Re: Sun Dome hoplite origins

From: Lee R. Insley <maelstrom_at_usa.net>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 16:29:55 -0500

Nick:
>Leaving aside the obvious (the Pelorians have a different origin story
>for hoplite tactics, and have employed hoplite warfare throughout history=
>),
>you now appear to be assuming that the *Praxian* Sun Dome Temple is the
>*only* source for hoplites, ignoring all the other Sun Domes around the
>lozenge. SC p.43 in fact says that the Sun Dome Temple invented the tacti=
>c
>- -- reading this as "the Sun County Templars" is a deliberate distortion.

You are right, I interpreted it as the Sun County Sun Dome. My thinking was that the *normal* Sun Domers used horses (at least those that came to Prax), used different tactics, and that this hoplite formation was something unique to this Sun Dome. (Why? One reason is because a lot of published Glorantha stuff has cult write-ups and such that are biased towards the area that they are focusing on - and don't necessarily hold when you go to other areas.) Other Sun Domes may rely on spearmen - and would be experts at it, but they would use tactics similar to those in their surrounding areas - IMO. Is there evidence that this tactic was invented and/or used in some other Sun Dome (or elsewhere). If so, how did it come to use in Prax? Maybe they brought it with them? Also, do you (or anyone) know what the Lunar origin story is for the use of hoplites? I would be interested to hear it.

In any case, according to Jean in Digest #280, the hoplite tactic seems to have been developed even before the Solitude of Testing, and was rediscovered as opposed to newly invented recently. This makes a lot more sense to me, fits much more nicely into a lot of things, and would mean that the tactics developed in a different set of circumstances than in the current timeline.

Thanks for all of your (and others) comments, they helped quite a bit.

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