09-29-2007, 08:48 PM
I did not found this in this forum - but I think it is of very high importance for the understanding of the legions and is worth beeing known and discussed - it partly fits (and contradicts) the thread "Vegetius legion description" http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=11146
Centurial signs were the symbols that mark the rank and place of centuriae and centurions. They first were found in 1983 - their sequence and meaning being unclear. Michael Speidel in a paper from 2005 is sure to be able to establish their sequence, "which offers a new tool for understanding the legion's structure and deployment" (Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik ZPE 154, p. 286-292)
He analyzes centurial signs from inscriptions in Mainz, Germany and Lambaesis in Numidia which should show the same sequence, which therefore , as Speidel thinks "will have been the same for all imperial legions".
The signs seem to be arranged in the order pili-principes-hastati.
Speidel tries to find an arrangement of the six signs, which fits the known deployment of a cohort. He concludes: "Scholars have said that we know nothing about the cohorts deployment in the first three centuries of our era" (e.g. Goldsworthy, Roman Army at War, 1996, 181; Wheeler 2004 ...) ... but Speidel states: "The three battle lines of hastati, principes, and pili may therefore have survived as a deployment possibility of the imperial legion."
So Speidel thinks the legions were still organized in maniples in the imperial era and may have had tactical importance. He cites a building inscription on Hadrian's Wall and one from Apamea, mid 3rd century. The last mentions legionary phalangarii, lancearii and sagittarii. "These ranks must have been linked to battle positions, perhaps tied to battle lines so that front-line phalangarii served mostly among the hastati, bowmen among the principes and pili."
A further source for the importance of the battle lines during the empire should be Hadrian's critique of the maneuvers at Lambaesis in AD 128. He addressed pili, principes and hastati separately, "probably because they had done separate maneuvers and certainly because they still existed as traditional parts of the legion."
Speidel even extends in some way this continued formation into the late era: "During the later third century, when the legions shrank from 6000 to 1000 men, centuriae and maniples vanished and cohorts of centuria-like size took over their role ... The new, small cohorts too seem to have formed battle lines, such as cohorts 1-5 in front and 6-10 in the rear" referring to Vegetius 2.6 and 2.15. The pili should later sometimes be called triarii (meaning the reserves).
Speidel explicitly thinks of a legion as capable of functioning as a phalanx as using the three battle lines.
So - what does anybody think of Speidel's thesis?
Centurial signs were the symbols that mark the rank and place of centuriae and centurions. They first were found in 1983 - their sequence and meaning being unclear. Michael Speidel in a paper from 2005 is sure to be able to establish their sequence, "which offers a new tool for understanding the legion's structure and deployment" (Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik ZPE 154, p. 286-292)
He analyzes centurial signs from inscriptions in Mainz, Germany and Lambaesis in Numidia which should show the same sequence, which therefore , as Speidel thinks "will have been the same for all imperial legions".
The signs seem to be arranged in the order pili-principes-hastati.
Speidel tries to find an arrangement of the six signs, which fits the known deployment of a cohort. He concludes: "Scholars have said that we know nothing about the cohorts deployment in the first three centuries of our era" (e.g. Goldsworthy, Roman Army at War, 1996, 181; Wheeler 2004 ...) ... but Speidel states: "The three battle lines of hastati, principes, and pili may therefore have survived as a deployment possibility of the imperial legion."
So Speidel thinks the legions were still organized in maniples in the imperial era and may have had tactical importance. He cites a building inscription on Hadrian's Wall and one from Apamea, mid 3rd century. The last mentions legionary phalangarii, lancearii and sagittarii. "These ranks must have been linked to battle positions, perhaps tied to battle lines so that front-line phalangarii served mostly among the hastati, bowmen among the principes and pili."
A further source for the importance of the battle lines during the empire should be Hadrian's critique of the maneuvers at Lambaesis in AD 128. He addressed pili, principes and hastati separately, "probably because they had done separate maneuvers and certainly because they still existed as traditional parts of the legion."
Speidel even extends in some way this continued formation into the late era: "During the later third century, when the legions shrank from 6000 to 1000 men, centuriae and maniples vanished and cohorts of centuria-like size took over their role ... The new, small cohorts too seem to have formed battle lines, such as cohorts 1-5 in front and 6-10 in the rear" referring to Vegetius 2.6 and 2.15. The pili should later sometimes be called triarii (meaning the reserves).
Speidel explicitly thinks of a legion as capable of functioning as a phalanx as using the three battle lines.
So - what does anybody think of Speidel's thesis?
Jens Wucherpfennig
