05-02-2009, 01:53 AM
My reference to a previous post about the four fold increase in the tribes, well I recently found this:
Varro (On The Latin Language V 35) writes “A centuria, century was named originally from cenum one hundred iugera, and later, when doubled, kept its name, just as the tribus tribes, which got their name from the three parts into which people divided, still keep the same name though their number has been multiplied.”
It is quite exhilarating to find textual evidence to back the empirical data. Livy in his summary (I 44) of the Servian constitution also refers to the doubling of the iuniores and seniores.
I now have a 6 year period for when Polybius’ legion was introduced. It is a result of the last reform of the century and tribes mentioned above. It’s good to have Livy and Polybius locked in. But Polybius’ levy system belongs to an earlier time (before Pyrrhus). This is where he gets sloppy, and his reference at the battle of Iipa to three maniples making a cohort is anachronistic, therefore misleading. Most of his levy description is wrong and the legion having four classes which in his legion includes the velites is wrong, wrong, wrong wrong. Varro states only the first four classes are property holders, velites are not property holders, as they are drawn from the Vth class and the proletarii (one third). Again, Polybius has used information that predates the introduction of the velites. Now the hastati due to their young age, the majority are not property holders either, but they are the sons of property holders. Polybius has also made glaring mistakes with his 225 BC levy details and his 5200 man legion does not exist for this time frame.
Varro (On The Latin Language V 35) writes “A centuria, century was named originally from cenum one hundred iugera, and later, when doubled, kept its name, just as the tribus tribes, which got their name from the three parts into which people divided, still keep the same name though their number has been multiplied.”
It is quite exhilarating to find textual evidence to back the empirical data. Livy in his summary (I 44) of the Servian constitution also refers to the doubling of the iuniores and seniores.
I now have a 6 year period for when Polybius’ legion was introduced. It is a result of the last reform of the century and tribes mentioned above. It’s good to have Livy and Polybius locked in. But Polybius’ levy system belongs to an earlier time (before Pyrrhus). This is where he gets sloppy, and his reference at the battle of Iipa to three maniples making a cohort is anachronistic, therefore misleading. Most of his levy description is wrong and the legion having four classes which in his legion includes the velites is wrong, wrong, wrong wrong. Varro states only the first four classes are property holders, velites are not property holders, as they are drawn from the Vth class and the proletarii (one third). Again, Polybius has used information that predates the introduction of the velites. Now the hastati due to their young age, the majority are not property holders either, but they are the sons of property holders. Polybius has also made glaring mistakes with his 225 BC levy details and his 5200 man legion does not exist for this time frame.
