Legionnaires in one-on-one combat

[Los456]

I think the Aggression vs Training in this context is probably a bit misleading. I too have a martial arts background as well as 25 years experience in the Army all in infantry and SF. (In fact I am retiring in seven days wohooo!) So I too have some little understanding of what happens when men get together to do harm to each other. But lets try some differnt tacts. There's a belief that:<br>
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1. The Legionary is afraid of dying because he doesn't believe in afterlife. Ok let me say right off the bat that I don't know very much about Roman "pagan" religeon. However I know that great effort was put into religeous rituals as well as unit-based rituals (like annoiting the symbols of the century/legion with religeous "validity".) It sounds like the average legionary was pretty religeous With so many cultures to draw from there were most likely a number of religeons practiced. But we need an expert to chime in here.<br>
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Most likely your typical Miles would have believed in an afterlife also. Even if it's not tied to having to have a glorious death in battle. However he certainly would have believed that his actions also reflect in the future history and past history of his century/legion. (Think of British regimental system here)<br>
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2. The Barbairan has got this aggressive bloodlust and he's chasing after a Legionary who seperated from his comrades (or maybe he's on a patrol somehwere? is now cowering in fear over this 1v1 encounter.) I believe that legionaries were more than capable of generating aggression necessary to fight in any circumstances (though raw recruits and some outliers would always exist in any unit that would be unable to master their fear or work up a good bloddlust) Violence and aggression are the bread and butter of proffessional soldiers. They would be no strnagers to it's use and mastery. We have no accounts of how the Centuries of Legions worked this angle other than accounts of stirring speeches and pre-battle religeous ceremonies.<br>
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I believe the stuff down at Centuries or lower in this regard are lost to history but we do know that the unit placed great emphasis on it's history it's porwess and all the other hallmarks of the legion. Processes that are carried down in professional armies even today. I believe that a legionary would have been just as aggressive as his compatriots. I also believe that every battle would have eventually degenerated down to many small 1v1 brawls due to shield wall collapse, skirmishing, pursuit phase of just general chaos.<br>
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Even medium expereinced legionaries would have been well trained in individual combat, they would have had past experience in individual fighting for real and they would have had a belief in their afterlife or at least the fact htat their actions would live on in the history of their century/legion, and they would have been able to muster the necessary level of agression needed.<br>
Even if their opponet would have been "more" agressive, they would have brought not just their own agression to the fight, but all the other mentioned assetts.<br>
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Of course in any given case, your mileage may vary, as situation always dictates. I just am cautioning against taking an out of hand attitude that once a legionary leaves the comfort of the shieldwall he's somehow a covwering lamb awaiting the slaughter. I'm exageratting a tad but that seems to be a common held belief I've seen in a number of threads both here and in other forums. Cheers!<br>
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Los<br>
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