manipular legions: class or experience based?

[the_gracchi]

Hi All,

New member of the forum here, my main area of interest is Republican Roman history, I stop paying attention once Augustus sets himself up. without the politics of the republic, I find the history of empire to be quite 'flat', plus all the main conquests are Republican!. Also have a minor interest in Classical through to Hellenistic periods, again the political wranglings.

Enough with quick into and onto my main aspect of this thread...

Manipular legion: class or experience based? 

You often read that the Hastati, Principes, Triarii were divided based on class/wealth and experience grounds. With the Hastati being poorer & least experience through to Triarii being wealthy & experienced.  However, it doesn't seem possible to divide a group by both criteria, as there will be a mix of experience across all classes. - That means that you need to either group them by wealth OR by experience.

I'll attribute this to the fact that over the course of the 100's of years Manipular legions were marching around things probably changed. So it would make sense that from the time of the kingdom, the army would be organised by wealth - ability to afford equipment being crucial (and common in other city states). While, as the Roman military machine became more mature, changed this to a division based on experience. But I would be happy to defer this to the more knowledgeable folks here.

Assuming this, leads me to two additional questions:

1. If the Hastati, Principes and Triarii were experience based in later armies - then quality of their equipment would vary considerably within the each grouping, rather than between grouping as is commonly thought of, and shown in modern artwork, games, tv etc. e.g. Hastati in pectorals, while Principles in lorica hamata.
   
2. Experienced Triarii - who would have gained this experience (in later armies) with a sword, would then fight the rest of their campaign days with a spear. Would they really have given up the weapon that did them good service thus far to adopt a new weapon? It would make sense to me that by the time of experience based system comes into practice, the sword and pilum would be the standard panoply of the Triarii too?
   

Would like to hear your thoughts?

Thanks,
the_gracchi

[Bryan]

You'll probably read a few spectrum of opinions if the normal people post in this thread. But I'll speak mine now:

Most of it comes down to "We Don't Know." But we do know a little bit (mostly thanks to Polybius), and using some deduction we can make surmises on the rest.

Polybius says that the four classes of infantry were grouped by age and wealth, though his explanation isn't satisfactory to explain how it was done. Specifically, they don't seem to have been divided equally. The poorest and youngest were velites, next were the Hastati, then the Principes, and finally the Triari/Pilani. Romans had at the time eight property based classes of citizens. They had the Senatorial class, the Equestrian Order, Classes I-V, then the propertyless Capite Censi/Proletariat. All but the last were liable for military service. The monetary requirements to enter the Legions as a soldier (specifically Class V) were lowered drastically throughout the ages. I doubt that they were doing it just to get Velites into service, so that means Class I-V served as normal soldiers, as did Marius' Capite Censi, with some of the Class V probably being selected as Velites (the youngest of them).

The equipment would have varied immensely. Polybius tries to standardize equipment based on legionary class, but the reality is much different. Cottage industry fabrication does not lend well to uniformity and would have meant a wide variety of costs. Mail of course would on the top end, but pectorales were popular for hundreds of years. In addition there would have been scale, linothorax-type composite material cuirass, musculata or all encompassing metallic cuirass.

The role of Triari with their spears was to serve as a reserve force in a manner similar to the older phalanx. To come down to the Triari meant that the two lines of infantry in front of them would have collapsed. The survivors would haven fallen back behind the maniples of the Triari to regroup, who would then stand up, close their gaps, and charge with spear. Reliance on spears over pila and sword was likely to gain the reach advantage of the spear, especially against possible pursing cavalry. They also had swords, so they could transition to them if necessary. They might have thrown their hasta, it wasn't rare, and the added weight of the heavy spear thrown at short distance could have serious penetrating ability against man, beast, and armor.

Spear are not hard to learn how to use, neither are swords for that matter. Their uses in the ancient period weren't as complicated as say Renaissance rapier fencing, close combat with shield and hand weapon was more about discipline, individual and unit, brute force, savagry, and bravery that won out, not skill in handling a blade. The most difficult part is getting over the apprehension of close combat, and mastering the use of the shield, and foot work. With a single hand cut and thrust gladius, the soldier is relegated to only a dozen or so moves he can typically perform in combat, far less for a spearman (which is basically just overhand stab). However, Romans weren't just trained on using swords, customary training for youths included how to throw the javelin, fight with spear and sword, how to use the shield, how to swim, to hurdle ditches, and to vault onto horses.

[Michael J. Taylor]

Polybius does suggest that age classes were the basis for ordering the manipular legion in the Middle Republic, and I see no reason to strongly doubt this. Firstly, we know that age-classes could be used as an organizing principle by other Mediterranean armies (including the Spartan army, e.g. Xenophon Hell. 4.5.15). Also, I would note the career of Spurious Ligustinus, whose speech is fictional but whose career need not the spurious: he was selected as centurion of a maniple of hastati in his third year of service, a young centurion little more experienced than the men he commanded.

It seems some velites were so poor they never made the transition to the heavy infantry line (likely unable to afford the more expensive equipment), thus Polybius describes them as both the youngest and poorest. And experience could not always be positive. Life in general in the ancient world was difficult, and years of military service especially so. One reason why the triarii needed to "take a seat", according the Plautus (Varro DLL 5), was they were the least physically agile of the three ranks.

[Bryan]

You bring up a good point with Sp. Ligustinus. I think another point to make about the variation on legionary class placement based on wealth, Ligustinus had one iugerum of personal land, equal to two acres, which is pretty tiny as farm land goes. And yet he was a regular hastati soldier within a few years of enlisting, thereby able to shine enough in battle to be promoted to centurion.

Also, as a former soldier who served from 18-31, let me say that as a young man I hated to be teamed up with "old men" in their late 20s, gasp their 30s, they were a different mindset, liked different things, couldnt keep up with us energy, and often appeared as patronizing or condescending to us young guys. And later, as an older soldier myself serving among young guys, oh my God did they drive me crazy. Hated it. The immaturity, they're all so damn boring because they haven't done anything cool yet, they're all cocky know it alls who don't know much.  So i think the Roman tradition of grouping men not by kin group but by age was brilliant. 

Further, being that I've abused my body terribly as a soldier over the years, and still being Triari aged, i cant think of a worse torture than to be forced to kneel for long periods. The bum knee would be screaming, foot falling asleep, calf cramps. Screw that. I'd rather stand and lean on my shield and spear, comfy enough you could fall asleep that way.