Barracks for 120 cavalry of a legion

[Paullus Scipio]

RE Cavalry troopers scattered among infantry barracks. It would not be much of a problem. Certain Buccinator or Cornicen calls would likely have been used to rally the men when needed. During routine days in garrison no doubt a duty roster would be used to ensure that a sufficient number of riders and horses were available for routine tasks like messenger duty. In the field or on campaign it would be certain that the 120 horsemen would be detached from the centuries to act as a single unit but this would not be necessary in the home fortress.

Agreed. Simply because their accommodation is dispersed doesn't mean that they wandered aimlessly around the fortress every day. The tabularium equitum (legionis) (record office of the legionary cavalry) at Lambaesis (fortunately, a mass of inscriptional evidence survives from this fortress) was perhaps the kind of place where daily orders could be posted and tabs could be kept on each cavalryman's activities.

I don't believe it helps the debate here to suggest that "soldiers wandered aimlessly around". That is simply a 'straw man' argument , and not relevant. Soldiers had many daily tasks and duties, then as now, as the various surviving documents testify, and as I posted above, so we need not consider that further.

In fact as you yourself draw attention to, with reference to surviving Roman records from Lambaesis ( and even more from Egypt), Roman soldiers were frequently split up and sent on various duties. I think the scale of the task is once again being underestimated. Cerainly, 'daily orders' could not be posted at Headquarters, with thousands of men converging on HQ to see what they should be doing, half of them or more illiterate, and walking miles/kilometres to get there. Even if ONLY the centurions and NCO's gathered at HQ we are still talking roughly 200 men.....and when the senior officer (Decurion?) gets his orders, he STILL needs to have all his men in one place - such as the cavalry record office - to transmit those orders, and there's still the problem of them getting there from all over the camp. At the end of the day, even in modern military organisations, orders to the troops must be transmitted orally.....

Valentinian Victrix wrote:-

However, when we were on land bases our messes contained ship mates from a variety of branches. If we were needed then a tannoy would call us to our stations.The Romans would of course not have had tannoy's but would have had musical signal systems where different notes or calls would summond various branches of their army to arms.

I think the scale of the problem is still being underestimated. You are talking of a few hundred men, and here we have an entire town equivalent, and thousands of troops plus servants. Tannoys can be placed, and heard simultaneously, in every barracks, but trumpets can not. If every century had three or four different trumpet calls per day for muster, mess call etc, that would be roughly 200 different calls being played per day ! Who could learn to distinguish that many, especially recruits/tirones? And if a particular call related to the Legionary cavalry, and they were scattered through the camp, it would have to be sounded in many streets and avenues, presumably competing with others.... Result? Cacophony. Any trumpet or musical system is of necessity a simple one, and would not be a practical solution in a Roman Legionary fortress, were the unit to be spread throughout the fortress. Not so simple as tannoys.....

If such a thing were practical, a trooper hearing it on the far side of the camp would still have to run/walk several kilometres to 'muster'.

Even if they had a standing order to report at such-and-such a place, at say, dawn plus one hour, it would be extremely inconvenient to have them march many miles/kilometres each from all over the camp - and those nearest would have time for 'brekky' while those furthest would not...... and if the Legate suddenly decided he needed a cavalry escort, or wanted to send a patrol to investigate a report, assembling the men would not be as easy as if they were based in one place.....there would be problems,and more problems!

Much simpler to have them all in one locality......and for the same reasons that the Praetorians in Rome were gathered in one camp, not billeted throughout the city.

[M. Demetrius]

I wish we knew more about the trumpet calls. We know they used them, but we don't have a list of what kinds or how many, or much of anything else. They didn't leave us any audio CDs so we could get it right. What we do know is that trumpets could be heard from far away, and odds are, the signal would be relayed in a known, understandable manner.

Perhaps each unit had its own set, but perhaps there were fewer lists than we're speculating here. Until they find some kind of list, I suppose we can all do what we want in our own units?

It's clear that the position of cornicen was important, as these men were chosen from among the ranks. They appear to have similar honor with the signifer, imaginifer, etc.

[mcbishop]

We are talking about a fortress the size of a respectable sized town , with a walled perimeter of over 7 miles/11.26 km, an area of 53 acres/21.5 hectares, with many 'streets' and 'avenues',roughly close to one thousand 'apartments', stables, granaries, workshops and a population of thousands, not to mention animals......

I think there may be a decimal point astray there. The area of Caerleon (for example) is 20.6 ha with a perimeter of just under 1.8km (you can certainly walk round it in under an hour).

Mike Bishop

[JeffF]

RE Troopers scattered among infantry barracks/noise level

I think you overestimate the noise level. high background noise is a uniquely modern problem. Pre-industrial cultures were remarkably quiet compared to modern times.

The method of rallying troopers by the call of an instrument as a time honored method in armies of the pre-industrial age. Even in our own noisey modern era, the modern practice of playing the traditional bugle calls through out the day (originally used to call the soldiers to mess, feed and care the horses, call the officers to meet the commander) can be heard through much of the large posts.

Again, having a duty roster or rotating a duty turmae would ensure the appropriate number of men were available where and when they were supposed to be. having a stardard time of day for the men to meet their officers, mess together, care for the horses and so on would also not be too difficult. I assume the solders selected for the privelege of being equites would all be chosen for, among other things, their dedication to duty and reliability as well as initiative. Such troops don't require close supervision.

[M. Demetrius]

Again, having a duty roster or rotating a duty turmae would ensure the appropriate number of men were available where and when they were supposed to be

I'm sure this was right, just from reading a few of the Vindolanda tablet "orders of the day" kind of thing. They were not a rabble, they were a skilled, trained military machine.

[Vindex]

So if the duty turmae were in the fort, in one place in an orderly - and Roman military - manner, where were the horses? They need as much room, if not more than the troopers and their location is not obvious.

[mcbishop]

Again, having a duty roster or rotating a duty turmae would ensure the appropriate number of men were available where and when they were supposed to be.

This does touch upon one rather important drawback to the 'all eggs in one basket' theory, namely the absence of an organizational structure for the equites legionis. Turmae are not mentioned in inscriptions, but we do know of the post of optio equitum (even if we don't know what the poor chap did) and men who do admit to the rank of eques never cite a decurio so far as I'm aware; the formula on an inscription is always 'eques legionis [name of legion],' identical to miles legionis. Moreover there is a spearhead from London with a centurial inscription of exactly the same form as spearheads from Newstead with turma attributions; it proves nothing, of course, but serves to remind that if they were all stuck together they needed a command structure. Perhaps the key lies in not thinking of them as cavalry (difficult too not to do that little sum 120 ÷ 2 and come up with the answer 'centuriae'!)

Mike Bishop

[M. Demetrius]

where were the horses

How about outside the fort wall, tethered by one of those "tent stakes with attached rings?" Probably would require some guards, but there would not be a shortage of men, and that would be a suitable duty for the cavalrymen, wouldn't it?

I think they'd need quite a bit of room, but weren't forts situated so they could see pretty far in all directions? There would be a way to do it, but I don't know of any citations to prove that theory. Based on Polybius' notion that the horses were outside the fort, and the regulation that no one could be mounted inside the fort, it makes sense that the horses would likewise not be inside. At least that makes sense to me (which, of course, proves nothing.)

[Vindex]

[quote] and the regulation that no one could be mounted inside the fort

May I ask where this regulation is cited please? It's not Polybius is it...

[M. Demetrius]

I think there's a ref in De Bello Gallico, about cavalrymen having to dismount, but I am not sure on that. Some historian want to lend a hand here?

[John W Davison]

Might it not have been the case that the primary purpose of the two mounted men per century was "company runner" for the century itself rather than despatch rider for the legate/HQ? The legate (especially if a governor of single-legion province) would have mounted singulares available (in "expeditionary mode", anyway), who could relay orders and gather information, so he may not have needed the 120 riders gathered around him anyway. The centurion, on the other hand, might well have a need actively to seek orders, relay urgent information or otherwise communicate with the legion's HQ, so maybe the answer is that in some situations, the 120 mounted men were intended to be dispersed, hence their membership of individual centuries and apparent lack of cavalry organisation?

On the question of whether the centurion, optio, tessesarius & signifer were supernumeraries or "intranumeraries" (is this the right word?), i.e. within or in addition to the nominal 80 per century, does Polybius' description not imply that the maniples were filled with the desired number of recruits first then the officers are selected from the men, so that the centurions were included in the (then) 120 soldiers? The Republican legion is, of course, a pretty transient creature compared to the legion of the Principate, and the time lag is substantial (and the maniples were not always the same strength anyway!), so not very strong evidence, but worth mentioning as it seems to imply that the officers are included in the nominal 80.

On the "invisibles", for each contubernium, one would expect a mule to carry the heavy gear like the tent (and maybe the millstones), and maybe a slave/servant to attend the mule. This would add something like 600 extra men and 600 beasts, even before allowing for officers' attendants and baggage animals, or any attendants and beasts of burden for the artillery gear for the legion. On accommodation, the contubernium attendant could have slept in the "front room", where the gear is assumed to be kept (and could have been a security measure against kit being illicitly removed), but a mule is obviously another, more aromatic matter, whose living quarters would need to be a little less directly adjacent to the men!

[Paullus Scipio]

Mike Bishop wrote:-

Paullus Scipio wrote:
We are talking about a fortress the size of a respectable sized town , with a walled perimeter of over 7 miles/11.26 km, an area of 53 acres/21.5 hectares, with many 'streets' and 'avenues',roughly close to one thousand 'apartments', stables, granaries, workshops and a population of thousands, not to mention animals......


I think there may be a decimal point astray there. The area of Caerleon (for example) is 20.6 ha with a perimeter of just under 1.8km (you can certainly walk round it in under an hour).

Mike Bishop

Quite right, Mike ! I should have twigged the inconsistent maths at once, but was in too much of a hurry. The legionary fortress I quoted size for was, of course, Inchtuthil, not least because being abandoned before it was finished, it is the only site not subject to modification/rebuilding over time. Unfortunately the copies of Richmond’s plan I have are too small and illegible to see the scale bar, so while I was able to get the area readily from several standard sources (e.g. Keppie’s “Making of the Roman Army”; Webster’s “Roman Imperial Army” etc ), I had to go hunting for perimeter distance online, and found this, in variations, on several sites about Inchtuthil; “...the perimeter of the timber walls was over 7 miles…”.

Following your post, I rechecked and as is typical of websites it was evident that this had been copied and recopied. I eventually found what may be the original of this which has a crucial difference “..the perimeter of the interior timber walls was over 7 miles…” ( i.e. the total length of the walls of all the interior buildings)…. bit of a difference eh? LOL!

I eventually found a legible plan (again online ! ), and you are again correct, in that the outside perimeter works out to be 1.8 km aprox.

As to where the animals might have been kept ( subject of a whole thread - see "Where did they keep the mules?"), Inchtuthil was built on a strategically located wedge-shaped plateau and the fortress itself occupied most of the 'broad end'. The narrow end was occupied by a workers camp the size of the fortress, but on completion that area would have provided a convenient relatively closed off 'apron' large enough to graze the animals upon.....

However, this does not negate the point that men scattered throughout the Fortress could easily take an unacceptable hour or even two to assemble, if men had to be sent to fetch people from the far-flung parts of the Fortress.

However, your next point, Mike, though a digression, opens a veritable ‘can of worms’……

JeffF wrote:
Again, having a duty roster or rotating a duty turmae would ensure the appropriate number of men were available where and when they were supposed to be.


This does touch upon one rather important drawback to the 'all eggs in one basket' theory, namely the absence of an organizational structure for the equites legionis. Turmae are not mentioned in inscriptions, but we do know of the post of optio equitum (even if we don't know what the poor chap did) and men who do admit to the rank of eques never cite a decurio so far as I'm aware; the formula on an inscription is always 'eques legionis [name of legion],' identical to miles legionis. Moreover there is a spearhead from London with a centurial inscription of exactly the same form as spearheads from Newstead with turma attributions; it proves nothing, of course, but serves to remind that if they were all stuck together they needed a command structure. Perhaps the key lies in not thinking of them as cavalry (difficult too not to do that little sum 120 ÷ 2 and come up with the answer 'centuriae'!)

Mike Bishop

In fact we know very little about the 'equites Legionaris':-
1. Josephus ( BJ III.6.2) tells us each Legion had 120 'equites'. Vegetius (II.6), probably quoting a 3rd C source, tells us the First Cohort included 132 Equites.

2. A number of inscriptions e.g. that of Aulus Severus who is an 'eques leg. II Aug.' in the century of Julius Candidus ( CIL ii.5682) - which perhaps imply that they were retained administratively 'on the books' of their parent century.

3. That there was an 'optio equitum' serving under a 'tribunis legionis'- an inscription from Lambaesis ( CIL viii 2562)

4. The 'Centurial' spearhead of exactly the same form as 'Turma' spearheads.

Er..rr..r that's pretty much it, most of which Mike referred to ( unless someone out there can add to this data.....Please! )

On that basis, there are several possibilities for their organisation:-

1. The term 'equite', normally translated 'cavalryman' is better translated 'horseman' or 'rider' and described a skill acquired, like other 'immunes' such as 'actuarii', 'librarii', 'agrimensores' etc ( there were over 150 of these specialist roles).They had no particular organisation and like other 'immunes' were part of their parent centuries, and called upon when needed, and placed under a centurion or optio ( remembering that optio could be a 'temporary' rank for a given task, roughly equivalent to a modern 'acting NCO') on an 'ad hoc' basis perhaps. ( who would of necessity also have to be an 'equite/rider' ). In that case they could well possibly barrack with their parent centuries, but this does seem unlikely, since the horses would have to be together in stables, unless grazing outside, in which case one might still expect some horses to be stabled at 'readiness'. The 'riders' would still need to be near their horses for grooming, mucking out, exercising, training etc. ( Here, their function being along the lines John Davison suggests in his post.)

2. Although not true cavalry, the 'equites' aped their betters, as 'dragoons' and lesser horsemen have throughout history ( e.g: equites of 'cohors equitatae' seem to have had lesser status and inferior equipment to 'real' cavalry of the 'Alae'), and organised themselves into troops or turmae, but instead of Decurions and Duplicarii, retained the traditional Legionary ranks of Centurion and Optio.(??)

Turmae of 30 troopers plus Decurion/Centurion and Optio/Duplicarius x 4, plus Commander ( a Tribune? - see above) and HQ would be consistent with both Josephus and Vegetius. Since centuries in Imperial times are generally accepted to be 80 strong, Mike's 120= 60 strong century x 2 seems a little unlikely.....

3. Something in between....or....their status and organisation varied from one Legion to another!

translation: insufficient data to do other than speculate! Hence some authorities speculating that as well as administratively, the equites bunked with their original centuries, while others such as H.M.D Parker "...clearly, on the other hand, for tactical work there must have been a cavalry organisation of some sort....the legionary equites drilled under their own cavalry instructors, but for establishment purposes were entered on the roll of the centuries..." or Paul Holder, who suggested that extra pairs of barracks near the Principia at Inchtuthil were for cavalry or 'immunes' - just where we might expect to find them. The practicalities I have referred to might seem to favour this latter interpretation. )

But, in the spirit of Mike's signature we may say:
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." ( Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Jeff F. wrote:

I think you overestimate the noise level. high background noise is a uniquely modern problem. Pre-industrial cultures were remarkably quiet compared to modern times.

Perhaps, but if you have stood in an Asian or African village, not so different from a Roman situation, you'd find the noises of humans, animals, carts etc quite deafening....and additionally in the Roman fortress there was the clanging and banging of the factory-like 'fabricae'/workshops to add to the overall hubub....

And to finish on a cautionary note with another Holmes quotation:-
"The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession" :lol:

[mcbishop]

Since centuries in Imperial times are generally accepted to be 80 strong, Mike's 120= 60 strong century x 2 seems a little unlikely.....

Hmmm, that wasn't exactly the sum I had in mind. hock: Like others before me I was tempted to divide the number of equites legionis by the number of centuries in a legion (don't think I've ever believed there were 60 chaps in a century, even in my wildest tea-and-shortbread-crazed moments).

Mike Bishop

[Crispvs]

On the matter of the difficulty of getting men from different parts of the fortress in time and the time taken to cross the fortress, I am immediately reminded of my time working at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham.

Firstly, why should we expect that the time taken to get from one part of a fortress to another should be an issue? When we go to work in the morning we are expected to be able to get to our workplaces at the correct time, no matter how far away we live. If you live fifteen minutes' walk away on the other side of the fortress then you leave for the meeting fifteen minutes earlier than you would if you lived next to headquarters. In the past, when less people had access to clocks and watches, they still managed to get to work on time. Selly Oak Hospital is not the smallest of sites but if I needed to get from our office to (for instance) the Burns and Plastics ward I knew from experience how long it would take to get there and would ensure that I did so in time.

Secondly, as stated above, I worked for a time at the RCDM as part of the DMWS. Every day there was a meeting chaired by the colonel and the senior military nurse and attended by a representative from each team involved with the welfare of the wounded soldiers (and their families) - normally around forty people. Each soldier's case was updated in turn and each person noted down any relevant details. After this each person returned to his or her own team at 8.30 in the morning and updated the team on any new information pertaining to the patients. After this (certainly for us in the DMWS office) duties were assigned for the day. Obviously any leave, absence or secondment to other duties was worked into the arrangements. It strikes me that this basic system would work well for the Romans too. If each man knew his duties for the day and who he was to take his orders from, then there would not need to be too many extraneous centurial trumpet calls

Thirdly, it is my experience that when you have a job to do or somewhere to get to, no matter how crowded the place, you get to where you are going, because you need to. The crowding or confusion need not be relevant if you know where you are going and what you need to do.

Fourthly, despite the noise which might attend a fortress, a clear trumpet call is likely to have been heard over the top of most other noises, particularly if that call is repeated by other trumpets in other parts of the fortress. Runners could easily alert those in noisy places such as the fabrica to anything they needed to know.

A further point which occurs to me, regarding centurial size, is that although we accept eighty as the normal compliment for an infantry century during the period in question, why should that apply to other sorts of soldiers?
In Polybius' time the Romans were comfortable with centuries of different sizes for different types of soldier and in the early Imperial period cavalry turmae were (as I understand it) equivalent to centuries but numbered only thirty (or is it thirty two?) men. Following in the same vein, if there really were centuries of legionary cavalry, why would they have to number eighty men? Of course, if there were no centuries of legionary cavalry, as I think Mike Bishop is suggesting, then we end up with two riders per infantry century, who I am sure would find all sorts of useful roles at that level.

Crispvs

[Paullus Scipio]

Since centuries in Imperial times are generally accepted to be 80 strong, Mike's 120= 60 strong century x 2 seems a little unlikely.....

Hmmm, that wasn't exactly the sum I had in mind. hock: Like others before me I was tempted to divide the number of equites legionis by the number of centuries in a legion (don't think I've ever believed there were 60 chaps in a century, even in my wildest tea-and-shortbread-crazed moments).

Mike Bishop

O.K........I was thinking you had the earlier "standard Polybian" centuries in mind ( 60 strong) and that these 'cavalry centuries' were thus a relic of Republican days....( I see Crispus suggests different sized centuries - which certainly existed at various times. A 'century' was never a hundred soldiers, but only a military unit drawn from a 'century' of citizens), but evidently you had in mind 2 'equites/horsemen' per century. Number co-incidences evidently don't prove anything...:wink:

Since we are speculating, then any explanation consistent with the facts is plausible. However, why would there be two 'equite/horsemen' drawn from each century ? Wouldn't whoever was in charge be more likely to draft those who could ride, regardless of which century they came from? ( and then equalise the numbers per century if need be) - though some in the Military believe it better to train 'dumb recruits' since they don't have to "unlearn" anything !!

Further to my last post, if we are weighing up probabilities between equally plausible speculations, one might look to 'Roman tradition' as a factor, in which case it should be noted that:
1. Polybian Legionary cavalry ( either 200 or 300 strong; Livy consistently says 300) were certainly organised into 'turma' 30 strong commanded by Decurions.
2. In camp ( on whose layout the fortress was modelled), the Legionary cavalry certainly were billeted together separately from the infantry.

Against this, it may be argued that Imperial cavalry were an entirely different thing to Republican cavalry, the latter consisting of wealthier citizens, the former drawn from the Infantry 'milites', but as in the case of titles like 'Centurion Hastatus Prior' long after hastati had gone from the legions, tradition was a powerful factor.

It has also been said that location in a fortress might be different from location in the field/camp, but this seems unlikely too - surely the point was to know one's place, whether in one or the other, and the camp surely duplicated the layout of the fortress and vice versa as much as was possible.