The Roman Army

The Roman army was a set of military forces employed by the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and later Roman Empire as part of the Roman military. The size of the army in the late Roman Empire was about 128,000 - 179,200 men.

A full strength legion was officially made up of 6,000 men, but typically all legions were organized at under strength (due to previous battles and poor funding) and generally consisted of approximately 5,200 fighting men including officers. It is difficult to determine whether non-combatants like field surgeons and clerks were included in the 5,200 or helped bring the total number of men up to the official 6,000.

The basic structure of the army is as follows:

Contubernium: (tent group) consisted of 8 men. Soldiers of a contubernium shared a tent, and were rewarded or punished together. If one member of the contubernium acted dishonorably in battle, that contubernium would suffer decimation, whereby the group would be required to “draw straws”, the soldier unlucky enough to draw the short straw would then being stoned to death by the others.

Centuria: (century) was made up of 10 contubernium with a total of 80 men. This group of men was commanded by a centurion.

пÑ"? Centurions often suffered heavy casualties in battle, generally fighting alongside the legionaries they commanded. They usually led from the front, occupying a position at the front right of the century formation. They led and inspired their men by example. They also sought to display the skill and courage that got them to their rank in the first place. It is for these reasons that they often suffered a large number of casualties. As commander, the centurion had the right to give awards to the men in his century, as well as to punish them, whenever necessary. The centurion's punishments could be very severe, including execution. However, centurions could be punished by their own superiors. Examples of behavior warranting punishment of a centurion are as follows, sleeping on the job, failing to train legionaries sufficiently etc. Like any other soldier, a centurion caught guilty of such discretions could be sentenced to death just as easily as the soldiers under his command.

Cohorts: Included 6 centuriae or a total of 480 fighting men, not including officers. In addition the first cohort was double strength but with only 5 centuriae instead of the normal 6, thereby consisting of 800 men. A cohort was no more than a size, it had no leader.

Legio: (Legion) consisted of 10 cohorts.

The leader of a legion was the legatus. Very often, he was helped by 5 or 6 tribuni, lads who needed military experience for their career. Additionally each Legion had a 120 man Alae (cavalry unit) called the Eques Legionis permanently attached to it possibly to be used as scouts and messengers. A legion had also the disposal of a lot of doctors, trumpeters, bakers, executioners, veterinary surgeons, novelist, writers, carpenters and blacksmiths.

There were many defensive tactics employed by the Romans. The main ones though are as follows. First, the most common form of defense Roman generals would use was the testudo formation. In one version of the testudo, the tortoise, the Roman soldiers would group together to make a semicircle which looked like a tortoise shell. In the original testudo formation, soldiers would form a rectangle; their shields fitting perfectly with one another. A soldier's head and body was protected by rows of shields. The testudo was more mobile than the tortoise, but the tortoise gave slightly better protection. Both forms mainly protected the soldiers from enemy arrows. Another option was the Orbis, the Orbis was the last option a Roman general would take, if the situation looked dire (surrounded and heavily outnumbered). The formation is literally an orb or circle of men; as orbis means "circle", "ring", or "sphere" in Latin. As was said before this was the last possible option, but it did create several advantages: there was no front or rear, just a solid wall of shields and weapons with the officers and archers in the center giving support where most needed. The Orbis required strict organization and highly disciplined legionaries in order to hold until the last man fell.

Next there were two main offensive tactics the Romans used. They were the wedge and the charge. The wedge was a tactical formation favored by many Roman generals. The formation took the appearance of a row of saw teeth facing the enemy, which would enable the Roman legion to separate the opposing force and break the enemy's formation. Every "tooth" would have 1 soldier in the first rank, 2 in the second, etc. Generally 10-12 ranks made an individual unit of the wedge formation. This also made the most of the customary weapon of the Roman soldiers,