Francis John Haverfield

“ Development from the Second Stage to the Third.—Towards the end of the Republic many changes began to work themselves out in the Roman army. If Camillus began the system of pay and long service, it was effectually developed by long foreign wars in Spain and in the East. Moreover, the growth of Rome as a wealthy state tended to wreck the old theory that every citizen was a soldier, and favoured a division of labour between (e.g.) the merchant and the military, while the increasing complexity of war required a longer training and a more professional soldier. ”

“ The proud, fierce queen and her people rose, and not alone. With them rose half Britain, enraged, for other causes, at Roman rule. Roman taxation and conscription lay heavy on the province; in addition, the Roman government had just revoked financial concessions made a few years earlier, and L. Annaeus Seneca, who combined the parts of a moralist and a money-lender, had abruptly recalled large loans made from his private wealth to British chiefs. ”

“ ROMAN ARMY. In the long life of the ancient Roman army, the most effective and long-lived military institution known to history, we may distinguish four principal stages. (1) In the earliest age of Rome the army was a national or citizen levy such as we find in the beginnings of all states. (2) This grew into the Republican army of conquest, which gradually subdued Italy and the Mediterranean world. A citizen army of infantry, varying in size with the needs of each year, it eventually developed into a mercenary force with long service and professional organization. ”

“ Small islands off the coast of north-west Spain, the headlands of that same coast, the Scillies, Cornwall, the British Isles as a whole, have all in turn been suggested. But none suits the conditions. Neither the Spanish islands nor the Scillies contain tin, at least in serious quantities. Neither Britain nor Spain can be called “small islands off the north-west of Spain.” It seems most probable, therefore, that the name Cassiterides represents the first vague knowledge of the Greeks that tin was found overseas somewhere in or off western Europe. ”

“ Even in the south of Scotland, where Rome ruled for half a century (A.D. 142–180) , the occupation was military and produced no civilizing effects. Of the actual condition of the land during the period of Roman rule in Britain, we have yet to learn the details by excavation. The curious carvings and ramparts, at Burghead on the coast of Elgin, and the underground stone houses locally called “wheems,” in which Roman fragments have been found, may represent the native forms of dwelling, &c., and some of the “Late Celtic” metal-work may belong to this age. ”

“ Besides the legions, composed of citizens, the Roman army included contingents from the Italian “allies” (socii) , subjects of Rome. These contingents appear to have been large: in many armies we find as many socii as legionaries, but we are ignorant of details. The men were armed and drilled like the legionaries, but they served not in legions but in cohorts, smaller units of 400-500 men, and their conventional positions seem to have been on the wings of the legions. They were principally infantry, but included also a fairly large proportion of cavalry. ”

“ Each provincial army was commanded either by the governor of the province or (in a few exceptional cases) by the senior legatus of the legions stationed there:—
The total of legionaries may be put at about 180,000 men, the auxiliaries at about 200,000. If we exclude the “household” troops at Rome, the police fleets on the Mediterranean, and the local militia in some districts, we may put the regular army of the Empire at about 400,000 men. This army, as will be plain, was framed on much the same ideas as the British army of the 19th century. ”

“ Hence comes, in the 2nd century and after, a new class of numeri or cunei or vexillationes who used (like the earlier auxiliaries) their national arms and tactics and imported into the army a more and more non-Roman element. This tendency became very marked in the 3rd century and bore serious fruit at its close. And, secondly, the old days of mere frontier defence were over. The barbarians began to beat on the walls of the Empire as early as A.D. 160: about A.D. 250 they here and there got through, and they came henceforward in ever-growing numbers. ”

“ In the centre stood the legionary infantry: on each side of that was the allied infantry: on the wings the cavalry. But sometimes the legions were held in reserve and the brunt (and honour) of the fight was left to the allies. Sometimes, when the army was a double force, one commander's troops fought and the others lay in reserve. Frequently the attack was begun by one wing, as by Caesar at Pharsalus. At Ilipa in Spain Scipio put his Spanish auxiliaries in the centre, his Roman troops on the wings, and attacked with both wings. ”

“ The northern section of this frontier, where the Rhine is deep and broad, remained the Roman boundary till the empire fell. The southern part was different. The upper Rhine and upper Danube are easily crossed. The frontier which they form is inconveniently long, enclosing an acute-angled wedge of foreign territory—the modern Baden and Württemberg. The German populations of these lands seem in Roman times to have been scanty, and Roman subjects from the modern Alsace and Lorraine had drifted across the river eastwards. ”

“ The Imperial army consisted henceforward of two classes or grades of troops, about equal in numbers if unequal in importance. The first grade were the legions, recruited from Roman citizens, whether resident in Italy or in the provinces. The second grade was formed by the auxilia, recruited from the subjects (not the citizens) of the Empire in the provinces, organized in cohorts and alae and corresponding somewhat to both the socii and the auxiliaries (B, C above) of the Republican army. There were also in Rome special “household” troops (see Praetorians) ”

“ The legion of the Empire was what Marius had left it—6000 heavy infantry divided into 10 cohorts: Augustus added only 120 horsemen to serve as despatch-riders and the like. The supreme command was no longer in the hands of the six tribunes. According to a practice which had sprung up in the latest Republic it was in the hands of a legatus legionis, deputy of the general (now of the emperor, commander-in-chief of the whole army) and a man usually of senatorial rank and position. ”

“ If the two consuls combined their forces, commanding the joint force in rotation (as often occurred) , the total would be—according to our authorities—four legions, each of 4200 infantry, the same number of “allied” infantry (in all 33,600 infantry) , 1200 legionary cavalry and about 3600 “allied” cavalry = 38,400 men. Such, for example, was the Roman army at Trebia (218 B.C.) , where (says Polybius) there fought 16,000 legionaries and 20,000 allied infantry. The total number of men in the field could be increased; we even hear of 23 legions serving at one time in the Second Punic War. ”

“ Finally, the legions became smaller units, and the other troops of the army, notably the cavalry, became the real fighting-line of Rome (see Legion) .
First Stage.—The history of the earliest Roman army is, as one might expect, both ill-recorded and contaminated with much legend and legal fiction. We read of a primitive force of 300 riders and 3000 foot soldiers, in which the horseman counted for almost everything. But the numbers are clearly artificial and invented, while the pre-eminence accorded to the cavalry has no sequel in later Roman history. ”

“ In a desperate soldiers’ battle Rome regained the province. Boadicea took poison; thousands of Britons fell in the fight or were hunted down in the ensuing guerrilla. Finally, Rome adopted a kindlier policy, and Britain became quiet. ”

“ GRAHAM’S DYKE (or Sheugh = trench) , a local name for the Roman fortified frontier, consisting of rampart, forts and road, which ran across the narrow isthmus of Scotland from the Forth to the Clyde (about 36 m.) , and formed from A.D. 140 till about 185 the northern frontier of Roman Britain. ”

“ And, finally, the appearance of great military leaders in place of civilian statesmen, and of pretenders to a throne in place of patriots, familiarized the world with the notion of large standing armies commanded by permanent chiefs, and at the same time destroyed discipline and military loyalty. ”

“ The motives alike of geographical convenience and of the advantages to be gained by recognizing these movements of Roman subjects combined to urge a forward policy at Rome, and when the vigorous Vespasian had succeeded the fool-criminal Nero, a series of advances began which gradually closed up the acute angle, or at least rendered it obtuse. ”

“ Grim seems to be a Teutonic god or devil, who might be credited with the wish to build earthworks in unreasonably short periods of time. By antiquaries the Graham’s Dyke is usually styled the Wall of Pius or the Antonine Vallum, after the emperor Antoninus Pius, in whose reign it was constructed. ”

“ The ruins of Caerleon attracted notice in the 12th and following centuries, and gave plain cause for legend-making. There is better, but still slender, reason for the belief that it was here, and not at Chester, that five kings of the Cymry rowed Edgar in a barge as a sign of his sovereignty (A.D. 973) . The name Caerleon seems to be derived from the Latin Castra legionum, but it is not peculiar to Caerleon-on-Usk, being often used of Chester and occasionally of Leicester and one or two other places. ”

“ In consequence, the old restriction of legionary service to men with some sort of private property was abolished by Marius about 104 B.C. and the legionaries now became wholly proletariat and professionals. By a second change, also connected with the name of Marius, the legion was reorganized as a body of 6000 men in 60 centuries, divided into 10 cohorts instead of (as hitherto) into 30 maniples ”

“ He calls it the most northerly of the British Isles and says that he reached it after six days' sail from Britain: it was inhabited, but produced little; corn grew there sparingly and ripened ill; in summer the nights were long and bright. This account of his travels is lost save for fragments, and the few surviving fragments do not determine where his Thule was, but Müllenhoff is probably right in thinking it was the Shetlands. The Faeroes, Iceland and Norway have also been suggested, but are for various reasons much less likely. ”

“ Ptolemy gives a list of tribe and place-names. But hardly one can be identified with any approach to certainty, except in the extreme south. Nor has any certainty been reached about the ethnological problems of the population, the Aryan or non-Aryan character of the Picts and the like. That the Caledonians, like the later Scots, sometimes sought their fortunes in the south, is proved by a curious tablet of about A.D. 220, found at Colchester, dedicated to an unknown equivalent of Mars, Medocius, by one “Lossio Veda, nepos [ = kin of] Vepogeni, Caledo.” ”

“ Icknield, Ermine and Watling may be from English personal names; Foss, originally Fos, seems to be the Lat. fossa in its occasional medieval sense of a bank of upcast earth or stones, such as the agger of a road. ”

“ The Romans probably mined copper there, but no trace has yet been found of any Roman military post, and the villages of the inhabitants which have been recently excavated show only mediocre traces of Roman civilization. ”

“ SILURES, a powerful and warlike tribe in ancient Britain, occupying approximately the counties of Monmouth, Brecon and Glamorgan. They made a fierce resistance to the Roman conquest about a.d. 48, but a legionary fortress (Isca Silurum, Cærleon) was planted in their midst and by a.d. ”

“ This evidence only proves the existence of these roads in Saxon and Norman days. But they all seem to be much older. Icknield Street is probably a prehistoric ridgeway along the downs, utilized perhaps by the Romans near its eastern end, but in general not Roman. Ermine Street coincides with part of a line of Roman roads leading north from London through Huntingdon to Lincoln. ”

“ Strabo ii. 5, iii. 2, 5, v. 11; Pliny, Nat. Hist. iv. 119, vii. 197, xxxiv. 156-158, are the chief references in ancient literature. T. R. Holmes, Ancient Britain (1907) , appendix, identifies the Cassiterides with the British Isles. ”

“ J. Rhys, Celtic Britain (ed. 3) . On Burghead, see H. W. Young, Proc. of Scottish Antiq. xxv., xxvii.; J. Macdonald, Trans. Glasgow Arch. Society. The Roman remains of Scotland are described in Rob. Stuart’s Caled. Romana (Edinburgh, 1852) , the volumes of the Scottish Antiq. Society, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. vii., and elsewhere. (F. J. H.) ”

“ The best English account will be found in H. F. Pelham’s essay in Trans. of the Royal Hist. Soc. vol. 20, reprinted in his Collected Papers, pp. 178-211 (Oxford, 1910) , where the German authorities are fully cited. ”