The Disobedient Roman Soldier

[EricD]

No, I don't support Grossman's more extreme or out there theorizing, such as the Sheepdog model or his fallacious beliefs about video games. Likewise, Marshall's ratio of fire has been thoroughly disproved many times over. Neither of these are relevant to this particular discussion however.

The particular observation of Grossman which I cited here was that soldiers generally find it easier to inflict violence on others from a distance, physically and psychologically. This observation is one of the soundest and best supported to be found in On Killing, and is backed up by extensive other observations of human violent behaviour, ranging from accounts of historical battles to studies of historical fencing systems (A particular passion of mine), to analysis of pre-modern weapons, to the behaviour of modern rioters and tribal violence. Grossman attributed this to an unwillingness or guilt or desire to avoid inflicting violence on other human beings. I think that the observation is sound, but the explanation he gives to it and the conclusions he draws from it are flawed. I think humans do prefer to fight from a physical and psychological distance, not necessarily due to being unwilling to harm others, but due to prioritizing their own safety first and harming their enemies second. Humans like to fight from a distance because it's easier to avoid injury or death yourself in this way. Perhaps a better way of phrasing it would be that humans prefer to fight with the greatest personal safety they can, both physical and psychological senses of safety. A point in favour of this from history is the fact that the real slaughter of battle is always accounted as being in the rout, not in the actual combat against resisting opponents. The sense of safety gained from striking fleeing enemies down without resistance allows for people to strike at will, without fear of receiving injury or death in return.

Hand to hand violence is exhausting. Anyone who has boxed or wrestled can attest to how much it taxes every element of your body and mind. I personally practice fencing with a longsword, and a sparring bout (Which doesn't even have life or death on the line!) is physically exhausting. A competition bout in a tournament, with honour and status on the line, is incredibly mentally fatiguing in addition to physically fatiguing. How much more exhausting is a hand to hand encounter on the battlefield, with a great possibility of death or injury involved?

Hand to hand combat cannot be sustained for very long. Yet we know that battles are accounted as lasting for hours at times, even for most of a day. They physically can't have spent most of their time fighting with the gladius, and I think in most of the gladius charges the Romans made, the enemy would have recoiled backwards or ran before blows were ever exchanged. Thus the pilum would have, in all probability, been the primary weapon of the legionary for the majority of a battle.

I don't see a very string correlation between a musket armed and pilum armed infantry man: one has at most a buff coat, the other heavy body armour and a large shield. Likewise the sword and bayonet are not that similar either, in most armies at most times the bayonet was a defensive anti-cavalry weapon. I think you mention the sword is strictly an attacking weapon, not being useful for fending off anything much. It may have had an "intimidation buff" but so does a shield wall: the Athenian phalanx charging at Marathon (with the enormous disparity in casualties indicating a rapid break in Persian morale) demonstrates that.

The analogy is thus: The musketeer is a man armed primarily with a missile weapon, whose primary task in battle is usually to attack the enemy with said missile weapon. However his fire alone rarely can decisively break an enemy's will and make them flee the battleground. Thus he is also armed with the bayonet, which transforms his musket into a spear, which communicates lethal intent to the enemy, and which employed in a charge by determined troops will break the enemy's morale. The bayonet did not kill great numbers of the enemy, bayonet wounds were vanishingly rare in field battles and were very often a result of using the bayonet to finish off wounded men. However the prospect of facing the bayonet was so terrifying to men that they would rather run from it, thus giving the bayonet charge its moral force and its impact on the battlefield of the musket era. Here I will quote Ardant du Picq:

The shock is a mere term. The de Saxe, the Bugeaud theory: "Close with the bayonet and with fire action at close quarters. That is what kills people and the victor is the one who kills most," is not founded on fact. No enemy awaits you if you are determined, and never, never, never, are two equal determinations opposed to each other. It is well known to everybody, to all nations, that the French have never met any one who resisted a bayonet charge.


The English in Spain, marching resolutely in face of the charges of the French in column, have always defeated them.... The English were not dismayed at the mass. If Napoleon had recalled the defeat of the giants of the Armada by the English vessels, he might not have ordered the use of the d'Erlon column.


Blücher in his instructions to his troops, recalled that the French have never held out before the resolute march of the Prussians in attack column....


Suvaroff used no better tactics. Yet his battalions in Italy drove us at the point of their bayonets.


Each nation in Europe says: "No one stands his ground before a bayonet charge made by us." All are right. The French, no more than others, resist a resolute attack. All are persuaded that their attacks are irresistable; that an advance will frighten the enemy into flight. Whether the bayonet be fixed or in the scabbard makes no difference....

[...]

To sum up: there is no shock of infantry on infantry. There is no physical impulse, no force of mass. There is but a moral impulse.

Battle Studies, Part 2, Chapter 2

The Legionary may not have drilled in formations or thrown his pila in volleys like the musketeer did, but he is likewise a man armed primarily with missile weapons. Most of his time spent in battle, I believe, would have been spent on throwing the pila at their opponent, moving forward out of the group to skirmish and then falling back into the perceived safety of the maniple or cohort's mass. But his throwing of pila, like the fire of the musket, cannot put the enemy to flight, it lacks the moral impulse or shock to force men to rout. His gladius, then, is his bayonet. The gladius communicates lethal intent, the gladius is a weapon of terror. The gladius decisively ends the missile exchange, the centurion ordering the drawing of swords stops his troops from continuing to skirmish indecisively (Assuming they listen to him, as evidently they often did not) and commits them to close the distance. Actual exchanges of blows, of gladius against spear, might be rare on the ancient battlefield. Probably more common than bayonet wounds in the musket era, but more rare than injuries or death by spear or thrown missile. Even so, the gladius charge is the shock action, the psychological shock, which decides the combat, just as the bayonet charge decides the musket battle.

And, I would note, when the Roman legionaries find themselves in frontal combat against an infantry formation which is arrayed such that they cannot get at them with the gladius, a formation which keeps the Romans at bay and is not terrified by the gladius charge, the Roman lose. The Roman infantry were losing, slowly but surely, at Cynoscephelae and at Pydna, until the battle was decided elsewhere on the field.

Finally: I have not said that the Romans conquered their enemies by "superior indiscipline". That is a mischaracterization what I have been arguing. My argument is that the Romans won their wars because the Roman culture raised its people to be brave, because Roman society and politics made it easier and preferable to be brave than to not be brave. The Roman army gave scope for its brave men to win renown by great deeds, but kept them under enough control that they were more than just an armed gang. I believe that Romans achieved a hard-fought and tense compromise between individual aggression and group cohesion, which allowed them to both have valour and wisdom, virtus and prudentia both in measure. But I emphasize that this was a tense compromise, and one which disciplina did not always win. They were closer in spirit and ethos to their Gallic enemies than I think they might have liked to think.

[Common Soldier]

There is no evidence that he ever collected any statistical data.

Oh, I didn't know that. I have read about people defending Marshall's theory by citing the evidence of the ratio of bullets fired ronenemy killed as proof of Marshall's theory. I was just pointing out such evidence doesn't prove his theory. I agree, Marshall's theory are not supportrd by any real evidence.

One thing that Marshall claimed is to have created training programs to overcome peoples alleged reluctance to kill. If the ratio of bullets fired to enemy killed is an indication of this reluctance, then Marshall's training program is a total failure. In the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars, it is allegrd US soldiers fired 250,000 bullets for every enemy killed, far worse than WW2.

[Common Soldier]

No, I don't support Grossman's more extreme or out there theorizing, such as the Sheepdog model or his fallacious beliefs about video games. Likewise, Marshall's ratio of fire has been thoroughly disproved many times over. Neither of these are relevant to this particular discussion however.

The particular observation of Grossman which I cited here was that soldiers generally find it easier to inflict violence on others from a distance, physically and psychologically. This observation is one of the soundest and best supported to be found in On Killing, and is backed up by extensive other observations of human violent behaviour, ranging from accounts of historical battles to studies of historical fencing systems (A particular passion of mine), to analysis of pre-modern weapons, to the behaviour of modern rioters and tribal violence. Grossman attributed this to an unwillingness or guilt or desire to avoid inflicting violence on other human beings. I think that the observation is sound, but the explanation he gives to it and the conclusions he draws from it are flawed. I think humans do prefer to fight from a physical and psychological distance, not necessarily due to being unwilling to harm others, but due to prioritizing their own safety first and harming their enemies second. Humans like to fight from a distance because it's easier to avoid injury or death yourself in this way. Perhaps a better way of phrasing it would be that humans prefer to fight with the greatest personal safety they can, both physical and psychological senses of safety. A point in favour of this from history is the fact that the real slaughter of battle is always accounted as being in the rout, not in the actual combat against resisting opponents. The sense of safety gained from striking fleeing enemies down without resistance allows for people to strike at will, without fear of receiving injury or death in return.

Hand to hand violence is exhausting. Anyone who has boxed or wrestled can attest to how much it taxes every element of your body and mind. I personally practice fencing with a longsword, and a sparring bout (Which doesn't even have life or death on the line!) is physically exhausting. A competition bout in a tournament, with honour and status on the line, is incredibly mentally fatiguing in addition to physically fatiguing. How much more exhausting is a hand to hand encounter on the battlefield, with a great possibility of death or injury involved?

Hand to hand combat cannot be sustained for very long. Yet we know that battles are accounted as lasting for hours at times, even for most of a day. They physically can't have spent most of their time fighting with the gladius, and I think in most of the gladius charges the Romans made, the enemy would have recoiled backwards or ran before blows were ever exchanged. Thus the pilum would have, in all probability, been the primary weapon of the legionary for the majority of a battle.

Your own statemens destroy your own arguments. If the battle lasted several hours, the pilum can't have been the Romans primary weapon. The Roman soldiers only carried a couple pilums, and after you have thrown the pilum away, which would only take a few minutes, the several hours of fighting must have been done with thr gladius, making the gladius the gladius the primary Roman weapon. We have records of many battles lasting hours, were swords and spears were rhe peimary weapon. Using a sword like the gladius for hours is no more tiring than using a thrusting spear for hours and we know it was done.

Also, a long sword is quite a bit different than a gladius. A longsword is actively used for defense, since using a longsword means you have no shield, since longswords are 2 handed swords. A legionnaire has his shield for protection. Also, I read somewhere that Romans could rotate reserve troops and send other troops bafk to give them a break. Not sure if it is true.

The analogy is thus: The musketeer is a man armed primarily with a missile weapon, whose primary task in battle is usually to attack the enemy with said missile weapon. However his fire alone rarely can decisively break an enemy's will and make them flee the battleground. Thus he is also armed with the bayonet, which transforms his musket into a spear, which communicates lethal intent to the enemy, and which employed in a charge by determined troops will break the enemy's morale. The bayonet did not kill great numbers of the enemy, bayonet wounds were vanishingly rare in field battles and were very often a result of using the bayonet to finish off wounded men. However the prospect of facing the bayonet was so terrifying to men that they would rather run from it, thus giving the bayonet charge its moral force and its impact on the battlefield of the musket era. Here I will quote Ardant du Picq:

Flawed analogy. The musket and its predecessor the arquebus became the primary European weapon before bayoneta were even invented, proving the role of bayonet was bayonet was greatly overrated. The bullet, not the bayonet , was the primary decided factor, and the bayonet was rarely as decissve as you make it out to be.

In any case, the analogy of the musket to thr pilum is just wrong. A Roman soldier carried only 2 pilums and the size of the pilum meant a soldier couldn't carry nearly as many pilums as a soldier could carry arrows or bullets. Also, thdre are many cases where a single decissive volleys of musket fire decided a battle, such as the British vicoty at Quebec on the Plains of Abraham, whereas I don't know of any battle being deciddd by Roman pilum alone.

The Legionary may not have drilled in formations or thrown his pila in volleys like the musketeer did, but he is likewise a man armed primarily with missile weapons. Most of his time spent in battle, I believe, would have been spent on throwing the pila at their opponent, moving forward out of the group to skirmish and then falling back into the perceived safety of the maniple or cohort's mass. But his throwing of pila, like the fire of the musket, cannot put the enemy to flight, it lacks the moral impulse or shock to force men to rout. His gladius, then, is his bayonet. The gladius communicates lethal intent, the gladius is a weapon of terror. The gladius decisively ends the missile exchange, the centurion ordering the drawing of swords stops his troops from continuing to skirmish indecisively (Assuming they listen to him, as evidently they often did not) and commits them to close the distance. Actual exchanges of blows, of gladius against spear, might be rare on the ancient battlefield. Probably more common than bayonet wounds in the musket era, but more rare than injuries or death by spear or thrown missile. Even so, the gladius charge is the shock action, the psychological shock, which decides the combat, just as the bayonet charge decides the musket battle.

Comparison of the pilum to musket is nonsense. The musketeer carried a number of rounds with them, and was the prmary weapon of the musketeer. The pilum was not the primary weapon of the Roman soldier, and in fact the pilum was replaced in late Roman empire by the plumbatae, a throwing dart. The purpose of thr plumbatae and pilum was to breakup formations, so the Romans could close in and use their gladius to best advantage.

And, I would note, when the Roman legionaries find themselves in frontal combat against an infantry formation which is arrayed such that they cannot get at them with the gladius, a formation which keeps the Romans at bay and is not terrified by the gladius charge, the Roman lose. The Roman infantry were losing, slowly but surely, at Cynoscephelae and at Pydna, until the battle was decided elsewhere on the field.

The fact you provide shows the gladius was the legionaries primary weapon. It is not surprising the Romans lose when they can't get at the enemy with their primary weapon, the gladius.

Finally: I have not said that the Romans conquered their enemies by "superior indiscipline" ........ but kept them under enough control that they were more than just an armed gang.

"Kept under enough control" is.what discipline is all about. You are describing discipline. The Roman opponents were just as brave as the Romans, for example the Celts, but their agression was not kept under control as well, i.e. the Rmans had superior discipline.

Romans were also superior engineers, which also contributed to their victory. Roman superior engineering contributed to their victory at thr Battle of Alesia. Constructing siege towers, bridges lime thd one Caesar built over the Rhine require skill and discipline. Romans built an armed camp after each days march, which gavs the Romans a fallback position, and meant the Romans were not in danger of night time surprise attacks. It takes discipline to erect a fortified camp after a 20 mile march.

I believe that Romans achieved a hard-fought and tense compromise between individual aggression and group cohesion, which allowed them to both have valour and wisdom, virtus and prudentia both in measure. But I emphasize that this was a tense compromise, and one which disciplina did not always win. They were closer in spirit and ethos to their Gallic enemies than I think they might have liked to think.

Well, discipline alone won't win you battles if you don't have an aggressive spirit as well. Grant became the US general and eventually defeated the Confederacy because he was among the most aggressive Union generals. Napoleon's aggressiveness enabled him to defeat his sometimes larger opponents. While the Romans had similar aggressiveness as the Gallic enemies they fought against, the Romans had superior discipline, which is why they won.

[EricD]

You must first of all discard the notion, long drilled into us by our beloved Total War titles, of Roman legionaries all throwing their pila in unison. While I analogize the pila and gladius to the musket and bayonet as a tactical system, the pila I don't think could be thrown in a massed volley unless the maniple was only drawn up one or two ranks deep, which seems exceedingly unlikely. The pilum is thrown by individual soldiers as they pick out their own individual targets, and moreover it takes a good deal of space to throw a javelin with the full force of the body at a target, as you would want to do to pierce shields and armour. Here, this video of a reenactor gives a good idea of the space requirements of throwing pila at even a close range target:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE_Fggs_0yU

Look how much physical space this man needs to move his body for throwing the javelin effectively. The pilum can only be thrown effectively at the enemy from fairly short range, on a flat and direct trajectory. Throwing it above the heads of the front ranks may have been done by inexperienced or foolish troops, but would discard all accuracy and much of the force, and have a pretty good chance of hitting your own friendly troops with the haft of your javelin in flight. A static photo also may help:



Look how much space is occupied behind him by the haft of his javelin. This guy hasn't even fully extended his throwing arm back yet! You need a lot of space to make an effective javelin throw, so you can't be doing it in massed formation. The Roman maniple is deployed in loose order, but Polybius only accounts for three feet of spacing between the ranks, hardly enough to handle a full sized heavy javelin or two, as the Romans are accounted as doing.

So the first aspect of this: The pilum is thrown by individuals moving forward of the maniple to skirmish in the no-man's land between infantry lines. This is the only way I believe pila could be effectively delivered into the enemy.

Because of this, the pila are not thrown all at once in one or two massed salvos, but rather are more likely to come in a steady stream. If each man carries two pila (We're not entirely sure if both were carried into battle), then in century of 80 men that is 160 pila, in the Republican maniple of 120 men it is 240 pila, and in the Marian cohort of 480 men, it is 960 pila. These are very ample supplies of missiles to hand to keep up that skirmishing at the front for quite some time. If a man has thrown both his pila there will also be javelins from the enemy coming in which he can throw back at them, or even large stones from the ground. A heavy stone thrown with force can wound or stun a man, although obviously a javelin is preferable.

The open order of the maniple allows for the legionary to sally forward from the ranks of the group into the no man's land, where he might face the slings and arrows of the enemy and win renown. He can throw his javelin at whatever enemy appears nearest and most vulnerable to him, and then swiftly retire into the perceived safety of the group, protected in this missile exchange by his large and sturdy shield. The pila is a devastating weapon, its narrow iron head well capable of piercing shields and armour alike. He moves out in front of the eyes of his peers and community and performs martial deeds, like the throwing of the javelin or the fighting of a single combat against an enemy champion. The loose order of the maniple allows for this to happen fluidly and naturally, without cumbersome countermarches or complicated maneuvering in close quarters. Within the physical and psychological safe zone of the group, he can rest and take a breather and will himself up to face the danger of the front again.

When the enemy recoils from this, when they take the step back and the centurion senses that the moment to decide the matter is now, then the gladius is drawn and the missile exchange abruptly ended to suddenly charge and drive the enemy off the contested ground. The beauty of the drawing of the gladius is that it constrains the options of your own soldiers (Assuming they follow the order, which again is not always guaranteed as we have seen). When the gladius is drawn, the Roman soldier can no longer hold back and throw missiles, he must rush in close if he's to have any chance at all. It constrains his options such that he is forced to be more aggressive and resolute in his charge. Perhaps that puts the enemy to rout entirely, perhaps it just repulses them a little. If the enemy are themselves brave and resolute, they likely fall back a little (Like a mob recoiling from riot police) and then as the will of the legionaries slackens, and their perception of the danger of outrunning their supporting units to either flank increases, and they slow down, the enemy line reassembles itself. Both sides will pause, needing a physical and psychological rest before they resume the combat. Then those legionaries from the rear, who perhaps hung back before and still held onto a pila, can move forward and keep throwing javelins. Or the timid can hand their pila to the braver, or they can pluck javelins from the wounded and the dying and the ground and throw those as well, or again stones from the ground are almost always ready to hand.

Here I will quote du Picq again:

Indeed the physical impulse is nothing. The moral impulse which estimates the attacker is everything. The moral impulse lies in the perception by the enemy of the resolution that animates you. They say that the battle of Amstetten was the only one in which a line actually waited for the shock of another line charging with the bayonets. Even then the Russians gave way before the moral and not before the physical impulse. They were already disconcerted, wavering, worried, hesitant, vacillating, when the blow fell.

That is, as best I can tell, what happens in a battle between two bodies of infantry. Rarely will two forces of equal resolution stand and exchange blows and death for very long. One side will recoil, and both sides will need rest of the body and mind throughout the battle. The physical effect of the gladius was probably less than that of missile weapons, almost certainly less than that of spears or pikes. It's moral effect, on the other hand, was often irresistible.

The point here is that the pila can be the main weapon, the weapon with which the Roman legionary does most of his fighting. But the pila lacks the terror, the moral impulse, to force men to flee in terror from it. The gladius, on the other hand, is the decisive weapon, the weapon which routs the enemy by fear of its cold steel and the horrible wounds it inflicts. If the Roman legionary was primarily a hand to hand fighter, if he primarily fought through fencing at the front lines, he wouldn't have used a sword. He would have used a spear, just like every army in premodernity did.

My sources here are the papers Roman Republican Heavy Infantrymen in Battle by Alexander Zhmodikov and The Face of Roman Battle by Philip Sabin. These two papers are easily available on JSTOR, I linked them earlier! They support the model I advance, with far more extensive scholarship than I can offer you.

[Common Soldier]

You must first of all discard the notion, long drilled into us by our beloved Total War titles, of Roman legionaries all throwing their pila in unison. While I analogize the pila and gladius to the musket and bayonet as a tactical system, the pila I don't think could be thrown in a massed volley unless the maniple was only drawn up one or two ranks deep, which seems exceedingly unlikely. The pilum is thrown by individual soldiers as they pick out their own individual targets, and moreover it takes a good deal of space to throw a javelin with the full force of the body at a target, as you would want to do to pierce shields and armour. Here, this video of a reenactor gives a good idea of the space requirements of throwing pila at even a close range target:

Again, the pilum which was designed as a throwing weapon is not going to be a primary weapon if you are only carrying 2. Archers, musketeers far more arrows, bullets than 2.

Also, the fact the pilum was replaced in the later empire with thing like the plumbatae is evidence that the pilum was not the main weapon of a Roman soldier.

Look how much physical space this man needs to move his body for throwing the javelin effectively. The pilum can only be thrown effectively at the enemy from fairly short range, on a flat and direct trajectory. Throwing it above the heads of the front ranks may have been done by inexperienced or foolish troops, but would discard all accuracy and much of the force, and have a pretty good chance of hitting your own friendly troops with the haft of your javelin in flight. A static photo also may help:

When throwing into a bodynof soldiers, you don't need a great deal of accuracy to something. Vegetius says that the pilum could not be removed after it hit a shield, and I recall reading accounts where barbarians had discarded their shields after pila had bedn stuck in them, rendered thr barbarians vulnerable.

Look how much space is occupied behind him by the haft of his javelin. This guy hasn't even fully extended his throwing arm back yet! You need a lot of space to make an effective javelin throw, so you can't be doing it in massed formation. The Roman maniple is deployed in loose order, but Polybius only accounts for three feet of spacing between the ranks, hardly enough to handle a full sized heavy javelin or two, as the Romans are accounted as doing.

I don't see it being a problem. First rank advances and throws rhe pilum, then second rank throw while first rank is charging. You don't need that much room throw the pilum effectively, especially not between soldiers. First rank could just take a step or forward and throw. Primary sources clearly state the pilum was thrown, and the design itself is clearly for throwing, being similar to a harpoon.

PS - 3 feet is thd amount of space on a soldiers side. It is 6 feet between ranks, more than enough space to throw a pilum.

So the first aspect of this: The pilum is thrown by individuals moving forward of the maniple to skirmish in the no-man's land between infantry lines. This is the only way I believe pila could be effectively delivered into the enemy.

It could be effectively thrown by first rank advancing a few paces and throwing ths pilum, then charging the enemy, followed by the rear ranks doing the same.

Because of this, the pila are not thrown all at once in one or two massed salvos, but rather are more likely to come in a steady stream. If each man carries two pila (We're not entirely sure if both were carried into battle), then in century of 80 men that is 160 pila, in the Republican maniple of 120 men it is 240 pila, and in the Marian cohort of 480 men, it is 960 pila. These are very ample supplies of missiles to hand to keep up that skirmishing at the front for quite some time. If a man has thrown both his pila there will also be javelins from the enemy coming in which he can throw back at them, or even large stones from the ground. A heavy stone thrown with force can wound or stun a man, although obviously a javelin is preferable.

Sbooting a few missiles one at a time for a long period is not going to decide a battle. A cohort of 480 archers is going to have 9600 arrows or so, 960 pila is far less. And while the Romans could use thr pilum as a thrusting spear, it design is not optimized for that role, and we only have a few occassions where it is used in that role.

The open order of the maniple allows for the legionary to sally forward from the ranks of the group into the no man's land, where he might face the slings and arrows of the enemy and win renown. He can throw his javelin at whatever enemy appears nearest and most vulnerable to him, and then swiftly retire into the perceived safety of the group, protected in this missile exchange by his large and sturdy shield. The pila is a devastating weapon, its narrow iron head well capable of piercing shields and armour alike. He moves out in front of the eyes of his peers and community and performs martial deeds, like the throwing of the javelin or the fighting of a single combat against an enemy champion. The loose order of the maniple allows for this to happen fluidly and naturally, without cumbersome countermarches or complicated maneuvering in close quarters. Within the physical and psychological safe zone of the group, he can rest and take a breather and will himself up to face the danger of the front again.

When the enemy recoils from this, when they take the step back and the centurion senses that the moment to decide the matter is now, then the gladius is drawn and the missile exchange abruptly ended to suddenly charge and drive the enemy off the contested ground. The beauty of the drawing of the gladius is that it constrains the options of your own soldiers (Assuming they follow the order, which again is not always guaranteed as we have seen). When the gladius is drawn, the Roman soldier can no longer hold back and throw missiles, he must rush in close if he's to have any chance at all. It constrains his options such that he is forced to be more aggressive and resolute in his charge. Perhaps that puts the enemy to rout entirely, perhaps it just repulses them a little. If the enemy are themselves brave and resolute, they likely fall back a little (Like a mob recoiling from riot police) and then as the will of the legionaries slackens, and their perception of the danger of outrunning their supporting units to either flank increases, and they slow down, the enemy line reassembles itself. Both sides will pause, needing a physical and psychological rest before they resume the combat. Then those legionaries from the rear, who perhaps hung back before and still held onto a pila, can move forward and keep throwing javelins. Or the timid can hand their pila to the braver, or they can pluck javelins from the wounded and the dying and the ground and throw those as well, or again stones from the ground are almost always ready to hand.

Your scenario still does not make the pilum the primary and decissive weapon. From what you describe, individual soldiers going forth ans tossing their pilum isn't going to do enough damage to cause an enemy to flee. At best, tossing the pilums to break ranks to attack, but in the end you own scenario makes the gladius the primary and decissive weapon. And slingers and archers in the wings could perform the same function and the volume of projectiles they could shoot would be far greater.

More effective that individual soldier occassionally breaking rank to toss a few pila in the.enemies direction would be to loose a mass of pila all at once, and then charge, exploiting the holes in the enemy ranks the pila opened up. In your scenario, the lone legionarie as he advances into no man lands would be a target all the enemy archers and slingers xould concentrate fire on, not a good.movs. Plus you think thr 2 sides would statically stand still and stare at each other, while that did happen, it was not always the case.

The point here is that the pila can be the main weapon, the weapon with which the Roman legionary does most of his fighting. But the pila lacks the terror, the moral impulse, to force men to flee in terror from it. The gladius, on the other hand, is the decisive weapon, the weapon which routs the enemy by fear of its cold steel and the horrible wounds it inflicts. If the Roman legionary was primarily a hand to hand fighter, if he primarily fought through fencing at the front lines, he wouldn't have used a sword. He would have used a spear, just like every army in premodernity did.

The iconagraphy does not support what you propose, as do primary sources like Vegetius. In Vegetius, he talks about training with the sword but nothing about training with a spear, and admits the pilum was no longer being used in his time. The sword, not the pilum was primarily weapon of the legionare. Why would anyone fear only the short gladius, which for the most part would be safely behind thd shield to protect the sword arm, and not the more projecting pilum?

When you see Roman soldiers fighting, it is usually with the sword in the iconography. While in history, the spear was ths main weapon, the Romans were the exception, since Roman shieldz nullifiex the reach advatagd of a spear and shields aowed Romans to get in close to use their gladius. The short length of the gladius was an advantage in close in fighting, being more manueverable. Also, the short length of the gladius meant it could be hidden behind Roman shields, so that an opponent could not see and anticipate where the Roman soldier would thrust.

My sources here are the papers Roman Republican Heavy Infantrymen in Battle by Alexander Zhmodikov and The Face of Roman Battle by Philip Sabin. These two papers are easily available on JSTOR, I linked them earlier! They support the model I advance, with far more extensive scholarship than I can offer you.

I will try to read them, although if they are on JSTOR I might not have access until the coronavirus lockdowns are lifted.

[conon394]

I will try to read them, although if they are on JSTOR I might not have access until the coronavirus lockdowns are lifted.

Sign up for my JSTOR. I think they raised the number of free monthly papaers from 3 to 5 or 6.

edit:

Also thanks Skumskiltz

"Quoting from Robert Engen's "Killing for their Country: A New Look at 'Killology'," Canadian Military Journal 9, no. 2 (Summer 2008):"

I was bickering elsewhere about about Marshall and thought I still had that article on HDD and realized I lose that folder in a drive crash and could not come up with a good search term to find it. Was late and for some reason I though it was Australian data. Rep

[EricD]

So in support of my view that the Roman legionary fought mostly at range with missiles and only occasionally closed in with the gladius as the final decisive part of the combat, I am going to cite some facts from Zhmodikov:

Firstly: Zhmodikov points out that out of 16 incidents of military leaders, both Romans and non-Romans alike, dying or receiving wounds in the heat of battle as accounted in Polybius, Livy, and Plutarch, 10 of these incidents featured leaders being killed by missile weapons (tela in Latin). These ranged from Publius Decius Mus, Consul in 340 BC, charging the Latins after the Roman hastati had retreated at the Battle of Veseris, and being killed by missiles, to Plutarch's account that Pyrrhus of Epiros was wounded by a pila at the Battle of Asculum despite that being a battle of gladius against sarissa, and down to Perseus of Macedon being hit by a throwing spear at the Battle of Pydna (Zhmodikov 2000:68-69). This indicates that missile exchanges were not just a brief salvo preparatory to a hand to hand struggle, but could go on throughout the battle.

Secondly, and here I will quote Zhmodikov directly as he lays out the case I support much more clearly than I can. I have however highlighted certain passages for emphasis.

It is an interesting question: What was the characteristic length of battles? Livy does not often mention short battles. The Romans won most of them "by the first onset" or, as Livy sometimes says, "by the first cry". Sometimes the Romans themselves did not endure the enemy's first onset. These battles correspond to the generally accepted view, i.e. missile fighting took place for a short time before a decisive charge with swords, but sword fighting did not occur in each of these battles, because usually one side turned to flight owing to sudden fear, even without a real clash

Compare that to what du Picq had to say about bayonet charges:

Indeed the physical impulse is nothing. The moral impulse which estimates the attacker is everything. The moral impulse lies in the perception by the enemy of the resolution that animates you. They say that the battle of Amstetten was the only one in which a line actually waited for the shock of another line charging with the bayonets. Even then the Russians gave way before the moral and not before the physical impulse. They were already disconcerted, wavering, worried, hesitant, vacillating, when the blow fell.

Zhmodikov goes on:

There are, however, many more battles which, as Livy says directly, were long and dragged on for many hours. Plutarch informs us that the battle of Pydna was unusually short, less than two hours. Appian also mentions long battles. He tells us about the battle of Cannae that it was very long, and that one of the causes of the Roman defeat was the strong wind which blew in their face and prevented them from throwing their missiles. It seems that long battles were much more typical for the Romans than short ones. The ability of the Roman legion to interchange the lines of heavy infantry in the course of battle is obviously intended for a long fight because there is no need to change fighting men in a short engagement. But long duration of battle corresponds rather to missile fighting than to fighting with swords. Hand to hand fighting between massed formations on level ground could not last long, because it required enormous physical and moral efforts from the participants. Several hours are too long for sword fighting, even taking into account the interchanging of the legion lines

(Zhmodikov 2000:70-71)

Zhmodikov also notes that Livy regards the pilum as the principal Roman weapon, not the gladius (Ibid, 74). Livy seems to have drawn much of his battle descriptions and understanding of military terms and art from Caesarian literature (Ibid, 75), and Zhmodikov notes that Caesar at Pharsalus specifically ordered his men to draw their swords immediately after throwing their javelins. If it has to be explicitly ordered, then it is not necessarily the only or the automatic course of action which the legionaries took (Ibid, 76).

Unfortunately, Sabin's paper appears to be no longer be available for online reading from JSTOR. With that being said, I will instead cite Roman Infantry Tactics in the Mid-Republic: A Reassessment, a 2014 article by Michael Taylor which follows up on a lot of the ideas of Sabin and Zhmodikov. Here are some relevant passages to our current discussion.

Scholarly work in the last decade has produced a new model of combat mechanics within the Roman Republican legion. While the individual scholars who have made important contributions to the problem (Most noteworthy Adrian Goldsworthy, Philip Sabin, Michael Zhmodikov, Jon Lendon, and Fernando Quesada-Sanz) do not agree on all details, a basic consensus has developed. The Roman maniple was not a closely packed, rigid 18th century style formation, but rather a looser formation that gave individual soldiers significant leeway to break ranks in order to, in the words of the mid-Republican military oath, "Retrieve a missile, to pursue and strike an enemy, or save a fellow citizen

(Taylor 2014:304)

From a source criticism perspective, to prefer the Late Imperial Vegetius over the contemporary Polybius is a dubious choice. More materially, Vegetius' spacing [describing the spacing took up by Roman soldiers in battle] simply does not provide sufficient room to fight

(Taylor 2014:305)

Taylor finds in the primary sources that the Romans would cluster together into a close order defensive formation, particularly when receiving the missiles of the enemy upon their shields, and then would shake back out into a loose and open order in order to fight the enemy hand to hand (Ibid, 307-309). Descriptions in Livy of the Romans coming together into shield wall-like dense arrays are always given in cases where the Romans are coming underneath a hail of missiles, and they are always followed by the need for the soldiers to spread back out into open order to wield their weapons (Ibid). This is supported by Caesar's accounts of his legionaries at the Sabis clustering together when under heavy attack by the Nervii, and himself ordering his men to spread out and extend their lines in order to counter-attack. The human tendency to cluster together with your friends and peers for a sense of safety when under missile attack is also well attested throughout history, demonstrated perhaps most vividly by the English longbowmen stationed on the wings of the army at Agincourt, who "herded" the French knights towards the centre by a hail of arrows.

I would also like to cite Quesada-Sanz's 2005 paper, on the similarity of Roman to Iberian armies in the Hellenistic period, for this summary of the developing new consensus:

An intense debate has emerged in the last few years on the nature of legionary warfare. As opposed to the Greek hoplite or Macedonian phalangite, basically a spearman or pikeman who only used his short xiphos when his shafted weapon broke during the hand to hand fight, the Roman legionary has been considered until very recently basically a swordsman who combined active use of his scutum to push and unbalance his foe, with strong thrusting and slashing strokes of the gladius.

In this concept, pila were thrown in volleys during the initial stages of the charge, to disorganize the enemy line just before the sword charge, as described by Livy in many occasions. However, some objections against this simplistic reconstruction have been raised recently, as in the important papers by A. Zhmodikov and P. Sabin who have gathered a considerable number of sources that prove the sustained use of pila during the whole duration of battle and not just in the initial charge. This implies that not all pila were spent during the initial clash and, even more, that there were lulls in the hand-to-hand fight during which the contending lines separated while the throwing of pila continued. In consequence, initial close combat appears to have been most often been somewhat hesitant and indecisive.

This new vision of the use of the pila fits perfectly with what we know of the long duration of many battles as described by literary sources; in fact, combats that were decided in a matter of minutes were the exception rather than the rule, and in those cases it was mainly because one side, morally defeated, broke and fled before actual contact. Most battles lasted for two, three, or even more than four hours. As we know that physical exhaustion is reached after a few minutes of fighting hand-to-hand with sword, and shield, we should find an explanation for the well documented fact that most battles lasted for hours, and that can only be that there were prolonged lulls during which both sides would draw back and remain some paces apart while exchanging missiles and insults.

(Quesada-Sanz 2005:247)

This is the new consensus. The view of the legionary as seen in Total War, flinging their javelins all in one unified brief salvo, and then spending long hours of battle fighting with the sword, is out of date with current scholarship.

A summary of all this scholarly work:

• Battles are fought by humans. Humans have many social and cultural factors, such as the desire to improve one's social status, but the strongest of all our instincts is always overriding the instinct for self-preservation. Fear, thus, is the dominating force in battle.
• A human, for all his desire for social status, will want to fight from safety as much as possible, because of this fear of injury or death and desire for life. Thus, generally, humans prefer to fight from distance wherever possible. They also will cluster together out of herd instinct, to seek safety in numbers when they feel threatened.
• Hand to hand combat, actual exchanges of blows, are incredibly exhausting of the body and the mind. They are physically strenuous and emotionally terrifying. They cannot be sustained for much longer than a few minutes. The terror of tiring and being struck down by the enemy will cause both sides to mutually back off to reestablish a safe distance.
• The sheer terror of being struck down in hand to hand combat means that many people will not be properly prepared for it if the enemy attacks suddenly and appears resolute on entering hand to hand. Thus many times those who receive the charge will turn and flee from it before ever a blow is struck.
• Some battles were decided by the first onset, the primus impetus, the very first charge forcing the other side to flee and rout entirely. These were the minority. The majority of attested ancient battles are accounted as lasting for many hours, and also the accounts say that missiles were used throughout the battle.
• The accounts tell us that the Romans close rank when passive and on the defensive, particularly to defend themselves from missiles, but more often the Romans are described as the attacking force. They are explicitly said to need space to fight and wield their weapons, and both the gladius and the pilum require the open order to be used effectively. They cannot just herd together, but must spread out to attack.
• Hand to hand combat is too exhausting to be prolonged for even a single hour, much less four. Between resolute forces of enemies, there were likely many short, sharp exchanges of blows and then one side perceiving itself worsted would backpedal, but only a little, not a full rout. The winning group, on the other hand, does not want to advance past the support of their comrades and will hold themselves back for desire of their own safety. This creates the lulls in the combat, with the implicit gap of no man's land.
• The tendency for men to stop and rest and always seek safety is what creates these lulls. Being able to keep the combat going for many, many charges and exchanges of blows over hours requires a high degree of aggression, fighting spirit, and self-belief in the soldier's ability to conquer. This is the will to combat. Thus the cultural construct of virtus, with its glorifying of aggressively brave individuals, was greatly of use to the Romans in battle.
• Due to that preference to strike from range and the fear and exhaustion of hand-to-hand combat, these lulls were likely quite prolonged as both sides would try to regain the wind in their bodies and willpower for another charge. To keep up the aggression, to keep the enemy on the back foot and their own men moving forward, this is the opportune time to continue skirmishing with pila. But this skirmishing is prolonged and indecisive.
• A decisive charge is needed, a resolute attack which so terrifies the enemy that they rout. This is when the gladius is needed.

Thus the conclusion: The Roman legionary spent most of his time throwing pila at the enemy over the course of a prolonged battle. Use of the gladius was, in terms of time spent, far shorter, but even so the use of the gladius was still the decisive factor in the infantry clash, even (perhaps especially) when no blows were struck.

[Cyclops]

I mean sorry but 2 pilae is not enough to fight a prolonged battle at range.

[Common Soldier]

I mean sorry but 2 pilae is not enough to fight a prolonged battle at range.

We know that the pilum was sometimes used as a spear. Perhaps the use of the pilum as a thrusting spear ans not just as a javelin might have been more frequent than preciously assumed. Throughout history the spear, not the sword, has been the primary weapon of ancient warriors. Roman use of the gladius as a primary weapon made the Romans atypical, and if the pilum used as a spear was really the Roman's primary weapon, it would make the Romans more typical of other ancient and medieval people.


But I agree, 2 pilum are not enough to make it a primary weapon if you are just using it for throwing. While clearly desgned for throwing, that doesn't necessarily prevemt it from being effectivelu used like a thrusting spear.

[EricD]

I mean sorry but 2 pilae is not enough to fight a prolonged battle at range.

As opposed to dedicated skirmishing troops like peltasts and velites, who carried three javelins for their entire, and often, prolonged involvement in a battle?

Two pila per man is more than adequate. In fact I would be unsurprised if only one pilum was carried into action and the other left in camp as a spare. Why is this so?

In a formation drawn up with some depth of ranks, only the front-fighters at the front of the maniple or century will be able to throw their pila at the enemy. This inherently means that only some of the men can be throwing their javelins at any one time. Throwing over the heads of friendly troops has a high risk of striking your friends, and may have been done by green or inexperienced soldiers but I doubt it was the preferred method. The pila are not thrown together in a massive salvo of 80 or 120 men at once, but come in a steady stream of the front ranks making their throw and then filtering back into the formation and the men behind them stepping up to make their own turn. Thus instead of having two massed salvos, you have several hundreds of pila to be thrown over the course of a battle.

Other factors to consider: Men in the rear who are not feeling brave or bold that day can also pass their pila up to the front-fighters to continue to hurl them at the enemy. The enemy's javelins and slingstones can be thrown back at them. Stones can be plucked up from the ground to throw as well. Pila can be plucked from the hands of the wounded or dying to still be hurled at the enemy. That weapons were retrieved or picked up on the battlefield is evidenced by the sacred oath of Roman soldiers as recorded in Livy: "that they would not quit the ranks save to fetch or pick up a weapon, to strike an enemy, or to save a comrade" (Ab Urbe Condita, Book 22, Chapter 38)

Ancient literary sources, including our most reliable witnesses like Polybius and Caesar, both account that battles could be quite prolonged, and that missiles were employed throughout the whole affair. Battle cannot be prolonged if they are fighting hand to hand the whole time, because hand to hand is too exhausting. Missiles could not be employed throughout the battle if pila were expended in one or two massive salvos all at once during the first charge. The characteristics you are attributing to Roman battles are contradictory, with each other and with the observed facts of human behaviour in massed violence. Battle can be an affair of several hours, and missiles can be used throughout, according to all primary sources. This makes little sense if the pilum is only used briefly before sword fighting ensues, but makes perfect sense if there are repeated small charges and little retreats, interspersed through prolonged lulls filled with the exchange of missiles.

We know that the pilum was sometimes used as a spear. Perhaps the use of the pilum as a thrusting spear ans not just as a javelin might have been more frequent than preciously assumed. Throughout history the spear, not the sword, has been the primary weapon of ancient warriors. Roman use of the gladius as a primary weapon made the Romans atypical, and if the pilum used as a spear was really the Roman's primary weapon, it would make the Romans more typical of other ancient and medieval people.


But I agree, 2 pilum are not enough to make it a primary weapon if you are just using it for throwing. While clearly desgned for throwing, that doesn't necessarily prevemt it from being effectivelu used like a thrusting spear.

I highlighted a very interesting passage here. Yes, the Romans were quite typical of other ancient and medieval peoples. They were human beings, after all.

[Imrix]

I mean sorry but 2 pilae is not enough to fight a prolonged battle at range.

This has already been addressed in detail. Two pila is not enough to fight a prolonged battle at range, if the whole cohort throws their pila in concert, and if that is the cohorts only ammunition. Neither of these are the case.

Like, this is not some fringe theory here. This is the academic consensus, as EricD has quoted extensively. You can't... You can't just dismiss that on the basis of 'nah'.

[conon394]

velites, who carried three javelins for their entire, and often, prolonged involvement in a battle?

The sourced numbers I know is 5 or 7.

[Muizer]

Alas I do not remember the source, but I read once that ancient and medieval battles did not consist of continuous fighting at all, but of a succession of engagement and disengagement, dictated simply by the already meantioned fatigue of those in the front line at any time. I've also read that close quarter combat would also consist of each man picking out one opponent. If so a whole different image emerges of ancient and medieval combat than what popular culture is showing us of throngs of soldiers barging into one another or even mixing over large areas (which begs the question how people could possibly determine friend from foe). You'd have two lines facing one another, throwing missiles, after which the front lines might engage in single combat, until fatigue dictates another disengagement. It is not hard to imagine how in such a case, rotating the front line troops and passing missiles from back to front after each disengagement could have a massive impact against an enemy where the bravest warriors were always in the front line. It would fit the trope of an original barbarian onslaught which once neutralized could easily turn into a rout. Afraid I can't back any of that up with sources, so free feel to shoot it to bits.

[SpinyNorman]

The sourced numbers I know is 5 or 7.

The verutum was rather titchy as javelins go. Toting seven full length ones like the pilum around would have been most awkward.

[Common Soldier]

The sourced numbers I know is 5 or 7.

What source is that? The ancient sources I have seen only mention 2 or sometimes 3 (Vegetius). Specialized javelin throwers might carry more, but they would not be your typical legionnaire.

[conon394]

To be exact I meant just that the sources do not support stating that velites carried only 3 of their small javelins to imply heavy troopers did carry more than 2.

What source is that? The ancient sources I have seen only mention 2 or sometimes 3 (Vegetius). Specialized javelin throwers might carry more, but they would not be your typical legionnaire.

The velites: Lucilis - 5, Livy (26.4.4) - 7.

I was responding to EricD

As opposed to dedicated skirmishing troops like peltasts and velites, who carried three javelins for their entire, and often, prolonged involvement in a battle?

[sumskilz]

Like, this is not some fringe theory here. This is the academic consensus

No, it isn't. Even Zhmodikov's article that introduced the hypothesis explicitly recognizes that it is not:

The Roman manipular legion has been a subject of hot debate for a long time... However, there is an aspect which has not caused dispute. All scholars of Roman military history believe that Roman heavy infantrymen of the two front lines (hastati and principes) threw their distinctive throwing spears (pila) for a short time and then fought with swords, i.e. the battle actions of the Roman infantrymen consisted of two parts - missile fighting and fighting with swords, and the first one was a preparatory stage which took much less time than the second. Almost all scholars think that this point of view is an axiom and requires no special examination.2 Thus, the Roman heavy infantrymen are mainly considered as fighters with swords. The present paper is an attempt to learn from literary sources how much truth is in this opinion.

As does Sabin who followed him:

It has long been considered axiomatic that pila, and similar throwing weapons used by non-Roman heavy infantry, were a mere precursor to the real combat with swords and spears, and were hurled in massed volleys during the charge to contact. Our sources do indeed often speak of legionaries throwing pila and then drawing their swords to charge, or even of clashes in which the two sides closed so quickly that there was no time for pila to be hurled before the collision (cf. Livy 9.13, 28.2; Caesar, BG 1.25, 1.52, 2.23; BC 3.46, 3.93). However, Zhmodikov points out that there are other passages in the sources which paint a rather more equivocal picture.

It may be useful to point out that neither of these articles argue that the Roman legionaries lacked discipline. As I understand it, that is EricD's own hypothesis, so that is a somewhat separate issue.

Alas I do not remember the source, but I read once that ancient and medieval battles did not consist of continuous fighting at all, but of a succession of engagement and disengagement, dictated simply by the already meantioned fatigue of those in the front line at any time. I've also read that close quarter combat would also consist of each man picking out one opponent. If so a whole different image emerges of ancient and medieval combat than what popular culture is showing us of throngs of soldiers barging into one another or even mixing over large areas (which begs the question how people could possibly determine friend from foe). You'd have two lines facing one another, throwing missiles, after which the front lines might engage in single combat, until fatigue dictates another disengagement. It is not hard to imagine how in such a case, rotating the front line troops and passing missiles from back to front after each disengagement could have a massive impact against an enemy where the bravest warriors were always in the front line. It would fit the trope of an original barbarian onslaught which once neutralized could easily turn into a rout. Afraid I can't back any of that up with sources, so free feel to shoot it to bits.

John Keegan's The Face of Battle maybe? I vaguely recalled reading something along those lines as well, but didn't remember what it was until I read Sabin referencing it.

[Imrix]

No, it isn't. Even Zhmodikov's article that introduced the hypothesis explicitly recognizes that it is not:

As does Sabin who followed him:

Zhmodikov and Sabin. The ones published 20 years ago, you mean? The ones followed by Quesada-Sanz's paper in 2005, which remarked that "an intense debate has emerged in the last few years on the nature of legionary warfare."? Which was, in turn, followed by Michael Taylor's 2014 article, which describes the current academic model of Roman warfare as coming from a new model composed of "Scholarly work in the last decade,"? That Zhmodikov and Sabin?

[EricD]

No, it isn't. Even Zhmodikov's article that introduced the hypothesis explicitly recognizes that it is not:

As does Sabin who followed him:

It may be useful to point out that neither of these articles argue that the Roman legionaries lacked discipline. As I understand it, that is EricD's own hypothesis, so that is a somewhat separate issue

As Imrix notes, these articles were written in 2000, twenty years ago, when this new model was a topic of controversy. Per Michael Taylor's paper from 2014, the Zhmodikov-Sabin model has become accepted as the consensus position of the academic community. There are still disagreements about various precise details (Notably whether the gaps between maniples were left empty in battle or filled in in some way, and how this happened), but the basic model which I am describing has been broadly accepted.

My own hypothesis is not that the Roman legionaries lacked all discipline. That is clearly not the case, and I think it's a summary of my views which is mischaracterizing the substance of my arguments. My argument is that the discipline of the Roman legionary was neither absolute nor entirely reliable, and that at various times and places they were disobedient for various reasons, and that this insubordination was far more broadly tolerated (Within certain parameters) than it would be in any modern army. I believe the Romans accepted this as one of the consequences in exchange for a more aggressive and brave army, which hungered for glory, and whose aggression could be channelled into the necessary will to make the decisive charge of the battle. Caesar and Paullus might have been exasperated by their soldiers' headstrong and willlful behaviours, but they also admired and prized their soldiers for their courage. Lendon argues that the Greeks and Macedonians decided, culturally speaking, that the courage and self-restraint to hold one's ground and hold your position in the ranks was the chief military virtue. The Romans, contrarily, saw said self-restraint as a useful quality, but the courage and aggression to step out of the ranks and attack was more valuable, and so they accepted a degree of unruliness on the part of their soldiers in exchange for that aggression.

I would also argue that the discipline that is present in the Roman legions seems to manifest itself far more as campaigning discipline (Fortifying the camp, setting night watches and picquets, organizing the order of march) than in battle discipline (Following orders, and making evolutions and maneuvers in combat). The self-discipline necessary to march all day carrying a heavy load, dig a fortified encampment at the end of a long day's march, and stay up late into the night guarding said encampment, is quite considerable, and is a big military advantage. Polybius accounts that the Greeks and Macedonians, whose formations and tactics required more discipline in battle, were far less disciplined in how they made and broke camp every day. Roman soldiers may have been glory-hungry individuals in loose order in battle, but they were quite orderly in comparison to their opponents in camp and on the march. Their campaigning discipline also transfers very well over to laying and winning sieges, which was always the really decisive operation of ancient warfare in my opinion.

Further, Roman discipline may not have been absolute or perfect and may often have been inadequate to restrain the aggression of its soldiers, but it could still be more effective than those of Rome's tribal opponents in Gaul, Iberia, or Germania. War, as a veteran friend of mine once told me, is not always about being the best, but often is about being merely better than the other team.

The modern understanding of military discipline, from my own training in the Canadian Forces reserves, and from speaking to friends and veterans who have actually served overseas (I have not, that is not my role in the CAF and I will never claim otherwise), is often about ordering men to go into danger. The human instinct to avoid death and injury is overpowering, and the severe control and expectations of obedience present in modern military discipline exists to motivate men to go into danger's way even though they really, really don't want to. This was particularly true in the World Wars, when massive armies of conscripted civilians had to grapple against all the firepower of modern war. The Roman understanding, my reading of modern scholarship and primary sources alike indicates, was that discipline was a restraint on too much aggression, trying to hold the soldiers back from getting themselves into trouble with uncontrollable aggression, rather than a motivation to get less-than-willing men to go onward into danger. It's a subtle but key distinction.

[sumskilz]

Which was, in turn, followed by Michael Taylor's 2014 article, which describes the current academic model of Roman warfare as coming from a new model composed of "Scholarly work in the last decade,"?

There isn't anything in that article about Roman legionaries fighting primarily with missile weapons. Why reference an article if you're going to misrepresent it?

This is the context of that quote:

Scholarly work in the last decade has produced a new model of combat mechanics within the Roman Republican legion. While the individual scholars who have made important contributions to the problem (most notably Adrian Goldsworthy, Philip Sabin, Michael Zhmodikov, Jon Lendon and Fernando Quesada-Sanz) do not agree on all details, a basic consensus has developed. The Roman maniple was not a closely packed, rigid 18th century-style formation, but rather a looser formation that gave individual soldiers significant leeway to break ranks in order to, in the words of the mid-Republican military oath, "retrieve a missile, to pursue and strike an enemy or save a fellow citizen"...

Nonetheless, it is safe to assume that before the Roman legion engaged in its fluid style of combat, men were arranged in orderly, roughly rectangular formations. A maniple was not a mob.

He goes on...

We therefore have a simple mechanism by which Roman soldiers measured their own frontage: in the early phases of battle, characterized by missile exchange, soldiers adopted a close order formation with shields touching or nearly touching. As the battle moved into a phase of hand-to-hand combat, the formation opened by flexing forward, so that every legionary had a file width roughly double a shield-width, approximately 4.5 feet (1.35m), the figure used in my calculations.

Close Order and Open Order Formations

Several passages describe the transition from close order formations to open ones: Livy (28.2.7-9) describes a shower of Celtiberian javelins during the 2nd Punic War which "the Romans, closing together according to custom, received with their shield wall" Romani conferii, ut solent, densatis excepissent scutis. Once they had received the missile barrage and began to advance over rough terrain, the Romans flexed into a more open formation, so that "they opened their ranks and clashed singly or in pairs, resembling matched gladiators" ordines dirimebant et singuli binique uelut cum paribus conserere pugnam cogebantur...

The need for Roman soldiers to lock shields when on the defensive, particularly in response to missile threats, may also explain one of the most puzzling passages in Polybius... What Polybius may in fact describe is the Romans' close order formation in response to the missile threat coming from Hannibal's Balearic slingers and other light infantry in the Carthaginian first line. However, the hastati then struggled to flex forward out of their defensive formation to obtain the space they needed to effectively wield their swords in an open order, and so the fighting for a while involved Romans in close order shoving forward with their shoulders against interlocked shields.

Transition to an open order formation may have been as simple as every other man in the front ranks stepping forward until they achieved appropriate intervals. (Likewise, closing the ranks might involve soldiers in alternating rear ranks stepping forward between the two men in front).36 If this maneuver were conducted by files, the entire formation would double its depth as it transitioned into open order, although in the press of combat it is possible that only the first few ranks would do so. A fluid open order could also be achieved in melee combat with the most daring soldiers dashing forward to form a loose skirmish line, still the preferred technique of Pompeian troops in Spain during the Late Republic.37 In both cases, the frontage of the maniple remained the width of the original close order shield wall.

I might add that there isn't anything in this article that suggests the Romans were undisciplined, in fact quite the opposite.

The discussion about spacing is interesting, but it seems to be somewhat of a strawman unless I'm just completely unaware of the view it's supposedly diametrically opposed to.