Fighting and defending against the Gauls in Roman armor.

[stevesarak]

I was reading the Conquest of the Gauls last night and was surprised when I read about two centurions, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. I recognized the names from the HBO series Rome and I’m sure, I’m the only one here that didn’t know that there were two soldiers in Caesars legions with the same name.

Caesar briefly talks about them. Each year they were always competing for promotion and during a fierce attack, Pullo yells to Vorenus “What better opportunity to you want to prove you courage, today we shall decide between us.â€

[FlaviusCrispus]

I was reading the Conquest of the Gauls last night and was surprised when I read about two centurions, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. I recognized the names from the HBO series Rome and I’m sure, I’m the only one here that didn’t know that there were two soldiers in Caesars legions with the same name.

It is interesting that they chose real names from Caesar's account, but instead of making them rival centurions, makes them centurion (Vorenus) and regular "grunt" (Pullo). The initial scene in "Rome" is, I think, very loosely based on Caesar's account of their little sojourn beyond Roman battle lines.

1) Taking into account the Roman’s heavy armor and weapons compared to the Gauls, is it conceivable that Pullo would have charged outside the battlements and attacked alone. Could he have hoped to fight them single handedly for a short time then return back inside?

Conceivable? Yes. Smart? No. After experiencing a pretty realistic mock combat against Celts recently at Ft. Lafe, AR, I learned a couple of things: (1) Armor is a mixed blessing. It can keep you alive, but it reeeeally slows you down; (2) those unarmored Celts can move FAST and strike from any direction. An armored Roman alone against an unarmored Celt could even be said to be at a disadvantage.

2) Doesn’t the sword belt hang around the shoulder with the sword on the other side of the body, not around the waist? How could a javelin piercing his shield and sticking into the sword belt, knock the scabbard out of place? Unless by moving his shield around, he’s also moving the scabbard?

In Caesar's day, soldiers wore both sword and dagger on a single waist belt, or perhaps a pair of waist belts wore "cowboy style." The sword suspended from a baldric becomes fashionable in the first century AD.

I suppose a javelin (maybe a Roman pilum picked up and thrown back by a Celt?) could pierce a shield and foul a soldier's scabbard enough to make it hard for him to reach his sword, or maybe it actually hit the top of the scabbard and froze the blade in place. Anyway, there's no reason to think Caesar is making this up.

3) When Pullo couldn’t quickly reach his sword he was unable to defend him self and Vorenus came to his aid. So Vorenus saw he needed and came to his aid, which mean there was time to do just that. I would think that a large group of screaming Gauls, with sword and javelins would have quickly killed Pullo, but they didn’t, how come they couldn’t. He had his shield and maybe he was able to pull out his pugio and fight them off (back to a discussion a couple of weeks ago on when you might use your pugio), but I’d think that if he didn’t have time to look down to find his gladius that he wouldn’t have pulled his pugio. So my question is, how well you can use your shield to either defend yourself against overwhelming odd or as a weapon. It’s possible that he swung it back and forth to keep them at a distance. I’m sure any reenactors out there can answer that one.

4) This sort of goes with three. How could Vorenus, after falling, not be killed until Pullo came to his aid?

As is typical, Caesar breaks this account into different sections and makes it sound like a long-running battle, with separate episodes (Pullo's dash, the Celtic counterattack, Vorenus rushes to save him, Vorenus falls, Pullo saves him, etc.)

It was more probably one single, chaotic action that lasted maybe a minute or so, total, with a lot of screaming, chopping, hand waving, bodies tumbling over one another, etc. Like a lot of actions, it only becomes episodic in the retelling, and also gets longer and more detailed. Anyway, it's clear Pullo and Vorenus were extremely lucky to have survived, and probably killed a lot fewer Celts than they and Caesar later claimed!

[stevesarak]

Thanks, that was well explained.

[stevesarak]

I was reading the Conquest of the Gauls last night and was surprised when I read about two centurions, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. I recognized the names from the HBO series Rome and I’m sure, I’m the only one here that didn’t know that there were two soldiers in Caesars legions with the same name.

It is interesting that they chose real names from Caesar's account, but instead of making them rival centurions, makes them centurion (Vorenus) and regular "grunt" (Pullo). The initial scene in "Rome" is, I think, very loosely based on Caesar's account of their little sojourn beyond Roman battle lines.

I haven’t finished reading the book yet and Caesar might not mention them anymore but its possible that Pullo got busted down to grunt, making it in line with the series.

[Tarbicus]

1) Taking into account the Roman’s heavy armor and weapons compared to the Gauls, is it conceivable that Pullo would have charged outside the battlements and attacked alone. Could he have hoped to fight them single handedly for a short time then return back inside?

Read Lendon's [amazon]Soldiers and Ghosts[/amazon], I think that will explain all. The Roman soldier could be a bit of a nutcase if you accept his (and other's) theories. The fact that they were immortalised by Caesar, and are still being read about, and even make the main characters for an epic TV series over 2000 years later, goes much of the way to explain their actions IMHO.

[stevesarak]

1) Taking into account the Roman’s heavy armor and weapons compared to the Gauls, is it conceivable that Pullo would have charged outside the battlements and attacked alone. Could he have hoped to fight them single handedly for a short time then return back inside?

Read Lendon's Soldiers and Ghosts, I think that will explain all. The Roman soldier could be a bit of a nutcase if you accept his (and other's) theories. The fact that they were immortalised by Caesar, and are still being read about, and even make the main characters for an epic TV series over 2000 years later, goes much of the way to explain their actions IMHO.

The other day I posted question in "References and Reviews" looking for books just like this. Thanks, it looks like I have another book to pick up.