Roman legion

“ It must be observed that a regular consular army no longer consisted of Roman legions only, but, as Italy became gradually subjugated, the various states under the dominion of Rome were bound to furnish a contingent, and the number of allies usually exceeded that of the citizens. They were, however, kept perfectly distinct, both in the camp and in the battle-field.
The men belonging to each legion were separated into four divisions. 1. 1000 of the youngest and poorest were set apart to form the Velites, the light-armed troops or skirmishers of the legion. ”

“ The constitution of the legion, too, was especially adapted to enhance the self-reliance of well-drilled troops. Every Roman legion was a small army in itself, containing its proportion of infantry, cavalry, engines of war, and means for conveyance of baggage. A legion finding itself never so unexpectedly detached from the main body, was at no loss for those necessaries without which an army melts away like snow in the sunshine, and was capable of independent action, in any country and under any circumstances. Each man too had perfect confidence in himself and his comrades ”

“ The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. ”

“ In the first place, you praised those generals who, of their own head, had undertaken war against him, in the next place, you praised the veterans who, though they had been settled in those colonies by Antonius, preferred the liberty of the Roman people to the obligations which they were under to him. Is it not so? Why was the Martial legion? why was the fourth legion praised? For if they have deserted the consul, they ought to be blamed; if they have abandoned an enemy to the republic, then they are deservedly praised. ”

“ Moreover, they add to their power so much wisdom, that when they halt for the night, each man setteth up his stake in the ground, and taketh his spade, and diggeth his portion of trench before his stake, and behold, the solitary place becometh in a trice a fortified city, with streets and walls and ditches. Verily these Roman swine are all as children of Satan; but a Roman legion is as Satan himself. ”

“ The Roman legion, whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in the early ages of the republic or six thousand, as in the time of Augustus, of was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed of Hastati, Principes, Triarii, and Velites. The soldiers of the first line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, and were distributed into fifteen companies or maniples. Each company contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. ”

“ Led on thus by the tenth legion, the whole army mutinied. They broke up the camp where they had been stationed at some distance beyond the walls of Rome, and marched toward the city. Soldiers in a mutiny, even though headed by their subaltern officers, are very little under command; and these Roman troops, feeling released from their usual restraints, committed various excesses on the way, terrifying the inhabitants and spreading universal alarm. ”

“ It seems right to add here, that it is lawful for a consul, a dictator, and a prætor, when he devotes the legions of the enemy, to devote not himself particularly, but whatever citizen he may choose out of a Roman legion regularly enrolled: if the person who has been devoted die, the matter is duly performed; if he do not perish, then an image, seven feet high or more, must be buried in the ground, and a victim slain, as an expiation. ”

“ Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman army never halted for a single night without forming a regular intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of burden, and the baggage. ”

“ THE ROMAN ARMY THE LEGION While the Romans were conquering Italy, they were making many improvements in their army. All citizens between the ages of seventeen and forty-six were liable to active service. These men were mainly landowners—hardy, intelligent peasants—who knew how to fight and how to obey orders. An army in the field consisted of one or more legions. A legion included about three thousand heavy-armed footmen, twelve hundred light infantry, and three hundred horsemen. After the conquest of Italy the states allied with Rome had to furnish soldiers, chiefly archers and cavalry. ”

“ The great attention of the ancients to this particular was wonderful, and the highest point of perfection in the Roman legion was, that when it made detachments, though ever so small, they carried with them a just proportion of the component parts of its excellent system—artificers of all denominations. Modern armies differ from those of the ancients scarcely in nothing but the arms they use ”

“ After this he was liable to be called out to fight. A certain number of men were chosen from each tribe by the tribune. It was divided into centuries, each led by a centurion; and the whole body together was called a legion, from lego, to choose. In later times the proper number for a legion was 6000 men. Each legion had a standard, a bar across the top of the spear, with the letters on it S P Q R—Senatus, Populus Que Romanus—meaning the Roman Senate and People, a purple flag below and a figure above, such as an eagle, or the wolf and twins, or some emblem dear to the Romans. ”

“ That is the bulwark of our hope and safety, if we briskly gain possession of it, which the Samnites in their blindness have given up. Only give me the first rank and spearmen of one legion; when with these I shall have gained the summit, do you proceed hence free from all apprehension, and save yourself and the army. For the enemy, lying beneath us and [exposed thereby] to all our weapons, will not be able to stir without destruction to themselves. After that either the good fortune of the Roman people or our own bravery will extricate us. ”

“ Some fled, and others, being delayed by the weight of their coverings and armour, were put to the sword. The whole left wing then gave way, and the auxiliaries, posted between the cavalry and the phalanx, being thrown into confusion, the terror spread even to the centre. Here the ranks were broken, and by the flying soldiers rushing in between them, the use of their long spears, called by the Macedonians sarissas, was hindered. The Roman legions advanced and discharged their javelins among them in disorder. ”

“ The soldier played as important a part as the merchant in extending the use of Latin. Tacitus tells us that in the reign of Augustus there were twenty-five legions stationed in the provinces. If we allow 6,000 men to a legion, we should have a total of 150,000 Roman soldiers scattered through the provinces. To these must be added the auxiliary troops which were made up of natives who, at the close of their term of service, were probably able to speak Latin, and when they settled among their own people again, would carry a knowledge of it into ever-widening circles. ”

“ At the end of the fourth century the Roman empire was overrun by hordes of barbarians from Northern Europe. The Romans, weakened by luxury and wealth, were unable to beat back the ruthless invaders. Legion after legion was summoned from the distant parts of the empire for the defence of the imperial city itself. About the year A.D. 380 the 'Conquering Legion' marched out for the last time through the city gates of Chester, and by 410 no Roman soldiers were left in Britain.
With sorrow and despair the Britons watched the last soldiers depart. ”

“ In like manner they ceased to form part of the legion, and from this time forward we find the legions and the cavalry spoken of as completely distinct from each other. After the termination of the Social War, when most of the inhabitants of Italy became Roman citizens, the ancient distinction between the Legiones and the Socii disappeared, and all who had served as Socii became incorporated with the legiones. An army during the last years of the republic and under the earlier emperors consisted of Romanae Legiones et Auxilia s. ”

“ The Roman legions were formed in the first instance of citizen soldiers, who yet had been made to submit to a rigid discipline, and to feel that in that submission lay their strength. When, to keep up the siege of Veii, military pay was introduced, a step was taken in the transition from a citizen soldiery to a regular army, such as the legions ultimately became, with its standing discipline of the camp; and that the measure should have been possible is another proof that Rome was a great city, with a well-supplied treasury, not a collection of mud huts. ”

“ A legion was a brigade of about 6000 infantry, with 120 horsemen attached to it. It was recruited from any convenient part of the empire, but only from men already enjoying the rights of Roman citizens, or else from those other provincials who were considered sufficiently homogeneous with the Roman civilisation to stand shoulder to shoulder with such citizens. In being permitted to serve on these terms a man regularly becomes ipso facto a citizen. ”

“ To every legion of 6000 men there was attached, under the same general of division, a force of about 6000 men of non-Roman standing. The subject people of a province was called upon to recruit a certain quota of such troops, and, when so recruited, the soldiers of this class were required to serve for twenty-five years. At the expiration of their term they became Roman citizens, and their descendants ranked as such in the enjoyment of Roman opportunities. ”

“ The twentieth legion, it is well known, was one of the four which came into Britain in the reign of Claudius, and contributed to its subjugation: the vexillation of this legion was in the army of Suetonius Paulinus when he made that victorious stand in a fortified pass, with a forest in his rear, against the insurgent Britons. The position is sketched by Tacitus, and antiquaries well know that on the high ground above Battle Bridge there are vestiges of Roman works, and that the tract of land to the north was formerly a forest. ”

“ On the appointed day, arriving first, he posted his allied infantry with the king's auxiliaries on the wings, the sixth legion in the centre, with which he had united three thousand men of the third, brought up in the night from another camp, with one eagle, so as to look like a single legion. Tiridates towards evening showed himself at some distance whence he could be seen rather than heard. And so the Roman general, without any conference, ordered his troops to retire to their respective camps. ”

“ They sought refuge behind the front ranks of the legions, who alone amidst the general panic preserved their coolness and presence of mind. Had it been a straightforward fight, man to man, they would to all appearance have been quite a match for their foes, so much had their success, a few days previously, restored their courage. But the sudden appearance of the concealed troops and their combined attack on both flanks and on the rear of the Roman legions created such confusion and alarm that not a man had any spirit left to fight or any hope of escaping by flight. ”

“ Marius, who during the wars with the Cimbri introduced tactical reforms into the Roman army, was the first who organized the legion into ten cohorts. The prætorian cohorts were the special guards successively of the generals, triumvirs, and emperors, and exerted great influence during the decline of the empire. ”

“ Three new legions (i., ii., and iii. Parthica) were instituted by Septimius Severus. Each legion had a special name. A list of the legions (thirty in number) in the time of Marcus Aurelius will be found in Marquardt, Röm Alterthumer, iii. ”

“ Trained corps of engineers were attached to each legion. The campaigns of the Romans were henceforth to be conducted with spade and pickaxe as well as with sword and javelin, and the soldiers learned the use of tools as well as of arms. The Teutons were destroyed on the twentieth of July, 102 B.C. In the year following the same fate overtook their comrades. The victories of Marius mark a new epoch in Roman history. The legions were no longer the levy of the citizens in arms, who were themselves the state for which they fought. The legionaries were citizens still. ”

“ The Roman legions, in particular, were for many centuries kept in tolerable subjection to the civil authorities of the capitol; but they were growing stronger and stronger all the time, and becoming more and more conscious of their strength. ”

“ Marcus Aurelius received this deliverance with deep gratitude. In his heart he connected it with the prayer of the Christians, and caused their persecutions to cease. An ancient historian mentions that the soldiers who had thus supplicated for relief, received the name of the "thundering legion," and were permitted to have a thunderbolt graven on their shields, as a memorial of the tempest that had discomfited their enemies, and saved the Roman forces, when ready to perish. ”

“ One learns to estimate military courage very moderately, when one sees that the Roman Legions, precisely when they were mercenary, bad, slavish, and half freedmen, namely, under the Triumvirate, fought more courageously than ever. ”