassanid Empire won the last 3 of 4 wars clearly over the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire. And even when "nominally" winning the final Roman-Persian War, Heraclius was too scared to fight off Shahrabaraz out of Egypt and needed to negotiate and pay him off to leave there and the Roman Levant after a year fully passed after the formal peace treaty already was signed between Kavadh II and Heraclius.

>Ctesiphon was repeatedly sacked
Again, only under the Parthians.

>Aside from Julian the Apostate's campaign I don't know when else this happened.
Often. The Iranian-Roman/Byzantine Wars went on for nearly 800 years, do you think the Persians under the Sassanid dynasty who were much more capable than their Parni/Parthian predecessors would've lasted for almost 500 years if they only won a single war against the Romans?

Look up the Lazic War, Antasian War, Iberian War, etc...

>Never got to Ctesiphon.
But that user is pointing out his army was entirely wiped out and it still stands the test of time as one of the most insane victories in history by a smaller force over a larger won.
>Trajan
>didn't suffer massive casualities
Yes he did. Roman legions were being bogged down in the Persian Gulf coastal areas of Iran and Iraq/Mesopotamia by a resurgence of Arsacid/Parthian guerilla tactics.
>didn't HAVE to abandon his gains
Yes he did.
>Hadrian's move
Yes because Hadrian isn't a retard.
>Valerian's army
>disease
Stop lying.

>Valerian's army was crippled by disease
Evidence?

You know the Sassanids were a successor state founded by one of the Parthian royal families right? Just because they weren't as competent as the later Sasanians doesn't make them an illegitimate Persian state not to be discussed.
>Yes he did
I mean he wasn't sent packing by a Persian army, was never defeated militarily - he was sent home by revolt and the fact that he was old as shit and probably dying.
>stop lying
Hello? The plague of Cyprian? One of the things that made the third century so goddamn terrible for the Romans. There was a serious outbreak at Edessa, where Valerian was camped, and a 'critical' number of legionaries were killed.

>Aside from Julian the Apostate's campaign I don't know when else this has happened.
Protip: It'll help if you don't unconsciously conflate the Parthian Empire with the Sassanid Persian Empire. The latter tended to win a lot of wars over the Romans and Byzantines vs the former, especially since the Parthians tended not to initiate wars and go out of their way to try and maintain cordial diplomatic relations with the Romans.

As for wars Persians won or huge losses in battles they inflicted on the Romans, just look at the very first two Sassanid emperors, Ardashir the Great and Shapur I the Great, virtually annexing must of what was then "Roman" Mesopotamia, Armenia, and the Caucuses for over 30 years before the Sassanids would lose a war against the Romans.

>Plague of Cyprian
Valerian's army was moving through the area, not stationed in it to begin with. Are you next going to tell me the Roman biased view that the Persians only won Edessa was solely through treachery too?

For a long time slings were a far more preferred missile weapon against heavy infantry. Until composite bows became more prevalent, archers had worse range and a harder time penetrating armor, so slings were employed more often. It also had a lot to due with how economical a sling+bullet is compared to archery.

Finally, there was no real tradition for archery in the Italian peninsula. Javelins and slings were employed in huge numbers by the auxiliary and legions alike, and we're adequate for the enemies they fought there. but it wasn't really until they started conquering eastern territories that they had access to skilled archers for recruiting, which made more economical sense than trying to train a bunch of italics how to use a bow

>Parthian royal families
>House Sasan
House Sasan was not one of the 7 great Parthian clans, dummy.
>illegitimate Persian state
The Parthians are closely related to the Persians but they are not Persians in the same way the Scottish are not the English even though they are closely related to the English.
>I mean he wasn't sent packing by a Persian army
He was sent packing by a combination of his own illness, several Roman forces in the Persian Gulf contracting diseases, and Parthian guerilla tactics pulling an Arminus by sabotaging and ambushing Roman legions rather than engaging them in conventional open battle.
>sent home by a revolt
Yes, and the Parthians bringing fresh troops in from the Iranian Plateau and Khorasan along with the already mentioned guerilla tactics bogging down Roman troops.
>Plague of Cyprian
Bullshit, contemporary accounts of the plague comes from later Roman writers who blamed the plague and Christians for the Persian victory. Its skewed as hell to accept this. And how would Valerian move over 70,000 men so rapidly from Roman western territories into Anatolia before being met by the Persians at Edessa?

>You know the Sassanids were a successor state founded by one of the Parthian royal families right?
Not involved here but you're confusing some things and details here. The Sasssanid Persians are the final and second half of an Iranian Empire that lasted nearly 1000 years, the earlier and first half being the Parthians under the Arsacid dynasty. But regardless, no the Sassanid dynasty is not one of the Seven Royal Parthian Houses.

Ardashir was the son of Papak, whose father in turn was Sasan, an attested noble family of possible royal ancestry (liking stemming from one of the earlier high caste Persian kavi i.e. kinglets) who were the governors and rulers of Fars/Pars. The clan of Sasan is at least attested to 170s-180s AD as also having been Zoroastrian priests.

So no, they are not founded by the Mihrans, or Karens, or any other Parthian clan.

>the archers, who have lighter gear, can just run away
So the heavy infantry wins.

Physics my friend. Greeks used a fairly good amount of archers in their armies, but the reason why in the roman army were so little of them is the weather, if you fight on a zone with humidity or temperature changes then the wood goes crazy and you cant aim with it. Now, in the east, most of the time is hot and shit so you dont need to fear that you weapon will fail in the middle of a campaing

>pelt a macedonian phalanx from the rear
>didn't manage to get anything of worth done

Greeks are used to taking things in the rear ;^)

Not even trying

I'm sure the French had that same view on English archers.

I had to self teatch english because my teatchers were bad, i state my previous post again, corrected tough

>not one of the 7 great Parthian clans
My mistake, sorry.
Thanks for the Info!
>Parthians are not persians
Well I would say that's a pretty contrarian view. Parthia is considered part of Iran/Persia's history as much as the Sasanians are.
And all I'm saying with Trajan is that he was not pushed out of his Mesopotamian gains because of a superior Parthian army utilising archery he could not withstand. You cannot argue Trajan was defeated, but rather pushed out of Parthia (he considered it to be only temporary) by a host of other concerns.
>Bullshit
Can you link me the sources that disprove it? I'll certainly admit I'm not too versed on this period/ the East in general.

>And all i'm saying with Trajan is that he was not pushed out of his Mesopotamian gains because of a superior Parthian army
No one said that. Even before Hadrian formally returned Parthian lands back to the pre-war levels between the Roman and Parthian empires, the Parthians were forcing back the Romans steadily in the Persian Gulf coast. Like others have said, ambushes, guerilla tactics, assaults on Roman fortresses, supply lines, and so on is what lead to a high loss in Roman manpower in the final stages of Trajan's Parthian War which most people tend to ignore to focus just on the start of him steamrolling Parthian armies in open conventional battles.
>You cannot argue Trajan was defeated
His goal was the complete and total annihlation of the Arsacid dynasty, the annexation of the Parthian Empire's entire holdings and territory and the utter removal of the Parthian independence as a rival superpower. He failed in those attempts. His conquest was held up by stiffer Parthian and Iranian resistance and then stymied further by the Romans inability to actually penetrate into Iranian heartlands.

So he did fail.
>Can you link me sources that disprove it?
I'm at work but I can tell you the books I've read make no mention on Valerian's army directly being affected by the plague, only that we know he was rapidly able to move his army through Rome, into Anatolia, back into the Levant, then again into Anatolia before he was defeated in a very short period of time (several weeks), so I don't really buy Roman accounts on Edessa. And it doesn't hurt most historians go with the Persian narrative of the battle either.

The Aegean is humid as fuck

Those heroes and God belong to the Bronze Age, when archery was the preferred weapon and chariot-archers the greatest warriors. Later Greeks fought entirely differently but during the period their mythology was coalescing the bow was the supreme weapon of the hero.

The asips alone weighs 15 at the low end. The dory 2-4. The pilos, by far the lightest of all helmets the Greeks work, comes in at 2lbs.

Your lower estimate would barely apply to a man with the lightest allowable panopply, with no armor, no sword, no dagger, no clothing, and not even fucking sandals or a cloak.

Given that the Athenian front would virtually all have borne swords- usually weighting in around 2lbs- greaves, and textile armor- AT THE LIGHTEST, your estimate is absolute shit.

For fucks sake, you'd still find the bronze curiass in use at marathon.

Bows were used for war, but were fairly ineffective. It's a mix of problems-they bows they had seem to have been rather weak, the archers they deployed were usually poor men with little training, and the men they wanted to kill had shields and armor.

It's not a recipe for success.

Soldiers at the time largely trained themselves, especially in greece. Training time was a non-factor unless you were a ship captain.

Yes, and they won the fucking war.

Western Armies weren't skirmishers. They didn't have endless plains to run and pick at their opponents armies.

Good fucking luck explaining how this concept works to people.

They actually used archers extensively. It was standard practice against horse archers to place archer infantry in the front ranks, these outranged the horse archers, and when they closed in to range, it made them vulnerable to a counter charge by cavalry.

Not by fighting the archers.

They absolutely won by fighting the archers, who got run over and slaughtered at patay. Longbowmen were useless when fighting in the open without carefully chosen ground and heavy infantry to defend them.

They used throwing spears, darts and slings all of which are one handed and can be used from behind a shield.