Length Of Service Question

[Arvioustus]

This length o0f service seems amazing coming from just a city state. How can you expect popultion growth and relplenishment of the army with this? Your army has to come from the provinces where the legions are at that point and not from Rome. You cannot expect soldiers in these provinces from abstaining obviously. This must have been considered in the senate.

[Germanicus]

Do you mean that the population of young men could not replenish itself in an area between enlistments ?

[Neos Dionysos]

This length o0f service seems amazing coming from just a city state. How can you expect popultion growth and relplenishment of the army with this? Your army has to come from the provinces where the legions are at that point and not from Rome. You cannot expect soldiers in these provinces from abstaining obviously. This must have been considered in the senate.

 

The length of service of 25 years etc. did not start until the Marius reforms. Before that, Roman armies were called up on a seasonal basis.

[Germanicus]

Marius certainly increased the service period, but I don't think to a standard 25 years I suspect his capite censi Legions remained under colors for as long as required. Augustus "increased" the length of service to 20 years (officially it had been only 6 prior to that) and I understand that after Augustus it became 25.

[M. Porcius Cato]

To get back to the original question... Even if the length of service was 20 years, most Roman men didn't marry until they were fairly old anyway. So if someone entered the service at 18 and left at 38, he'd have plenty of time to marry and settle down.

 

It's an extreme example, but (according to Plutarch) M Porcius Cato the Censor fathered M Porcius Cato Salonianus when he was about 80 years old (hence the weirdness in the Cato stemmata).

[Virgil61]

This length o0f service seems amazing coming from just a city state. How can you expect popultion growth and relplenishment of the army with this? Your army has to come from the provinces where the legions are at that point and not from Rome. You cannot expect soldiers in these provinces from abstaining obviously. This must have been considered in the senate.

 

By the time of the Principate I'd argue that service in the Legions was a pretty good deal for a provincal, where the tough training and battle was offset by decent pay and access to plunder and various goodies each commander must have given his troops to keep them loyal and happy. It's telling that standards for entry were high, you don't maintain high standards if you can't fill the slots so apparently there wasn't usually a shortage of volunteers during much of the Principate.

 

The number of legions was limited after Augustus and kept to around 25-30 depending on the era. At aorund 6,000 per legion that's only 150,000 to 180,000 men in a population of around 45 million (using UNRV numbers in 14 AD) containing nearly 5 million citizens. Consider also that the citizen population was constantly being expanded creating more recruiting grounds. To get to your point I doubt there was much abstaining going on. While the leadership down to centurians was allowed to marry I've read about a number of camp followers located at permanent legion postings that indicate more than just trade involved. While technically not able to marry I can imagine there were a lot of unofficial households happening.

[longbow]

Is there any information available for the age requirement to join a Legion?was there even a minimum age?when thinking about lengths of service i allways prosume the soldier would of joined up around 20 years old,but it may be much younger than that.

[Tobias]

I believe you'd pretty much be able to join the legions at a very young age i.e. 17-20, if you were physically fit enough. Caesar had a system with which he placed his youngest recruits ("green" recruits) altogether in the highest numbered of his Legion. This legion would march, fight and be seasoned, and as he lost soldiers in his other legions, he would take the seasoned young men from this legion to plump out the numbers of his other legions. A good system; Unless the legion containing the youngest soldiers suffered heavily (i.e. Sabinus and Cotta in Gaul).

[Jimbow]

To get to your point I doubt there was much abstaining going on. While the leadership down to centurians was allowed to marry I've read about a number of camp followers located at permanent legion postings that indicate more than just trade involved. While technically not able to marry I can imagine there were a lot of unofficial households happening.

It looks ever more likely that not only did a centurion's wife and children live in his barrack room (more a house really), but that in some cases the men were allowed to live with their unofficial spouses within the fort. A centurion's quarters have always been cited as being too small for a family, but they were in fact often larger than a middle class family home in the south of England at the time.

 

Curiously, one of the reasons for a marriage being unable to be "official" could well have been a way for the state to not have to pay out a pension to the bereaved wife should the husband be killed in action. They were literally evicted should he die. Officers, as was mentioned, were the exception.

 

"The Roman army as a community", ed. Goldsworthy and Haynes.

 

Also, there were great benefits to the state from longterm service of the soldier, as he was a very handy source of labour for roadbuilding, construction, etc, which would enable growth and maintenance of the Roman infrastructure. They probably spent more time building than destroying.

 

Jim.

[M. Porcius Cato]

It looks ever more likely that not only did a centurion's wife and children live in his barrack room (more a house really), but that in some cases the men were allowed to live with their unofficial spouses within the fort.

 

When exactly was this true? I know they have evidence of co-habitation from the finds at Hadrian's Wall, but this doesn't imply that families were travelling with centurions throughout Roman history.

[Virgil61]

It looks ever more likely that not only did a centurion's wife and children live in his barrack room (more a house really), but that in some cases the men were allowed to live with their unofficial spouses within the fort.

 

When exactly was this true? I know they have evidence of co-habitation from the finds at Hadrian's Wall, but this doesn't imply that families were travelling with centurions throughout Roman history.

 

My guess is during the Principate when legions were more or less garrisoned at permanent locations, such as along the Rhine, from where they would venture forth for a particular operations, patrols or campaigns. Although we get wrapped around the Roman army and it's battles we tend to overlook that they probably had a certain amount of downtime during more peaceful years and especially in winter. I believe places like Bonn, Mainze and Cologne all began as Roman military towns and suggest long-term residency by the legions.

[Jimbow]

When exactly was this true? I know they have evidence of co-habitation from the finds at Hadrian's Wall, but this doesn't imply that families were travelling with centurions throughout Roman history.

Actually, I thought the evidence was more rare in Britain than the rest of the Empire. Doubtful that the family would travel with the soldier in Republican times, as the soldier was often sent home after the campaign season to tend to his domestic affairs. Centurions were always allowed to marry and take their wives and children with them to their postings, and were even expected to take them it seems. Letters from Roman Egypt suggest when a centurion was assigned to a new posting his wife was responsible for the packing and following with the goods and chattels.

 

Also, not just wives but family members. If a soldier's father died leaving him responsible for his mother, unmarried sisters, and even other relatives, it seems (according to the paper below) he would send for them and they would live in the vicus, should he have decided that just sending money was not enough. Even though the state at various times tried to dissuade this the evidence from tombstones shows the soldier often did it anyway as he was not willing to give up his duty. One tombstone at Ribchester suggests a soldier even felt responsible for his mother-in-law (Julius Maximus to Campania Dubitata).

 

Women and the Roman Army in Britain, by L. Allason-Jones, which has an interesting re-examination of the evidence, questioning many previous interpretations of the evidence.

 

Jim.