Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Steven James]

Michael wrote:

The veterans of those legions, those of 16 years' service who were not expected to fight unless themselves threatened, remained guarding their legionary fortresses, under the command of their respective praefecti castrorum.

 

I see leaving all the veterans of 16 years service to guard legionary fortress as robbing the army of experienced men who could have a positive influence on new recruits, while on campaign. Allow me share my research. Taking Livy as an example, in his account of the years 200 BC to 168 BC, there is a wealth of detail relating to army replacements. All these replacement numbers are for time served soldiers, which are termed ‘veterans’ during the republic. The important factor is all those replacement numbers (when correctly rounded), equally divide into the number of centuries in the army, that they are being sent to, for example a consular army. This works out that the replacement are for men in each century, as each century is made up of an equal number of men undertaking a particular campaign, so a century consists of an equal number of raw recruits, seasoned troops and veterans. Appian makes the statement that around 142 BC, all those that had served 6 years were being replaced.

 

For the principate, when 16 years service was required, this translates to an 80 man century consisting of:

 

0 to 4 years service - 20 men

4 to 8 years service - 20 men

8 to 12 years service - 20 men

12 to 16 years service - 20 men

 

When the 80 man century is broken into 10 contubernium each of 8 men, each contubernium is allocated the following:

 

0 to 4 years service - 2 men

4 to 8 years service - 2 men

8 to 12 years service - 2 men

12 to 16 years service - 2 men

 

This gives a even spread of men and there are always two veterans (12 to 16 years), to help and watch over the others. When the military service was extended to 20 years, this translates to:

 

0 to 5 years service - 20 men

5 to 10 years service - 20 men

10 to 15 years service - 20 men

15 to 20 years service - 20 men

 

Contubernium

0 to 5 years service - 2 men

5 to 10 years service - 2 men

10 to 15 years service - 2 men

15 to 20 years service - 2 men

 

I have not found this system has changed. In fact there are references to the Roman replacing time expired veterans going back to around 460 BC or earlier (from the top of my head). The only difference is the size of the century has changed. Overtime.

 

Even in the principate, it is still the same game. If a vexillation is detached, it will have an equal number of raw, seasoned and veteran recruits. Another policy I found with the principate was on occasion have the pilani guard the camp, or the pilani in each vexillation guard the camp, when it is a vexillation sized fortress.


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