Republican Army

[drsrob]

but we return to the point this is little for affirm he a skirmisher; why to use an lighter javelin in heavy inf situation is well illustrated by Arrian, no? Pilum appear only in a limited number of gravestones (Feugere).

He has a skirmisher arm, so it is eminently reasonable to conclude that he is a skirmisher.

ad signa recipere simply signified the retreat to the formation, to the acies; is used for all the soldiers, light or heavy. In BG V.34 the Sabinus cohortes are "ad signa recipientes" after un charge to the enemy gauls. So the ad legionum recipere is perfectly true also for entire cohortes.

I'll agree with you on that: you're explanation of this passage is equally valid.

One possible difference is dat in the Spanish legions whole cohorts acted this way and in Caesar's army only the antesignani. Another possibility is that the Spanish legions had devised/adopted/retained the use of antesignani light infantry and Caesar had copied it from them. This is a fact he surely would have wanted to cover up.

Rob, this is a reasoning (perfectly legitimate) not a positive evidence [...]

Sure it is reasoning. It's not meant to prove my point, only to show that the passage does not necessarely proves your's.

Is contested the fact the velites are been created in the 211; the greek word used by Polybius for velites, grosphophoroi or grosphomachoi, appears in roman battle line also in Tunis battle during the first punic war, and in Livius in Ibera battle in 216.

I assume you refer to 23.29. This is exactly the line not derived from Polybius.

Source of Frontinus is Valerius Maximus, source of Valerius is Livy, source for Livy must been a roman chronicle direct or indirect via Polybius. Probably is only the changing of equipment of 300 leves (the exact number of eques in a legion) how thought by Daly, reported in this episode. The term rorarii appears still used in II century, so the adoption of term velites for all the light infantry can be a extension during the II century of the term to rorarii.

But Polybius also describes the velites in a seperate passage (VI, 22). He gives the length of the javelins as 1.15 meter. In Livy it is 1.18 m for the special corps. Livy also says that these javelins were shorter than the regular ones. He also specifically states that the corps was placed on a permanent footing as a result of it's succes. All in all there can be little room for doubt that the velites were created in 211.

Nothing in the passage suggest they are special training in light infantry tactics; [...] so we must start from the Ceasar's tactical options and our roman agmen knowledge for know what he think when speak of antesignani.

In Caesar's days the legions were subdivided in cohorts, each composed of one maniple each of hastati, principes and pilani. These cohorts were arranged with the maniples place next to each other. Each battle line was composed of several cohorts. There is no evidence that the cohorts had a fixed position i.e. that they always were placed in the same line.
Therefore in Caesar's days antesignani cannot refer to the hastati and to the first battle line, because there were hastati in all three battlelines. So you'll have to make a choice. The antesignani were:

• 1. hastati;
  2. the first battle line.

If you chose 1 you cannot say that the antesignani were chosen accidently to perform some special task. Also Caesar did not sent whole cohorts to occupy the hill (see above).
If you chose 2 you'll have a hard time explaining how and why the word was used outside the context of a battle. Remember that in 1.57 Caesar also says that he formed ships crews, selected from antesignani and centurions.

[...] Much probably Vegetius dont know nothing of sure about the antesignani, he finds they a number of time in his variegated sources with different sense and assume that the same word have the same sense in all texts.

I agree with you that Vegetius has little idea what all these terms meant. It is therefore not useful to follow his reasoning. More fruitful would be to seperate his text into possible quotes. And I agree with you that antesignani meant different things at different times. :wink:

Because is Livy and not Catullus; it is been a terrific style horror for a historian.

I still don't follow you.

>I think it simply proves that the velites still existed in 86 BC.

Possible but highly improbable, after the graccan laws on state weapons, Marius reforms and the end of old enrolment system.

It is not at all certain exactly how and when these transformations took place.
There is for instance no Gracchan law on state weapans. What you are refering to is a law of 123 that provides for the issue of clothing free of charge. Clothing had been issued by the state for a long time, but it's costs were charged to the soldiers. The texts suggest that the law was immediatly withdrawn anyway. It certainly was not in operation in the imperial period.
Marius call to the capite censo in 107 was a one-off ploy. That it resulted in a permanent change at that time is a modern assumption, which has been challenged recently.
The old enrolment system was never abolished anyway, it simply went in abayance, but was occasionaly revived in times of emergency (in AD 9 for instance).

> Also, Frontinus says: postsignanis qui in secunda acie erant implying that there were also postsignani qui in tertia acie > > erant

Or it was be only the specification of author for the word, automatically creating the explication for antesignani successive word.

But then what was the name for the third battle line? Postpostsignani? :wink: