Were the legionaries the elite infantry in the ancient world?

[king hannibal]

HI

 

I'm woundering if the legionaires of the marians reform and the imperial legionaires were really the elite infantry of the ancient world in battle and at close hand to hand fighting as I play EB historical mod for Rome Total War think you may have heard of it but they clam that they aren't the hardest units in hand to hand fighting but the general view is that they are the elite men of the ancient world and the way of fighting was the most effective way

 

so is it true that they were the best fighters of the ancient world as we are lead to believe or are they surpasted by alot of different units of the ancirent world

 

I am also lead to believe that the roman armys mainly won by picking the battlefeild and if first at the battlefield would setup spikes and other kind of traps in the gound for the enemy to advances on when charging the roman line is this true?

 

thanks

[caldrail]

Elite status was more to do with cultural bias in roman armies. There were legions with a higher status than others, because of their fighting record etc, but elite status as such no, because the whole point of the marian reforms was to create a 'standard' legion.

 

As to what the enemy thought, they may have admired or feared roman legions but I don't recall anyone thinking of the roman legionary as an elite soldier. The roman soldier of that period generally considered himself a better soldier than his adversaries and was encouraged to believe so.

 

Were romans the best fighters? No. Of course they weren't. Sometimes they faced soldiers who were better or better led. This image of an unbeatable roman army is something that lurks in our conciousness and comes from people who could not defeat them passing these stories down. The roman legions however were variable in quality and a legion of hardened veterans led by a capable commander was indeed a formidable foe.

 

All ancient armies might gain an advantage by picking the battlefield, and it required a capable leader to choose the best site and encourage his enemy to arrive there. The Varian Disaster of AD9 is an example of how a roman army was lured into a massive ambush stretching for miles and utterly defeated.

 

Incidentially, you shouldn't call the roman soldiery legionaires. Thats a french word. The correct name is legionaries.

[king hannibal]

thanks I think you have put a lot in to veiw for me there

 

I know this is a different ear of the roman army but can I just ask how hannibal at the battle of cannue lost so many men to the romans 25,000 or 40% if I remember correctly I know they would have lost alot on the anisiel charge and there after until the romans lost there mamention but for such a high casualties to be inflicted seem to me that there army were a really force to be wrecked with and aspecial for hannibal or experince army

 

am also lead to believe that the roman armys mainly won by picking the battlefeild and if first at the battlefield would setup spikes and other kind of traps in the gound for the enemy to advances on when charging the roman line is this true?

 

sorry I could have word this better what I ment to ask was did the roman use spike and other traps in front of there battle line if they chose the battlefeild and got there before the enermy also would other country do this?

 

as I got told by a renactment group that the roman would use there range to kill most of there enemies off before they came head to head firstly by there scoprians and though such weapons then they would get hit by there archer and slinger and the by the pliums and traps

 

thanks

[caldrail]

can I just ask how hannibal at the battle of cannue lost so many men to the romans 25,000 or 40% if I remember correctly I know they would have lost alot on the anisiel charge and there after until the romans lost there mamention but for such a high casualties to be inflicted seem to me that there army were a really force to be wrecked with and aspecial for hannibal or experince army

Once the intial roman advance had fragmented and been surrounded, the battle was nothing more than a hack and slash slaughter.

 

 

what I ment to ask was did the roman use spike and other traps in front of there battle line if they chose the battlefeild and got there before the enermy also would other country do this?

This sort of thing did happen in ancient times, and at the siege of alesia for instance Caesars defensive works included some spiked pits and abatis (defoliated trees used as obstructions). It does require a fair amount of work though and you would need to be in command of the battlefield site for enough time to prepare the suprise and conceal it from enemy reconnaisance. I would say such traps on the field were very rare.

 

as I got told by a renactment group that the roman would use there range to kill most of there enemies off before they came head to head firstly by there scoprians and though such weapons then they would get hit by there archer and slinger and the by the pliums and traps

The romans might use artillery if it was available and could be placed in a useful position on the battlefield, but you have to wonder how effective it was. In siegecraft it was useful - not for killing enemies as such, but for keeping their heads down. All ancient armies would use missile troops to attack an enemy at a distance - that was why the romans used such troops in their auxillaries. They didn't have the requisite skills so employed foreigners who did. However, to say such weapons would kill off most of the enemy isn't entirely correct. The enemy might have protection - armour, shields, or even formations like the roman testudo. Caesar complained that gauls evaded the volleys of pila thrown at them by sidestepping, and even threw them back. Whilst the actual casualty count is one thing, its worth mentioning that the effect on morale can be just as telling.

[Arduumresgestasscriber]

Even Machiavelli spoke of artillery in contempt in Discourses on Livy(early 16th century), so artillery couldn't have been big in field battles in ancient rome.

[caldrail]

Ok, but wasn't he dicussing gunpowder weapons? In which case, I agree with him. Such weapons were inaccurate, slow to operate, and unreliable in his day, not to mention potentially fatal to their crews.

[ASCLEPIADES]

HI

 

I'm woundering if the legionaires of the marians reform and the imperial legionaires were really the elite infantry of the ancient world in battle and at close hand to hand fighting as I play EB historical mod for Rome Total War think you may have heard of it but they clam that they aren't the hardest units in hand to hand fighting but the general view is that they are the elite men of the ancient world and the way of fighting was the most effective way

 

so is it true that they were the best fighters of the ancient world as we are lead to believe or are they surpasted by alot of different units of the ancirent world

 

I am also lead to believe that the roman armys mainly won by picking the battlefeild and if first at the battlefield would setup spikes and other kind of traps in the gound for the enemy to advances on when charging the roman line is this true?

 

thanks

Salve, Amici.

 

As Caldrail has extensively explained, is controversial what "elite" means when talking about ancient armies; but if you simply mean "the best of the best", Romans always considered them to be so, even after Cannae, as they almost completely attributed their defeat to Hannibal's genius and Varro's incompetence.

 

As most chauvinist historians, Romans tend to represent their battles systematically as victories over overwhelmingly numerically superior adversaries (with rare politically oriented exceptions, like the defeat of the triumviri ML Crassus at Carrhae against the Parthian Surena); but ancient military figures were extremely, extremely unreliable, as Titus Livius himself constantly complained, ie at Ab Urbe Condita, Liber XXI, cp. XXXVIII:

 

Quantae copiae transgresso in Italiam Hannibali fuerint nequaquam inter auctores constat.

"The authorities are hopelessly at variance as to the number of the troops with which Hannibal entered Italy".

 

Common sense and probabilistic laws suggest us most battles between similarly armed armies were won by the biggest one, the same as today.

BTW, probably for ancestral pride and whatever reason you like, Roman historians were quite unfair to both their cavalry and their navy (even after Actium).

[Kosmo]

BTW, probably for ancestral pride and whatever reason you like, Roman historians were quite unfair to both their cavalry and their navy (even after Actium).

 

This is nothing compared to some Athenians, like Plato or Euripides, that preferred hoplites over Navy despite the obvious importance of the navy for Athens.

 

I believe that roman legionaries were not an elite (like Napoleon's Imperial Guard, Waffen SS, paratroopers, airborne infantry or marines) but a mass of well drilled fighters. The best infantry of antiquity were, I think, the silver shields of Alexander, the soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx heavy infantry that conquered the Persians, the Scythians and the Indians.

[Legio X]

The legionares was not an elite, but after Augustus the Praetorians was an elite within the legionares, they main task was as the emperors bodyguards, but sometime they could join the legionares in battle as elites