07-02-2014, 12:11 PM
I posted a reply yesterday but my answer never went online : /
For Caesar's troops, in the pages describing the battle, he only IDs 3 legions (8, 9 and 10) and says he had 80 cohorts in line AND 7 cohorts guarding the camp. So it's a bit more complicated than just 8 Legions obviously. Caesar mentions he left Italy with 7 legions, then Antoine joined him with 4 (including 1 of recruit).
However when you read the chapters leading to the battle, CJC says things like "Legion Y and Z, under Publius Somethingus were sent to ...blabla..." and then some pages later, "the army having reunited with "....". I had a quick look at those pages, and it seems out of the 11 legions, he's just missing the recruit one (n°27). But he also has various cohorts scattered around on garrisons duty. And it's not completely clear whether or not they got back to the main army before the battle. And there other issues. For instance he leaves twice a 3 cohorts garrisons in Oricum...
In the end I think it's possible to ID up to 6 legions with a good degree of certainty which does leave us with 27 cohorts of unknown provenance and 5 legions unaccounted for, including one (the 27) almost certainly away from the army.
- 8 9 and 10 are certain
- 6 (present at Dyrrachium and then had to follow Caesar to Alexandrie), 11 12 (under Cn. Domitius Calvinus)
The most likely candidate for the remaining legions being the 7, 13 and 14. Which still leaves one last legion.
To come back to Appian. He has Caesar at 21 000 line infantry, of which 2000 ("the oldest ones"... so his best veterans) are left to guard the camp and 3000 ("of his bravest foot soldiers") used to make up the 4th line. Which leaves poor Caius with only 16 000 in his main battle line to face 37 000 infantry (minus light troops though). I would not follow Appian who himself acknowledge that he is really not sure which source to follow.
Quote:Tim NC,For Pompey's army, apparently Caesar "forgot" to account for various detachments Pompey had sent away from the army. And in the end, he captured "only" 9 Eagles.
Where in his commentaries does it say eight legions?. He brings up Delbruck and Keppie, who I havent read, who state Pompeius only had 88 cohorts, stating 110 was too many. How did they get those numbers? [.........]
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For Caesar's troops, in the pages describing the battle, he only IDs 3 legions (8, 9 and 10) and says he had 80 cohorts in line AND 7 cohorts guarding the camp. So it's a bit more complicated than just 8 Legions obviously. Caesar mentions he left Italy with 7 legions, then Antoine joined him with 4 (including 1 of recruit).
However when you read the chapters leading to the battle, CJC says things like "Legion Y and Z, under Publius Somethingus were sent to ...blabla..." and then some pages later, "the army having reunited with "....". I had a quick look at those pages, and it seems out of the 11 legions, he's just missing the recruit one (n°27). But he also has various cohorts scattered around on garrisons duty. And it's not completely clear whether or not they got back to the main army before the battle. And there other issues. For instance he leaves twice a 3 cohorts garrisons in Oricum...
In the end I think it's possible to ID up to 6 legions with a good degree of certainty which does leave us with 27 cohorts of unknown provenance and 5 legions unaccounted for, including one (the 27) almost certainly away from the army.
- 8 9 and 10 are certain
- 6 (present at Dyrrachium and then had to follow Caesar to Alexandrie), 11 12 (under Cn. Domitius Calvinus)
The most likely candidate for the remaining legions being the 7, 13 and 14. Which still leaves one last legion.
To come back to Appian. He has Caesar at 21 000 line infantry, of which 2000 ("the oldest ones"... so his best veterans) are left to guard the camp and 3000 ("of his bravest foot soldiers") used to make up the 4th line. Which leaves poor Caius with only 16 000 in his main battle line to face 37 000 infantry (minus light troops though). I would not follow Appian who himself acknowledge that he is really not sure which source to follow.
Quote:Regardless, at Pharsalus, in order for Caesar to have matched the length of Pompeius' vastly superior battle line, with his limited numbers and cohorts, Caesar's ranks would have been much smaller. Either that, or as Michael J. Taylor theorizes, he extended the gaps between maniples. Since we're talking about half the numbers, I doubt the gaps were doubled to make up for it. The easiest thing to do would be to half the ranks, especially if you have confidence in your men to hold, which Caesar appears to haveWell Caesar had understrength legions with understrength cohorts, so he must have used every trick in the book to match Pompey's line. Who kinda "helped" him by deploying his lines 10 ranks deep and probably didn't trust his troop with anything more than minimal gaps. So he probably used a combination of both. But the shallower the formation, the more dangerous the gaps would be or at least would feel for each century/maniple.
Timothee.
