The armies of the Roman Republic would
emerge from the shadows of antiquity to take on the established powers of the era. Much
is said about how their victories in the field were won as a result of their superiority
in manpower, organization, and tactics. But written or spoken words fail to
convey the unique nature of Rome’s armies. Today let us bring to life the
True Size of a Republican Legion. Today's video was sponsored by G2A, started
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description below or going to g2a.com. Enjoy. During the era of the Roman Republic, the
legions were made up of non-professional soldiers who answered the call to
war as part of a levy, or ‘dilectus’. Owing to the fact that each man was responsible
for his own kit, their role in the legion would be a function of their specific wealth and age class.
This resulted in five distinct types of soldiers. The first type of soldiers were the Velites. Made up from the youngest or poorest citizens,
they acted as light skirmishers who carried javelins, a short sword, a round shield,
and wore bronze helmets or wolfskin caps. The second type of soldier was the Hastatus
or plural Hastati. These were young men in their early 20s who would form the first
line of heavy infantry. Defensively they bore the scutum shield, a helmet, and some form
of breastplate in accordance with their means. Offensively, they carried pila and a gladius. The third type of soldier was the Princeps or
plural Principes. These were men in their late 20s or early 30s who were considered to be in the
prime of their life. They formed the second line of heavy infantry and generally wore slightly
more expensive versions of the hastati gear. The fourth type of soldier was
the Triarius or plural Triarii. These were the oldest and most veteran troops who
formed the third line of heavy infantry. Their gear would have been more elaborate than their
younger counterparts, with the main difference being that they were actually armed with a
hoplite spear in keeping with their role as the final bastion around which to rally the
army in the final stages of a long battle. The fifth and final type of soldier
was the Eques or plural Equites. Their class consisted of the wealthiest
of the Romans who could afford to equip themselves as cavalrymen in the
hellenistic manner and had the privilege of having the state refund the cost
of their horse should it be lost in battle. With these individuals defined, let us
now see how they coalesced into a legion. The most basic army unit would have been
the tent group known as the Contubernium. Yet despite its simplicity, or perhaps because
of it, our sources are frustratingly silent when it comes to offering any details on
its composition. We know from the later Imperial Legions that a Contubernium was
made of 8 men,1-2 slaves, and 1-2 mules. Yet the math doesn't work out cleanly when you
try to fit even numbers of 8-man Contubernia into a 60-man century. Some solutions to this
are that there were just 6 soldiers to a tent and that the 2 extra spaces were filled by
slaves or that the tent was simply smaller. Neither option is ideal. For this video, we
will adopt the more plausible hypothesis that the 8-man tent group was made up of a mix of
heavy infantrymen AND the velites which is supported by the idea that Rome’s skirmishers
were tied to a parent group of legionaries. Whatever the case of the Contubernium’s
composition, we can imagine that day to day life would be quite similar for the tent
mates of any given era. They made camp, cooked, ate, played games, slept, and shared
virtually every moment of service together. As such these tent mates must have formed
close bonds whilst on campaign. Yet given the fact that legions of the Republic were
raised and disbanded quite frequently, the time a group of soldiers
spent together was always limited. This is to be contrasted with the permanent nature
of imperial legions whose tent mates could expect to spend years if not decades together and
thus formed much deeper bonds of comradery. The next organizational unit in the Republican
Legion was the century. For the ranks of the Hastati and Principes, it was composed of 10
Contubernia for a total of 60 legionaries who slept in 10 tents and were perhaps accompanied
by a support staff of 10-20 slaves, 10-20 mules, and the proportional allocation of the velites
which, in our model, is 60. The Centuries of the Triarii were slightly different in that they
were half-sized, numbering only 30 heavy infantry. Regardless of their type, all Centuries
were commanded by a Centurion, in addition to an Optio who acted as his
second in command, a Tesserarius who acted as the third in command slash watchmaster, a
Signifer who functioned as a Standard Bearer, and a Cornicularius who was the unit’s
trumpeter. As with the later legions, we will assume that this officer group had its own
support staff, mules, tents, and other belongings. At this time, no Republican officer was
a career soldier as would be the case in the later imperial legions. However they
were not necessarily unskilled novices. For instance Polybius tells us that Centurions
were either appointed by their legionary tribunes or elected from among their peers based upon
popularity, wealth, and military experience. They in turn would be allowed to choose
their own candidates as Optio and Signifer. The Tesserarius and Cornicularius
were likely men chosen in this manner. Given that all men of the levy were citizen
soldiers, it's hard to imagine that those of great wealth and prestige would not have also been
favored in the assignment of important positions. While each Century appeared equipped to act on
its own, it was actually paired with another of its kind to form a Maniple. This was the true
tactical unit of the Republican legion which was made up of 120 legionaries in the case of the
Maniples of the Hastati and Principes compared to the 60 legionaries of the half-sized triarii
maniple. Associated with these blocks of heavy infantry would have been the skirmishers, slaves,
mules, and gear which we previously mentioned. An interesting feature of the paired
centuries is the redundancy of its officers. This was actually something praised by
our sources as a means to mitigate loss of leadership in the face of battlefield
attrition. Under normal conditions, the officers of the prior century were senior to
those of the posterior century. Thus the Centurio Prior had overall command of the maniple while
the Signiferi Prior held the manipular banner. Compared to other units of the era, Roman
Maniples were quite small and boasted a greater proportion of officers. This gave
them much needed autonomy and dynamism in battle where they could quickly exploit any
opportunities which might arise. In this way they were able to defeat foes such as the seemingly
impenetrable wall of the Hellenistic phalanx. When it came time to form an army, 30 maniples
of the hastati, principes, and triarii would be assembled into a legion. These would
bring with them the ranks of the velites. This infantry force was formidable on its own but would now be reinforced by the last class
of Roman soldier, the mounted Equites. 10 of these troopers formed a file which was
led by a Decurion and closed by an Optio. 3 such files were grouped into the tactical unit
of the Turma, or swarm, which had 30 soldiers and 6 officers with the senior most man bearing the
rank Praefectus. We will assume that each rider had a remount, a slave, a mule, and a shared tent.
10 of these Turmae were attached to each legion. All together, a typical Republican legion can
therefore be found to number 1200 Velites, 1200 Hastati, 1200 Principes, 600 Triarii, and
300 Equites for a total of 4500 combatants. In times of crisis, our sources mention that
legions might even be expanded to field 5,000 to 6,000 men. Likely such soldiers were
added to the lower ranks of the commoners with the ranks of the Triarii and Equites remaining
constant due to their manpower constraints. These soldiers were commanded and
supported by the following elements; 360 officers, 930 slaves, 930 mules, and their
gear. Additional command for a single legion would have been provided by 6 tribunes whom we
assume also brought their own staff and gear in addition to the legionary standard bearer.
Their superiors, the consuls or legates, were in command of entire armies and thus will
not be part of our accounting of a single legion. Beyond this our sources do not
point to the existence of any formalized or standardized unit of
engineers, scribes, and doctors. Likely such roles were filled in some capacity on
an ad hoc basis. Given such a scarcity of sources we have therefore decided not to represent them
in our model as was done with our Imperial Legion. The assumption will be that they are accounted
for in the miscellaneous group of 50 mules and 50 slaves which carried things like extra
food, equipment, personal items, and more. Before we move on I wanted to provide
a quick aside on the hierarchy of the legionary officers. As mentioned, the
generals are outside the scope of our episode. For a single legion, the top of the
totem pole would have been the 6 tribunes. We are told that at any given point in time,
two of these were in charge of the legions with this responsibility apparently rotating
through pairs on tribunes every other month. Beneath them were the officers of the infantry and
cavalry. Each had their own sphere of control but it seems that the socially elite nature of the
Equites meant their leaders were of higher rank. Details are sparse but there was likely one head
Decurion with all of his other peers being ranked beneath him. A similar scenario likely played out
when it came to the Centurions of the infantry. Based on the later imperial legion which
retained ancient naming conventions, we can theorize that the Prior Centurion of the
1st Maniple of the Triarii was the most senior. In keeping with the Polybian legions being a
reflection of the social hierarchy the next officers in line were the rest of the Triarii,
then the Principes, and finally the Hastati. However we must also remember that legions in this
era were not permanent organizations and so any hierarchy was more likely to be less strictly
refined than that of the Imperial legions. With this all in mind, let’s now see what the
Republican Legion looked like in the field. We can begin with a generic depiction of the
Republican Legion at parade rest. Here we can provide an accounting of their numbers. Together
they cover 0.19 square kilometers and number 7,500. Of all the beings within this area 78%
are humans and 22% are animals. Among the people, 77% are infantry or cavalry, 6% are officers,
0% are specialists, and 17% are military slaves. But this sort of a deployment is quite a-historic.
More commonly you would find a legion in their camp, on the march, or in battle. Let’s take
a look at the True Size of each of these. Fortified camps in this era were a
staple of Roman military doctrine which dictated that they be constructed
every night whilst on campaign. Unlike the Legionary Castra of the Imperial
Era, these were not yet permanent positions being instead set up and torn down cyclically
as the army advanced towards its objective. Note here that we are once again talking about
entire Roman armies. Camps for individual legions were quite rare and they usually shared this
space with their fellow roman and allied units which could be in excess of 8 legions. Thus
exact dimensions and areas are hard to come by. The generic army of 2 roman and 2 allied
legions along with auxiliaries, slaves, animals, and baggage is thought to have occupied
about 405,000 square meters or about 100 acres, the rough equivalent of 42 soccer fields. But whatever the situation, our records indicate
that they always followed a similar pattern of construction. They were rectangles with
two principle roads forming a cross which intersected at the general’s tent and exited the
site at four main gates. The perimeter was guarded by a ditch and a palisade. Within the interior
was a 60m offset to the tents which allowed for troop movement and mitigated the threat of arrow
fire. The arrangement of each unit was highly regulated making the experience of setting up and
navigating a camp very familiar to all soldiers. When it came time to move out. Legions
would again be a part of a larger force. Nonetheless we can give you a sense of
what it would have looked like on the road. The cavalry would have come
first followed by the screen of the velites then the centuries of the
triarii, the principes, and the hastati. At their rear was the general baggage train and
likely another body chosen as the rear guard. For our model we have chosen to have them walking
four men abreast, a suitable width for most roads. This results in a total column length
of 3,323 m in ideal conditions. Such a force, moving an average 5
km/hr would take 40 minutes to walk past and take a rider moving at a gallop
of 40 km/hr about 5 minutes to traverse. When battle was to be given, a Republican legion
likely adopted a different marching formation. Skirmishers and cavalry would again take the
lead to screen the main force but behind them would march the heavy infantry in three
parallel columns, the hastati on the left, principes in the center, and triarii on
the right. Upon reaching the battlefield this entire formation would advance upon the
wing, and upon reaching it, then swing right, extending the battle line across the
front all the way up to the right wing. The battle formation in which they most
commonly deployed would be the Triplex Acies. As the name implies it consisted of
three main lines which were screened by the Velites and flanked by the Equites.
The first line was the young hastati, the second line was the mature principes,
and the third line was the veteran triarii. Another interesting feature of their deployment
was their staggered, quincunx formation. The basic idea was that the maniples of
each line left gaps between their units which would in turn be covered
by the units to their rear. This unique formation significantly
reduced the frontage of a Roman Army but gave it far greater depth and therefore
staying power by means of reserves who could be kept fresh and slowly fed into the
fight as the flow of battle dictated. Unfortunately the precise choreography of this is
not well understood. One idea is that the Roman lines would be kept open by having the Centuries
of each Maniple stacked one behind the other. In this stance, skirmishers and other units
could readily pass through the gaps in the line. When it was time to close the lines, the
rear Century could simply move from the back to the side of the front century
and thus form a cohesive battle line. Simple enough in theory but quite complex
to pull off in the face of the enemy. If we assume that Centuries were arranged
in blocks of 10 x 6 men and that they left a gap between Maniples of approximately
the same frontage, then the 10-maniple battle line with flanking cavalry was about
420m long. A man walking this distance would take 5 minutes to traverse it while a rider
at a gallop would take about 40 seconds. Meanwhile the depth of the Triplex Acies
would depend on just how large of a gap existed between the lines. Given that troops were
expected to be able to maneuver between them, we will assume a setback of 20 m which
gives a total depth of 100 m for the heavy infantry. All in all it's quite the impressive
formation but we must remember that this was but one of several legions which deployed
together in the typical Republican Army. Such formations will have to
be covered in another video. For now, I hope that this explanation has
at least given you a basic understanding of the subject and the value of putting such
matters in their proper spatial context. Stay tuned for additional videos
where we explore the True Size of our past and let us know what topics
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