Roman Republican Civil War Legions

[eques]

The opposing sides in the Republican civil wars often seemed to levy huge numbers of extra legions very quickly - some were veterans but many were fresh recruits (particularly in the case of the Marians post Marius)

Such troops are usually represented as raw legionaries but would they in fact have borne any resemblance to Legionaries (drilled, triple acies, pila, scutum) or would they really have been more akin to a medieval emergency peasant levy? 

And were some of the new troops also mercenaries and if so what fighting styles did they use?

[Jim Webster]

There are a lot of questions about these legions. One was what did they wear, because mail takes a fair bit of time to produce and were there arsenals with twenty or thirty thousand sets of mail just waiting to be taken?
I know at one point is was assumed they had leather armour, but even that would have taken a lot of time to produce.
I suspect that it was comparatively easy to train them to legionary drill, because you'd have the cadre available to do it. But putting together the equipment would have been a lot harder.
My guess is that in the east you'd have seen all sorts of things hauled out of storage.

Interestingly we have Philo,  25 BCE – c. 50 CE who is just after this period. He commented


(92) And indeed it was not a long time before that, that the arms had been taken away from the Egyptians throughout the whole country by a man of the name of Bassus, to whom Flaccus had committed this employment. But at that time one might have beheld a great fleet of ships sailing down and anchoring in the harbours afforded by the mouths of the river, full of arms of every possible description, and numerous beasts of burden loaded with bags made of skins sewn together and hanging like panniers on each side so as to balance better, and also almost all the wagons belonging to the camp filled with weapons of every sort, which were brought in rows so as to be all seen at once, and arranged together in order."

Whether these were weapons that had been left in circulation by the civil wars or it was a comparatively normal state of affairs it's difficult to say. But in our very disarmed society it may be that we underestimate the amount of weaponry that was usually found in people's homes in this period

Jim

[Nick Harbud]

To reinforce Jim's point on the time taken to produce weapons and armour, some time ago I read a book on this subject "Iron For The Eagles" by David Sim & Isabel Ridge.  According to these two, who derived their numbers from timing blacksmiths, it took the following hours to produce the finished artefact from a iron billets and other semi-worked materials:

Legionary's gladius	12 hours
Officer's pattern-weld sword	110 hours
Pilum	10 hours
Javelin	3 hours
Mail shirt	330 hours

[eques]

Also, would not equipping all the rankers with chainmail be prohibitively expensive (in any context)?

In the 11th & 12th & 13th Centuries Mail armour is commonly thought of as the preserve of the fantastically wealthy.

[Jim Webster]

To reinforce Jim's point on the time taken to produce weapons and armour, some time ago I read a book on this subject "Iron For The Eagles" by David Sim & Isabel Ridge.  According to these two, who derived their numbers from timing blacksmiths, it took the following hours to produce the finished artefact from a iron billets and other semi-worked materials:

Legionary's gladius	12 hours
Officer's pattern-weld sword	110 hours
Pilum	10 hours
Javelin	3 hours
Mail shirt	330 hours

Yes, I've got that book as well.
The idea of turning out tens of thousands of mail shirts in a year has always worried me
Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

The limiting factor is presumably the number of available craftsmen (blacksmiths, weaponsmiths etc.).  Each city usually had its own, together with stacks of weapons, armour and shields in the city armouries.  The almost universal fashion for imitation legions would have made raising genuine legions a relatively simple task, because the pattern, infrastructure and equipment would have been present or easily obtainable, whereas raising, say, a pike phalanx to fight at a Republican Civil War battle would have been problematical.

The ready availability of materials and craftsmen, plus the financing permitted by drawing upon the resources of several hundred cities, would make the rapid armouring numbers of new legions a quite feasible, if not necessarily routine, exercise.

[aligern]

A couple of points.
Firstly wasn't someone executed  by one of the early emperors for having such a large collection of arms and armour that he was deemed to be a danger to the throne.
Secondly, I would suggest that the kardiophylax might be the answer to rapid armouring. Manufacturing 10,000 brass or iron square plates might be something that could be done from stock.

Lastly I recall a discussion here a little while ago about the raising of legions from cohorts. The cohorts were described as being raised first , then presumably organised as legions. I think in that discussion someone suggested that the cohorts already existed as a sort of home  guard . It may be that soldiers who were laid off and given land to settle upon retained their armour and perhaps handed it to their sons who, as citizens, could also ge called upon to serve. Hence there may have already existed large numbers of men who were both equipped and organised. Of course they may not have trained and for some  it would be grandad!s kit, but  it would make raising large numbers of legionaries relatively easy.  Of course this facility would go away when the legions became professional and long service rather than being raised for campaigns.

[Patrick Waterson]

A couple of points.
Firstly wasn't someone executed  by one of the early emperors for having such a large collection of arms and armour that he was deemed to be a danger to the throne.

One of the later Hasmonean or early Herodian princes, if I remember aright.  Just tried to look him up but could not find him ...

Secondly, I would suggest that the kardiophylax might be the answer to rapid armouring. Manufacturing 10,000 brass or iron square plates might be something that could be done from stock.

The Assyrians and Etruscans seem to have had the same idea, and early Romans who could not manage a full metal cuirass also made do with same.  By the Late Republic, however, we are probably looking at a Mediterranean-wide procurement organisation, even if temporarily bisected, and my suspicion is that mail shirts would be produced/issued from store as a matter of priority for legionaries while more rudimentary forms of armour would probably be fobbed off on auxiliaries.

The reason I suspect this is that none of our sources mention legionaries on either side, even the raw ones, being at a disadvantage through being under-armoured, though one could argue this as a possible reason why at Munda the Pompeian pila volley caused few casualties while the Caesarian volley shot their opponents down 'in heaps'.

Lastly I recall a discussion here a little while ago about the raising of legions from cohorts. The cohorts were described as being raised first , then presumably organised as legions.

Yes, and the cohorts would probably be equipped locally.  Most cohorts seem to have been raised or collected in cities, the number being variable.  One reason for this might be variable availability of equipment in and around that city (another being the variable availability of manpower).

[Duncan Head]

There are some Roman illustrations of what look to be unarmoured legionaries - see for example one in combat from the (probably Augustan) Arch of Orange at http://legio-wargames.com/blog/4591469581/The-Arch-of-Orange/9690047. Whether we can infer "real" unarmoured legionaries from this is of course open to debate.

In addition some authors interpret various representations as showing linen or leather armour, or padded subarmales worn without armour over them. Again, all down to artistic interpretation.

See also the discussion of the use of loricati at http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1298 - though it's not conclusive.

[Patrick Waterson]

There are some Roman illustrations of what look to be unarmoured legionaries - see for example one in combat from the (probably Augustan) Arch of Orange at http://legio-wargames.com/blog/4591469581/The-Arch-of-Orange/9690047.

I wonder whether the unarmoured person with what seems to be a legionary helmet and shield could be an example of the elusive antepilani of the era.  He is associated with Roman cavalry, he does seem to have a legionary shield emblem, is facing a Gallic opponent and is in a pose consistent with wielding a spear-like weapon.  Teaming of antepilani with cavalry was first practised by Caesar at Pharsalus, and a good idea rarely goes completely away.

[Nick Harbud]

I would suggest that the kardiophylax might be the answer to rapid armouring. Manufacturing 10,000 brass or iron square plates might be something that could be done from stock.

Mass produced rings for chain mail could also have been prepared in advance, mainly by semi-skilled apprentices rather than the blacksmith himself.  There might also have been a degree of automation or specialist tooling in their production. 

For example, step 1 would involve drawing a red-hot iron billet into a wire coil of uniform size by drawing through a die.  The next step is chopping the wire into uniform lengths.  Then you cold curl all the short bits of wire around a mandril.  Before you know it, your team of apprentices has turned out several thousand rings that simply need the master to join together.

[Jim Webster]

Yes, but the 300 hours takes into account drawing the wire etc. It's 308 man years to produce the mail for a legion assuming 365 twelve hour days a year.

I cannot imagine any blacksmith is going to have fifty four tons of iron rings lying about on the off chance somebody is going to raise a legion.
(four thousand five hundred mail shirts each weighing 12 kg. the figures are approximate but whats a couple of tons either way among friends  )

On top of this you'd have another three tons to produce the swords and another four or five tons for helmets

I think we forget the sheer bulk of stuff that we're talking about. To put this in proportion, the Inchtuthil hoard of worked and unworked iron buried to prevent it falling into enemy hands was ten tons

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

I cannot imagine any blacksmith is going to have fifty four tons of iron rings lying about on the off chance somebody is going to raise a legion.

A blacksmith might not, but cities could produce, and if necessary store, on an industrial scale.

"The cantons of Etruria were the first to promise assistance, each according to its means. Caere contributed corn and provisions of all kinds for the crews; Populonia, iron; Tarquinii, cloth for the sails; Volaterrae, timber for the hulls and corn; Arretium, 3000 shields and as many helmets, whilst they were ready to supply as many as 50,000 darts, javelins and long spears." - Livy XXVIII.45.10

This was in 203 BC.  As they were equipping a fleet at no cost to Rome, the question of armouring legionaries did not arise.  Over the next couple of centuries, they acquired a lot more practice at equipping Romanised land forces.

"All the sacred places, the temples, and every other unoccupied space, were turned into workshops, where men and women worked together day and night without pause, taking their food by turns on a fixed schedule. Each day they made 100 shields, 300 swords, 1000 missiles for catapults, 500 darts and javelins, and as many catapults as they could. For strings to bend them the women cut off their hair for want of other fibres." - Appian Punic Wars XIII.93

This is Carthage in 149 BC (start of the Third Punic War).  It would eventually equip 30,000 men as soldiers.  All the arms and armour in the city had previously been handed over to the Romans and such metal as there was went into new weapons.

I have no comparable rates for producing armour, but given that each side in the various 1st century BC civil wars usually had hundreds of cities in dozens of provinces to draw on, and many of those habitually supported ongoing annual campaigns while some were accustomed to raising fresh armies at short notice (notably in Italy, Seleucid Syria and subsequently Pontus* - even a single part-time prince in Judaea with a passion for collecting could accumulate thousands of spare suits of armour).  It is not as if they had to raise armies from scratch and a peacetime industrial base: they were turning out war materials in quantity much of the time.

*Coincidentally, Syria and Pontus were where the Pompeians raised their new legions just prior to Pharsalus.

It's 308 man years to produce the mail for a legion assuming 365 twelve hour days a year.

Say we need 100 armourers each with maybe 4-5 apprentices; this is well within the capabilities of a decent-sized city, which could fit out an entire legion in a few months.  Given that armour and weapon-making facilities would tend to be concentrated at local capitals, one might expect to be able to outfit, say, one legion in Pontus (perhaps at Amasia) and two in Syria (around Antioch) in a single season.

[Jim Webster]

these do give us figures for comparison

Arretium, 3000 shields and as many helmets,
well the helmets contain enough iron for 250 mail shirts.

But seriously remember that drawing wire is not standard blacksmiths work in this period (or any period to be honest) as far as I could see it's a specialist trade skill,some blacksmiths could do it, and it wasn't something you could set apprentices to do, they'd need a fair bit of training first

But I found the interesting thing about the list is nobody was offering body armour

Looking at what I assume is the Carthaginian example, making dart heads and javelin heads is simple smith work, apprentices could probably do that, the rest of the weapon is wood turning. 
Your swords is where the true smith skill comes in and so we can assume that is how many decent smiths they have. We know from the work rates that a man could do one a day, so Carthage, a truly major city, had 300 smiths of that level of ability.
Which means that if you took them off swords, in a year they could have produced enough mail for a legion, doing nothing else.

But given this is one of the biggest, richest and most advanced cities in the area at the time I think that shows you how limited production really was

Jim

[Mark G]

We may be able to deduce skill from cost.

If we can estimate the ratio of metal between mail and plate (or better, segmentata), and then use that ratio to get a raw metal cost.

Compare that to the cost of nail vs the example solid armour, and you effectively have the cost of labour, which is time x skill.

I would expect mail to be low skill - build the wire, a twist it into rings, assemble the rings to a pattern.
While solid armour seems to require more smithing at a higher level.

Which is a testable proposition, I think.