01-10-2013, 08:50 PM
As i mentioned above: administration matters. 8)
I just got some books about roman administration from my library. One of them is focussing on the offices in the roman army (document types, offices, clerks)
Konrad Stauner, Das offizielle Schriftwesen des römischen Heeres von Augustus bis Gallienus, 2004
He quotes Iosephus Flavius and Appian.
Every morning the centurions compiled a daily report (number of men avialble, ill, on vacation, commandeered, ...). The centurio forwarded this daily report to the tribunus angusticlavius. Vice versa, the legate gave daily orders and the tessera to these 5 tribunes, and they forwarded it back to the centurions. However, the tribuni angusticlavii had no office, like the tribunus laticlavius, the praefectus castrorum or the centurio princeps officii. The tribunus angusticlavius just had 1 beneficarius tribuni (perhaps a personal adjutant) but no cornicularii, librarii, exacti or exceptores as usual for an office. As mentioned above, also a centurio pilus prior had no special office. It is the same like every centurio (optio, signifer, tesserarius, librarius, custos armorum).
That means, that the tribunes played a role in daily command, but there was no explicit organizational level between legion and centuria inside a legion. A cohors with an office is just known from the auxilia cohors, ala and vexillatio which could operate stand alone and therfore needed an own office.
This is no final evidence for the command-structure. But administration and organizational structure gives us some hint, imho.
I just got some books about roman administration from my library. One of them is focussing on the offices in the roman army (document types, offices, clerks)
Konrad Stauner, Das offizielle Schriftwesen des römischen Heeres von Augustus bis Gallienus, 2004
He quotes Iosephus Flavius and Appian.
Every morning the centurions compiled a daily report (number of men avialble, ill, on vacation, commandeered, ...). The centurio forwarded this daily report to the tribunus angusticlavius. Vice versa, the legate gave daily orders and the tessera to these 5 tribunes, and they forwarded it back to the centurions. However, the tribuni angusticlavii had no office, like the tribunus laticlavius, the praefectus castrorum or the centurio princeps officii. The tribunus angusticlavius just had 1 beneficarius tribuni (perhaps a personal adjutant) but no cornicularii, librarii, exacti or exceptores as usual for an office. As mentioned above, also a centurio pilus prior had no special office. It is the same like every centurio (optio, signifer, tesserarius, librarius, custos armorum).
That means, that the tribunes played a role in daily command, but there was no explicit organizational level between legion and centuria inside a legion. A cohors with an office is just known from the auxilia cohors, ala and vexillatio which could operate stand alone and therfore needed an own office.
This is no final evidence for the command-structure. But administration and organizational structure gives us some hint, imho.
Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas
