Guy Leven-Torres 2006

Romanitas
A short collection of essays by Guy Leven-Torres MA(Hons), F.SEFA
looking at the Sociology of the Roman Army and Society

Introduction
Casualties of War

Rome and its empire stand as a beacon for

law and order. Her sway stretched from
Scotland in the north to Africa in the south and
to the Persian Gulf in the East. Gibbon reckoned
this the happiest time in the existence of
Mankind.
Marx thought history cyclical and as much
as he is probably right in this matter, one should
perhaps qualify it with the caution, that it is not
so much history itself that is cyclical as that
themes and events appear to repeat
themselves through the commonality of
behaviour that is Mankind.
So, for example civilisations appear to rise and
fall and from their beginning to ending, societies
go through various phases common to all. Take
the British Empire for example. She rose
through her sea-power to world dominance,
held it for a brief span then lost it as stronger
powers replaced her.

1
 Rome’s example however was truly
exceptional. She not only rose to power over a
longer period but maintained her position for
centuries. Britain ruled her Empire for around
two hundred and fifty years while the Romans
ruled theirs for close on seven hundred years.
Like all empires and societies she became
decadent and perished but she took a long time
to wither upon the imperial branch. The British
in comparison have slumped from Empire to
advanced decadence in only two generations.
The Romans took from twelve to twenty
generations to collapse.
Looking back upon that time, it seems a
well-ordered and peaceful one in comparison to
ours. Yet in reality there never was a time when
a Roman army somewhere or other was not
engaged in a major conflict or police action to
preserve the integrity of her frontiers.
The British Empire was also continually
embroiled in border wars and police actions and
it is remarkable that she did so with forces in
many cases, a fraction in numbers of those
available at any one time to Roman armies. It is
a tribute to British diplomatic skill that she was
able to do so.
Only in Africa Province was the Legio III
Augusta alone in policing that northern coastal
strip from the Atlantic to the borders of Egypt.
From the available archaeological evidence a
careful system of treaties establishing client
kingdoms with the tribes and kings in the region
was the way of things for centuries before the
2
final imposition of direct rule, possibly by the
Severan Dynasty in the early Third Century after
Christ. Until then however, it seems that III
Augusta was the policeman of the area.
However, if one looks closer at the Empire
we find this case is not so unusual as Rome
employed only around 300,000 soldiers in all to
police an area of around six million square
miles. Only in provinces like Britain, Germany
and those bordering its one great imperial rival,
Parthia was Rome forced to station legions in
sufficient numbers to deter aggression. On the
northern frontier too she faced problematic
tribal incursions from movements of peoples
seeking better land or more likely her
assistance in some petty dispute between one
tribal faction and another. Even so the numbers
of men she employed was minimal.
Edward Luttwak the famous United States
advisor to Presidents from Nixon onwards called
this system an ‘economy of force’1: those she
ruled greatly outnumbered Roman citizens and
therefore Rome’s military capacity. Yet they
feared her and it was this psychological factor
alone that appears to have allowed Rome to
maintain the initiative for so long. How did she
achieve this?
She achieved it by losing battles and
winning wars. Time and again, her armies went
down, either through weight of numbers as in
the case of barbarians or superior generals, as

1
Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. Baltimore,
John Hopkins Univeristy Press 1976.
3
in the case of those she came up against in the
more advanced and civilised eastern empire.
Her long struggle with Carthage especially
helped foster this seeming invincibility. Take for
example the dreadful battles of the Trebbia and
Cannae in which the flower of her manhood was
sacrificed to the superior generalship of
Hannibal. She lost upwards of one hundred
thousand men if some of the sources are to be
believed.
Even, if these estimates are somewhat
exaggerated, if Rome employed her usual
republican military format of one Roman legion
to one allied ala, both numbering around four
thousand men each, Roman casualties alone
would certainly be fifty percent of these: fifty
thousand citizen soldiers is no small loss for a
city state whose population is around the
several thousands rather than millions. At the
height of Imperial expansion, her city population
only numbered around one million, and many
academics think this too high an estimate.
Even with citizen colonies dotted around
Italy, this would not really explain the effects of
her losses adequately. It seemed to have been
common practice at this period around 218BC
to raise four legions annually. This would
number 24,000 men. Together with the allied
alae, from whence our own word ‘allied’ comes,
a normal consular field army would be around
two Roman and two allied ‘ala legions’ of the
same strength, that altogether, with cavalry
along as well number just over 24,000 soldiers.

4
Cannae was the ‘Big Push’ and over 80,000 men
were present at the battle according to Polybius.
This figure would therefore mean that at least
eight citizen legions2 were present along with
around ten allied legionary alae. Statistical
evi4dence in ancient sources is not an exact one
by any means. Polybius at best can be used as a
very rough guide although he was unlike others,
able to interview actual survivors of the Second
Punic War. He was also close to the Scipio family
and therefore at the centre of politics in his day.

2
Some sources state that seventeen legions were present but I choose to
follow what appeared to be standard Roman methodology of raising four
citizen and four allied legions annually. Even in war the Romans were
notoriously conservative. The Roman legions in total spread around Italy
and at Cannae were numbered up to the early twenties and 21 x 4 =
84,000 legionaries. If this figure is correct then the Romans would have
had just over 160,000 citizens under arms. Of the seventeen legions stated
to have been at the battle itself half would probably have been allied
contingents, so we are talking of around eight to nine citizen legions at
most, numbering 32,000 to 40,000 allowing for deliberate over-manning to
replace casualties.
Livy (XXV. 6) states that 50,000 were exterminated but Polybius
and others state 60-70,000 deaths. If we settle on 60,000, Rome still had
100,000 citizen solders under arms and probably an equal number of allied
‘legionaries’ so making 200,000 in total. But still one third of her battle
ready strength was annihilated. What is more, wounded mostly outnumber
deaths and given the state of ancient medicine and its inability to cope
with post-wound infection the higher figures of 80,000 could be correct and
over a longer period the figure would have grown as soldiers crippled and
disabled were unfit for further duty. So perhaps anything up to 35 to 40
percent of Rome’s trained battle ready manpower was lost for good.
My own limited military experience allows one to understand how
difficult it is to retain men even in peacetime. The British army at this time
(2006) is woefully short of recruits and anything between 4,000 to 5,000
under strength. Even taking into account the unpopularity of the Iraq war,
the problem of recruitment and retainment of trained personnel is dire. As
Rome was at war for her very existence and already had over twenty
citizen legions in the field the loss of nearly 40 percent of Roman and allied
men under arms was no small matter. Any other power would have given
way.
4

5
 If we settle for a male population of Roman
citizens, spread across Italy, able and willing to
bear arms as perhaps in the region of around
250,000 total so that the annual legio3 perhaps
took up ten percent of available men or 24-
25,000, the loss of even 40,000 was a serious
matter. Yet Rome did not give in and raised
fresh armies from slaves and any other able
bodied men she could muster and renewed the
attack. She simply would not give in and it was
this tenacious resistance that helped foster the
psychological perception among those she ruled
that she was invincible. Also when Rome
decided to wage war she did so with a totality
and determination not seen until the First World
War in 20th century Europe. Roman wars were
total wars.
Ancient battles were in many ways more
catastrophic than modern ones simply because
of the poor medical facilities of the time and
lack of medicines capable of preventing
infection. Yet the Romans never lacked

3
Legio means the annual levy or dilectus of four legions. Even this figure is
probably far too large. There is just no way of knowing true statistics of
Roman citizens. The figure of 240,000 reserve of available manpower is
pure guesswork except for the fact that by the Imperial period Rome
numbered 1,000,000 city population. In the respublica the 6th Circus
Maximus could seat 300,000 and the population was probably not much
more. Even if we take this higher figure and split it equally among male
and female, the resultant 100,000 to 150,000 males would not all have
been eligible for military service based as it was on a man’s income and
land ownership. The figures available should therefore be revised down if
anything.

6
manpower to overcome their foes. Men were
hardier than now and therefore better suited to
a harsher time.
This particular subject may seem strange
one with which to start this collection of essays
with but it lies at the base of the entire subject.
Rome was about war and defence against
further wars. As Flavius Josephus was fond of
informing his readers, the Romans fought their
practice battles like real wars and their real
battles like well-drilled practices. These may not
have been his exact words but they tell us much
of the sentiment that lay behind the Roman
attitude and ideology of war. She fought to win
and survive at all costs in a hostile world.
The Legions and auxilia were her
deterrent. Her early warning system was the
forward position forts and signal stations,
sometimes well beyond the frontier. She had
learned her war-craft the hard way in the fire
and baptism of battle. From Cannae to Zama
she learned the awful truth of strategic
international war, rather than simple local wars.
From Numantia in Spain to Alesia and Pharsalus,
she learned the need for professional armies
honed and trained to a peak of discipline and
dedication perhaps even unknown to Alexander
the Great. From Actium to Trajan’s wars against
the Dacians she learned the necessity to
maintain these forces at a sustained height of
professionalism and never to let her guard drop.
However it is to the generals and other
officers that we must perhaps turn to
7
understand the way assimilation into the Roman
citizen upper classes ensured that she secured
the best minds in the empire to win her wars so
ensuring this did not happen for a while at least.
Even her later Emperors Trajan and Hadrian who
were not even Romans of Rome, even Italy as
both were either born or raised in Italica in
Spain. When Hadrian first appeared at the
Imperial Court of his cousin Trajan, who was
certainly known to have been born in Spain, the
courtiers laughed at his Spanish accent.
However it was from the same Roman
Gallo-Hispanic background that one of the
subjects of the collected essays below deal with,
namely Gaius Julius Agricola, father-in-law to the
Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus and
said to be the finest governor of Roman Britain
ever to have ruled. He was of provincial stock
himself and even his name is evidence that one
of his Gallic forebears gained citizenship either
through the Dictator or his adopted son
Octavian, the first Emperor and subsequently
renamed Augustus.
These were not the fine ancient Roman
families of old but provincials who replaced
them after the great losses of the Civil wars.
Most were new men without pedigree of any
kind but service to the relatively new imperial
regime. These were not the Scipiones, or the
Fabii, the Cornelii, or Gracchi.
These were hard practical men schooled in
professional careers as befitted an empire.
Theirs was not the world of family faction and
8
feud. Their families remained obscure in the
sunlight of the imperial clan. Even the Flavians
were Italian rather than Roman and of strong
farming stock. This was a new Rome: a mature
Rome where hard headed men realised that if
the empire was to survive then provincials had
to have a hand in it. The Antonines, the later
imperial clan to take the tiller of state, were also
largely provincial in stock, rather than Romans
of Italy. Marcus Aurelius’ paternal great
grandfather issued from Baetica the same
province as Trajan.
These were the men who really made the
empire work. Agricola spent much of his time in
Britain and it was he who led Legions and bigger
armies under his mentors Paulinus and Cerealis
in order to subdue and pacify the province. It
was he who took Roman Legions into the north
of Scotland and defeated the Caledonii under
Calgacus.
How different though were these Roman
battles to Cannae three hundred years earlier?
The casualties do not appear to have been
anywhere near as great. At the battle of Mons
Graupius, Agricola was said to have used only
his auxiliaries while the Legionaries looked on
half bored. And in a similar battle fought twenty
odd years before, Boudicca the Queen of the
Iceni had been routed by only ten thousand
hastily gathered troops somewhere in the
Midlands of Britain with the loss of only a few
hundred Roman soldiers. How truthful is this?
Tacitus was after all writing for a political

9
audience back in Rome who wished to keep well
in with the Imperator and his palace faction at
the top.
Boudicca had smashed the famous Legio
IX Hispana. And estimates of between one third
to three quarters of it perished on the
battlefield. This was no Cannae, yet the warrior
queen led an army five times the size of that at
Cannae under the general Hannibal. Yet
casualties were in their hundreds on the Roman
side at the final showdown between the Roman
Legions XIIII Gemina and XX Valeria, while
thousands upon thousands of Britons perished.
Had battles changed so much then or were the
Romans putting their own spin of matters of
military history? Thousands of Romano-Britons
perished in the towns Boudicca sacked.
However, one will leave it to the reader to
decide for themselves.
The answer is bound up with the Roman
insistence of Romanisation or Romanitas, which
put simply is the abstracted ideal of being and
acting Roman. In 212AD, Caracalla gave the
freeborn inhabitants of the Empire the much-
prized citizenship. There were two primary
reasons for this. The first was the need to bind
an empire to a relatively new militarist Severan
regime of African origin from Leptis Magna but
also as this was the current social trend of the
time anyway. Hadrian had travelled the Empire
far and wide in order to bind the whole region
more to his person as a fellow provincial. Italy
was no longer the main area of political and

10
strategic action. However, secondly and more
importantly, the new citizens would provide
loyal provincial Roman citizens for her legions.
They were also liable for the famous five
percent inheritance tax that fed the military
treasury. This was a time of war and Septimius
Severus had charged both his sons to put the
army before all else, even awarding it the right
to wear the equestrian gold ring.
However it is here that we come full circle
and understand at last the reasons why Rome
survived as long as she did and always seemed
to come back from the brink of disaster. She
had unlimited resources of manpower. From the
early respublica she had assimilated those
around her and by a careful system of graded
rights had ensured the loyalty of those she
defeated. She made them good Romans.
Agricola’s ancestors probably fought
against the Romans while he at a later period
embodied the very best of Roman aristocratic
talent. Agricola was the embodiment of
Romanitas at its best. This generosity of the
Roman People though was no emotional whim
but the determination to survive in a hostile
world. Her answer was to assimilate it and make
it part of Rome herself. This was practical
diplomacy and imperial strategy par excellence!

11
 (1)
Rome and Assimilation

Roman Society and various social and civil

institutions like the patron-client system were
the basis of the whole subject of assimilation
and with it a process still found in later
centuries well into the modern era. Even today
in Spain and elsewhere the Romans ruled or
where their descendants emigrated, such as
Central and South America, an almost identical
system still exists. During the days of Empire
however, it was the army that seems to have
been the starting point of the whole process
that led in many cases to rapid 'Romanisation'.
There had been older systems of patronage,
based upon traditions of tribal and group
loyalty, often inherited from one generation to
another before the Romans came but it was
they who exploited the true potential of
clientele through Imperial policy. The army was
an attractive career and its history as one of the
main instruments of assimilation/Romanisation
within the empire and without, is crucial to the
central theme of argument in this book that
assimilation was a positive thing and benefited
all who partook of it.
The idea of Romanitas held the empire
together like no other force then in existence.
The basis of this Romanitas was the eventual
12
award of the Roman citizenship to those who
achieved over time the highest degree of
assimilation into the ruling regime. There were
degrees along the path to this final goal such as
the Latin Rights jus latini. By the acquisition of
this latter benefit and status, the Roman state
recognised that an individual and indeed whole
towns had achieved a degree of Romanitas that
marked them out as something quite distinct
from others in a subjugated area.
This award was usually acquired through
the achievement of magisterial office within a
town or settlement awarded a certain type of
constitution by the Roman authorities. Since the
only people who could stand for office were
generally the rich or tribal leaders, this usually
meant the gradual Latinisation and then
Romanisation of the upper classes.
Empires, Nation States and institutions
survive because people who make up the ruling
classes believe in them. We have already seen
in the earlier book I wrote 4that, our own liberal
bien-pensant elites in Europe apparently do not.
The lower classes will mostly take their lead
from their leaders and follow suit. However, in a
democracy like ours and in the United States
and elsewhere, this is vitally important. Ignore
the enfranchised population and the results are
those also discussed earlier, apathy, crime and
the serious threat of civil unrest. Take away this
belief and the institution will wither and fail like
an organ starved of blood and oxygen. So the
4
Leven-Torres, A Question of Balance? 1 to 3: lulu.com/guyleventorres New
York 2006.
13
best way to preserve the institution is to ensure
that the populations that make it up, have a
strong personal interest in preserving it.
The British Empire ended in India because
the peoples that it ruled there no longer felt it
worth their while to support such an institution.
This was especially so among the Indian upper
classes, who felt strongly that it was time the
foreign power that ruled them depart from their
lands. In other words it was no longer in their
interests. No government, no matter how strong
can survive for long without the consent of the
people it rules, especially that of the upper
classes or those with influence. The British
clung onto power, albeit reluctantly using armed
force where necessary but to no avail; in
Macmillan’s famous words ‘The winds of change
were blowing!
If the British had been a little more
forthcoming a little earlier than the latter part of
Queen Victoria's reign and given the Indian and
African elite a share of real political power not
only in India and Africa itself but across the
empire, then the situation may well have been
different today. It has taken many years to
ensure that an Indian or an African had a seat in
the House of Lords for example. The political
establishment in the British Empire was largely
white and male and thought solely in terms of
British politics at home in England. Ideas of a
common citizenship came late in British
Imperial history. A different attitude to the
American colonies may have preserved much

14
that was good. Today America could have been
a Dominion similar to Canada or Australia.
Empires need to be liked and respected, even if
occasionally force has to be used to remind
those of the 'benefits' of such rule. World history
would have been very different.
In contrast, from very early times, the
Roman authorities encouraged, through the
paternalistic system of patronisation, not only
the chance to Romanise/Latinise but also to
become part of the ruling elite by becoming a
member of the equestrian class ordo equester
and even a member of the elite Roman Senate
itself. Even future emperors such as the
Severans ruling in the early third century, came
from origins far from Roman. The Severan
dynasty came from North Africa and are
rumoured to have spoken Punic among
themselves. There was probably more than a
touch of Moor and other races within its
bloodline. Several of the later military emperors
could claim descent from former barbarian
chieftains. Some like Stilicho were half-castes,
yet commanded armies important enough to
threaten the throne. The fact that Stilicho never
became emperor is not the point but the fact is,
the Romans encouraged such people to gain
important positions like commanding armies
despite being racially mixed. The fact was that
despite his parentage, Stilicho felt himself to be
a Roman.
Why should a man be despised because of
his colour or his background? Why should a

15
person be denied position on the grounds of
gender or because of their ancestry? Such
attitudes appear to have had no place within
the Roman world. There was prejudice against
the slave and barbarian, especially the Germans
who became over time the Roman obsession
that the Carthaginians had once been. However
if a man or woman were willing to accept the
laws and ways of Rome, that is assimilate into
the culture itself, then the rewards were quite
phenomenal, especially for one's descendants.
Rome was a paternalistic culture and there
is no point in denying this fact. However as we
shall see below, women unlike in other less
tolerant ancient societies had a lot of freedom
including the right to hold property. It is wrong
however to judge a past civilisation from today's
moral standpoint. There are however certain
criteria that seem common to human behaviour.
The first of these is the respect to be accorded
to one's parents and elders or to those placed in
authority over others. Women too have usually
been greatly respected as mothers and
occasionally as heads of households, even
queens of whole tribes.
The basis of Roman society, as in most
cultures, was the family with the eldest male as
pater familias at its head. In early republican
times this individual had the right to kill
unwanted infants or to put to death any within
his family who breached the strict rules then in
existence. Above him were more powerful
males who held greater authority within his

16
gens by being head of a senior part of the
extended family structure. At the head of the
whole would be the senior paterfamilias, an
individual whose authority auctoritas by virtue
of birth and social standing, outshone any other
male within the extended family of which he
was the head.
Above him would be the state of Rome
itself, which would be the most senior
paterfamilias of all. The Roman state would
guarantee to protect the Roman family from
outside threats such as enemy tribes and
criminals and intercede on its behalf with the
various Roman gods in its role as guardian of
the state religion. Likewise, the more junior
paterfamilias in his role as family head would
also contract with his family to provide
protection against outside influences, safeguard
the family property and ancestral custom, and
intercede with the family gods on the family's
behalf in religious matters. In other words the
Roman family was modelled on the same
organisation and obligations as the larger
paterfamilias of the Roman state.
The Roman system was a series of
interdependencies based upon family cells that
all gave allegiance to the head family of the
Roman state itself. This lead to the development
of serious obligations on both sides of the
contract between Roman family and the state
often protected by religious sanction and
custom, which if broken threatened the
perpetrator with very unpleasant punishment

17
from gods and state. In later times Augustus
remonstrated with those of the Roman upper
classes who fell well below the expected
standard of obligations (Dio The Roman History,
Augustus, Bk 56, 2-10).
One of those obligations was to supply
men in time of war for the army and there are
recorded examples of fathers being stripped of
citizenship or even being reduced to slavery, for
cutting off the thumbs of their sons so as not to
send them to war. Augustus even put citizens to
death who failed to rally to the state's defence
in times of serious defeat (Dio, Bk56, 23). This
obligation to have sons and provide soldiers was
a prime requirement of the contract between
state and paterfamilias. The need for the
paterfamilias to provide land for his sons as
citizen soldiers was also a prime obligation. In
the earlier period nobody could serve in the
Roman army unless he owned land. The lack of
this led to great political turmoil during the
second century and eventually led to the civil
wars and the establishment of the Principate.
Beyond those related by blood, there were
the freed slaves who became citizens on
emancipation and also adopted the family name
of their former owner and benefactor who was
usually the paterfamilias. This placed a series of
obligations upon the freedman and his
descendants. The Freedman was forever in the
thrall of his old master and the penalties for
breaking such obligations could even mean re-
enslavement. Effectively the property of the

18
freedman libertvs was for the use if necessary
of the old master. There are recorded cases of
freedmen hiding their fortunes from their former
masters (Tacitus, Histories Bk 2, 92). In this
latter case exiles returning from overseas were
restored to their previous status.
The freedman was quite literally and
legally adopted into the former master's family.
His children of course would also be clients of
the former master but could enrich themselves
and even serve in the Roman army, the Senate,
and even hold senior office within the state. The
freedom of their freedman father to do such
things was seriously curtailed within law and
even here there were exceptions as both Julius
Caesar and Augustus recognised (Suetonius,
Aug. 74. Caesar B.G. III)
The patron-client system was the bedrock
of Roman society. It was a system of reciprocity.
The patron would look after the interests of his
clients as paterfamilias of the clan and his
clients would support him politically and support
him in other ways as well such as handling his
banking and property interests. The
paterfamilias himself may have been the client
of a more senior patron to whom he and his own
family owed allegiance. To renege upon these
obligations from either side was a threat to the
state itself since it disturbed the delicate
balance between the gods and the state itself
sanctioned by religious belief and superstition.
There were past examples where Romans
ignored these ties to more senior families. Such
19
men were Sertorius and Marius, who as novi
homines or new men sought the political and
finical support of the powerful Metelli clan, an
aristocratic but plebeian ancient senatorial
house in Rome itself. Both of these men raised
great concern when they snubbed this ancient
house in order to pursue the higher offices of
the Roman state. These ancient obligations
were enshrined in the ancient ways of Rome or
the mos maiorum. Rome in effect was a series
of miniature family states within a larger family
state. This led to many problems during the
later republic and especially during the days of
the Principate. We may return to Augustus
above who in 9AD lectured the more
irresponsible sections of Roman upper class
society on the responsibilities of marriage and
children.
Cassius Dio has him corner the Roman
equestrian class in the forum and even though
such speeches were a recognised literary device
usually invented for the reason of putting across
the essential arguments of historical characters
where no actual speech survives, in its central
message it was actually how Augustus felt in
such matters. Dio obviously expressed some of
his own ideas on the matter and used a
supposed speech of Augustus as a convenient
vehicle to disseminate these, since he was well
aware of the similar problems of his own day.
Dio himself was a Consul twice and held
several other offices of state. He had been born
in Asia Minor in the province of Bithynia and

20
although of Greek origins entered upon a
senatorial career in the reign of Commodus. He
subsequently served under future emperors
such as the Severans and the later Macrinus. It
is clear his career had spanned the more
troubled times (Dio Bk 72, 23. 1-3, 5.) of an
empire coming out of the peaceful Antonine
period which Gibbon thought was the most
blessed of mankind. In many ways Dio is the
quintessential example of an upper class
provincial whose family assimilated successfully
enough to consider themselves suitable
material for the highest offices of state.
But consider also the state, to which we
owe many duties that may not come easily to
us. How excellent, and how imperative it is, if
peoples and cities are to exist, and if we are to
rule others and the rest of the world is to obey
you, that there should be a flourishing race of
ours; such a race as will in time of peace till the
soil, sail the seas, practise the arts and pursue
handicrafts, and in time of war protect what we
hold with an ardour which is all the greater
because of the ties of blood, and which will
bring forth others to take the places of those
who fall. You have chosen to disregard both the
providence of the gods and the devotion of your
forefathers; your purpose is to extinguish our
entire race and make it literally mortal, to put
an end to the existence of the whole Roman
nation. Besides this, you are guilty of destroying
the state by disobeying its laws, and betraying
your country by making her barren and
childless. For a city is made up of human
21
beings, not of houses or porticoes or market-
places with no people in them. Would it not
enrage the Romans who were his followers, if
they knew that after they had gone so far as to
carry off foreign girls (rape of the Sabine brides,
my insertion) you by contrast have no feeling
even for those of your own race, and that after
they had engendered children even by the
women of an enemy country, you refuse to
beget them even by women who are your
fellow-citizens? From the earliest times, as soon
as government was established, strict laws
were laid down on these matters, and
afterwards many decrees were voted both by
the Senate and the people. You talk of this
unconstrained and emancipated life you have
chosen, without wives or children, but you are
no different from outlaws or the most savage
wild beasts. Certainly it is not because you take
pleasure in a solitary existence that you live
without wives, for there is none among you who
either eats or sleeps alone. What you want is
complete liberty to lead an undisciplined and
promiscuous life. You can see for yourselves
how much more numerous you are than the
married men. How can the state be preserved if
we neither marry nor beget children?(Bk 56,3-7,
Cassius Dio, The Reign of Augustus, Penguin
Classics: Trans: Scott-Kilvert, London 1987).
Obviously, the major concern for Augustus
and indeed any potential imperator in the
Roman world was the need for troops in order to
win wars of conquest and increasingly defensive
campaigns. The failure of the Romans in Italy to
22
enlist in the army is painfully clear from
inscriptions found on gravestones and
monuments found on archaeological sites
around the former empire even today. Many of
these give the origins of legionaries as being
provincial and even the rather strange epithet
for a bastard origo castris or son of the camp.
In other words recruitment was increasingly
among Romans and even provincials whose
origins were anything but Italian let alone
Roman. Most had never seen Rome at all and
probably never would. This is the reality of the
legions that entered Rome with Vitellius in 69AD
(Tacitus, Histories, Bk 2, 88). This was the reality
of assimilation- Rome had to do so, in order to
survive!
Yann LeBohec, the French academic, in his
book on the Roman Army cites various studies
of the birthplaces or origins of Roman
legionaries over longer periods of time. For
example a 1914 study showed that of the
recruits to Legion III Augusta in north Africa
during the First century AD, 19 came from Italy,
23 from Senatorial provinces and 56 from
Imperial provinces. By the 2nd Century, 1 man
came from Italy, 54 from Senatorial provinces
and 44 from Imperial provinces. By the 3rd
century none came from Italy, 62 came from
Senatorial provinces and 37 from Imperial
provinces. The distinction between Senatorial
provinces and Imperial provinces is important
for our purposes. The Senatorial provinces were
technically ruled by the Senate, normally had
few troops in them as they were supposed to be
23
the most Romanised. Such a province was
Baetica in Southern Spain. Imperial provinces
were those within the imperial remit imperium
of the Princeps and were those usually on the
more dangerous frontiers and as a result
contained the bulk of the Legions and Auxilia.
They were therefore probably considered the
less Romanised although archaeology has done
much to change this view. But they were the
provinces where Rome felt less secure
(LeBohec, The Roman Imperial Army, Chap.3,
p89, table 20. Batsford, trans from picard
editeur 1989, London 1994).
The majority of these men in the second
and third centuries came from the most
Romanised provinces, namely the senatorial.
These men may have been descendants of
Roman colonists but most would probably have
held the citizenship not so much from
colonisation by ancestors but through the
gradual assimilation of Roman culture by their
none Romanised ancestors. Perhaps a term such
as latinisation is more appropriate. One would
have thought the Imperial military provinces
would have provided most recruits but this does
not appear to have been the case except in the
Ist Century. Le Bohec feels that the legionaries
came from a higher social milieu than is
generally accepted. Rostovtzeff believed that
barbarians or at least sturdy peasants entered
the army (Le Bohec 1989). This was probably
more appropriate to his own time when armies
were made up of largely peasant stock.

24
 To live in a town usually meant that the
inhabitant was highly Romanised. This after all
was Rome's greatest contribution to western
civilisation and at least in the western part of
the empire such urbanisation would have been
seen as the mainstay of Roman influence and
occupation. Le Bohec cites the following
numbers of legionary recruits provided by the
cities and towns of the most highly Romanised
area of Gaul, modern day Provence Gallia
Narbonensis. Vienne 24, Narbonne 18, Frejus
13, Luc-en-Diois 12, Arles, Beziers, Nimes, 6
each, Alba 5, Valence 4, Aix 3, Riez 2,
Carcassonne, Antibes Apt, Castelnau-de Leze
Cavaillon, Digne, Tarascon, Uzes, Vaison, 1
each. When one compares this to other areas of
the empire the tally still favours the more
Romanised parts of the whole. Other parts of
Gaul, Lugdunensis (central France) 12, Aquitania
(Bordeaux) 6 or Germania, Lower 27, Upper 2.
Spain, Tarraconensis (near Taragona) 11,
Baetica (Andalucia) 3 in Flavian-Trajanic period,
but 13 latter Julio-Claudian period. Interestingly
the same process happens around the same
time in Narbonensis 31 early Julio-Claudian
period, 58 latter Julio-Claudian period, then 34
Flavian-Trajanic period. In all cases recruitment
drops off in the second century. One's own
studies of Baetica at the site of ancient Italica
would seem to confirm his findings. For example
Lucius Rulius Alrius of the Sergian Tribe, was a
soldier of the Tenth Legion (CIL V, 932). Another
was L. Valerius Nepos of the Seventh Gemina
who may have not only been the bearer of a
25
famous name but an officer as well. There is
also evidence of a former member of the Legion
Third Gallica.
Italica itself was originally founded in the
late third century BC by Scipio Africanus for his
wounded veterans in the war against Hannibal.
Its history as the original Roman municipal city
municipium in Spain is interesting. This of all
places would be primary recruiting ground for
the legions. Pliny mentions it as one of the most
Romanised towns in the province of Baetica
(NH,III 4). Hardly anything is known about the
original settlement in 206BC but that it was for
Scipio's veterans and their unofficial families.
This very fact confuses the archaeological
record as there is a clear fusing of cultures. Take
for instance the stratigraphy of the site shows
that early on in the city's existence there is a
mixture of cultures and only later a more
Italianate appearance. Lets look at this in more
detail:- This is from the site of the Casa de
Venus situated in the older part of what was
Italica.(Guy Leven-Torres, Italica, From Vicus to
Imperial Throne, UCL 1997, from EAE 1982 p13
fwd)
Level I. Approximately 4th century BC. Ceramica
Iberica (globular form). Punic vases, local
pottery of Final Bronze Age traditions.
Level II. 4th to 3rd century BC. Italo-Greek fish-
plate pottery, ceramica Iberica, Campaniense B,
4th century pottery, Amphorae Punica Macareno
B, C, and E. 4th - 3rd century Macareno pottery in
great abundance.
26
Level III. 3rd to 2nd century (foundation period of
Roman city). Increase in Romano-Italic material
but also with quantities of native manufacture
such as ceramica Iberica etc. Roman tiles
tegulae, opus quadratum, Italo-Greek pottery
corresponding to 3rd century type, Ceramic
forms Lamb 23A, Campaniense A, Lamb 27, 29,
31, and 33, presigillata, ceramica Iberica.
Amphorae, Dressel 1A and B . Macareno C, D,
etc, Punic amphorae of 3rd century and localised
pottery.
Level IV. 2nd to 1st century. Hardly any terra
sigillata but presigillata, Campaniense A, Lamb
27/29, 30, 31, and 63, Campaniense B,
ceramica Iberica. Amphorae, Dressel 1A, 1B, 1C,
18. Macareno 1, community pottery, Vegas 4,
polychrome.
Level V. 1st century. Archaic Arretine Goud 5 and
6B. South Gallic and Hispanic, Ceramic
presigillata. Campaniense A and B, Lamb 1A
and 5A, ceramica Iberica in relative abundance.
Amphorae, Dressel 1A, 1C, and 7/8, Pelchet 2
and Macareno C, Vegas 8, 14A, 31, 39, 42, and
44. Teracotta un rostro femenino or woman's
face.
Level VI. 1st century AD. South Gallic terra
sigillata, Drag 15/17, 18/31, Ritt 18, Arretine
Goud, 16 and 27, Ritt 8, Drag 24/25, sigillata
hispanica, Drag 8 and 35. Fine warse Mayet
XXXII, XXXVIIB, and XIIIB Roman amphoras,
Dressel 1b and 1c, Macareno D, Ceramica
campaniense A and B.

27
Level VII. Late 1st century AD. Terra sigillata,
conforming to Drag 15/17, 24, 27, 29B and 32.
Arretine Drag 24/25, Ritt 5 and 5a, Goud 27,
Drag and La hispanica Drag 18. Fine wares XLIII,
XLIIIA, and XXXVIIIA and other types. Amphorea
Dressel 1.
Level VIII. 1st to 2nd century AD. South Gallic
terra sigillata, forms Drag 11, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27,
and 37A. Also forms Ritt 13, Hermet 25. Arretine
terra sigillata Haltern 7, Goud 18, Drag 36, Ritt
1, terra sigillata hispanica, Drag 29 and 37. Also
abundant terra sigillata of Graufesenque origin.
Fine wares Mayet II to III, X-C, XXXVII etc.
At the beginning of the period, that is level
1 we observe a lot of native material and some
Punic wares. Obviously the site was inhabited
before the foundation of Italica itself in 206BC.
We know that much of Spain at this period was
under the Carthaginians or had strong trading
links with them. By Level 2 the deposit includes
or Italo-Greek remains. This would have come
into inhabitants' possession through contact
with Greek colonies further up the coasts of
Spain who also traded with Italy. By Level III
there is a veritable sea-change in the type of
material found, still local but with a strong Italo-
Roman theme. This seems to confirm the
foundation of Italica by Scipio Africanus and the
settlement of veterans there. Level IV contains
mainly local material and this seems to indicate
a rather impoverished period for the city, which
is not surprising with the civil wars and piracy
disturbing links with Italy. The veterans and

28
their immediate descendants probably
intermarried with Iberians and felt little loyalty
to Rome so far away.
By Level V however, seems to indicate that
by the later period of the 1st century BC Roman
or at least Italian wares were again obtainable.
We do know that many Italians defeated in the
Social War of the 90s BC settled in Spain and in
Italica to escape the turmoil in Italy itself. Levels
VI and VIII seems a period of wealth came about
in the Ist century AD. There is an increased
amount of material from Roman and Italian
origins but there is also material imported from
Gaul. We know there was economic growth with
the establishment of the Principate in 27BC and
Augustus campaigned her to secure the
frontiers of the Spanish provinces. The Romano-
Iberians profited greatly from this increased
stability and more Italians settled attracted by
the trading links with other parts of the Empire
and the garum fish-sauce industry which
supplied this rich condiment to the finest dining
tables in Rome and the provinces. Level VIII
shows that this imperialisation through contact
with the rest of the Roman world continued
unabated. Italica itself grew in importance but
seems to have overreached itself by trying to
emulate the metropolises of the Near East.
From the point of view of our discussion
the archaeology of Italica is a revelation of the
process of assimilation into the Roman imperial
structure and into which the lives of the
population of the empire were increasingly

29
embedded and encouraged to become Romans.
Some academics prefer the term imperilisation
to Romanisation since they feel that Romanitas
itself evolved in its meaning over time with
direct contact and assimilation of other cultures
and peoples and in particular hellenism that led
to different forms of 'Romanisation' perhaps
specific to the locality in question. However, this
imperialisation-Romanisation was recognisably
Roman. There was therefore no doubt of what it
meant to be Roman, even though it may have
evolved over the centuries especially under the
influence of the eastern Helleniic world. Greek
was the language of the man-of-letters and
despite early resistance to it in the earlier
period of contact with Greece, its superiority in
literature and as the language of a far older and
civilised culture proved irresistible.
If one should doubt this process just
examine the way the perception of our own
nationality has changed over the centuries. Just
what does it mean to be British today? One
hundred or so years ago it meant England and
Empire. Englishness was synonymous with
Britishness despite the fact that the United
Kingdom contained four different countries.
Before the advent of empire an inhabitant of
these islands would have looked no further than
his local manorial landlord or his local parish for
a clue to his identity which was strictly local in
character.
The British Empire and in particular sea-
power revolutionised the British national

30
consciousness. Even in historical films made as
late as the 1950s, England is regarded as the
realm to be defended against the foreign foe.
The Irish, Scottish and Welsh are seen as
representatives of an English national supra
identity in the broader epithet of British. It is
England and Englishness that they must aspire
to even if it means the British Empire. Nelson's
signal at Trafalgar started with England expects
despite the fact that there were three other
nations that comprised Great Britain under King
George and he had Scots and other nationalities
in his fleet. The British Empire imperialised the
nation's perception of itself and its peoples. Our
British identity today identity is a far different
concept than the idea of Englishness and
Britishness held in past times and will continue
to evolve.
It is the same with all empires especially
when they come into direct contact with exotic
cultures like India. America is the new world
super power and many of us have subtly
assimilated American ways of speech, dress and
attitudes. It is a natural human evolutionary
process older even than Rome or ancient
Greece. The Americans are highly successful in
this process despite some misgivings from the
older generation in places farther afield.
However, 'Americana' is highly desired in
general because of the benefits of that
civilisation such as a higher standard of living,
notions of democracy and a newness and
openness often at odds with even the older
European nations. In short it is exciting. Roman
31
society with its sophistication and benefits in an
improved way of life must have been very
attractive to a 'barbarian' or even a 'civilised'
Greek simply because it offered security as well,
often from a subsistence level of life and free
from war. That is why America is looked to
today, because it provides security as well.
Italica is also interesting for the fact that in
Trajan it supplied a Romano-Iberian emperor to
the throne. Hadrian spent time here as a boy. In
fact a whole provincial elite entered the senate
from this region and southern France. Ronald
Syme is worth quoting, The new dynasty, which
is Spanish with Trajan and Hadrian, emerges as
Narbonensian with Antoninus Pius, and the
strains are blended in the grandson of Annius
Verus (otherwise Marcus Aurelius). Those rulers
are the successive products of a group of
families allied and interlocked long since, first in
their countries of origin and then at Rome...The
first object of matrimony among the gentry,
whether Italian or provincial, was to link families
of wealth and standing, to concentrate their
resources, spread influence, and acquire
predominance in a town or a region....Even
when a family had risen from equestrian rank to
senatorial, from local repute to metropolitan
fame, its sons might still look for brides in their
own country, so strong was the tie at home…
Migrating to the capital, the elite of the western
lands took station beside their predecessors
from the Italian towns, whom they emulated in
ousting the nobiles, and then went on to
supplant. Wealth came with them, often
32
ancestral, whereas many Italian fortunes were
very recent, deriving from the civil war and
proscriptions (Syme, Tacitus, Vol II, ix, p601-2,
Oxford 1958, 1997).
This assimilation affected all levels of
society. We have already seen the soldiers
above, some from legions on the other side of
the empire. One Sextus Julius from nearby
Hispalis (Sevilla), had quite an astonishing
career. We shall quote his career in full. It has
been dated to around 160AD.
Sex. IuIio Sex. F. Quir. Possessori, [Prae coh III
Gallorum. Praeposito numer[ri Syror. Sagittarior,
item alae primae Hispa[nor. Curatori civitas
Romulensium. Arlvensium, tribuno, mi[I.leg] XII
Fulminat(ae), [Curatori coloniae Arcensium,
adlecto[in decurias ab optimus maximisque[imp
Antonino et Vero augg, adiu[tor Ulpii Saturnini
Praef annon [d oleum Afrum et Hispanim recen[
sendum item solamina transfe[renda item
vecturas navicularis exsolvendas, proc augg ad
[ripam Baetis, scapharii Hispalen[ses ob
iurocentiam Iustitiam [que eius singularem
(Dessau ILS 1403).
It appears the above began life as an
equestrian narrow stripe military Tribune
tribunus augustclavius. He then went on to
Syria where he probably commanded a squad of
the famous Syrian archers and then returned
home to command a Spanish cavalry squadron.
He seems then to have spent some time in a
civilian curatorial post at Sevilla Hispalis, then
joined the Twelth Fulminata legion wherever it
33
was stationed in the empire at this period. His
career then appears to have involved very
senior posts of one kind or another as curator of
the oil and grain supply in Africa and Spain, in
particular imperial procuratorial responsibility
for the transport of such materials up the river
Baetis that flows through the city of Hispalis,
possibly with the direct patronage of the joint
emperors Aurelius and Lucius Verus. In other
words this confirms Syme's extensive studies on
the subject and conclusion, that the assimilated
Romanised/imperialised elite gradually
supplanted the native senate at Rome and Italy
but also in the more Romanised provinces as
well. Sextus was probably descended from
Romans and Italians but also numbered native
Iberians in his ancestry.
Baetica and its wealth actually threatened
the economic stability of Italy and in particular
its wine production (Collumela 3, 1 3-4, Strabo
3. 2. 6). A shipwreck from the time of Claudius,
found off the coast, known as Ponte Verdes II
was carrying Haltern 70 amphorae from the
province and Collumela owned a farm near
modern day Jerez de la Frontera.
The region itself had to be highly
Romanised in order to achieve this level of
penetration at Rome itself. Italica supplied
several senators (ILS 8970, CIL 1130) and so did
its nearby rival Hispalis. Other inscriptions show
how others from the cities served in lower
capacities such as imperial procurators and

34
agents in other areas of the empire (CIL 1115,
1116, 1117).
We have strayed a little from our main
discussion but this is essential to demonstrate
the level of assimilation that was very real in
the Roman Empire, especially in a region so
diverse as Spain. Many of these individuals
would have either been descended from Roman
or Italian soldier settlers or even served in the
legions themselves before going onto take up
civil posts and offices. The only way they could
achieve this was through patronage- a
patronage that actively encouraged assimilation
into the imperial Roman structures of the day.
From high class aristocrat to low born peasant
or townsman and slave, this system encouraged
the individual to aspire to become Roman
sooner rather than later. This is clearly shown
by the inscriptions given above.
Augustus clearly was not the only emperor
to face problems of recruitment among native
Italians and Romans. The only available source
was therefore the provincials themselves. These
quickly displaced their Italian and Roman
predecessors within the power structure at all
levels of society, whether legionary, procurator,
or senator. This was the secret of Romanitas
and its success..
Rome founded colonies for the reason of
not only defence but as a bastion of Roman
ways and as an example to conquered peoples
of the benefits of Roman life and civilisation.
More than this it was a living claim to the land
35
so subjugated. This was a tradition among less
civilised peoples as well. Tribes often buried
their warlike kings and aristocrats in burial
mounds in order to lay claim to ancestral lands.
However, there were several types of colonia
and in the process of assimilation its meaning
and function evolved in much the same way as
Romanitas itself. The original colonies were
originally settlements of soldiers, often time-
served veterans who could be called upon in
time of peril to defend an area if they were not
too old and fit enough or to breed future
legionaries for Rome's armies. Originally
colonies had been founded by transplanting
whole sections of young Italians and Romans
with their families in order to secure an area.
This was in fact how Ostia the port of Rome had
been founded in the early days of Rome. But as
time progressed, these colonies would become
established Roman towns, providing further
recruits and colonies. This was probably the real
reason why Italica was founded: Scipio had an
eye upon the future of Spain and especially the
potential wealth of a region such as the south.
Rome was ever conscious of the need to
preserve the status-quo. For example once a
land had been subjugated it was necessary to
secure it in the name of Rome. To Rome this
meant the establishment of her idea of urban
life. This way the indigenous population, in
particular the elite would observe first hand the
benefits to be had from Roman life. This was the
seed of Romanitas.

36
 In the Roman west this was not too much
of a problem. However in the more civilised and
Hellenised Greek speaking East, this was not
the case. We shall return to this later. In Spain
and Gaul there already existed proto-urbanised
settlements influenced by Greek and
Phoenecian traders and colonists. Some of
these settlements reached a high standard of
urbanisation as archaeological remains testify.
This was especially so in Spain.
However, even in existing settlements
Rome planted colonies of Roman citizens in
order to secure the area. This was often done by
confiscation procriptio of land from defeated
foes. This had always been the Roman method
of conquest. Sometimes whole peoples were
ejected if the Romans were particularly
uncertain of their hold on a place. Look for
example at Colchester founded on such lands
after the invasion of Britain in 43AD. Veteran
legionaries of XX Valeria were planted here and
the local tribes expelled. This eventually led to
the Boudiccan rebellion of 61AD (Tacitus,
Annals, XIV, 30) wherein the temple of Claudius,
seen by the Britons as a symbol of their fate
was completely raised to the ground.
Contrast the fate of St. Albans, a Roman
Municipium, which was too a former native site
of some importance but whose chiefs were
favoured by Rome with the above status. This
city although not a colony was allowed its own
defensive walls in the 1st century, a sure sign of
imperial favour. Such settlements usually

37
started life as civitas, a Latin term meaning an
urban settlement or area where it was intended
to build a city as part of a long term programme
to Romanise an area. Urbanisation of an area
meant it was easier to control such a territory.
Each civitas had its own territory or civil
boundary. Dependent upon its status, such
foundations could ensure that the native ruling
elite at least if not the town's inhabitants gained
the Roman citizenship by becoming officials or
magistrates on the town's senate or council
ordo. Effectively, the town's constitution
whether, simply civitas, municipium, or colonia,
was based upon the constitution of the Roman
state itself. Each was a little respublica headed
by two or four magistrates termed either duoviri
or quattuo-viri usually members of the local
ordo each of whose members was termed
decurionus. In a municipium the senior
magistrates appear to have been two financial
officers quaestor and two senior officers akin to
the consuls in Rome itself. The citizens had Latin
Rights, a half way stage to full Romanisation
and the citizenship.
Obviously Verulamium was considered
Roman enough, in sympathy at least to be
granted walls and the Latin Right. Colonies were
actually considered Roman territory per se, and
enjoyed the same rights as Rome itself and was
therefore free of taxation normally levied on
lesser towns. The magistrates that headed
these seen to have been only two in number
and termed duum-viri . Romans like the British

38
loved committees in order to decide upon public
business.
Wacher in his book, The towns of Roman
Britain (Batsford, London 1976) lists seven
types of settlement recognised officially by the
Roman authorities (Leven-Torres, dissertation
Italica, From Vicus to Imperial Throne, UCL
1997).
a) Civitas- citizenship of Roman or non-Roman
community. It is also used by both to describe
themselves (origo)
b) Colonia- used in early Empire to describe
towns inhabited either by Roman or Latin
citizens, many of whom would have been army
veterans -governed by Charter based upon the
laws of Rome itself.
c) Municipium- again in the early Empire to
described towns, likewise governed by Charter.
The inhabitants would have been of Roman
municipium civium romanorum or of Latin
status according to the grade of municipal
charter awarded. Later however, a town with
only Latin Rights might have received full
Roman citizenship and subsequent promotion to
Colonia was not unknown (Aulus Gellius, Attic
Nights,.16, 13)
d) Oppidum- literally meaning a town or other
native settlement. In Spain it meant any
fortified urban settlement, although its use
elsewhere in the Roman world, for example in
Britain, might indicate a somewhat primitive
nucleated settlement.

39
e) Urbs- normally translated as city, and it was
used to describe a settlement of higher status
than one which might be called an Oppidum.
f) Vicus- widest range of meanings of all. It
could mean a city region, a civilian settlement
outside a fort cannabae, as at Vindolanda in
England or Zugmantel in Germany. It also
appears to have been used to describe simple
villages, however, it was also used to describe
central towns of some peregrine Civitates. It
therefore had the lowest legal status applicable
to something approaching an urbanised site. A
pagus formed a country district.
g) Polis- Originally used to describe city-states
in Greece, but also used by ancient sources to
describe civitates or cities such as Italica
mentioned above.
The elder Pliny, who in his Natural History
describes the highly Romanised province of
Baetica, actually gives the numbers of towns
enjoying some form of Roman status within the
region- Oppida omnia numero clxxv, In iis
coloniae 1x, municipia xviii, latio antiquitus,
xxix, libertate vi, foedere iii, stipendiaria cxx
(NH, 3,4; Weisio 1841).
Returning to Italica, she produced nine
Roman senators. In order to do this she must
have been extremely Romanised, especially
since she was originally only a vicus in the local
territory (Elder Pliny NH, III, 4) conventus of
nearby Hispalis. At sometime in the reign of
Augustus, Italica suffered a confiscation of land
deductio in order to settle a veteran legionary
40
colony there (Strabo, History 3. 2. 1). However
in the reign of Tiberius, Italica issued two series
of semisses or small coins displaying the heads
of the military commanders Germanicus and
Drusus. The first was the nephew of Tiberius
and the second his brother of whom he was
very fond. On the reverse of both these coins
appear military insignia together with a
legionary eagle standard surmounted by a
vexillum (A.T. Fear, Rome and Baetica 50BC-
150AD, Clarendon, London 1996). In particular
the legend upon the coinage PER AUG. MUNIC.
ITAL, seems to indicate that this was indeed so.
There is still debate today among Spanish
archaeologists whether it was Hispalis or Italica
that suffered the imposition of the legionary
colony. Italica would seem to be the preferred
choice given the coins above.
From our point of view this is important.
Italica was supposed to be the most Romanised
of all towns in the region. Its history began with
the settlement of soldiers in the 3rd century BC
and yet it received a second influx in the reign
of Tiberius around 20-30AD. Italica had favoured
Caesar's cause during the civil wars in the
previous century (Caesar, BC, II. 20).
Furthermore two of the conspirators who
attempted the murder of an unpopular
Caesarian governor came from Italica
(Alexandrian War, 52. 2). The Caesarians or
Octavian's party were obviously anxious to
curry favour within a region notoriously
sympathetic to Pompeius Magnus and his sons.
The murder of an unpopular man may or may
41
not have been most convenient to the
Caesarian's cause. Either way, the imposition of
a legionary colony would have ensured the
continued loyalty of such a town and ensure its
loyalty to the newly established Principate
which although founded around 27BC, was in
Roman terms a very short while. The Republic
was still a reality in most Roman minds, the
man at the top or Princeps, was merely a first
among equals. There was no right of hereditary
succession and men still survived from the days
of the Republic, men who still thought in terms
of their own dominance within Rome itself.
Tiberius was not a popular choice.
Either way the new regime needed support
primarily among the provinces. It was among
the inhabitants of these highly Romanised areas
that the Principate sought support not just
among the aristocracy at Rome. The new
imperial system benefited most of all these
peoples. They were for the first time governed
by paid professional civil servants. These men
were the employees of the emperor even
though Baetica itself was a public province, the
men who governed it would be conscious of the
emperors eye upon them. This prevented them
from lining their own pockets and stabilised the
region and towns like Italica. We have seen
above that archaeology clearly shows the huge
growth in prosperity that came about after the
establishment of the Principate.
The planting of soldiers would have
reinvigorated the city and area. The move may

42
not have been popular but it ensured the
stability of the region and its loyalty to the new
regime. The soldiers were Caesar's men to the
core. Germanicus was a popular hero and so
was Drusus. Their influence upon the already
heavily Romanised region ensured that the
process deepened still further. Already by the
time of Nero, the Gallo-Iberian elite were
making serious inroads into the native Italo-
Roman aristocracy. The Flavians another new
dynasty with an insecure claim to the throne
further encouraged the process (PIR2, C1425).
One Spanish senator, L. Cornelius Pusio was
Consul under Vespasian. other Consuls were
Manlius Vopiscus (Statius, Silvae 1.3), his son or
grandson in 114AD (ILS 1044), L. Minicius
Natalis suffectus in 139AD, and M. Accenna
Saturninus (CIL XIV, 3585). These men gained
their positions through wealth in land and the
patronage of the Imperial elite and the Princeps
who by 100 AD would be of Spanish origins
himself, often the direct descendant of Roman
legionaries intermarried with local women.
It was to be these men and their
descendants who joined the legions as citizen
soldiers. The Italians recruited to the army
seriously decreased in number. However it was
in the interests of their colonial cousins to
preserve the status quo and in particular the
new imperial regime. Men like those settled at
Italica, with more than just a patriotic interest in
the survival of the Principate. The emperor to
these men and their immediate descendants,
was the patron or paterfamilias who gave them
43
land and the opportunity over time to rise up
through the Roman hierarchy, even to be a town
magistrate. Men like the Sextus Julius above,
who became a Tribune in the XII Fulminata. He
was not alone.
These Romanised provincial citizen
legionaries were no country bumpkins and as Le
Bohec and others have shown, these men had
status, not only as soldiers but as Roman men
of note in their own right. Junior officers in
particular needed to be literate in order to rise
to the Centurionate and beyond. Even to enter a
legion, the crack troops of Rome, one needed to
be of good character as the letters between
Trajan and the Younger Pliny clearly show.
Above all else, patronage was of utmost
importance to any recruit to the military
hierarchy (Pliny Bk.X, 106). Without a patron to
vouchsafe a young aspirant to the colours, entry
to office or the legions would be at the very
least difficult without a letter to oil the way. This
again is made clear by Pliny in his letters to his
friends and Trajan. Suetonius, the author of the
'tabloid' Twelve Caesars, turned down such an
invitation from his patron Pliny to take up a post
as Tribune in the Army (Pliny Letters, Bk.X, 96).
Whether, legionary or procurator, these
provincial Romans relied upon the intricate
hierarchy of patron and client that led from the
bottom of the social ladder to the Emperor
himself. This was the very essence of
Romanisation itself. Assimilation within the
Roman world relied upon a system of reciprocity

44
wherein the beneficiary of looked to his patron
to gain position and improve his lot. A whole
nexus of inter-relational contacts ensured the
stability of the Roman system. This system was
actually one huge family based around several
larger families whose wealth and prestige
auctoritas protected and enshrined the idea of
Romanitas itself.
The organism was based upon a hierarchy
of reciprocal relationships sanctioned by law,
custom and religion. Through it one gained the
freedom if a slave, the Latin Right if free, the
Roman citizenship itself and entry into the
various offices high and low of the state itself.
The emperor was the chief paterfamilias and he
spent most of his reign dealing with petitions
from Romans and provincials high and low. The
army in particular looked to him for its survival
and continued glory. It was through the army in
particular that the aspiring provincial could raise
himself higher up the social scale. Men like
Sextus Julius above who saw a military career as
a passport to important status and office in
Spain itself. It was these type of men above all
who gained most from the evolution of the idea
of Romanitas. Trajan and Hadrian were both
soldiers in their time but they were provincial
Romans. This fact is important. Both were
recognised as military men viri militares. And it
was this fact alone above all others that gained
for them and other provincials like them
important posts, including the throne. Trajan
was adopted by Nerva his patron and new
father. Hadrian, an Italian by birth but also a
45
provincial and a cousin of Trajan was adopted by
him in turn. This is a process that is often
overlooked by academics.
The dynamic of assimilation works not only
in the provinces but at the centre of things as
well. Trajan and Hadrian took their provincial
attitudes with them to the throne. Italy became
less important but this was right at the time
simply because the legions consisted in the
main of men from the most Romanised
provinces; men who recognised consciously or
otherwise the necessity to preserve the idea of
Rome and Romanitas. This was the true nature
of Rome herself and Romanisation!

(2)
46
 The Roman Legion

The Roman Legion was far more than just a

ruthless killing machine. Its make up was truly
cosmopolitan in origin. By the second Century
AD it recruited from around the Empire. Its men,
one and all had to speak and understand the
Latin language. Most, if not all had to be Roman
citizens, even though there is evidence in the
East and West of the empire, that sometimes
citizenship was awarded on entry. The usual
term of engagement at this period was for
twenty-five years, during which time the
legionary was forbidden to marry, although
unofficial relationships were tolerated probably
to be legitimised on discharge.
The other major part of the Roman Army
was the non-citizen Auxilia, made up of soldiers,
many from the less civilised areas of the known
world such as the frontiers and beyond. These
were paid only a third of what the Legionary
Roman citizen received but after twenty-five
years under the colours, would on discharge
receive a diploma awarding citizenship to the
soldier and his unofficial family. The Legionary
did not enjoy this prerequisite but his marital
situation was legitimised either by going
through a recognised form of marriage that at
least gave the citizenship to his children or
allowed to pass on his privileges by indulgent
authorities. A clue is perhaps given by the fact
that discharge diplomas from this period often
give the origin of the soldier as ‘Son of the
47
Camp’ or origo castrense, meaning he was or
had been a bastard. However Rome needed
soldiers and those born of legionaries and ex-
auxiliaries, born as they were into the frontier
regions and familiar with the army already, were
not going to be lightly dismissed as a potential
source of recruits.
The potential soldier would therefore follow
his father into the family trade. However to get
anywhere, even into a Roman legion as a
probatus or tiro, social connections were
important. The fact that a boy born, even
illegitimately to a legionary on the frontier was
a good introduction. The recruiters, probably
centurions and other more junior officers
probably knew the father well and so the boy
gained an easier introduction to the colours. If
however, the new legionary wanted to rise up
through the ranks he was going to have to
cultivate some very important social
connections among the officers under which he
served. He also had to be able to read and
write.
The legion itself was organised into ten
cohorts, the First of which in our period was
double in size to the numbers one to nine that
comprised 480 men eah. In this First Cohort
went the bravest men, the best officers and
centurions named primi ordines, the most
senior of which was the much respected primus
pilus or First Spear who far from being like a
modern non-commissioned officer was actually
equivalent to a Brigadier. These men and the

48
rest of the corps of centurions known as the
Centurionate were thorough professionals in the
full sense of the word. These men led from the
front and were the backbone of the Roman
Legion.
Within the cohorts of 480 men were the
maniples of 160 men, each divided into two
centuries of eighty men. The century had at one
time had consisted of 100 men but the smaller
figure by the second Century AD, appears to
have been a a tactical reform. There is the
distinct possibility though that twenty of the
century at this period were made up of civilian
assistants, perhaps responsible for chores and
duties not done by the military component of
the unit. There is an echo of this in more recent
times, when in the Duke of Marlborough’s Army
in the early 1700s, the artillery and food supply
was manned by and left to civilian contractors.
Even the siege works in this period seem to
have been left to civilian engineers and miners
employed specifically for the purpose.
Underneath the century of eighty soldiers
and civilian ancillaries, the century would be
sub-divided into eight man sections or
contuberniums. Interestingly enough we use a
similar number of men in a modern infantry
section. These would be led by a junior section
leader of whose title we are not sure, although
modern re-enactment groups have used the
term Decanius to describe these. One’s
personal research has not found anything to
substantiate this title in the sources. The closest

49
one can find to a title for a section leader is in
the cavalry, commanded by a decurion but he
appears to be similar to a Centurion,
commanding as he does up to thirty soldiers in
a turmae. Like the infantry centurion, he had a
deputy called an optio, from where our modern
word option meaning choice. This understudy
was probably a chosen man hence his full title
optione ad spem.
The eight man sections served and slept
together throughout their initial career. There
has been a lot of discussion among academics
about how the Roman army was recruited. One
even suggests that, Roman legions only
recruited every twenty five years by enlisting
almost all the five thousand odd men needed,
from the legion s traditional recruiting grounds
at once. This was then repeated every twenty-
five years. This is errant nonsense. The author
in question then goes on to say that legions
never replaced their depleted manpower in the
meantime and through these important facts, it
is possible to track the movements of these
professional bodies. So a legion recruited in its
traditional grounds in Spain, such as the famous
Tenth, would be full of fit young eighteen year
olds, full of vigour in 25AD and discharge what
remained of the Legion in 50AD, namely the
forty-three years old middle aged men who had
come to the end of their time.
A modern army, supported as it is by
modern food and medicine needs to replenish
itself every year, let alone very twenty-five

50
years. Modern wastage rates, especially during
basic training are around five to ten percent per
annum, sometimes higher, especially during the
first weeks of basic training. The modern British
army at the time of writing is around five
thousand men short of its full compliment. As
there are around 100,000 men in this army, the
five percent requirement seems about right to
allowing for, injury, disease, and other problems
that force soldiers into retirement. There is also
the problems of rank and promotion that will
create further gaps in the line.
In ancient times, the average life
expectancy was only a third to one half of what
it is now. For men it was around thirty-five to
forty and for women around thirty-five. Soldiers
ironically tended to live longer statistically
speaking, simply because of a regular diet and
good medical care.
However, even at an attrition rate of five to
ten percent, a figure of quite conservative
proportions, the loss of around one hundred or
so men per annum through illness, injury,
disease and death, especially in battle, factors
that were far more common in the ancient
world, the Tenth Legion would have numbered
hundreds when it came round to discharge time.
And men in their mid forties are nowhere, so fit
as eighteen year olds. People aged faster in
those far off days too. Even though we have
records of legionaries serving until their teeth
fell out as is mentioned in Tacitus (Annals
1.16/17) or centurions still serving in the line

51
aged nearly eighty! .These men were
exceptions as the context mentioned in the
famous Annals of Tacitus was about aged troops
serving long after their discharge dates.
No, any army ancient or modern must
have a ready supply of recruits to replenish its
losses through battle and disease; especially a
professional standing army like the Roman.
One s own estimates show that around thirty
legions of five thousand men each would
require around 250 recruits per annum to train
up and maintain its battle effectiveness. Most of
these as we have seen came either from the
legion s traditional recruiting grounds. Those
of the Legions IX and X from Spain, certainly
recruited from there until around the middle of
the Ist Century. The famous IX Hispana, sent to
Britain from Pannonia in 43AD was therefore
better placed to receive these. Sea travel was
far cheaper and faster than road.
Academics often fail to understand their
subjects properly. The gentleman who one
mentioned above failed to understand that any
army to be battle effective must strike a healthy
balance between youth and experience. What
would be the point of having a middle-aged
army? Such a force would not be effective.
Older people suffer more injuries and one only
has to return to the heady days of the Republic
to understand properly the Roman attitude to
recruitment. Men had a duty to serve in at least
ten campaigns and present themselves when
requested for annual levies held every spring.

52
 The tribunes responsible for this evolved
quite an elaborate system to ensure a balance
of physical fitness and experience. Roman
military ages, started at around seventeen and
ended at around forty-six, if the man were fit.
There were men who served long after this age
but from around the mid thirties, these senior
experienced men, were placed in the rear as
triarii and is probably the origin of our word
‘tried’. These men formed a stiffening rear
echelon reserve, ready should the prnicipes and
hastati front ranks face defeat. In other words
the legion was designed very much to reflect
the age and experience of its members. The
younger ranks of the hastati and principes
would do most of the fighting as the youngest
and fittest and most importantly the keenest,
anxious to prove their courage before their
commander (Plutarch, Coriolanus 4).
So one has to agree, that assumptions that
Roman legions raised in one year, discharged
twenty-five years later, without levies in the
meantime, are rather unacademic. There are
records of Roman legions like the ones used by
Lucullus in the conquest of Asia, whose
mutinous behaviour nearly cost this excellent
soldier and Senator his life were kept in the East
for years after, as a punishment for their
behaviour but even these would have had to
recruit and train annual levies to maintain
fighting effectiveness.
This would not mean raising an entire
legion every year but certainly enough men to

53
replace casualties of battle and disease. We can
also read of the similar Senatorial actions to the
legions that were mauled so badly at Cannae.
These were sent to Sicily and not allowed home
until the end of the Second Carthaginian War
after they had recovered their reputations by
defeating Hannibal at Zama in 201BC. These
too, in order to maintain their battlefield
effectiveness would have had to take in recruits.
It is unthinkable for a fighting formation to be
allowed to dwindle and waste away in war. Even
in peacetime, British Army recruits men and
women from 18 to 35 years and these criteria
are strictly enforced, unless one is a bandsman
or qualified medical personnel. These latter
though will not usually be required to face the
job of frontline infantry. Also imagine the
demoralising effect on men in such a unit, were
it never to receive replacements. Basic military
requirements rely upon a steady supply of fit
replacements.
Certainly during the Empire, drafts or
vexillations from other units were a common
feature in this period. Hadrian apparently
brought the Legio VI Victrix with him when he
visited Britain to replace losses incurred during
recent troubles in the province. Raising legions
was no light matter. Again if we refer to the
Younger Pliny’s letters to Trajan, on a number of
occasions he refers to army recruits and
officers. Trajan is most anxious to maintain the
dignity and fighting composition of the army,
especially where slaves had tried to pass
themselves off as free Roman citizens and gain
54
entry into the legions. This was no annual levy
either. Augustus had raised new troops,
including freedmen, even slaves to replace
losses after the great Varian disaster of 12AD in
the German Teutoburgerwald (Annals 1.29-33).
These clamoured for the release of time expired
veterans and their own pay with demands for a
lowering of the numbers of years required to
serve down to sixteen years maximum rather
than the thirty or forty some had actually been
with the colours.
The point to be made is that the Roman
army like any society must be a balance of age
and experience. Imagine the effect, if all the
world’s young were killed by some mystery
virus leaving only people thirty-five years and
older. This would wipe out at a stroke most of
our ability to reproduce ourselves and mean
that for years the human race would continue to
decline as the fewer births to the women left
aged 35 to 48 would hardly make up for the
sharp reduction in young mothers available. The
effect would be catastrophic. Likewise the world
needs a balance in all matters. The result of
sameness or a narrowing of diversity would be
stagnation at worst or slowed development and
evolution at the very least. This is not to excuse
idiotic multiculturalism. We are here talking
about world diversity within ancient groupings
called family and nation state: the difference
between one family and another and between
one nation and another. This is the type of
traditional diversity that has allowed the human
race to advance and evolve in time and space.
55
 Likewise at the top end of the legion, only
the best were able to command and these, as in
most ancient societies came from the wealthy
landowning aristocracy or plutocratic elements
that increasingly influenced societies. We shall
return to this later. The Legionary commanders
were Roman Senators, members of a six
hundred strong ruling elite and a narrow range
of top families. Likewise the non- senatorial
tribunes augusticlavii, of whom there were
normally five to a legion as understudies for
future command, came from the very same
background. The one Senatorial tribune would
be especially marked out for future command of
legions and the more important governorships,
including the much prized Consulate. The only
difference between him was and his equestrian
colleagues, was not so much wealth, as a
deliberately chosen career path. T
he Senatorial Order was far less numerous
than the Equestrian but that did not preclude a
bright young man from aspiring to a political
career, and many a Senator had an eques
brother who perhaps preferred a mercantile
career to a political one with all the extra
responsibilities and dangers it brought,
especially the closer one came to the Imperator
at the top. The system worked very well indeed.
Modern generals have failed to understand the
significance of this military setup. Indeed, one in
particular, Field Marshal Montgomery was
scathing in his critique of the Roman army and
its command structure.

56
 The Roman legionary commander was not
solely a soldier; nor were his tribunes. The
Roman hierarchy based as it was around the
ancient mos maiorum, saw a close connection
between military and civilian functions of office.
There is strong evidence in archaeology that the
local garrison commanders, whether in charge
of a legion or just a small part of one were the
local magistrates as well. These would be the
local officials to whom, the local provincials
would appeal for a decision in certain matters of
legal or civil dispute. These local commanders,
including legionary legates were not only
soldiers but it seems district commissioners and
as such representative of the ruling authority
miles away. This power could of course be
abused by heavy handed behaviour as that
which stoked up the revolt in Britain in 61AD.
(Annals, xiv.30).
We sometimes find letters, preserved in
archaeological deposits referring to a centurion
regionarius. These appear to have been
territorial regional commissioners responsible
for their particular area and whose activities
included collecting information and dealing with
local security. His assistants, probably men from
a nearby legion (speculators) acted as the local
beat bobby . This man would either have
reported back to the nearest local garrison
commander or even to the governor in
Londinium. The Romans were very fond of
reporting on each other (Annals, xv.24.). The
whole Roman system was one of checks and
balances. Even the great Agricola suspected his
57
staff had men reporting back to the
administration in Rome.
All these men had imperium, originally
awarded to them by the Senate and People of
Rome but under the Empire, that is after
Augustus, delegated to them through the
representatives of the Emperor himself via his
provincial governors and legionary
commanders. That is why he was known as
imperator. The word ‘province’ derives from
provincia, actually means an area of
responsibility for which a Roman official was
given authority or imperium by the state. Every
so often, the Roman Senate had to renew the
powers of the Emperor by the award of a super
provincia, normally all those frontier regions of
the Empire in which legions were stationed and
together with an award of greater imperium
maius ensured that the more stable one man
rule continued. By the time of Tiberius, the
situation had stabilised enough to enable the
Senate to award full powers for life. However
Rome was still technically a respublica, and woe
betide a usurper who trod roughshod over the
Senate’s ancient prerogatives to award these
ancient powers as Hadrian and later incumbents
on the throne found to their cost.
We have drifted somewhat from our
discussion. Returning to the centurions above,
these men played an extremely important role
within the army and in local civilian life as we
have seen. Many were ex-rankers but some,
usually of very good family and often holding

58
the lower equestrian status, were commissioned
into the legions directly. These may have been
the sons of the not so wealthy who, perhaps
problems with land inheritance elected for a
worthwhile military career instead. All the
Centurions though were men of courage and
character. They led from the front and one can
read the horror, felt by Caesar at the numbers
lost during campaigns in Gaul and his
subsequent sorrow. He loved these men who he
regarded as the backbone of his legions and
worth twenty foppish tribunes and more.
The centurions were the professional
officer corps of the army. Many had come up
from the ranks to enjoy huge responsibility.
These men were not simple non-commissioned
officers but senior officers and company
commanders. The lowest would rank as a major
in our times with the top echelons of the
Centurionate being the equivalents to today s
rank of Brigadier. Some would go onto become
higher still as governors and procurators of the
regime. Caesar even made the most worthy
Senators.
The Roman system from top to bottom
actively encouraged its members, Roman and
otherwise to assimilate. It did not award the
rights that went with it immediately. However,
over time maybe years, even more it bred a
system that stretched from Scotland to the
Persian Gulf where even today one will find the
ruins of vast ancient cities. This had been a
common culture that in many ways still is the

59
superior of our own. Of course it had its faults
like all systems but that is no need to denigrate
it.
It was the whole basis of our own, even
modern Islam if some would care to look and
examine more closely. As one who has studied
to greater or lesser degree both Rome and
Islam, I can vouchsafe the fact that both have
much in common especially in the way they
both had systems based upon social hierarchy
and relational reciprocity.
A Roman legionary would have needed a
letter of recommendation in order to enter any
legion. There are letters between Trajan and
Pliny on this very subject need the needs to
maintain high standards in the ranks. After
swearing an oath, the recruit entered a period
of tough training and psychological toughening
up that, as Josephus famously stated made
Roman battle like training and training like
battle. The recruit, should he successfully
complete basic training then became the lowest
rank of serving soldier or privatus/miles
simplex.
Through hard work, courage and tenacity,
and more importantly the carefully judged eye
of a senior officer, the man could become a
beneficarius and therefore exempted from some
of the obligatory duties expected of an ordinary
soldier. If he did not have a trade on entry he
was now expected to gain one and this too
could place him in a special category of service.
These men were in fact the NCOs or sergeants
60
and corporals of the Roman Legion. His rise
through the ranks could take him into the lower
Centurionate and if particularly gifted higher
still, especially into civilian administration.
The non Roman auxiliaries served for
around 25 years as well but enjoyed perhaps
one third of the pay of their citizen
counterparts. If however, they joined the elite
cavalry they could earn as much, if not more
than their auxiliary and legionary counterparts
put together. This reflected the great
importance placed upon the lack of cavalry in
the Roman army from earlier times. In many
ways this arm was the most important and
effective. Its importance finally superseded the
classic legionary infantry in the later empire, a
position it held unchallenged right through the
Middle-Ages.
On discharge, the auxiliary would be awarded
the prized citizenship and his ‘marriage’ and
children would be legally recognised. It was
from these that future Roman soldier citizens
came. Likewise in the case of a discharged
legionary any relationship would be legitimated
and a bronze plaque stating that the man had
served well given to the veteran, in order that
he could gain his land and pension but more
importantly an introduction to work in civilian
life, where a military career and good conduct
record opened up doors for the man and his
family.

61
 (3)
The Conqueror, Conquered

The Eastern half of the Roman Empire was

a totally different world from the Western half.
Greek and Semitic civilisations had existed for
thousands of years before the advent of Rome
into that world around 250 years before Christ.
Rome had indeed sent delegations to the
various religious shrines in Greece and knew of
the Egyptians but she herself was largely
ignored by the Greek and Phoenician city-states
placed around the Mediterranean. She even
had a treaty around 509BC with the City-state of
Carthage banning her from the Western
Mediterranean and giving her in return free
access to the lands of Italy. However Rome was
not a seagoing power at this early date.
As an aside this date given by Polybius is
most interesting since it was during this year
that Roman respublica had commenced. Did the
Romans look to Carthage as an outside ally in
the face of Etruscan attempts to retake the city
after the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus? The
Carthaginians had already clashed with the
Etruscans over their trading interests and
annexation of territory in Sardinia and Corsica.
So to have a friendly state to the Etruscans'
south was in the interests of the Punic state.
Carthage was also a republic ruled by two
62
annually elected rulers entitled Suffetes. These
also acted in unison with a Senate and an
assembly of the People.
There is no real comparison with the
Roman constitution, simply because from the
start, Rome's elite was a genuine oligarchic
aristocracy based upon ancient privilege rather
than plutocratic wealth. Did Rome however
adapt the idea of annually elected magistrates
to her own peculiar needs through contact with
Carthage and southern Greek city-states like
Tarentum that had been founded as a colony by
Sparta? This would be an early example of
assimilation of other peoples' ideas.
Rome of course was not new to the
influence of the Orient. Indeed there is a period
around 700 to 600BC that is often refereed to as
the orientalising period. Although this influence
is also found in post dark age Greece, its
transmission through Greek and Phoenician
traders into Italy and further west is important,
since it is from this early date that Rome fell
under the civilising power of many ideas and
artistic influences of peoples she was later to
overcome. The long evolution from primitive
city-state into the queen of a sophisticated
Romano-Hellenic civilisation had commenced.
Rome was actually to clash with Tarentum
just before the Ist Punic War. She appealed to
Pyrrhus, King of Epirus who tried at first to
mediate between the Romans and the southern
Greek State in the heel of Italy. Tarentum sank
four Roman galleys and refused to pay for them.
63
The original dispute had been between Rome
and the Etruscans.
From Pyrrhus, Rome learned about the use
of elephants and adapted its legionary tactics
accordingly, after being beaten by the Greek
general. So hard and costly though, did Pyrrhus
find these battles against the Romans, that he
eventually sailed away, unable to sustain such
losses in men and equipment; hence our
modern term a 'Pyrrhic victory' when describing
a situation, wherein a competition may have
cost the winning participant so much as to
nullify any advantage to be gained.
We do not have the space within this work
to narrate the history of Rome's involvement
with the Greek world. She was gradually drawn
into the troubles within Greece and Asia Minor
by the continued internecine strife between
factions, within and without the Greek city-
states. Many of these problems had come about
because of the King of Macedon's attempts to
ally himself with Rome's bitter enemy Carthage
(Livy, War With Hannibal, Bk xxiii, 33-34.).
Philip saw Rome as a threat to his desire to
control the eastern coattail region of Greece
along the Adriatic down towards the
Peloponnese. Rome suffered the effects of
piracy from these areas that consisted of
offshore islands as well as land-locked states of
varying degrees of sophistication.
Queen Teuta was perhaps the most famous
ruler within this area. Her ships were accused of
looting Italian vessels (Polybius, The Rise of The
64
Roman Empire, BkII, 8-9.) and this was used as
a pretext to declare war, although many
authors, ancient and modern, cast doubt upon
the Romans' reasons for going to war with her
and tend to see it as a Roman Consul's desire
for military fame in the stiving for political clout
at Rome itself.
There is much debate about why Rome
intervened here and there. Some like to follow
the idea that Rome did indeed fight defensively
and there is no doubt she did not want to
become embroiled in foreign politics to a large
extent. Flamininus declared the Freedom of
Greece in 196BC (Polybius, Bk xviii, 46, ibid) at
the Isthmian Games. However lasting peace
there was not to be. King Antiochus invaded
Asia Minor and Thrace drawing Rome into
another war. She was now well and truly
embroiled within the Greek world, the city-
states and alliances of which had become her
clients. Despite efforts by the likes of Flamininus
to minimise the effects of Rome's rule within the
heartland of Greece (Polybius, Bkxviii, 45-46,
ibid), Rome was now the owner of an empire
she was ill suited to rule without reorganising
herself politically and institutionally from a city
state to imperial mistress.
In many ways the Senate was wise
realising her incapacity to rule a large empire
and appears to have preferred a system of
indirect rule, wherein she could decide foreign
policy of her client states whilst leaving them to
rule and organise themselves much as they had

65
done in the past. One must be cautious however
in this assessment.
Rome's entire political system was based
upon a highly competitive system of patronage
and political reward that saw victory in war as a
basis for rising through the cursus honorem.
Despite the protestations of those like
Flamininus, who may have acted and talked as
they did in order to win favour and gain clients
to increase support for their own political
standing back at the centre in Rome itself,
Rome was in the main the aggressor. It really
was a case of, Meanwhile back at the ranch….
T. Mommsen and his followers may have
seen this as the defensive stance of Rome but
most modern scholars now see this as naïve,
seeing instead Rome's advance into the East
and West as a continuation of a past tradition of
war and conquest to enhance the power of
Rome and her politicians. The so called
reluctance of Rome's Senate and People to
annexe directly land and peoples may be due
more to her inability to provide adequate
resources in money and manpower than a
genuine recalcitrance to control others in the
name of Rome.
Her politicians still aspired to the highest
offices of state and for that they needed money,
clients and legions. War and conquest provided
just these but they also placed a huge and
increasingly unsustainable tension upon the
ancient constitution of the Roman respublica

66
and the mos maiorum best translated as
ancient ways.
Add to this, the increased influence and
assimilation of far more sophisticated ancient
political ideas and systems of democracy to be
found in the mainland of Greece, together with
the highly cultivated philosophic ideational and
artistic creations of that world and one finds a
potential for revolution that threatened the very
basis of the Roman respublica. Already in Rome
important aristocratic Scipios were known for
their appreciation of all things Hellenic. It is
always the upper classes who lead. This is one
reason why Rome like most successful empires
sought to win over the upper classes of the
conquered. Greek ideas of democracy were
anathema to Rome.
Polybius was fortunate enough to become
friends with the adopted son of the victor of
Pydna. The Scipio's were an ancient family and
heavily influenced by Hellenistic civilisation and
ideas that raised the suspicions of the more
conservative elements within the Roman ruling
classes. We may here quite Plutarch in his Life
of Cato the Censor (elder)…Most of the Romans
………were well content to see their sons
embrace Greek culture and frequent the
company of such estimable men Carneades
and Diogenes the Greek philosphers (author's
insertion). But Cato from the moment this
passion for discussion first entered Rome, was
disturbed (Cato 22, Penguin Classics London
1965, Trans: Scott-Kilvert, Ed: B. Radice, R.

67
Baldick). He feared that the younger generation
might allow their ambitions to be diverted
towards oratory at the expense of traditional
Roman valour through feats of arms.
Cato was probably the most extreme in his
attempts to censure all things Greek by various
methods that included trying to expel all
philosophers from Rome. Cato was eccentric but
there is good cause to believe that his concerns
for the undermining of Rome's traditional
virtues through the importation of wealth and
ideas from across the water. For example he
attacked the so called Greek set in Rome by
ejecting Lucius Scipio from the Equestrian
Order, Lucius was the brother no less of the
great Africanus. Cato also attempted to tax and
control the growth of luxury items from Greece
and elsewhere (Cato, 18, ibid). Although this
made him unpopular with the wealthy it does to
some degree show to us the speed of
assimilation that was taking place within the
rather conservative Roman respublica of his day
around 200-150BC.
In the same year of 146BC as Corinth was
reduced to ashes by the Roman general
Mummius on direct orders from the Senate,
Rome finally finished the war with her old
enemy Carthage. It had been Cato and his kind
who had played upon the fears of the Punic
state's revival. The cry of Hannibal ad Portas
was deeply ingrained into every Roman's
consciousness. Scipio Aemilanus the dear friend
of Polybius is said to have cried at the destroyed

68
city's fate. Was he shedding tears at the death
of such a fine city, like the cultured hellenophile
he was or seeing into the future and seeing his
beloved Rome suffering the same terrible fate?
We are observing through these events the
gradual assimilation of Hellenistic thought and
culture among the elite at Rome itself. However
the problems for the Roman State were far more
complicated than questions of wealth and
luxuries imported from a civilisation regarded as
decadent and therefore soft. The problems
caused to the Roman way of life were very real.
Cato was a visionary and saw rightly the
problems such influences would have upon the
constitution and traditional way of life that had
served Rome so well since her foundation,
around 800BC.
The Romans had their version of class war
stretching back into the remote past. This is not
the beloved class war of Marxist philosophy but
a peple trying to find common cause. There
were no means of production to control, no
worker power but there was the need to find
consensus between the plebeians on one hand
and the aristocratic Patricians on the other. So
the entire common people of Rome had on more
than one occasion walked out of the city and
demanded redress and possibly office from the
ruling Patrician oligarchy. Many of these so
called plebeians were actually quite wealthy in
their own right. So between 494 and 449, three
things of great political importance took place
upon the first legendary secession of the

69
Plebeian majority to a nearby hill and the
installation of protectors of the people or
Tribuneship of the Plebs. The Tribuneship
tribunus plebis was a powerful plebeian office
that was destined to play a major role in future
city and imperial events. Only Plebeians though
could hold it. The second event was the
publication of the Tewlve Tables in stone of
Roman Law. The third was the publication of a
legal handbook by one Cnaeus Fulvius, the son
of a freedman.
The date given for these, varies from 449
to around 304BC when Appius Claudius the
Blind or Caecus, saw that the only way to
protect Rome from a series of bloody defeats at
the hands of the Samnites, a vicious mountain
people, was to prevent a further plebeian
secession by giving way to demands for legal
redress and protection by the plebeians against
rapacious magistrates. This is a recurrent theme
within the early Roman Empire and does not
reach its full evolution until the Principate. One
of the biggest problems was enslavement for
debt or nexus.
This situation had a direct effect upon the
recruitment of Roman soldiers for the annual
military levies. One could not enrol an enslaved
plebeian into these bodies and so critical was
the situation at times that drastic solutions had
to be found to resolve them. These problems
were to continue to dog Rome for centuries
after the foundation of the respublica in 509BC.

70
 The important thing from our point of view,
is that these problems were to be found across
the Italo-Greek city-state world, as citizen
fought citizen for various privileges, in what the
Greeks themselves termed stasis. They were
problematic enough in themselves, even at this
early and localised level, wherein city republic
fought other smaller city republics.
Visionary men such as Appius Claudius
Caecus (Livy ix, 29, 6, Diodorus xx, 36,) could
reorganise the courts, change political decisions
and an individual's role in them, so that
plebeian voting rights and ability to make law
within the popular assembly concilium plebis
would therefore be enhanced as it was in 287,
when plebiscita or decisions passed by the
plebeians in full assembly, became legally
binding on all Romans, whether patrician,
plutocrat or commoner through the lex
Hortensia.
Military problems had been at the basis of
these reforms. The cost of hoplite armour was
high and only the rich could afford it. The
Patricians needed the support of the wealthy
plebeians if they were to maintain the numbers
necessary for the Greek phalanx. The system
developed by Philip and utilised to such terrible
effect by his son. The rich proletariat demanded
access to the state magistracies. This was the
real basis of the Roman so called struggle of the
orders. Appius Claudius Caecus had to
reorganise the Roman army in such a manner

71
capable of defeating the savage Samnites.
Rome at this stage was confined to Italy.
She was soon to be drawn into wars further
afield. By the beginning of the second century,
recruitment was a real problem despite various
measures to alleviate the problems by lowering
the property qualification. In 133BC, the famous
tribune Tiberius Gracchus tried to improve
recruitment by allotting the illegally held public
lands within the hands of rich owners by a
redistribution. This would have allowed
propertyless plebs to re-enter the lists of able
bodied men eligible for recruitment into the
citizen legions. Many of these same, had been
serving in Greece, Asia Minor and less popular
areas such as Spain for years at a time and
found themselves destitute upon their return
and their lands sold off to speculators.
They either re-enlisted or drifted to Rome
itself and joined the proletariat who could not
serve in the legions. This seriously diminished
the reserves of available manpower, a greater
strain upon the allies who themselves were
experiencing the same problems from the same
cause in raising legions for Rome and her wars.
Many with the Latin Right drifted to Rome and
joined the plebeian mob. Although they became
full citizens under ancient privileges granted to
them by ancient treaties termed foedus
aequam, they nevertheless became a burden to
the Roman welfare system, or what passed for
one. Most became clients to Roman patrons who
used their vote to further his career. Attempts

72
were made to expel these landless peasants
from Rome. One M. Junius Pennus tried to do
this in 126BC (Cicero, de off . 3.47; cf. Brutus
109, D. Stockton, The Gracchi, Chap V, p. 94.
Oxford 1979).
During the tenure of Tiberius Gracchus, old
King Attalus of Pergamum died leaving his
kingdom to the People of Rome. Tiberius seized
upon this windfall and demanded legislation
through the concilium plebis that the riches
from Pergamum be utilised to settle his landless
clients upon the 500 jugera demanded by his
famous law establishing a land commission to
examine and action his reforms. One uses the
term client deliberately here. This is how the
patron-client system worked. By obtaining
benefits such as land and money, a politician
could gain to himself a whole class of
disaffected poor who in effect relied upon him,
and he alone for their rescue from destitution.
We shall see this same phenomenon appear
under far more dangerous circumstances, when
whole armies became clients of a general.
One thing though had become clear, the
Struggle of the Orders was no longer confined
to just the narrow interests of the City and
respublica but had entered upon the Imperial
stage and destiny of Rome. City solutions would
not suffice.
What is more, Greek culture, thought and
philosophy would have infected every strata of
Roman society, especially Romans serving in
Greece or Asia Minor. Some of those ideas apart
73
from wanting the benefits and comfort of a
higher ancient civilisation would have included
Greek ideas of democracy and democratic
representation. Benefactions and benefactors in
the Greek world were in many ways more highly
evolved than those at Rome itself.
The Roman soldier far away from the
idealised Italian countryside would have seen
Greek democracy in action. He would have
stood in the agora of many a Greek city and
seen for himself the benefits of Greek life, the
libraries, magnificent public buildings,
gymnasiums, theatres, all the benefits of public
life to be had in that region: even public lighting
but above all the very real political power of the
Individual citizen within cities such as Athens.
Contrast this to the sordid squalor of Rome's
Subura or the dilapidated farm that he knew
very well existed after years of military service,
is it any wonder that tensions at all levels of
Roman society faced a revolution from within?
Elites in any society ancient or modern
must keep in mind their responsibilities to those
less fortunate than themselves. The Romans
always supported the elite in any society they
overcame, whether in civilised Greece or Iron
Age Britain. It was to kings, queens and chiefs
they appealed. These were the people with
money and power. Rome did not trust Greek
democracy. She trusted oligarchs; aristocrats
and rulers whose preservation of power was
equivalent to serving Rome's interests. Rome
preserved these elites. However, should they

74
have ever fallen short of Rome's expectations,
she was quick to replace them.
She expected her puppets to ensure the
collection of taxes and to keep the local
underclass quiescent. The very execution of
Jesus Christ makes this fact clear. Pilate found
no fault in the man but he was fearful of a
Jewish revolt, Jesus went to the cross for
political expediency.
The Romans did have a conscience though.
There was no point in butchering whole tribes if
they could be made to settle down under
Roman rule. There were cases of governors
prosecuted for exceeding their authority.
Suetonius Paulinus was reined in by Nero for
excess of this kind. Too many Roman citizens
killed was another thing the Senate disapproved
of. Death and destruction do not suit empires. If
one wishes to lose a province quickly then
ransack it, This is what happened in the
respublica. The coming of the emperors meant
that Roman governors had to be professional in
their dealings with the local population. Several
governors were prosecuted before the Senate
under Tiberius. The likes of Mummius were a
dying breed.
Assimilation of ideas and outlook takes
time. It subtle effects are not always
immediately apparent.. The Roman soldiers
returning from the sack of Corinth by Mummius
would have seen the wealth and richness of that
city. They may not have carried away as much
as their general, who was rumoured to have
75
sent home galleys of the stuff but nevertheless
their outlooks and attitudes would have been
seriously challenged. These would in time, have
communicated themselves to the populations to
which they returned, namely Rome itself and
the Italian mainland.
Corinth was one of the oldest Greek poleis.
Its only real rival had been Athens and possibly
Argos. Athens had a long history of democracy.
This was not the Roman style democracy either.
During the fifth century, her population had
experimented with something akin to our own
modern ideas in such matters. She had been
fortunate to have a series of tyrants who
reorganised her political system in order to
protect themselves from rival aristocratic
factions.
One of them, Cleisthenes redistributed the
Athenians into ten new tribes equally placed
across the state so that these drew from all
sections of available citizens irrespective of
traditional territorial origins so breaking up the
old oligarchic power base. In 487BC a new law
was passed establishing a lottery system for the
election of Archons the annually elected rulers
of Athens. This finally broke the hold of the old
aristocracy upon this high office. Eventually all
offices of state were selected by lot. There was
also the institution of Ostracism Ostrakophoria
introduced by Cleisthenes wherein six thousand
or more citizens could rid themselves of
unpopular Athenians and others. Themistocles
was one of their more famous victims.

76
 This method of selection was carried out
by inscribing names of undesirables on
potsherds Ostrakon and drawing them out of a
sealed container and counting them. Anyone
with their name inscribed enough times upon
these pieces of pottery was expelled from
Athens.
Athens was far more of a true democracy
than Rome ever was. An example mentioned
Plutarch's Life of Themistocles shows this
clearly. Athens was at war with the powerful
island state of Aegina that possessed a powerful
fleet. The Athenians were short of ships and
Themistocles rose up and proposed that the
silver from the rich mines of Laurium be utilised
for the purpose of building these. The Athenians
had been in the habit of sharing this largesse
among themselves. Themistocles carried the
day. One could not imagine the same process
happening within the Roman assemblies without
a lot of unpleasantness and even death asa
happened in the cases of the Gracchi when they
proposed the sensible measures of
redistributing land. The all powerful Senatorial
oligarchy jealously fought for its perceived
traditional privileges. What is more those who
attended the various political assemblies in
Athens were paid.
Athens was probably the only truly
democratic society that ever existed. A citizen
could meander around the city, debate
philosophy, shade himself under the trees that
sheltered Plato's Academy and socialise with

77
men high and low. He could take himself off to
the theatre and watch a play by Euripides that
in itself may have had serious political comment
to make. In short the Athenian had a very real
political voice. He also had direct access to
politicians through the assembled Demos or
People of Athens, a far cry from the situation
today in Britain or America. Roman soldiers and
aristocrats living albeit temporarily in the city
would have seen this living democracy first
hand and assimilated those facts. In other
times, aristocrats like Rabirius Postumus would
choose exile in a Greek polis and amuse the
locals with scurrilous cartoons of Roman
politicians. The future Emperor Tiberius chose to
spend his exile in Rhodes around 6AD and there
is no doubt that Greek ideas of republican
democracy affected this sensitive and learned
man sickened by the sycophancy of his own city
under Augustus.
The plain fact is that individuals who travel
for whatever reason can have their ideas
changed forever. Soldiers away from home for
long periods often drift into liaisons with local
women and others. This softens the harshness
of service away from home. This is actually the
start of assimilation. Many British diplomats and
officials went 'native' under the old Empire in
India. Many could not bring themselves to leave
upon independence in 1947. It had become
their home. This author still regards the
Mediterranean as his rightful home after living
there for years as a boy.

78
 So it was with Romans in these early days
and later under the fully developed Roman
Empire. The hostages taken at Carrhae in 54BC
ran away from the Parthian authorities who tried
to return them to Rome after the Eastern
Settlement of the Emperor Augustus around
20BC when the captured eagles were returned.
They had gone native.
Many years later, Tacitus describes the
people of Rome being absolutely shocked by the
appearance of troops from the Northern Frontier
who appeared in Rome with the entry of
Vitellius in 69AD. At the Second Battle of
Cremona, the Third Legion based in Syria and a
long way from home greeted the rising sun in
accordance with Syrian custom. (Tacitus,
Histories, 3. 25).
Eastern legions had a reputation for being
rather soft. Tacitus (Annals xiii, 34) informs us
that Corbulo, the famous Roman general had to
stiffen their resolve by making them camp out
in the mountains in mid-winter snows.
Apparently desertions were much reduced. The
troops were not used to fighting and many had
been softened by years of inactivity on the
Parthian frontier where life in the towns was
more than agreeable. Some had not even
bothered to train or wear armour for years and
even sold it.
All this evidence even if anecdotal points
to the degree of assimilation to be found within
the empire. In the western half, the degree of
Romanisation depended largely upon the
79
degree to which a Gaul or Britain took to Roman
life and its benefits. In his Agricola, Tacitus is
quite scathing of this fact. He feels that the
noble Gaul and Briton have succumbed to the
wiles of Roman life and even sees it as a form of
enslavement.
We must be weary of reading too much
into Tacitus' writings. He was part of the ruling
elite and writing from his and his partisans'
narrow point of view. He was living in somewhat
easier times under the beneficent rule of Trajan
and obviously wanted to show these as good
and better ones than those under tyrants such
as Domitian.
Talk of Roman soldiers succumbing to the
luxuriant and decadent ways of the East are
also probably no more than a common literary
pose. The man was writing after all about his
heroes Agricola and the great general Corbulo,
both victims of unpleasant rulers. Tacitus and
his fellows had to kep one eye on the throne
and its occupant, even one like Trajan. Indeed
his adoption by Marcus Cocceius Nerva was
hardly peaceful with the Northern legions ready
to move against the diffident Emperor should
the adoption not go through. Despite the
rhetoric, Trajan was no stranger to intrigue and
neither was his successor and 'adopted' son
Hadrian whose elevation to the purple was
questioned until the day he died and who
apparently put five of Trajan's marshals to death
as they disagreed to his reorganisation of the
previous reign's conquests. But hard times

80
require hard men even if they are nice
emperors.
Archaeology can assist us here to some
extent. Excavations beyond the Rhine and
within its hinterland have found an amazing
degree of Romanisation among so called
barbarians. The Rhine was no barrier to this
form of assimilation. Further afield in Britain, we
find sophisticated and very Roman ways of
livinh even in so called barren frontier zones like
Hadrian's Wall. This region, especially around
Vindolanda appears to have even been growing
grape vines.
At the deserted Roman fortress of
Inchtuthil outside Aberdeen, the Twentieth
Valeria left behind Samian wear, various types
of pottery of local and imported manufacture.
Mortaria used for grinding seed for corn etc,
was of a standard type found on many military
sites dating from the Flavian period. This type
known simply as '85' was actually of local
manufacture. Pitts and Joseph the original
excavators of the fortress reported that, 'No, 85
is a typical widely made mortaria found in…
(author's insertion) pre-Flavian at Usk, where it
was one of the forms produced, and at
Fishbourne (Cunliffe 1971), Camulodunum
(Hawkes and Hill 1947, p. 53, No 23), Kingsholm
and elsewhere. It was not made in the highly
successful commercial potteries in the
Verulamium region and Gaul…. There is the
possibility that it was made primarily or solely
by the Army. The Inchtuthil workshop which

81
produced these mortaria along with other types
of pottery would certainly be military, and the
two features already mentioned, the unusual
concentric scoring and profiles of No.s 84 and
85, suggest that it was working in a
conservative tradition (Pitts and St. Joseph
1985).
Also found on this site and others were
amphorae from Spain. In particular those found
at various sites in obviously military contexts
include the famous 'carrot type' amphorae
Camulodunum 189 has also been found along
with six of its kind there. Other types of
amhorae found at Inchtuthil included Dressel
20, Spanish, Dressel 2-4 and Dressel 30. As one
archaeologist remarked the contents of these
were probably of greater interest to the Roman
officers than Britons. However, is this actually
the case?
We have side tracked to some degree but
the fact that armies took their ways of life and
habit with them is important. By the late third
Century AD, Britain in particular, enjoyed an
economic boom and with it the most luxurious
flowering of Romanitas. Sophisticated mosaics,
luxurious furnishing in equally luxurious houses,
rare end exotic foods and wines, indeed all the
benefits of Empire.
One example is the Roman villa at Cock
Farm near Abinger Hamer near Dorking, Surrey.
It is a second to third century villa The 1995
field report by Mr Steve Dyer, Archeological
Consultant to Surrey Archaeological Society
82
reported finding in situ wall plaster, walls of
opus cementicum and stone, roofing tiles and
most interestingly a highly sophisticated
tasteful mosaic….. The tesserae of the mosaic
are from seven colours. The layout and style of
the floor indicates that this room formed the
triclinium, or dining room of the building. On
stylistic evidence of the spirals and foot to the
cantharus the mosaic can be dated to the early
forth century, the nearest parallels to the
workmanship and style being found at
Keynsham, Avon, possibly indicating work from
a school of mosaicists in Bristol or Bath Area.
Mr Dyer's description of the mosaic states
… The Centre of the floor consists of a
cantharus, or two handled drinking cup, facing
towards the south where a wide door, was
partially indicated by square cut greensand
blocks. The three corners that were revealed
within the room, and presumably the fourth
unexcavated one, consist of vine leaves within
a circular guilloche. The panel to the top of the
central cantharus and presumably the missing
bottom panel consist of sixteen petalled flower
bordered by a spiral band within the octagonal.
The two panels to the side of the central
cantharus are eight petalled flowers, again
bordered by a spiral band. All these panels are
bordered, as is the entire decorative section of
the floor, with a guilloche.
Britain supposed by many to be a frontier
province and unwelcoming to the Mediterranean
Romans and others who came here appears to

83
have been nothing of the sort. It was as
receptive of Romano-hellenistic civilisation and
life as much if not more than other areas. The
inhabitants of the villa above were sophisticated
owners and they were far from alone in this so
called frontier province that has revealed in
recent years an unexpected level of Roman
sophistication and taste equal to anywhere in
the Empire in the west at least.
In conclusion, we therefore appear to have
a combined process in this so-called question of
assimilation: Hellenised Romans and Italians in
the East on the one hand and provincials in the
Western empire hungrily adopting Roman
hellenised ways from this powerful combined
influence. This was why Rome survived so long
beyond empires like the British because she
new that in order to govern she needed to
retain the loyalty and cooperation of those
ruling elites she had conquered. They identified
their cause with hers. Rome also insisted on all
members of the empire becoming more or less
Roman if they were to enjoy her gifts. We have
much to learn from her in this day and age.

(4)
The Roman Army on Campaign

Agricola and the Invasion of the North: Tacitus and

Historical Interpretation
84
It appears rather fashionable at present to
downgrade the achievements of men from the
past, especially if they were prominent and that
eminence strikes a chord of insensitivity among
modern day elites. For example, Napoleon
would have been quite pleased with some of his
later press many years after his death but
recently several revisionist authors have
questioned his greatness as a military man.
These same revisionist historians have also
questioned the accepted version of events of
not only Napoleon's era but also even the
Second World War wherein many survivors are
still in the full bloom of a very healthy old age.
The most famous of course is Mr Irving whose
appearance at a libel trial caused a sensation in
the press.
We are not here to debate the rights and
wrongs of Mr Irving's case. However it does
raise a number of very important questions as
to how we should review history, especially
when it comes to interpreting Tacitus. Mr Irving
had the courage to question certain perceptions
of the Holocaust held by modern society. One
does not have to agree with Mr Irving but there
is no doubt he is an excellent researcher who is
thorough in his investigations and has had
unusually close contact with many of the
families whose fathers, husbands, or
grandfathers fought on the German side at
General staff and party level. He came to his
own conclusions no matter how far fetched they

85
seem to the rest of Academia and the world at
large in the post war era. The point being made
here is that an academic in order to be a scholar
must follow the truth even if that is sometimes
unpalatable.
However, any conclusions so drawn must
be justified by hard evidence. We cannot grow
as human beings if everytime somebody prints
a controversial piece, the media and
mainstream academia of the day attack such a
person as Irving in paroxysms of outrage and
hysteria. Free speech and debate is essential to
a healthy democracy. People's opinions must be
respected otherwise, truth and debate die and
fear takes over. We are seeing this happen to a
large degree already. This is one main reason
why people today have such a distrust of
politics and fail to vote. We should all take a leaf
out of the great left-wing historian AJP Taylor
who stated in his Foreword to Churchill's History
of the English Speaking Peoples that if one
'ignored rubbish it generally went away'(1968).
Those who pounced on Mr Irving might like to
bear this in mind before they made him a
martyr.
That does not mean one has to ignore
Tacitus and his assessment of Agricola. But
Tacitus belonged to the Roman Senate and
therefore represented a very upper class view of
his father in law. If we as historians are having
difficulty concerning the veracity of events sixty
or so years ago, how are we to cope with
questions of history and campaigns from eighty

86
years or so after Christ? Especially so when the
only version of events is a testimony we
possess in copies which are far more than third
or fourth hand.
The Agricola itself must have been copied
many hundreds of time down the ages, and it is
well known that scribes make errors in their
transliterate work, which is why debate among
modern classicists is usually about philological
problems and often based upon the ending of
one word or other which can literally alter an
academic's view of his period. Tacitus, like
Winston Churchill in our time was obviously
anxious to have his version of events held to be
the true version. In both politics played a huge
role. Churchill claimed in his version of the
Battle of Britain that Air Chief Marshal Dowding
informed him that twenty-five squadrons was all
that he needed to defend Britain against the
Luftwaffe. Dowding denied this (C.Wilmot,
Struggle for Europe 1951. Churchill History of
Second World War Vol. II, p38 1948).
Tacitus in a similar vein says of his hero
after Agricola had reached a point no Roman
Army had before and thrashing the Caledonii,
'Fired with self-confidence and the glory of his
victory, the army protested that no obstacle
could bar its brave advance&. Even the
conservative strategists of yesterday were
forward and boastful enough after the victory
(Agricola 27, Tacitus). Tacitus was like all
senators a staunch Republican and only just
tolerated 'good emperors' like Trajan. The truth

87
is that Tacitus owed much to the Flavians and it
was only after the death of Domitian that he
dared write his eulogy to Agricola.
Agricola is above all a political pamphlet.
The author goes at some length to compare the
present good times with the bad old days of the
former regime. Trajan had come to the throne
under rather forced circumstances in that his
predecessor did not have much choice but to
adopt him as his successor, otherwise there
would have been civil war. An ailing and senile
old man is an easy target for rebellion. So
anything, which enhances the new
Establishment, is welcome particularly from one
whom had ingratiated himself with the old
regime and had a little covering up to do and
favour to win of the fellow at the top. However,
we should not be blind to the informative
material that is contained in the Agricola. It is to
that we now turn.
The problems of trying to analyse
Agricola's campaigns have been compounded
by interpretations of modern historians and
archaeologists. Many of them despite highly
creditable work and investigations have
consistently failed to agree the ultimate success
or failure of Agricola in his military exploits.
Ironically, it is writers such as Leonard Cottrell in
the 1950s who give the most positive and
interesting interpretations of Agricola's skills.
Cottrell has been criticised as too unscholarly
for modern academic tastes but from a modern

88
soldier's analysis of campaign it is first rate,
simply because it makes good military sense.
Choosing from today's scholars, the best
seem to be Sheppard Frere and William Hanson.
There are of course brief accounts by Peter
Salway and Hugh Scullard but none approach
the analytical qualities inherent in Hanson or
the very fine logistical-historical interpretation
of Frere. The best of Frere is to be found in the
twelfth edition of the Scottish Archaeological
Forum published in 1981. William Hanson took
part in this study of Agricola's campaigns as
well.
From a purely military interpretation, the
best version of events is that written by Frere in
the publication cited above, entitled, 'The
Flavian Frontier in Scotland.' Frere has made the
basic assumptions that the 'glen blocking forts'
are indeed Agricolan and supports this by
reference to The Agricola, Chap 25, 3. This is
the point in Tacitus' narrative where the
Caledonii attacked a fort or forts and this led
some Roman officers to counsel withdrawal
behind the Forth-Clyde Isthmus. Frere states
that it hardly made sense for the Romans to
retreat behind the Isthmus if the fort was not
further north.
If we examine Agricola 23, we find that the
Isthmus had been fortified and territory to the
south secured. This event probably took place in
81AD but it does not have to mean that
outposts did not exist further north. They
certainly existed in Hadrian's time and that of
89
the Antonine Wall. From a logistical and
strategic point of view it made good military
sense to have forward observation posts
manned in some strength. It would be
necessary to provide early warning of enemy
movement and therefore provide suitable
accommodation for forward cavalry and infantry
patrolling and reconnaissance. Besides these
forward posts would secure the area against
surprise attack but more importantly for our
purposes it is good military practice that still
goes on today. Only a complacent commander
would fail to secure not only his rear but frontal
areas as well.
A good commander will always 'recce' an
area himself rather than leave it to minions.
Obviously intelligence is gathered from many
sources, clandestine and otherwise. Modern
operations are a lot more mobile and faster than
Roman times with enemy troops advancing well
into the rear of the defender. One role of the
Special Services is to maintain ground
observation posts in the captured areas in order
to keep reporting vital information to their own
side in preparation for a counter attack. But
more than this these posts which have been
bypassed by the enemy provide not only
observation points but also centres of resistance
against invading forces tying down valuable
enemy troops, sometimes in large numbers.
When the counter attack comes it means of
course that one has men and equipment
already to hand thereby maintaining a grip on
territory and further confusing the enemy.
90
These forward bases often serve as
embarkation points for offensive operations in
the enemy's rear. This was the lesson Orde
Wingate taught the modern British Army in
Burma. He took whole command and control
headquarters with him, including field-hospitals,
which gave him a series of huge independent
military commands able to fight the Japanese in
their rear but with all the materiel and men
necessary to wage war supplied from the air. He
tied down thousands of enemy troops.
At Arnhem, dropping paratroops behind
German lines made a forward thrust. By doing
this Montgomery had hoped to secure a
bridgehead well in the rear of the enemy. He
dithered by failing to send in heavy armoured
and infantry support and subsequently the
British at Arnhem had to fight against heavy
German attacks. But they were very well dug in.
They took a lot of enemy with them. Finally an
ordered withdrawal was made. But the lesson is
clear- forward defence is vital supported by a
good heavily defended rear. If Frere is right then
we are beginning to see something of the type
of commander Agricola was.
Military science demands forward planning
and observation/ intelligence gathering in great
detail. Only a very stupid commander would fail
to do so. It is more than likely that the Roman
line of forts on the Forth-Clyde line was a
bridgehead to be used as a 'jump-off point' for
future campaigns further up the Island towards
John O'Groats and hence Tacitus' carping about

91
the willingness of the Roman Army to go on
(Agricola 27). But to the rear of this line also
existed a line of glen-blocking forts that
performed another vital function in that it
secured conquered territory. If Frere is in fact
right in his assessment that they closed off the
valleys or glens, then this is another move by
Agricola to protect his left flank. This is nothing
less than classical military containment of a
perceived threat.
At Agricola 25, Tacitus tells us that 'He
(Agricola) feared a general uprising of the
northern nations and threatening movements
by the enemy on land, he used his fleet too
reconnoitre the harbours. It was first brought in
by Agricola to bring up his forces to the
requisite strength.' How else could he do this
without a bridgehead into enemy lands? The
Caledonii probably took to the hills as the
Romans advanced. It sounds as though Agricola
knew his Frontinus. His actions if they have
been correctly interpreted are quite in keeping
with modern military thinking. By this is meant
the heavy build up of overwhelming force,
intelligence gathering, the establishment of a
bridgehead in secured territory, secure territory
in the rear and on the flanks, forward
observation posts. A general at the Ministry of
Defence in London or the Pentagon would
recognise all these activities. In fact a map of
Frere's interpretation of Agricola's forts was
shown to a former high ranking officer in
Britain's armed services. He commented that
Agricola acted and behaved like a modern
92
strategist (comment by former RAF officer in
conversation with G. Leven-Torres 1996).
Most archaeologists though are guarded
about placing a precise date on these forts.
However, at least one scholar points to the truth
of Frere's assumptions. Hanson states, 'While
not disputing that the mountains themselves
are unlikely to have proffered any major
attractions to settlement, the straths and glens
which divide them have much to offer. In
particular recent detailed investigations of Loch
Awe and Loch Tay suggest that our estimate of
population density in the Highlands in prehistory
needs to be drastically revised to take into
account the number of crannogs or man-made
islands (Dixon 1982;Morrison 1985). Moreover,
contrary to Hind's assertion, the place name
evidence that he quotes for the location of the
Caledonii&&.would place them within the
Highland massif not east of it (Agricola and the
Conquest of the Northern States 1986).
Frere dates these forts along the Isthmus
and those he sees as 'glen blocking forts'
further south as Flavian. He names these as
Drumquhassle, Menteith, Bochastle, Dalginross,
Fendoch, and most importantly for our
purposes, the main legionary fortress in the
area Inchtuthil. This is because its position at
the top of the map is important militarily and
gives a strong clue to the type of commander
Agricola was. One can only trust that Frere's
hypothesis is right and that the forts are
Flavian. One has been dated through planking

93
removed from the side of a Roman well. The
dendrochronological dating is the summer of
80AD.
There is nothing particularly special or
brilliant in the way Agricola placed his forts. He
had learnt and honed his military talents under
Frontinus who wrote a treatise on military
strategy and Petilius Cerealis, the former
commander of the ill-fated Ninth Hispana.
Actually more revealing is the political
relationship between these latter Roman
commanders and Rome itself. Cerealis had
something of a chequered career, especially on
the Flavian's side during the civil war of 69AD
when he disguised himself as a peasant to
escape from Vitellius' Rome. But Cerealis was a
careful judge in the political sphere (Histories iv,
86) and despite the odd military fiasco such as
the rout of the Ninth Hispana at the hands of
Boudicca was a competent and inspirational
soldier.
His time in Britain saw further
consolidation of the North of England and the
establishment of the Legionary fortress at York.
This was common Roman practice to place a
heavy force near at hand to hold a possible
enemy in thrall by the threat of armed force.
Brigantia had been a client kingdom under
Cartimandua. The resultant problems led to the
Romans annexing the rest of the territory and
placing auxiliary forts around the region in order
to patrol and observe. The placement of the
fortress at York formed the same basis of

94
military strategy that Agricola used in Scotland.
Edward Luttwak who wrote the Grand Strategy
of the Roman Empire (1976) called this type of
deployment 'an economy of force.'
Leonard Cottrell gives a vivid account of
this annexation. The Romans according to his
version advanced on the two flanks of the
Pennines. Agricola commanded the western
advance and Cerealis tested Agricola's mettle
as a commander. He had been sent to Britain to
take over the notorious XX Legion Valeria Victrix
that had elected to fight for Vitellius and the
governor at that time, one Vettius Bolanus was
a Vitellian appointee. The young thirty year old
Agricola apparently had been sent to bring the
mutinous and surly Twentieth back to its sense
of duty.
In relatively quick succession, Agricola 'cut
his military commanders teeth' under two very
able Governors. The last of them was dear old
Frontinus who set about the destruction of the
Welsh tribes in 74AD. He used similar methods
of contaiment to those of Agricola in Scotland.
There are glen blocking forts at Tomen y Mur
and Caer Gai for example.This fact above all
else would seem to prove the hypothesis of
Frere that the forts in Scotland are Flavian, in
that Agricola seeing this strategy in Wales,
copied his former commander's activities in
Scotland. Further evidence seems to support
this as well.
There is epigraphical evidence of Agricola
at Chester from around the time of Frontinus'
95
period of rule in Britain. The fact that pottery
from slightly earlier has been found at Carlisle
and Bowes strongly suggests the presence of
Cerealis around the early seventies would seem
to futher support Frere's idea that both
governors had shown a keen interest in the
Brigantian region. It seems that the historical
key 'fits the lock.' The chronology of events
wherein three Flavian men and 'experts' on
warfare, especially in a region like Northern
England would seem to indicate a consistent
imperial policy. Agricola then spent time as
governor of Aquitaine for four years. Vespasian
thought highly enough of him to recall him and
send him to Britain. Agricola was, like Petilius a
Flavian man. He had raised troops in the region
of hid birth in order to support the usurper
Vespasian.
The actual dating is something of a
problem. Agricola apparently arrived as
governor in 77AD (Hanson 1986). Therefore
taking the events as laid down by Tacitus, 77AD
would be the first when he smashed the
Ordovices late in the season (Agricola 18). He
then established forts in Wales of the glen
blocking type at Denbigh, Flint and Caernarvon,
and used the Batavians to storm Anglesey. A
legionary base already existed at Chester dated
prior to Agricola's time as governor. AD 78 saw
him fortifying and annexing more territory in
Brigantia. He again advanced on both sides of
the Pennines and eventually reached the Tyne.
Corstopitum near corbridge appears to have
been his jumping off point. In AD 79 he
96
launched his main offensive into Scotland. By
80AD he had reached and consolidated his
position on the Forth-Clyde Isthmus and built a
line of forts (Agricola 23). Domitian succeeded
Titus in 81AD so it is probable that Agricola '
kicked his heels ' for a year awaiting new
orders. The penalty for exceeding gubernatorial
imperium was harsh. Domitian was known to be
fickle. The new emperor ordered Agricola to
supply vexillations to his campaigns in Germany
and along the Danube, It appears these came
from poor old Nine Hispana. But he did sail
along the Scottish coast and campaign,
probably to keep the Caledonii occupied and
test their strength. In 82AD he opened his big
offensive (Agricola 25).
We find evidence of marching camps and
forts along his line of advance at Dunblane,
Ardoch. There was also a line of signal stations
along Gask Ridge, although they have been
archaeologically dated as 'before 90AD.' For our
purposes we shall assume them to be Agricolan.
Dating is not an exact science. There is also a
road from Sterling to Falkirk. He followed this
through Strath Allen and across Strathearn, with
the Ochill Hills at his back, the Firth of Tay
gleaming on his right and away to the northeast
the Grampians. It was now that Calgacus
attacked Agricola in several columns (Agricola
25). In response Agricola divided his forces. The
poor depleted IX Hispana was Calgacus' primary
target no doubt hoping to exploit the weakest
spot in the Agricolan plan. Calgacus fell at the

97
Mons Graupius in the following year 83AD
(Agricola 29).
Inchtuthill was left unfinished. It was
probably started around this time but its non-
completion rather makes one feel that Domitian
was less interested in Scotland and a wayward
commander bent on his own glory since he was
recalled to Rome in this same year (Agricola 39,
40).
Dating the forts above to Agricolan times
has proved contentious; the best that can be
said is that they are 'Flavian' (Hanson 1986).
Hanson the archaeologist has taken the forts
Barochan Hill, Cudder, Mollins, Castlecary,
Camelon, Mumrills and Elgihaugh, measured the
distance between them and deduced a 6-8 mile
mean distance and feels this is strong
archaeological evidence of the line of forts
established by Agricola. Flavian dated artefacts
have been found at all of them. Furthermore,
Inchtuthill is not placed well strategically but
tactically.
It would appear that all this evidence even
allowing for the enthusiasm of archaeologists
and historians, the whole system if it is
'Agricolan' seems to make good military sense
in that it is consistent with what we know of
Roman practice. Hadrian's Wall is good evidence
and there are similar systems elsewhere in
Europe dated to the same period. Looking at it
from a soldier's point of view, it does make good
sense. But what does it tell us about Tacitus'
hero? He appears to be competent Roman
98
general typical of the type. There does not
seem to be anything particularly outstanding
about him.
His actions concerning the attack upon the
auxiliary cohort by the Ordovices (Agricola 18)
at the start of governorship, appears something
of a planned reaction. Obviously the failure of
previous governors such as Cerealis to 'finish
the job' was well known to the new governor
upon his arrival in 77AD. There is also evidence
that Agricola made certain new dispositions as
regards Brigantia. There certainly appears to
have been a general policy decision about this
time to consolidate the Roman hold on
Brigantia. This would make sense in order to
ensure no trouble broke out in the rear.
Vespasian would have been well aware of
Agricola's knowledge of Britain. The fact that he
had served under no less than four previous
governors made him something of a specialist
on the subject. He must have been fully aware
of previous failings and inadequacies of his
previous commanders.
His whole governorship has the heavy
feeling of trying to consolidate and finish off the
conquest of Britain. It tied down three legions
and strategically speaking it was not that
important. Nero thought seriously about
abandoning the province only to be dissuaded
by Seneca and Burrus on the grounds it would
reflect badly on the new regime's reputation
with the Army. There is in all this a hint of Julius
Caesar and Augustus who established the Julio-

99
Claudian dynasty. Octavian as he was then
known set about apolicy of consolidation upon
the frontiers.
Vespasian was to found a new dynasty. The
army still remembered fondly the Julio-
Claudians. He had an established military
reputation though but being the far-sighted and
practical man he was foresaw that Northern
Britain would continue to be a drain on military
manpower. This was especially so in the light of
his experiences in Judea during the late 60s.
The Brigantian kingdom was no longer
relevant to a secure Britain. Roman policy as
regards Cartimandua had failed. But there is
more than a hint of hesitation even though
Cerealis placed the Ninth Hispana at York, he
seems not to have consolidated this annexation
fully. Hence Agricola's later work. Whatever the
case obviously he felt that hostile parties could
have caused a problem in his rear.
So it is fairly safe to assume that Flavian
policy dictated the use of 'experts' like Agricola.
Returning to Archaeology. Hanson and Frere
(1986) both argue for the dating of the 'glen-
blocking forts' as Agricolan. Furthermore bronze
asses dated no later than 86AD have been
found at Inchtuthill which was unfinished. These
have also been found at Dalginross and
Strathcaro. All provide a terminus post quem
well in keeping with the departure of Agricola.
From a military point of view they do seem
remarkably too well placed to be the work of
more than one commander. Even if one were to
100
raise the argument that they are the result of
different commanders at consecutive periods,
thess fall down by virtue of the fact that most
commanders in history upon taking command in
a new theatre have their own ideas. One only
has to examine recent history to establish this
fact and this is also the reason why
commanders are changed in the hope they will
bring fresh impetus and outlook to a military
problem.
From the above it appears that Agricola
may have been a good general but it must be
clearly understood that the Emperor was the
Commander in Chief. Coins with the head of
Domitian as 'Imperator' appear around this time
as well. Some archaeologists and numismatists
have believed the issue of these was to
commemorate Mons Graupius.
Military commanders if they are good also
tend to become arrogant. One only has to
examine the likes of Alexander, Caesar, Patton,
McArthur and even to slight degree Montgomery
and Churchill. There is evidence in The Agricola
that he developed this sense of his own pre-
eminence. This was not good for realations with
Emperors like Domitian (Agricola 39, 40).
Summing up the man, it could be stated
that Agricola was typical of his type. Better than
average, popular with his troops, concerned for
the welfare of his men, a good tactical
commander but not so brilliant at strategy and
a tendency to fall into complacency in respect
of his own talents. Domitian was in many ways
101
right to recall the man. Such a one could pose a
threat to the throne if allowed to grow to
overconfidence. Besides war threatened from a
far more dangerous people, namely Decebalus
and the proto-state of Dacia, which left un-
checked threatened the whole Northern Frontier.

Reading list:-
Caesar, Civil War.
Dio, The Roman History.
Livy, The War with Hannibal.
Polybius, The Roman History.
Plutarch, Lives.
Pliny, Letters,
Pliny, Natural History.
Tacitus, The Agricola,.
Tacitus, The Histories.
Tacitus, Annals.
Fear, Rome and Baetica 50BC –150AD, Clarendon 1986.
Frere, Britannia, Pimlico 1991and revised copies 1993 etc.
Hanson, Agricola and the Conquest of the Northern States etc
1986.
Churchill, History of Second World War Cassell1948.
Stockton, The Gracchi, Oxford 1979.
Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe 1951.
Luttwak, Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, Hopkins University
Press1976 and revised 1994.
Luttwak, The Logic of Peace and War, Harvard University Press
1987.
Leven-Torres. Italica: From Vicus to Imperial Throne. UCL 1997.

102
Leven-Torres, A Question of Balance? 1 to 3,
Lulu.com/guyleventorres 2006.
Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire,
Oxford 1957.
Syme, Tacitus. Oxford 1957.
Wacher, The Towns of Roman Britain, Batsford 1974.
Wiseman, Roman Political Life 90BC –AD69, Dept of History and
Archaeology, University of Exeter 1985.
Le Bohec, The Roman Imperial Army Batsford 1994.

103