07-23-2009, 10:28 PM
First of all, this is a really, really good thread. Bravo!
This is a good point; I believe it was Don Rumsfeld who said "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had," so maybe there is no need to reconcile, for example, Ross Cowan's 4,800 man legion with a 5,000 man legion from some other source.
An earlier post said that one of Cicero's letter's indicated that Pompey entered Greece with 30,000 men, while Caesar said Pompey had 5 legions, which makes 6,000 men per legion.
But if memory serves correctly, Pompey was caught somewhat unprepared when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and he had to raise his legions in haste using Italians who had no experience. And he knew he would end up having to defeat Caesar's hardened veterans.
So, maybe Pompey sent out orders to raise as many men as possible for each legion? Maybe the standard practice was to have 4,800 per legion, but in this particular case Pompey knew he'd need to win with numbers?
Maybe, in a perfect world, he would have preferred 4,800 hardened veterans in each legion, but he had to make due with 6,000 conscripts.
Even today, it's hard to maintain a completely uniform military. For example, how many men are in one US Army regiment?
Quote:Attempting to make ancient numbers fit is fascinating (and has dominated the modern history of the Roman Legion) but to expect all numbers to fit that theory or else be explained away is dangerously thin ice. The idea of a mathematically divisible army which does not account for sickness, casualties or any other form of attrition is flawed (and yet such numbers seemingly occur again and again in our sources). For instance, breaking your toe on the march would leave you incapacitated and unable to participate in battle but no source that I know of mentions such an accident and there cannot have been no such mishaps, especailly with several thousand men carrying multiple pointy sharp things close to one another).
Many of the didactic manuals which I have had the pleasure to research divide armies mathematically (and get abused for being armchair texts). And, as with the castrametation texts, not a single 'real' camp has been found to conform with the theory of that text. It is interesting that Maurice stresses that unit sizes should be non-uniform so that an enemy cannot guess your army's size.
This is a good point; I believe it was Don Rumsfeld who said "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had," so maybe there is no need to reconcile, for example, Ross Cowan's 4,800 man legion with a 5,000 man legion from some other source.
An earlier post said that one of Cicero's letter's indicated that Pompey entered Greece with 30,000 men, while Caesar said Pompey had 5 legions, which makes 6,000 men per legion.
But if memory serves correctly, Pompey was caught somewhat unprepared when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and he had to raise his legions in haste using Italians who had no experience. And he knew he would end up having to defeat Caesar's hardened veterans.
So, maybe Pompey sent out orders to raise as many men as possible for each legion? Maybe the standard practice was to have 4,800 per legion, but in this particular case Pompey knew he'd need to win with numbers?
Maybe, in a perfect world, he would have preferred 4,800 hardened veterans in each legion, but he had to make due with 6,000 conscripts.
Even today, it's hard to maintain a completely uniform military. For example, how many men are in one US Army regiment?
