Nitpicky of me I know, but lieutenant-in-charge-of-a-platoon is much more modern than you intimate - 300 years ago (and up to sometime in the mid-C19th) the basic organisational unit was a company of ~70-100 led by a captain, with a lieutenant as his..., well, lieutenant. You'd kinda-sorta get an eltee-in-charge if you broke down to half companies, but my impression is that half-coys were more for the practical convenience they gave for expediting certain tactical manoevers than any kind of permanent assignment. This captain-in-charge-of-company (with an Lt for a deputy) model, of course, is pretty much identical to the centurion-in-charge-of-century (with an optio for a deputy) model that the legions had... but of course centurions and optios were 'players', rather than 'gentlemen'.
>>To regard centurions
>>who commanded 80 to 120 soldiers as equivelent to sergeants is
>>misleading.
True, the 'classical' late republican/early imperial Roman Army is a bit of a false friend here. Lots of stuff that appears superficially familiar but there's enough 'These Romans Are Crazy' wierdness hiding in the shadows to trip you up. Centurions are a case in point - in some ways they look like what we think of as noncoms (advance from the ranks, progress based on merit rather than social position or wealth) but the authority range bridges our modern enlisted/commissioned divide (but, as noted above, not so much for C18-19th armies) and runs from something like an E6 (for the leastmost Optio) up to about O7 (for a Primi Pilus).
Interestingly the point at which 'aristocrats' (tribunes/legates) start getting involved is about where 'general' ranks start and, for all our meritocratic pretensions, its not much of a stretch to see that as the realm where politics-with-a-P begins to intrude. Anyone know where in the chain 'civil liaison' types start cropping up with reliability in (for eg) the current Iraq imbroglio? I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was somewhere around regimental/brigade HQ for instance.... so now I've argued myself full circle and we are more like the Romans than I thought; albeit not in the way Jane originally suggested and we permit our 'centurions' to advance into the political sphere (as multi-starred generals) in a way that would make a senatorial from the early ADs blanch :).
Regards
Luke
PS
For a fictional rendition of the imperial Roman army at close to its apogee try 'The Iron Hand of Mars' by Lindsey Davies. Its about third or fourth in the 'Falco' series, but that's not a problem since they're all good. It's also a damn good idea-mine for someone running a 'Lunars Along The Frontier' game IMO.
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