Warfare was a recurrent phenomenon of fundamental importance throughout Roman history. Its scale ... more Warfare was a recurrent phenomenon of fundamental importance throughout Roman history. Its scale and form varied across time and place, but it had wide-ranging impacts on politics, society and economy. This book focuses on important themes in the interplay between warfare and these broader contexts, including attitudes to war and peace, the values associated with military service, the role of material resources, military mutiny and civil war, and social and cultural aspects of the military. It also examines experiences of warfare, focusing on approaches to Roman battle and the impact of war on civilians. Importantly and distinctively, these different themes are traced across a millennium of Roman history from the Republic through to the end of Late Antiquity in the early seventh century, with a view to highlighting important continuities and changes across Roman history, and alerting readers to valuable but often less familiar material from the empire's final centuries.
This paper approaches the subject of food supply in late Roman warfare from the perspective of mi... more This paper approaches the subject of food supply in late Roman warfare from the perspective of military mutiny, with a view to highlighting the political importance of effective logistics for maintenance of troop loyalty and discipline. It begins by contextualising the subject against earlier periods of Roman history, especially the Republic, when food shortage was an important contributory factor in a number of high-profile cases of military mutiny. Mutiny appears to have been less common during the Principate and the Late Empire, at least until the sixth and early seventh centuries, and when mutiny did occur, food shortage was rarely a factor. While this might seem an anti-climactic conclusion, the paper contends that it provides corroboration of the effectiveness and flexibility of army supply arrangements in the Late Empire. It discusses late Roman evidence for awareness of the dangers of food shortages for soldiers’ allegiances and emphasises how the important role of mobile field armies in the Late Empire placed particular pressures on arrangements for military food supply. The apparent lack of military mutinies arising from food shortages during the Late Empire therefore assumes greater significance than might at first seem to be the case.
G.G. Fagan, L. Fibiger, M. Hudson & M. Trundle (eds), The Cambridge World History of Violence, vol.1 (Cambridge UP), 257-76, 2020
Although there has been a tendency in modern scholarship on the Roman empire in late antiquity (e... more Although there has been a tendency in modern scholarship on the Roman empire in late antiquity (early 3rd to early 7th century CE) to view the period through the lens of transformation rather than violent upheaval, warfare undoubtedly became more frequent, at least compared with the first two centuries CE, and impacted on regions of the empire long insulated from significant military conflict. The empire of late antiquity faced more significant external challenges, as well as more regular bouts of civil war. Increased use of archery, with its potential to inflict mass casualties, was a distinctive feature of battle in this period; siege warfare became more common, so that civilian populations experienced the violence of war more directly; and expansion in the size of the army placed increased pressures on recruitment and logistical support – pressures which resulted in greater use of force by the state to maintain the military establishment. Changes in the structure of the army also meant that troops were more frequently billeted on the civilian population, who thereby became more exposed to casual violence at the hands of their own troops. In these different ways, late antiquity can be considered a period of Roman history when military violence became more prevalent.
E. Stewart, E. Harris & D. Lewis (eds), Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge UP,), 362-382, 2020
It has become a commonplace in modern scholarly publications for the Roman army to be referred to... more It has become a commonplace in modern scholarly publications for the Roman army to be referred to as professional, most frequently in the context of the changes to the terms of military service introduced by the emperor Augustus. In contrast to the Republican period, when the Roman army was originally a citizen militia liable to annual call-up and for whom military service was not their primary source of income, Augustus established the principle of continuous long-term military service in return for an annual salary and a generous discharge bonus upon retirement. There can be no denying that these changes marked a very significant alteration in the character of the army – but does it warrant the term ‘professionalization’ which is so frequently invoked? The term ‘professional’ and its cognates are too often used in relation to the imperial Roman army without due consideration of the wide range of connotations which this terminology can bear in the modern world, resulting in the unfortunate importation of anachronistic assumptions into discourse about the Roman military. Ranging across the centuries from Augustus to late antiquity, this paper challenges the default use of the language of professionalization with reference to the Roman army and argues that while certain usages of the term ‘professional’ may be valid, there are so many other unhelpful modernising connotations arising from such terminology that it is better avoided.
L.L. Brice & J.T. Roberts (eds), Recent Directions in the Military History of the Ancient World (Association of Ancient Historians, 2011), 145-66, 2011
Warfare was a recurrent phenomenon of fundamental importance throughout Roman history. Its scale ... more Warfare was a recurrent phenomenon of fundamental importance throughout Roman history. Its scale and form varied across time and place, but it had wide-ranging impacts on politics, society and economy. This book focuses on important themes in the interplay between warfare and these broader contexts, including attitudes to war and peace, the values associated with military service, the role of material resources, military mutiny and civil war, and social and cultural aspects of the military. It also examines experiences of warfare, focusing on approaches to Roman battle and the impact of war on civilians. Importantly and distinctively, these different themes are traced across a millennium of Roman history from the Republic through to the end of Late Antiquity in the early seventh century, with a view to highlighting important continuities and changes across Roman history, and alerting readers to valuable but often less familiar material from the empire's final centuries.
This paper approaches the subject of food supply in late Roman warfare from the perspective of mi... more This paper approaches the subject of food supply in late Roman warfare from the perspective of military mutiny, with a view to highlighting the political importance of effective logistics for maintenance of troop loyalty and discipline. It begins by contextualising the subject against earlier periods of Roman history, especially the Republic, when food shortage was an important contributory factor in a number of high-profile cases of military mutiny. Mutiny appears to have been less common during the Principate and the Late Empire, at least until the sixth and early seventh centuries, and when mutiny did occur, food shortage was rarely a factor. While this might seem an anti-climactic conclusion, the paper contends that it provides corroboration of the effectiveness and flexibility of army supply arrangements in the Late Empire. It discusses late Roman evidence for awareness of the dangers of food shortages for soldiers’ allegiances and emphasises how the important role of mobile field armies in the Late Empire placed particular pressures on arrangements for military food supply. The apparent lack of military mutinies arising from food shortages during the Late Empire therefore assumes greater significance than might at first seem to be the case.
G.G. Fagan, L. Fibiger, M. Hudson & M. Trundle (eds), The Cambridge World History of Violence, vol.1 (Cambridge UP), 257-76, 2020
Although there has been a tendency in modern scholarship on the Roman empire in late antiquity (e... more Although there has been a tendency in modern scholarship on the Roman empire in late antiquity (early 3rd to early 7th century CE) to view the period through the lens of transformation rather than violent upheaval, warfare undoubtedly became more frequent, at least compared with the first two centuries CE, and impacted on regions of the empire long insulated from significant military conflict. The empire of late antiquity faced more significant external challenges, as well as more regular bouts of civil war. Increased use of archery, with its potential to inflict mass casualties, was a distinctive feature of battle in this period; siege warfare became more common, so that civilian populations experienced the violence of war more directly; and expansion in the size of the army placed increased pressures on recruitment and logistical support – pressures which resulted in greater use of force by the state to maintain the military establishment. Changes in the structure of the army also meant that troops were more frequently billeted on the civilian population, who thereby became more exposed to casual violence at the hands of their own troops. In these different ways, late antiquity can be considered a period of Roman history when military violence became more prevalent.
E. Stewart, E. Harris & D. Lewis (eds), Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge UP,), 362-382, 2020
It has become a commonplace in modern scholarly publications for the Roman army to be referred to... more It has become a commonplace in modern scholarly publications for the Roman army to be referred to as professional, most frequently in the context of the changes to the terms of military service introduced by the emperor Augustus. In contrast to the Republican period, when the Roman army was originally a citizen militia liable to annual call-up and for whom military service was not their primary source of income, Augustus established the principle of continuous long-term military service in return for an annual salary and a generous discharge bonus upon retirement. There can be no denying that these changes marked a very significant alteration in the character of the army – but does it warrant the term ‘professionalization’ which is so frequently invoked? The term ‘professional’ and its cognates are too often used in relation to the imperial Roman army without due consideration of the wide range of connotations which this terminology can bear in the modern world, resulting in the unfortunate importation of anachronistic assumptions into discourse about the Roman military. Ranging across the centuries from Augustus to late antiquity, this paper challenges the default use of the language of professionalization with reference to the Roman army and argues that while certain usages of the term ‘professional’ may be valid, there are so many other unhelpful modernising connotations arising from such terminology that it is better avoided.
L.L. Brice & J.T. Roberts (eds), Recent Directions in the Military History of the Ancient World (Association of Ancient Historians, 2011), 145-66, 2011
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