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How were officers trained?
#1
Quote:Since there was no formal "military academy", and Rome ran on personal connections, any tribune position would depend on influence and favors. But it really looks like those equestrians that made it to a legion would at least be competent, whereas it's quite possible that many senatorial tribunes were still just traditional good-old-boy appointments.

Military tribunes and their significance

You know, I've been wondering about this recently. Exactly how were they trained? Would a child growing up in a powerful family receive military training in the expectation of his future career? Once he got his first appointment, would he have a mentor? How would he be trained in tactics, strategy, logistics... even the art of commanding men?

I would assume that the training of officers was at least as important as the training of men, but I really don't know anything about how it worked. I recall reading quite a bit about the training of soldiers, but nothing about the training of their commanders.
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
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#2
Aside from those who rose from the ranks via the centurionate, Roman military commanders would have come from the upper classes - equestrian and senatorial. In a slave-owning plutocracy, such men would have been accustomed to commanding others from a young age, of course, and expecting to be obeyed!

There was, at least in theory, a kind of institutionalised military training for youths of the Equestrian Order. From the age of manhood (15), they would be enrolled in one of several turmae for the mounted displays and parades (transvectio) held annually in Rome and possibly other cities. The displays, like the famous lusus Troiae, seem to have been formalised military exercises, and would have required excellent riding abilities. A little later (perhaps 16-18?), the equestrian youth would be enrolled in one of the collegia iuvenum, sort of paramilitary youth clubs, for his tirocinium militiae, or compulsory military training. By the age of 18, then, the young man would have had at least three years of rigorous training - or so it would appear.

Quite what this training might have involved in practice is less easy to determine. The collegia iuvenum might have spent more time brawling in the streets than actually doing any real exercising, and the 'compulsory' nature of the whole thing seems to have been allowed to slip rather often. Ovid writes that he avoided military training altogether as he wasn't very fit - which suggests that the collegia didn't take just anybody.

I've long wanted to know more about this, however, and would appreciate any further light that could be thrown on the topic!

- Nathan
Nathan Ross
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#3
Officers, it seems, simply learned by osmosis. From Republican times all the way into the Later Roman Empire we read time and again that aristocrats would take their sons on campaign from an early age (after receiving the Toga virilis ). They would learn from their fathers and from the other officers as well just by being around them if nothing else.

Some well known examples :
  • Scipio Africanus, still in his teens, campaigned with his father.
  • Marcus Lincinius Crassus took his son Publius on campaign in Parthia where they both perished
  • Vaspasian (as general) appointed his son, Titus, as a legate during the Jewish war
  • Constantius Chlorus always had Constantine by his side from early on
  • Theodosius the Elder (aka "Count") brought his son with him during the campaign to reconquer Britain

~Theo
Jaime
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#4
An important document in this regard must be Marius' speech in Sallust's "Jugurthine War" (chapter 85). Just about all of it is relevant but here is particularly comparing his qualifications as a humbly born soldier with those of the great aristocrats.
Quote:You have chosen me to conduct the war against Jugurtha, and this has greatly annoyed the nobility. Now consider whether it would be better to alter you decision -- I mean, to appoint for this or for any similar work some member of that coterie of noblemen, a man with a long pedigree and a household of family portraits, but without a single campaign to his credit, who, faced with a serious task which he does not know the first thing about, will get excited and run about trying to find some commoner to instruct him in his duty. This is in fact what generally happens: the man you appoint to take command looks for another to command him. I myself know cases in which a consul, after his election, has taken to studying history and Greek military treatises. This is reversing the natural order of things. For although you cannot discharge the duties of an office until you have been elected to it, the necessary practical experience should come first. Compare me, the "new" man, with these high and mighty ones. What they know only from hearsay or reading, I have seen with my own eyes or done with my own hands. What they have learned out of books, I have learned from the battlefield. It is for you to judge whether words or deeds are more to the point. Etc." (translation of S.A. Handford, Penguin Classics, 117-118).

So apparently sometimes the officers weren't really trained at all.
Tony Whalen (aka tonyodysseus)
nihil simul inventum et perfectum est. Cicero
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#5
The examples given by Theo were mainly sons of the senatorial order - Scipio was a military tribune, Publius Crassus and Titus had already been tribunes, and Titus had already held the post of quaestor. Constantine had spent most of his youth either at court or on campaign with the tetrarchic emperors, and was also a tribune ('of the first order', whatever that means) when he 'escaped' from Nicomedia and went to join his father in the west. Marius was probably equestrian, but was also an elected military tribune.

While modern novels etc tend to portray the aristocratic youth of Rome mincing about and writing salacious poetry all day, I'm sure that a great deal of their time would have spent on what we today might call 'military training' - even if to them it was no more than the stuff of everyday life!

- Nathan
Nathan Ross
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#6
Quote:The examples given by Theo were mainly sons of the senatorial order - Scipio was a military tribune, Publius Crassus and Titus had already been tribunes, and Titus had already held the post of quaestor. Constantine had spent most of his youth either at court or on campaign with the tetrarchic emperors, and was also a tribune ('of the first order', whatever that means) when he 'escaped' from Nicomedia and went to join his father in the west. Marius was probably equestrian, but was also an elected military tribune.

Equestrian examples are rather hard to find [1]! However, it seems to have been perfectly normal for even junior officers on campaign to take along with them groups of friends as 'contubernales' (the younger Cato, for example, took a large retinue away with him while a military tribune). Spending time on campaign, more than 'book learning', seems to have been the main way in which the Roman elite - including equestrians - acquired practical experience of military command. Have a look, for example, at Pliny, Ep. 8.14.4-5, and Statius, Silu. 5.2.164-165, 173, 180, or for a more well known example, Augustus' avowed aim, according to Suetonius, of encouraging the sons of senators to serve as equestrian prefects: to give them experience of military life (Suetonius, Aug. 38). Cicero says the same of Pompeius' time serving under his father (Cicero, pro lege Man. 28). It's also worth noting that Cicero's son's first equestrian prefecture appears to have involved 'war games' (equestrian military exercises), and it's only his second spell as a cavalry prefect where he appears to have taken a leading role on campaign. Compare Cicero's praise of his son at de Off. 2.45, with no mention of active command ("And yet, when Pompey placed you in command of an ala in theis war, you won the applause of that great man and of the army for your skill in riding and in spear throwing and for endurance of all the hardships of a soldiers life."), with his later service in 43/42BC.

For the interested, there's a very good article by Campbell: Campbell, J.B. (1987), ‘Teach Yourself How to Be a General’, Journal of Roman Studies 77, (1987) 13-29.

Quote:While modern novels etc tend to portray the aristocratic youth of Rome mincing about and writing salacious poetry all day, I'm sure that a great deal of their time would have spent on what we today might call 'military training' - even if to them it was no more than the stuff of everyday life!

Well, I'm not sure if we'd have called it 'military training', but there seems to have been a strong link - for example in Sicily - between Hellenistic gymnasia and an elite military ethos. That link might, I think, be extended to the Roman palaestra. Your point above about learning to be obeyed, and to lead, is also important, as is skill in oratory and, moreover, administration: management of a cohort or ala, let alone a military tribunate, would have involved a lot of 'paperwork'.

It also comes down to what junior officers were ultimately there to do! Military tribunes and cohort prefects, at least on campaign, would have rarely needed to act or think independently in a tactical situation. They'd be able to take their lead from the rest of the army and their commander. Keegan's point about military ethos among the British aristocracy seems to apply here as well: the sense of duty, and the importance of public courage and leadership to inspire their men, rather than military nous. Cavalry commanders, on the other hand, were far more likely to be involved in independent military action (skirmishing, or being caught in ambushes) - I don't think it's any surprise that cavalry prefects tended to be more experienced men.

blue skies

Tom

[1] Edit: in the Republican period, that is. I believe that Kleijwegt found some in the imperial period (Kleijwegt, M. (1991), Ancient Youth: The ambiguity of youth and the absence of adolescence in Greco-Roman society, Amsterdam.)
Tom Wrobel
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#7
It occurs to me that new junior officers arriving at a Legion headquarters without being well read on military matters might be put on administrative duties or more or less kept out the way until they caught up. Perhaps they would even be assigned a tutor.
John Kaler MSG, USA Retired
Member Legio V (Tenn, USA)
Staff Member Ludus Militus https://www.facebook.com/groups/671041919589478/
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#8
Would there be some kind of prerequisite "training" that would give them an edge? :wink:

Maybe something along the lines of Sentry, Firefighting, etc. A.F.A.I.K. these were voluntary things and would give at least some type of structure for discipline right? I would also think that most males around the age of 13 or so would know the basics of how to ride a horse; if for nothing else than transportation purposes.
Craig Bellofatto

Going to college for Massage Therapy. So reading alot of Latin TerminologyWink

It is like a finger pointing to the moon. DON\'T concentrate on the finger or you miss all the heavenly glory before you!-Bruce Lee

Train easy; the fight is hard. Train hard; the fight is easy.- Thai Proverb
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#9
It must be this pre service training and study that qualified some young Equestrians for direct appointment to the Centurionate!
John Kaler MSG, USA Retired
Member Legio V (Tenn, USA)
Staff Member Ludus Militus https://www.facebook.com/groups/671041919589478/
Owner Vicus and Village: https://www.facebook.com/groups/361968853851510/
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#10
Quote:It must be this pre service training and study that qualified some young Equestrians for direct appointment to the Centurionate!

I'd go with 'preparation' rather than 'training'! But your point above about inexperienced officers being shunted away to minor duties to gain experience (which I believe makes a lot of sense for the military tribunate) could hold for centurions as well. However, this does raise a tangential question that's always bothered me: would young men of equestrian family who served as centurions have been subordinate to non-equestrians (e.g. more senior centurions who were not yet of equestrian rank)?

A lot of the structure of the legion hierarchy comes partly from the assumption that, for example, senatorial-ranked military tribunes would be senior to praefecti castrorum or the other military tribunes because senatorial status always trumps equestrian status. It would be interesting if equestrian status did not always trump non-equestrian status (although there are get-outs for this, particularly in the case of young men who were the sons of equestrians and not, perhaps, technically equestrians themselves).

Blue skies

Tom
Tom Wrobel
email = [email protected]
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