Rome?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Well for starters Rome only made treaties when they were very much to her advantage. If they couldn't negotiate good terms then they usually took what they wanted by force. The Latin and Itallic towns were governed by Roman foriegn policy and obligated to Rome. Things could have been a lot worse, true, but it was still a shoddy deal.

[Watchman]

The Romans had the Assyrian brand of "object lesson" policies down right well far as I know. How about the intentional brutality they engaged during the capture of Greek cities for the purpose of intimidating the rest into submission ? Hardly an uncommon practice of course, but that sort of stuff was the standard Roman policy. Or the "cautionary example" mass executions à la the crucification of the survivors of Spartacus' bunch, or the assorted ghastly masscres inflicted on the Celts ?

Sheer brutality was a tool they had not the slightest compunction about using as a weapon.

As for the culture thing, one gets the impression they had the same kind of inferiority complex towards the Hellenics as the Hellenics had towards the Persians and other Near Eastern high cultures - they admitted the undeniable and readily observable achievements easily enough, but claimed moral superiority.

[Zaknafien]

Well, while you are speaking of the Roman Empire, we have to consider that Roman history covers a more than 1,000 year period and generalizations cannot be made that pertain to the entire cultural record for starters.

As EB is concerned with the Age of Overseas Expansion and the Middle/Late Republic, we should keep our observations in this area, I think.

The Romans as a people were nothing if not sure of their superiority among other Oscan, Italic, and Hellenic peoples. Roman propaganda, poetry, letters, annals, and histories are replete with evidence of this. Roman culture was a culture of the state and advancment within the hierarchy of the state in service of Rome herself, and if one was not Roman he or she was practically worthless. Roman citizens had no misconceptions about their own social, moral, and physical prowess over other peoples that inhabited Italia and the rest of the Meditteranean, for that matter.

Latin rights communities "civitas sine suffragio" were granted some measure of inclusion into the Roman state, certainly. most notably Romes absorbtion of Campania led by Capua to share citizenship and manpower early on, but this was an exception not the rule. Even the other Latin communities had no great influence or social standing within Rome itself, and the other socii even less so. They were dominated by Rome out of fear of reprisal, but held no love for the Roman state. The Social War is just the boiling point of centuries of simmering grievances.

The other point I wanted to make in this thread, was that of the Allies in Rome's armies. You cannot underestimate the value of the socii in Rome's military expansion. Rome's ability to incorporate multiple ethnicities and military traditions into a coherent force willing to fight loyally for another state is one of the primary reason's for Rome's conquest of Italy which served as the springboard for its own power. Rome's military by itself was not very impressive as far as the Italic standards went, nor was its manpower any greater than some of the other great city-states of the period of the Italic conquest.

[Zaknafien]

As far as evaluating the Roman military prowess, we must look at a few key factors. The bellicosity of the Romans and their willingness to undertake frequent wars of relatively large scales meant that despite the endemic nature of warfare across Italia, the citizen body as a whole was generally more battle-hardened and experienced than most of their enemies. On the other hand, Roman legionaries were far from professional soldiers in this period, but rather common militia men who at the end of campaign returned to their farm or homestead. Consequently, despite the almost yearly wars, their weapons proficiency and tactical maneuverabilty was limited. The manipular formation somehow accomodated these militia features.

The hoplites of the early republican army had been selected principally on wealth and property, but the manipular army came to be organized by age. According to Livy and Polybius, the younger troops like hastati undertook the intial work in battle but were stiffened by increasingly older and more experienced veterans.

Moreover, formal training or drills, though a feature of later Roman service, was not essential in this early republic army, that naturally placed the battle in to a fragmentation of battle-lines, small handfuls of men from the outset and made it a military virtue.

Resilience in the relatively amorphous swarms of men raining missles on their enemies was sustained through the use of soldier's oaths to one another and fear of punishment that the consul might inflict after battle. Maniples were commanded by their own officers, which increased control, but also allowed for local battlefield initiative which is just as important. We know from soldier's oaths that soldiers were permitted to go beyond the battle-lines in this period, and individual maniples would conduct indpendent operations during battle.

It is not clear when standards became an integral feature of the legions, but they would have acted as invaluable rallying points on a fluid, manipular battlefield, while the pilani (triarii) stationed in a dense mass behind the standards, ultimately gave the formation a backbone.

Finally, regardless of any shortfalls in the system, the Roman and allied manpower increasingly gave the Romans the edge over their neighbors and enemies, so that their armies were, by Italic standards, quite large. Even when confronted with a well drilled and tactically superior army like Pyrrhus, the Romans would recover from defeat and send yet another legion to recoup their losses.

[NeoSpartan]

Zaknafien has spoken.

...........time to learn

[Long lost Caesar]

being an italian myself (italic, whatever the hell you wanna call me) i dont quite understand this conception of calling italians Romans. Germans aren't called the tribes they once were, French aren't called Franks (apart from maybe some crazy people.) Romans are part of our history, and a history we take pride in, but it doesn't mean we still are Roman. Times have changed, and unfortuanetly, so has our luck in war

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Well spoken, for myself I have always thought of those who live in Rome and it's suberbs as Romans and I think it was always thus.

[Sand]

Sheer brutality was a tool they had not the slightest compunction about using as a weapon.

We are talking about a brutal era however. Where communications were limited and the best way a centralised institution could control a large empire was not to be everywhere at once [which they couldnt be], but to have local allies indebted to them and most importantly to ensure that no one ever wanted to attract their wrath - hence the examples they made of Spartacus and conquered cities.

I wouldnt consider the Romans to be especially brutal - they simply ran a large, expansionist empire in a brutal era. Should a citystate be defeated, their families would be enslaved, their lands and riches taken from them and they would vanish from history as an independant people. The Romans fought every war realising that this is what was at stake for them. Their Hellenistic enemies often did not truly grasp that. Romes manpower and wealth was only a factor in their rise, their true strength was that they were willing to expend them in great quantities to achieve victory. Their enemies often only wished to avoid defeat.

In terms of the era, when Alexander the Great caught up with Bessus, the pretender king who slew Darius he had him stripped, put in a halter and flogged whilst the entire army marched by, before he was mutilated [ears and nose cut off]. Then, still alive though clearly in agony he was sent to Hamadan for show trial and execution. This is a cultured Hellenistic monarch dealing with the realities of running an anceint empire.

Look at how Syracuse treated the captured Athenian prisoners after the defeat of their disastrous expedition to Sicilly - left in a quarry to die of exposure and thirst.

It wasnt a pleasant era.

They were dominated by Rome out of fear of reprisal, but held no love for the Roman state. The Social War is just the boiling point of centuries of simmering grievances.

True, but even when Rome was at its weakest point against Hannibal the bulk of its allies remained loyal even though it was routine for cities in Sicily to switch sides depending on which appeared the stronger currently. Obviously fear of Roman reprisal played a part, but cities that went over the Hannibal usually only went over upon the approach of his army, so the fear works both ways.

The Romans dealt harshly with subjects that went over to Hannibal but they also put effort into praising and rewarding the loyalty of those who remained solid - at least one unit of Italic allies were offered Roman citizenship for their efforts but turned it down, Capuan equites who refused to return to rebel Capua via a prisoner exchange deal were also rewarded. There was also their probably deliberate flattery of allies through the use of extraordinarii which can only have helped ensure the loyalty of those allies. Those who returned to the fold were also reprimanded, but often not punished as a captured city might expect to be.

Rome put an immense amount of manpower onto the field during the Hannibalic war, putting a real strain on their subjects and allies so in my opinion its not remarkable that some cities and some Roman troops went over to Hannibal but that so few did even when Rome was at its weakest.