Free Legions of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins Page A

baggage train.
    VI. BAGGAGE TRAINS AND NON-COMBATANTS
    The Romans called the baggage train the impedimentum , from which we derive the word impediment, meaning obstruction. And, if not carefully managed, a baggage train could indeed impede the march. A wise commander had to guard against losing his baggage. Mark Antony, marching into Armenia and Media in 36 BC , grew impatient with his trundling baggage train and left it to follow him at its own pace, hurrying forward with his legions. The Parthians and Medes circled around behind Antony and wiped out the train’s defenders, seizing the train and depriving Antony of most of his food and ammunition.
    One pack mule was assigned to every squad of a legion, requiring 650 mules for a full-strength legion. The mules were managed by civilian muleteers. A legion baggage train might involve a hundred carts, pulled by mules or oxen and also managed by non-combatants. These carried heavy supplies, artillery, siege equipment, building materials, ammunition, and officers’ dining plate and camp furniture.
    Arrian, in the second century, said that Roman commanders were familiar with five set ways of assigning the baggage train in a marching column, all designed to provide maximum protection. Where the army was advancing toward the enemy, he said, it was necessary for the baggage train to follow the legions. When withdrawing from enemy territory, the baggage train went ahead. On an advance where an enemy attack was feared on one flank, the baggage train was placed on the opposite flank. Where neither flank was considered secure, the baggage train advanced in the midst of the legions. [Arr., TH , 30]
    A vast body of camp followers inevitably trailed the legions: merchants, prostitutes, de facto legionary families. There were also the slaves of the officers, who took part in arms training and drills with their masters. Said Tacitus, “of all slaves, the slaves of soldiers are the most unruly.” [Tac., H , II , 87] The number of non-combatants with an army frequently equaled it in number; when 40,000 Roman soldiers sacked the Italian city of Cremona in AD 69, they were joined by an even larger number of non-combatants. [Tac., H , III , 33]
    VII. ARTILLERY AND SIEGE EQUIPMENT
    Each legion of the early empire was equipped with one stone-throwing ballista per cohort and one metal dart and spear-firing scorpio per century. The single-armed catapult of the onager or “wild ass” type—so named because of its massive kick—wasemployed from 200 BC and was still employed in AD 363, when Ammianus Marcellinus saw it in action. “A round stone is placed in the sling and four young men on each side turn back the bar with which the ropes are connected and bend the pole almost flat. Then finally the master [gunner], standing above, strikes out the pole-bolt” with a hammer. [Amm., II , xxiii, 4–6] This released the tensioned firing pole, which sprang forward and launched the missile.
    Catapults had a great effect on the morale of both attackers and defenders. All authorities wrote of the enormous noise made by catapults when they fired, and of the terrifying sound made by catapult balls and spears on their way to the target. The normal operating range of legion artillery was 400 yards (365 meters) or less. Catapult stones were used to batter down fortified defenses and eliminate defenders on walls and in towers. A number of scorpio darts have been found at siege sites in modern times, usually with pyramid-shaped heads and three flights made of wood or leather.
    The Roman engineer Vitruvius wrote that the Roman military used the following weights for their rounded ballista balls: 2lbs, 4lbs, 6lbs, 10lbs, 20lbs, 40lbs, 60lbs, 80lbs, 120lbs, 160lbs, 180lbs, 200lbs, 210lbs and a massive 360lbs; a range of 0.9 to 163 kilos. [Vitr., OA , X , 3] One of the larger balls was nicknamed the “wagon stone,” perhaps because it took a wagon to carry it. [Arr., TH , II ] Trajan’s Column shows catapult