The vast military of Rome was perhaps the greatest war machine in the ancient world.
Though a Roman army’s general or emperor was almost always the most visible figure
when victory in battle against the enemy was achieved, the well-oiled gears of Rome’s
legions were instead the revered, illustrious, and notorious centurions. In this video in
our Armies and Tactics series, we will examine this most iconic figure in the history of
Rome, who the centurio were, what equipment they used, and how they operated to craft
the legions into antiquity’s most rigorously disciplined military force.
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In the Republican period, the only qualifications necessary for a would-be centurion were martial
- bravery, strength and leadership in battle. Though these were still core values, centurions
of the principate increasingly had to come with other qualities that would make them
a more well-rounded officer. A centurion had to be in almost all respects an exemplary
soldier, possessing a formidable stature, skill with weaponry, and strength with which
to lead from the front, inspiring the men under his command.
Moreover, the man was expected to be temperate and measured, vigilant, and ready to execute
any order without questions. To his troops, the centurion needed to be a notoriously strict
disciplinarian when necessary, exercising and drilling his centurio regularly, ensuring
that their uniforms and weaponry were in top shape for parade and the battleground.
In the early imperial period, it was becoming more and more crucial for the centurions to
take on some administrative functions, and therefore literacy became a desirable skill.
This increasing requirement meant that often centurions were recruited more and more from
the upper-tier of society, making a class that combined military virtues and administrative
knowhow. With these qualities, a man became a Roman
centurion through two streams - promotion or recommendation. The former was a relatively
simple process through which a 30 plus-year-old legionary with a long and spotless service
record was promoted to the position outright. More fortunate, well-connected Romans could
take the other road - direct appointment to the prestigious centurionate from civilian
life through the intervention of an influential patron. The youngest known beneficiary of
such a display of patronage was an eighteen-year-old equestrian candidate from a wealthy family.
How happy said centurion’s underlings must have been about serving under him can only
be imagined. However, the fact that centurions were all at least formally appointed by the
emperor may have shut down the discontent. The aspiring soldier was only officially invested
with his centurion rank during a ceremony that took place on an auspicious military
holiday. A platform would be constructed in the principia of a legion’s fortress or
camp. In the presence of the finely-clad soldiers, the soon-to-be centurion was presented with
a document containing an imperial edict of appointment and with his disciplinary vine-staff.
After their elevation, centurions would gradually rise in seniority within their cohort, commanding
centuries of troops with higher status, until they eventually led the most senior centuria
and therefore the entire cohort. The vast majority of centurions did not advance beyond
this point. However, those who did could be promoted even further to the rank of primi
ordines, exercising command within the legion’s exalted First Cohort and its double-strength
centuries, and taking up staff officer roles. This kind of promotion initially took the
form of the hastatus posterior rank of the First Cohort, and then after four more promotions,
an extremely well-connected, lucky, and competent soldier might rise to the rank of primus pilus.
Through this position, a lowborn centurion might have gained admission through hard military
service to positions and privileges normally reserved only for members of the ruling classes.
When joining the Romans legions, a recruit would have aspired to this rank - a gateway
to prosperity for those who had the skills to earn it.
This was a matter of extremes that depended on the time period. In eras of peace and stability,
many centurions could serve in the same rank without ever being promoted, while in times
of instability and anarchy they could rise even to the position of emperor, such as the
former primus pilus Maximinus Thrax. Why were centurions so uniquely respected
and regarded that they could climb the social ladder in these ways, and what duties did
the rank encompass? The primary role of a Roman centurion in the legionary structure
was the training of recruits in their centuria, and their subsequent drilling, supervision,
disciplining, and allocation of various duties such as foraging or watch.
The centurion’s duty was an absolute keystone of the Roman military, especially in the imperial
period, because enlistees could come from diverse and lowly origins, such as a family
of cowherds or rough provincial farmers. Therefore, almost nothing a centurion could inflict was
too brutal a disciplinary measure to forge these disparate and often unprepared individuals
into professional soldiers capable of protecting the empire. It was this ruthless, drill sergeant-like
duty, in addition to relatively common corruption through bribery, which led troops to frequently
hate and fear their centurions. On the other hand, this feeling was almost
always balanced out by the tendency of centurions to lead from the very front, often with fanatical
bravery and terrible casualties. By doing that, they earned admiration, respect, and
sometimes even deep devotion and loyalty from their men. They also took this ‘lead from
the front’ mentality into the grinding drudgery of regular life on campaign. If the troops
were assigned to dig trenches or wells, construct camps or fortresses, centurions would directly
supervise them, and would often engage in the process with their soldiers, in addition
to functioning as a keen-eyed overseer. Yet, this image of the centurion as an almost
untouchable figure who solely dispensed justice needs to be tempered. Because they were entrusted
with such power, men of the centurionate were also punished incredibly harshly if they were
to fail in their duties, possibly even more so than the average soldier. A stark case
of this occurred just before the imperial period began, in 38BC. During a battle in
Hispania, a veteran primus pilus known as Vibillius lost his nerve and fled the field.
When able, the local Roman governor made an example of the centurion by ordering him to
be beaten to death with clubs by the men whose lives his cowardice had endangered.
Disciplining troops was not the only matter with which centurions were burdened. The Roman
centurion was an elite soldier was often employed for crucial ‘commando’ and other intelligence-gathering
missions, in the field or at home. These could include scouting an enemy force, infiltrating
hostile cities, acting as a trusted secret courier for a high noble, or assassinating
figures who were too prominent to murder openly. In their administrative function, centurions
were responsible for maintaining the logistical supply chain for the army, supervising the
collection of food, armour, weaponry, and other materiel from various contractors. Such
figures of authority also had police and sometimes even judicial roles in keeping the peace.
Important prisoners would be escorted by centurions, such as St Paul who was brought to the Antonia
Fortress in Jerusalem, protected from the violent mobs of the city by a centurion.
Moreover, they commanded troops who were sent to hunt down bandits and brigands in the countryside,
and oversaw the arrest and execution of petty criminals. In such situations, legal authority
was delegated to the contingent’s centurio, who would come to a verdict. A couple of legal
cases recorded on documents in Egypt also suggest that centurions exercised informal,
but swift and effective de facto authority on such minutiae as assaults, theft, tax collection,
and even remedying and punishing criminal activities of other administrators. These
duties of bringing the guilty to justice, carrying out searches, and providing protection
for litigants who might otherwise face danger from high-status accused individuals, gave
the local centurion a military authority which could countermand provincial government if
required. In times of civil war, retaining the loyalty
of legionary formations was really a matter of securing the loyalty of that particular
legion’s many centurions, especially the primi ordines of the First Cohort. It would
often be the influence of these mid-level officers which might tip the balance as to
which candidate the legion would grant its swords. The emperors of Rome and their advisors
were fully aware of the influence centurions possessed, and the good ones were always keen
to keep them happy. Augustus’ friend, the brilliant general Agrippa, advised him to
reserve legal cases involving the possibility of a centurion receiving severe punishment
to his own personal judgment. Such figures, it was deemed, were too revered and important
to be left to local trial when accused of a crime.
For taking on all of these responsibilities and dangers, centurions were extremely well
rewarded, materially and otherwise, compared to the vast majority of their comrades in
the legions, and even those in the infamous Praetorian Guard. For their pay, it has been
estimated that baseline centurions received about fifteen-times that of a regular legionary
and rather surprisingly, five times more than one of the notoriously money-obsessed Praetorian
guardsmen. Higher-tier centurionate officers such as
the primus pilus of a legion earned a staggering sixty times the cash of a regular soldier,
but regular pay wasn’t the only income such men received. Much like their enlisted brethren
but to a far more extreme degree, centurions came to expect periodic financial bonuses
called donatives on special occasions, such as the celebration of a great victory or the
accession of a new emperor. It was necessary to give centurions vast amounts of money on
these occasions because their loyalty was so valuable, and a generous gift would go
a long way towards showing the centurion where his allegiance was best placed in a time of
struggle. In their armour, weaponry, and clothing, centurions
were like the peacocks of Roman military power. They naturally wanted to be well-protected
like all soldiers do, but in addition, they sought to be a visible symbol of bravery and
stalwartness in combat to their troops. To do that, and to perform their leadership role,
they had to be recognizable in the fog of battle. A scared legionary in the violent
baptism of fire of his first-ever pitched battle might look to his left, see his quasi-godlike
centurion fighting in the first rank with all his decorative regalia, and receive a
new burst of morale. “If he is still here - the most experienced man I know - the situation
must be fine,” such a soldier must have thought.
First and most prominent in this recognition was a centurion’s helmet, which was generally
still the standard galea, but with a silvered insignia and a transverse crest or plume going
from left to right. This contrasted the crest sometimes donned by legionaries, which went
back to front instead. Though this might have been the ‘standard loadout’ for a centurion’s
helmet, it did vary based on the man and the location. Some centurions detailed on Trajan’s
column wore the Imperial Gallic or Italic style helmets without any crest, and in the
eastern provinces, it was frequently more common to wear Hellenic-style helmets such
as the Attic-design. On their legs, centurions were almost always
clad in metal greaves with knee protectors which were emblazoned with details such as,
in an example we know of, Greek typology and symbolism. A military cloak probably coloured
medium blue also made the centurion stick out like a sore thumb on the battlefield,
and also in civilian life. Later in the empire, these cloaks were lavishly decorated with
fine embroidery, symbols, and gilded fringes to show wealth or status.
Lastly, we cannot go through a video on the Roman centurion without at least mentioning
the item which was essentially synonymous with them: the vitis, a staff or cudgel of
vine wood - the immortal mark of a centurion’s power and authority, which remained while
many things around the empire changed. When speaking of centurions, we naturally
gravitate towards the most notable eras of Roman history in our popular culture: Caesar’s
years up until around the death of Commodus, the Pax Romana, and its immediate predecessor
age, the Late Republic. Yet, we shouldn’t let this trend keep us away from discussing
how the role of the centurion evolved, as many other things did so drastically, in the
late Roman Empire. It is this time of progression, change, and calamity that we shall discuss
now. The reforms of Diocletian and Constantine,
discussed in another one of our videos, transformed the Roman military, and consequently the position
of a centurion. It survived, but was incorporated as just one small part of the new, complex
army structure of the late empire. Old-style Roman legions of the Republic and principate
did survive and retained their traditional hierarchies until the seventh-century - the
hundred-man centuriae and their centurion along with them - but they were no longer
the core military force of the Roman Empire. New styles of unit were created to respond
to the myriad of issues facing the late empire, such as comitatenses, scholae, auxilia palatina
and others. Therefore, the formal role of a centurion and their importance slowly began
to fade. We can still see the lasting influence and
prestige of the position even after Constantine’s time. When that great emperor split the Roman
realm between his sons, he also assigned a personal retinue of infantry to each of them.
In these units, and the newly raised imperial Scholae Palatinae guard, the commander of
200 men was the ducenarius, while the leader of 100 was now known as a centenarius. This
seems to have been the case in units as different as the scholae, comitatus contingents of the
regional duces, and in elite cavalry forces like the empire’s cataphractarii heavy cavalry
and elite sagittarius horse archers. Living in the late fourth-century, Hieronymus
leaves us records of the rank hierarchy of a cavalry contingent, which goes as follows
from bottom to top: biarchus, centenarius, ducenarius, senator and tribunus. It is clear
therefore that, by the turn of the fifth-century, the previously august and high-status centurion
was just the title of a regular officer who just happened to command 100 men. The pragmatist
quasi-divine rulers of Rome in the late period seem to have seen no place for men with a
ceremonial authority which outdated even that of the emperors. While the title survived
in the east following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, all of the meaning and
symbolism of the old centurion had been stripped away, with only the memory of old glories
spurring the use of their name.
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