"axeing the Triarii" Topic

The Polybian Roman army seems the complete miltary machine.
I understand the social and miltary imperatives that necessitated reform but the loss of the Triarii seems grievous.
Veteran spearmen serving as a reserve to the pilum armed front ranks.
Was Marius correct in axeing the Triarii?

Yes. Make all your conorts the same so all can relieve each other in the battle line. Also the disrupt the enemy with heavy missiles and then charge in with swords tactics had proven to be very effective. Why have 20% of your heavy infanty go back to old-fashioned spear fighting?

Also it's highly debateable how 'veteran' the triarii were. Position was also assigned according to social standing and how much kit your family could buy.

We as wargamers equate 'veteran' with highly experienced and efficient, moderately elite fighters. For the Romans a 'veteran' was someone who had soldiered for a few years, but they aren't neccessarily better soldiers.

Probably the question could also be phrased as "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" And that is a fair question. The Roman military machine was effective, for the most part and tradition, especially winning tradition, is a tough thing to part with. History may vindicate Marius from a purely military point of view.

however the reforms he introduced were not just military in nature. As the military function of a group often determine, at least to some degree, their political power, Marius set in motion events that would destroy the Republic. In that sense his reforms could be seen to have failed. Certainly later political thinkers like Machiavelli and probably Harrington would think so.

Now it could be argued that the Roman republic was already on it's way out and that the old system didn't really work anymore. Still destroying a system to protect seems to be a spurious proposition.

alos remmeber that if you want you can use a pilum as as a short spear, there are plenty if historical example of that.

Marious problems were:

1) old census based, bring your arms recruitment system was collapsiong, troops were now semi-professional and state equipped, so it was easier to equip a single set fo troops instead of 2-3 different ones

2) from experience in spain the triari were often moved to front, so new pilum for everyone a bit more heavy both to allow use as spear and heavy javelin

3) the manipular system was designed to cope agaisnt hoplites then reworked for phalangist… now opponents were different

4) Marius wasn't making great changes, it was simply officializing the situation.

Arrigo

Resupply gets simpler if your troops all dress the same.

Legion had to be adapted for multiple roles, including garrison duty in a growing system of linear defenses. In short, the legion had to function effectively when distributed over a larger area, thus the need for a cohort based system. Cohorts could be added or subtracted to meet the force requirements of missions calling for less than full legionary or consular armies. The implication is the Polybian three line system was impractical for smaller actions. The heyday of that system was the Second Punic War, where the Romans had to build larger armies to fight larger battles against a formidable foe. As expansion wound down on many fronts, there was greater need for policing/security actions by smaller forces (this is an Edward Luttwak style grand strategic argument).

I've always been somewhat puzzled by those references to pilum used as thrusting spear (eg Pharsalus), when it was supposedly designed to bend or break on immpact…???

Hi

Bilso, I made a lot of pilum due to various survivors and I could not reliably get the "bend" to work. I was able to get the socket and rivet version to come apart by careful use of materials in the rivets. But my humble opinion is that a pilum not bent or broken Through you shield makes it near useless no matter what.

Anyway, your statement should read "bend or break after penetrating the shield".

Rocky

THe key point about the demise of the triarius is not so much a military strategy as an economic and social necessity.

Thetraditional Republican soldier, a hardy smallholder who would turn out to fight for Rome and then go back to his field like Cincinnatus, was, by the end of the Second Century BC, a rare creature indeed. The rise of the latifundia (slave worked estates) had by simple economics driven out the smallholders to the point where they could no longer provide the sort of army that the new, global power Rome required.

Marius recruited his troops from the capite censi not through any radical proposal to reform the Republic or give power to the people but through simple necessity. The capite censi were the only able bodied men left for him to utilise in raising armies. Without them there were Germans and Gauls and Numidians and all Rome's other foes that needed fighting.

Raducci,

The Triarii were not "axed" as you mention. Cohorts existed in the time of Hannibal.

In the works of Cincius Alimentus, the annalist contemporary with Hannibal, we find the cohort not only named but specifically defined, "In legione sunt centuriae sexaginta, manipuli triginta, cohortes decem".

(In a legion there are sixty centuries, thirty maniples, and ten cohorts).

A cohort consisted of a maniple of Hastati, Princepes, and Triarii. While at one time these maniples fought "separately", combined they formed a cohort and at some time before Marius, the manipular organization we read about in Polybius disappeared, in favor of the ten cohort legion.

- Greg

And further to Mr. Pitts the distinctions between the three lines had essentially ended before the Marian reforms. The Triarii had, to my knowledge, stopped using the spear sometime in the last half of the 2nd century. In fact, some argue that Marius simply codified what had already become standard practice in the Roman army.

I think the pilum was only designed to break if it hit something solid like the ground. Its primary function was to penetrate shields and kill the warrior holding it. If this happenned then it wouldnt bend but would still be difficult to reuse in a battle.

"In fact, some argue that Marius simply codified what had already become standard practice in the Roman army".

I concur.

- Greg

"The key point about the demise of the triarius is not so much a military strategy as an economic and social necessity."

This point is not convincing. The army became increasingly professional, equipped by the consuls, like Caesar, who raised their own legions. The army would have been equipped however the sponser desired, and if anything the kit improved.

It is the change from a citizen levy army to a full time professional army. As such the Triarii as a type of higher social class unit had to go.

I accept the social imperatives of the Marian reforms.
But were spears really obsolete?
donald

Spears were not obsolete. The Romans would use them off and on again until the end of the empire in c1500AD when the walls of Constantinople were finally breached.

As H.H. Scullard discusses the Roman army "professionalized" during the 17 years of the 2nd Punic War, not during the time of Caesar or Marius. By the end of the 2nd Punic War there was a large body of men who did not wish to return to the land but remained as a pool of soldiers ready to be reconscripted into new campaigns. Rome was in a constant state of war throughout the 2nd century. Again, Marius was simply codifying what had become standard practice.