But if their mile was measured by 1000 paces, it was only about a
kilometer since I don't know anyone with a stride of much more than a
meter. A kilo meter is about 6/10's of a mile which would put their 25
miles at 15 mles and thier 23 miles at 13.8 miles.
Truman
Ed & Wendy Hauser wrote:
"...Maybe they wore lightweight
armor..."
Since my last post I did some
checking. First, the Roman "Mile" is only about 4800 feet so Julius
Caesar's 25 mile march, 3 hours rest, and 25 mile return march was only
about 23 miles each way. During training they did do forced marches of
greater than 25 (Roman) miles. Usually, a days march was 15 miles.
But remember they had to break camp in the morning, and set up camp at
night. Setting up camp included "digging in" and planting the
sharpened stakes for defense. The source said that the estimate is
that they carried 60-80 lbs on the march.
The reason the Romans dominated
Europe for 1500 years (don't forget the Eastern Roman Empire lasted
until 1453) was that they had extremely well trained and organized
military.
To make this endurance related, they
had extremely good cavalry. They imported desert horses (Akel Tekes??)
to improve their own stock. Ann Hyland has written a great book
"Training the Roman Cavalry" The Roman cavalry's limitation was that
the stirrup had not been yet come into use.
I also have her book "the Medieval
War Horse, From Byzantium to the Crusades" This is also a must read
for horse persons. I have not yet read a third book: "Equus: The Horse
in the Roman World"
Ed
Ed & Wendy Hauser
2994 Mittower Road
Victor, MT 59875
