Bret Devereaux

A second/first century BC document produced in Qumran, known as the War Scroll, describes an eschatological army. But this imagined force little resemblance to Hellenistic pike phalanxes: rather it has some noted similarities to a Roman legion 5/

The heavy infantry is divided into three lines, and fights with oval shields and short swords. Companies of 50 are joined to form battalions of 100 grouped into lines of 1000, roughly parallel to two centuries per maniple w/ 10 maniples in an acies. 6/

Not precisely a Roman legion, but a Jewish ascetic clearly has a legion in mind as he imagines his own fantasy force. See Russell Gmirkin, “The War Scroll and Roman Weaponry Reconsidered,” Dead Sea Discoveries 3 (1996), 89–129. 7/

Indeed, the Maccabees/Hasmoneans are probably not borrowing directly from the Romans (despite some diplomatic contacts with Rome, or at least wistful hopes of Roman support). Their Seleucid opponents are also reforming along Roman lines. 10/

Antiochus IV paraded a special legion of "Romans", 5000 strong, "armed in the Roman fashion, in mail shirts." (Polybius 30.25). 1 Maccabees 6.35 reports Seleucid specialist troops in mail armor. The Jericho gladius may well be Seleucid. 11/

The key work on the "Romanization" of Hellenistic armies is Nicholas Sekunda, *Hellenistic Infantry Reform in the 160s* (Gdansk 2001). The Hasmoneans were part of this larger trend.