Easterling Auxiliaries

That was the reality for the core of the auxilia units, which were pure infantry units. The other major units were the cavalry Ala and the mixed cavalry and infantry Cohors Equitata. In real life, between 40% and 70% were the cohors equatata. Both seemed to come in two sizes – the smaller quingenaria and larger milliaria. For the Ala, the quingenaria was 16 turmae that were either 30 or 32 men each (480 to 512 total men). Milliaria ala were 24 turmae and 720 to 768 men. Cohors Equitata were much more standardized in size apparently with each infantry cohort having 80 men and each turmae having 30. The quingenaria version had 6 centuries and 4 turmae for 480 infantry and 120 cavalry (600 total). The milliaria size was 10 centuries and 8 turmae for 800 infantry and 240 cavalry (1,040 total).   For the Easterlings, the latter model appears to be the more their style – at least for the main ala formations. I suspect that the lighter auxilia cavalry would be placed in the Cohors Equitata would be outfitted with the sword and bow combo. The Cataphracts would have the lance, which is better for charges than spears and they would be the main units engaged in them. The javelins I think have shorter range. Even with equal ranges, the bows would allow for more missiles.The sword would allow for some melee combat. One possibility is both units existing – one with javelins and spears and others with sword and bow. The quingenaria size would have only one while the milliaria would likely have a mix of two.   Goldsworthy (2003), p.137   Major archer formations were also in the Auxilia formations. About one in 12 units were archer formations – and these were double strength.   The auxilia contained many of the specialist troops. Auxilia units contained light cavalry, skirmishers, engineers, siege equipment, scouts, supply and support troops. While the legions were primarily Roman Citizens, this was not true of the Auxilia. They were filled with non citizens, men who retired from the legions and “undesirables”. Often, they were paid less and not given discharge bonuses.   Now, I get into how I justify these numbers elsewhere, but the estimated numbers of the Easterling Auxilia would be between 214,400 and 300,160. During the Reign of Hadrian the Auxilia was either 80 or 88 ala and 247 or 279 depending on who your sources are. I have no idea which is right in terms of actual Roman history, but the later gives us a figure of 217,624 total Auxilia – not far off from the smaller range for our Easterling figures. This says to me that our guesses are not too far off base here. Both figures give a ratio of just barely over 3 infantry cohorts to ala, which gives us a starting point.   Using this 3 cohort to ala ratio, there are several sizes we have to look at. The first is the Quingenaria with 30 men per cavalry turmae, which gives us 2,280. A Quingenaria with 32 per turnae is 2,312. For the milliaria versions, that comes out to be 3,840 and 3,888. Now, we can get in and see with our Easterling estimates what the exact force composition most likely is. The best fit I could get was 132 quingenaria formations with 30 men per cavalry turmae and 300,160 Easterlings figure or 56 Milliaria formations with 30 men per cavalry turmae and the 214,400 Easterlings estimate.   For clarification the 56 units consist of one ala of 720 men and three of the milliaria cohors equatata with 2,400 infantry and 720 cavalry for a total of 3,840 total. The result is an auxilia corps of 215,040. Couple of notes on this. Historically, each ala and cohort equatata were not grouped together like this. As a result, such a formation had no name. But because this group is roughly comparable to a brigade, I will refer to this formation as an auxilia brigade from now on.   Lets figure out roughly how many of these auxiliaries would be active duty at any one time. Now, this is going to be a bit of guess work for me as the numbers and estimates I have to work with do not apply to the structures of the Easterling society as I have constructed it. They are based on society wide, full time and paid armed forces. This does not apply to a part time class paid accordingly and drawn only from a certain class. But we can still get an idea. Now, remember we have 43 legions and 56 of the auxilia brigades – or 56 ala and 168 cohors equatata. The Roman Empire had 17 “frontier” provinces. I would suspect that similar numbers for the Easterlings. As a result, I would say that there would be 17 legions stationed along the frontiers. The remaining legions would be in the interior.   Now, I would suspect that the forts would have a full time garrison of a single cohort equatata – meaning that only 56 of the 168 would be on full time duty. The ala would probably be placed in the 17 forts that the legions would be based out of in the area. The Ala would most likely be employed as scouts – meaning they would be the first to discover major threats. It would make sense to me then to have them close to the forces best prepared to handle the larger threats. Meanwhile, heavy cavalry would be the most expensive to maintain, so one would need to reduce their peacetime numbers and concentrate them where they would be the most useful. This gives us a full time army of 56 cohors equatata and 17 ala – 12,240 heavy cavalry, 44,800 infantry and 13,440 cavalry. That is 70,480 active out of a total of 215,040, which is about a third of the total. But, it is looks like it is 0.9% of the total Easterling population. Even when we use the full army size, we get 5.44%. These still seem sustainable, given that the class performing food production labor would not be part of this.   Though it is possible for the helots and criminals to make up these units too. There is some precedent for this. The Roman Velites were drawn from the very bottom of the social hierarchy. Generally, those who wanted to distinguish themselves would volunteer for these formations. They were often deployed in front of the rest of the army and given headdresses made of wolf skins so they could be more easily seen. This was intentional - the idea was that the bravery these troops showed would be easier to spot and reward later. I would imagine then that this would be carried over to the Easterlings. This would allow the lower classes some upward mobility and provide criminals a way to redeem themselves in the eyes of the military commanders.

Differences with the legions also extended to equipment somewhat. For example, there is no evidence I can find of the Segmentata armor ever being used by auxiliary units. A round shield was used in place of the scutum. However, the legions also used the Hamata armor sometimes even after the adopting of Segmentata.   Now, the Easterling cavalry described in my sources apparently relied on bows. But broad shields and scimitars were used too. Their horses were protected with brass lamellar armor on the front. They were apparently inspired by the Cataphracts of the Sassanid Empire.   Takabara is stated as having used a crescent shaped wicker shield. Their armor was linen and leather. I would imagine this would be carried over for the Easterlings. Though I would suspect that more transitional elements would be incorporated, possibly up to brigandine. Though what we can be sure of is that the full segmentata armor would not be an option.   The vestites were protected by a shield called the parma. It was round with a 90 centimeter diameter.

Also, unless the auxilia were specialist units, all other equipment was the same – pila, daggers gladius, the helmets and kit.   The cavalry had longer swords and daggers than the infantry. Their spear was much more of a traditional long spear, rather than the pila of the legions. Alternatively, there were light cavalry with bows or several javelins. Shields appear to be flat and oval shape. The scale or mail armor I discuss for the legions were the main armor for cavalry. There were specialized heavy auxilia heavy cavalry that were modeled on the cataphracts of Persia/the Byzantines.   The bows were recurved composite designs. The use of bows would be logical, as some ranged capacity would be ideal. I suspect that while the legions might only have one pila, the Auxiliaries would likely have two. Bows have longer ranges and more ammunition, so I suspect the bow would be their primary weapon. They would likely not have a full spear as this would interfere with their ranged abilities and skirmisher power. Meanwhile, I suspect that the gladius would still be used. Some form of melee side arm would be ideal for any ranged unit.   Velites were stationed in front of the main army, so their weaponry would need to be a bit different from the Peltasts noted above. In battles likely to be decided by heavy infantry clashes in the center of the line, archers in front of the heavy infantry would not be a good idea. Keeping them in place long enough to be effective would interfere with the heavy infantry. The real life velites get around this easily. Their primary weapon were "darts" 30 inches long with a 10 inch metal tip. Between 5 and 7 of these were carried into battle. Their backup was a gladius.   Dodge, Theodore (4 August 2012). Hannibal: A History of the Art of War Among the Carthaginians and Romans Down to the Battle of Pydna, 168 B. C. Tales End Press. pp. 146–147. ISBN 9781623580056.

Often, the main difference between Auxiliaries and Legions were Auxiliaries were stationed on the flanks instead of in the center. This lends credence to my theory that the chariots and war wagon tactics would first be viable and based in the Auxilia units. The main heavy infantry would be the legions placed in the center of the line. Which means they would be the focus of the enemy attacks. The Auxilia, located on the flanks, would be much better placed to use chariots to flank the enemy as I describe in the chariot section. The main battle line can be lifted directly from Roman formations and still have this tactic work.   There were reports of the Persians using their own version of the Greek Peltasts just with a light axe as a side arm. So it is likely that the Dwarven mercenary ideas would be incorporated here as a similar model for how the Easterling Auxiliaries would operate. But as I see the role of the Easterling Auxiliaries being much more limited to the traditional and Auxiliary positions, I suspect that the wider varieties of equipment and tactics would apply here. Instead, I suspect that they would simply screen the heavy legions, use ranged weapons and strike at enemy flanks and retreats.   Also, historically the auxilia had between 30% and 60% were functionally the same as legions – similarly outfitted heavy infantry. However, the utility of an auxiliary formation would be the other unit types one can incorporate into the army. More important is the role of the Spartiates. In real life, Sparta was ultimately conquered because the Spartiate class was so keen on preserving its status that its size declined below what could sustain it as a fighting force. I would not be surprised if this pattern replicated itself in Easterling society. Here, the Spartiate class would hold on to the role of heavy infantry for no other reason as it is a status symbol for the political elites.   Also important is that the decline of the Easterlings would come after defeat at Minas Tirith. This means that the heavy infantry produced by the Spartiates would be almost 43 times the size of Gondor’s professional army. This means they would not need to supplement their heavy infantry. The class that would be providing the auxilia also would not be able to compete at all in terms of quality in the heavy infantry role. What the Easterlings would need is any sort of cavalry and light infantry. In this the auxilia would be much better suited.   Where would these guys be used? Well, the late Roman Empire and Byzantines used formations called the limitanei – or literally soldiers on the riverbanks. In terms of actual use, the limitanei were effectively border protection. They garrisoned border forts and acted as customs police and border guards. Normal combat operations included stopping small scale raids, though medium level assaults could be defeated without help. Of importance to us is the fact that they were a mix of cavalry and infantry – like the auxilia I propose for the Easterlings. Also of note is the sources stating that the limitanei were light infantry.   As far as their horse archers, it would appear they would be primarily light infantry skirmishers. If the Persian influence holds, then the area might not have enough resources available to sustain the large units of heavy cavalry needed for heavy cavalry to be effective. Yet these same regions produced the best horse archers in the world operating in the skirmisher model. Most likely they would also use a fire and charge model when battles were fully engaged. This is basically where all the troops would fire a single volley before charging with swords.   The Roman Velites were placed in front of the main army. Their objective was to break up the enemy ranks with their dark/javelins. They were more effective against elephants and chariots than the Roman heavy infantry, so they would target them first. In this stage of the battle, they would be in a very loose and staggered formation that was hard to hit in a charge or arrow volley. Once this stage was done they would retreat behind their heavy infantry allies. I would imagine this was when they ran out of ammo, the enemy got too close or their allies wanted to attack directly.

At first, the limitanei had lower pay and status and eventually declined to the point of unpaid militia. Now, for our purposes, the part time, lower pay and status role of these formations would probably be a better fit. The unpaid militia came after long periods of decline that the Easterlings do not appear to have reached yet.   All of this together means that these areas would be quite well defended. It would also mean that the auxilia would most likely have better relations with the local community, as they would be from the area and stationed there permanently. Legions on the other hand would show up in times of crisis with their arrogant sense of superiority, strain the local economy, feel that the crisis justifies abuse of the populace and then move on shortly.   As the perioeci also owned land and the limitanei were part time and eventually unpaid, the farmer-soldier model used by the Themes could be applied here as well. Perioeci were allowed to own their own land, so this is not much of a reach. The combination of the Perioeci auxilia and retired veterans settled in the area would mean a decent amount of trained part time soldiers that could defend the borders without the costs associated with full time garrisons of the same size. Meanwhile, the food and supplies could be produced by the same people. As a result, the local communities would likely become based around supplying the army and have a huge relative population of retired veterans. It must be noted for all these reasons, they would not be inherently inferior in quality. They are after all still trained for and served as full time professionals for 3 years in my Easterling Model. They are also defending their homes – so motivation would not be an issue.   Luttwak 1976, pp. 130-145   Southern & Dixon, 1996, p. 65.   Treadgold1995, p. 93.   Treadgold 1995, p. 161.   Elton 1996, pp. 204–206.

These were less elite formations recruited from non citizens. If we remember the class origins of the auxilia, it would make sense for the perioeci to be primarily based in this role. Many auxilia units were recruited from near where they would be stationed. Then, the perioeci class was the group most likely to engage in manufacturing and international trade, meaning a disproportional number of perioeci households would be located on the frontiers. Should a larger threat materialize, the reserve auxilia units would be close at hand. This means that the first things invaders would hit would be the homes of the perioeci. This would provide an incentive for these second class citizens to fight for the defense of a civilization they might not have all the rights and privileges they want. After all, there is a gray area between the helot/slave position and the position of the Spartiates. The perioeci might very well still have serious and legitimate grievances that could undermine their loyalty and this position on the frontiers could be seen by the Spartiate class as a tool to retain their support in crisis.   From the perioeci group I would expect the Easterling version of the Auxilia would come. They would probably also be more part time troops so that they could carry out civilian tasks as well. I would borrow from the Prussian reserve system here a bit. I would suspect that starting at 18 they would be expected to join the auxilia for three years. Training would probably be 6 months. After their terms, they would be on call until 60 and be required to report for 6 weeks of duty (either additional training or military labor) per year. This latter part could be altered a bit to one weekend a month. The difference would show. Now, the oldest reserves would likely be the ones taking over the support staff lines. While this system would probably mean that the auxilia would be one of the better fighting forces in the medieval and ancient worlds, they would not be near as good as the Spartiate class.   Figueira, Thomas J. (1986). "Population Patterns in Late Archaic and Classical Sparta". Transactions of the American Philological Association. 116: 167.   Hammond, N.G.L. (1982). "The Peloponnese". In Boardman, John; Hammond, N.G.L. The Cambridge Ancient History (2 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 333.   Cartledge, Paul (2002). The Spartans: An Epic History. Macmillan. p. 99.