"Roman Century/Contubernium Size and non-combatants" Topic

I was just reading a bit about the post-Marian reform legions and how they were organized.

The smallest unit was the contubernium made up of 8 legionaries and 2 servants/non-combatants. There were then 10 of these in a century – resulting in 80 legionaries and 20 noncombatants.

My questions are:

1. What about the centurion, optio, musician, standard bearer, etc. Are they part of the 80 or additional to them?

2. Who were these non-combatants? Slaves? Young guys in training? Were they armed? Did they ever fight (I assume so if the Romans were on the losing end of the battle)?

Thanks – just curious after reading about this and getting back into the period.

#1 is a guess, but I'm pretty sure that those guys were on top of the 80 other ranks.

#2: those 2 guys were responsible for the unit's mule. feed it, care for it, care for the stuff it carried; there was come cooking stuff, extra food, and some other stuff i don't remember on its back. 10 mules and 1 wagon(and whatever pulled it, presumably another 2 mules and 2 guys on the wagon) per century.

Two auxiliary "servants", comparable to modern support troops, were assigned to each contubernium.[1] They were responsible for the care of the contubernium's pack mule, making sure that the legionaries had water during the march, and often had special skills like blacksmithing or carpentry.

1. "The Roman Army of the Roman Republic".

quick internet search. There was also a grindstone on the mule. my guess is that in addition to their mule duties the most likely cooked and helped the soldiers make small repairs to equipment, sandals, and clothing. this is just a guess but perhaps one tended the mule while the other was off foraging/ getting water/canteen runs. I'm pretty sure that in order to keep up 20 miles a day they didn't halt and send out soldiers to fill canteens. these guys probably did it because I'm guessing that they didn't have a load on their backs like the soldiers so could run and catch up. also messengers to other parts of column?

They were slaves and they sometimes fought in defence of the camp, armed with javelins (e.g. at Thapsus). I don't think they were formally armed but they presumably had access to the legionaries' spare weapons.

Thanks for the replies. Very interesting!

With a mule for every 8 legionaries, that's 600 mules and 1200 slaves for a legion (at the very least) I assume that they didn't keep all those mules and extra people inside the actual marching camps (unless they were actually being attacked or the threat was present)?

No they would all have been in the camps- the slaves had to look after the legionaries.

Don't the contubernum all sleep in the same tent ?

Yes.

did some research on this, I believe the centurions, optio and standard bearer were most likely counted in the ranks of combatants, the musicians is more debatable, but they are listed as immunes meaning they were exempt from many of the services and duties other soldiers were required to do, which strongly suggests they were also regular soldiers who did perform their extra role in addition to that of a normal milites.

see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunes

In any case the sources are fairly consistent in stating that the century consisted of 100 men (that's what it means, cfr. the modern derivate "Century" meaning 100 years), of these 80 were legionaries and 20 non-combatants. Each century was divided again into 10 contubernia led by a decanus. The contubernium contained 8 legionaries and 2 non-combatant servants who may have been highly skilled free citizens or free non-citizens labourers or slaves owned either privately by some of the soldiers or collectively by the army; probably all of these applied in variable proportions.

As this distinction is clearly made while no separate account is used to describe the ranked officers and NCOs I think it is safe to assume these were counted as part of the 80 combatants.

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BTW, by analogy with other periods and related cultures I think it is very likely that a good percentage of the 20% non-combatants would have consisted on youngsters in training to become soldiers and older veterans above the age of service but too tied up with the army life and/or without anywhere else to go. Note that these should not be confused with the large masses of civilians who regularly followed the army including soldier's families, merchants, tradesmen, prostitutes, travellers who took the occasion to move safely under the army protection, etc. etc.

Gattamalata, that's what I've always understood too, 80 not 100, and I never heard that non-combatants were counted, so I'd also be interested in seeing a Roman source for that. Back in the Monarchy or early Republic a centuria may have meant 100, but like many Roman adaptations for practicality, it kept it's name but changed, 60 in some accounts (mid-Republic), 80 in imperial times.

Is there more than one fortress that gives the impression of a double strength centuries in the 1st cohort?

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

I've not heard of the non-combatants being counted with the century. However legions are often described as being either 4,800 or 6,000 strong and I've seen arguments that the difference between these two numbers represents the number of non-combatant servants (60 centuries @ 20 per century = 1200).

My question is how the artillerists were counted. After all, a century contained 2 scorpions and 1 ballista and it took a large handful of men to maintain, assemble and operate them.

Now, I had that that perhaps they made up the missing 20 men from the rolls, but obviously that's not correct. So upon whose muster roll are they carried?

Dear gattamalata,

I'm getting my sources the same place as you get yours obviously, since there are only those available… obviously I read them with a more open mind and somehow larger breadth of vision…

Hyginus, as you said (by which I assume you meant the work formerly being attributed to Hyginus Gromaticus "De Munitionibus Castrorum") is certainly one of the major sources, possibly the most important one, but it hardly stand on its own… there is a continuity in history (which is why is called "history" singular and not histories) and to make sense of many things you need to look at what was before and after. Similarly many military practices can be better understood if you are familiar with other aspects of the Roman civilian life…

But let's get to topic, Pseudo-Hyginus (as he is generally called, since we don't know his real name) wrote after Trajan (it mentions Daci amongst the auxiliary forces), so after the reforms of Augustus. As a source for the Marian period is not better than the earlier accounts of Polybius on the old Republican army. Again, if you look at the before and the after you can tell much of what happened in the between even if you don't have a direct reference to it… in any case they talk about 80 "men" when referring to soldiers, but of you look at the number of tents, the space allocated and cross reference totals it is obvious that for each of the 80 legionaries there were 20 non-combatants. That the total makes 100 (centum) and that the unit was called a hundred (century) can hardly be a coincidence… it doesn't means they were 100 soldiers, the 20 non-combatants would not get a soldier's pay, that's for sure (cfr. the bonus totals give out) but they would still require food, water and a place to sleep within the camp. They lived together with the soldiers and were essential in keeping the combatants ready for action.

I never said nor meant the contubernium was a tactical unit, I thought we were discussing organization not tactical units. The contubernium was the basic organizational (not tactical) unit of the army. The army was called up, equipped, tented, fed, march, trained and got paid by contubernia. But yes, it did not fight in groups of 8 soldiers, of course!

In regard to the Centurion I'm the one who wonder where do you take that, since Pseudo-Hyginus is quite explicit: Ex quibus in vigiliis singulis <quaterni> erunt et non plus quam octonos papiliones singulae tendunt. Ita fiet ut centurio eorum in eadem pedatura eorum papilionum tensionem accipiat; alioquin plus dari oportuisset.

Loosly translated: Of them (the 80 men) there will be 4 in each watch so that not more than 8 tents are pitched. Therefore the centurion takes his tenting space in their space, otherwise more space would have to be assigned.

Later he says that a large infantry regiment has 10 centuries and has 100 tents "ex eis centuriones singulis" out of which the centurions have one each. Clearly the tents for the centurions come out of the number alloted to the infantry. This is further reinforced in the many paragraphs in which Hyginus discusses the space allotments for the cohort, always in units based on the 120 x 30 pedes of the contubernium and never with an additional spaced added on for the centurion.
In discussing space allotments for other types of units he also never add space for the officers, so one may infer that he always uses the same technique to reduce the number of tents.

As for decanus, it simply means "chief of ten people" (in various contexts) you are quite right that there were officers called such in the late Empire and that there wasn't a formal decanus rank in this period, but there are clear references to one of the soldiers in each contubernia being the leader of the group, something akin to a 'duty Corporal'.
Thus even in the republican army one soldier in every contubernium would have been given the 'role' rather than the 'rank', of "squad leader" and would most likely been called such (that is, decanus), although there is no direct evidence in that sense as you said…

TKindred,

Most of the artillerymen would have been soldiers with extra training, thus Immunes or Discens (trainee Immunis).
These legionaries would also do the bulk of the maintenance work on their weapons.
There probably were also very highly skilled specialists directing construction and maintenance, these were most likely non combatants but may have still been part of the army for obvious security reasons, while campaigning in enemy territory you wouldn't want local craftsmen to take a close look at how exactly your ballista are made… :)

in the "De Munitionibus Castrorum" Hospital, Veterinary and Workshops are mentioned together, see the excellent romanarmy.info

By Gary Brueggeman

this is the part that is most relevant:

. . . ut CXX pedes valetudinarium et reliqua quae supra tendent accipiant, hoc est veterinarium et fabrica, quae ideo longius posita est ut valetudinarium quietum esse convalescentibus posset. Quorum pedatura in singulas species ad homines CC solet computari. [4]

Reliquum autem numerum, sicut retenturam, computemus ut sciamus similiter quot hemistrigia nascantur. Fit numerus, cum pedatura valetudinarii, veterinarii et fabricae quae in unum ad DC homines computantur, VIII. Sumimus dimidiam: fit IIII: hoc erit partis dimidiae; est DC pedum per longitudinem, quod <D> homines capiet; ut diximus peditem adiectam quintam ad pedem accipere, nihil itaque intersit an ad numerum computatum quintam partem adiciamus, an vero ex longitudine, ut nunc DC pedum, deducamus partem VI. Reliqui quingenti, tot homines capiet hemistrigium. [35]

All three can be considered together since "Hyginus" does not distinguish between them in terms of either the space assigned to them or the number of men. In [4] he notes that they each are assigned space as if they were comprised of 200 men. Then, in [35] when talking about the half-camp he notes that their space is computed at 600 men (3 X 200). Since his camp is symetrical, there would be the same numbers on the other side.

Hyginus tells us that the space is computed as if there were 200 men in each of the units -- "man-equivalents". He does not tell us precisely how many men there actually are.
Thus Workshops would also have usable space of 24 X 240 pedes.

(The artillery train would have been serviced here. )