Earth mounds were built for the artillery, to gain elevation over the heads of the infantry. To determine range, Roman artillerymen tossed lead weights on lengths of string to enemy walls, and measured back. As a result of this practice, Roman artillery achieved remarkable and frightening accuracy. At the AD 67 Siege of Jotapata, where Josephus commanded, a single spear from a scorpion ran through a row of men. A ballista stone took the head off a Jewish defender standing near Josephus; the man’s head was found 660 yards (600 meters) away. [Jos., JW, 3, 7, 23]
ONAGER CATAPULT
The basic stone-throwing catapult in use for centuries by the Roman military, equipped every legion.
Ammianus described how, in around AD 363, Roman forces used “fire darts” that had been hollowed out and filled with incendiary material: “oil of general use” mixed with “a certain herb,” which was allowed to stand and thicken “until it gets magic power.” [Amm., II, xxiii, 5, 38] The fourth-century fire-arrow had to be fired slowly, “from a loosened bow,” said Ammianus, “for it is extinguished by swift flight.” But once it landed, it burned persistently. “If one tries to put it out with water he makes it burn the more fiercely, and it can be extinguished in no other way than by throwing dust on it.” [Ibid., 37] As for the “Greek fire” type of incendiary depicted in the feature film Gladiator (based on events of AD 180), this was not developed until the seventh century.
Legionaries were also trained to build wooden siege “engines” for use when fortresses and cities were assaulted. Mantlets, wooden sheds on wheels, were frequently used to provide cover for battering rams. Other war machines, such as a sling used in the defense of Old Camp in AD 69–70, depended on the ingenuity of individual legions. Siege towers on wheels were common, each with several levels on which artillery was mounted. Elaborate measures to fireproof these towers were not always successful. Siege towers were prominent in the Roman assaults on Jerusalem and Masada in the First Jewish Revolt and in the Siege of Sarmizegethusa during the Second Dacian War.
Caracalla, for his AD 217 eastern campaign, had two massive siege engines built in Europe which were dismantled and shipped to Syria. Caracalla was assassinated during the campaign, and there is no record of his super siege engines being deployed. By the AD 359 Persian Siege of Amida, Rome’s enemies had turned her technology against her, employing siege machinery built by Roman prisoners.
By the fourth century, legions were no longer building their own artillery or siege equipment. Nineteen cities in the Roman east and fifteen in the west possessed large government arms workshops by that time, which manufactured catapults and other weapons, armor and siege machinery. Their output was deposited in arsenals in the manufacturing cities and distributed to the military as required. [Gibb., XVII] As a result, legionaries lost the skills that had previously ensured Rome’s legions were, in a great many respects, self-sufficient.
VIII. LEGION, PRAETORIAN GUARD AND AUXILIARY STANDARDS
“The army must become accustomed to receiving commands sharply,” said second-century general Arrian, “some by voice, some by visible signals, and some by trumpet.” [Arr., TH, 27]
Originally, the Roman military standard was merely a pole around which hay was wound, used as a visual rallying point for soldiers in battle and as a method of signaling commanders’ orders. The republican consul Marius made the eagle, a bird sacred to Jupiter, sole symbol of the legion. Previously, wolves, bears, horses, minotaurs and eagles had all been used. The eagle standard of the legion, the aquila, initially silver, later gold, was a religious as well as a practical symbol endowed with huge mystical significance for Romans. The recovery of “eagles” lost to the enemy was a celebrated event which added luster to the reputations of generals responsible.
The eagle standard was considered, said Dio, to be “a small shrine.” It led the legion’s 1st Cohort, whose job it was to defend it, and always remained with the legion commander. “It is never moved from the winter quarters unless the entire army takes the field,” said Dio. “One man carries it on a long shaft which terminates in a sharp spike so that it can be set firmly in the ground.” [Dio, XL, 18] Long after the fall of the Roman Empire, the eagle which had symbolized her greatness would be taken up as a national symbol by countries such as Germany, Russia, Poland and the USA, and used by the Roman Catholic Church.
Each maniple of the legion also had its own standard. The manipular standard had a raised hand on top—manipulus means “a handful.” Each imperial standard bore an imago, a small round ceramic portrait of the ruling emperor, and frequently of the empress of the day and other exalted personages. Legion standards also bore the unit emblem, a symbol representative of its zodiacal birth sign, plus devices depicting bravery decorations awarded to the unit, and symbolic grass tufts.
On the march and in formal processions, the standards preceded the troops, bunched together. The legion’s standards were planted at the center of both winter and marching camps, and even the ground they occupied was considered sacred. They formed part of an altar that included statues of the emperor. Placed outside the standard-bearer’s quarters, it was illuminated at night by burning torches.
The Praetorian Guard used the image of Victoria, winged goddess of victory, on their standards. Auxiliary cohorts and alae used animals on their standards, including the boar and lion. Prior to the commencement of military campaigning every year, a religious ceremony called the lustratio exercitus, or lustration exercise, was performed, where Roman military standards were purified, dressed with garlands and sprinkled with perfumed oil, and animal sacrifices performed. Traditionally this took place in Rome between March 19 and 23, but in the field could be performed at other times.
Roman standards were focal points for the attacking enemy, who particularly went after the golden aquila. To lose its eagle was the single greatest disgrace for a legion. The 5th Alaudae, 12th Fulminata and 21st Rapax legions all suffered this fate.
IX. THE VEXILLUM
Detachments from a legion marched under a vexillum, a square cloth banner, bearing the unit’s number and title. Such detachments were called vexillations. A remnant of a vexillum found in Egypt was made of coarse linen, dyed scarlet. It has a decorative fringe at the bottom and a hem at the top to receive the transverse bar that held it. This vexillum carries an image in gold of Victoria, goddess of victory, standing on a globe. It may have been related to the Praetorian Guard and a visit to Egypt by an emperor such as Hadrian or Septimius Severus. [Web., 3]
X. THE DRACO, OR DRAGON STANDARD
Following the Dacian Wars of AD 101–106, Roman cavalry units increasingly adopted the Dacian-style dragon standard. The signum draconis, or “draco,” consisted of a wood or bronze dragon’s head on a pole, from which draped a long “body” made of several lengths of dyed cloth sewn together. As the draco’s bearer galloped along, the body filled with air and trailed behind him, to great visual effect. A device in the dragon’s mouth made it howl as the wind passed through it. Arrian indicates that by the first half of the second century, the draco was used by all Roman mounted units.
XI. THE COMMANDER’S STANDARD
Each Roman army commander had his own standard. In the early imperial era standards were large square banners with purple letters on them identifying the army and its commander-in-chief.
In camp, the general’s standard remained in his praetorium. When there was disturbance in Germanicus Caesar’s camp at Cologne in AD 14, rebellious troops forced their way into his praetorium and forced him to give up his standard to them. [Tac., A, 1, 39] When a general raised his standard in camp, this was the signal to prepare for battle. It therefore needed to be large enough to be seen from a distance.
On the march, the general’s standard could be fixed to a packhorse. Famously, the horse carrying the standard of Caesennius Paetus bolted while his army was crossing the Euphrates river in AD 62. It was seen as a bad omen at the time, for Crassus’ standard had reportedly blown into the river when he was crossing the Eup
hrates in 53 BC on his way to disaster at Carrhae. The AD 62 incident presaged the humiliating retreat of Paetus’ army from Armenia months later. [Dio, XL, 18]
By the fourth century, the draco, of the appropriate scarlet or purple color, had also been adopted by field commanders as their personal standard. Ammianus tells of how, in AD 357, Roman general and future emperor Julian, nephew of Constantine the Great, used “the purple dragon standard, fitted to the top of a very long spear and stretching out” behind the standard-bearer as Julian rode to battle. [Amm., XVI, 12, 39]
XII. LEGION EMBLEMS AND BIRTH SIGNS
Caesar’s bulls, and other myths
Every legion and auxiliary unit had its own unique emblem, as did the Praetorian Guard. These emblems appeared on the shields of each soldier. With Roman soldiers all wearing the same uniform and using similar equipment, the only way to distinguish one unit from another was by the emblems on their shields. In the night phase of the Battle of Cremona in AD 69, two enterprising soldiers from Vespasian’s army took up the shields of dead opponents emblazoned with the emblem of a Vitellianist legion and, thus disguised, were able to make their way unchallenged through enemy ranks on to a causeway, and sabotage a massive catapult being operated by a Vitellian legion. [Tac., H, III, 23]
The most frequently used symbols for imperial legions were animals or birds, especially those with religious significance to the Romans, such as the eagle, bull, stork, and lion. Some legions used representations from Greco-Roman mythology—Pegasus, the centaur, Mars’ thunderbolt, and Neptune’s trident.
The Celts used the boar symbol to ward off evil, and the boar appears on Celtic helmet crests and shield decorations. Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy, which was made a province of Rome in 220 BC, was populated by Celtic tribes. Even after Rome officially incorporated Cisalpine Gaul into Italy in 42 BC some Celtic customs lingered. Several legions raised in Italy used the boar as their symbol, the 1st Italica and 20th Valeria Victrix among them. Likewise, the centaur, associated with Thessally in Greece where it is said to have resided, made it a natural emblem for three legions raised in Macedonia and Thrace at the end of the second century—the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Parthica legions.
As mentioned above, it has frequently, but erroneously, been written that all legions raised by Julius Caesar carried the bull emblem. It has also been claimed that those which used Capricorn’s sea-goat as an emblem were raised or reorganized by Octavian. Neither assertion is supported by the facts. Of the legions that can be linked to Caesar, the majority actually carried emblems other than the bull. For example, of four legions known to have been raised by Caesar in Italy in 58–56 BC, the 11th to the 14th, not one used the bull emblem.
Conversely, Keppie notes that at least three of Octavian’s legions which, in his words, did not derive from Caesar, did use the bull emblem. [Kepp., CVSI, N35, 2.2] Of those legions that did use the bull emblem, none had a numeral higher than 10. Yet Caesar raised many legions which carried numbers higher than 10. In fact, he raised as many as forty legions. Caesar himself never used the bull emblem; his personal motif was the elephant.
In reality, the common denominator linking legions that used the bull emblem was not Caesar, but Spain. As mentioned earlier, Keppie suggests the strong possibility that republican Rome stationed legions numbered up to 10 in Spain for hundreds of years. Legions 5 to 10 seem to have been raised there subsequently.
Even today the bull is a symbol immediately associated with Spain, where bullfighting has ancient roots. Both the Romans and the Carthaginians before them marveled that the native Celtiberean people of Spain had a tradition of fighting bulls; in those ancient contests in Baetica, bulls were given the death blow with a spear or ax. [Bon., B&B]
In both the late Republic and early imperial era, the bull emblem was used by every legion numbered 4 to 10 except one; the 5th Alaudae, which adopted the elephant after Thapsus, may have used the bull prior to that. Only one other legion, the 3rd Gallica, is known to have used the bull emblem. This is possibly because the republican 3rd Legion served under Pompey in Spain between 59 and 49 BC. The 4th Flavia, which replaced the 4th Macedonica, took the Flavian lion emblem.
It is likewise frequently written that all legions that used the sea-goat emblem of Capricorn were raised by or at least associated with Octavian/Augustus. This is another myth. Legions created long after the reign of Augustus, units such as the 22nd Primigeneia (raised by Caligula), 1st Italica (Nero), 1st Adiutrix and 2nd Adiutrix (Galba/Vittelius/Vespasian), 30th Ulpia (Trajan), and 2nd Italica (Marcus Aurelius), used the Capricorn symbol, but this is because Capricorn was the zodiacal birth sign of the legions in question. All legions displayed the sign linked to the time of their foundation. Capricorn, falling in the midwinter period, when many legions were raised in time for service starting in the upcoming spring, was the most commonly adopted of the twelve birth signs, and seems to have been considered lucky.
It is true that the standards of a number of the legions in Octavian’s standing army from 30 BC carried the Capricorn emblem as their birth sign. These same legions also carried separate unit emblems. For example, the 2nd Augusta Legion used Pegasus, the flying horse, as its emblem and Capricorn as its birth sign. Both the 4th Macedonica and 4th Scythica legions used the bull emblem and the Capricorn birth sign. The 20th Valeria Victrix used the boar emblem and the Capricorn birth sign. And so on.
Many modern authors have also written that from the second century the thunderbolt symbol was standardized as the emblem of all the legions, but available evidence contradicts this. The thunderbolt assertion has been based on the fact that all the legion and Praetorian Guard shields depicted on Trajan’s Column, which was dedicated in AD 113, display thunderbolt symbols of one design or another. This is more accidental than historical, for apart from the Praetorian Guard, only four citizen units can be proved to have used the thunderbolt as an emblem during the imperial era—the 11th Claudia, the 12th Fulminata, the 14th Gemina Martia Victrix and the 30th Ulpia legions.
Why, then, does Trajan’s Column show a profusion of thunderbolt shield emblems? It is probable that men of the Praetorian Guard, the only citizen unit stationed at the capital, modeled for the Greek artisans responsible for the images on Trajan’s Column when these were crafted in Rome between AD 106 and 113. The artisans would have had no idea of Roman military culture, or the corporate nature of legion emblems. They would have crafted the shield emblems being carried by their models. Consequently it is the Praetorian thunderbolt emblem in several differing cohort designs that ended up on all the scutums depicted on the column. There is evidence to suggest that each cohort of the Praetorian Guard used a different variant of the thunderbolt emblem. [See Creating Trajan’s Column.]
The Praetorian Guard was one of only a handful of units to use the thunderbolt emblem.
The Notitia Dignitatum of the fifth century depicts the shield designs of a great many legions and auxiliary units; not one used the thunderbolt emblem. It could be expected that, by the time of the Notitia Dignitatum, Christian symbols had replaced the old legion emblems of pagan Rome, for Christianity had by that time been the official Roman religion for close to a century. Surprisingly, there are very few crosses on Notitia Dignitatum shields, and not one shield used the “XP” [] Christian symbol that Constantine the Great is said to have had his men paint on their shields. The only identifiably Christian emblem, a pair of angels, appears on the shields of the two bodyguard units of the Eastern (but not the Western) Emperor, the Equites Domestici and the Pedites Domestici, the Household Cavalry and Household Foot. [Berg., IND]
An emblem that did feature on many legion and auxiliary shields in the Notitia Dignitatum was the wheel of the pagan goddess Fortune. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing at the end of the fourth century, pointed out the significance that the wheel of Fortune still held for the Roman military when he described “Fortune’s rapid wheel, which is always interchanging adversity and prosperity,” and associated it with the war goddess Bell
ona. [Amm., XXXI, 1, 1]
By the fifth century the 5th Macedonia’s bull had been replaced by a rosette. [Berg., IND] The rosette was a martial symbol also associated with war goddess Bellona, and had been used extensively as a decoration on shields and legionary gravestones from early in the imperial period. It might be argued that the thunderbolt had been discarded because it represented a pagan god, yet, as can be seen from the above, the wheel of Fortune and the rosette, which also represented pagan gods, were in use in Christian times.
By the fifth century, numerous imperial legions had replaced their original emblems. The 3rd Augusta Legion, for example, was using a plain circular design. The two imperial 7th legions had survived; one using a ten-pointed star, another, a nine-spoked wheel of Fortune. The 1st Italica Legion had replaced its boar emblem with a circular motif, while the 2nd Italica was using a four-spoked wheel. Yet the 13th Gemina Legion of the fifth century was still using the lion as its emblem, just as it had done since the reign of Augustus. [Ibid.]
XIII. THE TRIUMPH
For a Roman general, the supreme accolades were the Triumph and the title imperator. In republican times the latter was accorded a victorious general by his troops. The emperors took this award for themselves, on a vote of the Senate, for victories in battles where they or their generals had commanded. At the start of all their letters, emperors proudly listed the number of times they had been hailed imperator; it is from this word that the title “emperor” evolved.
Triumphs were awarded by a vote of the Senate for a major victory over foreign enemies. In the Republic, Triumphs could only be celebrated by generals of consular rank. Under the emperors, Triumphs became reserved for members of the imperial family. The Triumph took the form of a procession through the streets of Rome, which were lined by cheering crowds for the occasion, with all the senators of Rome wearing their togas with purple borders as required by Augustan decree.
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