What is the differance between light and heavy infantry

[stevesarak]

Hi,

In Caesar’s writings he mentions heavy infantry a lot. What exactly was the difference between Republican heavy and light infantry, I’m assuming they must have worn different armor. Helm, lorica, gladius, pugio, pila, this is what I thought that all republican legionaries (not counting slingers) wore, but there must be a difference between light and heavy.

Can someone please shed some light on this?

Thanks

[Felix]

In earlier periods, the legions explicitly included light infantry - the velites, and in the "Servian" style army, the lowest classes of citizen soldiers. These types did not have body armour, didn't use the big scutum, and their primary armament were missiles - javelins, slings. In the Empire, light infantry were often auxiliaries. My understanding is that light infantry of Caesar's time were probably not part of the legion, but likely allies/auxiliaries; missile troops without armour (maybe without helmets), small shields if any, etc.

[Matthew]

Check the original Latin if you haven't already

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/caes.html

I haven't time to check it myself, but the chances are this is a translator's convention, rather than a distinction made by Caesar; I'm under the impression that distinctions between 'light' and 'heavy' infantry are a modern convention... it's been a long time since I was reading it, though, I could be wrong.

Matthew James Stanham

[Susanna]

Matthew, you are right! :wink:

[mcbishop]

I'm under the impression that distinctions between 'light' and 'heavy' infantry are a modern convention... it's been a long time since I was reading it, though, I could be wrong.

Distinctions between light (levis armatura) and heavy infantry (gravis armatura) were well known in the Roman army. It broadly refers to the style of fighting (light = open order, skirmishing, heavy = close order) and tends as a result of that to be equated with the type of equipment worn. Vegetius, probably using a late-Republican or early imperial source, defines light troops (II,17) as 'the ferentarii, armaturae, exculcatores, archers, slingers', Heavy infantry can, of course, skirmish and light infantry fight in close order (witness Mons Graupius for the latter), but each works best in their own specific millieu. By the time of Book III (which V probably primarily lifts.... er, borrows from Frontinus) the auxiliary infantry seem to be equated with the l.a, the legions with the g.a.

Mike Bishop

[Dan Howard]

The same convention is used by modern military historians. The term "heavy" is reserved for units that engage in "shock" tactics, regardless of the arms/armour they carry.

[Matthew]

Distinctions between light (levis armatura) and heavy infantry (gravis armatura) were well known in the Roman army. It broadly refers to the style of fighting (light = open order, skirmishing, heavy = close order) and tends as a result of that to be equated with the type of equipment worn. Vegetius, probably using a late-Republican or early imperial source, defines light troops (II,17) as 'the ferentarii, armaturae, exculcatores, archers, slingers', Heavy infantry can, of course, skirmish and light infantry fight in close order (witness Mons Graupius for the latter), but each works best in their own specific millieu. By the time of Book III (which V probably primarily lifts.... er, borrows from Frontinus) the auxiliary infantry seem to be equated with the l.a, the legions with the g.a.

How interesting, I never noticed that before. Well worth knowing. I'm still not clear, though; does Caesar make this distinction or not?

A quick search of De Bello Gallico, De Bello Civili, De Bello Alexandrino, De Bello Africo and De Bello Hispaniensi turned up no occurences of gravis armatura, though levis armatura occurs in books II, VII and IX of De Bello Gallico and all through De Bello Civili, De Bello Alexandrino and De Bello Africo, for a total of some thirty to forty occurences., the majority of which are found in De Bello Africo .

Anyone know more about the context? What phrase is the translator rendering as 'Heavy Infantry'?

[Tarbicus]

Mike Bishop says: Vegetius speaks of gravis armatura (heavily armed).

:oops:
Not only has my spelling gone awry with age... :roll:

[mcbishop]

Vegetius speaks of gravis armatura (heavily armed).

Is there an echo in here, Jim? ;-)

Seriously though, levis armatura occurs far more often than gravis armatura, so far as I am aware (but I can't be bothered to plough through the lexicons to demonstrate that). It may even be a deduction on the part of V or his source (V has a habit of doing that: citing something then popping in a deduction or observation of his own, justified or no; we of course can't tell most of the time)

Mike Bishop

[Felix]

My guess (and it is strictly a guess) is that what we have is a matter of convention. The translator sees a term equivalent to "light infantry" and concludes that the other foot soldiers must be "heavy infantry". My suspicion is that, for authors like Caesar, there was real infantry (i.e. armoured legionaries) and then those "other, light" infantry who need to be differentiated from proper infantrymen. It seems the Greek writers tended to do this also during the classical period, focusing on the numbers and role of the hoplites and downplaying the psiloi. Once the lighter types like peltasts proved themselves capable of winning battles, even against heavy hoplites, these lighter types were then accorded more attention.

[Kate Gilliver]

Caesar doesn't use the term levis armatura very much, but when he's referring to his own troops, it seems to be to describe the allied troops who are fighting with him, most of whom have been raised largely in the broad area in which he is campaigning, though some have come from further afield such as the Numidian troops in BG 2.24. Enemy troops can also be described in that way (BG 7.80).
The Caesarian corpus uses the term more regularly and at B.Afr. 59 mentions more Numidians, armaturas leves Numidasque auxiliares.
Troops fighting for Rome described as levis armatura appear to be non-legionary troops, and the term may have been used as a convenient alternative to auxiliares in the late Republic when there are no permanent auxiliary units anyway. Except when Caesar is referring to the light-armed German infantry who fight in concert with the cavalry, there is little indication of how they were armed or fought (they are usually differentiated from slingers and archers), but it is clear that they were not usually expected to fight as close order infantry in the front line of hand-to-hand combat.
Caesar also employed legionaries from the front ranks (antesignani) for operations requiring swiftly moving soldiers (BC 3.75; 3.84). In Africa, where his troops experienced considerable difficulties against skirmishing tactics of Labienus, he reportedly ordered 300 expediti (unencumbered, swift-moving) soldiers from each legion to be ready to counter Labienus’ attacks (B.Afr. 75. How precisely these soldiers differed in their equipment and armour to their fellow legionaries is unclear, but basically they’re fulfilling the role that would previously have been that of the velites, and they may have been necessary because Caesar lacked trustworthy auxiliary infantry who could have otherwise taken that role.
Livy doesn’t mention levis armatura, Tacitus refers to expeditae cohortes on a few occasions who may or may not have been legionary cohorts being employed in a way similar to Caesar’s above. Basically, historians, regardless of the extent of their military experience, tend to be less specific than we would like in their use of vocabulary to explain different troop types: perhaps they didn’t think it mattered; perhaps we are too used to the specificity of modern military vocabulary and want something similar for the ancient world. And then there’s also translations from the Latin and Greek, and different interpretations of the vocabulary used…
It may be that the translators are using ‘heavy infantry’ to translate legiones? Can’t really tell unless you can provide a reference to a specific example!

Mike - a word-search has revealed no mentions of gravis armatura in Latin literature dating to before c.AD 150.


Apologies if this is slightly garbled - had to break off half way through to go sort out a colleague's chickens!

Kate

[D B Campbell]

In Caesar’s writings he mentions heavy infantry a lot. What exactly was the difference between Republican heavy and light infantry, I’m assuming they must have worn different armor. Helm, lorica, gladius, pugio, pila, this is what I thought that all republican legionaries (not counting slingers) wore, but there must be a difference between light and heavy.

It depends on your translation, Steve. What translation are you reading?

Caesar certainly uses the term levis armatura to indicate lightly equipped skirmishers (e.g., BGall 2.10: the levis armaturae Numidas, funditores sagittariosque are light-armed Numidians, glossed as slingers and archers).

Whenever he writes about legionaries, he just calls them milites ("soldiers"). For example, at BGall 2.23, we read about the exploits of legionis nonae et decimae milites ("the soldiers of the ninth and tenth legions"). This is contrasted, at BGall 2.24, with the actions of the levis armatura ("light-armed infantry"), who are the Numidian slingers and archers mentioned before.

You're maybe reading a version that translates milites as "heavy-armed infantry", to contrast with the light skirmishers (as Felix suggested before).
Hope that makes sense. Does it?

[~Praetoria~]

wow, this wasn't a question in my mind, but now that it was asked and answered I feel smarter