Maniple (military unit)

Tactical unit of the Roman Republic Maniple (Latin: manipulus; lit. 'a handful [of soldiers]') was a tactical unit of the Roman Republican armies, adopted during the Samnite Wars (343–290 BC). It was also the name of the military insignia carried by such units. Maniple members, called commanipulares (sing.: commanipularis) were seen as each other's brothers-in-arms, but without the domestic closeness of the eight-man contubernium. Cohorts replaced maniples as organisational units. History The manipular system was adopted around 315 BC, during the Second Samnite War. The rugged terrain of Samnium, where the war was fought, was not conducive to the phalanx formation which the Romans had inherited from the Etruscans and Ancient Greeks. The main battle troops of the Etruscans and Latins of this period comprised Greek-style hoplite phalanxes, inherited from the original Greek phalanx military unit. After suffering a series of defeats, culminating in the surrender of the entire army without resistance at Caudine Forks, the Romans abandoned the phalanx altogether, adopting the more flexible manipular system, famously referred to as "a phalanx with joints". The manipular system was faded