The real question is how skilled the ancient soldiers really were. Since people are imagining them to be the equivalent of SEALs today, I wonder how accurate that really is? I assume that the overwhelming majority of ancient soldiers of any type weren’t especially skilled at fighting either plus most were small by today’s standards, and many were weakened in body and mind by malnutrition.
I think people are trying to make the comparison based on what they saw in movies rather than reality. Instead of thinking of a fictionalized image of, say, Roman Gladiators or Vikings, wouldn’t it be more accurate to look at soldiers in 3rd world countries today or to known professional soldiers in more recent times like sailors on sailing ships to make the comparison?
Men in Ancient Rome were much smaller than men today. The average male height back then was probably around 5’5 or so. A man standing 5’10 would have been enormous, and they would not have had the nutrition, science or training equipment to bulk up modern-day footballers do.
If you put an NFL player who was, say, 6’2 and well-built, but physically fit and agile, he would be an absolute monster in Roman times. If you threw him straight into a ring then clearly he would lack technical ability with the shields and weapons, but after some training his reach, strength, power and speed would make him almost unstoppable.
Which begs the hijack: If we send back the biggest, fastest, most ill-tempered slab of NFL beefcake and plonk him right down in the middle of Rome, wouldn’t the odds be pretty good he’d get hustled straightaway to arena? I mean, dude’s go no money, minimal language skills if he’s very clever, no connections, no property…just beef, temper, speed and soon a hunger for calories that will bring him to bay within 24 hours. Was there any sort of Roman legal support to keep from becoming enslaved and used for public amusement?
I am not so sure about just how tough an NFL player is. I watched a fly-on-the-wall programme from a London A&E the other day. It featured two members of a professional American football team with injuries bad enough to require hospital treatment.
Once they had stipped off all the padding, they didn’t look so big. The guy who had been knocked off a roof by a scaffold pole looked bigger and tougher, and he only had a headache.
Which ancient soldiers and what were they training for specifically? There may have been a few notable examples of that but most ancient soldiers were the same type of people that are used in the military in the 3rd World today and even in the U.S. up until recent times. They were usually very young men who were either forced to fight or too poor to have any other options. Slap a uniform on them and send them out to kill or be killed. Other than that, they are exactly like any other teenager and I am pretty sure an NFL player could take out your typical teenager. All he has to do is tackle him and hold him down.
I have no idea where people are getting these ideas about extremely well-conditioned and well-trained soldiers in ancient times being the norm anywhere. They couldn’t spend a lot of time and resources training individual soldiers because that investment could go poof as soon as he came down with a single illness let alone a battle injury that would be easily treatable today.
Please tell us real historical examples of the types of comparisons you are actually using for your answer. ‘Ancient soldiers’ is a pretty broad category.
Don’t let the TV fool you because it is really deceptive. They are shockingly big and well-muscled although the type of development depends largely on the position they play. I live fairly close to the New England Patriots home stadium and many of the players live near me. I am always stunned when I see one of them in the supermarket or some place like Home Depot. It isn’t that I am celebrity struck. I don’t know who most are individually especially by looking at their face. However, it is blatantly obvious when you round a corner and almost run into one just because of their overall size, proportions and level of muscle development. I am not small myself and I know it would be suicidal to get into a fight with one.
That’s true of many ancient cultures, but the OP said Rome. Rome won it’s empire by making sure it’s soldiers were better equipped, better led, more disciplined, and more skilled than it’s neighbors.
Also of note is the fact that once a soldier (from any era) has survived some battles he will have become a better fighter, with better instincts, more familiarity with his equipment, etc. Since the OP asked how prized the NFL player would be as a warrior I would say, ‘less prized than a relatively young veteran with good health.’
He also has the advantage of modern nutrition, a significant part of his conditioning.
The manipular legion was based on the mechanical action of well-drilled soldiers, not acts of individual heroism, that was how barbarians fought. As a towering novelty he might end up in the arena.
Ironically his tall and heavy stature may preclude him from the higher echelons of Roman society, the equestrians who could afford the upkeep of a horse and rode on the wings of a legion’s infantry into battle. Even in auxilia cavalry, it should be quickly apparent that a man of that size is ill-suited for horsemanship.
By way of comparison, this states that the height requirement for a legion recruit was 5’5", average soldier height being 5’7". Requirements for elite units like the Praetorian Guard were higher, so he may have fit in there if he could get admitted - where little actual fighting was required. Without any combat skills, he is unlikely to be admitted even into the auxilia - Rome liked to recruit non-Roman citizens into specialised roles like light cavalry, slingers and archers.
Addressing the elephant in the room; his strength and endurance would make him highly valued as a slave; as a state-owned slave (servus publicus) in construction work, hauling loads of the mines or privately owned - farmers would love a muscled behemoth to dig and plough their fields. Being unable to speak either vulgar Latin or classical Greek would significantly increase his chances of this, as he obviously is not a Citizen - which would also exclude him from the legion. Without a sestertius to his name he may be forced into debt slavery to pay for food and board.
The Germanic tribes adored the concept of individual warrior tales and shock troops, as a hulking giant the tribal chieftain might consider him best used in a berserker formation - get the largest, angriest men you have, get them pissed up and drugged on hallucinogenic mushrooms then throw them at the enemy.
I’m not so sure if your NFL linebacker has the endurance to march 20 roman miles in 5 hours and then build a fortified camp at the end. Standard practicefor the Roman legionary.
This article has a good estimation of the size and endurance of a Roman legionary, based on Vegetius’ account.
Height requirement from Vegetius, and a weight estimation from the article’s authors:
Marching speed requirements:
Modern measurements of the physiological demands of these requirements.
Overall conclusion:
Note the italics added.
So a Roman legionary had to be able to march 18 or so modern miles in five hours whilst carrying their equipment. If our hypothetical NFL player can’t do this then he would face a cut far more severe than losing out on some pay.
It used to be that the sports top athletes were either big or fast. Now, they are both big and fast. Bubba Smith and Alan Page changed the paradigm back in 1966 because of their size and speed. Now, at 6’7" and 275 they would be average. Magic Johnson changed basketball by being a 6’ 9" point guard.
Don’t just look at football but look at basketball. Shaq and LeBron are monsters with great athleticism. Look at boxers. Floyd Patterson was heavyweight champion at 195 lbs. Now they are pushing 6’7" and 300 lbs. Look at hockey players. Dave Keon was a star at 5’5". Now that is too small to play Junior A. Now there are players over 6’9". Goalies are over 6’5". Tell me that goalies aren’t quick and agile. Also, they carry a lot of weight with their equipment.
The competition is such today that all those big guy are very quick and are tremendously skilled athletes. They are not soft. They train continually. A couple months of training would teach them all they needed to know. Something tells me that not only would they destroy a gladiator of 40 years ago but a Roman gladiator would probably refuse to go up against them.
Wladimir Klitschko is the example of someone that should be feared by anyone that isn’t carrying a firearm.
Never met an NFL player IRL I’m guessing.
I’m 5’7". I met Deacon Jones once. When we shook hands we were eyeball to tie tac. That man was huge and the current players are bigger and faster than he was.
There is no way a Roman athlete has the endurance or skill to beat a modern NFL player on any of those measures. Of course they can do all of that. Military recruits do it all the time at least for special training and there are thousands of those. Hell, I could do that at least in 20’s and could probably do it now with some notice.
I don’t think this should be about the NFL in particular. I would extend it to any professional athlete in American football, hockey, basketball, soccer and probably down to the college or high school level.
Athletes are massively bigger, stronger, and have more endurance than they had even 50 or 100 years ago let alone Roman times. Remember the story of the first Marathon? The point to that is that it was a story of extreme dedication to the cause and the hero died after the finish line. Now regular people run multiple marathons for fun and even go well beyond that to engage in things like Iron Man triathlons and the vast majority of them never get paid a cent for it.
Imagine the best athlete you have ever known personally and chances are that he did not make it into professional sports and probably did not even do so well at the college level. My high school was hotbed of football talent for high school and college and we produced a grand of one NFL player who had a mediocre career. Many of the rest could still bench press over 300 lbs by the time they were 16 years old and also competed well in track events.
I think people are greatly underestimating what it takes to make it to the NFL while overestimating how good the ancient soldiers like the Romans were.
I don’t know how things were done in ancient Rome, but in the Middle Ages boys could become pages at about the age of eight. This involved attending to a knight, helping with maintenance of armor and weapons, and beginning to learn combat skills. He could become a squire at 14 and, if he made the cut, a knight by his early 20s. By that time he would have been practicing his skills for over a decade.
But I would expect that a bigger problem for our time-traveling NFL player would be that he’s probably not used to being expected to actually kill people or fend off people who are sincerely trying to kill him. That, plus the harsh and unhygienic battlefield conditions and plain old culture shock would all presumably be very distressing. Just being big and strong isn’t going to make him happy with his new situation or help him to deal with the stress, fear, and loneliness.
That is a good point but plenty of NFL players had their share of legal incidents including violent crimes off the field. These aren’t video characters raised in isolation. A lot of them know how to fight quite well and use weapons too.
You could always cherry-pick a mean one, send him back and say something like “Hey, you see those legionnaires over there? They all slept with Nicole last night.” Stand back and just watch the carnage.
Clarification - the modern recreation of Pheidippides’ actual route is the Spartathlon, a 153 mile ultramarathon. He supposedly ran that in two days then ran another ~25 miles to Marathon, delivered his message and died.
So that’s nearly 180 miles, not the 26.2 mile marathon that people are familiar with. While there are indeed a surprising number of people who can run those kinds of distances it’s not the millions who run a standard marathon each year. I’ve run 100km and it’s pretty damn hard; that was fully supported and with lots of preparation.
And do it for IIRC 25 years of an enlistment [unless invalided out]. From 18 until 43. [And oddly, originally a legion was recruited in its entirety, and served without getting replacement grunts which ended up being changed around 50ADish. There is a good book about the raising and subsequent career of one of the legions raised by Julius Caesar, though the audio book was rendered slightly hysterical by the pronunciation of one of the generals - it rendered Fabius somewhat oddly.]