Battle Strategy Meetings/Staff Meetings

[Nathan Ross]

Actually, there is evidence for written orders... But rather orders about daily business

Yes, obviously the Romans were famously keen on writing things down. We have plenty of 'daily business' stuff from Vindolanda, Dura, Egypt etc (although I don't know if the division of administrative labour is as accurately known as you imply!). But of course I was referring more to tactical orders - which perhaps would have been erased fairly promptly...

Actually I wonder how much tactical, or even strategic, instruction would have been needed. In most cases, Roman-era battles appear to have been tactically pretty simple affairs, and once deployed the majority of small-unit commanders and their men would only have had to follow the procedures they had practiced on the drill field. In an age before firearms and motorised transport, most battles would have happened in quite a small area, and everyone involved would have had a good idea of the lie of the land and relative dispositions of forces.

So detailed tactical instructions may only have been necessary if the commander was using some strategem or other - concealing flanking troops, or exercising a fake withdrawal, perhaps. In these cases, verbal instructions could be given to the few senior officers in charge of the units concerned, or even to the unit as a whole, on the field of battle (as I think Caesar did, or claimed to have done, on occasion).

Once battle was joined, it would be up to the commander (or his nearest subordinates) to respond to events as they saw fit. There's the case from the Gallic War, for example, of Sextus Pompey taking command of a force of cavalry at a critical moment.

Something like Arrian's battle plan against the Alans doesn't feature anything, I think, that would present difficulties to trained men or trained officers. All the subordinates have to do is obey orders, listen for relayed horn signals and follow the standards. In this case, and perhaps in most cases, the commander reported his plan up to his senior (the emperor), not down to his junior officers - they just had to do what they'd been trained to do!