Jennifer Sanders

Roman Army

“Roman success in empire building was founded on the phenomenal achievements of their army.”

The relationship between the military and the chief political machinations of the state has been an ever present feature of history, from the first recorded geo-political actions of the Greek state up to the modern era, meted out in modern times in the democratic fight against authoritarianism and totalitarianism.  In his Histories of the Peloponnesian Wars, Thucydides, writing from the viewpoint of an Athenian naval commander, notes the organic relationship between the fortunes of the armed forces and the decision making capabilities of the political apparatus. Further on, during the early sixteenth century – at the very cusp of the advent of the modern era – Machiavelli declared that the power of any given state was in relation to the perceived power of its armed forces. Essentially, these thinkers, from ancient history to Dr. Kissinger in the present day, all concur that the threat of the use of force by a supreme military power alters forever the balance of the status quo in favour of the strongest power. It is within the context of this realist doctrine of international relations theory that the historian locates the Roman political model in the first century BC – a society in a state of flux, caught in the ambitions of the early Republican founders yet confronted by the realism of the might of the growing Roman Army.

To best answer the question a linear view of Roman history must be taken, analysing chronologically the changes that beset the republican model from the dawn of the century until the Restoration as overseen by Octavian. It will be seen how the fragile roots of Roman democracy facilitated the arrival of a militarily strong style of leadership; how the republican was eventually unable to fend off the right wing advances of a group of men with military ambition matched only by their desire for political power in the Senate.

After the debacle of the Roman experiment with monarchy, the ruling, educated classes implemented a political republic with power diverted to the People. This necessitated a split within the people to characterise them as either ‘active’ or ‘passive’ citizens; those active citizens with enough power and influence gradually ascended the hierarchical ladder of the Roman Republic to wield influence in a variety of ways. Yet, in contrast to the republican paradigms of the modern era, the Romans never truly disassociated themselves from the ancient Greek ethos of conquest with the inherently heroic element to history that the Homeric tradition left as its enduring legacy. The main links that the historian has to the first century BC, namely Tacitus and Suetonius, were primarily concerned with recreating the glory of ancient warriors. It is a significant point because if the arts and literature of the contemporary period were concerned with romantic ideals of conquest and valour then it comes as little surprise to learn that the prevailing attitude amongst the political elite of Rome in the first century was similarly geared towards imperial examples of force.

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Therefore, with the stability of Rome temporarily secured, and the threat of a return of monarchical power made obsolete, the right wing nature of ancient societies made sure that expansion abroad was high on the political agenda. “It has already become clear that in various ways Rome’s small town Republican constitution was - for all the famous ‘balance’ between the classes, stressed by the Greek historian Polybius – unfitted for imperial responsibilities. The solution which imposed itself was the autocracy of the dictators Sulla (81-79BC) and Julius Caesar (48-44BC).”

Of these two men the key figure as to why the ...

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