Empire: Total War Heaven

Twelve hundred knights would indeed be a powerful force, but three legions and auxiliaries? Depends on the weaponry of the auxiliaries and the skill of the commander, to be honest.

The Imperial legions would still be using pila and scuta. The crossbows might penetrate that, so it would be up to the Roman auxiliaries- cavalry comes to mind- to harry them away and protect the legionaries. The pila of the legionaries would wreak bloody havoc against the kinghts and against the infantry, and the discipline of the legions was far stronger than that of the medieval footman, so I give the foot battle to the Romans. If they manage to hound the ground-pounders away, and hem in the knights, those knights become very tall footmen and therafter toast.

If the knights retain their freedom of movement and avoid being swamped by the infantry, they might survive, but with the loss of the infantry, the battle can no longer be won.

I give the Romans the edge in that one.

[This message has been edited by Terikel Grayhair (edited 10-26-2012 @ 12:59 PM).]

You're right Terikel about the legions, but since the war was fought before Vespasian's reforms in the military, the auxiliaries where probably of local origin, which means limited cavalry. In addition, there were about 1,000 Turcopoles in the battle (Horse archers) and the total cavalry force was 5,000 men. I think that the infantry could hold the legion long enough for the cavalry to smash on the flank or rear of the legions. BTW, the Parthians had 1,000 cataphracts in Carrhae too, but defeated a larger number of legionaries... The size could make a difference, though (60,000 Romans and 30,000 crusaders).

I'd expect the Crusaders to win by a mile. Richard I was a better general than most of that time, which for the Romans is a pity because I think only their superior organisation and discipline could save them. That and the tendency of hot-headed crusaders to do something stupid.

The example of Carrhae is important because that shows how well the Romans of that era (okay Vespasian was a century later) could stand up to heavy cavalry. They couldn't. The Parthians simply charged through them repeatedly. Unless the Roman infantry are equipped with spears, you'd have to back the Knights to do exactly the same and for the Crusader infantry to pile into the gaps they made. If it was a straight infantry slugging match though, I'd back the Romans. Discipline, good armour, big shields and short swords count for a lot.

Would all of this stand up to crossbows though? Interesting question. Well the Parthian horse archers made a horrid mess of Crassus at Carrhae, and crossbows are much more powerful weapons. I don't know if they would penetrate a Roman shield, but if the arrows of the horse archers found a way through then so would the crossbow bolts. They would certainly penetrate armour.

Crusader knights weren't cataphracts, though. Most were armored in mail, with the horse being more or less exposed. Pila would wreak bloody havoc among them.

Parthian cataphracts were like little tanks- armored in thick scales from top to hoof- horse included. Pila would not be nearly as effective, as proven. Plus the Romans were bouncing in and out of testudo according to one account I read, which would make them immensely susceptible to heavy cavalry charges.

Again, it would come down to the two commanders and how they employ what they have. Both were good, and with Vespasianus having 60.000 mixed troops, with Richard only 7.000, I still give the edge to the Romans- if they can hem in the knights and remove their freedom of movement. A knight who cannot charge is soon a dead knight.

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot the legionary artillery. Scorpions could penetrate both horse and mailed rider and maybe even the one behind as well. The onager used by the XVI Gallica at Bedriacum in 69 AD was reputed to be a colossal machine "capable of smashing down whole ranks". Middle Age artillery was pretty effective in sieges, but not on a battlefield until the later Middle Ages, thus giving the Romans the means to reach out and touch a knight or two to precipitate a headstrong knightly charge.

[This message has been edited by Terikel Grayhair (edited 10-26-2012 @ 01:08 PM).]

Quoted from Terikel:

with Richard only 7,000

You must mean 30,000. In addition, field artillery such as scorpions and catapults were more effective against infantry than cavalry, as it is more mobile.

My source (wiki) says 8.000, and the text specifies 12 units of 100 knights each.

By the way, scorpions would not be as effective against moving horsemen, but being a ballistic, direct-fire weapon, they would not be totally ineffetive either. And if they got a volley off while the knights were motionless.... Ouch!

Also, reading through the text again, Richard was having a hell of a time due to the Turkish arrows killing the horses. Surena at Carrhae did not have that problem. I think the pila would prove more effective against the unarmored Crusader horses than the armored cataphracti.

According to another article in the same wiki, the army Philip II left bahind was at least 10,000 strong. IIRC, Richard set off with 8,000 crusaders from England... Anyway, I think that a sudden charge without order, such as the one in the battle of Arsuf, would be ill-fated due to the discipline of the Roman legions. However, wouldn't the Crusaders use their own onagers and springalds? In addition, the crossbows would massacre the Romans...

Unless the Romans had a dribbling idiot for a general, ceteris paribus they would outlast the crusaders.

Don't knock the auxiliaries; though many were lightly equipped, many were also equipped like Roman legionaries. They were tough enough to fight in the main battle.

Julius Agricola fought Mons Graupius with his auxiliaries, for example, because he wanted to minimise official 'Roman' casualties.

The example of Carrhae is important because that shows how well the Romans of that era (okay Vespasian was a century later) could stand up to heavy cavalry. They couldn't. The Parthians simply charged through them repeatedly.

That's not how the battle went. So long as the Roman infantry stayed in formation and in good order, the Parthians stayed away. Horses aren't stupid and won't generally charge into a densely packed body of men, whether they're holding spears in front of them or not.

The Roman infantry held together quite well at Carrhae, despite their small Gallic cavalry auxiliary contingent being lured into a trap and wiped out. The Parthians had brought a massive supply train of arrows with them and simply wore the Romans down during the battle and retreat.

Cassius managed to extract some troops in good order. Marc Antony managed the same after he had to abort his Parthian campaign when his supply train and artillery were captured.

Publius Ventidius defeated a large scale Parthian invasion of Syria with little difficulty. Roman armies had earlier repeatedly trounced the cavalry-heavy armies of Pontus and Armenia.

Given the massive difference in the size of the armies, and the Roman's field artillery, I'd certainly give the advantage to the Romans. Their organization and discipline was vastly superior, so I'd say that it would come down to the generals. If it was an English army from a century later however, I think that the longbow men would have devastated the Romans.

[This message has been edited by Agrippa 271 (edited 10-26-2012 @ 10:28 PM).]

IMO, Pitt, the auxiliaries available to Vespasian would have probably been mostly light infantry, armed like the Jewish rebels he faced. There could also be some units of Syrian archers and some cavalry. This invasion was mounted before Vespasian's reform in auxiliary deployment, so the auxiliaries consisted mainly by local units. In addition, I suspect that the number of allied troops was much higher than the auxiliaries...

Bear with me; this is going to be a long post.

You can't simply assume what the composition of Vespasian's army was, for reasons I explain below. At any rate, the hard core of the army would be enough to hold it together. Vespasian had three seasoned legions in his army (Tacitus, The Histories, II.4).

Lucius Licinius Lucullus only had about two legions and 1,000 light infantry and cavalry when he trounced King Tigranes at Tigranocerta. Supposedly, Tigranes had 55,000 cavalry, 17,000 of which were cataphracts (Plutarch, Lucullus, 26-27); the numbers are clearly exaggerated, but Lucullus undoubtedly was outnumbered).

Caesar, with an army composed of many of his lesser experienced legionaries and a mere 400 cavalrymen, defeated Titus Labienus's far larger army at Ruspina, despite having been encircled.

Vespasian was no slouch when it came to military matters.

The Histories II.5:



His reforms to the army were basically an attempt to improve stability, not fighting power. Shuffling auxiliaries around so they weren't in their home provinces seems to have been common enough before, but Vespasian apparently elevated it to a policy. It had little to do with their fighting capacity, but rather their reliability when no legions were in that province.

Auxiliaries came in many forms. There were specialised units such as slingers and archers, cavalry, and mixed infantry-cavalry units, but there were also a great many heavy infantry cohorts who fought alongside the legions.

Quoted from wikipedia:

Julio-Claudian auxiliaries

Significant development of the auxilia appears to have taken place during the rule of the emperor Claudius (41–54 AD).

A minimum term of service of 25 years was established, at the end of which the retiring auxiliary soldier, and all his children, were awarded Roman citizenship.[40] This is deduced from the fact that the first known Roman military diplomas date from the time of Claudius. This was a folding bronze tablet engraved with the details of the soldier's service record, which he could use to prove his citizenship.[41] Claudius also decreed that prefects of auxiliary regiments must all be of equestrian rank, thus excluding centurions from such commands.[40] The fact that auxiliary commanders were now all of the same social rank as most tribuni militum, (military tribunes, a legion's senior staff officers, all of whom only one, the tribunus laticlavius, was of the higher senatorial rank), probably indicates that auxilia now enjoyed greater prestige. Indigenous chiefs continued to command some auxiliary regiments, and were probably granted equestrian rank for the purpose. It is also likely that auxiliary pay was standardised at this time, but we only have estimates for the Julio-Claudian period.[40]

Auxiliary uniform, armour, weapons and equipment were probably standardised by the end of the Julio-Claudian period. Auxiliary equipment was broadly similar to that of the legions (see Section 2.1 below for possible differences in armour). By 68 AD, there was little difference between most auxiliary infantry and their legionary counterparts in equipment, training and fighting capability. The main difference was that auxilia contained combat cavalry, both heavy and light, and other specialized units that legions lacked.[42]

Auxiliary cohorts were permanent units of the Roman army. There was no permanent higher unit organisation for them however, so auxilia cohorts and alae could, unlike legionary cohorts, be sent hither and yon without concern for parent units.

A. Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare (London: Cassell, 2003), p. 127:



Regardless, a number of lighter troops would also have been quite useful to Vespasian, giving him the capacity to engage beyond hand-to-hand or pila-throwing distance.

Vespasian's army

Josephus (The Jewish War III.4) gives Vespasian's strength as three legions (the Fifth, Tenth and Fifteenth), ten cohorts of 1,000 infantry each, 13 mixed cohorts of 600 infantry and 120 cavalry, and six independent cavalry units.¹ In addition, regional client kingdoms provided a total of 8,000 infantry, most of whom were archers, and another 4,000 cavalry. Josephus gives a total of 60,000 men. Of that, approximately 15,000 would be Roman legionaries and, with the auxiliaries, there would be almost 30,000 professional soldiers in the infantry.

With the 120 cavalrymen attached to each legion and those from the cohors equitatae there would be 1,920 professional cavalrymen. I don't know what size each of the six cavalry units he refers to were though. He could mean anything between a turma of 30 men to an ala milliaria of 720 men. The total could be between 2,100 to 6,420 (which seems too high). My guess is that it refers to an ala quingenaria of 480 men, making 2,880 men, and a total of 4,800.²

Then add the allied contingent of 8,000 archers and another 4,000 cavalry.

¹ Oddly, the figures for the infantry don't match up with the standard model for auxiliary units. It appears to be based on the (erroneous) assumption that a Roman century contained 100 men. Correcting for this, the new totals match the standard model. I've revised down Josephus's figures to account for it. The cavalry figures meet the model perfectly.

Josephus's total of 60,000 doesn't add up with the totals of the contingents he lists. I make it at about 46,000, excluding the six cavalry units, which can't possibly have amounted to 14,000 men. Perhaps the error is in the translation I'm using?

²Suetonius says that when Vespasian was sent to Judaea, a further 2 legions, 10 cohorts and 8 alae of cavalry were sent there too (Vespasian, 4). Eight alae could equal either 3,840 or 5,760 cavalrymen, depending on the type of ala. Tacitus (Histories V.1) says that Titus, in his march on Jerusalem, had 8 alae also.

Richard's army

I have no idea how large it was. I've seen figures that say as high as 85,000, which is palpably absurd. The problem is that chroniclers were, shall we say... unreliable, when it came to numbers. The wikipedia figure doesn't have a direct source cited. Nor does the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, which is one of the main sources for the course of the battle.

This book, which has a good description of the course of the battle from page 25 on, suggests about 10,000 infantry (spearmen and crossbowmen) and 2,000 cavalry.

I also liked this quote:



The horses were getting killed off pretty quickly though.

According to a calculation I made taking into account Josephus' Greek text at the Perseus Project, Vespasian's army consisted of: 15,500 legionaries, 17,800 infantry auxilia, 3,500 allied archers and 7,120 cavalrymen both allied and auxiliary, including the 120 cavalrymen accompanying each legion. This makes a total of about 44,000 men.

In addition, I'm not inclined to believe that Richard's army consisted of just 12,000 men, as it contained the remnants of Frederick Barbarossa's army (not more than 800 in my opinion), the entire force Richard brought with him, a few hundred crusaders left behind by Philip, some Turkopoles and men from the army of the kingdom of Jerusalem, including the knights Templar and the Hospitallers. I'm more inclined towards an army of 20,000-25,000 men...

[This message has been edited by Alex_the_bold (edited 10-27-2012 @ 11:07 AM).]

According to a calculation I made taking into account Josephus' Greek text at the Perseus Project, Vespasian's army consisted of: 15,500 legionaries, 17,800 infantry auxilia, 3,500 allied archers and 7,120 cavalrymen both allied and auxiliary, including the 120 cavalrymen accompanying each legion. This makes a total of about 44,000 men.

How did you arrive at these figures?

Three explanations for Josephus's disparity in numbers spring to mind.

1. Josephus was mathematically illiterate. This seems improbable, given the way he survived the suicide of his Jewish contingent.

2. Josephus was exaggerating Vespasian's numbers. This is possible but, given his flattery of Vespasian, overstating the size of his army doesn't seem natural. It might justify Josephus in saying that Jewish resistance was pointless however.

3. Josephus didn't list auxiliaries and allied troops that were already in Judaea before Vespasian arrived and Titus brought reinforcements. This seems plausible.

[This message has been edited by Pitt (edited 10-27-2012 @ 10:28 PM).]

2. Josephus was exaggerating Vespasian's numbers. This is possible but, given his flattery of Vespasian, overstating the size of his army doesn't seem natural. It might justify Josephus in saying that Jewish resistance was pointless however.

Do you mean exaggerate as in understate, or overstate? I'm pretty sure you mean that it was overstate, but if he was flattering Vespasian he would have made it seem he had a smaller army, or at least so in would think.

Exaggerate can only ever mean enlarging or overstating.

That reasoning is exactly why I said overstating Vespasian's numbers would not seem natural.

Quoted from Pitt:

How did you arrive at these figures?

Josephu lists the troops brought by Titus as the following: Two legions, which along with Vespasian's own legion make up for a total of 15,900 men, including 360 cavalry (1 legion= approximately 5300 men). Ten cohorts with 1,000 footmen and 120 cavalry each. Thirteen cohorts with 600 footmen and 120 cavalrymen each. 3000 infantry (mostly archers) and 3000 cavalrymen from the three allied kings (Antiochus, Agrippa, Sohemus). 1000 horsemen and 500 archers from king Malchus of Arabia. That makes a total of about 44,000 men.

However, I believe your theory of Josephus not listing the already existing auxiliaries in Judea to be right.

I see. We're working off different interpretations of the text. I'm reading it through the filter of Roman military structures and you're reading it more literally.

This is the English translation I'm working from:

... Titus .... took with him those forces he was sent for, and marching with great expedition, he came suddenly to Ptolemais, and there finding his father, together with the two legions, the fifth and the tenth, which were the most eminent legions of all, he joined them to that fifteenth legion which was with his father; eighteen cohorts followed these legions; there came also five cohorts from Cesarea, with one troop of horsemen, and five other troops of horsemen from Syria. Now these ten cohorts had severally a thousand footmen, but the other thirteen cohorts had no more than six hundred footmen apiece, with a hundred and twenty horsemen. There were also a considerable number of auxiliaries got together, that came from the kings Antiochus, and Agrippa, and Sohemus, each of them contributing one thousand footmen that were archers, and a thousand horsemen. Malchus also, the king of Arabia, sent a thousand horsemen, besides five thousand footmen, the greatest part of which were archers; so that the whole army, including the auxiliaries sent by the kings, as well horsemen as footmen, when all were united together, amounted to sixty thousand, besides the servants...

This has 5,000 footmen (mostly archers) from Malchus, not 500. Your calculations for cavalry also omit the six 'troops' of cavalry (1 from Caesarea and 5 from Syria).

Legionaries

Assuming that the legions were at their full establishment, the figure you give for legionaries is about right. My rounding down to about 5,000 legionaries is a reflection of the fact that few active military units are actually at 100% of their nominal organisation.

Cavalry

Quoted from Josephus:

Now these ten cohorts had severally a thousand footmen, but the other thirteen cohorts had no more than six hundred footmen apiece, with a hundred and twenty horsemen.

I believe the 120 horsemen belong only to each of the thirteen mixed cohorts. It is, perhaps, not felicitously expressed, but had there been horsemen in every cohort it would have been simpler to say so.

The organisation of auxiliary units also militates against there being 120 horsemen in the ten larger cohorts.

The thirteen smaller cohorts are clearly mixed cohorts, identifiable as the cohors equitata quingenaria, which had six centuries of infantry and 120 horsemen.

There were mixed cohorts of about 1,000 men, cohors equitata milliaria, with ten centuries of infantrymen, but they had 240 horsemen, not 120. That half their organic cavalry complement would be split off and left behind is unlikely, given the fracturing of unit cohesion and administrative nuisance that would create. Not to mention that the extra cavalry would have been very useful for Vespasian.

Altogether, the above strongly suggests that the 120 horsemen were only part of the 13 mixed cohorts. Hence my sum of 1,560, rather than 2,760, auxiliary cavalry from these mixed units.

The six independent cavalry units (presumably standard alae of 480 men each, i.e. 2,880) balance out this over-estimate. This is how I reached my figure of 4,800 legionary and auxiliary cavalry.

Auxiliary infantry

Regarding the '1,000 footmen' and '600 footmen plus cavalry' cohorts, this seems to be a mistake on Josephus's part.

Roman centuries of the Principate had 80 men in them, not 100. This was the case in both the legions and the auxiliaries. I suggest this as an explanation for why Josephus refers to cohorts of 1,000 men, when a ten century cohort (cohors milliaria) would only have had 800.

This also seems likely because the six century and 120 horsemen cohort that Josephus appears to have been referring to was a standard auxilia unit, the cohors equitata quingenaria, and we know its composition. But, rather than having 600 infantrymen, it had 480 instead.

This gives a total of 14,240 auxiliary infantry in the 23 cohorts listed by Josephus. Altogether, the standard 'line infantry' (if we can forgive the anachronism) was about 30,000 men.

Artillery

The use of artillery on the battlefield was incredibly rare, if not non-existant, in the earlier mediaeval period. Artillery was used for sieges, not carted around already assembled and ready for action. (Field battles were also quite rare at this time. Richard I, in a ten year reign where he was almost continuously at war, took part in only two or three large-scale battles).


K. Nossov, Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2006), pp. 50 and 184:




Whatever the size of Richard's army, for the sake of argument let's say 25,000 men, of whom most would be infantry, it would be in trouble if somehow it and/or Vespasian's army were temporally transported and fought each other.

Saladin's army was unbalanced, and apparently had more cavalry than infantry, meaning it couldn't easily deal with the disciplined Crusader infantry, behind which the knights were sheltering. Despite this, knights were losing horses to arrows at a rate severe enough to raise concerns over whether they would be able to charge when the time came.

Vespasian's army, by contrast, was relatively well balanced. Ignoring the missing 14,000 or so troops, it had about 30,000 legionary and auxiliary infantry and 4,800 cavalry. On top of that, there were 8,000 allied infantry, most of whom were archers, and 4,000 allied cavalry. That represents a very powerful force.

[This message has been edited by Pitt (edited 10-28-2012 @ 06:56 AM).]

I guess you're right, Pitt. It would be impossible for Richard's army to defeat Vespasian's excellent fighting machine, even though I still doubt the quality of the auxiliary infantry and the potential of the cavalry against the heavy knights...

I would vote for rome. Medieval infantry generally would be no match for a roman army. Many medieval soldiers would be happy to have leather armor, a shield and helmet, whereas romans of vespasian's period were very well equiped, and I'd say the Roman army was at its peak of power around that time.

Medieval cavalry could do some serious damage, but as mentioned before, horses dont like charging prepared lines of men. And the Romans had plenty of cavalry and light infantry to screen their flanks. By the time the knights would have defeated those (if they could even do that) the main line would have been routed by the romans.

Crossbows are great weapons against armor, but romans also had good shields. I doubt a crossbowbolt could go all the way through a roman shield and roman armor and still kill the man. Besides, I dont know that many battles that were decided by missile fire (possible examples could be Agincourt, Crezy and Carrhae, but those were all archers, not crossbowmen).

[This message has been edited by Thompsoncs (edited 10-28-2012 @ 01:55 PM).]

Barring a massive disparity in numbers, leadership and/or a huge positional advantage in favour of the Romans they would lose. Fiver hundred to a thousand years development of weapons, armour, and tactics are an enormous advantage.

[This message has been edited by Cancer of the Head (edited 10-28-2012 @ 03:26 PM).]

The Roman's standard equipment was far, far superior to that of the standard equipment of the Crusader army. Even considering that the Crusaders had access to far superior steel, there was a massive gap between how well the knights were equipped and how well the rest of their army was equipped. The fact is, the Romans had across the board superior weapons, discipline, training, and tactics, never mind the numbers to back it up. The Crusaders had a few thousand knights who weren't as well equipped (in terms of really heavy armor) as cataphracts, whom were regularly defeated by the Romans in battle. All they have is better weapons, and stirrups. So, bigger army, better overall equipment, better discipline, and better tactics against well armed and fairly well armored knights, and vastly inferior infantry. The crossbows were probably not enough. And that's not even considering the Roman artillery.

Indeed. A medieval knight might be better protected than a roman soldier, but romans have a high standard of equipment across their army, whereas the average equipment of medieval soldiers is far below that.

Still, romans will have a hard time facing a medieval cavalry-lance charge. Taking the knights down once their momentum is lost will be easy enough. But the knights armor might be hard to penetrate for roman swords. But contrary to medieval peasant/levy armies, romans will not rout at first contact with knights and will eventually overcome them I expect.

The knights would get one good charge in, and then it is over for them. The Romans of that era were very pragmatic- they would see a heavily-armored (which means a guy wearing several dozen kilos of steel) fellow atop an unarmored horse and take out the horse. Then, if the heavily-armored man managed to regain his feet (not an easy feat), simply have the rear-rankers pummel him into submission/unconciousness with shields and sword hilts while the front-rankers go about killing more.

Lances were but spears, though longer. They are not good in close combat. Nor were Roman gladii good in ranged combat. But in close ranks (1 meter between men) the scutum/gladius was very effective. Medieval spearmen were not of the same level as the phalangites of Macedon and Greece, whom earlier Romans had destroyed. I doubt these would fare better- much was gained in a thousand years of progress, but much was lost as well.

[This message has been edited by Terikel Grayhair (edited 10-29-2012 @ 04:34 AM).]

However, medieval knights also carried smaller weapons, such as swords, maces, axes, even shortswords and war hammers. In addition, Romans didn't generaly fare well against heavy cavalry charging (Andrianople). If the knights were bogged down, though, they would be decimated...

At around 14:30,[citation needed] the Roman troops arrived in disorder, exhausted and dehydrated, facing the Gothic camp that had been set up on the top of a hill. The Goths, except for their cavalry, took position in front of their wagon circle,[citation needed] inside of which were their families and possessions. Fritigern's objective was to delay the Romans, in order to give enough time for the Gothic cavalry to return. The fields were burnt by the Goths to delay and harass the Romans with smoke, and negotiations began for an exchange of hostages. The negotiations exasperated the Roman soldiers who seemed to hold the stronger position, but they gained precious time for Fritigern.

The long term implications of the battle of Adrianople have often been overstated, with many Twentieth Century writers repeating Sir Charles Oman's idea[26] that the battle represented a turning point in military history, with heavy cavalry triumphing over Roman infantry and ushering in the age of the Medieval knight. This outdated idea was overturned by T.S Burns in a ground-breaking article in 1973.[27] Burns shows that the Gothic army's cavalry arm was actually fairly small, that Valens would actually have had more cavalry and that while the role of Fritigern's cavalry was critical to his victory, the battle was a mainly infantry versus infantry affair. The Medieval knight was not to rise for several centuries after Adrianople. It is also often stated that the defeat at Adrianople led to changes in the composition of the late Roman Army and an increase in the use of cavalry. In fact, this process had been going on in the Roman Army long before AD 378, with cavalry increasing its role and status in the Army from at least the time of the Emperor Gallienus (AD 253 to 260).

Besides these quotes, dont forget that the roman army had changed a lot since the days of vespasian. Its function had changed, its composition had changed and its equipment had changed. Also, I wouldn't compare Valens to Vespasian when it comes to military command.