"Roman Marines questions" Topic

The Roman Marines on warships, were they army troops just assigned to the ships? Or were they Sea Soldiers (Marines) trained in boarding actions and how to repel boarder? Were they organized much like a Legion with 8 men to a squad and then 10 squads to a century? Did they form cohorts for land actions? The archers on ship were they Marines or Auxilliery like in the Legions? Did Marines man the bolt shooters and catapults on a ship or was that the ships sailors? Thank you for your help.

What period are you talking about? Republic or Empire?

Empire, sorry.

Maybe

Before the Civil Wars, Rome's fleets were heavily dependent on mercenary sea peoples. After the Civil Wars and the battle of Actium, Augustus Caesar organized the 800 ships into 3 fleets and strengthened the navy by using professional Marines recruited from Romans and based on the Legionary system.

Archers would be auxiliary.

Artillerists were part of the legionary on land, but I'm not sure whether this was true at sea.

cwlinsj

Did you forget the Punic Wars perhaps ? Which 'mercenaries' or 'Sea peoples' fought for Rome at Mylae or Ecnomus ?

Rome had many allies and client states in the eastern Mediterranean, different successor states used their fleets to help Rome and Rome's armies helped them – always to Rome's advantage. Hardly mercenaries – and Rome did have a fleet of her own, just not in quite the same league as the larger Successor states.

…the Augustan marines were mostly Greeks or Egyptians on a rather lower pay scale than legionaries. Many of them were formed into legions (I, II Adiutrix) in 69 AD.

As BigRedBat says, under the Principate naval crews were mainly non-citizens, who gained citizenship at the end of a 26-year term. Unusually, ex-slaves seem not to have been excluded.

(A further slight weirdness is that the fleet based at Alexandria was manned only by Egyptians with Alexandrian or Roman citizenship; but other Egyptians turn up in the other fleets).

There seems to have been very little, if any, distinction between marines and rowers. Unit organization and rank structure seems to be basically the same as the auxilia, but with some additional principalis positions, like gubernator and proreta. Ship commanders were trierarchi, who seem to have ranked as centurions. There may have been specific marine centurions too, but that isn't at all clear.

69AD was a brilliant windfall for the ex-Marines* as their pay would likely have quadrupled when they became legionaries and presumably they may have gained citizenship, too. This might have explained their enthusiasm at the battle of Cremona!

*at least for the ones who didn't die in the fighting

GildasFacit,

What did I write that was inaccurate? I answered the OP's question about Roman marines. When did they become professional marines, rather than just troops put ships?

During the Punic Wars, Rome had to build a fleet (they were lucky enough to capture a Carthaginian galley and discovered all the ship parts were numbered), and because Rome and their crews had no experience at sea and could not match the quality of Carthage's crews, they developed weapons like the corvus.

Of course the first marines had plenty of Egyptians and Greeks, they were leftovers from Marc Anthony/ Cleopatra's fleet. And as I said, they became marines based-on Legionary organization. Legionaries recieved Roman citizenship.

cwlinsj
There is now ample evidence that shipbuilding in Italy at the time of the Punic Wars was a great deal more developed than was previously thought. Many Italian cities had a long history of shipbuilding even if Rome itself did not and these cities had been leagued with Rome.

While Rome was not then a 'naval' power in the same way that other states (including Carthage) were it did not mean that they were without ships they could use to transport their Legions – which they did on a number of occasions.

The Corvus was used for a VERY short time. It made the ships unstable and its usefulness is over-rated by writers.

Rome learned naval tactics very quickly – just as they learned to deal with numerous opponents on land. Rapid adaptability was one of the reasons that they proved so successful as a world power.

Syracuse is a far more likely source of the designs used by Rome for the 5's she built, just as it was the source for Carthaginian 5's.

Training a crew of oarsmen on land was quite normal – it had been done in Greece for centuries.

Reading Roman writers you are bound to be told that they did it first and better than anyone else. You need to look at a broader picture of naval war in the period to see how incongruent some of the 'traditional' ideas about the rise of Roman sea power are.

What is commented upon by observers of Romans fighting shipboard in the 1st Punic War is how quickly they learned how to fight on a moving deck. Like most maritime peoples the Carthaginians were contemptuous of Roman 'landlubbers' and were taken by surprise by the speed with which they managed to build a reasonable fighting fleet.

Again, so how does any of this answer the OP's question?

Like I said, the Romans had to catch-up because they were not a naval power.

Yep, since Rome is landlocked, galleys would have to be built in cities with access to the sea. Kinda obvious.

So you aren't aware that Rome copied Carthaginean galley design by reverse-engineering a captured galley, which was greatly aided by Carthage's production numbering of all parts?

Yep, the corvus was a temporary solution, did I say otherwise? The introduction of the corvus is to illustrate that Romans didn't have the experience to match Carthage at the onset of the Punic Wars.

So how does all this answer the OP's question?

The Misenum fleet seems to have continued to recruit heavily from Egypt well into the principate.

cwlinsj, I have a couple of questions about what you wrote:

professional Marines recruited from Romans

It depends on one's definition of 'Romans', I suppose, but assuming it means 'Roman citizens' I don't think that this can be right: or are you just referring to their receipt of citizenship on discharge? In any case, it seems difficult to distinguish a separate group of 'marines' from the crew as a whole, or at least from the rowing crew, in the imperial fleets: I'm not sure what you mean by 'professional marines' in this context. If it means a group of men whose only (or even just primary) role was to fight on shipboard, then again it's not obvious that such men actually existed in the imperial fleets.

Archers would be auxiliary.

Are you saying that archers had a different (lower?) status from other crew? Or that they actually were provided to the fleet separately, from auxiliary archer units? Or something else? Whichever, I'd be interested in what the evidence is.

This is what you said that was inaccurate …

"Before the Civil Wars, Rome's fleets were heavily dependent on mercenary sea peoples. "

I was aware that the 'traditional' explanation of how Rome caught up is as you state. What you don't seem to be aware of is how much easier it would have been for the Romans to hire a Syracusian (or any of a number of other nationalities) shipwright to do the job for them. Cheaper, quicker and easier – the Romans were not stupid but they were proud. making it look like they had done it all by themselves is typical Roman propaganda.

Rome was far more than just a city at the start of the 1st Punic War and had a number of ports within its control and even more in its sphere of influence.

Did I say that I was answering the OP's question ? I merely pointed out that part of your statement was incorrect.

Since this thread's already here, I might as well ask if anyone knows anything about marines in the Roman navy in the late Republian (i.e. post-Marius) period, especially during Pompey's campaign against the pirates. As with many Roman military matters that aren't about the legions directly, the sources go a bit "dark" during this period and are mostly earlier (Punic Wars) or later (reforms of Augustus onwards).

If I'm interpreting the above properly, and also bearing in mind what I've read elsewhere Pompey's fleet would have been largely "auxiliary" in nature, especially Sicilian. I found an Osprey picture of a Pompeian boarding action which showed a handful of marines wearing montefortino helmets, muscle cuirasses, and no shields. Does anyone know if this has any basis in the sources, or is it entirely speculative?