Quote from: Arkansan;736551I feel like that quote is probably fairly accurate. It seems to me like most ancient powers became so because they found a way to at least partially overcome the fact that most people suck at fighting. Rome I would say is a spectacular example of that, intensive drill, deep understanding of strategy and tactics combined with troops that were trained to operate as a cohesive whole versus individuals. All those things seem like a good way to overcome natural shortcomings in most peoples ability to fight.

As I recall from I think Tacitus, the Roman view was that their northern barbarian foes were individually superior fighters, and the Romans beat them through superior tactics and discipline. The individual warriors of warrior societies such as the Germans or Dacians had no aversion to killing, and as individuals they were very good at it. Most WW2 conscripts (per SLA Marshall) or medieval peasants were not good at killing other humans, but that's not a universal truth of human history. Men can be trained & acculturated to be ok with killing other men; there is a natural aversion, and some will always be much better than others and do the majority of the the killing, but it's not the case that in all societies only a small minority are capable of killing.

Oh I certainly agree that cultural expectations go a long way toward how comfortable someone is with the idea of killing. What I was getting at is that aside from a natural aversion to the act is that most people aren't good at fighting in general without some degree of training. I see the quote in question as being more about natural aptitude than willingness.

Quote from: Phillip;736569They didn't invent formation or discipline, and Alexander conquered "the world" before them.

Sure, but as with most things, the Romans took the stuff that Greeks experimentally tested and ended up absolutely perfecting it.