Acies quadrata

[Cesco]

Carlo, try this: historiae 2.42
"et per locos arboribus ac vineis impeditos non una pugnae facies: comminus eminus, catervis et cuneis concurrebant."

http://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Historiae_(Tacitus)

The description given by Simon Mcdowall is exactly what i think about cuneus and acies quadrata: in the example we have a cohort deployed 16 men deep, wich could be an acies quadrata obtained by a formation 4 deep...

[Cesco]

....................................'DRAWING UP A LEGION IN ORDER OF BATTLE ..................................

Is it just me, or is that (otherwise completely accurate quote from Vegetius) not pretty indicative of:

- He has a copy of Polybius in one hand, probably with Livy (already only partial?)
- A basic understanding of the Later Republican-Imperial Cohort-based legion
- Some idea of changes in weapons, armour and naming 100's of years later
- And not much idea at all about actual tactics beyond what he has read

For Vegetius really comes across as an arm-chair academic. A lot of what he writes seems awfully confused to me; although that doesn't mean it's not valuable in its entirety and there are some great snippets.

But it might just be me! Principes before hastati? I think he interprets the word and doesn't know the provenance.

Some time I have the same impression, even if we have some account (see Frontinus, stratagemata) of republican army with principes in first line...

[Flavivs Aetivs]

http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/histories.html

EDIT: @Mark Hygate

The common consensus is that Vegetius was a bureaucrat who was writing a piece designed to make the "old days" look better. The only troops he saw were probably protectores (a unit which was nothing more than a placeholder for people earmarked for future office, like Aetius), and the local Vigilies (Town Watch). The former never saw combat and never wore armor, the latter were peasants, not real soldiers.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Vegetius may well have been just a historian who never actually saw even a single unit drilling in military formations.
However, what his Epitome was meant to do was to take the best bits, as considered by Vegetius, from existing works and present them to the Emperor as an example of best practice. He obviously took much of his work from other military manuals and that is where he gets his drill and formations from. He also must have had access to current military manuals because his weapon and armour descriptions are contemporary to when he wrote.

So if he writes that the ancient legion was formed up by four lines consisting of the Princeps, Hastati, Triarii and the Ferentarii thats because he has read about that formation in another work he had access to.

[Mark Hygate]

......................
Some time I have the same impression, even if we have some account (see Frontinus, stratagemata) of republican army with principes in first line...

Is that Stratagems Bk II.16? For that one is the 'normal' hastati, principes, triarii......

[Mark Hygate]

...............
So if he writes that the ancient legion was formed up by four lines consisting of the Princeps, Hastati, Triarii and the Ferentarii thats because he has read about that formation in another work he had access to.

Whilst I couldn't agree more with what Evan wrote - are you sure he hasn't got that wrong, perhaps because those terms (the first 3) no longer exist to describes troops in separate lines and he determines the 'principles' to then come first?

Let alone that he's using a different term (ferentarii) instead of velites and therefore, indeed, that he takes the classic triplex acies that we are perhaps far more comfortable with and creates this acies quadrata because he doesn't understand how the velites are deployed (supporting/belonging to their centuries/maniples) and thus thinks they form a line of their own?

[Renatus]

I've the Historiae but it's not easy to find the precise passage quoted by Colonel Macdowell .... not knowing the chapter ... a digitalized internet verison in this case would be more useful than the paper books because we would need only to clic on the word 'Cuneus' and the place in which Tacitus talks of the formation would magiaclly pop up ... :whistle:

Not quite as easy as that but I've found it (Hist. 4. 20):

Illi veteres militiae in cuneos congregantur, densi undique et frontem tergaque ac latus tuti; sic tenuem nostrorum aciem perfringunt.

'But they, being veterans in service, gathered in solid columns, with their ranks closed on every side, secure on front and flanks and rear; so they broke through our thin line.' (Loeb translation)

[Flavivs Aetivs]

It's probably not the best way of doing it, but I could always set up a battle in Rome: Total War Barbarian Invasion (Mod INVASIO BARBARORVM SOMNIVM APOSTATE IVLIANI) and test it. Granted the enemy AI will suck though.

[Diocle]

It's probably not the best way of doing it, but I could always set up a battle in Rome: Total War Barbarian Invasion (Mod INVASIO BARBARORVM SOMNIVM APOSTATE IVLIANI) and test it. Granted the enemy AI will suck though.

Already done and I can assure you that it works!

It works even in Anglo Saxon Viking warfare, the attack column always works! If you want to be more safe use the Fulcum .... 8+)

Thanks guys for the help with the Historiae!

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I meant the Acies Quadrata. I know a Cuneus works I do that all the time. However, you'd have to do a multiplayer 2 v2 to properly represent an acies quadrata.

[Nathan Ross]

The only troops he saw were probably protectores... nothing more than a placeholder for people earmarked for future office... never saw combat and never wore armor

Just as a side issue, I'd have to disagree with that! The protectores, by the early 4th century, were largely recruited from the centurionate and were probably very experienced soldiers (the equivalent of the primipilares of an earlier era). Several inscription testify to them fighting, and dying, in battle. By Ammianus's day a proportion seem to have been younger men selected from officers' and bureaucrats' families, but Ammianus himself and his comrades fought at Amida and elsewhere. By Vegetius's day there might also have been a number of young barbarian nobles, like the Burgundian Hariulfus who died at Trier. But we still be wary of casting the protectores into the 'imitation soldiers' bracket... ;-)

More pertinently to this debate, however, they almost certainly didn't perform drill or fight in formation!

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The only troops he saw were probably protectores... nothing more than a placeholder for people earmarked for future office... never saw combat and never wore armor

Just as a side issue, I'd have to disagree with that! The protectores, by the early 4th century, were largely recruited from the centurionate and were probably very experienced soldiers (the equivalent of the primipilares of an earlier era). Several inscription testify to them fighting, and dying, in battle. By Ammianus's day a proportion seem to have been younger men selected from officers' and bureaucrats' families, but Ammianus himself and his comrades fought at Amida and elsewhere. By Vegetius's day there might also have been a number of young barbarian nobles, like the Burgundian Hariulfus who died at Trier. But we still be wary of casting the protectores into the 'imitation soldiers' bracket... ;-)

More pertinently to this debate, however, they almost certainly didn't perform drill or fight in formation!

You are right in that regard - originally they were soldiers, but by Vegetius' time it was a launching point for the careers of the men like Avitus, Aetius, and barbarians like Hariulfus.

[Longovicium]

Yes, I responding specifically to VV's post about Ammianus only using 'globus' to represent the hollow square.

As for the 'acies'/'agmen' issue: I am not sure that Vegetius should be trusted too much not to get the technical term wrong and so paraphrase it. It does seem to me that the acies quadratum and the agmen quadratum are in essence the same thing. The distinction between a battlefield engagement and an advance in a defensive column/square through hostile territory is perhaps a tenuous one. Once the hollow square comes under sustained attack, while still moving, it is essentially also engaged in a battlefield situation albeit a moving one. However, perhaps I am reading too much of the British square in the Sudan scenario here and thinking in an anachronistic fashion . . .

[Renatus]

As for the 'acies'/'agmen' issue: I am not sure that Vegetius should be trusted too much not to get the technical term wrong and so paraphrase it. It does seem to me that the acies quadratum and the agmen quadratum are in essence the same thing. The distinction between a battlefield engagement and an advance in a defensive column/square through hostile territory is perhaps a tenuous one. Once the hollow square comes under sustained attack, while still moving, it is essentially also engaged in a battlefield situation albeit a moving one. However, perhaps I am reading too much of the British square in the Sudan scenario here and thinking in an anachronistic fashion . . .

As VV has observed, Vegetius had access to military works lost to us. I believe him to be, on the whole, a faithful reporter of his sources. However, I have to acknowledge the possibility that he or his source may be mistaken, especially as quadrata acies is a term that, so far, no one in this forum has been able to find anywhere else. Nevertheless, it is clear that, in the passage that we are considering, the training that he describes is for battlefield situations. In context, the quadrata acies does not appear to be a hollow square but rather a solid block of soldiers (dare I say it, a phalanx?).

Just to confuse the issue, I have found the following passage in Tibullus (3. 7. 101-2):

. . . seu sit opus quadratum acies consistat in agmen, rectus ut aequatis decurrat frontibus ordo . . .

' . . . whether it be needful for the troops to draw into a square, so that the dressed line runs with a level front . . .' (Loeb translation)

This is in a panegyric to Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus and describes Messalla's skill in drawing up his troops for battle. It is poetry, of course, so one may expect unusual word order and, possibly, inaccurate terminology. Quadratum governs agmen, so challenges my assertion that agmen should apply to the column of march, not the battleline. If Tibullus is right, therefore, there could be a battlefield formation called agmen quadratum. However, this does not appear to be a hollow square but rather a formation that presents a solid face to the enemy. Tibullus contrasts it to a formation in which the line is divided, with the right wing facing the enemy's left and vice versa, thus delivering a double victory.