The Birth and Death of a Roman Legion DOCUMENTARY

There is endless talk of the Roman legions in action at their prime. However, no one ever talks about the beginning and end of their story. In this video, we'll be exploring how a legion was born and how it died. I spend a lot of time reading history books to make these documentaries, yet I still find myself with a growing list of titles I just don't have time to get to. I'm sure in your own busy life it can be tough to find the time to explore as many books as you'd like. Thankfully, our sponsor Blinkist has a solution. Blinkist is an app that takes thousands of non-fiction books and uses experts to distill them down to their most essential ideas for you to easily digest with text or audio in just 15 minutes. This can be super helpful for engaging with subjects you'd never otherwise get to or for making a shortlist of the books you definitely want to read in full. As an example, I've finally been able to delve into Stephen Leavitt's Freakonomics, Yuval Harari's Sapiens, and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. It's honestly been extremely liberating and a huge breath of fresh air for my ever-curious mind. You can check it out right now by clicking the link in the description below to get a 7-day free trial. In addition, the first 100 people will get 25% off a full membership. So check it out! Because of the evolution of the Roman army over time, we will be splitting our video into two parts. The first will deal with the army of the Republic, and the second will deal with the army of the Empire. In both cases, we will also be talking about how a legion was even born in the first place before talking about how it died. Feel free to use these timestamps to jump ahead. Okay, so when we speak of the Roman Republic, we are roughly talking about a period from the 6th to the 1st century BC. In this era, Rome's armies were essentially just citizen levies, which is where they get their name of legions, the Latin legio, meaning military levy. Procedurally, the way this worked is that only those with imperium, Rome's supreme form of executive power, could summon the levy. This basically meant the two annually elected consuls. The process would begin when the chief magistrates called a meeting of the popular assembly at which they would announce a day on which all Roman citizens of military age would present themselves. This typically happened every year just before the start of the campaigning season. On the appointed day, those liable for service would assemble by the capital. The officers and the men would be divided into four legions, two per consul, take an oath, and be given a date for the next rendezvous. At this following meeting, the men would be assigned to specific units within the legion based on their wealth and age class, each of which was expected to show up with a specific type of gear. You had your velite light skirmishers, your hastati, principes, and triari heavy infantry, and your mounted equites, which equated to around 4,200 men per legion. In some cases, the individual size of the legions and the number of legions might be increased to deal with a particular crisis. These forces would then march to war. In addition to the purely Roman legions, you'd also expect to have additional legions supplied by their Italian allies join the campaign. They were organized in a similar manner, but raised according to their own city's practices. Once Republican legions were born, they would rally at a common mustering point and set off to war. In the early days, these efforts would usually only last a single campaigning season. Come winter, the levy army would have returned home and been disbanded. If the fighting had gone particularly badly or some natural disaster struck, they might not even return at all. Either way, if the army was called up again the following year, then the whole process of raising a legion would begin anew. Thus, what we have in this period is a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth of the legions, like a phoenix perpetually rising from the ashes. As the centuries rolled by, however, the scope of Roman warfare increased, with ever longer campaigns being fought over ever longer distances. One year, terms of service by the Exceptions were soon being made to extend those tours of duty for multiple campaign seasons, until it eventually became the norm. By the late Republican period, it was not uncommon for legions to serve multiple years abroad, and for some commanders to find themselves being granted extended periods of imperium. The number of legions, and those with the power to command them, was also increased. Eventually, it also became standard practice to allow magistrates with imperium to raise and organize armies themselves, which were funded by treasury grants, wealth extracted from the relevant province, and personal funds. This stretching of the norms was helpful in allowing the Roman military to carry on its war efforts against foreign threats, but would also pave the way for ambitious Roman politicians to co-opt the military for their own goals, which eventually led to civil war. Suffice to say, the archaic system of the early Republic we initially described no longer really applied to the birth and death of legions by the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. The reforms of Marius are a reflection of just one aspect of the evolution of the Roman army, which was now beginning to transition into a permanent, professional force, rather than a mere annual levy. With this context in mind, let us now look at the birth and death of a legion in the Empire. Okay, so again I have to start by saying that this is a long time period to cover. The Empire lasted from the 1st to well beyond the 5th century AD, with lots of changes we could potentially discuss. For the purposes of this video, we will try and keep things simple and generalize our analysis. The biggest change in the Empire was the centralization of power under the figure of the Emperor. This had all really come together under the reign of Augustus following the turbulent civil wars of the late Republic. His first move was to demobilize the roughly 60 legions under his control and reform them into a new 28-legion strong standing army. Soldiers were now paid professional volunteers, who initially served 16 and later 25 years before being rewarded with money and sometimes land upon retirement. Organizationally, the legions now featured 10 cohorts, 9 of which had 480 men and one, the first cohort, boasting 800 men. Over the following years, both the terms of service of the soldiers and their organization would gradually change, but by and large remained mostly the same. Of course, there were additional auxiliaries and other forces to speak of too, but we will ignore these for the purposes of our discussion. Okay, so how were these new legions born? Well, it basically came down to the command of the Emperor who held ultimate control over military forces. As we stated, Augustus has started off with 28 legions and this number would fluctuate over the years. Generally, each legion would be stationed in a particular area and have its own designated recruitment ground. When a new legion was to be raised, its enlistment took place en masse. This involved recruitment officers making the rounds of the cities and towns of the region. Prospective recruits would be put to the test, sworn in, and then sent to their unit. However, we should note that these armies were never entirely green. It was common practice to actually use detachments from existing legions to serve as a foundation for the new force, and to transfer over officers with experience to train up the men. In this way, it could reach peak efficiency much more quickly. Once formed, these legions would go on to exist for many decades, and even centuries. The 4th Scythian Legion for example was raised by Mark Antony in 42 BC and appears in our records as late as the end of the 4th century AD, making it at least 400 years old, or almost twice the age of the United States. Each passing year brought more experience and fostered a stronger esprit du corps amongst the men, which could survive the generations. This is best typified by the intense level of reverence given to the legionary standards which served as the embodiment of the unit. Their loss in battle could be a huge blow to the army, and the recovery of such symbols was of great importance to the Roman military. Okay, so now that we have a permanent standing army, how exactly does it die? Well, one of the simplest answers is that it gets killed. This might happen following a major military defeat, such as the loss of the 17th, 18th, and 19th legions at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. However, the total annihilation of forces was actually quite rare. Even if it did happen, the legion might simply be revived with its same traditions and symbols. What was more common was the gradual grinding down of forces. This might be caused by injury, illness, retirement, desertion, or the dispersal of forces to take on other duties. This concept is a very important one to understand for people used to hearing about legions numbering around 5,000 men. In reality, a legion's headcount was lower than this theoretical paper strength. How much lower depended on the situation. Looking back at the late republic for instance, Caesar conducted much of his civil war with legions at around 50% strength and sometimes even lower. The same degradation of forces could occur during the empire following prolonged periods of fighting or during periods where recruitment was too low. With enough attrition, a legion would ultimately lose combat effectiveness and no longer be able to function as a proper force. In this way, the famous 14th legion, the Conquerors of Britain, slowly faded into obscurity until being relegated to the ignominy of serving as river patrolmen along the Danube in the 4th century AD. Another way for a legion to die would be for it to become merged with another force. This would often happen with the severely understrength legions we just mentioned, whereby they could join an existing unit or be used to found a new legion. The process of merging units shows up in our records when you look at the cognomen of legions bearing the word Gemina, meaning twin. For example, the 7th Gemina Legion was formed when the heavily damaged 7th Hispania Legion was combined by Vespasian in 70 AD with the 18th legion and several cohorts from the Rhine. The last main way for a legion to die was for it to be disbanded. This might happen for a variety of reasons. One reason might be as a result of a military drawdown following the conclusion of a campaign or during a period of economic contraction. In these cases, the disbandment would be an honorable one. The soldiers would be paid out and settled down or perhaps transferred to another unit. Often, this process of disbandment involved settling the veterans in a military colony which would traditionally bear their name. One famous example of this sort of colony can still be seen today in the ruins of Timgad, located in modern Algeria. Not all legions, however, settled down so peacefully. It was not unheard of for legions to rise up and revolt or merely choose the wrong side in a civil war. In the aftermath, some of these legions might be put down as punishment for their behavior. I hope you've enjoyed this quick overview of the life and death cycle of Roman legions. It's an absolutely fascinating topic to discuss and one which we have only really scratched the surface on. Stay tuned for more exciting content and consider supporting us on Patreon so we can continue to fund our documentary productions. A huge thanks is owed to our current list of patrons and to the researchers, writers, and artists who made this video possible. Thanks for watching!