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The Legion and the Centuriate Organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

G. V. Sumner
G. V. Sumner
Affiliation:
University College, University of Toronto
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Extract

It is generally recognized that Rome of the early Republic offers a good example of the correlation between military and political organization. The ordering of the Roman citizenry in centuries, classes and age-groups was in origin and essence a military system. The Comitia Centuriata was the exercitus urbanus—the army on parade in the Field of Mars.

But by the third century B.C. the Roman army and the centuriate assembly were manifestly two different systems, even if vestiges of their interconnection lingered on. The process whereby this differentiation had come about is, unfortunately, not so clear. The traditional accounts of early Roman history generally failed to devote much attention to questions of that order. Yet the effort to tackle and, if possible, solve this complex of problems can hardly be evaded. The answers given, or assumed, by modern historians are bound to determine how the whole history of early Rome is interpreted and represented.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , November 1970 , pp. 67 - 78
Copyright
Copyright ©G. V. Sumner 1970. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 In certain details the results of this discussion have, not unnaturally, been anticipated in earlier treatments. One may refer in particular to Meyer, Eduard, Kleine Schriften II (1924), 195 ff.Google Scholar; Beloch, J., Römische Geschichte (1926), 283 ff.Google Scholar; De Sanctis, G., Storia dei Romani II 2 (1960), 181 ff.Google Scholar, and RFIC IX (1933), 289 ff. ; Zancan, L., Atti R. Ist. Veneto XLIII (1933–1934), 869 ff.Google Scholar; Giannelli, G., Atene e Roma III (1935), 229 ff.Google Scholar; Momigliano, A. D., SDHI IV (1938), 3 ff.Google Scholar; Bernardi, A., Athenaeum XXX (1952), 3 ff.Google Scholar; Meyer, Ernst, Römische Staat und Staatsgedanke 3 (1964), 48 ff.Google Scholar These treatments represent varying combinations of evidence and hypothesis. The present discussion offers a further variation. For the sake of clarity and simplicity of exposition I have not attempted a detailed critique of earlier interpretations and controversies (for which see especially Staveley, E. S., Historia V, 1956, 74 ff.)Google Scholar.

1a It is not clear whether this implies 40 velites attached to each of the 30 maniples, or alternatively 24 velites attached to each of the maniples of triarii and 48 attached to each of other 20 maniples

2 cf. Veith, G. in Kromayer, J. and Veith, G., Heerwesen und Kriegführung der Griechen und Römer (Munich, 1928), 318.Google Scholar

3 In Frontinus, Strateg. IV, 7, 27 (‘Scipio Aemilianus ad Numantiam omnibus non cohortibus tantum, sed centuriis sagittarios et funditores interposuit’) it must be assumed that ‘centuriis’ is used loosely for ‘manipulis’. Compare Sallust, , BJ 49, 6Google Scholar, (Metellus) ‘inter manipulos funditores et sagittarios dispertit’.

4 cf. Sallust, , BJ 91, 1Google Scholar, ‘pecus exercitui per centurias … distribuerat’. R. M. Ogilvie points out to me that the layout of excavated legionary fortresses, such as Inchtuthil, confirms the continuing administrative function of the centuria.

5 ap. Gell., NA XVI, 4, 6.

6 Walbank, F. W., Historical Commentary on Polybius I (Oxford, 1957), 702Google Scholar (on VI, 21, 7–8).

7 Hermes XXVII (1892), 118 ff. Cf. also Diodorus XXIII, 2. Salmon, E. T., Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge, 1967), 105 ff.Google Scholar is unduly sceptical about the evidence for introduction of manipular tactics during the Samnite War period.

8 Though Toynbee, A. J., Hannibal's Legacy (Oxford, 1965), 1, 518Google Scholar, claims that Livy's description is ‘authentic’.

9 Fraccaro, P., Opuscula II, 287 ff.Google Scholar But see Staveley, E. S., JRS XLIII (1953), 32Google Scholar, n. 18.

10 See further below (p. 71). The process which Fraccaro's hypothesis requires us to assume is that (a) Servius Tullius created an army with a complement of 6,000 hoplites (in 60 centuries with a complement of 100 men each) and 2,400 light-armed ; (b) at the beginning of the Republic this army was divided into two legions, each having a complement of 3,000 hoplites (in 60 centuries with a complement of 50 men each), and 1,200 light-armed; (c) this form of legion was still in force at the time of the manipular reform, so that there was then a straight transition to the manipular legion of 3,000 heavyarmed (with some variation in the complement of the 60 centuries) and 1,200 light-armed.

The puzzling feature in this analysis is why, in the very long period from the founding of the Republic to the manipular reform, the Romans should have kept the legion down to a complement of 3,000 hoplites and the century to a complement of 50. Fraccaro himself (Opusc. 11, 289) observes that a distinction is to be made between the theoretical and the effective complement of a military unit. Yet according to his hypothesis the effective complement of 50 for a century established ca. 500 B.C. must have become transformed into the theoretical complement, since otherwise he has no explanation why its effective complement did not return towards the original theoretical complement of 100.

11 cf. for the usage Horace, Sat. 1, 4, 86, ‘saepe tribus lectis videas cenare quaternos.’

12 cf. Salmon, Samnium and the Samnites 232, n. 2.

13 Broughton, T. R. S., The Magistrates of the Roman Republic I (New York, 1951), 52 ff.Google Scholar

14 Zonar. VII, 18; cf. T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht I3 128; II3 190.

15 Up to 406 dictators are named in four of the 19 years in which tribuni militum consulari potestate are recorded: viz., 434, 426, 418, 408.

16 Broughton, , MRR 1, 59Google Scholar, cf. 65–67.

17 Cf. Les Origines de la République Romaine (Entretiens Hardt XIII, 1966), 130 f., 239, 241.

18 De Francisci, P., Primordia Civitatis (1959), 694 ff.Google Scholar, attempts to evade them, by an argument which concentrates on the use of the adjective classicus and ignores the expression infra classem.

19 Momigliano, A. D., JRS LVI (1966), 22.Google Scholar

20 Momigliano, ibid. 16 ff.; Alföldi, , Historia XVII (1968), 444 ff.Google Scholar; Momigliano, ibid. XVIII (1969), 385 ff.

21 Broughton, , MRR 1, 53Google Scholar (with n. 2), 54 (with n. 1).

22 Nilsson, M., JRS XIX (1929), 1 ff.Google Scholar

23 Festus 452 L. The text is slightly corrupt, but the old emendation adiectae (for adfectae) makes poor sense. A somewhat simpler correction, adfecta for adfectae, will solve the problem: ‘sex suffragia appellantur in equitum centuriis, quae sunt adfecta [e] ei numero centuriarum quas Priscus Tarquinius rex constituit’: ‘the six suffragia is the name among the centuries of equites for the suffragia which are associated with that number of centuries which King Tarquinius Priscus established’; for the sense of adficere cf. Oliver, J. H., Studi De Francisci I (1956), 129 f.Google Scholar

24 cf. Alföldi, , Early Rome and the Latins (Ann Arbor, 1965), 129 f.Google Scholar

25 See Ogilvie, R. M., Commentary on Livy, Books 1–5 (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar, ad loc.

26 Taylor, , The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic (Rome, 1960), 6.Google Scholar

27 It is worth noting that this election represented the first appearance of the Comitia Tributa as an electoral body; cf. Mommsen, , Röm. Staatsr. 1 3525.Google Scholar

28 Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins 307 ff.

29 Snodgrass, A. M., JHS LXXXV (1965), 110 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Momigliano can hardly be followed in his paradoxical view that the early Roman cavalry (unlike the early Greek cavalry) was not an aristocratic preserve (JRS LVI, 1966, 16 ff.; contra, Alföldi, , Historia 1968 444 ff.Google Scholar). His clinching argument—the fact that the Roman dictator was not allowed to mount a horse—is not so compelling as it may appear. The prohibition certainly implies an insistence on the primacy of infantry over cavalry. But there is no ground for assuming with Momigliano that the prohibition was laid down at the beginning of the Republic. The logical conclusion should be that it resulted from the hoplite reform.

31 Cf. Historia XIII (1964), 125 ff.

32 Cf. Athenaeum XL (1962), 37 ff.

33 I have benefited in this article from the critical comments of R. M. Ogilvie and of various sceptical auditors at the Universities of London, Oxford and Edinburgh, where a version of the paper was delivered in 1968. The impetus to the investigation came from a stimulating series of seminars held at the University of Toronto in 1967 by Professor A. Alföldi.