Fireside Friday, April 4, 2025 – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

Fireplace this week! I’m nonetheless a bit behind after attending the annual assembly of the Society for Navy 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 have a look at Rings of Energy should wait one other week. However, I believed I’d share a few of the ideas that SMH has despatched percolating in my head.

For this week’s musing, I believed I would proceed a few of my normal ideas from the actually fascinating roundtable on the Society of Navy Historical past organized by Lee Brice on the character of historic self-discipline. I feel ‘self-discipline’ is a kind of ideas that’s each fairly necessary, but in addition finally ends up was one thing of a totem, the place of us confuse indicators (usually visible indicators) of self-discipline with the precise outputs they anticipate from self-discipline. And that’s partially as a result of ‘self-discipline’ means a set of inputs (rewards, punishments, laws), 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 better precision is unavailable, as a result of disciplina is each bit as broad as ‘self-discipline’ and in many of the similar methods. At its root, disciplina means ‘instructing’ (from disco, discere, “to be taught,” thus a discipulus is a scholar (‘learner’), and so on.) and so in a navy idea – as a result of it is a phrase that does seem exterior of a navy context – it means one thing at its root like ‘coaching’ – each within the sense of the act of coaching and in addition within the sense of the information 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 slightly 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 partially via a system of rewards and punishments, though right here an instantaneous caveat is important: 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 had been mainly by no means used. The imaginative and prescient of the Roman navy as swift to punish and fierce in punishments isn’t fairly true, not less than for the Center Republic.

However, one sees each in historic militaries and in trendy discussions of navy points, this form of fetishization of ‘harsh self-discipline,’ by which is supposed punishments, strict laws 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 feel its price parceling out the differing kinds 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 components to grasp what we imply.

First, we’ve got a class of ‘enter self-discipline,’ which we are able to break down additional. First, there’s ‘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’s ‘self-discipline as rewards and punishments’ – with a lot of the eye usually incorrectly positioned on punishments – which I would name corrective self-discipline. Then lastly, there’s ‘self-discipline as laws and life habits (habitus), which is, I feel, distinct from corrective self-discipline. That is the class for issues like Roman generals restoring ‘self-discipline’ by having their troopers construct a lot of discipline fortifications or limiting their diets to necessities and thus inuring them to hardship and inspiring obedience. It is a tough class, the one the place I feel 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, after all, we’ve got ‘output self-discipline,’ that are the outcomes that ‘self-discipline,’ broadly construed, is meant to provide. Essentially the most distinguished of those is what Wayne Lee calls collective, synchronized self-discipline, the power to get models of troopers to combat collectively in a synchronized, mutually reinforcing approach at better and better 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 tough. 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’ means get their troopers to do uncomfortable issues, like dig earthworks, carry their very own provides, eat easy rations and carry a lot of instruments. However word how, whereas obedience to self-discipline and synchronized self-discipline are sometimes conflated, they’re not the identical: plenty of early trendy pike-and-shot armies had super synchronized self-discipline, however had been mutiny-prone and it was usually tough to get them to do issues like haul their very own provides or put together their very own meals.

Lastly, we’ve got the ‘outputs’ that get related to self-discipline however which don’t require it: particular person fight talent and cohesion. The affiliation is basically sturdy as a result of within the early trendy European navy custom (itself imitating the Roman navy custom), these values had been produced via 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 straightforward instance) and excessive cohesion from societies which lack both drill or sturdy regulatory self-discipline (hoplites, as an illustration).

So ‘self-discipline’ as an mental class nonetheless has worth, not the least as a result of our sources usually suppose it does, however we needs to be conscious that it’s extra of a class than an object: a set of interrelated concepts, slightly than a single follow. And particularly, that class is a set of ‘inputs’ which navy leaders assume (generally wrongly!) reliably produce a set of desired outputs that in flip they think about make armies extra in a position to win battles, which is the factor they need.

On to suggestions:

First off, in my final roundup, I forgot to incorporate but yet one more podcast I did: I used to be on Tides of History with Patrick Wyman talking about the military of the Roman Republic (significantly the Center Republic throughout the Punic Wars). And for individuals who loved that, I’m set to file a follow-up episode subsequent week (to go up a while later than that) to cowl the opposite aspect and discuss concerning the Carthaginian navy throughout the Punic Wars! I’m fairly excited for that, as a result of I feel the frequent understanding of Carthage’s armies (‘mercenaries!’) is definitely principally fallacious – some extent on which we could return for a weblog publish later within the 12 months.

In the meantime, simply yesterday we obtained the latest edition of Pasts Imperfect and it’s a doozy of a crossover because the crew behind one other ACOUP favourite, Peopling the Past popped over to debate their mission and what they’ve arising. Additionally by way of Pasts Imperfect, I need to shout out the Mapping Color in History database which tracks using completely different pigments in numerous Asian work. As we talked about with textiles, in a world earlier than artificial dyes, pigments and colours had been a product of the supplies you might get and people pigments mattered loads, so it is a fascinating database of what may very well be used (with an outside-of-Europe perspective, no much less – beneficial as a result of many of the scholarship on this matter focuses on Europe).

Additionally by way of Pasts Imperfect however price 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 actual fact, not historic. Neither Roman, nor Etruscan, however slightly 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 a fascinating thread on Byzantine swords, with numerous element and footage, discussing their design and growth. I discovered it fairly informative, so I think about lots of you’ll too!

And for this week’s e-book advice, a mixture of literature and historical past, John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (2003). That is the form of e-book that’s each precisely its title and on the similar time fairly a bit greater than its title. There’s, after all, a mandatory caveat: the reader who goes into Garth’s work hoping for a historical past of the First World Warfare will likely be upset, because the narrative stays mounted on J.R.R. Tolkien and whereas Tolkien noticed far an excessive amount of of the struggle, he additionally didn’t see a really massive portion of it. It is a e-book about Tolkien in the Nice Warfare, not Tolkien and the Nice Warfare. There was, I ought to word, an attempt to make a film out of this book, which turned out alright, however misplaced a lot of the ability of the e-book within the translation to the compressed medium that’s movie.

It’s also not only a e-book 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 buddies, the “Tea Membership, Barrovian Society” (T.C.B.S.) as they emerge, start to put in writing and show brilliance and depth of feeling after which after all because the Nice Warfare will get to the grim enterprise of killing practically all of them. The e-book is basically 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 approach, that single tragic line from Tolkien’s personal foreward, “By 1918 all however one in all my shut buddies had been useless” expanded right into a e-book, and there’s worth in that. Within the course of, Garth walks the reader via the gradual genesis of Tolkien’s legendarium and his growth as a myth-maker, presenting the developments of Tolkien’s writing aspect by aspect each with the snippets of his colleagues writing and the narrative of Tolkien and his compatriot’s lives.

Garth’s e-book is, after all, illuminating for any fan of Center Earth who needs to grasp how their favourite ‘secondary world’ got here into being. The e-book appears to set out with the purpose to hint the First World Warfare’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 muse stones of the legendarium, the Fall of Gondolin and the Story of Túrin Turambar. However I discovered simply as beneficial and putting the various quick passages of works not simply by Tolkien but in addition by the opposite T.C.B.S.ites Garth sprinkles via 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 continuously and dense in a lot of the e-book) however ought not; they produce a lot of the purpose and poignancy of the e-book.

It’s oddly becoming, in a e-book about how Center Earth got here to be, to thus really feel the anticipation of the creation of one thing wondrous, dyed fully via with the darkish shades of grief on the world of fantasy and poetry and chance that was misplaced to the hell of struggle.