September 19th, 2017
There I was, innocently reading away, totally engrossed, hardly noticing the sun slowly declining in the sky. Being an overcast day, but not sure what exactly to do, it took once again to raining, imagining that now some other effect would be wrought then had previously. And it worked. A smile stole upon my face, hardly noticeable to me, almost as if I wasn't thinking about it. Rainy days always bring me great joy, and with the renewed vigor of the rainfall and the clear, fresh smell that ofttimes accompanies it, my spirits rose. It was right at this moment that I beat my pate and cried in dismay, "When will they ever learn? It always happens like this!" It was book eight of Herodotus, where a few straggling Athenians are defending the Acropolis against Xerxes and his countless host. They were holding out fine and starting to aggravate the King of the Persians, when all at once, they were captured and cut down. How, you ask? Well there this one side of the Acropolis that was so steep and arduous that it was thought that nobody could possibly climb it, and so not even one guard was posted there to keep watch. Then, surprise surprise, a bunch of Persians climbed it, opened the gates, and slew the remaining Athenians, cutting them down like hay before harvest. If I've read it once, I've read it a thousand times. Didn't this happen with the Palatine Hill when the Etruscans (if my memory fails me not) took over and the Romans snuck up the 'unclimbable' portion of the hill, where conveniently no guard was posted because nobody could possibly climb up there, and thus recaptured it securing a decisive victory? This happens all the time! Jotapata fell victim to this strategy even with the shrewd oversight of Josephus! Some city I forgot the name of also fell this way when one of Alexander the Great's men climbed the one unguarded spot that everybody thought was impervious to such attempts. Countless cities and fortresses, which otherwise would have held out against their besiegers, have fallen in this exact way. Yet nobody sees the pattern! And it's such a preventable problem too. I mean, all it would take is one guard with a rock and nobody would ever make it to the top! It's pretty simple: no matter what the situation, you ALWAYS need lookouts all around the perimeter of your walls so that nothing is overlooked.
But no, generals be like, "Okay men, man the walls! Don't let anybody over the top! I want lookouts posted everywhere so no sneak attacks can go unseen. But you know that one real rocky spot that's so high and steep that nobody ever climbs up? Don't post anybody there, and make sure none of the other guards is even within line of sight of this area. Nobody could possibly climb up here so it's not a problem. We need to conserve manpower, and this is a great way to do it! What's that you say? Nobody climbs up there because they have no reason to and it's easier to just go down through the main gates? Don't worry soldier, the enemy won't exert themselves to such extremes, it's much easier to come through the front gate. What's that? We've repulsed them every time from the front gate and now they're trying to think of how to capture our fortress? Don't worry private, that portion of the cliff is unclimbable. Stop talking back! We know it's unclimbable because nobody ever climbs it! No we've never tried, why do that if you can just go down through the front gates!? Guards, take this man away, he's interrupting our meeting." I mean, seriously, are they really that naive or are they just really short of manpower that they can't afford one lookout? Seriously, they literally just need ONE warm body. And one rock. That's it. How hard can it be? Pretty difficult evidently. And then once they get overrun and they hear that one soldier climbed up that one unguarded part, they're all like, "No, impossible! We could never have foreseen that coming from a spot where no lookouts were posted and we didn't even bother patrolling and where nobody ever walks by because it's so out of the way and you can easily sneak up to a nearby gate and let the other soldiers in! Unforeseeable!"
Naw, say it isn't so!
If this brief discussion has intrigued you and you'd like to learn more about warfare, I'd recommend you read a short book by Sun Tzu entitled, "The Art of War". There's a lot of good stuff there about tactics and various strategies to employ, and it's a fabulous introduction to ancient warfare.
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