
Rose Mary Sheldon |
Philip Sabin, Hans van Wees, and Michael Whitby,
edd., The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare.
Vol. 2: Rome from the Late Republic to the Late Empire.
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007. Pp. 630. ISBN
978-0-521-78274-6. |
Since warfare was the single biggest
preoccupation of historians in antiquity, it is not surprising that
Cambridge University Press has decided to bring out a two-volume set
on how and why the Greeks and Romans fought wars or, in some case,
prevented them. Given the resurgence of research into military
subjects in the last decade, a work that pulls together the best in
recent scholarship is a welcome tool for both specialists and
military history buffs. Many of the best British military writers on
Rome have contributed to the formidable task of covering every
major topic in Roman military history from the early Republic
through the Empire.
The first part, on the Late Republic and the
Principate, begins with an essay by Harry Sidebottom (Oxford) on
"International Relations." Moving then to a more narrow topic,
Boris Rankov (London) writes on "Military Forces." He avoids
earlier controversies over the nature of the army and its reforms
from the beginning of the Republic and skips right to the decline of
the manipular army, the Marian reforms, and the problem of legionary
recruitment in the late Republic. Rankov has elsewhere asserted[1]
that reliable sources on the subject before Polybius are altogether
lacking and also rejects much of what Livy says as fable. He sticks
to safer ground, choosing to discuss the major political change in
the nature of the army in the late Republic, when Rome, rather than
supporting its citizen legions with auxiliary troops (alae or
"wings") drawn from its subject allies, enfranchised those allies
after the Social War, giving them entrance into the legions
themselves. Specialist light-armed troops, such as slingers and
archers, thereafter came from Rome's overseas allies. The new,
pan-Italic armies, which came to identify more and more with
individual leaders like Sulla, Pompey, and finally Caesar, fought
the civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic.
The legions of the Principate with their
auxiliaries are fully described, as are troops based in Rome, such
as the praetorian cohorts, the urban cohorts, the vigiles,
and the equites singulares, with detailed discussion of their
training, discipline and morale, plus descriptions of the forts and
fortresses in which they lived. There is also a short section on the
fleets. None of these topics is cut and dried, but a well-written,
judiciously balanced narrative based on the best contemporary
scholarship is the product.
Adrian Goldsworthy's chapter on
"War" meets his usual high standard of elegant writing. He discusses
the types of war fought by the Romans in the late Republic and the
Principate, not only wars of conquest but also wars to suppress
rebellion or respond to invasion and raiding. He points out that the
Roman army was flexible enough to adapt, although as with any army,
the process was not always an easy one. There was no single
preferred way to prosecute a war, although the Romans obviously
preferred pitched battles on advantageous terrain. He wisely
stresses, however, that the Romans never ruled out surprise attacks
and raids, their effectiveness ensured by good discipline, a clear
line of command, and strong sense of purpose. The Roman refusal to
concede defeat also made it hard for opponents to win a permanent
victory. These factors plus the sheer ferocity of Rome's war-making
and the boldness (to the point of recklessness) of some of its
commanders made it the dominant military power in the Mediterranean.
Goldsworthy rounds out his second section with discussions of
intelligence, engineering skills, logistics, and naval matters. More
controversial is his treatment of grand strategy and frontiers,
where he admits that "debate continues to rage fiercely" over
how rational the processes behind each decision actually were (108).[2]
Catherine M. Gilliver (Cardiff) writes on the
realities of battle: the tactical maneuvers, deployment, and use of
field engineering combat mechanics. Her chapter includes sections on
naval and amphibious warfare, siege warfare and low-intensity
conflict--a topic missing from many earlier works. But not in
evidence here is the emphasis popularized by John Keegan[3]
on what it would have been like to participate in an actual battle.
Only three pages in the entire volume even mention wounds or the
wounded (138-41).
Military finance and supply are treated by
Dominic Rathbone (London). Paying, feeding, and equipping an army
had a great impact on the economy of the Roman Empire. In spite of
having no real statistics to work with, Rathbone draws very
effectively on the evidence of papyri, ostraca, tablets and other
inscribed materials from Vindolanda in Britain, Vindonissa in
Germany, Bu Njem in Africa, Dura-Europos in Mesopotamia, and
soldiers' dedicatory and funeral monuments throughout the empire. By
pulling together these fragmentary sources, he estimates the cost of
the army to the state. Roman imperialism also had socio-economic
effects on Italy and later the provinces. Since the army was not
self-sufficient, it required large quantities of grain, meat, and
other foodstuffs from the surrounding areas, not to mention wine,
water, animals, clothing, weapons. (It might have been nice to know
what Rome's Parthian wars cost all the provinces as legions were
relocated to the East for Trajan's campaigns there, or whether
taking over the present-day area of Iraq was as expensive in the
ancient world as it is in ours.)
The first part ends with an essay by Colin Adams
(Liverpool) on "War and Society." He discusses what he calls the
structural causes of war and the changing pattern of warfare in the
late Republic. First of all, fighting in multiple theaters took a
heavy toll on Roman and Italian resources. Overseas wars like those
with Carthage left Rome with responsibilities of pacification and
administration. Nor did wars of expansion cease as Pompey overran
the East and Caesar conquered all Gaul. But the larger the empire
got, the more wars were fought to protect Roman territory both
inside and outside of Italy. Marius found himself defending Roman
interests against German tribes. Roman interests in Asia Minor were
threatened by Mithridates. Inside Italy, violence erupted during the
Social War (91-88 BC), in which the Italian allies finally won
citizenship from their Roman masters, and during the struggles
between Marius and Sulla. A bloody slave revolt broke out under
Spartacus (73-71); Cicero quelled a conspiracy by Catiline to stage
a coup d'état (63); finally there were Civil Wars between Pompey and
Caesar and between Octavian and Antony, culminating in the Battle of
Actium (31), which toppled the teetering Republic. Putting severe
socio-economic pressures on the Roman government in the last century
of the Republic were such byproducts of imperialism as the huge
influx of slaves, fierce competition for personal recognition,
extortionate tax collection in the provinces, the creation of
latifundia (large commercial estates), and the arrival in Rome
of a dispossessed landless class.
From analysis of the effect of politics on the
army and vice versa, the discussion moves to the imperial-era army
and society in the provinces, the oppression of civilians, the legal
status of soldiers, and the role of the military in internal
administration. The army was used as a workforce and the mere
presence of Roman legions affected regional economies. The growth of
urban centers around army installations--the so-called canabae
and vici--accelerated the urbanization of the empire.
Mark Humphries (Swansea) begins Part II which
cover "The Later Roman Army," with an essay on international
relations beginning with Theodosius I at Constantinople and Rome. A
section on late antique geopolitics covers the Empire and its
enemies, the role of ideology in foreign relations, and Rome's
relationship to the barbarians who surrounded the empire. Rome
combined war and diplomacy to keep Arabs, Persians, Goths, Huns,
Avars, and Turks at a safe distance. Humphries' section on "The
Formation of Frontier Policy: Spies, Merchants and Frontiers" owes
much to A.D. Lee's ground-breaking work on the subject.[4]
There is an entire section on the later Roman
army as a standing professional force. In one of the
best-illustrated chapters in the book, Hugh Elton (Trent) describes
the regimental structures of the army, the types of troops and their
numbers, their equipment, and their individual career structures.
This analysis is important because historians have blamed the Roman
military for many of the ills of the late Empire. Elton points out,
however, that, although the army sometimes failed to perform well,
it was not responsible for the fall of the western Empire. On the
contrary, he argues that the major characteristics of the army at
this time were "small-scale change and institutional flexibility"
(309). He notes that even good armies can and do lose wars and that
financial exhaustion from fighting the Persians in the East, not
incompetence, kept Rome's armies from dealing effectively with Arab
attacks.
Also writing on the late empire, Michael Whitby
(Warwick) takes apart Edward Luttwak's theory of the shift from
preclusive defense to defense in depth.[5]
He argues that Roman boundaries existed for religious, fiscal, and
legal reasons as well as military, and that, although logistics and
internal security considerations may have influenced changes in
military dispositions in some parts of the empire, elsewhere Roman
troops had always been dispersed quite widely around a given
region's cities. Neither defense in depth nor areas for mutual
interaction entirely explain the nature of late Roman frontiers. It
is clear, however, that the Romans began to pay closer attention to
their neighbors, to discover more about them, and to think of ways
of securing military advantage without the risks of direct warfare.
Internal security was always an issue and banditry was endemic in
areas recently affected by invasions or civil war.
Much of what we know about Roman warfare, we know
from ancient military treatises. Philip Rance (no academic
affiliation indicated) writes on the theory of combat, especially in
the work of Vegetius and the Strategikon of Maurice. He
treats the cavalry units of the late empire, the clibanarii
and cataphracti along with siege craft.
This book is not just a treatise on the mechanics
of war. Large sections on warfare and the state investigate the
military basis of imperial power (A.D. Lee, Nottingham), the
military and politics (Richard Alston, London), international
relations (Mark Humphries), warfare and society (Andrew Fear,
Manchester), and religion and war (Michael Whitby).
This beautifully produced volume features helpful
maps, charts, and illustrations, elegant writing throughout, and
references to the best modern scholarship. It is appropriate for
both a general audience or specialists in Roman history. The
footnotes and bibliography are up-to-date and most useful guides to
further reading. The book touches on topics often overlooked in
older military works, like intelligence, reconnaissance, ambush, and
deception even if only in passing. A section on command, control,
communications and intelligence would have been useful; except for
that one lacuna, this work will become a standard reference tool and
would appear on the bookshelf of every student of Roman military
history but for its prohibitive $240.00 price tag.
Virginia Military Institute
sheldonrm@vmi.edu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] In Exploratio: Political and Military
Intelligence in the Roman World from the Second Punic War to the
Battle of Adrianople, with N.J.E. Austin (London: Routledge,
1995).
[2] After a careful discussion of defenders and
critics of Edward Luttwak's The
Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century A.D.
to the Third (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins U Pr, 1976), he takes a diplomatic position by showing
that the ancient literature can accommodate elements of both views.
[3] See The Face of Battle (NY: Viking,
1976).
[4] Information and Frontiers: Roman Foreign
Relations in late Antiquity (Cambridge: CUP, 1993).
|