The first chapter of the book jarringly disowns its own title, as in the opening pages Gersbach rails against the very concept of the “war cry,” arguing it summons a primitivist image of screaming and howling more suitable for a Hollywood soundtrack than a sober military history. Gersbach prefers the term “battle expression,” which encompasses a wide array of sonic emissions, movements and performance. This broader definition is not unwelcome: trumpet blasts, percussion of arms against shields, and a variety of war dances boosted the psychological impact of verbal shouts and songs. Gersbach however carries this further, as in the book almost anything occurring before the physical clash is described as battle expression: pre-battle sacrifices, inscribed sling bullets, oaths, even maneuvers and feints. Gersbach includes some things that clearly are not part of combat: the very post-battle event of the Roman triumph is considered battle expression, as are the peace-time weapon dances of Rome’s Salian priests. The book is organized thematically, rather than chronologically or by culture (i.e., Persia, Greece, Macedon, Rome), but often thematic categories are difficult to parse. For example, for many war cries, the goal was to both encourage group solidarity while simultaneously intimidating the enemy; some expressions had a clear religious tenor, although religion was also a fundamental bedrock of group solidarity, and so on. At times, this makes the placement of anecdotes within individual chapters feel somewhat random.
Chapter One, “From war cry to the battle expression,” introduces Gersbach’s expansive definition. Chapter Two, “Graeco-Roman literary and archaeological sources,” offers a brisk and mostly unnecessary survey of sources. This chapter seems an artifact of a dissertation requirement (the book is based on his 2019 Macquarie University thesis) but should have been excised for publication. The survey shows limited engagement with historiographic debates or possible differences between genres, say, the difference between a stock battle narrative in a history versus the advice of military manuals or a scene from Greek tragedy. Chapter Three, “Battlefield atmosphere,” describes the impact of environmental factors, including the deliberate use of terrain to amplify the effect of shouts or trumpet blasts. Chapter Four, “Group cohesion,” presents the obvious role of expressions in building and maintaining group morale. Chapter Five, “Intimidating the enemy,” focuses on expressions designed to frighten enemy troops by impressing them with the size and intensity of their foe. Chapter Six, “The religious dimension of battle in antiquity,” offers cursory discussion of the Greek paean, but quickly passes on to other expressions with some religious connotation. Chapter Seven, “Socio-political and military identity,” discusses specific expressions related to group identity, including the Roman triumph. Chapter Eight, “Battlefield oaths,” breezes through a sampling of oaths, from Greek tragedy to Roman vows.
Ultimately, Gersbach’s concept of “battle expression,” while not without use, is neither well theorized nor defined. There is no attempt to distinguish between acts that were strictly expressive, and those which were part of the physical mechanics of the battle. Trumpet blasts were used to intimidate the enemy and inspire soldiers, as they could serve as a proxy for the size and enthusiasm of a force. But they also might be used to communicate specific orders and coordinate the movement of soldiers as practical tools of command and control. The expansive definition of “battle expression,” along with the ambition of the book to cover the entirety of Mediterranean history and literature from Homer’s Iliad to Maurice’s late 6th century CE Strategikon (with digressions into Medieval Germanic and Irish literature), are confounded by the book’s brevity, a mere 168 pages, including a thin bibliography and short index. A more focused and deeply researched project of the same length, say just focusing on Classical Greece or Republican Rome, would have been more useful. Individual chapters are a torrent of anecdotes, somewhat reminiscent of the military miscellanies of Frontinus and Polyaenus. There is light engagement with theories of military cohesion and unit dynamics, although the growing corpus of scholarship on sound, music, dance, and performance in antiquity is ignored. While the book may hold some utility to military historians, flaws in argumentation and analysis make it difficult to recommend without reservations.