"There were besides, in commanding positions in the provinces, allied fleets, cavalry and light infantry, of but little inferior strength. But any detailed account of them would be misleading, since they moved from place to place as circumstances required, and had their numbers increased and sometimes diminished."
Tac
Annals 4.5.
The translation gives
auxilia cohortium as 'light infantry' which is of course inaccurate (but what the heck, it's a 19th century translation). But there's nothing here on retaining native fighting techniques. Tacitus is keen on the idea of legions and auxiliaries fighting with different styles (
Annals 12.35, the assault on Caratacus' stronghold is only one example), and is the main historical source cited in the 'legionary and auxiliary equipment' discussion (talk to Mike Bishop about that one
).
Some of the older works (Cheesman being the obvious example,
Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army 1914, 90) argue that as auxiliaries were recruited more and more from local populations, the native fighting styles were diluted and aux & legionaries were fighting in a similar way (so the Romans introduced
numeri) but I'm not entirely convinced because of the links between fighting style and equipment. Which was my round-about way of ultimately having to agree with Mike on legionary / auxiliary equipment!
So, anyone got the ref to what Peroni was thinking of?
Kate