"Republic Legion: Lesson 1: Signifer" Topic

It is weird, but nonwithstanding what you can read (in English) no one can really tell you how a Republican Legion really worked in battle; there is indeed a fantastic study in Italian, quoting the sentences of Latin and Greek Authors that tries to make light on this topic. My little contribution is to try to see "on the field" how it worked. How: reproducing a 1:1 Legion (or more) ready to fight in the Punic Wars.
So I decided to dedicate on my blog some (humble) lessons trying to explain also to not readers of Dante's language more details on this. I did some review with Osprey, as well

link

Excellent use of the paper soldiers. I note you hit the "nail on the head" of the trouble with studying Roman military tactics:
despite a relatively massive amount of information on the Roman Army, we actually know next to nothing about how they ACTUALLY maneuvered sub units and fought a set piece battle, and skirmishes…nothing. We "know" generally what the lines did and how, in theory they might maneuver, but at the sub-unit level to actually execute those moves, next to nothing concrete.

Much of what we surmise is based on what we learned about the tactics of black powder battles, and then retroactively applied these same thoughts about the legions, for example:
-Where did the centurion actually stand? On the right of his unit as a 18/19th century captain did? In the middle? Or literally leading from the front?
-Were the signifiers used to "guide" marching like the battalion colors?
-Who commanded the maniple or cohort? The senior centurion? That's more a guess than actually backed by facts….
-Were tactics the same everywhere? Did a legion in Germany fight just like a legion in Syria?
-What did Tribunes actually do? Did they command groupings or lines of maniples or cohorts? Or were they just used as staff officers or local leaders?

At the end of the day we "think" we know what they did…but is that just us using 18/19th century linear tactics and applying those to the legions?

Fascinating stuff we will likely never know, since we don't really see massed hand to hand combat. Riots with shielded police are the most likely "analogues" we will ever see of ancient combat.

I've wondered about some of the things I read about the Romans. I haven't done wargames with Romans in many years, but it seemed that the rules approach was to count each Roman as worth several of his foes (greater attack value, or whatever), rather than try to get the formations to give you the proper result.

I seem to recall that somebody during the Renaissance tried fielding legions. Their experiences might also shed some light on how the manipular legion worked.

Grelber

Indeed! Its like what colour Tunica did they use? no- one knows for sure, but it does not stop anyone having an opinion!!!

Thanks for commenting.
@Maggot: for a lot of your questions I do have an answer, thanks to this super detailled book in Italian that … did not have any success, being too detailled.
The Author went deep reading a lot of reports both in Latin and in Greek (and he quotes them literally, so if you know the 2 languages you can make your own interpretation as I did) and is able to determine that the black feathers were on the front century for example, the position of the Centurio, of the Optio of the siginfer; to undestand wht a legion can have 4200 men but also 6.000 (as in Zama) and a lot of other info, like the way the units were fighting and how the men vere substituting the falling ones on the front.
What lacks is in case of fighting line how the men could intervene in the line; this is something that I want to solve through my papersoldiers.
So I will write more "lessons", hoping it will help

@herkybird: about the tunica it is difficult to know, if not impossible. For other info, being able to read not just Polybius or Livy but ALL the authors, provides you a lot of details and a lot of precise and indisputable answers

@paperbattles: I agree! – I have only read Polybius and Livy, and generally trust them, especially Polybius.
However, I am always distrustful of ancient writers, as they usually wrote to aggrandise a patron/state etc. Written history was not an attempt to give an unbiased account of events in the modern style, for the most part IMHO.

PB,
unfortunate that the source you quote has not been translated into English; I'd also like to see the sources used to verify that information. As with many ancient works, even the contemporary ones must be taken with a grain of salt, as they often only had outside knowledge of their subject. Additionally, when you say "written in Greek" source, that can (but not "will") tend to come from the later centuries of the Empire, or early Byzantine, which means it is no longer contemporary, and again, must be used with caution.

Nonetheless, excellent work and it's pretty cool to see you attempt to model it in "action" so to speak.

Either way, when I paint up my 15mm 'Camillan' Romans for Midgard, I will do the Tunics red, and have the front rank of 2 with black feathers and the rear rank with red with some confidence!

@Herkybird: they way this Author did is grabbing some deduction from different authors to put together his theory. I am going to explain better on my blog.

For wuat is about the colour of tunic I would stay on white/greyish; the purple red would have been expensive to prepare (maybe the triari could have, and probably the equites) considering that it became the colour of the Imperial coat. So I think very unprobable that the units woere red tunics

@Maggot
I will post on my blog more and more info about this, and I will make here a fast report in order to let all understand what I am speaking about.

@Herkbird: concerning the colour of the feathers I can quote you that Polybius wrote "prosepikosmountai pterino stefano kai pterois e melasin orthois trisin os …etc i.e. they wore a crown done with feathers with 3 feathers upwards red OR black of the dimension of 1 cubit…

So it is clear the feathers were red or black and not a mixture of them; second, even though Polybius does not say if they were of this colour because of beauty or for tactical purpose it is clear to me that having just 2 colours it MUST be for tactical purposes (otherwise could have been white or yellor or blue and so on, while they were of just of these 2 colours); In my picture I did a mistake. The centuria prior had red feathers and the centuria posterior had black, following the axis mundi, i.e. in the battle the centuria posterior moved forward on the LEFT of the centuria prior; now the right is corresponding to the dawn = red while the left corresponds to the sunset (west) and so the darkness = black feathers. Sorry for mixing up…

For wuat is about the colour of tunic I would stay on white/greyish; the purple red would have been expensive to prepare (maybe the triari could have, and probably the equites) considering that it became the colour of the Imperial coat. So I think very unprobable that the units woere red tunics

I am sure a 'Purple Red' would have been a very expensive dye, but its a matter of record that a dull madder red was a frequently used and cheap dye, as it is so frequently used in the Hellenistic world. At least I believe so.

Maybe you are right. I can think a mixture of all these colours

I added some pictures