The Roman army - BBC Bitesize (2024)

The Roman army was very well organised. It consisted of several distinct units.

Each army was called a legion. It consisted of 5,000 men and was commanded by an officer called a legate. The soldiers of the legion were called legionaries.

Each legion was spit into smaller parts of 480 men called a cohort.

Each of these cohorts was then divided into smaller groups of 80 men called a century. The leaders of these smaller groups was called a centurion.

These centuries were then further split up into eight groups of ten men. These small groups were called contuberniums.

Splitting their armies into smaller groups allowed the Romans to carry out a lot of task at the same time. Some soldiers could be used to guard the base while others could be used to build walls, roads, or forts.

It meant that the Roman army was very skilled and very flexible – it could do more than just fight.

While some men in the army were from Rome, a lot of the soldiers in the Roman army came from other areas and countries.

As the Romans conquered more lands, these countries became part of the Roman Empire. The men from these lands became soldiers in the Roman armies.

For example, many of the soldiers that guarded Hadrian's Wall came from places such as Romania, Spain, and North Africa.

All Roman soldiers were professionals. They were paid for their services and signed up for a period of twenty-five years.

When their twenty-five year service was up – if they survived – they could then retire. Once they retired they were given land to live on and farm. This was quite a valuable gift so the Romans had little difficulty in recruiting new soldiers.

For the soldiers who came from the conquered lands, serving in the Roman army had another benefit – at the end of their service they became Roman citizens.

This meant that they were classed as free men rather than slaves. They then had more civil rights, such as the right to vote and the right for their children to be recognised as Romans, too.

The Romans were the most successful army of the age and, wherever they went, they won war after war.

One of the main reasons for this was the Roman dedication to training and discipline. Roman soldiers spent a long time training and practicing their skills.

Roman soldiers were also taught to fight as a unit rather than as individuals. They fought in tight formations and protected themselves behind long shields. One such formation was called the testudo – which in Latin means ‘the tortoise’.

In the testudo formation, the Roman soldiers formed a tight square. The soldiers on the outside protected themselves and the others behind them with their shields. The soldiers in the middle placed their shields above the heads to protect everyone in the square from arrows and rocks.

When the enemy attacked and tried to break through the shield wall, the soldiers on the outside stabbed at them with their swords.

The Romans also had soldiers who were expert archers. They could accurately bombard an enemy with arrows from hundreds of metres away.

The Roman’s also had cavalry units. Mounted on trained horses, these soldiers charged at enemies to chase them off.

All of this training gave the Romans the edge when it came to battles.

The Roman army was very well equipped. The typical Roman legionary had the following equipment:

• A long spear called a pilum
• A short sword designed for stabbing called a gladius
• A long, curved shield called a scutum
• A metal helmet called a galea
• Metal chest armour called lorica segmentata
• Leather boots or sandals with metal studs on the soles called caligae

Soldiers also carried their own cooking pots, a few days’ worth of food and water, and tools for digging ditches and constructing buildings and fortifications.

The Roman army had long, well-organised supply lines that stretch all over the empire. As such, wherever the army was, soldiers could get letters from home and new equipment such as new boots or clothing.