01-22-2017, 12:29 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-22-2017, 02:58 PM by Nathan Ross.)
(01-22-2017, 01:32 AM)Steven James Wrote: “According to Sallust (Rom. Hist., 3,8) a large phaselus carried a cohort of 600 men.”
It's a modern gloss.
Sallust (here) just says that a cohort was once carried in a large phaselus (light merchant ship).
Casson, in Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (1971) quotes Sallust in his footnotes and mentions that 'a cohort at full strength was 600 men'; Morrison in Greek and Roman Oared Warships (1996) uses this to claim that 'Sallust writes that a large phaselus carried one cohort (600 men)'; D'Amato in the book you mentioned, merely implies Casson's figure as part of the original quote: 'According to Sallust... a large phaselus carried a cohort of 600 men'.
No actual evidence here for 600-man cohorts, just the steady accumulation of assumptions. As Sallust was writing about the later Republic (I think) his cohort was very likely far smaller, even if it was at full strength when it boarded the boat!
Nathan Ross
