Italian Cohort Equipment

[LonginusXXI]

In Acts 10, we hear of an Italian Cohort. As this was an auxilia citizen unit, what equipment and armor would its soldiers use?

[panairjdde]

Provided that Acts is not exactly an historical source, they would be equipped as any auxiliary unit.

[LonginusXXI]

But what specific body armor would they have? Would they be an auxiliary scutata unit?

[Luca]

Acts is not exactly an historical source

That's interesting. Why you don't consider it an historical source?

[panairjdde]

Acts is not exactly an historical source

That's interesting. Why you don't consider it an historical source?

By "not historical" here I mean it was written for theological reasons, not historical ones, so one should not take everything it says as true, historically speaking. (Incidentally, Acts is often incompatible with Paul's letters, and at least seven of the letters attributed to Paul were written by him, so he should know better )

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But what specific body armor would they have? Would they be an auxiliary scutata unit?

I am no expert in 1st century auxiliary units, but as far as I know a hamata would be the best bet. Also, as far as I know, scutata units were at least partly mounted; and I am doubtful that a mounted unit might be used in that context (but this is my personal and scarcely informed opinion).

[M. CVRIVS ALEXANDER]

By "not historical" here I mean it was written for theological reasons, not historical ones, so one should not take everything it says as true, historically speaking. 

Any ancient historical source was written for reasons other than factual reporting of events, "so one should not take everything it says as true, historically speaking." Certainly, Acts is first and foremost a work of religion, but it does explicitly concern itself with history. In terms of its references to the Roman military, Acts does not deviate from and complements to what is known from other historical sources of the period.

[panairjdde]

By "not historical" here I mean it was written for theological reasons, not historical ones, so one should not take everything it says as true, historically speaking. 

Any ancient historical source was written for reasons other than factual reporting of events, "so one should not take everything it says as true, historically speaking." Certainly, Acts is first and foremost a work of religion, but it does explicitly concern itself with history. In terms of its references to the Roman military, Acts does not deviate from and complements to what is known from other historical sources of the period.

While every writer had his own reasons to write his work, not every piece of literature from Antiquity has the same degree of reliability as an historical resource, whatever its claims to be historical; for example, there is a huge difference in reliability (as an historical source) between the Histories of Tacitus and the True Story by Lucian of Samosata, despite the fact that both works claim to tell true stories.

Acts is first and foremost a theological source, Tacitus' Histories are not; Acts can change the stories it tells for theological reasons (as it clearly does in the case of the episodes of Paul's life, for which we luckily have another independent and earlier source written by a well known author), because its intended readers would not judge its merits on its historical reliability.

About Roman military, the fact it does not deviate from other sources is true, but this does not mean that if Acts says that in Cesarea there was the centurio of an Italian cohors then this can be considered true, unless we have other sources: plausibility and truth are different concepts.

[Luca]

I partially agree and partially disagree.
I try to explain in my english.
People write stories. Sometimes they report something about their own life, sometimes is about what they have heard from other people. Open a newspaper, read it. Journalists make the same every day.

Even in ancient times people was doing it. Also in ancient time they were not "objective" as today.
Gospels or Acts were written to tell a story not for theology that is a term created in modern times. The Bible is the same a big group of tales transmitted for centuries by people.
They contain errors, but also true facts and sometimes also invented or mystified episodes.

Also when people write about something it is normal not to report what he thinks is already known by the reader so can happen that when Julius Caesar report a battle in his Bellum a bug amount of details were not reported because at that times the potential readers were already knowing them, but after 2100 years we do not anymore, so we have missed many details. But even Caesar wrote his bellum with huge amount of mystifications and ideology and propaganda, but these are with no doubts historical sources?

Back to the Acts, Luke that seems to have written it, is the only of the four "official" gospel writers to try to report historical coordinates. Yes he did it with a lot of errors, but it is in anyway interesting. So when it reports about a italic coort is an historical coordinate, it does not match with any theological issue or idea. It needs to be compared with other sources, of course, and this is the amazing work we need to do.

Just my opinion.