01-05-2013, 12:37 AM
There wasn't one! Ross Cowan's article 'The Centuria in battle' (Ancient Warfare Special 2010) is very good on this subject - essentially, Cowan argues, the six centurions of the cohort worked together as a team within the larger framework of the legion, and no senior leader was needed.
'Like the manipular legion,' [which had no fixed legate or commander], Cowan says, the century 'did not require a commander because its constituent parts knew how to work together from training and prior experience'
He supports this by pointing out that the cohort had no standard either, unlike the individual centuries and the legion as a whole.
In which case, the situation may have changed in later times, when the cohort gained the draco standard. Perhaps by then cohorts were so often detached from their parent legions that they had become much more viable independent units in their own right?
'Like the manipular legion,' [which had no fixed legate or commander], Cowan says, the century 'did not require a commander because its constituent parts knew how to work together from training and prior experience'
He supports this by pointing out that the cohort had no standard either, unlike the individual centuries and the legion as a whole.
In which case, the situation may have changed in later times, when the cohort gained the draco standard. Perhaps by then cohorts were so often detached from their parent legions that they had become much more viable independent units in their own right?
Nathan Ross
