Tactics: Employment of the Gladius

[Imperator]

I think it likely that training included individual combat for the occasions when that became necessary (thinking of the standard bearer defending the standard, the Centurion in the Temple etc) but that the ideal was the formation grinding over the enemy. We do have records of Legionaries receiving training in other areas Bow. Sling, rock throwing,riding for when those skills were needed.

Maybe, but the descriptions of Roman infantry training (Vegetius 1, Polybius 6 and 10.20, etc.) I've read emphasize individual weapons training and drill. Can anyone even remember a source for infantry having mock battles with wasters? I think John Lendon has a point that we moderns tend to emphasize Roman discipline and play down impulsive heroism or savagery more than the sources allow (just like we play up dense formations rather than Polybius' open order).

Philip Rance argues that in Polybius (10.20) and Livy (26.51), the training is not individual but it is a large scale tactical training, “an army divided into two battles lines, one force manoeuvring and using close quarter weaponry, while the other fires projectiles at it, the roles being subsequently reversed”(p.264)

The Literary and Historical Tradition of Mock Battles in the Roman and Early Byzantine Army. Philip Rance. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies.

http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/view/2071

It is true that in some descriptions Vegetius emphasizes individual training but in other discusses the importance of group training and maneuvers (Veg. 1.26; 3.9).

David S.