Roman Army Structure | Vindolanda Museum

there are two main types of soldier a legionary is a Roman citizen an auxilary is not each must supply his own equipment and swear an oath of loyalty to the Emperor legionaries join an infantry unit as part of a group of eight men a Conchie burnham who all share sleeping quarters new soldiers are stuck with fatigues dirty jobs until they secure a specialist post tenkan to burn a form a century with its own standard bearer commander of the watch second-in-command and a Centurion to lead them all six centuries together make up a cohort and ten cohorts plus a small cavalry unit the equities liji onus make up the biggest roman army unit of them all the legion the legion symbol is the Roman Eagle borne aloft by the Aquila fir cohorts in a legion are numbered one to ten cohort one is extra-large with five double centuries its Centurions are the senior ranking preemie ordinace and the most senior of all is Prima's pilis or first file he can be promoted to be prefect as castrum camp prefect in charge of the daily running of the legion outranking this camp prefect are seven men six staff officers The Tribune II and the commander of the entire Legion the legatus back in Rome he's a member of the Senate the Empire's 600 strong ruling elite but in the field he commands his Legion of some 6,000 troops each a Roman citizen but while these citizen legionaries are the backbone of the Roman army the non Roman citizens the auxiliaries are the specialists in auxiliary cohorts men recruited across the empire use their talents and abilities in the service of Rome one area of expertise was horsemanship there are cavalry only regiments the ala a few double-strength cavalry regiments including one in Britain the alipay Triana also part mounted cohorts and some auxiliary cohorts are just regular infantry organized like the legionary cohorts but the similarities stop here at the cohort auxiliary is a part of no bigger unit there's no Legion and no legate to command them instead each cohort has its own high-ranking commander who leads these more compact maneuverable units and when an auxilary soldier has served the Roman army for 25 years a great reward awaits he gets a plot of land a pension and all of the rights of a Roman citizen for him his children and the generations to come

Channel: ISO DESIGN

Views: 3,438,690

Rating: 4.9669232 out of 5

Keywords: infographics, motion graphics, animation, Roman Army, education, Roman Empire

Id: Rcbedan5R1s

Length: 3min 7sec (187 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/SwanRonson7962]

Awesome video i could watch stuff like that all day.

[u/Neutral_Fellow]

A neat video visualizing the core concept of how a Roman army was structured, from the grunt legionary all the way up to the legatus legionis.

The auxiliaries are also explained, but simplified and in short.

[u/stovenn]

3 minutes of pure information.

Very good.

[u/JimmyRat]

Does anyone know what the odds were that an auxiliary would reach 25 years to retire?

[u/tballs92]

Very interesting video. I've heard the term "praetorian" many times in movies and video games. I was hoping to learn more about what a praetorian was in the Roman army.

[u/BENJ4x]

At one point they had to supply their own gear but didn't that change after some reform by Marian?

[u/Lohjan]

This video is so interesting and needs more recognition. It really shows the level of organisation the Romans had and how they dominated their enemies.

[u/3ver_green]

Sooo, a century is 80 men. Can someone explain why that is, rather than the answer which I would have sworn blind before watching this would have been 100? The etymology is centum, right? Latin for 100...so why 80 men?

[u/Fp_Guy]

What is also missing is the command structure above Legion which I find really interesting because of the complete lack of any civil military separation.

After a Senator served a 1 year term as Consul (Head of the Roman Government) or Praetor (lower rank: Judge, among other responsibilities) they would be named a Provincial Governor as Proconsul or Propraetor for 5 years. Former Consuls (Proconsul) were given large provinces with multiple Legions while former Praetors (Propraetors) were given single or no Legion provinces. Propraetors in single Legion provinces were dual hatted as the Legion's Commander. I believe in some cases the Legion Commanders in Proconsul provinces each individually had Propraetor imperium (authority), essentially making a Legion Commander a Deputy Governor (this is important under Augustus). Auxiliary Cohorts could either be attached to a Legion or report directly to the Governor. This system is why the late Republic was so unstable, Governors had all the power.

Post Augustus, the First Citizen (aka, Emperor) was also the Proconsul of every province with a Legion garrisoned or was otherwise strategically important (known as Imperial Provinces), effectively making him Commander in Chief of all the Legions (minus Auxiliary Cohorts in the other Provinces, initially). The actual Governors of the Imperial Provinces were handpicked by the Emperor and titled Legatus Augusti Propraetor (Envoy of Augustus, Deputy Governor), if an Imperial Province had no Legions then the Governor would be titled "Procurator" and was usually subordinate to a Imperial Propraetor Governor (Procurator of Judea reported to the Legatus Augusti Propraetor of Syria). Provinces not under Augustus' direct Governorship (Public Provinces) were Governed by a Proconsul selected by the Senate and only had Auxiliary Cohorts (usually).

Despite the titles of Proconsul and Propraetor, post Augustus most "Proconsuls" of Public Provinces were actually only former Praetors while most Imperial "Propraetors" were actually former Consuls (especially in multi Legion provinces).

Egypt was weird Province, it was the most important Province in the Empire because of the grain supply. Therefore was taken as the Emperor's personal property, Governed by a Knight (Praefectus Aegypti), and had multiple Legions garrisoned. If a Senator entered the Province without permission, it was considered treason and punishable by death.

Even though Augustus was the undisputed Master of Rome because of his military might, his legal status was kind of merky. Maintaining the illusion of a Republic and legality was really important due to Rome's history with Monarchs (pre Republic). Legally, he was just another Proconsul (granted, the Proconsul of all the Provinces with Legions) and acting People's Tribune (which gave him veto power over the Senate), he lacked legal authority in Italy and the Public Provinces. This was especially an issue in Italy because of the Praetorian Guard Cohorts, which weren't supposed to be there (a Governor's troops were restricted to their Province). To fix this hole in Augustus' authority, the Senate gave Augustus "imperium maius proconsul" which bumped him up a notch and gave him supreme authority over all the Public Provinces Proconsuls and in Italy.