Nice Roman Army pictures

The Roman Army

was employed by the Romans, the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire, as part of the Roman military. Its most important infantry constituent for much of its history was the Roman legion.

The army was enmeshed with Roman political life with political offices such as the consulship entailing military responsibility or the cursus honorum that was a military and civilian career mix. In the Late Roman army command had changed to professional career soldiers rising of the earlier career soldiers of low rank. The payment of soldiers depended on rank and class.
The Roman army conquered the regions around the Mediterranean and some surrounding provinces. The Roman army remained as the East Roman army after the decline of the Western Roman Empire and was succeeded by the Byzantine army, which served under the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire).

Among Roman soldiers, the smallest organization unit was called a "contubernium". This was a group of 8 soldiers (however originally it was made of 10), that shared a tent and ate together. There were 10 contubernia in a "century". A century was the next largest group of soldiers. A century was a group of originally 100 men in the Early Roman Republic but later reduced to 80 men during the Roman Empire. The next largest group of soldiers were called "maniples". Next were the "cohorts". These were made up of 6 centuries (480 men). A "prima cohors" was the first cohort in a legion; it was much larger than the other cohorts, containing about 5 double strength centuries (800-men). Finally, the largest group in the Roman Army was the legion.There were ten cohorts including the "prima cohors" in a legion. A full-strength legion contained 6,000 men though it was not uncommon for most legions to be undermanned due to previous battles. All of these numbers depended on the date (ex. Scipio Africanus reformation, Gaius Marius reformation). The republican army's strength, in peace, was four legions, but the number was increased during wartime. The highest number of legions was 70 after the civil war between Octavian (Augustus) and Mark Antony, due to having two whole Roman empires fighting when the remainder of Antony's forces joined with Octavian's. The number was decreased to 28 legions soon after, as the economically strained empire could not pay such huge numbers and after the Varus disaster, only 25 legions remained.