Roman Auxillia question

[Centurion Crastinus]

During the 1st century A.D./B.C., what was the deciding factor on who was recruited into the legions and who was recruited into auxillia units. By this time period, most of the legions were recruited in the provinces and I know that citizenship was a defining factor on whether the draftee was going to be in the legions or the auxillia. But, many auxillia units were recruited in the provinces like the Batavians out of present day Holland. I know that alliances with tribes would give Rome mass quantities of levies for the auxillia units during the late republic. I was also under the impression that Hadrian extended citizenship to all people residing in the provences, so by that time, where was Rome getting its Auxillary units from?

[cmacq]

Hadrian extended citizenship to all people residing in the provences?

Actually, its called the Constitutio Antoniniana, and it was issued in AD 212, by Lucius Septimius Bassianus (aka Caracalla; meaning Gallic greatcoat).

[Centurion Crastinus]

Honestly, Severus was my second guess.

[cmacq]

Actually, Severus was my first guess. I had to look it up, as he was the father and Caracalla his badass son. Did you hear about the headless Romans recently found in York?

[Starforge]

Actually, Severus was my first guess. I had to look it up, as he was the father and Caracalla his badass son. Did you hear about the headless Romans recently found in York?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/timewatch/article_romans_01.shtml

and a couple other links with differing views:

http://tonykeen.blogspot.com/2006/04/headless-romans.html

http://alexbordessa.blogspot.com/2006/04/dr-who-and-skellies.html

There were quite a few other links in the search if people want to dig deeper.

[cmacq]

During the 1st century A.D./B.C., what was the deciding factor on who was recruited into the legions and who was recruited into auxillia units. By this time period, most of the legions were recruited in the provinces and I know that citizenship was a defining factor on whether the draftee...
hope this helps.

Roman Legionary = the regular army; mandatory service for all adult males, age, citizen, class (landownership early, rank, placement, office). However, not all males were required to serve in the army.

01 Contubernium - 8 Men = an army section or two combat teams
10 Contubernia 1 Century - 80 Men = an over strength army platoon
02 Centuries 1 Maniple - 160 Men = an army company
03 Maniples 1 Cohort - 480 Men = an army battalion
10 Cohorts + 120 Horsemen + organic support = 1 Legion - 5240+/- Men and x number of Officers = an army brigade or an under strength army division (as cohorts grouped right, left, and center; possibly organized as regiments)

axillia = mercenary/irregular/native/foreign forces; specialized troops organized along native lines. noncitizen, cavalry, archers, light infantry, and heavy assault infantry.

The Constitutio Antoniniana didn't actually give citizenship to all adult males, it just opened it up to a larger group. Each year a very large number of people entered into Roman territory. I've seen an estimate of 100,000 new people, were required for labor/slaves alone, every year just to maintain the status quo in the late 1st century BC.


However, you didn't ask about Numeri and Cunei?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Please don't try to equate the Roman and modern army, it just flat out doesn't work. As you just proved.

A Legion was fixed, numbered unit. In that sense it is equivelant to a regiment on infantry, a cohort to a battallian and a century to a company.

HOWEVER, that only tracks to the modern army, during the Napolionic Wars the paper strength for a battallian was 1,000, in 10 companies.

[cmacq]

Please don't try to equate the Roman and modern army

Right, in the post-civil war american southwest a troop/cav. company had only 45 men and horse. No mater what the numbers I call it relevance...

as all modern armies are indeed based on the basic roman system. That is as much a fact as ever there was.

[Centurion Crastinus]

That's real interesting. It's amazing what might be lurking underground in one's own back yard.

[Centurion Crastinus]

Were their actually sub-saharan africans serving in the ranks of the Roman Army. Those blogs said that some people had that opinion. I always assumed that anyone recruited from Africa was more likely to be someone with lighter skin. Kind of like the way someone from North Africa would look today.

[CaesarAugustus]

Maybe some mercenaries/auxilia were recruited from Meroe, or from sub-saharan immigrants to the empire. I'm sure at some point in the history of the empire there were at least a few sub-saharan africans in the legions. Maybe indians, too.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Right, in the post-civil war american southwest a troop/cav. company had only 45 men and horse. No mater what the numbers I call it relevance...

as all modern armies are indeed based on the basic roman system. That is as much a fact as ever there was.

Not really, the Roman army we are talking about had utterly collapsed and modern armies more closely resemble the much later armies of the Late Empire. The gulf of some 1000 years between the end of the Western Empire and the rise of properly organised armies with regiments means there's no direct connection.

In any case the maniple was not a significant unit in the post Marian legion, the century and the cohort were.

My point remains the same though, the terms don't map so don't try to force them to fit because it doesn't work. Just learn how the system worked and don't try to dumb it down.

[russia almighty]

Maybe some mercenaries/auxilia were recruited from Meroe, or from sub-saharan immigrants to the empire. I'm sure at some point in the history of the empire there were at least a few sub-saharan africans in the legions. Maybe indians, too.


Indians ..... thats kinda weird imagining them in the legions . Iranians on the other hand I could easily see them being one of the bigger minorities in the army .

[cmacq]

Were their actually sub-saharan africans serving in the ranks of the Roman Army. Those blogs said that some people had that opinion. I always assumed that anyone recruited from Africa was more likely to be someone with lighter skin. Kind of like the way someone from North Africa would look today.

Your talking about the headless romans? right?

[L.C.Cinna]

axillia = mercenary/irregular/native/foreign forces; specialized troops organized along native lines. noncitizen, cavalry, archers, light infantry, and heavy assault infantry.

just to clear that: the auxilia are not mercenary or irregular troops. they are organized along roman lines and consist of light and heavy troops equipped mainly in "Roman" fashion, plus all specialized forces were grouped into the auxilia (like archers, cavalry,...). while citizenship was required to join a legion, many people with citizenship served in the auxiliaries as well (especially the cavalry).

[cmacq]

just to clear that: the auxilia are not mercenary or irregular troops. they are organized along roman lines and consist of light and heavy troops equipped mainly in "Roman" fashion, plus all specialized forces were grouped into the auxilia (like archers, cavalry,...). while citizenship was required to join a legion, many people with citizenship served in the auxiliaries as well (especially the cavalry).

point of order and a question?

during the 1st century Gallic War, do you consider the yearly levy of Gallic and later German horse designed to support the Roman army, auxilia or mercs?

[cmacq]

don't try to dumb it down.

wise words, that we should try writing without, hubris?

[konny]

If you really want to compare the Roman Legion to organizations of later armies you'll have to search for it in the 19th Century. Before that formations of mixed arms were only created on the fly, while later warfare did change so drasticly that neither the modern units nor their tactical role can be compared with anything before (there aren't even battles in the classical sense).

For the 19th Century neither regiment nor brigade does fit for a Legion because both were made up of just arm (cavalry or infantry) sometimes, but not always, with supporting artillery. Of the few exceptions, it comes to my mind the Prussian brigades of the late Napleonic Wars that had all three arms combined. But these also had a more temporary nature by attaching and detaching units throughout the campaign.

Divisions were sometimes - but not always - made of all arms (example again the Prussian army, this time in 1866). Most of the times divisions were either infantry or cavalry with supporting artillery. So, the level of organization in the 19th Century that was most like a Roman Legion would be the (Infantry-, or Army-)Corps. It was formed of all arms, had more than a temporary meaning and a (from army to army varing) fixed strength.

Of course, the 19th Century corps was around 20,000 to 30,000 men strong while the Roman Legion numbered just 4,000 to 6,000. But the overall size of armies was at least 2x if not 4x larger than the armies in Ancient times. From the composition as well as from its role (several Legions formed an army - several corps formed an army) the 19th Ct. corps is the formation that comes closest to the Legion.

[L.C.Cinna]

point of order and a question?

during the 1st century Gallic War, do you consider the yearly levy of Gallic and later German horse designed to support the Roman army, auxilia or mercs?


That's a good question. It's a matter of defining the word "auxilia". In general it stands for "support troops" in the same way as it is today.

The Roman way of organizing their army was to spilt it into "basic" which is to heavy infatry unit (in this case the legion; during the 3rd century CE when they regrouped the army to make it easier to group units they reduced the legion to around 1200 men.)

and into "supportive" like cavalry, archers, light troops. this is less a way to seperate people by citizenship but an easier way to construct the army because you now had the standard infantry which always built the core of the army and then you could look at your auxiliary pot and take out all the pieces you thought you'd need for a certain operation.

So this is the definition of "auxilia" in the imperial army and because of that it doesn't make too much difference if everyone has citizenship or not. This mattered in the beginning but later on many of the recruits were sons of soldiers, so in the 2nd and 3rd century already many of the auxilia probably had citizenship. So after the Constitutio Antoniniana the actual military defintion auf "basic" and "supportive" stayed the same.


Now to answer your question:

In the Republic we have no regular organized auxilia but only supportive troops provided by allies or hired as mercenaries. So in the original sense they are "auxilia" because they are "supportive troops" but they are not like the imperial auxilia which was a fixed branch of the army, organized and payed by the state.

It becomes a bit complicated during the Imperial era. For example when Vespasian went to supress the Jewish rebellion he had his legions, then he had auxiliary infantry and cavalry (like Archers, heavy infantry[they storm Iotapata and Ierusalem btw], and Alae) these would by then be called Auxilia because they were all official supportive troops. He also had Arabian archers and Cavalry provided by client kings (so they were kind of the same as your Gauls during the late Republic) and they fulfilled the roles of supportive troops but would of course not be part of the official auxilia.


Were their actually sub-saharan africans serving in the ranks of the Roman Army. Those blogs said that some people had that opinion. I always assumed that anyone recruited from Africa was more likely to be someone with lighter skin. Kind of like the way someone from North Africa would look today.

Here a quote from the Historia Augusta Vita Septimii Severi 22.4:

post murum apud Luguvallum visum73 in Britannia cum ad proximam mansionem rediret non solum victor sed etiam in aeternum pace fundata, volvens74 animo quid ominis sibi occurreret, Aethiops quidam e numero militari, clarae inter scurras famae et celebratorum semper iocorum, cum corona e cupressu facta eidem occurrit. 5 quem cum ille iratus removeri ab oculis praecepisset, et coloris eius tactus omine75 et coronae, dixisse ille dicitur ioci causa: "Totum fuisti,76 totum vicisti, iam deus esto victor".

transl:
On another occasion, when he was returning to his nearest quarters from an inspection of the wall at Luguvallum164 in Britain, at a time when he had not only proved victorious but had concluded a perpetual peace, just as he was wondering what omen would present itself, an Ethiopian soldier, who was famous among buffoons and always a notable jester, met him with a garland of cypress-boughs. 5 And when Severus in a rage ordered that the man be removed from his sight, troubled as he was by the man's ominous colour and the ominous nature of the garland, the Ethiopian by way of jest cried, it is said, "You have been all things,165 you have conquered all things, now, O conqueror, be a god."

about the "ominous colour":

this section is taken from the end of the biography were all kind of weird things are drawn together to have a series of "death omens" (most of them invented) it's rather less a negative comment on the persons black skin but the combination of the colour black (a sign of death) and the cypruss garland as a sign of divination (and death lol) which scares the emperor as it's predicts his death and happens right at the moment when he looks for a sign. But the quote shows that there probably were some black Africans among the ranks.

[Centurion Crastinus]

That definately redefines what I imagined the soldiers of the Empire looking like.

[cmacq]

as all modern armies are indeed based on the basic roman system.

Sorry, I was seeking to make a simple point without getting to tightly wond around the tire, as to relevance. I belive that many do not understand the parallels between between the 'Roman Maniple-Cohort-Legion' TO&E and the 'company-battalion-brigade/division,' found within modern armies, as it relates to the basic (not indepedent) maneuver and support element concept. This is the basic concept apon which all modern armies are organized. As the above was a general question about recruitment into the Roman Legion and Auxillia, I though a brief outline of the concept was appropriate?



the 19th Ct. corps is the formation that comes closest to the Legion.
thanks konny,

Right, at some point during the Republic the Romans seem to have discovered a number of hard facts concerning the limitations of human communication and leadership (command and control). I belive the US army was initially based on a combination of the late 18th and early 19th centuries French organizational models, British military tradition, mixed with German drill. Right, by the Civil War large US field forces were looking like Roman Legions. However, it wasn't until after WWI til they were fully modernized and began to resemble more closely the Roman organizational model and rediscovered certain facts about C&C, and the maneuver and support element concept.


"basic" and "supportive"

thanks for clarifying,
I was being general and tried to cover all the bases.

you must be German, right?

auf


However, lets just say I'm totally wrong and just move on.

[L.C.Cinna]

you must be German, right?

auf


However, lets just say I'm totally wrong and just move on.


Yes I am lol


why?

[cmacq]

Yes I am lol
why?


It's elementary, my dear Watson.