The Roman Cavalry: From the First to the Third Century AD

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Vegetius is the only ‘manual’ of the Roman military to have survived ‘intact’. However, we should note that, firstly, Vegetius himself had no military experience whatsoever, and secondly, that his work is a carelessly constructed compilation of material from a vast range of sources and periods, all jumbled together. As such, it is very hard to ‘unscramble’ it enough to make sense of it and to decide which parts are relevant to which era. The period following the end of the Latin War (340–338 BC) and of the Samnite Wars (343–290) saw the transformation of the Roman Republic from a powerful but beleaguered city-state into the hegemonic power of the Italian peninsula. This was accompanied by profound changes in its constitution and army. Internally, the critical development was the emergence of the Senate as the all-powerful organ of state. [17] Funditores(slingers) – oddly, no record of any units is known from the Principate, though slingers are depicted on Trajan’s Column; The mainstay of the Roman military; Roman Legionaries were well-armed and exceptionally trained soldiers. They were given great incentive to enter and remain in military service with promises of wealth and lands. The legionaries trained as a unit, able to form shield walls and become almost impervious to enemy missile fire. The pilum was a highly effective weapon for disrupting enemy charges and is just as deadly in SPQR.

Roman cavalrymen wore a Corinthian helmet, bronze chestplate, and bronze greaves. Later mail was adopted into the army. Their arms included a lance ( lanceae), a long sword ( spatha), and short throwing spears ( akontes). Britannia was perhaps the most ‘militarised’ of any province – at any given time it had a garrison of about 10% of the entire Roman army. The ‘Brittunculi’ must have been really horrid! It is widely accepted that the Roman monarchy was overthrown by a patrician coup, probably provoked by the Tarquin dynasty's populist policies in favour of the plebeian class. [Note 2] Alfoldi suggests that the coup was carried out by the celeres themselves. [10] According to the Fraccaro interpretation, when the Roman monarchy was replaced with two annually elected praetores (later called "consuls"), the royal army was divided equally between them for campaigning purposes, which, if true, explains why Polybius later said that a legion's cavalry contingent was 300 strong. [11] And I know it looks a bit odd but that’s because in Roman times people always used to go to the loo at the same time, together so it wasn’t very private.The higher the rank of the opponent killed in combat, the more prestigious the spolia, and none more so than spolia duci hostium detracta, spoils taken from an enemy leader himself. [Note 3] Many equites attempted to gain such an honour, but very few succeeded for the reason that enemy leaders were always surrounded by large numbers of elite bodyguards. [35] Cataphractarii regiments apparently remained few in number in the army of the Principate (to AD 284). They became more numerous in the Late Roman army, especially in the East. However, a number of the "eastern" units have Gaulish names (including the Biturigenses and Ambianenses), indicating their western origins. [11] Nineteen units are recorded in the Notitia Dignitatum, of which one was an elite schola regiment of imperial horse guards. All but two of the rest belonged to the comitatus (field armies), with a minority rated as elite palatini troops. There was just one regiment of cataphract horse archers. a b Sabin, Lecturer Department of War Studies Philip; Sabin, Philip; Whitby, Michael Jeffrey; Wees, Hans van; Whitby, Michael (2007-12-06). The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78274-6. See (iii) above. Roughly twenty major battle scenes are shown on Trajan’s column. Despite the column’s seeming bias against the auxilia, they take part in nineteen of these, and in twelve they are unaccompanied by legionaries. That big building that you can see at the end there, that was basically the posh bit, that was where the centurions slept so they were the bosses keeping their eyes on all the soldiers down here.

a b Roth, Jonathan P. (2009). Roman warfare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521537261. OCLC 231745643. Talbert, Richard (1996): "The Senate and Senatorial and Equestrian Posts". In Cambridge Ancient History 2nd ed., Vol X. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Already wealthy to start with, equites equo publico accumulated even greater riches through holding their reserved senior posts in the administration, which carried enormous salaries (although they were generally smaller than senatorial salaries). [41] For example, the salaries of equestrian procuratores (fiscal and gubernatorial) ranged from 15,000 to a maximum of 75,000 denarii (for the governor of Egypt) per annum, whilst an equestrian praefectus of an auxiliary cohort was paid about 50 times as much as a common foot soldier (about 10,000 denarii). A praefectus could thus earn in one year the same as two of his auxiliary rankers combined earned during their entire 25-year service terms. [58] [59] Relations with the emperor [ edit ] among these were scattered cavalry with cuirasses ( cataphracti equites), whom they call clibanarii, masked, protected by coverings of iron breast-plates, and girdled with belts of iron, so that you would fancy them statues polished by the hand of Praxiteles, rather than men. And the light circular plates of iron which surrounded their bodies, and covered all their limbs, were so well fitted to all their motions, that in whatever direction they had occasion to move, the joints of their iron clothing adapted themselves equally to any position.” Ammianus (16.10.8)