Roman Auxilia

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>>2670137
Roman Auxilia are not all mercenaries, some are indeed part of a formal roman army. The Auxilia is basically the bit of the Roman army that isn't made up of citizens.

Roman Auxilia absolutely do get to fight. While some are indeed rear echelon, many others tend to be really good soldiers, fulfilling crucial roles the Legions don't do well.

For example: Romans can't fucking into cavalry to save their hides, so Imperial subjects who had good cavalry traditions tend to fill that role as auxiliaries.

>>2670137
They made up half of the Roman army. There were hundreds of thousands of them. They were made up of non-citizens recruited en-masse from inside or outside the empire. They tended to be used as the primary defence force on the frontiers e.g. Hadrian's Wall was manned by these dudes, while the legionaries were stationed in large fortresses in places like Eboracum and Deva. While most were just standard soldiers, usually armed with spears unlike the normal Roman troops, others performed more specialised roles that the Roman army was traditionally less successful with. Cretans and Syrians tended to be used as archers. People from the Balearics tended to be used as specialised slingers. Numidians and certain Gauls and Germans were used as powerful cavalry forces. At the end of their 25 year term an auxiliary would be granted Roman citizenship for themselves and their family, making it highly desirable as being a "peregrini" meant you did not have the same rights as a Roman citizen.

non roman citizens that served in roman army.

Of course they fought. The Germanic cavalry on Caesar's side was key in the victory of Alesia, for instance.

They're just Non-Roman citizens of the empire. They were actually trained and equipped very well and made up a significant size of the Roman army and took part in much of the fighting.

>>2670176
>usually armed with spears unlike the normal Roman troops
This is a misconception, there's no reason they wouldn't be armed with swords, it all depended on where they were raised.