Talk:Structural history of the Roman military/Archive 1

Archiving earlier talk messages
I would like to set up essjay's bot to automatically archive sections older than 30 days so that the discussion of stuff that is now redundant is not immediately visible (ie the old stuff on the page name etc). If anyone has any objection to this propsal, please post up now. Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey, if you still want the talk page automatically archived now that Essjay's bots are offline, you can try MiszaBot III - WerdnaBot seems to be inactive again, though. Carom 14:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Bibliographical offer
Hi all. I'm not very interested in helping to write this article. I do, however, have some books that those involved in this article might find useful, and that I can make scans of chapters, etc. E.g., Graham Webster's Roman Imperial Army" and G.R. Watson's The Roman Soldier are standard works. I also have Cheeseman's Roman Auxilia somewhere, I think.  (I have a lot more, too, and live not far from a university library.)  semper fictilis'' 19:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've scanned the Table of Contents of a few books and uploaded them:
 * G. Webster ''Roman Imperial Army" is in a pdf here
 * E. Gabba, Republican Rome, the army, and the allies here
 * Davies, Service in the Roman Army here
 * Brisson, Problemes de la guerre a Rome here
 * Tell me if any of these chapters look useful. semper fictilis 22:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Cite error 2
I've been struggling to find out what I've done with the references now for abou 20 minutes without any joy! Can someone who knows what they're doing fix the cite error that appears in the article and let me know what was causing the problem so that I can stop it happening again? Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I see citations and references. What exactly is the problem? Maybe you need to clear your cache? 151.202.74.135 20:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is, as stated above the "Cite error 2" flags on some of the references - speicifically; "Cite error 2; Invalid tag; refs with no content must have a name" . They are dotted throughout the article. I have already refreshed, it is an issue with the ref tags, not with my browser - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah... somehow your quotes are not the standard "" ones That may not be it. I'm stumped. Post on help desk? Xiner (talk, email) 20:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Well that was a bugger to fix - thanks for your help Xiner, it seems there are two forms of " marks. Who knew! - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Fall of the Empire needs work
It is referenced here and there but even the referenced passages contain errors.
 * Hi, I will admite that my knowledge of the very late empire is poor, I have few sources on this period and it seems that (due to lack of Roman writers in this period) historical knowledge of the military's structure during this period is poor and there is a paucity of literature on the topic. However, I don't think the account given is substantially questionable, in that it accords with what sources I do have. I am always open to reviewing the outline given based on any sources you may have: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PocklingtonDan (talk • contribs) 21:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC).


 * 1) It's not clear that there ever was one central field army.
 * I have cited sources that state that there was one central field army. If you have sources that say otherwise, you should point out the two different opinions and give a full cite for your source.ie "X says Y but A says B". This is of course an error of some disagreement, and it is good to include different opinions if you can provide cites for them.


 * 1) The palatini are a class of troops. The two Praesental armies (and the Italian army) are the actual 'central' field armies.
 * The palatini were a class of troops but the comitatense palitini was the central field army, again this is all cited


 * 1) Who is Santossuoso? Where does he write this?
 * Antonio Santousosso, as listed in the reference section and cited several times


 * 1) The Notitia Dignitatum lists frontier troops in detail at the same time (c. 400) the article states the frontiers were "entirely denuded of troops."
 * the exact quote is "many of the empire's borders had been entirely denuded of troops " - I'm not saying all borders had been denuded by this period, just that many had, which is unquesitonable, the most obvious example being Britannia of course, though much of Europe was falling to the Franks, Africa to the Vandals etc.


 * 1) There was no one central field army in the fifth century. The Notitia Dignitatum lists several field armies, and again, three could be considered "central" field armies.
 * It is explained that there were regional field armies in addition to the central field army. If this isn't sufficiently clear it may need to be reworded, but it is definitely stated in the article.


 * 1) Vast forces? What vast forces? Where are they coming from? What are they eating? I believe most recent scholarship gives the very largest such armies 20,000 or 30,000 fighters. e.g. Heather 1998.
 * Since the Roman forces in existence in around 400 AD numbered perhaps 600,000 total, with maybe 250,000 of them in the west, it seems unlikely that armies of 20,000 would have caused Rome the severe trouble they did. I am willing to rephrase if you can give me some quotes and cites from alternate sources.
 * Bury clearly writes about such numbers + the same number of supporting slaves, once they were within the borders, who were quickly armed, rising as high as 40k. The 250k Roman soldiers partly deserted to the enemy, partly were so ill equipped that they prefered to stay away from any bloodshed and rather bothered unarmed peasants in the empire. Wandalstouring 19:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) Overstates the importance of foederatii (with two is at the end). Understates the importance of regular units. See Elton 1996.
 * I don't think I agree, in the very late empire Rome had practically no troops other than federated troops, as evidenced by the fact they eventually siezed the empire unopposed. Can you provide a qoute or scan of your source that says otherwise?


 * 1) Pretends the Roman Empire didn't last another thousand years. "Last emperor"? "close"?
 * In this entire series of article I make it clear in the lead I am discussing ancient Rome only, which most certainly did not continued for 1000 years later, that would be the Byzantine empire, which has a separate series of articles. I have changed the wrding to "last emperor of ancient Rome" just to clarify.

Okay, any advice on fixing this? Jacob Haller 19:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Section Divisions
I suggest something like the following, upping some subsection headings to section headings:
 * Early Rome
 * Prior to the Roman Kingdom
 * The Roman Kingdom
 * Republican Rome
 * (appropriate divisions)
 * Early Imperial Rome
 * (appropriate divisions)
 * Late Imperial Rome (284-500)
 * Field Armies & Border Armies (284-395)
 * Barbarian Allies
 * Collapse of the West (395-476) (Romulus Augustulus falls 476, Nepos 480, Syagrius 486)
 * Survival of the East (395-491) (with links to Byzantine Army)

I might also suggest moving from the political divisions (Kingdom, Republic, Empire) to the military transitions (Hoplite, Manipular Legion, Marian Legion, Field Armies & Border Armies). Jacob Haller 22:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

naval rise
You should write about the navy where about 100k Romans and naval allies served when it was fully manned at the end of the First Punic War until the days of Cesar. Wandalstouring 19:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Wandals, I have mentioned the navy briefly but the real problem is trying to find information on its structure. I found some small amount of information on the number of men per ship and number of ships per squadron, but getting much more information is proving difficult - a lack of source is proving to be the problem here. I will keep digging! Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I will quote Lazenby in a few days. He calculates the numbers of army and navy for the Second Punic War. Wandalstouring 20:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Survival in the East
Can we restore this subsection? Jacob Haller 04:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I had no complaint with the contents - I moved most of them to "Collapse in the west" but it was just odd to have two concurrent sections collapse int he west and survival in the east running with the same dates How about we rename "collapse int he west" to "collapse in the west and survival in the east" or similar? - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Collapse in the West and Survival in the East
After 395, the histories of the Western and Eastern Roman militaries gradually diverge. We may want to include one heading for the west and one heading for the east.

I'm not convinced that "cut off in the enemy's rear [area]" is meaningful in this context. If an armies occupies the border province, then the province is not the "rear area" and if it passes through the border province, then the province is no longer occupied. If a Vandal army in invading Spain, it doesn't benefit from leaving units on the Rhine.

I'm not sure how Luttwak compares the importance of Foederatii and regular troops, or compares the classes of foederatii. The primary sources are rather sparse and many have reasons to emphasize barbarian troops. Jacob Haller 18:58, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, I am working through the article trying to find cites for every sentence you have flagged as citation needed, this may obviously take me some time to squirrel out the exact cites for everything that you have tagged. This article covers rome only up til the fall of the west, as is conventional - anything in the ast after this point is byzantine rather than Roman. I agree though that treatment of the east between 395 and 476 is probably lacking and is needed. I'd rather not have this in separate headings however since it breaks the narrative chronology of the headings to have two headings for the same date range. Please just flag up anything you find questionable and I will try and either reword it or else find a cite for it. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Uncertain time period
First of all,it's not clear which changes were Diocletian's and which were Constantine's. I'be made the 1st sentence slightly less specific. Jacob Haller 20:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, you're absolutely right, we can agree on this at least :-) Cheers, - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

More cavalry in field armies?
The Notitia specifies higher proportions of cavalry units in the border armies than in the field armies. I doubt anyone takes that too literally, but it contradicts the border = infantry, field = cavalry implication of the section.

What is clear is that the border armies were dispersed among small fortified bases along the fronter. We aren't dealing with principate-style multi-legion or even single-legion bases any more. The Notitia doesn't say how the field armies were based in peacetime. Sources like Ammianus Marcellinus' emphasize the infantry of the field armies, so it was still an important, if not the most important arm. Jacob Haller 20:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, I agree with your comments about the distribution of border army troops, if you look at the new borders or limes that were fortified, you find accounts of the troops being split between main forts twenty miles apart and smaller watchtowers between etc, rather than being concentreated in legionary camps. I don't think either of us disagree with this point.


 * However, I don't think we have come to agreement yet on exactly how border armies differed from field armies - amongst the sources I have there is noagreement on the quality of the troops in the border armies, some sources say they were of lower quality, others than they were of the same quality as the field armies. However, the sources I have do seem to all agree that there was a greater concentration of cavalry in the field armies than in the border armies, even though doctrine mandated at times cavalry troops based in border forts as effective border guards. I'm not sure to what extent we're going to be able to clear this up, there just seems to be too much disagreement amongst contemporary scholars on this one - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Time periods for frontiers
Hadrian's Wall itself was 2nd century, but some other frontiers were 1st century. I "corrected" the statement from "first century" to "second century" but we may need to find another example from the first, e.g. the Upper-German Limes. Jacob Haller 20:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Jacob, I have no substantial disagreement with you on this point. I have reworded the relevant sections a little. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Late legions still heavy infantry?
Ammianus, among other authors, discusses what seem to be heavy infantry in the fourth century. I'm not convinced that the legions ceased to be heavy infantry; rather, they were heavy infantry, and many auxilia were also heavy infantry. Elton somwhere describes most legionaries as heavy infantry; he argues that some legionaries were light infantry, but I'm not convinced by his argument (he cites one account, of troops on ships, and troops on ships are likely not to wear their armor anyway). Also, the Spatha was not that long compared to medieval or modern swords, and while specialized slashing swords, like scimitars, have curved blades, spathae have straight blades, like gladii and other slash-chop-or-stab swords. Jacob Haller 21:00, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Several of my sources discuss the fact that although the legions continued to be called legions and were *meant* to be heavy infantry still, that the soldiers basically refused both the discipline of the earlier legions and also to wear heavy armour. I don't wish to get pedantic over terms but later legions weren't *as heavy* as earlier legions - can we both agree on this? I'm not sure where the line is drawn between heavy infantry and light infantry - certainly the legions continued to play a heavy infantry role (dense blocks of troops resisting cavalry charge etc) rather than a light infantry role (skirmishing etc) but they were less heavily armoured than earlier legions and their discipline and close-order fighting skills had been degraded. Are we both able to agree on the above? If so, perhaps we can reword the article to make clearer what is meant. I do not mean to suggest that the later legions played a skirmishing role as earlier light infantry, just that the legions were less regimented, less lightly armed, and less disciplined. Let me know if you think we can reword this to reflect a consensus opinion. Perhaps as simple as changing "light" to "lighter"? Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I have found some more sources which are equally forthright that it is wrong to consider later legionaries as similar to their earlier counterparts at all - there was less discipline, they had lost their engineering skills, abandoned the practice of building fortified camps, wore less armour, had a greater percentage of skirmising weaponry such as slings, lost the pilums that were so useful in dense infantry actions etc, etc. I have reworded this section a little but I still remain convinced that the account given is essentially correct. I do not have a copy of the Elton - are you able to scan this at all please so I could have a look at it? All my sources seem to contradict Elton! Cheers- PocklingtonDan (talk) 09:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Elton, 1996, Warfare in Roman Europe, pp. 107 & 110-111 discuss this.
 * Also Bishop & Coulston, 2006, Roman military Equipment, p. 208:
 * "The sculptural record has traditionally been interpreted as evidence for the disuse of metallic armor, especially by infantry. This appears to be supported by Vegetius' assertion that helmets and armour were rarely worn by infantry from the time of Gratianus (AD 367-83). However, the sculptures cannot safely be interpreted in this way, and it is possible that Vegetius was writing about eastern forces in the aftermath of the Hadrianopolis disaster (AD 378). His remarks cannot be extended to the whole Empire for the entire late Roman period, as some scholars have done."
 * "Other artworks do depict armour..."
 * Third-century armor, from before and during the Crisis, is well-attested. Bishop & Coulston pp. 170ff and Stephenson, 2001, Roman Infantry Equipment: The Later Empire, discuss this. Segmented armor fell out of use during the third century (Stephenson, p. 44) but mail and scale armor remained in use (Bishop & Coulston, p. 208). The relative merits of segmented vs. mail armor are in dispute.
 * In the quoted passage, Bishop & Coulston allude to the switch from some funerary monuments showing soldiers in full armor, with the cheek pieces reduced to show the face, to most such monuments showing the soldiers without armor. It has been taken as evidence for less armor, and I think they are right that it can better be explained through shifting styles than actually abandoning armor. Jacob Haller 14:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * HI Jacob, I have reworded this now to make it clear that there is contrmporary disagreement among scholars on this point and they they only MAY have been more lightly armoured. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:55, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Length of spatha blade
The average spatha blade of the Late Roman Empire is only about 65-70cm. This isn't much longer than the surviving gladius blades from the Late Roman Republic, such as that from Delos. Traditionally, even republican gladii have been considered shortswords. Most spatha blades are far shorter than medieval longsword blades. Jacob Haller 15:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, I know almost nothing about Roman weaponry, I'm not into historical reenactment or anything similar and don't have any works on Roman arms at all, I simply have a few cites from works on the Roman military or other more specialist areas that all say that the spatha was a longer sword. I know you have placed query tags on the wikipedia pages in question, but they currently agree with my sources that the spatha "was a type of straight sword with a long point, measuring between 0.75 and 1 m" whereas the gladius ranged from 66cm to 82cm (depending on if you count blade length or sword length). I don't know enough about ROman weaponry to comment intelligently on this, but I can (as always) only go with the sources available to me, which all state that the spatha was longer than the gladius, as the above wikipedia articles seem to similarly state. I think given your greater knowledge in this area that you are better suited than me to getting to the bottom of this issue. I would point out however that this is a relatively minor issue in the context of this article that might be better resolved by simply stating that the gladius had beenr eplaced by the spatha and leaving it to those individual articles to detail what the length of each blade was. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Troop Classes
Finally, three paragraphs seem to tackle the same issue (division between limitanei and comitatenses, role of each, quality of each, composition of each) with slightly different emphases. I suggest merging these paragraphs. The section might have one paragraph on the split, and one on the changes in the legion. Jacob Haller 21:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that the first two paragraphs could possibly be reworked into a single paragraph, leaving the third paragraph (on the legions) as-is. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I have reworked these pargraphs now including denser citation and toning down the claims that went beyond the cites I could put my hands on immediately. I think probably now these paragraphs are a little large to rework into a single paragraph and are fine as they are but have a look now and let me know what you think. Cheers, PocklingtonDan (talk) 09:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not familiar with the evidence for an intermediate troops class between the limitanei/ripenses and comitatenses/palatini. The Notitia distinguishes two classes of limitanei (or R.) in some provinces, but it's significance is unclear, and the border legions are in the major list, IIRC, it's old cohortes and alae which most often appear in the minor list. Moreover, some frontiers have mostly alae/cohortes, others cunei, other vexillationes and milites, etc. Some authors associate different titles with different emperors, but not distinct roles. Jacob Haller 15:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Jacob, I found this in Luttwak, who references Clemente, La Notitia Dignitatum, pp.146-151. He also cites Varady, "New evidences on some problems of late Roman military organisation" (1961), 360. I have added this cite to the article now on the point in questions. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Disputed tags in article
Jacob, I think this could receive better treatment than disputed tags - it would be better where two sources disagree instead of having a single cited quote marked as disputed to change this to "Authority X believes X (cite 1) but authority Y believes Y (cite 2)". I think this is a better way of treating scholarly disputes than adding disputed flags linking to the talk page, which detracts from the article. Do you think you would be able to do this, adding in your own sources and cites, rather than just flagging cited statements as disputed? It would be to the benefit of the article, I believe. Many thanks, Dan
 * Which is another way of saying, try and work with me on this article rather than against me :-) - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Trust me, I'm not trying to work against you. I'm just trying to find the right balance between "raise on the article page and discuss on the talk page" and "fix on the article page." My reference books, such as they are, are in the other room. Jacob Haller 17:42, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem, I do appreciate your help with this article, a lot of articles on wikipedia seem to be turning into single-editor projects, which isn't healthy for wikipedia. You seem to have an in-depth knowledge of this area, which is invaluable - I will be going through doing some copyediting of the prose this evening (another editor has nominated the page for GA status so i want to tidy it up a little before it gets reviewed) but I won't be making any edits to the article's substance or structure or any of the points we are currently discussing, just tidying up prose where necessary etc. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Rise of the Cavalry
I'd like to move the start date for Comitatenses and Limitanei to 284 and start moving material from Rise of the Cavalry into the following sections, particularly C & L. Jacob Haller 17:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, I agree that the title is a slight misnomer now that we have reworked those two sections and what we suggest makes sense - do we need to split C&L into two sections now to stop it growing too large? If so, on what divisions? Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It isn't easy to distinguish Diocletian's reorganization from Constantine's. The combination was the largest change in Roman military organization since Marius. Jacob Haller 18:57, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * My only concern with the changes so far is the name of the section "successive crises" - in this structural history article I have tried to keep away from any but the most major events in terms of campaigns of imperial clashes etc in order to concentrate purely on the structural history - both to keep the article length down and also so as not to duplicate material from other articles. My concern is purely that i was trying to keep each section header relating purely to structural changes than contemporary events or imperial changes (eg "Time of Augustus" etc). Hope this makes sense Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If you want to restore the old name or come up with a new name, fine. I just think that the same description could fit the fourth or fifth centuries (and the same concerns apply to most of the Barbarization sections). Jacob Haller 19:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Roman Army and Navy
I'm not familiar with the history of the Roman Navy, but in the Late Empire many naval/riverine units were part of the army. (It's in the Notitia Dignitatum and Treadgold discusses this as well). So what are the sources that the army and navy were the top-level branches? At all times? Thanks. Jacob Haller 13:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The Roman navy is severely under-documented (especially in English - I suspect there is a lot of research from Italian journals on this topic that simply never finds its way into English translation) and much of the research is still very much ongoing and active based on finds from or referencing the naval bases such as Dubris. I did have a go a while back at reorganising and updating the Roman navy article but I simply don't know enough about the suject myself - I get the impression that no-one really knows a lot of the details. From what I understand the navy was completely separate of the army - some confusion arises I believe because enlisted naval personnel were classed as "soldiers", the same as temporarily embarked troops, even though the former were navy and the latter army. I drew up some diagrams maybe a year back of my understanding of the command structure of the roman army and navy for the article Military of ancient Rome - I didn't footnote them inline unfortunately but it was based on the best information I could find at the time. They show that the navy was always technically separate of the army. As always, I bow to anyone with superior knowedge of this exact subject area, which is definitely not my speciality either! I would struggle now though to say exactly where I got the source info from for drawing up those diagrams, I wouldn't be able to find the relevant sources now without a lot of difficulty, although I believe I made extensive use of JSTOR to find relevant articles. Let me know your thoughts.


 * By the way, I've been very impressed with your recent edits to the article, the changes remove a lot of redundancy and make those sections flow a lot better - I'm often too timid to hack too deeply into articles once they are in a relatively stable state, so congrats. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold
Overall, this article is indeed well-cited. Anyone can scroll down to the references section and see that. However, my main qualm with this article is the prose. There are a lot of bulky sentences riddled with comma splices. The first sentence alone needs to be re-worded, because it goes from defining "structural history" to footnoting when the Roman Empire lasted. Personally, I think the article's better off without the Ancient Rome dates, because you can see when Rome lasted if you clicked on "Ancient Rome". The second paragraph of the lead uses three(!) subordinate clauses. Indeed, lots of information is given, but it just seems confusing to the reader if they have to jump from one thing to another within the same sentence. Final paragraph of the lead, I don't think "phase" is the best choice here. Phase, to me, makes it seem like the changes in military were more or less pre-planned (which they weren't, because this article describes the evolution of military structure). Jumping to the Tribal Forces, you have a sentence like "Although the army would have had an infantry element since its inception sometime in the first millennia BC, the cavalry, known as the celeres or literally "the swift", was, according to tradition, only formed in the time of the apocryphal Romulus." Really long, and can probably be split into smaller sentences.

Disagree if you want, but conciseness is what we aim for. - Pandacomics 12:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Pandacomics, thanks for your comments. As I understand it the overly wordy prose is causing the article to fail GA criteria at the moment? I will mark the article as in-use and carry out a thorough copyedit trying to simplify the wording. I will get back to you when this is complete later today. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Pandacomics, I have broken up some of the longer sentences now although I have to say that grammatically all the sentences seemed to be fine. There does seem to be a contemporary preference for shorter sentences but that doesn't make longer sentences wrong per se and I actually find they make for easier, more comprehensible reading. With regard to including the dates in the opening sentence this isn't really an issue of the article meeting the GA critera but in any case I think it is important to fully outline and explain the article in the lead paras. It seems to me essential that this is done without reference to wikilinks to interrupt the flow - wikilinks should primarily be used to allow a reader to drill-down to greater information on a given topic, not as a shortcut to prevent having to explain a concept etc. I hope that you after reviewing the changes I have made that you will be able to release this article from hold. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

more prose issues

 * "However, the trend of employing allied or mercenary troops was expanded such that these troops may have represented the majority of Rome's forces." -> inconsistent tense: you start off with past tense, and go into present subjunctive. you can keep this in statu quo, but for me, it's kind of like whoa when I start reading past tense, and see a present tense verb later in the sentence.
 * "also through organic structural evolution" -> curious question: why organic?
 * "The general trend in Rome's military can however be generalised as undergoing three distinct phases."
 * 1) commas before and after the word "however"
 * 2) perhaps it was divided/separated into three distinct phases?
 * 3) "the general trend" could perhaps be rephrased as something along the lines of evolution or development. when using the phrase "the general trend" it usually refers to a type of fashion, like "the general trend was to tie up your hair in a ponytail"
 * "as the territories belonging to rome increased" -> the "belonging to" is awkward. perhaps a hint at the empire's expansion? also, the clause is followed by "the soldiery of ancient rome". I know you meant "rome's army" but having "its" that close to "soldiery" makes it seem like the army belongs to the soldiery.
 * "nothing is known of Rome's military arrangements, which would most probably have been indistinguishable from that of other neolithic and bronze age settlements." -> arrangements is plural; use "from those of"
 * "The army would have had an infantry element since its inception sometime in the first millennia BC, whereas the cavalry" -> *"whereas" means "although." move it to the front, or use "but" in the place of "whereas"
 * "300 cavalry during this period, one third from each tribe" -> I know you mean 100 cavalry and 1000 soldiers from each founding tribe of rome, but the mention of founding tribes is far enough away from the section's beginning to warrant another reference. also because you only mentioned them once.
 * "too great for these figures to be taken too literally" -> "too" much? I think using one "too" at the beginning is fine. and curious question, what WAS livy's historical remove?
 * "probably consisted solely of the very richest citizens" -> redundant to improve the superlative. you can just say "of the richest citizens"
 * "By the close of the 7th century" -> I think you mean "by the turn of the 7th century" and if anything, turn of the 7th century BC.
 * "Romans had lost their struggle for independence and the Etruscans had conquered Rome" -> if you're connecting two independent clauses, place a comma before "and"
 * "a military dictatorship or kingdom in the city" -> place commas before and after "or kingdom" because it's not like they had to pick between a military dictatorship or a kingdom.
 * "Although several Roman sources talk extensively about the Roman army of the Roman Kingdom, including Livy and Polybius, none of them are contemporary sources: Polybius, for example, was writing some 300 years after the events in question, and Livy some 500 years later. The sources cannot therefore be seen as being reliable for this period as they are on later military history from the First Punic War onwards." -> this paragraph just seems to interrupt the flow of the history of the roman army structure. you had an invasion going, and now you debate livy and polybius.

General note: try avoid using "would have." I'm under the assumption that these developments did happen, so it's preferable to just use plain old past tense. Instead of "the army would have done this" you can say "the army did this." There are more, but I got lazy. I'll continue probably later. Pandacomics 19:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Pandacomics, many thanks for taking the time to provide some copyediting assistance on the article, I have taken onboard and incorporated the much greater part of your suggestions and will try and run through some additional further copyediting too. I would also appreciate it if you were able to spend any extra time copyediting the rest of the article, since it is always useful to get fresh eyes on an article for copyediting other than the author's own. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Manpower Losses at Adrianople
The size of the Roman Army at Adrianople, and thus the number of Roman losses in the battle, has been disputed. Delbrück estimates somewhat over 10,000, which is widely but not universally accepted (personally, I've swung back towards higher estimates, as much as 30,000, with the Romans substantially outnumbering the Goths). Several other battles (Arusio, Carrhae, etc.) involve much greater manpower losses. Jacob Haller 00:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, thanks as ever for your excellent input on the article. I have double-checked, and you are correct that a lot of the newer sources do seem to revise downwards the losses at Adrianople and generally seem to cast doubt on its macrohistorical importance altogether. I have removed the qualification of its absolute size and simply left the statement that the losses were great and cause at least some reduction in manpower. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

there's still more

 * "little different from" = similar to
 * that's just stylistic preference surely - "little different from" is grammatically fine! - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "This army was a relatively small force and its activities were limited" -> comma before "and" - DONE
 * "none of them are contemporary sources: Polybius" -> use a period instead (the previous sentence is essentially complete) - DONE
 * "and much of the history of this period is considered to be apocryphal" -> is this an assertation by historians (if so, which ones?) or is it by you? (WP:OR)
 * I could probably find a cite for this somewhere but its only really necessary to cite statements that might be reasonably challenged - I don't think anyone would seriously challenge that early Roman history was apocryphal given that there were no extant records for the time and what history there was in Polybius' time had been passed down verbally for 300 years. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "According to what history exists, however, the three kings of Rome during the city's Etruscan occupation are" -> "however" means *"but". you're not contrasting this paragraph with the previous one just because you're introducing a new chapter in roman history. you can just remove it. also, "are" implies that this roman kingdom still exists (b/c of the present tense) - DONE
 * "The reformation of the army during this period into the centurial army based on socio-economic class" -> lots of long prepositional phrases here (and your sentence goes even further). consider rewording. - DONE
 * "Livy tells us that Tullius reformed the army as a result {of his transplanting} {onto the army the structure derived} {for civil life} {from his undertaking} {of the first Roman census}." -> five prepositional phrases stuck into a sentence. again. reword it if you can. - DONE
 * "However, Rome's social classes were qualified rather than created by the census and Tullius was not the first Etruscan king of Rome but the second." -> tullius being the second king has nothing to do with the rest of the paragraph. - DONE
 * "However, the Romans at this time apparently viewed military service as a proper undertaking of duty to the state, in contrast to later Roman views of it as being an unwelcome and unpleasant burden." -> it's not really "apparent" when you have sources to back it up. - DONE
 * "This may in part be due" -> commas around "in part" - DONE
 * "due to - as posited by later Roman writers -" -> use an em dash (WP:DASH) instead of a hyphen - DONE
 * "The equestrians, the highest social class of all, served as the mounted cavalry units of the equites" -> did the equites own the cavalry units known as the equestrians, or were the equestrians collectively named the equites? - Made the meaning clearer now (the latter)
 * "The first class of the richest citizens" = "First-class citizens" I think even today, we can imply wealth from a person that's labelled as "first-class"
 * "first-class citizens might be misconstrued as a casual term but this is a specific Roman term with an official meaning, leavin as-is, since this is clearer in existing text that inproposed alternative text - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "The second class were armed similarly to the first class, but without a breastplate and with an oblong rather than a round shield, and stood behind the first class in battle formation" -> you're trying to combine three sentences at once here. first, that they were similar. second, that they lacked certain pieces of armour. third, that they stood somewhere in the battle formation. - DONE
 * "The third and fourth classes were more lightly armed with a thrusting spear and throwing javelins, and stood behind the second class in battle formation, providing javelin support." -> again, see my comments immediately above. - DONE
 * "The poorest men of the fifth class" -> this implies "the poorest men out of all the people who qualify for fifth-class". I know you mean that fifth-class citizens are poor. - DONE
 * "were formed in the fifth class" -> comprised the fifth class, unless you want to mean that plaster men with not a lot of money were formed in a "fifth class" - DONE


 * "The very poorest of men, those excluded from the qualifying social classes of the adsidui" -> "who were" would be more appropriate than "those"
 * Don't see anything wrong with "those", it seems to scan better to me? - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

This is in the Etruscan section alone. Working on the maniples now. As in editing, not like...yes. I'll be reading now. Pandacomics 10:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

From the manipular army:
 * "the early Roman republic" -> capitalize republic - DONE
 * "Marcus Furius Camillus.Grant" -> insert a space after the period - DONE
 * "that the early republican army" -> republican refers to the political ideaology. Republican refers to the army of the Republic. - DONE
 * "At this period" -> during this period, insert a comma at the end. - DONE
 * "However, contrary to later legionary formations of exclusively heavy infantry" -> contrary is used to counter an argument. there's no debate here, but there is a contrast. - DONE
 * "consisted of mixed light and heavy infantry" -> I assume you mean "a mix of light and heavy" in which case you can just use the word "both" - DONE
 * "The term manipular army (an army based on units called maniples) is therefore normally used' -> normally is redundant. you've made it a point that the term is used in that way. - DONE
 * "to contrast to the later legionary army of the empire that was based around a system of cohort units." -> "contrast" immediately precedes a noun, i.e. there's no preposition in-between. "empire" should be capitalized. - DONE
 * "and the later class-free armies of later years" -> why are there two laters? one would have sufficed. - DONE
 * "In practice, as a matter of practicality" -> -___-. again, repetition. - DONE
 * "the tactical deployment of its heavy infantry into maniples" -> a prepositional phrase starting with "of" usually has an adjectival purpose, as is the case here. if you remove the "of its heavy infantry", however, the sentence makes no sense: "the tactical deployment into maniples"
 * "individual units of infantry" = individiual infantry units - DONE
 * "by the typical deployment of the maniples into three discreet lines" -> I'm under the assumption that there aren't atypical deployments of the maniples.
 * Actually, yes, there are historical examples of where this practice was not used, in order to respond to a particular tactical situation, but these were atypical - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "based on the three heavy infantry types of hastati, principes and triarii." -> after I read this, I think, ok, these are three heavy infantry types. then you say that these are the lines that you wanted to talk about. it becomes rather confusing. - DONE
 * a brass helmet adorned with 3 feathers approximately 30cm in height"iron-clad wooden shield, 4 feet tall and a convex rectangle in shape, a sword known as a gladius, a brass helmet adorned with 3 feathers approximately 30cm in height, a brass cuirass" -> "4 feet tall and a convex rectangle in shape" is not a weapon that soldiers carried. - DONE
 * "and two throwing spears known as pila: one the heavy pilum of popular imagination and one a slender javelin." -> by using a colon, you're introducing a list within a list, which, again, is a bit awkward. - DONE
 * "except wearing a coat of mail." ; "except carrying a pike rather than the two pila." -> "except they wore a coat of mail" ; *"except they carried a pike" - DONE
 * "A manipular legion would typically contain 1200 hastati, 1200 principes and 600 triarii." -> again, the use of "would" - DONE
 * "The cavalry was drawn primarily from the richest class of equestrians but additional cavalry (and light infantry) were drawn at times from the Socii and Latini of the Italian mainland" -> comma before "but", and avoid the parantheses if possible. also, why is *"the italian mainland" being used? wasn't roman republic on the italian mainland? or do you just mean "italy"
 * Because Italy technically contains two islands in addition to the mainland whereas the Socii and Latini were only drawn from the mainland at this point since ROme wasn't to conquer the islands until the later Punic war - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "but in theory at least the three lines were based upon age and experience rather than social class" -> "in theory at least" sounds a bit colloquial. it sounds like something you'd say to back up an argument in a conversation. "you can say the earth is flat....in theory, at least." - DONE
 * "Young, unproven men would serve as hastati, older men with some military experience as principes, and veteran troops of advanced age and experience as triarii." -> move this information to their respective military units. - DONE
 * "additional class of troop" -> I don't think "troops" can be singular. "hi, I'm a troop of the u.s. army." - DONE
 * "(Latin: accensi), (also adscripticii and later supernumerarii)" the alternate and later names should stay within the parantheses. - DONE
 * ", who followed the army without specific martial roles and were deployed to the rear of the triarii" -> no comma, because you're talking about a certain class that has certain characteristics. putting a comma before "who" usually means that the information following "who" is an aside. - DONE
 * "both to supply any vacancies that might occur in the maniples, but they also seem to have" -> "both" usually implies that there are two arguments. also, the structure. "both....and...." not "both...but..." with both, there should be some parallel structure. *"my purpose was both to save the republic and to kill darth vader." - DONE
 * "They were armed with a sword and buckler" -> by "they" do you mean the social classes were armed as such, or were the velites armed as such?
 * Grammar be damned, it sounds too awkward phrased any other way - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "from the Second Samnite War onwards" -> since the Second Samnite War - DONE
 * "After a period of frenetic construction the navy mushroomed to a size" -> comma after construction - DONE
 * "more than 400 ships on the Carthaginian pattern" -> were the ships constructed like carthaginian ships, or did they follow carthaginian tactics in battle?
 * They were constructed like Carthaginian ships - the account goes that their entire fleet was based almost wholly on the exact reverse engineering of a captured or beached Carthaginian vessel. Does this need making clearer? If so, perhaps you could suggest an alternative sentence? Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Mmm..maybe "400 Carthaginian-style ships" could work. Pandacomics 19:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll have to have a think about the best way of expressing this because they weren't just Carthaginian style but built as replicas of the seized Carthaginian ships, perhaps "more than 400 ships built to an originally Carthaginian template" or similar?? - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "partially since" -> "since" means that "this is the condition that caused something else". but then, you use "and partially because" which means that the fact that the roman seas were peaceful had nothing to do with the romans hiring greeks. Pandacomics 11:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC) - DONE

non-citizen recruitment
I don't know...the section just seems a bit stubby. But if that's really all the information that's out there, then...oh well. I'm busy with real life right now, but I will get back to this article soon. Pandacomics 21:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

GA success

 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
 * 1) It is stable.
 * 2) It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
 * a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
 * 1) Overall:
 * a Pass/Fail:
 * a Pass/Fail:

The prose at this time is less unwieldly, but under the assumption that you want to make this FA, I'll continue to stalk this page for copyediting reasons. Just to help you out and all that good stuff. I like how the article, although large, focuses on the fact that this is a timeline of how the whole Roman military evolved, instead of breaking into three separate, confusing timelines on cavalry, infantry, navy, etc. etc. The Bronze Age picture, though, needs to have its copyright status checked. The link is a dead one. Pandacomics 12:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the GA review, any copyediting you can do on the article is much appreciated, I have mainly been working on copyediting and citing recently myself since I think the structure and content of the article is pretty much in a final form now. I'm particularly keen to try and hone the lead section prose into something of professional quality. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 14:21, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Recruitment of non-citizens
" Whereas Republican legions had been limited to citizens only... early Imperial legions were open to non-citizens from any territory in the conquered empire". This is surely wrong. Every work I have seen holds that legions were for Roman citizens only, while non-citizen subjects of the Empire (peregrini) were recruited into the Auxilia. As I understand it, this remained the case (at least formally) until all the Empire's subjects were granted Roman citizenship by Caracalla in 212, thus abolishing the distinction between the two classes of subject.

During the Republic, this meant that legions were necessarily virtually all-Italian, since the vast majority of Roman citizens were concentrated in Italy (all Italians were granted Roman citizenship as a result of the Social War in 80BC). But citizenship was rapidly extended to other provinces of the empire by the practices of planting colonies of Roman citizens and military veterans in other provinces, awarding citizenship to retiring auxiliaries, and making block grants of citizenship to friendly communities. These groups would then pass on citizen status to their descendants, thereby steadily increasing the ratio of citizens to non-citizens in other provinces. The article points out that Caesar recruited in both Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul. But both these provinces had been intensively colonised by the Romans for over a century and a half by Caesar's time, so that a majority of their inhabitants were Roman citizens by then (so much so that under Augustus, Cisalpine Gaul was abolished and incorporated in the heartland Italia province).

It may be that emergency recruitment of non-citizens took place when there was an urgent need to raise large numbers of troops in a short time (such as for the civil wars of the late Republic), but I doubt even this. In any case, there is no evidence that this became standard practice.

I look forward to hearing the article author's response to this. Failing that, I propose to amend the relevant passages to reflect the correct position. 86.85.44.73 (29 June 2007)


 * Hi, no I do not believe that you are correct. Whilst the legions of the republic may have been all-Italian, the legions of the empire were not. Cites for this fact are footnoted throughout the article. Incidentally, I can't seem to find this exact quote in the article - whereabouts are you looking?. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 08:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for responding. Sorry to slightly misquote the passage. I have now entered the exact version, above. (the quote is from the early Imperial section (27 BC-75AD), paragraph 2; there is a similar statement in the previous section, Non-citizen recruitment). The point is not where the recruits came from, but whether they held the formal status of Roman citizen. They could be living in Gaul, but still be Roman citizens, if they were descended from Roman colonists or were granted the status for military service in the auxilia etc. I have not seen the cited Webster work, but I strongly believe you may have misunderstood it. Webster appears to be saying that recruitment was no longer mainly from Rome itself and central Italy. But that does not mean it was no longer from Roman citizens.

The fundamental distinction between legionaries and auxiliaries is that the former were Roman citizens, while the latter were not (otherwise, what was the distinction? and why would a non-citizen join the auxilia rather than a legion, when the pay and conditions were much better in the legion? Indeed a main attraction of service in the auxilia was that the soldier would be granted Roman citizenship on retirement).

If you look at any other work on the Roman military, you will find this. As an example, let me quote from the book I am reading at the moment: David Mattingly "An Imperial Possession" (2006): (p168) "The British garrison underwent many changes during the centuries of occupation, but only the legionaries were normally Roman citizens during the first two centuries. Average annual recruitment for three legions required about 600 individuals from a supporting population pool of c.50,000 citizens (on page 166, Mattingly states that this figure was less than 3% of the total population of Roman Britain). In the first century, recruits were still sought outtside the province and, even after the creation of three colonies for discharged legionaries...it is doubtful if Britain could supply that number from eligible citizens before the extension of Roman citizenship under Caracalla." Best wishes. 86.85.44.73 30 June 2007
 * Hi, I'm with you now - I believe that all legionaries of the period in question had to be Roman citizens by definition but as Hassal states, if someone wanted to sign up in the legions but wasn't technically a citizen, they would be made a citizen immediately prior to enlisting (Hassall, p. 331). Its impossible to know how far the rules were stretched and it gets down to semantics as to what is and isn't a citizen but Hassall suggests that perhaps a lot of these non-Italian "citizen" recruits were the bastard offspring of legionaries rather than either true regional natives on the one hand or true Roman citizens such as colonists on the other. I'm not sure to what extent this is too much detail and/or too speculative to work into the article but I'll have a go - if you reckon you can manage it then likewise have a stab at it! By the way, you should sign up to wikipedia and contribute to articles :-) - PocklingtonDan (talk) 10:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Hassall makes an interesting point. But Mattingly's quote implies that the rules were not stretched that much (otherwise, why go to the bother of searching overseas to find enough citizen recruits?). Besides, you could not make a regular practice of granting prospective non-citizen recruits Roman citizenship, without undermining recruitment into the auxilia: the central reward for service in the auxilia was the grant of Roman citizenship on discharge after 25 years' service, which conferred a number of sought-after privileges, such as exemption from the poll tax. The special case about the illegitimate sons of legionaries does not really constitute stretching the rules.

Legally, legionaries were not permitted to marry during their 25-year term of service. In practice, however, many had permanent relationships and brought up families in settlements close to their base. Technically, their sons were therefore illegitimate. But there was an easy way round that: adoption, which in Roman law could be carried out with a simple ceremony. If the legionary adopted his own illegitimate son, the latter became legitimate and a Roman citizen.

No doubt adoption of this kind was done regularly, but it does not breach the fundamental rule that legionary recruits must be citizens, and that the sons of non-citizen provincials were not eligible for recruitment into the legions. I don't think this was just a matter of semantics, but a very real restriction. However, it is possible that the adoption "dodge" was also used to recruit the sons of non-citizens (most likely of serving auxiliaries), but probably only in periods when there was a shortage of eligible citizen recruits (which Mattingly implies was often in Roman Britain).

I think we must amend the wording of the relevant paragraphs, because they are misleading and also confusing.

Firstly, we need to separate the perfectly correct point about the declining proportion of Italians in the legions, from the citizenship issue.

As regards the Italian percentage, there is a contradiction in the section: paragraph 2 suggests that by the time of Augustus, recruitment in Italy had ceased; the following paragraph quotes that at the start of the first century (i.e. two-thirds into the rule of Augustus), Italians were estimated at 65% of legionary manpower. I think the discrepancy here is largely due to the incorporation of Cisalpine Gaul into Italia during Augustus' rule, and the grant of Roman citizenship to all its inhabitants, increasing the "Italian" population by c50%. I think the best amendment is to remove Webster's quote about recruitment from Rome and central Italy, and replace it by a statement to the effect that "the proportion of Italians in the legions fell steadily, from near 100% in the late Republic, to c.65% in 1AD, to c20% in the time of Nero".

Secondly, we must remove the two statements that the legions were opened to non-citizen recruits in the early Imperial period, which is simply inaccurate. I suggest they could be replaced by a statement to the effect that "whereas Republican legions were almost entirely recruited in Italy, early Imperial legions became dominated by provincial recruits (here add the statement about percentages above). In addition, ever-greater numbers of non-citizen provincials were enrolled into auxilia units, which steadily increased in number from Augustus onwards. Legions remained open to Roman citizens only, but this rule was probably bypassed at times and in provinces where insufficient citizen recruits could be found."

I am happy to attempt the amendment myself, if you wish. By the way, I am already contributing to Wikipedia: I have completely revised and expanded the following articles: Roman roads in Britain, List of Roman legions (where I have constructed the Directory of early Empire legions), Via Aemilia, Battle of Navarino, Cape Sounion, Paros, and Diolkos. Have a fun read! Cheers 86.85.44.73 30/6/07
 * Hiya, that all sounds fair enough, as long as you are able to build in all the caveats about exceptions etc - why don't you have a go altering the prose to address the concerns you have raised and let me know when you are done and I'll make sure I'm still happy with it all (I'm sure I will be) and make any additions I feel necessary. I have been working on pushing this article towards GA status so might bully your prose etc if necessary - apologies in advance! Cheers, PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, looking into this further Cary and Scullard also agree with Hassall that in some provinces at least basically anyone could become a legionary, and would be unofficially made a citizen immediately before enlistment, they seem to indicate this was fairly widespread - I think you may want to hold off making any adjustments until we sort out exactly how common this was - Cary and Scullard talk about this being commonplace as early as Augustus. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't catch your last comment before amending the text. However, you will see that I have only changed it minimally, while allowing the possibility that the practice of recruiting non-citizens was actually quite widespread. I hope you get the A status: it's a very good article. I've been using it as reference while workingon the list of Roman legions. Best wishes. Andreas 30 June 2007
 * No problem, I saw your edit and it was fine - I'm aware that I'm one of those annoying people that is overprotective of article's I've contributed substantially, in contradiction of wikipedia's policy of WP:OWN, it's something I'm trying to work on relaxing over! Rather than scaring you off, I would love for you to work some more balance into that area of the article if you feel it needs it, whilst allowing that I do have two cites that suggest that Roman citizenship as a requirement for service was increasingly a scam from Augustus onwards. I still have a lot of work to do on the article but I eventually aim to get it featured as I did with the partner Campaign history of the Roman military article. Contrary to appearances (sorry!) I do welcome a good healthy debate on areas where I may have misinterpreted the sources somewhat! No need to be so delicate with the article, if you think it is unbalanced regards this issue, please be WP:BOLD and correct it! Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the text is OK as it stands, as it does not exclude either side of the question.

I find this issue about the recruitment of legions fascinating. I don't think you have misinterpreted your sources: it's the sources themselves that are contradicting each other. Take Cary & Scullard's statement: is it based on hard evidence, or just an assumption on their part? Adrian Goldsworthy, on the other hand, is quite clear in his book Roman Warfare (2000) that non-citizens were not admissible. Indeed he thinks that citizenship was so strictly regulated, that even the illegitimate sons of legionaries could not get citizenship: (p129) "Another aspect of military discipline was the ban on soldiers marrying, any existing marriage being annulled on enlistment...The grant of citizenship to discharged auxiliaries included a clause extending this right to any children...The citizen legionaries found it much harder to gain official recognition and citizenship for their children".

On balance, I remain unconvinced that recruitment of non-citizens took place on a large scale. This is because it would undermine auxiliary recruitment. Until all inhabitants of the Empire were made Roman citizens in 212, citizenship was a "big thing" in Roman society. It could only be granted by the Emperor himself. It carried major financial and legal privileges and prestige. When an auxiliary completed his 25-year term of service, his grant of citizenship was inscribed on a metal tablet he was presented with known as a diploma, a replica of which was kept in Rome. How can you square this with non-citizen recruits being granted citizenship casually on signing up? How could you persuade non-citizen Smith to earn his citizenship with 25 years of hard military graft in the auxilia while his mate Jones gets it immediately by joining a legion? There is also the security point: only Roman citizens could be counted on to remain loyal to Rome in all circumstances. Native provincial troops, however, might make common cause with rebellious compatriots and seek to overthrow Roman rule. This actually happened in the Batavian rebellion of 69 AD.

I think I will do some more research on this issue. I'll let you know if I discover any interesting new evidence. Andreas 30/6/07


 * Hi Andreas, I think it is most probable that this was done at time or in provinces where there would otherwise be a shortage, ie there were insufficient citizens - presumably there were different percentages of citizens/colonies in some provinces than others and as you say it wouldn't make sense to conduct this practice where there was a plentiful supply of citizens. I will try and dig through the material I have as well and see what I can find but I'm not sure that I have many sources that go into great detail on points like this. By the way, one of the sources I have has a table of legionary dispositions, formation dates etc that occasionally contradicts your list of Roman legions slightly. Did you want me to send you a scan of the table at all? Cheers, PocklingtonDan (talk) 09:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi.Yes, do make corrections, if your source is more authoritative than mine: most of my information is derived from www.livius.org, although I have also used A. Goldsworthy Roman Warfare. The latter is a strong source- I am not so sure about the former. Where does your table come from, and what date(s) do its dispositions refer to? Be careful about dates however: even a small change of dates can radically alter dispositions: e.g. legions in 70 show big changes on 67, due to the civil war of 68, with some legions disbanded and new ones created. Also check the note on locations: provincial boundaries are assumed in my table as at 107, but in reality they were altered from time to time: this may explain some of the discrepancies in dispositions with your table. Check also the footnotes for each legion, which give the details of bases etc.

On the citizenship issue, I've now read M. Hassall's chapter in Cambridge Ancient History. What he says in Vol.X p331 is that after 70 AD (i.e. not during the first 100 years of empire), and even then in the East only, (where there were much fewer veteran colonies to recruit from than in the western half of the empire), recruits might be given citizenship on enlistment. But the only evidence he produces for this alleged practice relates to the special case of the illegitimate sons of legionaries. Since these were the sons of Roman citizens, and ideal recruits, as they were brought up in or near their fathers' bases, it is easy to accept that the rules might be bent for them: after all, their lack of citizenship was based on a technicality: the ban on legionaries marrying during service. What I have not seen is any evidence that the alleged practice of bending the rules was applied more widely than this special group. Overall I can see (so far) no basis for a general statement that anyone, citizen or non-citizen, could join a legion. But I am still looking into it. Yours Andreas 3/7/07

Hey, I think we both missed a key chunk of Hassall's chapter which settles the citizenship issue: Pages 336-8 in CAH Vol X. This shows that it was only legionaries' sons that were given citizenship on enlistment, even though his wording is unfortunately confusing: "Only Roman citizens could join the legions, even if they sometimes only received the status at the time of enlistment, but the auxiliary soldier was not usually a citizen and citizenship was normally only awarded him after 25 years service." Hassall goes on to explain that the diploma granted to an auxiliary on discharge retrospectively conferred citizenship on his sons also. This was not the case with legionaries' sons, who remained illegitimate in Roman law; Hassall suggests this was got round by giving them citizenship on enlistment. Hassall also suggests that the sudden drop in diplomas found after 160 may be due to a change in the rules granting auxiliaries' sons citizenship on enlistment like legionaries' sons, effectively abolishing the distinction between the two services. Anyway, for most of the Principate, I think the principle holds, that you could only join a legion if you were the son of a Roman citizen, legitimate or not.
 * I think we've both missed another key point here in our discussion on this point as well, which is that the semantics of whether a legionary's son was technically a citizen is kind of beside the point - the key point is whether legionaries were recruited from within etablished Roman communities, colonies etc or from non-Roman communities - this is surely a more important disctinction historically than whether the legionaries were technically citizens on signing up or not. The key point to establish is the progression from all-Roman legions early on to federated troops in the late empire - this is a progression of descreasing Roman flavour of the army, which is surely more a facet of culture than of a man's legal position as a citizen. However, I still get the impression from both Hassall and Cary & Scullard (do you have access to a copy of this latter text?) that in some provinces (Cary and Scullard mention particularly the Eastern provinces I think) there weren't enough Roman *communities* to provide sufficient legionary recruits and that non-Roman communities must have provided a major portion of the legionary recruits. Since the first non-citizen-province legion was raised back in the mid-republic, such legions must have been raised increasingly often by the early to mid Empire. I suspect that this could turn into a discussion that never ends - perhaps you could look at the current statements in the article and make a concrete proposal of the changes you would like to see and we will go from there - it is after all just a matter of fixing at what point the gradual intake of non-Roman-community recruits significantly increased. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't propose any changes to your text: I leave that entirely in your hands, since you clearly know what you are talking about (unlike some articles I've seen!). My purpose in engaging in this debate is really self-enlightenment. I am currently working on a complete rewrite and expansion of Roman auxiliaries (take a look, I've just done most of the history section). In looking at the various articles on the Roman military and other spheres of Roman life, I have been concerned at how often they contradict each other, both on fact and assertion. It is not conducive to confidence on the part of Wikipedia users if articles contradict each other and leave the reader to speculate on what the correct position is. I think it's important that all articles "sing from the same hymn sheet". I suggest that the hymn sheet should be the Cambridge Ancient History 2nd Ed., which is the most authoritative work. All statements in an article should be checked against CAH, and amended if they conflict with it. What do you think? 5/7/07
 * I completely understand your frustration that several articles contradict each other -- I suspect that this occurs throughout wikipedia -- but it would be a massive undertaking to try and ensure that none of the articles on the Roman military contradicted one another at all through some sort of deliberate process. I think the cause of the contradiction is that some articles basically contain errors or uncited statements. I think rather than try and enforce cohesiveness/congruence of fact across the topic (that truly would be a Herculean task) the best practice the same results can be achieved through the gradual improvement of each article individually by its authors - if every article was FA quality you would hope that facts would be unconctroversial and cited and therefore less likely to contain errors - ie rather than try and compare every fact in every article to every fact in every other article, you simply work on an article-by-article basis to ensure that each one is cited from reputable sources. This is where your mention of the CAH comes in. It is certainly a brilliant source in terms of both quality and scope, but I don't think there is any policy on wikipedia that would allow us to "prefer" CAH over any other sources where sources disagree. It is not up to us in my opinion to decide which sources are more reputable, our job is merely to try and state which authorities believe what. As I've said to other users in similar discussions before, I think the best way of dealing with discrepancies between sources is simply to report both rather than choosing one over the other (ie Authority A says X, but Authority B says Y). I know that not everyone agrees with this - user Wandastouring in particular (who I have great respect for) seems particularly to prefer a hierarchy of reputation among sources and actually proposed to add a mini-review of how good each source was in the bibliography, but I think this is beyond the scope of what we should be doing as wikipedia editors, in my personal opinion. All this is a very long round of saying that whilst I agree with you that CAH is a wonderful source I think firstly it goes against wikipedia convention and policy to base articles exclusively or even too heavily on a single source, no matter how good it is. And secondly that our job is to report all viewpoints on an issue from multiple sources, pointing out preponderances of opinion as well as discrepanices between diferent sources - to evaluate which source is better that the other or more knowledgable gets into original research I suspect. And finally, that the best route to ensure there is no conflict between articles given the limited manpower available in the form of editors is to imrpove each article separately rather than trying to fact-check every fact across all articles on a topic. In any case, good work on the Roman auxiliaries article, its coming along well, and its great to have a civilised discussion on wikipedia! Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

You are right, my proposed guidelines, as expressed above, are too restrictive. And obviously it would not be practical to assemble a kind of ala milliaria of text censors that would sweep through the Roman articles, checking every sentence against the CAH! (although it might be quite fun to try). To rephrase my suggestion: as you, I and others contribute, we should use the CAH 2nd Ed as a "gold standard" to (i) ensure that factual details are accurate e.g. the number and deployment of legions at a certain date should match those given in CAH and (ii) to balance conflicting theories. If a hypothesis in a source conflicts with CAH, then we should at least say so. That way, the reader can be alerted that the hypothesis is controversial and give him the chance to assess its credibility.

Furthermore, User Wandastouring's point about a hierarchy of sources should not be dismissed lightly. It is certainly the case that some sources are far more reliable than others. The two key issues here are authority and date of publication.

Authority: Obviously, a Professor of Roman archaeology or history is more creditworthy than an amateur enthusiast who dresses up as a Roman legionary at weekends (much of the information on the Web is produced by the latter type)

Date: The more recent the source, the more creditworthy. e.g. your Cary & Scullard work was written almost 30 years ago. Thus it does not benefit from the vast amount of archaeology and scholarship that has happened since then. e.g. the vast majority of military diplomas have been published since 1979, so the duo are virtually useless on auxiliaries. (Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that the duo were high school teachers, rather than university dons)

As editors, I suggest we should only use, in addition to CAH 2nd Ed, works published (i) by university academics and (ii) within the last decade, since CAH 2nd Ed was published.

By these means, we should be able to deliver a much higher-quality product for the readers. I look forward to hearing your views. Andreas 6/7/07
 * Hi Andreas, sorry for taking a while to get back to you. I am still uncomfortable about "ranking" sources in this way, it is dangerous to go with anything other than a preponderance of sources since we are only reporting understanding of the topic not making value judgments about it. I think your point about trusting university academics over other sources is fair and should be followed as far as possible. But beyond this, I think we would be on shaky ground choosing one source over another. And by the way Cary and Scullard were both professors of history not schoolteachers! Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Troop numbers
I restored the references (which backed the paragraph as a whole as well as the troop numbers). I did not restore the numbers but suggest including numbers, or multiple scholarly estimates, for each period; I think we can agree that sheer numbers affect structure, and that they fit this article better than Campaign History of the Roman military or any of the other articles in here. Jacob Haller 20:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob - apologies, I thought the reference was specifically for the troop numbers - I removed the troop numbers because it was the only place in the article that the troop numbers were mentioned, so it seemed a bit out of place and I didn't think that the size of the army had an immediate bearing on the topic - the size of the army is covered in other articles such as the main military of ancient Rome article. This article is already pretty big and I think it would get too cumbersome if it tried to keep track of estimates of army size from one period to the next too. I might try and see if I can work a very brief summary of the size of the military in each period into the article - the trouble is where there are different estimates and you have to start providing arguments for and against various estimates, which i think really is outside the scope of the article! Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 04:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Adoption of Barbarian Allies (358 AD - 395 AD)
Jacob - for ease of reading, I think the sections need to follow on chronologically rather than overlap, which is why the date range was set to 358AD - 395AD. I would rather change the title of this section than have the date ranges overlapping. My title was based on the fact that this period saw the first wholescale adoptions of barbarian peoples into the empire (as opposed to just smaller groups). I'm not saying 359-395 was the only time barbarians were adopted, just that it was the main defining feature of the period (I have labelled each section just with it main defining feature, even if this feature is evident elsewhere - for instance "imperial legions" and "comitatenses and limitanei" are not just present at the time spans indicated by their section titles, but their creation was the main defining factor of the military in that period. Therefore, can we come to an agreement on a title for the section covering the period 358-395? I have changed it now to "Adoption of Barbarian Allies", what do you think of this? Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Notitia Dignitatum citations
Hi Jacob, you have added several citations to "notitia dignitatum". Are you able to provide publisher details and page numbers etc as with any other cite please? I am pushing the article through A-class and then FA review and incomplete citations will almost certainly be flagged up. Could you complete the citations where just "notitia dignitatum" is cited please, or else I will have to remove these citations. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:12, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, I am removing these citations for now (they owuld have to be stripped out to pass A-class/FA review in any case as incomplete citations). Please feel free to add them back in if you can find complete cites. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I never include publication data, because I often deal with works with multiple publishers. The Notitia Dignitatum is one of the most important primary sources, so I have to cite it several times, and I can't point to any sole publisher. Just don't use a "translation." Jacob Haller 17:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, citations are all about traceability - when you're citing from something complex and variously-interpreted, you either need to cite facts and figures from it as a primary source or else cite a secondary source's arguments about it. Unless you have one of the few extant copies of the document that were penned by monks in the fifteenth century, if you're citing facts from the document you must be reading it in some published form or another. It is not sufficient for wikipedia to cite something so generally without a page number and publisher etc. Just because you are familiar with a text and certain about what it says doesn't resolve you from footnoting and citing statements from it. Its not sufficient to simply accept that an editor knows what he is talking about and that a stated fact can be found in the notitia dignitatum "somewhere". Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:07, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Several sections would be relevant in each citation, so I didn't cite specific sections very often. Most of the secondary sources cites refer to it first among other primary sources. The copy I have doesn't include any publication data but does match the secondary sources and my notes from various other copies.
 * I suggest that we list the Notitia and other ancient sources in their own section of the reference section, wikilinking to their pages, and leaving their pages to discuss publication issues. Jacob Haller 18:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jacob, if you're using an online version of the notitia dignitatum as a reference, then this can be cited just as a (paper) published work can. An example from WP:CITE of how to format this is:
 * Plunkett, John. "Sorrell accuses Murdoch of panic buying", The Guardian, October 27 2005. Accessed October 27 2005.
 * My point is just that regardless of whether the source is online or offline an exact cite to the exact section (as precisely as can be defined) must be provided so that others can look up that source and confirm that it really does state what we as wikipedia editors are claiming that it does. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, there is no need to provide these in a different section of the sources - they can be interspersed with the (paper) published citations as desribed in WP:CITE, Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Marian reforms & Non-citizen section
Some concerns I have for these sections:


 * "80 men distributed among 10 "tent groups" (Latin: contubernia) of 8 men each." - were these men divided into tent groups or were they drawn from tribal tent groups?
 * The first of these - they were divided into tent groups on some arbitrary basis, not drawn from tribal tent groups. Please feel free to clarify this in the prose. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "Legions additionally consisted of a small body, typically 120 men, of Roman legionary cavalry (Latin: equites legionis), who were used as scouts and dispatch riders rather than battlefield cavalry." - awkwardly long sentence.
 * Hi Panda, I have split this sentence now. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "non-Roman auxiliae, a formalisation of the earlier arrangement of using light allied troops from the Socii and Latini who had received Roman citizenship after the Social War." Again, the part after the comma is a bit too long.
 * Again, copyedit now - Cheers, PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "Luttwak argues that the "classic trio" of auxiliary forces consisted of Cretan archers, Balearic slingers and Numidian infantry." - are you implying that the army SHOULD have these military units to be successful? how much more successful would the Romans be if they used the classic trio? Pandacomics 13:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I was trying to describe a typical makeup of auxiliary forces to demonstrate that all these were classic auxiliary troops were infantry - I have reworded this now to try and make it clearer. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Due to the demands of the civil war, the extraordinary measure of recruiting legions from non-citizens was taken: by Caesar in Transalpine Gaul, by Brutus in Macedonia and by Pompey in Pharsalus. This irregular and extraordinary recruitment did not change the basic rule that legions were recruited from Roman citizens only." - this seems a bit contradictory. On one hand, they're recruiting non-citizens to make legions. On the other hand, only citizens could form legions. Which one is it (i.e. what are you trying to convey here?) Pandacomics 13:55, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Panda, that last sentence was added in by another editor to try and point out that my statement of the previous sentence shouldn't be interpreted as typical of the time - I see how his wording could be seen to contradict the previous sentence and I have adjusted it nowto make his intended meaning clearer. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Recent Copyediting

 * Hi Panda, many thanks for your copyediting to date, I really appreciate the effort. I've had a quick check of your edits so far and most of them usefully break up longer sentences or clarify sentences that were loosely stated - in a couple of intances you've clarified the sentences to slightly the wrong interpretation so I have tweaked these a little (leaving your copyedited sentence structue in place) where I felt it was necessary to bring out the correct meaning of the sentence in question. I have also tried to reply to your points above. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Parallelism
"With much of the former Empire's territory lost and its own troops spread thinly over a long border, the empire was vulnerable." - you start off with a prepositional phrase, and continue it with a independent clause. If it's possible, stick with one type. I tried "Having lost much of its former territory...the Empire was vulnerable" but I couldn't find a way to stick in the troops being spread thin. Pandacomics 16:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Roman auxiliaries
Hey, I've just completed Roman auxiliaries. What do you think? I don't especially like erasing a previous contributor's article and rewriting it from scratch. But in this case, the previous article was wholly inadequate: it was completely unreferenced, written in unidiomatic English, and above all a very thin account of what is actually a very big subject: indeed the whole story in my article is how important auxilia really were. Cheers Andreas 13/7/07
 * Hi Andras, i'll try and take a look at this later today. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 11:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, congratulations, I see you got your grade A. In the meantime, I've expanded Roman auxiliaries, especially the Specialists subsection with material about Trajan's Column. Any comments? By the way, I am very unfamiliar with many aspects of Wiki editing. Perhaps you can advise me: How do I: (a) move a block of text from one part of the article to another, without having to rewrite it? (b) edit maps, such as adding captions onto a Wiki base map? (c) re-arrange categories and subcategories, or start a new article? Talking of categories, it seems to me that the organisation of articles on the Roman army is chaotic. Roman auxiliaries, for example, is in a category of its own, when surely it should be subcategory of Roman military? The Military of ancient Rome Portal needs some restructuring. First, I would suggest it should be renamed "Roman Army": I know this strictly speaking does not include the navy, but most readers would first look up Roman army. Secondly, some order needs to be put into the categories and subcategories. What do you think? Perhaps you could have a go at reorganising it yourself? You can talk to me on the Roman auxiliaries site if you wish- it's much less crowded than here! Andreas 18/7/07

More prose issues

 * "By the final years of the first century AD, the legions remained the backbone of the Roman army, although the auxilia in fact outnumbered them by as much as half as much again." It's fine and dandy up until the comma before "although". Surely there's a better alternative to "as much as half as much again."
 * I know, it does sound clunky doesn't it. I have changed it a little to remove the three "as"es but its still doesn't roll off the tongue perfectly - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "where recruits did not possess citizenship then in at least some instances citizenship "was simply given them on enlistment"." Small question: where is the subject of this independent clause?
 * You're going to have to explain what you mean by that, sentence looks fine to me. I have tweaked it slightly to ""where recruits did not possess citizenship then in at least some instances citizenship ''"was simply given [to] them on enlistment"" :-) - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I was referring to the fact that "where recruits did not possess citizenship" seems a bit iffy as a subject. You could say something like "if recruits didn't have citizenship, then in some cases citizenship was given to them on enlistment." The "where" thing just doesn't rub the right way for me. It may for you, though. Your call. Pandacomics 23:22, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "ranged combat ability of all types" You follow this up with a list of weapons (except for archery, which is a discipline). Weapons are not abilities.
 * I don't really thing anything needs changing here, since ranged combat ability is a function of having ranged weaponry. Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "the troops they were contracted to provide to the Roman army were no longer organised as numeri but rather were the forerunners of the later rented native armies known as federated troops (Latin: foederati)." - What do you mean by "the troops they were contracted to provide to the Roman army" ? Pandacomics 23:33, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure what you are asking here - I mean contracted as is had a contract to provide. Is this what you were asking? Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Pandacomics. my thanks once more for spending some serious time copyediting the article. As before I have no issue with any of the changes you have made to the prose. I have responded above to the individual points you have raised. Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

"Camillian reform"
The present version presents the unattributed idea that there were reforms undertaken by Camillus, then rejects this in favour of the view (surely correct) that the changes were the result of gradual evolution. I think that we might be better eliding this directly into gradual evolution. (Also, I can't find any reference to reforms to Camillus in any of what I regard as reliable sources; I don't have Grant, but I'm not an admirer of his work and suspect he might be sloppy here, if this does go back to him.) semper fictilis 21:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Gibbon
I am glad to see that Gibbon is being sourced for matters of consensus fact; but really a book with so many editions should be cited by chapter (and Gibbon's note if possible). Finding Gibbon is not hard; Finding a particular edition is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:01, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, I take on board your point but my edition is not marked with any form of count other than chapter (which alone would make for very vague citations) - I am not sure if such is included in other editions. My only option would be to count paras but given that this would take a long time and my edition abridges certain less vital sections, this would likely be both tedious and erroneous. I agree that where possible works should be cited to standard chapter, section, verse etc, but that was not possible in this case. Many thanks, PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, at least include chapter; there is no reason I should have to hunt down the Penguin to use these citations. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Chapter (for what use it is) I can do, will get these added in shortly. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I've added in the chapters now, theres only a few citations to Gibbon at present so it didn't take too long. I'm glad that you approve of the Gibbon citations - I've taken some criticism previously in this article for using him as a source, but I think its fair to use him as a reference for consensus fact - whilst some archaeology of more recent years has made some of his commentary questionable on particulars, there's no doubt that he was intimately familiar with the latin sources as few people today are and so the vast majority of his work remains relevant. I'd also prefer to cite Gibbon for consensus fact just because I would prefer more people read Gibbon as a result than many of the other cited works, I think the man was a genius and its a shame his work is very little read these days. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Curious
That this article passed FA status, yet failed to make one reference to Vegetius, who wrote the sole surviving contemporary textbook on Roman military practices, De Re Militari. -- llywrch 16:56, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * An article doesn't have to be perfect in order to achieve FA status, it doesn't have to cite every work ever written on a topic, so long as it is comprehensive. As you will also see, the article makes use of very few primary sources in its citations. This is for three reasons. Firstly, they tend to give individual statements of fact rather than sweeping statements of trends, the latter being more useful in such an article and being the work of secondary sources. Secondly, primary sources often contradict one another and must be evaluated in light of other evidence such as other primary sources, as well as archaeological evidence - to do this as a wikipedia author would amount to original research, our place is to report the most common conclusions published by others on the topic. And thirdly, because the authorities cited, being professors of history in the main, are probably far more familiar with such sources than are you or I.


 * Vegetius' work in particular is also of particularly limited use here, I would argue, being a prescriptive manual rather than a descriptive history. Saying that a thing should be so is not the same as stating that it is or was so. Vegetius was also writing very late in the empire and little of his work related directly to the aspect of the military covered in this article, ie its structure.


 * Additionally, I would like to take issue with your removal of all the "AD" tags in the article. This was not flagged as being an issue in the article's FA despite some anal and meticulous copyditing in line with the MOS, snd was conducted without prior discussion on this talk page. Are you able to cite a MOS page saying that listing a date in the format "253 AD" is not permitted on wikipedia? If not, I will revert your prior edits on this point. many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * With regard to the removal of "AD" from the dates, the MOS page reads "Normally you should use plain numbers for years in the Anno Domini/Common Era, but when events span the start of the Anno Domini/Common Era, use AD or CE for the date at the end of the range (note that AD precedes the date and CE follows it). For example, 1 BC–1|AD 1 or 1 BCE–1|1 CE.". It is of course a matter of interpretation whether "when events span" means within an sentence, paragrpah or an article, but I think it is clear that when this article covers both AD and BC, such disambiguation is helpful. I will revert to the use of "AD" in the article since this wasn't commented on in FA review and seems consistent with wikipedia MOS. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Beaten to it - another editor has already reverted your edits. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * First: I'm not taking away from the article's FA status -- the article is well written -- but I am puzzled that no one else thought to mention this work. It does not reflect well on the FAC process.


 * Considering that Vegetius is considered a major primary source, I think it's fair to wonder over his omission -- especially when discussing the fate of the Roman legion under the late Empire. I'd expect at least a link under "See also". Stating that primary sources should be avoided because they are difficult to work with is side-stepping the issue; in this case, if nothing else, Vegetius provides interesting confirmation that the Roman legionaire was no longer heavy infantry, & even if his fanciful explanation is dismissed as speculation it does indicate that by his time how this came about was not common knowledge. Primary sources need to be introduced in some way to help the reader move past the Wikipedia article into their own research.


 * As for presence or absense of "AD", since AD/CE is a point of contention to many individuals (I know of one person who stated that he finds "AD" offensive), I simply removed it where I thought the era was obvious from the context. At any point of ambiguity, I left it -- per common sense & the MOS. I was far more annoyed when "AD" appeared after the year -- & I suspect the MOS mentions that putting the abbreviation before is preferable. If not, it should, since that is traditional practice.


 * Lastly, just because FA gives its imprint on an article does not mean that it is finished or perfect: it is simply at a better quality. The wiki way means that an article is always subject to further edits. Or would you rather that I refrained from reading through my copy of A.H.M. Jones' The Later Roman Empire & providing a cite for or elucidation of his comments alluded to in this article? -- llywrch 22:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, now that I've taken a moment to look at the FA discussion on this article, I see where your anger comes from. I'd feel sensitive too after dealing with some of the "anal and meticulous" comments there. (Reading those comments only confirms my decision to never submit an article for FA review again. Really, some of the nit-picking was so trivial I wonder why they didn't fix the problems themselves than spend more time pointing them out.) So let me try to rephrase my concerns above. (1) Vegetius needs some kind of mention -- even if only under "See also". Even if his material is difficult to use, the experts use it to explain the structure of the Roman army -- for example, he is cited for the evolution of the Roman soldier from heavy infantry to light by the 5th century. The fact you had some people more concerned over the title of the article & the bibliography boxes than making useful comments on the material (e.g. that complaint over lack of literary references for the pre-3rd century BC military only shows the guy didn't know what he was talking about) shows that my comment about Vegetius should be an indictment of their failure -- not yours. (2) Yes, the "AD" after the year annoys the &%#$ outta me -- it annoys me more than the bibliographical boxes many of those reviewers whined about -- & had I been in the FA review I would have asked you to fix them. Does this mean that if you didn't fix them I would oppose the nomination? No, because there is enough good things in this article that I would be a fool to do so. (I participated in a minor way with the FAC of Ceawlin of Wessex, but withheld a number of suggestions until after the process for the simple reason I didn't think they were worth giving anyone an excuse for opposing the nomination -- it must have been the right thing to do because they were happily accepted.) Anyway, I hope you see where I'm coming from, & I'm not trying to bad-mouth something you obviously put a lot of work into -- I just want to make some trivial fixes & continue to improve this article. -- llywrch 23:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Our practice on AD/BC and CE/BCE is simple; leave them alone. Please do so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The MOS reads "note that AD precedes the date and CE follows it". This is supported by such style authorities as the MLA Handbook (sections 3.5.5 & 7.2). My removal of those unnecessary AD's was only out of consideration for my fellow Wikipedians sensibilities. Your quotation is not only out of context -- it only refers to changing BC/AD to BCE/CE -- but it also comes across to me as unnecessarily aggressive. -- llywrch 05:19, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I am surprised that anything so reputable as the MLA would condemn anything so standard as 2250 AD, to cite an actual title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As for the MoS, it appears to have been done, as often, as part of a large rewrite; this one was chiefly aimed at quelling the Date Wars. and I doubt it has ever been considered in detail. This is one editor's opinion; and should not be used to harass a good article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As for aggression, look in the mirror. I quoted one adage in bold; if it makes any difference to you, I can rephrase in italics. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And what would I see in the mirror? Besides the fact I need a shave? -- llywrch 04:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Celeres
What Livy says about the celeres is that they were Romulus' bodyguard. He discusses the cavalry, the equites, in a different chapter. What is your authority for combining the two? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't have my copy of Livy in front of me at the moment but that is not my recollection - I'm sure Livy specifically mentions the celeres were cavalry. i could be wrong but I will check this evening. Whether or not this is stated by Livy, however, it is clearly the consensus view in the secondary sources, several of which are cited in this regard for that section of the article. The arguments presented seem to be (from recollection) twofold: firstly that there is evidence of prior use of chariots and a cavalry element is unlikely to have completed disappeared for a period after the abandonment of chariots since cavalry is known to have existed after this time also; and secondly that the very name "the swift" would likely indicate a mounted contingent. The closest any of my sources come to stating otherwise is (I believe, again from memory) Boak, who argues that they were not cavalry but mounted infantry. None of my sources state otherwise than that they were mounted troops of some sort, and all but one state they were cavalry. Do you have a cite for the opposite? Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Let me go check Boak. I am quite certain of Livy; I was just reading him for something else, and was reminded of this article; the equites (three centuries) are in I, 13; the Celeres (three hundred, who stayed with Romulus night and day) are in I, 15. It may be that Livy has gotten it wrong again; but his intention seems clear. A Latin Livy is here; there's an English one at Perseus Project. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The first paper at Scholar.google.com describes the celeres, fron Dionysus Hal. ii.13, as "fighting as cavalry or infantry at need." It also suggests that there has been a rousing fight whether celeres and equites are the same thing; our author denies it. (Also a citation that the early equites were mounted infantry.) H.Hill, "Equites and Celeres" Classical Philology, Vol. 33, No. 3. (Jul., 1938), pp. 283-290. Quote from 284. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've had a chance to look at the sources now and refresh my memory. You are correct that Livy apparently states that the celeres were formed later after cavalry already existed in the army, but doesn't seem to mention explicitly whether they were infantry or cavalry. As you say, Dionysus seems to suggest mounted infantry, which is clearly the account favoured by Boak. Keppie and Grant both mention 300 cavalry, but do not term them celeres. The argument over whether they were probably cavalry seems to depend on whether you accept they were named literally "the swift" or named for their leader (in one account) Celer. It does seem though that I have overstated the position that the celeres were definitely equivalent to the cavalry, certainly that they were definitely equivalent to the entirety of the cavalry. I'm not sure to what extent it is original research to suggest that, given that the celeres were an elite and that only the elite traditionally could afford mounts at almost all historical timepoints, it would make sense for the celeres to have been mounted. It seems very probable to me the celeres were mounted infantry at least, if not cavalry, both bases on the sources and through common sense and parallel examples. How we word this succintly and accurately is another thing! Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would interpret anyone who says simply "cavalry" as referring to the equites, who certainly had horses; mounted infantry or not. Good luck with wording this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I've had a stab at rewording this to reflect the range of possible positions on this matter. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Should this stop at 476 AD?
While 476 AD is certainly a significant year for the Roman Empire, why should such an article end there? I propose that it should end about 1000 years later with the fall of Constantinople.

Bryan MacKinnon (talk) 13:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Traditionally the empire based in Constantinople post-476 is titled "Byzantine" rather than Roman, and there are separate pages on Wikipedia dealing with this history —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.157.135 (talk) 20:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Footnote alpha
Did that get lost in the mix somewhere? --Quadalpha (talk) 14:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, the link in the footnotes sections fails to work 193.60.83.241 (talk) 18:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Alpha was used as a note for "The numbers are a little too exact and Livy's historical remove of 500 years too great for these figures to be taken literally." in the Tribal forces (c. 800 BC – c. 578 BC) section. That sentence was rewritten in November by this edit. Maybe an expert might wish to either remove, or re-apply the footnote to the numbers 3,000 and 300, as appropriate? 84user (talk) 21:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)