[HN Gopher] Reverse-engineering Roman cavalry
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       Reverse-engineering Roman cavalry
        
       Author : diodorus
       Score  : 46 points
       Date   : 2021-12-06 04:34 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (structuralarchaeology.blogspot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (structuralarchaeology.blogspot.com)
        
       | mcguire wrote:
       | Pssst! Hey, dude! Lemme tell you a secret. Each cavalryman needs
       | more than one horse.
        
       | motohagiography wrote:
       | The economics of feed become a challenge due to logistics and
       | fire risk of a hay barn, so I would wonder if there were main
       | large wood hay coverings outside the fortress walls, and the only
       | hay inside the walls was for a few or several days at a time.
       | 
       | Space inside the walls would be at a super premium, so they would
       | also likely need turnout paddocks for peacetime exercise,
       | breeding, and nursing, which implies the fort would be surrounded
       | by some fencing or corrals. They need lots of water as well, so
       | there would have to be a stream or aqueduct within convenient
       | human walking distance. The (huge) muckpile would need to be far
       | from the stream and food, but accessible as fertilizer for crops.
       | Maybe people outide the walls collected it, also implying roads
       | and cropland nearby.
       | 
       | Sentinels every half mile or so would be able to sound an alarm
       | to get everyone inside the walls in case of an attack, and you
       | can pretty reliably call in a whole herd to run back to the
       | stalls with a signal. Even faster with working dogs.
       | 
       | The standard exercise arena size today (2500 years later) is
       | 20x60m, which is about 65x200' and cavalry would need to exercise
       | each horse in something almost that large, especially given the
       | implied stall size and limited options for turning out for
       | grazing.
       | 
       | Only reason I've thought about this is I am familiar with
       | Xenophon's work, not just On Horsemanship, but also the Cavalry
       | General as a rider:
       | https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1172/1172-h/1172-h.htm
       | 
       | Super interesting.
        
         | jmnicolas wrote:
         | Except in winter, isn't grass enough?
        
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       (page generated 2021-12-08 23:03 UTC)