06-22-2014, 06:50 PM
Quote:Well, we've had part of this discussion before - and I'll stick to my viewpoint, certainly.....
A centurion cannot 'command' his century from the front line whilst fighting. He cannot co-ordinate with his neighbours, he cannot look around and be aware of what's going on. I don't see the centurion carrying a pilum (nor the Optio and certainly not the signifer or the cornicens - like the tribunes don't).
All the writings that mention when centurions go to the front, or emphasize the numbers of centurions lost are writing similarly (to a knowledgeable audience) to the phrase 'the battle came to the triarii' and it describes a hard fight. What it does emphasize is that when the battle is underway and leadership is required - then it is the centurion that steps forward and provides the example.
During the ancient period, hardly anyone, even the commanders of armies, really commanded from the rear. Those that did needed to because they needed to see the larger picture of a battlefield and not get stuck getting tunnel vision by only focusing on one small sector of it. But this isn't the case of centurions. Centurions led centuries, they didn't need to worry about anything else but their own relatively small unit.
In the past I've brought up this one large point that you've never acknowledged. Unless mounted on a tall horse (like senior officers of the legions did, such as tribunes, legates and commanders) a centurion even two ranks behind the front rank would have ZERO idea what was actually happening in the front rank because he wouldn't be able to see over the heads and crests of the soldiers in front of him. Add to this your conception that he stood someone in the back of the century, way beyond two ranks, and he would have been blind to the fighting in the front. Is it your contention that some sort of "runner" existed on the front lines that would reported back to the rear of the century to let the centurion know what was happening in the front ranks?
Once the century was committed into the fight, there would be little a centurion could do command-wise. He had no control over any other unit but his own, meaning he didn't need to worry about a larger sector of the battlefield. A century could either advance or retreat in contact and it was not up to the centurion to order either of those, they were relayed from the tribunes who ordered the advance to the entire battle line. What does the centurion have to coordinate with an adjacent unit? Fire control? Nope. Routes of advance? Nope. Communication signals? Nope. There is nothing that a centurion would need to coordinate with a sister century once it had been committed to battle. All additional commands would be relayed from the true coordinators and commanders of the legion, the tribunes, by voice or musical instrument. The centurions job was to lead from the front. Reread Polybius and Caesar's Commentaries, the latter which makes it abundantly clear that even in battles with light casualties, centurions suffered a much higher casualty rate than the rest of the soldiers, and I'm not referring to desperate fights either. I recommend you read the Osprey books on centurions as a start. Lots of discussions have occurred on this forum, in Ancient Warfare Magazine, and other forums and publications that pretty definitively prove that centurions led from the front. If you want to debate this more, create another topic. But I'd recommend you do some more research first.
On campaign and in the camp there are muleteers, wagon drivers and some servants. I could imagine a servant for a centurion, but am more likely (like in Scarrow's novels) to believe in a clerk per century instead. Servants for tribunes and above, sure, but a low proportion and very few, if any, even devoted, slaves. Certainly none on the actual battlefield where all you want are soldiers to fight.
If a centurion wants his armour shined - then hes got 80 men to do it. Just like having a batman in the British army - batmen are still soldiers. You only feed those who are useful and essential.
The Romans, even from the lower strata of their propertied classes, were slave owning people. This was not unique among the time and place, nearly every culture had slaves. And it had been a time honored tradition to bring a personal slave with you on campaign to take care of all the mundane issues that fill up soldiers time, such as cooking and cleaning. This included the Greeks, the Celts, and everyone else. During most of Rome's history, soldiers were property owners, meaning they too would have brought slaves with them. Meaning, that individual soldiers had for some time brought their own slaves and servants with them into war. It wasn't till specific commanders like Scipio Africanus, Scipio Aemilianus, and Marius, to make the baggage train smaller and lessen the army's logistics, forbid individual soldiers from having their own personal servants, forcing them to either ship them home or sell them. Same goes for mules, it had been customary for individual soldiers to bring their own mules to carry their equipment and it wasn't until Marius that individual soldiers were forced to hump their own equipment (Marius' Mules). Following that, every contubernium (tent section) had its own servant, meaning every 8 or so soldiers shared a slave or hired servant. It is widely reported that centurions were allowed their own and weren't forced to share them with anyone else. A centurion had his own tent, his own mule, his own cart. This is all attested. He also had his own slave to take care of all these things. All told, there were many slaves attached to each century and the centurion would not use a soldier as a "bat man" when he was allocated his own personal slave.
There is an abundance of information available that discusses the existence of military servants, calo/calones.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Ro...lones.html
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text...ry=calo-cn
Relief from the Augusta Taurinorum: Centurio and Calo
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