Talk:Battle of Taginae

Doubting this
Taginae is significant to history as the first recorded use of coordination between infantry and archers.

This seems very hard to believe. Is there a source for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh Grosse (talk • contribs)


 * Eggenberger's Encyclopedia of Battles. Looking at it again, I see he says "first recorded success in the coordinated employment of pike and bow" instead of just "use", so I misrepresented.  I think what he was getting at was the maneuvering part; previous uses of archers tended not to be any more sophisticated than "shoot arrows first".  But it does seem hard to believe, I'll see if I can find any corroboration/amplification on the point. Stan Shebs 18:52 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)

Coordinated pike and bow I might buy, depending on what counts as coordination and what counts as a pike. The only ancient weapon I can think of that is undisputably pike-ish is the sarissa, and though Alexander planned to put some archers in his phalanx, in practice they always played a minor role. On the other hand, didn't the Byzantines mainly use just plain spearmen? I don't know nearly as much about their army as I would like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh Grosse (talk • contribs)

Army Size
The inflated figure of 35,000 for Narses' army has no validity and requires a far more specific and more reliable source reference than the one offered. The bibliography already contains two academic articles by military specialists in this period. Rance's article in particular contains a very detailed discussion of the size and composition of Narses' army, citing original sources and a large secondary literature (all of which concurs on the figure 20-25,000). John Julius Norwich's book, on the other hand, is a general history of Byzantium written for amateur enthusiasts - it simply will not do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.247.121.129 (talk) 12:26, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I quite agree that the figure of ca. 25,000 is more likely, and that Norwich's book is a general history, and contains several inaccuracies. I also checked John Haldon's "Wars of Byzantium" and he agrees with your figures. However, in future, when you alter a sourced reference, better provide a new source and the citations that back up your claims. Cheers, Constantine  ✍  12:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Yom Kippur War not applicable
paralleling this with Taginae is a bit of a joke, especially in the opening paragraph. --Tataryn77 (talk) 19:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Totila, killed in action
Totila was not killed in action. He fled, was pursued, and he died of his wounds at Caprae (Procopius). ''The Gothic charge failed, Narses drew his straight line of troops into a crescent, and the short battle ended in the utter rout of the Goths, Totila flying from the field. In that flight one Asbad a Gepid struck at him and fatally wounded him. He was borne by his companions to the village of Caprae, more than twelve miles away, and there he died…'' (Edward Gibbon). Sirius2044 (talk) 21:40, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Language confusion
Why is Βουσταγαλλώρων‎ referred to as hebrew when it is clearly greek? In section "Deployment" — Preceding unsigned comment added by ReneJensen (talk • contribs) 18:31, 14 September 2019 (UTC)