Hi everyone and welcome again to another episode of ancient warfare answers. This, I believe,

is episode 161. And we're going to be answering a question from Alex from Patreon today,

which is how much did luck play a role in ancient combat? Theoretically, luck would be a major,

more of a factor in the gunpower age, but I can't imagine worse luck than being a Roman

at Can I? Low chance of survival, no matter your martial skill. Now, of course, Alex is from Patreon,

and you too could support the Ancient Warfare Answers podcast if you go on to Patreon and

support us. You can get a copy of the magazine and you can ask us a question which we can

hopefully try and answer on this very podcast. You'll note that Jasper is away, so I am answering

and asking. So this question of luck, well, on the one hand, you can't really emphasize the role of

luck enough that luck in ancient warfare is recognized as a trait, a personality trait.

Obviously, Sula Felix, Lucky Sula, is one of the most famous examples of someone who emphasized their own luck.

But there are others as well who, you know, all the way through to the late Roman Empire,

who are regarded as unlucky.

Julian, the Emperor Julian, for instance, is another who's regarded as unlucky.

So there are aspects of ancient warfare where it is down to chance.

And obviously in a lot of the texts, they will talk about propitiating the gods

and making sure you get your sacrifices in order and say the correct things.

And there are obviously examples like in the First Punic War,

throwing the chickens overboard,

that are regarded as a kind of a combination of lack of appropriate propitiation of the gods slash bad luck.

And so, you know, the idea of the envy of is, is present in Roman triumphs, for instance, and that idea that you have with Julius Caesar and that the soldiers marching songs

about their generals be quite abusive, you know, essentially a roasting them as a way of mitigating the idea that if they are too successful or too lucky, that the gods will be envious and destroy them or have them be unlucky next time round.

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