"Role of Auxiliaries in the Roman Civil Wars" Topic

I'm thinking about the civil wars of the 1st and second centuries AD. The information I can find on line mainly refers to the number of legions on each side but very little reference to auxiliary cohorts.

Did the auxiliary cohorts take part in the battles or were they disregarded because they were not Roman citizens? I can imagine that recruiting a legion to your cause is easier than running around after a lot of individual units.

Did the auxiliaries just support whatever legion they were used to operating with?

Pardon my ignorance on this matter.

They were definitely at the battles. In some battles only the auxiliaries fought – Ad Castores, for example. In the bigger battles (1st and 2nd Bedriacum), the auxiliaries aren't mentioned, with the exception of the Batavians. I am sure they were there, though, probably attached to legions as you suggest.

chubby; find Goldsworthy book "The Roman Army at War 100bc-200ad", it's a good starting point for you. Their are plenty of books out there on this time period. Keppie has a good book on the Roman army also. I agree with Simon, plenty of Auxiliaries running around a few even become Legions.

The rule of thumb is that the number of Auxilia equals the number of legions.

Tacitus mentions one battle, I believe in Britain, where the Roman commander formed up all the Auxilia as the main battle line, and used his legions as the reserves. My personal opinion is that this practice is much more widespread and common than we would like to believe.

After all, the idea for any Roman commander was to win battles with the least amount of loss to his command. An easy way to do that is to let the Auxilia do the bulk of the fighting, and if they complain, remind them that their goal is to survive and gain citizenship.

I have all Goldsworthy books and correct me if I am wrong but there is no mention of how the auxiliary cohorts were deployed or used or what their loyalties' were during the civil wars. Beyond the instances mentioned by bigredbat it seems that there is no other information available on this subject.

The most useful document available is the Society of Ancient's booklet "the Roman Empire order of Battle for the Civil Wars" by Michael Lane. It does at least describe the one battle (Ad Castores) where all of the troops on one side were auxilia.