A Summary of "Roman Power" (original) (raw)

Romans at War: Soldiers, Citizens, and Society in the Roman Republic

Armstrong, J. and M.P. Fronda (eds.) Romans at War: Soldiers, Citizens, and Society in the Roman Republic. Routledge: London., 2019

This volume addresses the fundamental importance of the army, warfare, and military service to the development of both the Roman Republic and wider Italic society in the second half of the first millennium BC. It brings together emerging and established scholars in the area of Roman military studies to engage with subjects such as the relationship between warfare and economic and demographic regimes; the interplay of war, aristocratic politics, and state formation; and the complex role the military played in the integration of Italy. The book demonstrates the centrality of war to Rome's internal and external relationships during the Republic, as well as to the Romans' sense of identity and history. It also illustrates the changing scholarly view of warfare as a social and cultural construct in antiquity , and how much work remains to be done in what is often thought of as a "traditional" area of research. Romans at War will be of interest to students and scholars of the Roman army and ancient warfare, and of Roman society more broadly.

“Warfare, Reform, and the Rise of the Warlord: The Changing Roman Republic and Its Fall.”

When one thinks of the fall of the Roman Republic, names such as Caesar, Pompey, Antony, and Octavian leap to mind. Yet the devastating civil wars between 49-31 BCE that brought the Republic to its knees had far deeper roots. In order to understand the political and military opportunities that ultimately led to the rise of Augustus and the beginning of the Roman Empire, we must go back almost two hundred years to the Second Punic War in the late third century BCE. It was during the Hannibalic War that Rome first became militarily involved in the Iberian Peninsula. This commitment would prove daunting and arduous, breaking down the traditional Roman military recruitment system. The traditional military system of a Roman army of landed citizen soldiers continually became less achievable as the pool of available candidates dwindled under the pressures of long foreign wars and loss of property. Faced with this lack of qualified soldiers, an ambitious statesman named Marius enacted radical military reforms that would make Roman soldiers beholden to the desires of their generals over the traditions of the state. A powerful “warlord culture” quickly developed in the first century BCE, which ushered in the climactic events of the final fall of the Roman Republic. Although we can attribute a combination of numerous intricacies found outside of the following major points to the failure of the Roman Republic, this paper argued that the consequences of Roman involvement in Spain, the ramifications of Marius’ reforms, and the rise of the warlord culture at Rome were the three main factors that transformed Roman republicanism and allowed for the founding of Augustus’ empire. Annual Mid-American Conference on History at Missouri State University, September 2012.

Good for business. The roman army and the emergence of a ‘business class’in the northwestern provinces of the roman empire (1st century BCE–3rd century CE)

BRILL eBooks, 2007

Lukas de Blois and Elio Lo Cascio-978-90-47-43039-1 Downloaded from Brill.com07/13/2022 11:33:54AM via free access nature and impact of the roman war effort in spain 31 that in 217, 211, 210, 206, 204, 201 and 200, the leges regarding the supreme command in Spain were always passed on the initiative of the Senate, which was doubtlessly also the case for the extraordinary proconsulships of M. Claudius Marcellus and Sempronius Tuditanus in 215 and 205. Especially Livius 30.41.4f. offers a striking example of how the Senate, if necessary, took the initiative to involve the Comitia in the decision-making within a preconceived framework, although this instance necessitates an important annotation. A number of indirect or secondary but valuable indications in the account of Livius and, to a lesser extent, Appianus and Dio Cassius, indeed point to the fact that during the Second Punic War some important tensions and frictions arose between the Senate on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the decision-making in the Comitia at the instigation of/for the beneÀ t of charismatic protagonists like M. Marcellus and Scipio Africanus. At the outset of 210, Scipio's rather unexpected election by the comitia centuriata was contested by the powerful senatorial seniores to such a degree that Scipio decided to call for an additional contio to strengthen his position. After Scipio's position as proconsul and summus imperator of Spain had become unquestionable in this way, the Senate sent the senior praetorius M. Iunius Silanus along with Scipio, obviously with the intention of providing Scipio with a more mature counsellor and of having a kind of 'supervisor' in the À eld. The Senate moreover raised the imperium of pro praetore Silanus to the level of a consulare imperium and entitled him to share the supreme command, which, among other things, must have served the purpose of strengthening his position vis-à-vis young P. Scipio. At all events, Scipio departed for Spain in 210 against the will of an important and inÁ uential part of the Senate, armed with the powerful and quite exceptional legitimation of a lex centuriata. The careers and extraordinary prouinciae/ imperia of C. Claudius Nero and especially M. Claudius Marcellus and P. Scipio Africanus reveal that even after the crushing defeats at Lake Trasimene and Cannae in 217 and 216, the advocates of an aggressive military policy could continue to depend on the undaunted support of the Roman People, and that the protagonists of the hawkish faction in Rome eventually did not refrain from making use of their popularity among the commons in order to pressure the Senate and, if necessary, obtain imperium and/or prouincia 'extra ordinem'. Nonetheless, the authority of the Senate remained by far the foremost factor in the Roman decision-making process during the Second Punic War. Polybius in 6.51.5f. expressly explains the Roman victory Lukas de Blois and Elio Lo Cascio-978-90-47-43039-1 Downloaded from Brill.com07/13/2022 11:33:54AM via free access 65 As has been conclusively demonstrated with respect to the annexation of Macedonia À fty years later by W.V. Harris, War and Imperialism in the Roman Republic 327-70 bc (Oxford 1979), 74ff. 66 This practice seems to have been an unwritten law in the Roman administration

The Impact of the Roman Army (200 B.C. – A.D. 476): Economic, Social, Political, Religious and Cultural Aspects

BRILL eBooks, 2007

54. “Structural Weaknesses in Rome’s Power? Historians’ Views on Roman Stasis”

K. Berthelot, ed., Reconsidering Roman Power: Roman, Greek, Jewish and Christian Perceptions and Reactions, l’École Française de Rome 2020, 255-67. , 2020

Rome's Empire prompted historians to think universally. From the Second Punic War, the history of the oikoumenē was for Greek and Latin historians a history of Rome's empire. Polybius said this first. In the Preface to his innovative and ambitious History, he explained that «previously the doings of the world had been, so to say, dispersed, as they were held together by no unity of initiative, results or locality; but ever since this date [of the second war between Rome and Carthage] history has been an organic whole». 2 Polybius claims not only that world history had entered a new, unprecedented age, in which everything is connected, but that his account of it will perforce be a unique (idion) way of writing history. Many others followed, their names familiar even if their texts have not survived: Posidonius, Pompeius Trogus, Nicolaus of Damascus; the remains of Diodorus Siculus' compilation are illuminating about the genre. These writers often-logically-began their histories long before the rise of Rome to emphasize not only the theme of unifying conquest but also the pattern of rise and fall, the fate of empires. 3 Even histories solely of Rome from its foundation, and even accounts solely of early Rome before its empire, could have a kind of universalizing purpose, to explain the

A Summary of "Roman Power" (original) (raw)

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