Roman Tactics

The Cohort

Lets look at the early cohort as shown above. Until Scipio, the cohort from this writer's point of view implied Socii or allied Latin units usually described as operating in groups of five cohorts detailed to perform such activities as re-enforcing armies or garrisoning towns to name just two. The Roman and not the allied ones consisted of three maniples each. The Triarii of the allies were possibly brigaded with the Roman Triarii. The allies probably used only Hastati and Princeps in their cohorts with the third maniple being another maniple of Hastati or Princeps. These sections were formerly part of the three traditional lines of the legion: Hastati, Princeps and Triarii. The first two types carry short sword and pila. The last, the Triarii, use short sword and hasta (long spear). In Scipio's time each retained the weapons normally associated with their type. He simply brigaded together 3 maniples of each line to better deal with either foot or mounted enemies. The pila-armed would face foot and ideally the long spear could blunt mounted attacks. Using these new ideas Scipio managed to turned the tables on Hannibal and beat him soundly at Zama.

Scipio took the legions of Rome to where they had seldom traveled before both geographically and tactically. Scipio always came up with new ideas on how to employ his legions. He broke with tradition and few dared to follow his example as Roman generals blundered down the years until the time of Marius in 100 B.C.

Future illustrations will show a typical Roman Consular army of the Punic War Period as listed on our page called A Call To Arms. This system was used until the time of the Jugarthine War and it was during this time circa 106 B. C. that we believe the last such deployment of the maniple legions were used.

The Legion and Cohorts of Caesar's Time

Now let us skip to the time of Caesar for concepts on tactics that relate to the Classical Hack game system. In the time of Caesar the cohort was used differently yet there remained the basics of what earlier Romans like Scipio created. We will look at the way a legion went from column of march to line of battle. Notice that the figures are mounted on half stands of two. In this fashion evolutions become more practicable and historical.