by Aldus Marius on Thu Oct 18, 2007 5:18 am
Salve, clare Rufe!
Well, I had some ideas (being a military type on both ends of the timeline), but I thought I'd wait to see if anyone else did first. There's a rather dismaying tendency for all discussion to stop once Mari chimes in...I mean, look at last week!!!
But OK, here are mine for the situations for which I have any...
Ranker, as in the army: miles (soldier); miles gregarius (soldier of the crowd/group/herd/ranks); gregarius (member of the grouping [herd, etc.])
...as in the Senate: pedarius (footman)
Scout, straightforward: explorator (what it looks like)
...of the sneakier sort (say one whose job is to fake out the opposition, or who is not what he seems): frumentarius (this term was used for Imperial agents, informers, spies and other information-gatherers...intel, I suppose, being the "fruits" of frumentum, itself the term for the grain handouts, the assessment of which was originally a major part of a frumentarius' cover story.)
Wing: ala (a cavalry wing)
Archer: sagittarius (knew you'd seen that somewhere, nonne..?) >({|;-)
Happy Pilum-Pusher: iaculus (but watch the entendres), hastatus (spearman, not javelin-man, but the name for the more lightly-armed soldiers in the Republican Legions)
For your 'center' player-position, you could use any of the variations on the -ifer ('standard-bearer': aquilifer, signifer, imaginifer...) theme if that person serves as someone to rally around, or if he's supposed to lead the charge. If he carries a flag, he's a vexillarius. If he's just there as a hindrance to the other side, that'd be called something else.
Taking the English labels another way, Iohannes' suggestions are also quite sound. It'd be hard to refine these much further without knowing the rules for the game. Quid est 'harpestum'?
In amicitia et fide,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.