Roman Maniple

[Timotheus]

I am reading through varous sources I have at home on the Roman Maniple as it was part of the legion during the Second Punic War.

One bit of information eludes me.

How much frontage was each soldier given. Did soldiers march and fight shoulder to shoulder? Did each solider occupy and fight within his own 3 foot area? 4 foot? IF someone could give me an answer and equally useful a source on this.

I have seen some diagrams and from these it looks like the Roman troops were as tight as was practical or about 3 feet for each soldier but one can hardly use a diagram mostly drawn up to show the formation of a legion to properly gauge individual soldier space.


Thanks in advance.

[Timotheus]

Second question I cannot seem to find an answer on assuming there is one.

Do we know how many javelins the average velites carried into battle?

[Nicholas Gaukroger]

Check the section in Polybios on the Roman legio.

IIRC he says the legionarius had 6 feet of space.

[M. Demetrius]

An Osprey book on the early Roman legions says each velite carried at least 5 javelins. Without some sort of quiver, you can only hold about that many in the shield hand.

[Paullus Scipio]

Although Polybius refers to 6 feet, Vegetius, speaking of the 'antiqua Legio' says 3 ft. Polybius is a Greek writer, and I am fairly certain that, as seems customary with Greek writers, he is referring to 'open order' - the Greeks called it 'normal order', which had no special name. Pyknosis was 'close order', 3 ft per man; synaspismos or locked shields, had the Macedonian pikemen on an 18 inch, side-on formation, two-foot diameter shields overlapped.[source: drill manuals of Arrian, Aelian etc]

The difference between Greek and Roman drill is that the former worked by file, and the latter by rank.

It is my belief that ranks began in 'open order', with each rank staggered ( or 'quincunx' formation, as it is sometimes known, each soldier occupying 6 ft . The charge was made in this formation and 'pila' thrown at about 25 m, with the ranks then closing up into 'close formation' on the run prior to contact ( 2nd rank amalgamates with front rank, 4th with 3rd and so on, the formation halving it's depth overall...)

I first proposed this hypothesis in "Warfare in the Classical World" by John Warry - see pp 112 and 126-127.

As to number of veles carried by a velite, remembering these are only 'finger thick', IIRC there are a couple of references to seven in Livy and Polybius.....

[M. Demetrius]

Assuming the shafts were about equal in diameter, 7 is a good choice, because 1 surrounded by 6 leaves no open space...so I'd go with 7 instead of the 5 I said earlier, even without the references from the ancient historians. Javelins were not always lethal, being fairly light, I think they were more designed to harrass and inflict wounds. It would be possible if they hit a neck artery, maybe, or an unarmored thorax between the ribs, but more likely they would make a nasty wound and take the fellow out of the fight.

But that's off the original topic. Sorry.