How to raise a Roman army: The dilectus
acoup.blog
acoup.blog
One of the things that made Rome successful was that they would absorb horrendous losses and still keep going. Their ability to mobilize contributed to their power.
To give an example, at the Battle of Cannae, in a single afternoon, Rome lost an estimated 65,000 men killed. To put this in context, the US lost 58,000 soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam War.
And on a related note, our sources for the death toll in the Battle of Cannae is poor. The main source is Livy, writing from a biased point of view nearly 200 years after the battle.
The overall point that Rome came back from a tremendous loss in the Battle of Cannae is true, I wouldn't focus too hard on the numbers.
The military career open to the poor would have been in the navy, as a galley rower, not the army.
Yes, it seems like this was part of the extraordinary measures taken after the defeat at Cannae. From the same wikipedia article you’re talking about:
> As news of this defeat reached Rome, the city was gripped in panic. Authorities resorted to extraordinary measures, which included consulting the Sibylline Books, dispatching a delegation led by Quintus Fabius Pictor to consult the Delphic oracle in Greece, and burying four people alive as a sacrifice to their gods. To raise two new legions, the authorities lowered the draft age and enlisted criminals, debtors and even slaves. Despite the extreme loss of men and equipment, and a second massive defeat later that same year at Silva Litana, the Romans refused to surrender to Hannibal. His offer to ransom survivors was brusquely refused. The Romans fought for 14 more years until they achieved victory at the Battle of Zama.
The person you’re replying to was talking about the norm, while this would have been the exception (until the later reforms of Marius)
I’m always a bit surprised by that but i suppose arming the poor is expensive and risky.
The political stability of England seems to be why it was able to use the longbow, while other countries did not dare train their peasants to be as dangerous.
Any other day bowmen in to open is a bad place to be.
...But they didn't raise a full army again until the next generation of soldiers was raised and Carthage had returned to North Africa.
Not really. They could have reached a negotiated settlement. Both the first and second Punic wars ended in a negotiated settlement (of course very much in favor of Rome). Carthage would likely have been ok with Rome agreeing that all of Spain would be in Carthage’s sphere of influence. Worst case, they would return Sicily which they gained in the first Punic war.
Rome’s decision to keep on fighting was not one necessitated by survival or maintaining independence.
bronze age wars weren't a lesson in diplomacy
That was the thing about the Romans which many found surprising back then. After they were defeated in battle and when everyone expected them to attempt to negotiate a peace settlement to minimize their losses, they just kept on fighting.
42,000 or 2,040?
Even the illuminati can't get old numbers correct (these days).
Herodotus, who was useful in many other ways, also gave figures that are likely at least an order of magnitude too large.
More modern estimates of Cannae seem to be 10-16,000 on the Roman side. Part of the reason is that Hannibal was unlikely to be able to (or would necessarily want to) prevent a rout by the infantry.
Ancient warfare was very psychological and would typically end in a rout rather than a slaughter. Even now with far deadlier weapons, when we talk about "casulaties" we tend to include wounded and those outnumber the killed often by 2:1 or more (side note: your Vietnam casualty number is fatal casualties and pretty much correct).
Also, at this time the population of Roman Italy was likely close to a million or more. The city of Rome peaked at 1-2 million population before the Fall. Even in Republic times it was probably 200-500k+.
So the damage of Cannae was probably hugely psychological and presented a short-term problem in that it takes time to raise and train an army but given the demographics of the Roman Republic, it probably didn't represent a massive loss of military-age men in the same way that, say, World War One or Two did.
There's a famous one in my country led by a former Roman general. After it was put down his tribe was never mentioned in historical chronicles ever again. And there is ofcourse the Jews whose brilliant strategy involved God- he never showed up on the battlefield.
Different tribes called up at different times have their perspective candidates traveling back and forth and all over the place.
Still people would do it.