Useful Notes / The Glory That Was Rome

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Rome's history of wars and conquest can be roughly broken down as follows:

• Early Roman Republic (about 350 BCE): Famous events in this period are the conquest of a nearby city called Veii, said to be around 396 BC, and the sack of Rome by some Gauls led by Brennus travelling though in 390 BC. This sack was a deeply traumatic event, and Romans resolved to never undergo such a situation again. Sure enoguh there wouldn't be another external sack of Rome until the late Imperial period, nearly 800 years later.
• Italian Peninsular Conquests (about 350 - 264 BCE): Starting around 350 BC, it starts conquering city by city in Italy, starting with nearby neighbors. Eventually, Rome fought a coalition of several major Italian powers (the second Samnite war) in the 280's BC and won, finishing up the conquest of italy after this war with some northern and southern cities. One of these cities, Tarentum, asked a guy called Pyrrhus for help.
• The Pyrrhic War (280–275 BCE): Remembered best for the proverbial Pyrrhic Victories achieved by Pyrrhos, the ambitious king of Epirus (north-western Greece), who battled the expansion of Roman hegemony over the Greek colonies of Southern Italy, and eventually had to give up after winning all battles. The endurance of Rome to never surrender even after facing defeat in the field helped built the legend of the Roman Legion's hardiness. Other ancient conquerors were used to quick Decisive Battle that forced a surrender, to forestall and prevent a sack, a strategy that prevailed against states with lower populations and feeble civic spirit, but against Rome such pragmatism faltered. The Roman ideology was devoted to ultimate victory and they would eat losses, big and small, and double and triple down their determination, while the invading side was left frustrated at having to fight and win each every battle with fewer and fewer resources. Hence the notion of Pyrrhic Victory, victories indistinguishable from defeat, or from the Roman view, Meaningless Villain Victory.
• The Punic Wars against Carthage (264-146 BCE). The biggest wars of the Ancient Mediterranean, featuring numbers, battles on sea and land, of the kind you wouldn't see until centuries later. Famous for the proverbial campaigns of Hannibal Barca — especially crossing the Alps with War Elephants[. Hannibal's campaign into Italy are among the best-remembered episodes of ancient Roman history, partly because of the sheer magnitude of Hannibal's military achievements, and partly because this was the last time for several hundred years to come in which, for a moment, the very existence of the Roman state seemed to be at stake. The famous scientist Archimedes of Syracuse was working for Hannibal and when the Romans captured the city, Archimedes was killed by a Roman legionnaire, despite the orders to spare him by the commanding centurion. The third Punic War is the earliest period in Republican Roman history for which we have an eyewitness account, chiefly the works of Greek Historian Polybius, whose Histories is a crucial work on the rise of Republican Rome as the superpower of the Mediterranean.
• The Celtiberian Wars (181-133 BCE) and the Lusitanian Wars (155-139 BCE) were part of Rome's attempts to transform previously Carthaginian territories in Spain into productive Roman provinces. However, what the Barca family had accomplished through intelligence, vassalage and mercenary alliances, Rome tried to do through forceful pacification and delegating on incompetent and/or greedy governors, which inevitably resulted in a powder keg of bloody rebellions that lasted fifty years at its peak. People in Rome ended up seriously fed of the situation after the continuous victories of the Lusitanian warlord Viriathus, the ungodly resistance of the Celtiberian tribes, and the obstinacy of tribes who used to spring back to war right after being pacified, so dire measures had to be taken by the Senate (including paid betrayals and brutal sieges) in order to drown the conflicts for good. Still, the totality of Spain would not be taken until the times of The Roman Empire, two whole centuries after the beginning of the affair.
• The Cimbrian Wars (112-101 BCE) had the Romans contend against invasions and raids from Tribes in Cisalpine Gaul (North-West Italy). The wars marked the first of many conflicts between Romans and Germanic tribes. Gaius Marius pushed through several major army reforms to rally Romans to victory. He came to be called "The Third Founder of Rome" for his efforts.
• The Jugurthine War (107-101 BCE) which overlapped with the Cimbrian wars. It involved the Romans coming to the aid of their Numidian ally, the deposed King Massinisa, to put down a usurper named Jugurtha. The wars took place in North Africa, in territory that at that time was part of the domains of Numidia, that was in effect a Roman client-state. The territory would become a full province of the Empire in time. Marius intervened alongside his quaestor Lucius Cornelius Sulla, or Sulla Felix as he would come to be known. Sulla having apprenticed under Marius, would in time become his most bitter foe. This conflict is the subject of one of the earliest works of history written in Latin, The Jugurthine War by Sallust.
• The Socii Wars (91 - 87 BCE). Several Italian City-States who had supported Rome against Hannibal experienced buyer's remorse over poor treatment and lack of rights under Roman hegemony. When a reformer named Drusus proposed to extend rights to Italian allies outside Rome, he was brutally executed by conservatives, an event which sparked this war. The Italian City-States called themselves Italia and minted coins showing a bull goring a wolf. It proved to be an immensely bloody and violent conflict, with many future famous Romans like Cato, Cicero, Pompey, Crassus, as well as Marius and Sulla, united under a common cause of defending Rome against an external foe, for what proved to be the last time. At the end of the war, Rome won but upon victory they extended citizenship to many defeated Italian city-states as well as a reward to the Italian city-states who remained loyal regardless.
• The Mithridatic Wars (88 - 63 BCE). King Mithridates ruled over the Pontic Kingdom (Modern Day Turkey, and the rim of the Black Sea) and he was a remnant of the Macedonian Successor Kingdoms. Previously his kingdom had been a client of Rome but now he sought to shake off the Romans and he did so by invading and taking on territory that belonged to other client kingdoms in the area, forcing Rome to respond by declaring war. In reaction to the war, Mithridates ordered a series of massacres called the Asiatic Vespers or Ephesian Vespers ^note Said term is deeply anachronistic, coined in the 19th Century by a French historian. They used the term vesper in allusion to the medieval era peasant rebellion in Sicily which took place around evening prayer (i.e. vespers) and then backdated it to describe the massacres of Mithridates. Mithridates ordered that Romans and Italians living and settling in the Pontic Kingdom were to be murdered and their property liquidated. Slaves belonging to these households were promised freedom in exchange for killing their masters. The order and decree resulted in 80,000 dead, demanding a significant response from Rome. The war is notorious however for the fact that the Roman effort to fight Mithridates was compromised by a simmering partisan factionalism in Rome, which pit Marius against Sulla, who both wished for the valuable command and sought to sabotage the other's war effort. This ended up delaying Mithridates defeat. Sulla Felix won command and campaigned in Greece and Asia Minor, committing many war crimes along the way, including a devastating attack on Athens that destroyed much of its Periclean-era heritage. To the tail end of the conflict, as Sulla settled in Rome, younger commanders like Pompey the Great took the field and presided over Mithridates' final defeat. This war saw the Romans expand Eastward and saw the beginning of the end of Macedonian Kingdoms, and likewise led to Pompey conquering Judea and parts of Levant, bringing it into the Roman world, planting the seeds of the Jewish Revolts that would break out periodically over the next century.
• Sulla's Civil Wars (83 - 82 BCE): The very first civil war between factions comprised of the army and citizenry of Rome. The conflict between Marius' and Sulla's factions resulted in complete partisan breakdown and jousting for important commands. Marius' factions initially strove to recall Sulla from command on his campaign in the Pontic Kingdom but Sulla refused to stand down and instead marched on Rome, for the very first time. Marians fled and hide on his unprecedented action but prepared for a rematch. By which time, Marius had died. Sulla then returned and marched a second time into Rome and unleashed a round of purges, while forcing the Senate, by means of force to nominate him dictator perpetuo to give license to him to remake the Roman Republic as he saw fit. Many Marians fled from Rome and established counter-insurgencies in the province, the longest lasting one being Quintus Sertorius in Hispania.
• The Third Servile War (73-71 BC): Also known as the War of Spartacus. There had been two major slave revolts in Rome before, most of them localized in Sicily and of smaller scale. Spartacus' rebellion though saw a band of slaves defeat two consular armies deployed by the Republic, making this the most successful and impact of all ancient slave uprisings. With the consular army embarrassed on the field, Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, offered to put down the rebellion using the army he could raise. Crassus ultimately defeated the slave army and then ordered the crucifixion of all surviving slaves for display along the Appian Way.
• Conquest of Gaul (58-50 BCE): The greatest of all Roman generals was Julius Caesar. Despite beginning a military career in his late 30s to early 40s, Caesar mobilized an army that responded to tribal incursions in Cisalpine Goal and Helvetia (North-West Italy, Switzerland respectively), only to gradually expand into a Conquest of Gaul. Caesar's conquest is one of the most well-documented conquests (largely because the commander wrote a book about it). Caesar also took upon an excursion into Britain, that failed to establish a permanent settlement but gathered information that led to its later conquest. The remainder of his career was spent fighting civil wars until his assassination. In the course of the Gallic Wars, more than a million civilians perished in Gaul, making it the bloodiest of all onslaughts conducted by Rome in its entire history.
• The First and Second Triumvirates (49 to 27 BCE): Two decades of civil wars follow, with only a five year window of peace during Caesar's dictatorship. Caesar fought against Pompey, triumphed over him. He then intervened and put down rebellions in Egypt and Hispania to defend his territory. He would be assassinated in 44 BCE leading to the rise of his nephew Octavian who earned the title Augustus after his triumph over, first the Assassins of Caesar (led by Brutus and Cassius), and then against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in the final civil wars of the Roman Republic. Augustus established 'one man rule' in Rome. His regime saw Egypt finally incorporated as a Roman Province, specifically as the personal property of the Roman Emperor and his family.

The majority of land acquired by Rome would be from the Republican era. The Imperial era would be one of consolidation. Major additions included the Conquest of Britain under Emperor Claudius and the Conquest of Dacia (i.e. Romania) under Emperor Trajan. But the boundaries of Rome remained fixed for the most part despite several failed attempts at expanding East and North. The military history of the Imperial Era is likewise not as detailed as the Republican Era by comparison. Most of the wars in the Imperial Era were in fact civil wars, including an entire century (3rd Century CE) full of it.

Rome experienced several landmark defeats in its long history. Much of which is storied, and much of which was studied by the Romans themselves to identify areas of improvement, as well as in appreciation of tactics used by their enemies, that they might in turn use against them or against others.

• Pyrrhic War' (281-275 BCE): Pyrrhus was a Greek, king of Epirus on the west coast of what is now Greece and Albania. The Greek city states of the era were colonizers, establishing settlements across the Mediterranean and building kingdoms wherever they spotted an opportunity. One such was established in what is today Tunisia by the Phoenicians, the city of Carthage, hence its wars with Rome are known as the "Punic Wars", but they're detailed below. Pyrrhus saw opportunity on the Italian peninsula when he was invited by Greek colonists (Italiote Greeks) to aid in their defense against the expansion of the Roman Republic. He waged a long campaign there with many successes. Seeing his successes, two groups invited him to come be their king and aid them against their own invaders, the people of Macedonia back in the east wanted his help against invading Gauls and the people of Sicily in the west wanted his help expelling the armies of Carthage. Seeing more opportunities in Sicily, he traveled west and continued to fight Rome even as he began assailing Carthage. Ultimately, he managed to alienate his Sicilian allies, who found they preferred the Carthaginians, and he returned to the Italian mainland to continue his conflict with Rome. Despite his ongoing political difficulties, Pyrrhus of Epirus was an excellent military commander and rarely suffered more than a temporary setback, but some of those setbacks could be devastating. Early in the Pyrrhic War, Pyrrhus managed to defeat Rome at the battles of Heraclea (280 BCE) and Asculum (279 BCE), one of the few generals out of history who can make that claim. However, his victories came at heavy cost and he is said to have proclaimed "One more victory over the Romans and we are completely done for!" and he ended up suing for peace, albeit temporarily. This, of course, is where we get the term "Pyrrhic Victory", when apparent victory is in truth defeat. The Roman Republic had developed a social and military machine capable of churning out consistently good military leadership that was difficult to defeat, and Pyrrhus of Epirus was one of the few that found a way to beat them time and again (the other being Hannibal of Carthage). However, Rome had also developed machinery capable of fielding well equipped and trained army after army at little cost to the state, meaning any individual defeat would only be temporary, as first Pyrrhus and later Carthage would come to learn.
• Battle of Cannae (216 BCE): Hannibal Barca during the Punic Wars had proved himself unbeatable in a head-on battle against the Roman Army. To counter Hannibal's military prowess, the Roman dictator Fabius Cuncator, refused to give battle. But this kind of 'delaying' strategy (i.e. frustrate and stall Hannibal's invasion by stretching him too thin and reducing his supplies) was seen as "not Roman". The Roman way of war was meeting your enemies face to face and smashing them in, not through logistics and resource management. So Fabian was overruled and a military engagement was forced at Cannae. Hannibal in this battle achieved a feat thought to have been impossible until then, an encirclement of a larger force by a smaller force. The defeat at Cannae sent alarm bells at Rome and led to calls for Human Sacrifice to appease the gods. Having been vindicated, Fabius returned to the delaying strategy and ignited a war of attrition that lasted a decade, reducing Hannibal's resources while new commanders like Scipio and Marsellus took the field and defeated the Carthaginians in detail, forcing Hannibal to leave Italy. He would eventually face defeat at Zama. While Hannibal was ultimately unsuccessful, Cannae would endure for centuries and beyond, in the Roman imagination and that of later historians as one of the most studied, if not the most studied, battle of the ancient world.
• Battle of Arausio (105 BCE): The major conflict that ignited the Cimbrian War. A large army headed by proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio and consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus confront a vast army of Cimbrians led by their chief Boiorix and their allies, the Teutones, led by Teutobod. The forces clashed in Arausio, a settlement on the Rhone River in modern-day Provence France. The lack of co-ordination between the Roman commanders, who each sought total command to secure glory, riches, and a Triumph, led to poor tactical decisions that led the Cimbrians to crush the Romans in battle and then force them into the Rhone river, where they were slowly chased and driven to death. In terms of casualties, with over 100,000 dead, Arausio ranks as perhaps the deadliest overall defeat in the history of the Roman Army, seeing more Roman dead than Cannae. Said defeat, led in time to the revolutionary command of Gaius Marius, whose Triumph over Jugurtha coincided with reports of defeat from Arausio, and Marius enacted the reforms that updated the Roman army and command structure to avoid the messes that led to defeat at Arausio.
• Battle of Carrhae (53 BCE): Not to be confused with Cannae. Crassus after his victory over Spartacus saw a command in the East, hoping to expand Roman territory into the Parthian Kingdom, founded by Iranian Arsacid dynasty. Parthia had recaptured Persia, ruling again after defeating the Macedonian Seleucids, who lost further territory to Romans on the West. Crassus declined support from Armenia and led his army into battle. The Persians had mounted cavalry with horse-archers and a stable supply chain that provided them with, effectively, unlimited ammo. The Romans were boxed in and whittled one by one. Crassus tried to negotiate a honorable surrender and exit but was killed instead. This became a major traumatic defeat for the Romans and triggered the start of the 700 year war with Persia, the one foe that the Romans never truly defeated or conquered. There would be many battles, and even victories by the Romans, but there would be equally traumatic defeats that followed after that.
• Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 AD): The reign of the first Emperor Augustus had been peaceful and stable since he came to power in 27 BCE (nearly forty years ante bellum). The only major crisis was this catastrophic defeat. Three Roman legions were returning to camp when they were attacked by Arminius, a Germanic chieftain who had grown up in Rome. All three legions were wiped out, and eventually, the Roman Empire withdrew from Germania. Emperor Augustus, when told of the disaster, as per Suetonius, banged his head against the wall, shouting "Varus! Give me back my legions!" went days without shaving in a Heroic BSoD and years after was known to mutter as a non-sequitur the same line, despite the fact that Varus had died in battle (mercifully since he didn't have to face Augustus in person). This defeat is often cited, especially in Romantic German nationalism, as the real reason why the Romans never went further into Germania (it also helped that Germania wasn't an appetitzing conquest in the first place due to its faraway location and few natural resources known at the time). More recent research, e. g. the finding of the remains of a post 9 A.D. battlefield in the middle of Germania where the Romans conclusively deeated their Germanic foes, indicates that Rome continued to make successful incursions into Germania much longer than was hitherto believed, and that the eventual withdrawal from there was perhaps not directly preconditioned on the battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The Romans did make excursions and expand there under Marcus Aurelius subsequently, in a column that shows him personally slaughtering Germanic warriors, and there are some archaeological findings that suggest the Romans did try again, but that defeat did endure in Rome's psyche.
• Battle of Edessa (260 AD). Rome's worst ever defeat. Emperor Valerian led an army to another invasion against Persia, now ruled by the Sassanid dynasty, and clashed at Edessa. Upon defeat, Valerian ended up becoming the first, and only, Emperor to be captured alive and imprisoned by an enemy power. Valerian spent the remainder of his life in captivity and according to Roman legend was either made to serve as a footstool to King Shapur of Persia and/or given the Crassus-esque molten gold treatment. The Persians denied that they killed him however. This spectacular victory led to Emperor Shapur constructing enormous rock reliefs showing Valerian prostrating before a giant Shapur, at Naqsh-e Rostam. In addition, Shapur forced Roman POW turned slaves to build the Band-E-Kaisar dam complex and bridge, leading to the largest monuments made outside of the Roman Empire, with its engineering harvested for the benefit of an enemy power.
• Battle of Adrianople (378 AD): Eastern Emperor Valens led an army of 20,000 Goths to put an end to the uprising that had plagued the region for two years, and decided to attack immediately instead of waiting for the Western Roman Emperor Gratian, as he was jealous of Gratian's successes in the Western Roman Empire. The battle was a disaster, with Emperor Valens killed, two thirds of the Roman army destroyed, and the Goths free to pillage as they went. While Rome had suffered bad defeats before, the aftermath showed that Rome could no longer impose treaties on barbarians as they used to, as the Goths were given a de facto kingdom in Thrace and were never assimilated. As a result, many historians now believe Adrianople marked the start of the problems that would ultimately destroy the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century. Not long after Valens died the cause of Arian Christianity in the Roman East was to come to an end. His successor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity the state religion of Rome and suppressed the Arians. The Arian Christianity retained its solid foothold in East Germanic nations: Goths (Visigoths and Ostrogoths),Vandals, Burgundians, Svevi, Langobards; who entered the provinces of the Western Roman Empire and began founding their own kingdoms there. Once a storied defeat, with many 20th-century writers repeating Sir Charles Oman's idea that the battle represented a turning point in military history, with heavy cavalry triumphing over Roman infantry and ushering in the age of the medieval knight. But this idea was disputed by T. S. Burns in 1973. According to Burns, the Gothic army's cavalry arm was fairly small, that Valens would actually have had more cavalry and that while the role of Fritigern's cavalry was critical to his victory, the battle was a mainly infantry versus infantry affair. The medieval knight was not to rise for several centuries after Adrianople. And even then, the Eastern Roman Byzantine Empire had their own armored cavalry unit, the kataphracts, proving that Romans were not incapable of adapting to medieval era technology. Still Adrianople ranks as one of the most storied Roman defeats.

Warfare was deeply, deeply embedded in Roman Republican culture for much of its history, even by the standards of the already violent ancient Mediterranean. Male citizens spent huge amounts of time fighting, success at war matter far more for politicians than anything else, and Roman decisions about their institutions, alliances, organization of society, etc. were almost all geared towards being stronger at war after the first century or so of the Republic's founding.

Rome's early history is not as well documented for the first century and a half, so historians have to make educated guesses how this system developed. Some suggestions are that the earliest fighters used a spear phalanx resembling those of Ancient Greece, or that they would have used a variety of weapons in less organized warbands or similar. In the kingdom and earliest Republic, individual clans would have fought a lot on their own. Over time, the political and military system became more organized, and larger numbers of people would have been brought into the military system. It is possible that the three rotating infantry lines described above developed from looser organized warbands. Weapons were borrowed from nearby people and adapted, as well as becoming more standardized.

Rome's military system during its period of conquests, after around 350BC, is much better documented. The military was a conscript army/citizen militia for most of this time, rather than using full time soldiers. Each year, the government would figure out how many soldiers it thought it would need, and call up that amount of people. As Rome conquered other Italian city states, they were also asked to supply a certain amount of soldiers in a similar way, further increasing the number of soldiers that could be fielded. Citizens fought as a duty of (male) citizenship, similar to most Mediterranean city states, Macedonia, and many tribal areas, as well as for war loot, a major motivation for much of history. Citizens bought their own equipment and served in roles based on what they could afford. Most common were small landowning farmers, these served as heavy close combat infantry. Younger and poorer farmers served as javelin throwing skirmishers. The richest would be cavalry. Poor city dwellers would crew naval ships. Infantry during the early middle to middle period of the republic was further divided. Poorer or younger soldiers (early 20's) were hastatii, who would attack first. The middle group were principes, if the first attack failed to win they would rotate with the hastati in the fighting, allowing some rest and keeping everyone fresh. In the back were the richest, the triarii, usually also the oldest (early 30's most likely if wars weren't too intense) and most experienced. They would act as a last resort if things went really wrong, either protecting a retreat or joining the fighting to defeat an enemy. Towards the end of the Republic, this system would shift to something more homogeneous: all heavy infantry would be treated the same instead of having three distinct groups, Cavalry and skirmisher roles would be filled by non-Romans. Poorer citizens would be equipped at government expense more often.

Legions are well known for the gladius, shield, pilum, and good armor. This is the standard equipment the middle and later periods of the Republic through the early empire, the period of major conquests. Most of these are borrowed from Celtic groups: the sword style was borrowed from a Spanish design popular Mail armor was first created by Celtic groups, the helmet and scutum type shield are based on these regions as well. However, this equipment was much more common among all Roman soldiers, in Celtic areas it was restricted to the wealthier. The gladius during most of the conquests was a longer version than known from pop culture, used both in swings and in stabbing. It was replaced by the more well known shorter version towards the end of the republic. The pilum may have come from a number of previous spears or javelins in Italy. Instead of a small point as normal on javelins, the iron part was a long thin rod with a triangular tip, this allowed it to go through shields and injure the person anyway, or at least disable the shield or arm carrying it. Triarii when they were a separate groups continued using spears as the main close combat weapon. Cavalry carried a lance, throwing spears, and a sword, and had similar armor to infantry. Skirmishers would use larger amounts of lighter javelins and lighter other equipment. The navy used similar types of ships as other navies at the time, they were powered by rowers and built to ram or board enemies. Infantry armor was of the kind shown in art, film, and television only during the early days. They would wear a broad leather belt to protect the abdomen, with a halfplate or pectoral of connected discs to protect the chest, pauldrons for the shoulders, and a helmet to protect the head. By the time of the expansion, this had been replaced by chainmail, which is excellent and expensive, and among Rome's enemies largely reserved for elites or chieftans. Rome required its soldiers to provide their own armor, and by passing the cost of equipping their armies on to the individual soldiers, Rome managed to ensure that their armies would be among the best equipped in the world.

Rome had the ability to field astonishing numbers of soldiers for ancient armies, the most well known example is being able to support 5 to 6 theaters of wars after several devastating defeats by Hannibal in the second Punic war. Several institutions and a warlike culture helped support this mobilization. As Rome conquered Italy, conquered areas were tasked with supplying soldiers, sometimes ships, in place of other types of tribute that other empires might demand, further increasing the number of soldiers Rome could field. Roman soldiers were generally high quality, well equipped and well led: Rome was at war enough that veterans could provide decent training to newer people, and Roman political leaders/officers were required to have a lot of military experience. Roman citizens on average spent years in the military, allowing them to build skill and experience, which could be passed onto fellow soldiers. The Roman political system encouraged aggression. High officials who commanded the military served 1 year terms and didn't repeat them often, in the intensely competitive political culture they would want to make a name for themselves in that short time through warfare, encouraging a risk taking, aggressive way of managing a war. The result was a collection of social, political, and military machinery that avoided the pitfalls common to armies that only select leadership from among the nobility and was difficult to defeat.

Romans were known to see wars as all-out things, much more than other people in the area did. Romans fought on after several defeats when many other empires might have sought peace, most famously against Pyrrhus and Hannibal. Even when not threatened directly, they were willing to fight long wars to eventually achieve some sort of win, being very suited to winning wars of attrition. They were notorious for nursing grudges across centuries and avenging past slights, no matter how much time might pass between defeat and vengeance. In both defensive wars, and wars of conquest, Romans were willing to take heavy losses, of the kind that would reduce neighboring states. This was the strategic advantage they had in the Punic Wars, where in the first two, Carthage proved more willing to make peace whereas Romans were only going to accept victory and domination of their opponent, with a peace dictated from position of strength. The Carthaginians were a City-State Republic that cared more about trade than any particular ideological adherence to Roman nationalism. The longer a war dragged on, the more trade was disrupted. The Carthaginians favored peace whereas the Romans favored domination and were willing to wage war no matter the economic rationale. On account of Roman determination and doggedness, they were also known to very destructive and massacre happy than similar nearby civilizations, most famous when destroying Carthage, Corinth, and Numantia in the 140s and 130s BC. The Romans would argue that their enemies were no less brutal. By all accounts, the Sack of Rome by Brennus of 390 BCE was considerably horrific. The massacre of the Asiatic Vespers ordered by Mithridates during the Pontic Wars was similarly horrifying by all accounts, with 80,000 Roman settlers targeted in an event that reads pretty similarly to a 19th Century Pogrom or a Counter-Reformation era religious massacre. Boudica's Iceni revolt burned full Roman settlements to the ground, resulting in deaths in the high five digits. It was a standard practice for most of history that a prolonged war or a prolonged siege where both sides refused to give in, raised the stakes for the armies and defenders, ergo the longer the war went on the more soldiers digging-in took to seeing it as a Sunk Cost Fallacy and took to outright hating their opponent. The promises by commanders of wealth, glory, and promotions as well as a supply of slaves and loot was too much for soldiers not to pass up. Since Romans were capable of fighting wars longer than others, they could also be more brutal upon ultimate victory than their opponents.

The Roman Army achieved might thanks to its versatility. Individually soldiers of their enemies might be hardier, enemy infantryman might even be physically stronger or bigger than the average legionary, other commanders might have better equipment, Hannibal had his war elephants, Carthaginians had their triremes, Zealots had their impregnable fortress in Masada but the Romans were master adapters; master students of their own shortcomings and their enemies' strengths. The Roman army was specialized in versatility and discipline. The infantryman was capable of building bridges, forts, tents, and other fortifications and carried equipment to do these tasks as and when commanded.

• In the First Punic War, the Carthaginians were a stronger navy than the Romans, who were primarily a land empire and a land army rather than a naval power. However, on seeing the Carthaginian successes, the Romans used a wreck of a trireme to both reverse-engineer their own design while also creating a modification, the corvus bridge which allowed them to effectively board their enemy ships and send their land soldiers on enemy decks. The corvus bridge was lowered perpendicularly, rising to the height of a ladder before landing as a bridge and it had two hooks at the bottom to sink and hinge onto enemy decks. This example is one of many that illustrate how Romans were able to adapt and overcome enemy advantages.
• Another example is the famous ramp they constructed to get their army to the seemingly impregnable and out-of-reach fortress of Masada during the Jewish Revolts. Roman ingenuity countered the "one weird trick" used by their enemy yet again in that instance.
• Vercingetorix of Gaul had mounted a rebellion against Caesar and at the Battle of Alesia, he retreated to a fort while Caesar was setup to be encircled by an incoming Gaullish force. Caesar in turn commanded his army to build a fort that encircled Vercingetorix, with its perimeter large enough to cut off its supply lines while allowing the Romans a strong perch with which they could repel Gaullish reinforcements.
• The expression goes "all roads lead to Rome"; in fact, the opposite is true. All roads lead FROM Rome and some people happen to walk on them the wrong way. The roads were built by the army on their way to conquest. Further, their every stop for the night was accompanied by building a fortified camp. In the morning, it was dismantled so that enemies couldn't use it. They had no fear of using earthworks and engineering in combat, and on at least one occasion they literally altered the face of the Earth.

The Roman Army did have some long-term weaknesses, such as favoring of infantry over cavalry. In the Republican era, the Romans relied on auxiliaries from allied tribesman to serve as The Cavalry rather than develop their own standing cavalry. And indeed many landmark victories come down to these auxiliaries rather than their legionaries. The Battle of Zama, which was the permanent defeat of Hannibal Barca relied heavily on the Numidian Cavalry who attacked Hannibal's rear, encircling him in a manner not unlike his own achievement in Cannae. Indeed, the alliance between Romans and Numidians was arguably the strategic masterstroke that finished Hannibal since with the Numidians harrying Carthaginian territory, Hannibal had to abandon Italy to defend his homeland.

After the Punic Wars and the conquest of much of the Mediterranean, the Romans found themselves underprepared to handle the Gallic tribes to the north, the Cimbrian Invasion. Gaius Marius then implemented a solution, now known today as the Marian Reforms which ended up having such a profound effect that it earned Marius the honorific, "The Third Founder of Rome" (after Romulus and Remus). Late 20th Century scholarship has cast serious doubt on whether the Marian Reforms were actually a singular set of reforms by a single individual rather than a gradual shift stretching all the way to the early Empire, still post-revisionists concur that these reforms were still of immense significance. The Manipular structure of the military was replaced by the Cohort structure. A typical Cohort was six centuries of soldiers, for a total of about 480 soldiers strong (with an additional 120 non-combatants who served as support staff), and was about the same size as a battalion. The exception was the First Cohort in an army, which always had roughly 800 total soldiers and 200 support staff, due to being the most senior Cohort and having specialized soldiers in its ranks. These Cohorts were much more tightly-packed than earlier Maniples were, which prevented them from being overwhelmed by their more tribal opponents.

The Marian Reforms also changed the army from a citizen levy to a professional force, by virtue of a 16-year service pledge; being a soldier would be a full-time occupation for much of an adult's life. The property requirements for joining the army were dropped; soldiers would be paid and provisioned by their commander, or later, the state. The equipment was standardized, with all legionaries issued the gladius sword, a large shield (scutum), body armor made of chainmail, scales, or (later) segmented plate, a helmet, and javelins. Non-citizens were recruited into the army as auxiliaries, being rewarded with Roman citizenship upon discharge. Auxiliaries served as archers, cavalrymen, skirmishers, and light infantry, allowing citizens to specialize as heavy infantry. A full Legion saw ten Cohorts, always including the First Cohort with its larger manpower, paired with auxiliaries and cavalry for a total of around 5,400 total soldiers.

In terms of arms and armament, each legionary carried a gladius and two pila. The gladius was the Roman short sword, intended more for thrusting than for slashing (though its broad blade was plenty capable of slashing when the opportunity arose). The pilum was a javelin with a wooden haft, a short iron point and long iron neck. The pilum's compact point and thin neck allowed it to punch through shields, either wounding/killing the person behind the shield or at least becoming lodged and burdening the shield with an extra ten pounds of off-balance wood and iron. There is a debate about whether the neck, being made of unhardened iron, was designed to bend on impact; Caesar mentions bent pila stuck in shields in Commentaries on the Gallic War, and modern replicas are known to do so sometimes. When this happened, it would prevent the enemy soldier from just picking up the pilum and throwing it back at the legionary. For last-ditch defense, soldiers also carried a dagger called a pugio with a broad leaf-shaped blade and a distinctive iron-covered hilt, copied from Iberian weapons.

In terms of armor, the movies sometimes get this right, but it really depends on the time period. Most media shows legionaries wearing a distinct type of cuirass, now termed lorica segmentata (the historical name may have been lorica laminata), which was made up of many metal strips fastened by leather straps over wool padding. Historically, evidence for the segmentata's use goes back to the early 1st century AD and it may have been used as late as the 4th century. It probably didn't exist yet in the days of Julius Caesar, let alone Romulus and Remus, and it had almost certainly fallen out of use before the collapse of the Western Empire. Otherwise, Romans used mail and scale armor, which they named lorica hamata and lorica squamata respectively, and which certainly preceded lorica segmentata by centuries, were used alongside it, and later supplanted it again for unclear reasons. We'd forgive you if you never saw mail armor on Roman soldiers before anyway. Legionaries also wore aprons made of hardened leather strips attached to their belts, and heavy boot-sandals called caligae. From around 300 BC onward, the Romans began to replace their Grecian helmets with Gallic-inspired ones. The design of the helmet reflected their focus on slashing swordplay, as it protected the top and side of the heads, but not the face. Contrast this with the design of Greek helmets which protected the face from the thrusts of 15-foot long spears (and, later, 18-foot pikes under Philip and Alexander of Macedon). The plumes and such that you see on TV (and at casinos) were actually reserved for officers as an identifier of rank. Imperial Roman art portrayed high-ranking officers and emperors wearing Greek-style Attic helmets and muscled armor (the modern name for this in a Roman context is lorica musculata). While archaeologists have found Greek muscled cuirasses made of bronze and iron, no Roman muscled cuirass has been found, and some researchers suggest that by the imperial period Romans didn't wear them in real life, or at least not as functional battlefield armor.

The term "legion" was somewhat similar to the modern term "regiment" or "battalion", denoting a portion of the army of a particular size. During the height of the direct (as opposed to hegemonic) empire, the legions spent their time at the outskirts of the empire maintaining control. The more troublesome a region, the more legions it received. Thus Hispania (modern Spain) only needed one legion, possibly a testament to how thorough its previous pacification had to be, but Judea (modern Israel, Jordan, and surrounding countries) had three, caused by constant Jewish revolts. Britain was troublesome enough to warrant four, and these legions would frequently be used by usurpers.

The centerpiece of the Roman army, the Legion was and is justifiably famous. They were incredibly disciplined, on pain of death. Perhaps what they are most lauded for is not their ability to kill, but for their engineering. In many ways, it is one of the ancestors of all modern militaries.

In the early imperial period, the army size was greatly reduced by Augustus, partly to save money, partly because army size had been vastly inflated by civil wars that preceded his takeover. The army was made more professionalized, shifting from a draft of all citizens for a campaign to a long service force, where recruits served full time for 20 year terms. This type of force was better suited to defending existing territory from tribal invasions, and may have been easier to organize in a large empire. Legions would follow this model until close to the fall of the Western empire.

Citizens could be recruited to be full legionaries, noncitizens would be auxiliaries. Auxiliaries were paid a bit less, but were given citizenship at the end. Some fought as close combat infantry like Roman citizens, but many supplied types of soldiers Rome wasn't so good at, such as cavalry, archers, or scouts. Citizenship was extended to all free people in 212, so this distinction became moot, though some cultures still preferentially supplied certain types of soldiers. Soldiers could be and were recruited from everywhere in the empire and sent everywhere within it.

The standard image of a Roman Legionary comes from the early empire, from within Pax Romana times: strips of plate armor covering the torso, an open faced helmet originally copied from Spanish opponents during the Republic, and a gladius, specialized javelins called Pila, and a large rectangular Scutum. Except for armor, this equipment is from Republican times, mail armor was more popular then and would be after. Later legionaries would switch to an oval shield, a longer sword called a spatha, some would use spears, and a different type of helmet became popular.

The Praetorian Guard was a special group of soldiers located in the area around Rome. They were tasked with a number of roles: helping to keep order in the city, running what little spying operations Rome had, and guarding the Emperor. In theory. We don't know how often they filled the final role, we do know that many emperors were overthrown and killed by the Praetorian guard, to the point it was disbanded late in the empire. Keeping the regular army and praetorian guard happy was an important part of being emperor, otherwise one would end up overthrown by someone more favorable. Emperors would often send gifts of money beyond the usual salary to keep soldiers happy, Praetorian Guardsmen were paid more than equivalent fighting soldiers as protectio....uh...for their special role. At the beginning of the empire, Augustus established the Numerus Batavorum, a bodyguard of Germanic tribesmen for the purpose of protecting him from the Praetorians. This was disbanded in 68 AD by newly enthroned Emperor Galba, who was assassinated in 69 AD by the Praetorian Guard.

Constructing roads was most famously done by the legions. Their main purpose was to allow faster army movement, with the benefits for trade and administration appreciated as well. Legions also constructed numerous forts and other military infrastructure. Famously, when on the move, they would build a fortified camp each night. Not surprisingly, they got quite good at sieges.

As time went on, the legions became smaller and more numerous, so that they could be deployed more easily. The quality of the equipment also deteriorated, but the legions remained a very effective fighting force almost until the very end of the western Empire. Units were classified as limitanei, or border units, and comitatenses, or mobile units. Border units would stay on frontiers as a first line of defense, mobile units would move around to help in trouble spots.

In the east, the army was reorganized and was focused on heavy cavalry, emulating the Persians. Following the Arab invasions, the military was divided into an elite standing army, the tagmata, and local units raised from military districts, or themata, similar to the limitanei and comitatenses mentioned above. In the high middle ages, some troops were raised in a semi-feudal manner, and the Empire relied a lot more on mercenaries.

The command structure of a legion during the early Imperial era looked something like this:

1. Legatus legionis ("legate of the legion") commanded the whole legion on behalf of the Emperor (or a Consul in the Republican times) and usually came from the Senatorial class.
2. Tribunus laticlavius ("broad-striped tribune") was the Legate's Number Two, typically under 25 and also from a Senator family. This office was created by the Marian reforms and seen as the first step on the cursus honorum.
3. Praefectus castrorum ("camp prefect") was responsible for training, equipment, and camp construction. He was typically promoted from a primus pilus (see below) and thus could rise from any of the lower classes.
4. Tribuni angusticlavii ("narrow-striped tribunes") were five military tribunes serving as senior staff officers. Unlike the tribunus laticlavius, they typically came from the Equisterian order.
5. Primus pilus ("first spear") was the most senior centurion of the legion, who commanded the first century of the prestigious, double-sized first cohort and was the only centurion allowed to attend the Legate's war councils.
6. Centuriones ("centurions") led a century each and were elected, appointed, or promoted to the position for a variety of reasons. All centurions were theoretically equal in rank (except for primus pilus), but in practice, the commander of the second century of the first cohort held more authority than he of the tenth cohort's sixth century. The cohorts themselves did not have a permanent commander, with the most senior available centurion typically taking charge.
7. Optio centuriae ("century's chosen") was hand-picked by each centurion from among his men to serve as his Number Two. He received double pay and would usually take over if his centurion couldn't perform his duties.

Each legion was divided into ten cohorts named "first cohort", "second cohort" and so on. The first cohort was the most prestigious, the tenth the least. Each cohort was divided into six centuries containing ~80 (not one hundred) men, led by a centurion. In terms of seniority, the centurion of the first century of the first cohort was the most senior officer and that of the sixth century of the tenth cohort the most junior. All told, the legion had a strength of approximately 5,400 men, once officers, engineers, and auxiliary cavalry were accounted for.

Speaking of auxiliary, the legion was beloved by Rome and it was truly a fearsome heavy infantry and the backbone of the Roman army. That said, the Romans weren't stupid and knew that victory relies on the ability of the army to meet the enemy regardless, and auxiliary forces were used to supplement the legion. The auxiliary units comprised light and heavy cavalry, archers, and sling-men. They were made up not of Roman citizens, but of citizens of captured, absorbed, or client states. Only Roman citizens could become legionaries. However, serving in the auxiliary was a path to citizenship, so the children of auxiliaries could become legionaries. Over time, this led to difficulty as it meant that there were fewer people available for the auxiliaries, which, despite the fame and esteem of the legions, truly were necessary for a balanced and viable fighting force.

One last note: The term decimation is Latin and literally means "destruction of one in ten". Any demonstration of cowardice or mutiny was punished by decimation. The unit was divided into groups of ten and the men drew lots. Whoever got the short straw was beaten to death by the other nine. Officers tended to be executed separately from the rank and file. Such an extreme measure was only used a handful of times in Rome's history.

The highest honor for a Roman general was to be granted the honor of a Triumph. To qualify for a Triumph (Latin: Triumphus) one had to have imperium (full operational command over a battle), one had to be acclaimed as imperator by the soldiers, and then the Senate had to approve it, which would make the general a triumphator. The general must have attained a sizable victory over external enemies of Rome and be sufficiently popular and well regarded to have earned it. A triumph cannot be granted for battle against fellow Roman citizens, nor was one offered over suppression of slave revolts. The former is taboo and borderline sacrilegious to the Romans and the latter, being slaves, are too low in dignity to qualify for recognition as Worthy Opponent, and doing so would be an arrant elevation of their importance and status, and potentially create martyrs.

In normal times, Roman soldiers were not allowed in uniform, with armor and equipment inside the Roman Pomerium (city boundaries). This was suspended for the Triumph. The Triumph itself was an elaborate parade, with platforms carried by chariots and cars, bearing palanquins and pallets displaying loot from conquered territories. It featured big size floating displays arranged in formation, displays of wealth in the form of gold and jewels, parades of captive slaves, including the high-profile enemy commander who was usually captured alive. For the triumph, the victorious general was wreathed in laurel and had his face painted in red to make them resemble Jupiter. He would solemnly be seated while reportedly, a slave would mutter to him throughout the procession, "memento mori" i.e. remember you are mortal, as a way to make him cautious about not letting the triumph go to his head. In practice, given how many generals coveted the Triumph, said warning was entirely superfluous. The triumph would end at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, where on the floors of the temple, the high profile enemy commander is ritually strangled. Said fate was visited upon Jugurtha, and later Vercingetorix.

The Roman Triumph has been the model for military parades, festival parades, and other prominent displays honoring significant anniversaries. The Roman Public saw it as a moment of solemnity mixed with a lot of public roasting at the triumphator's expense. At the same time, triumphs could often lead to unexpected outcomes. While commanders expected the public to cheer the execution of a vanquished enemy, other times the public could display sympathy for the defeated. Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe, was presented in Caesar's triumph and was slated to be executed but on seeing the public outpouring of sympathy for a captive woman, Caesar relented and spared her life (she would later be murdered by Mark Antony's directions, at Cleopatra's command). The nature of the triumph was seen as highly humiliating and many of Rome's defeated enemies chose suicide over becoming a trophy. Hannibal Barca chose poison rather than enter Roman custody, and Cleopatra VII is believed by some to have committed suicide to avoid becoming a trinket on Octavian's parade and potentially facing a ritual strangling. Triumphs were in theory only supposed to glorify and represent the general's victory over Enemies of Rome i.e. foreign enemies and Non-Roman Enemies. Caesar however broke taboo by having his parade floats show pictures of the death of Cato, a fellow Roman senator in one of his four triumphs. Officially it was to celebrate his victories over external enemies (Pharnaces of Zela, Vercingetorix, Ptolemaics) but featuring depictions of the deaths of Roman enemies carried it with dubious subtexts for many Romans, which was one of the many dominoes that led to his assassination. Pompey the Great's incredibly opulent Triumph likewise earned scorn and snark decades later, since one of the float displays was a bust of Pompey made entirely in Pearl, a level of bling that many found to be too gaudy and ostentatious and given Pompey's later death by beheading, an unintentional Foreshadowing of his future death.

Augustus upon coming to power at the end of the Late Republic ended up directly in control of the purse-strings of the majority of the Roman army. He passed reforms that more or less ended the Triumph as it was traditionally understood. Augustus claimed nominal command of the army which meant that any victory attained by a general was in fact claimed by him, including the triumphal honors. Roman commanders in the Early Imperial Era who had achieved success in battle against Dacian tribesmen were denied triumphal honors on these same grounds. Augustus believed that any triumph extended outside his family and client-patronage network created a rival power-center and potentially dangerous elevation of a rival to his power. The full Roman triumph was phased out as such, but Augustus' successors and other Emperors used the 'Ornamental Triumph' to give generals honors traditionally reserved for triumphators (such as wearing purple or other wreaths in public) rather than allow them to have full-press marches down city thoroughfares. Victory marches and other triumph-like events are documented to have happened in the Imperial era but whether these had the same full significance of the Roman Triumph is hard to examine howing to a paucity of resources. The Roman triumph gradually disappeared in the Imperial but existed in some forms in the Byzantine Empire. The general Flavius Belisarius is documented to have scored a triumph for his actions in Italy under the reign of Justinian, who despite many misgivings felt secure enough in his throne that he granted a subordinate general the honor to hold it in Constantinople. Said triumph differed from the classical one owing to its Christian influences, as such there were no more ritual stranglings of enemy commanders at the end of the procession.