The enemy in a Roman training yard did not move. He stood about six feet high, was sunk firmly into the earth and had no face beyond the one a recruit imagined for him. Against this wooden post, Vegetius says, the beginner learned to attack the head, sides and legs, to advance, retreat, spring forward … Read more
The Roman fleet faced 220 ships whose decks rose above its own. Their hulls were oak, their crossbeams massive, their anchor cables iron chain and their sails made from hides or dressed leather. Caesar says a Roman ram could not hurt them. Even towers added to the lower Roman vessels failed to erase the height … Read more
The ladders bent under too many men. Some did not reach the top of New Carthage’s wall at all; the longer ones flexed, broke and dropped their climbers. Those who reached the highest rungs found themselves exposed and unable to step onto the battlement. Then the Roman signal sounded for retreat. To the defenders, the … Read more
At sunset, a soldier reported to a tribune and received the Roman camp’s watchword. Polybius pauses to explain that the word was not entrusted to memory alone. It was inscribed on a small wooden tablet. The man carried that tablet back to the tenth maniple at the lower end of a camp street. A commander … Read more
In winter the horse stood under a roof. In summer it moved onto the field. It did not eat, shy or tire because it was made of wood, and Vegetius expected Roman recruits to climb onto it again and again. The drill was progressive. Young men began unarmed. As familiarity increased, they mounted while equipped. … Read more
Ten Roman prisoners entered Rome after the disaster at Cannae. They carried Hannibal’s proposal for an exchange, but they also carried a promise: if the Senate refused, they would return to the Punic camp. The Senate refused. Around the prisoners, parents and relatives embraced them and argued that reaching their native country had restored their … Read more
The town was fortified, well supplied and protected by its position. From the Roman camp, its citadel remained visibly beyond Scipio’s control. Yet the commander was not standing before his troops to promise a dramatic assault. He was sitting in judgment. One of the soldiers on trial asked the ordinary procedural question: on what day, … Read more
Night climbed the mountains in moving points of fire. Some lights ran together, others broke away, and the whole pattern refused to behave like an ordinary camp. Roman observers first read the sight as a prodigy. By the time scouts supplied a practical answer, uncertainty had already done its work. Frontinus explains the device in … Read more
An interceptor unrolled the leather strip and found broken strokes scattered along its length. Another watcher inspected a wax tablet and saw nothing written on it. A third messenger crossed the road carrying no document at all. In each case, the secret was present, but the visible object refused to behave like readable writing. Aulus … Read more
A Roman recruit could be strong on a road, steady behind a shield and still become helpless at the edge of a swollen river. Vegetius treated that weakness seriously enough to give swimming its own chapter. The old requirement, he wrote, applied to recruits without exception. The reason was not athletic display. An army could … Read more
