Customer Reviews

Cavalry Operations in the Ancient Greek World

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I was really excited to get this book, but I only found the first few chapters 'smashing.' The rest of them were 'smashing' in a different fashion--to my expectations. While reading through, the author took it upon himself to write a paraphrased history of Greece--merely commenting and highlighting the cavalry portions. That wasn't the level of analysis I was expecting from a work such as this. I thought the book would take an examination of cavalry into a more comprehensive stage. Instead the author seemed too engrossed with secondary sources such as Gomme and Hammond. It's great that he incorporated so many scholars--indeed, but it became a shortcoming because it took Gaebel away from the primary texts.
It almost seemed as if his understanding of history was thickly through the filter of secondary sources and couldn't emancipate his analysis from their biases and 'attitudes'. I would have liked it better if he put himself in the 'sandals' of the contemporaries more--and did a 'bottom-up' instead of a 'top-down' look--hidebound by hindsight.
His work also got a bit overly subjective--villifying Cleon here (it's not like we were there), finding cavalry useless 'there' because of its perceived 'zero sum' effectiveness. Too judgemental--too quick to draw assumptions and conclusions . . . Just because information from the ancient times is scanty doesn't mean the technologies they had didn't exist. It just means we have no evidence of them. Scholars tend to paint the ancients in a light were they look like absolute 'morons' because they have no proof otherwise. Gaebel occasionally dismissed these attitudes (like with bare-back riding's effectiveness). At other times, he was just as guilty . . .
He also really got confused over Greek swords--the xiphos, machaira, and the kopis. Although he lists Snodgrass' work on Arms and Armor of the Greeks--he must have not read it closely enough. Given how they rush scholars through writing and researching, I'm not surprised. Deadlines suck.
But this topic could have had a better treatment than in this book. I'm still glad I own it--just because it helped propel me to research.
Nonetheless, the first few chapters were supremely the best part. Admittedly I'm only halfway through. Sorry for the 'hasty judgement on my part."