10-07-2021, 12:12 AM
Nathan wrote:
I'm not sure that Cerialis wouldn't have brought half his legion with him, even if he had to leave the other half to guard the northern approaches. If he was marching into enemy territory he surely would have taken all his available troops?
Some years ago Adrian Goldsworthy sent me his paper “Instinctive Genius.” I am not sure if it has been published. Goldsworthy makes some interesting observations about the Roman reactions to putting down rebellions. Goldsworthy writes:
“Caesar behaved in a similar way in the rebellion of 52, gathering whatever troops were available to strike as fast as possible, before moving on to confront another opponent. Once again he was to take the field with small, ill-supplied forces before the start of the campaigning season. As the year went on he continually advanced against Vercingetorix, to Avaricum, Gergovia, and Alesia in turn, putting pressure on the enemy and trying to force a decision. The reaction to the rebellion of 51 was similarly fast and aggressive, with a succession of rapid punitive expeditions being mounted through the winter, employing whatever forces were immediately available. This tendency to seize the initiative and then hold it by maintaining a constant offensive created an impression of force often far greater than the reality of the Roman military strength available at that time. Rebellions were weakest in their early stages, whilst many potential rebels were waiting to see whether or not the enterprise would prosper. Roman reverses encouraged the waverers to join a rising, as the Nervii did in 54, encouraged by the Eburones' success. Even Roman inactivity suggested weakness and encouraged the number of rebels to grow. However, if the Romans could strike quickly and confront the rebels successfully, then they stood a very good chance of defeating the rebellion before it gained momentum. Concentrating a large enough body of troops to ensure success and gathering sufficient transport and supplies to maintain them in the field for a protracted campaign took time, when any delay favoured the rebels not the Romans. The alternative was to gather whatever men were available and attack quickly hoping that the enemy were still weak. These operations were primarily displays of force, attempts to create an impression of such overwhelming strength that Roman success was inevitable. It did not matter if this impression of force was a facade, and that the Roman army was incapable of fighting a full scale campaign and might well be beaten if it encountered strong opposition. When Caesar chose to lead small armies against these rebellions he risked disaster if he encountered strong opposition.
An examination of the Roman reaction to insurrection during the late Republic and early Principate suggests on the contrary that Caesar's campaigns were typical. In the early stages of the Jewish rebellion in AD 66, the procurator Florus attempted and failed to control the uprising with the small auxiliary garrison of the province and the forces of Herod Agrippa II. When news of these reverses reached the Syrian legatus, Cestius Gallus, he mustered all the troops available at short notice and led them straight to the centre of the uprising at Jerusalem, pausing only briefly en route to send flying columns against any signs of open resistance. The army he led was impressive in numbers, but poorly supplied and many of its units were untrained or of dubious morale. In short it was not an army capable of fighting a full scale campaign. When Gallus encountered unexpectedly strong opposition at Jerusalem and his first assaults were repulsed, he was unable to mount a proper siege and was forced into a disastrous retreat. The next year, a properly organised and supplied Roman army returned to reconquer Judaea systematically. Earlier Syrian governors had mounted similar operations to that of Gallus with better results. Both Varus in 4 BC and Petronius in AD 40 had led hastily gathered armies in very short campaigns which were little more than demonstrations of force. In AD 9 Varus reacted to reports of a rising in Germany in exactly the same way, leading an ill-prepared force straight at the supposed centre of the uprising. The Roman force was incapable of dealing with the strong opposition it encountered and was destroyed. Another famous rebellion, that of Boudicca in AD 60, provoked a similar Roman response, Roman commanders choosing to confront the rebels immediately with whatever forces were available, rather than waiting to muster an army large enough to ensure victory. First the procurator Decianus Catus sent 200 poorly equipped men to defend Camulodonum, then the Petilius Cerialis led a vexillation of his Legio IX against the rebels, before finally Suetonius Paulinus managed to defeat the Britons with the field army, still a force of no more than 10,000 men. Both of these examples date to the first century of the Principate and were chosen because they can be described in rather more detail than similar operations dating to the Republic. At least as early as the Second Century BC, the normal Roman reaction to insurrection was to mount an immediate offensive. In 152 BC the Lusitanians rebelled, attacking tribes allied to Rome. Servius Sulpicius Galba moved against them as soon as the rebellion was reported, allegedly force-marching his troops over 60 miles in 24 hours and then sending his fatigued men straight into an unsuccessful action. Pompey's Judaean campaign was as swift and aggressive as any of these operations, but far less risky as the forces at his disposal were numerous, well supplied and trained, and proved fully capable of undertaking the full-scale, formal siege of Jerusalem. All of these operations show the Roman army behaving in a way that was anything but methodical, sacrificing the practical advantages to be gained by delaying to make proper preparations, in favour of striking immediately to create an impression of overwhelming force. It did not matter if this impression was a facade and the Roman force was incapable of fighting a full campaign or beating a strong opponent, since often the enemy was dismayed by the quick and confident response and a spectacular Roman victory resulted. Less often in reality, but likely to be recorded in more detail in our sources, an even more spectacular Roman disaster occurred.”
Also of interest G. Watson “The Roman Soldier” (1969) pages 62-66 writes “In an emergency march they (the Romans) would have carried minimum rations and left behind their entrenching tools and palisade stakes, the weight would have been steadily reduced as they consumed their rations.
Caesar (BG VII 40-41) “four legions without packs marched 50 miles within 24 hours, with a break of 3 hours.”
