07-22-2012, 10:06 PM
Duncan,
You have quoted the Spartan army. In return let me quote the Ptolomeic army, rather closer in time to the Romans.
My source is Nick Secunda, in his Seleuicid and Ptolomeic Armies 168 - 145 BC, Volume 2 - The Ptolomeic Army. He notes that the Ptolomies used files of 16 ranks. In his book he shows an organisational diagram on Page 9. This shows the basic tactical unit as a Semia (should be a circumflex accent over the e but I do not know how to do this on my i-pad) of 256 men (ie 16 files of 16 ranks) plus 7 officers and 4 staff. He says this was the equivalent of a maniple, although obviously larger. It is not 256 total but 267 total. Six of these plus more HQ staff formed a Syntaxis or Regiment.
Is it likely that the Romans produced full strength organisations which were tactically illogical compared to the Ptolomies?
I wrote modern British Army establishments on several occasions during my 30 years service. I have also researched the. Authorised Establishments for the entire British Army of the Napoleonic Wars from the original manuscript documents in the National Archives and published this as a pair of articles (18,000 words in total) in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. In this process I discovered that many of the principles used by the Napoleonic era drafters of military establishments would be entirely familiar to soldiers today (although a distinguished academic with no military background, Sir Charles Oman, had completely misunderstood them in his classic book "Wellington's Army").
Some Principles of War, and military organisational theory are of an enduring nature. Just because one ancient source says there were 80 soldiers in a century is not proof that he was including posts which any army, of any era, would be treated as supernumerary by any military logic. Most British sources of the Napoleonic era gave unit strengths as Rank & File. (ie corporals and privates), not counting officers, sergeants or drummers, but without explicitly stating that that was the case. In my view it would be totally illogical for a theoretical full strength century of 80 men to be anything other than 10 files of 8 ranks, so one has to add the Centurions and Principales to that, as clearly indicated by the archeological evidence of barrack block layout. I must repeat that your own book, on Roman Legionary fortresses, rather confirmed my view of that structure.
Rod
You have quoted the Spartan army. In return let me quote the Ptolomeic army, rather closer in time to the Romans.
My source is Nick Secunda, in his Seleuicid and Ptolomeic Armies 168 - 145 BC, Volume 2 - The Ptolomeic Army. He notes that the Ptolomies used files of 16 ranks. In his book he shows an organisational diagram on Page 9. This shows the basic tactical unit as a Semia (should be a circumflex accent over the e but I do not know how to do this on my i-pad) of 256 men (ie 16 files of 16 ranks) plus 7 officers and 4 staff. He says this was the equivalent of a maniple, although obviously larger. It is not 256 total but 267 total. Six of these plus more HQ staff formed a Syntaxis or Regiment.
Is it likely that the Romans produced full strength organisations which were tactically illogical compared to the Ptolomies?
I wrote modern British Army establishments on several occasions during my 30 years service. I have also researched the. Authorised Establishments for the entire British Army of the Napoleonic Wars from the original manuscript documents in the National Archives and published this as a pair of articles (18,000 words in total) in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. In this process I discovered that many of the principles used by the Napoleonic era drafters of military establishments would be entirely familiar to soldiers today (although a distinguished academic with no military background, Sir Charles Oman, had completely misunderstood them in his classic book "Wellington's Army").
Some Principles of War, and military organisational theory are of an enduring nature. Just because one ancient source says there were 80 soldiers in a century is not proof that he was including posts which any army, of any era, would be treated as supernumerary by any military logic. Most British sources of the Napoleonic era gave unit strengths as Rank & File. (ie corporals and privates), not counting officers, sergeants or drummers, but without explicitly stating that that was the case. In my view it would be totally illogical for a theoretical full strength century of 80 men to be anything other than 10 files of 8 ranks, so one has to add the Centurions and Principales to that, as clearly indicated by the archeological evidence of barrack block layout. I must repeat that your own book, on Roman Legionary fortresses, rather confirmed my view of that structure.
Rod
