Article on 2nd century republican legions

[davidb]

https://www.academia.edu/1602947/Roman_Infantry_Tactics_in_the_Mid-Republic_A_Reassessment

Came across this. thought people might be interested.

David

[Mark G]

From the second footnote, he seems unaware of Sabin and Goldsworthy, which seems odd given he references Quesada sabz

[Mark G]

I take that back, footnote 3.

[Mark G]

Well worth reading,a good find.

[Patrick Waterson]

Although he starts to go wrong quite early on:

The Roman maniple was not a closely packed, rigid 18th century-style formation, but rather a looser formation that gave individual soldiers significant leeway to break ranks in order to, in the words of the mid-Republican military oath, "retrieve a missile, to pursue and strike an enemy or save a fellow citizen" ... (pp.5-6)

Let us examine this 'oath'.

"When they had finished with the levy, the consuls waited a few days for the soldiers from the allies and the Latins to come in. [2] An oath was then administered to the soldiers by their tribunes — which was a thing that they had never done before. [3] For until that day there had only been the general oath to assemble at the bidding of the consuls and not depart without their orders; then, after assembling, they would exchange a voluntary pledge amongst themselves —the cavalrymen in their decuries and the infantry in their centuries —that [4] they would not abandon their ranks for flight or fear, but only to take up or seek a weapon, either to smite an enemy or to save a fellow citizen. [5] This voluntary agreement amongst the men themselves was replaced by an oath administered formally by the tribunes." - Livy XXII.38.4

One may note that the above effectively stipulates that weapon recovery, citizen-saving and striking (feriendi) a foe are acceptable reasons for temporarily  leaving the ranks, not routine procedures for abandoning them.

He then ties himself in knots about the individual spacing of the Roman legionary.  Rightly rejecting the six-foot spacing preferred by some as "undeniably too generous," he then convinces himself that because the 2' gladius delivered the occasional overhead blow, Vegetius' 3' spacing (which, we may note, was at a time when the longer spatha was standard) "simply does not provide sufficient room to fight."

Perhaps he should look at how Republican legionaries actually fought.

"On the other hand, the Romans' defence and counter-manoeuvring against the barbarians was steadfast and afforded great safety. For while their foes were still raising their swords aloft, they would duck under their arms, holding up their shields, and then, stooping and crouching low, they would render vain and useless the blows of the others, which were aimed too high, while for their own part, holding their swords straight out, they would strike their opponents in the groins, pierce their sides, and drive their blows through their breasts into their vitals. And if they saw any of them keeping these parts of their bodies protected, they would cut the tendons of their knees or ankles and topple them to the ground roaring and biting their shields and uttering cries resembling the howling of wild beasts. - Dionysius of Halicarnassus XIV.10.18

While severing tendons could involve a slashing action (although slicing would seem more appropriate), the Roman manner of fighting would not be constrained by a spacing of 3' per man.  This is important for frontage calculations, which form the heart of Mr Taylor's paper.

"We therefore have a simple mechanism by which Roman soldiers measured their own frontage: in the early phases of battle, characterized by missile exchange, soldiers adopted a close order formation with shields touching or nearly touching. As the battle moved into a phase of hand-to-hand combat, the formation opened by flexing forward ..." (p.9)

This is getting silly: legionaries throw missiles on a frontage of about 2.5' per person then somehow open out to 4.5' per individual for melee.  He thinks the formation simply increased its depth to perform this questionable manoeuvre (one totally incompatible with, for example, the course of the battle against the Insubres in 223 BC, Polybius II.33), so his frontage calculation should be so many multiples of 2.5 feet.  However he ducks that particular approach in favour of the curious one of estimating the length of a Hellenistic battleline and then assuming a Roman line would match it.  Since he assigns a frontage of 3' per phalangite, his Hellenistic battlelines are anyway twice as wide as they should be.

He then compounds the problem by insisting on 'inter manipular gaps'.  Again, one does not find these anywhere in the sources apart from Scipio's lineup at Zama, although one does have a number of enigmatic references to 'spaces' between maniples.  However these 'spaces' would appear to be between front and second-line or third-line maniples, not between maniples in the same line.

The good old rule of thumb for legionary frontages is that a 120-man maniple would draw up six deep (8 deep once the velites rejoined after skirmishing, filling up the spaces left for the purpose at the back of the formation) and 20 men wide.  Each man would occupy Polybius' frontage of a yard or so (tres podas), the minimum space to do his thing with his weapons.  Hence each maniple would have a width of 20 yards.  The ten maniples of hastati, or principes, or triarii, would thus amount to a frontage of 10x20 = 200 yards.  Simple.  Easy.  No problem to train for - unlike the athletic and exhausting activities proposed by the Zhmodikov school of combat the hard way.

So Mr Taylor trips himself up over a series of mis-assumptions.  A pity, as he seems quite bright and capable otherwise.

[Duncan Head]

Although he starts to go wrong quite early on:

The Roman maniple was not a closely packed, rigid 18th century-style formation, but rather a looser formation that gave individual soldiers significant leeway to break ranks in order to, in the words of the mid-Republican military oath, "retrieve a missile, to pursue and strike an enemy or save a fellow citizen" ... (pp.5-6)

Let us examine this 'oath'.

"When they had finished with the levy, the consuls waited a few days for the soldiers from the allies and the Latins to come in. [2] An oath was then administered to the soldiers by their tribunes — which was a thing that they had never done before. [3] For until that day there had only been the general oath to assemble at the bidding of the consuls and not depart without their orders; then, after assembling, they would exchange a voluntary pledge amongst themselves —the cavalrymen in their decuries and the infantry in their centuries —that [4] they would not abandon their ranks for flight or fear, but only to take up or seek a weapon, either to smite an enemy or to save a fellow citizen. [5] This voluntary agreement amongst the men themselves was replaced by an oath administered formally by the tribunes." - Livy XXII.38.4

One may note that the above effectively stipulates that weapon recovery, citizen-saving and striking (feriendi) a foe are acceptable reasons for temporarily  leaving the ranks, not routine procedures for abandoning them.

I think you have completely misread Taylor here, Patrick. He does not suggest that Roman legionaries completely abandoned their ranks; on the contrary, his explanation of the Polybian wider frontage being achieved by some form of "flexing forward"actually implies that the ranks are maintained even when opened. He is simply contrasting a flexible Roman formation with the more rigid 18th-century (and Macedonian?) formations.  In fact when he says "A maniple was not a mob" I am inclined, rightly or wrongly, to read that as him disagreeing with Quesada Sanz and Lendon who see maniples in battle as "dense clouds" rather than formed into ranks.

He then ties himself in knots about the individual spacing of the Roman legionary.  Rightly rejecting the six-foot spacing preferred by some as "undeniably too generous," he then convinces himself that because the 2' gladius delivered the occasional overhead blow, Vegetius' 3' spacing (which, we may note, was at a time when the longer spatha was standard) "simply does not provide sufficient room to fight."

Well, he mentions "the occasional overhead blow", but he also mentions Polybios and Livy for "the essential slashing function
of the sword", though without linking to specific passages. We do have Polybios describing the Spanish sword at Cannae, presumably that later adopted by the Romans, as suitable for both cutting and thrusting, and Livy describing the horror of the Macedonians at limbs severed by cuts from Roman-Spanish swords. I wouldn't myself say that slashing blows were the primary function of the Spanish sword, but it was a dual-purpose weapon, and it is not unreasonable to suggest that legionaries adopted formations that would enable them to use both capabilities of their weapon. The duck-and-cover thrusting stance  that Dionysios describes may be specifically that used against Celts with longer slashing blades, not always against everyone.

In fact one thing that Taylor's paper does bring out, and which has been ignored in some other models of Republican infantry combat, is the plentiful testimony for the use of both "close" and "open" formations. He may or may not be right about the exact spacing used in the two formations, nor about how soldiers moved from one to the other, but we have plenty of instances for opening and closing ranks in battle, not just those Taylor cites; and any model of Republican infantry formation really needs to take these into account.

[Patrick Waterson]

I think you have completely misread Taylor here, Patrick. He does not suggest that Roman legionaries completely abandoned their ranks; on the contrary, his explanation of the Polybian wider frontage being achieved by some form of "flexing forward"actually implies that the ranks are maintained even when opened. He is simply contrasting a flexible Roman formation with the more rigid 18th-century (and Macedonian?) formations.  In fact when he says "A maniple was not a mob" I am inclined, rightly or wrongly, to read that as him disagreeing with Quesada Sanz and Lendon who see maniples in battle as "dense clouds" rather than formed into ranks.

You have a point, Duncan.  I shall give him the benefit of the doubt and assume this is what he meant.

He then ties himself in knots about the individual spacing of the Roman legionary.  Rightly rejecting the six-foot spacing preferred by some as "undeniably too generous," he then convinces himself that because the 2' gladius delivered the occasional overhead blow, Vegetius' 3' spacing (which, we may note, was at a time when the longer spatha was standard) "simply does not provide sufficient room to fight."

Well, he mentions "the occasional overhead blow", but he also mentions Polybios and Livy for "the essential slashing function
of the sword", though without linking to specific passages. We do have Polybios describing the Spanish sword at Cannae, presumably that later adopted by the Romans, as suitable for both cutting and thrusting, and Livy describing the horror of the Macedonians at limbs severed by cuts from Roman-Spanish swords. I wouldn't myself say that slashing blows were the primary function of the Spanish sword, but it was a dual-purpose weapon, and it is not unreasonable to suggest that legionaries adopted formations that would enable them to use both capabilities of their weapon. The duck-and-cover thrusting stance  that Dionysios describes may be specifically that used against Celts with longer slashing blades, not always against everyone.

I would suggest that legionary slashes would be delivered against an opponent to the front, or to the right and ahead, it being physically rather difficult to deliver a slash over one's own scutum.  This gives about a 45 degree arc from dead ahead (000 degrees relative) to 045 degrees relative; one could envisage a slash delivered as far as 090 degrees relative if an enemy had struck down a legionary's right-hand neighbour and stepped into the gap, though a thrust through the ribs or (better) the armpit would seem more economical and effective.

The Macedonian horror at Roman sword-cuts was from wounds sustained in a cavalry action (see Livy XXXI.33.8-10 and XXXI.34.2-4); I am not sure if we can infer from cavalry cuts and slashes that infantrymen would necessarily do the same, and particularly not on cavalry frontages!

In fact one thing that Taylor's paper does bring out, and which has been ignored in some other models of Republican infantry combat, is the plentiful testimony for the use of both "close" and "open" formations. He may or may not be right about the exact spacing used in the two formations, nor about how soldiers moved from one to the other, but we have plenty of instances for opening and closing ranks in battle, not just those Taylor cites; and any model of Republican infantry formation really needs to take these into account.

Is it 'close' and 'open' or 'close' and 'loose'?  We might wish to examine this point further, as it is indeed one well worth noting, and Taylor does deserve credit for drawing attention to this.

[Mark G]

If I recall a correction from Duncan correctly, while a cavalry action, those swords were the same as infantry ones, so the effect stands .

[Patrick Waterson]

If I recall a correction from Duncan correctly, while a cavalry action, those swords were the same as infantry ones, so the effect stands .

Not unless the cavalry fought in close formation with infantry spacing and infantry shields - and at the same height above the ground as infantry.

[Dave Beatty]

And check out this one - "Tactical Reform in the Late Republican Army: The View From Italy" - which is open for discussion.
https://www.academia.edu/s/d686fb9f60

[Dave Beatty]

And check out this one - "Tactical Reform in the Late Republican Army: The View From Italy" - which is open for discussion.
https://www.academia.edu/s/d686fb9f60

This is an excellent scholarly article and the author is very amenable to serious comment and suggestions for improvement before he goes to print... and the discussion closes in 2 days.

I'm not competent enough to comment in a meaningful manner on Roman tactics (my expertise lies further east) but this might be a great opportunity to showcase the superb knowledge of Society members and put in a plug for the Society while you are at it!

Hint – Patrick Waterson and Justin Swanton come immediately to mind...

[Patrick Waterson]

Hint taken ... 

[Justin Swanton]

Go for it, Patrick!

[Jim Webster]

it is an interesting article and it does point out that the ancients do seem to have picked on a dead general and made him the author of reforms that  may have been evolutionary changes

[Patrick Waterson]

I think there was a political element at the time because we have Sulla still using velites at Chaeronea in 86 BC, which (assuming our source was not wool-gathering) suggests he was still raising legions on the old traditional Polybian model even a couple of decades after the Marian reforms.  This in turn would suggest that the 'new' legion was identified with Marius and hence associated with demagogy and the unwashed capite censi whereas the 'old' legion was associated with Sulla and traditional, respectable Roman values like property and patrician superiority.  Any such political element would tend to polarise thinking about and associations concerning the new legion, and put disproportionate emphasis on not just the inclusion of the proletarian element but also the way it was done.

Marius may also have claimed credit for forming, or at least codifying, the new legion, a further reason to associate it with his name.  Hence although to our eyes the changes may appear more evolutionary than revolutionary we have the advantage of hindsight and the disadvantage of impartiality compared with Marius' contemporaries, who were still Roman enough to regard even mild innovation as a fairly drastic alteration to the tried and trusted traditional way of doing things.