The invention of the maniple, & the Dunbar Number

[richsc]

I only today became aware of Robin Dunbar's number. You can read an overview in the Businessweek link. According to Dunbar and others, humans tend to cluster into groups of about 150, and no more, This is proposed as the maximum number that the individuals within the group can handle; beyond which they split into more groups. He says the number shows up in military organizations over the milllenia as well.
I was struck by the number 150, which is about that of a maniple. The Romans evolved that from the phalanx, which as I understand is a more amorphous grouping. I seem to remember that although the maniple designation appears to have disappeard in the principate, that the word itself was still in use but the reason unknown.
With the manipular organization Rome went on to conquer. Could it have been that Rome figured out that their soldiers were more effective in that size group since they would all tend to know and respect each other as "neighbors in battle'?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/201...l-networks

[richsc]

Let me further the idea. In a Roman fort, and maybe in marching camps as well, the entrances to the century's rooms face seem to face each other, rather than blank walls. When you add up the two centuries facing each other, you have a maniple, or a small community. Perhaps even in marching camps this kind of relationship was maintained in the siting of the tents. So while the maniple had ceased to exist as a tactical formation, it remained as a social one.

So you would next have to ask: what would the purpose of forming such a social community within a legion? I will have to read one of Dunbar's books, but the idea that the soldiers in these two centuries could get to know each other and tend to self organize for things like self policing, support in combat, maintenance, etc, is a good argument.

[antiochus]

Richard wrote:
According to Dunbar and others, humans tend to cluster into groups of about 150, and no more…I was struck by the number 150, which is about that of a maniple. Could it have been that Rome figured out that their soldiers were more effective in that size group?

Ok Richard I will enter the fray. :oops: Isidore give the size of a maniple at 200 men, so where does that leave Dunbar’s theory?

Richard wrote:
So while the maniple had ceased to exist as a tactical formation, it remained as a social one.

From the principate onwards there are references to maniples. So why does the maniple have to be a social organisation and not a military organisation? And where is the evidence that the maniple disappeared as a military organisation? This is just a theory that has not been fully explored but people take it as gospel. Why? Because the greater the number of people who believe it means it must be right. Now think of all those Germans who believed Hitler was right. Problem was too many Germans were accepting and not enough were questioning.

[richsc]

Well thank you. Anyway, the Dunbar number is not a hard and fast one, but 200 would be within the range/deviation. If centuries are 80, would the army split one of them to make up maniple, or am I miscounting?

Now, my reading is not thorough, but my suggestion is that the maniple developed because it served two purposes: the size of the unit happened to be superior to the phalanx, and at the same time it was practical for unit cohesion and phychological/social support. Caring for your friends and not letting them down sort of thing. And I didn't say it disappeared, I said that at least the social concept, and the Roman military was pretty much its own social class, kept on. I was casually (I do a lot of that) looking through Roman fort designs and see that barrack blocks face each other, which perhaps reinforces this sense of community.

[antiochus]

Richard wrote:
The Dunbar number is not a hard and fast one, but 200 would be within the range/deviation.

Well that is good as the maximum the maniple reaches is 200 men. After that my research shows it made smaller (the system starts over again as per the original Servian constitution).

Richard wrote:
Now, my reading is not thorough, but my suggestion is that the maniple developed because it served two purposes: the size of the unit happened to be superior to the phalanx, and at the same time it was practical for unit cohesion and phychological/social support. Caring for your friends and not letting them down sort of thing. And I didn't say it disappeared, I said that at least the social concept, and the Roman military was pretty much its own social class, kept on. I was casually (I do a lot of that) looking through Roman fort designs and see that barrack blocks face each other, which perhaps reinforces this sense of community.

Wheeler (yes him again) in his paper “Fire Power, Missiles Weapons and the Face of Battle” writes that:

“MacMullen's attempt to do likewise for the Roman legion (1984) has now generated a mini-genre of works on the "legion as society," which feature various attempts to find "buddies" in the Roman army.”

“Physical proximity of a group through living arrangements does not automatically translate into unit cohesion (cf. Gray, J.G. (1959): The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle. New York. 40-42), and "buddy theory" coincided with the creation of smaller tactical groups in the face of technical improvements in automatic weapons and firepower, which rendered large units too vulnerable. One wonders if the "face of battle" enthusiasts are not trying too hard to impose a post-World War II phenomenon on ancient armies.”

Personally I put the Roman army on a par with the Russian army of WWII. Once you were taken prisoner, you were dead to the unit you belonged to. There are references to Roman soldiers being taken prisoner during the siege of Jerusalem and then publicly being tortured. The Roman reaction seems to be well it was your fault for being taken prisoner. Therefore, I have to agree with Wheeler that the proximity of one’s living arrangements does not translate into unit cohesion.