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05-06-2004, 08:16 AM

Oh, OK, I hadn't thought of that. I guess if what is meant by commanding 2 cohorts is that the tribunes are poised to command any time 2 (or more ?) cohorts are detached, that actually makes sense. And I suppose that if single cohorts are rarely detached, then maybe what I'm seeing as a command/ control problem really isn't. (I understand that in the real world, it became increasingly common for legions to be broken up and sent different places, and/ or pieces of various border legions were thrown together to make a mobile field army to campaign somewhere else.) It just still seems odd to me to have a standing unit w/o its own commander or to have an officer with 2 different simultaneous commands on different levels of the command hierarchy. Maybe, to prevent this problem a tribune would also be assigned to command a single cohort if and when it was detached?

Jeroen Pelgrom · 05-06-2004, 10:07 AM

if iÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´m not mistaken, a vexillation could be commanded by a tribune, but also by a centurion. I havenÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t been able to find some sort of structure in this. 
Also i also get the idea that a vexillation, could be composed of units from several cohorts, not just from 1. 
 
Professionals built the Titanic, amateurs built the ark

Matthew Amt · 05-06-2004, 01:25 PM

Avete! 
 
I did indeed mean that an equestrian tribune commanded 2 cohorts of a legion while he was posted to that unit. There were a number of milliary ("thousand-strong") auxiliary units, and they each had a single equestrian commander. This would also be a logical step up from commanding 500 non-citizen auxiliaries. And in a legion he'd still have his senior centurions as seconds, not to mention direct supervision from the praefectus castrorum and legatus. Shouldn't be a problem. 
 
It's not my idea, I got if from some modern writer but don't recall which one. I just happen to agree! Sure, not a lot of backing for it, but the idea that the legionary tribunes were just staff officers seems to be a carry-over from the Republic, during which these were young aristocrats elected (or appointed) to tag along with the army for training and secretarial work. Doesn't seem to be the same system that is used during the Empire. 
 
Oh, Los--Primus pilus means "first FILE", NOT "first spear"! Different words. He'd be the right-hand man of the right-hand unit. (We don't call someone a "leader" because of what his bullets are made out of, eh?) 
 
It's probably not safe to assume that a new centurion started in the lowest post in the lowest cohort and worked his way up one step at a time through 59 more positions. Connections and chance have a lot to do with it! Some might skip up more quickly, jumping over certain steps, others might be stuck on the same rung for years or forever (Not that it's a bad rung to be on!). As I recall, there may have been some evidence that equestrians appointed to the centurionate were more likely to jump from the top of one cohort to the top of the next rather quickly, right up to primus pilus and praefectus castrorum. Those might be the guys with a shot at becoming legatus. I remember that one ended up commanding a fleet. 
 
Really don't know how long equestrian centurions served. I'd be surprised if they had to do a full 20 or 25 year stint. I have heard that they had to give up their equestrian status to do this, but not sure about that, either. Equestrian tribunes seem to have done 2 to 4 years in each post (auxiliary cohort, legion, then cavalry ala), so I don't know if there was an equestrian centurion parallel to this or not. 
 
It's also not clear what the ratio was of directly-appointed centurions to those who rose from the ranks. One thing I read implied that the direct appointments were actually more numerous! But it's possible there is some skewing of the evidence, those guys being more likely to leave grand monuments to their careers. And I'd be willing to bet that the men who rose from the ranks got more respect from their troops, on average... 
 
A lot of centurions got sent off on duties such as supervising construction projects or the collection of food and supplies. Some of these guys might not have had a regular century to command, while others would have ditched their regular duties onto their optiones! ("Hey, sarge, I gotta head out and look at an aquaduct, be back in a week. HQ needs the rosters before dark and those wagons need to be picked up at the wheelwrights. Oh, and remember the legatus will be inspecting on Monday morning. Have a great weekend!" Sound familiar, anyone?) 
 
Valete, 
 
Matthew/Quintus

Vincula · 05-06-2004, 08:20 PM

Quote:<hr>I did indeed mean that an equestrian tribune commanded 2 cohorts of a legion while he was posted to that unit.<hr> 
Sorry Matthew. Got mixed up! 
I thought you were referring to the regular equestrian career structure. But it goes like this: prefect of a cohort, then tribune in a legion, then prefect of a cavalry ala (and maybe also tribune of a double-size ala). 
It might be worth emphasizing that, for many legionary equestrian tribunes, that was their only military posting. Ever. 
Also, that we have no evidence for tribunes (or anyone else) commanding two cohorts. It's true, your tribune may just have commanded 500 hairy Gauls, but then again he might just have arrived from school in Rome (and be headed straight back there). Worth thinking about?

Crispvs · 05-07-2004, 05:32 PM

I'm not sure why the centurio of the first century of a cohort could not command the whole cohort at the same time. I also think it unwise to assume that the "pragmatic" Romans would have invented a new position to take account of an assumed shortfall in command. Are we not led to believe after all, that a cavalry decurio commanded his turma and at the same time took personal command of one of its squadrons, the other two being led by his duplicarius and his sesisquiplicarius. Perhaps it should be pointed out that 'to lead' does not necessary mean 'to command', as I am sure any combat veteran who has acted as a squad leader would agree. If the cohort was in good shape, its six centuriones would presumably all be fully capable of leading their centuries. The centurio of the first century should have been able to rely on the others all doing what they were supposed to. If he changed his plan part way through the battle he could relay the new orders to his subordinate centuriones by trumpet calls and movements of his signum. Of course, in a battle situation even the centurio of the first century would by subordinate to the general in command. There are of course different levels of command and responsibility. If a general COMMANDS the army, a senior centurio would command a cohort and all the centuriones would lead their own centuries. 
 
I hope that all made sense 
 
Crispvs

05-08-2004, 02:24 AM

Hi everyone - back from the black hole that is graduate school! 
 
Okay, so the article that I've been reading out of the Journal of Roman Studies, "Princeps and Equites" by P.A. Brunt says that the average (and bearing in mind how inaccurate "average" can be in the particular case) equestrian served about 9 years, with about three years per position (prefect of a cohort, tribune, and then prefect of an ala). 
 
He also says that some equestrians started out as centurions rather than prefects of a cohort, and that, at any rate, most were mere novices on appointment. This seems to coincide well with what everyone has said. 
 
That being said, he also mentions that promotion varied considerably, with some people skipping entire positions, while others were stuck at one position for 8 years or more. 
 
Does this seem like an accurate summary? 
 
Carina

JRSCline · 05-09-2004, 02:02 AM

Yup. The Brunt article, in part, informs my views above. 
 
An excellent collection of topical material is the MAVORS volume, H. Devijver, The Equestrian Officers of the Roman Army. Anybody have the complete cite for Carina? My copy's back home. 
 
We tend to overcodify the Roman system, because we naturally draw analogies with professional militaries today, which tend to have rigid rules about promotions, who gets them and when, and what step comes next, etc. It's worth remembering that this sort of rigid or linear progression may not have been the case in the Roman military, and that since our data set of known careers is not comprehensive, for every exception we see, there may be another exception we don't know about! 
 
By exceptions, I mean things which happen in the minority case, such as the direct appointment of centurions -- presumably paid for by the applicant -- when most centurions were drawn from the junior ranks based on seniority, connections, and hopefully merit. 
 
Jenny

05-14-2004, 02:27 AM

To jump back a little to the idea of the Tribunes commanding Cohorts as opposed to the the Pilus Priores, I don't know if I see it. In terms of administration we know from officer/aristocrats like Pliny that the tribunes certainly acted more as modern day Staff officers than anything else. Certainly it seems plausible to me that a Tribune could have been responsible for the administration of two cohorts in terms of issues like managing pay, audits, inventories, logistical support etc. but battlefield command of two cohorts would not only would have been difficult for one man, it would have deprived individual cohorts of the independence of action we know they possessed. In other words how could, for example, Caesar break off one cohort as he so often did to outflank an enemy force if that cohort's commander was responsible for another cohort? Unity of command would immediately have been lost. 
 
This is why I agree that the Pilus Priores would have commanded the cohorts on the battlefield. Granted the setup would not be perfect, but an odd but perhaps appropriate analogy would be of the World War 2 bomber squadron leader. A squadron leader had his own ship to pilot and worry about, and the rest of the squadron followed that ship. When the squadron leaders' ship changed course or altitude, or released its bombs so did the remainder of the squadron, even if the lead ship's radio was busted. In the Roman case, the rest of the centuries could follow the lead of the First Century and its standards. Perhaps there was even a cohort standard but even this would have been unnecessary if it was doctrine that the First Century was the lead century. Certainly this would have made the cohort as a whole less maneuverable than modern units on the parade ground, but on the battlefield this type of unity of command/effort and maneuverability would have been unmatched by any army in the ancient world.

05-15-2004, 02:02 PM

The roman army was a quite interesting mix of very strict regulations with an almost official "buddy system" and practices we now call corruption but which at that time were considered normal. The best example of that is the systematic selling of leaves and exemptions by the centurions, a practice no one was ever able to stop. 
As for the centurions the best explanation I've read so far --besides the usual run of the mill, inaccurate "non-com" description-- was that it's the centurionate, not the centurion, that has to be considered as a category in itself. A sort of caste, with several ranks within it. 
The rear centurion of the tenth cohort of a legion had the responsibilities of a captain, whereas the primus pilus could, sometimes but not always, be compared to a colonel. 
Centurions and particularly primipilii were also in charge of raising taxes and several other non-combat duties, including of course construction work, police duties and so on. 
So, the term "centurion" did not described a particular rank, like captain, but rather a category, like "officer" which covers ranks from lieutenant to general. 
In any case, they were definitely commissioned officers, whether through their own merits, or through the recommendations and the bribes of daddy..

05-20-2004, 02:57 PM

Well, after quite a bit more research - thanks to everyone for their suggested sources, including the Mavors series - I have found the information that I needed. 
 
Interestingly, however, the prefect cohort - military tribune - prefect ala "promotion track" apparently didn't become standardized until the reign of Claudius, who instituted the "tres militiae" (and Nero tweaked it placing the last two positions in their current order). 
 
For the time period that I was interested in - Augustus/Tiberius - there was no real, set promotion track. It was really just a series of appointments that depended a lot on patronage as well as an individual's performance. 
 
Thought I'd share the fruits of my research in case anyone was interested! 
 
Carina

05-20-2004, 03:47 PM

Do we know how common it was for young equestrians to get some experience in the centurionate before becoming a prefect? Commanding a whole cohort sounds like an odd place to start a young greenhorn. 
 
Also, was there any path for an equestrian to get elevated to the patrician class through military service (as the plebians were able to do to get into the equestrian class through becoming primus pilus?) 
 
Aaron

D B Campbell · 05-20-2004, 08:50 PM

(1) Remember that, although these are military posts, they had just as much to do with administration as with warfare -- probably more so. These equestrians are like young country gentlemen, putting in a few years service to keep up appearances. 
We usually think of the centurions as being the experienced combat veterans. 
(2) By and large, the equestrian is a different animal from the senator, socially and financially. Entry to the Senate was at the emperor's discretion, and depended very much on the individual's personal fortune. (The property qualification for the senator was 1 million sesterces, at a time when a legionary earned 900 sesterces per year. The famous letter-writer Pliny the younger, for example, is thought to have been "worth" 20 million, and was not particularly wealthy for a senator.) 
As you say, a centurion could rise into the equestrian order, but this must have taken some time and effort. The primus pilus was essentially a man of retirement age. He apparently received a discharge bonus of 600,000 sesterces, which was presumably to qualify him for entry into the equestrian order; but, as far as I am aware, such advancement was not automatic, and was perhaps only required if he wanted to proceed to the big-earning equestrian procuratorships. It was perhaps more usual simply to retire quietly; or for those who could not turn their back on the army, there was the post of praefectus castrorum. 
But it's clear that a gulf separated the senatorial and equestrian officers from even the primipilaris (the name for an ex-primus pilus), never mind the ordinary soldiers.

JRSCline · 05-21-2004, 07:28 AM

Great, Carina! And thanks -- you gave everyone a great topic to sink our teeth into. 
 
BTW, what are you working on, project-wise, that you needed to find this info? 
 
Jenny

05-23-2004, 06:55 PM

I am particularly interested in the films that depict the Roman army and how accurate they are. From what I read here Crassus the military leader who defeated Spartacus was a prime example of buying rank. He was a civilian supposedly with NO military experience, the richest man in Rome, a Senator who financed what was essentially a private army (under the color of Roman authority) and lead it as a "Legate" in charge. He won over Spartacus eventually after after several disastors through a combination of hiring the right officers to man the army, sheer manpower and bribing the Sicilian pirates to strand Spartacus. He later as one of the Triumvarate leading an army in Iran (Parthia) lost a battle and was captured and killed by the Parthians..the story goes they poured molten gold down his throat because he loved gold so much. 
 
To me a Legate is much like our modern Generals...but I have read from various web sources that a Roman General commanded not one but several legions such as depicted in "Gladiator" However I am aware of the many mistakes made about Roman history and military life of that movie. Blaine DIxon

07-18-2004, 10:32 PM

Did the system still work that way during the time of the Gothic invasions 408 AD? Was the position of the magister militum comparable to that of the legate, and can I sneak a young man of senatorial status in the army as tribunus laticlavus? 
 
Also, which legion(s) was/were stationed in Pannonia and Noricum at that time? 
 
 
(When I've finished the introductory chapters of my ongoing novel about the Goths, I'll go back to my Mediaeval saga for some time, where I don't have to research all those picky details. )

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