LEGIONS OF ROME
THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF EVERY IMPERIAL ROMAN LEGION
STEPHEN DANDO-COLLINS
New York • London
© 2010 by Stephen Dando-Collins
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For Louise, who soldiers at my side,
and Richard, who always fights the good fight.
CONTENTS
Introduction
I. THE MEN
I. Where It All Began
II. Soldiering for Augustus
III. Enlisting and Retiring
IV. Special Duties
V. Discipline and Punishment
VI. Legionary Pay
VII. Comparative Buying Power of a Legionary’s Income, First–Second Centuries AD
VIII. Military Decorations and Awards
IX. Legionary Uniforms and Equipment
X. The Legionary’s Weapons
XI. Legionary Training
XII. Legionary Rations and Diet
XIII. Furloughs and Furlough Fees
XIV. Legion Musicians
XV. The Standard-Bearer, Tesserarius and Optio
XVI. The Decurion
XVII. The Centurion
XVIII. The Camp-Prefect
XIX. The Tribunes
XX. The Prefect
XXI. The Quaestor
XXII. The Legate
XXIII. The Praetor
XXIV. Senior Officer Rank Distinctions
XXV. Senior Officers of the Late Empire: Prefects, dukes and counts take command
XXVI. Auxiliaries
XXVII. The Use of Multipart Names by Roman Auxiliaries and Sailors
XXVIII. Numeri
XXIX. Marines and Sailors
II. THE LEGIONS
I. Legion Organization
II. Lawrence Keppie’s Legion Number Formula: Explaining the origins of the 5th to 10th legions
III. The Legion Camp
IV. Watchwords and Trumpet Calls
V. On the March
VI. Baggage Trains and Non-Combatants
VII. Artillery and Siege Equipment
VIII. Legion, Praetorian Guard and Auxiliary Standards
IX. The Vexillum
X. The Draco, or Dragon Standard
XI. The Commander’s Standard
XII. Legion Emblems and Birth Signs: Caesar’s bulls and other myths
XIII. The Triumph
XIV. Unit Histories: Rome’s imperial legions and guard units
XV. The Emperor’s Household Cavalry
XVI. The Imperial Bodyguard: The German Guard and its successors
XVII. Legions of the Late Empire
XVIII. Cavalry
XIX. Cavalry Evolutions
XX. Cavalry of the Late Empire
XXI. Camels and War Elephants
XXII. The Evocati
XXIII. The Palatium
III. THE BATTLES
I. Routing the Scythians
II. The Cantabrian War
III. Rome Invades Ethiopia
IV. Second Cantabrian War
V. The 5th Alaudae Loses its Eagle
VI. Conquering Raetia
VII. At the Altar of Peace
VIII. The Pannonian War
IX. The Varus Disaster
X. The Struggle at Fort Aliso
XI. Invading Germany
XII. Battle of Long Bridges
XIII. Battle of Idistavisus
XIV. Battle of the Angrivar Barrier
XV. Tacfarinas’ Revolt
XVI. Scribonianus’ Revolt
XVII. Invading Britain
XVIII. Corbulo’s First Armenian Campaign
XIX. Rioting in Jerusalem
XX. Boudicca’s British Revolt
XXI. Corbulo’s Second Armenian Campaign
XXII. First Jewish Revolt
XXIII. Vespasian Takes Command
XXIV. The Roxolani Battle
XXV. Year of the Four Emperors
XXVI. The Civilis Revolt
XXVII. Losing the Rhine
XXVIII. Rome’s Rhine Response
XXIX. Battle of Rigodulum
XXX. Battle of Trier
XXXI. Battle of Old Camp
XXXII. Besieging Jerusalem
XXXIII. Machaerus and Masada
XXXIV. The 6th Ferrata Takes Commagene
XXXV. The Chattian War
XXXVI. Battle of Mons Graupius
XXXVII. Decebalus the Invader
XXXVIII. Saturninus’ Revolt
XXXIX. Retreat from Dacia
XL. First Dacian War
XLI. Overrunning Dacia
XLII. Between the Dacian Wars
XLIII. Second Dacian War
XLIV. Trajan Annexes Arabia
XLV. Trajan’s Parthian War
XLVI. Disappearance of the 9th
XLVII. Second Jewish Revolt
XLVIII. Arrian Against the Alans
XLIX. A Legion Destroyed
L. Cassius’ Parthian War
LI. Marcus Aurelius’ Danube Wars
LII. The Thundering 12th
LIII. Blood on the Ice
LIV. Challenging for Marcus’ Throne
LV. Marcus Aurelius’ Last Campaigns
LVI. Severus Versus Niger
LVII. Battle of Lugdunum
LVIII. Severus’ Parthian War
LIX. Severus’ Scottish Invasion
LX. Executions at York
LXI. Killing Caracalla
LXII. Macrinus Against Elagabalus
LXIII. For and Against Maximinus
LXIV. Valerian Captured
LXV. The Palmyran Wars
LXVI. Constantine Fights for the Throne
LXVII. Battle of the Milvian Bridge
LXVIII. Constantine Against Licinius
LXIX. Julian Against the Germans
LXX. Battle of Argentoratum
LXXI. Surviving the Siege of Amida
LXXII. Losing Mesopotamia
LXXIII. Battle of Adrianople
LXXIV. Stilicho Saves Italy
LXXV. The Fall of Rome
LXXVI. Why Did the Legions Decline and Fall?
Plates
Key to Sources
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
The Roman legion of the imperial era was a triumph of organization. Its basic structure was so effective that it continues to be used to this day, by armies whose squads, platoons, companies and battalions reflect the contubernium, century, cohort and legion of old. The imperial legion created by Augustus was like a giant Lego set, with each component, from heavy infantry to cavalry, artillery to supporting auxiliary light infantry, fitting neatly together to form a solid, self-contained military machine.
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The fearsome effectiveness of the organizational structure, training, and tactics of the legions were so universally acknowledged that several of Rome’s greatest foes used them against her. Men who had formerly served in Rome’s army and went on to raise rebellions against her not only organized their own forces along Roman lines, their intimate knowledge of how the legions operated allowed them to employ tactics which exploited their few weaknesses. As a result, Arminius destroyed Varus and his three legions in Germany’s Teutoburg Forest, Tacfarinas was able to terrorize North Africa for years, and Civilis took the Rhine and seven legions from Rome and threatened to remove all of Gaul from Roman control.
The legions’ make-up, originally homogeneous as a result of mass enlistments in specific provincial areas, became increasingly ethnically diverse, with men from opposite ends of the Roman world bringing greatly varying customs, dialects, and religious observances to their legions without any detrimental effect to the serviceability of the overall unit. This can be put down, in part, to the fact that, like a modern military unit, legions had for centuries possessed a strong corporate identity, with the battle honors of previous enlistments being cited by commanders to rouse their troops to greater battlefield deeds.
It is remarkable that even though all the imperial legions sprang from common roots and used common training and equipment, their performance varied. Some were consistently reliable while others were fated to disappoint. Others that had once failed later grabbed glory with spectacular victories. Others still did not live up to earlier reputations. The legions destroyed with Varus in the Teutoburg Forest, for example, had been, up to that time, considered by Velleius, an officer who served with them on the Rhine, among Rome’s best and bravest. Yet clever tactics by their attackers and poor leadership by their commander led to their destruction.
The question of leadership emerges time and again in the history of the legions. The 12th Fulminata Legion, for example, poorly led in Rome’s initial confounded attempt to put down the first-century Jewish Revolt, disgraced itself by losing its eagle standard to the rebels. A century later, this same legion regained its reputation by standing firm in a thunderstorm to save its leader Marcus Aurelius from surrounding German hordes. Vastly outnumbered but under firm leadership, the 14th Gemina Martia Victrix Legion similarly gained fame, by defeating Boudicca’s rebels in Britain.
The first century and the early part of the second century represented the golden age of the legions, when massive armies of up to 100,000 legionaries and a similar number of auxiliaries swept all before them, and a legionary could expect to retire rich with the spoil of conquest. From the death of the emperor Trajan in AD 117, the situation changed. Stretched thin along porous borders, Roman forces were forced permanently on to the defensive. Internal divisions would soon regularly rend the empire. Central control was frequently lost, reasserted, and lost again.
In the process, the quality of the men and their units declined, as their leaders increasingly adopted foreign mercenaries and foreign methods, created ever more new units, and changed the legions’ organizational structure. And with change came regular defeat, stimulating even more debilitating change. Only the occasional emergence of a great commander stemmed the tide of decline and even offered hope of a return to the glory days, but always just for the duration of his lifetime.
The long existence of the Roman Empire had everything to do with the legions. While the legions were strong, Rome was strong. Conversely, the disintegration of the Late Empire had everything to do with the disintegration of the legions as effective fighting forces. At the end of the fourth century, the Notitia Dignitatum listed several hundred legions and auxiliary units of the day, yet these units were small, with many no more than border police and some perhaps existing only on paper. Even the most elite units then in existence paled in comparison to the Augustan legions. Vegetius’ plea to his emperor Valentinian, just prior to the creation of the Notitia Dignitatum, for a return to the legion structure, weapons and training of old, fell on deaf ears.
When, in AD 398, Rome’s last great general, Stilicho, son of a Vandal cavalry commander, put together a task force in northern Italy to wrest Africa back from rebel governor Gildo, the state of the legions then mirrored the state of the empire. Stilicho’s force was organized from Mediolanum (Milan), which had superseded Rome as imperial capital in the West, and it sailed from Pisa in Tuscany, not from one of the old imperial naval bases of Misenum or Ravenna. This army consisted of legions including the Jovian, Herculian, and 3rd Augusta, plus several auxiliary units—although the distinction between legionary and auxiliary had blurred since Commodus’ AD 212 decree had made Roman citizenship universal.
Yet, this task force’s seven units totaled no more than 5,000 men, most of them Gallic veterans. Rome’s once proud legions had shrunk to complements of some 1,000 men each, less than a fifth the size of the Augustan legions. Training, equipment, and tactics had also changed drastically since the days of Augustus. Legionaries were now using light equipment and light arms. Not long before this, entire units had thrown away their armor and helmets, claiming they were too heavy, to fight unprotected, with predictably fatal results.
Stilicho’s task force won back Africa without having to lift a sword—the very sight of their disciplined ranks caused the rebel governor’s troops to run. But it would be a different story just three years later, when Alaric’s Visigoths invaded Italy. Stilicho’s legions, withdrawn from Britain and the Rhine to save Italy, would, under his inspiring leadership, fight bloody battles and conduct gritty sieges, driving the Visigoths out of Italy. Yet once Stilicho died, soon after, those same legions were devoured by Alaric, who, in AD 410, achieved his ambition of sacking Rome.
This, then, is the comprehensive story of Rome’s imperial legions. From the army molded by Augustus through the heady early phase of the empire’s expansion, with its conquests, revolts, and self-destructive civil conflicts, to the long, grinding decline as the quest to maintain the gains of old sometimes stemmed the barbarian tide but inevitably gave way to it.
Despite their inglorious end, the legions remain to this day, thousands of years after their creation, the most preeminent example of how detailed organization, tight discipline, and inspiring leadership can take a group of individuals and turn them into a winning team.
STEPHEN DANDO-COLLINS
March 2010
I
THE MEN
“Every country produces both brave men and cowards, but it is equally certain that some nations are naturally more warlike than others.”
VEGETIUS, De Re Militari, FOURTH CENTURY
Down through the centuries, millions of men served with the army of imperial Rome; half a million during the reign of Augustus alone. The history of the legions is the collective story of those individuals, not just of Rome’s famous generals. Men such as Titus Flavius Virilis, still serving as a centurion at the age of 70. And Titus Calidius, a cavalry decurion who missed military life so much after retiring he re-enlisted, at the reduced rank of optio. And Novantius, the British auxiliary from today’s city of Leicester, who was granted his discharge thirteen years early for valiant service in the second century conquest of Dacia. Any analysis of the legions must begin with the men, their organization, their equipment, and their service conditions.
I. WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
The origins of the legions of Pompey, Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius go back to the Roman Republic of the fifth century BC. Originally, there were just four Roman legions—Legios I to IIII (the legion number 4 was written as IIII, not IV). Each of the two consuls, “who were charged both singly and jointly to take care to preserve the Republic from danger,” commanded two of these legions. [Vege., III]
All legionaries were then property-owning citizens of Rome, conscripted in the spring of each year into the armies of the two consuls. Legio, the origin of the word “legion,” meant “levy,” or draft. Service ordinarily ended with the Fe
stival of the October Horse on October 19, which signaled the termination of the campaigning season.
Men of “military age”—16 to 46—were selected by ballot for each legion, with the 1st Legion considered to be the most prestigious. Rome’s field army was bolstered by legions from allied Italian tribes. Legionaries of the early Republic were appointed to one of four divisions within their legion, based on age and property qualifications. The youngest men were assigned to the velites, the next oldest to the hastati, men in the prime of life to the principes and the oldest to the triarii, with the role and equipment of each group differing. By Julius Caesar’s day, the conscripted infantry soldier of the Republic was required to serve in the legions for up to sixteen years, and could be recalled in emergencies for a further four years.
Originally, republican legions had a strength of 4,200 men, which in times of special danger could be brought up to 5,000. [Poly., VI, 21] By 218 BC and the war between Rome and Carthage, the consuls’ legions consisted of 5,200 infantry and 300 cavalry, which approached the form they would take in imperial times. From 104 BC, the Roman army of the Republic underwent a major overhaul by the consuls Publius Rutilius Rufus and Gaius Marius. Rutilius introduced arms drill and reformed the process of appointment for senior officers. Marius simplified the requirements for enrollment, so that it was not only property owners who were required to serve. Failure to report for military service would result in the conscript being declared a deserter, a crime subject to the death penalty.
A legionary would be paid for the days he served—for many years, this amounted to ten asses a day. He was also entitled to the proceeds from any arms, equipment or clothing he stripped from the enemy dead, and was entitled to a share of the booty acquired by his legion. If a legion stormed a town, its legionaries received the proceeds from its contents—human and otherwise—which were sold to traders who trailed the legions. If a town surrendered, however, the Roman army’s commander could elect to spare it. Consequently, legionaries had no interest in encouraging besieged cities to surrender.
Marius focused on making the legions independent mobile units of heavy infantry. Supporting roles were left to allied forces. To increase mobility, Marius took most of the legionaries’ personal equipment off the huge baggage trains which until then had trailed the legions, and put it on the backs of the soldiers, greatly reducing the size of the baggage train. With the items hanging from their baggage poles weighing up to 100 pounds (45 kilos), legionaries of the era were nicknamed “Marius’ mules.” Until that time, the maniple of 160–200 men had been the principal tactical unit of the legion, but under Marius’ influence the 600-man cohort became the new tactical unit of the Roman army, so that the legion of the first century BC comprised ten cohorts, with a total of 6,000 men.
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