Tiberius Claudius Maximus: The Legionary and the Cavalry

Reviewed by Paul Rice

Tiberius Claudius Maximus: The Legionary, by Peter Connolly (Oxford University, May 1988). Softcover, 32 pages.

I had noticed several months ago that Peter Connolly had written a few books (The Roman World series) that were basically subsets of his famous Greece and Rome at War. Seriously, two of them are virtually word for word, picture for picture. I spotted two that appeared outside the stream. In these two books, Connolly starts with the tombstone of an actual trooper, and based on the typical life of a recruit, and the actual history of his unit -- and with a little poetic license -- reconstructs his military career.

The first book starts with Maximus as an infantryman, and in the second book, he is promoted to cavalryman. He enlisted in northern Greece in the Domitian timeframe, joined Legion VII, fought the Dacians, and served under Trajan.

I learned a little I didn't already know:

Trajan cut a tow-path into the living rock along the Danube.
Connolly believes the cross braces on helmets were added as a field expedient in specific response to the Dacians and their two handed curved swords (falx).
Almost like a physics text, Connolly addresses the pilum: "It was a very effective weapon. No army could maintain both its momentum and its formation when faced with a hail of these weapons." I would think formation wouldn't be very meaningful to barbarians anyway.
The Dacians attack while the Romans are digging camp. Per Connolly, "The idea of a set battle with both armies drawn up opposite each other on open ground is attractive, but it seldom happened, especially when fighting barbarians. Julius Caesar's military career lasted 14 years, but he only fought one such battle in all that time: that was against another Roman, Pompey the Great." Perhaps more DBA scenarios should be ambushes, meeting engagements, and raids.
The immunes (i.e., soldiers with an actual skill like carpenter, blacksmith, musician, bookkeeper, clerk, etc.) This did not mean they were non-combatants. They still served in the rank and file in march and combat, but during camp duties they were "immune" to 'dirt' details) was an actual rank increase. Below the centurion, in addition to the optios, standard bearers, and other strap hangars, there were sesquiplicarii, who he terms "jr staff officers." We'd think of them as jr NCOs. This makes sense, since the centurion and three strap hangars probably didn't command 60-100 guys without some sub-stratification of command.

Probably less than 5,000 words, lots of drawings and some photos.

In the second book, Tiberius Claudius Maximus: The Cavalryman, Maximus is the hero who "captures" Decebalus (the Dacian King), and is decorated for several actions. That is, his unit tracked down the escaping king and he was the man to grab the king's bleeding body and chop off his head. He spent most of his time stationed on the Danube. After the first Dacian campaign of the first book, he may have served in Syria a brief time, then back to Danube and Dacia, then to Mesopotamia. He ends up retiring after over 25 years as a decurion, which is the leader of 30 cavalrymen.

The scene of Roman cavalry hunting down Decebalus and charging on the scene just as he cuts his throat is on Trajan's column, and Connolly believes this actually depicts Maximus the individual.

At around 4000 words, this book is even shorter than the first.

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