"The Roman Army in the Late Republic and Early Empire" Topic

"The legion was the basic unit of Rome's standing army of career soldiers, the legionaries, who were all Roman citizens and fought primarily as foot-soldiers (infantry). The number of legions under arms varied in different time periods (there were, for example, 28 legions under Augustus in 25 BCE), and each legion had both a number and a title, though some numbers were duplicated (we know, for example, of III Augusta, III Cyrenaica, III Gallica, III Italica, III Parthica).

Though the exact numbers of men in a legion varied, the basic pattern of organization remained the same. The smallest unit was the tent group (contubernium), composed of 8 men who shared a tent, a mule, and eating equipment. These were organized into a disciplinary unit called a century (despite the fact that a century typically had 80 rather than 100 men), under the command of a centurion. The basic fighting unit was a cohort, composed of six centuries (480 men plus 6 centurions). The legion itself was composed of ten cohorts, and the first cohort had many extra men—the clerks, engineers, and other specialists who did not usually fight—and the senior centurion of the legion, the primipilus, or "number one javelin."…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand