Legions of Rome

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  Later events point to the Senate sending the 2nd, 3rd and 4th to the Iberian peninsula to replace the four legions given to Caesar, together with another unnamed Italian legion, possibly the Martia, while retaining the 1st Legion in Italy. We know that the 2nd Legion was definitely one of those replacement legions sent to Spain by the Senate. [Alex. W., I, 53] These six legions in Spain were under the overall control of Pompey the Great, who at that time governed Spain from Rome, and by 52 BC Pompey had loaned the 6th Legion to Caesar for use in Gaul. By 50 BC, Pompey had recalled the 6th Legion to Spain. [See 6th Ferrata Legion]

  There are additional clues that support Keppie’s formula. Caesar tells us that in the summer of 49 BC, after he had accepted the surrender of Pompey’s five republican legions in Nearer Spain, he sent some of their troops to the south of France, to be discharged once they reached the River Var. He wrote that a third of the surrendered troops, “those who had homes and possessions in Spain,” were discharged at once and allowed to go home. [Caes., CW, I, 86] If the men of the 5th and 6th legions were indeed among those surrendered troops, as the Keppie formula would suggest, they had been stationed in Spain for years, and possibly recruited there.

  Following the surrender of the two republican legions remaining in Baetica in 49 BC, Caesar left Quintus Cassius Longinus in charge there. The following year, Cassius “enrolled a new legion, the 5th” at Cordoba. [Alex. W., IV, 50] Why would Cassius choose to give the number 5 to the new legion? Earlier, at the beginning of 49 BC, before the surrender of republican forces in Spain, Pompey’s governor in Baetica, Varro, had also raised a new legion in the province, but he had never given it a number; it was known, and continued to be known, even after it defected to Caesar, as the Native or Home-Bred Legion.

  At the time the Home-Bred Legion was raised, none of the numbers of the senatorial series normally allocated to legions stationed in Spain (according to the Keppie formula) was vacant—the legion numbers 5 to 10 had all been allocated to serving legions. By the following year, the republican 5th Legion no longer existed, having surrendered to Caesar in eastern Spain. Cassius was therefore free to use one of the numbers of the surrendered legions. Because the 5th had previously been raised in Baetica, and because 5 was the first number in the Senate-approved Spanish series, Cassius was able to use that, creating the new 5th Legion.

  It would seem that the numbering sequence identified by Keppie was retained in the imperial era, for in AD 68, when Galba, governor of Nearer Spain, raised a new legion in his province to support his tilt at Nero’s throne, he called it the 7th Legion, even though a 7th Legion, the 7th Claudia, already existed. No good reason for his choosing of the number 7 has been advanced by ancient or modern authors. Under the Keppie formula, it would have been perfectly logical to allocate the number 7 to a legion raised in Nearer Spain, the province traditionally involved with the 7th Legion and possibly by AD 68 still an ongoing recruiting ground for the existing 7th Claudia.

  There is one more intriguing linking aspect that also lends credence to Keppie’s theory that the 5th to 10th legions were traditionally stationed in Spain in the late republican era—the bull emblem. Ever since the nineteenth century, authors have declared that every legion raised by Julius Caesar used a bull emblem. This is not correct. Caesar himself never used the bull as an emblem, and only a fraction of the legions associated with him did so.

  Only a 3rd, as well as the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th legions used the bull emblem, and all were stationed in Spain in the republican era. While the 5th Alaudae Legion took Caesar’s elephant symbol following the 46 BC Battle of Thapsus—this was for defeating King Juba’s elephants—an imperial 5th Legion, the Macedonica, would use the bull emblem. It is probable that the 5th Alaudae had used the bull symbol prior to Thapsus. Conversely, no legion with a number above 10 is ever known to have used the bull as its emblem. And Caesar raised many legions with numbers above 10.

  Finally, another interesting fact could be seen as one more brick in the foundation supporting the Keppie formula. After the Cantabrian War had been concluded in 19 BC, and the large number of legions involved in that conflict had been withdrawn from Spain for service in other provinces, the only legions stationed permanently in Spain for the next 300 years of the imperial era were a 4th, a 6th, a 7th, and finally, a 10th. No legion with a number above 10 was ever stationed there. This may be purely coincidence, but if it is, it is a fantastic one. It is more likely that the 5 to 10 Spanish policy identified by Keppie continued to be deliberately adhered to for hundreds of years under the emperors.

  III. THE LEGION CAMP

  Augustus required that permanent winter camps be established for every legion in the province in which they were based, with a maximum of two legions per camp. The legions traditionally went into camp when the campaigning season officially ended on October 19 with a ceremony at Rome’s Temple of Mars. Originally built of timber, the winter camps became permanent bases built in stone. Spreading over many acres, they included troop quarters, a headquarters complex, bathhouses, granaries and a hospital. Typically, in the permanent camp of the 2nd Augusta Legion at Exeter, each barrack building accommodated a century of eighty men, with a bunk-room for each of the century’s ten squads, a room each for the centurion and the optio, and a large mess and equipment storage room.

  When on the march, legions built a fortified marching camp at the end of every day, marching in the morning and digging and building in the afternoon. These overnight camps, while only temporary, were expected to provide “all the strength and conveniences of a fortified city.” [Vege., II] Camp construction was carried out by the legionaries, who were as handy with a dolabra (pick) and shovel for creating camps and siege works as they were with a javelin and sword. “Domitius Corbulo used to say that the dolabra was the weapon with which to beat the enemy,” wrote Corbulo’s fellow first-century general, Frontinus. [Front., Strat., IV, VII, 2]

  When it moved on, the legion literally broke camp, burning what it could not carry. As part of his equipment, each legionary carried two stakes, which he collected as the legion was about to march and handed in at the next campsite; these stakes lined the top of the palisade that surrounded the camp.

  “One simple formula for a camp is employed,” said Polybius, “which is adopted at all times and in all places.” [Poly., VI, 26] Josephus described how, on campaign in Judea, at the head of Vespasian’s column with the road-building party marched ten men from each century of the advance legion whose job it was to mark out each new marching camp to this prescribed formula.

  A hilltop campsite was preferred. Once this was leveled, the camp was drawn up, starting with the praetorium, the general’s headquarters, laid out to exact proportions. A white flag denoted its location. A grid pattern of streets and tent lines was drawn from it, with purple flags and spears denoting the location of officers’ tents and those of cohorts and maniples. When the army arrived a little later, troops always entered via the main gate, and knew exactly where to pitch their tents and set up the rest of the camp.

  Before they erected or struck their own tents, a detail attended to the tents of legate and tribunes. All officers had tents to themselves. Legionaries slept in eight-man tents originally made of pieces of leather stitched together, with straight sides and gable roofs. Canvas tents became the norm by the second half of the first century. In front of the tribunes’ tents there was an assembly area, with a tribunal, or reviewing stand, built from turf.

  Marching camp walls were 10 to 12 feet (3 to 4 meters) high, made of bricks of turf, while the ditch on the far side which provided the earth for the walls averaged 12 feet (4 meters) deep and 3 feet (1 meter) across, but this varied according to individual commanders. A clear space of 200 feet (60 meters) was left between tent line and camp walls to prevent burning arrows or firebrands from reaching the tents from outside. Plunder, cattle and prisoners were kept in this open space.

  Once wooden gates and towers were in place, the legion’s catapults
were installed along the walls. There were four camp gates, one in each wall, wide enough to allow troops to pass through ten men abreast. The main entrance, called the Decuman Gate, faced away from the enemy. On the opposite side of the camp, the Praetorian Gate, near the praetorium, faced the enemy. No man, not even a general or a king, was permitted to ride within a camp, as it was apparently considered to bring bad luck. When two young men, probably junior tribunes, rode through his camp just prior to Drusus Caesar’s death in 9 BC, it was seen as an evil omen. [Dio, LV, 1]

  While camp construction was being carried out by part of the legion, a guard cohort stood sentry duty and other details went out gathering wood, water and food with the auxiliaries. Once construction was completed and detachments had reported back in, the legionaries assembled in their maniples, then were dismissed, cohort by cohort, departing for their quarters in disciplined silence.

  Each maniple drew lots to allocate sentry duty, which was broken down into four watches, each of three hours’ duration, during the twelve Roman hours of the night, the time being calculated using water clocks. Eight sentries, four in front and four behind, were posted at the tent of the duty tribune, changing with each new watch. Three sentries were also posted outside the praetorium, and two outside the tent of any other general present in camp. Every maniple and cavalry squadron posted a guard at its own quarters, ten sentries were posted at each camp gate, and others manned the wall and guard towers. [Poly., VI, 35–7] During the day, a guard picket was posted outside the camp.

  The job of patrolling camp sentries at night fell to the cavalry. The senior decurion of the legion’s cavalry unit delegated four troopers to patrol the sentries during the four night watches, one for each, to ensure all were present and awake. [Ibid.] This system of watches and roundsmen, as described by Polybius in the second century BC, was still in use 550 years later. [Vege., III]

  IV. WATCHWORDS AND TRUMPET CALLS

  A new watchword was issued at sunset every day by the most senior officer in camp, and anyone approaching the camp at night would be challenged for the watchword. The tribune of the watch had to pass on the new watchword to each tesserarius for distribution to the guard posts for the coming twenty-four hours. Watchwords also applied in Rome, where they were issued by the emperor, or, in his absence, by a consul. Nero once chose “The best of mothers.” Claudius often gave quotes from Homer.

  Legionaries’ daily lives were dictated by trumpet calls. “All guards are mounted by the sound of a lituus and relieved by the sound of a cornu,” said Vegetius. [Vege., III] Legionaries rose and went to bed to the sound of trumpet calls. When “Prepare to march” was sounded for the first time in camp, legionaries struck their tents and those of their officers, then assembled the baggage and stood by it. At the second trumpeting of “Prepare to march,” the baggage train was loaded. When the call was sounded a third time, the first maniples in the order of march led off out of the camp gate. [Jos., JW, 3, 5, 4]

  There was a long list of trumpet calls that legionaries had to recognize and to which they had to promptly react on the battlefield. According to Arrian, battle signals included: “Forward march,” “Turn right,” “Turn left,” “Wheel right,” “Unfold,” “Reform,” “Reform straight,” “Double up by depth,” “Return to formation,” “Spears up,” “Spears down,” “Optio straighten century,” “Optio maintain intervals.” [Arr., TH, 31–2]

  V. ON THE MARCH

  On the march, legionaries proceeded in “marching order,” each man with a helmet slung around his neck, covered shield on his left arm, and baggage pole over his right shoulder. From the pole were suspended his rolled woolen cloak, bedroll, rations, dolabra, sickle, turf-cutter, wicker basket for earth-moving, mess tin and a water bucket which also served as a kettle, helmet crest and personal items such as decorations. Javelins and camp palisade stakes were strapped to the pole. Heavier items such as tents and millstones were carried on the pack mule allotted to each squad.

  The order of march was frequently determined by units drawing lots. Josephus described the order of march of Vespasian’s army. Auxiliary light infantry and archers went first, to reconnoiter. Then came the army’s first legion, accompanied by heavy cavalry. The surveying party followed, together with a large body of legionaries assigned to road building and leveling the next campsite. Behind them came wagons carrying the personal baggage of the commander and senior officers, with a strong cavalry escort. [Jos., JW, 3, 6, 2]

  Vespasian himself came next, with the cream of his auxiliary cavalry and hand-picked legionaries, plus auxiliary spearmen of the general’s bodyguard. They were followed by troops of legion cavalry, then the main baggage train, carrying artillery and siege equipment. Then came the other generals, camp-prefects and tribunes, with a bodyguard, followed by a legion’s standards surrounding the eagle, preceding the men of the legion, who marched six abreast in their centuries with their centurions. Then came the next legion, and the next. The non-combatants followed, with the rest of the baggage train, pack mules, and other beasts. Last of all came allied troops and a rearguard of legionaries and auxiliary cavalry.

  Marching legions covered 18 to 20 miles (29 to 32 kilometers) a day. More than 30 miles (48 kilometers) in a day, achieved by an army of Vitellius in Italy during the AD 69 war of succession, was considered praiseworthy. A column’s speed was dictated by the speed of the baggage train.

  VI. BAGGAGE TRAINS AND NON-COMBATANTS

  The Romans called the baggage train the impedimentum, from which we derive the word impediment, meaning obstruction. And, if not carefully managed, a baggage train could indeed impede the march. A wise commander had to guard against losing his baggage. Mark Antony, marching into Armenia and Media in 36 BC, grew impatient with his trundling baggage train and left it to follow him at its own pace, hurrying forward with his legions. The Parthians and Medes circled around behind Antony and wiped out the train’s defenders, seizing the train and depriving Antony of most of his food and ammunition.

  One pack mule was assigned to every squad of a legion, requiring 650 mules for a full-strength legion. The mules were managed by civilian muleteers. A legion baggage train might involve a hundred carts, pulled by mules or oxen and also managed by non-combatants. These carried heavy supplies, artillery, siege equipment, building materials, ammunition, and officers’ dining plate and camp furniture.

  Arrian, in the second century, said that Roman commanders were familiar with five set ways of assigning the baggage train in a marching column, all designed to provide maximum protection. Where the army was advancing toward the enemy, he said, it was necessary for the baggage train to follow the legions. When withdrawing from enemy territory, the baggage train went ahead. On an advance where an enemy attack was feared on one flank, the baggage train was placed on the opposite flank. Where neither flank was considered secure, the baggage train advanced in the midst of the legions. [Arr., TH, 30]

  A vast body of camp followers inevitably trailed the legions: merchants, prostitutes, de facto legionary families. There were also the slaves of the officers, who took part in arms training and drills with their masters. Said Tacitus, “of all slaves, the slaves of soldiers are the most unruly.” [Tac., H, II, 87] The number of non-combatants with an army frequently equaled it in number; when 40,000 Roman soldiers sacked the Italian city of Cremona in AD 69, they were joined by an even larger number of non-combatants. [Tac., H, III, 33]

  VII. ARTILLERY AND SIEGE EQUIPMENT

  Each legion of the early empire was equipped with one stone-throwing ballista per cohort and one metal dart and spear-firing scorpio per century. The single-armed catapult of the onager or “wild ass” type—so named because of its massive kick—was employed from 200 BC and was still employed in AD 363, when Ammianus Marcellinus saw it in action. “A round stone is placed in the sling and four young men on each side turn back the bar with which the ropes are connected and bend the pole almost flat. Then finally the master [gunner], standing above, strikes out the
pole-bolt” with a hammer. [Amm., II, xxiii, 4–6] This released the tensioned firing pole, which sprang forward and launched the missile.

  Catapults had a great effect on the morale of both attackers and defenders. All authorities wrote of the enormous noise made by catapults when they fired, and of the terrifying sound made by catapult balls and spears on their way to the target. The normal operating range of legion artillery was 400 yards (365 meters) or less. Catapult stones were used to batter down fortified defenses and eliminate defenders on walls and in towers. A number of scorpio darts have been found at siege sites in modern times, usually with pyramid-shaped heads and three flights made of wood or leather.

  The Roman engineer Vitruvius wrote that the Roman military used the following weights for their rounded ballista balls: 2lbs, 4lbs, 6lbs, 10lbs, 20lbs, 40lbs, 60lbs, 80lbs, 120lbs, 160lbs, 180lbs, 200lbs, 210lbs and a massive 360lbs; a range of 0.9 to 163 kilos. [Vitr., OA, X, 3] One of the larger balls was nicknamed the “wagon stone,” perhaps because it took a wagon to carry it. [Arr., TH, II] Trajan’s Column shows catapult balls packed in a crate, like apples, in which they were delivered to the firing line from the stone-quarries where they originated. The cheiroballistra was an improved ballista; in service by AD 100, it used a metal frame. Light, sturdy and accurate, it was often mounted on a cart for mobility.

  Four legions involved in the AD 70 Siege of Jerusalem employed more than 200 catapults between them. The 10th Legion built a veritable monster of a ballista for this siege. Josephus records that the balls fired against both Jotapata and Jerusalem weighed around 60lbs (27 kilos) and traveled more than 440 yards (400 meters). To make spotting difficult for the Jewish defenders, Roman artillerymen coated their white ballista stones with black pitch. Incendiaries were also used: stones and arrows dipped in pitch, sulfur and naphtha, and set alight. [Jos., JW, 5, 6, 3]