Quote Originally Posted by Zaknafien View Post
i believe the actual requirement was 'ten campaigns' not necessarily ten years. in fact pre late republic it was very rare for armies to be away from their homes for even a year at a time. you have to remember, these are citizen soldiers, national guard types. with farms and businesses that must be tended to. yoeman farmers and all that.
That was exactly the problem that killed the res Publica Romana, I have gone on at length in several threads on that. Quite enlightening posts if I may say so. here I just refer to Brunt, "Social Conflicts in The republic of Rome", 1971. It is ten years or 6 campaigns. Note that they need not necessarily be ten years in a row or six campigns after each other. It may be spread out over a man's "fighting age".