'Holes in the Checkerboard'

[Patrick Waterson]

The Romans are a rather different matter as they are not manoeuvring blocks of pikes sleeved with musketeers, formations which are unhandy to say the least.  In the 17th century, once the bayonet replaces the pike, infantry lines become continuous, which suggests that the drawbacks of having gaps were now understood. 

IIRC at the start of the C18th infantry were drawn up with battalion sized gaps between the individual battalions and the 2nd line of infantry would be about 200 yards behind the first (think the info is in Chandler, et al). No idea how long into the C18th this lasted. Significant gaps seem to have been quite persistent.

It is not so easy to tell from diagrams of Blenheim etc. but the impression I get from the accounts is that brigades kept their component units together unless they were accompanying cavalry, and commands tended to form continuous lines where possible.  Have a read through anything about Marlborough's battles and see whether one can read significant gaps into the various attacking or defending lines.  Malplaquet in particular strikes me as a continuous line affair.

By about 1740 continuous straight lines seem to have taken over entirely: quite apart from the possibly indicative detail of battle map cartographers starting to use continuous lines instead of the staggered dashes which represented deployments of a century or so earlier, illustrations (from the 19th century but detailing this period) show continuous lines of infantry like this.  The different colours down the line seem to indicate a directly adjacent regiment.

But the discussion reminds me of a potential historiographical issue and that is we may be insisting on a source's level of precision that this type of literary source just can't bear.

Sources do have their limitations, though in this case it is not so much that we are relying upon the precise wording of the source as attempting to get a coherent picture of what the source describes, and in the process we seem to be prising apart an over-rigid interpretation that has held our thinking about the Republican Roman army in irons and unable to proceed.  Justin's new tack may appear to some to be sailing close to the wind in a few respects, but I think he has set us a course on which we can make progress.

[Justin Swanton]

One small point of fact to clear up though:

2. MODICUM

You might also note the interval - spatium - is singular, like the diastema in Polybius. This doesn't mean there was only one interval

Yes it does. The spatium is a single gap or space between the front lines of the Carthaginians (whose own gaps are considered negligible and hence not worth mentioning) and the third line of Italian veterans. There are not two of them.

The singular spatium I was referring to here is the 'space for the elephants', ie the spatium between the maniples.

manipulos aliquantum inter se distantes, ut esset spatium, qua elephanti hostium acti nihil ordines turbarent.

Maniples standing a certain distance apart so that there might be a space through which the elephants of the enemy could be driven without disordering the formations.

Sorry, yes, got that wrong. There is also the singular modicum spatium of the hastati.

Unlike Greek and English, Latin doesn't have the article - 'the', 'a' - which makes it clear if one is speaking of 'space' in a indefinite or abstract way or of a particular space.

The space for the elephants is indefinite: "so that there might be space through which the elephants..."

The 'small space' of the hastati is also indefinite in the sense that it is not a particular space. In English one uses an article when translating it: 'a space', but that does not mean a single, definite space (obviously).

The 'interval/extension' of Polybius's maniples is however specific. It is an interval/extension - to diastema, the space - that belongs to the hastati maniples. To say that Polybius in this context is using a definite singular noun in a plural sense - having used the same noun in the plural elsewhere in this passage - IMHO strains the Greek too much.

But I'm waiting for a real Greek scholar to come along and shoot me down in flames. 

[Patrick Waterson]

While we wait for the said entity to assume attack position, we might benefit from running through how we think the Polybian legion functioned in battle, with particular reference to line relief.

Let us start with the just-post-skirmishing phase: once the velites have finished their mutual target-practice with enemy skirmishers and the trumpets have sounded the recall, where do the velites go and what (if anything) do they do?  I refer to standard practice rather than Scipionic innovation, though we can also look at the latter if people wish.

[adonys]

I would propose something else as the proper starting point for tackling the (roman) ancient armies formations, line relief and tactics: a summary of all relevant primary sources quotes having even the slightest relation with the subject.

Only then a true good model might be conceived.

[Patrick Waterson]

Excellent approach, Dan: have you done this?

[adonys]

No, I really do not have time for something like this. But a collective effort in which each of us adds all the relevant quotes he knows (and were not posted yet) would quickly build it up to something like 80-90% of all current existent data.

I myself have some not so known/used quotes/interpretations which helped me develop my own model (which is rather different than all the others) yet I haven't checked it against/refined it using all relevant knowledge, mainly due to my lack of time to dig all the relevant primary sources quotes all by myself.

[Patrick Waterson]

Very good - to start with, we need:

For the Livian Legion (c.426-311 BC): Livy VIII chapters 8-10

For the Polybian Legion (c.311-107 BC): Polybius VI chapters 19-42 and VIII chapters 28-32

For the early legion, we need Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

Book IV chapters 14-22 covers the army of Servius Tullius (cf. Livy ), but chapters 43-58 indicate that Tarquinius Superbus made some alterations to Tullius' arrangements, although not enough to prevent the treaty with the citizens of Gabii being written on the hide covering of an aspis (IV.58.4).  Book V chapter 15 describes a battle between the Republican rebels and Tarquin's loyalists, with each side's right defeating the opposing left ( a characteristic hoplite battle result), with the battle against Lars Porsenna in V.23 again seeing both armies more successful on the right then the left.  However in the Republic's war against the Sabines (505-503 BC) Dionysius records a prodigy in which the Romans' pila (hussois) gleamed with light (V.46.2) in 503 BC, suggesting that the Romans had converted to their characteristic weapon rather earlier than is generally thought.  He also notes that "... the citizens received back the amount of the contributions [eisphoras] which they had severally paid for the equipment of the expedition."  This is critical for interpreting Livy's statement that Romans adopted scuta after they became stipendiarii (Livy VIII.8.3).  The campaigns of the very early Republic were, on Dionysius' evidence, financed by contributions which would be returned in the event of a successful campaign - and this ties in with the change from aspis-type clipeis to thureos-type scuta.  Most of this is covered in Rodger Williams' article on the Proto-Manipular Legion several Slingshots ago.

Dionysius is actually a goldmine for the development of the early legion.

Plutarch's Lives include a number of by-the-way references to legions and the way they operated, but not much useful detail.

Livy VIII.8.9 and Polybius II.33 provide a key clue about how Roman line relief was conducted: Livy says the hastati fell back ('retro cedentes') through the intervals between the 'ordines' (apparently files, because although Livy uses 'ordo' as a subunit of the rear-line vexilla he does not use it of the troops of the first two lines) of principes.  Polybius notes that owing to the consul's poor tactical positioning the Roman army in its 223 BC fight against the Insubrian Gauls had no room for its characteristic epi poda (backwards) manoeuvres, meaning line relief.  From these quotes, we learn that line relief was conducted by retreating backwards through the next line - an arrangement which allowed the falling-back troops to continue fighting without taking their eyes off their opponents.

Caesar (Gallic War, Civil War) provides us with a view of the Marian Legion (or Late Republican Legion) in operation, although he never explicitly describes its organisation.

The Early Imperial legion is described in some detail by Josephus (see Jewish War Book III chapters V and VI) and Tacitus drops numerous hints in his Histories and Annals.

For everything else, there is Vegetius.

That is a start of sorts ... if we are to create a more or less complete source database we shall probably need to open a new thread.