Republican Army

[drsrob]

I'm sorry that it took so long for me to answer you, but here goes...

Perhaps, but according to Livy and Polybius the velites had up to 7 javelins. careless posting;
...........
I meant of course sculptural sources, but see above.

Yes i know, but what i demanded is if the sources make a convention to depict skirmishers with 2,3,4,5,.. javelins. The other links i posted are all legionaries with two "not-pila" arms, and we have also images of ancient hoplites with two javelins or bow.

As soon as there is more then one spear, at least one of them must be a javelin. There is a development in the use of spears etc. In the imperial period a legionary normally is shown with a single (heavy) pilum. If we see contemporary depictions of legionaries with more than one spear, that should give pause to wonder.
P. Flavoleius of the Leg. XIIII Gem has an oval shield and one or more fairly short javelins, which clearly have an amentum. These are definitely not pila. Apparently he is a skirmisher. C. Castricius of the Leg. I Adiutrix also has an oval shield; his spear looks like a light pilum, but he has two. Some 3rd century legionnaries have two spear, probably lanceae. According to Arrianus half the legionnaries carried lanceae instead of pila. There definitely was an evolution. Most likely the arms of Flavoleius are those of the antesignani. The following evidence - largely discussed or mentioned above - tends to lend support to that theory:

• In Spain Caesar specifically uses antesignani for light infantry tactics.
  At other points he recruited special forces from them in preference to other legionaries. Especially the dragoon role is similar to the ploy for which the velites had been created in 211.
  On the site of a legionary camp signs have been found with arma antesignani and/or arma postsignani.
  The gravestone of 'Lucius Valerius Cometius, veteran of the legio VIII Augusta [who] has served with the arms of the antesignani[...].
  Vegetius sais that antesignani were armoured, but with lighter equipment than the other legionaries, just like signiferi and that both wore bearskin covers on their helmets. The shield of the two men mentioned above is indeed similair to the shield of several standard bearers, including Cn. Musius of the Leg. XIIII Gem MV.
  C. Castricius has a triple crest instead of a bearskin. However, Early Coolus helmets have no crest attachments whatsoever, which would make sense if the were used under bearskins, while later Coolus patterns often had a triple crest attachment.
  

But we return to the inscription:
- the man has ten years of services
- He have 30 years a half-age man in roman term, the other lanciarius has 35, with 16 years of service
- The same sources of the number of javelins, make clear that the velites's role is a iuvenes job in legions, for status and phisical fitness necessity.
- On can expected a man enter in the legion first in leves and after had promotion in graves; this men at middle and last years of their career are in skirmisher's role?
- The first is discens lanchiarorum, i'm not sure the translation "apprentice" is correct, discens in military terminology can indicate also a instructor (Jasper what is the source of translation?). In the case of "instructor", in effect we have a promotion (but for the other soldier, only lanciarius, much older, the considerations on status and role remain valids). In the case of apprentice this reinforce the idea of a improvement of status between normal legionary and lanciarius like between pedes and eques; the soldier is died in the phase of passage in new rank, so recently has had a promotion at half of his career from a pilani century. Difficult to see the passage from gravis to levis like a improvement, only if levis have honorable and special duty (like the signiferi, at example).

We have found in the laterculi a D(iscens) AQ(uiliforum) in the VIII cohort of Leg III Aug. (VIII, 2568, 20 of c. AD 220). It therefore seams preferable to translate discens with trainee.

Given the nature of the annales maximae it seams unlikely that they would contain 'synthetic information on military campaigns'.

Since the tabulae registred the events of the year the military events are also registred in short form. But the annales are integrated with other contemporary sources public or private (and for teminology Livy have old latin not history's works like Plautus which confirm with a fragment the "accensi" "rorarii" old use in III century legion): the sources of Pictor and other successive annalist, so Livy has the same events narrated also in latin, without necessity to translate greek terms.

Fabius Pictor wrote extensively about the regal period and the Punic Wars, but dealt with the intervening period in a very summary way. The same would apparently apply to Cato, the first historian writing in Latin.
We know nothing of the Latin sources of Pictor. Certainly they were not the Annales Maximi as these were only published in the second century. Although there is a lot of information about events in the latter, it is extremely unlikely that they contained full descriptions of battles. Therefore the earlier battles certainly were fleshed out with a lot of details, of which most must have been downright invention. One should be very careful in using these description as evidence for the legionary organization of the period.

• Sources:
  Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (Berkely, Los Angelos, London 2005) pp. 60-64.
  T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome (London, New York 1995) pp. 13-15.

On view where greek author (Polybius) use explicitly the greek form of hastati (Zama battle), Livius choice the latin (supposedly more poetic, not technical and archaic) antesignani, maybe from Ennius (the principal source also for Polybius for Lehmann, reported by Delbruck, so maybe is Polibius to have transformed antesignani in hastati and not the contrary).

As I said, at this time the antesignani of Caesar did not yet exist so how the term was used here is irrelevant to our discussion.

And who is the source of Tubero?

The sources of other annalists and precedent historians.

These sources are however extremely suspect. In the early 1st century following Greek example Cn. Gellius wrote an extensive history of the republic with lots of speaches and battle descriptions, that were entirely invented, certainly for the earlier period. During the 80's and 70's Q. Claudius Quadrigarius wrote in reaction a history for the period after 390 BC, concentrating heavily on military history. This was used almost exclusively by Livy for his second series of 5 books. [Forsythe, p. 63] Interestingly, use of the word antesignani in these books correspond nicely to that in the description of a battle fought by Sulla in 86.