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Travelling Romans

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Thursday, 3rd March 2011

  I have been trying to work out how fast armies travelled and keep coming up with different answers. Did they move at the speed of the baggage train (oxen etc) or if they were going into battle was it at a sprint? Did the width of the roads affect them or did they march over fields? Would the cavalry go before and wait for the infantry? How would they carry their food or would they expect to find it on the march? Any ideas?
  
  Kind Regards - TA

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• Message 2

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  Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Friday, 4th March 2011

  A few years ago an experiment was performed in Germany which suggested that a century of late Republican troops in full marching kit, but without baggage train, could (IIRC) cover about 100 miles in four days, marching flat out (though from photos I've seen it looked like the trip half-killed the participants!). Such a feat would only be necessary in an emergency, however.
  
  Usually they would seem to have gone with a baggage train, and each conturbernium (section of 8 men) would have had a mule to carry heavy equipment such as their tent, quernstones etc. Soldiers would have carried basic rations with them in their packs, consisting mainly of things like corn and/or bucellatum (sometimes translated as 'hard tack', a sort of biscuit that could be eaten solid or ground down into a flour-like power to make porridge), and acetum (cheap wine, seemingly used in preference to water - although it's been speculated that local alternatives such as beer would have been used when more readily available). Josephus says a soldier carried three days' rations. More substantial food (meat, veg, plus resupplies for the individual soldiers) would be carried with the baggage, but it wouldn't surprise me if, given the opportunity, the diet would be supplemented by anything they could pick up on the way.
  
  Josephus in his 'Jewish War' gives a detailed description of what he calls the usual marching order for a Roman Army (in this case Vespansian's army when entering Judea to crush the revolt of AD67):
  
  Light-armed auxiliaries and archers.
  Heavy infantry and cavalry
  Engineers and pioneers
  Personal baggage of the commander and his staff, with cavalry screen
  The General, with bodyguard and elite infantry and cavalry
  Legionary cavalry
  Artillery and siege equipment
  Senior officers
  Standards, including the legions' Eagles.
  The Legions
  Servants attached to the Legions, with baggage train
  Auxiliary units
  Rearguard of infantry and cavalry
  
  Jospehus did actually see this for himself so is probably pretty reliable in this case. Unfortunately, I don't think he mentions the speed at which they would travel, but I can't imagine it would be very fast. If memory serves, I believe the everage speed of a medieval army is thought to have been around 15 miles a day, and I would guess a Roman army could cover pretty much the same. They would obviously be affected by marching conditions, though. They would use roads if available but evidently they would go cross-country if they had to, since according to Josephus the engineers and pioneers near the head of the Army were there to clear a path.

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  Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Friday, 4th March 2011

  Hi AN
  
  Many thanks for your informative reply (as always)
  
  The part about 15 miles a day in the normal state of affairs would seem about right when compared with the average distance between forts which was indeed 15 miles.
  
  One would assume (never a wise thing to do, I know) that where forts were 12 miles apart or so the terrain was more difficult for building or travelling.
  
  Obviously if the infantry was travelling at 25miles in a day the baggage or supplies would only be what the soldiers could carry on their backs. You state that in this case the soldiers only carried about 3 day’s supplies.
  
  You may ask why I am fixated by this but I am trying to make sense of the timescales that were needed for Seutonius Paulinus to actually reach London and what was going to make a difference to him and his troops.
  
  One of these was food. Did he travel with a baggage train or did he rely on picking up supplies from Chester, Wroxeter, Towcester and St. Albans?
  
  Everyone seems to think that he was in a rush to catch up with the rebels but was this really the case?
  
  He seems to have been intent on reaching London rather than going either via St Albans directly to Colchester using Stane Street or using the Via Devana via Leicester and Godmanchester which would have been the quickest way to confront the rebels.
  
  So why was it necessary to go to London?
  
  Did Seutonius Paulinus have a plan before he left High Cross, the meeting of Watling Street and the Fosse Way
  
  Kind Regards - TA
  

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  Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Wednesday, 16th March 2011

  hi ta
  i thought that paulinus left anglesey with only his cavalry leaving the infantry to catch up
  he abandoned London to its fate waiting to choose a battlefield of his choice - a good choice as it turned out
  
  st

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  Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Wednesday, 16th March 2011

  Hi st
  
  I have no idea where the idea about Seutonius Paulinus only taking the cavalry with him came from.
  
  Tacitus does not say anything about the cavalry, he states that
  
  "Suetonius while thus occupied received tidings of the sudden revolt of the province."
  
  "Suetonius, however, with wonderful resolution, marched amidst a hostile population to Londinium".
  
  Uncertain whether he should choose it (Londinium) as a seat of war, as he looked round on his scanty force of soldiers, and remembered with what a serious warning the rashness of Petilius had been punished
  
  No mention about cavalry at all - only soldiers and marching.
  
  The cavalry bit has been invented by people to make their pet theories work.
  
  It is unlikely that he would have even considered to defend Londinium with only cavalry.
  
  Tacitus appears to be saying that with the army he had with him, it was not large enough to defend Londinium and compares his army with that of Petilius which was the IX Legion.
  
  This implies that he only had the strength of 1 legion with him of around 6,000 men of the 14th legion, not the 18,000 he was expecting with the ninth legion who had been destroyed and the second legion who was still in Exeter.
  
  He had to leave bur not necessarily quietly.....
  
  Kind Regards - TA
  
  
  
  
  

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Friday, 18th March 2011

  I must confess I have always beleived Paulinus went to London with only his cavalry but there have been so many modern historians writing about the revolt that this impression may have come from one of them. I thought Tacitus had confirmed it but if you have checked that, then clearly it came from somewhere else.
  
  I have just had a quick look at Dio Cassius' account and he says that Paulinus sailed from Mona to Britain - not at all helpful unless he means that Paulnus sailed south, round what is now Wales, along the south coast of Engliand and up the Thames, o rperhaps to the Severn and then overland. However, Dio Cassius does not mention London at all. He simply says that Paulinus returned ot Britain. He also says that Paulinus wished to postpone the battle until another season but was forced to fight because of lack of food and because the rebels were pressing him hard.
  
  If neither of these two writrs mentions Paulinus' cavalry, where did it come from? Did he go to London at all or simply abandon it because he could not actually get there in time?
  
  As for amry marching speeds, I agree thataround 15 miles per day was probably about right over good terrain or on roads. That is what the roads were for, after all. I believe Juius Caesar is said to have covered 100 miles per day when on urgent business but that would be with only a small, presumably mounted, escort and was considered remarkable. (Don't ask me for the source of that because i can't remember).

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Friday, 18th March 2011

  I wondered whether Tacitus had put conflicting accounts in his Annals and HIstories but, having had a quick look, I can't find any mention of Boudica in the Histories. In the Annals he does say Paulinus marched to Londinium. He then left, with some of the people accompanying him, which defiitely suggests that at least some of them were on foot. It does make you wonder whether Paulinus went back north to join up with the rest of his army or perhaps headed west, hoping to meet the Second Legion. North would presumably have taken him dangerously near the advancing Iceni. (What were they doing all this time, anyway?).
  
  I did a search of the Agricola too, just in case but there doesn;t seem to be anything there either.
  
  This has always been a puzzling campaign and I am now more puzzled than ever about what happened when. I hope someone more knowledgeable can shed some light on where the story of Paulinus' cavalry dash originated. The more I think about it, the more inconceivable it seems that there was time for Paulimnus to receive a message about the revolt then march his infantry from Mona all the way to Londinium before the Iceni had got there.

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Friday, 18th March 2011

  Sorry, there was a mention in The Agricola but just a fleeting one. Agan, Tacitus says that Paulinus "marched to the rescue of the province" but gives no details.

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  Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Friday, 18th March 2011

  Hi TonyG
  
  I think that it might be a mistake to assume that there was a race to get to London between Seutonius Paulinus and Boudicca.
  
  Again there is no report by Tacitus to say this.
  
  Neither is there a report that Seutonius Paulinus rushed to Londinium, in fact he sent the Ninth Legion to Colchester but they were ambushed and all killed apart from the cavalry.
  
  This is the first mention of cavalry who with the Ninth’s Commander Petilius Cerialis managed to escape to a Roman camp.
  
  We don’t know how many troops were with the Ninth that day but it would appear that after the uprising the legion was brought up to strength with two thousand legionnaries so perhaps the legion only had 2,000 troops.
  
  Perhaps the rest were with Seutonius Paulinus in Anglesey as part of his campaign.
  
  This could also be the case with the Second Legion whose commanders we know were not in Exeter and possibly with Seutonius Paulinus.
  
  You ask what were the Iceni doing? Why did they not attack Londonium or Verulanium?
  
  They would have had to wait to see what the Romans would do, where they would attack. They could not afford to leave their homes exposed if they were not there.
  
  Seutonius Paulinus could have marched to Leicester and across to the Iceni homelands or have gone to Verulanium and then onto Camulodunum but chose instead to go to London.
  
  Kind Regards - TA
  

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