CAESAR

There is no main difference between the ancient Roman armies and today's armies, except that the names and weapons are different.

In the Roman army, the commanding officer of a legion was called the Legate. He was assisted by a deputy called the Camp Prefect, and a staff of six senior administrative officers called Tribunes. The original function of the Tribunes was to spread the call to arms and to ensure that the citizens rallied to the Eagles in time to march and fight. Later, the Tribunate became more of a political tenure, a training ground for young noblemen waiting to go into the consular or civil services. Whenever a Tribune chose to distinguish himself militarily rather than serve his time administratively and get out, his success was almost preordained.

There were normally 28 legions in commission at any given time, and each legion was divided into 10 cohorts. By the end of the third century, the first two cohorts of each legion had been expanded to Millarian status, which meant that each held 1,00 men and was the approximate equivalent of the modern battalion. Prior to that time, only the First Cohort had been Millarian. To the First and Second Cohorts fell the honor of holding the right of the legion's line of battle, and they were made up of the finest and strongest battle-hardened veterans. Cohorts Three through Ten were standard cohorts of 500 to 600 men.

Each Millarian cohort was composed of ten maniples, and a maniple was made up of ten squads of 10 to 12 men each.

The bulk of the legion's command was provided by the Centuriate, from the ranks of which came the centurions, all the middle-and lower-ranking commissioned officers of the legion. There were six centurions to each cohort from Three to Ten, making 48, and five senior centurions called primi ordines, in each of the two Millarian Cohorts. Each legion had a primus pilus, the senior centurion, a kind of super- charged Regimental Sergeant Major. The primus pilus headed the First Cohort, the Second Cohort was headed by the princeps secundus, and Cohorts Three through Ten were each commanded by a pilus prior. The Roman centurion was distinguished by his uniform: his armor was silvered, he wore his sword on his left side rather than his right, and the crest of his helmet was turned so that it went sideways across his helmet like a halo.

Each centurion had the right, or the option, to appoint a second-in-command for himself, and these men, the equivalents of non-commissioned officers, were known for that reason as optios. Other junior officers were the standard bearers, one of whom, the aquilifer bore the Eagle of the legion. There was also a signifier for each century, who bore the unit's identity crest and acted as its banker. Each legion also had a full complement of physicians and surgeons, veterinarians, quartermasters and clerks, trumpeters, guard commanders, intelligence officers, torturers and executioners.

Women

Women living in the Roman Empire were treated quite differently than the men were. However, that doesn't mean they didn't have an interesting and active life. They were valued for their role in society. In fact, the women in Rome were treated much better than they were in many other societies, such as the Greeks.

According to Roman law, all women had to have a male custodian. In childhood, boys and girls were both under the guardianship of the eldest man in the family, just as children today are taken care of by their parents. This man had the power of life and death over those in his family. Even after the women were married, sometimes this guardianship was not passed to the husband. The law eventually changed and they no longer had to have a male guardian.

When a girl reached the age of twelve, she was allowed to marry. The young girl's father would generally arrange the marriage. He would choose the husband based upon how much help his family would be politically. The bride could refuse only if she could prove that the man was morally unfit to be her husband. There were three different types of marriages in Rome. One, which resembled the selling of the bride, was called coemptio. With this, the bride was required to adopt the religion of her new family and she was no longer considered part of her father's family. Another kind of marriage was more informal. The bride still considered herself part of her father's family. She was allowed to keep her religion and her father's family kept legal custodianship. The third kind of marriage was called uses. It was caused simply by the man and woman living together.

During the early days of Rome, men could only divorce a woman for certain reasons. If the woman slept with other men while married, poisoned her husband's children, or counterfeited his keys, the husband was granted a divorce. This did change as time went on. Later, childlessness of the couple as well as political and personal reasons were added to the list of reasons for divorce. If a divorce did occur, the children always lived with their father.

The daily life of Roman women depended on their level of income. Numerous male and female slaves often attended wealthy women. This freed them up from many daily household tasks. They spent their time visiting, shopping, attending festivals and recitals, and supervising the education of their children. The lower class women, with less money and social standing, had to work for a living, often in the fields and around the house.