Roman Baggage Trains?

[Marja]

Hi, I'm trying to find info on Roman [including Byzantine] baggage trains and their size/numbers.

Donald Engels estimated that each legion required some 800 pack animals to carry tents, etc.

Peter Kehne, in an article in Erdkamp's A Companion to the Roman Army gave a complicated list of requirements, including 3,800 horses and 7,000 mules for a task force of 3 legions, 3 alae, and 9 cohorts for 17 days, but doesn't give much info on how this breaks down.

[Nathan Ross]

If you haven't seen it before, Roth's The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 B.C.-A.D. 235) is a good source.

Available in full here:

Roth - Logistics (pdf)

Chapter 2 (Packs, trains and servants) deals with campaign transport, and p.79 onwards in particular covers baggae animals. Roth finds little direct evidence for the numbers of pack animals used by Roman armies on the march, but suggests (p.83) 2 mules per contubernium as a decent estimate - a total of 1200 for a legion, excluding extra animals for centurions and replacements.

[Marja]

Thanks.

I think Engels' estimate is a plausible lower limit of 1 per contuberium [including both the soldiers and calones], plus additional mules for the artillery and staff. Estimating 11 per century and 21 per double century, that would be 660 to 720 for 60 centuries, 699 for 59 centuries. Leading 180 to 240 for artillery and staff.

I guess Roth's estimate might be more likely if only because it allows a greater reserve.

[koechlyruestow]

Goldsworthy has a chapter on logistics too (The Roman Army at War 100BC-AD200). Procopius often mentions the hamaxes, ox-carts, of the Roman army in the early Byzantine period, they really must have slowed the army down compared to the asses, mules, dromedary and hybrid camels of the Persians.

[Frank]

Imho oxcarts are a terrible idea. Historians estimate, that oxcarts could march 10-15 km per day. Thats half the usual distance of an infantryman. On the other hand mules are able to keep up. Mule carts can at least close up until the end of the day.

I always thought, that oxcarts were just used for the ongoing heavier part of the logistic along the supply lines (forts), where the prefered ship-transport was not available. Therefor the romans usually implemented supply forts (e.g. during Augustus' german campaign along the Lippe), and from there they used the more mobile mules and camels for the mobile forces.

It is also a matter of costs and tonnage. The figures I remember roughly are: mule (100-130kg), mule cart up to 1/2 ton, oxcart up to 1 ton, ship 50-1200 tons.

I personally trust more in the estimations of 2 mule per contubernium plus others for non-contubernium specific stuff. That would work for about 2 weeks. Afterwards you need some help from allies onsite, some nice plundering, the fleet should arrive, or these damn oxcarts, if the route behind you is safe at all.

[ValentinianVictrix]

There are some very nice depictions of a Late Roman baggage train dating to about 400AD in the pen & ink drawings of the COlumn of Theodosius and the column of Arcadius. They show baggage mules, baggage camels, carts and even baggage elephants! (there are also other sources that show Roman baggage elephants, not sure what their role was.

[koechlyruestow]

No oxen? Those camels, are they dromedary or Bactrian, one-humped or two?

The use of those ox-carts surprised me too, considering the importance of cavalry, raids, ambushes and skirmishing in the Roman army of the early Byzantine period. Their main advantage may have been logistics, as you can pasture an ox to charge up for the next day, but a mule will need some of the stuff he is carrying in order to keep working, so the longer the distance, the less use a mule became.

The carts were often used to built a laager in the "Barbarian" style, the Strategikon of emperor Maurice even describes them being mounted with catapults.

[Epictetus]

Their main advantage may have been logistics, as you can pasture an ox to charge up for the next day, but a mule will need some of the stuff he is carrying in order to keep working, so the longer the distance, the less use a mule became.

Of course, it all depends upon location (and undoubtedly there were always exceptions), but if an army was moving through Roman or client territory, they did not take the animals the entire way. Each municipality was required to provide the animals for the army's trip through it. When the train reached the border to the next area, the animals were changed. We have letters extant about different municipalities complaining about it. Some places on well-traveled roads were particularly hard pressed, because they had to constantly move military food or equipment, so more distant locales in the same province were required to contribute. And, of course, the locals had to feed their own animals.

[Marja]

George Furse, writing in 1882, claims that:

For horses and mules, the weight to be carried is generally laid down at 200 lbs, pack-saddle included. In the course of an expedition, particularly if the forage is scarce or of inferior quality, the animals become progressively weaker, and their loads must be lightened. In the Abyssinian expedition, for example, the load carried by mules had to be reduced to 100 lbs, not including the pack-saddle. It may be assumed as a rule that from 150 to 160 lbs, in addition to the saddle, is a fair average load for pack animals doing continuous work on bad roads in a poor country.

(p. 74)

http://books.google.com/books?id=dVgBAAAAQAAJ&

The work also includes load estimates for various pack animals, and for wagons. (p. 103 summarizes the section) Obviously it doesn't tell us anything about the Roman way of doing things, but it does tell us something about the practical limits they faced.

[Jugibar]

http://www.humanist.de/rome/rts/

This site has a lot on Roman military wagons based on what little there is from surviving archaeology. Engels' estimates for wagon capacity are based on Noettes who is thoroughly critiqued by Weller here.

[Sean Manning]

Roth and the Strategikon are the two most convenient sources, but for a broad collection of comparative data see also chapter 4 of my forthcoming MA thesis on the Achaemenid army (plug, plug).

Goldsworthy has a chapter on logistics too (The Roman Army at War 100BC-AD200). Procopius often mentions the hamaxes, ox-carts, of the Roman army in the early Byzantine period, they really must have slowed the army down compared to the asses, mules, dromedary and hybrid camels of the Persians.

Are you sure that this is not too specific a translation of hamaxa? When I looked at hamaxa in Xenophon's Attic, the most specific meaning I could find was "a wheeled vehicle used to carry goods." I gave up on trying to decide whether these were wagons or carts, although in Xenophon's world many seem to have been drawn by a pair of oxen.

[koechlyruestow]

I do not remember where, but Procopius tells us the Goths drew their siege towers forward with oxen (so by simply shooting the unfortunate creatures, the Goths were stymied), and oxen are mentioned as gathered by the Roman army. More specific, The Strategikon of Emperor Maurice 12B.18.9 mentions the boes of the hamaxas.

[Sean Manning]

Merci Eduard.

The other thing which I would point out is that republican and early imperial Roman armies did bring oxcarts (Roth p. 83, 211 cites Trajan's Column) and and herds of livestock (Roth p. 213). They also needed wheeled vehicles for their artillery, and for some heavy goods in the general's baggage. I will repeat that I am no expert on the Roman army. But as with other aspects of the Roman army, it is probably best to allow for a range of practices at different places and times.

[koechlyruestow]

Exactly, the Roman area covers a wide area of different ecological circumstances and their fauna.
For instance, in large parts of the Levant, ox-carts were disappearing in late antiquity, even though the Romans vainly tried to stimulate their use with fiscal measures (Bulliet, the Camel and the Wheel)

By the way, I suspect the abundance of mules in principate and 19th century armies has somewhat obscured the fact that, compared to cattle, mules are expensive animals in purchase and upkeep. And from what I have heard, they are difficult, bloody-minded animals to work with, oxen are much more docile and phlegmatic. To the British army in South Africa, the mule-trains were a constant worry.

[Frank]

But as with other aspects of the Roman army, it is probably best to allow for a range of practices at different places and times.

Thats propably what the romans did. They used whats available, manageable and appropriate:

Mass logistics: ships, oxcarts, mulecarts in order to supply logistic-points /-forts; also with relais-systems. It seems that the cursus vehiculorum was of minor importance for army logistics.
Baggage train: mulecarts, mule, calones
Forced March: mule and calones or just the infantrymen themselves.