frontage of a consular army

[Justin Swanton]

Returning to the subject of the thread:

In Polybius' legion there are 1,200 velites, 1,200 hastati, 1,200 principes and 600 triarii, with 10 maniples per line (except the velites that aren't organised into separate maniples).

Each maniple of the hastati and principes consists of 120 men whilst that of the triarii has 60 men. Deploying the hastati and principes 20 men wide and 6 deep and the triarii 3 deep enables the velites to deploy 20 wide and 6 deep, and subsequently reinforce each maniple of the hastati, principes and triarii with an additional two ranks, making the hastati and principes lines an optimal 8 ranks deep and the triarii 5 ranks deep. The legion will be about 200 yards wide (at one yard per file) and the 4-legion infantry of a manipular army about 800 yards wide.

What is interesting here are the velites. They form the front line of skirmishers but are also equipped for melee combat. They are not organised into their own maniples but are co-opted to the maniples of the hastati, principes and triarii. This suggests that after initial skirmishing they withdrew, one-third to each of the lines, to augment them, probably forming the rear ranks. This dual role was originally performed separately by the 900 rorarii and 300 leves of the earlier legion, the leves skirmishing and the rorarii augmenting the lines, which suggests these two lines were combined into one – the beginning of a process of simplification of the legion’s troop types that eventually culminated in the all-purpose Marian legionary.