Tactical Reform in the Late Roman Republic: The View from Italy

Abstract

This article discusses the organizational and tactical changes in the Roman army during the Late Republic, a transformation often incorrectly dubbed the “Marian reforms.” It suggests that the most notable reform of the period, the rise of the cohortal legion, owed primarily to the influence of the Italian socii, the eventual outcome of recruiting, organizing and deploying allied troops in cohorts during the second and first centuries BC. The four cohorts that fronted a Late Republican legion correspond with the four cohorts of the Italian vanguard, the extraordinarii, suggesting the cohortal legion emerged out of a method of expeditiously deploying an allied wing.