The Mandible, a phalanx with hinges?

[rathjame]

I've had a couple of people try to explain this tactic to me.  Are there any Youtube videos that show how this works, not only at the beginning of a battle but after the initial contact?  When did the tactic of moving the front line to the rear start?  Was it created by Marius or was it a later addition?  How did the different mandibles support each other in battle and who directed each mandible for that support?

 

 

[Steve Gad]

I've had a couple of people try to explain this tactic to me.  Are there any Youtube videos that show how this works, not only at the beginning of a battle but after the initial contact?  When did the tactic of moving the front line to the rear start?  Was it created by Marius or was it a later addition?  How did the different mandibles support each other in battle and who directed each mandible for that support?

You mean like this?

 

[Onasander]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_infantry_tactics

 

It has all your answers.

 

Basically, the Roman army was a middle class affair originally, and the parents of drafted soldiers had some democratic imput.... so the Romans put emphasis of leadership on rotating fresh men into the front line, and gave everyone the equal chance to fight and die. They promoted these heads micromanagers from inside the ranks, and maintained even a strategic reserve to swap out the whole army. Who decided? Bottom-Up and Top-Down leadership working together. Everyone understood how the system worked, and could read the cues. Generally, so long as there wasnt a SNAFU which, well, happens in any system.

 

Id rather know my kid is going to be rotated out in battle over just being chucked into the frontlines and left to die. Being in the front ranks was a curse in ancient armies, a death sentence even if the enemy was weak.... they will have a attrition factor on your abilities after a while even if you are personally a superstar. But for the Romans, not that bad of a prospect, beyond light infantry and archers screwing with you before you close ranks, but thats life.

[caldrail]

I think the Romans had a somewhat pragmatic view of war. It was a desirable activity in a martial society, and the Romans were in their early days a very agressive culture. Of course it was clear that if you play with swords, sooner of later someone is going to lose blood, limbs, or life. Unlike today, where we have a media that portays mixed messages about war and thus everyone finds something about war that suits their sensibilities irrespective of how the reality is, the Romans had only one reality of war or the heroic tales of legend and veterans.

 

Incidentially, to call the early Roman armies a middle class affair is a bit distorting. It was certainly a matter for the land owning classes, but 'middle class' wasn't really a feature of Roman society back then. rather, society was graded according to wealth with five civil categories defined by their ability to arm themselves to a certain level. Only the highest grade, the category that became equites or horsemen, would evolve into a sort of middle class.

[Onasander]

The Aristotelian basic concept of a middle class, as opposed to the higher castes in the Vedas, or Proletarian Revolution.... middle class means they belonged to the polis, were the body politic to a great extent, and relatively educated. Hence leadership paid attention to the categorical concerns of the troops, but not to individual troops persay. Axioms are king in such a environment.

Edited May 28, 2014 by Onasander

[caldrail]

But 'niddle class' is a term covering a modern social segment. The Romans were divided into two, Humiliores or Honestiores, which corresponds to whether they were effectively elite or not. The lower class of Roman society was subdivided according to wealth, as previously mentioned, with the only difference between landowners and tenant workers being the ownership of land (obviously). A wealthy tenant might conceivably have more wealth than a landed farmer, although the rights and obligations thereof were different because of the land issue.

 

*honestiores / humiliores - during the Empire, the populace was divided broadly into two classes. The honestiores were persons of status and property, the humiliores persons of low social status. Only the latter were subject to certain kinds of punishment (crucifixion, torture, and corporal punishment).

(From The Latin Library)