Infinite Wisdom

“I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.”
“I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet.”
“For Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle.” 
--Psalm 18, 37-39

La Triviata

• Contemplating war with China, in 1884 the French quietly asked their archenemy Germany to delay delivery of the battleships Ting Yuan and Chen Yuan and the cruiser Chi Yuan, then under construction in the Reich for the Celestial Empire, a request to which Reichschancellor Otto von Bismarck readily assented, happy to see his old foes occupied elsewhere.  
• Apparently one of the privileges awarded a Spartan who won a crown at the Olympics was the right to serve as a bodyguard to one of the city’s two kings.
• Within the first 48 hours of landing on Iwo Jima, Navaho code talkers of the 5th Marine Division reportedly handled some 800 messages in their native language.
• During Trajan’s triumph for the defeat of the Parthians (held in late A.D. 117 or early 118), the victor’s chariot was occupied by a lifelike statue of the Emperor, he having died on August 8th of 117.
• Founded in a New York store front in 1940 to supply knitted goods for British sailors, “Bundles for Britain” eventually grew to have 1.5 million members in 1,900 branches, and by the end of World War II was supplying medical equipment, field kitchens, and more in addition to sweaters, mittens, and the like, goods today worth perhaps $25 million to $200 million, depending on how one calculates the relative value of the dollar.
• Officer cadets in the Greek Air Force are rather curiously known as “Ί?????” (ikaroi), after Icarus, son of the mythic inventor Daedalus, who flew too close to the sun in his father’s contraption of wax and feathers, and plunged into the sea to his death. 
• When the Germans overran Western Europe in June of 1940, the 2nd Polish Armored Division, formed from exiles for service with the French, retreated into Switzerland, where it was interned, though the wily Swiss allowed the troops to maintain their organization and even continue training covertly, in case Hitler decided to add their little republic to his conquests.

From the Archives - Morning Reports, cohors XX Palmyrenorum   

Among their many military innovations, the Romans seem to have invented paperwork, a matter about which we’ve commented before.  Some of this paperwork actually survives, usually in trash heaps near long-abandoned fortresses.

One of the greatest troves of surviving Roman military documents comes from the ruins of the fortress-city of Dura-Europos, about ten miles north of where the Euphrates River passes out of modern Syria into Iraq, a site now devastated by the maniacal minions of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State.”  Most of these documents are from the cohors XX Palmyrenorum equitata milliaria, a combined infantrycavalry regiment.  The cohort formed the principal garrison at Dura-Europos from as early as AD 170 until the city was taken and destroyed by the Persians in 257.  The XX Palmyrenorum included six centuries (companies) of infantry and five turmae (troops) of cavalry plus a troop of dromedarii or “camelry,” with a normal complement of some 1,100 to 1,200 men, rather more than the thousand implied by the tag “milliaria.”  The surviving paperwork is extensive, hundreds of documents having been found, some fragmentary and some largely intact.  Several documents are so detailed we know the names of nearly a thousand of the troops, and even those of some of the horses.

Among the papers that come down to us are portions of several morning reports, which can be pieced together to give us an idea of the daily routine and duties of an elite unit on frontier duty in the early Third Century.

A morning report from an uncertain date in the latter half of AD 219 details the “ordinary” distribution of the troops in the cohort.

These figures seem to have been more or less stable over many years.  A report for March 27, AD 233, indicates cohort strength at 1,137, which probably does not include its commander, the tribune Iulius Rufianus, otherwise unknown to history, nor his personal staff and bodyguards.  An actual nominal roll of AD 239 dated May 31-June 1 shows 914 infantry, 223 cavalry, and 34 camelry, for a total of 1,171, again without the commander or his entourage.

The AD 233 report also details personnel distribution in the cohort.

• Milites caligati (literally “booted soldiers,” i.e. infantry), 880, including officers. There were nine centurions: one the primpilus or chief centurion of the cohort, one as chief of infantry, one as chief of cavalry, and one for each of the six foot centuries. 
• There were also eight duplicarii  (double-pay men, more or less
• “sergeants”), and one sesquiplicarius (pay-and-a-half man, “corporal”); 
• Milites equitata (“horsed soldiers”), 223, including 5 decuriones (platoon leaders), 7 duplicarii, and 4 sesquiplicarii;
• Dromedarii (camelry), 33 and 1 sesquiplicarius.  Normally this would have been commanded by a decurio, so perhaps the post was vacant and command had devolved on the sesquiplicarius.

In this morning report Tribune Rufianus issues the standing orders for the day and gives the watchword, “Holy Mercury.”  He then details personnel transfers or movements by name, designates the commander of the watch and the personnel assigned to guard the regimental shrine, and gives instructions on preparations for religious observances to be held on the 29th.  

This was a standard format, repeated in the morning reports over the next few days, with some variation, such as the notice of the death of one man, the detailing of several men for special duties, such as collecting wood for the unit baths, a couple of discharges, several men listed as AWOL, and similar routine information. 

Not very much different from a modern morning report.

FootNote:  The Roman Army didn’t actually have twenty cohortes equitata milliaria recruited at Palmyra, a major metropolis in Eastern Syria.  Some units of the auxilia – the lighter forces that supported the legions – were numbered serially, so, for example, there actually were nine cohorts of Batavians recruited by the Emperor Claudius for his invasion of Britain in AD 43, designated Cohors I Batavorum to Cohors IX Batavorum, several of which survived into the fifth century.  The cohors XX Palmyrenorum equitata milliaria, however, seems to have received its “XX” because it was the 20th cohort equitata milliaria in the army at the time, and happened to be recruited in Palmyra.

War and the Muses - Eleanor Roosevelt’s Prayer

After Elliot Roosevelt’s death (1860-1894), his daughter Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) was raised by his brother Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1858-1919).  In 1905, while her uncle was in the White House, she wed her fifth cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945).  

After Franklin was disabled by polio, Eleanor increasingly became his partner in politics and during his years in office became the most active First Lady in history.  She had a daily newspaper column, often served as a fact finder for the President, championed unpopular causes, such as racial justice and workers’ rights, and became almost as popular as Roosevelt himself, while also becoming a major target of abuse by hate groups, hostile politicians, and the like. During World War II, Mrs. Roosevelt, who had four sons and a son-in-law in uniform, travelled extensively, visiting training camps, defense plants, military hospitals, and troops overseas.  While on her travels she carried a copy of a short prayer, which reportedly had been given to her by William Stephenson (1897-1989), better known as the British intelligence maven “Intrepid.”  

Dear Lord,
Lest I continue
My complacent way,
Help me to remember that somewhere, Somehow out there A man died for me today.
As long as there be war,
I then must
Ask and answer
Am I worth dying for?