Similar battle deaths of 300!

The following is from a missive of mine and might well provide one with some questions and some answers!

July 31, 2009
The Epitome of Roman History by Florus
published in the Loeb Classical Library,
1929, as translated by William P. Thayer, and found at;

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Florus/Epitome/home.html
The text is in the public domain

From the direction of Etruria the Veientines were persistent enemies who attacked each year; so much so that the single family of the Fabii undertook to form a special force and waged a private war against them. The disaster which befell them is well, all too well, known.

Near Cremera three hundred of them, an army of patricians, p39 were slain, and so the gate which sent them forth to the battle was branded with the name of the Evil Gate. But for this disaster atonement was made by great victories, when the strongest cities were captured under different leaders and with different results. The Falisci surrendered voluntarily; Fidenae was consumed by its own flames; Veii was thoroughly plundered and destroyed.

When the Falisci were being besieged, the honourable conduct of the Roman commander was a subject of admiration, and not without reason; for he actually sent back in chains a schoolmaster who offered to betray the city, together with the boys whom he had brought with him. For, being a man of integrity and wisdom, he knew that the only true victory is that which is won with untainted honour and unimpaired dignity.

The people of Fidenae, not being a match for the Romans with the sword, had armed themselves with torches and had put on vari-coloured fillets resembling serpents, in order to inspire terror, and had marched forth like furies; but their funereal attire was an omen of their overthrow. The ten years' siege which Veii sustained is an indication of its strength. It was the first occasion on which a Roman army spent the winter under tents of skin, and winter service was compensated by special pay, and the soldiers at their own suggestion were bound under an oath not to return until the city had been captured.

The spoils won from Lars Tolumnius, the king, were brought back in triumph and dedicated to Jupiter Feretrius. In the end the fall of the city was brought about, not by scaling-ladders or assault, but by a mine and underground p41 stratagems. Lastly, the booty appeared so rich that a tithe of it was sent to Pythian Apollo, and the whole of the Roman people was summoned to plunder the city. Such was Veii in those days. Who now ever remembers its former existence? What remains or traces of it are left? Our trust in our annals has a difficult task to make us believe that Veii ever existed.

All material on this site not covered by other copyright and not explicitly marked as public domain is copyright © William P. Thayer

With the formalities out of the way, I will now attempt to extract material from the above translation that may well be related to other events of our consensual history which are within the approval of modern thought, now separated by both time and place.

From the direction of Etruria the Veientines were persistent enemies who attacked each year; so much so that the single family of the Fabii undertook to form a special force and waged a private war against them. The disaster which befell them is well, all too well, known. Near Cremera three hundred of them, an army of patricians, p39 were slain, and so the gate which sent them forth to the battle was branded with the name of the Evil Gate.

First of all, we see that from Etruria the Veientines were persistent enemies who attacked each year, this indicated that during the warring season Rome was attacked each year by the Veientines. Just who were these people?

First of all it seems that it is hard to find anyplace on the internet or in my dictionary whereby one can see any kind of specific definition of these people. Thus everything is determined via relationships with Rome or other peoples who lived somewhere in the lands called “Etruria!”

The time-line of the above events, found at;

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/5th_century_BC#encyclopedia

http://books.google.com/books?id=vZ0MAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA739&lpg=RA1-PA739&dq=killing+of+the+300+fabians+veii&source=bl&ots=pG75idftg6&sig=ykN5fVvBTxTdYSkcnheAYYfWads&hl=en&ei=4i9lSsCcA963twet-5myAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
October, 485 BC — Xerxes I succeeds Darius I of Persia

Darius I or Darius the Great was the son of Hystaspes and Persian Empire from 522 BC to 486 BC. Darius is the dominant Latin language spelling used by the Roman historians....
as King of Persia.
484 BC — Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....playwright Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
wins a poetry prize.
484 BC — Xerxes I abolishes the Kingdom of Babel and removes the golden statue of Bel.
(mythology)

Bel , signifying "lord" or "master", is a title rather than a genuine name, applied to various gods in Babylonian religion. The feminine form is B?lit 'Lady, Mistress'....
Marduk was the Babylonian language name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon..

484 BC —Persian Empire
The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....regain control of Egypt.
483 BC - Gautama Buddha died.

483 BC — Xerxes I of Persia starts planning his expedition against Greece.

481 BC — The Congress at the Isthmus of Corinth
The Congress at the Isthmus of Corinth took place in 481 BC, under the presidency of Sparta, and brought together a number of the Greek city states....ends a war between Athens and Aegina.
Aegina is one of the Greek islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 17 miles from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island.

480 BC — King Xerxes I of Persia sets out to conquer Greece
480 BC — Cimon and his friends burn horse-bridles as an offering to Athena
480 BC — Pleistarchus, king of Sparta from 480 to 458 BC. He was the son of Leonidas I and Gorgo . For the early part of his reign, his cousin Pausanias , acted as regent because Pleistarchus was not of age....succeeds his father Leonidas I., as King of Sparta.
Leonidas I, was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the strength and bravery that made his ancestor famous.

August, 480 BC — Battle of Artemisium

The Battle of Artemisium was a series of naval engagements over three days during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the more famous land battle at Battle of Thermopylae, in August or September 480 BC, off the coast of Euboea....
The Persian / allied fleet fights an inconclusive battle with the Greek fleet.

August 11, 480 BC — The Battle of Thermopylae , took place over three days during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Battle of Artemisium, in August or September 480 BC, at the pass of Thermopylae ...., a costly victory by Persians over the Greeks.
(You will note that it was reported that 300 brave Spartans, along with others, fought to the death in this battle as I have mentioned earlier.)

September 23, 480 BC — Battle of Salamis
The Battle of Salamis , was a naval battle fought between an Alliance of Greece city-states and the Achaemenid Empire of Persia in September 480 BC in the straits between the mainland and Salamis Island, an island in the Saronic Gulf near Athens....between Greece
and Persia, leading to a Greek victory.

480 BC — Battle of Himera (480 BC), supposedly fought on the same day as the more famous Battle of Salamis, or on the same day as the Battle of Thermopylae, saw the Greek forces of Gelo, King of Syracuse, and Theron, tyrant of Agrigento, defeat the Carthage force of Hamilcar the Magonids, ending a Carthaginian bid to restore the deposed tyrant of Himera....the Carthaginians are defeated by the Greeks.
480 BC — Roman Republic troops march against the Veientines.
Veii, a famous city of the Veientines.

Veii was, in ancient times, an important Etrurian city 16 km NNW of Rome, Italy; its site lies in the modern comune of Formello, in the Province of Rome.”
.
From the above translation we see another case of what has become a familiar number in history, as it is presently shown to us. That number is 300 (three hundred) men, who are usually featured in a special force which fought against Rome or Persia or Macedonian or ?.

Another killing of a famous 300, or in this case 306 Fabians at the Cremera River.

http://ancthist-nsgill.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

“The fifth section is The Conflict Between Rome and Veii.

Veii was an Etruscan city that shared a border with Rome on the right bank of the Tiber. There were three Veientine wars. The first, from 483-474, favored the Veii. It was in this war that the Fabian clan, defending their own territory, lost 306 people -- all but one of their men, at the Cremera river. Cornell notes that details seem to have been borrowed from the Battle at Thermopylae, which was almost contemporaneous. A truce gave the Veientines Fidenae. This became the focus of the second Veientine War. The second Veientine War began in 437 when 4 Roman ambassadors were murdered on orders from the tyrant of Veii. The rare spolia opima was awarded Cornelius Cossus for killing the tyrant in single combat. Roman soldiers entered the citadel of Fidenae by means of a tunnel in 435.”
One might note the mention of a “tunnel” used above to enter the “citadel of Fidenae” and capture it in 435 BCE. Could a “tunnel” be considered as a “mole?”
Actually I need to show you two definitions of “Mole!”
http://thinkexist.com/dictionary/meaning/mole/
1. “(n.) A mound or massive work formed of masonry or large stones, etc., laid in the sea, often extended either in a right line or an arc of a circle before a port which it serves to defend from the violence of the waves, thus protecting ships in a harbor; also, sometimes, the harbor itself.”
2. “To form holes in, as a mole; to burrow; to excavate; as, to mole the earth.”

Maybe the tunnel under the “citadel of Fidenae”, as quoted above, is just a misrepresentation of the siege of Tyre by Alexander? You will notice that Alexander supposedly built a “mole”, which we now consider to be the Roman word for “wall” or a man made “ or “causeway”, or “roadway”, built by filling in water with stones, etc.” But, if some other historian mistook “mole” as meaning “a tunnel digging animal”, might not he write “tunneled” instead? Could not any text undergoing copying or translation that said “ a mole was built to attack the city of....” or “a mole was constructed to..” or “a tunnel was constructed..”, etc, easily be confused with “tunnel” or just the opposite? In such a case the attack of Alexander upon the Island City of Tyre, which might well have been discovered just because it is connected to the mainland by a “causeway” type “mole!”, could be entirely wrong? He certainly could not tunnel underwater? This of course totally changes the possibility that the city we now consider as Tyre was besieged by Alexander!

Remember this definition; “Tyrrhenian ,1660, "pertaining to the Etruscans," from L. Tyrrheni, from Gk. Tyrrenoi "Tyrrhenians," from tyrsis "tower, walled city" (cf. L. turris "tower"). Earlier Tyrrhene (1387).” Please note that the origin is said to be from “tyris” meaning “tower”, spelled with only one “r”, as is the word “turan!” and “tyrant.” It thus seems a good possibility that the double “r” was instituted so as to separate “Tyre” from “Tyrr-heni” (one may note that the “h” in Tyrrheni” is usually silent) since a great distance in geography separated the two. This separation might well have happened about 1660 CE?
Even the Tyrrhenian Sea could be translated as “The Sea of the Lord?” See next!

Note, also that the “tyrant of Veii” is mentioned. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tyrant This is how our current etymologists have construed the word tyrant, which it appears only became extant (in English at least) in 1297 CE!;
“1297, "absolute ruler," from O.Fr. tyrant (12c.), from L. tyrannus "lord, master, tyrant" (cf. Sp. tirano, It. tiranno), from Gk. tyrannos "lord, master, sovereign, absolute ruler," a loan-word from a language of Asia Minor (probably Lydian); cf. Etruscan Turan "mistress, lady" (surname of Venus).
‘In the exact sense, a tyrant is an individual who arrogates to himself the royal authority without having a right to it. This is how the Greeks understood the word 'tyrant': they applied it indifferently to good and bad princes whose authority was not legitimate.’ [Rousseau, ‘The Social Contract’]
The spelling with -t arose in O.Fr. by analogy with prp. endings in -ant. Fem. form tyranness is recorded from 1590 (Spenser); cf. M.L. tyrannissa (1372).”   

Note that the above site offers a Etruscan possibility, i.e. “Turan!”, which I assume is another version of the word “Toscan?”, i.e. Etruscans or Tyrrhenians! Notice that Tyr(r)(h)enian is but two letters from being Tyrian / Tyrenian! This is what the current etymologists from the same site have to say;

“Tyrrhenian
1660, "pertaining to the Etruscans," from L. Tyrrheni, from Gk. Tyrrenoi "Tyrrhenians," from tyrsis "tower, walled city" (cf. L. turris "tower"). Earlier Tyrrhene (1387).

Also see; http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.lang/2004-12/3934.html And; http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Tyrrhenian

One must conclude that “absolute lord”, or “Premier Lord”, might well be a good translation, even if his rule was not considered as legitimate. Note that the use of the word tyrant seems to have started about 1279 CE! Or the late 13th century! And the possible time of the change of spelling might have occurred about 1660 CE. It should be noticed that the Tyrrehenian Sea is the name for that part of the Mediterranean Sea that exists on the Western coast of Italy and due West of Rome, the Pontifical States, and Latium itself.

Since Rome (the city) was considered as the “See (seat / home or a “position”) of Peter (i.e., the pope)” or “the Bishop of Rome”, and in a greater sense “the Seat of God”, then it makes very good sense to make a connection that the nearest sea would be called “The Sea of the Lord / God / or his designated representative on the Earth the pope!”

“see (n.)
‘position of a bishop,’ 1297, from O.Fr. sied, sed, from L. sedem (nom. sedes) "seat, abode," related to sedere "to sit" (see sedentary).” There also exists the connection to the old word “sitten”, which can be seen here;

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/switzerland/sion/maps/braun_hogenberg_I_37.html                     
Just look at the high-resolution view and read the Latin! A little look at the history of this town, which still exists in a remarkable similar condition today, and you will find out that it was a “see” or “seat” of a Bishopric, and its name today is Sion / Zion and on the representation, one mount is called “Sitten!” Could one assume that at one time the words “Sion” or “Zion” might also have merely or even “importantly?” described the “seat of a Bishop?”, even the “Bishop of Rome?”      

You might even want to view this version?

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/switzerland/sion/maps/munster_lat_1550_338.html

And look at this site, which may be really important;
http://books.google.com/books?id=TdWwnp6v4z0C&pg=RA3-PA278&lpg=RA3-PA278&dq=tyrrhenian+etymology&source=bl&ots=KW-_-Fh8RE&sig=PZMaIKO2xFHCwdDOaO7uyre_ViA&hl=en&ei=K9XcSc3eLYuWMaivyOQN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10

Concerning the naming of seas, Isidore of Seville (from the site above) writes;

“They may be named from their position with respect to the sky, such as the Upper (superum) and the Lower (inferum) Seas– because the east is upper and the west is lower–that is, the Tuscan (i.e. Tyrrhenian, known as (Mare Inferum) and the Adriatic (Superum).” These words have a profound effect upon me! Is the use of “east is upper” and “west is lower” related to the Sun? That is does its basis consist of the fact that the Sun comes “up” in the east, and “sets” or “lower(s)” or becomes “lower in the sky”, in the west? Could this be the simple explanation? Or could it be related to certain antique portolans which have the charts with South at the top (up), and North at the bottom (lower), which then places East on the right (starboard) and West on the left (Port?)

Can we not consider that the word “sea” and “see” were sometimes confused or possibly used interchangeably?

The narrative continues;

“The third Veientine War (406-396) began when the Romans attacked Veii. The city was captured by the dictator M. Furius Camillus. The areas was included in the ager Romanus. The 10 year span seems to be another example of the romanticism/epic-ism since it copies the length of the Trojan War.

Corenll doesn't think it odd that other Etruscan cities failed to come to the aid of Veii when the city most needed them. Instead of being a military league, Cornell thinks the Etruscan league may have been religious and there seems to have been hostility among the Etruscan groups.

In the last half of the 5th century, Rome became more aggressive. This is a time when Rome reformed the army and instituted a stipend for soldiers, property tax, and indemnities on the defeated. This probably corresponded with a reform of the centuriate system.”

Thus we see a possible connection to what some people call the “Fable of the Trojan War”, via the 10 year siege, as well as what might well be the beginning of payment to the Roman soldiers via salt, i.e. a “salary!”

Check into Fabian tactics here;

http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofancient00good/historyofancient00good_djvu.txt

“356. The Legends of These Struggles, — Many stories of heroic exploits were told about these early wars of Rome with its neighbors: When the gates of the city had been shut against him, Tarquin the Proud immediately set about recovering his power. At first a plot was formed within Rome among the noble youth who felt that they were under restraint in the new conditions. But just as they were about to spring their trap, they were betrayed by a slave who over- heard their treasonable communings. Even though the sons of the consul, they were not saved from summary execution inflicted under their father's direction. Whereupon Tarquin, having solicited aid from the cities of Etruria, came against Rome with an army from Veii and Tarquinii.
In the battle, Brutus, the consul, and Aruns, Tarquin's son, found death in single combat. Help was then sought by Tarquin from Lars Porsena, king of the powerful city of Clusium, who led down from the north a mighty host against Rome. He would have forced a passage over the Sublician bridge had not a brave warrior, Horatius Codes, supported by two companions, held the entrance against the enemy, never retiring until the Romans cut (Legends of the Wars 303) down the bridge behind him; then plunging into the Tiber he swam safely back to his friends.
Porsena brought the city low by a blockade; he was persuaded to give up his hostile endeavors only through the heroic act of Mucius, who, in disguise, entered the Etruscan camp in order to kill the king. By a mistake he killed the king's secretary and, when arrested and brought before Porsena, he declared that there were three hundred other Roman youth, like himself, sworn to kill the king. In proof of his determination, he thrust his right hand into the fire that was lighted for the sacrifice. Hence he was after- ward called Scasv'o-la, "the left-handed." Porsena, moved with admiration and fear, dismissed the youth unharmed. Soon he made peace and retired.
But the people of Veii continued to war with Rome, harassing them with frequent raids. On one occasion, the noble family of the The Fabii offered to proceed against them and conduct the war. So they marched out three hundred and six strong amid the prayers and praises of the people.
Arrived at a strong place at the river Crem'e-ra, they (the Fabii) fortified it, and for a time fought the Veientes with great success. But, at last, growing confident and careless, they (who / the Fabii) were ambushed by the enemy and cut off. Only one of them, and he a child, was left to represent his family. A few years after, peace for forty years was declared between the two states. Then the war broke out again with the going over of Fi-de'nae, a Roman colony, to Veii. In the battle that followed, Aulus Cornelius Cossus slew, with his own hand, Tolumnius, king of Veii, and hung up the royal spoils beside those dedicated by Romulus in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius.
Not long after, Fidenas was taken by storm. But the war continued with varying success, until the other Etruscan cities decided to give no more help to Veii. Then the Romans resolved to lay siege to the siege of city. For ten years their armies lay before it, but the city was defended with vigor. In despair the Romans sought an oracle from Delphi (§ 128), and were told that victory defended on letting out the waters of the Alban lake. When this was done, Marcus Furius Ca-mil'lus, the dictator, solemnly invited Juno, the goddess of Veii, to abandon the doomed city and come to Rome; then the assault was made and Veii fell.”

Wow, what a story! It seems to have a little bit of everything going! Please notice that the siege reportedly lasts for “10 years!" It is considered that the siege of Troy existed for at least nine years with Troy falling in the tenth year! It seems that gods and goddesses were a part of the story of both places, and the entering of the cities by both victors was determined after a strange event. Similarly it is reported that Bagdad was taken (by Cyrus the Persian) after the river was diverted from the city and the invaders (Persians) entered within the dry river bed!

As regards the goddess Juno abandoning the City of Veii, it can be considered that Juno, is some times considered to be Roman version of Hera, and others contend that this is a false assertion, but considering that the two goddesses were comparable it is interesting to note this assertion concerning Hera and her attitude towards Troy!;

http://messagenet.com/myths/bios/hera.html

In the above account it seems that both Hera and Athene (Athena) were antagonists of Troy and worked for its fall! Is it possible that Juno felt the same about the citizens and city of Veii?

Second Battle of Lacolle Mills  

Edited by Pytheus - 26-Nov-2010 at 20:03

Thanks for putting that up, many similarities are evident.   I don't quite understand what you over all point is?  Is it that Florus is quite evidently is rehashing classic Greek tales and heroic battles to fill out early Roman history?  The number of 300 Fabii implies that, as Livy doesn't give them a number (or have I missed it?).  With the Templars you wonder if that is a coincidence of numbers or an attempt to make reference to the Spartan 300, pay homage almost or imply that the Templars role was equivilent to that at Thermopylae - similar to the Theban Sacred Band who also numbered 300 and died in battle against the Macedonians.  What's your take on what Florus is doing?

Owenreess!

How nice you might well ask about the famous or infamous death of 300 male lovers, in a battle with Phillip and Alexander the Great!

Just how many respondents on this site have ever heard of them?

How about you, insted of me, will provide other readers with the requisite information?

Regards,

Thanks for the above post! I might well post more about these valiant warriors sometime, but you did seem to get the gist of it!

But, have you ever heard of a band of 300 knights of Franks, who also fought to the last?

As I remember it happened in Sicily! And the leader of this crew of 300 also had a mighty pedigree!

His first name, as our currently accepted history gives us was "?"

Hint, the first letter was "H!", as I remember!

Perhaps you might well look closely at this list of historical events?

http://www.allcrusades.com/CHRONOLOGICAL/chrono-1200-1249.html

Edited by opuslola - 30-Nov-2010 at 15:56

From the last internet site I left above you will find, amongst a lot of other good information, this;

"By the time he had reached the age of 60, according to traditional historians, or about 35-40, according to Buckley, Jean/John de Brienne had won recognition as a courageous, able, and determined knight, though he lacked any substantial fortune. This was demonstrated in 1208, when envoys from the Holy Land invited France's King Philip II Augustus (1165-1223) to select a husband for Maria, the daughter of Queen Isabella of Jerusalem and Conrad Montferrat, the heiress of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Philip selected Jean de Brienne, who had previously taken part in the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) during the papacy of Pope Innocent III.
Borrowing 40,000 “livres tournois” from King Philip and an equal sum from Pope Innocent III, Jean de Brienne and 300 knights left for Palestine. Landing at Haifa on 13 September, 1210, he proceeded to Acre. There he married Maria of Jerusalem on 15 September, 1210. On 3 October, 1210, he was crowned with Mary as King and Queen of Jerusalem at Tyre. A daughter, Isabella, was born to this marriage in 1212, but Maria died due to complications of childbirth. John continued to rule as regent for the heiress, his infant daughter…
According to historical and genealogical accounts, Jean de Brienne and his third
wife, Berengaria,had a son, Alphonse de Brienne. Alphonse was bom about 1224
or 1225, probably in Spain, the traditional home of his mother, or France. The
following information is found in the Historie Genealogique de laMaison Royale
de France, 6, published in 1730:

“Alfonse de Brienne, comte d’Eu, etoit Chambrier de France au mois de Janoier 1258. Il accompagna le Roi S. Loius au voyage d’Afrique; & mourut a Tunis le 25 aout 1270. le meme jour que Roi Saint Louis ... Il etoit fils de Jean de Brienne roi de Jerusalem, & de Bengere de Castille, don’t les ancestres”."

The key quote above being;

"Borrowing 40,000 “livres tournois” from King Philip and an equal sum from Pope Innocent III, Jean de Brienne and 300 knights left for Palestine. Landing at Haifa on 13 September, 1210, he proceeded to Acre. There he married Maria of Jerusalem on 15 September, 1210. On 3 October, 1210, he was crowned with Mary as King and Queen of Jerusalem at Tyre."

So, Jean/John de Brienne had 300 kinghts accompany him to the Levant!

Is there any reason to not believe he was a "knight Templar?"

As a sample of the problems involved in consensual history, have any of you ever heard of this? (The predecessor of Avigion?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anagni

And perhaps you should also read this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crema,_Italy

Especially concerning the battle!



Edited by opuslola - 30-Nov-2010 at 17:09

This is a very involved subject, directed to point out the massive use of 300 warriors/knights in a variety of times and places whereby certain repetative points seem to merge!

Thus, at this site;

http://hispanismo.org/english/11502-almogavars-james-i-peter-iii-catalonia-aragon.html

You can read about the band of 300 Frankish knights under the leadership of Hugh deBrienne!;

"At the Battle of Gagliano (Sicily) against the three hundred handpicked French knights ironically calling themselves the Knights of Death, more than a hundred of them fell victim to these tactics. The Almogavars "went about amongst them as if they were walking in a garden" (Muntaner, 458)."

Other accounts say that the number of the Knights of Death were 300! The Almogavars (Alms givers?) also known as the Catalan Company, had a number of accounts of the loss of 300, first of all when they were mercs under the employ of the Greeks of Constantinople, 300 of their numbers were reportedly slain at a banquet by the other mercs of the Greeks which are known to us today as the Alans! Let's see we have the "alans" fighting the "Cat-alans!", this, in its self, is strange!

But in another element soon there after, these same Catalans were involved as mercs employed by Waltier/Walter/Gautier de Brienne in his attempt to take back his lands in Greece proper!

A "Duke of Athens" by the name of Jean/John/Jacques? de la Roche, is also said to have attacked a larger force with his 300 kinghts!

Also; http://books.google.com/books?id=lhDPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=brienne+gagliano&source=bl&ots=iN6ohpxawO&sig=OP54oLaTfVdqKnd7NAw344rWQUo&hl=en&ei=XtrDS4iWHcK78gb8883ICA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBIQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

regarding the Knights Templar, it seems this site states that in 1268 CE, the Knights were underthe control of the Catalans!

http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/acegarp/898/6411789.htm

More material can be found amongst these sites!

http://www.ask.com/web?&o=101881&l=dis&q=hugh%20deBrienne%20and%20catalans

Note that preparations for the eighth Crusade, reportedly began in 1268 CE! See;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Crusade

Perhaps you can fill in some of the blanks since I am now constained by time?



Edited by opuslola - 01-Dec-2010 at 15:15

I'm still unsure as to the relevance of the fact that the number 300 keeps emerging; do you have an idea as to why these must be connected, other than the number 300?

Your etymology is rather vague, it seems you are using it to justify your own conclusions, although I may be wrong and you are referencing someone else, in which case could you post the link?  For instance Almogavars is of an Arabic derivative implying a propensity for violence, or conversely comes  from the arabic for captain (this is debated).  And Catalonia seems to derive from the latin term for the area Gathia Launia, literally the land of the Goths (and the Alans were not Goths); it is also speculated by some that the terms Catalan may be an evolution from the name of the original Iberian tribes of the area the Lacetani.  Although it should be reiterated that etymology is a dangerous form of evidence and, when translated through so many languages, loses any form of solid credibility.

You mention the frequent accounts of 300 dying within the Catalan Company, is it not possible that the form of combat/tactics they were involved in produced a similar amount of losses, and chronicles found it easier to round to a particular number rather than gather accurate figures?  Also the idea that the Templars were controlled by a state or region seems to ignore the sources and the intrepid fear states had for the ever increasing growth and power of the Templars as an autonomous group that spanned the whole of Christendom.

I am still intrigued as to what your hypothesis is, so far you've shown chroniclers like to round numbers to 300 a lot, in particular circumstances.  But these 300 don't share similar fates, they don't have the same foundations, they don't have the same causes for combat and they don't appear linked in anyway - although that last point may be wrong depending on your uniting theory.

As always, looking forward to hearing from you

Hello Opuslola,  I have sent you a PM and look forward to seeing what you have got to say.  Once I've received and read it I shall return for the debate to continue.

My dear Owen!

You quite correctly, in your own thinking wrote these words;

"Your etymology is rather vague, it seems you are using it to justify your own conclusions, although I may be wrong and you are referencing someone else, in which case could you post the link? For instance Almogavars is of an Arabic derivative implying a propensity for violence, or conversely comes from the arabic for captain (this is debated). And Catalonia seems to derive from the latin term for the area Gathia Launia, literally the land of the Goths (and the Alans were not Goths); it is also speculated by some that the terms Catalan may be an evolution from the name of the original Iberian tribes of the area the Lacetani. Although it should be reiterated that etymology is a dangerous form of evidence and, when translated through so many languages, loses any form of solid credibility."

Although there exists a lot of historical accounts that derive Catalanian, from the word "Almogavars!"

Perhaps you should make your search more pervasive or invasive?



Oh! By the way I have sent you a lot of my material via E-mail!

Regards,

Edited by opuslola - 05-Dec-2010 at 20:03