This seminar paper examines the origins of the legion and its character and exploits through the expansion of the Roman empire in the Republican period, to c. 31 BC. However, these legions were ad hoc units within a citizen army, raised on a temporary basis for campaigns and had no lasting identities that we can describe over a period of centuries. Legions as units with stable, long-term histories emerged from the armies of Julius Caesar in Gaul in the mid-1st century BC and of Octavian and Mark Antony in the civil wars of the 40s and 30s BC.
Portraying the Roman imperial Army during the reign of the second emperor, Tiberius, in AD 23, the Roman historian Tacitus enumerates the twenty-five legions that made up the heart of the army, with the areas of the empire in which they were installed. Tacitus also says that there were similar naval units and units of supporting cavalry and infantry ‘not much inferior to them in strength.’
However, Tacitus allocates most attention to the legions, describing their placement region by region, while he explains over the other elements of the armed forces in a couple of sentences. And it is exactly the legions of the Roman army that come to our minds when we think about Roman military strength and effectiveness.
For the Roman historian Tacitus, the legions were vital because they were the high-status units of the army. They were composed of Roman citizens with full Roman legal and political rights, and they still represented the Roman people under arms. Auxiliary troops were recruited largely from allies and subjects, men of mediocre status who aimed to Roman citizenship after a lifetime in the army. Equally important is the fact that in AD 14 the legions already had a history of over three centuries of success. They had formed the core of an army that had boosted Rome from anonymity to domination of the Mediterranean basin and beyond. They had beaten Hannibal, the Macedonians, the Gauls and many others.
The Roman legions had suffered defeats too, but one Roman feature was the capacity to endure losses and rebuild fighting strength, so the legions lived on. They lived on and fought well beyond the age of Augustus. Legions were still essential fighting units in the 5th century AD, when the western empire was in military and political decline.
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. The Roman Legions from Romulus to Marius
2.1. Polybius and the ‘Manipular’ Legion
2.2. Organization of the Manipular Legions
2.3. The Manipular Legion in Battle
3. The ‘Marian’ Reforms of the Legions
3.1. The Homogenization of the Legions
3.2. Recruitment of the Legions
4. Caesar’s Legions, 58-44 BC
5. Conclusion
Bibliography
1. Introduction
Portraying the Roman imperial Army during the reign of the second emperor, Tiberius1, in AD 23, the Roman historian Tacitus2 enumerates the twenty-five legions that made up the heart of the army, with the areas of the empire in which they were installed. Tacitus also says that there were similar naval units and units of supporting cavalry and infantry ‘not much inferior to them in strength.’ 3
However, Tacitus allocates most attention to the legions, describing their placement region by region, while he explains over the other elements of the armed forces in a couple of sentences. And it is exactly the legions of the Roman army that come to our minds when we think about Roman military strength and effectiveness.
For the Roman historian Tacitus, the legions were vital because they were the high-status units of the army. They were composed of Roman citizens with full Roman legal and political rights and they still represented the Roman people under arms. Auxiliary troops were recruited largely from allies and subjects, men of mediocre status who aimed to Roman citizenship after a lifetime in the army. Equally important is the fact that in AD 14 the legions already had a history of over three centuries of success. They had formed the core of an army that had boosted Rome from anonymity to domination of the Mediterranean basin and beyond. They had beaten Hannibal, the Macedonians, the Gauls and many others.
The Roman legions had suffered defeats too, but one Roman feature was the capacity to endure losses and rebuild fighting strength, so the legions lived on. They lived on and fought well beyond the age of Augustus. Legions were still essential fighting units in the 5th century AD, when the western empire was in military and political decline.
This seminar paper examines the origins of the legion and its character and exploits through the expansion of the Roman empire in the Republican period, to c. 31 BC. However, these legions were ad hoc units within a citizen army, raised on a temporary basis for particular campaigns and had no lasting identities that we can describe over a period of centuries. Legions as units with stable, long-term histories emerged from the armies of Julius Caesar in Gaul in the mid-1st century BC and of Octavian and Mark Antony in the civil wars of the 40s and 30s BC.
2. The Roman Legions from Romulus to Marius
‘Legion’ derives from a Latin verb meaning ‘choose’ or ‘select’, which implies that the army was originally drawn selectively from particular groups in Roman society, defined by age, wealth and social and political status. Ancient authors looking back at the earliest origins of Rome, when history and myth were largely impossible to differentiate, thought legions existed from the very beginning of its history.
Plutarch4 writing in the late 1st -early 2nd century said ‘When the city was built, in the first place, Romulus divided all the multitude that were of age to bear arms into military companies, each company consisting of three thousand footmen and three hundred horsemen.’ 5 He then explained the term ‘legion’ as denoting that the men were ‘selected’ for their warlike characters.
2.1. Polybius and the ‘Manipular’ Legion
The earliest contemporary description of a Roman legion was written by the Greek writer Polybius6 in c. 152-120 BC. He describes a military organization that is typically Roman and explicitly refers to it as a ‘legion’. It was made up of 4.200 infantry (5.000 in times of emergency), split into units of 120 or 60 men called maniples (‘handfuls’) and so modern researchers often refer to it as the ‘manipular’ legion, to separate it from later legions structured in larger subunits called cohorts.
This ‘manipular’ legion emphasized the role of small, flexible subunits of heavy infantry and the swordsmanship of individual soldiers in contrast to the massed phalanx formation and tactics employed by Greek and Macedonian armies. It perhaps began as a typically Roman formation in the 4th century BC due to problems the Romans came across fighting against enemies who fought in looser formations than the phalanx and in harsher terrain, to which the phalanx was inappropriate. As Rome defeated external enemies and its power increased, so did the size of its army.
The manipular army made the heart of the Roman Republican armies that defeated Hannibal in the second Punic war (218-202 BC) and occupied Greece and the territories that Alexander the Great’s descendants had established in the eastern Mediterranean. The Roman army of this period was a citizen army, with soldiers called up for certain campaigns rather than serving as a long-term career.
Under normal conditions, not all Roman citizens served in the legions, only those wealthy enough to afford their own weapons and equipment. Inferior people served as oarsmen in the navy. In emergencies however as after the terrible defeat by Hannibal at Cannae in 216 BC, even these less wealthy citizens might be recruited into the army.
2.2. Organization of the Manipular Legions
Polybius describes in his masterpiece ‘’The Histories of Polybius’’ how the legion in this period was divided into four types of infantry. There were three different groups of heavy infantry: 1.200 hastati (spearmen). 1.200 principes (leading men) and 600 triarii (third-line men). They were equipped in broadly similar way, with bronze helmets and greaves and either a simple square bronze chest-guard or more elaborate body armour such as a mail tunic, according to each individual’s prosperity and capability to provide his own protection.
Legionaries carried a typically Roman shield, a long oval type called scutum of laminated wood and canvas with an iron rim and boss. As an offensive weapon, they used a short-bladed ‘Spanish’ sword optimized for stabbing. Hastati and principes also carried a pair of pila, heavy throwing spears with a long iron head set in a wooden shaft. This combination of offensive weapons set apart Roman legionaries for almost half a millennium to come, as similar equipment continued to be employed throughout the Principate.
Triarii were equipped like the other heavy infantry except that they used a thrusting spear instead of pila. The fourth group of infantry was composed of 1.200 velites, skirmishers essential to the legion. They were drawn from the youngest trainees, equipped with a 3-Roman-feet-diameter round shield, sword and light javelins, sometimes with a wolf skin worn for identification over a plain helmet.
Each legion also had an attachment of 300 Roman cavalry. While these were drawn from the richest members of society and formed a social elite, cavalry was never a particular strength of Roman armies. In the past they had been lightly armoured and poorly equipped, whereas now they were armed and equipped according to contemporary Macedonian tradition, with a Greek-style lance and shield.
The hastati und principes were divided into ten maniples of 120 men, the triarii into ten of 60 men. The velites were also structured into ten subunits and appointed to the heavy infantry. The command structure of the legion emphasized maturity and experience: each was controlled by six officers called tribunes, who had to have completed a minimum of five- or ten-years’ military service before placement.
Polybius remarks about the officers who commanded the maniples: ‘’they want their centurions not to be men who are audacious and reckless, but individuals who are natural leaders, steady in spirit, with the power to endure. They don’t want men who will rush forward and provoke combat before the main battle lines meet, but ones who will hold their position when their comrades are getting the worst of the battle and hard-pressed, and even die at their posts.’’7
This emphasis on determination rather than confidence characterized Roman armies throughout much of their history and their capacity to endure and keep on fighting, on a strategic as well as tactical level, was an important key factor in their ultimate defeat of Hannibal in the second Punic war. Polybius also noted the fierce discipline of the legions, depicting how men were beaten to death by their companions for mistakes on guard duty. The importance of centurions in offering an experienced team within each legion is another frequent theme in the army of the later Republic and Principate.
Polybius’ version also underlines that the legions did not fight alone. As the Romans extended their political control of Italy, they forced allies and subjects to provide military contingents to fight alongside them. Polybius records that ‘’ the total number of allied infantry is usually equal to that of the Romans, while the cavalry are three times as many.’’8 The larger number of allied cavalry reflects the fact that Rome was traditionally weak in cavalry, while some allies and subjects inhabited valleys more suited to raising and maintaining horses.
Rome’s use of backup troops is a constant theme throughout her history. While all legions formed the high-status core of Roman armies, they regularly fought alongside lower-status and often more lightly equipped infantry and cavalry, provided by allies and subjects.
2.3. The Manipular Legion in Battle
Current accounts of ancient battles are seldom clear or detailed. Ancient writers pass over technicalities, either because they supposed their audiences were familiar with them or because technical detail did not go well with the grand rhetorical tone adopted by Roman historians. The hastati, principes and triarii normally fought in three separate lines in that order, each of ten maniples, with gaps between them. The maniples of hastati formed the first line and the triarii the third. Within each maniple, individual soldiers typically formed up in three or four ranks. The great asset of the manipular legion was its flexibility: units from the second and third lines could support or release troops in the first line or deploy onto their sides to attack from behind an enemy.
Individual Roman legionaries fought in relatively moveable order compared with soldiers in a Macedonian phalanx. A hand-to-hand combat is another way of battle between two formations of legionaries being characterized as a large-scale pushing match by two close-packed bodies of men. Some battles involving Roman armies lasted for many hours before one side collapsed, a long time for soldiers to sustain brutal close-quarter combat9.
The early legions each had five animal standards: these depicted an eagle, wolf, minotaur, horse and wild boar. Each animal belonged to a major division of the manipular legion: the hastati, principes, triarii, velites and legionary cavalry.
Anmerkung der Redaktion: Aus urheberrechtlichen Gründen wurde diese Abbildung entfernt.
Bronze statuette depicting a standard-bearer with eagle standard, from the Roman town of Alba Fucens (Abruzzo, Italy). Perhaps 1st century BC.
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1 Tiberius 16 November 42 BC – 16 March 37 AD) was the second Roman emperor, reigning from 14 AD to 37 AD, succeeding Augustus. Tiberius was one of the greatest Roman generals; his conquest of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania, laid the foundations for the northern frontier.
2 Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 – c. 120 AD) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians.
3 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/4A*.html
4 Plutarch (c. AD 46 – c. 120) later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, (Λούκιος Μέστριος Πλούταρχος) was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers
5 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Romulus*.html
6 Polybius (c. 208 – c. 125 BC) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period noted for his work The Histories, which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail. The work describes the rise of the Roman Republic to the status of dominance in the ancient Mediterranean world and includes his eyewitness account of the Sack of Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC, and the Roman annexation of the mainland Greece after the Achaean War.
7 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/6*.html http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/8*.html
8 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/6*.html
9 Close quarters combat (CQC) is a tactical concept that involves a physical confrontation between several combatants. It can take place between military units, police/corrections and criminals, and other similar scenarios