Posted on 11/19/2011 2:32:47 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Using a variety of sources, from ancient texts to new archaeological evidence, Broadhead has crafted a novel hypothesis about how Caesar -- as well as Sulla a few decades before, and Augustus several years later -- could march on Rome with his own legions.
"My interpretation is a demographic one," Broadhead says. "Ancient Italy was a place of high geographical mobility, instead of being a place filled with sedentary peasants, which is the stereotypical image." People in towns throughout the Italian peninsula, from whose numbers the Roman Republic traditionally recruited its army, often traveled either to the newly conquered outposts of the Roman world, or throughout Italy, in search of better living conditions.
The Romans had previously used a rigid list, the formula togatorum, to determine how many conscripts should be drawn from which town, stubbornly refusing to change the list over time. But as the population shifted around, Broadhead notes, it became "more difficult for the Roman state to monitor and control that movement, and so the system of military recruitment that had been based very rigidly on the geographical distribution of population dissolved."
The result, he adds, was "a new system of recruitment where a powerful general goes to the population and says, 'Will you all fight with me?' The answer is 'Yes,' because any such volunteers were likely to enjoy the spoils of war. Population movement led to the personal client army of the late republic, which has long been recognized as a key to understanding its fall."
(Excerpt) Read more at web.mit.edu ...
Thnk you very much! That’s what I wanted to know.
The events described here pertain to the very early empire.
The people picking up an moving were entering the Empire, not the other way. Rome’s implosion in the west resembles the implosion of the post-Roman petty kingdoms in Britain in the face of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes’ settlement expansion. The Britons raided and burned each others’ towns and territories when the victims were defending themselves against the foreign invader; the Romans were engaged in infighting, intrigues, assassinations, and rival “emperors” instead of managing imperial affairs.
Latium was the territory, the Latins were the tribe, Rome was the city. But it’s never a bad time for a Dan Quayle reference. ;’)
Good comment.
The Senate instituted this system; between having to raise armies quickly during periods of invasion (best known ones being the Gallic sack of Rome, and Hannibal’s 16 year long Italian campaign) and conquering overseas territories to enrich themselves (officially the public coffers, but that was BS), large, well-trained, effective armies which didn’t require a large levy of citizens or of taxes.
The Praetorian Guard was instituted under Augustus, who also cut the regular army in half by getting rid of half of the numbered legions (reducing it to 28), integrating legions to bring all of them to full strength and formalizing the auxiliary system (and adding back approximately 28 legions in the process). The Guard not only was bodyguard for the Emperor (although as you said, that didn’t always work out), but also defended the city and acted as its only police force.
Also, the idea that there were no troops allowed in Rome prior to Julius Caesar’s Rubicon adventure is not true; Pompey played the Senate well, just it had played him after his massively successful campaigns of (1) conquest in the east and (2) defeat of the pirates, but that dance delayed his ability to respond, so he left Italy. The Senate was supporting both sides.
Trying to remember my Livy, but early on wasn’t it the intent that one council would go out with an army and the other stay at home with the other legions?
Romanes eunt domus!
I went back to my research notes. I was correct in part and in error, in part.
The Middle Ages, prepared by National Geographic Book Service, editorial consultant Kenneth M. Setton, under the guidance of Melville Bell Grosvenor and Franc Shor, c1977.
Late Roman society of 3rd century A.D. saw one military commander after another overthrow the government. A debasement of coinage encouraged a staggering inflation and reversion to a “natural economy.” More often than not, the government collected taxes in foodstuffs, materials and services and paid its soldiers and civil servants in kind.. In the 4th century Diocletian and Constantine reformed the coainage, but in attempts to stabilize society they decreed that all workers and their descendants would be frozen in their jobs for life. The aristocratic element moved from the cities into the country to raise what he needed. at 15-16
Small free farmers, ruined by debt, plague, brigandage, usurpations by powerful neighbors and government exactions, placed themselves in the hands of larger landowners. Tenant farmers called “coloni” and slavess worked on vast estates. Legally free, the coloni were bound to the estate and their children after them. An edict of Constantine stated that tenant farmers who flew, could be caught and reduced to servitude. Thus developed the system of manorialism. at 16
The lords of the manor protected the peasnats and were in turn, subject to greater lords becoming military vassals of their lieges. at 16
Heck, not just the Italic provinces, but all over the empire, in its latter days. Iberia, Cisalpine Gaul, parts of Austria and the Balkans, if memory serves.
And detente and occasional (shaky) alliances with the Huns, etc., once the Romans could no longer keep them out of western and southwestern Europe.
With such a diversity (hmmmm!) of so-called allies, troops and lower-level commanders, the occasional rogue element could be expected to arise. (cf. the first Caesar.)
Recurring emergencies in the East from the Sassanids, and in the west and eventually south from the Huns, limited Rome's options in the latter decades of the Empire.
Eventually, the Huns migrated all the way across the Rhine, through France and Spain, across Gibraltar, and back east towards Tripoli. Finally, the Huns began to take over the agriculturally prime lands on the African coast that had served as the Empire's breadbasket.
Once that happened, the end was at hand.
They even took on the Etruscan alphabet, which we now call “Roman.”
“Broadhead has crafted a novel hypothesis about how Caesar — as well as Sulla a few decades before, and Augustus several years later — could march on Rome with his own legions.
“My interpretation is a demographic one,” Broadhead says”
Why is it historians somehow cannot accept the fact that a republic can be toppled by a handful of greedy men lusting after power, especially when they essentially have their own private armies? If you want to explain the fall of the Roman Republic, one needs to look no further than ambition.
“But it’s never a bad time for a Dan Quayle reference.”
I’m trying to figure out how that relates.
The speaking Latin reference.
:’) There’s an old anecdote about a reader and fan of Livy who traveled to Rome just to look at him.
The Consuls were ‘elected’ in pairs, serving one year terms, couldn’t serve again, and could veto each others’ decrees. It was set up by the hereditary aristocracy which populated the Senate, to avoid sharing any real power.
Military commanders were recruited for specific crises — such as the pirate problem, which led to Pompey’s sweeping the pirates from the seas; that culminated in Augustus’ model for a permanent imperial navy, which kept the seven seas pirate-free for centuries.
The military commanders could be (and often were) relieved at the Senate’s whim, but could be kept on campaign for years if need be. The reason Julius Caesar wrote his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars was to keep Romans interested in and supporting what he was doing in Gaul, and it remains great reading.
Gaius Marius was the first on to go to the capite censi (the headcount), the poor who could not afford to supply their own equipment (a requirement for the legions up to this time). He basically said "Join my legion, I'll pay the expenses and give you a wage". The army then became a profession.
The poverty that made that possible was due to the three dozen or so large families who owned most of Italy; when crises erupted (such as an invasion) the common soldiers were patriotic volunteers; when they got back after a year, or two, or more, of a successful campaign, they’d find their lands had been confiscated by some rich a-hole — sort of like eminent domain is used now, but less subtle than that. So, the impoverished classes grew, along with the percentage of the population who’d been enslaved. The insatiable demand for more slaves is another thing that made Caesar’s conquest of Gaul so popular; the growth in slave labor also led to greater poverty among those unable to find work for themselves.
PS It is nice to meet fellow Roman history buffs here in the Free Republic.
Thanx. Have read may pages from the beginning to the year of 4 Caesars.
many
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