the century - fighting unit

[Matthew Amt]

Right, the term century dates way back to when it was actually more of a political unit, of 100 men. By the Punic War era, a century of hastati or principes was 60 men (plus velites, I think), but a century of triarii was only 30 men! So the term has lost its strict numerical meaning.

We generally believe an Imperial century is 80 men, nominally, but if you look at barracks blocks, most have 10 pairs of rooms (each pair for a contubernium), but some have as few as 8 or as many as 14! So, as usual, we don't actually KNOW for sure...

To muddy the waters, I understand that legionary cavalrymen were still listed on the roster of their original centuries. But we don't know if they still bunked with their century, or all together as a cavalry unit.

By the way, calones is the plural of "calo". I understood it to be a servant, typically a slave, but never heard of any set number of them per century. You often see one on a cavalryman's tombstone, holding the horse's reins and/or extra spears for his master. It might have been typical for each contubernium to chip in for a slave, and presumably he could mind the mule on the march. Pure guesswork! But I highly doubt that such servants were counted in the total number of men in the century--only free-born men were permitted to join the army. There ARE a few accounts of camp followers taking up arms in a desparate battle, however.

Valete,

Matthew