Roman Army Discipline

The legions of Rome were one of the biggest factors in Rome's success as an empire. They conquered vast quantities of land, and were often used by the government to improve the morale of people living in cities, which often had parts that were cramped and unsanitary. The legions were set apart from contemporary armies due to their level of organisation and especially as they fought as a unit and not as individuals, as many tribes did.

Some examples of these would include The Battering Ram, The Turris, and The Ballista. The Roman army was also very willing to incorporate the war tactics and the weapons of their defeated enemies if they were deemed beneficial. (Alchin) These improvements provided the Roman army advantages in battle. The Roman generals that were picked to lead the army were highly skilled in the art of war. They were masters of attack and counterattacks, the use of mounted and unmounted calvary as well as archery. As a result of the Roman army's successful tactics, Rome therefore was able to achieve massive amounts of territory and assemble a substantial empire. (Cavazzi)

Aided by the regime’s increasingly repressive character, the guerrillas were able to achieve a broad political-military front that combined strikes, street demonstrations, and political pressures with veteran guerrilla fighters and hundreds of new recruits. The dictatorship fell on July 19, 1979”

The Greeks, Trojans, and Spartans armies were very strategic and resourceful. They used battle forms, The Gods, their religion, and outside the box thinking to overcome battles and win wars. Tactics were highly impressive in the “Bronze Age” and are shown through the very impressive wars they have won. The Greeks used many tactics that included some strategies that are still used in today's

One trait every army must have to be successful is the willingness and drive to dominate. The Roman army took these traits to a whole different level. The Romans were very extreme in battle as well. They often enjoyed humiliating other city-states by burning them to the ground. In 264 B.C.E. a battle between other Greek city-states forced Rome and Carthage, who dominated the western part of the Mediterranean, into conflict. The First Punic War was for the control of Sicily.4 This battle lasted twenty-three years.4 The Romans were losing a lot of men, but they continued to battle on.4 Finally, the persistence paid off.4 The Romans learned how to fight by sea and cut off the Carthaginian supply line into

Romans fought in a manner very similar to the Greeks. In early times they utilized the phalanx and a cavalry back-up, but around the 1st century BCE they began to form a “checkered board” pattern. This allowed them to cover more ground and allow men room to fight. In the first century they also retired using a cavalry (Cartwright). The form of foot soldiers only with no horseback cavalry was uncommon. In

The Romans were civilised in war because of the following answers, when they fought they had superior equipment, they had been well trained by a professional, they took advantage of their terrain and they were organised.

Current militaries have benefitted from the principles of ancient Greek and Roman warfare by studying the ancient battles, tactics, and use of supplies to develop effective military plans. Current militaries study and debate historical turning points of the ancient battles to understand how the leaders planned and executed battles. The empires’ growth was due in part to the might and successes of their military. The strength of their militaries came from many factors including their use of armor, weapons, and military tactics. The empires’ leaders used these three advantages to create the superior armies of their time.

The Romans, having had their phalanxes decimated and their most experienced soldiers exhausted and killed first, quickly understood the inefficiency of such a method of organization. Their next system of placement, inherited from the Samnites, the Romans’ peninsular neighbors, during the Samnite Wars, followed a three-line pattern documented by the Roman historian Polybius and referred to as both the ‘Polybian’ and manipular legion, in which the middle class citizens of approximately 20 years of age formed the front line, called hastati. The 20-30 year olds in the legion were grouped in the second line, and were called principes. The key difference in this formation is in the third line, composed of the oldest and most experienced of the Roman infantry, armed with spears and called triarii, described by Polybius as “always the same” in number across legions (Polybius 2.33).

“The Roman military was the most successful and powerful in history, dominating the Western world for over a thousand years” (The Roman Military). In their military, the Romans had an extensive list of possible positions that a military man could have. The different levels of soldiers carried different types of weapons, based on their jobs in the battlefield. Not only did they use different weapons, but the different levels also used different types of tactics Those tactics changed majorly several times throughout the existence of the empire. Without changing the tactics, the Roman Empire would not have lasted as long as it did.

The Roman military hired and recruited barbarians for the Roman Army because Romans were unwilling to join. As a result there were more Germans in the army and less Romans soldiers. In fact, the barbarians were able to be in control of the army because there were so many in the army compared to the Romans. The Romans army was inadequate in repelling the barbarian invasions, and there was a decline in discipline in the army. The army was unorganized because the borders of the Western Half were longer and harder to defend.

Thankfully, due to the Romans writing a lot down, there are many sources (unlike in the "Dark Ages" for example) available to study how the Roman army worked. In this project, the aim is to find out how the training and organization of the

Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century A.D. to the Third gives a militaristic analysis of the tactics used by the Roman Empire while also highlighting parallels between Rome and contemporary U.S. military policy. Luttwak divides his book into three chapters, a chapter for each of the 3 identified systems; the first chapter discusses Rome’s use of mobile armies and client states to defend her borders. The second chapter shows border defense as was provided by small groups of marching legionary troops. The third and final chapter details the transition from an offense stance to a more

Conversely, the Roman Societies conducted themselves in a manner that is different from that of the Ancient Chinese. Battle was “by agreement,” and it required that both sides be drawn up face-to-face, eyeing each other anywhere from a few minutes to hours on end. Unlike the Ancient Chinese, ambushes, surprise attacks and entrenchment were not popular options. Instead, the no-mans-land between the two armies were purposely bare, ensuring unimpeded advance by both sides and, consequently, unobstructed clear view of the enemy (Hanson 2009, 97). However, when it comes down to warfare the Roman Societies seemed to have made no attempt to systematize military theory. Therefore, we are left to deduce their art of war from the warfare itself. (Lazenby,

Following the Punic Wars, Rome expanded its power in the greater Mediterranean basin and this greatly increased its prosperity. Many attribute the success to the Roman legions that, admittedly, formed the most formidable military machine the world had seen. However, a weapon can only be as effective as the one wielding it; and an army can only be as effective as the government employing it. The Romans seems to have understood the three basic military dogmas: that war is continuation of politics by other means (Clausewitz, 1984), that the line between disorder and order lies in logistics (Tzu, 2009), and that an army cannot hold a ground for too long without the locals’ consent. Indeed,