from where and how did the Roman Empire recruit its “Legion” armies?
and does “Legion” mean “Army”? or how different is the meaning?
how the Romans kept their armies trained and how often they were allowed to go home? and what happened if didnt report back again? were any slaves? how they were kept differently? and were these usually the infrantry men?
where and when did the word “Army” come from? and when , where after the fall of the Roman Empire did “armies” develop again?
thanks for your answers!
September 4th, 2010 at 5:27 am
well, the roman empire was a very large empire,but it was a law that no person who isn’t blood roman could be part of an army…
roman people would sometimes put their new born babies on a mountain and if it survived it would be part of the army, but then they changed this and EVERY roman boy would have to go to a ‘military’ school from the age of 7 to train for the army. then they would select the best people and put the rest to work making buildings and make them slaves, etc.
legions is known as the ancient roman army, and the people in legion’s were known as legionaries.
well the Ostrogoths, Goths, Vandals, and Huns defeated the roman empire creating Ostrogothic empire, so they developed an army…
September 4th, 2010 at 6:22 am
1- it means “unit”. A bit like division, which now formally means a ‘division’ of a certain size.
2- By training it, every day. 3 rout marches of minimum 20 miles every month. In full gear.
3- Rarely, if ever. A legion stationed in Germania Superior recruited in Syria would have to march home and back. Hence, they marched in. Did their term of duty and (sometimes) marched home again, after 16 years.
4- First desertion: flogging. Second desertion: more flogging + extra penalties. Third desertion: death penalty. Corbulo didn’t bother with the floggings, he immediately had them flogged and beheaded.
5- No. There were no slaves in the legions. The legions did own slaves though, but more like batman.
6- Just like any other Roman slave.
7- No. No slaves served in the legions. If they did, they were discharged immediately.
8- No idea
9- On the level of the Roman armies? End 19th century. It took that long to get a decent army again.
September 4th, 2010 at 6:27 am
it really depends on the time
in the early Republic the Legion was drafted for the war. Each legionnary had to be a man of property- since they had to buy their own weapons and armour
After the Reform of Marius the legion was an all-volunteer force, staffed mostly by the poorest citizens. the weapons and armour were provided by the state and the Legionnary served a full 10 years. If there was no war then they were building roads
in both periods the Roman Legions are assisted by Allied legions- armed and armoured to Roman standard but composed of non-Romans
In late Empire the legions are made from foreign mercenaries, bought for a period of time. The weapons and armour come with the mercenaries. bad troops, no morale. No wonder the Empire collapsed
September 4th, 2010 at 6:39 am
The legion, at full strength, was supposed to be a unit of 6000 soldiers. In the early days, they were a citizen levy, but later became a standing professional volunteer army. You had to be a Roman citizen to serve in the legions, which formed the main battle force. Only a minority of the Empire’s subjects had citizenship. Non-citizens could serve in the Auxilia, which were lighter, less trained and equipped troops who did guard duty, garrisons, scouting and skirmishing, all that sort of thing. You didn’t have to be a resident of the empire to sign up for the auxilia, outsiders came and joined all the time. Completing a full term of service (I’ve seen numbers from ten to twenty years) got you your citizenship at discharge. This was an important mechanism in making the empire’s provinces — territories the Roman had conquered – more Roman in culture and loyalty.
The legions were heavy infantry. Roman cavalry were mostly auxiliaries. Contrary to a lot of Hollywood, no horse will ever run down an armored man standing his ground, let alone a wall of them with shields. Cavalry were for skirmishing, scouting, and chasing down a fleeing enemy – auxilia work. The real fighting in a pitched battle was a job for disciplined foot soldiers in the ancient world.
Slaves did not serve as soldiers but soldiers who could afford them would often have slaves as camp servants to do their cooking, take care of their gear, etc.
The Antonine Constitution of 212 changed all this by granting citizenship to all free Roman subjects. The legion/auxilia distinction became less important. Eventually in the late 3rd and 4th century it was scrapped in favor of a new division between Comitatenses, mobile field armies theoretically under the emperor’s direct generalship, and Limitanei, frontier garrison troops of much lower quality.
The later empire did not turn to barbarian “mercenaries” (unless you mean the Byzantines). It did what the Romans had always done, recruit the best soldiers wherever it found them. The main military presence was (naturally) near the frontiers so they recruited from the frontier population, which meant an ever increasing presence of so-called “barbarians.” What did happen in the fourth century was that the Romans developed a system of “federate” troops. They had always made alliances with “client” peoples along their frontiers, who would of course contribute troops as allies to the Roman army. For a variety of reasons, some of these client peoples – most famously the Goths, but also the Burgundians and Franks and other groups – ended up immigrating into the empire itself and continuing to serve under their treaty as “federates.”
The Roman Empire didn’t fall because of being unable to repel barbarian invasion, it disintegrated in civil wars and intrigues and it so happened that barbarian leaders in the Roman army were the ones left to pick up the pieces in their various regions. I could say more on this topic, but it would take us further off the OP and I’m getting messages that my answer is already too long.
Anyway, “army” just means “armed people.” It’s a modern English word, not an ancient one (ancient languages, of course, have their equivalents, like the Latin exercitus or the German Heer). There has hardly been a government in the world ever in history that kept itself in existence without an army of some kind.
There’s a hoary old saw that the Roman army declined and the world never saw its like again until the modern world. That both exaggerates the capabilities of the legions and really doesn’t take seriously the capabilities of medieval armies. The legions broke discipline and lost outright on any number of occasions, though of course they won more than they lost in the end, and a lot of scholars have been reassessing in a positive way post-Roman armies. The “decline” myth also forgets that the logistics of recruiting, training and supplying soldiers are just as important as the battlefield, and that armies exist to serve the needs of the governments who employ them. The legions disappeared – or rather, evolved into new forms – because the conditions and missions changed.
September 4th, 2010 at 7:20 am
A legion was a self-contained battlegroup it contained artillery, engineering, quartermaster and (limited) surgical units as well as heavy infantry, often with support troops (treated as separate from the legion), called auxiliaries, recruited from client states, these frequently performed as light troops or cavalry. As has been mentioned the structure and personnel of the legions did develop and change over the centuries.
Army is from the Latin armata (bearing arms).
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