I feel like I’d have been better at sieging than people of the time. Hunt the area to extinction, clear cut the forest, fling leper chunks over the wall. Make the city useless. Occasionally, I wonder whether I fantasize too often about war crimes. But the thought has long since succumbed to leprosy.
The point of sieges was generally to take the city in order to extract taxes (after the initial looting). If you make be the city completely useless you’re not better at it, you’re defeating the purpose of the siege itself.
It depends on the era! In the Medieval and Early Modern periods, siegecraft, despite being core to military action, was… not prestigious. Even as late as the 16th century AD it was considered work for local levies rather than ‘real’ soldiers, and often handled with a degree of distaste. The engineers who drew up the plans were somewhat respected, but it was still considered not really the work of a real military commander, who spoke to TROOPS and used WEAPONS and STRATAGEMS and wore ARMOR, not nerd shit with angles and calculations and elbow grease.
On the other hand, as you point out, the Romans in the Classical era were very… thorough besiegers. Every legionary was also a laborer, after all - during the Siege of Jerusalem, they deforested the entire area for several miles to build their camps and siege weapons.
I mean, the objective was usually to keep the area useful for yourself afterward so full-on salted earth destruction wasn’t the norm. Unless they were trying to send a message. But you’re correct otherwise.
I mean, this was back when you’d buy mercenaries who’d double super promise not to rape everything that moved, right before raping everything that moved. There was no such things as war crimes, but breaches of decorum were punished if you were on the losing side or under the thumb of a lord with certain principles or leanings
I feel like I’d have been better at sieging than people of the time. Hunt the area to extinction, clear cut the forest, fling leper chunks over the wall. Make the city useless. Occasionally, I wonder whether I fantasize too often about war crimes. But the thought has long since succumbed to leprosy.
The point of sieges was generally to take the city in order to extract taxes (after the initial looting). If you make be the city completely useless you’re not better at it, you’re defeating the purpose of the siege itself.
(I know, I was just joking)
Didn’t they do all that?
The Roman’s couldn’t build defensive weight palisades without a lot of timber.
It depends on the era! In the Medieval and Early Modern periods, siegecraft, despite being core to military action, was… not prestigious. Even as late as the 16th century AD it was considered work for local levies rather than ‘real’ soldiers, and often handled with a degree of distaste. The engineers who drew up the plans were somewhat respected, but it was still considered not really the work of a real military commander, who spoke to TROOPS and used WEAPONS and STRATAGEMS and wore ARMOR, not nerd shit with angles and calculations and elbow grease.
On the other hand, as you point out, the Romans in the Classical era were very… thorough besiegers. Every legionary was also a laborer, after all - during the Siege of Jerusalem, they deforested the entire area for several miles to build their camps and siege weapons.
I mean, the objective was usually to keep the area useful for yourself afterward so full-on salted earth destruction wasn’t the norm. Unless they were trying to send a message. But you’re correct otherwise.
Were they war crimes yet? Was crimes became a thing because of mustard gas right?
I mean, this was back when you’d buy mercenaries who’d double super promise not to rape everything that moved, right before raping everything that moved. There was no such things as war crimes, but breaches of decorum were punished if you were on the losing side or under the thumb of a lord with certain principles or leanings
So nothing changed, ultimately