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- [00:00]
A
Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe
- [00:32]
B
howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fan Girls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [00:40]
C
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball. But you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [00:44]
B
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Stephen here has not read Mistborn before.
- [00:53]
C
That's right. Hey hey. So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [00:58]
B
And along the way we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [01:05]
C
Newsflash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy Fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:12]
D
Let's be completely honest. Are you happy with your job? The fact is, a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never really wanted in the first place. But we stick it out and we give reasons. Like what if the next move is worse? And I've put years into this place, and maybe the most common one. Isn't everyone miserable at work? But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for Strawberry Me. They match you with a certified career coach who helps you get from where you are to where you want to be, either at your existing job or by helping you find a new one. Your coach helps clarify your goals, creates a plan, and keeps you accountable along the way. Go to Strawberry Me Career and get 50% off your first coaching session. That's Strawberry Me Career.
- [02:24]
A
Dawn breaks cold over the Rhine frontier. Mist rises from the river as hundreds of Roman soldiers wake in their turf walled camp. Marcus, top centurion of the elite first cohort, gears up after 20 years of service. His curved chest armor shines with metal discs from battles. One leg guards protect his shins and he grips a vine stump to keep his men in line. His helmet's horsehair crest stands out as he marches past, his troops lining up, the second in command Optio at his side. Today they have a gruelling 20 mile march with full gear, followed by ditch digging until dark and punishments for any soldier he thought was slacking. Tomorrow, a clash with Germany raiders awaits. He is the legion's backbone, ready to lead and dish out harsh discipline. Welcome to the Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host and today we're exploring the story of the Roman centurion, one of the most recognizable military ranks of antiquity that was so critical to the Roman army's success. Our guest is Dr. Ben Kane, best selling author and expert on the Roman military. Ben, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the show.
- [03:50]
E
It's lovely to be here, Tristan. Thank you.
- [03:52]
A
Oh, and to talk about the Roman centurion, is it fair to say that they are the real backbone to the Roman army and its great success?
- [04:00]
E
Yeah, 100%. There were 60 centurions for pretty much the whole Roman period in each legion and they were the men who led soldiers into battle. And if they did badly, if the centurions died, potentially the battle would go against them, but in desperate situations, they would lead from the front. They were 100%.
- [04:18]
A
They're a linchpin to the whole system.
- [04:20]
E
Yeah, definitely. So he had to be able to make decisions in the moment and in extreme situations would, you know, lay down his life if he had to. They were disciplinarians, quite extreme at times as well, but they also would have been men who rewarded their soldiers for their valor with recommendations for bravery and so on. Yeah, they were the beating heart of the Roman army.
- [04:41]
A
It seems like there's quite a lot of information that survives about these figures, whether it's from stories from ancient history or archaeology. So we can actually explore those various different strands that you mentioned just then in quite a lot of detail.
- [04:53]
E
We can, but we also can't. So a lot of the details are interesting and fascinating and give us a little insight, but often have nothing else to back them up. So frequently the detail is scant, which is really, really frustrating. But I sometimes compare Roman history of all kinds, whether it's military or social or religious or political, telling people it's like a thousand piece jigsaw where you've got maybe the four corners and some of the edge here and there, and in some areas you've got all the pieces and in other areas you've got gaps between the pieces and then there are loads of gaps, huge gaps everywhere else. So that's the really frustrating thing with Roman history. Well, indeed, all ancient history.
- [05:34]
A
Well, we can explore the stories and then evaluate the quality of the evidence.
- [05:38]
E
Yeah, that's fine. Yeah.
- [05:39]
A
And in regards to their position in the Roman army, so hierarchically wise, they're not right at the top of the chain command, but they occupy that sweet spot in the center that makes them so vital.
- [05:51]
E
Yes. So a century, confusingly, wasn't 100 men, it was only 80. Centurion led those with four junior officers, and there were six. Well, we've got to also say, when are we talking about. Because Rome's history went on for more than a thousand years. So most people who are tuning in are probably thinking about the imperial army during the period of the Roman Empire being at its greatest expanse from Israel and Syria to Britain in the west, and the whole of the Mediterranean world. And in that time, a legion had 60 centurions, six to a cohort. So 10 cohorts. Each cohort had six centuries of 80 men. So that was 60 centurions, and they were the main middlemen, almost senior commanders. Above them you had six tribunes, and then above that you had the legate. And he was the man who commanded the army. Although, interestingly, he was sometimes only parachuted in at the very last moment, like Julius Caesar did, made a legate appointed one the day before a battle. So it's likely that he wasn't actually leading the legion at all, that Caesar was telling the legion what to do. But certainly in situations where they're operating independently, a legate would have been the commander.
- [07:00]
A
So, and you mentioned there how a centurion is in command of 80 men and not a hundred. Slightly confusingly, do we know why that comes about, why they're called centurions, when in fact they just control 80 men?
- [07:12]
E
We do. But again, it's not guaranteed that this is correct, but one of the most prominent theories is that the word comes from the Latin sanum, which. Which is actually refers to an amount of land which is 100 ugurat, which is a subunit of land. And this would have been in deepest antiquity, an officer would have been chosen according to his social status and his wealth. And ordinary legionaries and their rank was dependent on their social status and wealth as well. So one of the ancient sources tells us that's where the word century came from. But at no point was a century of men, 100 men. It was always 80 men. Yet it's 100 runs of cricket and it's 100 years, if you know, if you're thinking about time.
- [07:55]
A
So, no, I certainly have to raise that question earlier. So thank you for explaining it. You mentioned already how the nature of our sources. I said, like the edges of a piece of a jigsaw. The edges of a jigsaw, and we have all these bits missing. But can you elaborate a little bit on the types of sources that we do have surviving to learn about the Roman centurion?
- [08:14]
E
So they're fragmentary. Usually you've got two types of sources. You've got the earliest sources we have, and then you've got the later ones who are often potentially just copying what the earlier guys wrote. And you can tell that by looking at what they've written. I'm sure you know this yourself. Does it replicate a lot of what was written earlier? So you've got sources like Livy and Plutarch and Arryon and other sources, but they're literally all quite fragmentary. One of the best ones for the size, unit size and number of legionaries and information about centurions is Polybius. So he refers to literally the Republican army and what it was like. And then you've got someone like Josephus, who was actually present at Vespasian's war in Judea. And there are quite a lot of nice details from that about Roman soldiers. Like a centurion who was chasing some Jews who were running away during, I think it was the siege of Jerusalem. And they were fleeing from him, even though he was on his own, but his hobnails slipped on the paving stones because it was like running on wet tiles with football boots. And he fell over and then the Jews came back and killed him. But it was an example of this. They were running from the centurion because he was so scary, but then he ended up dead. And another detail from Josephus is the marching order of a legion, which is one of the only examples we've got. So you literally, with Roman sources, you take what you can get and you've got to treat some with a grain of salt, particularly if they're hundreds of years after the events they're describing. But when you've literally got only those pieces of a jigsaw and maybe some evidence from archaeology or from statuary or steels, you're literally, you know, it's like trying to assemble an IKEA piece of furniture without having the guide and steel.
- [09:56]
A
So there's a funerary monument.
- [09:57]
E
Yeah, sorry. The funerary monuments, which frequently, in the background of the big figure, you've Got lots of soldiers and so on, and maybe details of military equipment and so on, and people zone in and then, oh, is that a centurion's helmet or is that an enemy helmet? And literally you can have people, marine actors, who are, you know, passion led people, but are really rigorous in their detail of how accurate their replica equipment is. They will be using images like that from all around the Roman Empire and all the museums that they can get pictures from to make an accurate helmet, you know, like this or whatever.
- [10:30]
A
So certainly we're not going to avoid the helmet in the room here. We'll certainly delve into these details in a bit. But also I want to pick up, you mentioned kind of those two important literary sources there, Polybius and then Josephus. So there's a few hundred years between the two, isn't there? So Polybius, 2nd century BC, Josephus, 1st century AD. And once again, that reinforces the point earlier that you made, that this is a long period of time that we're talking about with the Roman centurion and their role, their equipment, everything would have evolved over that period too.
- [11:03]
E
Oh, completely. So I give a talk on everyday life in the Roman army and one of the first slides I've got is a picture of two men at arms from the Hundred Years War who fought the French, interestingly, for 117 years. Not 100 years, but. And then British infantrymen from World War II. And I say 600 years of history separates these two soldiers and their equipment's completely different. Well, Rome was nominally founded in 753B.C. I mean, probably a bit later, actually, but it didn't fall again nominally until 476 A.D. and that's nearly 1200 years of history. So to suggest that Roman soldiers looked and dressed the same, or their unit size or command structure was the same, it didn't happen. And so the earliest Roman soldiers looked and dressed like Greek warriors because of the heavy Greek influence. And then by the late Empire, I mean, they looked totally different again, with spears as the main weapon, not swords and massive helmets and round shields, not a scutum and so on. But the centurion did last a very, very long time. And indeed, it wasn't till the very late Roman Empire that we have some evidence that it may have changed, but also the titles of the centurions. So within the cohort, the six centurions in a cohort, listeners may be aware that the republican legions, for example, when the Romans were fighting Hannibal, there were three types of legionary. The first rank were called the Hastati, the second rank called the Principae, the third rank called the Triarii. And they were dressed and armed differently. And there were centurions of those, often in double century form, which is called a maniple. And the names of those centurions survived for hundreds of years. So even in an imperial legion, the six centurions in a cohort were called the Pelis Prior, as in the first spear. And that would have been a centurion of the Triarii, the Pelus posterior, the second Centurion of the Triarii, and then the Princeps Prior and the Princeps posterior, and the Hastatus Prior and the Hastatus posterior. So they were hundreds of years after those forms of soldier disappeared. They were still known as that.
- [13:05]
A
Real history lesson, as you're learning.
- [13:07]
E
Yeah, I mean, I don't use those in my books because it would just. I mean, the Roman names ending in us and all the little Latin words that I like to weave in, it's. It just gets too confusing if you're doing that kind of thing.
- [13:17]
A
But it's interesting. So it sounds like this idea of a centurion in the Roman mindset in a Roman army does seem to stem back quite a long way. I mean, do we have any ideas around the origins of the creation of this position of centurion? Could it once again be influenced by the Greeks and maybe a position like the Strategos or something like that potentially?
- [13:35]
E
I mean, I'm not an ancient historian by profession, potentially, but it's not. I mean, the origin that we think is a Latin word. And the word tribune, which comes from that time as well, that comes from originally tribe. And the word legio comes from the Latin word which means a levy. Because as, again, as your viewers might realize, during the Republic, it was your civic duty to fight for Rome. If there was a war. You literally presented yourself on the plane of Mars outside the walls of Rome, and you were put into the army according to your wealth and social status. And the centurion would have been just one of those men who had more potentially combat experience. But they did exist from those early days.
- [14:17]
A
And if we can explore two key periods for a centurion now and to kind of get a sense of what they looked like, what we should think of when someone mentions the Roman centurion. And I guess we should do it alongside those two key literary sources that you mentioned earlier. So Polybius first of all. So that's the time of the wars against Carthage, isn't it? And then Josephus in the early Imperial period, a bit later. So if we focus on the time of Polybius, first of all, in the Republic, what do we know about the Roman centurion at that time and how he would have looked?
- [14:51]
E
Very little. Very little. We know that he wore a mail shirt like two of his types of soldiers, the Principes and the Triarii. We know that he probably carried a shield like they did a scutum. Now, the Republican shield was a good bit larger than most of your viewers are used to. It was curved top and bottom, so it was a good 6 inches, 15 cm taller, top and bottom. So if you're an average height roman, which is 5 foot 6, 1.65 meters, it literally comes up to about here. So he carried one of those. When you get onto the subject of helmets, I mean, this is probably one of the most iconic images of Rome in today. Most people of any knowledge of history will say, that's a centurion's helmet. What's curious is that there are very few images of centurions wearing these tombstones with centurions, which are quite numerous. They're not wearing their helmets because the viewers wanted them to see their face. And there are images of centurions wearing other helmets. Now, the earlier ones, they potentially didn't have transverse crested. They may have just had like a top knot of horsehair or they may even. We've got at least one example of a centurion with a forward to back crest as well.
- [16:07]
A
Okay.
- [16:07]
E
Which again, a lot of your viewers will associate with an Optio, the second in command. But that's from later in the. In the period.
- [16:14]
A
Oh, is that kind of a distinguishing factor between the horizontal and the vertical?
- [16:17]
E
The ideal, yes. But it's not entirely certain that optios had them. They may have had them, but, you know, reenactors, that's the way they've gone. So this is what. Increasingly, that's what we think. And then you get textbooks with images like that, and they just. It's funny how these images just get anchored tighter and tighter into people's awareness until it's quite hard to actually say, well, actually, it's not necessarily based on a huge amount of evidence. It may have been something else. People go, no, no, no, I've seen, you know, whatever program or.
- [16:47]
A
But from the time of Hannibal Barker, I mean, this type of helmet we have in front of us now, with that kind of great guard above the.
- [16:53]
E
No, that was. That's imperial. So the helmets were a lot. Sorry, helmets were a lot simpler. Most Soldiers wore a Montefartino, right?
- [17:01]
A
What is this?
- [17:02]
E
That is a very simple bronze bowl helmet. Again, your viewers would be familiar with, with a very short neck guard and a complete cheek piece. Unlike this one, which has a cheek piece which allows you to hear, in other words, and I can tell you from wearing that earlier helmet, when your cheek flaps are down, you can't hear what the man beside you is saying, let alone the Centurion 20 meters away. So they would have worn one of those. They may have worn Apollo Corinthian helmets. Again, the history on that's not great. Some people think the Triari wore that. Maybe centurions did. It may well have been quite individual as well. If you look at any army in the field today, you look at pictures of soldiers in World War II. When you're in the field, you do what fits, you do what works. And actually your officers don't mind that much. But centurions did like to stand out. So any of them that had awards for valor, and these would have existed in the Republican period, would have had filare, which were literally medals, Roman equivalent of medals worn in a leather harness on the chest. And you could hold up to nine, so in three rows of three. And they were frequently of silver or gold, but they could even be ceramic or glass. I've seen glass ones in museums in Germany, frequently with images like the Medusa or something like that, or a God. And these would have advertised the centurion's bravery and his prominence to the enemy. He would have carried a sword. And during the Republican period that we're talking about, the fighting sword of the legionary was the Gladius Hispania or the Spanish sword, which was 25 centimeters or 10 inches longer than the sword most people think of as Roman legionaries using called the Spanish sword, because it was probably nicked from Spanish tribesmen who'd been fighting for the Carthaginians in the First Punic War. And an immensely successful weapon, not just at thrusting or stabbing, but also for slashing. There's a quote from just after the Second Punic War, when the Romans invaded Macedonia, about the Macedonian phalangists being so scared of the Gladius Hispaniensis that it could remove arms, legs and heads with ease. I love to try and prove theories. I didn't go and attack someone with a sword, but I'm a vet, so I know what a blade does to flesh. And I started a thread on, now defunct, sadly, Roman Army Talk Forum, which used to be a website, is now just on Facebook. And I Started a thread about has anyone ever seen someone killed with a blade in off topic. And it went dead for six months. And I loved telling this in schools because the students eyes are out on sticks. The thread went dead for six months or so. And then I got a reply, it had been answered. I mean I was straight on the computer. Anyway, there was an old American guy now old compared to me because he was in Vietnam, he was in the Vietnam war in the 60s. And back then when you were out in the jungle, the US army apparently, certainly maybe this was early days. They didn't supply the soldiers with machetes, so they used to buy their own in the local towns and they'd just have them hanging on their belts and they'd come in from close open country. They'd been in contact with the Viet Cong, they were all knackered. They were lying around in the jungle clearing, literally just zonked. And one of his buddies went nuts. No one knew it. The guy just got up, took out his machete, walked across the clearing and, and chopped one of the heads of their other buddies off. And he said it was one chop of a cheap Chinese steel machete casually swung and the guy's head just jumped off his shoulders. So his answer was 100%, you know, trained legionaries who would come straight from Zama to Macedonia, they would have been chopping our heads off. So to me that made the source, you know, much more likely to be true because oftentimes I've noticed as a non academic, I don't know whether you experience this. Sometimes academics will say, oh well, the Romans couldn't have done that or the Egyptians couldn't have done that, it's way too difficult. And then they find that they did. A good example is Alesia. People used to say that there's no way Julius Caesar built a double circumvallation. You know, he was attacking Alesia, built a wall around it, then the 200,000 Gauls came to attack him. So he didn't run away, he built another wall sandwiching himself in the middle and still won the battle. And everybody said he couldn't do it and found it in the ground. So yeah, went off topic there, but it was fun.
- [21:21]
A
I'm very happy for you to do this once in a while, Ben. And it's also great because yes, the classic idea is the kind of the stabbing sword, isn't it?
- [21:27]
E
And that's realistically probably what it was. When I'm giving the talks that I do, I draw the sword and I hold up the blade. And I say, you only need to stick about this much of this into somebody. And he's done 15 centimeters. Yeah, 16. You know, what we see in films is totally skewed and totally inaccurate, what we think humans are capable of. I know a thoracic surgeon, and, you know, if someone gets stabbed today in the abdomen, they're down and bleeding out, and they're not doing anything else unless they're superhuman. So you do expose yourself. If you hack with a sword, it is far more efficient just to stab somebody and keep yourself behind the shield. So they probably did that most of the time, but they could hack when they needed to. Foreign.
- [22:18]
B
Howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan, fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [22:26]
C
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [22:30]
B
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Stephen here has not read Mistborn before.
- [22:38]
C
That's right.
- [22:39]
B
Hey.
- [22:39]
A
Hey.
- [22:40]
C
So each week, you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [22:44]
B
And along the way, we'll character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [22:51]
C
Newsflash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.
- [22:58]
D
Let's be completely honest. Are you happy with your job? The fact is, a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown or one we never really wanted in the first place. But we stick it out and we give reasons, like, what if the next move is worse? And I've put years into this place, and maybe the most common one. Isn't everyone miserable at work? But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for Strawberry Me. They match you with a certified career coach who helps you get from where you are to where you want to be, either at your existing job or by helping you find a new one. Your coach helps clarify your goals, creates a plan, and keeps you accountable along the way. Go to Strawberry Me Career and get 50% off your first coaching session. That's Strawberry Me Career.
- [23:53]
E
After civil war, regicide, and Cromwell's republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. And this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transporting back to the age of Restoration royalty from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.
- [24:37]
A
And I know it's a bit of a generalization, but if we imagine that the centurions are usually the figures with the more battle hardened experience.
- [24:43]
E
Yeah.
- [24:43]
A
You know, and if they're using those same weapons as the legionaries, I mean, they're probably even more capable of using them in force in the front ranks. I mean, imagine one of Julius Caesar's centurion standing out, you know, with the same equipment, but something showing them, making them distinct from the rest to show their rank and yeah, being quite a sight for, for an enemy, you know, to come up. But shall we turn to the classic image of the centurion today when they're wearing helmets like this?
- [25:13]
E
So that's an imperial Gallic. That is the standard helmet of the Roman legionary in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
- [25:21]
A
Can you describe the features of it?
- [25:23]
E
Yeah, sure. It's got brows here, basically look like eyebrows. It's got a guard to protect the forehead from a blow from a weapon there. You commonly hear this being referred to in all kinds of four as being something that was brought in to protect against the Dacian falx, which is a scythe like brutal weapon from the Dacian tribes in Eastern Europe, which was wielded two handed and would split one of these no problem. But it's not based on very much evidence, so it may have been brought in for that, but possibly not. But it's certainly to strengthen the helmet. I was very wary if you touch this, it will fall down, viewers. So it's got various circular gilded discs. It's got a really prominent earpiece for your ear so you can hear what the centurion is saying. It's got a mount here for the crest. So even if an ordinary soldier was wearing it, he could mount a crest, which they potentially did on parade and so on.
- [26:16]
A
Oh, yes, look at that.
- [26:17]
E
And it's got a loop on the back of the neckguard. The neckguard's really big. It's about 4 inches, about 12 centimeters in depth. And that's to protect you from blows from behind. And it's got a loop for a strap for wearing it around your neck. Because they're really heavy. They weigh about two kilos, four and a half pounds. So they're actually quite uncomfortable to wear when you're marching and there are loads of images, most famous of which is Trajan's Column shows the legionaries marching along with their helmets hanging around their necks. And it's actually quite comfortable place. And when you're doing Hadrian's Wall, you can put your modern water bottle in there so that people don't see it and your mobile phone. The feathered crest is obviously for the centurion. As I mentioned earlier, we actually haven't got a huge number of images of centurions wearing them, probably only a handful. And we've got other images of them, of them wearing front to back crests or even just top knot crests, but they did wear these and they. We don't know whether they were painted the feathers, but they quite likely were. And that would have been quite potentially cohort by cohort, maybe even century by century, but that would have been probably too complicated. But there may have been identifying Cohort 1 to 10.
- [27:25]
A
Right. So distinctive plumes on there, distinctive feathers, for sure.
- [27:28]
E
For sure. The Romans lived life in vivid Technicolor. When you go to Pompeii, you go to a Roman museum and you see bare pieces of stone and so on, we think of the Romans in black and white. But modern science, using fractured light and other techniques, and pieces of wall and fresco that have been buried underground, sometimes where there's no oxygen, traces of paint can be found on those statues and the steels, for example. And so what has happened in the last 15 to 20 years, which is really exciting, is you get accurate reconstruction, painted images of things like this, or Roman soldiers or emperors and so on. So, yeah, it's highly likely. We know from the Noticia dignata from the 4th century AD, which was the only imagery of Roman shields that we've got with different shield army units.
- [28:16]
A
Beautiful source.
- [28:17]
E
Yeah, yeah, beautiful source. But it's 400 years too late. But you can infer from that that legions might have had different emblems and therefore so might centurions. And they were very brave men, but they were peacocks too. They were there to be seen. And just like any officer in their dress uniform, they would have wanted to look good. And if these were painted in various whatever patterns, red and white, I mean, you see a lot of the reenactors now, particularly Caesar, I can't pronounce his surname, sorry, Caesar Vaniski, I think it is, from Legion 21, Rappax. He's kind of led the way in the world on the research of these. And if you see images of him, I mean, he looks amazing. And he's got blue and white feathers and red and white. Blue and white, yeah, yeah.
- [28:57]
A
Cause it's interesting. Once again, the common idea is that they all have their red plumes and like red is the big color of red and white.
- [29:04]
E
Yeah, again, again, you know, that's open to conjecture. We have paintings from Pompeii with soldiers in red. We know the generals wore red cloaks and generals wore red boots and they had a red sash. But we also know Roman legionaries wore blue. Maybe marines in the navy did. We also know that ochre was a very common. But certainly blues or reds or who knows? Anyone that tells you that they know this centurion or that legion had this color, they're lying. And the thing is, you find them out there.
- [29:33]
A
So just describing as well to our audience who are listening, who aren't looking at it, but I'll also make sure that we get some lovely pictures of this stunning helmet that you've brought in for us today, Ben. I mean, the feathers, they're black and white feathers that you've chosen for this particular helmet. And are they glued in to the top?
- [29:49]
E
No, as you saw outside the studio, they're not yet. So it was. This mount was made for me. I know so many reenactors now. When I need something, I don't go and look for it. I just ask some of my reenactors. Somebody made this for me and they sent it to me in pieces. Cause that was. You can't send that in the post. All the feathers would get broken. So I think the feathers, they have to be glued in. Cause they're forever falling out. And that wouldn't look good if I was about to go on parade or something. So. Yeah.
- [30:14]
A
And is it also very much conjecture around types of feathers they would have used?
- [30:18]
E
Yes, because we don't have any surviving examples. I believe the only surviving example of a possible centurion crest is one in a museum on Hadrian's Wall, which is horsehair. Otherwise they haven't survived. No.
- [30:31]
A
So, but horsehair, I guess you can understand the logic behind that, especially, you know, with all the horse barracks and the stables along Hadrian's Wall.
- [30:38]
E
Indeed. But, you know, again, experimental archaeology, when you're walking Hadrian's Wall and you're wearing one of them and it rains, the horsehair falls down like this and you look like you've got a central parting and they do not look good. Whereas that wouldn't happen with feathers. Right. Yes. I love experimental archaeology. I've learned. I've done Hadrian's Wall twice in full Roman gear and the amount I learned is off the scale with just reference to the kit and what it feels like and so on.
- [31:04]
A
Always bang the drum for experimental archaeology doing this stuff because, you know, they're at the forefront of learning more about, especially when what we're talking about now, the kit of a Roman centurion. And if we go down the body from the head, let's say in the imperial period, you've got this stunning helmet further down. Can we imagine them wearing similar types of armour to the everyday legionary? The classic banded iron armour, the segmentata perhaps?
- [31:26]
E
No, no, interestingly they didn't wear that. It's called the Lorica segmentata. Sounds Latin. It's a modern name. We don't know what the Romans called it. They called mail the lorica hamata. And interestingly, when the soldiers gradually moved over to the plated armor, the segmentata, the centurions did not. So from the early principate, the centurions looked different in uniform, not just when they were wearing their helmet. So the male shirt is actually very effective protection against weapons. You wear a padded tunic underneath it, not just straight over the ordinary tunic. And together they're like a stab proof vest. If you have someone who's very powerful and they ram a spear into it, they might break through, especially if it's not complete ring mail. But it's actually still very, very effective armour.
- [32:13]
B
So.
- [32:13]
E
And then sometimes it had doubling over the shoulders as well. But again that would have not necessarily been all the time. Then they would have worn. So they would have had a very simple tunic, they would have had a focale or a neck, neck kerchief. That is because the, the open necks of Roman tunics are really wide, so your straps rub on your bare skin. I know this again from experimentation. If you don't have a neck kerchief and they would then wear their tunic, padded tunic, mail shirt, which goes down to just basically below groin level, and then a metalled belt. And the metal belt was basically the same as a soldier's, but often more ornate. And this was a very distinctive feature of a Roman soldier. And so if you see someone in a motorway service station in this country or wherever you live in the world, and they're in combat and boots and they just got out of a jeep, you know, they're in the army. If you saw a man in off dress, if you like, in the street, in the town, anywhere in the empire with it, wearing a metal belt with Its jingly groin guard that goes jingle, jingle, jingle. You heard that noise? We have a Roman poem of a man standing in a shop hearing that noise on the street and knowing a soldier is walking by. Right.
- [33:21]
A
It wasn't a distinguishing that. This is a centurion walking by.
- [33:24]
E
This is just a soldier. Right. But again, Roman soldiers liked to individualize their kit and they would sometimes actually use precious metals, say in the scabbard of their sword. So a centurion may have had a really expensive sword scabbard and may have had a much more expensive. He may have had silver or whatever in his, in his belt and so on. And he then would have potentially worn a chest harness with those filare that I mentioned, the awards for bravery. And he would have had a pugio or a dagger. He wore his sword on the, on the left or on the right, depending on the time, but often on the left, which is different to the soldiers sword. Soldiers wore it on the right and drew with the right, which was possibly because that's quicker to get out from behind your shield, which is rather big, rather than drawing it across your body. But for whatever reason, whether that was to do with the rank, we don't know. But centurions wore theirs on a baldrick, which is a leather strap from the shoulder to the hip, not attached to the belt like the soldiers did. And then they would have had caligae studded sandals or potentially boots. Officers tended to wear boots. And I mean, if you're in a muddy country like Britain, you're going to wear boots.
- [34:31]
A
But they still have the hobnails on.
- [34:32]
E
They would have still had the hobnails as well. We've got examples of the hobnails being shar. So imagine that in muddy ground or on someone's head in the middle of a battle, quick segue into the laces of Roman boots and sandals. This would have applied to centurions as well. I only found this out recently, fortunately. Never put it as a mistake in my books because it just didn't happen. But all Roman sandals that have been found with. Or boots that have been found with laces, they were laced at the back, okay. Because the laces are really long when they're undone, they come up to your knee. And that's possibly in case, I reckon, the leather parts and you've then got enough, you don't have to replace it. But when they're new, before they've parted, they come up to your knee, so you loop them around the bottom of your leg. Loads of Times. And then you lace them at the back, presumably, so you don't stand on one end in a battle. Yeah.
- [35:20]
A
Oh, gosh. Funny little things like that.
- [35:22]
E
Little details like that. So again, when I'm doing a talk, I say, people, what do you think of my. And no one ever guesses it, but we haven't come yet to the vine stick, which I knew you would then.
- [35:34]
A
Well, I was gonna say, I have two other bits of equipment which have become so linked to centurions today that I want to talk about. You've preempted the vine stick, but I'm gonna save that for the last one.
- [35:44]
E
Okay.
- [35:44]
A
Because the other one that has become big, and we talked about this before, it's the whistle.
- [35:49]
E
Ben started on the whistle. This is because of this TV series. Rome.
- [35:54]
A
HBO Rome. Yes. There's that famous scene right at the beginning where one of the centurions is using a whistle in battle. Is there any evidence that centurions could well have carried whistles in battle?
- [36:06]
E
No.
- [36:07]
A
Okay, moving on.
- [36:09]
E
I have a Roman whistle. Shame I didn't bring it with me. I have a Roman whistle, the original found in the Legerie fortress, Regensburg in Austria, which has a little lead square on the end for scratching your name on it so it doesn't get lost. And so it was found in a military context, but there is no documentary evidence at all for whistles. They commanded by the voice at close quarters and by trumpets and bugles at distance. And each century had musicians, and each. Each legion had musicians as well. So there's no evidence. It looks great, but we can't prove it. And so one of the things that I'm constantly saying to my readers or people I'm talking to is just because we want it to have existed and it makes common sense that it might have existed, doesn't mean it did exist. You've got to have some evidence, or else it's just a theory. And so often today, in whatever period we're talking about, people want something to be true. And if enough people talk about it, it almost becomes a fact. But we've got no evidence. So it's possible. But it's also possible they did loads of other things.
- [37:10]
A
Don't completely kick it out the water, but. Yes, exactly. But what we can talk about a bit better is the vinestick. And so describe the vine stick to us.
- [37:21]
E
So the vine stick, it's basically a piece of the trunk of a vine plant which grows grapes, and it was the symbol of a Roman centurion. It's generally about Two feet, two and a half feet long, thicker at one end than the other and curved and polished. So quite curving, if you like. And was a symbol of office, but also used as a weapon of punishment.
- [37:45]
A
So slightly smaller than the average staff. More like a baton, I guess.
- [37:49]
E
Yeah, yeah. So an umbrella. Thinking of umbrella, it's probably slightly shorter than an umbrella, but without the curved handle. So this wasn't something that was polished and kept on the mantelpiece. The centurion would have kept it with him pretty much all the time. Not in battle, but certainly in camp and when he was training his men. And I mean, it's still used today in that up until very recently, British army officers had what was called a swagger stick. And that's, you know, basically a descendant of the vine stick. So this was something that he could beat his men with whenever he felt like it. And you've got to try and take off your modern spectacles, your modern. Put away your modern values. The world was just a totally different. When you were being trained by a centurion to be a Roman soldier, you swore your oath of allegiance to the Emperor. Your physical characteristics were recorded. Cause there were no cameras, your scars and so on. You signed X for your name because you probably couldn't write to sign up anywhere between 16 and 25 years. And then you were handed over to your centurion. And he was like your mum, your dad, your boss at work, the biggest nightclub bouncer you've ever seen, and God Almighty rolled into one. When he said run, you said, yes, sir. When he said jump, you said, how high, sir. And when he said charge those men and kill them, you said, yes, sir. And you didn't. If you didn't, he beat you with his vine stick. When he was training you. This was the school of hard knocks. You know, if you got injured, you would be kicked to your feet again. And if you said you needed to go to see the surgeon, he said, you better not be shamming, because I will literally beat you unconscious. We know of at least four offenses that the centurion could execute his men for. But before he got to that, he would encourage his men with his stick, whether it was just tapping them on the helmet or banging them on the shoulders or literally beating them. And the most extreme example of that, which I'm sure you know the guy, his nickname in Latin was Caedo Altaram. So this is a German. A centurion in Germany, I should say, in the first century ad, who was so brutal that his nickname was Caeto Altaram. Which means bring me another. In other words, he was so fond of breaking his stick on men's backs, he would click his fingers and say hey, do Altaram. And his men would just get him another, so nobody would stop him beating a man unconscious. And as I mentioned, four offences that we know of, at least that he could execute a man for. And they were falling asleep on sentry duty, running away from the enemy in battle, stealing from a comrade, or taking your sword off while digging a ditch. Which means that you can't fight immediately if the enemy attacks.
- [40:21]
A
Because that one feels a bit less, I don't want to say important, but compared to the three previous that you mentioned, it feels a bit more like yes and no.
- [40:28]
E
But. So let me put it into a situation. Roman legion on the march, enemy territory. They come to the end of the day and again your listeners and viewers will know they dug out of camp every day. So half the legion acts as a screen, half the legion digs. The guys that are digging say there's a sudden attack that broke through the screen. They've got to be ready to fight,
- [40:48]
A
even if you saw it's just a few meters away.
- [40:50]
E
So the example we have, again, these are when we to reference beginning about the things we know, they're only often just little vignettes that we have. But there is a scene that is described from the second century B.C. which is a Roman legion digging out a camp. And the legate or one of his tribunes is riding along the ditch on his horse and he comes across a sword lying on the side of the ditch and he says, whose is this sword? And this unfortunate soldier puts his hand up and he's taken out and executed on the spot. Wow. And the form of death was not usually like that for the centurion, it was the fustuarium, which is if it's a contubernium of men, and I've just had a chat with an academic about this. The contubernium wouldn't have served on the line together, they wouldn't have been on sentry duty together. Okay, so we don't have time for that. But let's say it's these eight guys who were on sentry duty together and one fell asleep. Well, you seven are going to beat him to death. Beat your mates to death in front of the rest of the century. Hang on a sec. I'm in a really bad mood cause I was up all night on the wall checking up on you guys. Beat him to death with your fists because that takes longer.
- [42:01]
A
I was going to ask, like with the centurions, were they always the ones who would deliver out the punishment? It sounds like there sometimes they would give it actually to the poor victim's mates, his best mates.
- [42:13]
E
Yes, they do. From those formal punishments, we do, but I have no doubt, I mean, we're talk about a world where infant mortality was potentially 50% by the age of infant, and child mortality 50% by the age of five. We're talking about people being used to killing their own chickens, to seeing animals slaughtered outside temples, to seeing crucifixes on the side of the road, to going to gladiator fights. Life was really brutal. And when you were a soldier, you basically would get very rough justice. There'd be. Nobody would stop the centurion. So I have no hesitation in saying if a centurion felt that a soldier had done something severe enough and they executed him on the spot, I don't think many senior officers would have done very much about it.
- [42:55]
A
That was the question I was going to ask. Do you feel then that centurions had a lot of freedom over their particular unit, over their particular soldiers, and it's not like they could petition the legate higher up if they felt that it was, like, undeserved?
- [43:09]
E
No, I don't think so at all. I don't think so at all. The centurions, interestingly, we didn't mention it, but it's worth mentioning here, were ranked 1 to 60. So in other words, the sixth centurion of the tenth cohort was the lowest ranked.
- [43:20]
A
It's a hierarchy.
- [43:21]
E
There's a key hierarchy within each cohort and it goes all the way up. The First Centurions. Sorry, the Centurions of the First Court were the most senior. They were known as the Primiordines. They were more senior than anybody in the legion. But even if you complain to a more senior centurion, again, unless this Centurion had done something really unjust, I don't think there would have been any comeback at all. They were judged, jury and executioner. Quite likely, in my opinion. Foreign.
- [43:52]
B
Howdy ho and welcome to Fantasy Fan, Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fan Girls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [44:00]
C
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball. But you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [44:04]
B
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Stephen here has not read Mistborn before.
- [44:12]
C
That's right.
- [44:13]
A
Hey.
- [44:13]
C
Hey. So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [44:17]
B
And along the Today we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [44:24]
C
Newsflash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.
- [44:32]
D
Let's be completely honest. Are you happy with your job? The fact is, a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never really wanted in the first place. But we stick it out and we give reasons like. Like what if the next move is worse? And I've put years into this place and maybe the most common one. Isn't everyone miserable at work? But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for Strawberry Me. They match you with a certified career coach who helps you get from where you are to where you want to be, either at your existing job or by helping you find a new one. Your coach helps clarify your goals, creates a plan, and keeps you accountable along the way. Go to Strawberry Me Career and get 50% off your first coaching session. That's Strawberry Me Career.
- [45:40]
A
Also, keep on that hierarchy bit a little more because centurions, you also have them commanding the auxiliary units. So the non Roman citizen units, did that hierarchy extend to them as well? If you were a Roman centurion commanding legionaries, would you see yourself as superior to a centurion commanding a group of occasions?
- [45:58]
E
100%. I mean, generally the the only Roman officers in auxiliary cohorts were the men commanding the cohort. The centurions would have been auxiliary centurions. And they were very definitely. Yeah, they were definitely inferior. I mean, Romans were really quite racist. And that's the reason auxiliaries manned Hadrian's Wall, not real legionaries, because, you know, the less valuable soldiers, you put them nearer the danger, as it were. So not to say there wouldn't have been a working relationship and many of them might have been friends if they were on campaign together. But there was a definite social difference between auxiliaries and citizen legionaries.
- [46:33]
A
But you can imagine, can't you, the soldiers who are under the command of that particular centurion who are being taught, you know, and making sure you avoid those horrific punishments. Can you also imagine that individual soldiers would have gained more, potentially loyalty to the centurion that they were serving than actually the person right at the top of the legion.
- [46:56]
E
Yes, yes. I mean, you can think of someone like Julius Caesar who led an army for seven years in Gaul and they won and they won and they won. And he gave them amazing rewards. I mean, after, after Alesia, he gave every legionary in his army a slave. They took 50,000 slaves. Here you go, guys. But certainly the centurion would have been the man to whom you owed most of your loyalty because he didn't just beat you and train you. Again, this is just common sense. I can't prove it. But it is. From what we know, we know of centurions referring to their men as boys. My boys like my lads. So they would. And in desperate situations like Gergovia, where Julius Caesar lost 300 legionaries or 700 legionaries, but 46 centurions, this is the
- [47:38]
A
battle that he loses, isn't it?
- [47:39]
E
Yeah. The one that no one talks about in Asterix. Yeah. So. But that massively high percentage of centurions and very little else is known about the battle, but that tells you they were leading from the front. And so just talk to any serving members of military today who've been in combat. You know, you have to support your mates. And if your officer is putting himself in danger to help you, you feel duty bound to do the same. And if you survived, he's gonna buy you a round of drinks, he's maybe gonna put you up for an award for valor, whether that's first man over the wall, these are Roman awards, or whether it's saving the life of a fellow citizen, things like that, or a gold bracelet or something like that, or a silver bracelet. So. And he could quite possibly have been involved when they were getting their pay, which is three times a year there to. I don't know, but. But they would have loved and feared their centurions. And there were bad ones, but there were probably some really amazing ones as
- [48:33]
A
well, very charismatic leaders. And so that's how they're expected to act on the battlefield is it's they're in the front ranks, they're leading their men, as also you said earlier, they're peacocking at the same time, they are standing out, they are showing like Alexander the Great's officers, you know, they're at the front ranks and risking in the lives of the men who they've tortured over all.
- [48:53]
E
Alexander famously used to lead his own charges. I mean, he was nuts. Lead his own cavalry charges and survive and just crazy.
- [49:00]
A
But did centurions also have the Freedom to command their particular kind of their sentries in battle. Maybe they've. Presumably they've received their main orders from HQ is what they're supposed to do. But if they see, as you know, all those best plans don't often go to plan in the heat of battle. If they could see that the tide was turning or that a new opportunity was rising. Did the centurions also have the freedom in battle to make adjustments?
- [49:30]
E
Possibly. I can think of an example of an adjustment being made in a Roman battle, but it was a more senior officer than a centurion during the battle of Cainos Cephalae, which was when the Macedonian phalanx came up against the Roman legions, which were far more maneuverable than the phalanx. Just to try and quickly paraphrase it, the phalanx was coming down a hillside and it wasn't. The two halves of it were not. Didn't have a common front rank. One was slightly in front of the other.
- [50:00]
A
Yeah, think of it like a big wall of spears, but part of that wall of spears is not in the same position.
- [50:05]
E
And there were Roman soldiers advancing to meet the part of the phalanx that was behind the other part. And when they were doing so, one of the senior officers, I think he might have been a tribune, noticed that the flanks of the part of the phalanx that he wasn't attacking, which he was now alongside, didn't have light infantry protecting its side, which it needed, and they were therefore completely exposed. And he turned his maniples only maybe a thousand or two thousand men, and they smashed into the side of the Macedonian phalanx and won the battle. So centurions may have done that, but I've never read of an example. Again, I haven't read all Roman histories, but I've read a lot and pretty much every. Every book about the Roman army that's been written in the last 30 or 40 years. And I can't think of an exact example. I can think of individual examples of centurions, you know, leading from the front. So, for example, the battle at Boudicca was defeated at, which may have been near St Albans, north of London. A very outnumbered Roman army. The general picked the terrain with a hill at his back, woods at each side, open ground in front of British tribesmen, thought, we're just going to slaughter them. And the Roman general had his men form up in what the Romans called the saw, which may have been a multiple repetition of the cuneus, which we think was a wedge. In other words, a triangle, like this pointing forward. So a century forming a triangle with the centurion points.
- [51:35]
A
He was the one right at the front of the wedge. Yeah.
- [51:37]
E
So they formed a saw and that meant there were centurions at the front of every triangle. So you imagine how dangerous that is with 50,000. I mean, the sources say 200,000. So I always say, look, divided by four, divided by five. There were only 20,000 Roman soldiers, though. So say 40,000 British tribesmen against 20,000 Roman soldiers. You think the British are going to win? But they came up against the centurions obviously first and the rest of the legionary so tightly that the sources tell us that they couldn't use their weapons, the British tribesmen couldn't use their spears, and the Romans just slaughtered them like fish in a barrel. But the death, we don't have the deaths numbers of centurions, but it was probably higher than normal there.
- [52:16]
A
Just because of that leading your men. And that is literally leading from the front at the point of a wedge.
- [52:21]
E
Terrifying.
- [52:22]
A
Very much so, yeah. Especially for us in the 21st century. And I'm also glad you mentioned Cynocephale there, because that was the example I was thinking of in my head. I didn't realise it wasn't a centurion, it was actually someone higher up.
- [52:31]
E
Yeah, it was someone more senior. I think it was the tribune.
- [52:33]
A
Okay, got it. So outside of fighting, if they're not in an open war zone, if they're not on campaign, let's say they're in a more, more peaceful part of the empire, maybe even Hadrian's Wall. But at a time where there aren't all these raids going across the wall and anything like that, do we know much about how an everyday life of a centurion, how it would have changed if they weren't in an active war zone?
- [52:57]
E
Yeah, we do. We've got some nice little snippets from actually Egypt. So often in remote areas of the empire like Egypt could be, you had centurions who would have been operating more or less as a sole commander and they acted as patrols, but also for the collection of tax. And that would have been throughout the empire and also as effectively judges. So there's a wonderful piece of pottery or a piece of papyrus, actually. So the oxyrhynchus Massive cache, 50,000 pieces of pottery. Yeah. The papyri and pieces of pottery. I think there are some as well.
- [53:35]
A
Ostraka.
- [53:36]
E
Ostraka, yeah. From Egypt. There are all these different examples we've got that tell us things. And one of them Interesting ones, which I always find it's a little bit amusing because we know so little about ancient women because generally they weren't taught to read and write. We know they were because of the famous images from Pompeii of the woman with the stylus in front of her face and so on. But this one example of a centurion is where a man's wife has run away to a town 20 or 30 miles away and has set up home with another bloke and he's written to the local centurion, who's presumably acting like the local justice, asking for help to get his wife back. And we don't know any more now, clearly, probably nothing was done, but it just. There's an example of a centurion as a justice, if you like. And also an example of ancient women might not have known how to read and write, but they did what they wanted.
- [54:27]
A
But, yeah, a great example of how a centurion's duties could change between war and peace. Yeah.
- [54:31]
E
And so being a quartermaster, making sure that there were enough supplies for their century, this is something that we've got from the Vindolanda tablets. And although junior officers would have maybe been doing more of it, the centurion would have been keeping an eye on. They had enough leather for their sandals, they had enough food, they had enough.
- [54:48]
A
You know, this is the management, this is the logistics side that's so often overlooked.
- [54:52]
E
Yeah. And what's quite interesting about some of those letters from Vindolande is they show that in peacetime you can have a unit. There was one cohort, I think, the Tungrians, and they were down to less than half strength with. With numbers of men that were all from different vaccinations or sick or, you know, just not where they were supposed to be.
- [55:08]
A
And I guess overseeing the pay for their men, you know, that must be very, very important to them.
- [55:13]
E
Well, again, one of the junior officers that tended to do the tesserarius was in charge of the money, but the centurion would have been in charge of that. And men sometimes asked for advances on their pay if they didn't have enough, and so they might have to get permission from that. And, you know, there was. You would have been a sort of like a godlike figure. If the centurion says you can have an advance, you can have an advance. If he says you can't, you can't. You know, that kind of thing.
- [55:34]
A
If he recommends you for a medal, if he noticed your bravery in battle or something like that, then that's Very good.
- [55:39]
E
Because what I was going to say was they weren't always promoted from the ranks. There were three routes to becoming a centurion, one of which was really quite rare. They were generally men who'd risen from the ranks. And if you joined the legion at say 18 approximately, you could have been younger and lied and who's going to check? And I saw a gravestone in France of a 15 year old boy who died in World War I. So, you know, 2,000 years ago. So you joined the army at 18. If you did well and were, you know, dutiful and so on, you could become an immunis, as in the word immunisation. And that meant you didn't have to do certain nasty things like digging ditches and digging latrines. And if you continued to impress, then you might be promoted through the ranks of junior officer, which were tesserarius, that is the man who has the tesseract, which is the piece of pottery sometimes, which had the orders for the password and so on for the knight. And then you had the signifer who carried the standard or the signum, and you had the optio, who's the second in command. And then you had centurion. And if you worked your way through those, you know, and not everybody did, definitely everybody didn't. Because we have examples of an optio and after his name it's written as a candidate for the centurion, which means he was preferred to be advanced to become a centurion. So you might just be a junior officer all your life, but if you were one of those who did, you could become a centurion. It's thought by your early 30s, so if you're a Centurion 6 in Cohort 10, you then in theory had to climb up the ranks, but you didn't have to go through 60 promotions. You could be leapfrogged, but again, that would take years. You were usually seconded to another legion when you were promoted as a centurion or moved as a centurion or advancing up the centurion ranks.
- [57:28]
A
Right. So you wouldn't be commanding the people who you'd previously served.
- [57:33]
E
You could be. We have examples from tombstones where they did within a legion, but it was normal not to. And that may have been something, as common sense is from modern day, you don't want the guy who's been promoted from the ranks telling 60 at what to do. Yeah. And also will they do what they're told? Whereas you put them in a new unit, they don't know who he is. And then another route into the centurion rank was basically being leapfrogged in because you were wealthy, wealthy status because daddy wants you to be a centurion. And, you know, we've got lovely examples of that, of it happening to various noble families. So equestrians would frequently become centurions. And what must have been very frustrating for men who were promoted from the ranks is that if you became a. The first spear, the primus pilis, which is the most important rank of centurion, you could be. When you had that post done, which was only a year, you then could be elevated into the equestrian level of nobility. Yet these young guys coming in, in the 30s, say, who were already equestrians,
- [58:36]
A
they don't get that benefit.
- [58:37]
E
They don't get that. Yeah, yeah. So they. What that means is that because after. After centurions retired, they were known as ex primie pili, they frequently then ended up getting jobs in urban situations, whether that was leading urban cohorts or even as political appointees to governors and things. They could move all around. And then we have great examples from tombstones. But those young equestrians who joined in as appointees would have been far. We've got evidence there are more of them who went higher at the end than the guys from the ordinary. Wow. Yeah. So which is kind of understandable. And then the third way, which was less common was you could move straight from the Praetorian Guard. So obviously this is during the Empire, you could move straight from the Praetorian Guard to become a centurion, but we haven't got as many examples of those.
- [59:26]
A
There's no equivalent of an officer training corps back then. The closest thing is the equestrians, the inexperienced. But their rich backgrounds allows them to leapfrog people.
- [59:37]
E
Yes, A bit like, you know, the tribunes. That's what the tribunes were. And as I mentioned, that one example of a legate with Julius Caesar, he had no military experience, potentially, but he was suddenly given command of a legion the day before a battle.
- [59:48]
A
And so what material benefits could you get if you were a centurion?
- [59:52]
E
They were paid 15 times more than a legionary. That's a lot. It was a lot. It really was. And the primus pilis was paid considerably more than that. And we have an example of an amount paid, whether it was like a cash payment when they retired, of a primus pilis. And there's been quite a bit of controversy about it because it was so big.
- [60:13]
A
Big.
- [60:13]
E
But academics have compared it with the level of pay that A primus pilis has gotten gone. Well, actually it wasn't unreasonable. We're talking hundreds of thousands of sesterci as a cash payment to a primus pilis when he retired. So they were paid really, really well. And this is at this point worth mentioning that because of all the things we've been talking about, their leadership skills, their bravery, the way that they welded their men into units, they stayed in the army for a very long time. So soldiers, I mentioned 16 to 25 years. That's dependent on when we're talking about. But say 20 years is an average. You know, you came in at 18, you could retire at 38 if you were still alive. But centurions didn't leave after 20 years because they were climbing that, that tree. And they were also so valuable presumably that they didn't want them to leave, particularly because wars frequently happen. So we've got this incredible example of. It's again a tombstone of a centurion called Fortunatus, which means lucky. He was lucky. Cause he was 80 when this tombstone was built and he'd been in the army for 50 years and he had served. It lists again, any of your viewers or listeners who are familiar with military tombstones. They often list the legions that they were in and it lists the legions he was in. Now, he may not have been in all those legions, but he was probably maybe in a vexillation that was serving with those legions because. Because it's possible he didn't change legions that often.
- [61:38]
A
Sorry, a vexation, you mean?
- [61:39]
E
Sorry. A vexillation is a subunit of a legion that's sent from A to B to help with something like a rebellion or building a road or something. So it may have been that he was just in a vexilation with that legion, but this guy served all over the empire, literally from Israel and Syria to Britain and Romania and North Africa. And he was still in the army in his 70s. He just kept climbing and just kept climbing. Yeah, yeah. They didn't always climb. They sometimes stayed a centurion. They didn't always become a prince. Peelus.
- [62:06]
A
Well, I was going to ask, are there actually any extreme cases where someone who was once a centurion could have risen and become one of those army generals that ultimately became an emperor, I think.
- [62:18]
E
Yeah. Vespasian's grandfather was a centurion.
- [62:22]
A
He was a centurion. Okay. So you see the family line kind of rising from.
- [62:26]
E
And we've got Maximinius thrax in the third century A.D. he's seven foot emperor. If you believe that maybe he was seven feet tall, but he climbed all the way up to the top and became an emperor Pertinax in 192. The Emperor, I think he was an ordinary legionary originally. So, yeah, you definitely. Very unlikely, but you could do it.
- [62:47]
A
But there are those really interesting cases once in a while with that kind of centurion background. Ben, I could ask so many more questions, but we're running out of time. Lastly, the legacy of the centurion. How big an impact do you think this role, that important role, has had in the development and the inspiration of armies?
- [63:07]
E
Since the only opinion I feel able to give would be an opinion on the effect on the British army? Because of my knowledge, I'm not obviously my accent, I'm not British, I'm Irish. But I have a reasonable knowledge of British military history, pretty good knowledge of some areas. And from what I know, during the period of the British Empire, it happened at the same time as the first massive interest in ancient history happened, with archaeology and texts being written in the 1800s, in other words. And there was a definite identification by the British hierarchy, maybe the military as well, of identifying themselves alongside the Romans, who had been so successful for so many hundreds of years with their military. So it definitely happened to some extent. But what you've got to quickly add in is that the Roman army was different to the modern one. So we talked briefly about the contubernium, which was the tent group of eight men. There were 10 tent groups in each century. They weren't a platoon, they weren't a sub platoon, which a lot of people, you know, they like to break down a Roman army like a modern army. It didn't happen like that. The difference in command was huge. You had these 60 centurions and then a massive gap between them and above and a massive gap between them and below. But I don't know, I think just the sort of overwhelming image would be the successful legion in battle marching forward. Nothing can stop them. They all look amazing. They're really well trained, they're highly disciplined, and they're led by these centurions with the helmet. I think that's the biggest identifying thing a military historian might be able to give you more.
- [64:48]
A
It was a big question to ask.
- [64:50]
E
That was a big one. Apologize. Yeah, that's all right.
- [64:52]
A
But, Ben, this has been absolutely, absolutely great. It just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show.
- [64:57]
E
Thanks, Tristan. Cheers.
- [65:03]
A
Well, there you go. There was fan favorite Dr. Ben Cain returning to the show to talk all things the Roman Centurion. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And don't you worry, we're going to have Ben returning to the show very soon for a follow up episode on another awesome Roman, a famous gladiator who led a revolt against Rome. That's to come in the near future. In the meantime, thank you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor if you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well. Well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Inc. For hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up@historyhit.com subscribe. That is all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [66:05]
B
Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all all things Sanderson.
- [66:12]
C
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball. But you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [66:17]
B
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.
- [66:25]
C
That's right.
- [66:26]
A
Hey. Hey.
- [66:26]
C
So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [66:30]
B
And along the way we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [66:37]
C
Newsflash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.