I became a soldier in the consulate of Publius Sulpicius and Gaius Aurelius [200 bc].
In the army which was shipped to Macedonia I was a private for two years against King Philip; in my third year, for my valour Titus Quinctius Flamininus appointed me centurion of the tenth maniple of hastati. After Philip’s and the Macedonians’ defeat, and after we returned to Italy and were discharged, I at once set out as a volunteer with the consul Marcus Porcius to Spain [195]. . . . This general considered me worthy to be appointed centurion of the leading centuria of hastati.
For the third time I once more became a volunteer, for the army which was sent against the Aetolians and King Antiochus [191]. By Manius Acilius I was appointed first centurion of the principes. . . . Twice thereafter I served in legions which campaigned yearly. Then twice I campaigned in Spain, once under the praetor Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, secondly under Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus [181-179]. By Flaccus I was brought home among those whom, for valour, he had brought home with him from his province; at Ti. Gracchus’ request, I went back to the province.
Four times, within a few years, I have been chief centurion (primuspilus); thirty-four times, for my valour, I have been decorated by generals; I have received six coronae civicae.
I have performed twenty-two years of service in the army and am more than fifty years old.
. . . But please treat these remarks as simply about my situation. For myself, so long as anyone enrolling an army judges me a suitable soldier, I mean never to beg myself off.
(Livy 42.34, abbreviated)
So, according to Livy, spoke a veteran soldier-citizen in 171 bc, during the call-up of a new army to fight the Macedonians. The Senate and consuls were, as usual, anxious to enrol as many veterans as possible; Ligustinus and other former centurions demanded to be appointed to ranks matching their previous ones. But after his speech (we are told), they declared they would accept whatever positions the authorities thought fit. The speech is obviously a Livian elaboration, presenting the idealized figure of a solid, patriotically warlike farmer-soldier. Its itemized details, though, and the circumstances which Livy reports around it, suggest that it is based on a real episode and character.1
The details are vivid in any case. Blessed, if that is the right word, with only one inherited iugerum of land, Ligustinus found soldiering a more attractive metier. His many decorations in so many successful wars imply, too, a satisfying run of booty, so we may infer a bigger farm and better fortunes for the family by 171. Even so, 22 years of military service was a remarkably long run, and by 168, if Ligustinus returned safely, he will have completed a quarter-century’s militia. His devotion to army service, though discontinuous, almost prefigures the professionals of later ages.
Idealized or not, Ligustinus’ military life reveals much about the mid-republican citizen-soldier. The first two Punic Wars transformed the Romans’ military system and had major effects on their society. To start with, campaigns outside Italy became the norm: fighting in Sicily, and at times other areas, went on for years in the First Punic War (264-241). Hannibal’s war (218-201) added a further element - lengthy continuous service required of many troops in most theaters, best exemplified by the survivors of the battle of Cannae. Recruited between 218 and 216, these expiated their much-criticized survival by being kept under arms, first in Sicily and then in North Africa, until war’s end. Ligustinus must have had plenty of predecessors - not all of them as fortunate in surviving to sturdy middle age.
Even though an era of shorter wars followed, his career shows how Roman citizen-soldiers might be discharged after one war only to be sought out for the next. Magistrates levying troops were keen to enrol experienced men, not a hard task if the war promised to be quick and profitable. The levy in 171 attracted many veterans who remembered the pickings from the previous Macedonian war (Livy 42.32.6). Indeed, Ligustinus and his comrades wanted to serve, but in their old posts as centurions. In 149 the consuls had no trouble calling up men for the Third Punic War because booty lured (Appian, Pun. 75.351) - a notable contrast with the resistance to levies for Spain just two years earlier (below).
But sometimes the authorities had to compel enrolment. Warfare that brought mere toil and risk, without counterbalancing rewards, rarely appealed. Compulsion was required, for instance, in 193 for a campaign against Ligurian mountaineers, and in 169 as Ligustinus’ no-longer-enticing war dragged on (Livy 34.56.1-2, 43.14.6-7). In such wars, serving soldiers sometimes - rightly - felt exploited and they complained. It happened in Spain in 206, when a corps mutinied outright for a time (Polybius 11.25-30; Livy 28.24-29), and there again in 180 under one of Ligustinus’ commanders, Fulvius Flaccus (Livy 40.35.5-7, 36.4, 36.10-11). Spain was an unpopular theater: the wars were hard, dangerous and, after the first three decades of Roman rule exhausted the readily available loot, mostly unprofitable. The outbreak of yet another Celtiberian war in 151 deterred even prospective young officers from volunteering, until Africanus’ grandson Scipio Aemilianus set the example (Polybius 35.4.2-14; Livy, Per. 48).2
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