Turtle (training)

In Ancient Rome, the testudo or tortoise formation was an order of battle commonly used by Roman legions during combat and very particularly in sieges. The first known mention of this tactic is by Polybius in the 2nd century BC. c.

Training

In the testudo, the infantrymen covered themselves with their scutums, overlapping them like a shell, while the first row of men protected the front of the formation with theirs, raising them to the center of their faces.. If necessary, the soldiers on the flanks and those in the back rank could also cover the sides and rear of the formation, although then the protection of the layer of shields that covered the square was incomplete as their numbers were reduced.

If this tactic was used correctly - it must be taken into account that it required great training and discipline for it to be effective - the testudo protected the legionaries excellently against enemy projectiles., allowing them to move without fear of being hit by arrows, darts, spears and other thrown weapons. This is attested by Flavius Josephus when pointing out its effectiveness in the year 66 when the Roman legions besieged Jerusalem:

The arrows were slided without harm, and [...] the soldiers could, without risk, undermine the wall and prepare to hit the Temple door.

Flavio Josefo. The War of the Jews

A formation derived from this was the fastigiata testudo, in which the soldiers staggered their shields in height as a ramp. Those in the first line remained upright, those in the second leaned a little more and so on until reaching the last row who reclined on their knees. With this arrangement, the stones and weapons that were thrown at them from the heights slide like water down a roof and at the same time allowed other legionaries to ascend walking on them to access the top of the wall and attack the enemy, even resisting the attack. passage of horses and carriages, as Dio Cassius points out when describing Mark Antony's campaign in Asia:

The turtle is as follows and forms as follows. The animals and chariots that carry the baggage, the soldiers who do not use shield and the riders are placed in the middle of the legion. And, of those who carry defensive weapons, some, those who are armed with the elongated, curved and cylindrical shields, are placed on the outside forming a rectangle and, looking towards them and with the weapons directed forward, protect the others, and the others, those who are armed with flat shields, spreading through the center, lift the shields above themselves and from all other way covered. The coat of shields is so resistant that some walk above it; more, how many times they pass through deep or narrow places, horses and chariots advance over it. Such is the disposition of this formation, and hence has taken the name of turtle, for the resistance and protection it offers.

Dion Casio. Roman history.

Its main problem lay in the fact that it was a very tight and slow formation, which made the soldiers have great difficulty in hand-to-hand combat. This limitation was evident during the Battle of Carras when the Parthians used horse archers while the Romans remained in regular formation and cataphracts if they opted for the tortoise formation. Other problems were that the legs and faces of the front rank were exposed or that prolonged shots from long-range weapons, such as the compound bows used in the East, which could pierce the scutum and skewer the soldier's hand to the shield he was holding, as happened at Carrhae.