Legions of Rome (2 page)

The question of leadership emerges time and again in the history of the legions. The 12th Fulminata Legion, for example, poorly led in Rome’s initial confounded attempt to put down the first-century Jewish Revolt, disgraced itself by losing its eagle standard to the rebels. A century later, this same legion regained its reputation by standing firm in a thunderstorm to save its leader Marcus Aurelius from surrounding German hordes. Vastly outnumbered but under firm leadership, the 14th Gemina Martia Victrix Legion similarly gained fame, by defeating Boudicca’s rebels in Britain.

The first century and the early part of the second century represented the golden age of the legions, when massive armies of up to 100,000 legionaries and a similar number of auxiliaries swept all before them, and a legionary could expect to retire rich with the spoil of conquest. From the death of the emperor Trajan in
AD
117, the situation changed. Stretched thin along porous borders, Roman forces were forced permanently on to the defensive. Internal divisions would soon regularly rend the empire. Central control was frequently lost, reasserted, and lost again.

In the process, the quality of the men and their units declined, as their leaders increasingly adopted foreign mercenaries and foreign methods, created ever more new units, and changed the legions’ organizational structure. And with change came regular defeat, stimulating even more debilitating change. Only the occasional emergence of a great commander stemmed the tide of decline and even offered hope of a return to the glory days, but always just for the duration of his lifetime.

The long existence of the Roman Empire had everything to do with the legions. While the legions were strong, Rome was strong. Conversely, the disintegration of the Late Empire had everything to do with the disintegration of the legions as effective fighting forces. At the end of the fourth century, the Notitia Dignitatum listed several hundred legions and auxiliary units of the day, yet these units were small, with many no more than border police and some perhaps existing only on paper. Even the most elite units then in existence paled in comparison to the Augustan legions. Vegetius’ plea to his emperor Valentinian, just prior to the creation of the Notitia Dignitatum, for a return to the legion structure, weapons and training of old, fell on deaf ears.

When, in
AD
398, Rome’s last great general, Stilicho, son of a Vandal cavalry commander, put together a task force in northern Italy to wrest Africa back from rebel governor Gildo, the state of the legions then mirrored the state of the empire. Stilicho’s force was organized from Mediolanum (Milan), which had superseded Rome as imperial capital in the West, and it sailed from Pisa in Tuscany, not from
one of the old imperial naval bases of Misenum or Ravenna. This army consisted of legions including the Jovian, Herculian, and 3rd Augusta, plus several auxiliary units—although the distinction between legionary and auxiliary had blurred since Commodus’
AD
212 decree had made Roman citizenship universal.

Yet, this task force’s seven units totaled no more than 5,000 men, most of them Gallic veterans. Rome’s once proud legions had shrunk to complements of some 1,000 men each, less than a fifth the size of the Augustan legions. Training, equipment, and tactics had also changed drastically since the days of Augustus. Legionaries were now using light equipment and light arms. Not long before this, entire units had thrown away their armor and helmets, claiming they were too heavy, to fight unprotected, with predictably fatal results.

Stilicho’s task force won back Africa without having to lift a sword—the very sight of their disciplined ranks caused the rebel governor’s troops to run. But it would be a different story just three years later, when Alaric’s Visigoths invaded Italy. Stilicho’s legions, withdrawn from Britain and the Rhine to save Italy, would, under his inspiring leadership, fight bloody battles and conduct gritty sieges, driving the Visigoths out of Italy. Yet once Stilicho died, soon after, those same legions were devoured by Alaric, who, in
AD
410, achieved his ambition of sacking Rome.

This, then, is the comprehensive story of Rome’s imperial legions. From the army molded by Augustus through the heady early phase of the empire’s expansion, with its conquests, revolts, and self-destructive civil conflicts, to the long, grinding decline as the quest to maintain the gains of old sometimes stemmed the barbarian tide but inevitably gave way to it.

Despite their inglorious end, the legions remain to this day, thousands of years after their creation, the most preeminent example of how detailed organization, tight discipline, and inspiring leadership can take a group of individuals and turn them into a winning team.

S
TEPHEN
D
ANDO
-C
OLLINS

March 2010

I
THE MEN

“Every country produces both brave men and cowards, but it is equally certain that some nations are naturally more warlike than others.”

V
EGETIUS
,
De Re Militari
,
FOURTH CENTURY

Down through the centuries, millions of men served with the army of imperial Rome; half a million during the reign of Augustus alone. The history of the legions is the collective story of those individuals, not just of Rome’s famous generals. Men such as Titus Flavius Virilis, still serving as a centurion at the age of 70. And Titus Calidius, a cavalry decurion who missed military life so much after retiring he re-enlisted, at the reduced rank of optio. And Novantius, the British auxiliary from today’s city of Leicester, who was granted his discharge thirteen years early for valiant service in the second century conquest of Dacia. Any analysis of the legions must begin with the men, their organization, their equipment, and their service conditions
.

I. WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

The origins of the legions of Pompey, Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius go back to the Roman Republic of the fifth century
BC
. Originally, there were just four Roman legions—
Legio
s
I
to
IIII
(the legion number 4 was written as
IIII
, not
IV
). Each of the two consuls, “who were charged both singly and jointly to take care to preserve the Republic from danger,” commanded two of these legions. [Vege.,
III
]

All legionaries were then property-owning citizens of Rome, conscripted in the spring of each year into the armies of the two consuls. Legio, the origin of the word “legion,” meant “levy,” or draft. Service ordinarily ended with the Festival of the October Horse on October 19, which signaled the termination of the campaigning season.

Men of “military age”—16 to 46—were selected by ballot for each legion, with the 1st Legion considered to be the most prestigious. Rome’s field army was bolstered by legions from allied Italian tribes. Legionaries of the early Republic were appointed to one of four divisions within their legion, based on age and property qualifications. The youngest men were assigned to the
velites
, the next oldest to the
hastati
, men in the prime of life to the
principes
and the oldest to the
triarii
, with the role and equipment of each group differing. By Julius Caesar’s day, the conscripted infantry soldier of the Republic was required to serve in the legions for up to sixteen years, and could be recalled in emergencies for a further four years.

Originally, republican legions had a strength of 4,200 men, which in times of special danger could be brought up to 5,000. [Poly.,
VI
, 21] By 218
BC
and the war between Rome and Carthage, the consuls’ legions consisted of 5,200 infantry and 300 cavalry, which approached the form they would take in imperial times. From
104
BC
, the Roman army of the Republic underwent a major overhaul by the consuls Publius Rutilius Rufus and Gaius Marius. Rutilius introduced arms drill and reformed the process of appointment for senior officers. Marius simplified the requirements for enrollment, so that it was not only property owners who were required to serve. Failure to report for military service would result in the conscript being declared a deserter, a crime subject to the death penalty.

A legionary would be paid for the days he served—for many years, this amounted to ten asses a day. He was also entitled to the proceeds from any arms, equipment or clothing he stripped from the enemy dead, and was entitled to a share of the booty acquired by his legion. If a legion stormed a town, its legionaries received the proceeds from its contents—human and otherwise—which were sold to traders who trailed the legions. If a town surrendered, however, the Roman army’s commander could elect to spare it. Consequently, legionaries had no interest in encouraging besieged cities to surrender.

Marius focused on making the legions independent mobile units of heavy infantry. Supporting roles were left to allied forces. To increase mobility, Marius took most of the legionaries’ personal equipment off the huge baggage trains which until then had trailed the legions, and put it on the backs of the soldiers, greatly reducing the size of the baggage train. With the items hanging from their baggage poles weighing up to 100 pounds (45 kilos), legionaries of the era were nicknamed “Marius’ mules.” Until that time, the maniple of 160–200 men had been the principal tactical unit of the legion, but under Marius’ influence the 600-man cohort became the new tactical unit of the Roman army, so that the legion of the first century
BC
comprised ten cohorts, with a total of 6,000 men.

Half a century later, Julius Caesar fashioned his legions around his own personality and dynamic style. Of the twenty-eight legions of Augustus’ new standing army in 30
BC
, some had been founded by Caesar, others molded by him. The civil war, between the rebel Caesar and the forces of the republican Senate led by their commander Pompey the Great, created an insatiable demand for military manpower. At
the Battle of Pharsalus in 48
BC
, Caesar led elements of nine legions; Pompey, twelve. For the 42
BC
Battle of Philippi, two years after Caesar’s murder, when Mark Antony, Marcus Lepidus and Octavian took on the so-called Liberators, Brutus and Cassius, more than forty legions were involved.

II. SOLDIERING FOR AUGUSTUS

The emperor Augustus, as Octavian became known from 27
BC
, totally reformed the Roman army after he finally defeated Antony and Cleopatra in 30
BC
.

In the professional army of Augustus, the legionary was a full-time soldier, sometimes a volunteer but more often a conscript, who signed on, initially for sixteen and later twenty years. Toward the end of his forty-three-year reign, Augustus was to boast: “The number
of Roman citizens who bound themselves to me by military oath was about 500,000. Of these I settled in colonies or sent back into their own towns more than 300,000, and to all I assigned lands or gave money as a reward for military service.” [
Res Gest
.,
I
, 3] That retirement payment was standardized by Augustus at 12,000 sesterces for legionaries, 20,000 for men of the Praetorian Guard. After the completion of his enlistment, an imperial legionary could be recalled in an emergency to the Evocati, a militia of retired legionaries.

On Antony’s death, Augustus controlled approximately sixty legions. Many of these were promptly disbanded. “Others,” said Cassius Dio, “were merged with various legions by Augustus,” and as a result “such legions have come to bear the name Gemina,” meaning “twin.” [Dio,
LV
, 23] By this process, Augustus created a standing army of 150,000 legionaries in twenty-eight legions, supported by 180,000 auxiliary infantry and cavalry, stationed throughout the empire. He also created a navy with two main battle fleets equipped with marines, and several smaller fleets. In addition, Augustus employed specialist troops at Rome—the elite Praetorian Guard, the
City Guard, the Vigiles or Night Watch, and the imperial bodyguard, the German Guard.

In
AD
6, Augustus set up a military treasury in Rome, initially using his own funds, which were given in his name and that of Tiberius, his ultimate successor. To administer the military treasury he appointed three former praetors, allocating two secretaries to each. The ongoing shortfall in the military treasury’s funds was covered by a death duty of 5 percent on all inheritances, except where the recipient was immediate family or demonstrably poor.

III. ENLISTING AND RETIRING

Some volunteers served in Rome’s imperial legions—“the needy and the homeless, who adopt by their own choice a soldier’s life,” according to Tacitus. [Tac.,
A
,
IV
, 4] But most legionaries were conscripted. The selection criteria established by Augustus required men in their physical prime. A recruit’s civilian skills would be put to use by the legion, so that blacksmiths became armorers, and tailors and cobblers made and repaired legionaries’ uniforms and footwear. Unskilled recruits found themselves assigned to duties such as the surveyor’s party or the artillery. When it was time for battle, however, all took their places in the ranks.

A slave attempting to join the legions could expect to be executed if discovered, as happened in a case raised with the emperor Trajan by Pliny the Younger when he was governor of Bithynia-Pontus. Conversely, during the early part of Augustus’ reign it was not uncommon for free men to pose as slaves to avoid being drafted into the legions or the Praetorian Guard when the
conquisitors
, or recruitment officers, periodically did the rounds of the recruitment grounds. This became such a problem that Augustus’ stepson Tiberius was given the task of conducting an inquiry into slave barracks throughout Italy, whose owners were accepting bribes from free men to harbor them in the barracks when the conquisitors sought to fill their quotas. [Suet.,
III
, 8]