06-02-2013, 01:26 PM
Quote:Mark wrote:
However, whilst I've been through Livy and made many notes - please could you point me at that specific reference and I can look at the context?
Livy 22 36
Thank you kindly. Whilst that is indeed one of the sections I have marked, it wasn't in relation to the extraordinarii.
This is the lead up to the Battle of Cannae and even Livy notes that his sources "vary so much" and thus that he himself "should hardly venture to assert anything as positively certain" (and therefore neither would I). It is therefore difficult to assert exactly what the statement "the allies furnished double the number of cavalry and an equal number of infantry" refers to. However, it is quite possible that the figure that follows in the next sentence makes it all clear....
For Livy asserts that the Romans (and Allies, of course) fielded 87,200 men in their camp. Given the note of "carrying on the war with eight legions", it would appear that we have:
- 8 Roman legions of 5,000 (the enlarged type)
- and 8 Allied legions of 5,000 (that#s the equal part)
- which leaves 7,200 which constitute the cavalry, of which 8x300=2,400 are Roman (from the preceding figures)
- and thus 4,800 are Allied - as opposed to the 7,200 one might expect from a Polybian ideal
Given the time and place and the need for the legions to be brought back to strength anyway (which makes sense that each Roman legion needed 100 cavalry each to reinforce back to 300 per legion); it simply shows that the Allies were not able to furnish the ideal cavalry complement, because there were no trained cavalry left. So, whilst Livy says he is unsure, his figures would seem to make perfect sense.
Funnily enough, that little exercise has helped a related part of that thesis no end!
mile: The availability of suitable mounts.....
