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I was watching the very first episode of this series and they showed the Roman armies fighting in a formation where they were in a block and the front row rotated to the back on a signal. Does anyone know whether they fought like this?

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if i remember correclty
they fought in stand centuries of 82 men (standard bearer and officer)
the men would fight for a certain amount of time
(the rest would be pushing or pulling the front row to not let them go rambo)
then would rotate to the rear to rest
usually the lines are 5+ men deep so they rested for a good half hour before being commited to fighting again
this is how the roman army fought the greater number "barbarian" guals,germans,spanish,thracians/dacians, greeks, and eastern people
immagine trying to get some rest in a macedonian phalanx
i like to c u walk to the back with the sarriasa and all spears pointing forward or up
or some fanatic gesaetia (sp?) running naked at the roman and fighting for 30 minutes all the while fighitng a diffrent person every 5-10 mins
ya pretty tiring

basicly
the roman armies in defense mainly
rotated men to the front and back to keep unit cohesion and discipline

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AFAIK, that scene wasn't based on any evidence, and it was made up by the writers.
But I'd say it's plausible.
They must have had some kind of system to rotate the men, or the men in the front rank would have to fight until they die.

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Never mind 30 minutes, 5-10 minutes of actual fighting is bloody tiring! Notice how boxing rounds are only 3 minutes? Even in that time you can tire yourself out when fit, and that's without wearing armour (heat buildup) or carring a shield (tiring your left arm) or weapon (tiring your right arm).

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Fighting is exhausting - I don't think that I realised how much more tiring it is compared to any other kind of activity until I started doing martial arts.

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True, but the dynamics differ under both scenarios. While you do not have the aforementioned equipment, boxers try to land huge hits on their opponents, and this takes considerable energy (too).

As for the topic... IDK. I only remember someone saying in a thread on this very subject (some time back) that the Romans didn't use whistles, but rather horns. Or something. I do not know whether the Romans did indeed use such a tactic, but it does sound practical - and thus very Roman, methinks.

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Even just "standing around" close to a battle line, adrenaline flowing and hyper-alert to possibly needing to defend yourself is tiring. Mentally and physically.

Boxers don't always try to land huge hits, footwork and maneuvering is tiring too. I've fought full contact, it's hard work.

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There must have been some rotation scheme, for reasons of fatigue. However, I doubt it worked this way. Basically, the moment the centurion whistled would be the sign for the enemy to charge, because the legionaries would be packed very close together and therefore unable to attack or defend themselves. More likely, the soldiers would make use of lulls in the fighting to rotate.

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I watched a documentry on the Boudica rebellion and in the deciding battle this was exactly what the Romans done and it was one of the the main reasons for their victory.

They probably did use this during this particular battle since its difficult to see how they would have won otherwise.

I doubt the rotation would leave the soldiers vulnerable. The move would be very quick for experienced soldiers. Hear the whistle (or horn), push the enemy with your massive shield and slip back between your line. Wouldn't take more than a second for the guy behind the frontman to be ready to fight the enemy and the guy moving to the back doesnt exactly turn around and run, he has his shield up until the guy behind is level with him. If the men are extremely tight together then the chance of breaking them is even less likely, it would just be a bit more of a squeeze for the guy at the front to get to the back.

I dont know whether they would have used a horn or a whistle or even just shouted, I would imagine though it was the centurions choice. He would know the men he was with and tell them listen for the whistle or the shout or the horn. I dont think it would be 100% standardized for every battle, could be wrong.

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There was indeed a rotating system. However I can't remember horns or how it precisely worked. But I rember that it was used.

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too bad we can't employ this tactic in EB

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The main problem I have with this rotation method is its predictablity. Basically, whenever the centurion whistled (or whatever), the entire battle line of the century would go through a very predictable motion. In close combat, acting predictably is a good way to get killed. I don't buy that the more closely packed line would be more effective, either: if it was, then why didn't the Romans employ it all the time? No, more likely the rotation was fluid, with legionaries chosing their own moment to retreat into the formation, and their place being taken by the man behind them, not one large movement across the front.

Since fatigue is shared out across the entire unit, I think it's implicit in the engine. I don't believe the Romans were unique in having a rotation system either. After all, fighting is a very exhausting business, and it doesn't require a genius to realize that having a large army in one place is no use if only the front-few lines fight.

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There was indeed a rotating system, the soldier would bash his enemy with his shield creating space and room, then move back through the ranks sideways.

However I do not know how they signaled the rotation, who is to say they even signaled it, and who is to say it was synchronimously. Perhaps soldiers switched on their own accord somehow? Although, knowing Romans, it would be a disciplined way.

Soldiers would only fight for a few minutes, so someone standing all the way back could wait over 40mins (depending on ranks o/c) before it was his turn to fight.

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Fact is, nobody knows for certain how a battle-line acted. HBO presented one idea in their show.

No we don't. There's much more technicality than just throwing the biggest blows you can.

I think you have a tendency to present hypothesis or hearsay as fact. You can't say you know how it works because nobody does.

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I know this is a little off topic about the Rome TV series, but is this Series any good, I was going to buy it as both seasons are on sale in my area. I've never been able to watch it.

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It's a great series...my favourite character was Octavian's mother. She is simply the most entertaining, ambitious, cruel anti-heroine I have encountered and she has some great lines.

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not all of the men in the unit would pull back, triarii would kneel down to avoid them commiting to the fight too soon

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According to Adrian Goldsworthy, a Roman scholar who has written many books on the Roman military, fights are seldom as we would think they are. Clearly they weren't the individual one on one melees seen in Hollywood, but I think everyone here knows that According to Goldsworthy, fights were not constant affairs. 2 armies of 20,000 soldiers or more might take 5 hours for the battle to reach a conclusion, and certainly you didn't have soldiers fighting for 5 hours straight! Although I don't think it is entirely accurate to compare it to boxing. It certainly wasn't no walk in the park!

There were frequent lulls in the battleline, when two armies were suitably exhausted that they backed away from each other, sometimes no more than 5 meters. Here they would catch their breath, throw missiles, taunt the enemy, or try to goose themselves up for another charge. These lulls were actually quite frequent, as Goldsworthy notes that few actual casualties occured during the Melee, and that most of the slaughtering done was when one of the armies routed. This is why generals were picky about their battles almost to the point of excessiveness. What the position of the sun was, if there was an incline on the battlefield, if his soldiers had eaten a good breakfast, etc. Some times two armies would form up in their battle formations, stand there for a few hours and be called back to the camp without fighting! The little things added up and the importance of morale was key; what separated a great general from a bad one was knowing how and when to pick your battles. Incidently, that's why the Romans lost the battle of Adrianople; Emperor Valens had marched his Romans nearly 10 miles without water and led the charge right in the heat of the day against Gothic warriors who had been resting in their camp all morning.

Any way, in light of this observation, I think it is wholly plausible that during the lulls in the battle, Centurions would call for their soldiers to rotate. However, I also believe that only the most disciplined armies were probably capable of such a feat in the heat of the melee (they wouldn't have needed Optios in the back goading on stragglers with a vine cane if they didn't!), especially in the din battle where the screaming, clattering of metal, the enemy in front of them, and the ungodly stench of the slaughter would have been overwhelming the soldier. However, if there was one Roman Army in its history who would have been disciplined enough to pull off such a manuever, it would have been Caesar's legions, who had spent 8 long years fighting Gauls and by then were hardened veterans.

Anyway, I loved HBO's Rome. You'll never see a more historically accurate portrayal of Rome, character liberties notwithstanding. Gods, they were merciless on Mark Anthony!

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I also saw the documentary about boudica... It was broadcasted by The history channel, there they miention the rotation and also some kind of wedge formation like

----A----A---- A-------
.---AA--AAA--AA-----
---AAAAAAAAAAA---

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Who are you to say that what I say is hearsay. And btw, what tendency? Do I know you? What I say comes from the same documentary someone else saw on the history channel about Boudica.

Also, Goldsworthy states in his book "Roman Warfare" that Romans constantly used their shield to bash to create room and/or destabalize their opponent, sometimes killing them outright. Also the Roman army in the time of Boudica was very different from the armies seen in the first Punic war so I'm sure the rotating system wasn't used in the earlier wars.

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I was replying to Moros. Looking back on it, it's not stated in a way conducive to a level-headed argument anyways. My apologies for that.

The point is, as far as I know, that tactics at that level aren't addressed directly by any primary sources. Thoughtful guesses can be made, but it can't be said with certainty "that's how it was done."

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Ooops can't believe how I misread that!
*Cowers in shame*

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One would think the fact that the Romans charged to attack a fortified camp on top of a hill, and the timely arrival of the Gothic heavy calvary, would have had more to do with the loss than whether the Romans marched 10 miles to the battle and attacked during the heat of the day or not.....

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I doubt that this was really the way the fighting was done. First of all it would have been impossible to be done with a classical Greek phalanx, and most of the armies around the Mediterranian were based on the classical phalanx in one or the other way. Battles between these armies were more a "pushing match", according to what we know about it. It can also be excluded to be a kind of special Western European style of fighting (Celtic-Roman), because the Celts in particular were known to break if the first assault was not successfull.

Armies in hand-to-hand combat seprating and reforming would also require some kind of "gentlemen agreement" that the party who had the upper hand would not pursue the enemy while he falls back and keeps up the fighting. Not to mention a very high degree of discipline, because soldiers that once started retreating can only be made to advandce again with severe difficulty - if at all.

Throwing missles during the phase of "pause" can also be excluded because either the close combat soldiers who were also equipped with missles would have spent them before the first contact, like the Romans, or they would have been either equipped with javelins or close combat weapons like Makedon phalangites.


This obersvation perfectly fits to what is known about hand-to-hand combat in other periods: it usually did not happen! In most occasions one party would give way before the clash.

Assuming that this psychological momentum worked the same in Ancient times as did in the 18th or 19th Century because the men were the same humans, we can define the reactions of several armies to it:

- Greek: The rear ranks of the phalanx were not aware what was going on on the frontline and kept pushing foreward. That prevented the front ranks from giving way; and when both sides used this tactic it resulted in the named "pushing match" that lasted until the rear ranks of one side started wavering and stopped pushing. There was a lot of fighting along the front line, but because only a fraction of each side was involved into it (and because these soldiers there were the best armoured) casualties were low during this phase.

It is clear that (a) this way of fighting was superior to lesser packed formations because the phalanx won't give way before contact and so forces the non-phalanx opponent to do so. And (b) that the classical phalanx was doomed when facing an enemy with longer spears in a similar formation, because the rear ranks would push the front ranks into the pikes.

- Roman: The lesser experinced and lesser equipped Hastati giving way to an better equipped and otherwise stronger opponent was allready calculated in. They would be able to retreat through the lines of the Principes (better equipped, more experinced) and so the Roman army would be able to present a (psychological) fresh frontline to the opponent. If that also gave way the Triarii, as the unit with the highest moral in EB terms, would point their spears to the enemy.

- Celtic: When the Celts were the army who would most likely break when their first assault was not successfull, they seemed to have based the entire battle on that effect: "We charge, and either the enemy is frightened enough to turn and run, or he doesn't than staying and fighting won't help either"


Under this aspect fighting in the Ancient times wasn't so much different than in later times (until the invention of advanced fire weapons in the later 19th Century):

The armies were alinged and fought with ranged weapons for a longer time. Note that unlike the Romans, the major part of the infantry in successor armies was not equipped with ranged weapons. That's the reason why these armies were so fond of archers and slingers. After some time one line, both lines or parts of the lines would start moving foreward. Pikemen in dense formation would be able to keep the enemy at bay - cavalry in particular - but would be butchered to the last man if outmanouvered.

Of hand-to-hand fighting there would have been little, but soon one side would give way. That might be controlled and disciplined on a pre-arranged second line, or as a wild rout. As soon as one side started running it would have been slaughtered.

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I have to disagree with one part. Most phalanxes were about 10 men deep, it's not impossible for the rear to see what's going on at the front.

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More 8 than 10. But even three close packed lines wearing decorated helmets would make it impossible for someone standing behind them to see what's going on.

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I didn't say there wasn't technicality involved, I merely argued, that boxing's dynamics differ from shieldwall-shieldwall (or well, the Western European-style of combat back in the EB day).

Too true.

Not to mention if there were taller guys in front of you - if they can limit visibility in a (movie/"real") theater where the benches are in inclining rows, they sure as hell will do that on flag ground.

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I don't mean they could see clearly but at least they could figure out if they were losing or not.

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You missed the point: They were responsible for winning or losing. As long as they were pushing everything was fine - if they did not push the formation into pikes. As soon as they stopped (for what reason ever) they lost.

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