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LEGION.—This term, which means literally ‘a gathering,’ looks back to the early days of the Roman citizen army. In the time of the Empire it indicated a force of about 6000 infantry, together with complements of other arms. The infantry proper were divided into ten cohorts (the word is tr. [Note: translate or translation.] ‘band’ [wh. see] in Mat_27:27, Mar_15:16, Joh_18:3; Joh_18:12, Act_10:1; Act_21:31; Act_27:1), each containing about 600 men, and each commanded on occasion by a military tribune. Of these tribunes there were six to a legion. A cohort was itself subdivided into ten centuries, each commanded by a centurion. It is not necessary to remember all these facts in studying the NT use of the word ‘legion’ (Mat_26:53, Mar_5:9; Mar_5:15, Luk_8:30). What chiefly impressed Semites was apparently the size of the legion, and ‘legion’ appears to have become a proverb among them for a large number of persons in orderly combination.
A. Souter.