Earliest "Legion" in Rome

[ASCLEPIADES]

Not quite. The cohort was increasingly appearing here and there before the Marian Reforms. The maniple wasn't meeting the needs of the roman legions and it was found (by experiment? Accident?) that in battle the cohort was a more useful size, the main reason why Marius adopted that formation as standard.

Salve, C.

Here comes Oskar Seyffert, Dictionary of Classical Antiquities:

 

"Cohors.

A division of the Roman army.

In the republican age the word was specially applied to the divisions con

Edited July 6, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[caldrail]

Marius was of course unable to recruit senior romans to his hastily raised legion for service in africa, thus the usual division between hastatii, pricipes, and triarii wasn't possible. He therefore equipped and trained them as heavy infantry in a similar fashion to that he made standard afterward, finding that it was easier and and more efficient both from training and combat point of view to standardise the ranks. The cohort structure was after all a joint element of centuries - it had no 'spirit' as the legion or century had, no standard. There weren't any cohortal commanders either (if Adrian Goldsworthy is wrong, and the evidence is apparently against him) since a unit of this size is too large for one man to control effectively on the field, although that might be different for administration purposes. The maniple was retained for administration as an example of roman organisation but had no further part to play in roman warfare after the marian reforms. Its an important point that doesn't get enough stress - that roman organisation in administration was as detailed as todays, but that their organisation on the battlefield was simplified for practical purposes. The romans wanted direct control, on the principle of 'too many chefs', and also because a battle plan could go disastrously wrong if during the fighting a junior commander started making his own. If nothing else, the romans liked to be cautious in warfare - they didn't like disasters. Its the co-operative nature of fighting on the battlefield that requires some consideration since without a pyramid command structure it all looks a bit daft to our eyes, yet the romans understood that soldiers needed strong leaders at the front - the entire rationale behind the centurion - and that this centurion could only command a unit of around a hundred men effectively. Expedience is always something you see in roman history, warfare was little different, and discovering that a co-operative cohort - an element of troops (composed of centuries) - was a convenient size for confronting enemies, Marius made the cohort standard instead of the maniple.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve C.

 

Actually, the oldest mention of cohors that I was able to find was in the battle of Ilipa (Hispania, DXLVIII AUC / 206 BC), presumably the most brilliant victory of Publius Cornelius Scipio (future Africanus Maior) against Hasdrubal and Masinissa during II Punic War.

Here comes Polybius, Historiae, Liber XI, cp. XXII-XXIII:

 

"... Scipio receiving the skirmishers through the intervals between his cohorts distributed them on his wings behind his infantry, placing the velites in front with the horse behind them. At first he made a direct frontal advance, but when at a distance of four stades from the enemy he ordered the Spaniards to continue advancing in the same order but the infantry and cavalry on the right wing to wheel to the right and those of the left wing to wheel to the left. Then taking, himself from the right wing and Lucius Marcius and Marcus Junius from the left, the leading three troops of horse and placing in front of them the usual number of velites and three maniples (this body of infantry the Romans call a cohort), he advanced straight on the enemy at a rapid pace, wheeling in the one case to the left and in the other to the right, the rear ranks always following the direction of the front ones".

 

Polybius wrote this some time after the end of III Punic War (DCVIII AUC / 146 BC).

 

I think there might have been a significant period (decades?) for the transition from the maniples to the cohors.

 

Some components of the so-called "Marian" Reforms may have been not so Marian after all.

Edited July 7, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[Primus Pilus]

Indeed, the Marian reform did not introduce the cohort, but he seems to have been the first to adopt it as a uniform matter of course. However, the pre-Marian cohort still would've been roughly two Polybian maniples put together. They still would've been made up of Hastati, Principes and Triarii and used in the same manner tactically, as opposed to the methodology of the Marian uniform heavy infantry. For all practical purposes then Marius did, if not invent, truly implement the cohort system as we now associate it.