Introduction

By the mid-sixth century bc, Rome had become the largest city in western central Italy and one of its leading powers, but the reach of Roman power remained for a long time confined to the Tiber basin and its immediate environs. The Romans’ penetration further afield began with their intervention in Campania in 343 bc and led in some seventy years to the conquest of all Italy south of the Po Valley. However, this advance and the ensuing expansion overseas cannot be understood without some examination of Roman warfare and military developments in the preceding centuries. This is the subject of the present chapter, and the following chapter considers some aspects in further detail.

The evidence for early Roman history is notoriously problematic. Roman historians developed extensive narratives, preserved most fully for us in two histories written in the late first century bc, by Livy and by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (the latter in Greek, and fully extant only for the period down to 443 bc). However, Roman historical writing only began in the late third century bc, and it is clear that the early accounts were greatly elaborated by later writers. For the period of the kings, most of what we are told is legend or imaginative reconstruction. From the foundation of the republic (traditionally dated to 509 bc), the historians give an annual record. This incorporated a good deal of authentic data, transmitted either orally or from documentary sources such as the record of events kept from quite early times by the Pontifex Maximus. However, this material underwent extensive distortion and elaboration in the hands of successive historians writing up their accounts for literary effect and expanding the narrative with what they regarded as plausible reconstructions. As a result the identification of the hard core of authentic data in the surviving historical accounts is very problematic and its extent remains disputed. There is general agreement that much of what we are told is literary confection, and this applies in particular to most of the accounts of early wars, which are full of stereotyped and often anachronistic invention.

Despite these difficulties, it is possible to establish a good deal about early Roman history and to make an assessment of the character of its warfare. We are helped in this by a range of further information, including data preserved by other ancient writers, for example antiquarian accounts of Roman institutions, a few inscriptions, and, particularly for the regal period, extensive archaeological evidence.1