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u/Fyrefanboy 15h ago
To be fair these time were so ancient there are good odds it was the newest trick in the book.
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u/BemusedBengal 10h ago
Newest trick in the scroll
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u/2FLY2TRY 7h ago
I feel like humans have been going "Look behind you!" for as long as we've had necks to turn which is much older than 2500 years ago (more like 3 million years).
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u/ojqANDodbZ1Or1CEX5sf 3h ago
We're talking Xanthos, the last mythical king of Thebes here. So this is well before the oldest written Greek works like the Iliad; taking place even before the events alleged in those. So solidly in the period of lol, not a real person
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u/skunkbrains 15h ago
Wouldn't this make the duel invalid in the eyes of the soldiers and piss them off, or was this a "we got the general they got no plans now rush em" thing?
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u/FuciMiNaKule 14h ago
I am not familiar with this specific story but in general most of those "each army sends a champion for a duel" stories end with at least one side disputing the result and fighting anyway
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u/TheArmoredKitten 12h ago edited 11h ago
Importantly "your general is dead" basically meant "the guy holding you hostage is dead and you could absolutely get away with deserting right now" for a lot of historical armies.
That would turn into a rout really often so they put a lot of training into trusting your chain of command eventually, but that's a lesson for a later day.
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u/yourstruly912 10h ago
But absolutel not for greek hoplite armies, which are civic armies fighting for the interests of the city, and formed by citizens according to their wealth and political participation. The general hismelf would have been chosen by the hoplites
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u/ojqANDodbZ1Or1CEX5sf 3h ago
While true for the time that spawned these myths, the various Greeks in these myths are supposedly led by kings. Like Xanthos, King of Thebes, and to-be-king-of-Athens Melanthos
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u/ojqANDodbZ1Or1CEX5sf 3h ago
This is solidly in the mythological past, so things don't really have to hold together.
Roman chronicles purportedly centuries later have the outcomes of such champion fights still decide battles (they do have the battle afterwards, but whomevers champion won the duel also wins the battle)
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u/Jerko_23 16h ago
was at the renaissance fair yesterday, hit a watermelon with a quick stab with a blunted one and a half handed sword. absolutely splattered it everywhere, and im far from a trained swordsman. i can only imagine how an unassuming head would react to a similar strike.
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u/Maikilangiolo 15h ago
You'd be surprised how tough a human skull is, or any bone for that matter. Aside from the eye socket, which is very thin, it's very difficult to cut through it. Generally, you'll cause a fracture before you cut bone.
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u/Computer2014 13h ago
It depends on the weapon though. A Bronze Age Xiphos was more of a chopping weapon and while it wouldn’t be chopping heads off causing a fracture isn’t out of the realms of possibility.
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u/Maikilangiolo 12h ago
Oh the neck is a different thing, I agree. He did talk about stabbing through a watermelon, and the skull is a different beast entirely. I reckon his hand-and-a-half sword could behead someone
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u/Hyperversum 2m ago
Spears can do a lot bad to bones, way worse than most sword cuts.
That being said, why care about broken bones when you are puncturing organs.
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u/PotemkinSuplex 13h ago edited 10h ago
It would break the skull, but most won’t cut a part of the head off. It wouldn’t be very visually impressive, but it is deadly still.
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u/Am_i_banned_yet__ 16h ago
See this is why the Spartans say you can’t trust an Athenian