Roman Republican Civil War Legions

[Patrick Waterson]

The argument against a Seleucid armoury establishment seems to be:

1) Their armour was mainly handed down from previous generations.

2) Some of it was provided by Galatians.

3) Cataphract upgrade was provided by Parthians and Bactrians.

The question arises: where and by whom were the original suits made?  Would Galatians, Bactrians and Parthians have had organised armour production but the Seleucids not?  This seems a little hard to believe.

With regard to  Armenians and Parthians fielding large numbers of armoured cavalry, you're looking at a lot of legacy stuff.

Are you?  Did the Parthians (Parni) come off the steppes encased in metal armour?  Traditionally, mass metalworking is the preserve of civilised societies, who can get people to stay in one place for long enough to a) dig up the ore, b) process it to get usable metal and c) work it on a large enough scale to get viable armour for large formations.

The Armenians had the advantage of sitting next door to one of the world's principal sources of decent iron, so prodding the Phrygian and Cappadocian ironworkers into action would not have been a problem for Tigranes, who seems to have popularised the cataphract among Armenians.  Legacy armour after Tigranes seems not unreasonable, but before Tigranes would take some explaining to compete with the ready availability of ironworkers and metalsmiths in his empire.

Also how much of it was metal and how much in the back ranks was a mixture of metal and leather with fabric coverings for horses we don't really know

Dio Cassius can help here:

"The Parthians make no use of a shield, but their forces consist of mounted archers and pikesmen [kontophoroi], mostly in full armour [ta polla kataphraktoi]. Their infantry is small, made up of the weaker men; but even these are all archers." - XL.15.2

'kataphraktoi' seems to be used only for metal armour, so we have our answer.

Which brings us back to: where did they get all this armour?  The simplest answer would seem to be: they took over the Seleucid armouries and manufacturies in the eastern half of the empire and got them churning out what they wanted.  Cue Antiochus the Great, who regains these territories and coincidentally re-equips his cavalry cataphract style.  Had there been no manufacturies and had he simply picked up the Parthians' own suits, there would be the question of where the next generation of Parthians got theirs from.

The reason this discussion started was because of doubts over being able to equip a dozen or so legions from scratch at the height of a civil war.  Given the rate the Romans were turning out armies, there does not seem to have been a problem as far as Italy was concerned, and even when they had to fall back on recruiting legions outside Italy there seems to have been enough of a base of skills and resources for legions to have been raised and equipped in ones and twos at provincial capitals.  I just do not see any reason to suppose a shortage of skills or materials: arms and armour were big business, or at least big if not necessarily business, before and during the 1st century BC.  The problem seems to have been not so much a lack of availabilty of resources as ensuring you were sitting on the resources in the first place, e.g. Pompey ordered numerous cohorts recruited throughout Italy just in time to have them collected by Caesar ...

[Mick Hession]

Are you?  Did the Parthians (Parni) come off the steppes encased in metal armour?  Traditionally, mass metalworking is the preserve of civilised societies, who can get people to stay in one place for long enough to a) dig up the ore, b) process it to get usable metal and c) work it on a large enough scale to get viable armour for large formations.

Weren't the Turks (Tu-Chueh) famous as metal workers? And I believe the current view is that cataphract armour evolved in Central Asia so yes, the Parthians _did_ come off the steppes encased in metal armour.

Regards
Mick

[Jim Webster]

The argument against a Seleucid armoury establishment seems to be:

1) Their armour was mainly handed down from previous generations.

2) Some of it was provided by Galatians.

3) Cataphract upgrade was provided by Parthians and Bactrians.

Frankly that is nonsense and you know it.

Point 1
Military settlers had a duty to supply their own equipment, including horses. This was hardly novel, it had been so under the Persian and Babylonians as well.
So it wasn't all ancestral pieces, as stuff wore out, the soldier had a duty to replace it

Point 2
That is not what I said. I merely pointed out that the Galatians had a longer culture of making mail than the Romans

Point 3
What I actually said was that the initial upgrade could well have been facilitated by the use of equipment supplied by the defeated Bactrians and Parthians on the same sort of terms that the Indians provided Elephants. Once the equipment was in place it would have been the duty of the military settler to maintain it and replace it when it wore out, just like any other military equipment he had.

None of this presupposes a centralised production system, or even a real need for one.
As for "'kataphraktoi' seems to be used only for metal armour, so we have our answer." I assumed that the word was also used for ships as well? 

[aligern]

May I make a point about steppe peoples?  Nomads exist in relationship with settled townsfolk. Nomad lifestyles do not provide enough goods to be self sufficient, ingenious though the nomad is with leather and bone. Nomads produce a surplus of , milk, cheese, leather, fur, embroidery and small handwork items. They trade these with the townspeople for metal, weapons, cloth etc.
So nomad armours are generally made of many small plates of leather, bone and metal. Nomad smiths buy plates in the town which they can then drill, lace and assemble. Inneffect the metal plates mimic what the nomads originally used the metal, bone and chitin for.

Thus the Parthians, before they became an imperial power, already have trade and tribute relationships with settled peoples and thus an armour production system that is suitable for a mobile population. A population that may not actually be that mobile, because, if their herdng is transhumance, they may well do several months in the winter, moving to a camp in summer where they are stationary for another period of months. So the smith and the jeweller and the saddlemaker only need a setup that can fit on a wagon.
Roy

[Jim Webster]

Interestingly in sub-Saharan Africa it seems that there was a class of blacksmiths who were nomadic, or at least itinerant, and they moved taking their tools with them.
Given the small amounts of iron normally worked the lack of permanent forge doesn't seem to have been too much of a problem

[aligern]

Exactly Jim, hence lamellar armour, spangenhelms , scale etc. all staples of the steppe armoury. Of course, with most of these assemblage armours, less skiiled chaps can produce the kit of parts rather more eadily than spinning a Montefortino or Coolus helmet or muscle cuirass out of a sheet of bronze.
Roy

[Jim Webster]

It's all simple basic techniques, hammering bar flat, cutting, putting holes in it, riveting. All of it can be done with comparatively few tools and with the exception of the helmets, a lot of the work could be handed over to others. In fact I'd suspect that a lot of lacing etc might be done by women who were perfectly at home with leather and other fabrics

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

Or even civilised folk who call themselves smiths and armourers ...

I think we are in danger of losing the basic point in question, which was whether the Mediterranean world could cope with armouring the legions fielded for the various civil wars of the 1st century BC.  There seems to be no reason why not; even Gauls and Parthians can make mail in apparent quantity, so what escapes me is Jim's real objection to civilised powers doing so.

[Jim Webster]

Or even civilised folk who call themselves smiths and armourers ...

I think we are in danger of losing the basic point in question, which was whether the Mediterranean world could cope with armouring the legions fielded for the various civil wars of the 1st century BC.  There seems to be no reason why not; even Gauls and Parthians can make mail in apparent quantity, so what escapes me is Jim's real objection to civilised powers doing so.

Patrick you're talking nonsense. Given that the Roman state had been sending out legions, some of whom were wearing mail, for a couple of centuries, I have no problem with them producing mail
It's just that with no evidence of state production, and limited evidence of stock piling, combined with the known slow speed of production I question how rapidly legions could be equipped with full mail body armour.
The fact that states resorted to robbing trophies from temples indicates that at the very least they faced production bottlenecks.

[Patrick Waterson]

It's just that with no evidence of state production, and limited evidence of stock piling, combined with the known slow speed of production I question how rapidly legions could be equipped with full mail body armour.

We have references to cities providing equipment, e.g. for Scipio's fleet in 203 BC, so I would question the 'no evidence for state production' bit.  Roman citizen legionaries would of course be expected to make private arrangements prior to Marius' reforms, but we are looking at the period when his system was the norm and substantial numbers of legionaries needed to be issued with weapons and armour.  The 'slow speed of production' means you wait a few weeks for the armour as opposed to it necessarily trickling out in small quantities: the Romans could draw on the resources of dozens of cities in Italy, each producing its own few cohorts' worth, and an unknown number of cities outside Italy.  Each city's contribution might not necessarily amount to much, but there were a lot of cities.  This incidentally may be why in Caesar's time troops were levied in cohorts and then assembled into legions.

There is another aspect to Roman mobilisation: planning.  When a consul was appointed, he was given a province and voted a force deemed adequate to do whatever he was supposed to be doing.  Knowing in advance what will be needed makes it a lot easier to have the right amount of equipment ready in time.

The fact that states resorted to robbing trophies from temples indicates that at the very least they faced production bottlenecks.

In a few cases, yes, though such 'borrowing' seems to have been the exception, not the norm.  Did you have any particular instances in mind?

[Jim Webster]

right so we've established there was no centralised production and no centralised stockpiles.

So let's move on.
Yes cities would have people capable of making weaponry. We know from Athens that Lysias had a factory with 120 slaves making shields.
The citizens of Greek cities seem to have been largely capable of producing enough weaponry to produce their own needs, it's occasionally that we read of someone, (Often Ptolemy in the later period) sending equipment

So when Rome was raising troops for some major project it was highly likely that cities would send ambassadors to Rome to offer the use of their facilities. Makes for good relations and you might be able to wrangle a change in tax status on the back of it.
Then when the ambassador made their way back, the order would doubtless be given to produce stuff. There might even be small amounts in stock. But allowing time for the city to decide who to send and what to offer, for the ambassador and his party to get there and be seen and their offer accepted, it is hardly going to be instant. It could cheerfully take some months, especially if you're talking about cities in Asia Minor
So for the Roman general trying to raise his legions, especially in a civil war, it would be a complicated procedure, because I have no doubt most cities could produce shields (although classic legionary shields were a different technique to Greek shields) and swords, it's perfectly possible that some cities would have nobody experienced in making mail. After all, how many of their citizens ever purchased it.
So your potential Imperator would be getting batches of stuff from all over the place.

With regard to temples, the Romans used gallic trophy kit after Cannae, and here it's generally accepted that not many of the slave legionaries and debtors got mail, because it times of crisis there wasn't time to produce it.

[Patrick Waterson]

The citizens of Greek cities seem to have been largely capable of producing enough weaponry to produce their own needs, it's occasionally that we read of someone, (Often Ptolemy in the later period) sending equipment

Indicating that he at least had either production or stockpiles to spare.

So when Rome was raising troops for some major project it was highly likely that cities would send ambassadors to Rome to offer the use of their facilities. Makes for good relations and you might be able to wrangle a change in tax status on the back of it.
Then when the ambassador made their way back, the order would doubtless be given to produce stuff. There might even be small amounts in stock. But allowing time for the city to decide who to send and what to offer, for the ambassador and his party to get there and be seen and their offer accepted, it is hardly going to be instant. It could cheerfully take some months, especially if you're talking about cities in Asia Minor
So for the Roman general trying to raise his legions, especially in a civil war, it would be a complicated procedure, because I have no doubt most cities could produce shields (although classic legionary shields were a different technique to Greek shields) and swords, it's perfectly possible that some cities would have nobody experienced in making mail. After all, how many of their citizens ever purchased it.
So your potential Imperator would be getting batches of stuff from all over the place.

No quarrel with this: many hands make light work.   The key to getting deliveries rather than shortages at the end of the day would be accurate planning so the ambassadors can get their marching orders (and inventory orders) early.  Regarding mail manufacture, every city would most probably have something even if their infantry fought unprotected, because their officers would have valued their lives.  Yes, there would be lots of local production, but it would have to be centrally coordinated somehow.

That such coordination existed, or was assumed to exist, can be seen in Pompey's boast (50 BC or thereabouts) that he had but to stamp his foot and Italy would be filled with troops.

With regard to temples, the Romans used gallic trophy kit after Cannae, and here it's generally accepted that not many of the slave legionaries and debtors got mail, because it times of crisis there wasn't time to produce it.

The Gallic trophy kit was, we are told, issued as a punishment as opposed to a shortage-induced necessity; debtors and slave legionaries would of course have problems providing their own kit as their property status and hence disposable income was a bit on the low side.

Following the Marian reforms, which were themselves soon followed by the Italian allies gaining citizen status, some sort of Roman central coordination, and perhaps storage, seems inevitable: increasing numbers of non-propertied (and hence armourless) persons were joining the legions, and they would need to be equipped somehow.  Once you start equipping the capite censi because they lack armour, the temptation for the poorer elements to quietly jettison granddad's dinner-plate-on-a-string chest protector and line up for a full suit of nice shiny mail would be overwhelming.

And once you start equipping the lower-income citizenry, the middle-income citizenry, who are being squeezed by the dual difficulties of neglect of their farms through continuous campaigning and the rise of huge slaveowner-run farms driving them out of business, will also want equipping as their hand-me-downs are unfashionable, falling apart and increasingly unaffordable to replace.

Everything in the 1st century BC thus pressures Rome towards the state increasingly equipping legions and legionaries.

[Erpingham]

Just to refocus on the question :

Everything in the 1st century BC thus pressures Rome towards the state increasingly equipping legions and legionaries.

This seems a reasonable hypothesis, certainly in Italy, for the reasons given.  But the challenge from Jim as I read it was not that the state didn't equip troops, it was how did the greater republic (or whatever it called itself) manage to equip a lot of extra legions in a hurry?  Patrick appears to suggest that a dispersed armament production throughout the Roman world, so that any area could produce fully equipped cohorts quickly without recourse to ancestral arms or stores.  This would be a mix of new production and prepared stores.  While plausible, there seems to be a lack of evidence to either prove or disprove this.

[Jim Webster]

The citizens of Greek cities seem to have been largely capable of producing enough weaponry to produce their own needs, it's occasionally that we read of someone, (Often Ptolemy in the later period) sending equipment

Indicating that he at least had either production or stockpiles to spare.

of course, a thousand shields here, a thousand shields there. Hardly seven legions

[Jim Webster]

No quarrel with this: many hands make light work.   The key to getting deliveries rather than shortages at the end of the day would be accurate planning so the ambassadors can get their marching orders (and inventory orders) early.  Regarding mail manufacture, every city would most probably have something even if their infantry fought unprotected, because their officers would have valued their lives.  Yes, there would be lots of local production, but it would have to be centrally coordinated somehow.

That such coordination existed, or was assumed to exist, can be seen in Pompey's boast (50 BC or thereabouts) that he had but to stamp his foot and Italy would be filled with troops.

The boast of a politician should never be confused with reality.
Again you assume some sort of central coordination but without any evidence that it existed.
Accurate pre-planning in a civil war takes some doing. Firstly you might hope that a city sends you and ambassador, rather than your rival, and you might suspect the city sends ambassadors to both, (being prepared to deny the official status of the one which went to the losing side) and at the same time the city is going to procrastinate and send equipment to neither, or send nominal amounts to both.