Creating a Roman Century circa 150AD - how?

[Justindo]

PS.  No comment as to why both Justin and I are monitoring the forum on a Friday night.

Granted, I'm not completely convinced of the moral superiority of randomly going somewhere just for the sake of saying one did something Friday night.

Gee, Tim, thanks for making me feel bad for posting on this forum on a Friday night!  As I write this on the sofa with my wife and dog, my wife is rolling her eyes at me telling me to get off the computer while my dog is pleading with me to feed him.

[Martin Milner]

Thanks for the comprehensive replies guys, I was starting to wonder if I'd been too lazy asking for your help!

I like Justindo's "representative unit" idea, I think this is very much in the spirit of Playmobil, and will adopt it. A 20 man century sounds very good, and I'll adopt that standard. 20 Klickies lined up in a 4x5 formation looks pretty impressive. You missed the Optio and Tessarius Justindo, but maybe that makes it too officer-heavy.

I will eventually have the klickies to create four 20 man centuries, which will combine to be one Legion. I'll attach 5 cavalry and 5 archers to each century, and have a Centurion (red transverse crest & cloak), Optio (white transverse crest & cloak), Tessarius (probably same as Optio), Signifer and Cornicern for each. My reading suggests that each century had more then one Standard bearer, but that would probably make things look too Standard heavy. That'll make 35 klickies, not counting horses, and one wagon for baggage, for each Century.

My Officers of Centurion rank and below will carry a round shield, and cavalry an oval shield and long spear.

My units will be based around 180-200 AD, in Britain, not sure if it'll be besed on an actul known Roman unit, but there's plenty of choices available. I've done one Hadrian's wall story, and when I've dug out the wall sections, a small length of Hadrian's wall (or Londinium's wall) would look good as a background.





Pictures of my Centuries so far - I split my 24 Legionnaires into 2 centuries of 12 for now, as I had enough officers, but they'll mass up to 20 men each when they arrive in a couple of weeks.

I'm not sure if the Centurion should have a spear, pilum, or just his rod of office. The Optios at the back are keeping the men in line with spears, but I could cut the points off to make staffs.

I'll need to make another spares order to get the Red transverse crests for 2 more centurions-

[Justindo]

I like Justindo's "representative unit" idea, I think this is very much in the spirit of Playmobil, and will adopt it. A 20 man century sounds very good, and I'll adopt that standard. 20 Klickies lined up in a 4x5 formation looks pretty impressive. You missed the Optio and Tessarius Justindo, but maybe that makes it too officer-heavy.

I will eventually have the klickies to create four 20 man centuries, which will combine to be one Legion. I'll attach 5 cavalry and 5 archers to each century, and have a Centurion (red transverse crest & cloak), Optio (white transverse crest & cloak), Tessarius (probably same as Optio), Signifer and Cornicern for each. My reading suggests that each century had more then one Standard bearer, but that would probably make things look too Standard heavy. That'll make 35 klickies, not counting horses, and one wagon for baggage, for each Century.

My Officers of Centurion rank and below will carry a round shield, and cavalry an oval shield and long spear.

My units will be based around 180-200 AD, in Britain, not sure if it'll be besed on an actul known Roman unit, but there's plenty of choices available. I've done one Hadrian's wall story, and when I've dug out the wall sections, a small length of Hadrian's wall (or Londinium's wall) would look good as a background.

Twenty men is a perfectly sized Playmobil "century" in my opinion as it is exactly one fourth the size of an actual Roman century, so the men can be deployed in a variety of realistic ways (e.g. a line of ten men two deep, a line of five men four deep, and a line of four men five deep).  Twenty men looks respectable enough while not being too numerous to move.

As you surmise, Martin, I chose only to have the centurion (red transverse crest and red cape), signifier, and cornicen because I didn't want to bother with so many officers for a twenty man unit.

Your overall army plan sounds great, Martin!  Four legionary "centuries" (I assume you'll use the legionaries with the lorica segmentata plate armor?) plus officers and one "century" each of archers and cavalry will be quite the sight.  Perhaps you might consider including one "century" of auxiliary infantry (the klickies with the chain mail) and one "century" of Praetorians (the blue Special Roman klicky) just for fun and variety.

Will you be using a large two horse, two axle wagon or a smaller one horse, one axle cart for each century?  Either one would work fine, in my opinion.  I personally elected to give each of my "centuries" one mule and each of my "cohorts" one covered wagon (sans cover) from the Western set.  While oxen would be historically correct for pulling the wagons, acquiring them from DS has been impossible and hitching them up without the proper Playmobil parts is a pain, so I'll use horses and say it's a "flying column" of Romans.   Of course to be historically correct I should also use far more mules, but I don't want the baggage train to be too large.

Have you thought about artillery?  How about your higher ranking officers?

The only suggestion I have is that if you want to have an optio and a tessarius, I'd use a regular front to back crest, as only centurions wore transverse crests.

[playmofire]

Well, Justindo and Timotheos, thanks for that even though I'm not collecting the Roman theme - very interesting and very informative. And thanks for the photos of your burgeoning legions, Martin, and asking for advice.

I think the "representative unit" is spot-on, and just the right combination of having the look of what you're wanting to achieve while being manageable for photostories and setting up displays.

[Martin Milner]

Hi Justindo,

I thought I'd seen a picture of an Optio with a transverse crest, but now you say it I can't find it. Should the Optio have a crest at all? I can easily give him a plain helmet.

Of course that'll leave me with a  bunch of spare transverse crests, unless I can use them for Centurions in charge of the Archers, Cavalry and siege engines.

I'm already building a century of Praetorians as it happens, I've got eleven I can lay my hands on, and another 9 on the way.

I've only got one of the large covered wagons so far, so the rest of the baggage train will be the single horse 2 wheeled carts that Fletcher drives.

The chainmail guys may also end up with their own unit, or they may man the siege engines.

[Justindo]

Nice pictures, Martin!  You're well on your way to having a great Roman army!

Optios wore two single feathers, one on each side of their helmet.  That, however, might be hard to replicate with Playmobil.  I've seen other people use either a white or red front to back crest to designate the optio and this looks fine.  Of course giving the optio a regular helmet would be fine too and, arguably, more historically accurate but perhaps not as fun.  The Tessarius wore no distinguishing features on his helmet, so you can keep his plain and that would be historically correct.  You could use your extra centurion crests and capes, perhaps the white ones, for the four centurions to command your Praetorians, archers, auxiliary infantry, and artillery troops.  (My Praetorian centurions wear white capes and white transverse crests.)  For your cavalry decurion, I'd recommend using the yellow front to back crest, as that's typically what cavalry decurions wore.

Regarding what the centurions should carry, I've debated that with myself a lot.  Right now my centurions have nothing, except for their gladius and parma (round) shield, but a vine staff (perhaps part #30 22 8660) would be an appropriate addition.  I haven't read about any centurion carrying a pilum, but it is possible.  The optio would probably have a pilum while the Tessarius would carry a long wooden staff with a large wooden knot on the end (perhaps part # 30 20 7850) for keeping the battle line straight from the rear.

[Timotheos]

Thanks Justin for the follow up--

My only small point of contention--
Your explanation of the tessarius carrying the staff with knob contradicts what I'd heard about the optio being responsible for keeping the rear in order. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optio

Wikipedia posts a photo of a reenactor playing an optio. 

The tessarius on the other is poorly documented in my books.  Example: Graham Webster's detailed classic ("The Roman Imperial Army") only gives a couple of lines about him overseeing training.

==============
RE: Equitata
The germans were purported to field horse units in which infantry ran with the horseman.  I've read two interpretations of how this worked.

Option 1) The infantry assisted the horsemen on the march like squires.  In battle, they loitered in the rear and covered the horsemen's retreat (horse battles tended to involve a lot of fluid back and forth).

Option 2) The infantry protected the horse's flanks in battle while the riders belted the enemy from the saddle.  Light skirmishers, just as with modern tank warfare, can wreak havoc once they get in close with cavalry--stabbing the horses or jerking men out of the saddles.  So the infantry were a "best of both worlds" compromise.  The horses would have kept to a trot and their infantrymen jogged alongside them.

Yet, I think the formalized Roman equitata that patrolled the frontier, was more like a mixed duty unit.  Horses patrolled, infantry pulled sentry.  Apparently, Romans weren't too specialized with cavalry when the cavalry wasn't from a traditional ethnic group.  As a reward for experience and good service, infantry men could move up to the cavalry.  Cavalry received higher pay (presumably to cover the cost of the horse) but also had other opportunities.  A governor's cavalry body guard came from a rotating man pool.  Example: 2 horsemen from each camp would report for maybe a three month rotation on the governor's guard / courier service.  While on this duty, they remained on the books of their parent unit.  This is another reason why paper strength didn't always equal real strength.  As with the modern army, guys would get farmed out to other units for various rotating duties.
===============

I agree with the concept of scaled down units.  Actually, I'd take it a step further.  Don't even try to simulate a legion or cohort.  It's just too many men to do anything with.  On my 10 foot by 2 foot table, I have about 50 men, 22 horses, and 3 wagons, and little room for anything else.  I want to eventually do a face-off between Romans and Gauls (or Germans) and estimate I'd only be able to fit about 4 scaled-down centuries and 2 cavalry units and still have enough room left to have something meaningly interesting beyond just a huge static line.

 -Tim

[Timotheos]

Option 1) The infantry assisted the horsemen on the march like squires.  In battle, they loitered in the rear and covered the horsemen's retreat (horse battles tended to involve a lot of fluid back and forth).

During a, er, toilet break I had some time to think about what I said above and suspect I may have got it wrong for "option 1".

The squires may have stood back holding the horses' reins while the riders dismounted to fight.  Or gosh maybe I'm confusing this with one variant of British chariotry.  Somebody somewhere dismounted from chariots to fight while the drivers waited in the rear to provide the warriors a quick getaway.  I hope I'm not thinking of the Iliad...

-Tim

[playmofire]

I'm no Roman expert, but I wonder if this mix of cavalry and infantry might be similar to the mounted infantry which were found in the British army in the late 19th century, mainly I think in the colonies, e.g. South Africa.  They were mounted for travelling purposes but actually fought on foot.  Just a thought and probably (almost certainly) entirely wrong.

[Justindo]

My only small point of contention--
Your explanation of the tessarius carrying the staff with knob contradicts what I'd heard about the optio being responsible for keeping the rear in order. 
 -Tim

You're right, Tim!  I mistakenly gave the optio's battle duty and staff to the tessarius!  I should be more careful!  You're right that the tessarius' battle duty is not well-documented.  It's been hypothesized that the tessarius might be in the rear with the optio to help maintain order and might take over rear battle duty should the centurion be killed and the optio sent to the front to command the century.  Regardless, the tesarius would have a pilum and no distinguishing uniform or helmet.

Below is a GREAT link explaining in detail a lot about the organization of the legion on the march and in battle.  (The pop-ups are annoying, but the content more than makes up for it.)  Of course much of the information provided is educated speculation, but so is most everything else I've read.  To me, this site, as a whole, makes a lot of sense.

http://garyb.0catch.com/site_map.html

All your points about the equitata sound very plausible and I agree with all of them.  In battle, if fighting as an independent cohort (perhaps sent on a punitive engagement against a small local tribe), the two options two you offer make a lot of sense tactically.  For garrison duty, a mixed cohort makes sense as you get the best of both worlds for different duties.

Regarding scaled down units, had I actually thought practically about the space the klickies take up on the battlefield, I doubt I would have created an entire "cohort" of both Praetorians and legionaries as there are too many men to set up and move around and space becomes a major factor.  If starting from scratch, I probably would create four "centuries" of legionaries, and two "centuries" each of Praetorians, auxiliary infantry, and auxiliary archers, and two "turmae" of auxiliary cavalry.  I'm using four six by three foot tables which seem like a lot of space, but after setting up some men or my fort, the space disappears!