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[Burninator]

Greetings! I am currently a member of the team for the Roma Surrectum modification of Rome: Total War. Our big focus of this "mod" is the Romans. We've been striving to both portray them in the most historical way possible, and to show all of the varied equipment they used over the period from 217BC through the first century AD. We've been buying and checking out books, perusing the Romancoins archive, and yes, reading the Roman Army Talk forums here to do our best to get things right.

That being said, the area we are currently drawing some blanks in is the Republic era. As things currently stand, we start in 217BC. Now, I'm trying to figure out whether by this time they still used the 3 lines of Hastati, Principii, and Triarii, or had they combined the Hastati and Principii into "maniples" yet? Currently, due to the number of units we can have in the game's engine, we are portraying the combined maniples wearing Hamata, Montefortino's, oval Scutum, a single greave, and wielding Hispaniensis Gladii. We still have the Triarii separate, but not using the Italo-Corinthian helmet. Is this plausible? If not, when was the supposed move away from the 3-line formation to the maniple?

We're also pulling a blank on Roman and allied Italian Cavalry of the period. What sword did they use? We're eager to take input, and any references you could give us would be instrumental in getting things right!

Thank you for any input,
David

P.S.
If you are also a member over in the Total War Center forums, I ask that you do not discuss/divulge and specifics about the Roman faction. We are trying to keep them under wraps, the big "grand finale" right before release!

[Frank Chadwick]

David,

As you have probably gathered, there are no absolute answers to many of these questions, only informed opinions, and many of us will probably disagree as to how informed the opinions of some of the others are. :lol:

That having ben said, this is my understanding of the issues you raise.

1. Maniples (and Cohorts)
I'm going to assume that what you are actually asking is whether or not the hastati etc. were combined into cohorts by this time. They were in maniples well before this period, but the ten maniples each of hastati, principes, and triarii were the largest internal sub-divisions of the legion. Then at some point around this time (say within twenty or thirty years of your start date) the Roman maniples began being combined into cohorts, ten cohorts per legion each consisting of one maniple each of hastati, principes, and triarii.

When did this take place? Good question. My opinion (and it is only an opinion) is that the Romans did not adopt the cohort until the very end of the 2nd Punic War, and perhaps even later than that. The deployment of the hastati, principes, and triarii in separate clumps as late as Zama suggests to me that the cohort system was not really in use, at least not as a habitual, formalized thing.

Livy mentions cohorts a lot, but I am fairly certain that most of the cohorts he mentions are not Roman but rather allied units of the allied wings, and that at lest early in the war the maniple is the Roman (i.e. citizen) unit and the cohort the allied unit.

I believe this because (among other things) there is a passage in Livy which talks about a detached force made up of so many maniples and so many cohorts and commanded by a tribune and a prefect of allies. To me this is pretty clearly a mixed force of citizens (maniples) and allies (cohorts) with a tribune commanding the citizens and a prefect of allies commanding the allies.

2. Three Lines
As to using the three lines, yes, and probably continued to do so even after the adoption of the cohort system, at least for a while. The thing to remember, however, is that the three lines were used when expedient, not as a rigid tactial prcatice. There are several battles during the 2nd Punic War where a Roman army forms only two lines, with the first line one legion and one allied wing and the second line another legion and another allied wing. That suggests (to me) that the three types of troops were pretty thoroughly mixed in the two lines.

3. Equipment
As to equipment, what you suggest sounds reasonable to me. I suspect that right at 217 BC there was a great deal of variation in personal equipment and probably a fair amount of armor. As the war went on, I suspect that the amount of body armor decreased (lots of it lost early on and an enormous number of new units raised) but at the same time things like helmets became more standardized, due to the need to mass produce them. I bet the montefortino helmet really exploded into widespread use right about this time as an easily cranked out cheap helmet.

I will also say that I think the differences in armor between the troop types is greatly over-stated in most secondary sources. Officially there was no difference in the armor at all. Whether or not a soldier had a simple pectorale or a more elaborate corselet was purely matter of his wealth, not the hastati/principes/triarii differentiation. It's been argued that older men would tend to be more wealthy. To some extent that's probably so, but I haven't seen any actual numbers from tax and census roles to indicate how pronounced that was. Of course, just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Maybe there has been some good research done on that and someone on the forum will pipe up with it.

4. Cavalry Swords
Can't help with the cavalry sword question, I'm afraid.

Frank Chadwick

[Eleatic Guest]

Just some random comments:

Armour: The Romans used over time four different types:
- lorica segmentata (kind of 'plate armour')
- lorica hamata (chain-mail)
- scale armour
- lamellar

AFAIK, no other ancient army used armoury as varied. The Chinese, for one, only knew lamellar until the Tang (7th c. AD).

Helmets:
- AFAIK, the Roman metal cavalry mask is the first, and only, overall face protection in antiquity.

Weapons: Some weapons which can be viewed as particularly Roman, because they were rarely or never employed by other ancient peoples, are:
- boarding bridge ("corven")
- harpax, invented by Agrippa
- plumbata

[Urselius]

Cohorts are first mentioned, as was said above, soon after your start time. However, there is some reason to believe that these early cohorts were more of a grouping intended as a grouping for manoeuvring on the battlefield than as a lasting separate unit. This seems to have been perpetuated into the early Imperial times as the cohort wasn't given a defined commanding officer like a century or legion.

[Urselius]

Cavalry, during the time period Roman cavalry ceased to be ethnically majority Roman, the Allies took over the Roman army's provision of cavalry.

I suspect that this included the replacement of the machaira and falcata type short-chopping-swords, which cavalry seem to have favoured, by much longer, two-edged chopping-swords of ultimately Celtic or Celtiberian origins.

Many early gladius blades are surprisingly long, easily long enough to be useful cavalry weapons.

[Burninator]

Thanks for the information. Since it seems the Hastati/Principii/Triarii system didn't seem to go out until Marius, I'm beginning to rethink our decision to roll the principii and hastati into one unit, as we begin the campaign in 217bc, right as the 2nd Punic war starts.

And on the cavalry, We had guessed that Italian and Gallic allied cavalry had taken over for the old Equites. We were quite hung up on the sword that would be used. So a spatha/celtic type or long hispaniensis will fit the bill, along with Gallic or Italic equipment?

[greekwarrior34]

Since it seems the Hastati/Principii/Triarii system...

Just one thing. Principii doesn't exist in Latin (at least not if we're talking about soldiers) - the correct word for the nominative plural is Principes (third declension).

[Urselius]

Polybius, writing ca. second Punic War, states that the Roman cavalry adopted Greek-style armament. As the Hellenistic Greek cavalry tended to use the kopis or machaira (falcata-like recurved chopping swords) he may have intended these to be meant. The Italian allies would have been under much the same sort of Hellenistic influence so their sword use may not have been very different. I think later in the period Hispanic and Gallic allied units would have been more numerous, and they would have tended to introduce spatha-like swords to Roman armies.

[Frank Chadwick]

Various non-Italian allies do not really take over from the Romans and Italian allies until after the 2nd Punic War. During the war, and during the Macedonian wars which immediately followed, the actual "legion" cavalry is still provided by citizens and Italian allies. The typical provision is 300 Roman citizen cavalry and 600-900 Italian allied cavalry per legion. Of the Italian allies, one third were extraordinarii (picked out as the most capable of the allies) and they not only marched at the head of the column but also deployed on the right in battle, along with the Roman citizens. This meant that the typial two-legion army would have about 600 Roman citizen cavalry and 1200-1800 allies, but that the two cavalry wings would be of roughly equal strength, since the Romans and extraordinarii were on the right and the balance of the allies on the left.

Frank Chadwick

[Frank Chadwick]

Just some random comments:

Armour: The Romans used over time four different types:
- lorica segmentata (kind of 'plate armour')
- lorica hamata (chain-mail)
- scale armour
- lamellar

AFAIK, no other ancient army used armoury as varied. The Chinese, for one, only knew lamellar until the Tang (7th c. AD).

And of course there was also the muscled bronze cuirass as well as the linen corselet, although I guess that's easy to view as a subset of lamelar

Helmets:
- AFAIK, the Roman metal cavalry mask is the first, and only, overall face protection in antiquity.

I'm pretty sure there were lots of eastern heavy cavalry wearing full face protection. The Parthian heavy cavalry may have been among the first to do so, but a lot of others adopted it eventually. I am unsure of the time of this, but I believe that the Romans may have copied the face mask from the eastern heavy cavalry.

I have even seen a reconstruction of a Galatian infantryman with a full-face protective mask! The evidence for this is not a slam-dunk by any means, but it's interesting. It's based on two statues of Galatian warriors with what appear to be full beards at a time when they are believed to have been clean-shaven, suggesting an armored face mask, as most armored face masks included a stylized beard. As I said, an interesting theory but the evidence isn't conclusive.

Frank Chadwick

[Q. Vipsanivs Praetextatvs]

Various non-Italian allies do not really take over from the Romans and Italian allies until after the 2nd Punic War. During the war, and during the Macedonian wars which immediately followed, the actual "legion" cavalry is still provided by citizens and Italian allies. The typical provision is 300 Roman citizen cavalry and 600-900 Italian allied cavalry per legion. Of the Italian allies, one third were extraordinarii (picked out as the most capable of the allies) and they not only marched at the head of the column but also deployed on the right in battle, along with the Roman citizens. This meant that the typial two-legion army would have about 600 Roman citizen cavalry and 1200-1800 allies, but that the two cavalry wings would be of roughly equal strength, since the Romans and extraordinarii were on the right and the balance of the allies on the left.

Frank Chadwick

I think that we must differentiate between legion and Roman Army. An Italian allied during 2PW couldn't be in a Legion, they formed the alae of the Roman army.

[Dutchhoplite]

I'm pretty sure there were lots of eastern heavy cavalry wearing full face protection. The Parthian heavy cavalry may have been among the first to do so, but a lot of others adopted it eventually. I am unsure of the time of this, but I believe that the Romans may have copied the face mask from the eastern heavy cavalry.

I have even seen a reconstruction of a Galatian infantryman with a full-face protective mask! The evidence for this is not a slam-dunk by any means, but it's interesting. It's based on two statues of Galatian warriors with what appear to be full beards at a time when they are believed to have been clean-shaven, suggesting an armored face mask, as most armored face masks included a stylized beard. As I said, an interesting theory but the evidence isn't conclusive.

That's from Nick Sekunda's book on the reformed Seleucid army. Interesting read but he couldn't convince me.

[Burninator]

Okay, here's what our team has decided on. From what it seems, the hastati and principes were mostly differentiated by age, experience, and equipment. Later in the 2nd punic war and beyond they seemed to more and more wear similar equipment, to the point where equipment wise there was not much different. A particular Wiki article ( I know, Wikipedia's evil) references the book Republican Rome, The Army and The Allies by Emilio Gabba when they state that the lines between Hastati, Principes, and Triarii became blurred due to demands of numbers of men and need for replacements. And apparently Polybius mentions something along these lines, though I have not read that myself (Yet).

SOOO we're going to go ahead and use the so-called "Polybian" units in place of separate Hastati and Triarii. Will this be good-to-go for the period of the second Punic war to the Marian reforms? All this help is greatly appreciated. I really want to be as right and accurate as the game engine will allow us to.

David

[Frank Chadwick]

Various non-Italian allies do not really take over from the Romans and Italian allies until after the 2nd Punic War. During the war, and during the Macedonian wars which immediately followed, the actual "legion" cavalry is still provided by citizens and Italian allies. The typical provision is 300 Roman citizen cavalry and 600-900 Italian allied cavalry per legion. Of the Italian allies, one third were extraordinarii (picked out as the most capable of the allies) and they not only marched at the head of the column but also deployed on the right in battle, along with the Roman citizens. This meant that the typial two-legion army would have about 600 Roman citizen cavalry and 1200-1800 allies, but that the two cavalry wings would be of roughly equal strength, since the Romans and extraordinarii were on the right and the balance of the allies on the left.

Frank Chadwick

I think that we must differentiate between legion and Roman Army. An Italian allied during 2PW couldn't be in a Legion, they formed the alae of the Roman army.

I agree completely, and sorry my post was confusing on that score. The reason I use "legion" (in quotation marks) is to highlight that they were not actually part of the legion, but were part of the quota of troops raised to support the legion. This would be separate from various bodies of foreign allies and mercenaries hired in addition to the normal quota of citizens and allies.

So, for example, during the 2nd Punic War the Numidians bring a large body of cavalry and infantry to Zama, and these are certainly "allies" in every sense of the word. But those troops do not form part of or substitute for the contingent of Italian allies preent which are part of the standard legion "quota."

Most of those Italian allies raises as part of a legion muster or quota would indeed be part of an ala, but the cavalry and the extraordinarii would not, so it gets awkward trying to make sure people know which allies you are talking about without using the word "legion" sooner or later.

Frank Chadwick