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2021 Lect 37 The Roman Military — Transcript

by The Friendly Historian · 2,474 words · 432 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:03throughout the punic wars the romans are
0:05really becoming an effective military
0:07machine
0:07and they're changing throughout their
0:09experiences during these decades of war
0:12and one of the things that they build
0:14upon is the greek phalanx
0:16and remember when we looked at the greek
0:18phalanx being very effective against the
0:20persians when they were pushing up
0:22into the greek empire and the romans are
0:25going to take that idea of the phalanx
0:28which is a way of men moving together on
0:30a field of battle
0:32instead of letting each person kind of
0:34run riot over the battlefield
0:36you're disciplined to move together as a
0:38unit
0:39and the romans are going to take that
0:41idea and tweak it one of the things
0:43they're going to do
0:44is to make these these phalanx
0:46structures considerably smaller
0:49and this allows them to have greater
0:50mobility on the field of battle so you
0:52don't have one
0:54large army walking forward and kind of a
0:56behemoth
0:57instead you're going to have these units
0:59that you can
1:00manipulate quickly on the field of
1:02battle
1:03um so this manifold is going to become
1:06very important in the early republic and
1:09then
1:10as we move forward in time it's going to
1:12shift into something called a cohort
1:14which we'll look
1:14at on the next page
1:20the number of men within the legions
1:22change throughout the centuries of roman
1:23history but roughly there were between
1:25four thousand and six thousand men
1:27within a legion
1:28and i put these graphics up up here to
1:31emphasize a couple of changes that are
1:33happening toward the end of the late
1:34republican period
1:36during the earlier public earlier
1:38republican period
1:39in the maniple fighting formation you
1:42really relied on
1:43these four groups
1:47and that was based upon experience
1:50and how good your armor was
1:54so in in general the least experienced
1:57and the lowest classes
1:58were put in the front the you know the
2:00plebeians at the lowest end of the scale
2:03and then you're better armed and higher
2:04classes were in the middle
2:06and your most experienced and your most
2:10wealthy in many cases
2:11these people were put in the back now
2:13there's a it seems as if they're using
2:16people only for fodder in the front
2:18which i'm not going to say that there
2:19wasn't some of that going on
2:21but there's also the idea that if you
2:22put your most experienced men in the
2:24back
2:25then when you come face to face with the
2:28enemy
2:28it is most likely that it's your newbies
2:30that are going to turn
2:32and run um that's actually a very human
2:34reaction
2:35to danger um is flight and so
2:38when when they turn and run they're
2:41going to actually be facing the spears
2:42of the more experienced men behind them
2:44who are pushing them forward into the
2:46fray
2:47but it also reflects those those
2:50distinctive
2:51economic differences between those
2:53classes
2:54um even as you have as we've talked
2:56about more of a representative
2:57form of government there definitely is
2:59division that you can see
3:01in the military by the time we get to
3:03the later period
3:05um there are some changes made by a
3:07particularly
3:08um famous general called marius who
3:10introduces this
3:12new fighting formation of the cohort
3:15and it's broken down here for you to see
3:18but what i really want you to pull out
3:20of this is the idea
3:22that it's of each cohort each one of
3:24those little rainbow blocks
3:27is a mixture of those groups so you have
3:29people that are less experienced people
3:31that are more experienced
3:33and you're able to mix those people
3:35together
3:36because there has begun to be state
3:40funding of the military remember in the
3:43beginning you were expected to show up
3:45and whether you had a horse and full
3:47armor or whether you had a slingshot and
3:50a stick
3:50really depended upon what your role was
3:53going to be in the military
3:54but as we move forward to year one to
3:57the imperial period
3:59you start to see a professional army a
4:02standing professional army
4:04we have talked about this in east asia
4:06also developing if you remember
4:09under the quin dynasty so you have men
4:11who are not just
4:13coming when they're called but they're
4:15actually training to be in the military
4:18and they're being outfitted and paid by
4:20the state
4:21so this is where the roman military is
4:24moving and when you've seen those movies
4:25and you think about all of those
4:27you know shiny helmets and the
4:28breastplates and the roman legions
4:30moving forward
4:31those are mostly toward the late
4:33republic or the early imperial period
4:35and it reflects the amount of wealth
4:37that the roman empire was starting to
4:40generate
4:44just as the military was developing on
4:45land the punic wars made it clear that
4:48they were going to have to have a strong
4:50maritime presence as well
4:52and so rome begins to develop its navy
4:54if you look at the the ship that's
4:56represented here
4:58it doesn't look all that much different
5:00than the ships that we saw con
5:02constructed by athens um during the
5:05peloponnesian wars and the persian wars
5:07and they do have a similar style to them
5:10you notice they're
5:11manned by oarsmen um as well as sails
5:14and so it they require a large crew
5:17most of that crew would have been made
5:19up of
5:20of poorer free men
5:23um and sometimes they would use slaves
5:25when manpower got low but in general
5:28uh people wanted to serve within the
5:31roman military and we'll talk about why
5:33in a minute
5:34in addition to to patrolling the seas
5:38against different types of powers within
5:40the mediterranean one of the chief
5:42jobs of the roman military is to control
5:44piracy
5:46trade does not work unless you have
5:50efficient and safe roads we've talked
5:53about that with the development
5:54of the persian empire and the same is
5:57true for
5:58the water you can't have effective
6:00maritime trade to bring
6:01all of these luxurious wonderful spices
6:04and silks and
6:05all of these things across the adriatic
6:08sea across the levant
6:09from the levant to the mediterranean
6:11unless you have
6:13safe waters and during the republican
6:16period there were a lot of active
6:18pirates within the mediterranean
6:20um it's you think about kind of
6:22similarly today there are a lot of act
6:24there's a lot of active pirates within
6:26the indian ocean of course in the 17th
6:28and 18th century those are the most
6:30famous pirates we think of
6:32um patrolling uh central america and the
6:34caribbean
6:35well during the roman period they had to
6:37get rid of the pirates in the middle
6:39in the mediterranean so that's the first
6:41job of the roman
6:43navy um and they really begin to think
6:46of
6:46the mediterranean sea as their lake they
6:49actually call it mary nostrum which is
6:51our lake um and they're fairly
6:53successful
6:54at taking control of that by the
6:55imperial period
6:57the other thing i would note to you just
6:59as you look at that image of the roman
7:01ship is the corvus and this was an
7:04interesting
7:04um device that the romans developed
7:08which would it's the kind of the shaft
7:10that you see coming up from the top and
7:12it has a hook on it
7:14and again we're talking about warfare
7:16that's very face to face they're using
7:18um
7:18swords and spears and so in order to
7:21engage another boat
7:22even if it's a pirate boat you need to
7:24get close enough so they would use this
7:26hook
7:27to link themselves to the ship and then
7:30the
7:31warriors that were on the the naval
7:32officers would
7:34board the other ship um and take over
7:37that ship
7:38and of course all of the loot also would
7:40return to the roman military
7:42and oftentimes be split up amongst the
7:44men that were on
7:45the roman ship
7:51remember that we're discussing over 800
7:53years of of roman history here today so
7:56the military structure that i'm
7:57describing to you
8:00can change a little bit over time but
8:02there are some trends that we can trace
8:04and the first trend is toward
8:07professionalization
8:09remember that we talked about during the
8:11punic wars there is a lack
8:13of men to serve in the military many of
8:16them have died
8:17through the punic wars and so no longer
8:19are we really conscripting
8:21soldiers um but we're attracting people
8:24into the military through
8:26pay regular pay and that becomes the
8:28standard for the roman military
8:30in fact you're not forcing people to
8:33fight for you if you are
8:34rome you are attracting people people
8:37are actually lining up to become
8:39part of the roman legions and why would
8:41that be
8:43well there's a couple things and i think
8:44most of them are very pragmatic
8:46first of all you're guaranteed a regular
8:49salary
8:50and in the ancient world that's not
8:51something that's always easy to come by
8:54if you serve within the military and
8:56manage to keep yourself alive for 20 to
8:5825 years
9:00you're also going to be given a pension
9:02which again
9:03not something that most occupations are
9:05offering during this period
9:07they're also providing most of what you
9:09need your clothing
9:11your armor your weapons you're being
9:13billeted
9:14so your food your housing all of that is
9:16being taken care of
9:17so many of the same reasons that people
9:19join the military today
9:22i'm sure we're also there in the ancient
9:24period
9:28in terms of barriers to joining the
9:30military
9:33over time these barriers are going to
9:36become
9:36less and less so in the beginning
9:38there's an emphasis on
9:39citizens um those people who are truly
9:43living within the roman empire proper
9:45and not
9:46the allies of the roman empire these
9:49boundaries are going to start to loosen
9:51particularly during the fourth and fifth
9:53century ce
9:54when rome is really desperate to um
9:57fill the ranks of its very large
9:59military you're going to start to see
10:01large groups of people coming in for
10:03germania for example you'll have galls
10:05you'll have celts you have other people
10:07serving within the military
10:10the other reason that it seems from the
10:13sources that people
10:14wanted to become part of the legions is
10:16a real sense of camaraderie
10:19most military soldiers are career
10:22military
10:23and they're going to spend their lives
10:25with many of these same men and they
10:27could be deployed for
10:29years at a time some of these conflicts
10:31lasted for years just as they do today
10:34and they spent a lot of time with one
10:36another and there's a sense of kind of
10:37camaraderie or brotherhood that seems to
10:39have been attractive
10:40to people that are in the military even
10:43in rome but i do want to mention
10:47that this camaraderie is again going to
10:50become a little bit dangerous for the
10:52republic
10:53as the pro consul stays in the field
10:55with his men and these men begin to
10:57build bonds with one another
10:59it starts to undermine the power of
11:02some of these institutions that rome had
11:04established such as the senate
11:06which is sitting back in rome not in the
11:09field
11:10not in the saddle and they can seem very
11:12remote
11:13to some of these powerful legions who
11:15are out in the field
11:22we've talked about political leaders
11:24within the roman system
11:25and we've talked about consoles and
11:27senators and tribunes
11:29and today we've had a chance to focus on
11:31growth and change within the military
11:33the pro-consular power
11:35the legions and the navy but i don't
11:38want to leave this topic
11:40of the late republic until we talk about
11:42the influence
11:43of another group which historians tend
11:45to call the roman mob
11:47but i've never really liked that term
11:49because i think it's a little misleading
11:51what it really refers to is all of the
11:53people that were living within rome
11:57now i know at the very beginning we
11:58talked about the fact that
12:00the um plebeians had pushed for more
12:02representation
12:04and they had managed to form these
12:05assemblies and also to
12:07get the um the titles of tribune which
12:10were important political offices within
12:12rome
12:13but i think you would be really familiar
12:16with the process that had happened in
12:18the ensuing several hundred years
12:20which is the most wealthy families the
12:23people with the best connections
12:25the people um that were successful
12:27lobbyers
12:28they had managed to really wrap up a lot
12:31of the political system and i think
12:32again that's something that we can
12:33relate to
12:34today right you tend to have the same
12:37families in these positions
12:39and so the the mob the people that were
12:42of the streets their
12:43real um way to influence
12:46roman policy was not going to be through
12:48these political institutions instead it
12:51was going to be
12:52to take to the streets through
12:53demonstrations through strikes
12:56um through things like that and so one
12:59of the
12:59one of the things that the rulers had to
13:01do first the senate and the tribunes and
13:03later the emperors
13:04is to make sure that this grand
13:07population of rome which was up in the
13:08millions at its peak
13:10was pacified was getting the things that
13:12they needed
13:14and you've probably heard the term bread
13:16in circuses
13:18which basically means they needed to be
13:20fed and they needed to have
13:22entertainment uh and again i think that
13:24can be kind of looked down upon as
13:26as something silly but but food is a
13:28necessity for everybody and in a
13:30population of that size
13:32um in which many of the aristocrats
13:35owned a lot of the agricultural area in
13:37italy by this point
13:38you know there was a real need for for
13:40food subsidies
13:42so if you were living in rome throughout
13:45most of roman history
13:46you were able to get bred for free this
13:49was one of the first social welfare
13:51programs
13:52and during times of turmoil when you
13:54really start to see what they call the
13:56roman mob
13:57coming out and protesting and perhaps
14:00you know
14:00looting and things like that these were
14:02generally times in which the the bread
14:04subsidies had stopped
14:05for one reason or another um most of the
14:08grain from rome came out of egypt
14:11that was considered the bread basket of
14:12the mediterranean world
14:14and if shipments of grain are not
14:15arriving regularly from egypt
14:17then there are a number of people in
14:19rome who are probably going to starve
14:22so that balance of the political
14:24institutions the military
14:26and the roman people are what formed
14:29that basis
14:30of roman society so next time we're
14:32going to look at some of the events
14:34um that transition rome from its
14:38late republic period into the imperial
14:40period we'll talk about the death of
14:41julius caesar
14:43and the rise of augustus

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