History Of Civilization

Document Analysis Paper 2 Length: 500 words 

Chicago style format

Analyze one of the primary sources you will be using for your paper. Using the P.A.P.E.R. technique as well as guidelines provided by your instructors, discuss how and why your chosen primary source is important to your topic of study. Be sure to address the larger historiographical issues associated with your chosen source.

Theme: “War…what is it good for?”: Ancient and Medieval Military History
War is defined as many things—the failure of politics; the opposite of peace; a necessary evil. Over the years, civilizations have approached the nature of warfare, its main participants (the armies), and the role of the Divine in the process in different ways. Your task is to research how war is defined and/or talked about in anywhere from two to three different culture/civilizations and to determine whether there is a “universal understanding” of what it is “to fight” and how this process is realized. From this research, devise a thesis that will address your findings and help answer the age-old questions regarding this most human of practices.

Document Analysis 1: Livy: The Roman Way of Declaring War, c. 650 BCE.

By accessing the Internet History Sourcebook, I had looked up the broad topic or “war”. After siphoning through a number of documents regarding war, one of the documents I chose as a primary source that will support my thesis was Livy: The Roman Way of Declaring War, c. 650 BCE. The document was written by William Stearns Davis and describes the aforementioned. The document is from a collection of texts focusing on Byzantine and medieval history. The purpose of this document is to chronicle the steps the romans deemed necessary to successfully declare war as well how the declaration correlates to whether or not they are victorious. The author is seeking to illustrate the Roman’s grandeur and the propriety that their religion held in their society.

Not unlike the vast majority of wars of the ancient and medieval times, religion was a major driving force in why groups would go to war. As stated in the document, Romans would declare their opponents as “unrighteous” and in turn battle them into submission. Rome was the original super power that absorbed cultures and civilizations into their own for the sake of proving the power that their gods have endowed them with. The king of Rome at the time, Ancus Marcius implemented this method of declaration because he felt without it, their opponents would win because the gods would favor them rather than the Romans. The heralds were required to publicize Rome’s decree of war all throughout the state, to the first person they see and into the land of who they plan to go to arms with. Jupiter, their god of war was to called upon in all of the herald’s journey. Based on the era this pre-war ritual was implemented, Marcius was the fourth king of Rome, a position he attained through election waged war on the Latins in a successful point in the Roman Empire. Known as a legendary king, it was expected his leadership was crucial in the military’s success. Despite this document focusing solely on Rome, it universally describes the way people of this era felt about war. From Ancus’ perspective, his mandates were vital and the pinnacle of ensuring successful warfare. As king he sought to ensure their motives of war were syndicated not only to his many people but to the gods. Medieval and ancient Europe was in a near constant state of war and almost all had religious motivations. This document aids in understanding man’s relationship with the divine during this primal period where life centered around religion. We understand war today as failure to reasonably compromise but for Ancient Rome war was an infallible occurrence that only ended in victory. The way war is defined now is as a non-debilitating happening as nations can occupy another as an act of war without being mutual advisories. War in the ancient eras put nation’s progress at a standstill until a winner emerges with both countries’ finances and population decline. Today war can be occurring and the majority of the citizens are unaffected by the ongoing war. This document successfully describes how the entire state had to be made aware of the upcoming battle. The idea that heralding through the empire was necessary to earn the god’s favor. Other documents will probably aid this one in what war meant and why it was vital all across the globe.

Word count: 561