--> True Size of a Republican Legion: kzclip.org/video/MVZZoGEVI58/бейне.html Important corrections for this episode: 16:52 - The legion at parade rest should cover 0.25 km2 not 25 km2 21:50 - The battle formation should have Cohorts 2-10 with 6 centuries each rather than the 8 centuries shown 22:23 - The soldier spacing in battle should be closer to 1m center to center rather than the 1m edge to edge we showed which resulted in exaggerated gaps 22:48 - The resulting frontage of the battle line should be closer to 400m than the 600m stated We apologize for these inaccuracies and will be tightening up our QA/QC process to improve the True Size episodes moving forwards.
@Paul C no, it was an ideal height stemming from the specific recruitment of Legio I Italica, founded by Nero. He wanted an elite unit of giants. Although north western people in those days could be quite tall, taller than italic people. So if recruited in the roman army, they made for tall soldiers.
The mess up the Latin terms cornicen, the horn player, and cornicularius, the administator: because of Latin word cornu meaning the dignal horn and corniculum: little horn, a distinction at the helmet? apparently once worn by the cornicularii.
And this kids, is how you conquer the world. Not with the sword..... but with logistics. I am still at awe at what they managed to pull off 2000 years ago.
And don't forget that legions often had additional auxiliaries with them, such as archers, slinger, additional Cavallari etc. A legion or even an Roman army on campaign must have been massive. A truly fearful sight on any battlefield.
Dont forget all the workers and all the citizens, such as merchants, farmers etc, that would follow behind the forces and camp behind them. These people would sell/trade with the soldiers, in doing so theyd significantly ease the strain on the Army's logistics and supply lines
It's not until you actually see the physical size that you realise how gigantic the legion was. Also telling and showing how long it would take for an entire legion to walk past you was the icing on the cake. It gives you a new perspective as we everyday deal with time and how long something could take. This was awesome!
Well, wait till you see the Chinese armies back in those days... their standard armies are ranged from 30k to 800k in size. Imagine the food and time they need to take to invade. If Europe is near to China, it will have been crashed. I think even the Chinese army splitting on the castles can flood them. Lol
I once read if you were watching Napoleons army passing by on his march towards Russia, you had to be standing there for 3 day's and nights.......incredible !
It's true, and yet Caesar tosses the word around as though referring to rugby teams in his Gallic Wars, "I sent three legions hence to counter the threat and withdrew two more from the North," etc., etc.
@Debbiebabe69 When Germany was marching through Belgium in WW1, the time it took the army to pass through wasn't measured in hours but days. The Battle of the Marne had about a million soldiers on each side. A nice point of comparison is that the number of soldiers in a legion is approximately equal to the number in a brigade. In the 20th century, the smallest unit considered capable of fully independent operation was the division which is 2-4 brigades depending on organization. More recently however the trend has been back towards the brigade level as the smallest independent tactical unit.
They make look big described this way, but modern armies utterly dwarf them in size. A legion as described here has 5240 fighting men. Thats only just more than the number of militia that banded together to fight the Americans at the Battle of Mogadishu in the early 1990s. Talking of America - they sent 43,250 shooters ashore in the Omaha Beach assault alone. Thats 8 legions. The whole invasion of Europe used 2 million troops - ie 190 legions. In total on the Western Front, the Allies had the equivilant of 1460 legions, while the Axis had 1530 legions.
Awesome video! The true size of the battle of Ecnomus between Rome and Carthage would be incredible, being one of the largest naval battles in history.
Really good to see the "Combat Service Support" aspect of a classical army considered. So often overlooked in both modern and classical analysis of an army's structure and yet so critical to their success.
I’ve been wondering this exact thing. I’ll be staring at a big field at a park and just wonder how many legions would fit in it and how they would manage the terrain.
@Abebe345 Ive read that Paris at the time of the Viking Invasions, was 30,000 people. I would imagine that the rural areas have a lot of population compared to cities, as everyoine is farming.
@Daniel W. Bridge Much of the war in Iberia was conducted with Roman treachery, massacres following surrender, burning farmland and why? Because the terrain generally prevented the Romans from having the open battles they preferred. And let's be clear, the Romans were invading Iberia just like they were invading Germania. The locals have no moral obligation to fight the same way the Romans did, particularly when they lacked the armour and training to fight like the Romans. Before Severus died, his son Caracalla was gearing up to do a scorched earth campaign north of the Antonine Wall. Anyone found was to be massacred. Why? Because the Romans were having too much difficulty fighting in the heavily forested and swamp infested reaches of the Highlands. So the Romans didn't get to depopulate northern Scotland like they did in the south.
@AudieHolland logic dictates that the comment Kolleg was referring to was this one "AudieHolland 10 days ago @Daniel W. Bridge Truly I'm sorry you have noone else to talk to."
Thank you for making this video. I had always wondered how a legion was structured and was particularly interested in how they set up their officers and specialists. The romans are one of my favorite fighting forces of history. This was certainly an interesting video and brings more realism to the battles you read about from books, knowing how these legions were generally structured and who had what duties.
This was an amazing video and great detail, the modelling system implemented was a super nice touch! Really appreciate the time and detail put into this, I personally love the Roman Empire's History and this about the Legions was well done. I look forward to seeing more in the future!
It was very informative to see it laid out like this I was hoping that you would also cover the fortifications that the Romans built each night went on the March. They must have been enormous.
Loving the use of Unreal Engine to make documentaries like this one, big props! There are still some improvements to be made but it's a great contribution to the video and I can see it becoming a key point in a any historical video!
@SirDiff It would be really nice if there was a program like space engine. We could go back in time and see the changes over the years and follow multiple civilizations at the same time.
@Invicta as a 3D artist myself, i would suggest fixing the trees' LODs that keep popping in the distance first. The environment shading looks good, you could maybe use some dither blending when you add megascans on top of it (to hide the seams on the ground) As for the soldiers models, It would be REALLY interesting to have actual static 3d models of Roman soldiers: with Unreal 5 and nanite you would actually be able to have this many without performance issues (assuming they're not moving). I know some crazy talented people that could help you model them, in case you don't have a character artist. Hope the feedback can be of use, peace!
Thank you. I always knew that the armies etc. were massive. With your detailed break down of the Legion, the shear size of this is mind boggling. Once again thank you.
As a kid I attempted to make a Legion from Airfix figures. Over the years I got to about 75% full strength even using other figures and products to make up the slaves, slingers, archers and mules and logistics train. Etc. I still have them sat in boxes in my hobby room which is now made out to 1:300 tank models.
This was such a good video! As someone who writes stories involving roman-inspired armies, this is ridiculously useful information. And I am really impressed by how well it is presented while being both very easy to understand and also thorough in what it covers.
The legionary size is something I've always been curious about. For something who is writing a fantasy nation based around these guys, this is incredibly helpful!
@Your Casual Servant of Sauron I can tell.. Im Arda nerd myself. Maybe you could give a eye on my project on artstation, i doing Rings Of Power Reimagination (links dont work in comments but if you would search it by name on artstation it would pop up for sure, recast of actors, locations and so done by ai art generation).
Great video! You really appreciate the sheer logistics that go into organizing and fielding such a force. The fact that such military organization is not seen in such scale till the age of gunpowder is a wonder.
Not seen in Europe yes, in China no. They have different ranks of leaders and officers since the spring and autumn war. Not to mention 9k army is just a small squad to them.
A masterpiece of a video! The video format is uniquely suited to presenting the true scale of things, the way a typical history lecture cannot. Can't wait to see more, in this format.
The overall thoroughness is just wonderful. The graphic animation serves the audio perfectly. The simplicity of the animation as is, allows to keep focus easily. Thumbs up!
This seems to be best approach to this particular issue I have ever seen. You did your job well and visualisation, while simplified, is really amazing. We just see everything with our own eyes. Great job.
Great video, excellent research and production which puts the massive size of a single legion in perspective. Now just imagine the size of an army comprising three to four legions and you will see how formidable the Roman army was - and that isn't even counting the auxiliary units!
Its genuinely amazing how we now have access to this level of information, presented perfectly with visuals to help us understand and be entertained - thanks to dedicated people like those who run this channel. Thank you very much!
The part about the legionaries being ideally from the rural population is extremely important if we want to understand the empire‘s ultimate fate. It means that the people that were actually fighting and dying to protect and expand the empire were the free peasants from the Italian heartland of the Empire. This in itself is not unusual, pretty much all pre-industrial armies were made up of peasants, but for the Romans it was a problem because their peasant class was dwindling as time went on. Rome was of course an agricultural state, but the dominant and increasingly dominating mode of production was slavery. Most of the food in the empire was produced by slaves and the successful foreign wars brought more and more of them to the empire. As a result the slave-owning patricians gobbled up more and more of the arable land (especially in Italy) for their Latifundias. The peasants were driven off and went to the cities (where they would join a relatively unproductive plebeian population) or sometimes the frontier. But this process was repeated in the provinces where during the roman occupation, much of the arable land ended up in the hands of rich landowners, rather than communal ownership or free peasants it had belonged to before the roman conquest. As a result, the peasant population dwindled and it became more and more difficult to get people to fight for the Empire. Slaves obviously don‘t fight and plebeians also have a very different relationship to the state than free, landowning peasants. Even the Marian Reforms which instituted the Legions were arguably already a sign of (or response to) how things were going wrong, as the new professional army was now essentially fighting for money or other rewards. This had some advantages but it also meant that there was no longer a large enough population that were willing to fight out of obligation to the state; which is what was the case previously and in most ancient societies, were free citizens or peasants were legally required to perform wartime service in defence of the country, essentially as the price for citizenship. This was a crucial and extremely common source of military power that Rome lost access to when it expropriated the peasant population. We actually see conflicts around this play out in the run-up to the Roman Civil War, where Caesar is elected consul against strong opposition from the conservatives. The Reforms he is promising include the state forcibly buying up a lot of land in Italy and then selling it back to some of the urban plebs, but this was unpopular with the landowners and also amounted to a temporary measure at best. As it became harder to find recruits among the citizenry, foreign expansion eventually stopped and this deprived the empire of the only large-enough source of fresh slaves (slave populations don‘t reproduce at a net-positive rate for obvious reasons) so eventually the entire system had to collapse. In a way, this was already beginning to happen by the time of Caesar and Augustus.
Love it! I was trying to do something like this a while back using 3D models of LEGO minifigs, drawn from the minifigs that LEGO actually made in their mystery sets. I built the models but never got much further than that.
The visual representation by the 3D style in this topic is just wonderful! ❤ Could you make a video which discusses the about the medical unit of a legion ?
What "True Size" history should we cover next? To make your own videos, try the brand new Filmora 11 for free: bit.ly/3DFJpM1 Wondershare FilmoraGo for Android & iOS: app.adjust.com/kark8jn_faoir3f
It’s content like this that elevates KZclip far above other sources. It would have taken 4 days for a network to get this much information across. Outstanding work.
Thank you so much for such amazing content. I teach middle school and we're about to start our unit on the expansion of Rome across Europe, so I'll be sure to use such an amazing, interesting, accurate, and fun piece of content. Best wishes and thanks, Kyle
Shovels and axes were in every soldier's kit for a reason. There wasn't a road when they started moving. There was one when they finished. As the legion moved, it cut the forest, dug and paved the road, and built the wall. That is why all roads lead to Rome. Because the army altered the terrain to fit them as they moved, and they connected the fortress they built to camp in one night, to the fortress they built to camp in the next night. Leaving a network of ready-to-inhabit towns behind them as they went.
@Dawnblade That documentary series you mentioned is called 'Decisive Battles' just in case you've forgot and, It's here on youtube if you want to watch it again. I actually archived it :)
This is incredible! Love to see it all formed out. As a suggestion, consider adding a few football fields as a highlighted overlay to give viewers a sense of scale. Maybe some other ‘modern’ points of comparison could help contextualize the scale better for the layperson. Or even the Colosseum! The cutout style figures are really neat, but some colored indicators around specific troop types might be useful at medium distances, with the individual cohorts specified at long range. Again, just to help contextualize scale. But that’s just my two cents, awesome job with the video and thanks for all the hard work that I’m sure went into it. As a suggestion, I would love to see a video like this for the events at Thermopylae, Artemisium and salamis. Thanks!
The absolute power disparity between the Roman legions and their contemporary neighbors has always seemed so insane to me. The uniformity, quality, and expertise that none of their opponents could hold a candle to until the Empire tore itself apart from within.
Thank God China isn't their neighbour... They have way larger armies back in those days but I guess they are too busy fighting among themselves in the country to bother about expansion. Yuan Dynasty did invade until Europe or somewhere close I think.
This is brilliant!!! I have been watching this channel for years, and this may very well be my personal favorite thus far. I have read this information in depth regarding sizes of various legions through both the Republican and Imperial eras, but the way you’ve described and illustrated here to me is the perfect depiction for a standard imperial legion!!! You nailed it!!!
Dear lord. Imagine seeing that large train of so many people just marching. That must have been terrifying and awe inspiring for people in antiquity. I feel like you just wouldn’t ever see that many people in one place back then. Especially all on the move at once.
Now, imagine the Punic Wars when there were up to a few legions on barges, needing to be protected as they headed to Africa. THAT would be an amazing breakdown.
Awesome, just awesome. This puts the size and order of the roman legion into context. However, what I would like to know is how the baggage trains were managed and organised. That would be quite an interesting video.
Great video! I really like how you depicted the amazing size of a Legion of 6000 men. This really helps me visualize just how massive battles like Pharsalus or Alesia would have been.
I would love to see a full Roman Imperial Legion assume battle field formation. Just to see how well trained those men were, to do all of this without radio communications. Just signifiers and trumpets used to announce changes. Its absolutely unimaginable to me, how much training it took to reach that level of organization and discipline.
Amazing video. I have been a fan of the Roman Age ever since taking 4 years of Latin in high school! I occasionally have issues with word pronunciations in some channels, the difference between Church and Roman Latin, but I love these just the same. I binge all the videos on the subject of Rome when the come out. Keep up the incredible work!
The Latin that is taught at school and that is engraved on the marbles of the ancient Roman ruins (and written by the ancient Authors) is "classical" Latin: the language spoken by the upper most educated classes and used in the Senate of Rome. The language spoken by most people and throughout the empire was "vulgar" Latin. Although both forms were mutually intelligible, they were not the same. With the fall of the Western Empire (476 AD) there was no more any central authority to manage the language, and the only language left to be used was vulgar Latin. This language in turn started to change (every live language evolves over time), and the change was greater across geographic barriers (mountains, big rivers). By the VIII century classical Latin (used by the Church) was no more readily understood by normal (un educated) people. Additionally national languages (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian) started to emerge and differentiate. Although all came from vulgar Latin, and still mutually intelligible to some extent, they were clearly different. In the Middle Age the Church too used vulgar Latin, further enriched with modern words that did not even exist centuries before. During the Renaissance period the national languages were formally codified and extended forcibly by law to the whole nation (for political reasons), so that the jump across a border became greater than before. For example the Occitan language spoken in the south of France was much more similar to Italian and Spanish than current day French (which was the romance language spoken in the area of Paris, much farther away). Romanian, being cut from contact and influence of other romance languages for centuries, had an autonomous evolution.
This an excellent and concise presentation of the Roman Army. I study this as a hobby and there are a few questions I can't find answers. . 1) How much could a Roman wagon carry? 2) What was an approximate Roman ration, in garrison and on the march?
I love this video. Absolutely amazing and have been waiting for an in depth description like this about Rome's juggernaut for a long time from this channel. You never disappoint Invicta!!
Overall. a good job. However it should have been noted that a decanus was the leader of a contubernium. I'm curious if they were ranked among each other. So, as the pilus prior was the ranking centurion of a cohort, was there an analogous position for the ranking decanus of a century? Thank you!
This channel is by far one of my most favourite. I love how the men of the past formed a world of such high intelligence and organization. Yet today with all our technology we can't even come close to the levels of discipline, organisation and power that the Roman Empire had. It almost makes you think that humanity peaked about 2,000 years ago.
Bravo and superb job done here,as an Italian from Rome who dedicated his younger days in the study of my city and it's former military and tactical aspect you deserve a great thank you.
@0Turbox 100% agree on that. felt exactly them same. Started second season instantly shut it off. It‘s so bad. 90% German Movies are a complete embarassement with academic actors coming from acting schools … o tempora, o mores.
@Metabolic Horse by the A.D period civil wars werre a bug part sure but a failing economy mounted up with disease and bad harvests did them in (because said diseases and bad harvests probably made the germanics move south)
Wonderful wonderful video. Always wanted to see the scale and the way legions operated, so a big thank you for that. I realize there's no mention of the velites, the roman skirmishers. Would have been great to see how they integrated into the larger body.
Wonderful video that brings a lot of stuff together. It's good to keep in mind though that this is both an interpretation and a simplification. For example, the legion structure, size and recruiting pool has changed over time, sometimes very significantly and even fundamentally so. So the first question to ask when describing a legion is: "what year?". Secondly, the sources are ambiguous about many things (for example the exact size and composition of the contubernium).
Awesome! I've been consuming Timaeus' Roman History podcast every day for hours and while the legion structure and roles are explained well, the visual aids help a lot 👍
It really helps to watch this while looking out across an airport tarmac. I can visualize how a legion or true army in battle might have looked. Imagine having to convey orders to units that you can't see several kilometers away through dust.
Very well done. A couple of points though. A legion would seldom be on it's own. It would be accompanied by a number of auxiliary cohorts, both foot and horse. Also, from what I learned years ago a legion would leave 2 cohorts plus auxiliaries to defend the camp when going into battle.
Fantastic video showing the scale. It'd be interesting to see the size of known Roman armies. We have some good accounts on the number of Legions used by Caesar and Augustus for example.
@Cory Lemons exactly, I always think about logistics too, the total army sizes including camp followers and animals is crazy, literally a moving column of a city's population!
Great video, the 3D models really helps put into perspective how big it is. However some advice when talking about balista or certain groups or units like at 10:50 would be nice to zoom in to actually show what they are at least for a few seconds before zooming back out again to show the entire formation. It would also be good to know like at 22:30 and at the start talk about how much 6 roman feet is to meters/feet. And perhaps since it's unreal have a digital 3d ruler or a line that shows the distance between each soldier, because i am now wondering if the spacing of the 3d models positioning is accurate to what you said in how far apart they are. Because it seems kinda od looking at the 3D formation and see these gaps inbetween where someone could run in or if 1 soldier on the front dies seems very easy to break. And having actual lines with numbers like in a construction plan or housing blueprint showing how much distance is in between each soldier each unit total legion size and how long everything is. Goes well with you saying it as an extra visual aid. Because had to rewind the last part at 22:30 to print into my mind what you actually meant.
@Invicta Great vid! I knew the numbers, from Simon scarrows books, but it is great to see them laid out so! One thing though, @16:57 you say the legion numbers 9000 and measure 25km2. that seems like a lot, but the castle at 18:47 is 220000m2. that would make a deployed legion 100x as big as their encampment (25km2 being 25 000 000m2)
Very informative video! Could you elaborate on why (or how) the romans made up for their lack of archers? Given that a bow is a ubiquous hunting weapon rather easily made and trained with by virtually anyone it always stunned me why the Gauls the Germans (or any enemy really) didn't simply pick off the cohorts from a distance on the march.... given their heavy armour (which was not imprenetrable for arrows) they would have had to rely on their few knights to engage the archers (which would have easily evaded the roman foot soldier).
Romans didn't march with heavy armours. Their cavalry usually was poor and they used allied, so with the archers (from Creta or Spain). Crasso lost at Carre cause he had no archers, but in the revenge romans prepared long distance archers.
First time seeing your videos, subbing, loved it & love Roman history. Would love seeing some videos of Cesars campaign in Gaul, especially his decisive battle vs 100k horde of Gauls.
This channel has come so far since I started watching it back in the Total War Warhammer days. I'm impressed with what you've turned it into and appreciate it.
What a fascinating and clarifying video. For me, who am not historian but a lover of the ancient culture, it has been the best on the subject that I had ever seen.
This is the best video I have seen regarding the Roman Legions. You've done a superb job of breaking Legion down into its constituent parts and demonstrate how they operate as one large or even small unit. I will be most interested in seeing you do more of these films. For instance the alexandrian army, the armies of Egypt, and the Army's of China and the Mongols as suggestions. I have been asked to deliver every once in awhile a clear breakdown of the Revolutionary Army compared to the British army, the words of 1812 and the American Civil War. There's no rush on this I think they can wait I will recommend your site for other educators who I am sure will be most pleased to see your work, once again thank you so very very much.
Perhaps not its intent, but it helped me in this way regardless. I run a D&D campaign, within which there is an Empire modeled after the Roman Empire. So this helped me greatly in picturing how large a camp would be for my party upon finding a full Legion in an Invasion path. It also helped me get the terms I'd want for a Roman inspired military force. Cherry on top, I love learning more about Roman history and such.
I found it very interesting the way the centurions were named. Correct me if im wrong but arent the names of the hierarchy for the centurions the same as how the army used to be organized back in the early republic? For example the Hastati were the raw recruits and they were the ones in the front of the battle, so Hastatus Prior for the most junior unit in a cohort. The Principes were the second in line of battle and had more expereince, Princepes prior for the middle centurions. And the Triarii for the most experienced as the reserve units, so Pilus Prior would be the most verteran centurions.
Love the content, huge fan of Roman history myself been studying it for the past 10 yrs. Very interesting to learn all the elements of a legion. The visual aid helps out a ton too, keep it up!
This video was absolutely amazing. I have always had a hard time envisioning the scale of this and how the sheer size of this force must have been a weapon in and of itself inspiring fear and doubt into the enemy about how to oppose them. Whoever came up with the idea for this video I really appreciate it. You should do more videos on the scale and make up of other historical forces for comparison.
I was playing around with the Leadership feat in Pathfinder to see how far I could push the limits of it, with the goal of being able to have a full Roman Legion under my command. Unfortunately, the most I could stretch my stats would still only afford me about 3800 units under my command. Pretty close to a full legion, but not quite there. Still, I decided to stat out an entire Century and figure out their cost of living based on historical diets, equipment costs based on historical outfitting, and gave them abilities and feats that correspond to historical battle tactics. It was a very fun exercise and I'm honestly thrilled with how they all turned out. Interestingly, in my Wiki'ing and Googling to figure out my details, I was given the impression that the Cornicularius was the "Clerk in charge of paperwork and records", which it sounds like he ALSO was, but was primarily the Command Trumpeter? I have the Buccinator as the Command Trumpeter of my century. I got the Signifer, Optio, and Tesserarius right, though!
Awesome video, informative, creative and brings a whole new scale to the battles of Philippi with their huge number of Legions, even if some/most would have been undermanned.
Firstly, let me say that you have done an awesome job at demonstrating how the Roman Army assembled whether it be the battlefield or the march. I believe that the Roman's we're at the weakest while marching. It would be nice if you can do a video of when the Roman's we're slaughtered by the Barbarians while enroute to a battle field.
Amazing work! Very much enjoyed it. Question though. Doesn't a legion always deploy for battle with about an equal number of auxilia troops? Mainly cavalry, light infantry, missile troops? If so, that the 5k plus becomes 10k plus. And a mirror of the size of a modern division!
@Luis Aldamiz All the impacts you mention are nowhere near Roman nor Latin which just furthers my point that Rome basically did fuckall in the region just as much as Germania, and also Celtic languages helped morph Old English, and in fact Old English and Old German were very similar for a time and drifted largely thanks to the Normans (again thanks Beowulf for basically showing us how dofferent Old, Middle, and Modern English is)
@Walter Magni - As for Celtic languages they are not English nor Germanic in any way, you're ranting very badly here. Furthermore: the impact of the genetic/demographic shift with the Anglosaxon invasion is very apparent: in Roman times the people of York (Eburacum) were genetically Welsh, now they are a mix with lots of Saxon and Danish ancestry. It's one of the most impacted areas, the SE of England is much more Welsh-like.
@Luis Aldamiz Greater Germany was never conquered for good fyi, the best Rome could do was keep the tribes there pinned into fighting each other and keeping alliances with anyone who resembles being a regional power, because of two facts that haunted them. One was geography which never helped them at all with the deep forests being difficult to move and build in with weather becoming far harsher and harder to farm in whenever it got cold (which could explain why the Goths went south), and the other was demographics, simply far too many tribes and peoples/languages that too far away to become assimilated unlike Gaul. In the grand scheme of things these are what got Arminius killed more than his defeats as if the tribes behaved like Romans he likely would've just tried again, and these facts are also why Rome couldn't just smash any army that popped up and call it a day. Heavy loses on Rome hurt Rome but any tribe they kill only eliminates said tribe, a dozen others are probably on their way and eventually Rome just started hriing them (Foederati) and that got them killed too eventually. If it was at all successful in the long run the Vandals and Odoacer wouldn't have sat in Rome As for language yeah those are the early forms of English i was talking about thanks for naming them, why do i count them as English? Because British wouldn't make sense since they're not all related like Nordic languages, and eventually old English became the common tounge in the place more than Latin (thanks Beowulf you unreadable beauty)
@Walter Magni - "Older forms of English"? Nope, it was Welsh or more generally Byrthonic (Cornish > Breton) and other dialects. Even the would-be Scottish spoke "Welsh" (Brythonic) in that time rather than "Irish" (Scotish Gaelic) and "English" (Scots), as they do now. Germany was essential for the defense of Italy-Rome in the long run and Rome had already conquered it for good and was being rather successful at occupation, civilization and even assimilation. It was just not successful enough... mostly because of Arminius.
Excellent video, you really put the building blocks into perspective. It's interesting to note that modern military formations follow a similar line. Some points to note:- Sometimes whole Legions were wiped out in battle. This was done with sword and bow so must have taken a while and have been very upsetting to the guys as they watched their mates drop. Imagine being amongst the final few. Battles were rare and most Legionaries served their 25yrs without much incident. Mainly guard or escort duty. Upon retirement, after 25yrs service, every Legionary was gifted a farm of 5 - 6 acres. Thats enough land to be self sufficient and raise a family. In this the Romans were far, far better than us. They elevated their veterans, we abandon ours to starve in the streets.
Not surprising they rarely fought. Population densities in those days would mean it would be difficult to co-locate enough men to challenge such a fighting force.
--> True Size of a Republican Legion: kzclip.org/video/MVZZoGEVI58/бейне.html
Important corrections for this episode:
16:52 - The legion at parade rest should cover 0.25 km2 not 25 km2
21:50 - The battle formation should have Cohorts 2-10 with 6 centuries each rather than the 8 centuries shown
22:23 - The soldier spacing in battle should be closer to 1m center to center rather than the 1m edge to edge we showed which resulted in exaggerated gaps
22:48 - The resulting frontage of the battle line should be closer to 400m than the 600m stated
We apologize for these inaccuracies and will be tightening up our QA/QC process to improve the True Size episodes moving forwards.
It was enough to grasp the size. Although about the area of 25 km2 I was very confused.
@Paul C no, it was an ideal height stemming from the specific recruitment of Legio I Italica, founded by Nero. He wanted an elite unit of giants. Although north western people in those days could be quite tall, taller than italic people. So if recruited in the roman army, they made for tall soldiers.
The mess up the Latin terms cornicen, the horn player, and cornicularius, the administator: because of Latin word cornu meaning the dignal horn and corniculum: little horn, a distinction at the helmet? apparently once worn by the cornicularii.
Glad there is an official correction. I was shocked by the 25km2 figure
Can't you edit the video?
And this kids, is how you conquer the world. Not with the sword..... but with logistics. I am still at awe at what they managed to pull off 2000 years ago.
@John SSmith haha still lapping up the propaganda ghost of Kyiv lol. Keep coping with Afghanistan bra l😂😂
Based on what you say. Do u think Greece is a real civilization as they fought all the way to India. How long is the supply train gonna be?
@AALU EATER The known world was alot smaller back then.
fake promo comments, hearting their own comments and probably with AI voice all over the video
And don't forget that legions often had additional auxiliaries with them, such as archers, slinger, additional Cavallari etc. A legion or even an Roman army on campaign must have been massive. A truly fearful sight on any battlefield.
@Alice Bokka ya, and that's just the troops. Not counting everyone else.
Dont forget all the workers and all the citizens, such as merchants, farmers etc, that would follow behind the forces and camp behind them. These people would sell/trade with the soldiers, in doing so theyd significantly ease the strain on the Army's logistics and supply lines
The Romans really had their act together !
@Luca Iervasi I'm not locked out of here with you! You're locked out here with me!
@Alice Bokka Imagine the site of them all squishing each other in chaos being killed in 4 hours.
It's not until you actually see the physical size that you realise how gigantic the legion was. Also telling and showing how long it would take for an entire legion to walk past you was the icing on the cake. It gives you a new perspective as we everyday deal with time and how long something could take.
This was awesome!
Well, wait till you see the Chinese armies back in those days... their standard armies are ranged from 30k to 800k in size. Imagine the food and time they need to take to invade.
If Europe is near to China, it will have been crashed. I think even the Chinese army splitting on the castles can flood them. Lol
I once read if you were watching Napoleons army passing by on his march towards Russia, you had to be standing there for 3 day's and nights.......incredible !
It's true, and yet Caesar tosses the word around as though referring to rugby teams in his Gallic Wars, "I sent three legions hence to counter the threat and withdrew two more from the North," etc., etc.
@Debbiebabe69 When Germany was marching through Belgium in WW1, the time it took the army to pass through wasn't measured in hours but days. The Battle of the Marne had about a million soldiers on each side.
A nice point of comparison is that the number of soldiers in a legion is approximately equal to the number in a brigade. In the 20th century, the smallest unit considered capable of fully independent operation was the division which is 2-4 brigades depending on organization. More recently however the trend has been back towards the brigade level as the smallest independent tactical unit.
They make look big described this way, but modern armies utterly dwarf them in size.
A legion as described here has 5240 fighting men.
Thats only just more than the number of militia that banded together to fight the Americans at the Battle of Mogadishu in the early 1990s.
Talking of America - they sent 43,250 shooters ashore in the Omaha Beach assault alone. Thats 8 legions.
The whole invasion of Europe used 2 million troops - ie 190 legions.
In total on the Western Front, the Allies had the equivilant of 1460 legions, while the Axis had 1530 legions.
Awesome video!
The true size of the battle of Ecnomus between Rome and Carthage would be incredible, being one of the largest naval battles in history.
Was someone watching Oversimplified?
The untrue size is incredible too !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really good to see the "Combat Service Support" aspect of a classical army considered.
So often overlooked in both modern and classical analysis of an army's structure and yet so critical to their success.
I’ve been wondering this exact thing. I’ll be staring at a big field at a park and just wonder how many legions would fit in it and how they would manage the terrain.
fake promo comments, hearting their own comments and probably with AI voice all over the video
my type of guy
You're awesome for imagining this
@Ishkur23 lmaooo what I thought when I saw how many people were at the world cup
Just thinking about Caesar moving through Gaul in full force is mind-boggling! The collumns of his legions stretching for kilometeres without an end!
Imagine the earth trembling when the legion approach
@Super.Chuck they estimate Roman Gaul having a population of 5million. 800 years before Vikings would be sparsely populated by modern standards.
@Abebe345 Ive read that Paris at the time of the Viking Invasions, was 30,000 people.
I would imagine that the rural areas have a lot of population compared to cities, as everyoine is farming.
Mars!!!
Read second chapter of gaul war, written by Caesar
Now I am able to imagine the disaster that occurred at the Teutoberger Forest much better, thank you!
@Unintentional Failure ANd the abrbarians lost the chance to be civilized lol
@Daniel W. Bridge Much of the war in Iberia was conducted with Roman treachery, massacres following surrender, burning farmland and why? Because the terrain generally prevented the Romans from having the open battles they preferred. And let's be clear, the Romans were invading Iberia just like they were invading Germania. The locals have no moral obligation to fight the same way the Romans did, particularly when they lacked the armour and training to fight like the Romans. Before Severus died, his son Caracalla was gearing up to do a scorched earth campaign north of the Antonine Wall. Anyone found was to be massacred. Why? Because the Romans were having too much difficulty fighting in the heavily forested and swamp infested reaches of the Highlands. So the Romans didn't get to depopulate northern Scotland like they did in the south.
There is a series on that war on Netflix if you haven't watched it.
@Dan D it was like an entire fleet had sunk
@AudieHolland logic dictates that the comment Kolleg was referring to was this one
"AudieHolland
10 days ago
@Daniel W. Bridge Truly I'm sorry you have noone else to talk to."
Thank you for making this video. I had always wondered how a legion was structured and was particularly interested in how they set up their officers and specialists. The romans are one of my favorite fighting forces of history. This was certainly an interesting video and brings more realism to the battles you read about from books, knowing how these legions were generally structured and who had what duties.
This was an amazing video and great detail, the modelling system implemented was a super nice touch! Really appreciate the time and detail put into this, I personally love the Roman Empire's History and this about the Legions was well done. I look forward to seeing more in the future!
It was very informative to see it laid out like this I was hoping that you would also cover the fortifications that the Romans built each night went on the March. They must have been enormous.
Loving the use of Unreal Engine to make documentaries like this one, big props! There are still some improvements to be made but it's a great contribution to the video and I can see it becoming a key point in a any historical video!
dang this foo playing Stretego
@Invicta one small thing is that when you were talking about glancing down the ranks the depth of field did not change, so everything was just blurry
@SirDiff It would be really nice if there was a program like space engine. We could go back in time and see the changes over the years and follow multiple civilizations at the same time.
@Invicta Truly magnificent Video. Enjoyed the info and visuals.
@Invicta as a 3D artist myself, i would suggest fixing the trees' LODs that keep popping in the distance first. The environment shading looks good, you could maybe use some dither blending when you add megascans on top of it (to hide the seams on the ground) As for the soldiers models, It would be REALLY interesting to have actual static 3d models of Roman soldiers: with Unreal 5 and nanite you would actually be able to have this many without performance issues (assuming they're not moving). I know some crazy talented people that could help you model them, in case you don't have a character artist. Hope the feedback can be of use, peace!
Now it’s easier to understand why Augustus was so traumatized when he lost three veteran legions. Argghh! Varus! Give him back his legions!!!!
scary to think that they lost all those men on an ambush.
It was Arminius' fault. Damn traitor! Let's face again in open field!
Brilliant! Thank you for this. As a history teacher, it's difficult to get across to students the sheer scale of the roman Army.
Thank you. I always knew that the armies etc. were massive. With your detailed break down of the Legion, the shear size of this is mind boggling. Once again thank you.
As a kid I attempted to make a Legion from Airfix figures.
Over the years I got to about 75% full strength even using other figures and products to make up the slaves, slingers, archers and mules and logistics train. Etc.
I still have them sat in boxes in my hobby room which is now made out to 1:300 tank models.
This was such a good video!
As someone who writes stories involving roman-inspired armies, this is ridiculously useful information. And I am really impressed by how well it is presented while being both very easy to understand and also thorough in what it covers.
The legionary size is something I've always been curious about. For something who is writing a fantasy nation based around these guys, this is incredibly helpful!
Also researching for my novel
EQ
@Your Casual Servant of Sauron I can tell.. Im Arda nerd myself. Maybe you could give a eye on my project on artstation, i doing Rings Of Power Reimagination (links dont work in comments but if you would search it by name on artstation it would pop up for sure, recast of actors, locations and so done by ai art generation).
@Jakub Načeradský Yeah it’s fun to build worlds. If you can’t tell I got into fantasy from Tolkien.
@Invicta I do hope you do go in depth about logistics.
As the old saying goes ‘soldiers win battles, logistics wins wars’.
Great video! You really appreciate the sheer logistics that go into organizing and fielding such a force. The fact that such military organization is not seen in such scale till the age of gunpowder is a wonder.
Not seen in Europe yes, in China no. They have different ranks of leaders and officers since the spring and autumn war.
Not to mention 9k army is just a small squad to them.
A masterpiece of a video!
The video format is uniquely suited to presenting the true scale of things, the way a typical history lecture cannot.
Can't wait to see more, in this format.
The overall thoroughness is just wonderful. The graphic animation serves the audio perfectly. The simplicity of the animation as is, allows to keep focus easily. Thumbs up!
This seems to be best approach to this particular issue I have ever seen. You did your job well and visualisation, while simplified, is really amazing. We just see everything with our own eyes. Great job.
Great video, excellent research and production which puts the massive size of a single legion in perspective. Now just imagine the size of an army comprising three to four legions and you will see how formidable the Roman army was - and that isn't even counting the auxiliary units!
Its genuinely amazing how we now have access to this level of information, presented perfectly with visuals to help us understand and be entertained - thanks to dedicated people like those who run this channel. Thank you very much!
@4thshot well, that and the fact that they were European and their literal descendants are in Europe to this day
Yeah, I remember when Wikipedia was amazing.
@Guillermo Elenes I bet you're really special because you read though right? 😉
The part about the legionaries being ideally from the rural population is extremely important if we want to understand the empire‘s ultimate fate. It means that the people that were actually fighting and dying to protect and expand the empire were the free peasants from the Italian heartland of the Empire. This in itself is not unusual, pretty much all pre-industrial armies were made up of peasants, but for the Romans it was a problem because their peasant class was dwindling as time went on.
Rome was of course an agricultural state, but the dominant and increasingly dominating mode of production was slavery. Most of the food in the empire was produced by slaves and the successful foreign wars brought more and more of them to the empire. As a result the slave-owning patricians gobbled up more and more of the arable land (especially in Italy) for their Latifundias. The peasants were driven off and went to the cities (where they would join a relatively unproductive plebeian population) or sometimes the frontier. But this process was repeated in the provinces where during the roman occupation, much of the arable land ended up in the hands of rich landowners, rather than communal ownership or free peasants it had belonged to before the roman conquest.
As a result, the peasant population dwindled and it became more and more difficult to get people to fight for the Empire. Slaves obviously don‘t fight and plebeians also have a very different relationship to the state than free, landowning peasants.
Even the Marian Reforms which instituted the Legions were arguably already a sign of (or response to) how things were going wrong, as the new professional army was now essentially fighting for money or other rewards. This had some advantages but it also meant that there was no longer a large enough population that were willing to fight out of obligation to the state; which is what was the case previously and in most ancient societies, were free citizens or peasants were legally required to perform wartime service in defence of the country, essentially as the price for citizenship.
This was a crucial and extremely common source of military power that Rome lost access to when it expropriated the peasant population. We actually see conflicts around this play out in the run-up to the Roman Civil War, where Caesar is elected consul against strong opposition from the conservatives. The Reforms he is promising include the state forcibly buying up a lot of land in Italy and then selling it back to some of the urban plebs, but this was unpopular with the landowners and also amounted to a temporary measure at best.
As it became harder to find recruits among the citizenry, foreign expansion eventually stopped and this deprived the empire of the only large-enough source of fresh slaves (slave populations don‘t reproduce at a net-positive rate for obvious reasons) so eventually the entire system had to collapse. In a way, this was already beginning to happen by the time of Caesar and Augustus.
Love it! I was trying to do something like this a while back using 3D models of LEGO minifigs, drawn from the minifigs that LEGO actually made in their mystery sets. I built the models but never got much further than that.
I can not even describe how good this video is ,and how long I have searched for something similar. All I can say is well done and thank you
This is one of the most comprehensive and impressive educational videos I have seen in a long time. Very good job I know you all worked hard on this.
One of the best things about this is that it not only shows the size of a Legion, but, also, it shows the flexibility of the structure of the Legion.
The visual representation by the 3D style in this topic is just wonderful! ❤
Could you make a video which discusses the about the medical unit of a legion ?
Yes I definitely want to do an episode on Roman Army medics
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@Thomas Cuddihy That was my first thought but they do supply a correction, to 0•25 KM².
Hannibal's army during the invasion of the Roman empire
Maybe compare this to like the size of Alexander's army (in general)?
Do Macedonian army vs Persian army at the battle of Gaugamela
Cesars decisive victory over the Gauls in battle of Alesia.
It’s content like this that elevates KZclip far above other sources. It would have taken 4 days for a network to get this much information across. Outstanding work.
this is a MUCH BETTER DOCUMENTARY than ANY BIG MEDIA delivers
congrats for the amazing work you've always done with your videos
Thank you so much for such amazing content. I teach middle school and we're about to start our unit on the expansion of Rome across Europe, so I'll be sure to use such an amazing, interesting, accurate, and fun piece of content.
Best wishes and thanks,
Kyle
Very nicely done. I could never see myself on the roman battlefield and imagine how massive it was. Until now, thank you.
It's kinda cool how such a large amount of people could just basically set up camp anywhere in such an organized manner.
Shovels and axes were in every soldier's kit for a reason. There wasn't a road when they started moving. There was one when they finished. As the legion moved, it cut the forest, dug and paved the road, and built the wall. That is why all roads lead to Rome. Because the army altered the terrain to fit them as they moved, and they connected the fortress they built to camp in one night, to the fortress they built to camp in the next night. Leaving a network of ready-to-inhabit towns behind them as they went.
The 3D styled art and models made for this video is just perfect.
Expect for three ridiculous spacing…
@Maximvs Dread i remember, jsut havent seen it in so long. Thinking of watching the first punic wars again for nostalgia
@Dawnblade That documentary series you mentioned is called 'Decisive Battles' just in case you've forgot and, It's here on youtube if you want to watch it again. I actually archived it :)
@Maximvs Dread mods are great, played troy with mods and that was fun
@Dawnblade I'm still playing Total War these days although I'm using the mod 'Europa Barbaroum'.Once you use that mod you can't go back to vanilla.
When you study the legions you cannot help but notice the massive logistics to move such a formation. A lesson still being fumbled recently.
And move it on the order of 20 miles a day and set up for battle at the end of that 20 miles!
This is incredible! Love to see it all formed out.
As a suggestion, consider adding a few football fields as a highlighted overlay to give viewers a sense of scale. Maybe some other ‘modern’ points of comparison could help contextualize the scale better for the layperson. Or even the Colosseum!
The cutout style figures are really neat, but some colored indicators around specific troop types might be useful at medium distances, with the individual cohorts specified at long range. Again, just to help contextualize scale.
But that’s just my two cents, awesome job with the video and thanks for all the hard work that I’m sure went into it.
As a suggestion, I would love to see a video like this for the events at Thermopylae, Artemisium and salamis. Thanks!
yes, do football fields (I heard there where two types of fields) so American viewers can see the grand scale of things ;)
This was a fun video, really helped me imagine and understand the massive size of my military in Imperator: Rome, which was 140 legions
A subsequent video on the various Auxiliary units of the Imperial Roman Army would be fantastic! Thanks in advance, if possible.
Such a great video. Love the perspective. Would love to see other videos about things like this for other militaries. Great video!
The absolute power disparity between the Roman legions and their contemporary neighbors has always seemed so insane to me. The uniformity, quality, and expertise that none of their opponents could hold a candle to until the Empire tore itself apart from within.
Thank God China isn't their neighbour... They have way larger armies back in those days but I guess they are too busy fighting among themselves in the country to bother about expansion. Yuan Dynasty did invade until Europe or somewhere close I think.
Rome was a civilization far more superior
@Derek Bright Ye and a fair stretch of Germany conquered, so?
Rome fought the most powerful adversaries of antiquity lol.
@West It didn't lmao
This is brilliant!!! I have been watching this channel for years, and this may very well be my personal favorite thus far. I have read this information in depth regarding sizes of various legions through both the Republican and Imperial eras, but the way you’ve described and illustrated here to me is the perfect depiction for a standard imperial legion!!! You nailed it!!!
Yay! Glad to hear it. Our next episode is on the True Size of a Republican Legion
Dear lord. Imagine seeing that large train of so many people just marching. That must have been terrifying and awe inspiring for people in antiquity. I feel like you just wouldn’t ever see that many people in one place back then. Especially all on the move at once.
@Haz Honer the terrifying might of the Roman Empire
Imagine the earth trembling when the legion approach
This was an amazing video. I wasn't expecting you to break down everything to its core components, not like that. This was awesome.
Now, imagine the Punic Wars when there were up to a few legions on barges, needing to be protected as they headed to Africa. THAT would be an amazing breakdown.
Awesome, just awesome. This puts the size and order of the roman legion into context. However, what I would like to know is how the baggage trains were managed and organised. That would be quite an interesting video.
Absolutely love your videos! I was wondering if you'd ever do a video like this for Ancient Greek Armies?
Great video! I really like how you depicted the amazing size of a Legion of 6000 men. This really helps me visualize just how massive battles like Pharsalus or Alesia would have been.
The number of men in a legion at full strength which took the field was 4,800 men. The remaining men were guarding the camp.
Indeed, but that was a pre-Marian manipular army I think? And they learned their lessons from Cannae and eventually wiped out Carthage altogether.
Or Cannae. 87,000 leiognaries to be exact against Hannibal's 50,000. Romans still lost the battle though
I would love to see a full Roman Imperial Legion assume battle field formation. Just to see how well trained those men were, to do all of this without radio communications. Just signifiers and trumpets used to announce changes. Its absolutely unimaginable to me, how much training it took to reach that level of organization and discipline.
Amazing video. I have been a fan of the Roman Age ever since taking 4 years of Latin in high school! I occasionally have issues with word pronunciations in some channels, the difference between Church and Roman Latin, but I love these just the same. I binge all the videos on the subject of Rome when the come out.
Keep up the incredible work!
The Latin that is taught at school and that is engraved on the marbles of the ancient Roman ruins (and written by the ancient Authors) is "classical" Latin: the language spoken by the upper most educated classes and used in the Senate of Rome. The language spoken by most people and throughout the empire was "vulgar" Latin. Although both forms were mutually intelligible, they were not the same.
With the fall of the Western Empire (476 AD) there was no more any central authority to manage the language, and the only language left to be used was vulgar Latin. This language in turn started to change (every live language evolves over time), and the change was greater across geographic barriers (mountains, big rivers). By the VIII century classical Latin (used by the Church) was no more readily understood by normal (un educated) people.
Additionally national languages (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian) started to emerge and differentiate. Although all came from vulgar Latin, and still mutually intelligible to some extent, they were clearly different. In the Middle Age the Church too used vulgar Latin, further enriched with modern words that did not even exist centuries before.
During the Renaissance period the national languages were formally codified and extended forcibly by law to the whole nation (for political reasons), so that the jump across a border became greater than before. For example the Occitan language spoken in the south of France was much more similar to Italian and Spanish than current day French (which was the romance language spoken in the area of Paris, much farther away).
Romanian, being cut from contact and influence of other romance languages for centuries, had an autonomous evolution.
This an excellent and concise presentation of the Roman Army. I study this as a hobby and there are a few questions I can't find answers.
.
1) How much could a Roman wagon carry? 2) What was an approximate Roman ration, in garrison and on the march?
Such a helpful and informational video, I feel that I can now form a Roman Legion myself
Such a high quality video. You guys are one of the best history/documentary channels on the internet, and even compared to mainstream media.
I love this video. Absolutely amazing and have been waiting for an in depth description like this about Rome's juggernaut for a long time from this channel. You never disappoint Invicta!!
Für Kaiser, Gott und Vaterland!
Overall. a good job. However it should have been noted that a decanus was the leader of a contubernium. I'm curious if they were ranked among each other. So, as the pilus prior was the ranking centurion of a cohort, was there an analogous position for the ranking decanus of a century? Thank you!
This channel is by far one of my most favourite. I love how the men of the past formed a world of such high intelligence and organization. Yet today with all our technology we can't even come close to the levels of discipline, organisation and power that the Roman Empire had. It almost makes you think that humanity peaked about 2,000 years ago.
Bravo and superb job done here,as an Italian from Rome who dedicated his younger days in the study of my city and it's former military and tactical aspect you deserve a great thank you.
Gracias por el vídeo es increíble. Una lástima que no haya subtítulos en castellano para entenderlo perfectamente. Un saludo
Fantastic video! I'd like to see a video about the AUXILIARY forces the Legions almost always took to battle with them.
‘A wolf can’t destroy the world, only the Roman army can’ - Varus, from Barbarians series
Even Asterix and Obelix is historically more accurate than Netflix' Barbarians haha
"homo homini lupus est" a latin proverb meaning "Man is a wolf to man"
@0Turbox 100% agree on that. felt exactly them same. Started second season instantly shut it off. It‘s so bad. 90% German Movies are a complete embarassement with academic actors coming from acting schools … o tempora, o mores.
@Metabolic Horse by the A.D period civil wars werre a bug part sure but a failing economy mounted up with disease and bad harvests did them in (because said diseases and bad harvests probably made the germanics move south)
@0Turbox Granted, the language they would’ve actually spoken is as close to modern German as it is English. Can’t really do much about it.
Amazing video! I would love to know more about the camps the legionaries built. And the organization of one once it was completed.
Wonderful wonderful video. Always wanted to see the scale and the way legions operated, so a big thank you for that.
I realize there's no mention of the velites, the roman skirmishers. Would have been great to see how they integrated into the larger body.
Wonderful video that brings a lot of stuff together. It's good to keep in mind though that this is both an interpretation and a simplification. For example, the legion structure, size and recruiting pool has changed over time, sometimes very significantly and even fundamentally so. So the first question to ask when describing a legion is: "what year?". Secondly, the sources are ambiguous about many things (for example the exact size and composition of the contubernium).
That marching formation display was glorious and super impressive. Thanks for these great visualisations.
Fantastic! As a military history nerd, I adore these videos. Thank you. 🍻
Awesome! I've been consuming Timaeus' Roman History podcast every day for hours and while the legion structure and roles are explained well, the visual aids help a lot 👍
@Derrheat yep! Everything Mike puts out is amazingly detailed
lol thats the channel name. it's actually produced and voiced by Mike Duncan
It really helps to watch this while looking out across an airport tarmac. I can visualize how a legion or true army in battle might have looked. Imagine having to convey orders to units that you can't see several kilometers away through dust.
This was seriously interesting. Didn't want it to stop. Well done.
I love this. Ya'll did a fantastic job on it. The style is creative as well
Very well done. A couple of points though. A legion would seldom be on it's own. It would be accompanied by a number of auxiliary cohorts, both foot and horse. Also, from what I learned years ago a legion would leave 2 cohorts plus auxiliaries to defend the camp when going into battle.
Fantastic video showing the scale. It'd be interesting to see the size of known Roman armies. We have some good accounts on the number of Legions used by Caesar and Augustus for example.
I've always wanted a video like this. I try to imagine how big and how much space ancient armies took up. The scale was mind boggling
@Cory Lemons exactly, I always think about logistics too, the total army sizes including camp followers and animals is crazy, literally a moving column of a city's population!
The logistics of moving all this shit back than too would have been mind numbing
Great video, the 3D models really helps put into perspective how big it is.
However some advice when talking about balista or certain groups or units like at 10:50 would be nice to zoom in to actually show what they are at least for a few seconds before zooming back out again to show the entire formation.
It would also be good to know like at 22:30 and at the start talk about how much 6 roman feet is to meters/feet.
And perhaps since it's unreal have a digital 3d ruler or a line that shows the distance between each soldier, because i am now wondering if the spacing of the 3d models positioning is accurate to what you said in how far apart they are.
Because it seems kinda od looking at the 3D formation and see these gaps inbetween where someone could run in or if 1 soldier on the front dies seems very easy to break.
And having actual lines with numbers like in a construction plan or housing blueprint showing how much distance is in between each soldier each unit total legion size and how long everything is.
Goes well with you saying it as an extra visual aid.
Because had to rewind the last part at 22:30 to print into my mind what you actually meant.
@Invicta Great vid! I knew the numbers, from Simon scarrows books, but it is great to see them laid out so! One thing though, @16:57 you say the legion numbers 9000 and measure 25km2. that seems like a lot, but the castle at 18:47 is 220000m2. that would make a deployed legion 100x as big as their encampment (25km2 being 25 000 000m2)
Yeah, that sounds weird. 25 km^2 is massive :D
Very well done. The most complete explanation I have ever seen. Thank you.
Amazing video! Thank you, I've always wanted to know the inner workings of a Roman legion
Very informative video! Could you elaborate on why (or how) the romans made up for their lack of archers? Given that a bow is a ubiquous hunting weapon rather easily made and trained with by virtually anyone it always stunned me why the Gauls the Germans (or any enemy really) didn't simply pick off the cohorts from a distance on the march.... given their heavy armour (which was not imprenetrable for arrows) they would have had to rely on their few knights to engage the archers (which would have easily evaded the roman foot soldier).
Romans didn't march with heavy armours. Their cavalry usually was poor and they used allied, so with the archers (from Creta or Spain). Crasso lost at Carre cause he had no archers, but in the revenge romans prepared long distance archers.
The quality of this channel cannot be underrated. Yet you keep getting better! Awesome work, thank you for your incredible insights.
Production value is really growing by leaps and bounds, great video
First time seeing your videos, subbing, loved it & love Roman history.
Would love seeing some videos of Cesars campaign in Gaul, especially his decisive battle vs 100k horde of Gauls.
This channel has come so far since I started watching it back in the Total War Warhammer days. I'm impressed with what you've turned it into and appreciate it.
What a fascinating and clarifying video. For me, who am not historian but a lover of the ancient culture, it has been the best on the subject that I had ever seen.
This is the best video I have seen regarding the Roman Legions. You've done a superb job of breaking Legion down into its constituent parts and demonstrate how they operate as one large or even small unit. I will be most interested in seeing you do more of these films. For instance the alexandrian army, the armies of Egypt, and the Army's of China and the Mongols as suggestions. I have been asked to deliver every once in awhile a clear breakdown of the Revolutionary Army compared to the British army, the words of 1812 and the American Civil War. There's no rush on this I think they can wait I will recommend your site for other educators who I am sure will be most pleased to see your work, once again thank you so very very much.
This was amazing! Would love to learn how legions organized their centuries after suffering casualties.
Perhaps not its intent, but it helped me in this way regardless. I run a D&D campaign, within which there is an Empire modeled after the Roman Empire. So this helped me greatly in picturing how large a camp would be for my party upon finding a full Legion in an Invasion path. It also helped me get the terms I'd want for a Roman inspired military force. Cherry on top, I love learning more about Roman history and such.
My hometown high school campus is just about the size of the Roman camp. The full size one. 55 acres
Very cool! Informative, interesting, and intelligently presented. Thank you.
What a fascinating, instructive, and well-made documentary - many thanks - liked and subbed ❤
I found it very interesting the way the centurions were named. Correct me if im wrong but arent the names of the hierarchy for the centurions the same as how the army used to be organized back in the early republic? For example the Hastati were the raw recruits and they were the ones in the front of the battle, so Hastatus Prior for the most junior unit in a cohort. The Principes were the second in line of battle and had more expereince, Princepes prior for the middle centurions. And the Triarii for the most experienced as the reserve units, so Pilus Prior would be the most verteran centurions.
Love the content, huge fan of Roman history myself been studying it for the past 10 yrs. Very interesting to learn all the elements of a legion. The visual aid helps out a ton too, keep it up!
This video was absolutely amazing. I have always had a hard time envisioning the scale of this and how the sheer size of this force must have been a weapon in and of itself inspiring fear and doubt into the enemy about how to oppose them. Whoever came up with the idea for this video I really appreciate it. You should do more videos on the scale and make up of other historical forces for comparison.
I was playing around with the Leadership feat in Pathfinder to see how far I could push the limits of it, with the goal of being able to have a full Roman Legion under my command. Unfortunately, the most I could stretch my stats would still only afford me about 3800 units under my command. Pretty close to a full legion, but not quite there. Still, I decided to stat out an entire Century and figure out their cost of living based on historical diets, equipment costs based on historical outfitting, and gave them abilities and feats that correspond to historical battle tactics. It was a very fun exercise and I'm honestly thrilled with how they all turned out.
Interestingly, in my Wiki'ing and Googling to figure out my details, I was given the impression that the Cornicularius was the "Clerk in charge of paperwork and records", which it sounds like he ALSO was, but was primarily the Command Trumpeter? I have the Buccinator as the Command Trumpeter of my century. I got the Signifer, Optio, and Tesserarius right, though!
You answered so many of my questions, all in one video. Good work.
Awesome video, informative, creative and brings a whole new scale to the battles of Philippi with their huge number of Legions, even if some/most would have been undermanned.
Firstly, let me say that you have done an awesome job at demonstrating how the Roman Army assembled whether it be the battlefield or the march. I believe that the Roman's we're at the weakest while marching. It would be nice if you can do a video of when the Roman's we're slaughtered by the Barbarians while enroute to a battle field.
Amazing work! Very much enjoyed it. Question though. Doesn't a legion always deploy for battle with about an equal number of auxilia troops? Mainly cavalry, light infantry, missile troops? If so, that the 5k plus becomes 10k plus. And a mirror of the size of a modern division!
I can't believe a army so well organize as the Roman can be defeated in battle. The enemies of Rome were formidable indeed.
@David Buckley Marius? I believe you mean Damocles, my good sir or madam.
@Luis Aldamiz All the impacts you mention are nowhere near Roman nor Latin which just furthers my point that Rome basically did fuckall in the region just as much as Germania, and also Celtic languages helped morph Old English, and in fact Old English and Old German were very similar for a time and drifted largely thanks to the Normans (again thanks Beowulf for basically showing us how dofferent Old, Middle, and Modern English is)
@Walter Magni - As for Celtic languages they are not English nor Germanic in any way, you're ranting very badly here. Furthermore: the impact of the genetic/demographic shift with the Anglosaxon invasion is very apparent: in Roman times the people of York (Eburacum) were genetically Welsh, now they are a mix with lots of Saxon and Danish ancestry. It's one of the most impacted areas, the SE of England is much more Welsh-like.
@Luis Aldamiz Greater Germany was never conquered for good fyi, the best Rome could do was keep the tribes there pinned into fighting each other and keeping alliances with anyone who resembles being a regional power, because of two facts that haunted them. One was geography which never helped them at all with the deep forests being difficult to move and build in with weather becoming far harsher and harder to farm in whenever it got cold (which could explain why the Goths went south), and the other was demographics, simply far too many tribes and peoples/languages that too far away to become assimilated unlike Gaul.
In the grand scheme of things these are what got Arminius killed more than his defeats as if the tribes behaved like Romans he likely would've just tried again, and these facts are also why Rome couldn't just smash any army that popped up and call it a day. Heavy loses on Rome hurt Rome but any tribe they kill only eliminates said tribe, a dozen others are probably on their way and eventually Rome just started hriing them (Foederati) and that got them killed too eventually. If it was at all successful in the long run the Vandals and Odoacer wouldn't have sat in Rome
As for language yeah those are the early forms of English i was talking about thanks for naming them, why do i count them as English? Because British wouldn't make sense since they're not all related like Nordic languages, and eventually old English became the common tounge in the place more than Latin (thanks Beowulf you unreadable beauty)
@Walter Magni - "Older forms of English"? Nope, it was Welsh or more generally Byrthonic (Cornish > Breton) and other dialects. Even the would-be Scottish spoke "Welsh" (Brythonic) in that time rather than "Irish" (Scotish Gaelic) and "English" (Scots), as they do now.
Germany was essential for the defense of Italy-Rome in the long run and Rome had already conquered it for good and was being rather successful at occupation, civilization and even assimilation. It was just not successful enough... mostly because of Arminius.
Excellent video, you really put the building blocks into perspective. It's interesting to note that modern military formations follow a similar line.
Some points to note:-
Sometimes whole Legions were wiped out in battle. This was done with sword and bow so must have taken a while and have been very upsetting to the guys as they watched their mates drop. Imagine being amongst the final few.
Battles were rare and most Legionaries served their 25yrs without much incident. Mainly guard or escort duty.
Upon retirement, after 25yrs service, every Legionary was gifted a farm of 5 - 6 acres. Thats enough land to be self sufficient and raise a family. In this the Romans were far, far better than us. They elevated their veterans, we abandon ours to starve in the streets.
Not surprising they rarely fought. Population densities in those days would mean it would be difficult to co-locate enough men to challenge such a fighting force.
I hate it when I’m trying to fit exactly 2.354 Roman legions in a room and need to calculate the proportions, thanks for the video! Very helpful
Absolutely incredible! Fantastic job!