At the Battle of Allia, ‘mere barbarians’ defeated the Roman army and afterwards, sacked Rome.
The sack of Rome by the Gauls c. 390 BC represented a
‘watershed moment’ in early Roman history, after which nothing was quite the
same. This was the point identified by Livy as the ‘second birth’ (secunda
origine) of the city and the moment he selected as the starting point of his
second ‘pentad’ (set of five books) in his history. In other words, if Livy was
a Hollywood filmmaker making a series of movies about early Rome, the first
installation would have started with Aeneas and Romulus and culminated with the
city’s victory over Veii, and the second would start with the epic tragedy of
the Gallic sack and Rome’s rise to greatness in the century following. So, for
the Romans, the sack of Rome and the associated defeat at the River Allia
clearly represented a turning point in their history – although one whose
significance had changed and been adapted over time.
For Livy and the historians of the late Republic, the
primary significance of the sack of Rome seems to have been that it marked the
point at which evidence seemed to get a bit more reliable. At the start of book
6, Livy famously noted that ‘from this point onwards a clearer and more
definite account shall be given of the City’s civil and military history’. The
problematic nature of the evidence for the preceding centuries was usually
blamed on the destruction of records in a great fire caused by the sack,
although there is minimal archaeological evidence to support this. Livy hints
at this event though, saying the faulty data for the fifth century BC is in
part the result of an incensa, although the timing and nature of the fire is
disputed with some scholars arguing that it actually refers instead to a second
century BC fire at the regia – associated with the pontifex maximus, where
records were stored. For the rest of the Roman populace in the late Republic,
the Gallic sack seems to have marked a time of ill-omen, made famous by the
Dies Alliensis (Day of the Allia), which commemorated the defeat which led to
the sack, but probably little more than that – at least after Caesar’s conquest
of Gaul and the final removal of the great Gallic threat. However, in the context
of the period, the importance of the Gallic sack of Rome c. 390 BC cannot be
overstated. Although it probably did not produce any immediate changes in its
own right, despite the assertions of Plutarch and others, it did provide an
immense catalyst for change and accelerated the numerous social, political and
military developments which were already underway in Rome. Specifically, and
focusing on the Roman army, the victory by the Gauls sounded the final death
knell for the archaic clan-based warband as the primary military unit in Rome.
Although these continued to exist throughout the fourth century BC in various
parts of Italy, their ineffectiveness against the Gauls in 390 BC demonstrated
quite clearly to the Romans that their time was over. The trauma of the sack
also seems to have brought the Roman community together in a way it had never
experienced before. While previously the community had represented a slightly
amorphous and fluid population based around the urban centre of Rome, the
aftermath of the sack witnessed the true advent of a distinct Roman identity –
a ‘Romanitas’ or ‘Roman-ness’ – that would develop into the more concrete Roman
citizenship, which later Romans would prize so dearly. This new sense of
Romanitas would go on to drive the social and political developments of the
fourth century BC as well, including the end of the ‘Struggle of the Orders’.
But more importantly for the Roman army during this period, it would allow (or
perhaps force) the creation of a new set of military commanders (the consuls),
a more strategic approach to military actions based on conquest, a new approach
to captured land (citizen colonies) and eventually a new tactical formation
(the so-called ‘manipular legion’). In this context, the Gallic sack seems to
have pushed Rome over the edge of the cliff of social, military and political
development she had been walking along up to that point – venturing near it,
only to pull back and regress to her archaic modus operandi. The arrival of
Gauls in serious numbers in the early fourth century BC demonstrated that the
Romans would need to adapt or face utter destruction – and so adapt they did.
The Gallic Sack
The sack of Rome by the Gauls was the culmination of a
series of battles (and defeats) which are described in some detail by a huge
range of authors (Cato, Polybius, Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Diodorus
Siculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Pompeius Trogus, Appian and others). These
battles included an initial skirmish between members of the Fabii clan and the
Gauls near the city of Clusium, the major defeat of a combined Roman army at
the River Allia and finally the ‘siege’ and subsequent capture of at least most
of the city of Rome itself. There are also some accounts which suggest that
there was yet another battle after the sack, which the Romans are supposed to
have won, when the Roman general Camillus, who had been recalled from exile
during the siege, chased down the Gauls in order to recapture the gold paid as
an indemnity. This final (and incredibly dubious) battle aside, the Gallic sack
represented a comprehensive defeat of Rome’s armed forces which was done
without the benefit of surprise or an ambush. The sources are unanimous that
Rome’s forces were simply outmatched.
Although the details of the events vary quite a bit between
the surviving sources, and the archaeological evidence for the sack is (perhaps
surprisingly, given its supposed violence) almost non-existent, the capture of
the city by the Gauls represents one of the few aspects of early Roman history
which even the most suspicious of scholars can feel reasonably confident in.
First, and perhaps foremost, the sack of Rome by the Gauls seems to have left
an indelible mark on the Roman psyche, and created a longstanding cultural
‘bogeyman’, inspiring the metus Gallicus (‘Gallic fear’) which even Hannibal
and the metus Punicus (‘Punic/Carthaginian fear’) could not top. From this
period on, the Gallic menace arguably represented Rome’s greatest anxiety – one
which was only put to rest by Caesar and his campaigns in Gaul (an oft
forgotten aspect of his Bellum Gallicum). The date of the defeat at the River
Allia was remembered for centuries as a day of ill-omen and the fear of another
attack by the Gauls led to the immediate institution of the tumultus Gallicus,
a mass conscription in defence of the city, and indirectly to the creation of
Rome’s alliance network in the fourth century BC. The sack of Rome by the Gauls
also represents one of the first specific mentions of Rome in the historical
record, as it was recorded by Aristotle (preserved in Plutarch’s Life of
Camillus) along with a number of other late fourth century BC Greek writers.4
This was an event which reverberated even outside of Italy.
Out of the surviving sources for the sack, Livy offers the most
complete account and the most detail for the events leading up to it,
suggesting both an interest and familiarity with the story which may have
resulted from his upbringing in Patavium in Cisalpine Gaul. Livy’s account
indicates that the history of the Gauls in Italy goes back to the final years
of the sixth century BC when a group, under the command of the two nephews of
the Gallic chief Ambigatus, ventured out from their homelands in Southern Gaul
looking for land. One nephew, Segovesus, took his people into the Hercynian
highlands in Southern Germany but the other, Bellovesus, took his followers
south across the Alps into Northern Italy. Once there, Livy claimed that
Bellovesus and his people destroyed an Etruscan army near the River Ticinus and
founded the city of Mediolanium, modern Milan. After a few years, a group of
settlers left Mediolanium under the command of Etitovius and settled even
further south, near Brixia and Verona. This was followed by still further waves
of Gallic settlers who ventured further and further south, with the Libui,
Salluvi, Boii, Lingones and Senones all pushing into Etruscan and later Umbrian
land – settling in the region which would become Cisalpine Gaul. According to
Livy it was then the Senones, the last of the tribes to venture south from
Southern Gaul, which made its way to Rome under the leadership of Brennus,
before heading even further south to take up service as mercenaries under the
tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse.
Undoubtedly based on local traditions in Cisalpine Gaul,
Livy’s account meshes well with what we know about the region archaeologically
and indirectly from other literary sources. It has long been established that
the late sixth and fifth centuries BC were hard times for the Etruscans, as
they came under increasing pressure from Gauls from the north along with the
decline of trade with the Greek communities of Magna Graecia, and this period
is generally seen as one of Etruscan decline – the beginning of the end of a
long period of dominance. The motivation for the Gauls’ movement south towards
Rome, at least as presented in Livy, is ambiguous though. The general narrative
which he presents of Gallic incursions ever further south into Italy is one
based on a desire for land, and Livy seems to imply that this was also true for
Brennus’ Gauls. This would suggest that Brennus was travelling with a large
group of Gauls, which likely included women, children, animals, etc., which was
bent on conquest or at least settlement – an interpretation which was also presented
by Polybius in his account of the event. However, there is also the ulterior
motivation of service in the court of Dionysius I of Syracuse as mercenaries.
This type of mercenary service was particularly common in the fourth century
BC, as numerous recent studies have illustrated, and southern Italy in
particular had a thriving mercenary economy. If this motivation represents the
actual one (and the circumstantial evidence suggests that it was), then Brennus
might not have been travelling with an entire tribe, including women and
children, but rather a group of warriors who were setting out to make their
fortune and then, perhaps, return home.
Whatever the actual makeup of the Gallic forces at Clusium,
Allia and Rome, they were undoubtedly effective and evidently defeated the
Roman forces in all three battles. At Clusium, this would not have taken much.
Livy reported that three members of the Fabian clan had been sent to Clusium as
ambassadors of Rome, but evidently joined the local forces and engaged in battle
against the Gauls. The forces of Clusium, along with the Fabii, were quickly
defeated, but this involvement by the Fabii supposedly provoked the Gauls into
attacking Rome, leading to the city’s eventual capture. While the reality of
this portion of the narrative is entirely uncertain, and may either represent
an anti-Fabian tradition (blaming them for the sack) or perhaps the activities
of an independent clan-based army which merely happened to get involved, after
defeating the forces of Clusium, the Gauls did evidently continue their march
south, meeting the forces of Rome at the River Allia. The Roman army which
faced off against them was led by six consular tribunes, including the three
Fabii from Clusium in addition to Quintus Sulpicius Longus, Quintus Servilius
and Publius Cornelius Maluginensis, and contained approximately 40,000 men.
While it is likely that this estimate is exaggerated, the actual number of
Romans present was clearly substantial, as the magnitude of the subsequent
defeat was deeply etched into the Roman consciousness. During the battle, the
Roman army was evidently spread thin in an attempt to match the frontage of the
much larger Gallic force and was quickly routed, with the remnants of the army
fleeing to both Rome and the recently captured city of Veii. After the defeat,
the Gauls entered Rome virtually unopposed, except for the defences on the
Capitoline. The sources then describe an epic siege of the Romans on the hill,
with the rest of the city burning below. Included in the larger siege narrative
is the famous anecdote of the geese, where the Gauls attempt to sneak up the
side of the Capitoline hill but in doing so startle the geese who lived there,
sacred to Juno, with the resultant noise alerting the Romans to the danger. In
honour of this, the Romans later founded a temple to Juno Moneta (moneta from
the Latin word monere, to warn) on the Capitoline, which ultimately became the
mint at Rome. Eventually, however, the Senate was forced to negotiate a truce
with the Gauls whereby they paid the Gallic leader Brennus 1,000lbs of gold.
What happened after the negotiations is slightly more
problematic. One tradition states that the Romans simply paid the indemnity.
This version often includes the anecdote that the Romans then discovered that
the Gauls were using heavier weights than the standard typically used for
weighing out the gold, but when the Romans complained Brennus supposedly threw
his sword on top of the scales and uttered the phrase ‘vae victis’ (‘Woe to the
conquered’) in response. However, Livy offers a different version, followed by
Plutarch, which claimed that while the Capitol was still besieged the Senate
appointed as dictator the exiled Roman noble Camillus, who eventually arrived
from Ardea with an army and, after summoning additional forces from Veii, went
on to defeat the Gallic forces before the ransom could be paid. Diodorus
provided another version in which the ransom was paid and the Gauls left the
city, only to be defeated in a separate battle at Veascium later that year by
Camillus, and the gold was then recovered. Polybius, meanwhile, offered yet
another version where the bribe was paid and the Gauls simply returned home, an
account which Livy actually supports in a later passage.
Camillus
An important, and yet incredibly enigmatic, figure in this
entire narrative is Marcus Furius Camillus (traditionally lived c. 446–365 BC).
Camillus, as he is commonly known, is probably one of the most important
figures in early Roman history and yet also one of the most obscure. Described
by Livy as a ‘second founder’ of Rome,5 an attribution which is supported by
Plutarch, Camillus dominates the narrative c. 400 BC, and plays the leading
role in both the siege and sack of Veii and Rome’s recovery from the Gallic
sack. His only notable absence is from the narrative of Rome’s defeat itself,
which is explained by his ‘exile’ just previous to that. He triumphed at least
four times and held the dictatorship five times, along with the consular
tribunate (multiple times) and the censorship – giving him a military and
political career which was truly remarkable during this period. Indeed, rather
like Tarquinius Superbus at the start of the fifth century BC, who seemed to
feature amongst Rome’s enemies in just about every battle, the figure of
Camillus is ubiquitous in the narrative, appearing in a leading role in almost
all of Rome’s victories (although he is conspicuously absent from her losses).
Intriguingly, however, not all of the surviving sources for
the early fourth century BC feature Camillus. Both Diodorus and Polybius, the
latter of which is often seen as one of the more reliable historians, largely
ignore Camillus and his achievements, which has led some scholars (when taken
along with his arguably unbelievable résumé) to suggest that not only was the
figure of Camillus exaggerated, he may have actually been largely invented. The
mid-twentieth century scholar Georges Dumézil, for instance, argued that
Camillus was not intended to be a historical figure at all but actually an
exemplum created by later writers, which he associated with a hero of the
goddess Aurora, who personified key Roman virtues during this period. Others
have taken a series of less extreme positions, but even the more optimistic
scholars have generally been forced to admit that the record for Camillus most
likely contains some significant elaboration. These points aside, it is clear
that Camillus represents an important figure in, at least, the Roman memory of
the period c. 400 BC. He seems to have embodied, somehow, the spirit or
‘zeitgeist’ of the time and his actions, however much they were exaggerated by
later storytellers and writers, were remembered as vital to Rome’s development.
Historicity aside, Camillus does represent quite a useful
figure in the narrative. As already noted, he was used in some versions of the
story to assuage Roman honour during and after the sack, by defeating the Gauls
and reclaiming Rome’s gold. He also represented a powerful catalyst for Rome’s
recovery, as his victories in the 380s, 370s and 360s BC drove a prolonged
period of Roman expansion and conquest. Camillus is an intriguing figure too in
the internal political debates which raged in Rome during the 370s and 360s BC.
Although a patrician and the most important figure in Roman politics at this
time, Camillus is also presented as a facilitator of concordia, or peace,
between the patricians and plebeians in the ‘Struggle of the Orders’, and
specifically in the ten years of political unrest between 376 and 367 BC.
Indeed, as a result of the concordia ordinum which Camillus achieved he is
supposed to have founded and dedicated a temple to Concordia in the forum. In
Livy’s narrative, which is our main source for this period (Dionysius’s history
being unfortunately fragmentary for these years), Camillus seems to represent
both sides in the debate at various times although, as Momigliano and others
have noted, his involvement is likely to represent, at least in part, a late
Republican attempt to rationalize the events. But it is exactly this ability to
represent both sides of a matter which makes him so appealing. Camillus is at
once an Archaic warleader who is evidently mobile (as seen by his exile and
subsequent return to power in Rome) and backed by a powerful gens (the Furii).
His power base and position therefore harken back to the fifth century BC and
the powerful, warlike raiding gentes which dominated the period. However, in
Rome he also occupies a prime position in the new, state-based system – acting
as both a consular tribune and censor, but never as a praetor. The closest he
comes to that position is as the dictator, a position which he holds multiple
times, and which might have served as the template for the later consulship.
Camillus is therefore a liminal or transitional figure in the narrative, which
both represents the old, archaic model of power and new, state-based way of
operating, which includes both the patricians and the plebeians.
Camillus’ role in Roman history c. 400 BC is therefore an
important one. Whether or not he represents a real figure (the evidence from
the fasti suggests that he was) and whether or not all of his achievements are
real (here the evidence is far from convincing), Camillus does seem to
illustrate an interesting phenomenon – the final integration of Latium’s
gentilicial elite into Rome’s social, political and military systems after the
Gallic sack. A previously mobile war leader, who may have been exiled (or
simply left for greener pastures), Camillus was invited to return to Rome in the
years following the sack of Rome and played a key role in the city’s return to
greatness. This hints that the urban community of Rome recognized that having a
figure like Camillus, along with his evidently powerful group of followers, was
important given the defeat by the Gauls. And it also suggests that figures such
as Camillus, despite the ‘old-fashioned’ or archaic nature of his power base,
found ways to make Rome’s new military and political system work for him as
well. For Camillus, this was largely done through the mechanism of the
dictatorship, but his role in establishing the concordia ordinum may also
suggest that this type of figure was increasingly finding areas to compromise
and establish a system which worked for both sides of the ‘Struggle of the
Orders’. So although the figure of Camillus is problematic in strictly
historical terms, he may illustrate some important developments in Rome during
this period – and the strongest evidence for this is how well his actions and
behaviour align with the rest of Rome’s reactions to the Gallic sack.
Rome’s Internal
Reaction
Rome’s invitation to Camillus to return to Rome, supposedly
issued while the Capitoline hill was still under siege by the Gauls, is
generally representative of Rome’s attitude during the years immediately
following the defeat. While the city and her increasingly stable collection of
clans/gentes had previously let local politics dominate and individual
ambitions dictate both domestic and foreign policy, in the years after the sack
Rome emerged with a new direction and drive. And, as with the recalling of
Camillus from Ardea, this direction was based on immediately securing and
expanding her military capabilities, probably in order to prevent a future
defeat by the Gauls. All previous squabbles were largely forgotten – this new
threat required a concerted effort from everyone.
Rome’s sudden, and entirely reasonable, interest in
expanding her military capabilities took a number of different forms. As
already noted, the recall of Camillus from his ‘exile’ in Ardea seems to have
been the first of these, but even this was part of a much larger attempt to
bring the clans who lived around the city together into a more stable union. As
suggested in the previous chapter, the powerful clans of Latium, and Central
Italy more generally, had already begun the long process of slowly settling
down and permanently associating themselves with various communities back in
the sixth and fifth centuries BC. This can be linked to changes in the economy
and an increased focus on land and agriculture, in addition to the rise of the
urban centres themselves. However, as the exile of Camillus indicates (and
whether this represented a true exile or merely the movement of a powerful clan
leader is still debatable), prominent figures were still able to move around
the region and retain most, if not all, of their power and influence,
suggesting that this process was ongoing. During the first half of the fourth
century BC, however, Rome saw the rise of a distinctive ‘Roman Nobility’ – or
group of clans who would go on to dominate Roman politics for the rest of the
Republican period, to the exclusion of others. Associated with the closing of
the patriciate in the second half of the fifth century BC, which marked the
establishment of a distinct ‘patrician’ group in Rome, the creation of the
‘Roman Nobility’, although still partly based on kinship, was predicated on a
new set of social norms where glory and social power were attained largely
through holding positions within Rome’s civic structure. Although obviously in
its infancy during this period, as scholars like Matthias Gelzer identified
back in the early twentieth century, the fourth century BC witnessed the
origins of a group, who were described as clarissimi or principes civitatis by
later sources, whose position was due almost entirely to their family history
of holding the key magistracies in Rome. Unfortunately, the nuances of the
earliest incarnation of this group are likely lost to us forever, given the
nature of the sources for this period, but this development seems to be the
result of the city developing a particular, mutually beneficial relationship
with certain families, whereby the longstanding competition which had existed
between them for glory was moved from outside the city – in the form of
raiding, mortuary practices, etc. – to inside the city, and a competition over
magistracies.
This relationship clearly benefited the community, as it
firmly linked the local clans and their military strength to the city for the
long term, but it is initially unclear what the advantage might be for the
clans. Although the clans which had settled around Rome would increasingly have
had their interests aligned with those of the community anyway, with the result
that maximising the military capabilities of the community would have also
benefited them, the continuing existence of mobile clans in Latium, who would
have been able to simply pick up and leave if the Gauls returned (as perhaps
Camillus did in 390 BC), suggests that this was not enough for everyone. The
result of this situation is yet another period of political tension within
Rome, and another flare up of the ‘Struggle of the Orders’, as the powerful,
rural clans and the urban community once again attempted to find some middle
ground. The default during the first half of the fourth century BC seems to
have been the use of the consular tribunate, with all that that entailed,
although the office of the dictatorship was also increasingly utilized,
seemingly as a short-term solution to this issue. The dictatorship allowed the
return of many of the Archaic prerogatives of the praetorship, including imperium
(and the associated right to triumph) and so would have been appealing to the
region’s gentilicial elite, but could be used alongside the consular tribunate
and therefore maximised Rome’s military might. However, it is clear that this
was a short-term solution and one which was not wholly satisfactory to either
side. As a result, in 367 BC, the Romans created a new magistracy as a
long-term fix: the revamped consulship.
Princeps, Eques, Velites
The Military Reforms
of Camillus
The next great landmark in Roman military organization is
associated with the achievements of Camillus. Camillus, credited with having
saved Rome from the Gauls and remembered as a “second founder” of Rome, was a
revered national hero. His name became a legend, and legends accumulated round
it. At the same time, he was unquestionably a historical character. We need not
believe that his timely return to Rome during the Gallic occupation deprived
the Gauls of their indemnity money, which was at that very moment being weighed
out in gold. But his capture of the Etruscan city of Veii is historical, and he
may here have made use of mining operations such as Livy describes. Similarly,
the military changes attributed to him may in part, if not entirety, be due to
his initiative.
Soon after the withdrawal of the Gauls from Rome, the
tactical formation adopted by the Roman army underwent a radical change. In the
Servian army, the smallest unit had been the century. It was an administrative
rather than a tactical unit, based on political and economic rather than military
considerations. The largest unit was the legion of about 4,000 infantrymen.
There were 60 centuries in a legion and, from the time of Camillus, these
centuries were combined in couples, each couple being known as a maniple
(manipulus). The maniple was a tactical unit. Under the new system, the Roman
army was drawn up for battle in three lines, one behind the other. The maniples
of each line were stationed at intervals. If the front line was forced to
retreat, or if its maniples were threatened with encirclement, they could fall
back into the intervals in the line immediately to their rear. In the same way,
the rear lines could easily advance, when necessary, to support those in front.
The positions of the middle-line maniples corresponded to intervals in the
front and rear lines, thus producing a series of quincunx formations. The two
constituent centuries of a maniple were each commanded by a centurion, known
respectively as the forward (prior) and rear (posterior) centurion. These
titles may have been dictated by later tactical developments, or they may
simply have marked a difference of rank between the two officers.
The three battle lines of Camillus’ army were termed, in
order from front to rear, hastati, principes and triarii. Hastati meant “spearmen”;
principes, “leaders”; and triarii, the only term which was consistent with
known practice, meant simply “third-liners”. In historical accounts, the
hastati were not armed with spears and the principes were not the leading rank,
since the hastati were in front of them. The names obviously reflect the usage
of an earlier date. In the fourth century BC the two front ranks carried heavy
javelins, which they discharged at the enemy on joining battle. After this,
fighting was carried on with swords. The triarii alone retained the old
thrusting spear (hasta). The heavy javelin of the hastati and principes was the
pilum. It comprised a wooden shaft, about 4.5 feet (1.4m) long, and a
lancelike, iron head of about the same length as the shaft; which fitted into
the wood so far as to give an overall length of something less than 7 feet
(2.1m). The Romans may have copied the pilum from their Etruscan or Samnite
enemies; or they may have developed it from a more primitive weapon of their
own. The sword used was the gladius, a short cut-and-thrust type, probably
forged on Spanish models. A large oval shield (scutum), about 4 feet (1.2m)
long, was in general use in the maniple formation. It was made of hide on a
wooden base, with iron rim and boss.
It has been suggested that the new tactical formation was
closely connected with the introduction of the new weapons. The fact that the
front rank was called hastati seems to indicate that the hasta, or thrusting
spear, was not abandoned until after the new formation had been adopted.
Indeed, cause and effect may have stood in circular relationship. The open
formation could have favoured new weapons which, once widely adopted, forbade
the use of any other formation. At all events, there must have been more elbow
room for aiming a javelin.
Apart from these considerations, open-order fighting was
characteristic of Greek fourth-century warfare. Xenophon’s men had opened ranks
to let the enemy’s scythe-wheel chariots pass harmlessly through. Agesilaus
used similar tactics at Coronea. Camillus was aware of the Greek world – and
the Greek world was aware of him. He dedicated a golden bowl to Apollo at
Delphi and Greek fourth-century writers refer to him. It is at least possible
that the new Roman tactical formation was based on Greek precedents, as the old
one had been.
Officers and Other
Ranks
The epoch of Camillus also saw the first regular payments
for military service. The amount of pay, at the time of its introduction, is
not recorded. To judge from the enthusiasm to which it gave rise and to the
difficulty experienced in levying taxes to provide for it, the sum was
substantial. It was a first step towards removing the differences among
property classes and standardizing the equipment of the legionary soldier. For
tactical purposes, of course, some differences were bound to exist: for
instance, in the lighter equipment of the velites. But the removal of the
property classes produced an essential change in the Roman army, such as the
Greek citizen army had never known. The Athenian hoplites had always remained a
social class, and hoplite warfare was their distinctive function. The Spartan
hoplites had been an élite of peers, every one of them, as Thucydides remarks,
in effect an officer.
At Rome, however, the centuries of which the legions were
composed were conspicuously and efficiently led by centurions, men who
commanded as a result of their proven merit. The Roman army, in fact, developed
a system of leadership such as is familiar today – a system of officers and
other ranks. Centurions were comparable to warrant officers, promoted for their
performance on the field and in the camp. The military tribunes, like their
commanding officers, the consuls and praetors, were at any rate originally
appointed to carry out the policies of the Roman state, and they were usually
drawn from the upper, politically influential classes.
Six military tribunes were chosen for each legion, and the
choice was at first always made by a consul or praetor, who in normal times
would have commanded two out of the four legions levied; as colleagues, the
consuls shared the army between them. Later, the appointment of 24 military
tribunes for the levy of four legions was made not by the consuls but by an
assembly of the people. If, however, additional legions were levied, then the
tribunes appointed to them were consular nominations. Tribunes appointed by the
people held office for one year. Those nominated by a military commander
retained their appointment for as long as he did.
Military tribunes were at first senior officers and were
required to have several years of military experience prior to appointment. In
practice, however, they were often young men, whose very age often precluded
them from having had such experience. They were appointed because they came from
rich and influential families and they thus had much in common with the
subalterns of fashionable regiments in latter-day armies. Originally, an
important part of the military tribune’s duties had been in connection with the
levy of troops. In normal times, a levy was held once a year. Recruits were
required to assemble by tribes (a local as distinct from a class division). The
distribution of recruits among the four legions was based on the selection made
by the tribunes.
“Praetor” was the title originally conferred on each of the
two magistrates who shared supreme authority after the period of the kings. The
military functions of the praetor are well attested, and the headquarters in a
Roman camp continued to be termed the “praetorium”. In comparatively early
times, the title of “consul” replaced that of “praetor”, but partly as a result
of political manoeuvre, the office of praetor was later revived to supplement
consular power. The authority of a praetor was not equal to that of a consul,
but he might still command an army in the field.
The command was not always happily shared between two
consuls. In times of emergency – and Rome’s early history consisted largely of
emergencies – a single dictator with supreme power was appointed for a maximum
term of six months, the length of a campaigning season. The dictator chose his
own deputy, who was then known as the Master of the Horse (magister equitum).
The allies, who were called upon to aid Rome in case of war,
were commanded by prefects (praefecti), who were Roman officers. The 300
cavalry attached to each legion were, in the third century BC at any rate,
divided into ten squadrons (turmae), and subdivided into decuriae, each of
which was commanded by a decurio, whose authority corresponded to that of a centurion
in the infantry.
