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

[lucius Gellius cuniculus]

You'are probably right about the origin of century names.

It's a theory about the number of calones in a century, but calones are quite mysterious characters in the roman army !

I'm not sure they were slave... We cand found them from many passages in Caesar: in fact, we are told by Josephus that, from away living with the soldiers and being present at their exercises, they were inferior to them alone in skill and valour.

You can see after the cavalry man Flavius Bassus with a calo bringing him some spears ( second half of first century AD -Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Köln © Agnès Vinas)



About the number of calones with the soldiers in a century, we suppose that 1 or 2 mules may with a contubernium (8 soldiers). Two calones for one contubernium and this mules seems necessary !

Cf : Gary Brueggeman website about the legion's baggage train

http://www.garyb.0catch.com/march4_bagg ... ggage.html

PS : Sorry for my bad english !

[jvrjenivs]

About the number of calones with the soldiers in a century, we suppose that 1 or 2 mules go with a contubernium (8 soldiers). Two calones for one contubernium and this mules seems possible !

Okay, but let say that each contubernium had the same amount of calones. (either one or two).

If they had 2, then we have 100 men, as you stated above, but then there is no room for the calones of the centurion in these 100 men.

If there was only one for each contubernium, the same would give 10 calones for other parts than the contubernia, which I would think are too many. So I really don't think we have to find the 100-men term in the amount of people serving under the centurion from Marius' reform onwards.

[lucius Gellius cuniculus]

OK, I'm agree.

I've find this german website wich give some other interpretation of the Caesar Army (with one calo or mulio for 5 legionnaries )

http://www.ewetel.net/~martin.bode/Heer.htm

[Tarbicus]

A century = 100 men.

The reason 60 or 80 man units were called a century is because that's what a tactical unit in the Roman army was simply thought of as, through tradition from way back to the time of the kings.

Is this a reasonable statement?

[jvrjenivs]

A century = 100 men.

The reason 60 or 80 man units were called a century is because that's what a tactical unit in the Roman army was simply thought of as, through tradition from way back to the time of the kings.

Is this a reasonable statement?

Yes, I really think that's the reason. And a good answer of the question of this topic in one sentence.

[Sean Manning]

For a similar example of how military terminology can get seperated from the original meaning, an Athenian trireme had an officer called a pentekontarchon ("fifty-leader") who doesn't seem to have commanded 50 of anything. They figure the post was originally something like "captain of a pentekonter" and when Athens adopted triremes they kept the name and changed the duties. Or we still have Lieutenants and Lieutenant Colonels, even though they aren't anyone's deputy (the original meaning) any more.

[Ygraine]

Lucius, I find your information very interesting. Could the calones have been similar to squires or "knights in training" during the Middle Ages?

PS Your English is very good. Sadly, I know very little French.
Au revoir (spelling?).

[Hibernicus]

I believe, if memory serves, (and someone with far better resources than I is going to have to dig deeper into this) .... I believe that centuria come in part from the word centuriationes which are land divisions... related to the word centuriatum

Basically a "century" of men was a group of men from a particular area.

I think the origin comes from dividing land into units of 100.

At some point that group of soldiers was regulated to be a certain size (in our case 80)

Centuria dosn't properly translate as 100.. it better translates as "group"

[Marcus Julius]

The reason 60 or 80 man units were called a century is because that's what a tactical unit in the Roman army was simply thought of as, through tradition from way back to the time of the kings.

Is this a reasonable statement?

It certainly is, Jim. Of course we can't assume that modern conventions parallel the ancient. However, the modern American army's organization is based on long standing traditions. Platoons typically average around 60 infantrymen. Some are larger, and many are smaller, but they are all still called a platoon.

It's not so much a designation of it's size, but rather it's 'tier' within the command and control structure of the military. Being the smallest unit that is commanded by an officer - it's Centurion.

[Tarbicus]

Hib and Brian, I think you might have both hit the nail on the head. If we go back to the formation of legions, they tended to be militia who elected their centurions IIRC. If there was no splitting up during selection at the time of the kings, then the whole land and community grouping makes sense if the centurion was seen as a leading man from a community, and an obvious candidate to be elected.

I think it ties in well with the Roman army's origins as a war band.

[Narukami]

Last night on the train ride home while reading Xenophon's "The Persian Expedition" I came across this passage in Book IV Chapter 8:

"When everyone was in position and they had formed the companies, there were about eighty companies of hoplites, each company with roughly the strength of a hundred."

Now of course I am reading this in translation and can not vouch for the accuracy against the original Greek.

However, if we believe J.E. Lendon's main thesis in his book "Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity" that the Romans were so enamored of the Greeks and their Heroic Age that this influenced Roman military science, then perhaps it is not too much of a stretch to consider that this company organization Xenophon mentions might have echoes in the Roman Century.

On the other hand I must say that both Tarbicus' and Hibernicus' explanations seem very logical.

:wink:

Narukami

[Hibernicus]

There seems to be a heap of info about "centuriation" on the Web.

Unfortunately most tend to use the English versions of the Latin words..

I still can't tfind the reference I have (had??) . But, as I read more on the Web I am fairly certain the use of the word "centuria" to descibe a company of soldiers derives from the land division ....

Still not completely sure if its an allotment of men from a "centuriation". It might be simply the the dividing up of the army was like the division of land... maybe a concept all those rural farm boy conscripts could understand?

This bit of info is a bit more useful... and note how the word centuria is used..

from : www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/h ... eletto.pdf

Cultural Landscape: Trace Yesterday, Presence Today,
Perspective Tomorrow For Roman Centuriation in Rural
Venetian Territory
Gian Umberto Caravello
Piero Michieletto

<snip>

Essential Historical Features of the Venetian Plains
The agricultural landscape that characterizes most of the
Venetian plains, from the Po river to the foothills of the Alps,
from the Mincio river to the Isonzo, still has an orderly layout,
with a regular division of cultivated ager centuriatus
fields, country roads, drainage ditches and long stretches of
vineyards and orchards.
It is impossible to understand the overall layout of the
current agricultural landscape without clear idea of the extensive
work done in this area during Roman times. This work,
known as centuriation, consisted of dividing the land along
two main axes, nearly always based on important roads or
watercourses, which crossed each other at right angles. The
geometrical regularity of the grid was secured by dividing
lines, or limites, named according to their orientation:
the Cardo Maximus, oriented mainly N-S, and the


Decumanus Maximus, which ran in an E-W direction. The
various centuria obtained from this initial division were
defined by a network of secondary cardines and decumans
that created a grid of square plots with sides measuring 20
actus (2.52 ha). Each of the centuria could be further divided
by Тlimites intercisiviУ and even inner interlimites.
These divisions were used to establish boundaries between
the sortes, i.e., plots of land that were allotted to colonists
who farmed them using advanced agricultural methods. All
such surveying operations were called ТlimitatioУ and the
result a centuriatio.

[Quintius Clavus]

The century as a term seems to have its origins in the voting assemblies of the Republic. The information that follows is from a quick google search and pulled up a document from the site of the Univerity of Texas: http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/do ... epGov.html

The basic information is that the Centuriate Assembly was organized into 193 centuries based on wealth and age and directly correlates to the military organization of men by these same categories.
The Tribal Assemby was also organized into tribes then centuries.

Then, we get back to that age-old question of "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Did the Assembly organization into centuries come before or after the military organization into centuries? - that is something which goes back into Rome's more legendary past.

The comment has come up in various threads, and I will air it here: Why do barracks blocks in the forts/fortresses have more rooms than just the 10 needed to house 10 contubernia of 8 men each in a century (80 men). Of course, my response is that they would have needed storage space for century-owned common gear, and perhaps additional "office" or separate sleeping space for the Tesserarius/Signifer/Optio, etc. rather than living with the other men in the century.

Regarding the place of calones(camp servants) in the unit: The Army of the middle Republic, seems to have had regular non-combantant men attached to it, perhaps from the capite censi who could not serve as full soldiers. During the Principate, many soldiers owned one or more personal slaves, and these might have also been "loaned" to the army, whether voluntarily or under orders, I don't know. Sara Elisa Phang discusses the soldiers' slaves in her book, "The Marriage of Roman Soldiers", including the tasks they performed.

I don't believe that these calones and/or slaves (in the Principate) would be figured anywhere in the count of men in a century. The middle Republic's non-combatants, on the other hand, might have been figured in somewhere on the strength of a century in the legion as many(or all?) of them were free citizen men, just lacking minimum property.

With time the Roman Army changed, and there is not just one answer to the questions about the century as a military unit.

Quinton Johansen
Marcus Quintius Clavus, Optio Secundae Pili Prioris Legionis III Cyrenaicae

[antiochus]

The basic information is that the Centuriate Assembly was organized into 193 centuries based on wealth and age and directly correlates to the military organization of men by these same categories.

Livy's total is 194 centuries. He includes one century of capite censi. My forthcoming book will mathematically confirm for a 700 year period, Livy is correct.

The Tribal Assemby was also organized into tribes then centuries.

The Tribal Assembly had it origins in the levy system. This means the levy system developed into a political system. The reason for this development was it gave equality to all classes. Livy does make reference to a levy formula. The tribal assembly was introduced as Dionysius states in 494 BC, which coincides with the creation of the 21 tribe.

Then, we get back to that age-old question of "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Did the Assembly organization into centuries come before or after the military organization into centuries? - that is something which goes back into Rome's more legendary past.

Both were part and parcel of the same organisation. They were both developed with a military and political function simultaneously.