Ranks of Bronze

"We're soldiers. Warriors are meat on the table for soldiers with discipline."

- Centurion Clodius Afer

"They were Roman soldiers— and they were still alive because there were no better killers in the galaxy."

- Tagline

Ranks of Bronze is a science fiction short story, later expanded into a novel, written by David Drake.

After the defeat at Carrhae, a captured Roman legion is sold into slavery ... to a guild of galactic traders. The Federation has banned the use of lasers and other high-tech weaponry against primitive civilizations, so they are looking for an army of low-tech soldiers to help them secure trading rights on alien planets. Their new masters provide them with long-life treatments, promising them

The anthology Foreign Legions, edited by David Drake, contains a number of short stories by various authors which expand the universe. David Weber's The Excalibur Alternative is based on a short story within the anthology.

""A good javelin volley is like the scythe of death...""
 * Aliens Speaking Latin: Played with. The Commander, Pilot and Medic all speak Latin, but they've all been taught it. In fact, it's heavily implied that Latin is the only common language on the ship.
 * Badass Army: The entire Legion by the end of the book, given that they've been fighting for over a millenium and have won every single time.
 * Colonel Badass: Tribune Gaius Vibulenus becomes this, after a millenium of warfare. He begins the book as Ensign Newbie.
 * Continuity Snarl: To a small degree - the stories in Foreign Legions aren't all that consistent with each other, though both S.M Stirling and David Drake's short stories are easy to fit with any of the others. Thankfully, not even The Excalibur Alternative contradicts Ranks of Bronze.
 * Feudal Future: The Legion only ever sees these; justified as worlds with higher Technology Levels would be fair game for the guild.
 * Force Field Door: The alien's crew quarters are protected by the nasty kind. Unless it's programmed to accept the person, the shield vaporizes them.
 * Humans Are Warriors: The reason why the guild bought the Legion in the first place.
 * The novel has the Romans themselves see it as the "Humans Are Soldiers" variation - they are disciplined soldiers, not barbarian warriors, and that is why they win.
 * Lost Roman Legion
 * Made a Slave: The Legion, and the women.
 * Rain of Javelins: A staple tactic for the Legion. Vibulenus orders a few of these by running in front of the Legion and waving his sword (not all of the legionnaires would hear the order otherwise).

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 * Ray Gun: The aliens aren't allowed to use these against the locals, but the legionnaires are threatened with these if they look like they're going to mutiny.
 * Rubber Forehead Aliens: The women, who Vibulenus discovers aren't actually women but a species of alien modified to look as close to human as possible. They begin as pale green with metallic scales, but are later changed again to look more human.
 * Sergeant Rock: Gnaeus Clodius Afer, who begins as a file-closer and eventually gets promoted to Centurion.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future:
 * In Eric Flint's short story in Foreign Legions, we discover that Earth