06-27-2014, 05:03 PM
Mark wrote:
Given I would probably be suggesting that a centurion doesn't have a pilum himself, why not have him simply shout (which the century would be quite familiar with) 'prepare' - 'release'? He can even vary it by changing the number of ranks that throw...
Read Caesar, DBG, 5.44; the centurion Titus Pullo uses a pilum to kill an enemy.
And to quote Raffeale D'Amato's Roman Centurions: 31 BC - AD 500, "The pilum and hasta are also attested among the weapons of centurions by gravestones and figurative monuments of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD."
....for no one disagreed with it at the time when I argued those points.
I think everyone got tired of arguing each other after eight pages. Frustration killed that topic.
If so, then large and small gaps, ideas of centurions happily being on their own, being able to see left, right, and backwards and every Roman a whirling, leaping super-gladiator are in the mix...
Polybius and Vegetius both specifically describe a individual fighting style that is independent in nature and nothing like a hoplite'esque shield wall. Not too mention Arrian (CW, 3.68, Battle of Forum Gallorum)
Gaps were described by Livy and multiple threads exist in RAT that pretty definitively prove that small gaps between units existed in nearly every battle line in the ancient, medieval, Renaissance battlefield, though larger maniple sized gaps are still debatable.
Given I would probably be suggesting that a centurion doesn't have a pilum himself, why not have him simply shout (which the century would be quite familiar with) 'prepare' - 'release'? He can even vary it by changing the number of ranks that throw...
Read Caesar, DBG, 5.44; the centurion Titus Pullo uses a pilum to kill an enemy.
And to quote Raffeale D'Amato's Roman Centurions: 31 BC - AD 500, "The pilum and hasta are also attested among the weapons of centurions by gravestones and figurative monuments of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD."
....for no one disagreed with it at the time when I argued those points.
I think everyone got tired of arguing each other after eight pages. Frustration killed that topic.
If so, then large and small gaps, ideas of centurions happily being on their own, being able to see left, right, and backwards and every Roman a whirling, leaping super-gladiator are in the mix...
Polybius and Vegetius both specifically describe a individual fighting style that is independent in nature and nothing like a hoplite'esque shield wall. Not too mention Arrian (CW, 3.68, Battle of Forum Gallorum)
Gaps were described by Livy and multiple threads exist in RAT that pretty definitively prove that small gaps between units existed in nearly every battle line in the ancient, medieval, Renaissance battlefield, though larger maniple sized gaps are still debatable.
