Accounts of ancient and medieval battles?

Im looking for some good first hand accounts if ancient and medieval battles and was wondering if any ATSers have any god advice? I've ordered Usamah ibn Munqidh's book that accounts his version of many battles, but I want as many different perspectives as possible. When I search onl;ine I get a lot of waffle and really want to find somewhere that has a wealth of just accounts.

I have a huge interest in military history, but I have also decided to go into the film industry as oppose to the music industry after my degree and im writting a screenplay at the moment so Im keen to get some good research done. If anyone has expertise in this area or knows anyone who would be up for talking to me further about it please get in touch it would be very helpfull.

Thanks

reply to post by clintdelicious


I'm pretty sure you're going to have a great deal of difficulty getting first-hand accounts of any ancient or medieval battle.

The people who were there are all dead now, don'cha know.

Seriously, though, good luck with your search. Not sure if you're interested in Japanese history or not, but there are some pretty amazing battles during the samurai period.

reply to post by notsofunnyguy


Ha yea I was thinking more along the lines of memoirs and poems etc. I have found some amazingly detailed translations, but its hard to find any that are really true and not exagerated. Particularly in the medieval period more people seemed to right down their experiences. Im keen to find out about the common man, but this will be almost impossible to get a very accurate idea. I know that some people study very specific parts of history though. Im guna speak to some re-enactors to find out about the actual use of the weapons etc, but they obviously cant provide a real good idea of wha the battle was like.

I've looked up a lot about combat fatigue and post traumatic stress disorder in these times and it seems the fighting was so stressfull that many men cracked, but at the time this obviously wasn't understood. Its an even more brutal time than we think of it as.

Not read it myself, but I believe Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars is worth a read

reply to post by Essan


Ah thanks for that, I was thinking of reading some more of his, but I only gt a lot of stuff that wasn't relevant so far. I will deffinately give that section a read, Thanks

I own the book Rome and her enemies by Jane Penrose. There is another similar book I have to purchase. Really great books and interactive maps of battle strategies.

History is written by the winners of the battles. As such, you get an impression of the battle that would portray the winners in a favorable light.

I don't know where you can find unbiased historical accounts of battles.

As daft as it may seem, I would recomend visiting the Total War forum (google total war center). If you don't know, Total War is a series of computer games set in various periods of history and locations around the globe (Medieval Japan, Roman Europe, Medieval Europe, Colonial Europe/The America's/..India and thereabouts...)

The games are split into two halves, one half like Risk and the other is about the most realistic battle simulation you'll ever get. Each game has had various different mods released which enhance it in a lot of different ways..

Basically what I'm saying is, the people at twcenter should be able to help you out. They're an extremely knowledgable bunch when it comes to battles!

PS, if you play on TW you can recreate a whole load of historic battles and get a really good feel for how different tactics work. The older ones aren't too expensive, I'd recomment Total War : Medieval 2. or Rome.