Pre-Marian Roma

[Theoroshia]

I needed a fresh work place to work with, so I started a new topic. Please lock our close the other one.

The legions had not always epitomized the greatness of Rome. Before the likes of Caesar, Marius and Scipio had arrived, Rome was but a tiny kingdom. It's military was a carbon copy of the Greeks; indeed, a Roman hoplite was a common sight during battle, and the glints off a hoplon were a hint of an approaching Roman battle line.

At some point, however, the Romans changed their tactics; the phalanx was tossed away in favor of the manipular formation. There are many reasons for this change, and the most important would have to be the formation's success when used by the Samnites. The hilly terrain of Italy wasn't suited to phalanx warfare, and the Romans were easily outclassed in battle by the Samnites. Additionally, the Roman kings of old were no more; the Roman Republic had been formed in 509 B.C., and a change in times required a change in tactics.

Rome maintained four legions at all times (Legios I through IV), two for each consul. Apparently with no sense of creativeness, these legions were called the consular legions. Other legions would be recruited as the need arose during a campaign.

Pre-Marian legions at first faced enormous adversity. They were often defeated at the hands of the Carthaginian Sun-Tzu, Hannibal. It wasn't until Lucius Scipio, Africanus himself, led an army into Carthaginian controlled North Africa. Rather than face Hannibal on his home soil (and likely lose), he instead let Hannibal stampede across the Italian countryside. If Carthage was threatened, Hannibal would have to either defend his homeland or continue his quest through Italy. Carthage, in their moment of weakness and despair, ordered Hannibal home, and upon his return he and his frazzled army were beaten by Scipio at Zama.

With the success at Zama, the legions were battle proven. Although minor changes would be made, the make-up of the legions would stay the same until the Marian reforms. The make-up of a pre-Marian legion as represented in Roma Surrectum 2 is as follows:

[tone]

How are we doing here? Will you be able to do this in time for Christmas do you think? Chaplain118 has offered some help with doing the Roman preview writing so he can carry on if real life pressures are too much.

[tone]

Velite model and skins updated with better wolf skin

[Brusilov]

The two sets of attached files are some screens that may be useful. I've got a set of 'portrait' shots of the units and then a collection of some action shots. The first portrait shot for each unit includes all the graphic bits but the intention is to show the names of the unit (just in case, like me, you don't know what the unit is called).

I've not taken any shots of the Campanian Cavalry yet but will do so later on or tomorrow. The unit des not appear for Rome in the custom battle and I will use the Carthage one.

[Brusilov]

Ok, there are less shots in this one. I have the Campanian Cavalry (carthage) - someone needs to confirm about the standard as it looks like Carthage. I did shoot the unit from both angles so the standard does not have to be shown.

There are also more action shots in here as well. Which includes the Celtic Heavy Spearmen (the shots where the undergarment is not showing through the chainmail).

[tone]

Here's the list of units:

Roman general
Roman equites
Allied equites
Italian medium cav
Campanian cav
Cenomani light cav
Scutari cav
Velites
Allied skirmishers
Polybian cohorts
Allied polybian cohorts
Triarii
Allied triarii
Samnite spearmen
Lucani light infantry

[chaplain118]

Here's the intro to the Pre-Marian Roman preview:

Then came the ensigns encompassing the eagle, which is at the head of every Roman legion, the king, and the strongest of all birds, which seems to them a signal of dominion, and an omen that they shall conquer all against whom they march. - Josephus

Rome’s history was a long and bloody one, replete with succession crises, political turmoil, and the seemingly endless wars, both external and internal, that had been waged across Europe for over a thousand years. But throughout these years, one single factor remained more or less constant: the legions.

They were made up of proud men who marched forth from the Seven Hills until their boots reached all corners of the western world, from the sandy shores of Africa to the forested glades of Spain; from atop the mountains of Greece to the flowing waters of the Euphrates; they marched through the thick forests of Gaul to even the wind-swept crags of Britain. Never had the world seen a military power so unrelenting and organized as the legions of Rome. In fact, so feared were these men that the Christian Bible described the angels that would arrive to participate in the Battle of Armageddon as the Legions of God.

However, the legion was not an invincible force, as Hollywood would lead us to believe. The men that made up of this fighting force were ordinary men who can succumb to the call of death rather than the immortal gods. In fact, the first form of the Roman legion can be categorized as a rag-tag group of men who banded together to fight under the command of the Roman kings. It wasn’t until Servius Tullius conducted the first Census that divided up Roman society into five distinct societal class that had specific roles in battle did the precursor to the Republican Legion arose. However, despite the different classes, the early Roman legion looked and behaved very similarly to the Greek phalanxes, composing largely of rich hoplites as the backbone supported by the lower segments of society as supplementary forces. Early legions were divided up purely into centuries of one hundred men rather than the later maniples. This effectively meant that a 5000 man legion would be made up of fifty centuries at the very least. This early legion had little flexibility on the battlefield and was plagued with a large bureaucratic structure that hindered effective control and cohesion on the battlefield. The Second Samnite Wars of the fourth century BCE proved the hoplite-based legion’s obsolescence. The Samnites employed a manipular order of battle against the Roman hoplites. The success enjoyed by the Samnites in their war efforts against Rome caused the Romans to abandon the densely packed hoplite centuries that were inflexible in rugged terrains and instead adopt the looser manipular formations that would become a staple of the Roman army.

While the maniples retained the class distinction of the Regal Roman legion, it did attempt to separate the different classes. Instead of having the entire army as a single unit bum-rushing the enemy like the hoplites of Greece, the newly reformed Roman legion now separated itself into the distinctive three-tier system of heavy infantry: the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii. The poorest of the citizens who could not even afford the simple armaments of the Hastati took the rank of Velites, or skirmishers. The hoplon shield of the early Roman army eventually evolved into a large oval shield called a scutum that resembled the Imperial cohort’s rectangular shield. However, while the shields universally changed for the heavy infantry, the personal armaments changed more gradually. While the Hastati and Principes adopted the use of missile weapons before engaging in hand to hand combat with the legion’s signature pila, the Triarii kept the long stabbing spears and continued to fight as the spearmen. The men of the early Republican army had to provide their own weapons and gear, meaning that only the richest men would find themselves attached to the Principes or Triarii.

However, the Roman army was about to face another shock during the Second Punic Wars. The war had started out badly enough with the disastrous defeat at the siege of Saguntum and the loss of Roman authority over the Carthaginians. The Senate decreed the levying of six full legions, two more than the customary four. Each consul received his customary two with the praetor holding onto two reserve legions. When offered a choice between war and peace, the Carthaginians declared:

“Pick whichever you please, we do not care either way.”

To which the Roman delegation replied with

“We give you war!”

But Roman influence over Iberia and Cisalpine Gaul had been largely eroded when news of Saguntum’s fall and destruction spread across the western Mediterranean. What later followed would be a series of crushing defeats at the hands of Carthage’s greatest general, Hannibal Barca. The outcomes of the Second Punic War would forever change the face of the Roman legions, at least until the reforms of Gaius Marius. When Hannibal’s army first descended from the Alps in the early winter of 218BCE, the Romans mustered a force to counter the threat on Italian soil in the battle of Ticinus. While a direct confrontation between heavy infantry did not occur at Ticinus, the battle set the stage for Rome’s fifteen-year struggle against Hannibal in Italy. It was also here, at Ticinus, that the man who would become Scipio Africanus, had first experienced the tactics of Hannibal and rescued his father, Publius Cornelius Scipio from almost certain death. The news of the skirmish set the entire City abuzz with whispers. Determined to counter Hannibal’s advances, the Senate sent forth consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus with his two legions supplemented by allied infantry to meet the Carthaginian threat in Northern Italy. In the bitter cold of December, Sempronius marched across the icy waters of Trebbia on the morning of the winter solstice to meet the army of Hannibal. Having surveyed the grounds and placed his traps appropriately, Hannibal was able to ambush a large part of the Roman army and rout both legions, with Sempronius returning to Rome, disgraced yet still alive. His successor, Gaius Flaminius Nepos, would meet a far more grisly fate on the misty banks of Lake Trasimene on April 27, 217BCE. The success of Hannibal had sent the Senate into panic. Never had an enemy so categorically defeated an upwards of five legions in the span of six months. The appointment of Quintus Fabius Maximus as dictator in 217BCE led to inconclusive results that did not bring a quick end to the war. The struggle continued to drag on in Italy until the fateful day of August 2, 216BCE, the battle of Cannae.

Faced with the string of defeats, the Senate decreed the levying of eight legions and an equal number of allied troops that totaled at no less than 90,000. The Senate, in their infinite wisdom, decided that if strategy wasn’t going to destroy Hannibal, then they will crush the Punic commander with numbers alone. It was in this battle that the Romans suddenly abandoned their flexible manipular orders of battle and reverted back to the tightly packed formation of the hoplites. The result: a massacre that saw the death of 45,000 Roman and allied infantry and another 3,000 cavalry with another 4000 having been captured. The remaining men who had fled the field included the future Scipio Africanus, who had seen Hannibal’s tactics more than once and had a streak of luck against the Punic commander.

The defeat of Cannae marked the beginning of a new change in the Roman legion. First and foremost, the gladius hispaniensis, or the Spanish sword, became much more common in the Roman army during the Second Punic War. The stabbing sword proved to be far more devastating than the usual method of hacking and slashing away at the enemy. Secondly, the large number of Roman citizens that had fallen at Cannae made it especially difficult for the City to raise more legions. Desperate measures were taken. Freedmen and slaves suddenly found themselves called upon by Rome to serve in her armies as legionnaires, with the Battle of Beneventum in 214BCE being carried out by a legion comprised entirely of slaves. Cannae had drained the City of its richer citizens and blurred the class distinction in the army. The wealth that used to separate Hastati from Principes became less noticeable and the two eventually became fused into one general category of heavy infantry under the guise of a Polybian cohort by the end of the Second Punic War. When Scipio Africanus fought Hannibal at Zama in 202BCE, his army still comprised of the traditional Hastati, Principes, Triarii ranking system, but his men had grown so accustomed to fighting that any distinction between Hastati and Principes were in name only.

The adoption of the Polybian cohort as well as the widespread use of the gladius hispaniensis were the crowning achievements that were born from the ashes of Canane and it is this newly reformed army that will march forth from the hallowed seven hills to all corners of the world in Roma Surrectum II.

[tone]

Excellent stufff - it reads really well

[Brusilov]

The only units I've not got shots of are the Scutari Cavalry. I'm in the process of upgrading my PC to Windows 7 and it's taking a very long time to do. The final part of the process 'transferring files, settings and programs' was not doing anything yesterday (no disc I/Os at least) so after it was like that for 3 hours yesterday I killed the process. I restarted it in the afternoon and left it running overnight - it's now done 62% (404,087 of 534,629). So, it may be finished by Monday.....

[apple]

The only units I've not got shots of are the Scutari Cavalry. I'm in the process of upgrading my PC to Windows 7 and it's taking a very long time to do. The final part of the process 'transferring files, settings and programs' was not doing anything yesterday (no disc I/Os at least) so after it was like that for 3 hours yesterday I killed the process. I restarted it in the afternoon and left it running overnight - it's now done 62% (404,087 of 534,629). So, it may be finished by Monday.....

Holy , I'm glad that I didn't have those problems upgrading to Snow Leopard. It took just about 30 minutes.


Btw. Great job Chaplain.

[Brusilov]

Holy , I'm glad that I didn't have those problems upgrading to Snow Leopard. It took just about 30 minutes.

It appears as if it's a known problem: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/975253

Basically, the PC had been doing nothing since 19:22 last night (apart from consuming energy). I've applied the 'fix' and it's running again.

[chaplain118]

Where can I find the unit descriptions for the premarian units to finish writing this.

Also, is there anything else you guys feel like this needs including?

[apple]

Lots of pictures showing equipment's etc.

[tone]

How does this look as a format for the "portrait shots" of individual units? Brusilov, there are some amazing mele shots in here too, so I suggest we follow a similar style to the previous preview with the portrait shots in 1440x900 (like these) and keep your original format for the melee shots.

[Brusilov]

The font looks OK - I know it can be a struggle to get a colour to be legible against different backgrounds. What font is it and what is the size - also what do you use to edit the shots. I have both Photoshop CS4 and PaintShopPro XI.

I agree with the sensible size for the portrait shots and the larger ones for the action shots. I supplied everything at 2560x1600 so they can be re-sized to suit - it's better to shrink a shot than to enlarge it.

Thanks for the compliments about the mele shots - even with the movie camera it can be a matter of luck getting the right shot (freezing the action and then zooming in and out of the action does help).

With the Carthage Heavy Spearman - are you going to be able to fix it? The shadow is still there although it's a lot better than the previous version.

[tone]

Still a problem? OK, one moment.

[Brusilov]

I've not checked it today - I'm still trying to upgrade my new system from Vista to 7......

[tone]

Is it fixed now? Reuploaded a further tweak.

In terms of these unit shots, I'm using Times New Roman, size 64 font, but I'm adding some bevelling and drop shadow - adding more drop shadow to these ones below - that helps it show up against all backgrounds:

[Brusilov]

I won't be able to test it until later on today. I'm currently on my laptop and that isn't a gaming machine.....

[apple]

I could help with adding the text for you guys. It's the least I can do the make your (Tone) burden less.