War and Society in the Roman World
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Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society Volume 5 WAR AND SOCIETY IN THE ROMAN WORLD WAR AND SOCIETY IN THE ROMAN WORLD Edited by JOHN RICH and GRAHAM SHIPLEY London and New York First published 1993 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1993 John Rich, Graham Shipley and individual contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data War and society in the Roman world/edited by John Rich and Graham Shipley. p. cm.—(Leicester-Nottingham studies in ancient society; v. 5) Selected, revised versions of papers from a series of seminars sponsored by the Classics Departments of Leicester and Nottingham Universities, 1988–1990. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Military art and science—Rome—History. 2. Rome—History, Military. 3. Sociology, Military—Rome—History. I. Rich, John. II. Shipley, Graham. III. Series. U35.W34 1993 355′.00937–dc20 92–36698 ISBN 0-203-07554-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-22120-6 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-06644-1 (Print Edition) Contents List of illustrations vii Notes on contributors viii Preface ix Abbreviations x Introduction 1 JOHN RICH 1 The Roman conquest of Italy 9 STEPHEN OAKLEY 2 Fear, greed and glory: the causes of Roman war-making in the middle Republic 38 JOHN RICH 3 Urbs direpta, or how the Romans sacked cities 69 ADAM ZIOLKOWSKI 4 Military organization and social change in the later Roman Republic 92 JOHN PATTERSON 5 Roman poetry and anti-militarism 113 DUNCAN CLOUD 6 The end of Roman imperial expansion 139 TIM CORNELL 7 Roman peace 171 GREG WOOLF vi Contents 8 Piracy under the principate and the ideology of imperial eradication 195 DAVID BRAUND 9 War and diplomacy: Rome and Parthia, 31 BC–AD 235 213 BRIAN CAMPBELL 10 Philosophers’ attitudes to warfare under the principate 241 HARRY SIDEBOTTOM 11 The end of the Roman army in the western empire 265 WOLFGANG LIEBESCHUETZ 12 Landlords and warlords in the later Roman Empire 277 DICK WHITTAKER Index 303 Illustrations Figures 2.1 Legions in service by five-year periods, 200–91 BC 46 2.2 Triumphs and ovations per decade, 330–91 BC 50 2.3 Consuls assigned overseas provinces per decade, 200–91 BC 51 Table 1.1 Captives enslaved by Rome, 297–293 BC 25 Contributors David Braund is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Exeter. Brian Campbell is Lecturer in Ancient History at the Queen’s University of Belfast. Duncan Cloud is Associate Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Leicester. Tim Cornell is Senior Lecturer in History at University College London. Wolfgang Liebeschuetz is Emeritus Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Nottingham, and a Fellow of the British Academy. Stephen Oakley is Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. John Patterson is a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and University Lecturer in Ancient History. John Rich is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Nottingham. Harry Sidebottom is doing post-doctoral research at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Dick Whittaker is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and University Lecturer in Ancient History. Greg Woolf is Andrew and Randall Crawley Fellow in the History of the Ancient World at Magdalen College, Oxford. Adam Ziolkowski is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Warsaw. Preface There is and has been a powerful reluctance among historians to discuss ancient warfare and its consequences with a steady eye.’ Thus Moses Finley, in one of his last published works (Ancient History: Evidence and Models (London, 1985), 71). This book and its companion volume, War and Society in the Greek World, constitute an attempt to respond to Finley’s challenge. Like the earlier volumes in Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society, they are the product of seminars jointly organized by the Classics Departments of Leicester and Nottingham Universities. ‘War and Society in the Ancient World’ was the theme of a series of seminars held in Leicester and Nottingham between 1988 and 1990. The two volumes contain substantially revised versions of a selection of papers from that series. We are very grateful to all the participants in the seminar series, both our colleagues in Leicester and Nottingham and those from further afield, some of whom regularly travelled long distances to take part in the discussions. We would also like to thank the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies for assistance with the cost of Dr Ziolkowski’s travel from Poland, Susan Walker for assistance with the jacket illustration and Adrienne Edwards for invaluable administrative help. The translations of Livy, Polybius and Tacitus in chapter 3 are reproduced by permission of the publishers and the Loeb Classical Library from Livy: Ab Urbe Condita, 13 vols, tr. B.O.Foster and others, 1919–51, Polybius: The Histories, 6 vols, tr. W.R.Paton, 1922– 7, and Tacitus: The Histories, 1925–31, tr. C H.Moore, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. The translation of Propertius 2. 7 on p. 120 is reproduced by permission of the publishers from Propertius: The Poems, tr. W.G.Shepherd, 1985, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. John Rich Graham Shipley Abbreviations The names and works of ancient authors are generally abbreviated in the forms used in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (2nd edn, ed. N.G.L.Hammond and H.H.Scullard; Oxford, 1970). AJP American Journal of Philology ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed. H.Temporini (Berlin and New York, 1972– ) BAR British Archaeological Reports CAH Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge) CAH2 Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn (Cambridge) CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum cos. consul CP Classical Philology CQ Classical Quarterly CR Classical Review CTh Codex Theodosianus DHA Dialogues d’histoire ancienne FGH F.Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin, Leiden, 1923– ) FHG C.Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (Paris, 1841–70) IGBulg Inscriptiones Graecae in Bulgaria repertae, ed. G. Mihailov (Sofia, 1958–70) IGRR Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes, ed. R.Cagnat et al. (Paris, 1911–27) ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, ed. H.Dessau (Berlin, 1892–1916) IRT The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, ed. J.M. Reynolds and J.B.Ward-Perkins (Rome, 1952) JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies JRS Journal of Roman Studies Abbreviations xi LCM Liverpool Classical Monthly MGH, AA Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi MRR T.R.S.Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (Cleveland, Ohio, 1951–86). Not. Dig. Oc. Notitia Dignitatum…in partibus Occidentis, in O.Seeck (ed.), Notitia dignitatum (Berlin, 1876) Nov. Novellae OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1968–82) ORF Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta, ed. H. Malcovati, 3rd edn (Turin, 1967) PBSR Papers of the British School at Rome PG Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.P.Migne PL Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P.Migne PLRE A.H.M.Jones, J.B.Martindale, and J.Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, 1973– ) PRG Papyri russischer und georgischer Sammlungen, ed. G.Zereteli, O.Krueger, and P.Jernstedt (Tiflis, 1925–35) RE Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft RG Res Gestae Divi Augusti TLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae TLS Times Literary Supplement Introduction John Rich The Greek world, the subject of our companion volume, was a complex mosaic of communities, often at war with each other or with outside powers. Here, by contrast, the focus is on a single state. From the earliest days, war was at the heart of the life of the Roman people. They fought wars almost every year. Annual rituals marked the opening and closing of the campaigning season. All Roman citizens were liable for military service, and, apart from the poorest and freedmen (who were ineligible for the legions), most, if not all, Roman citizens under the early and middle Republic served in several years’ campaigns during their youth. The censors’ classification of the people into property classes and centuries served both political and military purposes and reflected the close links between military obligations and political rights (Nicolet 1980); it was no accident that, when the people met to elect their chief magistrates, who commanded the army, they assembled outside the city on the Campus Martius—the field of Mars, the war god. Valour in arms won the highest renown, and members of the élite were under heavy pressure to enhance their family’s glory by distinguishing themselves in war. There were crowns and other military prizes which any soldier could win (Maxfield 1981), while a victorious commander earned the supreme honour of leading his returning troops into the city in a triumph. In the early centuries Roman warfare was not outstandingly successful. Rome was merely one of the communities of the plain of Latium, and her citizens fought their wars against their Latin 2 John Rich neighbours and against the peoples of the surrounding hills. From the mid-fourth century BC, however, there began a period of rapid expansion, in which the Romans won a long series of military successes (punctuated by the occasional reverse). By about 270 they controlled all Italy south of the Po. Overseas wars followed, notably against Carthage and various Hellenistic kings, and by the mid- second century all potential rivals had been defeated.