Pax Romana

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  Other governors who went hunting for a triumph had rather more luck. In 189 BC the consul Cnaeus Manlius Vulso was given command in the Syrian War, but reached Asia Minor only to discover that his predecessor had already won it, defeating Antiochus the Great at Magnesia. Vulso led his army to the frontier with the Seleucids, trying and failing to provoke the king to break the peace treaty. Determined to win a major war, he instead launched an attack on the Galatians – three tribes who had migrated from Gaul in the third century BC and settled in central Asia Minor, routinely raiding their neighbours. In a swift and brutally efficient campaign he defeated and plundered them, and travelled home at the end of his year of office to claim a triumph. Opposition was strong, for he had not been authorised to fight this war, and a long debate in the Senate seemed to be going against him when the sun set and the meeting was closed – Rome’s Senate could not legally meet in darkness. Overnight Vulso and his political allies called in favours wherever they could, and used the profits of his victory to buy new friends. At the next meeting the mood had changed, and Vulso was awarded a triumph which he celebrated in spectacular fashion.20

  This was one of a succession of triumphs during the second century BC described as more lavish than all that had been held in the past. In every case these marked victories won in the wealthy eastern Mediterranean and set the mark ever higher for future triumphs. Competition became even more intense, as a man needed to win ever bigger and ever more profitable victories if he wanted to stand out from his peers.21

  Eighty-five triumphs are recorded as having being celebrated between 200 and 91 BC. During that period, there were very few years when Roman soldiers were not actively campaigning somewhere, for not every provincial governor managed to win a triumph, some because they did not win the war and others because the scale of the conflict was too small. Early in the second century BC it was decreed that at least 5,000 enemy dead needed to have been counted after a battle for the victory to qualify for a triumph. On this calculation, the recorded triumphs would equate to at least 425,000 enemy corpses. The figure is rough, since some successes were much more bloody than this (while it is perfectly possible that in others the count was optimistic, since no one was likely to check too closely). The total casualties suffered by the enemy would be considerably greater if the losses inflicted in other operations not resulting in a triumph were added. Since Roman expansion did not begin in 200 BC or end in 91 BC, the grand total would be much, much higher – it was claimed that one million enemies died during Julius Caesar’s Gallic campaigns alone. It may well be that more human beings were killed by Roman gladius swords than any other weapon before the modern era – the ubiquitous AK-47 has no doubt surpassed this grim record in the last half-century or so. In addition, any measure of the human suffering caused by Roman expansion would have to allow for the Romans’ own casualties.22

  Galba’s slaughter and enslavement of the Lusitanians became notorious, but it is easy to find accounts of appalling Roman ferocity as a matter of routine in many campaigns. For instance, in 210 BC they stormed New Carthage (modern Cartagena) in Spain, and Polybius described how:

  When Scipio [the Roman commander] thought that a sufficient number of troops had entered he sent most of them, as is the Roman custom, against the inhabitants of the city, with orders to kill all they encountered, sparing none, and not to start pillaging until the signal was given. They do this, I think, to inspire terror, so that when towns are taken by the Romans one may often see not only the corpses of human beings, but dogs cut in half, and the dismembered limbs of other animals, and on this occasion such scenes were very many owing to the numbers of those in the place.23

  Capturing a walled town by direct assault was a difficult and dangerous operation, and if the defenders rallied and continued to resist in the streets then it was perfectly possible for the attackers to be driven out even after they had got over the wall. Thus a deliberate policy aimed at terrifying inhabitants and garrison alike was a sensible if savage means of deterring this. Scipio does not appear to have wanted his men to hunt out the entire population from hiding places, but to kill those who were visible. The intention was to clear the streets and any open spaces where organised resistance could occur. This tactic might also have the advantage of making other strongholds less willing to risk defying the Romans in future.24

  Rome’s citizen soldiers were capable of appalling savagery. Generation after generation they were also willing to leave their homes for long periods of time. Six years at a stretch may have been typical for men sent to Spain in the second century BC, although it is possible that many served for longer than this. During this time a man lost most of the legal rights of citizenship, and was subject to corporal and capital punishment at the discretion of his officers, as well as the risk of death from disease or in battle against the enemy. To set against that he might also win the respect, even the admiration, of his comrades, and through them, that of the wider citizen community. More tangible rewards came from a share of the spoils of victory, which were supposed to be distributed in a well-established and organised system. Polybius’ description of Roman soldiers slaughtering men and animals alike as they stormed New Carthage was intended to emphasise their discipline. The legionaries obeyed their orders to kill and terrify the inhabitants, rather than dispersing to loot, trusting that when the plunder was gathered they would receive their fair share.25

  The scale of mobilisation of Roman citizens was unmatched until the conscription of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France surpassed even the efforts of Frederick the Great. Under the Roman Republic it lasted far longer and may well have represented a higher percentage of Rome’s population, especially since it fell most on property owners. In the second century BC there were usually at least six legions in service every year, and sometimes as many as a dozen, with – in theory if rarely in practice – some 4,500–5,000 soldiers in each. During the struggle with Hannibal it had been common for as many as twenty to serve simultaneously. The reluctance of men to come forward when Lucullus raised troops in 151 BC was rare, and even in that case was soon overcome. While it is easy to understand the enthusiasm of the men who enlisted to fight Hannibal – this was an enemy on their doorstep who threatened the very life of the Republic – what is striking is the readiness with which Romans were willing to serve on ever more distant frontiers in tough campaigns that were fought for less obvious reasons.26

  Many Romans benefited from successful war-making. Ordinary soldiers received a modest share of the plunder, and in some periods a proportion of them were granted land by the state at the end of their service, although this was not consistent enough to explain their willingness to serve. The senators who led the army to victory became rich, their wealth helping their careers and enhancing their own and their families’ prestige, sometimes in the tangible form of monuments such as temples built from the spoils. Other wealthy men profited from contracts to supply the army, from undertaking the sale of plunder and war captives or from overseeing the collection of taxes in the provinces.

  Slaves flooded into Italy throughout the second century BC and many were captives taken in war – Julius Caesar was believed to have enslaved one million people from 58–51 BC. Men made rich from the profits of expansion often invested in land in Italy, buying up large estates and purchasing slaves to provide the labour force to work the fields or look after herds and flocks. In the second half of the century many Romans began to worry that, as they sent their own young men abroad to fight for the Republic, their places and livelihoods were increasingly being usurped by foreign slaves. The truth was more complicated than this, but the influx of slaves did change the economy and society of Italy. It is doubtful that any war was fought simply to acquire captives, but they were certainly an attractive and lucrative by-product of expansion. Similarly the only real obligation on Rome’s allies in Italy was to provide contingents of soldiers to serve alongside the legions, but there is no evidence for wars being initiated simply to preser
ve this relationship. However, in 157 BC Polybius explains the Senate’s decision to send an army against the Dalmatians in part because ‘they did not wish the Italians to become effeminate owing to the long peace, it being twelve years since the war with Perseus and the campaigns in Macedonia’.27

  The Roman Republic celebrated military achievement as the greatest service of the state, and mobilised extremely large resources – especially of its own and allied manpower – to wage war virtually every year. No voices at Rome ever seem to have suggested that this was not entirely natural or a good thing. Even so, while some scholars began to stress Roman aggression as the overwhelming driving force behind the creation of the empire, others pointed out that these structural factors were far more complicated than this. The Republic was not a machine so geared to war that it simply sought out one opponent after another, did ‘massive violence’ to them and in the long run subjected all to Roman authority.28

  There were long periods when fewer wars were fought. For instance there were thirty-nine triumphs celebrated in the thirty-three years from 200 to 167 BC, and then forty-six in the seventy-five years from 166 to 91 BC. Not every senior magistrate wanted or received a military province – Sicily was largely demilitarised after the Second Punic War and yet the post of governor remained prestigious. Even men sent to command armies in other provinces did not automatically use them. There is little trace of warfare in either Spanish province in the 170s and 160s BC. Triumph-hunting occurred, but was far from universal, while treachery and wanton massacre were exceptions rather than the rule. At times the Senate did intervene in the affairs of other states and send a magistrate and army to fight on the flimsiest of excuses. Sometime before 219 BC they made an alliance with the city of Saguntum in Spain which was at war with one of Hannibal’s allies. Perhaps it was meant to curb the resurgence of Carthaginian power in Spain, but then and on other occasions the Romans were accused of making alliances simply to give them a pretext to fight a war, which would of course be just, since it was nominally waged to defend an ally.29

  More often the Senate chose not to intervene in spite of repeated appeals for alliance and direct military aid. Sometimes this was a question of resources. Large though the citizen and allied manpower was, it was not infinite, nor could too high a proportion be called up for service for too long. Nor was there always a magistrate available to command. In 219 BC both consuls were sent across the Adriatic to Illyricum, which meant that no one was available to take an army to aid Saguntum when Hannibal besieged the city. Instead ambassadors were sent to demand that he stop. By the time the Romans were prepared to intervene militarily, Saguntum had been sacked and its population enslaved, and Hannibal was ready to launch his own attack on Italy.

  Rome was not invariably aggressive, nor did it provoke every war it fought. One of the greatest weaknesses of most studies of Roman imperialism is that they tend to see it in isolation, as if everything depended on Roman behaviour and other states were little more than passive victims of imperialist aggression. We happen to know considerably more about Rome’s history than that of almost any other state, and we also know that they carved out an empire that lasted for centuries. There is no doubt that the Republic was an aggressive imperial power, but as soon as we look more closely at contemporary states it becomes obvious that this was equally true of almost every other kingdom, state or people.30

  Greek cities, including – in fact especially – democratic Athens went to war frequently and with every sign of enthusiasm, their citizens willingly volunteering for military service and honouring the war dead with great ceremony. Piracy was an altogether respectable pursuit for an Athenian nobleman in the sixth century BC and in later periods, every bit as honourable as peaceful trading. Greek killed Greek far more often than culturally different outsiders such as the Persians. Alexander the Great and his father Philip II fought long and hard to dominate Greece, and the son then embarked on one of the greatest programmes of conquest in history when he attacked Persia – ostensibly revenge for the Persian invasion of Greece a century and a half earlier, although that claim wore very thin by the time he reached India. Philosophers stopped just short of declaring war as normal between two states, but clearly thought that truly peaceful relations were unusual. It was common to declare a set number of years of peace as part of the treaty ending a war, and there was a good chance that one or the other party would break the agreement by resuming hostilities before this time had elapsed.31

  Political systems made little difference to this frequent aggression, with democracies, oligarchies and monarchies all just as ready to attack others. The Successor kingdoms which emerged from the wreck of Alexander the Great’s empire were extremely bellicose, each ruler vying to prove himself the true heir to the great conqueror. Pyrrhus readily accepted Tarentum’s appeal to cross to Italy and fight a war that had nothing to do with him in the hope of winning power, wealth and glory. Nor was Carthage markedly different, having carved out large territories in Africa, contested for centuries with Greek cities to control Sicily, and later embarked on a programme of conquest in Spain. For a while Pyrrhus was enlisted to fight against the Carthaginians in Sicily, distracting him from the struggle with Rome for a few years.

  The slimmest of pretexts was sufficient to justify a war, and the Romans were far from unique in making convenient alliances to justify military intervention. Opinion in the wider Greek world mattered, but only to a limited extent, and consistently successful powers were unlikely to suffer much from offending it. There are plenty of instances from Greek, Macedonian and Carthaginian warfare of massacre, treachery and mass enslavement to match the ferocity of Roman war-making. It is doubtful that the inhabitants of Saguntum were subjected to gentler treatment by Hannibal’s soldiers than the people in New Carthage suffered at the hands of Scipio’s legionaries – or for that matter the Thebans when Alexander the Great sacked their city in 335 BC. Warfare in the ancient world was often extremely brutal.32

  Greeks, and then the Romans, stereotyped ‘barbarians’ – at first simply non-Greeks and including the Romans and other Italians – as inherently savage and warlike. For all the entrenched prejudice in their views, all the evidence suggests that warfare was extremely common among the tribal peoples of the world. Fortifications appear in many areas, and weapons figure heavily in the archaeological record, especially in Europe. Often these are clearly intended for war rather than hunting – no one would choose a sword as their main armament to go hunting for animals. Defended settlements and military equipment do not in themselves show that conflict was frequent, but at the very least demonstrate that it was important to display a capacity to employ military force. Yet there is also direct evidence of large-scale violence in some parts of Iron Age Europe long before the Romans arrived. Julius Caesar claimed that the tribes of Gaul went to war with each other almost every year, and spoke of Germanic peoples maintaining strips of depopulated land around their territory to demonstrate their might and deter attacks.33

  Much of this military activity was probably small-scale, raids rather than major invasions – a type of fighting fairly common in the Greek world as well, and in the form of piracy throughout the Mediterranean. That did not mean that it was any less traumatic for the victims, for the raiders might want cattle or other plunder or they might have come to kill. Head-hunting was common among many Iron Age peoples, with the severed head of an enemy often possessing a ritual significance greater than a mere trophy of victory. Posidonius, a Greek scholar who travelled widely in the early first century BC and visited the peoples of southern Gaul, wrote of heads displayed on buildings, and hosts proudly producing these grisly trophies to show to guests. At first he found this shocking, but gradually became accustomed to it. Archaeology confirms the display of heads and human body parts, especially in a ritual context, at a number of sites in Gaul. It is also clear that raids could be on a very large scale, and that major battles did occur, and that warfare sometimes led to widespread destruction and
the displacement or even eradication of entire communities.34

  The ancient world was a dangerous, warlike place. The most important contribution to the debate on Roman expansion has been to make clear that while Rome was extremely aggressive, so were almost all of its neighbours. (For those still determined to see the Romans as uniquely bellicose, the existence of such a state would surely in itself have been sufficient to militarise those around it, if only for self-defence.) This was an environment where survival depended on military strength. There is simply no evidence for any truly pacific state or people – and it is hard to see how any could have survived.

  It is instructive that Polybius did not think to ask why the Romans expanded, as the answer was obvious. They were strong because of their political and military systems and so they conquered others. If others had been stronger, then the Romans would have been subjected to them. The domination of those around them by more powerful states was simply natural and required no explanation. Security for any state rested on its military strength, and especially others’ perception of this. A people who seemed strong were far less likely to suffer attacks than those who appeared vulnerable to their neighbours.35

  Rome was one of many aggressive, imperialistic states and kingdoms, unusual not because it was uniquely bellicose but because it proved so successful. Much of this rested on its capacity to absorb other peoples and tie them permanently to the Republic as loyal, if clearly subordinate, allies. The Romans overran Italy, and as they did so their citizen and allied manpower grew to outstrip that of any competitor. At first they did not apply the same approach to overseas provinces, although they did make considerable use of alliances of a different sort and let most communities continue to run their own affairs.