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Conscripting of Ancient Roman Soldiers

In Ancient Rome when it was time to draft additional soldiers into the military they would look towards their citizens for assistance in the defense of Rome. In The writings of Polybius it was in the natural order of a Roman citizen to fight in the military. However, when in the military it was divided by class by wealth. For the unwealthy they were called Velties and made up most of the heavy infantry of the legion. The Equites were in the higher class of citizenship because they could afford a horse and was drafted into the Cavalry. After time it changed the way the soliders were used as well they were also not only used for the military strength for war but they were also used for diplomacy.

Ranks of the Soldiers

While Rome Citizens could fight for the empire of Rome non-citizen's could fight as well however, they would be paid less and was not given the best armor and weaponry as the actual citizen's of Rome. These soldiers were called auxiliaries.The Roman Army was divided into 30 legions which in total where divided into subranks and ranks below that. Each legion was Made up of about 4000 to 5000 men. Each man was at the was a legionnaire. Each legion was made up of 10 Cohorts, a Cohort was a group of 480 legionnaires. That then was divided into six groups of eighty men and these were called a century who was lead by a centurion. Within each century they were further divided into eight groups called contubernuim.

While in this stretch the Centurion, was stead to lead 100 legionnaires. Centurions have been thought to lead from the writings of Polybius the Centuries, and have been keen in the roman military stance of tactics, leadership and knowledge of their troops. The centurion was a key part of the roman military because he gave the his leadership to the troops that were divided among cohorts and legions ,however it gave them the morale for each to be a decisive point in their ranks because of the centurion.

Framework for Combat

That their are multiple degrees of influence on this subject it is based off the individual solider to the legion then also compared to the ways of combat being in melee or by ranged combat each being in a different respect.

For individual experience it is framed as for legionnaires that you will be very aggressive and fight for a time of 15 to 20 minutes and trying to stay alive while doing this and going to rest and let the for the formations re-rank and let them rest; which is an achievement that is very worthy to fight hand to hand in combat with more than likely overwhelming odds and trying to stay alive while still fighting an keeping a line in the battlefield is quite a feat. For ranged combat is would be common in the legion ,however it isn't truly elaborated on.