Quote Originally Posted by Red Harvest
Kraxis,

I can't say that I disagree about Beneventum. It really doesn't fit the mould too well anyway, as it started as a night attack. As such it doesn't really lend itself to easy quantification or classification in the context of other battles. The Romans weren't able to follow it up, which suggests that they were badly bloodied rather than stunningly victorious. The Pyrrhic victories were similar in that regard, he couldn't follow up.
Yes, it could even have been a Roman loss, though I'm pretty certain it wasn't. But still the quote of Pyrrhus certainly fits such a case.

What I think happened at Beneventum was that the Romans defeated the Tarentines and the other itallo-greeks while Pyrrhus central core and cavalry (the bane of the Romans) dealt out a devastating beating. When Pyrrhus saw the allied forces on the run he understood that a victory might be at hand but at what cost? 'Screw them!' would be a fitting quote at that junction.

AntiochusIII, the Roman army kept the three lines. Even though the troops were now the same they were still called Hastati, Principes and Triarii for a long time yet. Initially it seems the lines were the H, P and T like before, but in time it changed into a more more fitting system of using the cohorts themselves. That meant the first line had 4 cohorts (including the enlarged 1. cohort) and the second and third line consisted of three cohorts. That made the system tactically more flexible as it is easier to command a single (or any number you want) cohort rather than a line of infantry across all the cohorts.