What made the Roman Army so dominant? - Page 3 - Historum

**Mosquito** · July 14th, 2011, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeno

Metoikoi (Metic)?

Edit sorry, i meant: perioikoi.

Metic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Perioeci - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aye I did mean Perioeci. Im not good in remembering those greek words, got much better memory for latin..

hazratemahmood · July 14th, 2011, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mosquito

Sparta was always doing it and using them as skirmishers. Probably even at Termopillae there were not 300 Spartans but a 1000 or 1500 - 300 were Spartiates and the rest were helots together with that second group I dont remember how they were called but they were not Spartiates and not Helotes but free people.

Or Thespians?

**Guaporense** · July 15th, 2011, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clement

Moreover, once they were able to unify italy (which took very long), they had much more manpower than their enemies. Italy was densely populated. I think it had 7 millions inhabitants (less than Gaul, but Gaul was divided between many tribes, whereas all of Italy was either Roman or an ally - in fact a vassal - of Rome). This helped them during the punic wars. They also had the right men at the right moment : Scipio (who conquered Spain and North africa), Marius (saved Italy), Pompey (conquered the orient and ended the first civil war by reunifying the empire), Caesar (conquered Gaul and reunified the empire a second time) etc.

Gaul didn't have more than 7 million inhabitants before the Romans invaded it. Roman Italy had 4-5 million people at the time of the First and Second Punic wars.

**Guaporense** · July 15th, 2011, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank81

During the Second Punnic War, their manpower was 300,000 roman citizens, which with Italian allies increased to 600,000, a century after this both romans and italians accounted for more than 900,000 men available for army service.

No other state (in western Eurasia) could movilize such number of people. Being Rome behind several enemies in the military fields, man by man, it was its huge advantage on manpower what gave the edge to Rome.

And this was due to, like ancients told, the Roman Constitution. Broadly speaking, its social and political organization.

Let's look for some citizen numbers for ancient city states:

Rome, 4-3rd centuries BCE - 250,000 -300,000 citizens
Athens - 30,000 - 60,000 citizens
Sparta - 5,000 - 10,000 citizens

Rome truly was a monster city state in terms of number of citizens. As result they could raise massive armies of well equipped and trained men. Other states could raise armies of well equipped and trained men, but these armies were small or they could raise large armies of badly equipped and trained men (these weren't citizen armies, such as the Persian armies that Alexander defeated).

By virtue of beign a city state Rome could raise citizen armies, by virtue of having 300,000 citizens when the typical Greek city had 1,000 citizens, Rome could raise citizen armies of scale only surpassed in the Napoleonic wars.

**Salah** · July 15th, 2011, 01:56 PM

Discipline and sheer will-power had a lot to do with it, methinks. Not to mention luck.

**Guaporense** · July 15th, 2011, 01:58 PM

Luck had a hand in the Punic wars. Carthage was like Rome, similar in terms of military capability and manpower. These wars were close run affairs.

**Mosquito** · July 15th, 2011, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazratemahmood

Or Thespians?

Yeah Tespians were there too what is often forgotten. But in that case I meant people from Sparta who were not only 300 Spartiates.

**Mosquito** · July 15th, 2011, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guaporense

Let's look for some citizen numbers for ancient city states:

Rome, 4-3rd centuries BCE - 250,000 -300,000 citizens
Athens - 30,000 - 60,000 citizens
Sparta - 5,000 - 10,000 citizens

Rome truly was a monster city state in terms of number of citizens. As result they could raise massive armies of well equipped and trained men. Other states could raise armies of well equipped and trained men, but these armies were small or they could raise large armies of badly equipped and trained men (these weren't citizen armies, such as the Persian armies that Alexander defeated).

By virtue of beign a city state Rome could raise citizen armies, by virtue of having 300,000 citizens when the typical Greek city had 1,000 citizens, Rome could raise citizen armies of scale only surpassed in the Napoleonic wars.

Its because from the earlierst begining when Rome was conquering other cities was giving the conquered people Roman citisenship.

El Chupakabra · July 18th, 2011, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clement

Moreover, once they were able to unify italy (which took very long), they had much more manpower than their enemies. Italy was densely populated. I think it had 7 millions inhabitants (less than Gaul, but Gaul was divided between many tribes, whereas all of Italy was either Roman or an ally - in fact a vassal - of Rome). This helped them during the punic wars. They also had the right men at the right moment : Scipio (who conquered Spain and North africa), Marius (saved Italy), Pompey (conquered the orient and ended the first civil war by reunifying the empire), Caesar (conquered Gaul and reunified the empire a second time) etc.

Pompey - Caesar - the empire... something is wrong here.

As the invincibility concerns IMHO several key factors (among the numerous others, of course) played a part in it.
Unified equipment, efficient training, excellent logistics, roman way of thinking and a fact that the imperial roman army was a professional one.

Caracalla · July 18th, 2011, 08:04 AM

Perseverance in the face of defeat. Roman's were bad losers and if on the wrong side of a thrashing would simply pick themselves off, dust themselves down and throw themselves back into the breach until they won. A bit like me when I'm playing poker.