Legions of the Street

You were around the old-timers who dreamed up how the Families should be organized, how they based it on the old Roman legions and called them Regimes, Capos, and Soldiers. And it worked.

-Tom Hagen, The Godfather: Part II

While a quote from The Godfather: Part II, the fact that the modern New York Mafia crime family structure was based off the organizational structure of the Roman Legion is cemented in the testimony of Mafia informant and former Genovese crime family soldier, Joseph Valachi. Besides being the first person to ever to publicly acknowledge the existence of the Mafia, Valachi also divulged the shadowy meeting that Salvatore Maranzano assembled after defeating his chief underworld rival Joe "The Boss" Masseria in the Castellammarese War of 1931. 

"Mr. Maranzano called a meeting. I was just notified. I don't remember how, but I was notified. It was held in the Bronx in a big hall around Washington Avenue. The place was packed. There was at least four or five hundred of us jammed in. There were members there I never saw before. I only knew the ones that I was affiliated with during the war.....We were all standing. There wasn't any room to sit. Religious pictures had been put on the walls, and there was a crucifix over the platform at one end of the hall where Mr. Maranzano was sitting. He had done this so that if outsiders wondered what the meeting was about, they would think we belonged to some kind of a holy society....In the new setup he was going to be Capo di tutti Capi, meaning the "Boss of all Bosses." He said that from here on we were going to be divided up into new Families. Each Family would have a boss and an underboss. Beneath them there would also be lieutenants, or caporegimes. To us regular members, which were soldiers, he said "You will each be assigned to a lieutenant., When you learn who he is, you will meet all the other men in your crew. Then he tells us how we are going to operate, like if a soldier has the need to see his boss, he has to go first to his lieutenant. If it is important enough, the lieutenant will arrange the appointment. In other words, a soldier ain't allowed to go running all the time to his boss. The idea is to keep everything businesslike and in line." (1)

Valachi would also say:

"He [Maranzao] was an educated man. He studied for the priesthood in the old country, and I understand he spoke seven languages. I didn't know until later that he was a nut about Julius Caesar and even had a room in the house full of nothing but books about him. That's where he got the idea for the new organization." (2)

Just as the Romans adopted the Greek phalanx to organize their army, Maranzano attempted to install the organization and discipline that led the Roman Legions to victory all over the Mediterranean to the American underworld. If Maranzano likened these new organized crime families in New York as the legions of Rome, then he must have also likened himself as Caesar. 

In ancient Rome, unlike today, soldiers did not swear allegiance to the state, but rather to their commander, be it a general, Roman consul, or eventually an Emperor.(3)  After a soldier took the oath of Sacramentum, his actions would be completely dictated by his commander. If a legionary's commander told him to kill something, It would be killed. Even if a commander gave an order to his legions to slaughter Roman citizens, it would be done. The only way a legionary could be released from his oath was through death or injury to the point of demobilization.(4)

Similar to the oath taken by Roman Legionaries, once a member of the Mafia was inducted into a certain crime family, he would take on the title of "soldier", and his complete loyalty was to his boss. His crime family would come before his real family, his country, and even God. If his capo would tell him to kill something, It would be killed. And much like the Roman legion, the only way to escape this oath of loyalty was through death.(5)

In proclaiming himself Capo di tutti capi, the boss of bosses, Maranzano was proclaiming himself Caesar of the American Mafia. Maranzano would not only command his own crime family, but would hold supreme authority over the entire Mafia. All the Mafia families would act as his legions as they conquered the American underworld. 

Unfortunately for Maranzano, as soon as he came into power, there were people plotting his demise. Labeled as a "Mustache Pete", because his blind faith to old world traditions and vendettas were getting in the way of making money, Maranzano would share a similar fate with Caesar. A little over four months after his ascension into the position of Capo di tutti capi, Maranzano was assassinated in his office on September 10th, 1931. Behind his assassination were the younger faction of the Mafia, lead by future bosses Charlie Luciano, Frank Costello, and Vito Genovese. After his assassination, Charlie Luciano disbanded the title of Capo di tutti capi, and would create the Mafia Commission, a U.N. style way of governing the Mafia, where every boss of a family could contribute to a decision, rather than just have one dictator governing the entire organization.(6)

Though the Roman Army during Caesar's rule had far more of a hierarchical structure than the American Mafia, this may be how Maranzano visualized his new organization.

American Mafia Structure Under Maranzano        

Capo di tutti capi

  Boss of a Family

  Underboss 

  Caporegime 

 Soldier 

Roman Legion Structure Under Caesar

Consul
Praetor
Legatus Legionis
Centurion
Munifex

                              

Capo di tutti capi-Consul

  Boss of a Family-Praetor

Underboss-Legatus Legionis

Caporegime-Centurion

Soldier- Munifex

Of course, since the position of Capo di tutti capi was disbanded by Charlie Luciano, and the Mafia commission was established, a boss of a Mafia family answered to no one, and held complete authority over his borgata. 


Notes
(1) The Valachi Papers. Peter Mass. Pg 83-85
(2) The Valachi Papers. Peter Mass. Pg 83-85
(3) Cicero and the Roman Republic. F.R. Cowell. Pg 39-40
(4) Becoming a Soldier: The Recruit of the Republican Army. www.roman-empire.net/army/becoming.html
(5) Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. Selwyn Raab. Pg 1-8.
(6) Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. Selwyn Raab. Pg 29-32.