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Essay about What made the roman imperial army so strong

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What lies behind the strength of the Roman Imperial Army has sparked considerable debate throughout modern scholarship, with the dominant view concluding that Rome’s Imperial military power was heavily influenced by its organisation and discipline. However, Adrian Goldsworthy has emphasised that the military’s organisation should not be exaggerated, claiming that it was flexibility that was ultimately the key to its success. The strength of the Army can explicitly be seen in its ability to maintain control over the provinces. Yet in order to assess the reason behind its power, it is essential that the importance of the Army’s organisation, frontier system and strategy as well as its training and discipline be taken into account. The …show more content…

This shift in loyalty had a significant impact on the strength of the Army; it produced a cohesive body of troops allied to the centre of the empire. Thus removing the threat of internal coups, which had been a regular occurrence in the republic. Loyalty to the Emperor was of considerable importance during the Principate, however the guard was depended on by the Emperor primarily for political means. It is instead within the provincial troops that the military strength of the Roman Army is brought to the fore. The provincial troops were composed of legions and the auxilia. Legions numbered around five thousand men, but this figure is often debated. Within each legion there were ten squads to a century, six centuries a cohort and ten cohorts a legion. Legions were commanded by a legatus augusti pro preator, who was appointed directly by the Emperor, therefore reinforcing the relationship between the Emperor and his troops. The legionaries are generally viewed as the more dominant of the two forces, since the auxiliary units are often regarded as supplementary. Despite the clear segmentation of units within its organisation, the structure of the Army was highly flexible. The Army was designed to work as a system that could respond and adapt to situations, without the fundamental size and structure altering from that established by Augustus. The changes implemented to the military by each

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