Rome?

[Foot]

Before Rome Italy was full of all different Italian races, and basically they came together to form the Romans. And by this logic we are wrong to call the inhabitants of Italy Italian. Sure there used to be Italians but in my opinion it would seem more logical to call them all Romans. To me it seems like all the efforts of the ancestors of the Italian lands go to waste if they start calling themselvs Italian again. They should be called Roman like they truly are, after all they made the effort to combine everyone to become united. Anyway, Rome started as simply a village full of bandits and runaway slaves, all different Italians. So they didnt feel the need to stick to any particular form of anything, but instead to take anything that was better than theirs and take it further. This included everything from buildings to military weapons and formations. So it is clear then why they became so great, and why luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.

I have to say that from what little I've read on the subject, and from watching the discussions of our Roman team members, I agree with none of this.

Firstly, the people living on the Italic peninsular were not Italians. Italian is a name for members of the national state of Italy. The tribes are rightly termed Italic.

Secondly the ancient tribes who lived on the italic peninsular would never have called themselves italian, so it is impossible for the current people of that same peninsular to call themselves Italian again. See above.

Thirdly, the formation of the Roman state was not a collaborative effort by the different italic tribes. Rome herself was the main city of one such Italic tribe, who named themselves after the city and later won against their closest rivals for land.

Fourthly, I see no reason why to state that the Roman state was massively more adaptive than any other state. The Achaemenid Empire's military was largely a mix of many different traditions. What the Romans had was a winning combination of formation, armour design and sword design. It certainly wasn't luck, but it certainly wasn't some innate characteristic of the Roman people and a cultural fostering of adaptiveness that was unique in the ancient world.

Foot

[L.C.Cinna]

Well yes and no.

The Roman treatment of others was pretty nice compared to contemporary practice, one of the reasons the Italic Allies stayed loyal to Rome during Hannibal's invasion. The Roman empire was formed by a series of treaties much more than by the army. The contract partner was usually (during the early and mid-republic) keeping his customs, his government, his income, Rome recieved a piece of the land (or some landbased tax) and some allied soldiers and therefore offered protection and the establishment of an infrastructure.

Most of the republican Roman expansions were not planned or driven by any kind of "imperialism" (except for that really bad episode in spain), when you look at their politics towards the Punic towns or the Greeks you can see that they'd rather not control the area themselves but in the end more or less have to. You will notice that Greece was never conquered, neither were the Punic towns in Africa (except Carthago herself), others like Lepcis were declared an independant citystate, sealed a contract with Rome as friends and trade partners until about a 100 years later they, like other African towns (because of Roman colonists and other factors) became part of the Roman empire by contract.

Unlike the Hellenistic or Persian kings the connection was between the people of Rome and the other free towns and did not depend on the greatness, prejudice, whatever of a single person.

[macsen rufus]

An idea put forward by Goldsworthy in "The Fall of Carthage" was that Rome simply refused to admit defeat. Hannibal/Carthage inflicted the sort of defeats on Rome that, if they had been fighting say a hellenistic kingdom, said kingdom would have rolled up and sued for peace. Rome never did, and treated war as a "to the death" sort of matter, only finally decided by the utter destruction or subjugation of one party or the other - hence the final fate of Carthage. Part of the cause of the Third Punic War was the stringent terms imposed by Rome after the Second, which Carthage - not having been seriously defeated in battle - felt were unjustified. In short, Rome didn't fight wars according to the established "rules" of the era, which had largely arisen from the seasonal nature of hoplite warfare in the Greek-dominated world.

There were quite a few cases where Roman armies were utterly annihilated - Cannae & Lake Trasimene spring instantly to mind - but another big factor in Rome's favour, militarily, was manpower. They had a large citizen body to call upon, although after a few major defeats by Hannibal this was beginning to feel the strain, as the decreasing property qualifications for the army attest, even to the point of enlisting freed slaves and criminals.

Rome's decision during the First Punic War to build a large fleet was probably also a very decisive point in her rise to dominance. Until that point, Carthage could pretty much treat the western med as their private pond, but afterwards Rome was able to use her maritime advantage to great effect. I believe the transition to naval power was a major leap forward, as it has been for so many other empires, not to mention the benefits of increased trade potential.

I'd definitely second the point that "Italians" means people who live in Italy, as opposed to Italics, which was the group that the Latins/Romans originated with. However, Italics were by no means the sole occupants of Italy during Rome's rise to power. The Etruscans, famously, were a non-italic people, accepted as "indigenes" by the Romans (ie pre-dating Roman self-identity), in the south there were of course the various Greek cities, in the east the Messapians, an Illyrian tribe, and to the north were various Celtic/Gallic tribes such as the Boii and Insubres. Without the rise of Rome we probably would have very little knowledge of the Italic peoples at all.

Rome's Republican consular system also would have played a role in her expansion - with only a year in office, each consul would be eager to "make his name" quickly, which led many to conquests that might not have been considered by someone holding office for a longer term.

So, yeah, Rome had various unique features, all of which will have contributed in some respect to her growth.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

- military: legions were easy to handle. Rome had tons of imbecils in command, but that didn't hurt them that much as the command of Perseus hurted Macedonia at Pydna. A phalanx army is a complicated thing, a legion with its manipular warfare style is easy to handle, basically each troop-body can act on his own if needed.

- technique: steel from Noricum, gladii from Spain, javelins from celts, etc. etc.

- will: they wanted to expand, they wanted to "defend", they wanted to take out their rivals, they wanted "revenge" for defeats, etc. etc. And they did everything they wanted, nothing stopped them.

- civilian competition: everyone wanted to be the best, to achieve the ius imaginum (sp), defend the honor of the family etc. etc.

- strong belief in own superiority: they never gave anything away unless forced. See the Roman citizenship, which took ages even to be granted to the italics

- brutality: causing chaos and devastation was their priority. Examples are countless.

Romans were in no way friendly people who gave out "civilization", law and good order to the "barbarians" surrounding them with the goal to all become happy and peaceful and the whole shit. They were slaughters, carnage was their tool, and in the end that was exactly the reason why they became an empire.

[L.C.Cinna]

- strong belief in own superiority: they never gave anything away unless forced. See the Roman citizenship, which took ages even to be granted to the italics

That's not correct. The majority of allied towns were practically free and as time went by recieved a higher status when they became Roman. The Romans were a bit restrictive when it came to FULL citizenship (which includes the right to vote which was useless for provincials anyway). They did not however believe in any kind of "Roman" superiority, they knew pretty well that the Greeks were culturally more advanced for example and if they would have had such exclusive thoughts (like the Greek citystates had for example) they wouldn't have been able to include so many different tribes and people into "Romanness". Roman is a cultural definition and not an ethinic on, otherwise how would you explain that a freed slave became a citizen?

- brutality: causing chaos and devastation was their priority. Examples are countless.

Romans were in no way friendly people who gave out "civilization", law and good order to the "barbarians" surrounding them with the goal to all become happy and peaceful and the whole shit. They were slaughters, carnage was their tool, and in the end that was exactly the reason why they became an empire.

They were not more brutal than their contemporaries. I'd even go so far as to say that they were often less brutal than their greek contemporaries. There are 2 things:

- there is not too much destruction or chaos (Iberia the bad exception). Look at the 3rd Punic war for example: we have ONE town which is destroyed! and that one because it was a symbol, the town was rebuilt a few miles away and MOST of the inhabitants were not in the town when it was destroyed. The punic towns in Africa weren't even touched but declared as "friends of Rome", so you can't really speak of a brutal campain against the punic ppl. Same thing in Greece. I wouldn't take the antique quotes about destroyed towns too serious. most civilians had usually left the towns already, after the destruction and enslavement and killing of "millions" the town is "refounded" (a ritual nothing more), and people settled there. these are usually the same people which had all been "killed ad ensaved" before. you know the math of ancient writers: a town has 100.000 inhabitants and is the "biggest town in the area", of which 150.000 are killed and 200.000 enslaved, the town destroyed. if you read on you often find the same town a year later, still huge with more or less the same ppl (except the leading class)

[Horst Nordfink]

This is the same as the British Empire. Great Britain is a tiny island in the north atlantic, but it went on to have the largest empire the world has ever seen.

I'm sure there are similar reasons as to Rome's expansion.

[Zaknafien]

That's not correct. The majority of allied towns were practically free and as time went by recieved a higher status when they became Roman.

They did not however believe in any kind of "Roman" superiority, they knew pretty well that the Greeks were culturally more advanced for example

They were not more brutal than their contemporaries. I'd even go so far as to say that they were often less brutal than their greek contemporaries.

Sorry, but those are three of the most ridiculous statements I've ever come across as a Roman historian. I meant to stay out of this topic but I cant let misconceptions like that go unchecked..

[L.C.Cinna]

well the statements are oversimplified (like most of the statements in here)

but would you please explain what is so redicolous about my statements? YOu have to take a closer look at how the Roman empire was built up, especially the contracts between Rome and other towns as well as the scheme of Roman conquests.


About Roman superiority: depends on the time we're talking about. what we have is a feeling of cultural superiority but this only appears after the changes in the 2nd century and becomes stronger during the principate.

please explain instead of calling something "the most ridiculous statements"

thank you