01-23-2015, 01:35 PM
Quote:the phrase used is exercitus Romanorum. No idea whether that was the official terminology.
This phrase was also used, I think, to describe the militia troops raised to defend Rome against the Lombards in the 6th century. I don't have a reference for that though!
Simon James, In Rome and the Sword, makes an interesting point: "Startlingly, the Romans had no term equivalent to our phrase 'the Roman Army', because no such entity or concept existed." He goes on to describe the Roman military as not a 'monolithic state instittion', like a modern army, but a combination of units and territorial forces with a 'bottom up' organisation: 'armies' plural rather than singular. The troops of the governor of Syria were called the exercitus Syriae, for example.
"During the republic and empire, to describe their armed forces Romans normally spoke of 'the armies' (exercituus), or 'the legions', in plurals... Romans also commonly spoke of milites, 'the soldiers', of men rather than of institutional collectives." (James, p.22)
Nathan Ross
