So what was so great about the Roman legion?

[Atticus_Finch]

I enjoy history, and believe I have a reasonable grip on the Roman political processes. However, I know very little about military strategy / tactics, and so am confounded when I continually run into descriptions of the invincible Roman legion. I’m curious about how the Roman legion actually worked, and what made it so much more effective than its predecessors, like the hoplites or the phalanx.

As I understand it, Greek hoplites charged the other side as a mass and sought to literally push over and break apart the opposing army. They also used spears and swords to stab as they were doing this. Meanwhile, a phalanx was a group arrayed in many ranks with very long spears, so that even those at the back could stab forward, and the front of the formation bristled with spears. Ok, that’s pretty easy to understand.

The legion seems to have been more like the phalanx, a tight formation bristling with spears, but with shields and shorter spears. This is what I’ve garnered from many highly accurate historical sources, such as Asterix comics. So where’s the big difference? Superior disclipline and equipment? Then surely a well-trained phalanx would be a match, and this doesn’t seem to have been the case. Can anyone help?

[tomndebb]

A phalanx appears pretty close to invincible with all those spears out, but it is pretty hard to get all the spears swung around to defend against a side attack.

The Romans were organized into their centuries (hundreds) that could shift position on the battlefield with much greater speed and ease than either a Greek phalanx or a Celtic mob.

The Roman line had three rows, each carrying three (under ideal conditions) short but heavy throwing spears with soft bronze points. The spears could not always inflict damage on the armor of their opponents, but they could easily penetrate wooden shields. Their weight dragged the shield down, making its wielder more vulnerable, and the soft point would often bend, making it harder for the shield bearer to remove the spear.

Once engaged, the Romans would fight from behind their own shields, locking them together against some types of assault and wielding them individually against others. Once the spears had broken up the enemy line, somewhat, the Roman soldier’s next move was to get as close to hs opponent as possible, where the short (20" or 51 cm) sword was much more agile than the long spears of the Greeks or long swords of the Celts. Fighting from behind the shield wall, the Romans could press up against the ranks of their opponents and carve them up.

As each row tired, it could step back to let the next row take its place. This meant that the enemy troops’ front line (where one tended to put the best fighters) were forced to continue to fight against constantly refreshed Romans and the rigid formation of the phalanx could not allow the men at the front to gain any respite.

(Now, in actual battle, all these hypothetical advantages could simply evaporate in chaos, but the strong discipline of the Roman soldier with his intense training tended to keep the hypotheticals alive longer than they lasted in other armies.

[Gorsnak]

First, a point of order. It’s important to distinguish between the Greek phalanx, composed of hoplites, and the Macedonian phalanx, composed of phalangites. The hoplite carried a relatively short spear (5-7’) in a one-handed overhand grip, and carried a shield in the other hand. The phalanx of hoplites operated with each soldier’s shield covering his left side and his neighbour’s right side. The formations were many ranks deep, but only the first two ranks could bring their weapons to bear. Most battles were a combination of a sort of sumo-push-the-enemy-off-the-field thing and an attempt to flank the enemy phalanx to exploit the fact that the non-pointy end of a phalanx is extremely vulnerable.

Now, the phalangite is a whole different animal. The phalangite carries a sarissa, a spear, or more properly a pike, that’s 15-20’ long in a two-handed grip. He has a small shield hanging on his left shoulder off a strap around his neck, and carries only a dagger as a backup weapon. The first five ranks of a Macedonian phalanx can bring their weapons to bear, and the remaining 11 ranks hold their sarissas vertically, forming a forest of shafts that provides some protection from incoming missiles - arrows, pilums, whatever. The idea that a guy with a shortsword fighting in a relatively loose formation (compared to the phalanx) can toss a couple javelins and then survive a frontal charge against this sort of formation is simply ludicrous, something that the Romans well knew.

If I may offer a quote from Polybius’s Histories:

@Polybius

With this point in our minds, it will not be difficult to imagine what the appearance and strength of the whole phalanx is likely to be, when, with lowered sarissae, it advances to the charge sixteen deep. Of these sixteen ranks, all above the fifth are unable to reach with their sarissae far enough to take actual part in the fighting. They, therefore, do not lower them, but hold them with the points inclined upwards over the shoulders of the ranks in front of them, to shield the heads of the whole phalanx; for the sarissae are so closely serried, that they repel missiles which have carried over the front ranks and might fall upon the heads of those in the rear. These rear ranks, however, during an advance, press forward those in front by the weight of their bodies; and thus make the charge very forcible, and at the same time render it impossible for the front ranks to face about.

Such is the arrangement, general and detailed of the phalanx. It remains now to compare with it the peculiarities and distinctive features of the Roman arms and tactics. Now, a Roman soldier in full armor also requires a space of three square feet. But as their method of fighting admits of individual motion for each man—because he defends his body with a shield, which he moves about to any point from which a blow is coming, and because he uses his sword both for cutting and stabbing—it is evident that each man must have a clear space, and an interval of at least three feet both on flank and rear if he is to do his duty with any effect. The result of this will be that each Roman soldier will face two of the front rank of a phalanx, so that he has to encounter and fight against ten spears, which one man cannot find time even to cut away, when once the two lines are engaged, nor force his way through easily—seeing that the Roman front ranks are not supported by the rear ranks, either by way of adding weight to their charge, or vigor to the use of their swords. Therefore, it may readily be understood that, as I said before, it is impossible to confront a charge of the phalanx, so long as it retains its proper formation and strength.

Why is it then that the Romans conquer? And what is it that brings disaster on those who employ the phalanx? Why, just because war is full of uncertainties both as to time and place; whereas there is but one time and one kind of ground in which a phalanx can fully work. If, then, there were anything to compel the enemy to accommodate himself to the time and place of the phalanx, when about to fight a general engagement, it would be but natural to expect that those who employed the phalanx would always carry off the victory. But if the enemy finds it possible, and even easy, to avoid its attack, what becomes of its formidable character?

link

In short, the Romans declined to offer battle to the phalanxes of the various Macedonian successor states on open ground where the phalanxes would inevitably have been victorious, and instead traded on their superior mobility and flexibility to catch the phalangites at a disadvantage.

[Atticus_Finch]

@Gorsnak

In short, the Romans declined to offer battle to the phalanxes of the various Macedonian successor states on open ground where the phalanxes would inevitably have been victorious, and instead traded on their superior mobility and flexibility to catch the phalangites at a disadvantage.

Ok, so how exactly do you do that? How do you force the opposition to come fight on advantageous ground, particularly if you’re in a relatively flat area, and there aren’t any forests or rough terrain nearby? Wouldn’t 90% of battlefields be fairly flattish and empty?

[tomndebb]

Wouldn’t 90% of battlefields be fairly flattish and empty?

Not much of Europe looks like Kansas, and the parts that do tend to be up to the North. There are not a lot of empty, flat lands in Italy or ancient Greece. Depending on how badly one wants to fight (which may be determined by whether one is attacking or defending), it is not that difficult to find hills, defiles, gorges, lakes or bays, rivers, swamps, and other topographical features that will break up a phalanx formation. (And the mark of a good general is to be sure to have the terrain on one’s side.)

[Tamerlane]

@Gorsnak

In short, the Romans declined to offer battle to the phalanxes of the various Macedonian successor states on open ground where the phalanxes would inevitably have been victorious, and instead traded on their superior mobility and flexibility to catch the phalangites at a disadvantage.

Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that a Macedonian victory was by any means inevitable even on level ground. The Macedonian phalanx was the more fearsome offensive unit to be sure. But if the Roman legion could stand the first shock they still then had the advantage of greater flexibility in both retaining and regaining cohesion and in maneouvre.

@Atticus Finch

Ok, so how exactly do you do that? How do you force the opposition to come fight on advantageous ground, particularly if you’re in a relatively flat area, and there aren’t any forests or rough terrain nearby? Wouldn’t 90% of battlefields be fairly flattish and empty?

Well, given Macedonia was heavily forested and is very hilly, it wasn’t so hard ;).

Here’s a description of a Roman near-loss against the Macedonians at the famous battle of Cynoscephalae that demonstrates the advantages of the legion:

http://www.roman-empire.net/army/cynoscephalae.html

However that hardly translates ( as Gorsnak notes ) into the Roman legion being invincible. Rome certainly had its share of military disasters - Carrhae, Cannae, and the Teutoberger Waled just to name a few of the most notable. However another big advantage of the Roman system ( at least under the Republic and early Empire ) was a truly impressive conscription/training program that could churn out well-trained armies like clockwork, even after so devastating a loss as Cannae. This advantage in mobilizable manpower was probably as much a factor in Rome’s eventual dominance over the Hellenistic world as the Roman army’s superior tactical design.

• Tamerlanne

[Askance]

@Atticus Finch

Ok, so how exactly do you do that? How do you force the opposition to come fight on advantageous ground, particularly if you’re in a relatively flat area, and there aren’t any forests or rough terrain nearby? Wouldn’t 90% of battlefields be fairly flattish and empty?

A battlefield in classical times was where two armies agreed to fight. If one didn’t want to, there was no battle (ambushes aside, which a phalanx is hardly suited for).

Check out Southern Italy, Greece, and Western Turkey in your atlas. Not much flat land there.

Another point to consider is the phalanx is 16 men deep, the legion 3. So given two units of the same size, the legion outflanks the phalanx by 5 times; it can wrap around both sides with men to spare. Once the phalanx’s right (unshielded) flank is turned, it’s dead.

[Gorsnak]

@Tamerlane

Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that a Macedonian victory was by any means inevitable even on level ground. The Macedonian phalanx was the more fearsome offensive unit to be sure. But if the Roman legion could stand the first shock they still then had the advantage of greater flexibility in both retaining and regaining cohesion and in maneouvre.

Well, we’ll be able to test that theory, since Rome: Total War is due out next week. I think I’ll refrain from making frontal assaults on Macedonian phalanxes with my legions though, if it’s all the same to you.

[Atticus_Finch]

@Tamerlane

Well, given Macedonia was heavily forested and is very hilly, it wasn’t so hard

Mock me all you like, ye danged bug-fancier, but in my own defence, the Romans were likely to meet the same ex-Macedonian tactics all over the Eastern Mediterranean area, eg in the flattish areas of what’s now Egypt, Syria, coastal Israel, and the Anatolian plateaus, weren’t they?

[Philster]

Can someone comment on aspects other than ‘tactics’?

Wasn’t a well fed, well rested, well trained, well disciplined soldier as much a key to success as some tactics, especially when many battles were decided in chaos?

[Kizarvexius]

Let’s add another factor: innovation. In matters of war, Romans generally paid little attention to the “we’ve always done it this way” philosophy. If they encountered a weapon they liked (such as the Spanish short sword) or some particularly effective tactic, they adopted it and perfected it. And, just as importantly, they learned from their mistakes.

[RiverRunner]

@Tamerlane

Rome certainly had its share of military disasters - Carrhae, Cannae, and the Teutoberger Waled just to name a few of the most notable. However another big advantage of the Roman system ( at least under the Republic and early Empire ) was a truly impressive conscription/training program that could churn out well-trained armies like clockwork, even after so devastating a loss as Cannae.

One of the episodes of the TV program Decisive Battles (on the History Channel [I think]) was about Cannae. That episode will be rebroadcast on the afternoon of Sunday, 9/26. It was short but interesting. (The show, not the battle.)
Incidentally, the show uses the engine from Rome: Total War, the game that Gorsnak mentioned – which, by the way, G, is due to be released tomorrow!* – to demonstrate some of the battle tactics.
RR

*Can I get a woohoo!

[js_africanus]

@Philster

Can someone comment on aspects other than ‘tactics’?

Rome was the first state to have in its army a cadre of dedicated, experienced, and professional NCOs: The centurian. Roman (and Greek) armies had similar organizational set ups. The basic unit was the individual. Then next step up was the file. A file is the column of soldiers that face forward, so if a battle line was 100 men wide, it would be made up of 100 files. (Files were often 8 to 12 men deep.) Quite often, the most experienced soldier, or the best perhaps, would be the first one in the file. He would be the first one to engage the enemy. Behind him the men would be arranged by experience, less experience meant a man would be farther back in the file, with the exception that the second most experienced man would be in the rear of the file to offer encouragement (and probably keep the newbies from running in terror).

Files were arranged by experience as well, going from left to right. The most experienced guy in the formation would be in the front-right corner. This was because soldiers would nudge to the right to try to get protection from the shield belonging to the soldier to his right. As a result, formations would drift to the right. Putting the most experienced guy there would help avoid this.

In the Roman armies, this guy was the Centurian. He commanded his century, a number of files made up of about 100 men. He might be like a master seargent, or something like that. He was a career professional. IIRC, each file was commanded by the first guy in the file—eight-man units for much of Roman history—then the next step up was the centurian. As a career professional, he had a lot of experience, training, and knowledge, and with Rome’s proclivity for violence, he had plenty of opportunity to gain experience.

A lot of ancient armies were formed up ad hoc and led by an inexperienced aristocrat. What set Rome’s armies apart was that on the ground level there was a high density of quality leaders who could show soldiers what to do in everything from setting up tents to dealing with a barbarian axe-man. Because of this, the Roman armies could operate efficiently and be effective even in spite of poor generalship. IIRC, there are many instances where the experience and cool-headedness of the centurians saved Roman armies from disasters that would have caused other armies to collapse and be routed.
More prosaicly, I’ve seen the Roman weapons praised highly. The short sword forced the Roman soldier to get in close where longer weapons were ineffective. Additionally, stabbing is a quicker and more efficient action than slashing. A Roman soldier could protect himself behind his large, curved shield and then either pop up to stab, or reach around to stab. Since he made actual contact with the opponent, there was no need to actually see the other guy. One training exercise used a verticle pole securely anchored. The soldier would push against it with his shield keeping positioned to be well protected. Then he’d reach around his shield and carve up the pole. Since an opposing army in formation would force the opponent to stay fairly fixed, the soldier could neutralize longer weapons and attack without threatening himself too much. Note-worthy is the fact that, IIRC, Roman armies often did poorly in terrain that prevented regular formations. Fighting in forests in Britain and Germany went very poorly for them (IIRC, again).

A good, easy-to-read primary source is Roman Military Institutions written by Flavius Vegetius Renatus in three-hundred something-something b.c. There are lots of other easy to read books in the library. Just browse the shelves under military history and you’ll find plenty.

[MMI]

My understanding was that the phalanx was never intended to be generically kickass, but rather was purpose built to beat the tar out of hoplites, which formed the bulk of Philip’s/Alexander’s Greek opponents and perhaps the highest quality portions of the Persian army. Alexander’s army had other components (which couldn’t deal with hoplites) to deal with the bulk of the Persian forces. The successor states were all built from portions of Alexanders army. As all had phalanxes, all needed phalanxes to fight them. It was also my impression that the phalanx under Philip and Alexander had more tactical flexibility than its successors of later centuries. Early phalanx subunits may not have been as small as a Roman maniple of eight, but better than an all-or-nothing 256 it was portrayed as. And again, the legion didn’t blow the phalanx out of the water. It edged it three out of three times and then the phalanx went away.

The Roman legions benefitted from excellent close order tactics which matched their also equipment perfectly. When fighting non-heavy infantry (most of their opponents) they could press in so closely their opponents could not use their own weapons, which were less suited to the task of close in butchery then the Roman short sword which excelled at chopping and stabbing.

Their reputation also benefit from short memories. The Romans tended to lose the first few battles of wars - badly. Often due to incompetent generalship, but still they would lose battle after battle, army after army. They were just willing to build more armies as needed (or navies in the case of the Punic wars), regardless of the cost. At the end of the day they would win the last battle of the war and it would go into the “W” column and whichever general finally won looked like a genius because he was preceded by any number of incompetent morons who died (in combat or very shortly thereafter).

[Grossbottom]

To add…

One thing that contributed to their success was that they were incredibly tough to kill off the battlefield. Regulations required legionaries to wear armor at all times when they weren’t sleeping, and to always be within reach of their gladius and shield (I believe first punishment was flogging, second was death). They marched in full kit and in defensible formation whenever possible. At the end of a day’s march, they would build an entire stockade, complete with moat, post a watch and then sleep.

It made ambushing a legion nearly impossible. The battle of Teutobeurg Forest was one of the few times where the legions were caught offguard while on the move.

If the enemy was foolish enough to retreat into some sort of fortification, he’d get a taste of the real Roman talent: building things. A fortified enemy would wake up the next morning to find the legions building siege weapons, organized camps, killing fields around the walls, fortifications to defend against relief efforts, etc.

So, in many cases, opposition either fought the Romans when the Romans were darn good and ready, or retreated and starved to death (or were turned over by the civilians of a fortified town…Romans generally made good on promises to spare civilian populations who cooperated).

Anyway, those are two of the strategic reasons why they were so successful. Methodical, educated, patient and disciplined. In a world where many armies were shiftless mercenaries, hapless conscripts or illiterate barbarians, it was really all they needed.

[DRBOB]

@Philster

Can someone comment on aspects other than ‘tactics’?

Wasn’t a well fed, well rested, well trained, well disciplined soldier as much a key to success as some tactics, especially when many battles were decided in chaos?

Well, the Romans had a wonderful method of inspiring the troops to fight. It was called “decimation” (kill every tenth man). If the troops had fought badly, they would be lined up in a single file at the end of the day. Every tenth soldier would be commanded to kneel down and his head would be cut off. This had a tremendous motivating effect on the troops the next day.

[Popup]

@DRBOB

Well, the Romans had a wonderful method of inspiring the troops to fight. It was called “decimation” (kill every tenth man). If the troops had fought badly, they would be lined up in a single file at the end of the day. Every tenth soldier would be commanded to kneel down and his head would be cut off. This had a tremendous motivating effect on the troops the next day.

It was actually worse than that. In every group of ten men, lots were drawn and nine would be given cudgels and had to beat the tenth man to death. Imagine having to beat to death the man you have been living and working with for several years!

Its importance is easily overestimated though, since it was used very sparingly. A commander who had to resort to so drastic measures wasn’t very popular, neither with his army nor with other generals.

[DRBOB]

@Popup

It was actually worse than that. In every group of ten men, lots were drawn and nine would be given cudgels and had to beat the tenth man to death. Imagine having to beat to death the man you have been living and working with for several years!

Its importance is easily overestimated though, since it was used very sparingly. A commander who had to resort to so drastic measures wasn’t very popular, neither with his army nor with other generals.

Exactly. Plus you lose 10% of your fighting force each time! :dubious:

[js_africanus]

@DRBOB

Exactly. Plus you lose 10% of your fighting force each time!

IIRC, decimation was used for cowardice & such, e.g. if a large unit ran instead of fighting. That’s not to say that Roman military discipline wasn’t harsh. (The penalty for falling asleep on guard duty was to be beaten to death.) I would imagine that one of the biggest battlefield motivators was the fact that the last guy in the file was the second-most-experienced member. If he’s been in a single winning battle, then he’s probably seen what happens when an army’s line breaks, and I imagine that he would make sure to avoid certain death by keeping the junior men in front of him motivated to hold the line.

[Grossbottom]

Another great motivator was simple cash.

The average legionary made a good living, in the range of a middle-middle/upper-middle class salary. The lowest ranking centurion was paid a whopping sixteen times that amount. The lead centurion of any given legion was paid forty-four times the base pay. During the Civil Wars, it became customary for a legion to retain part of a soldier’s pay until his retirement…they set up pension funds, basically.

Awards for heroism, and there were quite a few, often carried massive cash prizes in addition to the actual award. Winning a decent crown (what they used instead of medals) could set up a simple legionary for life upon retirement (if he made it that far).

If a trooper could survive his enlistment, he was basically set for life. And since they were typically discharged in the provinces were Roman currency carried alot more weight, they could live like kings.

Add in the chance for actual social promotion regardless of origin, lots of young men with not much to their name other than the citizenship, and you had a heck of morale builder.