10-08-2010, 03:33 PM
Last night I went back and skimmed through the first 4 or 5 pages of this thread, basically just looking for more of your previous posts. And I was practically cheering your general attitude of giving ancient authors more credit than some modern writers do. I didn't try to follow all the details of your research and math--other folks expressed doubts here and there which seemed to mirror what I was getting, too. But eh, I'm willing to leave that to people who know the sources a WHOLE lot better than I do!
However, in your new post you said, "...the Roman legion, was overtime, modified to produce a fined tuned killing machine; an organisational weapon par excellence. However, nothing could be furthest from the truth." (Emphasis mine) Regardless of where all your numbers come from, such a statement is simply not true! The Roman legion WAS a very efficient and highly organized killing machine! If you expect us to believe that the Romans simply dressed all these guys up in metal clothes and had them march about with oversized cutlery to fulfill some cosmological imperative, while hundreds of thousands of enemy warriors killed themselves and burned their own cities out of envy, you're going to have to come up with REALLY good proof.
To me, the question of "Why?" has always been a difficult and dangerous one. Unless there are ancient sources that *tell* us why a particular thing was done, all we are really left with is *how* it was done. Speculation on the train of thought of people two thousand years ago is a very dubious activity, in my experience. And, as I implied in my first response, correlation does NOT prove causation! You can tie troop numbers or unit sizes to all sorts of other things, but it does NOT mean that those troop numbers were fixed BECAUSE of those other things UNLESS an ancient author tells us so.
Other modern writers have compared legions to later historical and modern military units, and have found that the sizes of legions, cohorts, and centuries are very practical and workable for administration and for command and control in combat. Since warfare was hardly a new thing when the legion was first developed, it seems likely to me that the size and number of sub-units simply fit well enough with the levy system and with the requirements of combat. Organizing a military unit in strict accordance with astronomical observation seems like an invitation to disaster! Obviously the Romans were very mindful of astronomy and astrology, and took things like omens very seriously indeed. But without more proof, your conclusions are just striking us as a HUGE leap in logic.
So, IS there an ancient source that says something to the effect of, "Oh, no, we CAN'T have more than 60 centuries in a legion, because of the orbit of Venus!" Even a hint of such thinking? If not, you're way out on a limb.
And there are some pretty sharp saws in this crowd.
Vale,
Matthew
However, in your new post you said, "...the Roman legion, was overtime, modified to produce a fined tuned killing machine; an organisational weapon par excellence. However, nothing could be furthest from the truth." (Emphasis mine) Regardless of where all your numbers come from, such a statement is simply not true! The Roman legion WAS a very efficient and highly organized killing machine! If you expect us to believe that the Romans simply dressed all these guys up in metal clothes and had them march about with oversized cutlery to fulfill some cosmological imperative, while hundreds of thousands of enemy warriors killed themselves and burned their own cities out of envy, you're going to have to come up with REALLY good proof.
To me, the question of "Why?" has always been a difficult and dangerous one. Unless there are ancient sources that *tell* us why a particular thing was done, all we are really left with is *how* it was done. Speculation on the train of thought of people two thousand years ago is a very dubious activity, in my experience. And, as I implied in my first response, correlation does NOT prove causation! You can tie troop numbers or unit sizes to all sorts of other things, but it does NOT mean that those troop numbers were fixed BECAUSE of those other things UNLESS an ancient author tells us so.
Other modern writers have compared legions to later historical and modern military units, and have found that the sizes of legions, cohorts, and centuries are very practical and workable for administration and for command and control in combat. Since warfare was hardly a new thing when the legion was first developed, it seems likely to me that the size and number of sub-units simply fit well enough with the levy system and with the requirements of combat. Organizing a military unit in strict accordance with astronomical observation seems like an invitation to disaster! Obviously the Romans were very mindful of astronomy and astrology, and took things like omens very seriously indeed. But without more proof, your conclusions are just striking us as a HUGE leap in logic.
So, IS there an ancient source that says something to the effect of, "Oh, no, we CAN'T have more than 60 centuries in a legion, because of the orbit of Venus!" Even a hint of such thinking? If not, you're way out on a limb.
And there are some pretty sharp saws in this crowd.
Vale,
Matthew
Matthew Amt (Quintus)
Legio XX, USA
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.larp.com/legioxx/">http://www.larp.com/legioxx/
Legio XX, USA
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.larp.com/legioxx/">http://www.larp.com/legioxx/
