EricD
Coeur d’Acier
For centuries, the Roman Legions were the terror of the world. They tread down Macedon and Carthage, Greece and Gaul, Britain and Numidia, into the dust beneath their feet. They achieved success across varied climates and terrains, against varied enemies, and often were forced to recover Roman fortunes from considerable disasters. The Empire the Legions built has left an enduring legacy, and the military reputation of the Legions remains legendary. It is relevant then, for the student of military history, to ask: "How was this achieved? What was the secret to Roman success in battle? What made them so formidable?"
As an amateur enthusiast, I have always had a fascination for ancient Rome. While I was completing my degree in archaeology in university, one of my principal academic interests became ancient warfare and its place in ancient cultures. My interest in the Romans has never diminished, and I still seek to understand how they managed to build such a colossal and long-lasting empire. However as I get older and more educated, I often find that the popular historical narratives repeated on forums like SV and SB about Roman military success are, in my opinion, inaccurate or misleading or both. Worse than that, they are inadequate. They misrepresent the nature of Rome at war and indeed misrepresent the nature of pre-modern war. In this essay, I intend to give what I feel is a more accurate and more informative explanation for how and why Rome's armies functioned on the battlefield.
First, a few comments on my academic background and on the research for this essay: I stress that I am decidedly an amateur in these matters. This work is primarily tertiary research, and represents essentially a synthesis of the far superior original research done by such luminaries as Adrian Goldsworthy, Philip Sabin, J.E. Lendon, Alexander Zhmodikov, and Gregory Daly. If you are at all intrigued or interested by what you shall read to follow, I strongly recommend looking into their works. The following works I would identify as particularly formative in my views on Roman military tradition: The Face of Roman Battle by Sabin, The Roman Army at War by Goldsworthy, The Rhetoric of Battle and Soldiers & Ghosts by Lendon, and Cannae: The Experience of Battle by Daly. Outside of specifically Roman subject matter, the books On Killing by Dave Grossman and The Face of Battle by John Keegan were extremely important in informing my understanding of combat psychology and the mechanics and "physics" of large groups of humans. Ancient sources were used, principally Polybius, Livy, Xenophon and Caesar. I also studied footage of modern riots to see crowd dynamics in action in the closest modern analogue we have to ancient battle. My own practice and training as a HEMA fencer helped me conceptualize the physical mechanics of fighting with the weapons of the pre-firearm age. Finally, my education as an archaeologist (Albeit an archaeologist of preContact North America) helped me with knowing where to look for information and how to structure it together into what I hope is a coherent argument which even a layman will be able to understand and learn from. I may know a little more about these matters than your average bear, but I am myself a layman and all of us are at the end of the day ignorant as to the experience of battle, for battle such as the Romans knew it has not been seen on our planet in centuries.
This essay is principally interested in the Roman Republic of its mid to late period. The majority of its time shall be spent on the Roman army of the mid-Republic, for it was that army that fought against and overcome Rome's greatest peer opponents in her largest and most intense wars. It was that army that overcome Hannibal, Philip of Macedon and Antiochus the Great, and gave Rome the dominion of her world. That said, much of what I shall describe would hold true for the armies of Caesar and Pompey as well, for the Roman approach to battle was fundamentally similar throughout the period of the pilum.
War is a cultural practice. The way an ancient culture makes war flows directly from that culture's values and view of itself and its world. As in most ancient societies, war was largely the province of men, an ancient society's notions of masculinity informed how they approached war.
For the Romans, the ideal man, the vir, had two contesting elements within him: Virtus and disciplina. Virtus was a wild, youthful, passionate force. Virtus was passion and courage, it was aggression and martial spirit, it was elan and willpower. The Romans greatly respected and exalted men of virtus, and they believed that an individual's character was best revealed through an arduous ordeal. The more difficult and dangerous an ordeal you underwent, the more they believed it showed who you truly are. Look at their fascination with gladiatorial combat. In the Roman world view, war was the most glorious ordeal of all, for it was the most strenuous and carried the highest stakes. In all of war, the most glorious ordeal was the single combat, for that was when a man stood apart, his deeds watched and judged by his peers and his community, his virtus set against that of an enemy champion. For a Roman man at war, single combat was what he most yearned and hoped for. The respect and social capital earned by glorious success in single combat could propel a man to the forefront of his political community, as it did to Marcus Valerius Corvus and Titus Manlius Torquatus.
At the same time, the Romans recognized that virtus in excess could lead to rashness, foolishness, and disaster. They loved and admired virtus, but also feared virtus left unrestrained. The barbarian Gauls and Germans, whom the Romans reviled, were believed to be examples of excessive virtus. The Romans did not love disciplina as they loved virtus, but they understood it to be of utmost importance and necessity. Disciplina to them meant moderation and self-control. Disciplina did not mean standing in geometric parade-ground formations like statues, it meant holding by your standard no matter how tempting the opportunities for gloria that presented themselves to you, it meant waiting for the order and holding your virtus in check until your centurion, tribune, or even the imperator himself released you.
An example of this is the story of Titus Manlius Torquatus: In his youth, he went for a soldier and found himself about the face the Gauls in battle, when a huge Gallic champion stepped forth and shouted a challenge to the Romans. The Romans were fearful of the Gaul's size and fierceness, but Titus Manlius was not. He sought out the imperator and asked for permission to fight a duel. Receiving it, he stepped forth and slew the Gaul, taking the Gaul's neck ring (Or torc) as a trophy, and gaining himself the nickname Torquatus. Their spirits lifted by his example, the Romans crushed the Gauls that day. Torquatus was elected consul and dictator many times later in life, and on one occasion he commanded an army in the field against the Latins. He gave orders that no one was to fight individual duels or abandon their posts, and yet his own son did so and slew a Latin champion in single combat. The younger Manlius felt he had glorified himself, his ancestors, and Rome with his victory, but he had allowed his virtus to overcome his disciplina, and so his father had him executed.
In the modern age, we are accustomed to looking at war as a scourge, a force of destruction and death. So it has always been, but in ancient times it was also a great opportunity for advancing one's self. Plunder and looting were always a lucrative chance to enrich one's self and one's family materially, but more important was the chance for social advancement. As mentioned above, a distinguished political career in the Roman Republic could be launched by a glorious duel. However war was also competitive, against the enemy to be sure but also against one's fellow Romans. One person's glory represents a missed chance for another, and the Romans knew this. The ideals by which they organized their array in battle was an attempt to give all their men a more or less equal opportunity to win glory and honour and the social and economic advancement that accompanied glory
The Romans encouraged competition in war. They wanted aggression and fighting spirit, they wanted virtus. They organized a whole system of prizes and awards for aggression shown in battle to single out and honour those showed virtus. Where other armies fought in tribal and kinship groups, the traditional Roman method of recruitment as described by Polybius deliberately divided tribal and familial ties. They positioned their soldiers so that their comrades to left and right would also be their competitors on the field of glory.
It might be useful, at this juncture, to provide a point of contrast to illuminate just how different the Roman way of fighting was to those of the other great military tradition of Mediterranean Antiquity, the Hellenes or Greeks. As is famous, the Greeks and Macedonians fought in a phalanx, a dense mass of spear or pike-armed heavily armoured men. The word that the Greek authors use to describe the decisive action of battle was "othismos", which can be translated as pushing or pressing. The Greek authors often deploy geometrical descriptions of linear forces to describe how armies interact in battle, using words like pushing, pressing, pulling, shoving. Further, the Greek authors often attribute victory or defeat in battle to the organization of your force. A force in good order can push and press better than one in disorder, a force in disorder is overcome by one in good order, et cetera. This is as one would expect for people who fought in such a dense array that so badly needed to be ordered to be effective, but further it reflected Greek thought and beliefs about the need for order in society and in the universe and their fear of chaos.
For the Greeks, and for most peoples who fought largely with spear and shield (And although the Gauls and Germans did not specialize to the extent as the Greeks, they also relied primarily on the spear in close combat), close combat would have taken the form of a close stand-off at spear length. After a likely prolonged period of exchange of missiles, the two phalanxes would draw together but I find it unlikely that they would crash into each other headlong. They would have stopped at spear length and likely cautiously fenced, seeking by spear thrusts to slay enemy leaders, demoralize the enemy and disorder their ranks while avoiding hurt themselves behind their large shields and the shields of their comrades. The locked aspides of a phalanx would give its members a sense of psychological security and defense, allowing them to be more willing to close in than an individual man might be. When one side had established a superiority in the spear fencing phase, I theorize that they would then make a final rush in. The enemy might break and run before contact is ever made, if not they might stand and try to resist shield against shield, but very likely the physical othismos would be very short and would end with one side realizing it is overmatched and giving way.
In the Greek phalanx, each man supports each other, after the communitarian spirit of a Greek poleis. However there was also a hierarchy within the phalanx. The richest and most experienced men of the community would fight as file-leaders. This makes military sense as they would be the most battle hardened and best equipped, but it also ensured that they would be able to claim the lion's share of any glory won. The glory is shared, but it is shared out according to your role in the social hierarchy as the poleis.
The Greeks took this form of combat to its purest expression, but all peoples of the ancient Mediterranean fought with spear and shield and all likely followed a similar pattern. A prolonged missile exchange, a period of cautious spear fencing at distance, and then a final rush in which one side breaks and the other side cuts them down as they run. Battle in the ancient world was primarily a psychological struggle, it is very hard to kill a man who stands his ground and defends himself without being gravely hurt yourself. It is much easier when they turn and run. Now let us turn to the Romans and see what distinguished them.
The first unique aspect of the Romans is their inversion of the usual social hierarchy in their battle array. All armies used skirmishers, usually recruited from the poorer social classes, such as the Greek psiloi. So did the Romans with their leves and velites, but the first line of the Roman array was the hastati, who were the young men of the Roman infantry. These were untested men, untried in battle, with nothing to lose and everything to gain in honour and reputation. Combined with the velites, Rome put her young and poor and honour-hungry at the forefront of battle with the richest opportunities for glory.
The next lines, the principes and triarii, were made of men more established in Roman society, men who had already earned their scars. They waited behind the young and the untested, their disciplina calling upon them to surrender the opportunities to display virtus that they had enjoyed as young men themselves.
They fought with javelins and swords and shields, a method likely adopted from their neighbouring Samnites but perfected by the Romans. They fought with a large shield, curved to protect their body and wielded in a central boss grip. It cannot lock shields as a Greek apsis could, its curve prevents even an overlap like a Germanic round shield, and with the central boss grip it is harder to push against the enemy but easier to punch and strike. The size and strength of the scutum as an individual defense would give them a psychological security regardless of their spread out battle order. Polybius tells us that the Romans fought with several feet between them both in rank and file, in order to have space to wield their weapons and to defend themselves.
The word used by Roman writers, principally Caesar, to describe an attack in battle was Impetus. Impetus carries connotations of rapid motion, of rushing towards or falling upon something. It suggests a rapid, rushing attack, a charge, an onset or onslaught even. If the principal linguistic metaphor for Greek battle was pushing or pressing, the Roman metaphor was rushing or crashing. Let us now examine the Roman impetus. How would a Roman impetus have looked in battle?
Let us discuss a theoretical battle, sometime in the days of Rome's rising. The opponent is one of the many peoples of the Western Mediterranean. They could be Gauls, Carthaginians, Latins, Spaniards, or any one else. They are not as ultra-specialized for close order struggle as the Hellenes, but they would largely be armed with spears and javelins, and their pattern of combat would be familiar.
I believe it would have begun with a prolonged psychological assault on their enemy. The velites would have made a fearful sight in their wolf skins, and like the rest of the Romans they would have been eager to fight single combats and as skirmishers went they were well equipped with gladius and shield to fight a duel. Further, the clouds of velites would have been stiffened by the presence of military tribunes and their comitatenses of mounted equites, whom Polybius tells us often fought by riding to the forefront and then springing down from their horses to fight duels on foot. Although the Romans could not have won all of these duels, they must have won enough and winning even a few would begin to demoralize the enemy. Men would be killed in full sight of their friends and peers, there would be blood and screams, and the velites would keep up a pelt of missiles on the enemy formation to spread death and wounds, encumber shields with embedded javelins, and psychologically discourage and batter their opponents.
The hastati would advance behind the cloud of velites and equites. The word "maniple" means "handful", and I theorize that these formations would have been tighter than the skirmishers, but not as geometrical or close order as a Greek phalanx, but would have formed a roughly square or rectangular "handful" of men around a standard, with centurions to lead it. The hastati, their helmets decorated with feathers, their shields broad and painted, and their chests gleaming with coats of lorica or with the bronze pectoral chest plate, were accounted by Polybius as offering a terrifying aspect, which would continue the intimidation of the enemy.
The hastati would march in to closer distance than the velites, for their pila were heavier and likely shorter in range. However they were still javelins, not spears, and they would have kept outside of the spear fencing range which other armies would be accustomed to. Each hastatus carried a pair of javelins, and I believe for a fairly long time they would have kept up a closer ranged but still predominantly missile exchange against the enemy. I theorize that the loose order of the maniple allowed for soldiers to move to the front and filter backwards to the standards, so that soldiers could cast their javelins and then move backwards to allow those behind them to make their own throws. The gaps and intervals between hastate maniples would likely be filled by the swarms of velites, still hungry for their own share in the glory. Their aggressive presence would cover the flanks of each individual maniple as it closed with the enemy.
In a prolonged but cautious fencing engagement such as spear-armed troops would practice, the gladius would be a distinct disadvantage. Its reach is pitifully short if all you intend to use it for was to thrust from behind the cover your shield. Because of this, I feel that the commonly deployed descriptions of the Romans as fighting in shield walls, covered by their scuta and thrusting in at close range to their enemies is mistaken. Most of Rome's enemies had spears or longer swords or both, and would not have allowed the legionaries to close the measure easily. I believe that the scutum had to have been used aggressively, and that the combination of gladius and scutum was meant to force the legionaries to attack with a ferocious aggression and close in. If they had stood off and tried to fence cautiously behind their shields, they would have been no match for spear-armed opponents.
After a relatively long period of exchanging missiles and aggressive posturing to intimidate the enemy and embolden their own troops, the Roman maniple would charge. The tribune or senior centurion would order the drawing of swords and command his standard bearers to follow him as he rushed the enemy. Not all men are naturally aggressive, but the disciplina of the Romans would I think cause even those less inclined to aggression to follow their centurion and the standards, adding physical and psychological mass behind the aggressive front-fighters. The drawing of the gladius would I believe be a signal to the enemy of the lethal intent of the legionaries, much as the fixing of bayonets was to European soldiers of the age of Napoleon. Indeed I think the gladius charge was in many ways similar to the bayonet charge: A shock attack which ended a period of longer range fighting, relying on the fear of sharp steel to put the foe to flight. Most of the battle would have been spent at range, but the charge was the decisive moment.
Paradoxically, the open order formation of the legion as described by Polybius would have made it easier for them to charge as a mass. If you observe crowds moving, or ceremonial close order drill performed by modern military units, you will often see the group bunching up and spreading out as they move. The people in the front might step longer than the people behind them expect, forcing those behind to speed up to keep in place. They might step shorter, forcing those behind to stop, creating a bunch in the formation. This bunching and spreading can resemble the motion of an accordion, and on natural, broken terrain would make it difficult for any formation to charge as a mass. By adopting an open order with space between all their troops, the Roman maniple I believe would be less likely to be impeded by this "accordion effect". It would still happen of course, but the men in the centre and rear of the formation would have adequate space to build up their own momentum and be less impeded by unexpected long or short steps from those in front of them. Thus the maniple could make its charge in its fighting array easier than close order formations could.
In many cases, certainly against less capable or disciplined opponents, the charge would have ended bloodlessly. The enemy would turn and run, broken before the first onset of battle. Their backs turned and no longer able to defend themselves, it would be far easier for the legionaries to kill them as they fled. In all ancient battles, most of the killing happened during the rout.
However it also often happened that the charge did not break the enemy before contact was made. The Romans encountered many enemies who would stand and fight toe to toe with them. If this occurred, I believe the Romans would stop short for a moment outside of measure to transfer from running at their foes to actually grounding themselves fighting the enemy's front troops. The Romans were not immune from the fear of death and desire for safety that led to prolonged indecisive spear fencing in other armies, and so I doubt they would have flung themselves into the waiting teeth of a steady enemy formation.
We have no preserved sources on the swordsmanship of the Roman legionary. This is all theory and conjecture on my part, based on my experiences in HEMA, my knowledge of swords and other weapons, and observations of reenactments and sparring with reproduction gladius and scutum. The initial attack into measure made by the legionary would I think be with the scutum. Held with a horizontal boss grip, the scutum's oval or rectangular shape would lend itself to a punching blow with the lower edge. The horizontal grip would allow that blow to be made knuckles forward, with the bones of the arm aligning to transfer force. The target of this scutum punch I theorize would have been the enemy's weapon arm and the edge of their shield. They would seek to drive the edge of their scutum into the opponent's arm pit, setting aside the spear point and neutralizing the weapon arm as they did, and hopefully catching the edge of the opposing shield in the same action. If this was successful, it would prevent the opponent from countering and at the same time force the opponent's shield in one direction and open up a line on the opposite side. With a deep passing step towards that opening, I believe the Roman gladius would be used to hack and cut at shins and thighs, or thrust into torsos, necks, and faces once the scutum had controlled the enemy's weapon. The art of fighting with weapons is a near-infinite one, and there are many techniques the Romans could have deployed. This is just a suggestion of one I think is likely.
The scutum's rectangular or oval shape means that it has the reach which the gladius lacks. As such, I feel it must have been used aggressively to control the enemy's weapon and open up lines for the gladius to exploit. Polybius tells us that the gladius was a fearful cutting weapon, and I think the belief that the Romans only thrusted with it is mistaken. Polybius states that legionaries fought both by cutting and thrusting, and I find it likely that the gladius would have been used to cut at exposed limbs or thrust into the centre of the opponent's body.
I emphasize however that close quarters combat could not have lasted long. Humans in all periods have always preferred to fight from a safe distance from their enemy, and in close quarters with weapons people can die in seconds. If one side or the other did not break at the primus impetus, what would have followed would have been several agonizingly long seconds of horrific bloodshed done face to face and hand to hand. How long could this have lasted? No one knows, and although I believe it had to have been short it may have seemed an eternity to the people caught in such struggle.
Now when I observe sparring footage of scutum and gladius footage, it often seems that the attack of the legionary can be avoided by retreating out of measure. The gladius is a very short weapon after all and does lack for reach. Against the charging Roman, their opponent's natural response I think would be to backpedal to avoid the thrust or cut of the short sword. However in a formation, retreating would have brought the front fighters jostling into their comrades behind them. I think the short length of the gladius would have proven useful in these constrained fighting conditions, allowing the Romans to still be able to effectively wield their weapons in close.
This close quarters fighting would be short in duration, and both sides would draw apart after the blood--letting to rest physically and psychologically. This lull would likely be initiated by the line of one side surging backwards, seeking to re-establish a safe distance from their opponents. The Romans, if they won the engagement, would not immediately pursue but would hold their ground upon the spot their enemies once occupied, rallied around their standards and centurions. Those who had not cast their pila in the earlier exchange of missiles might take this opportunity to take their throws at close range, and the show of aggression by the casting of javelins would help keep the opponent on the back foot while the Romans would recover their strength and will for the next charge.
The intermittent pulses of violent close combat amongst lulls of posturing and missile exchanges would carry on all up and down the line. For armies used to low lethality, cautious spear fencing for most of their close combat, the Roman impetus would have seemed a horrifying rapid, aggressive, and violent attack. The closing to decisively close range, which was for other armies the final phase of a more prolonged engagement, was for the Romans their principal means of close quarters fighting. Many armies would be undone by this aggression, breaking before the primus impetus, or the first shock of battle. Against those who could withstand the first shock, the Romans would keep up a constant pressure until the enemy's will was broken.
So far we have discussed the hastate extensively and mentioned the purpose of velites and equites. What was the role of the principes and triarii in this process? Unlike many, I do not think that there was a deliberately devised system in which some horn signal would blow and the entire line of hastati would withdraw. Such complex field evolutions do not seem in character with the simple, forward moving aggression of the rest of the Roman system, and the withdrawal of the hastati would seem to me to have led to their slaughter by pursuing enemies too easily.
Rather I think the principes and triarii fulfilled a number of practical roles. First, they acted as barrier troops against the hastati retreating. In many cases, the principes and triarii may actually have been the kinsmen, the fathers and uncles and older brothers, of the hastati and velites. Under their paternal gaze, the young men would I think have felt additional pressure to fight courageously and exert their utmost.
Second, the lines of principes and triarii lent strength and resilience to the spine of the legion. They offered a safe refuge behind which a broken maniple of hastati could retreat if they were overmatched by the enemy. This is how I feel the "line rotation" would work: As the hastati are routed, they recover behind the advancing principes. Once safe, the centurions could rally the hastati and return them to the battle alongside the older, more experienced and fresh principes. The reserve lines thus stop a repulse from becoming a general rout. If the principes and hastati were routed, they too could rally behind the triarii who perhaps did fight in something more like a traditional shield wall or phalanx.
It is also possible that the military tribunes, who commanded the legion at the forefront, may have ordered unit replacement maniple by maniple on an individual basis. As a maniple wavers and nears breaking, a mounted tribune might have ordered its centurion to send the standards back during a lull in fighting, while bringing forward one of the maniples of principes. This evolution could have been covered by the skirmishing of the velites and by the equestrian comitatus of the tribune. Thus the forward fighting line could be gradually replaced and reinforced by fresh troops to keep up a constant pressure on an increasingly exhausted enemy. In many battles, the triarii might never have come into play.
The triplex acies might have acted something like the crumple zone of a modern car, or a powerful spring: As it is compressed backward, it becomes more and more resistant and harder to compress. The triplex acies collapses backwards, breaking down into a dense and difficult to penetrate mass of spearmen in the end.
With each line, the enemy encounters fresher, more experienced troops who hitherto had been concealed to them behind the lead units of the legion. From the perspective of a foot soldier in the line of an enemy army, perhaps all you could have seen amidst the dust and banners and confusion of the advancing Romans was the velites and the maniples of the hastati. If you had advanced resolutely and fought bravely, you could have driven back the hastati. Seeing them retreat, you would feel that the time had come for pursuit and that a handsome victory was at hand. However then the principes would come into view as the hastati retreated behind them through the gaps in their line. Suddenly another battle would have to be fought, and you would already be tired and the new Roman battle line would be fresh. If you overcame the principes, surely now you would think that victory was at hand. Then the triarii would stand up from their kneeling position and another new line would appear before you. It must have been an exhausting and frustrating process to try to fight your way through the triplex acies.
This picture might little resemble that of the Roman legions you are familiar with. It is not mechanical, intricate close-order drill. It is not, unless you come down to the triarii (a rare and desperate situation), a dense shield wall. Nor is it an endless grind of bloody sword fighting for hours on end. The Roman impetus relies on a psychological battering of the enemy's will to fight before contact is ever made. The Roman impetus relies on speed and aggression to inflict shock by charging to close quarters far more rapidly than other armies would be accustomed to. They extended the missile exchange and eschewed the spear fencing that other armies practiced. Shattered and broken maniples could recover behind the reserve lines of the triplex acies, and fresh troops could keep up a constant pressure on the enemy while the exhausted recovered until they could rejoin the fray. The constant skirmishing and harassment of the velites and the charging and fighting of the tribunes and their comitatenses would help cover the retreats and formation evolutions of the advancing maniples, and prevent the enemy from exploiting the gaps between maniples which allowed for the Roman legion's mobility.
It is a peculiar way of making war, unique amongst the cultures I have studied. However it is one well suited to the cultural context of ancient Rome. In one sense, the war-making of the Romans was perhaps the most "democratic" institution in their Republic. In War, even the youngest and poorest of Romans would have their chance to win glory and honour and advance their place in society. Equal opportunity for Gloria, extended to a far wider range of society than many other ancient cultures would do so.
This has been quite a long essay already, and there is still so much to discuss. We could spend ages discussing the mechanics and dynamics of ancient battle. How command worked, skirmishing, cavalry engagements, the posturing and pre-battle maneuvers that could go on for days prior to a general battle, the interactions of economics and culture. That falls beyond my purview. I chose to discuss principally the direct mechanics of battle.
The focus of this essay, as has been mentioned earlier, was the Roman armies of the Republican period. I am principally interested in the Roman armies as described by Polybius, which fought against Carthage and Macedon. Much of these comments remain true of the armies of Marius and Caesar, who by all indications fought with very similar behaviours as their predecessors. However I require further research to discuss how exactly Marius's reforms impacted the behaviour of the legion in battle.
I must stress again that these theories are just my own thoughts and theories on this matter, informed by a synthesis of scholarship which is far superior to my own paltry efforts. If you are further interested in the subject, do please look into the research of Goldsworthy, Daly, Sabin or the others I mentioned at the beginning. I am just an amateur at the end of the day and they are the real professionals.
Are there any thoughts or questions?
As an amateur enthusiast, I have always had a fascination for ancient Rome. While I was completing my degree in archaeology in university, one of my principal academic interests became ancient warfare and its place in ancient cultures. My interest in the Romans has never diminished, and I still seek to understand how they managed to build such a colossal and long-lasting empire. However as I get older and more educated, I often find that the popular historical narratives repeated on forums like SV and SB about Roman military success are, in my opinion, inaccurate or misleading or both. Worse than that, they are inadequate. They misrepresent the nature of Rome at war and indeed misrepresent the nature of pre-modern war. In this essay, I intend to give what I feel is a more accurate and more informative explanation for how and why Rome's armies functioned on the battlefield.
First, a few comments on my academic background and on the research for this essay: I stress that I am decidedly an amateur in these matters. This work is primarily tertiary research, and represents essentially a synthesis of the far superior original research done by such luminaries as Adrian Goldsworthy, Philip Sabin, J.E. Lendon, Alexander Zhmodikov, and Gregory Daly. If you are at all intrigued or interested by what you shall read to follow, I strongly recommend looking into their works. The following works I would identify as particularly formative in my views on Roman military tradition: The Face of Roman Battle by Sabin, The Roman Army at War by Goldsworthy, The Rhetoric of Battle and Soldiers & Ghosts by Lendon, and Cannae: The Experience of Battle by Daly. Outside of specifically Roman subject matter, the books On Killing by Dave Grossman and The Face of Battle by John Keegan were extremely important in informing my understanding of combat psychology and the mechanics and "physics" of large groups of humans. Ancient sources were used, principally Polybius, Livy, Xenophon and Caesar. I also studied footage of modern riots to see crowd dynamics in action in the closest modern analogue we have to ancient battle. My own practice and training as a HEMA fencer helped me conceptualize the physical mechanics of fighting with the weapons of the pre-firearm age. Finally, my education as an archaeologist (Albeit an archaeologist of preContact North America) helped me with knowing where to look for information and how to structure it together into what I hope is a coherent argument which even a layman will be able to understand and learn from. I may know a little more about these matters than your average bear, but I am myself a layman and all of us are at the end of the day ignorant as to the experience of battle, for battle such as the Romans knew it has not been seen on our planet in centuries.
This essay is principally interested in the Roman Republic of its mid to late period. The majority of its time shall be spent on the Roman army of the mid-Republic, for it was that army that fought against and overcome Rome's greatest peer opponents in her largest and most intense wars. It was that army that overcome Hannibal, Philip of Macedon and Antiochus the Great, and gave Rome the dominion of her world. That said, much of what I shall describe would hold true for the armies of Caesar and Pompey as well, for the Roman approach to battle was fundamentally similar throughout the period of the pilum.
War is a cultural practice. The way an ancient culture makes war flows directly from that culture's values and view of itself and its world. As in most ancient societies, war was largely the province of men, an ancient society's notions of masculinity informed how they approached war.
For the Romans, the ideal man, the vir, had two contesting elements within him: Virtus and disciplina. Virtus was a wild, youthful, passionate force. Virtus was passion and courage, it was aggression and martial spirit, it was elan and willpower. The Romans greatly respected and exalted men of virtus, and they believed that an individual's character was best revealed through an arduous ordeal. The more difficult and dangerous an ordeal you underwent, the more they believed it showed who you truly are. Look at their fascination with gladiatorial combat. In the Roman world view, war was the most glorious ordeal of all, for it was the most strenuous and carried the highest stakes. In all of war, the most glorious ordeal was the single combat, for that was when a man stood apart, his deeds watched and judged by his peers and his community, his virtus set against that of an enemy champion. For a Roman man at war, single combat was what he most yearned and hoped for. The respect and social capital earned by glorious success in single combat could propel a man to the forefront of his political community, as it did to Marcus Valerius Corvus and Titus Manlius Torquatus.
At the same time, the Romans recognized that virtus in excess could lead to rashness, foolishness, and disaster. They loved and admired virtus, but also feared virtus left unrestrained. The barbarian Gauls and Germans, whom the Romans reviled, were believed to be examples of excessive virtus. The Romans did not love disciplina as they loved virtus, but they understood it to be of utmost importance and necessity. Disciplina to them meant moderation and self-control. Disciplina did not mean standing in geometric parade-ground formations like statues, it meant holding by your standard no matter how tempting the opportunities for gloria that presented themselves to you, it meant waiting for the order and holding your virtus in check until your centurion, tribune, or even the imperator himself released you.
An example of this is the story of Titus Manlius Torquatus: In his youth, he went for a soldier and found himself about the face the Gauls in battle, when a huge Gallic champion stepped forth and shouted a challenge to the Romans. The Romans were fearful of the Gaul's size and fierceness, but Titus Manlius was not. He sought out the imperator and asked for permission to fight a duel. Receiving it, he stepped forth and slew the Gaul, taking the Gaul's neck ring (Or torc) as a trophy, and gaining himself the nickname Torquatus. Their spirits lifted by his example, the Romans crushed the Gauls that day. Torquatus was elected consul and dictator many times later in life, and on one occasion he commanded an army in the field against the Latins. He gave orders that no one was to fight individual duels or abandon their posts, and yet his own son did so and slew a Latin champion in single combat. The younger Manlius felt he had glorified himself, his ancestors, and Rome with his victory, but he had allowed his virtus to overcome his disciplina, and so his father had him executed.
In the modern age, we are accustomed to looking at war as a scourge, a force of destruction and death. So it has always been, but in ancient times it was also a great opportunity for advancing one's self. Plunder and looting were always a lucrative chance to enrich one's self and one's family materially, but more important was the chance for social advancement. As mentioned above, a distinguished political career in the Roman Republic could be launched by a glorious duel. However war was also competitive, against the enemy to be sure but also against one's fellow Romans. One person's glory represents a missed chance for another, and the Romans knew this. The ideals by which they organized their array in battle was an attempt to give all their men a more or less equal opportunity to win glory and honour and the social and economic advancement that accompanied glory
The Romans encouraged competition in war. They wanted aggression and fighting spirit, they wanted virtus. They organized a whole system of prizes and awards for aggression shown in battle to single out and honour those showed virtus. Where other armies fought in tribal and kinship groups, the traditional Roman method of recruitment as described by Polybius deliberately divided tribal and familial ties. They positioned their soldiers so that their comrades to left and right would also be their competitors on the field of glory.
It might be useful, at this juncture, to provide a point of contrast to illuminate just how different the Roman way of fighting was to those of the other great military tradition of Mediterranean Antiquity, the Hellenes or Greeks. As is famous, the Greeks and Macedonians fought in a phalanx, a dense mass of spear or pike-armed heavily armoured men. The word that the Greek authors use to describe the decisive action of battle was "othismos", which can be translated as pushing or pressing. The Greek authors often deploy geometrical descriptions of linear forces to describe how armies interact in battle, using words like pushing, pressing, pulling, shoving. Further, the Greek authors often attribute victory or defeat in battle to the organization of your force. A force in good order can push and press better than one in disorder, a force in disorder is overcome by one in good order, et cetera. This is as one would expect for people who fought in such a dense array that so badly needed to be ordered to be effective, but further it reflected Greek thought and beliefs about the need for order in society and in the universe and their fear of chaos.
For the Greeks, and for most peoples who fought largely with spear and shield (And although the Gauls and Germans did not specialize to the extent as the Greeks, they also relied primarily on the spear in close combat), close combat would have taken the form of a close stand-off at spear length. After a likely prolonged period of exchange of missiles, the two phalanxes would draw together but I find it unlikely that they would crash into each other headlong. They would have stopped at spear length and likely cautiously fenced, seeking by spear thrusts to slay enemy leaders, demoralize the enemy and disorder their ranks while avoiding hurt themselves behind their large shields and the shields of their comrades. The locked aspides of a phalanx would give its members a sense of psychological security and defense, allowing them to be more willing to close in than an individual man might be. When one side had established a superiority in the spear fencing phase, I theorize that they would then make a final rush in. The enemy might break and run before contact is ever made, if not they might stand and try to resist shield against shield, but very likely the physical othismos would be very short and would end with one side realizing it is overmatched and giving way.
In the Greek phalanx, each man supports each other, after the communitarian spirit of a Greek poleis. However there was also a hierarchy within the phalanx. The richest and most experienced men of the community would fight as file-leaders. This makes military sense as they would be the most battle hardened and best equipped, but it also ensured that they would be able to claim the lion's share of any glory won. The glory is shared, but it is shared out according to your role in the social hierarchy as the poleis.
The Greeks took this form of combat to its purest expression, but all peoples of the ancient Mediterranean fought with spear and shield and all likely followed a similar pattern. A prolonged missile exchange, a period of cautious spear fencing at distance, and then a final rush in which one side breaks and the other side cuts them down as they run. Battle in the ancient world was primarily a psychological struggle, it is very hard to kill a man who stands his ground and defends himself without being gravely hurt yourself. It is much easier when they turn and run. Now let us turn to the Romans and see what distinguished them.
The first unique aspect of the Romans is their inversion of the usual social hierarchy in their battle array. All armies used skirmishers, usually recruited from the poorer social classes, such as the Greek psiloi. So did the Romans with their leves and velites, but the first line of the Roman array was the hastati, who were the young men of the Roman infantry. These were untested men, untried in battle, with nothing to lose and everything to gain in honour and reputation. Combined with the velites, Rome put her young and poor and honour-hungry at the forefront of battle with the richest opportunities for glory.
The next lines, the principes and triarii, were made of men more established in Roman society, men who had already earned their scars. They waited behind the young and the untested, their disciplina calling upon them to surrender the opportunities to display virtus that they had enjoyed as young men themselves.
They fought with javelins and swords and shields, a method likely adopted from their neighbouring Samnites but perfected by the Romans. They fought with a large shield, curved to protect their body and wielded in a central boss grip. It cannot lock shields as a Greek apsis could, its curve prevents even an overlap like a Germanic round shield, and with the central boss grip it is harder to push against the enemy but easier to punch and strike. The size and strength of the scutum as an individual defense would give them a psychological security regardless of their spread out battle order. Polybius tells us that the Romans fought with several feet between them both in rank and file, in order to have space to wield their weapons and to defend themselves.
The word used by Roman writers, principally Caesar, to describe an attack in battle was Impetus. Impetus carries connotations of rapid motion, of rushing towards or falling upon something. It suggests a rapid, rushing attack, a charge, an onset or onslaught even. If the principal linguistic metaphor for Greek battle was pushing or pressing, the Roman metaphor was rushing or crashing. Let us now examine the Roman impetus. How would a Roman impetus have looked in battle?
Let us discuss a theoretical battle, sometime in the days of Rome's rising. The opponent is one of the many peoples of the Western Mediterranean. They could be Gauls, Carthaginians, Latins, Spaniards, or any one else. They are not as ultra-specialized for close order struggle as the Hellenes, but they would largely be armed with spears and javelins, and their pattern of combat would be familiar.
I believe it would have begun with a prolonged psychological assault on their enemy. The velites would have made a fearful sight in their wolf skins, and like the rest of the Romans they would have been eager to fight single combats and as skirmishers went they were well equipped with gladius and shield to fight a duel. Further, the clouds of velites would have been stiffened by the presence of military tribunes and their comitatenses of mounted equites, whom Polybius tells us often fought by riding to the forefront and then springing down from their horses to fight duels on foot. Although the Romans could not have won all of these duels, they must have won enough and winning even a few would begin to demoralize the enemy. Men would be killed in full sight of their friends and peers, there would be blood and screams, and the velites would keep up a pelt of missiles on the enemy formation to spread death and wounds, encumber shields with embedded javelins, and psychologically discourage and batter their opponents.
The hastati would advance behind the cloud of velites and equites. The word "maniple" means "handful", and I theorize that these formations would have been tighter than the skirmishers, but not as geometrical or close order as a Greek phalanx, but would have formed a roughly square or rectangular "handful" of men around a standard, with centurions to lead it. The hastati, their helmets decorated with feathers, their shields broad and painted, and their chests gleaming with coats of lorica or with the bronze pectoral chest plate, were accounted by Polybius as offering a terrifying aspect, which would continue the intimidation of the enemy.
The hastati would march in to closer distance than the velites, for their pila were heavier and likely shorter in range. However they were still javelins, not spears, and they would have kept outside of the spear fencing range which other armies would be accustomed to. Each hastatus carried a pair of javelins, and I believe for a fairly long time they would have kept up a closer ranged but still predominantly missile exchange against the enemy. I theorize that the loose order of the maniple allowed for soldiers to move to the front and filter backwards to the standards, so that soldiers could cast their javelins and then move backwards to allow those behind them to make their own throws. The gaps and intervals between hastate maniples would likely be filled by the swarms of velites, still hungry for their own share in the glory. Their aggressive presence would cover the flanks of each individual maniple as it closed with the enemy.
In a prolonged but cautious fencing engagement such as spear-armed troops would practice, the gladius would be a distinct disadvantage. Its reach is pitifully short if all you intend to use it for was to thrust from behind the cover your shield. Because of this, I feel that the commonly deployed descriptions of the Romans as fighting in shield walls, covered by their scuta and thrusting in at close range to their enemies is mistaken. Most of Rome's enemies had spears or longer swords or both, and would not have allowed the legionaries to close the measure easily. I believe that the scutum had to have been used aggressively, and that the combination of gladius and scutum was meant to force the legionaries to attack with a ferocious aggression and close in. If they had stood off and tried to fence cautiously behind their shields, they would have been no match for spear-armed opponents.
After a relatively long period of exchanging missiles and aggressive posturing to intimidate the enemy and embolden their own troops, the Roman maniple would charge. The tribune or senior centurion would order the drawing of swords and command his standard bearers to follow him as he rushed the enemy. Not all men are naturally aggressive, but the disciplina of the Romans would I think cause even those less inclined to aggression to follow their centurion and the standards, adding physical and psychological mass behind the aggressive front-fighters. The drawing of the gladius would I believe be a signal to the enemy of the lethal intent of the legionaries, much as the fixing of bayonets was to European soldiers of the age of Napoleon. Indeed I think the gladius charge was in many ways similar to the bayonet charge: A shock attack which ended a period of longer range fighting, relying on the fear of sharp steel to put the foe to flight. Most of the battle would have been spent at range, but the charge was the decisive moment.
Paradoxically, the open order formation of the legion as described by Polybius would have made it easier for them to charge as a mass. If you observe crowds moving, or ceremonial close order drill performed by modern military units, you will often see the group bunching up and spreading out as they move. The people in the front might step longer than the people behind them expect, forcing those behind to speed up to keep in place. They might step shorter, forcing those behind to stop, creating a bunch in the formation. This bunching and spreading can resemble the motion of an accordion, and on natural, broken terrain would make it difficult for any formation to charge as a mass. By adopting an open order with space between all their troops, the Roman maniple I believe would be less likely to be impeded by this "accordion effect". It would still happen of course, but the men in the centre and rear of the formation would have adequate space to build up their own momentum and be less impeded by unexpected long or short steps from those in front of them. Thus the maniple could make its charge in its fighting array easier than close order formations could.
In many cases, certainly against less capable or disciplined opponents, the charge would have ended bloodlessly. The enemy would turn and run, broken before the first onset of battle. Their backs turned and no longer able to defend themselves, it would be far easier for the legionaries to kill them as they fled. In all ancient battles, most of the killing happened during the rout.
However it also often happened that the charge did not break the enemy before contact was made. The Romans encountered many enemies who would stand and fight toe to toe with them. If this occurred, I believe the Romans would stop short for a moment outside of measure to transfer from running at their foes to actually grounding themselves fighting the enemy's front troops. The Romans were not immune from the fear of death and desire for safety that led to prolonged indecisive spear fencing in other armies, and so I doubt they would have flung themselves into the waiting teeth of a steady enemy formation.
We have no preserved sources on the swordsmanship of the Roman legionary. This is all theory and conjecture on my part, based on my experiences in HEMA, my knowledge of swords and other weapons, and observations of reenactments and sparring with reproduction gladius and scutum. The initial attack into measure made by the legionary would I think be with the scutum. Held with a horizontal boss grip, the scutum's oval or rectangular shape would lend itself to a punching blow with the lower edge. The horizontal grip would allow that blow to be made knuckles forward, with the bones of the arm aligning to transfer force. The target of this scutum punch I theorize would have been the enemy's weapon arm and the edge of their shield. They would seek to drive the edge of their scutum into the opponent's arm pit, setting aside the spear point and neutralizing the weapon arm as they did, and hopefully catching the edge of the opposing shield in the same action. If this was successful, it would prevent the opponent from countering and at the same time force the opponent's shield in one direction and open up a line on the opposite side. With a deep passing step towards that opening, I believe the Roman gladius would be used to hack and cut at shins and thighs, or thrust into torsos, necks, and faces once the scutum had controlled the enemy's weapon. The art of fighting with weapons is a near-infinite one, and there are many techniques the Romans could have deployed. This is just a suggestion of one I think is likely.
The scutum's rectangular or oval shape means that it has the reach which the gladius lacks. As such, I feel it must have been used aggressively to control the enemy's weapon and open up lines for the gladius to exploit. Polybius tells us that the gladius was a fearful cutting weapon, and I think the belief that the Romans only thrusted with it is mistaken. Polybius states that legionaries fought both by cutting and thrusting, and I find it likely that the gladius would have been used to cut at exposed limbs or thrust into the centre of the opponent's body.
I emphasize however that close quarters combat could not have lasted long. Humans in all periods have always preferred to fight from a safe distance from their enemy, and in close quarters with weapons people can die in seconds. If one side or the other did not break at the primus impetus, what would have followed would have been several agonizingly long seconds of horrific bloodshed done face to face and hand to hand. How long could this have lasted? No one knows, and although I believe it had to have been short it may have seemed an eternity to the people caught in such struggle.
Now when I observe sparring footage of scutum and gladius footage, it often seems that the attack of the legionary can be avoided by retreating out of measure. The gladius is a very short weapon after all and does lack for reach. Against the charging Roman, their opponent's natural response I think would be to backpedal to avoid the thrust or cut of the short sword. However in a formation, retreating would have brought the front fighters jostling into their comrades behind them. I think the short length of the gladius would have proven useful in these constrained fighting conditions, allowing the Romans to still be able to effectively wield their weapons in close.
This close quarters fighting would be short in duration, and both sides would draw apart after the blood--letting to rest physically and psychologically. This lull would likely be initiated by the line of one side surging backwards, seeking to re-establish a safe distance from their opponents. The Romans, if they won the engagement, would not immediately pursue but would hold their ground upon the spot their enemies once occupied, rallied around their standards and centurions. Those who had not cast their pila in the earlier exchange of missiles might take this opportunity to take their throws at close range, and the show of aggression by the casting of javelins would help keep the opponent on the back foot while the Romans would recover their strength and will for the next charge.
The intermittent pulses of violent close combat amongst lulls of posturing and missile exchanges would carry on all up and down the line. For armies used to low lethality, cautious spear fencing for most of their close combat, the Roman impetus would have seemed a horrifying rapid, aggressive, and violent attack. The closing to decisively close range, which was for other armies the final phase of a more prolonged engagement, was for the Romans their principal means of close quarters fighting. Many armies would be undone by this aggression, breaking before the primus impetus, or the first shock of battle. Against those who could withstand the first shock, the Romans would keep up a constant pressure until the enemy's will was broken.
So far we have discussed the hastate extensively and mentioned the purpose of velites and equites. What was the role of the principes and triarii in this process? Unlike many, I do not think that there was a deliberately devised system in which some horn signal would blow and the entire line of hastati would withdraw. Such complex field evolutions do not seem in character with the simple, forward moving aggression of the rest of the Roman system, and the withdrawal of the hastati would seem to me to have led to their slaughter by pursuing enemies too easily.
Rather I think the principes and triarii fulfilled a number of practical roles. First, they acted as barrier troops against the hastati retreating. In many cases, the principes and triarii may actually have been the kinsmen, the fathers and uncles and older brothers, of the hastati and velites. Under their paternal gaze, the young men would I think have felt additional pressure to fight courageously and exert their utmost.
Second, the lines of principes and triarii lent strength and resilience to the spine of the legion. They offered a safe refuge behind which a broken maniple of hastati could retreat if they were overmatched by the enemy. This is how I feel the "line rotation" would work: As the hastati are routed, they recover behind the advancing principes. Once safe, the centurions could rally the hastati and return them to the battle alongside the older, more experienced and fresh principes. The reserve lines thus stop a repulse from becoming a general rout. If the principes and hastati were routed, they too could rally behind the triarii who perhaps did fight in something more like a traditional shield wall or phalanx.
It is also possible that the military tribunes, who commanded the legion at the forefront, may have ordered unit replacement maniple by maniple on an individual basis. As a maniple wavers and nears breaking, a mounted tribune might have ordered its centurion to send the standards back during a lull in fighting, while bringing forward one of the maniples of principes. This evolution could have been covered by the skirmishing of the velites and by the equestrian comitatus of the tribune. Thus the forward fighting line could be gradually replaced and reinforced by fresh troops to keep up a constant pressure on an increasingly exhausted enemy. In many battles, the triarii might never have come into play.
The triplex acies might have acted something like the crumple zone of a modern car, or a powerful spring: As it is compressed backward, it becomes more and more resistant and harder to compress. The triplex acies collapses backwards, breaking down into a dense and difficult to penetrate mass of spearmen in the end.
With each line, the enemy encounters fresher, more experienced troops who hitherto had been concealed to them behind the lead units of the legion. From the perspective of a foot soldier in the line of an enemy army, perhaps all you could have seen amidst the dust and banners and confusion of the advancing Romans was the velites and the maniples of the hastati. If you had advanced resolutely and fought bravely, you could have driven back the hastati. Seeing them retreat, you would feel that the time had come for pursuit and that a handsome victory was at hand. However then the principes would come into view as the hastati retreated behind them through the gaps in their line. Suddenly another battle would have to be fought, and you would already be tired and the new Roman battle line would be fresh. If you overcame the principes, surely now you would think that victory was at hand. Then the triarii would stand up from their kneeling position and another new line would appear before you. It must have been an exhausting and frustrating process to try to fight your way through the triplex acies.
This picture might little resemble that of the Roman legions you are familiar with. It is not mechanical, intricate close-order drill. It is not, unless you come down to the triarii (a rare and desperate situation), a dense shield wall. Nor is it an endless grind of bloody sword fighting for hours on end. The Roman impetus relies on a psychological battering of the enemy's will to fight before contact is ever made. The Roman impetus relies on speed and aggression to inflict shock by charging to close quarters far more rapidly than other armies would be accustomed to. They extended the missile exchange and eschewed the spear fencing that other armies practiced. Shattered and broken maniples could recover behind the reserve lines of the triplex acies, and fresh troops could keep up a constant pressure on the enemy while the exhausted recovered until they could rejoin the fray. The constant skirmishing and harassment of the velites and the charging and fighting of the tribunes and their comitatenses would help cover the retreats and formation evolutions of the advancing maniples, and prevent the enemy from exploiting the gaps between maniples which allowed for the Roman legion's mobility.
It is a peculiar way of making war, unique amongst the cultures I have studied. However it is one well suited to the cultural context of ancient Rome. In one sense, the war-making of the Romans was perhaps the most "democratic" institution in their Republic. In War, even the youngest and poorest of Romans would have their chance to win glory and honour and advance their place in society. Equal opportunity for Gloria, extended to a far wider range of society than many other ancient cultures would do so.
This has been quite a long essay already, and there is still so much to discuss. We could spend ages discussing the mechanics and dynamics of ancient battle. How command worked, skirmishing, cavalry engagements, the posturing and pre-battle maneuvers that could go on for days prior to a general battle, the interactions of economics and culture. That falls beyond my purview. I chose to discuss principally the direct mechanics of battle.
The focus of this essay, as has been mentioned earlier, was the Roman armies of the Republican period. I am principally interested in the Roman armies as described by Polybius, which fought against Carthage and Macedon. Much of these comments remain true of the armies of Marius and Caesar, who by all indications fought with very similar behaviours as their predecessors. However I require further research to discuss how exactly Marius's reforms impacted the behaviour of the legion in battle.
I must stress again that these theories are just my own thoughts and theories on this matter, informed by a synthesis of scholarship which is far superior to my own paltry efforts. If you are further interested in the subject, do please look into the research of Goldsworthy, Daly, Sabin or the others I mentioned at the beginning. I am just an amateur at the end of the day and they are the real professionals.
Are there any thoughts or questions?
