Hearth this week! I’m nonetheless a bit behind after attending the annual assembly of the Society for Army Historical past – conferences at all times go away me a bit drained and gradual to get again to writing, at the same time as additionally they stimulate my considering – so the conclusion of our take a look at Rings of Energy should wait one other week. Nonetheless, I assumed I’d share a number of the ideas that SMH has despatched percolating in my head.
For this week’s musing, I assumed I’d proceed a few of my basic ideas from the actually fascinating roundtable on the Society of Army Historical past organized by Lee Brice on the character of historic self-discipline. I believe ‘self-discipline’ is a kind of ideas that’s each fairly vital, but additionally finally ends up become one thing of a totem, the place of us confuse indicators (typically visible indicators) of self-discipline with the precise outputs they count on from self-discipline. And that’s partly as a result of ‘self-discipline’ means a set of inputs (rewards, punishments, rules), a set of outputs (collective battlefield maneuvers, cohesion and obedience) and additionally the method by which the previous can produce the latter.
So let’s attempt to pull these aside a bit.
Our phrase ‘self-discipline’ comes from Latin, disciplina. And instantly the problem is that the traditional historian’s “resort to the unique language” for higher precision is unavailable, as a result of disciplina is each bit as broad as ‘self-discipline’ and in a lot of the identical methods. At its root, disciplina means ‘instructing’ (from disco, discere, “to study,” thus a discipulus is a pupil (‘learner’), and so on.) and so in a navy idea – as a result of it is a phrase that does seem outdoors of a navy context – it means one thing at its root like ‘coaching’ – each within the sense of the act of coaching and likewise within the sense of the data imparted by coaching.
But it surely clearly additionally comes to incorporate one thing extra: the outcome (or anticipated outcome) of coaching. Disciplina militaris, ‘navy self-discipline’ thus involves imply a code of conduct relatively than merely drill, one thing emperors can ‘restore’ after they reform a military. And as J.E. Lendon demonstrates at size in Soldier’s and Ghosts (2006), disciplina is the factor within the Roman thoughts which tempers braveness, zeal and talent (virtus): it holds a soldier again when he must be held again. And we all know from different authors, significantly Polybius, that the Romans created this disciplina partly by means of a system of rewards and punishments, though right here a right away caveat is critical: Roman ‘self-discipline’ on this sense is proverbially harsh as a result of that’s how Polybius presents it, however in precise follow we all know that lots of these brutal punishments he discusses have been principally by no means used. The imaginative and prescient of the Roman navy as swift to punish and fierce in punishments isn’t fairly true, no less than for the Center Republic.
Nonetheless, one sees each in historic militaries and in trendy discussions of navy points, this type of fetishization of ‘harsh self-discipline,’ by which is supposed punishments, strict rules and so forth, as the way in which to provide what we’d name ‘fight self-discipline’ within the sense of troopers that comply swiftly and successfully with orders.
In order a matter of cognitive hygiene, I believe its value parceling out the different types of self-discipline, as a result of whereas self-discipline as a single concept is helpful, we additionally need to make certain we are able to break it up into its part elements to know what we imply.
First, now we have a class of ‘enter self-discipline,’ which we are able to break down additional. First, there may be ‘self-discipline as instructing,’ which I’d additional break down into particular person coaching and group drill (this distinction issues for the outputs!). Then there may be ‘self-discipline as rewards and punishments’ – with a lot of the eye typically incorrectly positioned on punishments – which I’d name corrective self-discipline. Then lastly, there may be ‘self-discipline as rules and life habits (habitus), which is, I believe, distinct from corrective self-discipline. That is the class for issues like Roman generals restoring ‘self-discipline’ by having their troopers construct plenty of area fortifications or proscribing their diets to necessities and thus inuring them to hardship and inspiring obedience. It is a difficult class, the one the place I believe there’s the best temptation to fail to think about if the enter is definitely linked to the output and to as an alternative make a fetish out of the enter. In any case, I’d name this regulatory self-discipline.
Then, in fact, now we have ‘output self-discipline,’ that are the outcomes that ‘self-discipline,’ broadly construed, is meant to provide. Probably the most outstanding of those is what Wayne Lee calls collective, synchronized self-discipline, the power to get items of troopers to combat collectively in a synchronized, mutually reinforcing means at higher and higher levels of complexity. Which will maybe be associated to, however is just not the identical as obedience to self-discipline, the standard of a military which obeys the orders it’s given, even when they’re disagreeable or troublesome. This latter level is one thing that jumps out at descriptions of the Roman military in Greek writers (significantly Polybius and Josephus): they’re shocked by Roman generals’ capability get their troopers to do uncomfortable issues, like dig earthworks, carry their very own provides, eat easy rations and carry plenty of instruments. However observe how, whereas obedience to self-discipline and synchronized self-discipline are sometimes conflated, they’re not the identical: a whole lot of early trendy pike-and-shot armies had large synchronized self-discipline, however have been mutiny-prone and it was typically troublesome to get them to do issues like haul their very own provides or put together their very own meals.
Lastly, now we have the ‘outputs’ that get related to self-discipline however which don’t require it: particular person fight talent and cohesion. The affiliation is actually sturdy as a result of within the early trendy European navy custom (itself imitating the Roman navy custom), these values have been produced by means of drill (which additionally produces synchronized self-discipline) and regulatory self-discipline. However equally, we see excessive fight talent in societies which don’t follow drill (non-state warriors are a simple instance) and excessive cohesion from societies which lack both drill or sturdy regulatory self-discipline (hoplites, as an example).
So ‘self-discipline’ as an mental class nonetheless has worth, not the least as a result of our sources typically assume it does, however we needs to be conscious that it’s extra of a class than an object: a set of interrelated concepts, relatively than a single follow. And specifically, that class is a set of ‘inputs’ which navy leaders assume (typically wrongly!) reliably produce a set of desired outputs that in flip they think about make armies extra capable of win battles, which is the factor they need.
On to suggestions:
First off, in my final roundup, I forgot to incorporate but another podcast I did: I used to be on Tides of Historical past with Patrick Wyman speaking concerning the navy of the Roman Republic (significantly the Center Republic throughout the Punic Wars). And for individuals who loved that, I’m set to report a follow-up episode subsequent week (to go up a while later than that) to cowl the opposite facet and speak concerning the Carthaginian navy throughout the Punic Wars! I’m fairly excited for that, as a result of I believe the widespread understanding of Carthage’s armies (‘mercenaries!’) is definitely principally flawed – a degree on which we might return for a weblog put up later within the 12 months.
In the meantime, simply yesterday we bought the newest version of Pasts Imperfect and it’s a doozy of a crossover because the group behind one other ACOUP favourite, Peopling the Previous popped over to debate their challenge and what they’ve developing. Additionally through Pasts Imperfect, I need to shout out the Mapping Coloration in Historical past database which tracks using completely different pigments in several Asian work. As we talked about with textiles, in a world earlier than artificial dyes, pigments and colours have been a product of the supplies you may get and people pigments mattered so much, so it is a fascinating database of what could possibly be used (with an outside-of-Europe perspective, no much less – helpful as a result of a lot of the scholarship on this subject focuses on Europe).
Additionally through Pasts Imperfect however value pulling out, an open entry research, “Geochemical and Pb isotpic constraints on the provenance of the Lupa Capitolina bronze statue” (2025) has proven that – to the shock of few Classicists, however I think about many people – that the famed statue of Romulus, Remus and the she-wolf on the Capitoline (the Lupa Capitolina of the title) is, in reality, not historic. Neither Roman, nor Etruscan, however relatively Excessive Medieval, most likely made with copper from Carolingian/French/Holy-Roman-Imperial Europe.
Lastly, for these on Bluesky, Evan Schultheis (M.A. Winthrop College) posted an interesting thread on Byzantine swords, with various element and photos, discussing their design and improvement. I discovered it fairly informative, so I think about lots of you’ll too!
And for this week’s guide advice, a mixture of literature and historical past, John Garth’s Tolkien and the Nice Conflict: The Threshold of Center-earth (2003). That is the type of guide that’s each precisely its title and on the identical time fairly a bit greater than its title. There’s, in fact, a crucial caveat: the reader who goes into Garth’s work hoping for a historical past of the First World Conflict shall be disillusioned, because the narrative stays fastened on J.R.R. Tolkien and whereas Tolkien noticed far an excessive amount of of the struggle, he additionally didn’t see a really giant portion of it. It is a guide about Tolkien in the Nice Conflict, not Tolkien and the Nice Conflict. There was, I ought to observe, an try and make a movie out of this guide, which turned out alright, however misplaced a lot of the facility of the guide within the translation to the compressed medium that’s movie.
It’s also not only a guide about Tolkien or the ‘Threshold of Center-earth.’ Garth follows Tolkien from his youth to his demobilization in 1919, however the scope right here is wider, encompassing the core 4 members of Tolkien’s circle of associates, the “Tea Membership, Barrovian Society” (T.C.B.S.) as they emerge, start to write down and show brilliance and depth of feeling after which in fact because the Nice Conflict will get to the grim enterprise of killing almost all of them. The guide is actually concerning the T.C.B.S. – significantly its core 4, Tolkien, Christopher Wiseman, Geoffrey Bache Smith (d. 1916) and Robert Gilson (d. 1916) as a lot as it’s about Tolkien. The narrative is, in its personal means, that single tragic line from Tolkien’s personal foreward, “By 1918 all however certainly one of my shut associates have been lifeless” expanded right into a guide, and there may be worth in that. Within the course of, Garth walks the reader by means of the gradual genesis of Tolkien’s legendarium and his improvement as a myth-maker, presenting the developments of Tolkien’s writing facet by facet each with the snippets of his colleagues writing and the narrative of Tolkien and his compatriot’s lives.
Garth’s guide is, in fact, illuminating for any fan of Center Earth who needs to know how their favourite ‘secondary world’ got here into being. The guide appears to set out with the purpose to hint the First World Conflict’s affect on the legendarium and does so, significantly in its final chapters because the gloom of struggle fairly visibly seeps into the formation of the inspiration stones of the legendarium, the Fall of Gondolin and the Story of Túrin Turambar. However I discovered simply as helpful and hanging the various brief passages of works not simply by Tolkien but additionally by the opposite T.C.B.S.ites Garth sprinkles by means of the textual content, a glimpse right into a literary and ethical universe fascinating by itself. The reader could also be tempted to skip these excerpts (they do come fairly often and dense in a lot of the guide) however ought not; they produce a lot of the purpose and poignancy of the guide.
It’s oddly becoming, in a guide about how Center Earth got here to be, to thus really feel the anticipation of the creation of one thing wondrous, dyed fully by means of with the darkish shades of grief on the world of delusion and poetry and risk that was misplaced to the hell of struggle.
