The Roman Legion as a buzz saw

Warning: this is pure history, with no tie into why we should vote all the incumbents out of office.* If this isn't your bag, baby, you should maybe skip this post.

This is pretty cool:



But it doesn't really say anything at all about why Rome conquered the Known World with such a pitiful sword. The Gauls sneered at the puny gladius, until they saw it in action. Tools and tactics are inseparable; just like in the debate about .30-06 vs. .223, you can't understand the tools without understanding how they were used.

The gladius made no sense without the scutum (shield), which wrapped around the legionnaire like a portable castle. It was curved, so it was hard to hit him from the side. Covering him from thigh to chin, it gave him essentially a secure base of operations to rest behind while his opponent - less armored and with a tiny shield (if any) flailed at him, wearing himself out.

Once his opponent was exhausted from his exertions, the legionnaire would step forward and dart his gladius into his opponent's vitals. While it had an edge, the gladius was primarily a thrusting weapon, like the matador's acero. Designed for the coup de grace against an exhausted opponent, the weapon speaks to stamina, not brute force.**

But even if you can wear down two or three (or four) opponents this way, won't you yourself end up exhausted? And isn't that when you don't hold your shield so high, or strike so quickly? So how did the Legions handle the exhaustion in their own ranks?

The problem describing this is that most descriptions provide Tactical (or Grand Tactical) views of the organization, like this:
That's fine as far as it goes, but what happens in that first line? How does each cohort of Hastii cycle the front ranks to the back, as the men wear out? Because that was the key to the Legion's success.

It seems that, as with all successful Roman innovations, it was all about organization. Each legionnaire took up about three feet, with three feet of open space between him and his compatriots on each side. A cohort would go into battle with several (e.g. 5 or 6) ranks of troops. As the melee continued, it wasn't typically a continuous clash of men, but rather like the tide rolling in and out. The opponents (or the Romans) would charge, a brutal fight would occur for a few minutes, and then each side would step back for a bit. Then it would start again.

What the Romans figured out how to do - repeatedly - was to take the time during these lulls to cycle the front rank to the back, through the gaps in the cohort's files. What this meant was that the opponents men would face a fresh set of opponents, each with their darting gladii from behind their scutii protection. And so the Legion would gradually wear down their opponents. Each opposing warrior might over-match the legionnaire, but none could match the stamina of the entire unit.

We forget that the fasces (from which we get the term fascism) was a Roman concept. Each twig is weak, but a bundle of twigs is unbreakable.

Now add the three lines of cohorts (the hastii, princepes, and triarii of the typical tactical picture), where each line can also relieve the exhausted lines in front of them, and you have a system that will wear down your opponents. Like a buzz saw, it will bleed them to death. The Romans took discipline, and training, and often unimaginative tactical commanders, and drove their enemies before them. Unlike the legionnaires, the Legion never got exhausted.

What's that you ask? Why yes - I am a nerd ...

* Well, you should, you know. Incumbentae delenda est, and all that.

** As is our struggle against our incumbents - this is a battle of stamina, across many different elections, before we so terrify them about being voted out that we break them to our will.