Ancient Sources repeatedly mention the ability of the three lines to withdraw through each other in order to bring forward fresh troops."
--Terence Wise, Armies of the Carthaginian Wars, 265-146 B.C., p. 32

I developed an interest in Ancients ratber late in my wargaming career -- twenty-five years after painting my first Guard Grenadier. It rarely attracted more than a glance from me while attending conventions or reading The Courier. The new crop of rules starting with Tactica changed my attitude....that and the discovery that Roman soldiers had a nickname like Napoleon's "grognards": Legionnaires were called "gregarii".

Like most of my newly discovered gaming interests, I dived in with abandon, reading all I could about the Ancient wars and started to paint an army. Of course, in my ignorance of the period I began with The Punic Wars and a Republican Roman Army. And as they used to say in the Golden Age, Therein lies the tale. What I discovered in my research astonished me.

Basic Maneuvers

None of the current rules set allowed the Romans to carry out the basic Manipular Legion maneuvers described by every writer in ancient and modem times. To say the least, I was surprised by the comprehensive nature of this hobby oversight. I have written this article in an attempt to shed some light on this and to offer rules modif ications that will allow Ancients players with Roman Armies to do what the Legion was designed to do.

There are a number of mysteries regarding how the Republican Legions fought. There are several schools of thought on many tactical issues conceming the Punic Wars, from the effect of pilum to where the Carthegenian cavalry was at the Battle of Illipa. Because of obscure or contradictory references, a lack of eyewitness accounts from the period, and just plain translation problems, it difficult to state for certain how the Legions actually fought. Even so, there some things that every ancient writer starting with Polybius agree on, as well as every modern historian.

The Manipular Legions of the Punic Wars:

1. Fought in four lines of infantry: Velites, Hastati, Principes, and Triarii. (Earlier there had been a fifth line, the Rorarii and sometimes the Accensi.)
2. Each line or "ordo" was committed to battle as a whole. There is not one commentary that describes a battle where the lines were committed in pieces, few where two or more were committed at the same time.
3. The primary purpose of the successive lines was to allow one line to relieve the one before it, The Hastati replacing the light infantry Velites, Principes replacing Hastati, Triarii replacing Principes.
4. Unbelievably, this replacement of lines was done while engaged with the enemy!

These four points are universally acknowledged: there are no dissenting opinions past or present, no contradictory evidence among the sources. Yet not one of the rules set I reviewed simulated any of the four points.

Most rules treat the Roman maniples as small units of heavy infantry, sometimes very maneuverable and able to throw pile, but never able to relieve other lines. Some, like Tactica or Ancient Empires, have very complex rules for the Quincunx (checkerboard) formation of the legion, but they still fail to simulate any of the four points.

In the following paragraphs, I offer some rules modifications for the rules I reviewed listed in the references. I will also offer a theory conceming what is not known with any certainty: How the maniples were actually able to relieve successive lines while engaged with the enemy and the form of command control used to accomplish this based on a number of ideas of other authors, again listed in the references.

MODIFICATIONS

For those rules sets that have unique mechanics, I will provide specific changes. Happily, most rules have attrition type casualty mechanics, some with fatigue affects that are quite similar. It is a simple thing to add the following rule to them:

ROMAN MANIPULAR RULE

The Roman heavy infantry units of the Punic Wars era are divided into three groups: Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, if the rules do not do this already. There will be two equal-sized groups, and then one group half the size of the first two. The two equal sized groups will be the Hastati and Principes, the smaller group will be the Triarii.

1. The organization of the Roman heavy infantry will be in three lines made up of the three groups, Hastati in front, then Principes, and last Triarii. Whether the lines will represent one or several legions is dependent on the scale, and up to the players to determine. Each legion may act independently on the battlefield, but all will have the three lines of heavy infantry and begin in the setup in the three lines.

2. The three lines may move independently of each other, but each is treated as a single unit for movement. Each line of Hastati, Principes, and Triarii is moved and engages in combat as a single unit. If equal to one legion, the units will be of 1,200 men or for the Triarii 600 men.

3. The Triarii will be armed with 12 foot spears and be one morale grade higher than the Hastati and Principes.

4. When the Hastati is engaged in combat, the Principes in line behind them may exchange places with the Hastati during the movement phase. The Principes must be within two inches of the Hastati to its immediate rear and not engaged in combat. The exchange is the only movement that the two lines/units can carry out that movement phase. The Roman player will role one die,

1-3, the Principes are placed in contact with the enemy previously engaged with the Hastati.
4-6 the Principes are placed one inch away from the enemy front lines and may throw pila and/or charge within the conditions set by the rules.

Modifiers are added to the die depending on the enemy units engaged:

Pike, Phalanx or Hoplite unit +1
Enemy is a Warband -1
Enemy has smaller shield +1
Enemy overlaps the flanks -1

The Hastati line must replace the Triarii line/unit next movement phase if the Triarii were behind the Principes when the Hastati exchanged places with them. The Hastati and Triarii may not move other to exchange places in the turn. The Triarii can exchange places with the Principes using the same process and die rolls the Hastati and Principes "exchange" employed. The Principes would then have to move behind the Hastati the next turn if the Hastati were behind the Triarii at the beginning of the Principes-Triarii exchange.

5. The three lines may only exchange places once during any game. The legion units may be involved in combat normally after they have exchanged places.

6. If desired, the same exchange process may be carried out with the Velites and the Hastati, with the Velites moving back behind and to the flanks of the furthest units behind the Hastati (usually the Triarii).

Increased Power

The impact of these changes is to increase the power of the Roman Legion considerably. This is historical. The ability to reinforce the line with fresh troops gave the legion the power to punch through just about any opposing line. In the mountainous confines of Italy this was very telling, but the system's weaknesses were easily exploited in the open by generals such as Hannibal.

Roman players will find they have a critical decision to make: Does the legion deploy successive lines to relieve each other, providing power on a narrow front, or does it spread out the lines, using them independently, but giving up the Legion's ability to relieve engaged units? Varro chose the former at Cannae, the legions' frontal strength to punch through the Punic lines before being outflanked, while Scorpio chose the later, deploying the lines separately at Ilipa in Spain, The Battle of the Great Plains, and then Zama The same decision was made by a tribune against the Macedonians at Cynoscephalae. It is not as easy a decision as it may first appear.

Here are some specific modifications for the following rules:

Specific Rules Modifications and More

Roman Army Tactics
Ancient Empires
Tactica
Armati
De Bellis Series

More Historical Commentary and References