All right, it's already here.
Strangely enough, Caiman decided to send me the two books I ordered through the Amazon.fr Marketplace in different packages, instead of one. It would have been easier, methinks, and I'd have my book on Persian history and culture, instead of waiting who knows for how long... I hope it's not too much...
In the meantime, Men of Bronze is right on my hands (not when I'm actually typing, mind you :-)
It's heavy, though not as much as it might appear from it's thickness. The cover is gorgeous, even better than the available pictures of it. The Real Thing is way cool. Maps, chronology... Everything is carefully set, the typography of chapter titles, table of contents, headers, and lots of small details that help to get into the story... One things I found "interesting" is that paper sheets are cut unevenly wide, and somewhat irregularly... It gives a tactile feeling of old papyrus... If this is deliberate, add up one more point, Medallion! (if not and it's just a print error, take note, it's a cool effect).
As for the book itself, it looks very professionally edited, they may be "young" but look certainly professional (only caught a couple of irrelevant typos).
I'll start reading it tonight (I mean later tonight), though it's calling me, but there're things to be done for me before I get to the book (house chores, cleaning and general maintenance) bleh :-P
BTW... Memnon to be released in June 2006!? Now, I would be stressed... poor Scott... Way to go, Scott!
Now, back to research (I need to decide which route took the damned Delian fleet from Kypros to Egypt: direct line, 400+ kilometers through the spring Mediterranean; indirect line, down through Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (all of them hostile coasts!). Themerchant, support ships would have made that, specially with the Spring northly/northwesternly winds (easy average of 10 knots ~ 22 hours) but, could the triereis make the same trip unharmed?
I'd bet they could (and my scholars tell me they knew how to sail far from the coasts) but, after all, they were made of pinewood, and the Mediterranean can be tough... I'll keep researching, but I think my best bet will be to take the most direct route (which, after all, it's the most reasonable one if the weather was nice), and we'll keep on going from there... Round two (i.e. next draft revision will take care of these kind of details, anyway... :-)
Kallisti!
2005-09-16
2005-09-15
More Inaros and Mail
I have added some more thousand words to the The Lybian draft. At the moment, the Delian League fleet is departing Cyprus towards Egypt. Very interesting part, from a character developing point of view, as well as from a hoplological one! Great fun I am having on my daily commuting train trips back and forth (basically about 90% of my writing time!), yeah!
Considering most of the rest of the book, the POV of the Egyptians and the Greeks will be closely related (Amyrtaeus and Argiros), I'll need to set up very clear and strong personalities from them all, so they interact well enough.
I'll have to do the same with the Persians and Megabyzos, the Persian main character. That'll be fun... :-P
And I'll take the chance to give a quick kick on the back to the Spanish National Mail Service, that yesterday gave me a boucher informing me that my Caiman Amerique (via Amazon.fr) postal packet has already arrived and that I could pass and retrieve from to-day and for the next forthnight.
What a surprise for me! Less than one week from Miami to Spain!
What dissilution when they told me that, somehow, the postman had failed to return the books to the postal office of my district.
Argh!!!
So I'll have to return tomorrow... Grrr...
Why am I so disappointed?
Because I ordered a book about the Persians I am very willing to read (need lots of documentation!) and because I also ordered Scott Oden's Men of Bronze, which I've been recommended, I was willing to read, it will be very useful for The Lybian, and, well, I cyber-know the author, and he's always been helpful and overall very nive with me... He managed to finish the damn thing, and to publish it! I have to learn from him!
BTW, you can get to Scott's blogger following the links on the sidebar of this very same blog... :-P
OK, enough ranting, I feel better... :)
I'll take the chance to send my blessings to cyber-friends who are going through hard times... Hugs...
Kallisti!
Considering most of the rest of the book, the POV of the Egyptians and the Greeks will be closely related (Amyrtaeus and Argiros), I'll need to set up very clear and strong personalities from them all, so they interact well enough.
I'll have to do the same with the Persians and Megabyzos, the Persian main character. That'll be fun... :-P
And I'll take the chance to give a quick kick on the back to the Spanish National Mail Service, that yesterday gave me a boucher informing me that my Caiman Amerique (via Amazon.fr) postal packet has already arrived and that I could pass and retrieve from to-day and for the next forthnight.
What a surprise for me! Less than one week from Miami to Spain!
What dissilution when they told me that, somehow, the postman had failed to return the books to the postal office of my district.
Argh!!!
So I'll have to return tomorrow... Grrr...
Why am I so disappointed?
Because I ordered a book about the Persians I am very willing to read (need lots of documentation!) and because I also ordered Scott Oden's Men of Bronze, which I've been recommended, I was willing to read, it will be very useful for The Lybian, and, well, I cyber-know the author, and he's always been helpful and overall very nive with me... He managed to finish the damn thing, and to publish it! I have to learn from him!
BTW, you can get to Scott's blogger following the links on the sidebar of this very same blog... :-P
OK, enough ranting, I feel better... :)
I'll take the chance to send my blessings to cyber-friends who are going through hard times... Hugs...
Kallisti!
2005-09-12
Fashion?
Historical Novels may be becoming fashion... Um, maybe it's time to finish something and send it to publishers!
I am talking about the HN collection the most important newspaper in Spain, El País (www.elpais.es), is releasing... Some books by Gisbert Haefs, Patrick O'Brian, Umberto Eco (damn, I already have them all), and many others... 46 books in total, released Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays (1st one, Bear Cave Clan (guessed English title), by Jean M. Auel, was free with the Monday (to-day) newspaper, unknown price tag for the rest, I estimate around 4 euros)...
This adds up to the collections published by several History monthly magazines... If not fashion, in Spain, HN is trendy...
Jay!
I am talking about the HN collection the most important newspaper in Spain, El País (www.elpais.es), is releasing... Some books by Gisbert Haefs, Patrick O'Brian, Umberto Eco (damn, I already have them all), and many others... 46 books in total, released Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays (1st one, Bear Cave Clan (guessed English title), by Jean M. Auel, was free with the Monday (to-day) newspaper, unknown price tag for the rest, I estimate around 4 euros)...
This adds up to the collections published by several History monthly magazines... If not fashion, in Spain, HN is trendy...
Jay!
2005-09-08
Troubled waters
If Simon & Garfunkel will allow me, of course...
I thought this was a good post title for my next blog entry, as I am writing the "acquisition" and arrival of the Greek navy fleet from Kypros to the Delta.
It's incredible how many things we give for granted that, when you actually start to write your ideas down on paper (electronic paper in my case) you are absolutely at a lost, risking, otherwise, being extremely anachronistic.
A an example: when your camp wakes up in the morning (probably by the kyprian cock), do they take their breakfast? Did greeks eat more than once a day, or just one? (dinner?). Sigh, another lookup of info on books and the Internet...
Another, more elaborated, example: the Delian League fleet (huge fleet, of 200 trierei/trirremes and some 150 merchant, support ships, not mentioned but likely, as the warships were not meant to carry lots of water or food aboard) arrives to Kypros. Big island, many beaches. I just grab one, and deply the jnavy for a good night's sleep. We know that the Hellenes would take their trierei out of the water whenever they could, because, not knowing how to "seal" the wood planks of their hulks, they tied to get them to dry or they would spoil themselves and sink.
Therefore, they start moving the trierei to the (big) beach. Some stay behind, to protect the whole operation, after all a trieres is not a simply boat, it's some 32 meters beam, and carries more than 200 men on board (most of them oarsmen). So you get the ship to the water line (careful, specially if there are some strong waves), minutiously measuring the water depth, and calculating where the tide is, to (gently) get the ship on the sand. Then move it up, to the dried part of the beach, put on the pillons to keep it upright, (while the psiloi, light infantry, and the epibatai, heavy infantry, about 15 in total, create a defensive perimeter around the ship, just in case). Nest start mounting tents, fires, and so on...
In the meantime, the next ship starts performing the same operation. And after it, the next one. It took some 5 hours for a Roman army of 4 legions to make their fortified castrum after a walk, and when the camping site had been secured, and the engineers had started to delimit the streets, where the walls will go, and so on, some 15 kilometers away the last legionnaire is closing their last castrum.
I can imagine the beaching of such a fleet to be of a similar magnitude. Calculate a very well trained crew, in ideal conditions, can beach their trieres in half an hour. This is really fast. And let's suppose that, for a long enough beach, we can have several trierei beaching at the same time, say 3 of them, and that beaching operations overlap some 15 minutes (i.e., mid-way of the previous one). Then we have, every 15 minutes, 3 ships beaching for some half an hour. 200/3 = 66 (roughtly), this is 66 waves of 3 trierei every 15 minutes...
Let's see:
Whoah! Therefore, they must have been beaching at a much higher pace, or they wouldn't have time to row from place to place, nor to get the ships back to the water. And we know they did so. Therefore, we have to reduce such an operation to a shorter time.
How? Let's suppose that the navy organized itself, internally, in small squadrons of some 10 ships. Why 10? Well, Athens provided some 100 ships to the Egyptian Expedition, and there were 10 demei (tribes) n Athens, and they did manage their army by demos (at this time, 460BCE, the trierarchies had lost most of its power) and they did so for the phalanx in Marathon, each taxis was formed by a tribe. It's not clear how they did, and I'm still researching it, but, well, it looks reasonable.
If every squad would beach at, more or less, the same time, in a smaller area of the beach, to keep more or less, in a small cluster of fellow neighbourhs and slaves that knew ones anothers, we have only 20 beaching operations. Considering the complexer method, let's suppose they took the whole hour to beach the squad. This makes, if we still allow 3 beaching operations (each side of the beach, and center, and the next wave using the open spaces, according to the tide), then we have 20/3 < 7... Less than 7 hours. Better, but still insufficient.
Maybe they could do such beaching operations in bigger waves (4 or 5 places at the same time), who knows? a more normal sized navy of 90-100 trierei, would use some 3 hours in this way. A lot, but still maneageable. maybe the Kyprian (later Egyptian) Expedition was of such a scale that it wasn't meant to be beached, but after disembarking, the ships would stay at the sea, harassing the Kyprian harbors...
At this moment, I am skillfully ignoring these issues, but I am all too well aware of them, for the next revision of the draft. So many things to learn! On the other hand, these kind of things are important, because they may explain many things that are obscure in so many historical, military events. Hoplology and Sciences may help to disentangle many historical, dark sources, when put to a good use. This calls for a marriage (or, at least, a "getting along") between all Disciplines of Human Knowledge, all pushing in the same direction, with rythm.
Like the oarsmen of a trieres.
And speaking of troubled waters, the novel is sailing forward at a good pace (considering I'm mostly writing it while I commute from home to work and back on the train). Don't you love writing on the go?
Kallisti!
I thought this was a good post title for my next blog entry, as I am writing the "acquisition" and arrival of the Greek navy fleet from Kypros to the Delta.
It's incredible how many things we give for granted that, when you actually start to write your ideas down on paper (electronic paper in my case) you are absolutely at a lost, risking, otherwise, being extremely anachronistic.
A an example: when your camp wakes up in the morning (probably by the kyprian cock), do they take their breakfast? Did greeks eat more than once a day, or just one? (dinner?). Sigh, another lookup of info on books and the Internet...
Another, more elaborated, example: the Delian League fleet (huge fleet, of 200 trierei/trirremes and some 150 merchant, support ships, not mentioned but likely, as the warships were not meant to carry lots of water or food aboard) arrives to Kypros. Big island, many beaches. I just grab one, and deply the jnavy for a good night's sleep. We know that the Hellenes would take their trierei out of the water whenever they could, because, not knowing how to "seal" the wood planks of their hulks, they tied to get them to dry or they would spoil themselves and sink.
Therefore, they start moving the trierei to the (big) beach. Some stay behind, to protect the whole operation, after all a trieres is not a simply boat, it's some 32 meters beam, and carries more than 200 men on board (most of them oarsmen). So you get the ship to the water line (careful, specially if there are some strong waves), minutiously measuring the water depth, and calculating where the tide is, to (gently) get the ship on the sand. Then move it up, to the dried part of the beach, put on the pillons to keep it upright, (while the psiloi, light infantry, and the epibatai, heavy infantry, about 15 in total, create a defensive perimeter around the ship, just in case). Nest start mounting tents, fires, and so on...
In the meantime, the next ship starts performing the same operation. And after it, the next one. It took some 5 hours for a Roman army of 4 legions to make their fortified castrum after a walk, and when the camping site had been secured, and the engineers had started to delimit the streets, where the walls will go, and so on, some 15 kilometers away the last legionnaire is closing their last castrum.
I can imagine the beaching of such a fleet to be of a similar magnitude. Calculate a very well trained crew, in ideal conditions, can beach their trieres in half an hour. This is really fast. And let's suppose that, for a long enough beach, we can have several trierei beaching at the same time, say 3 of them, and that beaching operations overlap some 15 minutes (i.e., mid-way of the previous one). Then we have, every 15 minutes, 3 ships beaching for some half an hour. 200/3 = 66 (roughtly), this is 66 waves of 3 trierei every 15 minutes...
Let's see:
Time in minutes after beginning of beaching operations, waves show number of ships beaching at the time.
T.... 1 2 3 4 ... 65 66
000 3 0 0 0 ... 00 00
015 3 3 0 0 ... 00 00
030 0 3 3 0 ... 00 00
045 0 0 3 3 ... 00 00
.
.
.
xxx 0 0 0 0 ... 03 00
yyy 0 0 0 0 ... 03 03
zzz 0 0 0 0 ... 00 03
TTT 0 0 0 0 ... 00 00
How much is time TTT? 990 minutes, which is, exactly, 16 hours and a half.
Whoah! Therefore, they must have been beaching at a much higher pace, or they wouldn't have time to row from place to place, nor to get the ships back to the water. And we know they did so. Therefore, we have to reduce such an operation to a shorter time.
How? Let's suppose that the navy organized itself, internally, in small squadrons of some 10 ships. Why 10? Well, Athens provided some 100 ships to the Egyptian Expedition, and there were 10 demei (tribes) n Athens, and they did manage their army by demos (at this time, 460BCE, the trierarchies had lost most of its power) and they did so for the phalanx in Marathon, each taxis was formed by a tribe. It's not clear how they did, and I'm still researching it, but, well, it looks reasonable.
If every squad would beach at, more or less, the same time, in a smaller area of the beach, to keep more or less, in a small cluster of fellow neighbourhs and slaves that knew ones anothers, we have only 20 beaching operations. Considering the complexer method, let's suppose they took the whole hour to beach the squad. This makes, if we still allow 3 beaching operations (each side of the beach, and center, and the next wave using the open spaces, according to the tide), then we have 20/3 < 7... Less than 7 hours. Better, but still insufficient.
Maybe they could do such beaching operations in bigger waves (4 or 5 places at the same time), who knows? a more normal sized navy of 90-100 trierei, would use some 3 hours in this way. A lot, but still maneageable. maybe the Kyprian (later Egyptian) Expedition was of such a scale that it wasn't meant to be beached, but after disembarking, the ships would stay at the sea, harassing the Kyprian harbors...
At this moment, I am skillfully ignoring these issues, but I am all too well aware of them, for the next revision of the draft. So many things to learn! On the other hand, these kind of things are important, because they may explain many things that are obscure in so many historical, military events. Hoplology and Sciences may help to disentangle many historical, dark sources, when put to a good use. This calls for a marriage (or, at least, a "getting along") between all Disciplines of Human Knowledge, all pushing in the same direction, with rythm.
Like the oarsmen of a trieres.
And speaking of troubled waters, the novel is sailing forward at a good pace (considering I'm mostly writing it while I commute from home to work and back on the train). Don't you love writing on the go?
Kallisti!
2005-09-01
Chapter Two
I have killed Haxâmanish.
Actually, I have written how Ienheru (Inaros) killed Haxâmanish (Achaemenes) and took over Papremis.
That closes IONs A, B, C and D, with about some 18,500 words of first draft, where I know there's a lot missing, and a whole lot that will be cut out...
It's been pretty interesting so far... Actually, it's been extremely interesting. I have learned loads of incredible stuff about people that have amazed me, and about those cultures that hosted them, the incredible Hellenic culture, through Athens and the League of Delos; the amazing Achaemenid Persian culture, and the hundreds of cultures that surrounded it---how much have I missed until now!---and the Egyptian culture, which, I must admit, I am still exploring... With so much Egyptian mystical thingies going around in the world, about the far Bronze Age dinasties, it's hard to find info about the Achaemenid Egypt, but I'll do my best to do a fair enough job for them---after all they are the stars of the book, sort of!---, if not in the first draft, in the next revisions.
What's coming now, you may be wondering? I'll tell you: more research, more thinking, and the arrival of the Delian League ships to Egypt from Cyprus, the fight up the Nile until Memphis, and the victory over the Persians in Memphis, except for the White Castle... That's, roughly, IONs E, F, G and H, and together with the ones already written, will be Part I.
Wordcount guessing update: 1/2 Part I ~ 18,500 => Part I ~ 37,000 words. If the nest two parts are like this one, that will make about 111,000 words. Add the words of the Prelude and the Conclusion, which are about 1/4 of a part (2 IONs) and we'll get around 120,000 words for the first, under-researched, under-developed draft...
Not bad... :-)
But we'll see along the path... In the meantime, I'm enjoying some sailing time around the coasts of sunny, lovely Cyprus. (I mean, that's what my Delian League characters are doing on the novel, I wish I could be sailing around Cyprus!!!)
sigh... :-)
En fin, in the meantime, I'd like to thank all of you (yes the 5 of you) that have been following this adventure, for your warmful company, and your unvaluable help... Thank you, really. Let's go on with this, shall we?
Kallisti!
Actually, I have written how Ienheru (Inaros) killed Haxâmanish (Achaemenes) and took over Papremis.
That closes IONs A, B, C and D, with about some 18,500 words of first draft, where I know there's a lot missing, and a whole lot that will be cut out...
It's been pretty interesting so far... Actually, it's been extremely interesting. I have learned loads of incredible stuff about people that have amazed me, and about those cultures that hosted them, the incredible Hellenic culture, through Athens and the League of Delos; the amazing Achaemenid Persian culture, and the hundreds of cultures that surrounded it---how much have I missed until now!---and the Egyptian culture, which, I must admit, I am still exploring... With so much Egyptian mystical thingies going around in the world, about the far Bronze Age dinasties, it's hard to find info about the Achaemenid Egypt, but I'll do my best to do a fair enough job for them---after all they are the stars of the book, sort of!---, if not in the first draft, in the next revisions.
What's coming now, you may be wondering? I'll tell you: more research, more thinking, and the arrival of the Delian League ships to Egypt from Cyprus, the fight up the Nile until Memphis, and the victory over the Persians in Memphis, except for the White Castle... That's, roughly, IONs E, F, G and H, and together with the ones already written, will be Part I.
Wordcount guessing update: 1/2 Part I ~ 18,500 => Part I ~ 37,000 words. If the nest two parts are like this one, that will make about 111,000 words. Add the words of the Prelude and the Conclusion, which are about 1/4 of a part (2 IONs) and we'll get around 120,000 words for the first, under-researched, under-developed draft...
Not bad... :-)
But we'll see along the path... In the meantime, I'm enjoying some sailing time around the coasts of sunny, lovely Cyprus. (I mean, that's what my Delian League characters are doing on the novel, I wish I could be sailing around Cyprus!!!)
sigh... :-)
En fin, in the meantime, I'd like to thank all of you (yes the 5 of you) that have been following this adventure, for your warmful company, and your unvaluable help... Thank you, really. Let's go on with this, shall we?
Kallisti!
2005-08-22
Papremis, take IIa
OK, I could have used the existing thread, but this way I generatw more blog entries :-)
The thing now is: how could an army able to resist a siege in Memphis against the lybian/egypt rebels and the Greek army/navy that went to assist them for about four years have lost the battle at Papremis against the rebls only?
Hoplologically speaking, there are certain possibilities, but all of them are a bit far-fetched, to say the least. First of all, I dunno how was Papremis at the time, so I'm making up most of this, also considering that the information of these events is basically close to nil. The setup is that Papremis has a fluvial, important harbor, not far from the town, which is located in "high" land, to avoid the annual flooding of the Nile. The conecction between harbor and town could be walled, but it's unlikely, as it would have served to channel the waters into the city in the annual floodings: not a brilliant idea, really... But if physical conditions about terrain are given, it could be possible.
In any way, and therefore, before the flood, the town is (must be) sieged by the rebels, who have (necessarily) taken control of the harbor as well, when the satrap's forces arrive. After some fluvial conflicts to try and re-take the harbor under loyal control, the scene is set-up for the ground battle.
The only know fact about this is that Achaemenes was killed or badly hurt by Inaros during that battle, and that the rebels won the upper hand, and managed to ask for Greek help to storm into Memphis.
Now, the fun begins: the satrap's army must have been good and strong, after all it was Lower Egypt's army, and it's remnants, without a power figure to back 'em up, managed to resist the combined force of Lybian rebels and Delian League army for four years, giving time to Artaxerxes I to send Megabyzos with a huge army (to be discussed sometime in the future) and re-take Memphis and siege the rebel and allied forces.
Therefore, it was not a tiny, bad, or poorly equiped army. It must have been abig, strong one, considering the Egyptians relationship to the Persians, and this being the second big time rebellion (the first one ca. 485 bloodily repressed) I wouldn't think Achaemenes would have taken it too lightly, but instead, in his place, I would have sent, if not most, at least a big and powerful army, to smash the rebellion, and as a showoff/display of strength and power to the populace, just in case anyone else thought they could rebel as well...
thus, we can agree in a powerful, loyal-side army, with Persian and Median forces displaced to Egypt, plus mercenaries, plus local conscripts, and a so-far successful rebel army, formed mainly by mercenaries Inaros's money could muster from the local garrisons, and cities in the western Delta (I have included greek Cyrenaic mercenaries, as they fall within this sphere of influence) and then by conscripted lybians and egyptians following their "rightful" pharaoh, plus anything Inaros could have had under his arm when living in Mareia, I've supposed so far a palace guard (he was of royal blood, after all... If Darius didn't kill him, why leave him completely unprotected?), and some secretly trained pluses... therefore, including all the recruiting he could have done after winning over Mareia, Naucratis and Sais, he couldn't have had such a big army to use at Papremis...
Therefore, how does a small army win a bigger, better prepared one?
Motivation is one way. Sound strategical and tactical work is another. Even pushing both into one, it was a tremendous feat... My take is that the mercenaries Inaros had, in my case the Cyrenian mercenaries, managed to take over a part of Achaemenes's army long enough to allow Inaros to fight him. Face to face combat may seem romantic, but it's feasible that both generals were up-front ahead of their armies and seeking each other; at least Persian kings were expected to lead their armies personally, despite the accounts we have by Greek historians, and Darius III's own behavior before Alexander II of Makedon... I can't see why Egyptian military traditions were to be different (Ramses II is always depicted at the Battle of Kadesh leading the army on his chariot...).
Once Inaros wounded/killed Achaemenes, morale on the persian side would have fallen very quickly, and the rest, as it is said, is History.
Another possibility is a massive (or at least big enough) betrayal of locally conscripted egyptians in the Persian, faced at the possibility of liberation from Persian rule... But that's not documented, and it would have weakened the Persian position for the battle of Memphis, which is unlikely, given the results...
Okay, the dilemma is served, what happened? I may start answering it later today, when I resume my writing, as I am writing exactly this part, but your thoughts and insights will be very welcome anyway...
laters!
The thing now is: how could an army able to resist a siege in Memphis against the lybian/egypt rebels and the Greek army/navy that went to assist them for about four years have lost the battle at Papremis against the rebls only?
Hoplologically speaking, there are certain possibilities, but all of them are a bit far-fetched, to say the least. First of all, I dunno how was Papremis at the time, so I'm making up most of this, also considering that the information of these events is basically close to nil. The setup is that Papremis has a fluvial, important harbor, not far from the town, which is located in "high" land, to avoid the annual flooding of the Nile. The conecction between harbor and town could be walled, but it's unlikely, as it would have served to channel the waters into the city in the annual floodings: not a brilliant idea, really... But if physical conditions about terrain are given, it could be possible.
In any way, and therefore, before the flood, the town is (must be) sieged by the rebels, who have (necessarily) taken control of the harbor as well, when the satrap's forces arrive. After some fluvial conflicts to try and re-take the harbor under loyal control, the scene is set-up for the ground battle.
The only know fact about this is that Achaemenes was killed or badly hurt by Inaros during that battle, and that the rebels won the upper hand, and managed to ask for Greek help to storm into Memphis.
Now, the fun begins: the satrap's army must have been good and strong, after all it was Lower Egypt's army, and it's remnants, without a power figure to back 'em up, managed to resist the combined force of Lybian rebels and Delian League army for four years, giving time to Artaxerxes I to send Megabyzos with a huge army (to be discussed sometime in the future) and re-take Memphis and siege the rebel and allied forces.
Therefore, it was not a tiny, bad, or poorly equiped army. It must have been abig, strong one, considering the Egyptians relationship to the Persians, and this being the second big time rebellion (the first one ca. 485 bloodily repressed) I wouldn't think Achaemenes would have taken it too lightly, but instead, in his place, I would have sent, if not most, at least a big and powerful army, to smash the rebellion, and as a showoff/display of strength and power to the populace, just in case anyone else thought they could rebel as well...
thus, we can agree in a powerful, loyal-side army, with Persian and Median forces displaced to Egypt, plus mercenaries, plus local conscripts, and a so-far successful rebel army, formed mainly by mercenaries Inaros's money could muster from the local garrisons, and cities in the western Delta (I have included greek Cyrenaic mercenaries, as they fall within this sphere of influence) and then by conscripted lybians and egyptians following their "rightful" pharaoh, plus anything Inaros could have had under his arm when living in Mareia, I've supposed so far a palace guard (he was of royal blood, after all... If Darius didn't kill him, why leave him completely unprotected?), and some secretly trained pluses... therefore, including all the recruiting he could have done after winning over Mareia, Naucratis and Sais, he couldn't have had such a big army to use at Papremis...
Therefore, how does a small army win a bigger, better prepared one?
Motivation is one way. Sound strategical and tactical work is another. Even pushing both into one, it was a tremendous feat... My take is that the mercenaries Inaros had, in my case the Cyrenian mercenaries, managed to take over a part of Achaemenes's army long enough to allow Inaros to fight him. Face to face combat may seem romantic, but it's feasible that both generals were up-front ahead of their armies and seeking each other; at least Persian kings were expected to lead their armies personally, despite the accounts we have by Greek historians, and Darius III's own behavior before Alexander II of Makedon... I can't see why Egyptian military traditions were to be different (Ramses II is always depicted at the Battle of Kadesh leading the army on his chariot...).
Once Inaros wounded/killed Achaemenes, morale on the persian side would have fallen very quickly, and the rest, as it is said, is History.
Another possibility is a massive (or at least big enough) betrayal of locally conscripted egyptians in the Persian, faced at the possibility of liberation from Persian rule... But that's not documented, and it would have weakened the Persian position for the battle of Memphis, which is unlikely, given the results...
Okay, the dilemma is served, what happened? I may start answering it later today, when I resume my writing, as I am writing exactly this part, but your thoughts and insights will be very welcome anyway...
laters!
2005-08-18
Battle of Papremis, how?
Okay, things are like this:
Rebel lybian prince of saitian origins has managed to collect an army big enough to present battle to Lower Egypt Satrap Achemenes's army. The battle happened at Papremis ca. 461BCE, some 100 Km down the Nile from Memphis.
Inaros won, and killed Achemenes. The trick is: how?
I'm setting things up this way: Inaros's army is blocking Papremis harbor and sieging the city when the Egyptian-Persian army arrives. It seems logical that after negotiations are conducted (and failed) the Satrap must have tried to get Papremis harbor back into his control, because that way he could reinforce Papremis garrison (necessarily small) and take the rebels in a clamp movement.
Now, fluvial battles and night incursions to re-take the harbor must have failed, because we know they had a big, ground battle, where Inaros killed Achemenes (in personal combat? romantic but doubtful).
I have imagined Papremis with a walled town and walls that could even extend to the harbor, but this is not necessary for the story to work out well. Nevertheless it would have made sense, and my analysis comes from this suposition. Even if Papremis could be isolated from her harbor, taking control of it would cut the rebels' ability to receive support from other cities down the Nile, water, food, etc... what's bad for the enemy is good for you, uh?
So, does this make any sense?
And, better, any reliable (or demi-reliable) maps of Papremis I could work on? *grin*
And worry not, we'll be back to this discussion (and much better, even) when we talk about Memphis, and how a composite force of Egyptian rebels and Greek forces (200 triremes!) weren't able to take Memphis fort in 5 years! Sounds like fun? Sure it is! :-)
thanks, I'll eagerly wait for your suggestions
Rebel lybian prince of saitian origins has managed to collect an army big enough to present battle to Lower Egypt Satrap Achemenes's army. The battle happened at Papremis ca. 461BCE, some 100 Km down the Nile from Memphis.
Inaros won, and killed Achemenes. The trick is: how?
I'm setting things up this way: Inaros's army is blocking Papremis harbor and sieging the city when the Egyptian-Persian army arrives. It seems logical that after negotiations are conducted (and failed) the Satrap must have tried to get Papremis harbor back into his control, because that way he could reinforce Papremis garrison (necessarily small) and take the rebels in a clamp movement.
Now, fluvial battles and night incursions to re-take the harbor must have failed, because we know they had a big, ground battle, where Inaros killed Achemenes (in personal combat? romantic but doubtful).
I have imagined Papremis with a walled town and walls that could even extend to the harbor, but this is not necessary for the story to work out well. Nevertheless it would have made sense, and my analysis comes from this suposition. Even if Papremis could be isolated from her harbor, taking control of it would cut the rebels' ability to receive support from other cities down the Nile, water, food, etc... what's bad for the enemy is good for you, uh?
So, does this make any sense?
And, better, any reliable (or demi-reliable) maps of Papremis I could work on? *grin*
And worry not, we'll be back to this discussion (and much better, even) when we talk about Memphis, and how a composite force of Egyptian rebels and Greek forces (200 triremes!) weren't able to take Memphis fort in 5 years! Sounds like fun? Sure it is! :-)
thanks, I'll eagerly wait for your suggestions
2005-08-17
Back!
OK, I'm back, and back for good...
Since I returned I added several words to my wordcount, and ION#2 is about to fall into place... IONs #3 and #4 should be short, sweet, and right to the point, and it should close Chapter 1...
The novelty is that I wrote the new words on the Palm, by handwriting. Fun, though a bit slower... The thing is a mate of mine has told me he's giving me a folding keyboard for the PDA. Tomorow he should be bringing it in. If it works with my Palm model, it will be an additional boost in productivity.
Not that it is a better writing solution than my old AlphaSmart, Alfie is really fantastic, but I lack PCs with PS/2 ports, and the Mac solution is really uncomfortable. The Palm has, however, USB ports and, additionally, the PalmOS works like a charm with GNU/Linux, therefore I can use it more conveniently...
Alfie is great, but if this works, I will probably change my writing equipment... Writing on the go is the way to scratch more words to every train conmuting, subway trip and waiting times... Even coffee breaks! ;-)
I'll keep you updated... Cheers!
Since I returned I added several words to my wordcount, and ION#2 is about to fall into place... IONs #3 and #4 should be short, sweet, and right to the point, and it should close Chapter 1...
The novelty is that I wrote the new words on the Palm, by handwriting. Fun, though a bit slower... The thing is a mate of mine has told me he's giving me a folding keyboard for the PDA. Tomorow he should be bringing it in. If it works with my Palm model, it will be an additional boost in productivity.
Not that it is a better writing solution than my old AlphaSmart, Alfie is really fantastic, but I lack PCs with PS/2 ports, and the Mac solution is really uncomfortable. The Palm has, however, USB ports and, additionally, the PalmOS works like a charm with GNU/Linux, therefore I can use it more conveniently...
Alfie is great, but if this works, I will probably change my writing equipment... Writing on the go is the way to scratch more words to every train conmuting, subway trip and waiting times... Even coffee breaks! ;-)
I'll keep you updated... Cheers!
2005-08-10
Holidays
If you're wondering why I'm not blogging as of late, it's because I'm off for some holidays, and I was so excited about it that I forgot to tell you! :-)
Good things about the holidays: rest, a second hand, brand new Palm Tungsten T3, upgraded my laptop to GNU/Linux Ubuntu 5.04, friends, family, great weather, sea!
Bad things: cleaning, hard work, some family issues, and very light writing. I'll catch up with my wordcount when I'm back, but I've been, nevertheless, working on it, and I have some hundreds to add, anyway, so worry not :-)
I'll back the 16th, till then, I'll have scarce Inet access, so if I don't write, 'till then, and have a good time!
Good things about the holidays: rest, a second hand, brand new Palm Tungsten T3, upgraded my laptop to GNU/Linux Ubuntu 5.04, friends, family, great weather, sea!
Bad things: cleaning, hard work, some family issues, and very light writing. I'll catch up with my wordcount when I'm back, but I've been, nevertheless, working on it, and I have some hundreds to add, anyway, so worry not :-)
I'll back the 16th, till then, I'll have scarce Inet access, so if I don't write, 'till then, and have a good time!
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