The Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 337: A Sourcebook

15 Arrian (2nd C.AD), Tactica 40
The soldiers 17
(The Cantabrian manoeuvre) works as follows. A cavalry formation,
fully equipped, is drawn up in the usual way on the left of the platform,
except for the two cavalrymen who are to receive the direct barrage of
javelins. They charge from the right as before (?) and wheel to the right.
But while they are charging another charge begins on the left of the
platform and wheels in a circle. These cavalrymen use not light javelins
but full-size spears though with no iron tip; but their weight makes them
awkward for the throwers and not without danger to the men who are
the targets. They have orders, therefore, not to aim at the heads of the
cavalrymen riding past or to throw a spear at the horse, but before the
cavalryman wheels his horse and exposes any part of his flank, or his
back becomes exposed while he is turning, to aim at the shield and strike
it as hard as possible with the spear. The skill of this manoeuvre lies in
the fact that the man in position in the Cantabrian formation should get
as close as possible to those riding past and hit the centre of the shield
with his spear, either striking a resounding blow or piercing it right
through; then the second man attacks the second in the other formation,
the third man the third, and so on in the same way.
Cavalry training: see Dixon and Southern 1992:113–34; for Arrian see text no.
153.
16 Josephus (1st C.AD), Jewish War 3. 72–6
Indeed, as if they had been born fully armed they never take a holiday
from training and do not wait for crises to appear. Their training
manoeuvres lack none of the vigour of genuine warfare and each soldier
practises battle drill every day with great enthusiasm just as if he were
in battle. Therefore they sustain the shock of combat very easily. For
their usual well-ordered ranks are not disrupted by any confusion, or
numbed by fear, or exhausted by toil; so, certain victory inevitably
follows since the enemy cannot match this. Indeed one would not be
wrong in saying that their training manoeuvres are battles without
bloodshed, and their battles manoeuvres with bloodshed.
Josephus was a Jewish priest from an aristocratic background who was chosen
by the Sanhedrin to defend Galilee in the Jewish revolt of AD 66. He was
captured and then befriended by the Roman commander Vespasian, and when
Vespasian became emperor in AD 69, Josephus remained in imperial favour
and wrote a history of the revolt which provides much useful material on the
organization, fighting qualities, and siege techniques of the Roman army, all of
which Josephus had experienced at first hand. We should expect him to be