11-17-2021, 01:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-17-2021, 11:47 PM by Steven James.)
Nathan wrote:
Steven James
The initial term was centurio ordinarius, which appears on tombstones from the very late 3rd and early 4th centuries - meaning, approximately, a centurion 'in the ranks', or commanding an ordo.
Why not both? In his description of the 340 BC legion, Livy (8 8) has an ordo consist of: “three vexilla, and a single vexillum comprised 60 soldiers, two centurions and one vexillarius or standard-bearer, so that altogether there were one 186 men.” The two centurions I have corrected to be one centurion and one optio. The standard bearers I have interpreted to be part of the 180 soldiers. The end result is and ordo amounts to 180 soldiers, 3 centurions and 3 optiones. Each centurion commands 60 soldiers, which for this time frame is a century, but omits the velites or any light infantry. Of those three centurions, the one that commanded the ordo is the centurion ordinarius.
At the battle of Turin in 312 AD, between Constantine and Maxentius, Constantine left lanes for the enemy cavalry to pass through. Panegyric 4 (Nazarius 321 AD) Panegyric 12 (Trier, 313 AD). Livy (8 8) tells us that when the hastati retired, they passed through the intervals of the ordines. Later the princeps passed through the intervals of the triarii ordines. From 340 BC to 312 AD, some 652 years, nothing has really changed in the doctrine of the Roman army. It is still doing the same old stuff with the ordo organization creating the intervals. While many hold onto the notion that an ordo is another term for a maniple, there will be no progress.
