Assyrians army

During the 13th and 12th centuries, Assyria’s kings push their boundaries ever outwards, with campaigns of conquest every summer.

The Assyrians were aggressive in battles but they always offered their enemies the chances to surrender. This tactic came handy in sieges that were usually long and expensive. Their use of brutality to intimidate enemies was to become the distinctive stamps of Assyrians warfare.

In the 12th century, Hittite power collapsed and Assyria began a three-hundred-year rose to power under direction of successive powerful kings that restored in the establishment of the Assyrian Empire in the 9th century.

It is not difficult to imagine the terror that an Assyrian attack inspired. The Assyrian army of the 8th century BC was the most sophisticated army of its time in terms of size weaponry, tactics, siege craft innovation, mobility, logistical support and over all military efficiency. They were vast, well trained and disciplined.

It had several expert commanders, and plentiful supplies of equipment for all types of combat. In 800 BC, the Assyrians could field an army of 20,000 light cavalry armed with bows and spears, and 1200 two horse chariots.

Between 890 and 640 BC, the height of Assyrians power, the Assyrians fight 108 major and minor wars, punitive expedition and other significant military operations against neighboring states. The heavy infantry, clad in coats of mail, wielded daggers, and swords of iron, the new metal which made the Assyrian’s weapon stronger than those of their opponents.

The Assyrians used iron to not only gain military advantage but also to protect their people despite the higher cost of iron and metalworking needed for building amours.

The cavalry, the early days, rode into actions on two horse chariots and dismounted to shoot from behind tail wicker shields. Gradually arches mastered the tactics of shooting accurately from horseback at full gallop.

The Assyrian Empire reached its highest peaks in the 9th, 8th and 7th centuries BC.
Assyrians army

Roman soldier

The army of the early empire was basically tripartite. The kernel was that portion which was stationed in or near Rome and which consisted of the praetorian guard, and later the equities singulares, the urban cohorts, the vigils or fire-brigades and the fleets of Misenum and Ravenna.

The latter unit alone was stationed at any great distance from the center. All these forces were much more immediately under the emperor’s control than any of the units stationed on the provinces.

The soldier of the army are normally young, male, slim, healthy and at least 1.75 m tall. He needs to have good eyesight and hearing and the ability to speak Latin.

A late Roman imperial prescript gives the minimum age of recruitment as 18 years and given the conservatism of Roman military regulations, this date probably also applied under the Principate.

There are about 300,000 soldiers in the entire Roman army and the elite troops (120,000 men) are divided into 25 legions.  During AD 9, there were 28 legions of 5,600 – 6,000 men each in service.

The soldier is paid fairly well and regularly. Soldiers also get a share of booty and a generous pension when they retire. There is good chance of promotion in Roman army.

Legionaries sign on for 25 years of service.  Army life began training in Rome. They are taught how to march, how to build a camp and must drill twice a day.
Roman soldier

Egyptians Soldier during 1300 BC

The emergence of the professional military as a distinct caste during the New Kingdom had a major impact in the internal politics of the Egyptian state.

The high spirited young man of Ancient Egypt had an outlet for his energies that promised excitement and a path for advancement.

For the Egypt of New Kingdom times had a large and well-trained army, which protected the frontiers and patrolled the pharaoh’s outlying lands. The King was the army’s commander in chief and often took to the field in person, with a bodyguard of chosen men, and officials to advise him.

There were a number of military titles, including specialist in desert travels, and frontier and desert warfare, garrison troops, frontier troops, quartermaster officers, and scribes, who seem to have functioned as senior noncommissioned officers.

There were also titles that refer to ‘overseers of arsenals’, ‘overseers of desert blockhouses and royal fortress’ and caravan leaders.

The size of the combined army is difficult to estimate but must easily have been over 100,000 men.  With a population of 4.2 million at the time of Ramses II in 1300 BC, and a conscription policy of taking every tenth man into state service, an army of this size would not have been difficult to raise.

Each division of the Egyptian army consisted of about 5000 men. Four thousand of them were infantry troops who were subdivided into companies of 200 men. Companies, with names such as ‘Bull in Nubia’ and ‘Manifest in Justice’, were divided into unit of 50 soldiers.

The division’s remaining 1000 men formed a chariot wing of two man teams. They were also foreign mercenaries, often lightly armed skirmishers, who were particularly useful on frontier and desert patrol. Because of the good prospects it offered, the army was not usually short of volunteers.

The army maintained its own ships for patrol and transport and its own support units and cavalry, In the support units the civilian hierarchy consisted of scribes, quartermasters, stablemasters, etc.

The heart of the army consisted largely of a volunteer force with it ranked filled by second and third sons not in line to take over their father’s profession.

New recruits had their hair cropped, and were issued with leather body armour, helmets and shields.

They learned it use all the army’s weapon, but tended to specialize in one in particular, so that there were companies of spearmen, companies of the bowmen and so on.
Egyptians Soldier during 1300 BC