10-03-2014, 02:55 PM
I’m celebrating a little triumph as today was the day I found out how the Roman vexillation system works. It came from a wide range of references from Tacitus and ILS records. I’ve also managed to trace its origins, and it's the same organisation and size as the Praetorians for the principate. However, putting that aside, the proof of the pudding was when I applied it to the battle of Mons Graupius. The 3000 cavalry figure I have found awhile back to be accurate (no rounding), and when I took out the cavalry belonging to the auxiliary cohorts, the remainder I divided by the number of cavalry that can be allocated to a vexillation to arrive at the number of legion vexillations Agricola could have had. This insight into the vexillation system is helping me to understand the confusion in Hyginus. 
