01-01-2013, 09:23 PM
Quote:he assembled an army of 16 legions and 10,000 cavalrymen for attack against Dacia, which was about as close as much as Trajan i think.
Well, that is indeed a lot of legions, and kudos for finding the quote!
However, I would (of course!) add some caveats:
1. Appian is clear that this army was intended to invade Parthia after attacking the Getae. Therefore the size of the force does not reflect the needs of a Getic war alone, but a lengthy continued campaign.
2. Caesar had a lot of legions available to him after the civil wars - his own, plus most of Pompey's. But we know from Caesar's writings that legions of his day seldom numbered the assumed 5-6 thousand of later times. In some cases they were only a few thousand strong. So the number of legions cannot easily be used to calculate the size of the army.
3. While Caesar did use irregular auxiliaries (Gallic and German cavalry, Cretan archers etc), the regular auxiliary cohorts and alae of the empire did not yet exist in his day. In this case, the ten thousand cavalry were the auxiliaries, more or less. If we can assume that imperial armies comprised a 50/50 division of legionaries and auxiliaries (not certain, but plausible), then an imperial force undertaking the same expedition would only have required half the number of legions, with auxiliaries making up the rest. In other words - 8 legions!
Anyway, as I've said we have no concrete evidence of the total numbers of Trajan's or any other imperial expedition into Dacia. But I'd still like to know what primary source the figures of 13-16 legions are based on...
;-)
Nathan Ross
