Bret Devereaux on the Early Republican Army

[Easy E]

This is a video about the military forces of the Early Roman Republic.  Very interesting, because most people think of Imperial Rome and push backwards.  That was not true at all for the Early and Middle Republic.  A couple of notes:

1. This was not an army, it is more like a Militia and or even less.  There may not have even been a centralized army in the way we think about it.     

2. The ancient authors applied their own "modern" standards of military force backwards onto the earlier periods.  I.e. it was not a battle, but a cattle raid.  It was not a siege, but a raid. The ancient writers themselves had difficulty with their sources.  This guy does not take Livy at face value at all.     

3. There was no standardized kit for soldiers during this period.  Soldiers provided their own gear.

4. Wealth classification is not as clear cut as the history books would have us believe.     

Anyway, this is a long one, but a really good listen for those interested in the Early periods of Rome.  Things many people take as dogma because that is what the sources said..... are not nearly as clear cut and maybe the sources are not as straight forward as we have been taking them.     

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m7zEcjcfE4[/youtube]

I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this.
 

[Rick]

There are some parallels between the Greek citizen armies of the city states and the early Republican armies. I would hesitate before using the term 'militia' to describe a better organised citizen army, personally.

[Easy E]

That is his point.  They weren't that organized being "Citizen Armies" in the Early Republic.   

[guitarheroandy]

Looking forward to watching that as I've long had issues with the narrative around the Roman army of the period up to the first Punic War as described in Livy and in pretty much every set of war-games rules out there...especially since reading Hans Van Wees' book on hoplite warfare and Jeremy Armstrong's book on the early Republic's army.

I personally don't mind the word 'militia' because I don't feel it has to have the negative connotations we sometimes put on it. To me it just implies less rigorous training than a fully 'professional' soldier which to me sums up the citizen 'legionary' of this era perfectly - competent but not 'professional'. But I can see why it's not a favoured term.

I'll report back once I've watched the video...

[Citizen Sade]

His blog, A collection of unmitigated pedantry, is worth a follow. Plenty of interesting stuff about life and warfare in the ancient world plus dissections of the sort of shows and films that gamers are likely to watch.

[guitarheroandy]

A really interesting listen. Nothing really about what battle may have actually looked like, which disappointed me a little, but some excellent discussion about army sizes, how armies might have been put together, what warfare itself was in the 5th century, etc. Well worth a listen and author Jeremy Armstrong does get a mention - he's essential reading for anyone interested in the Roman army of the 5th-early 3rd century and has some very different ideas around what the army would have looked and fought like compared to what we see in army lists and rules across the wargaming world.

[Easy E]

I really enjoyed the parts where they demonstrate why you can not take Primary source authors at face value. 

[Rick]

I'd take this in much the same way as any modern revisionist viewpoint - some good ideas but, overall, it cannot really explain the past any better than the primary sources he disdains; different, but not necessarily better.
And it still leaves us with the big elephant in the room - Rome's opponents were competent, fairly powerful and, yet, Rome defeated them all. If Rome had such a poor army that certainly didn't outnumber its opponents by any great number, how did they do it? What did Rome have that their opponents lacked? And not just one or two - Rome defeated all of their opponents, sooner or later, so what made the Republican Roman Army better than everyone they came up against around the Mediterranean world?
I keep coming back to the point that perhaps, just maybe, they weren't quite the mediocre militia inferred but that they were, in actual fact, a rather more competent citizen army.
After all, the WW2 US military was a 'Citizen Army' and somewhat more competent and better equipped than, say, the British Home Guard or the French Resistance (both being, I would argue, militias) of the same time.

[guitarheroandy]

Rome came into its own around the mid 4th century and especially after the final Latin War, at which point its resources (which now included all the Latin states, which were numerous) were massively bigger than the Samnites, Etruscans and Southern Italian Greeks and that was the point at which it finally defeated those opponents in bigger and more decisive encounters - because it had the armies to do so. Even if it lost a battle, it could recruit another and just keep going (which is essentially how the Second Punic War was won, for example). In the period from 500-340 (ish) BCE, that's the period to which I feel most of the episode was referring with regard to the smaller scale of warfare and the victories which, while still victories, were indecisive (because those enemies just kept coming back year on year.)

[Easy E]

I think they also make the point that between 500-340ish, the Romans WEREN'T crushing anyone and were basically a non-entity.  Not even their local foes, who kept coming back year-after-year.  While the Etruscans were telling expansionists Greeks and Carthage to stay out of their territory and winning some battles against them, the Romans were a bunch of nobodies.  They were only starting to be the regional power they would become.   

The Romans were busy trying to copy the Etruscan and Greek military model during this time, and move away from their aristocratic warband model, into a Greek "citizen army", and eventually into the socially stratified system they ended up using.  I would say that he argues pretty conclusively that the Severin Constitution did not take effect until much later in the period compared to Livy's (and others) claims it was adopted.

However, it is also clear that the Romans were quick to exploit any military advantage, especially in Manpower; as soon as they had access to it.  They dipped pretty deeply into the economic pool to pull out military power, deeper than other states were often willing to do at the same time.  Warfare was for people with money, but the Romans democratized warfare to more and more poor people.  This was what gave them the military edge later and eventually conquer Italy and then move beyond.
 

[Rick]

Okay, fair points there. Well let's turn it on it's head for a moment - we're talking about the Roman Republic, not an Etruscan client state but, if they're still a bit of a non-entity at this point, why wasn't Rome crushed and absorbed into another state? What was it that allowed Rome to survive being crushed, endure and, ultimately, prevail over its opponents? And not sure I completely buy the proposition that they could field greater numbers every time.

[Mad Doc Morris]

Who says Rome's neighbours didn't "crush" her now and then? Brennus? Lars Porsenna? That's how war worked around the Med: give your opponent a proper beating, leave them bleeding, and head home in triumph. Until next season.

Tim Cornell in The Beginnings of Rome – gosh, it's been thirty years – pointed out the real difference in Roman strategy and it wasn’t about quick victories or short-term gains. Rome didn't just take the loot and go. It turned the beaten into partners in crime. Quite literally, as Cornell says. Beat your enemies, then offer them a cut of the next job. Rome co-opted local elites, shared out the spoils, and kept actual control with relatively little effort while steadily growing its manpower base.

By the time the remaining others (i. e. Samnites, Etruscans, Celts in the 290s) grasped what was going on, their chance to counter it was gone. The "Roman system" had become more or less unbeatable. Hannibal found that out the hard way. Allies might switch sides for a while, but in the end, Rome looked like the safer, more reliable partner. Or just the one with the better offer.

[guitarheroandy]

Okay, fair points there. Well let's turn it on it's head for a moment - we're talking about the Roman Republic, not an Etruscan client state but, if they're still a bit of a non-entity at this point, why wasn't Rome crushed and absorbed into another state? What was it that allowed Rome to survive being crushed, endure and, ultimately, prevail over its opponents? And not sure I completely buy the proposition that they could field greater numbers every time.

If, as suggested, they recruited from lower down the social strata and also, from 340 (ish) BCE had the full weight of all Latium and their other conquered neighbours to draw on as well I can't see how the numbers game can fail to work in their favour during the late 3rd to 1st centuries BCE - not necessarily in a single battle but certainly over the course of a lengthy war. It may well not be the only factor but my belief is that is was a decisive one. It's certainly a factor by the Second Punic War. How else can we explain Rome failing to submit after the disasters at Trebbia, Trasimene and especially Cannae?

I think also we tend to view 'The Etruscans' or 'The Samnites' as these huge confederations whereas the reality was that late 6th to early 4th century Etruria was a collection of city states that often were not allied with each other and Samnium was a collection of small tribes. Granted, those tribes allied into confederations for the great Samnite Wars which helps to explain why Rome took so long to finally subdue them, but in the early days (500-340) Rome's wars were essentially raiding/prestige campaigns of one city (or even one family) versus another. Livy claims Rome usually won those (aside from Lars Porsenna's conquest of Rome in the late 6th century) but why do we believe him? He was trying to paint a picture of 1st Century Rome as the unbreakable colossus of the world and thus 'shaped' his history to reflect that for the earlier period where exact records were shaky and where living memory was long since gone. Besides, one doesn't 'win' this kind of war in the way the modern world thinks of as 'winning', i.e. complete subjugation or destruction: these wars drag on until someone decides to make peace overtures and neither is really massively defeated. How else did the states that Rome continually 'defeated' (according to Livy) still survive to fight again a year or two later when they were often no larger or even smaller than Rome?
The era of the 'big wins' came later during the mid - late 4th century and into the 3rd as Rome's warfare became more about state conquest than raiding and prestige. That's when Latium is absorbed into the Republic and when the remaining city states of Etruria and eventually Samnium are also defeated and annexed/absorbed. Suddenly we then have the Roman Republic that our history books and war-games rules loves to portray: a well-organised colossus with huge manpower and a well-organised citizen military system. Nobody is really arguing with that but it's how it got to that point which is to me far more fascinating and why I (unusually for me) side with the revisionist theories from which the podcast on the original post is drawing. They make sense to me in a way the older theories based on a very straight and literal reading of Livy don't. I'm not expecting to be agreed with though - that's the joy of this period. Nobody 'knows': we can only suggest theories based on changes to the way archaeology and source are interpreted and also by trying to remove our modern prejudices/thinking from the equation and try to put ourselves into the mindsets of the past - a real challenge!

[Rick]

Guitarheroandy - good points and I find myself agreeing with you on several of them. The reason I'm unconvinced that Rome fielded overwhelming numbers in every battle is that the primary sources would have trumpetted Rome's might from every piece of information we have - it would have been obvious. However, what if you're right? What if Rome did exactly that - fielded roughly the same numbers as their opponents but had more troops ready to replace their tired and wounded. We know Rome operated a similar system for their units later on, could this be how they started it? The primary sources might only mention 5,000 troops or so but not a few thousand replacements, ready to step in when needed. This is, obviously, sheer speculation, but it would give Rome's armies, mere plebs or not, a decisive advantage and explain the 'x factor' that Rome had and their opponents apparemtly didn't.

[guitarheroandy]

Agreed Rick - I don't think Rome fielded massive armies that outnumbered their opponents in every battle. I suspect they put into the field armies of a size they thought fit for the job (cheaper to field a smaller force, after all) but had a much greater manpower reserve as time went on...