ELi5: In ancient wars, how did the commanders know if they are winning a war while they were in the chaos of the war?
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So, a lot of the top answers are looking at how they’d know they were winning a battle, rather than a war.
as i understood your question, you’re asking about how they’d know about how the war was going while they were at home?
So, firstly, often they wouldn’t. Medieval European armies were often a mix of levied forces (so the peasants required to fight) and professional soldiers (nobility and warriors given land so that they can maintain high quality equipment).
If you’re a woman in a rural environment, away from where the armies are marching, you would know that your son has been levied (required to fight), and if they came back and levied your younger son or older husband, that would tell you that things were going poorly. You might also get news by trade caravan, but this is v susceptible to the rumour mill. Some monarchs/aristocrats might send town criers or the like out to disseminate information/propaganda, but this would be propaganda.
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So in short, you’d likely know very little.
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