The Real roman army

oke to make this clear don't listen to DUKEOFSERBIA because he is selling crap.

this way was the real roman army
The legions of the Principate consisted of ten cohorts each, all of them made up of heavy infantry armed with light and heavy javelins, Spanish sword, dagger, scutum, helmet, cuirass of mail, scale or segmental armour, and hob-nailed boots (the Praetorian and Urban cohorts were equipped in exactly the same way).

Cohorts II to X each consisted of 6 centuries of 80 men each (i.e. a total of 480 men). For part of the first and second centuries AD at least, the First cohort appears to have been of milliary strength, consisting of 10 centuries (= 800 men), though it may later have reverted to six. In addition, the legion had 120 cavalry distributed through the centuries to act as messengers. The total paper strength of a legion was thus 1 x 800 + 9 x 480 + 120 = 5,250 men.

Recruitment of legions was entirely of Roman citizens (like the Praetorians and Urban cohorts), initially mainly from Italy, and this was normally the case when new legions were raised. From a relatively early date, however, numbers were kept up mostly by recruitment local to where the legion was based. Men usually joined between the ages of 18 and 23, and service was for 25 years from early in the first century AD.

As with the Praetorians and Urban cohorts, the vast majority of men remained ordinary milites throughout their careers. Some might be appointed to immunis posts for a period, and some of these might progress to be principales or even senior principales. A tiny number of these might, after 13 to 20 years of service, be appointed centurions who would then go on to serve as long as they liked.
The centurions of cohorts II to X held different positions in the battle line but were probably of essentially the same rank. The best of them might then be appointed to the First cohort which had only five centurions, the most senior of the legion, each of whom commanded a double-century. They would then progress a year at a time through the five centurionates – hastatus posterior, princeps posterior, hastatus (prior), princeps (prior) and primus pilus (or primipilus*), the senior centurion of the legion. A primus pilus held equestrian rank, and most men who reached these dizzy heights would then retire (the youngest known was 49 years old). A few, however, might go on to hold tribunates of the vigiles, an Urban cohort and a Praetorian cohort, before returning to a legion to act as praefectus castrorum or third-in-command, senior even to the five equestrian tribunes of the legion (who had previously commanded an auxiliary cohort but did not normally act as field commanders in the legion). To put the progression to the centurionate into perspective, if roughly 6,000 men in total were recruited into all the legions of the empire each year, no more than 90 would reach the centurionate, of whom perhaps 30 would eventually become primi pili and 10 praefecti castrorum.

The notional second-in-command of the legion was the senatorial tribune, a young man in his late teens waiting to enter the senate, who was with the legion for a year and whose role was mainly to shadow the legionary commander, the legatus legionis The latter was a senator and ex-praetor, appointed at around 32 years of age to serve about three years.

The number of legions in the empire rose from 25 at the end of Augustus’ reign (ca. 130,000 men) to 30 in the reign of Trajan in the early second century (ca. 157,000 men) to 33 under Septimius Severus in the early third century (ca. 173,000 men). Together with the roughly equal number of auxiliaries and the Rome units, this gives a total for the Roman army excluding fleets (see Lecture 8) of ca. 275,000 men in the early first century AD, ca. 335,000 men in the early second century AD, and ca. 378,000 men in the early third century. As before, these are paper figures, and probably slightly inflated

BTW the urban cohort shield later on had the cristian sign


Urban Cohorts: Five cohorts based in and around Rome, from the Flavian period the number in Italy is reduced to four with one in Carthage and another at Lyons

Be quiet emperor. You only say that duke of serbia is selling crap because it is too much for your tiny brain to handle.

it's crap ofcourse not all but about the roman army it is. he's saying urban cohorts didn't exist well read aboveand you'll see it is.

btw i follow the highest possible form of education in holland. and the education here is some of the best in europe

Instead of us having this guessing who is right game - why not just make links to legit Roman educative information sites?

Then there will be less bruised egos and stuff.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_...an_Empire.html

History of the Roman Empire