03-07-2014, 03:49 PM
'Cavalry and lanciarii (light infantry?) might be a better bet. We know that (some?) legions of c.300 had lanciarii elements (see Beatty papyrii for II Traiana), and lanciarii turn up as separate units in the ND. However, we don't know if the legion artillery ever had a dedicated 'artillerymen' - it seems that the various ballistae etc were served by the regular troops of the legion.'
I'd agree with you Nathan if it were not from evidence within Julian and Ammianus that suggests the legions still contained dedicated skirmishers. I am aware the ND appears to have units made up of skirmishers, because their unit name implies as such. But that does not mean the legions lost their light troop component.
Vegetius was not writing an entirely original work, he was basically taking what he considered to be the best bits from the military manuals he had access to, many of which are now sadly lost to us. As such the 'Ancient Legion' he refers to is an odd mixture of previous practice mixed with the troops being armed with new weapons and the officer class being a bit different. If he stated that the legion had its own integral artillery thats because he had read it in one of the manuals he had to hand.
I'm not so sure that Vegetius or Ammianus call the artillery anything other than ballistarii, there were dedicated units called this in the ND. If they were crossbowmen then the episode where Julian travelled with the six hundred Catafractarii and a unit of Ballistarii along the same route Silvanius had taken previously with 8000 auxilia troops would not seem very odd. Julians force was deemed 'not suitable' for such a venture, which one can only agree with, unless you feel field artillery and Catafractarii were a viable battlefield combination? (A caveat here- I argued many years ago that the text of Ammianus could have been corrupt at this point and a medieval copiest may have only a few letters to work with. Being more familiar with Ballistarii in light of perhaps a possible term for crossbowmen may have prompted the copiest to put that down if say there last four letters were '...arii'. However, it could equally have been 'Sagittarii', which would have made a lot more sense as Catafracts supported by horse archers was a combination known to the Romans due to the Parthians and Sasanids using that combination).
I'd agree with you Nathan if it were not from evidence within Julian and Ammianus that suggests the legions still contained dedicated skirmishers. I am aware the ND appears to have units made up of skirmishers, because their unit name implies as such. But that does not mean the legions lost their light troop component.
Vegetius was not writing an entirely original work, he was basically taking what he considered to be the best bits from the military manuals he had access to, many of which are now sadly lost to us. As such the 'Ancient Legion' he refers to is an odd mixture of previous practice mixed with the troops being armed with new weapons and the officer class being a bit different. If he stated that the legion had its own integral artillery thats because he had read it in one of the manuals he had to hand.
I'm not so sure that Vegetius or Ammianus call the artillery anything other than ballistarii, there were dedicated units called this in the ND. If they were crossbowmen then the episode where Julian travelled with the six hundred Catafractarii and a unit of Ballistarii along the same route Silvanius had taken previously with 8000 auxilia troops would not seem very odd. Julians force was deemed 'not suitable' for such a venture, which one can only agree with, unless you feel field artillery and Catafractarii were a viable battlefield combination? (A caveat here- I argued many years ago that the text of Ammianus could have been corrupt at this point and a medieval copiest may have only a few letters to work with. Being more familiar with Ballistarii in light of perhaps a possible term for crossbowmen may have prompted the copiest to put that down if say there last four letters were '...arii'. However, it could equally have been 'Sagittarii', which would have made a lot more sense as Catafracts supported by horse archers was a combination known to the Romans due to the Parthians and Sasanids using that combination).
Adrian Coombs-Hoar
