The Evolution of the Manipular Legion in the Early Republic

Abstract

This article examines the development of the Roman manipular legion, deployed from roughly 350-100 bc. Given the unreliability of literary sources for the Roman army prior to Polybius, the article backward engineers the manipular legion from its well-attested form in the Middle Republic, making use of reliable contemporary Hellenic comparanda preserved in Xenophon. These suggest that the manipular legion arose out of various expedients reacting to enemies with missile weapons and adapting to operations in rough terrain. One response was the deployment of a heavy infantry formation in successive waves based on age classes, eventually producing the triplex acies. The second was to divide the formation into columns, which eventually became the staggered columns of the legion’s checkerboard formation. In contrast to recent reassessments that have argued the legion was the product of unique social and cultural forces in Archaic Italy, this paper reasserts a qualified version of the traditional view that the legion should be viewed as an articulated phalanx.