Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Kelly Wilkinson]

Hi,

I was just thumbing through my,"The Armies and Enemies of
Imperial Rome", by Phil Barker, when I noticed that it mentions that
the imitation legionaires in the Pontic army were trained by Roman
Exiles. In turn it also mentions that the Armenians imitation
legionaires were trained by the Pontics. So, to my question. Do
should Pontic Imitation legionaires also be covered under the "Roman
Infantry rule just as the Armenians are?"

kelly
PS If anyone knows any history to this, would you mind sounding off,
please?

[Bill Low]

Well, Kelly, we're getting better at this ... but we're not yet perfect.

There are no "Roman Legionaries" in the Early Armenian List 2. There are
"Imitation Legionaries" in List 2, but they are not the same thing, and
they are not entitled to the benefits of the Roman Infantry Rules. The
reference to List 2 in the Roman Infantry Rules will be deleted in the
errata. Sorry.

It took a little while to sink in, but eventually it seems the Eastern
powers concluded that the traditional pike phalanx could not stand up to
the Roman legions, and they started to train up and arm their own versions
of the legionary. Mithradates VI of Pontus and later Tigranes the Great of
Armenia were prominent examples of this tendency, but one could also cite
Commagene and the Galatians under their tetrach Deiotarus. It does appear
that representatives of the Populares, the losing side in the Roman civil
wars of the era, helped in this effort, but there were always Roman
deserters who could do the same thing and once the "secret" got out, it
could be spread by anyone in the know. (When Mithradates fled overland to
the Bosporus after his final defeat by Rome, one of the few organized units
that accompanied him was a body of Roman deserters, who would have been
trained and armed as legionaires and were no doubt available to help to
instruct the easterners.) Sertorius, who was then maintaining himself in
Spain in defiance of the government in Rome (and thus not exactly an
exile), sent military advisers to the East, at the time of his alliance
with Mithradates, who are supposed to have helped train elements of the
Pontic and possibly the Armenian armies. Tigranes was Mithradates'
son-in-law, and obtained a variety of military and political support from
Pontus in creating his short-lived empire, which could well have included
military advisers. There is no question but that these eastern Imitation
Legionaries never reached the level of professionalism, esprit and
technical proficiency of the true Roman Legionaries, and thus they can't
use any of the Roman Infantry Rules. (I am not speaking of the legio XXII
Deiotariana, formed from Galatian "legions," some of which had supported
Caesar against Pharnaces, which was later accepted into Roman service and
appears thereafter to have been indistinguishable from other "Roman" legions.)

You will note that there is a list rule in both List 2 (Armenian) and List
11 (Mithradatic), designed to reflect the limited training and capacity of
the Armenian Imitation Legionaries and the hastily-raised and partially
ex-slave portions of the Mithradatic phalanx. We hope you find it
interesting. We expect to make even greater efforts in future to add bits
like this to various armies, to illustrate their peculiarities but also
just to represent better the tremendous sweep of time and history
encompassed by the Warrior rules system.


At 12:18 AM 3/28/2004 +0000, jwilkinson62 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> "The Armies and Enemies of
>", by Phil Barker, when I noticed that it mentions that
> the imitation legionaires in the Pontic army were trained by Roman
> Exiles. In turn it also mentions that the Armenians imitation
> legionaires were trained by the Pontics. So, to my question. Do
>"Roman
>"
>
> kelly
> PS If anyone knows any history to this, would you mind sounding off,
> please?
>
>
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-----------------------------------------------------
From Harold William Low