Evocatus: The Elite Veterans of the Legions of the Roman Empire

Evocatus: The Elite Veterans of the Roman Army -

#SeeUinHistory #History

[JawsOfHistory]

Evocati are directly linked with the term 'Vocation'. Originating in the word Vocatio (Latin for 'Calling') these men were literally called up for service. And why people, 2000ish years later, still ask if you have "found your calling" when asking you what you want to do (work, study, etc).

[tgs]

there's nothing short about those careers.

[Happy-wbgi]

Best Empire ever. Today we still use their ways from engineering to language.
Even our comments in English use 90% Latin alphabet.
What an Empire, wow.

[petersclafani]

Soldiers retired were trained in many vocations. Construction, farmers, and small business

[windwindy]

This reminds me of Evocati cohort in Rome 2 total war. Absolutely insane unit

[starkiller]

If only veterans today where looked out for as much as the Romans did for there veterans!!

[michaelweeks]

What an amazingly informative video! Thank you for the many, many hours you invested in researching, depicting and presenting this fascinating subject! May God bless you. Respectfully, Michael Weeks, San Antonio, Texas.

[Cc-ledt]

20-25 years by todays standards is still a HUGE amount of time. 1 in thousaunds of ajy branch will actually stay for a retirement pension after 20 years. Average time spent in is around 4-8 years.

[lexington]

Do we know what percentage of legionaries made it to retirement age?

[angbandsbane]

Really enjoyed the video. Covered a topic I didnt even realize i didn't know much about

And I recognize the middle guy in the thumbnail lol. They *really* need to male a sequel to "Ryse: Son of Rome" or at least make more games where you save Rome instead of fight it

[Charles.]

They took old man strength to the next level. It reminds me of the silver shields lol

[charliemcternan]

More Greg stories of battle and horror

[dominicadrean]

I have a question how do you draw your comics because I really want to make my own comic books I love your art style😅

[petertyson]

That was interesting. Learn something new about the Romans is good. ✌👾

[KangTheConqueror]

Hi See U in History it’s my birthday today 😊

[silverchairsg]

May his enemies flee from him.
May their city walls crumble.
May their cattle and women be taken.
This man... is now Evocati.

[phantomeye]

Wow! Now that was amazing story of Evocatus: The Elite Veterans of the Legions of the Roman Empire. They should join military train hard skills and tactics to win a war! Like Ares and 300 Spartans to save Greeks from Persian.

[edwardloomis]

Career active duty U.S. Army Soldiers who retire join something called the retired reserve. They receive a portion of their active duty pay, the percentage of which depends on how many years after 20 they served. The last recall of people in the the U.S.' retired reserve of significance happened after 9/11.

[crencottrell]

How often do this channel upload videos and at what times? I want to comment, but there's always dozens of comments posted already 😅

[Geralt.]

There are two things in this video that don't partiuculary add up to me, but maybe someone else knows the anwer to this:

First is the fact that the evocati supposedly predominantly recruited from the pretorian guard. This doesnt make that much sense because in this video we learn that the evocati gained their importance through their experience, knowledge and guidence, fullfilling roles as instructors, architects, military advisors, elite militia for emergencies and so on. Following this logic you would want those kind of legionaries who have experienced the most combat. The pretorians main task however was the protection of the city of Rome and the emperor. Therefore there isn't a lot of historical evidence of the pretorian guard actually participating in a lot of military campaigns or major battles. Its ranks probably mostly consisted of rich and or royal Romans who wanted be part of the prestigious guard without risking too much danger. Considering this, i'd want someone who spent 20 years of his life fighting in Gaul, Africa and Brittania to train my upcoming professional soldiers instead of someone who spent 16 years of his life patroling the streets of the captial.

The second fact that confused me was the the idea of evocatii becoming centurions. To my knowledge, being a roman centurion meant being at the front line for the entirety of the battle. While the normal legionary would be exchanged for a comrade after a certain amount of time and if the situation allowed for it, a centurion had to hold his ground, inspire and command his troops and generally expose himself to the very front of the brutal meat grinder an antique battle usually used to be. Whoever has even a little experience with fighting and/or martial arts knows how exhausting even considerably short training/sparring sessions can be. Now imagine this combined with all the adrenaline of being in the midst of battle while fighting for your life and instead of doing this for 5, 10 or 20 minutes, your doing it for hours. This is a task only the fittest of the fit would be able to cope with and even among those the mortatility rate was probably incredibly high. Now imagine someone who's body already experienced 20 years of fighting, probably took lots of damage and is also not able to perform on the same level it could 10-15 years ago. I feel like, even though there probably were exceptions, someone like this would be wasted as a front line officer. They surely were still able to fight, since there are some things you simply do not forget or unlearn and their experience must have given them a superior moral in diffiicult situations but no matter how far the mind can go, the older a person gets the less the body is able follow. I can definetly imagine them being held as reserve and then swapped in and out in decisive moments of a battle but a 40 year old, tired, battle worn man fighting for hours and hours nonstop without a break just doesn't seem like the best fit for the task, especially considering the fact that his knowledge preserves so much value being shared with other soldiers. I just don't se why you would waste that by throwing him at the font lines.