Rome

[Will_YouFight_ForME]

hmmm, is it true in history that republican Rome never had a garrison of troops or some form of police force?
just a general question which i'd like to know the answer to
when playing EB i dont have any troops stationed in Rome only main characters
and if i need to train a legion i set the rally point outside of the Latium border (the whole rubicon thing) where is that river/lake anyways in Italy?


:D

[Boyar Son]

The only major rivers in the game that are shown are the po river up north, and the Tiber river. so...dunno...

[CaesarAugustus]

Nobody knows where the Rubicon is. Rome did have a garrison, btw, generals just couldn't take their legions past the gates, they had to camp on the Campus Martius, I believe. The exception to this was a Triumphus, of course.

[Boyar Son]

Nobody knows where the Rubicon is. Rome did have a garrison, btw, generals just couldn't take their legions past the gates, they had to camp on the Campus Martius, I believe. The exception to this was a Triumphus, of course.

No one knows where the Rubicon is?

Lame...

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Presumed course of the Rubicon
(Wikipedia and its inaccurate accuracies)

The Rubicon was basically the border between Roman Italia and Gallic Italia (even afte the conquest of N.Italia).

The "Field of Mars" was were legions assembled and camped when near Rome. Though armies were not officially allowed to be deployed in Italia.

Rome had a 'police force' in prefects. They were men who fought fires. Though they normally fought the fire by knocking down the building. And they carried a kind of pick-axe with them to knock over buildings. They would also keep the peace (with their pick-axes). But for the most part, if you lived in Roma and had money, you hired your own guards. If you didn't have money you had to protect yourself. (Remember that throughout history, everyone carried a knife around with them as a multi-tool and protection.) In the Imperial Era, there were the Urban Cohorts. Sent in during large roits. I get the picture these guys didn't break up riots, but rather killed everyone roiting.

[Watchman]

Certainly sounds like a very Roman approach to disorderly subjects, that.

[CaesarAugustus]

The Praetorians also guarded Rome (and Constantinople, later), didn't they?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The Praetorians also guarded Rome (and Constantinople, later), didn't they?

They guarded the emporer from Rome...

[Boyar Son]

Pretorians were broken up by Constantine, so no.

[CaesarAugustus]

Damn, I hate Constantine! He ruined every good thing about the Roman Empire!

PS: I though that the Rubicon would have marked the border into Italy. So why was it such a big deal for Caesar to have crossed that one little river one third of the way down Italy?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Damn, I hate Constantine! He ruined every good thing about the Roman Empire!

He bailed out a sinking ship. Rome was broken long before him.

The Preatorian Guard was responsible for nearly all of the assassinations of emporers. One time selling the emporer possition to the highest bidder. They were corrupt and powerful. They needed to be removed, I'm surprised he was able to do it without being assassinated himself. (Reminds me of that time the Ottomans attacked their own Janissary army, just less bloody.)

[Watchman]

Yeah - who else has pawned off an empire to the highest bidder ? That's so badass it alone justifies the Praetorians' existence in history.

[Swebozbozboz]

ya he seems to be a unpopular emporor because he had to make tough decisions.


"Sent in during large roits. I get the picture these guys didn't break up riots, but rather killed everyone roiting." -M.A.A.

I get the same feeling. Romans did two things very well: built large buildings, and killed lots of people easily, and riots aren't about construction.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I though that the Rubicon would have marked the border into Italy. So why was it such a big deal for Caesar to have crossed that one little river one third of the way down Italy?

The Rubicon was the border between the territory of Rome and the province.

I think Caesar was proconsul of the provinces of Illyricum, Gallia Togata (Cisalpine Gaul) and Gallia Transalpina, plus of course the new provinces that he erected. Proconsul means "for the consul", so he had the full power of the consules for this determined territory. In Italia reigned the real consules of course, so it was a really severe crime to bring a legion into Italia. It was a bit like starting a world war.

[Watchman]

He wasn't exactly coming to buy wine now was he, though ?

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

He wasn't exactly coming to buy wine now was he, though ?

Not really. But trade with wine was very flourishing around that time.

The romans sold wine to the Gauls. The Gauls didn't know wine before, and were really longing for it. So the price for wine rised exceedingly, until one amphora of wine was paid (in Gaul only) with one slave. The italic wine merchants could sell the slaves with great profit, or use them to plant more wine. The Gauls started to degenerate a bit economically, and in military terms, because they were starting to fight each other, making raids, to get slaves they could exchange for wine. It was forbidden by law of the Senate to sell the wine plants north of the alps, to prevent the barbarians to produce wine themselves, and to protect the roman merchants and save their income. All that played much in Caesars hands in his Gallic campaign.

[Swebozbozboz]

wow, dirty little drug dealers weren't they? wow, the romans seemed to have some great business sense. stinkin' capitalists...

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

A bit like the Britons selling opium to the Chinese and starting a war as theese tried to refuse the opium import...

I've read it in a nice book by Tom Holland, original title Rubicon. The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic.

[Watchman]

wow, dirty little drug dealers weren't they? wow, the romans seemed to have smoe great business sense. stinkin' capitalists...

To be fair, they were probably already by that point bleeding bullion out East like crazy to pay for silk and spices and whatnots.

Weren't the Gauls sort of in the middle of a major civil war though ?

[Danest]

I've wondered about that "no soldiers below the rubicon"... obviously RTW does absolutely nothing like this. And another thing I've wondered about - Italy appears to have gigantic bands of roving mercenaries... the mercenary population of most heavily trafficked countries is higher than the population of many of the nearby villages. I'd think that would terrify the populace, but this is probably a game mechanic rather than something physical, I figure.

[Suraknar]

I've wondered about that "no soldiers below the rubicon"... obviously RTW does absolutely nothing like this. And another thing I've wondered about - Italy appears to have gigantic bands of roving mercenaries... the mercenary population of most heavily trafficked countries is higher than the population of many of the nearby villages. I'd think that would terrify the populace, but this is probably a game mechanic rather than something physical, I figure.

Well RTW does it in a bit different way, by having Rome and the senate as an entity of its own.

In my view, the way CA chose to represent Rome in Vanilla, Senate-Julii, Scipii and Britii, instead of 1 faction, is there to represent the Republican nature of Rome, and things like this Ancient Roman Law about General not permited to bring their armies past the Rubicon.

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

Rubicon was the border between Italia and Cisapline Gaul. The governor of Cis. Gaul could not move his troops inside Italia without this action being taken as an act of war. This did not mean that the governor of Italia (the Senate and People of Rome) could not have troops stationed there.

[Maeran]

I've always thought of those mercenaries as locals themselves, except the specialist mercenaries like Cretan Archers and Balearic Slingers, who seem to cover a much wider area. This explains why you have to go out of your nice Roman town into rural Samnium to get Samnites.