The importance of the Roman Republic's Military Structures

The importance of the Roman Republic's Military Structures

By Algis Vabolis

It is interesting to consider the key arrangements, structures, values and practices of the Roman Republican military that allowed it to dominate the Mediterranean by the middle second century BCE. Polybius, for example, believed that it was the political organisation of the Republic that was critical to its successes. He tells us this much in one of the first passages of his histories:

For who is so worthless or indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of polity the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole sole government. (Polybius, pp3)

Polybius, in emphasising the importance of the system of government of the Romans, betrays his own Greek origins and perspectives. However, as Potter argues, there was certainly a correlation between political stability and military success in the early to middle republic (2004, pp. 69). For example, Potter believes that the Roman military establishment became more efficient in the middle fourth century BCE, partly as a result of the laws that gave the plebeian class greater political rights. Arguably, these changes, such as the introduction of a military tribuneship, increased social cohesion and gave greater incentive to the lower classes to fight in Rome's wars.

Securing this popular support for war was important, and by including the lower classes in the benefits of conquest, the political body was, at the very least, securing a supply of citizen soldiers. This was vital, as Rome was at war “almost continually” (Rich, 1993) during the fourth and third centuries BCE. This fact helps to explain the importance placed on the military, and the reverence displayed for those who were successful in it: the Romans “valued military achievements above all others” (Rich, pp41).

Polybius, for his part, did not simply view the military establishment of Rome as an homogenous machine of war. He understood that structure and infrastructure were integral to the practical, day to day needs of an army, praising the Romans for their logistical skills. However, Polybius was also aware of the effect of the Roman political and military systems on the individual soldier. His descriptions of Roman military justice, and his emphasis on the importance of discipline show that he believed that, in the Roman army, discipline, self-sacrifice and patriotism were central to the Roman military hegemony that emerged in his own life time (see Polybius's Histories Book 6). His vivid description of the process of bastinado, a punishment for the dereliction of duty in the Roman army, is a clear example of the brutality that Romans were capable of at that time. However, Rome also knew how to reward its heroes, and Polybius put as much weight on the incentives of bravery as he did on the disincentives of cowardice or dereliction, in accounting for the successes of the Roman army.

This system of incentive and punishment applied too, to the Roman political system. Indeed, no discussion of Republican Rome's politics can be made, without due consideration of its military and its military structures. This is merely another example of the ways in which the two were inexorably linked, a fact that should be considered in any discussion on Republican Rome.