COBI Romans & Barbarians Weapon Cart Set 23113

COBI's Romans & Barbarians Weapon Cart is built from 115 blocks and includes a Roman soldier figure with weapons and armour. Age 6+, and compatible with other brick brands.

Marius's mules

A Roman army's baggage train was its greatest weakness. Carts move at the pace of oxen, they cannot cross rough ground, they need guarding, and an enemy who takes the train has taken the army's food.

Gaius Marius, reforming the legions around 107 BC, attacked the problem in the bluntest way available: he made the soldiers carry it. Each legionary was issued a forked pole and expected to march with his own armour, weapons, cooking pot, rations for several days, entrenching tools, stakes for the camp palisade and personal kit — something in the order of thirty kilograms.

The men were not pleased, and the nickname muli Mariani — Marius's mules — was theirs, not his.

It worked. A legion that carried its own equipment could move far faster and go places a wagon column could not, and the carts that remained carried only what genuinely could not be shouldered: the artillery, the siege equipment, the hospital, the smith's tools and the grain reserve.

This is one of those carts. The Roman army's reputation for speed rests on how few of them there were.

The series

Romans & Barbarians is one of COBI's smaller historical lines, built for play rather than display and designed to combine into a scene.

In the COBI range

Set 23114 is the siege ladder and 23261 the siege engine.

Specifications

Pieces: 115 · Figures: 1 Roman soldier · Series: Romans & Barbarians · Age: 6+