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Conscripting of Ancient Roman Soldiers

In Ancient Rome when it was time to draft additional soldiers into the military they would look towards their citizens for assistance in the defense of Rome. In The writings of Polybius it was in the natural order of a Roman citizen to fight in the military. However, when in the military it was divided by class by wealth. For the unwealthy they were called Velties and made up most of the heavy infantry of the legion. The Equites were in the higher class of citizenship because they could afford a horse and was drafted into the Cavalry.

Ranks of the Soldiers

While Rome Citizens could fight for the empire of Rome non-citizen's could fight as well however, they would be paid less and was not given the best armor and weaponry as the actual citizen's of Rome. These soldiers were called auxiliaries.The Roman Army was divided into 30 legions which in total where divided into subranks and ranks below that. Each legion was Made up of about 4000 to 5000 men. Each man was at the was a legionnaire. Each legion was made up of 10 Cohorts, a Cohort was a group of 480 legionnaires. That then was divided into six groups of eighty men and these were called a century who was lead by a centurion. Within each century they were further divided into eight groups called contubernuim.

While in this stretch the Centurion, was stead to lead 100 legionnaires. Centurions have been thought to lead from the writings of Polybius the Centuries, and have been keen in the roman military stance of tactics, leadership and knowledge of their troops.