Military history of ancient Rome

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Image:Roman Camp Arges reconstruction.jpg Rome was a militarized state whose history was often closely entwined with its military history over the roughly 13 centuries that the Roman state existed. The core of the Military history of ancient Rome is the account of its great land battles, from the conquest of Italy to its final battles against the Huns.

Institutions

Roman army

"The Roman Army" is the name given by English-speakers to the soldiers and other military forces who served the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. In general was the militia, and a commander of military operations, magister militiae. In the republic, a general might be called imperator, "commander" (as in Caesar imperator), but under the empire, that term became reserved for the highest office.

The Romans only called themselves "Roman" in very formal circumstances, such as senatus populusque Romanus (SPQR), "the Roman senate and people" or when they needed to distinguish themselves from others, as in civis Romanus, "Roman citizen." Otherwise, they used less formal and ethnocentric terms, such as nostri viri, "our men", also in mare nostrum, "our sea", for the Mediterranean. The state was res publica, "the public thing", and parallel to it was res militaris, "the military thing", which could have a number of connotations.

Miles has no clear etymology. We know that Rome was originally an Etruscan city, Ruma, and the Etruscans were a war-like people. Many of the early families of Rome, including some of the most aristocratic families, were originally Etruscan. It would be surprising, then, if miles had an Indo-european etymology. We don't know enough Etruscan language to rule it in or out as Etruscan.

The Army came to dominate much of the land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, including the province of Britannia and Asia Minor at the Empire's height. Little is known of the army under the monarchy. Even before the monarchy was overthrown in 509 BC, the army had become a citizen army. It remained a citizen army throughout most of the Republic, until becoming a professional army following the reforms of Gaius Marius c. 100 BC.

The army ended on a note less musical. Rome became what we would call a military dictatorship. The army began to play a part in selecting emperors, removing them typically by assassination. Imperator became a very risky office to hold. At last the senate refused to nominate any more candidates and left the selection totally up to the army, but the decision to do that did not bring stability in government. In the end the empire broke in two and then spintered into rival, warring armies. By that time there were but few Romans in the Roman army. It consisted mainly of provincial troops, due to the practice of placating enemies by letting them serve in the army, which exerted military discipline over them.

Pre-Republican military evolution

Much like many other ancient cities of the time, the Roman Kingdom under the Etruscan kings had a citizen based army, a militia called up in times of war. Servius Tullius Rex (King) was the first to create an organized census of his citizens to better facilitate the creation of armies, a system that would last until the end of the Roman Republic. Sometime during this period, the army adopted equipment similar to that used by the Greek hoplite, a soldier who provided his own armour and was armed with a long spear, and used the Phalanx formation. This development most likely came through Etruria, and it lasted well into the Republican era. It is also during this period that the pilum was most likely invented, giving the Roman army one of its first real contrast to its Greek counterpart. The king was the overall commander of the army, but members of the patrician families also had significant authority. It was also during the Kingdom that the army began to be organized into very specific and rigid sections, with the entire army being called the legio (legion).

The Republican Army

Sometime during the late Roman Kingdom or early Roman Republic the legio was split into two. Following the overthrow of the monarchy, executive authority rested in the annually elected consul position, of which there were two, each taking a part in the command of one of the two legions. This often lead to bickering, and in the mid-Republican years when larger armies began to be raised, such as during the Second Punic War, command often ended up falling to one consul on alternate days for the entire army, leading to debacles such as the one at the Battle of Cannae.

As the Republic developed, the necessity of reform was evident. The available manpower began to dwindle as the numbers of landholding men decreased and the number of men required to defend Rome's increasing territory increased. The popular and successful consul Gaius Marius put foreward a number of reforms, or perhaps more appropriately began to ignore the mos maorum (established order of things), and recruited men from outside the landowning class, of which there were a growing number. This lead to a more professional army, but started a long trend that could be viewed as a negative one, as the army stopped becoming part of the population, and became something entirely separate with goals and desires quite different from the average citizen of Rome. Another important reform was the command structure of the army. In order to police the growing territory outside of Italy, Rome organized them into provinces and gave the command of which to a military governor called a proconsul or propraetor. This man had absolute authority in the province, and even had the power to raise legions. Although this could be said to be a requirement for policing their growing territory, ambitious proconsuls and propraetors could easily abuse their power not only in their province, but use their men to undermine the Republic itself. The consuls could still only raise a single legion each, while proconsuls often had two or three under their command, a fact not missed by men like Gaius Julius Caesar Divus.

The Imperial Army

During the reign of Augustus and Trajan the army became a professional one. Its core of legionaries was composed of Roman citizens who served for a minimum of twenty-five years. Augustus in his reign tried to eliminate the loyalty of the legions to the generals who commanded them, forcing them to take an oath of allegiance directly to him. While the legions remained relatively loyal to Augustus during his reign, under others, especially the more corrupt emperors or those who unwisely treated the military poorly, the legions often took power into their own hands. Legions continued to move farther and farther to the outskirts of society, especially in the later periods of the empire as the majority of legionaries no longer came from Italy, and were instead born in the provinces. The loyalty the legions felt to their emperor only degraded more with time, and led in the 2nd Century and 3rd Century to a large number of military usurpers and civil wars. By the time of the military officer emperors that characterized the period following the Crisis of the Third Century the Roman army was just as likely to be attacking itself as an outside invader.

Both the pre- and post-Marian armies were greatly assisted by auxiliary troops. A typical Roman legion was accompanied by a matching auxiliary legion. In the pre-Marian army these auxiliary troops were Italians, and often Latins, from cities near Rome. The post-Marian army incorporated these Italian soldiers into its standard legions (as all Italians were Roman citizens after the Social War). Its auxiliary troops were made up of foreigners from provinces distant to Rome, who gained Roman citizenship after completing their twenty five years of service. This system of foreign auxiliaries allowed the post-Marian army to strengthen traditional weak points of the Roman system, such as light missile troops and cavalry, with foreign specialists, especially as the richer classes took less and less part of military affairs and the Roman army lost much of its domestic cavalry.

At the beginning of the Imperial period the number of legions was 60, which Augustus more than halved to 28, numbering at approximately 160,000 men. As more territory was conquered throughout the Imperial period, this fluctuated into the mid-thirties. At the same time, at the beginning of the Imperial period the foreign auxiliaries made up a rather small portion of the military, but continued to rise, so that by the end of the period of the Five Good Emperors they probably equalled the legionnaires in number, giving a combined total of between 300,000 and 400,000 men in the Army.

Under Augustus and Trajan, the army had become a highly efficient and thoroughly professional body, brilliantly led and staffed. To Augustus fell the difficult task of retaining much that Caesar had created, but on a permanent peace-time footing. He did so by creating a standing army, made up of 28 legions, each one consisting of roughly 6000 men. Additional to these forces there was a similar number of auxiliary troops. Augustus also reformed the length of time a soldier served, increasing it from six to twenty years (16 years full service, 4 years on lighter duties). The standard of a legion, the so-called aquila (eagle) was the very symbol of the unit's honour. The aquilifer was the man who carried the standard, he was almost as high in rank as a centurion. It was this elevated and honourable position which also made him the soldiers' treasurer in charge of the pay chest. A legion on the march relied completely on its own resources for weeks. In addition to his weapons and armour, each man carried a marching pack that included a cooking pot, some rations, clothes and any personal possessions. Furthermore, to make camp each night every man carried tools for digging as well as two stakes for a palisade. Weighed down by such burdens it is little wonder that the soldiers were nicknamed 'Marius' Mules'.

There has over time been much debate regarding how much weight a legionary actually had to carry. Now, 30 kg (ca. 66 lb) is generally considered the upper limit for an infantryman in modern day armies. Calculations have been made which, including the entire equipment and the 16 day's worth of rations, brings the weight to over 41 kg (ca. 93 lb). And this estimate is made using the lightest possible weights for each item, it suggest the actual weight would have been even higher. This suggests that the sixteen days rations were not carried by the legionaries. the rations referred to in the old records might well have been a sixteen days ration of hard tack (buccellatum), usually used to supplement the daily corn ration (frumentum). By using it as an iron ration, it might have sustained a soldier for about three days. The weight of the buccellatum is estimated to have been about 3 kg, which, given that the corn rations would add more than 11 kg, means that without the corn, the soldier would have carried around 30 kg (66 lb), pretty much the same weight as today's soldiers.

The necessity for a legion to undertake quite specialised tasks such as bridge building or engineering siege machines, required there to be specialists among their numbers. These men were known as the immunes, 'excused from regular duties'. Among them would be medical staff, surveyors, carpenters, veterinaries, hunters, armourers - even soothsayers and priests. When the legion was on the march, the chief duty of the surveyors would be to go ahead of the army, perhaps with a cavalry detachment, and to seek out the best place for the night's camp. In the forts along the empire's frontiers other non-combatant men could be found. For an entire bureaucracy was necessary to keep the army running. So scribes and supervisors, in charge of army pay, supplies and customs. Also there would be military police present.

As a unit, a legion was made up of ten cohorts, each of which was further divided into six centuries of eighty men, commanded by a centurion. The commander of the legion, the legatus, usually held his command for three or four years, usually as a preparation for a later term as provincial governor. The legatus, also referred to as general in much of modern literature, was surrounded by a staff of six officers. These were the military tribunes, who - if deemed capable by the legatus - might indeed command an entire section of a legion in battle. The tribunes, too, were political positions rather than purely military, the tribunus laticlavius being destined for the senate. Another man, who could be deemed part of the general's staff, was the centurio primus pilus. This was the most senior of all the centurions, commanding the first century of the first cohort, and therefore the man of the legion, when it was in the field, with the greatest experience (in Latin, "primus pilus" means "first javelin", as the primus pilus was allowed to hurl the first javelin in battle). The primus pilus also oversaw the everyday running of the forces.

1 Contubernium (or tent) - 8 Men

10 Contubernia: 1 Century - 80 Men

2 Centuries: 1 Maniple - 160 Men

6 Centuries(3 Maniples): 1 Cohort - 480 Men

10 Cohorts + 120 Horsemen: 1 Legion - 5240 Men *

• 1 Legion = 9 normal cohorts (9 x 480 Men) + 1 "First Cohort" of 5 centuries (but each century at the strength of a maniple, so 5 x 160 Men) + 120 Horsemen = 5240 Men

Together with non-combatants attached to the army, a legion would count around 6000 men. The 120 horsemen attached to each legion were used as scouts and dispatch riders. They were ranked with staff and other non-combatants and allocated to specific centuries, rather than belonging to a squadron of their own.

The senior professional soldiers in the legion was likely to be the camp prefect, praefectus castrorum. He was usually a man of some thirty years service, and was responsible for organization, training, and equipment.

Centurions, when it came to marching, had one considerable privilege over their men. Whereas the soldiers moved on foot, they rode on horseback. Another significant power they possessed was that of beating their soldiers. For this they would carry a staff, perhaps two or three foot long. Apart from his distinctive armour, this staff was one of the means by which one could recognise a centurion. One of the remarkable features of centurions is the way in which they were posted from legion to legion and province to province. It appears they were not only highly sought after men, but the army was willing to transport them over considerable distances to reach a new assignment. The most remarkable aspect of the centurionate though must be that they were not normally discharged but died in service. Thus, to a centurion the army was truly his life. Each centurion had an optio, so called because originally he was nominated by the centurion. The optiones ranked with the standard bearers as principales receiving double the pay of an ordinary soldier. The title optio ad spem ordinis was given to an optio who had been accepted for promotion to the centurionate, but who was waiting for a vacancy. Another officer in the century was the tesserarius, who was mainly responsible for small sentry pickets and fatigue parties, and so had to receive and pass on the watchword of the day. Finally there was the custos armorum who was in charge of the weapons and equipment.

Battle Order

Front Line 5th Cohort 4th Cohort 3rd Cohort 2nd Cohort 1st Cohort

Second Line 10th Cohort 9th Cohort 8th Cohort 7th Cohort 6th Cohort

The first cohort of any legion were its elite troops. So too the sixth cohort consisted of "the finest of the young men", the eighth contained "selected troops", the tenth cohort "good troops". The weakest cohorts were the 2nd, 4th, 7th and the 9th cohorts. It was in the 7th and 9th cohorts one would expect to find recruits in training.

The last major reform of the Imperial Army came under the reign of Diocletian in the late 3rd Century. During the instability that had marked most of that century, the army had fallen in number and lost much of its ability to effectively police and defend the empire. He quickly recruited a large number of men, increasing the number of legionnaires from between 150,000-200,000 to 350,000-400,000, effectively doubling the number in a case of quantity over quality.

Roman navy

The Roman navy was very much inferior, both in prestige and capability, to the Roman army. Before the First Punic War in 264 BC there was no Roman navy to speak of as all previous Roman war had been fought in Italy. But the war in Sicily against Carthage, a great naval power, forced Rome to quickly build a fleet and train sailors. The first few naval battles of the First Punic War were disasters for Rome, and it was not until the invention of the Corvus, a grappling engine which made it easier for Romans to board the Carthaginian vessels, that Rome was able to win the war. This meant that Rome could use her superior army in naval combat, and was a significant shift away from the tactics of all other navies at the time.

Rome was able to use her superior army in preference to her navy in most of the wars she fought afterwards. By the late Empire Roman control over the Mediterranean coast meant that there were no non-Roman navies to fight. Indeed, Rome's last major naval battle was fought between Romans, Octavian and Marc Antony, at Actium. However, she still maintained a large navy which patrolled not just the Mediterranean, but the various major rivers in the empire. Although the quality of the navy did degrade into the later imperial period, emperors such as Diocletian put significant effort into rebuilding the navy. The average estimate of manpower strength of the navy ranges from 50,000-100,000.

Events

The Republican period

The first Roman wars were wars of expansion and defence, aimed at protecting Rome itself from neighbouring cities and nations by defeating them in battle. This sort of warfare characterized the early Republican Period when Rome was focused on consolidating its position in Italy, and eventually conquering the peninsula. Rome first began to make war outside the Italian peninsula in the Punic wars against Carthage. These wars, starting in 264 BC saw Rome become a Mediterranean power, with territory in Sicily, North Africa, Spain, and, after the Macedonian wars, Greece. One important point that must be understood is that the Rome did not conquer most nations outright, at least at first, but instead forced them into a submissive position as allies and client states. These allies supplied men, money, and supplies to Rome against other opponents.

It wasn't until the late Republic that the expansion of the Republic started meaning actual annexation of large amounts of territory, however in this period, civil war became an increasingly common feature. In the last century before the common era at least 12 civil wars and rebellions occurred. These were generally started by one charismatic general who refused to surrender power to the Roman Senate, which appointed generals, and so had to be opposed by an army loyal to the Senate. This pattern did not break until Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) ended it by becoming a successful challenger to the Senate's authority, and was crowned emperor.

The imperial period

As the emperor was a centralized authority with power focused in Rome, this gave both a benefit and weakness to expansion under the Roman Empire. Under powerful and secure emperors such as Augustus and Trajan, great territorial gains were possible, but under weaker rulers such as Nero and Domitian, weakness resulted in nothing more than usurpation. One thing that all successful emperors had to accomplish was the loyalty of the legions throughout the empire. Weak emperors such as those relied upon generals to carry out their direct actions along the border, especially considering their requirement to stay in Rome to maintain power. This meant that often expansion in the empire came in leaps and bounds rather than a slow march. Another important point to remember is that many of the territories conquered in the imperial period were former client states of Rome whose regimes had degraded into instability, requiring armed intervention, often leading to outright annexation.

Unfortunately, the weakness of some emperors meant that these generals could wrest control of those legions away. The third century saw a crisis and a high number of civil wars similar to those that characterized the end of the Republic. Much like then, generals were wrestling control of power based upon the strength of the local legions under their command. Ironically, while it was these usurpations that lead to the break up of the Empire during that crisis, it was the strength of several frontier generals that helped reunify the empire through force of arms. Eventually, the dynastic structure of the imperial office returned due to the centralization of loyalty and control of the military once more, and then collapsed once again for the same reasons as before, leading to the destruction of the Western Half of the Empire. At this point, Roman military history becomes Byzantine military history.

Appraisal and Assessment of the Roman forces

What made the Romans effective versus so many skilled opponents?

The basic structure and operation of the Roman military is generally well known from countless books, writings and films, particularly the legion, its officers, fortified camps and other features. Less well known is what made the Romans so effective a force over almost 1,000 years, particularly since the Romans encountered several other able opponents and lost so many battles over the course of their hegemony. The popular film "Gladiator" presents a typical picture of Roman invincibility, complete with wild Germanic hordes that were quickly crushed. But in fact, Rome lost numerous battles to such "wild" hordes. One of the greatest, (the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest) saw the liquidation of three imperial legions and was to force a limit on Roman expansion in the west. And it was these hordes in part (most having some familiarity with Rome and its culture) that were to bring about the Roman military's final demise in the West.

Several of Rome's other military campaigns hardly show sustained invincibility or dazzling genius. Indeed Roman performance in many battles was unimpressive, and learning time seemed extended. As far as ambushes for example, (such as the disaster in the Teutoburg) Roman forces seemed to have a penchant for falling into them repeatedly, as proved centuries earlier at Lake Trasimene. Over the course of the empire, they were out-generaled by Hannibal (during the early years of the Second Punic War) and suffered a number of other severe defeats by opponents like the Parthians. And yet, over time, the Romans not only bounced back, but for the most part eventually crushed or neutralized their enemies. How then did they do it against a variety of enemies that were, at various times and places, more numerous, more skilled or better led?

Central factors in Roman success

This section will not repeat the heavy detail of other articles on things like specific items of equipment, camp layout, political leaders, etc. except in terms of analyzing (via concise summaries), the elements that made the Romans an effective military force, both tactically and at higher levels. A fair appraisal should analyze how the Romans learned from their defeats, and isolate the central factors responsible for Roman success over the long run. Five are offered here where cover both naval and infantry forces:

• The Romans were able to copy and adapt the weapons and methods of its opponents effectively

• Roman organization was more flexible than those of opponents

• Roman organization and systemization sustained combat effectiveness over a longer period

• The Romans were more persistent, and willing to absorb and replace more losses. Unlike other civilizations, the Romans kept going until their enemies have been neutralized.

• Roman military leadership while disastrous at times, was satisfactory enough to ensure success

In support of these five? propositions, Roman performance against a number of enemies will be analyzed. These enemies represent a fair cross section of the empire's wars, and thus serve to help explain the military's success. These five? enemies are:

• Hannibal and the Punic forces, including naval forces
• Hellenistic opponents like the Greek kingdoms
• Cavalry opponents like the Parthians
• The "wild" barbarian hordes of Gaul

I would add that the europeans enemies of Rome didn't had good cavalry units. The core of roman army was infantry and when they faced armies based on cavalry they were in deep problems. Until the migrations there were only two "cavalry armies" that could face Rome, Partians and light Dacian cavalry combined with heavy Sarmatian cavalry.

Hannibal and the Punic challenge

es:Ejército de la Roma Antigua it:Esercito romano he:הצבא הרומי pl:Armia rzymska pt:História militar da Roma Antiga sl:Rimska vojska fi:Rooman sotahistoria sv:Romerska rikets militär

For more information on the Roman Army, check out the Roman Legion page.