Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers.

I'm Murray Dam. I am the assistant editor of ancient warfare magazine.

And I am answering a question that came through on email from Yearn Schneider today.

You too can send us an email and ask a question.

Or of course you can become a patron on Patreon and support the podcast, ancient warfare.

Sorry, patreon.com forward slash ancient warfare podcast. You can do that. Now, the question is a biggie. So this is Murray's take on this one.

There are any number of other takes that you could give on this question. And the question is, what mattered most in ancient warfare?

Well, golly jeepers.

So if I'm only allowed one, I think I have to say it's men.

Men mattered most.

What men did, who was present, who was their experience or inexperience, their camaraderie or lack of camaraderie, their leadership, their relationships to one another.

Not necessarily their technology, not their weaponry, not their,

to some extent it has to be their armour because, you know, they have to be relatively

impregnable to what's coming. But to me, it's the thing that stands out throughout

ancient warfare from, you know know pre-biblical times

through to the late roman empire is that the the men who are able to achieve sometimes

unexpected and remarkable victories do so through the confidence in themselves and the confidence they

inspire in their men.

Yes, there are tactical innovations.

Yes, there are, you know, weapon developments.

But I think the interesting thing about a lot of what's going on is the, it's the confidence

that the men have in themselves that allows them to achieve those remarkable victories.

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