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The Roman army is the set of land-based military forces employed by the Roman republic and later Roman empire as part of the Roman military. For its main infantry constituent for much of its history, see Roman legion. For its naval countrpart, see Roman Navy.
History of the Roman army From a few score men defending a small hill town in Italy, through a citizen militia consisting of citizen-farmers raised annually for a short campaign before returning to harvest their fields, the Roman army grew to be a professional standing army of several hundred thousand men. Roman historian Edward Gibbon estimates in his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that the peak size of the Roman army in the late imperial period was in the order of 375,000 men. Pre-Greek influence Rome, despite legendary stories to the contrary, developed from an early Iron age hilltop settlement. In this period, the Roman army was completely unrecognisable to a later legion. Like the "barbarian" armies that Rome would later encounter and conquer, there was little standardiation in weapons or equipment, and no fixed battle order or formations. The Romans were fortunate in that central Italy was rich in ferrous materials that could be mined for use in constructing metal armour and weapons. Weapons used varied from short swords, long swords, javelins, lances, axes, and curved swords. Time of the Kings During the early centuries when Rome was ruled by Kings, the city was surrounded by Etruscan cities and the Servian Roman Army was modelled on the Etruscan system, which was in turn was based upon the Greek colonies of Italy, which were in turn based on the armies of Ancient Greece. Military organization was based on town levies who was enlisted on social bases following the census during the reign of Servius Tullius, in which all Roman able-bodied, property-owning male citizens were divided into four or five classes for military service based on wealth, soldiers having to acquire their own weapons and equipment. The First Class was formed by noble and rich citizens and included heavy hoplites and a small group of cavalry. Second Class infantry was formed by less heavily armoured infantry and with italic style armour and weapons. Third Class was much more lightly armed and equipped, while Fourth Class citizens formed skirmish troops, armed with bows and javelins. It is not thought that the Servian Roman army drew on the use of allied mercenaries from italic people such as the Samnites, Campanians or Celtic tribes, as was common in the Etruscan armies, but it is possible. Following the Greek model, the Servian Roman army would have delployed in phalanx formation. Roman soldiers of this era therefore would have looked much like Greek hoplites. Republican period In the early republic, following the sacking of Rome by the Gauls, the Roman army underwent the first of many reforms. This first reformation created the manipular legion Manipluar legion consisting of hastati, principes, triarii (all heavy infantry), velites (light infantry) and equites (cavalry). Late Republic and Imperial period The second reformation of the Roman army introduced the classic Roman legion of popular imagination, consisting of legionary cohorts in the Marian reforms. Under this reform the distinction between hastati, principes and triarii was erased as these were combined into the heavy infantry of the Roman legion, which became the core of the Roman army. The legions were supplemented by auxilia, who provided the army under the new reforms with the roles of light infantry, cavalry and other miscellaneous tasks such as scouting. Whereas legionary troops consisted of Roman citizens (literally, those living within the city and district of Rome itself and, later, from allied towns granted citizenship status), auxilia were formed from allied troops only. Diocletion reforms Under Diocletian the Roman army underwent further reform from the army of the principate. It underwent a formal division into two parts: the field army of mobile line troops(comitatenses); and the less disciplined border troops (limitanei). The border troops were organized to defend provinces and were stationed around the edges of the Empire. Late imperial period From the late fourth century onwards, the Romans made increasing short-term use of contingents of barbarian allies, a process also known as barbarization. The first type was the recruiting of individual 'barbarians' into the Roman legions and auxilia, following the relaxation of entrance criteria. Many of the army's recruits came from beyond the empire, from Frankish, Alamannic or Gothic tribes in Europe, from Persia or Armenia in the east. The second type of barbarization was the short-term use of entire tribal groups of barbarian allies known as foederati. For example, in 382 Theodosius I settled Goths in the Balkans. Then in 388 and 394 he was forced to incorporate them in his army to fight against Magnus Maximus and Eugenius respectively. The foederati were not based on the legionary model, and fought in whatever formation and with whatever equipment they desired. At the same time, the Roman army developed a greater reliance on mounted troops and cavalry. In the early Roman army the equites or auxilia cavalry rarely exceeded 10% of the total Roman army. In later years this increased to around 25% in some isntances. This has been related to the changing of the traditional foes from Germannic and Gallic tribes with a strong reliance on infantry to the mounted fighting techniques of the huns and persians, amongst others. Edward Luttwak and others have argued that the Roman empire hit its natural borders under emperor Augustus since their infantry-based fighting style was inferior against the greater use of cavalry in the east. Later Roman armies were less reliable and less faithful that earlier Roman armies. This has ascribed to their lesser training and the increased influx of barbarian troops. | ||||||||
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