Where did they keep the mules in garrison?

[Carvettia]

Can't tell you how many mules or other equids were typical per fort, but there's a paper called "Where did they keep the horses" based on the archaeo at Wallsend (Segedunum). Hodgson, N. & B. Griffiths 1999 ‘Wallsend: Where did they keep the Horses in Roman Forts?’ Current Archaeology 164: 234-289

I incorporated some of this into a web page of my own ( http://www.fellpony.f9.co.uk/fells/rom_dark/cavalry.htm )

Stabling was re-excavated by Tyne and Wear Museum staff in 1999-2000 at South Shields (Arbeia) and in 1998 at Wallsend (Segedunum; see artist's impression >>). The centralised, oblong drainage pits found there suggest that the stables were intended to house male horses rather than female. The roughly square outline of ~10 x 12 Roman feet (3.6 metres) which was allowed for three troopers, gave each horse (pony) a stall space 4 feet wide by 10 feet long. The nine stables in each barrack block would house 27 horses of a 30-strong "turma", with 3 officers (principales) and their horses accommodated at the end of the range in a slightly larger space. Horses may have been tied up outside the stables on a regular basis as there is further drainage provision outside each building. Hodgson cites Sommer (1999a) who points out that cavalry mounts would have had daily work and exercise outside; this apparently small space may have been perfectly adequate because the horses were kept in readiness for instant action and might spend long stretches of the day working hard. In addition the stables would rarely be full since the troops would be out working. The horsemen evidently lived in the same barrack, backing onto the stalls at ground level, while their servants (calones) lived above in attics. These must have been unenviable places to live - full of smoke from the calvalrymen's fires and of the smell of ammonia from the horses below!

[jvrjenivs]

Although it is an interesting text, it is not in interest of this question, as wallsend/Segedunum seems to be an cavalry fortress. Therefore these are stables for warhorses, and not for carriage animals, as used by infantry, as we were talking about here. (not to mention that is about a permanent fortress and not an army on campaign.)

[Carvettia]

I beg your pardon, I misunderstood your terminology. :oops:

[Paullus Scipio]

Question, is there any consensus about how many animals single legion had?

I have read something about one mule per tent octet and wagon per century. So that is already quite a few hundreds..and obviously artillery etc. would need even more wagons.

...also depends on what period and Legion organisation as well, and no doubt "Table/Establishment" figures had either a shortfall, or were exceeded on any given occasion/campaign, but we can establish rough figures...... a basic figure of one mule per contubernium of 8 men would be right.

For the pre-Flavian Legion of 60 centuries; some 1400 mules ( with a carrying capacity of around 175 metric tonnes)
For the post-Flavian Legion of 59 centuries ( with "double" First cohort); around 1525 Mules ( with a carrying capacity of 190 metric tonnes).
Over these would be the Officer's ( probably down to Centurions) and integral Cavalry (120) horses, say 200 or more horses, allowing a few spares.

These figures include an allowance of 1 mule per centurion, and one for every two cavalrymen (60) plus a proportion of spares. Numbers would change if other animals such as donkeys or camels were used at particular times/places. There is no 'wagon-park' or space for wagons described in pseudo-Hyginus description of the Roman Camp, so wagons were probably not part of the Legion's organic/integral equipment. However supply wagons are shown on both Trajan's and Marcus Aurelius' column, perhaps indicating that these were used by the Supply Train ( the Roman equivalent of the WWII 'Redball Express' ). With regard to the Artillery equipment described by Josephus as being organic to every Legion (Vegetius refers to 55 light 'arrowshooters' - or one per century, implying 59-60 for the earlier organisation; and 10 Heavy 'Stone throwers - one per cohort - for each Legion. These could be carried on light carts ( carroballistae ) with the larger machines broken down for transport. It has been estimated that the Artillery and a modest amount of ammunition would require around a further hundred mule loads, or equivalent in wagons if the Artillery was transported in the Army's Supply Train ( at least the stone-throwers would likely have been)........

[D B Campbell]

Question, is there any consensus about how many animals single legion had?

People are free to speculate, of course. But in truth, we have absolutely no idea how many mules a single legion might have. And many legions would've had absolutely no use for mules, in any case. Even taking a hypothetical "legion at war", Jonathan Roth believes that each tent-party required two mules, while others imagine that they had only one mule -- there's a doubling of the figures, right there! :roll:

[M. Demetrius]

Just imagine the amount of fodder, and sometimes water, needed for that herd of animals! They drink a lot, you know.

[Paullus Scipio]

Question, is there any consensus about how many animals single legion had?

People are free to speculate, of course. But in truth, we have absolutely no idea how many mules a single legion might have.

...You are right, Duncan, but it is all to easy to trot out the "universal cliche" when applied to the subject of ancient military matters of ; "Ah, but we don't/can't know for certain, because we simply don't have the hard/corroborating information". We can do more than speculate in many instances, such as this one - we can make an educated guess, combining what information we have, with what is possible/probable. As I posted, any 'guesstimate' must be rough, and doubtless the number and type of pack-animals/wagons that supported a Roman Army in the field varied enormously, depending on a myriad of factors such as geographical location, size of army, rainfall, availability of crops, density of local population etc etc to the point where it is certain that no two were the same.Still, figures such as those I referred to give some idea of minimum/normal requirements for the Roman Army

And many legions would've had absolutely no use for mules, in any case.

Since the preferred pack-animal of the military has universally been the Mule from time immemorial right down to the present ( both sides use mules in Afghanistan, for instance), and since there are many references to mules in the Roman Army, that suggestion is most improbable. Of course, on occasion there might be a shortage of mules, and donkeys or camels substituted, but it would be fairly safe to say that mules were present in all Roman Armies, and that their total absence would be an extreme rarity, if it ever occurred.

Even taking a hypothetical "legion at war", Jonathan Roth believes that each tent-party required two mules, while others imagine that they had only one mule -- there's a doubling of the figures, right there!

That is simply incorrect, and perhaps you have mis-recalled Roth. No serious study of Roman Army logistics can be undertaken without reference to Roth ( see e.g. Erdkamp and others whose works refer to him), notwithstanding your own misgivings of his book. What he actually says is :

Thus, the impedimenta of a contubernium was composed of some 145 kg: the tent with accessories 39.5 kg., the stone mill with vat 27 kg., 16 pila muralia 39.2 kg, and the tools and baskets 18.7 kg, the cooking-pot (630 g.) and the pack-saddle ( stramentum ) 20 kg.43 It is clear that the equipment of the contubernium could have easily been carried by the men and a single mule, which had a combined capacity of more than 200 kg. These calculations do not account for the transportation of provisions. Taking 1.4 kg. a day for the ration of the soldier the contubernium and a single mule could carry three days' provisions. This agrees with the statement in Josephus that the legionary carried three days' rations. [Roman Logistics in the Jewish War]

...and similarly elsewhere....

The equipment of the Contubernium and five days rations could easily be carried by the contubernium and a single mule [The logistics of the Roman Army(264 BC- AD325) ]

He then goes on to refer to very rare occasions when ancient authors refer to the issue of more than 5 days rations e.g. Livy Periocha/fragments 57 "...he compelled (each) soldier to carry thirty days' grain ( frumentum ) and seven stakes." - an additional 45-50 kg or so, clearly an impossible burden. He makes the point that Livy was writing long after the event, and hence may not be reliable....(Thus he does not make the "tacit assumption" that what applies to earlier times necessarily applies to the Early Principate - contra your review - but sometimes the only information we have to draw on is scattered across a number of sources)
- and suggests that if true, this would require a second mule, or else the extra rations being carried in the Supply Train.
He certainly does not suggest that two mules per contubernium was the norm.

However, your contention may well be right, in the sense that one Roman Army might well have had twice as many pack-animals as another. A theme that runs through our historical accounts is the propensity for troops to attract booty, and animals/carts/waggons to transport it. We frequently hear of commanders having to cut back the baggage train as a necessary prelude to a particular campaign, not to mention that other propensity throughout military history for officers to bring along many necessary "comforts and luxuries" and the means to transport them. Then there's all the "camp-followers" and their baggage......

M.Demetrius wrote:

Just imagine the amount of fodder, and sometimes water, needed for that herd of animals! They drink a lot, you know.

Exact figures are discussed by Roth in detail, but as a very rough guideline, each animal requires 2-5 kg of hard fodder per day, or 10-14 kg in pasturage, and roughly 20 litres of water per day. Taking the rough figures for 'de minimis' number of animals per Legion I quoted earlier, this would mean each Legion had a broad daily requirement of some 4,000-10,000 Kg (4.4- 11 U.S. tons) of hard fodder or the equivalent of 20,000-28,000 Kg (22-30 U.S. tons) in pasturage and 40,000 litres(10,400 U.S. gallons) of water per day.....just for the animals alone ! hock:

Now you know why most ancient campaigns were carried out along river valleys - for water and transport.....

[Paralus]

Exact figures are discussed by Roth in detail, but as a very rough guideline, each animal requires 2-5 kg of hard fodder per day, or 10-14 kg in pasturage, and roughly 20 litres of water per day. Taking the rough figures for 'de minimis' number of animals per Legion I quoted earlier, this would mean each Legion had a broad daily requirement of some 4,000-10,000 Kg (4.4- 11 U.S. tons) of hard fodder or the equivalent of 20,000-28,000 Kg (22-30 U.S. tons) in pasturage and 40,000 litres(10,400 U.S. gallons) of water per day.....just for the animals alone ! hock:

Now you know why most ancient campaigns were carried out along river valleys - for water and transport.....

And if those figures are are more than just ball-park, the armies accorded Persia by the Hellenocentric sources will have always marched to war by way of the Mississippi Valley!

Yes, I know, A hobby horse....

[D B Campbell]

I sense another marathon bludgeoning match in the offing, so I shall simply make two observations:

Question, is there any consensus about how many animals single legion had?

People are free to speculate, of course. But in truth, we have absolutely no idea how many mules a single legion might have.

...You are right, Duncan, but it is all to easy to trot out the "universal cliche" when applied to the subject of ancient military matters of ; "Ah, but we don't/can't know for certain, because we simply don't have the hard/corroborating information".

Better to state the truth from the outset, than to wander all around the houses with your "educated guesstimates" which end up "giving some idea" that might be "fairly safe" ... when your "minimum/normal" figure could be wildly wrong. As I said, "we have absolutely no idea". Far from being a "universal cliche", it is an accurate statement of current scholarship.

Even taking a hypothetical "legion at war", Jonathan Roth believes that each tent-party required two mules ...

That is simply incorrect, ... blah blah blah

My copy of Roth (yours may be different?) says just that. On pp. 77-78, he envisages an army in the field for over a week (hence my "legion at war") and points out that each tent-party would then require two mules. That seems to be quite an important detail, as it immediately doubles your "educationally guesstimated" total.

However, your contention may well be right, ...

:roll:

[Paullus Scipio]

Campbell wrote:

Better to state the truth from the outset, than to wander all around the houses with your "educated guesstimates" which end up "giving some idea" that might be "fairly safe" ... when your "minimum/normal" figure could be wildly wrong. As I said, "we have absolutely no idea". Far from being a "universal cliche", it is an accurate statement of current scholarship.

The "truth"? Hardly ! :roll: ....contrary to what you say, the figures I have given are not even remotely "wildly wrong". As I said, we can certainly do better than "we have absolutely no idea".....Do you seriously believe that the number of pack-animals employed by a Roman Legion cannot be determined any more closely than "absolutely no idea"? ( somewhere between one and a hundred thousand? ). Current scholarship has "absolutely no idea" ?

Evidently in your eyes the work of Roth, Erdkamp and others is worthless?.....well I will leave readers to decide for themselves whether their work is as worthless as you would have us believe, and we have "absolutely no idea"......

The relevant parts of Roth (Logistics of Roman Army etc) pp77-78 say this :

"Equipment of the Contubernium
The eight soldiers of the contubernium shared two pieces of equipment that were carried by the unit mule: the squad's tent and handmill.The tent (papilio), made of leather or goatskin, was large enough to accomodate the entire squad.It weighed an estimated 40 kg ( 88 lbs). Since the unit was issued unground grain as a ration, each contubernium had to have its own handmill (mola). Such handmills consisted of two massive round stone disks made of basalt. The upper stone of the mill reconstructed by Junkelmann had a diameter of 31 cm (12 ins) and weighed 14Kg (30 lbs)......The equipment of the contubernium, plus five days rations, easily could have been carried by its eight men and a single mule, with a combined capacity of more than 200 Kg. A second mule could carry a further 11 days (at 125 kg) or 13 days ( at 150 Kg) worth of rations. If there were two mules in the contubernium, they could easily have been managed by a single muleteer."

The explanation for a possible second mule is as I stated earlier, and quoted Roth on.....in the very rare occasion that the soldiers were issued more than 5 days rations - see earlier post. Roth is quite clear that the "norm" was a single mule, and any attempt to postulate otherwise is a clear distortion of his expressed views in both papers and his book.

No need for a "marathon bludgeoning match", provided you do not continue to distort Roth's views.....and I have made plain that I agree with you that probably no two Roman Armies transport was the same given the myriad factors that affected it. Still, we can get a better view than "current scholarship....has absolutely no idea"

I'm afraid I ( and I suspect most of our readers) would find your "universal cliche" ( we cannot possibly know.....blah,blah, blah) fairly unconvincing, since, on that basis we may as well abandon any attempt to learn about the past..... :roll: :roll: :lol: :lol:

[D B Campbell]

:roll: ... the figures I have given are not even remotely "wildly wrong".

Ah, it's the infallible McDonnel-Staff again, with his rolling-eyes icon. You appear to have a hotline to the ancient psyche, unconstrained by the limits of archaeology or historiography.

... each Legion had a broad daily requirement of some 4,000-10,000 Kg (4.4- 11 U.S. tons) of hard fodder ...

I certainly wouldn't like to be your quartermaster. "We might need 4,000 kg, and we might need 10,000 kg ... every day." There's not much difference, is there?!

No need for a "marathon bludgeoning match", provided you do not continue to distort Roth's views.

Ah, but you do love your bludgeoning matches, don't you? I quote a relevant passage from Roth (pp. 77-8) and suddenly I'm "continuing to distort Roth's views". But it is you who have distorted Roth's views by adding the phrase "in the very rare occasion that the soldiers were issued more than 5 days rations". That's a value judgement that Roth doesn't make. You have decided that a campaigning legion did not normally carry more than 5 days rations. I, on the other hand, concede that we have no idea how many days' rations a campaigning legion might carry.

Roth is quite clear that the "norm" was a single mule, and any attempt to postulate otherwise is a clear distortion of his expressed views in both papers and his book.

Not so. Note, besides the mention of two mules on p. 78, also on p. 83: "Assuming two mules per contubernium, as suggested above, this would mean ..." Somebody's guilty of clear distortion, and it ain't me.

But the original question, which (in best debating tradition) you have managed to bulldoze out of the way, was: "is there any consensus about how many animals a single legion had?" The correct answer is "no, there is no consensus". If there were, you wouldn't need to quote a daily variance of 6,000 kg of fodder! (And you can roll your eyes as much as you like -- it can't change that basic fact.)

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Campbell wrote:

Better to state the truth from the outset, than to wander all around the houses with your "educated guesstimates" which end up "giving some idea" that might be "fairly safe" ... when your "minimum/normal" figure could be wildly wrong. As I said, "we have absolutely no idea". Far from being a "universal cliche", it is an accurate statement of current scholarship.

The "truth"? Hardly ! :roll: ....contrary to what you say, the figures I have given are not even remotely "wildly wrong". As I said, we can certainly do better than "we have absolutely no idea".....Do you seriously believe that the number of pack-animals employed by a Roman Legion cannot be determined any more closely than "absolutely no idea"? ( somewhere between one and a hundred thousand? ). Current scholarship has "absolutely no idea" ?

:

Right, looks like you need expert guidance here gents....just remember this rule and you won't go far wrong.....

"If 2 mules for Sister Sarah were good enough for her, should be good enough for a Roman Legion too....eh?!"


OK, back to the debate..... :wink:

[Paralus]

"If 2 mules for Sister Sarah were good enough for her, should be good enough for a Roman Legion too....eh?!"


OK, back to the debate..... :wink:

Indeed. She, though, is not a good example: she had Clint Eastwood. How many Eastwoods to a Roman Legion?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

"If 2 mules for Sister Sarah were good enough for her, should be good enough for a Roman Legion too....eh?!"


OK, back to the debate..... :wink:

Indeed. She, though, is not a good example: she had Clint Eastwood. How many Eastwoods to a Roman Legion?

4-6,000?

[M. Demetrius]

In his prime, 4 Eastwoods per legion would be plenty. Or one Chuck Norris, of course. :lol: