[Historiae] about Hastati, Principes, Triarii, Equites legionis and the Symmetrical System (3rd-6th cent. AD)

[BroskiDerpman]

Thanks for replying!

[druzhina345]

A Syrian or Byzantine Horse Archer, c.600AD on a textile


MIRROR SITE:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A Syrian or Byzantine Horse Archer, c.600AD on a textile

druzhina345
Illustrations of Soldiers

[BroskiDerpman]

Oh my, I almost forgot about AoD 2!

Keep up the good work as always!

[Sertorio]

It,s a pure joy to read your works and explanations Pompeus. However i have some questions regarding 3 AD.
You seem to imply that from this century onwards legions would deploy on a single line of 16 man deep ranks or so i am reading it according to the Stategikon. However Vegetius seems to recommend a double line of cohorts wich seems much in line with the deployment of the Marian and imperial age.
At Strasboug, Julian deployed its army in a double line, and in the plate showing Aurelian´s battle order though the legions are side by side it is possible the achieve that same double line following the dispositions of Vegetius about the internal deployment for battle for a legion.

So in your opinion was the 3 AD Roman Army, still following the practice of multiple lines of battle in existence since the "triplex acies" ?

Another question regarding Aurelian´s plate. The fact that the light skirmishers are behind the legions suggests that the full body of the legion was still heavy infantry. Is that correct ?

[Pompeius Magnus]

Hi Sertorio,

I will try to answer in accordance how I understand your question - if it's not answered please don't hesitate to ask again :-)

I differ clearly in the text between the time era of the 1st to 2nd century, late 2nd to 3rd century (the Ancient Legion of vegetius), the Legion of Vegetius somewhere at the end of the 4th century and the transition to the army-deployment as described in the Strategikon.
There are of course differences, however, it is more than one time clearly mentioned in the ancient source texts that the system of the "ancients" (means: the greek symmetrical system) was more common than believed.
And this "natural" development leads us directly to the Strategikon. Insofar the Strategikon is not explaining something new to us - moreover it describes something what can be observed the centuries before - something which become very "roman".

It is not clearly referred by Vegetius that a Centuria stood "per se" on battle field from left to right. It seems today more likely that the different Centuriae were deployed by files. The Centuriae stood side by side, from left to right, and not from forward to aft (however, research is still ongoing). This is indirectly suggested because Vegetius speaks about the contubernium (the tent-community) - and more important: all soldiers within the same Cohors were classified as Principes or Hastati. During the time of Marius there were Principes and Hastati within one and the same Cohors. That is quite different.
Vegetius describes the Cohortes 1-5, standing in the first row, and those are classified as Principes. The Cohortes 6-10 are classified as Hastati and standing in the second row/line. At another position he also speaks about Triarii - but it is not clear if those Triarii were independend Cohortes - or if it was just (my suspicion) the rear-guard. A kind of reserve - still mentioned as 3rd line in the Taktika of Leo VI (!) in the early 9th century.
So, the threefold system has of Hastati, Principes and Triarii has indeed survived, but it has changed significantly and was now fitting more suitable the symmetrical system. The ancient triplex acies was not valid anymore.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

...well. and another 160/180 years later the internal organization of the military regiments has changed once more. Now all units were referred as Numeri (singular Numerus). And the unit size was not equal anymore. A numerus X was 800 strong - another Numerus Y was just 256 strong.
However, that what has survived was the symmetrical system!
But let us check the details:
It seems that only the few remaining Legions kept their system of the old Centuries (centuria). The Cohortes were gone.
The general size (or better said the wished size) of a new deployed unit was 500.
There was just one regiment leader - the Tribune. The officer after him was the Campiductor (for new deployed units), for older units we find sometimes an officer with the name "Senator", and in some cases in greek sources we read about the kenturion or kentarchos (the centenarii). The units were not sub-divided by Cohortes anymore since the size, also for old Legions, was too small. But since the office of the Centurio has survived it seems likely that the Centuriae have survived. But that's all. The next smaller division was the lochos. The leader of a lochos was the lochagous. And translated to latin it means nothing else that "contubernium" - our old tent-community! In english we say "file" and "file-leader".

The contubernia was a tent-community, that is a group of soldiers, sleeping in the same tent. The number varies between 8-10 (in Vegetius) up to 8-16 men (in the Strategikon).

In the lower example (see spoiler) you see a small Numerus with round about 256 men. A Centurion is not existing in our small regiment. But we find the Tribune and the second officer behind him, the Campiductor. The Strategikon describes very well the following formation when the unit has arrived the battle field and was deployed as a "module" - a "part" - a "brick" - that is the greek Tagma. And many regiments were deployed side by side in a single row - like our old cohortes - deployed as Tagmatas. That what has suvived was the deployment of the files.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As said, please ask if something is not clear enough. I also make mistakes, but I have researched several deployments of Arrianus, Aurelianus, and the Strategikon - and you always get the number of 1024 files (+/-1). The exception is just Vegetius where we get round about 580 files, but Vegetius is also just writing about the inner order of one Legion only.

concerning Aurelian´s plate:
Legion = always heavy infantry. That's the question.
At least they were the standard line infantry of the roman army - the "core" so to speak. I'm not a weapon or armament specialist. Insofar the question should be answered by someone else regarding the equippment of the roman army during the time of Aurelianus. I'm quite sure that Aurelianus took the best troops to his campaign. Legions from the Danube area, Illyria, Pannonia, Noricum had many contact to the barbarians from north of the Danube river. It seems likely to me that at least those 4 Legions were a kind of "elite". But that's more speculation than a fact.

Let me say that the egyptian and syrian Papyri in the early-to-mid 6th century are still just listing soldiers with graeco-roman names (e.g. Aurelianos), barbarian names are quite non-existent in the lists. That shows ones more that the Legion, or the Numerus, was still an homogenous element of Romans or Rhomäer.

[demagogos nicator]

Of course all factions are researched equially, however, in some cases it is historically difficult to find more than 3 different troop-types for some factions. I just tell this because some people are probably disappointed to find 5 different troops for Thuringi. Actually most germanic factions (the core group) had just few troops and many military services were "outsourced" to other germanic tribes. But as said said, the research is handled with care for all factions and all unit names are evidenced by at least on primary source.

Beter few historicly accurate and realisticly modeled/textured units with appropriate description containing historical background of the unit than many fantasy or repetitive units with immersion breaking vanila descriptions barely matching to the unit Cant wait to see the fruits of your effort and estabilish my own kingdom on the ruins of the Empire playing as Franks or one of the Gothic tribes. And still hoping that the remianing slot will be used for some Slavic faction

EDIT: I just found out that I am replying on almost a year old post