Maniples

[Jona Lendering]

To the best of my knowledge, maniples ceased to be important as tactical units in the imperial army. Nevertheless, they are mentioned several times in the Historia Augusta. I suspect an archaism, and it may be no coincidence that it is parallelled by Ammian, a contemporary of the author of the H.A.. Any thoughts?

[Longovicium]

I used to follow Phil Barker's description of a tactical unit of a late Roman legion as the 'ordo' - or maniple equivalent - until I found out that there is no solid evidence for such a descriptor being used in the period. 'Numerus'/'Arithmoi' becomes a later designation which is sub-divided by two centuriae. That is interesting as it speaks to the survival of a double-century tactical unit equivalent to the maniple. I suspect Ammianus and the HA are using archaic terms though. If a deployed two-century unit remained the standard for middle, late and eastern Roman armies then I wonder what the bridging term was from maniple into numerus/arithmoi?

[Crispvs]

I read a theory a few years ago which suggested that the hands and spearheads seen at the tops of signa might have signified prior and posterior centuries. Centurio ranks were also designated as either prior or posterior. I am not sure how long these things remained.

To me this could suggest that even if the maniple system had fallen out of use, an echo of it probably remained in centurial designations and it may still have existed in some form for administrative purposes for some time. If this was the case, then it would not be inconceivable for the administrative unit to turn back into a practical reality if the situation demanded.

Thoughts?

Crispvs

[Sean Manning]

It seems that the military word manipulus always had synonyms. Polybius (6.24.5) says that two centuries were called a tagma (= ordo?) or speira (= manipulus?) or semaion (= vexillum?) I don't know if Livy has a parallel passage, but I was just reading Polybius for a conference paper.

καὶ τὸ μὲν μέρος ἕκαστον ἐκάλεσαν καὶ τάγμα καὶ σπεῖραν καὶ σημαίαν, τοὺς δ᾽ ἡγεμόνας κεντυρίωνας καὶ ταξιάρχους.

[jho]

From the top of my head, Speidel (in Roman Army Studies II, pp. 21 and Centurial Signs and the Battle Order of the Legions, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 154 (2005), pp. 286-292) argued that maniples actually experienced an "epigraphic renaissance" in the late 2md early 3rd century and that this hints at an increased tactical importance. He speculated that this may have had to do with specialization of tasks and equipment within the cohorts.

For the later period, Vegetius' (confused?) equation of maniple and contunbernium may indicate that they had ceased to be of tactical relevance by then. So it appears likely that the authors cited were actually embellishing their texts with archaisms.

[Mark Hygate]

I've been doing a fair bit of detailed reading recently of all the sources I can on the subject of Roman Army organisation and considering the maniple has definitely been a part of it.

Whilst I have come to believe that the 'pairing' concept is pervasive throughout a lot of the Roman military's thinking (pair of consuls, pairing of legions, pairing of centuries, pairing of cohorts), I do not think it was ultimately constraining and the one thing I would draw from all of it was the basic flexibility of the system.

For that reason I would suggest that the idea never went entirely away and there are basic military reasons and long time good practice that suggests that, if units are often paired/brigaded together, then they should practice so and have it formally supported.

One of the things that I have become convinced of is that there was little fundamental change (gentle evolution, rather than revolution) between about 350'ishBC and 450'ish AD. Thus writers accepted the base as a given and simply used the terms that made sense to what they were then writing - because 'everyone' knew what the basics were. The fact that the definitive 'Manual of the Roman Army' hasn't come down to us, just makes it harder for us from this distance in time.

[Jona Lendering]

Thanks everybody!

[PhilusEstilius]

I think that with the Manipular system it looks like it may still have been in use right on up until the third century as far as the Hadrian Wall forts are concerned that is.

[Draconis]

An army consisting of smaller units that can move with flexibility and coordinate with other units seems analogous to the inner workings of a warch. All this requires a lot of training and discipline. Seems reasonable that as the army became less homogenous, and the quality of discipline became spotty, maybe some units were able to use the system and other less well trained and disciplined units had to employ simpler, less demanding methods. The evolution spoken of earlier, was more like slow deterioration. The Maniple being a prefered system IF your army could pull it off. Some could, some couldn't.

[Ross Cowan]

From the top of my head, Speidel (in Roman Army Studies II, pp. 21 and Centurial Signs and the Battle Order of the Legions, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 154 (2005), pp. 286-292) argued that maniples actually experienced an "epigraphic renaissance" in the late 2md early 3rd century and that this hints at an increased tactical importance. He speculated that this may have had to do with specialization of tasks and equipment within the cohorts.

Speidel goes over similar ground in the revised version of The Framework of an Imperial Legion, in R. J. Brewer (ed.), The Second Augustan Legion and the Roman Military Machine. Cardiff: 2002, 125-143, and Emperor Hadrian’s Speeches to the African Armies – A New Text. Mainz: 2006, but I do not share his confidence about the sequence and tactical meaning of the centurial symbols. For an antidote to Speidel's enthusiastic conclusions, see J.C. Mann's ‘Roman Legionary Centurial Symbols’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 115 (1997), 295–298.

I consider maniples/paired centuries in the Ancient Warfare Centuria special. (I suggest the system of paired prior and posterior centuries survived until c. AD 324.)