Units of History - The Frumentarii: Assassins of Rome DOCUMENTARY

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In this documentary we explore the mysterious history of the Frumentarii, Rome's feared network of spies and assassins. We begin with a review of their origins as grain collectors and courriers. This role slowly matured over the course of the Roman Republic with Frumentarii becoming a regular fixture of logistics by the early Roman Empire. We cover how this group came to have a headquarters in Rome and what their unit's organization and equipment would have looked like. However their presence in Rome and travel to and from the provinces proved convenient for them to now take on additional roles. It seems that Roman Emperor's soon began to recruit them into their own network to take on a variety of roles such as spying and potentially even assassination.
Sources:
"Intelligence activities in ancient Rome" by Rose Sheldon
"Exploratio: Military & Political Intelligence in the Roman World" by N. J. E. Austin
"The Troops Quartered in the Castra Peregrinorum." by Reynolds P.K.B.
"The Castra Peregrinorum." by Reynolds P.K.B.
"The Roman Secret Service" by W.G Sinnigen
"The origins of the Frumentarii" by by W.G Sinnigen
Credits
Research = Invicta
Script = Invicta
Narration = Guy Michaels
Art = Penta Limited
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:03 Origins
07:38 Organization
08:48 Headquarters
11:08 Equipment
12:21 Regular Duties
14:05 Spying
15:47 Assassinations
17:19 Law Enforcers
19:58 End of the Frumentarii
#adventure #history #documentary

[@InvictaHistory]

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[@debbielungsodaitfllo]

Please make a video about the battle of the teutoburg forest 🙏🏻

[@darzhanacf8983]

It has already been made

[@westrim]

@@debbielungsodaitfllo They actually made a whole series, most of them titled starting with "Avenging Varus" about that battle and the Roman military response over the next few years.

[@3_am___]

Tbh i have premium like 3-4 years by now, and the perk to support quality content is oddly satisfying

[@debbielungsodaitfllo]

​@@westrim it about the aftermath and it response not the battle itself

[@EmpireofSigmar]

"The eyes of the mighty Caesar are upon you. He appreciates your service, and bestows upon you the exceptional gift of his Mark. My Lord requires your presence at his camp, at Fortification Hill. His Mark will guarantee your safe-conduct through our lands."

[@SilverDart214]

Ave, true to Caesar

[@sergiorr90]

NV Caesar's Legion had a lot of potencial

[@courier665]

V+M1+M1+M1+M1

[@Notimportant253]

I’m glad I’m also not the only person who immediately thought about fallout nv when I saw this video lmao

[@EmpireofSigmar]

Vulpes Inculta is my favorite Roman historical character.

[@vexopy8633]

every invicta video about another roman special unit is like getting to the deeper points of the iceberg of roman military structure

[@InvictaHistory]

Lots more to be explored, especially in the late empire and the Byzantines

[@Gibson7Clans]

@@InvictaHistorycool. We are looking forward to it. 😁👍

[@justinian-the-great]

​@@InvictaHistory Hope you'll cover agentes in rebus, the successors of frumentarii.

[@debbielungsodaitfllo]

​@@InvictaHistory, please make a video about the battle of the teutoburg forest 🙏🏻

[@Al_the_Phantom]

@@debbielungsodaitfllo Or better yet, the Rise and Fall of Quintilius Varus, the General who led the Romans in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Everyone knows of the Germanic General Arminius's Story, but not every knows the Full Life Story of Varus.

[@javiersaugar376]

"Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, so long as they paid. Profligate troops, Powder Gangers, men of the Legion such as myself - the people here didn't care. It was a town of whores. For a pittance, the town agreed to lead those it had sheltered into a trap. Only when I sprang it did they realize they were caught inside it, too" - Frumentarii Inculta, Nipton 2281.

[@johntitor_ibm5100]

Ave, true to Caesar.

[@extremel.z.s3140]

Ave, True to Caesar

[@gratefulguy4130]

I admire the purity of the Legion's justice

[@admiral_franz_von_hipper5436]

Came here to the comments for New Vegas references, was not disappointed.

[@theicepickthatkilledtrotsk658]

Vulpes Inculta sends his regards

[@matthewneuendorf5763]

One assumes that military grain supply management would include foraging. Given the nature of that particular task, it seems a short leap from seeking out hidden stores of grain to finding other hidden things.

[@gbm.03]

0:10 HE SAID IT!!!

[@chorizodaniel9293]

😩😫😤

[@YataTheFifteenth]

Courier VI no way

[@devilfruit3415]

POG POG

[@awesomehpt8938]

Vulpes Inculta is the OG

[@thestanleys3657]

Ave true to Caesar

[@Notimportant253]

[Terrifying presence} “I’m gonna wear your head like you wear that dogs” *LEGIONARIES, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!*

[@TheMagnificentPear]

Ave, true to Caesar

[@johnlop7763]

Ave

[@jrpgnation6375]

Someone should link this video to Ubisoft. We may finally get proper Assassin's creed roman game.

[@dylanroberts1752]

@@jrpgnation6375 I've thinking the same thing. Ever since assassin's Creed Odyssey.

[@VainerCactus0]

Did you know that all the Frumentarii were black Lesbians? Netflix and Ubisoft knows so. Someones grandma knows so too.

[@samuelmendoza9356]

Considering they been disbanded by Diocletian by 312 BCE, perhaps they can set it on 3rd Century Crisis? Maybe futilely trying to save Aurelian too? I can imagine the one who forged it can be Templars or Assassins where Aurelian cannot be controlled by either.

[@bine35]

@@VainerCactus0 AC: Rome but you can only play as a black female edgy super elite Nubian bodyguard to Caesar

[@goosefootjones7196]

Im not asking U isoft for sheezt

[@tokebak4291]

Watching this video about Frumentarii brings back memories of that time in Nipton. Almost always ended up taking down Vulpe and his Legion crew there in New Vegas! Those were some funny moments, but you gotta admit, their style was badass.

[@noblerook]

Ave, true to Caesar

[@enriquehartmann8642]

I did recon and infantry in the army. I think if I ever went back in time and wound up in Rome, I think id join the legions and try to establish the protocol for reconnaissance. Who knows, maybe I become the father of Militray Intrigue and Reconnaissance....lol.... Excellent video

[@MBP1918]

AVE TRUE TO CAESAR

[@bloodygoat6941]

Uhh I love it. Awesome video about a topic which is so poorly covered over all on here. Such gems always remind me why I subscribed to this channel

[@wesleyredmond3464]

Man see Invicta ,man click ,man pleased! As always outstanding work!

[@chrisgarbutt1893]

Ave, True To Caesar!

[@jacobbeaupre3940]

NEW VEGAS CANT BE STOPPED! AVE TRUE TO CAESAR

[@konstantinriumin2657]

Ave True to Caesar!

[@gushterell7989]

New upcoming frame in "Warframe" is a frumentari. What a coincidence. Great vid!

[@nuclearmedicineman6270]

Excellent timing, I was *just* reading about them. Since you're reading my mind, do a video on the next thing I'm looking into.

[@Maesterful]

Been asking for this topic for years, fantastic

[@-RONNIE]

Thank you for the good video ⚔️

[@TheEggeater1111]

This was very interesting video I enjoyed the heck out of it

[@noone4700]

Awesome video!

[@robbabcock_]

Terrific episode and an intriguing subject!⚔🔥😎

[@samdumaquis2033]

Fantastic work

[@mooncake8254]

Looking back. Listening and watching your videos. The voice it's golden!

[@user-vf3pe9ce5x]

I thought that was the unofficial job of preatorians.

[@EggnogTheNog]

They only assassinated emperors who didn’t pay them the bribes they’d been promised for assassinating the previous emperor.

[@mojewjewjew4420]

They were linked though

[@daveweiss5647]

It makes sense that the grain collectors would be able to evolve into an intelligence service... searching for grain services, dealing with well traveled merchants, local leaders and bureaucrats, looking for smugglers and hidden sources, dealing with bandits, relationships with customs officials and port workers, scouring the countryside...etc...

[@crazyirish209]

So mailman/grain clerks/ spies lmao 🤣 those crazy Romanos

[@odd-ysseusdoesstuff6347]

This is really good! Imma have this yoinked for a story mwehhehehe

[@Harry-bc2dn]

Awesome

[@nonyabeeznuss304]

Considering a grain officer/courier would be traveling quite a lot as well as having access to all important mail, it stands to reason that they would be quite well informed individuals. It's a pretty short jump to just start using them for that aspect of their job altogether.

[@coolintruddle]

Great video. I'm currently playing the 43ad ttrpg. Our characters are frumentarii. Speculatores in northern Britannia.

[@zo-minamotoclan8472]

EARLY, GLORY TO THE EMPIRE!

[@rickpowanda3100]

Well about that assassin of emperors dude: Felix is a cognomen. Here it is seemingly a nickname like "Africanus" was to Scipio. Felix translates to "lucky" so maybe within the network he was known as that but among the hoi polloi he didn't have/use/reveal that cognomen. More speculation but reading it that way is interesting.

[@lazyguy3081]

When’s the evolution of the Roman Army part 2 coming out?!?!? We have been waiting for a long long time.

[@honestlordcommissarbrighte7921]

Shut up

[@Lassisvulgaris]

@@honestlordcommissarbrighte7921 Grumpy, are we...?

[@nickbz1303]

Thanks for this detailed explanation. From the information presented, it seems Atticus from The Chosen would be somewhat anachronistic but otherwise reasonably portrayed?

[@jackthunderbolt4307]

Forst off, love the vid. But when are we getting Mali knights part 2?

[@pakshirajan8585]

Please make a video on Kingdom of Travancore

[@Dethmeister]

Make a video about the elite Futanari.

[@CharlieCandy.]

On the list of Greats my dudes.

[@dk6024]

KZbin premium kicks Spotify out the third floor window.

[@1chaplain]

Ave. True to Caesar

[@BinbrookPaintball]

With the new Pharoah update some more bronze age content would be awesome!

[@johngaelnox5447]

"Vulpes! Bring your femboy ahh here, a new Ancient Rome video just dropped!"

[@mojewjewjew4420]

Wtf there were no femboys in FNV, to the cross with you!

[@WallNutBreaker524]

Though I've started to have such great dislike and even hate for website's and platforms like KZbin due to the many annoying or bad or dumb thing's they've done or continue to do. I do love that we can get high quality content like this for free. 😊

[@martino7263]

At 17:17 there are candles but those are a medieval invention. Romans used oil lamps.

[@GustavoMaldonadoFidalgo]

please make a video about the Marcomannic wars

[@zddxddyddw]

Are you planning to do any videos on more obscure units of history? Like Latin American and Pre-Columbian units. In Argentina we had units like the mounted grenadiers or General Guemes' infernals during the independence wars, who protected the country from Spanish attempts to invade from the north.

[@riverraven7359]

Being a provisions officer does give a reasonable explanation for why an individual would be moving around independently from the unit and speaking to well informed or connected people. Dont forget that the Soviet Union called its political officers Comissars too.

[@ipeteagles]

cool

[@patrickdusablon2789]

Regarding intelligence-gathering, given the Frumentarii were responsible for grain supply, they would be in almost constant contact with grain merchants/brokers and farmers, carters and the like. Those people travel or talk with people who travel and could prove to be very useful HUMINT assets, little different from how a modern infantry patrol in Afghanistan or Iraq would have chats with locals in villages and at checkpoints to learn what they could about their local situation. And conversely, because of their frequent contacts with the local populations, it makes sense they'd be used for a lot of those varied tasks and special projects, especially if they're known to be dealing fairly and having established a trust relationship with the locals.

[@mango2005]

under Caesars eye

[@confusedspartan3525]

Nice, can I avail your code even though I'm already premium?

[@3_am___]

Officio Assassinorum vibe

[@unclesam5230]

FOR THE EMPEROR!

[@bobrobinson1576]

That frumentarius looks suspiciously like Liam Neeson.

[@gomuslim6]

Ngl, the title's first part had me thinking this video was about yards, furlongs and ounces etc.

[@Lightspectre1]

Video on assassins... bad timing.

[@VictorIV0310]

Balam Industries sponsored field trip.

[@erasamus1057]

so I pay for yt premium and what do they do?..... add ads to the actual videos wtf

[@Fatherofheroesandheroines]

Ok dont watch this at 3:50 am or you too you will think the title was Frutymantooi, lol. Rome's usage of spies and assassins is worthy of a series of noir style mystery books.

[@TishaHayes]

I prefer these deep dives in to real world events rather than klingons vs. romulans or imperium vs. fremen, speculative stuff. Good job on this one.

[@notlayjeno6258]

a grain of truth

[@davetremaine9688]

8:02 And to think I thought it was already kinda difficult to pronounce "frumentarii." I also find myself making these 20 min videos last 45 minutes because everytime I see a word like "peregrinorum," I'm like "that's gotta be related to peregrine falcons, right?" Turns out peregrine falcons were usually caught during migration, and not just from their normal habitat and "peregrinus" meant "coming from foreign parts," or simply "migratory" or "foreign"

[@mojewjewjew4420]

Where are you from? Murican?

[@davetremaine9688]

@@mojewjewjew4420 Yessir

[@mojewjewjew4420]

@@davetremaine9688 Well americans aren't exactly known for their language skills, for me personally as latin its not hard to understand most words but not all, some have changed meaning or are rarely used due to English mixing, we call it Romgleză,we still use frumenta which is to ground for example grain, so frumentarii is close enough to grain collectors who probably ground them too.

[@davetremaine9688]

@@mojewjewjew4420 it was really the double “i” on the end that was the only sticking point. Very unnatural for two separate “e” sounds back to back for an English speaker. Probably similar to how some English speakers can’t roll the “r’s” in Spanish.

[@mojewjewjew4420]

@@davetremaine9688 Its interesting seeing new perspectives, in my language we dont see i as e, nor is 2 i unnatural, in fact if you have a hard time with 2,we have words with 3 i,in fact romanian is unique in that words are read as written, this makes it for us monstrous languages like English, where sometimes the pronunciation is far different from the spelling, especially words English borrowed. English truly needs a reform and special letters, an english/irish channel did a video on this.

[@stevenvail6277]

It makes sense that those who forage for food to supply the army would have the dual role to also collect intelligence while out collecting grain and cattle from local inhabitants.

[@Art-is-craft]

They are not foraging. They are part of the market system.

[@Luftpvp]

Woot

[@gratefulguy4130]

"And so the Courier/Grain Officer who escaped death outside of Pomeii escaped death once again, and the Roman Empire was forever changed..."

[@mojewjewjew4420]

No mention of FNV? Expect a visit from Vulpes Inculta.

[@williamburroughs9686]

Every time I hear you say that word. I keep thinking of fermentation. Also since some of them delt with grain. I was wondering if they had anything to do with brewing things like beer? Also by your description. It sounds like these people were more of a special task force of services. Spying and info seems to be a minor role in their skill set.

[@jbarral6509]

Can you also add subtitles please

[@anthemanatheme1638]

Ave, True to Caesar

[@adamslicer2020]

I like the song, but I side with the Dominion Tank Police on this. Damn girls ran the red lights.

[@Guyonthefencewillbepostingsoon]

These Frumentarii would play a key role in Orwellian (Totalitarian Dystopian) Rome.

[@ThePatriarchXCI91]

Edward Sallow liked this video

[@hummussapien7.6billion68]

Can you do a true size of the ww2 American military?

[@julianmartinez3048]

Spying and assasination were done very informally, usually recruiting locals or bribing malcontents. Many of the enemy chieftain assasinations were carried away by bribed traitors, as in the case of Viriatus, and some other more. The frumentarii looks more like an internal affairs section of the roman army.

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

i can't, in good conscience, directly give money to youtube for premium. they support history they're comfortable with here and censor history they aren't comfortable with (like anything regarding the events of summer 2001 and the gwot, events that are 20+ years old now and drastically in need of examining, preserving, and developing a common consensus on) there. i can, however, just give you money directly and i like that option better. BTW i'm not alleging anything different happened summer 2001 than what you would find in the official report. that report is incredibly thorough and was compiled before you could get an Ai script to write most of it for you. plus that report takes swings at living people you cant take swings at unless youre congress or a supreme court judge. people who were still the hegemon when the report was made.

[@Nipah.Auauau]

19:58 huh...that sounds strangely familiar for some reason...?

[@ImagineMySurprise510]

The description of the activities of the Frumentarii reminded me of how FEMA works today in shaking down victims of disasters for anything of value they may have.

[@user-wu7ug4ly3v]

I think the translation of peregrinus as foreigner is OK but it also has a connotation of traveller. As such I think that pilgrim is a better translation and one which matches the use of the word in modern Romance languages. The “pilgrimage” here should not have any religious connotation, however as it might in some modern settings.

[@jesseberg3271]

The idea that there's a difference between representing the Emperor's Will and enforcing the law was deliberately blured by the Roman Emperors.

[@raynightshade8317]

So then what are Arcani

[@erieperry8241]

Ave! True to Ceasar!

[@baswar]

I wonder if part of the issue with working out ancient espionage is our own romanticised pop culture around spies. Espionage seems a logical evolution from soldiers who seem to be basically postmen. If they are carrying the mail for governors and generals anyway then why not read it, then tell the emperor what you read via another member of the unit. While assassination seems an evolution of law enforcement which in term seems natural for soldiers who have freedom to move around

[@delphinazizumbo8674]

Blade Runners?

[@monegal1]

The frumentarii first spied enemy lands looking for grain stores the legions could steal, hence their later role as intelligence agents

[@Art-is-craft]

That was not what they did. They wear part of the grain market. The Roman Empire was a massive producer of grains.

[@DavidLee-kg5dl]

sounds like council spectres from mass effect

[@chrisnewhard5863]

Ngl, it sounds like you're conflating several distinct roles/duties into a single position. It's kind of like seeing "officer" in the modern day and conflating the average cop with a marine and a weekend warrior of the US army corps of engineers. I get having to spice things up for KZbin, but this seems to be pushing the line when it comes to drawing a concrete picture.

[@guyeswanson7958]

That’s actually the point. They started as nation wide logistics service overseen by trusted military leaders and evolved over the millenia of romes history into an empire wide information network reporting to highest ranks of Roman society. Initially as tax collectors, hunters and grain counters, becoming scouts, diplomats and spies, as individuals left millitary service to enter civilian life they would be adopted and adapted into local police forces until their value working within borders was noted and turned into a high level police service. You’re right to think it looks conflated, because Rome was a millitary state and actuvely conflated its own roles. If it worked on the frontier, if it worked in the army, they would try to make it work for society. The very reason people would make that sssumption of officers, is because that’s the right assumption. Police forces stem from town guards which stem from retained millitary personnel outside of campaign. Being a captain was once the act of owning a ship with naval officers eventuating in history after land militaries formalised the idea of officers at sea. Offficer does in fact mean officer, just like frumwntari definetly always meant frumentari. You’re watching a history video covering an intelligence service from over a thousand years ago, shouldn’t you be interested in the history of that

[@alfrancisbuada2591]

Every empire had its assassins. If you were to do the dirty work, then make sure you leave no trace and keep a strict vow of silence.

[@thecourier9290]

AVE, TRUE TO CAESAR

[@pyeitme508]

Wow 😳, so somewhat Assassin's Creed stuff albeit for Rome 😂

[@dariustiapula]

Litterally the origin off the IRS.

[@delphinazizumbo8674]

The Postman?

[@SB-qm5wg]

When have secret police not become too powerful.

[@kaybevang536]

Ave. TRUE TO CAESAR!!!!

[@ililililili9726]

So... Legalized mafia.

[@jacobstewart3428]

I know there is someone else who miss read the title

[@johnfrawley5706]

sounds like a quartermasters unit