"Milvian Bridge" Topic

Hello all,

Looking for secondary-source material on the battle of the Milvian Bridge. It's not my era of specialty (ie, I have sweet BA material here on it) but am trying to do a crash course in order to help a fellow out in putting together a scenario for Lost Battles. Would help if the source is available somewhere online (google books, for example) but not essential.

Basically, I'm interested in hearing scholarly (or wargamery) opinions on troop numbers, army composition, battlefield location and the course of events.

Have of course consulted Zosimus and friends already, but find his 90,000 + 8,000 cav for Constantine and 170,000 + 18,000 cav for Maxentius a little hard to believe…

Any info much appreciated.

Cheers,
Aaron

Arron,

Saw your post on LB. I don't really have time right now to reply in too much depth. Primary battle descriptions are very vague. So it would be hard to verify that these are in fact the correct troop numbers (doubtful) or not (probable). However, as a suggestion, you could divide the numbers by 3 Giving Constantine 30,000 infantry and 2,700 cavalry while Maxentius would have about 57,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry.

The bridge still exists so we have a battle sight with certainly. Google Ponte Molle or Ponte Milvio which are the modern names. Obviously, the landscape will not be the same but you should be able to omit the built up areas for starters. As they chose that place for a battle, it probably is not going to have much in the way of broken ground either save maybe the hills that might be on the battlefield.

Check out The History of Rome podcast. There is an episode on this battle and the events leading up to it. I believe the host came to the same conclusion as I did. We know Constantine won. We know little else!

That's the best I can do.

Hope that at least gets you started.

John

Interesting topic. I think Milvian bridge was one of the most important battles in the history of the world. It's difficult to imagine how things would have played out over the centuries if Constantine had lost.

Thanks, John.

Patrick has, on the LB group, just cited Gibbon's reference to a panegyric that roughly halves the numbers on each sides, which is not too dissimilar in terms of proportional strength from your own proposal.

As you say, real numbers are going to be hard to get at, but it would be interesting to know what scholarly estimates have been given, and the reasoning that lay behind them…

@ Dr Matthias – I agree with you. It would be a different world, but how different is, of course, difficult to say!

Cheers,
Aaron

There seems to be very little on this battle, but to quote the old WRG "Armies & Enemies of Imperial Rome".
'The battle was hard fought, and decided by Constantius's lighter cavalry breaking Maxentius cataphracts. The defeated army suffered severely, as they had to retreat into Rome across a single bridge, which collapsed, drowning Maxentius. The remnants of the Praetorians were disbanded by the victor.'
It also states that Constantius had troops from Britain, Gaul & the Rhine, while Maxentius troops came from Italy & Africa.

Thanks, Huscarle. There does seem to be very little around, even in secondary sources.

The ROME: RISE & FALL OF AN EMPIRE TV series depicts this battle. The whole series is available inexpensively on one dvd

I was thinking about that series. It did include the battle, but alas it didn't feature a cast of thousands…

On the plus side, if there isn't much on the historical record about the battle, then it gives lots of latitude in designing the scenario!

Cheers, Simon

I'm no expert in Lost Battles, having merely read the book, but it seems to me that one of the things it is designed for is to test some of the hypotheses around things like probably troop numbers.

In this case, ssince the bridge and site are known, it might be possible to assess the nearby terrain, run some numbers through the simulation, and from that, derive the troop strengths. It's basically what Dr. Sabin does in some of his battle discussions in the book.

Cool topic, in any case.

A friend asked me to put together a scenario for the Battle and I have just completed it – you can download it at link

It is an interesting battle and there is a reasonable amount of primary source material on it. There is even more on the two battles that preceded Milvian Bridge: Turin, where Constantine faced Maxentian cataphracts; and Verona where there was an open battle and siege.

There may not have been any cataphracts at Milvian Bridge. It is doubtful Maxentius had that many and they may have been destroyed at Turin (although it is equally possible that there were survivors who made it back to Rome.)
It is quite clear from the passage describing the battle at Turin that Constantine did not have cataphracts as he had to deal with the enemy ones by skirmishing.
There is a frieze on the Arch of Constantine which shows armoured men falling off the pontoon bridge into the Tiber as they are pursued by unarmoured cavalry. Some people have interpreted this as cataphracts being chased by light cavalry. I think it far more likely that the defeated men in scale armour are Praetorians.

On the issue of numbers I reckon there were probably about 20,000 men on each side. Zosimus gives Constantine 90,000 men but another source says he had to leave most behind to guard the Rhine and only took a quarter of his army into Italy. It may be that Constantine had more cavalry than Maxentius as the battle was decided by what appears to have been a relatively easy victory by Constantine's cavalry over his opponent.

Simon

Many thanks, Simon; I've only just seen your post now. In terms of numbers I took a guess at 40,000 infantry/5000 cav for Constantine, and 80,000/10,000 for Maxentius. In Lost Battles terms this equated to 4 veteran, 16 average and 1 levy unit for Constantine and 10 average and 15 levy units for Maxentius, with Constantine still coming out of that with a fighting value advantage.

But I'll reassess the scenario in light of your most welcome comments!

Thanks again,
Aaron

Glad to be of help!
Simon