01-05-2013, 11:56 PM
Quote:................
For the campaign of 462 BC Dionysius (9 69-71) describes four cohorts each of 600 men deployed before Rome. However, for the same year during an engagement against the Volscians and Aequians, Dionysius (9 63) mentions, “two cohorts did not exceed 1000 men.” Although these figures appear to be contradictionary they are not. A 600 man cohort is under the command of a military tribune. However, the 600 men only relates to the fighting components of the tribune cohort (the heavy armed infantry). The two cohorts not exceeding 1000 men is the full number for a tribune cohort, which now includes the light armed infantry. For the campaign of 431 BC, Livy (3 69) reports that two senators commanded a cohort. Here Livy is referring to a tribune cohort. Therefore, a tribune cohort is further under the command of two senators who are both subordinate to the military tribune.
............
This seems rather confusing to the otherwise generally accepted ideas. There is also the issue of the use of the cohort as even an idea at that early stage. Whilst writing later, Polybius (the best and most detailed of the early writers) has the strength of a legion at 4,000 + 'Officers' + 300 Cavalry. If considered as a Cohort structure (which it wasn't at that time) this would give 10 Cohorts of 5 Centuries of Infantry and a Turma of cavalry (to which the equivalent, or in actuality, of an additional century to each was added in times of extremis).
Either way, at that time a 'cohort' was simply a grouping of men at a lower strength than a Legion. Had that been written later, however, it might make more sense...
For each cohort consisting of 6 Centuries (which is often confused as 600) is also consistent with 2 Cohorts together numbering less than 1,000, for we know they were. The presence, or not, of brigaded light infantry, however, is also possible.
But all that doesn't really answer the original question. For cohorts did have 'commanders', or at least the Auxilia ones ceryainly did. Prefect's for the standard ones and Tribunes for the larger. In the legions, however, the senior centurions of each cohort seem to have had day-to-day charge. However, there are plenty of examples of vexillations of cohort pairs lead by Tribunes to suggest that the 5 junior tribunes of a legion may well have had defacto authority over a pair of cohorts.