Roman Army

[Cugel]

why did a roman army century only have eighty men in it?

[anthomson]

A century consisted of 10 Contubernium (a tent party). It seems a roman tent was actually only large enough for to sleep 8 men - hence the eighty. It may be that originally there were 10 men in a Contubernium - eight in the tent and 2 on watch. see:
http://webpages.charter.net/brueggeman/march-legio
n.html
Centuries in reality contained anything from 30 to 100 plus men, so it seems to make sense that the 80 figure which is usually quoted, has been derived assuming 8 men per Contubernium.

[Cugel]

Thank you thats cleared it up for me, great link as well, lots of information there.

[firefly]

I don't agree with anthomson, I think the idea of calling them 'centuries' was to make them sound bigger than they actually were.