I was wondering if the Roman army had midgets so the enemy can't see them. Maybe they were placed in the center of the army so they could hide or something like that?
Thanks for the answers in advance.
The short answer (couldn't resist) is
NO.
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According to Vegetius, a recruit had to be five feet ten inches tall, although he admits that short soldiers could be fine too, quoting Homer, Iliad 5.801.
1'64 meters more or less, not a midget :lol: :lol:
What is true is that in some cases (Caesar en Farsalos for example), They hide some soldiers behind cavalry for frighten the enemy cavalry and for punched a good knock to them.
You'd get a funny shaped testudo
What was the average height for a Roman?
I always thought that anything much over 6 foot was quite abnormal in Rome.
6' roman is about 5'7" modern.....
Quote:What was the average height for a Roman?
I always thought that anything much over 6 foot was quite abnormal in Rome.
It depends of the region I think and for that I think that an average height doesn't say a lot...
It happens the same with horses I think...
Quote:What was the average height for a Roman?
I always thought that anything much over 6 foot was quite abnormal in Rome.
Yep, true; Julius Caesar somewhere remarks that the Gauls laugh about those small Romans. The average length of those skeletons in Herculaneum seem to suggest the same, but I have lost the reference and maybe wrong.
Quote:6' roman is about 5'7" modern.....
Thanks for the replies guys. I thought i had read that the Gauls did often make fun of the shorter romans and that the roman feared the Gauls because to them they seemed gigantic.
What was the Roman unit of measurement is there any writing on that, do we know?
Quote:What was the Roman unit of measurement is there any writing on that, do we know?
[url
n6b649p]http://www.livius.org/w/weights/weights.html[/url]
Six Roman feet is actually about 5'10" modern. Vegetius was giving requirements for the first cohort, and said that you could drop a couple inches off if the recruit was in good health (so 5'10" Roman or 5'8" modern). He doesn't specify anything for the rest of the army. And of course, being Vegetius, we don't know if he is quoting a regulation from his time, a regulation from before his time, or simply his own wishful thinking.
As I recall, the data I've seen indicates a male average height of somewhere around 5'6", more or less. This isn't bad, since modern American male height is only around 5'9". And it's probably safe to assume that soldiers averaged an inch or so more than civilians, since they would tend to be the stronger, healthier specimens.
I remember seeing sillohuettes in the Smithsonian years ago claiming that average height for a male Gaul was 5'10"! So they were big guys! Of course, if that's mostly from aristocratic graves, the lower classes weren't necessarily that tall. But the body in the well at Velsen (with the really spiffy pugio scabbard) was 6'4".
Never heard of any dwarfs in the Roman army! Midgets could probably make a lot more money, more safely, in some other line of work.
Valete,
Matthew
11.65 modern inches to the Roman Foot.
I did a fair bit of looking into the whole height/stature issue a while back, and the average Roman was between 5'5" and 5'8", based on skeletal remains.
Quote:I did a fair bit of looking into the whole height/stature issue a while back, and the average Roman was between 5'5" and 5'8", based on skeletal remains.
Which confirms what Matthew said, and means that the Romans were some 3'' shorter than an average American.