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Ancient Warfare Podcast

AWA372 - Were ancient armies ever at full strength?

Ancient Warfare Podcast

The History Network

Society & Culture, Greece, Warfare, Ancient, Rome, History, Military

4.4631 Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of the Ancient Warfare Podcast, Murray answers a question from Marc about the actual size of ancient military units. Modern sources often quote full-strength numbers for legions and cohorts, but were ancient armies ever truly at full capacity?

Drawing on evidence such as the Vindolanda tablets, Murray discusses how understrength units may have been the norm, and whether modern historians should reconsider the numbers they often cite.

 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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1:05.5

conditions apply. Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Ancient Warfare Answers with me, Murray, your weekly fix of 10 minutes of ancient warfare-related material to take you away and distract you from your everyday lives.

1:23.9

What I do here is, of course, I attempt to answer a question from a viewer, listener or reader. You can send me an email. You can comment on a previous video or podcast. You can send me a postcard. You can shout in the streets. The question I'm about to answer from Mark was indeed shouted in the streets. My ears burned, but I didn't actually hear the shout. But luckily, he followed up with an email. So I'll follow that in a minute.

1:46.3

You can, of course, back us on Patreon, one of three different levels, legionary, Optio and Centurion,

1:52.6

$1, $5, and $10, even get a copy of the magazine.

1:56.0

You can join us on the big podcast once a month, that is the ancient warfare podcast, and you can even listen along to the ancient history

2:03.9

podcast now.

2:05.1

Right, this is from Mark, from Imperium Romanum.

2:07.7

Hello, Murray.

2:08.4

I tried contacting you by shouting in the streets, but that didn't really work, so I thought,

2:12.7

let's try it this way.

2:14.3

I have noticed that in almost all modern literature concerning armies from antiquity,

2:19.0

units are always mentioned at full strength. Historians often call out numbers that just seem

2:24.0

way too high. Isn't it true that just like today, units were almost always under strength?

...

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