Dawn broke. Even before the roosters crowed, the Roman camp stirred with life. Horns blew to waken the men. Centurions barked orders and hastened the legionaries into formation with already ancient comments on the men's parentage and virility -- or lack thereof. Each century found its cohort's standard and the cohorts formed on the legion's silver eagle. Some of the legionaries drew their woolen cloaks tighter about them as defense against the morning's chill. When all the men had assembled, the General, resplendent in his scarlet cloak, stood before them and began his harangue. No Roman army ever went into battle without hearing from its commander. Today they would do battle, he stated, the enemy was only a few miles hence. Briefly he described his plan. The commander added a few more words about honor, duty and the expectations of Rome and himself, then the orders to advance were given. The legions, accompanied by non-Roman auxiliaries, exited the fortified camp and made their way along the road to where their opponents were gathering. They trudged forward with the deceptively easy, but rapid, pace born of long marches and hours of drill. There was no singing or cheering. The only sounds of their advance was the muted rattle of arms and the thud of their caligae (sandals) against the ground. Each man carried two pila (five foot long spears), a gladius (a two foot short sword) and a wide dagger, called a poggio. Each legionary had a scutum, a curved oval shield bossed in bronze and rimmed with iron. For armor the men wore leather tunics covered by a thigh length shirt of chainmail and a bronze helmet with wide cheek guards secured by leather straps under their chins. Each man wore of carried his sagum, a water resistant woolen cloak. None wore greaves except the centurions for whom it was a badge of office. The standards, the silver of the outspread eagles glistening in the sun, were carried in the front rank of each legion. The legions reached the battlefield and changed from line of march to line of battle with practiced efficiency. Turning to protect their own flanks they presented themselves to the enemy force like a sickle. The legion and cohort standards showed the men, and the general, their places on the battlefield. The enemy gathered itself to face them. Overeager, the opposing army charged the Romans. When they had drawn within 25 meters, the legionaries let loose first with one pilum, then the other. Their aim, from long years of practice, was devastatingly accurate. Thousands of the approaching enemy fell, killed or wounded by the missile fire. For others the heavy pilum was embedded in their shields and could not be extricated. Some, finding the extra weight an encumbrance discarded their shields. The Romans slung their shields forward and drew forth their gladius, then waded into the enemy line like the intermeshed components of a vast machine. Wickedly sharpened Roman gladii pierced into enemy flesh in the same fluid thrusts and economy of motion learned at the practice posts under the gaze of unrelenting centurions. Shield bosses and iron rims plowed into enemy noses and jaws. Daggers were drawn at close quarters. From his vantage point, the Roman general could tell the progress of the battle by the location of the various standards -- they would not fall into enemy hands unless his entire army was defeated. In reality, once battle was joined there was little a Roman commander could do to effect its outcome. Victory or defeat depended on his selection of a plan, the terrain and the relative merits of his soldiers versus the enemy. The end result of the battle rested, as it always had and always would, on the training, competence and skills of the individual soldiers. The enemy line quivered, cracked, then dissolved before the Roman's inexorable pressure. In short order it was destroyed. Pursuing units followed, sacking the enemy's camp and taking prisoners to be sold into slavery. As night fell the army gathered on the field once again. At the instigation of the senior centurions, a chant went up from the men, the final recognition of the completeness of their triumph: "Imperator! Imperator!" The above scene is fictional in the sense that it does not describe an actual battle. But it recounts the basic elements of the Roman way of war. Rome's conquests were the offspring of the superiority of her legions. And the superiority of her legions -- the premiere heavy infantry of the ancient and classical world -- was the result of the reforms of one man, Gaius Marius. The "Marian legion" was the instrument by which Rome conquered the world. Gaius Marius Gaius Marius was born in 158 BC to a family of the lower middle class in Arpinum, a farming district outside of Rome. His upbringing was rough and unrefined when compared with city folk, but it met the basic standards expected of a Roman citizen. A man of considerable ambition and talent he climbed rapidly through the army and the political arena. Elected a tribune of the people, he next lost two elections o n the same day when he ran for two aedile offices. Later elected praetor, he was sent to Further Spain as governor. There he put down most of the local bandits and made a considerable fortune administering the area. His money enabled him to marry Julia, the patrician daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar (the grandfather of the future dictator and conqueror of Gaul). At the same time his exploits in Spain earned him a considerable reputation as a military man. Despite his wealth and military reputation he was blocked from becoming consul by a combination of factors. Gaius Marius was tagged a Novus Homo (New Man) -- that is a noveaux riche plebeian. The patrician oligarchs who wielded considerable influence, along with their old money plebeian colleagues, tended to look down their nose at him and dismiss him as a rough upstart. It was said, in their most scathing comment of his uncultured past that "he had no Greek." In modern terms it was the equivalent of calling him a hillbilly. The Jugurthine War in North Africa provided him with an opportunity to advance his fortunes. He was brought to Numidia as a senior staff officer in 109 BC by Quintus Caecilius Metellus, a plebeian of an old moneyed family who recognized Marius' talents but not his right to rise above his station. By 107 BC, Marius had managed to undermine Metellus, have himself elected consul, and assume command of the war against the Numidian king Jugurtha. Manpower Crisis From its earliest days the Roman army had been essentially a militia system designed for the home defense. As a militia membership was only open to the propertied classes. Roman political thought argued that only those with a stake in a society could provide the patriotic service and sacrifice necessary to preserve it. Men between 17 and 43, most of whom were small landholders, were liable to call up. Each one was expected to provide his own arms, armor and material. What pay they received was small as it was considered a man's duty to defend the state. Exempt from military service was the vast ocean of urban poor -- the Capite Censi. (Literally translated as the "Head Count." The name arose because the censors would examine the property qualifications of members of the Senate and equestrian orders, as well as the lower recognized "classes." But when it came to review the urban poor, for whom there were no property considerations, the censors would only count them.) As long as Rome's legions were primarily for home defense or short campaigns in Italy the system worked well. But Rome's victory in the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) and her resulting involvement in overseas ventures had caused dramatic changes in the demographic basis of the recruitment system. Now legionaries found themselves expected to serve for long periods of time in foreign lands. While gone they could not work their land or sire children to work it in their absence. So they went into debt or lost their land, and thus the steady income that was their qualification for recruitment. With each small or medium farmholder that vanished into the bottomless sea of the Capite Censi, Rome lost another potential soldier. A self-feeding spiral was set into motion, and bit by bit, the population base upon which the entire recruitment system depended dwindled. The disappearance of the small farmers was noted by the leading oligarchs, but only, it appears, as an opportunity to expand their own considerable holdings. The same land that had once supported large numbers of potential legionaries, was now owned and controlled by a much smaller number of aristocrats who established latifundia (plantations) tilled by slaves. Ironically, this new source of labor had been captured by the same legionaries who lost land they now tilled. This change in land ownership led to one of Rome's greatest social crises. The violent conflict between the Gracchi brothers and the oligarchs on the issue of land reform assured that there would be no political solution to this imbalance. As time passed, matters, for the defense of the Republic, only became worse. At the same time the demographic problem of a dwindling supply of eligible recruits was exacerbated by a series of military disasters that left thousands of Romans dead. By the time Marius was elected consul, some 80,000 citizen-soldiers had died in the two generations since the Gracchi. Marius was among the first, if not the first, to realize that there was a crisis in the recruitment system. The usual classes from which Rome's armies came had been bled white by war and the impoverishment of the farmers. Only the Capite Censi had grown in size as the farmers, bereft of their land, poured into the cities. Change was necessary, or Rome would have no armies. Using his considerable political skills and aided by those with enough foresight to see the end of the old system, Marius was able to get a law passed over the violent objections of the conservative oligarchs. The law allowed him to recruit "not according to the classes in the manner of our forefathers, but allowed anyone to volunteer, for the most part the Capite Censi." Rome would now supply the men with their arms and armor, and pay them as well. In exchange, each legionary committed himself for twenty years of service. Marius had opened the ranks of the Roman army to all citizens irrespective of their property qualifications. Marius was able to assure the permanence of his reforms because he was, contrary to law and tradition elected consul five consecutive years. (The lex Villi required that ten years pass between election as consul). The reason was military -- roving Germanic tribes (among them the Cimbri and the Teutones) were threatening to invade Italy. Their enormous numbers and the incompetence of Roman generals had consistently defeated every Roman army sent against them. Marius was able to use his unprecedented power to raise the Roman's army's equipment and organization to new levels of efficiency. From Maniple to Cohort The basic unit of the Roman army was the legion. The smallest unit of the legion was a century -- comprised of about 60-80 men. Each legion contained 60 centuries headed by a centurion. Roman tradition dictated that the centurions be promoted from the ranks based on their courage, experience, initiative and skill. Centurions were responsible for the training and conduct of the men beneath them. They combined the functions and prestige of a modern company commander and senior sergeant. In the early days of the Republic, the centuries were paired into groups called maniples. The legion's thirty maniples were then arranged, widely spaced, into three lines of ten maniples each. In the first line, called the hastati, the men stood three deep and forty across. The second line (principes) stood twelve wide by ten deep. The maniples of the third line were smaller than the first two and stood six wide and ten deep. In battle formation the hastati extended across the line of battle. The principes and triari stood to the rear but not directly behind the hastati, instead they were offset diagonally creating a checkerboard effect. The manipular formation was small enough to allow the army some articulation (the word maniple comes from the Latin for "hand," while phalanx derives from the Greek word for "finger") and some flexibility of movement. Tactically, the units were small enough to maneuver on the battlefield with minimal training and were effective at flanking movements which the typical phalanx of the Alexandrian system could not match. Each maniple possessed its own set of standards, originally a handful of hay set on a pole, whose movements served for the transmission of orders. The maniple served the Romans well for over two hundred years, but it suffered from tactical and organizational problems. The same dispersion that allowed a maniple the flexibility to flank opponents, proved to be vulnerable to direct onslaughts. The small size of the maniple proved to be too "light" and a clever enemy could isolate and overwhelm a single maniple. The other problem was that none of the legion's subdivision lent themselves to detachment for special duties. Marius reorganized the legion by abolishing the maniple as a tactical unit, thus eliminating the last vestiges of the old phalangeal organization. In its place he introduced a completely rational plan of articulation. He regrouped the legion's centuries into ten cohorts of 500-600 men each. This served to reconcentrate the legion's strength into larger units. Each cohort contained six centurions of different grades who provided the necessary continuity in the chain of command. With the elimination of the maniples, Marius also eradicated the traditional three lines. With cohorts as the basic operational unit, the legions men could be deployed into as few or as many lines as the circumstances warranted. The reform also reduced vulnerability to cavalry because its excellent articulation allowed parts of the army, legion or cohort, to maneuver to protect a flank, and the good subdivision permitted the commander to assign a unit or units to flank protection. Since formed heavy infantry could stop the charge of formed heavy cavalry, Roman commanders felt little anxiety about their flanks with this setup. Other Reforms At the same time, Marius (and those who followed) clarified the command structure. From the overall commander of the army through the legates, military tribunes, centurions and common soldier, every commander had full authority over the men in the unit he commanded. He, in turn, was answerable to a commander over him. The Roman practice of subdivision and subordination had another advantage -- it gave real scope for the initiative of subordinates on the battlefield. Battlefield communications were so poor once battle was joined that the role of the general was primarily one of determining when to commit the reserve. For that reason Roman commanders harangued their troops before combat. The speech was not only for morale boosting but to give the men a general outline of the overall plan so that they could execute it without a steady stream of orders. More than once a legion had been saved when centurions or tribunes did what they were expected to do without a general in earshot. Furthermore, while normally considered to be a tactical alteration, the cohort system also gave a commander units, with enough strength to defend themselves, that could easily be separated from the rest of the legion to carry out special duties. Marius thus created a fully articulated army capable of maneuvering and responding promptly to the orders of its leaders. On the battlefield, cohorts assumed a formation about five hundred feet wide by fifty feet deep. In another departure from the manipular formation, the cohort formed a continuous front while engaged in hand to hand fighting. In action, the lines of the cohort rotated, allowing a fresh line to appear at regular intervals of about 10 minutes. The engaged line withdrew and fell to rear until its turn came again. No other pponent operated in this fashion, hence an attacking force was continuously faced with relatively fresh troops during the entire battle. Eventually the enemy could no longer stand the strain and would succumb to exhaustion. If they broke, the hasty disorganized retreat usually turned into a fatal rout. Marius introduced other innovations meant to boost morale and increase esprit de corps. Each unit had its own flags (vexilla) and insignia (signa), usually signs of the zodiac or divine effigies. On the legion Marius bestowed a number and its own unit history as a permanent formation. Also given to the legion was its eagle, the bird of Jupiter and symbol of Rome. The legionary standard was to become, for future generations, the symbol of Rome's military prowess and her imperium. The standard was composed of a silver eagle with outstretched wings, at its feet was a golden thunderbolt. Below that were the letters SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romani, "the Senate and the Roman people"). The standard was endowed with religious sanctity and anointed with precious oils, decorated with garlands and crowned with laurels. Sacrifices were offered to it and oaths sworn before it. The standard had its own shrine in the center of the camp, not far from the legatus' (legion commander) tent. In battle the eagle was carried in the front line by the aquilifer, chosen because he was the best man in the legion. He wore a wolf or lion skin as a mark of his distinction and was expected to keep the standard safe. No greater disaster could fall on a legion than the loss of its eagle as illustrated by the stress contemporaries laid on winning back the eagles lost by Varus in the Teutoberger Forest. In addition to providing a source of esprit de corps, the standards also served more practical functions as rallying points for the men. Their position also served as a way of indicating the position of the legion on the battlefield to the general and his subordinate commanders. Re-engineered pilum Marius also made modifications to one of the basic weapons of the Roman legionary -- the pilum. Roman armies had been using the pilum for decades prior to Marius. Each soldier carried two. The pilum was essentially an infantry throwing spear, with a very small, wickedly barbed head of iron that continued as an iron shaft for about three feet. This was joined to a shaped wooden stem which fit the hand comfortably. Roman practice was to wait until within 20-25 yards of an opponent then let the pila fly before closing to melee. In the past Roman armies had been bedeviled by the fact that these pila could be retrieved by an opponent and thrown back or otherwise be used against them. Marius modified the pilum by introducing a weakness into the junction between the iron and wooden shaft sections. This was accomplished by replacing the one of the two iron rivets that joined the two pieces together with a wooden rivet. When the pilum lodged in shield, body or ground after being thrown, the wooden peg broke, making the pilum crooked, making it useless. Often the pilum became imbedded in an opponent's shield, making use of the shield difficult because of both the added weight and the awkward manner a shield with a spear embedded in it handles. Frequently enemy soldiers simply discarded the now useless shield -- making them easier prey for Roman sword play. After the battle the pila would be recovered and the broken rivet would be replaced with a new one for use the next time. Training and Work Marius also instituted pay for the soldiers, again over the protests and howls of the patricians and upper crust plebeians. The financial condition of the average soldier was hardly brilliant, but by placing them on the payroll, Marius made them "employees of the State." This act gave Marius and his successors, a larger degree of latitude in what they could do with their armies. Marius took steps to reduce the number of noncombatants that had accompanied the armies of the past. No man was allowed to be accompanied by more than one servant or slave. One mule was provided for four men, but each man was required to carry his own sixty pound combat load, usually slung on a forked carrying stick. The men took to calling themselves "Marius' mules." The idle period between campaigns was replaced with physical labor. Pickax and shovel replaced sword and spear. Legions would be assigned to digging canals, widening or building roads or establishing fortifications. When on the march the legions built a precisely designed fortified camp at the end of each day's march then razed it before moving on. The result was that a Roman general not only directed the world's finest heavy infantry, but also its best combat engineers. And there was always drilling and training to fill any odd moments. Exacting centurions would oversee the men, from the rawest recruit to the seasoned veteran due for discharge, running them through their paces in pilum throwing, swordplay and replying to orders for hours each day. The men drilled in the tactical maneuvers they were expected to perform on the battlefield to the point that warfare became, for the common soldier, a bloody form of drill. If Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, Rome's victories were determined at the practice posts. The regularization of procedure in tactics carried over to providing good arrangements for supply and the payment of troops. Roman logistics were by far the best of the Classical World. The first real test of the Marian system came at Aix-En-Provence when a combined army of Ambrones and Teutones, numbering around 130,000 warriors confronted Marius consular army of six legions. The battle was one-sided and resulted in the extermination of both tribes -- Marius took 17,000 warrior prisoners and another 130,000 dependents. The following year, at Vercellae in the Po valley, Marius defeated the Cimbri, killing 140,000 and enslaving 60,000 warriors, and taking a like number of women and children prisoners. The German threat was removed. Marius was elected consul for the 6th time, and hailed the "Third Founder of Rome." The Marian system became the model for the rest of Rome's history. The reforms Marius brought about were profound. The military was now a truly professional institution, not merely tribal levies raised for particular emergencies. Soldiers enlisted for specified periods, trained and drilled in standardized tactics and faced harsh discipline. Marius created an army that campaigned methodically and persistently, in a thorough and unimpetuous manner. It was this army that would go on to conquer an empire, that would last, in one form or another, for 1500 years. Back to Cry Havoc #7 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com