Sunday, October 6, 2019

Silus.

This is coolbert:

“What person has possessed the most outstanding courage is a subject of unending enquiry.” - - Pliny the Elder.

Thanks to the Strategy Page CIC # 475 article by Professor Al Nofi, as extracted and heavily edited.

Achievements of valor + achievements of fortune. Fortune = luck.

That most outstanding individual Roman soldier of antiquity according to Pliny:

Marcus Sergius Silus [ 240 BC until some time after 197 BC.]

"'. . . nobody, in my judgment [Pliny the Elder] at all events, can rightly rank any human being above Marcus Sergius, albeit his great-grandson Catilina diminishes the credit of his name.'"

"'Sergius lost his right hand in his second campaign. By the end of two further campaigns, he had been wounded twenty-three times, with the result that he was crippled in both hands and both feet, only his spirit being intact; yet although disabled, he served in numerous subsequent campaigns'".

Consider from much modern times [WW1 and WW2] military commanders as wounded repeatedly yet continuing to lead from the front. Individuals for better or worse to include:

* Hyacinth von Strachwitz. Fourteen wounding.

* Bernard Freyberg. Nine wounding.

* Robert Frederick. Eight wounding.

* Oskar Dirlewanger. Twelve wounding.

* Ralph Monclar. 100 % disability.

Bernard Freyberg also during a time of war sustaining non-combat related injury all the while suffering a heart ailment??

Some may take exception to the inclusion of Oscar Dirlewanger but I speak only of repeated wounding and nothing more.

coolbert.



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