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Roel Konijnendijk

@roelkonijn.bsky.social

5.8K followers 1.3K following 310 posts

Ancient historian (Greece, Persia, war, history-writing). Darby Fellow in Ancient History at Lincoln College, Oxford. Moderator at r/AskHistorians. Ditch guy on YouTube.

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · Oct 31

This is a thread to gather some of the stuff I've done that's available online🧵

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 1d

Yep! There is a critical flight from the centre in this thing: nothing on battle, march, siege, mercenaries or naval warfare. Many of the chapters are valuable but it is passing strange to have an entire volume on Greek warfare that never once discusses, say, agonal warfare or othismos

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 1d

*Classical Greek World

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 1d

Many of us use this series in our teaching. I have contributed to the one on Achaemenid Persia and the one on Cities in the Greco-Roman World. I also heavily use Hellenistic World (ed. Erskine), Classical World (ed. Kinzl), Sparta (ed. Powell), Macedonia (eds. Roisman & Worthington)...

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 1d

This one is the exception. It was put together by an editorial team that doesn't work on Archaic or Classical Greek warfare at all, and it shows. The Companion to Archaic Greece, on the other hand, is excellent - one of the outstanding examples of why these volumes are worth having.

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 1d

It's been great to see some of Rémi Saou's work. It seems like he is (persuasively!) pushing a lot of revisionist ideas even further, like mine on the skittishness of hoplites. "Our" side definitely does not want for fresh insights.

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 1d

The problem is that he was always going to write a more historiographical analysis of the hoplite, and the editors didn't bother to also solicit a technical/tactical survey. The other problem is that the editors made heavy-handed unilateral changes to chapters - Fernando disavows the printed version

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 1d

Fernando was an obvious choice for a chapter like this, since he has written directly about hoplite battle tactics (in Ancient Society 2011), and his piece is one of the most thoughtful in the volume; the editors may have made some really bad choices for contributors, but this is not one of them!

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 1d

I pulled some punches in my review for JHS, but it gives a sense of the problems. It has some useful chapters but much of it is not comprehensive, consistent or current.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

(W.) HECKEL, (F.S.) NAIDEN, (E.E.) GARVIN and (J.) VANDERSPOEL (eds) A Companion to Greek Warfare. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2021. Pp. xx + 474. £175.95. 9781119438816. | The Journal of Hellenic...

(W.) HECKEL, (F.S.) NAIDEN, (E.E.) GARVIN and (J.) VANDERSPOEL (eds) A Companion to Greek Warfare. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2021. Pp. xx + 474. £175.95. 9781119438816. - Volume 144

www.cambridge.org

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 2d

On that note, I should get back to my Key Themes book on Greek warfare...

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 2d

Unfortunately the Blackwell Companion to Greek warfare (2021) is... not gonna do that

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 2d

However, I wouldn't say that heretics/new heterodox scholars have thereby "won". Rather frustratingly, it seems like the debate has simply died, and people are quietly returning to orthodoxy because they assume you don't need to read more than one thing about Greek warfare.

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 2d

There are still some orthodox voices in academia (Adam Schwartz, Greg Viggiano), but they haven't produced any new arguments. Defence of some parts of orthodoxy now largely comes from reenactors, who find it hard to let go of a treasured bloodless way to simulate massed infantry combat.

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 4d

There was, of course, also a castle, with a stone keep - but, according to the signage there, only a double palisade and ditch to fortify the circuit

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 4d

Visited Saffron Walden today and admired its Great Ditch or Battle Ditch. The medieval town was unwalled; this earthwork (ditch + ramp) was its full defensive perimeter

View down the length of a wide, grassy ditch, with a path along one side and red vines hanging from tall trees on the other

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 13d

Thanks very much! I never played any of the God of War games so I don't really know how they "do" the Greek gods. But games are definitely kind of a next frontier. I'm waiting for Echoes of History to release the deep dive I recorded with them on AssCreed Odyssey

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 22d

Kyroupaideia is also dripping with it. Gosh if only we could be ruled by the best man ever, it would be so ace, we would conquer the world.

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 23d

Boringly I think this should probably go to Aristotle's Politics, but if the question is about narrowly *Athenian* ideology I'd agree with @badancient.bsky.social. Funny how both authors are metics.

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 29d

I'll look forward to seeing you there!

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 29d

It sadly won't be published Open Access, but I will no doubt be yapping about it across various platforms...

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 29d

A weekly reminder from @wejustinnocentmen.bsky.social

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · 29d

Writing a piece on Greek masculinity and I have now written the word 'man' so often it has become ridiculous. Men: ridiculous

a woman and a stuffed animal are looking at each other in front of a tv

Alt: GIF from a children's TV show. A puppet says to the woman presenter, "we're just normal men"; she unintentionally cracks up

media.tenor.com

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · Sep 9

Once people started quoting Brinell hardness at me and talking about the shatter gap, I kind of lost interest. I'm not put on this earth to do physics. Just tell me if you have enough horsepower to lug your tonnage and enough armour penetration at 1500m to kill Nazis

Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · Sep 9

There is something defiant about the idea that people were told to go someplace where the air was bullets and fire, so they shrugged, cut themselves a thick steel coat and brought a bigger gun than the other team.

But also tanks are a neat package of comparable numbers to soothe our nerd brains.

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Reposted by Roel Konijnendijk

Vincent Schmidt @schmidtv.bsky.social · Aug 27

Save the date! Late October @roelkonijn.bsky.social is giving a lecture and a workshop. #AncientHistory #MilitaryHistory

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Roel Konijnendijk @roelkonijn.bsky.social · Aug 15

I don't mean these fine gentlemen, I'm just quoting what he said in the podcast!

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