Unit Browser for RTR: Imperium Surrectum

Short description

A Praetorian Legion is made up of elite legionaries, recruited because of their superb soldiering skills and political loyalties.

Description

This unit represents the Praetorians from the mid-1st century AD onwards. These soldiers would have been Claudius' and Nero's bodyguards, and would have been involved in the tumultuous Year of the Four Emperors. Subsequently, soldiers such as these would have been the bodyguards of the Flavian and Antonine Emperors. As the dynasties changed, so too did the recruiting among the Praetorians - there is now a higher number of non-Italians in the ranks. Veteran legionaries from Gaul, Spain, and Macedonia now fight among their Italian brethren. Gone by now is the lorica hamata, replaced by the distinctive lorica segmentata, of the Corbridge A type. The bronze Montefortino helmet has been replaced with an iron Imperial Italic Type D helmet with bronze decorations. The gladius is of the Pompeii-type, which has no tapering edges. Note that now only one belt is worn, to which the pugio is attached - the scabbard of the gladius now attached to a baldric slung over the left shoulder so that the gladius hangs on the right side of the body, as was conventional in the Roman Army. Evidence of various kinds of scutum (both ovoid and rectangular cylindrical) is available for the period, and the Praetorians would also have their two pila just as normal legionaries would.

Despite often being depicted on monuments (purely, it is hypothesised, to allow for stylistic differentiation between legionaries and Praetorians) as being equipped with Attic helmets, there is no archaeological evidence that the praetorians ever wore them. This depiction of the Praetorian Guard is in keeping with that of the so-called Cancellaria relief, which depicts Praetorians accompanying the emperor Domitian (81-96 AD) as he returns from his campaign in Germania at the beginning of his reign in 83 AD. Soldiers like these would have been at the forefront of Roman campaigns into Dacia, both unsuccessful under Domitian, and victorious under Trajan, as well as those of Marcus Aurelius and his co-Emperor Lucius Verus in their campaigns against the Marcomanni and the Parthians. Tough, well-trained and equipped, their discipline and morale are excellent, as one would expect of experienced legionaries, hand-picked Roman from the best legions the Empire has to offer.