EUREKA - Roman army troops

[D B Campbell]

please read: The Historian´s Tool Box again....

Looks like an interesting book, H.J.
Thanks for posting that. I see he quotes from Richard Evans, In Defense of History, which is a great read, too.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Welcome Duncan!

It is a mandatory book at Leiden Univ, core curriculum. and it is a great introductory help to the trade of History and also a nice introduction to some Historiography.


M.VIB.M.

[antiochus]

H.J.Vrielink wrote:
Then have your thesis reviewed by Peers,
Then Publish it......
And Then start "Testing" people on here again, with a valid reason.

Perhaps you missed my posting containing part of my thesis, hereby repeated again.

“Let’s look at the information differently. 330 vessels containing 120 marines per vessel equates to 39,600 men. With two consuls, 39,600 men equates to 8 legions each of 4950 men (39,600 divided by 8 = 4950). For simplicity, each legion is rounded to 5000 men. Therefore the army numbered 40,000 men. Before leaving Sicily, of the 8 legions, the best men are picked. What this means is the Romans take from the army, those units at full strength and create the required number of legions. After leaving two legions in Sicily, that is 10,000 men, the army arrives in Africa with 30,000 men or six legions. Now I have reconciled Appian, Eutropius and Orosius with Polybius’ marines. Then the primary sources mention half the army returned to Italy, which leaves three legions or 15,000 men, which again reconciles with Polybius’ army numbers for the battle of Bagradas of 15,000 men and 500 cavalry. The 500 cavalry is rounded down and my research shows more allied than Roman, which could indicate of the three legions, one is Roman and two are allied, but this is conjecture. So what we now have is Appian, Eutropius and Orosius giving the size of the Roman army at the beginning of the campaign in Africa and Polybius those that remained behind.”

Therefore, it is published (admittedly electronically) and can now be tested.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

It is certainly an interesting view and thesis, however personally i think one of biggest problems encountered is the possibility that the ¨allied¨ army might not have been on those ships at all but was, as the Romans did by rule more than by exception, locally recruited or demanded.

I find the biggest problem with Roman army numbers that they simply are too often incorrect, exagerrated, come from hearsay, guessing, and so on.

What you could incorporate to support your ideas/calculations are lists of vexillatii which were found in Egypt, some at less than full strength, some at full,
the biggest problem with these lists of course being not in the right period...........

So it is a wild guess, because if your numbers at the outset are wrong, because Polybius and the other authors might have it all wrong for a start, the entire calculation becomes somewhat meaningless and a wild goose chase.

Also, we do not know how many of the so called marines were Legionary, Classis, or Auxilia. we do not know what their function was.

If it is written that 120 marines EMBARKED on ships, that could be an indication, but if its written that 120 marines sailed to enemy shores on their boats, it might as well mean that 30+ of them were actually sailing, commanding, rowing, and other naval personel who had nothing to do with the standing army, depending on the size of the boats of which we do not know much.

Suetonius for example writes about biremes which were used by Augustus of which several sank, but size, number of men etcetera is unknown.


M.VIB.M.

[D B Campbell]

It will be published as part of my book The Anatomy of the Roman Legion, 500 BC to 200 AD. This is not an advertisement for the book. I just wanted to have an Archimedes's moment, and instead of running into the street I decided to use the modern equivalent, the Internet to celebrate the moment. I've had so many research breakthroughs concerning the Roman legion over the last fifteen months I allowed myself to lose discipline and publicly blow my own trumpet. The book should, hopefully be made available in twelve months. I haven't sorted out a publisher as yet; I'm more focused on finishing it. This premise of the book shows the organization of the Roman legion based on all the numerical values cited by all ancient writers covering the period 500 BC to 200 AD.

Wow -- I hadn't realised how long this teaser trailer has been playing. No wonder it's one of the longer RAT threads.

[philsidnell]

And did you ever get a publisher sorted out, Steven?

Phil Sidnell
Commissioning Editor (ancient)
Pen & Sword Books

[antiochus]

Hello Phil,

Sorry about the delay in posting. I have been extremely busy and do not frequent RAT that often. Could we take this offline? My email address is [email protected]

Best regards

Steven

[adonys]

any news about this, guys?

[Sean Manning]

I guess this thread is his reply. I don't think I will say anything more.

[antiochus]

Well it was my reply, but it has been locked. So why does RAT make the claim of open minded discussion? I make no apology for my research conflicting with people's preconcieved sensibilities regarding the Roman legion. That is how the pebbles have fallen and I have followed it. If people do not believe that astronomy, and I mentioned astronomy not ASTROLOGY, there is as difference, then those people please tell me how and why the Romans came to their numbering system? Perhaps you could point out something I have missed.

Steven

[jkaler48]

I recommend that theories/new facts regarding the influence of religious beliefs on the organization of the Roman Legions(and roman civil organization) posted here on RAT should be approached slowly and be well footnoted.

[Paullus Scipio]

It would not matter if there were a correlation between the original structure of the Legion and astrology, it would still be as valid - indeed, so far as the ancients were concerned the distinction between astrology and astronomy was blurred.......and such a study of ancient astrology/astronomy CAN shed light on historical questions - witness the Babylonian astrology/astronomy diaries that shed light on certain aspects of the history of Alexander ( see Jona's 'Livius' site).....

[Epictetus]

Well it was my reply, but it has been locked. So why does RAT make the claim of open minded discussion? I make no apology for my research conflicting with people's preconcieved sensibilities regarding the Roman legion. That is how the pebbles have fallen and I have followed it. If people do not believe that astronomy, and I mentioned astronomy not ASTROLOGY, there is as difference, then those people please tell me how and why the Romans came to their numbering system? Perhaps you could point out something I have missed.

Steven

Well, personally, I don't see how there can be any "open minded discussion" at this point. I think that anything is possible but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. You gave the claim but didn't give the proof. So we just have an assertion - but with no discernable reasoning and no footnotes (you gave a bibliography in your other thread, but cited no passages so it is impossible to check anything).

If you have a publisher, I think we will just have to wait for the book.

[Matthew Amt]

Last night I went back and skimmed through the first 4 or 5 pages of this thread, basically just looking for more of your previous posts. And I was practically cheering your general attitude of giving ancient authors more credit than some modern writers do. I didn't try to follow all the details of your research and math--other folks expressed doubts here and there which seemed to mirror what I was getting, too. But eh, I'm willing to leave that to people who know the sources a WHOLE lot better than I do!

However, in your new post you said, "...the Roman legion, was overtime, modified to produce a fined tuned killing machine; an organisational weapon par excellence. However, nothing could be furthest from the truth." (Emphasis mine) Regardless of where all your numbers come from, such a statement is simply not true! The Roman legion WAS a very efficient and highly organized killing machine! If you expect us to believe that the Romans simply dressed all these guys up in metal clothes and had them march about with oversized cutlery to fulfill some cosmological imperative, while hundreds of thousands of enemy warriors killed themselves and burned their own cities out of envy, you're going to have to come up with REALLY good proof.

To me, the question of "Why?" has always been a difficult and dangerous one. Unless there are ancient sources that *tell* us why a particular thing was done, all we are really left with is *how* it was done. Speculation on the train of thought of people two thousand years ago is a very dubious activity, in my experience. And, as I implied in my first response, correlation does NOT prove causation! You can tie troop numbers or unit sizes to all sorts of other things, but it does NOT mean that those troop numbers were fixed BECAUSE of those other things UNLESS an ancient author tells us so.

Other modern writers have compared legions to later historical and modern military units, and have found that the sizes of legions, cohorts, and centuries are very practical and workable for administration and for command and control in combat. Since warfare was hardly a new thing when the legion was first developed, it seems likely to me that the size and number of sub-units simply fit well enough with the levy system and with the requirements of combat. Organizing a military unit in strict accordance with astronomical observation seems like an invitation to disaster! Obviously the Romans were very mindful of astronomy and astrology, and took things like omens very seriously indeed. But without more proof, your conclusions are just striking us as a HUGE leap in logic.

So, IS there an ancient source that says something to the effect of, "Oh, no, we CAN'T have more than 60 centuries in a legion, because of the orbit of Venus!" Even a hint of such thinking? If not, you're way out on a limb.

And there are some pretty sharp saws in this crowd.

Vale,

Matthew

[jkaler48]

When Matt wrote "correlation does NOT prove causation" it made me recall from college classes many years back that mathematics can be used to prove
a correlation in sociological statistics but NOT necessarily causation. Isn't the science of sociology as applied to the Roman Legions and Ancient Roman Society what is being used (or possibility misapplied) here?