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From its origin as a city-state in Italy in 9th century BC, the rise as an empire covering much of Eurasia and North Africa and fall in the 5th century AD of Ancient Rome was often closely entwined with its military history. The core of the campaign history of the Roman military is an aggregate of different accounts of the Roman military's land battles, from its initial defence against and subsequent conquest of the city's hilltop neighbours in the Italian peninsula, to the ultimate struggle of the Western Roman Empire for its existence against invading Huns, Vandals and Germanic tribes after the empire's split into East and West. These accounts were written by various authors throughout and after the history of the Empire. Despite the later Empire's encompassing of lands around the periphery of the Mediterranean Sea, naval battles were typically less significant than land battles to the military history of Rome, due to its largely unchallenged dominance of the sea following fierce naval fighting during the First Punic War. The Roman army battled first against its tribal neighbours and Etruscan towns within Italy, and later came to dominate much of the Mediterranean and further afield, including the provinces of Britannia and Asia Minor at the Empire's height. As with most ancient civilisations, Rome's military served the triple purposes of securing its borders, exploiting peripheral areas through measures such as imposing tribute on conquered peoples, and maintaining internal order.[1] From the outset, Rome's military typified this pattern, and the majority of Rome's campaigns were characterised by one of two types: the first is the territorial expansionist campaign, normally begun as a counter-offensive,[2] in which each victory brought subjugation of large areas of territory and allowed Rome to grow from a small town to the third largest empire in the ancient world, encompassing around one quarter of the world's total population;[3] the second is the civil war, examples of which plagued Rome right from its foundation to its eventual demise. Roman armies were not invincible, despite their formidable reputation and host of victories:[4] over the centuries the Romans "produced their share of incompetents"[5] who led Roman armies into catastrophic defeats. Nevertheless, it was generally the fate of even the greatest of Rome's enemies, such as Pyrrhus and Hannibal,[6] to win the battle but lose the war. The history of Rome's campaigning is, if nothing else, a history of obstinate persistence overcoming appalling losses.[7][8]
[edit] Kingdom (756 BC – 459 BC)
Rome is almost unique in the ancient world in that its history, military and otherwise, is documented often in great detail almost from the city's very foundation right through to its eventual demise. Although some histories have been lost, such as Trajan's account of the Dacian Wars, and others, such as Rome's earliest histories, are at least semi-apocryphal, the extant histories of Rome's military history are extensive. The very earliest history, from the time of Rome's founding as a small tribal village,[9] through to the downfall of Rome's kings, is the least well preserved. This is because, whilst the early Romans were literate to some degree,[10] either they lacked the will to record their history at this time or else such histories as they did record were lost.[11] Although the Roman historian Livy (traditionally 59 BC – AD 17[12]) lists a series of seven kings of early Rome in his work Ab Urbe Condita, from its establishment and through its earliest years, the first four 'kings' (Romulus,[13] Numa,[14][15] Tullus Hostilius[16][15] and Ancus Marcius[17][15]) are almost certainly entirely apocryphal. Grant and others argue that prior to the time when the Etruscan kingdom of Rome was established under the traditionally fifth king Tarquinius Priscus,[18] Rome would have been led by a religious leader of some sort.[19] Very little is known of Rome's military history during this era, and what history has come down to us is of a legendary rather than factual nature. Traditionally, Romulus fortified one of the first-settled of Rome's seven hills, the Palatine Hill, after founding the city, and Livy states that shortly after its founding Rome was "equal to any of the surrounding cities in her prowess in war".[20]
The first campaign, if such it can be called, that was fought by the Romans in this legendary account is their seizing of the women from several nearby villages inhabited by the Sabine people for purposes of "begetting their children",[22] an event known as The Rape of the Sabine Women. According to Livy, the Sabine village of Caenina responded first by invading Roman territory, but were routed and their city captured. The Sabines of Antemnae were defeated next in a similar fashion, and again the Sabines of Crustumerium. The remaining main body of the Sabines attacked Rome and briefly captured the citadel, but were then routed.[23] There were further wars against the Fidenae,[24] Veientes, the Albans,[25] the Medullia, the Apiolae,[26] and the Collatia.[27] Under the Etruscan kings Tarquinius Priscus,[28] Servius Tullius[29][23] and Tarquinius Superbus,[30][23] Rome expanded to the north-west, coming into conflict again with the Veientes after the expiry of the treaty that concluded their earlier war.[31] There was a further campaign against the Gabii,[32][33] and later against the Rutuli.[34] The Etruscan kings were overthrown[35] as part of a wider reduction in Etruscan power in the region during this period, and Rome reformed itself as a republic,[36][37] a form of government based on popular representation and in contrast to its previous autocratic kingship. [edit] Republic[edit] Early (458 BC – 274 BC)[edit] Early Italian campaigns (458–396 BC)
The first non-apocryphal Roman wars were wars of both expansion and defence, aimed at protecting Rome itself from neighbouring cities and nations and establishing its territory in the region.[38] Florus writes that at this time
Although sources disagree, it is possible that Rome itself was twice invaded by Etruscan armies in this period, first in around 509 BC under the recently-overthrown king Tarquinius Superbus,[39][40] and again in 508 BC under the Etruscan Lars Porsenna.[41][39][42][35] Initially, Rome's immediate neighbours were either Latin towns and villages[43] on a similar tribal system to Rome itself, or else tribal Sabines from the Apennine hills beyond.[44] One by one Rome defeated both the persistent Sabines and the local cities that were either under Etruscan control or else Latin towns that had cast off their Etruscan rulers, as had Rome.[44] Rome defeated the Lavinii and Tusculi in the Battle of Lake Regillus in 496 BC,[45][46][43] the Sabines in an Unknown Battle in 449 BC,[45] the Aequi in the Battle of Mons Algidus in 458 BC and the Battle of Corbione in 446 BC[47], the Volsci[48] in the Battle of Corbione[49] in 446 BC and the Capture of Antium in 377 BC[50], the Aurunci in the Battle of Aricia,[51] and the Veientes in the Battle of the Cremera in 477 BC,[52][53] the Capture of Fidenae in 435 BC[54][53] and the Siege of Veii in 396 BC.[49][54][53][55] After defeating the Veientes, the Romans had effectively completed the conquest of their immediate Etruscan neighbours,[56] as well as secured their position against the immediate threat posed by the tribespeople of the Apennine hills. However, Rome still controlled only a very limited area and the affairs of Rome were minor even to those in Italy: the remains of Veii, for instance, lie entirely within modern Rome's suburbs[49] and Rome's affairs were only just coming to the attention of the Greeks, the dominant cultural force at the time.[57] At this point the bulk of Italy remained in the hands of Latin, Sabine, Samnite and other peoples in the central part of Italy, Greek colonies to the south, and, notably, the Celtic people, including the Gauls, to the north. The Celtic civilization at this time was vibrant and growing in strength and territory, and stretched, if incohesively, across much of mainland Europe. It is at the hands of the Gallic Celts that Rome suffered a humiliating defeat that temporarily set back its advance and was to imprint itself upon the Roman consciousness. [edit] Celtic invasion of Italia (390–387 BC)
By 390 BC, several Gallic tribes had begun invading Italy from the north as their culture expanded throughout Europe. Most of this was unknown to the Romans at this time, who still had purely local security concerns, but the Romans were alerted when a particularly warlike tribe,[57][58] the Senones,[58] invaded the Etruscan province of Siena from the north and attacked the town of Clusium,[59] not far from Rome's sphere of influence. The Clusians, overwhelmed by the size of the enemy in numbers and ferocity, called on Rome for help. Perhaps unintentionally[57] the Romans found themselves not just in conflict with the Senones, but their primary target.[59] The Romans met them in pitched battle at the Battle of the Allia[57][58] around 390–387 BC. The Gauls, under their chieftain Brennus, defeated the Roman army of around 15,000 troops[57] and proceeded to pursue the fleeing Romans back to Rome itself and partially sacked the town[60][61] before being either driven off[58][62][63] or bought off.[57][59] Now that the Romans and Gauls had blooded one another, intermittent warfare was to continue between the two in Italy for more than two centuries, including the Battle of the Anio,[58] the Battle of Lake Vadimo,[58] the Battle of Faesulae in 225 BC, the Battle of Telamon in 224 BC, the Battle of Clastidium in 222 BC, the Battle of Cremona in 200 BC, the Battle of Mutina in 194 BC, the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC, and the Battle of Vercellae in 101 BC. The Celtic problem would not be resolved for Rome until the final subjugation of all Gaul following the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC. [edit] Expansion into Italia (343–282 BC)
After recovering surprisingly swiftly from the sack of Rome,[64] the Romans immediately resumed their expansion within Italy. Despite their successes so far, their mastery of the whole of Italy was by no means assured at this point: the Samnites were a people just as martial[65] and as rich[66] as the Romans and with an objective of their own of securing more lands in the fertile[66] Italian plains on which Rome itself lay.[67] The First Samnite War of between 343 BC and 341 BC that followed widespread Samnite incursions into Rome's territory[68] was a relatively short affair: the Romans beat the Samnites in both the Battle of Mount Gaurus in 342 BC and the Battle of Suessola in 341 BC but were forced to withdraw from the war before they could pursue the conflict further due to the revolt of several of their Latin allies in the Latin War.[69][70] Rome was therefore forced to contend by around 340 BC against both Samnite incursions into their territory and, simultaneously, in a bitter war against their former allies. Rome bested the Latins in the Battle of Vesuvius and again in the Battle of Trifanum,[70] after which the Latin cities were obliged to submit to Roman rule.[71][72] Perhaps due to Rome's lenient treatment of their defeated foe,[69] the Latins submitted largely amicably to Roman rule for the next 200 years. The Second Samnite War, from 327 BC to 304 BC, was a much longer and more serious affair for both the Romans and Samnites,[73] running for over twenty years and incorporating twenty-four battles[66] that led to massive casualties on both sides. The fortunes of the two sides fluctuated throughout its course: the Samnites seized Neapolis in the Capture of Neapolis in 327 BC,[73] which the Romans then re-captured before losing at the Battle of the Caudine Forks[73][74][66] and the Battle of Lautulae. The Romans then proved victorious at the Battle of Bovianum and the tide turned strongly against the Samnites from 314 BC onwards, leading them to sue for peace with progressively less generous terms. By 304 BC the Romans had effectively annexed the greater degree of the Samnite territory, founding several colonies. This pattern of meeting aggression in force and almost inadvertently gaining territory in strategic counter-attacks was to become a common feature of Roman military history. Seven years after their defeat, with Roman dominance of the area looking assured, the Samnites rose again and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Camerinum in 298 BC, to open the Third Samnite War. With this success in hand they managed to bring together a coalition of several previous enemies of Rome, all of whom were probably keen to prevent any one faction dominating the entire region. The army that faced the Romans at the Battle of Sentinum[74] in 295 BC therefore included Samnites, Gauls, Etruscans and Umbrians.[75] When the Roman army won a convincing victory over these combined forces it must have become clear that little could prevent Roman dominance of Italy. In the Battle of Populonia in 282 BC Rome finished off the last vestiges of Etruscan power in the region. [edit] Pyrrhic War (280–275 BC)
By the beginning of the third century, Rome had established itself as a major power on the Italian Peninsula, but had not yet come into conflict with the dominant military powers in the Mediterranean at the time: Carthage and the Greek kingdoms. Rome had all but completely defeated the Samnites, mastered its fellow Latin towns, and greatly reduced Etruscan power in the region. However, the south of Italy was controlled by the Greek colonies of Magna Grecia[76] who had been allied to the Samnites, and continued Roman expansion brought the two into inevitable conflict.[77][78] When a diplomatic dispute between Rome and the Greek colony of Tarentum[79] erupted into open warfare in the naval Battle of Thurii,[78] Tarentum appealed for military aid to Pyrrhus, ruler of Epirus.[80][78] Motivated by his diplomatic obligations to Tarentum, and a personal desire for military accomplishment,[81] Pyrrhus landed a Greek army of some 25,000 men[78] and a contingent of war elephants[78][82] on Italian soil in 280 B.C,[83] where his forces were joined by some Greek colonists and a portion of the Samnites who revolted against Roman control. The Roman army had not yet seen elephants in battle,[82] and their inexperience turned the tide in Pyrrhus' favour at the Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC,[78][84][82] and again at the Battle of Ausculum in 279 BC.[85][84][86][82] Despite these victories, Pyrrhus found his position in Italy untenable. Rome steadfastly refused to negotiate with Pyrrhus as long as his army remained in Italy.[87] Furthermore, Rome entered into a treaty of support with Carthage, and Pyrrhus found that despite his expectations, none of the other Italic peoples would defect to the Greek and Samnite cause.[88] Facing unacceptably heavy losses with each encounter with the Roman army, and failing to find further allies in Italy, Pyrrhus withdrew from the peninsula and campaigned in Sicily against Carthage,[89] abandoning his allies to deal with the Romans.[77] When his Sicilian campaign was also ultimately a failure, and at the request of his Italian allies, Pyrrhus returned to Italy to face Rome once more. In 275 BC, Pyrrhus again met the Roman army at the Battle of Beneventum.[85] This time the Romans had devised methods to deal with the war elephants, including the use of javelins,[85] fire[89] and, one source claims, simply hitting the elephants heavily on the head.[82] While Beneventum was indecisive,[89] Pyrrhus realised that his army had been exhausted and reduced by years of foreign campaigns, and seeing little hope for further gains, he withdrew completely from Italy. The conflicts with Pyrrhus would have a great effect on Rome, however. Rome had shown that it was capable of pitting its armies successfully against the dominant military powers of the Mediterranean, and further showed that the Greek kingdoms were incapable of defending their colonies in Italy and abroad. Rome quickly moved into southern Italia, subjugating and dividing Magna Grecia.[90] Effectively dominating the Italian peninsula,[91] and with a proven international military reputation,[92] Rome now began to look outwards at expansion from the Italian mainland. Since the Alps formed a natural barrier to the north, and Rome was none too keen to meet the fierce Gauls in battle once more, the city's gaze turned to Sicily and the islands of the Mediterranean, a policy that would bring it into direct conflict with its former ally Carthage.[93][92] [edit] Middle (274 BC – 148 BC)Rome first began to make war outside the Italian peninsula in the Punic wars against Carthage, a former Phoenician colony[94] on the north coast of Africa that had developed into a powerful state. These wars, starting in 264 BC[95] were probably the largest conflicts of the ancient world yet [96] and saw Rome become the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean, with territory in Sicily, North Africa, Iberia, and with the end of the Macedonian wars (which ran concurrently with the Punic wars) Greece as well. After the defeat of the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III the Great in the Roman-Syrian War (Treaty of Apamea, 188 BC) in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and the most powerful city in the classical world. [edit] Punic Wars (264–146 BC)
The First Punic War began in 264 BC when settlements on Sicily began to appeal to the two powers between which they lay – Rome and Carthage – in order to solve internal conflicts.[95] The willingness of both Rome and Carthage to become embroiled on the soil of a third party may indicate a willingness to test each other's power without wishing to enter a full war of annihilation; certainly there was considerable disagreement within Rome about whether to prosecute the war at all.[97] The war saw land battles in Sicily early on such as the Battle of Agrigentum but the theatre shifted to naval battles around Sicily and Africa. For the Romans naval warfare was a relatively unexplored concept.[98] Before the First Punic War in 264 BC there was no Roman navy to speak of as all previous Roman wars had been fought on land in Italy. The new war in Sicily against Carthage, a great naval power,[99] forced Rome to quickly build a fleet and train sailors.[100] Rome took to naval warfare "like a brick to water"[93] and the first few naval battles of the First Punic War such as the Battle of the Lipari Islands were catastrophic disasters for Rome, as might fairly be expected from a city that had no real prior experience of naval warfare. However, after training more sailors and inventing a grappling engine known as a Corvus,[101] a Roman naval force under C. Duillius was able to roundly defeat a Carthaginian fleet at the Battle of Mylae. In just 4 years, a state without any real naval experience had managed to better a major regional maritime power in battle. Further naval victories followed at the Battle of Tyndaris and Battle of Cape Ecnomus.[102] After having won control of the seas, a Roman force landed on the African coast under Regulus, who was at first victorious, winning the Battle of Adys[103] and forcing Carthage to sue for peace.[104] However the terms of peace that Rome proposed were so heavy that negotiations failed[104] and, in response, the Carthaginians hired Xanthippus of Carthage, a mercenary from the martial Greek city-state of Sparta, to reorganise and lead their army.[105] Xanthippus managed to cut off the Roman army from its base by re-establishing Carthaginian naval supremacy, then defeated and captured Regulus[106] at the Battle of Tunis.[107] Despite being defeated on African soil, with their newfound naval abilities, the Romans roundly beat the Carthaginians in naval battle again – largely through the tactical innovations of the Roman fleet[95] – at the Battle of the Aegates Islands and leaving Carthage without a fleet or sufficient coin to raise one. For a maritime power the loss of their access to the Mediterranean stung financially and psychologically, and the Carthaginians again sued for peace,[108] during which Rome battled the Ligures tribe in the Ligurian War[109] and the Insubres in the Gallic War.[110] Continuing distrust led to the renewal of hostilities in the Second Punic War when Hannibal Barca, a member of the Barcid family of Carthaginian nobility, attacked Saguntum,[111][112] a city with diplomatic ties to Rome.[113] Hannibal then raised an army in Iberia and famously crossed the Italian Alps with elephants to invade Italy.[114][115] In the first battle on Italian soil at Ticinus in 218 BC Hannibal defeated the Romans under Scipio the Elder in a small cavalry fight.[116][117] Hannibal's success continued with victories in the Battle of the Trebia,[116][118] the Battle of Lake Trasimene, where he ambushed an unsuspecting Roman army,[119][120] and the Battle of Cannae,[121][122] in what is considered one of the great masterpieces of the tactical art, and for a while "Hannibal seemed invincible",[114] able to beat Roman armies at will.[123] In the three battles of Nola, Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus managed to hold off Hannibal but then Hannibal smashed a succession of Roman consular armies at the First Battle of Capua, the Battle of the Silarus, the Second Battle of Herdonia, the Battle of Numistro and the Battle of Asculum. By this time Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal Barca sought to cross the Alps into Italy and join his brother with a second army. Despite being defeated in Iberia in the Battle of Baecula, Hasdrubal managed to break through into Italy only to be defeated decisively by Gaius Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius Salinator on the Metaurus River.[114]
Unable to defeat Hannibal himself on Italian soil, and with Hannibal savaging the Italian countryside but unwilling or unable to destroy Rome itself, the Romans boldly sent an army to Africa with the intention of threatening the Carthaginian capital.[125] In 203 BC at the Battle of Bagbrades the invading Roman army under Scipio Africanus Major defeated the Carthaginian army of Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax and Hannibal was recalled to Africa.[114] At the famous Battle of Zama Scipio decisively defeated[126] – perhaps even "annihilated"[114] – Hannibal's army in North Africa, ending the Second Punic War. Carthage never managed to recover after the Second Punic War[127] and the Third Punic War that followed was in reality a simple punitive mission to raze the city of Carthage to the ground.[128] Carthage was almost defenceless and when besieged offered immediate surrender, conceding to a string of outrageous Roman demands.[129] The Romans refused the surrender, demanding as their further terms of surrender the complete destruction of the city[130] and, seeing little to lose,[130] the Carthaginians prepared to fight.[129] In the Battle of Carthage the city was stormed after a short siege and completely destroyed,[131] its culture "almost totally extinguished".[132] [edit] Conquest of the Iberian peninsula (218–19 BC)
Rome's conflict with the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars led them into expansion in the Iberian peninsula of modern-day Spain and Portugal.[133] The Punic empire of the Carthaginian Barcid family consisted of territories in Iberia, many of which Rome gained control of during the Punic Wars. Italy remained the main theatre of war for much of the Second Punic War, but the Romans also aimed to destroy the Barcid Empire in Iberia and prevent major Punic allies from linking up with forces in Italy. Over the years Rome had gradually expanded along the southern Iberian coast until in 211 BC it captured the city of Saguntum. Following two major military expeditions to Iberia, the Romans finally crushed Carthaginian control of the peninsula in 206 BC, at the Battle of Ilipa, and the peninsula became a Roman province known as Hispania. From 206 BC onwards the only opposition to Roman control of the peninsula came from within the native Celtiberian tribes themselves, the disunity of which prevented security from Roman expansion.[133] Following two small-scale rebellions in 197 BC,[134] in 195–194 BC, war broke out in between the Romans and the Lusitani people in the Lusitanian War, in modern-day Portugal.[135] By 179 BC, the Romans had mostly succeeded in pacifying the region and bringing it under their control.[134] In around 154 BC,[134] a major revolt was re-ignited in Numantia, which is known as the First Numantine War,[133] and a long war of resistance was fought between the advancing forces of the Roman Republic and the Lusitani tribes of Hispania. The praetor Servius Sulpicius Galba and the proconsul Lucius Licinius Lucullus arrived in 151 BC and began the process of subduing the local population.[136] Galba betrayed the Lusitani leaders he had invited to peace talks and had them killed in 150 BC, ingloriously ending the first phase of the war.[136] The Lusitani revolted again in 146 BC under a new leader called Viriathus,[134] invading Turdetania (southern Iberia) in a guerilla war.[137] The Lusitanians were initially successful, defeating a Roman army at the Battle of Tribola and going on to sack nearby Carpetania,[138] and then besting a second Roman army at the First Battle of Mount Venus in 146 BC, again going on to sack another nearby city.[138] In 144 BC, the general Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus campaigned successfully against the Lusitani, but failed in his attempts to arrest Viriathus. In 144 BC, Viriathus formed a league against Rome with several Celtiberian tribes[139] and persuaded them to rise against Rome too, in the Second Numantine War.[140] Viriathus' new coalition bested Roman armies at the Second Battle of Mount Venus in 144 BC and again at the failed Siege of Erisone.[140] In 139 BC, Viriathus was finally killed in his sleep by three of his companions who had been promised gifts by Rome.[141] In 136 and 135 BC, more attempts were made to gain complete control of the region of Numantia, but they failed. In 134 BC, the Consul Scipio Aemilianus finally succeeded in suppressing the rebellion following the successful Siege of Numantia.[142] Since the Roman invasion of the Iberian peninsula had begun in the south in the territories around the Mediterranean controlled by the Barcids, the last region of the peninsula to be subdued lay in the far north. The Cantabrian Wars or Astur-Cantabrian Wars, from 29 BC to 19 BC, occurred during the Roman conquest of these northern provinces of Cantabria and Asturias. Iberia was fully occupied by 25 BC and the last revolt put down by 19 BC[143] [edit] Macedon, the Greek poleis, and Illyria (215–148 BC)
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