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ABSTRACT: This article explores two questions about the tactical mechanics of the Roman manipular legion. First, what frontages did the Roman legion field in set-piece battle? Given that Hellenistic forces deployed in standardized formations, the length of Hellenistic infantry lines can be used to calculate the opposing Roman formation. This in turn permits consideration of the nature and tactical function of the gaps between the maniples. The paper deduces that Roman legions presented fronts between 320 and 570 meters in five set-piece battles. The range of frontages suggests that modest inter-manipular gaps were maintained even as the heavy infantry lines clashed.
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This article offers a reassessment of an old topic: legionary infantry tactics during the age of Roman expansion, in particular the manipular tactics that predominated between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC.1 Despite a keen scholarly interest in Republican tactics dating back to the age of Machiavelli, basic questions still remain concerning Roman tactical dispositions. Students of the Roman army are familiar with one of the most famous (and traditionally fruitless) tactical controversies concerning the manipular legion: did the Romans leave gaps between the maniples in combat, or were they closed by some obscure mechanism?2 A still more fundamental question has never been answered satisfactorily: what was the frontage, or possible frontages, of a legion, and to what extent was that frontage potentially extended by inter-manipular gaps?3 Answering these questions will greatly illuminate the dynamics of the mid-Republican legion in battle.
Tactical analysis is one facet of ancient military history that has been out of fashion for well over a century, after significant interest in German scholarly circles prior to World War I.4 When Frank Adcock delivered his Martin Lectures on The Roman Art of War in 1939, the influence of German scholarship on manipular tactics had been waning for nearly a generation, and Adcock did not dwell on the question of Manipulartaktik. Since the 1960s, military history, both ancient and otherwise, has fallen mostly into two schools. The first school, sometimes known as the "New Military History," focuses on the social, political, demographic and economic factors related to warfare, tackling everything from the social makeup of armies and officer corps to the cultural impacts of military...