Centurion Position in Battle

[Bryan]

I can see the argument for the Centurion's being in the front of the formation because as junior officers their role would be to inspire those under their command by taking the lead. This is very similar to the experince of junior officers in WW1 who were expected to lead their men 'over the top' and inspire them to brave the hell that would face them as soon as they did. I wonder if Centurions suffered a disproportionate amount of casualties as opposed to the other officer classes similar to that suffered by the junior officers in WW1?

Tribunes and standard bearers also seemed to have taken a large percentage of casualties. In many of the accounts of armies taking large amounts of casualties, in many situations nearly every tribune in the army is killed (Cannae, Arausio). Caesar mentions many situations where he combines tribunes and centurions in an overall casualty count. I believe the position of military tribune was a pretty dangerous job, especially considering that it was often used as a political stepping stone to higher positions/offices, many of the tribunes would have had to shown great heroism to win a name for themselves, along with many shiny awards.