The guiding principle behind this companion to the Roman army is the belief that the Roman army cannot adequately be described only as an instrument of combat, but must be viewed also as an essential component of Roman society, economy, and politics. Of course, the prime purpose of the Roman army was to defeat the enemy in battle. Whether the army succeeded depended not only on its weapons and equipment, but also its training and discipline, and on the experience of its soldiers, all of which combined to allow the most effective deployment of its manpower. Moreover, every army is backed by a more or less developed organization that is needed to mobilize and sustain it. Changes in Roman society significantly affected the Roman army. However, the army was also itself an agent of change, determining in large part developments in politics and government, economy and society. Four themes recur throughout the volume: (1) the army as a fighting force; (2) the mobilization of human and material resources; (3) the relationship between army, politics, and empire; and (4) the relationship between the armies and the civilian population. Even in a sizeable volume such as this choices have had to be made regarding the topics to be discussed, but the focus in this volume on the army in politics, economy, and society reflects the direction of recent research.
Modern authors often claim that ancient Rome was a militaristic society, and that warfare dominated the lives of the Roman people. Interestingly, the first outsider in Rome to paint an extensive picture of Roman society and whose account has largely survived essentially says the same thing. Polybius was in a position to know, since he was brought to Rome as a hostage after the Third Macedonian War (171-168 bc) and was befriended by one of the leading families. The main task he set himself in his Histories was to explain Rome’s incredible military success during the past decades. To Polybius, the stability of her constitution was one important element, but Rome’s military success is explained by two other elements: manpower and ethos. At the eve of the Hannibalic War, Polybius informs us, Rome was able to mobilize 700,000 men in the infantry and 70,000 horsemen. To be sure, Rome never assembled an army
Of such size - even in imperial times her soldiers did not number as many as 700,000. But such a number of men was available to take up arms and fight Rome’s opponents in Italy or overseas. In other words, almost all male, able-bodied citizens of Rome and her allies could be expected to serve in the army at one point or another. Military service was indeed the main duty of a Roman citizen, and military experience was widespread. The empires that Rome had defeated in the past decades - Carthage, Macedon, the Seleucid Empire - had lost the connection between citizenship and military service, instead relying largely on mercenaries. Polybius was also struck by the military ethos that Roman traditions instilled in the Roman elite and common people alike. Citizens and allies were awarded in front of the entire army for bravery in combat. Decorations were worn on public occasions during the rest of the soldiers’ lives. Trophies were hung in the most conspicuous places in their homes.
So when we consider this people’s almost obsessive concern with military rewards and punishments, and the immense importance which they attach to both, it is not surprising that they emerge with brilliant success from every war in which they engage. (Polybius 6.39)
At the time that Polybius witnessed Roman society, the army and military ethos played important roles in the lives of almost all male Roman citizens. In that sense, Rome’s was a militaristic society.
Although war and the army remained important aspects of the Roman Empire, it would be difficult to characterize Roman society at the time of Augustus (31 bc-14 ad) or Trajan (98-117 ad) as militaristic to the same degree. Just as the term “Roman” applied to ever widening circles, more and more recruits enlisting in the legions came from Spain, Gaul, and other provinces, while the people of the capital city did not serve in the armies anymore. Moreover, military service had become a lifetime profession for a minority of the empire’s inhabitants. Recruits signed up to serve for up to 25 years. Many would die while serving in the army, though more of natural causes than due to military action. Many veterans from the legions became prominent members of local society, while those who had served in the auxiliary forces earned Roman citizenship at discharge. However, only a few percent of the empire’s population served in the armies or fleets. Large sections of the empire hardly saw Roman armies at all during the next centuries, while many soldiers never saw combat. The army still held an important place in society, mostly so in the border regions where the majority of troops were concentrated, but this role had changed significantly.
Waging war remained the largest task undertaken by the state, and the army was the largest institution that the state created. It certainly was the most expensive, taking up about three quarters of the annual imperial budget. Mobilizing, equipping, and feeding the several hundred thousand men that were stationed between Brittannia’s northern border and the Arabian desert was an undertaking that could not be sustained by the market alone, and required the direct intervention of the central and local authorities. On the other hand, the presence of Roman legions and auxiliary forces was the engine that drove crucial developments in the economy and society of the border regions. And it was through the army that many members of local aristocracies were integrated into the Roman Empire.
The army retained a central role in the power structures within the empire. Addressing the Roman Senate, Augustus used the phrase “I and the army are well,” leaving no doubt about who ruled the empire and with what backing. Hence the close connection between emperor and armies was an important message to convey not only to the senators in Italy and peoples throughout the empire, but - most crucially - to the armies as well. While the Praetorian Guard, which was stationed near Rome, played an important role on the accession to the throne of Claudius in 41 ad, in the civil wars of 68-69 ad the armies of the Rhine, Danube, and the East decided who would be put on the throne. While the nature of the relationship between the emperors and the senatorial class (to which belonged many of the authors on whose historical narrative we nowadays rely) colors - and possibly distorts - our picture of individual emperors, the most important development in the position of the emperor during the next centuries may be said to have been the changing relationship between army and emperor. Whatever their qualities and intentions, emperors could not function without maintaining close relations with the troops. One of the problems was that many units were almost permanently stationed in the same region, and drew recruits from their locality. Troops developed regional ties that proved stronger in times of crisis than the ties with Rome or the emperor. In the mid-third century ad the position of emperor became the prize in a struggle between the various armies stationed in Britain, along the Rhine and Danube, and in the East. Diocletian (284-305) and Constantine (312-337) managed to restore control of the armies. In the meantime, however, Rome and Italy had lost their centrality, while internal threats played as much a role in the development of the army as did external wars.
The traditional view of the late Roman Empire held that, as the nature of the opponents along the borders changed and their strength became ever greater, the empire threatened to collapse under the stress, leading on the one hand to more state control of society in order to maintain military strength, on the other hand to a weakening army, consisting more and more of barbaric peoples or farmer-soldiers of dubious military value. This picture now seems largely untrue: the central authorities did not suffocate civil society in order to maintain the war effort, nor were the Roman armies of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries ad less capable of striking forceful blows at their opponents. In the fourth century, many Germanic peoples served in the Roman armies. The landowners paid money to hire men, and kept their own people on the land. The western half of the Roman Empire did indeed collapse, as after the battle of Adrianople large tracts of land came under the control of migrating Germanic peoples - in particular Vandals, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths - who were eventually allowed to settle under their own rule, but who increasingly made it impossible for the central Roman authorities to gather the resources necessary to sustain a sizeable army of their own. The armies of the emperor Justinian (527-565), which were backed by a populous eastern empire and reconquered Italy, northern Africa, and southern Spain from their Germanic kings, may be seen as the last Roman armies.
World History
