"wargaming rules that represents Republican Romans" Topic

So, the passage of lines, fast forward to 6:15:

YouTube link

…this would need to be represented in some way.
Seen retiring at 8:40, etc…

It`s also shown here at 1:41:

YouTube link

Seen retiring at 2:46,….

It's very nice of the enemy to stand still while the Roman maniples perform a line relief and bring up fresh troops to defeat them….

- Ix

War & Conquest enables you to swap formations, and the line behind also can provide support for their comrades fighting in front

Army list can be downloaded here link although please don't assume terminology used in War & Conquest is the same as another rules system :)

I am on Version 4 of the list and still not convinced that it is perfect (although players liked V3 and V4 simply tweaks V3 in favour of the Romans)

This version is new though and ready for the War & Conquest event this weekend, which includes 2 Republican Roman armies so I will have a much better idea afterwards

Nice it maybe Admiral, but by what manoeuvre would hoplites be able to break away from their grand formation and attack the retiring Roman subunits.
These would be gaps of just over one century`s frontage (allowing for intervals between the centuries and also the adjacent maniples).
And what size of Carthaginian spear sub-unit say, would be able to do this in an orderly fashion.

Let`s consider instead if the whole engaged, deployed Roman line were to disengage, would the spearmen then pursue them in an impetuous manner?

The Roman legion seem to have fought differently and had an organizatiion that gave it some tactical flexibility.
We do have accounts of battles where Roman troops were pushed back, gave ground, renewed lines, but I thiink you`re right to point out that this was best achieved after having disengaged perhaps ?

As I said previously, I could sort of believe a spear or pike phalanx might keep ranks rather than locally break the line to pursue a retiring century, especially if it's tired, beaten up, ill-trained, or undermotivated. Presumably the fight against the Hastati would have had some impact.

I have trouble accepting that Gauls or Iberians or Thureophoroi or nearly any Italian hill people would stand still and watch Romans fade back in an orderly manner. These peoples all had a strong individualistic warrior mentality and would charge into any gap offered – it's what they were trained to do, and in many cases did it despite orders to the contrary. I can't believe the Romans would be able to perform perfect drill-field marches unmolested in the midst of a battle against them, or even expect to. These were all regular opponents of Roman armies throughout the Republican period. Surely the manipular system was adapted to fight them too.

- Ix

The Romans were still getting the occasional beating from these types of warriors as late as the battle of Orange – and supposedly the cohortal system was introduced by then?

Later, I`m guessing (in the conquest of Gaul) that the wrinkles in the system had been ironed out and the troops were now better drilled and experienced to perform similar manoeuvres and with the cohortal system the sub-units were larger and easier to control and the increased mass of the formations in the line made them that much steadier in combat?

I suspect the sort of drill-field retirement in those videos would work fine during a lull in the battle, when the lines naturally separated and were busy reforming, redressing, and resting. I sort of assume this is what happened at Zama – the Hastati saw off the front line of Carthaginians, then were relieved by the Principes before Scipio resumed the fight, then both Hastati and Principes were relieved/reinforced with the Triarii before the final showdown with Hannibal's own third line.

Maybe line relief wasn't something done during combat, only during lulls. <shrug> Dunno. During active combat, I have more trouble seeing how line relief could be pulled off. Does anyone have some good attestations that it ever was?

I might be more inclined to believe a century could pull back from contact if the next line back (principes or triarii) could be seen visibly advancing toward the gap only a short distance back, or the Velites filtered into the gap and covered the retreat by chucking javelins. Warriors in a big line would probably be disinclined to break ranks and pursue if there's a big line of enemy coming right at them, or enemy skirmishers actively trying to skewer them.

I might also buy a Roman drill that assumed the "retire" signal meant the front rank (or two?) was expected to fight a rearguard action to enable the rest of the century to pull back, sacrificing their lives if necessary until relieved. Romans were notably duty-bound and had a strong code of honor that included self-sacrifice on behalf of the state, tribe, family and class.

I would also accept a relief maneuver accomplished by the rear maniple deploying and filtering through the files of the engaged maniple before the engaged maniple retired. The maniples had a notably large amount of space between files, plenty of room to fit another whole file.

It's also possible that line relief worked in some contexts and not others, e.g. just fine against a civilized phalanx, but not so well against ill-disciplined Gauls.

Unfortunately, none of these things are specifically attested, so there is no reason to assume any occurred. I'm really just makin' up stuff that seems more plausible.

What we really need is a Manipular Trust (like the Trireme Trust, but for investigating Roman Republican battlefield tactics). Any volunteers? :-)

- Ix

While Caesar's accounts of the battles in Gual do describe initial charges across a distance to engage the Romans, there is a possibility that Guals are not as ill disciplined as believed. At Bibracte they conducted a fighting withdraw of over a kilometer, maintaining their formation. At the Elephant Victory the Galatian infantry opened files to allow their chariots to pass through.

While I do believe that the Romans would have filled in the gaps in their line while engaged in combat, the distance from the front to the back of a 6 rank formation would have been about 18 feet or seven paces. This is about the same as the width of one and one half US interstate car lanes. The easiest way to visualize this would be to take seven steps away from a wall, turn around and see how close it actually is. Anyone breaking ranks to attempt to engage the flank of the engaged maniple would have been almost immediately contacted by the advancing second line.

There have been some theories put forward as to when the lines would have conducted their exchange. One being during a lull in the fighting. Like boxers, men fighting with swords would not be able to continuously attempt to land blows. The exchange would have to take place fairly quickly.

Again it is unfortunate that no drill manuals for the manipular legion have survived. There is the library that was found at Pompey which may provide some missing works, though it will probably be a long time before they are all documented. Modern x-ray imaging is being used that does not require unrolling and damaging the scrolls.

I think we all agree that a passage of lines would have been carried out in a lull in the fighting – or at least in a most controlled manner ?

I also agree, at Bibracte they seem to have been well-organised and their leader had a 4-dimensional plan of battle !

According the Caesar, it was the Romans who were forever charging without orders, not the Gauls.
I'm inclined to think that impetuous Celtic 'warbands' existed only in the imaginations of wargamers.
Any troops could charge without orders, including Romans.
Doubtless Roman drill was better, but the accounts of fighting against the Gauls certainly don't suggest ill-disciplined troops. Quite the opposite.

A very good article discussing this question in the latest issue of Slingshot by Justin Swanton.

Mollinary

Yes indeed Mollinary; I was just about to post the same comment.

Potentially a game changer; very timely, too, as I've been thinking about re-basing my Polybians this summer and this would suggest a very different approach would be required.

…and quite possibly I'll need to change my Polybian army lists, too.

There's an interesting pied on Herod's' army in Slingshot, too, and an article by Luke Ueda Sarson on the Notitia (And those are just the three pieces I've looked at so far). A cracking issue!

Andrew & Simon,

For those of us who do not subscribe to Slingshot, could you outline the parts of Justin Swanton`s article that relate to our discussion so far please ?

It's a long piece, but the gist of it is that it argues that maniples didn't retreat though gaps between maniples in the line behind them but rather through gaps left between the files of a unit positioned directly behind them.

It's very intriguing and bold; I'm itching to hear what others make of it, especially those with good Latin and Greek language skills who can review the original texts.

In particular it makes me think about the puzzling line in Polybius about legionaries being 6' apart, which would give them the space to perform the manoeuvre, and thus make a lot more sense.

Also I wonder if a similar system might have continued into the Marian era, as it might provide a mechanism through which the second line of cohorts could be able to reinforce the first. This has long had me scratching my head.

It has reminded me why I buy Slingshot! :-)

It's a long piece, but the gist of it is that it argues that maniples didn't retreat though gaps between maniples in the line behind them but rather through gaps left between the files of a unit positioned directly behind them.

Sort of like in this scene from the first episode of HBO's Rome (2005), then: YouTube link

On his website The Roman Army, Gary Brueggemann describes the maneuver as "filtration by ranks": link

Very much like my favourite scene in "Rome", except that it is entire units retiring rather than just the file leader.

Thanks for that interesting link. The manoeuvre Brueggermann describes seems slightly different to me, in that his force replaces one rank or file at a time, whereas in Slingshot the wider gaps between the files permit the maniples to interpenetrate each other so that all the files replace the other units files simultaneously.

The passage of lines in the modern period (that`s the C18-19th for us I think) was handled in a varitey of ways.

It was carried out either on a unit (battalion) and sub-unit (company/division) level.
These levels correspond quite closely in size and organisation to Roman cohorts and maniples/centuries.

The best way of performing this manoeuvre however was when the divisonal battle array was in checkerboard or cinqcunx, but being so arranged and manoeuvering in an orderly fashion was only a possiblity for better-trained troops in the Napoleonic period. But the reward was that this allowed the subsequent deployment of batalions if it was considered necessary.

The other two methods involved the line being passed through to either ploy or fold back, or wheel sub units to allow the other line`s units or sub-units to "pass through" it.
Of these two perhaps, the sub-unit method was perhaps the most risky; a larger number of sub-units attempting the manoeuvre would mean more risk of disorder; more could go wrong.
Ideally the manoeuvre was best carried out once the command had disengaged.

I don`t think that in the ancient period it would all have been much different and manoeuvering by single files seems to me to be that much more of a risk even for the Romans!

I beleive that the process of executing a passage of lines involved ployments and deployments by centuries & maniples – these may not have been "squared" movements as shown in the deployments in the videos that I posted earlier, but a full- or half-distance may have opened up between the centuries of each maniple and the rear ones then taken two 45 degree turns to arrive in line with the leading centuries. In principle, this is no different to the deployments made by hoplite sub-units from the march.

I can't recall any battle descriptions that implied Roman's used manipular tactics during the Punic or Macedonian wars, or those against the Selucids. The nearest seems to be Kynoskephelae, but even here twenty manipuls were detactached from a victorius wing, rather than any individual manipular action. My interpretation has been that first the Hastati would attack in a solid line, if they were unsuccessful they would retire and the Priceps would attack again in a solid line. If these failed, the Romans were "down to the Triari"
Whether the first attack retired in a lull in the fighting or the Princeps could pass through them is a moot point.
Going back to the original question, being a bit of a dinosaur, I still use Warrior rules, which are based on WRG 7th. In the classical warrior army lists it includes special rules which allow, amongst others, legionaries to pass through other legionaries to replace them in combat without penalties such as becoming disordered.

I am coming round to the "Hastati would attack in a solid line" view, too.

I saw it somewhere suggested that the 20 maniples at Cynoscephelae were the triari of the right wing making the manoeuvre a more straight-forward march to a flank and then attacking in line. Although I`m not clear how the maniples might be led to their "jumping off position" in line.

I am in favour of the 'line of battle' deployment whether in Republican or Imperial legions. Setting up all those wide open flanks would scare the hell of out of me.

As for line replacement, I would favour the first line retiring through the line behind. Reason, that way the replacing unit could see what was happening and open the ranks to let the unit in front fall back through it. Other way around, with the replacing unit moving through the unit at the front requires, there to be space in front of the replaced unit to move into and the troops in the replaced unit to have units moving from behind them, past them and reforming in front of them.
The fall back manoeuvre could be done even whilst fighting, the advance through not as easy to do in combat. But your best idea is to ask some renactors.