LIVING (AND DYING) BY THE SWORD

Today, the Roman army is remembered as the mightiest fighting machine that the ancient world had ever seen. And with good reason. But it took centuries to grow into the ferocious force that would strike fear into peoples spread across a sprawling empire.

In its earliest days, Rome’s army was raised on an as-need basis from the citizenry based on property qualifications. At the top came men who could provide a horse, right down to the ordinary soldiers, or legionaries, who could afford only a sword. It required Rome’s first two Punic Wars against Carthage in the third century BC for the Roman army to develop into the military behemoth that dominated the ancient world.

As the army’s power grew, the number of men who served in it ballooned. In the Republic, numbers had varied according to requirements. They were mainly in the tens of thousands until the Late Republic (c104-31 BC), when Rome’s warring generals raised vast forces to pursue their political ambitions. Under the emperors (27 BC-AD 337), the numbers rocketed from around 250,000 to 450,000, made up of citizen legionaries in the 5,000-strong legions and provincial auxiliaries in roughly equal numbers.

But the Roman army was about much more than war. It was almost the only means by which the Roman state exercised its power. Soldiers erected forts, built aqueducts, acted as bodyguards, policed civilians, managed quarries and prisons, and collected taxes. They also had families, petitioned the emperor, marched on campaign, committed acts of great valour and atrocities, and worshipped their gods. Some died from disease, enemy action, or accidents. Others lived to