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Can anyone explain to me how and when the Legions ended? Were the Roman troops still considered Legions in the 4th and 5th centuries? I know this may be a somewhat nebulous question. Did this coincide with the replacement of the gladius and pilum (dont know if that occurred at the same time or not)? Was this due to Constantine's reforms? I was reading a bit of fiction and it takes place in the 5th century, they keep refering to the "old style legions." So it seems to me it is refering to some kind of actual moment when there were still Legions, as if they no longer existed. As I said, I am reading fiction so I have taken into account the possibility of artistic license coming into play. I was once told there are no stupid questions.
Kevin Dopke
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Marcus Lucilius Severus
Legio XXIV
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I can only answer part of the question, the gladius was replaced by the Spatha around the beginning of A.D. (If I remember correctly) Lot of debate on it but there were (in my opinion) three main reasons. 1) The Main Roman military force were using more and more auxiliaries to supplement their forces, and they didn’t like the short little swords those little Romans used (That was how other tribes and nations considered them, even Julius Caesar referred to themselves that way.) 2) Rome found out the hard way the importance of mounted troops and started switching over. A mounted troop works better with a longer sword (Spatha). 3) The Gladius is a sword for a more aggressive style of fighting, the Romans were getting away from that (For many reason).
Steve
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steve
interesting, can you elaborate on the reasons rome was moving away from a more aggressive fighting style so early on in the empire, i wasnt aware of this. does that mean during the dacian wars the spatha was employed more or was it still the gladius and what about the drusus, where does that fit? appreciatte any insight information on this
-Jason
(GNAEVS PETRONIVS CANINVS, LEGIIAPF)
"ADIVTRIX PIA FIDELIS"
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There are two separate and complex questions here. First is unit organization: "legions". This unit designation does fade out over the 4th and 5th centuries, but other people can give you far more detail than I can. However, the term "legion" doesn't mean that it is the same size or has the same equipment as a "legion" under Trajan or Augustus or Marius. The British Army still has horsed guard units, which no longer fight as cavalry of any sort. A regiment was typically composed of a fixed number of battalions, except for the British, when (very often) there was only 1 battalion in a regiment, and nowadays the US army has many battalions, but regiments are not field command units.
The second question is also complex. As I see it, it can be considered in two parts: the relationship of legionaries to auxiliaries, and the equipment which each used. While most of the fighting was done by legionaries in Caesar's time, by the time of Trajan's column the auxiliaries armed with oval flatter shields and spears seem to be doing a lot of the actual combat. The spatha was associated with the cavalry, I believe, and perhaps with the auxiliaries as well.
Felix Wang
