08-08-2013, 11:45 AM
Quote:....................
Mark wrote:
I make no bones about not including Livy's organisation in my theory, for, like many others, it seems to represent an earlier perhaps, if accurate indeed, transitional stage and I can make no sense of it in terms of later legion evolution.
You gotta love a guy who has balls enough to throw out evidence. :grin:
Mark wrote:
I don't dismiss it, I don't ignore it - I just can't fit it to the theory :
Have you ever considered that maybe your theory is wrong? :whistle: ...............
Well, 'wow' to a lot of the rest.......but this is worth answering....
Livy (and the thread, as started by you) I thought was about Polybius.....as does Macedon it seems.
I don't 'throw out the evidence' - I have got the balls to suggest that we might not know everything and that the sources Livy has used are unknown to use, but that:
Livy I.43 - that whilst the 2 army idea links to the 2 Consular Army construct of Polybius, the 40 centuries + 1(Engineers) + 10 + 10 + 10 + 15 + 1½ does not......and nor does....
Livy VIII.8 - which has the classic hastati-principes-triarii, but also the rorarii and accensi, however they are in 15 maniples + 15 + 15 (the last in 3 sections)....
Neither of these 2 'legion/army' organisations seem to make connected sense to each other (IMHO). Whereas I think I will be able to propose a theory that shows a relatively simple, explainable, understandable, linear evolution of the Roman legion from Polybius to The Field Armies of the 4th & 5th centuries. So I don't know where Livy got his organisations from, but they certainly don't fit that evolution - but it doesn't mean I ignore them. I do know that Livy often otherwise seems to have 4-5,000 infantry and 300 cavalry legions all over his text, that do fit with Polybius - so I am quite content that something is awry!
Could my theory be wrong - of course it can - that's why it's a theory!
But I will put it up against a equal theory that suggests that the Roman army was organised on the ever moving lines of Tribal organisations or links to the Cosmos, for that makes almost no military sense to me at all. Both of us can be wrong, but I'll apply Occam's razor and perhaps choose mine first - we will see.I'm also a serious statistician and know almost anything can be 'proved' by numbers - which is why so much news we get these days isn't - for it only contains data and not information.........but that's for a different forum/blog. :whistle:
