"I Love the Smell of Monster in the Morning" Topic
4 Posts
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Tango01 | 13 Mar 2015 11:15 a.m. PST |
"Nothing is more annoying than when a monster interferes with your combat operations. Historically, this has happened more frequently than one would like to think. From Alexander the Great loading up cows with naptha to dispatch a pesky Ethiopian dragon blocking a mountain pass he needed to march his army through, to the collateral death of a sea serpent observed by World War I German u-boat U-28 when it torpedoed the British steamer Iberian, it can get irritating when you're trying to perform a perfectly reasonable act of war, and some preternatural critter decides to introduce an element of freakishness to the experience. One aspect to consider in military reports of monster encounters is the fact that when someone is trying desperately to kill you, and just as steadfastly trying not to be killed by you, it tends to hone the senses to a razors edge. If I was a WWII RAF pilot flying sorties over Berlin in the face of nasty Luftwaffe resistance, my attention to highly maneuverable "foo fighters" would likely amount to threat assessment i.e. "not shooting at me, yet", thus file the data and ignore while I try not to get blow out of the sky by the nearest unfriendly Messerschmitt. Historian Flavius Josephus (37-100 A.D.) once remarked that the average Roman was "born ready armed", and given that the Roman legions spent about 1300 years campaigning from Parthia to Wales, he may have had a point. Part of the extraordinary success of the Roman military had a lot to do with discipline, organization, emphasis on strategic planning, and recognition of the value of combat engineering. Therefore it is no surprise that when we run across accounts of monsters obstructing the operations of Roman Legions at the edges of the empire, they seem to be recorded dispassionately and the monsters dispatched forthwith so that the Roman war machine could get on with say, sacking Carthage. With no muss and no fuss, Roman historians recorded (mostly as a footnote) the summary execution of a gigantic river monster during the 256 B.C. invasion of Africa during the First Punic War, mostly because it was in the way. Rome and Carthage were the 3rd Century B.C. big kids on the block in the Western Mediterranean, and it was nearly inevitable that they would come to blows. A minor armed squabble over the city of Messena in Sicily erupted into what was effectively a classical world war, with Rome and Carthage supporting opposing antagonists. The assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand in Serbia dragged all of Europe into World War I, so it's probably safe to say that the history of humanity is characterized by superpowers looking for a pretext to mobilize the army and navy. Carthage had long been the dominant naval power, but after a protracted land war in Sicily, they decided it was time to push the war a little closer to Carthage. Rome built a massive fleet and set out to invade North Africa. In 256 B.C., Roman legions under the command of Marcus Atilius Regulus landed near modern day Cape Bon, Tunisia, and proceeded to march towards Carthage itself. On the way to Carthage, the Roman army encamped on the Bragrados River, wherein dwelt a particularly unsavory beastie described as a "giant serpent" that made the big mistake of inadvertently interfering with Rome's heartfelt desire to burn Carthage to the ground and salt the earth. The Legions were just starting to get their world conquering ways on, and did not appreciate this sort of nuisance. Roman historian Titus Livius Patavinus (64 BC – AD 17), also known as "Livy" jotted down a disturbingly uninformative note about the encounter some 200 years later, as if everybody should know what he was talking about, commenting "Attilius Regulus, consul, having overcome the Carthaginians in a sea-fight, passes over into Africa: kills a serpent of prodigious magnitude, with great loss of his own men" (Livy, Epitome of Book 1), and then unceremoniously goes on to talk about how Regulus got his ass kicked by the Carthaginians. Cryptozoologically, I find this attitude a little off-putting essentially as if I sat down and told you I ran into a monster and had to dispatch it with siege equipment after it ate a bunch of my men, but damn aren't those Carthaginians tough? Gaius Plinius Secundus (23–79 A.D.) or "Pliny the Elder" as distinguished from his snot-nosed descendant Pliny the Younger gave a little more detail…" Full article here link Amicalement Armand |
Bunkermeister | 13 Mar 2015 2:29 p.m. PST |
That was a great article. Mike Bunkermeister Creek Bunker Talk blog |
tkdguy | 13 Mar 2015 6:12 p.m. PST |
Dead sea serpent = lots of sushi for the troops |
Tango01 | 14 Mar 2015 11:49 a.m. PST |
Happy you like it my good friend!. (smile) Amicalement Armand |
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