by John Traveler

Created on: July 25, 2009   Last Updated: December 07, 2009

The historical record reflects there were few battles the Roman legions didn't win, and perhaps only one foe, the Saxons, they never prevailed over. The superiority of the Roman ranks was due to a number of factors, but rather than being a revolutionary approach to tactics or strategy, Roman style combat can be seen as an evolution of strategies and tactics assimilated from the Greeks and Etruscans.

In the earliest days of the republic, the Romans pretty much emulated the Greek phalanx formations, a strategy that worked well to conquer the Etruscans and other indigenous peoples of the Italian peninsula. In the phalanx battle formation there weren't a whole lot of tactics involved, the two opposing army's basically marched up against each other in an open area and then engaged in man to man savagery. But this open field type of battle was useless when it came to protecting a city like Rome. When the Celts invaded (390-387 BCE), they sacked and pillaged the Roman city-state capturing all but its capitol buildings and garrison. That Rome survived at all is somewhat of a miracle, but the republic would rebuild and come back stronger than ever with new technologies and ingenious tactics that would revolutionize combat in the ancient world..

From this point forward, the Roman army would go on the offensive, conquering the Samnites in three wars (343-290 BCE). But not only was Rome building its land forces, it was developing a juggernaut of a navy as well. The Greek philosopher Plato once exclaimed, "necessity is the mother of invention," and the Roman military would certainly demonstrate this philosophical construct. Developing a unique command and control hierarchy, the Romans modified the phalanx fighting structure by dividing the mass into independent fighting forces. Although the nomenclature is obviously different, the characteristic divisions remain amazingly much the same in contemporary armys.

The Roman high command consisted of senators, who for the most part remained behind the front lines planning battle strategies with the Dux or dominant, what we would consider today to be a 4-star general or admiral. The next lower echelon consisted of consuls who commanded legions and were equivalent to divisional commanders on today's battle field. Reporting to the consuls were centurions, congruent in contemporary terms with junior and field grade officers (Captain, Major and Colonel). A Roman legion consisted of about 5000 men, roughly the same size as a brigade

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