"What gave the Roman Army its edge?" Topic

What single factor gave the Roman Army its superiority?

Training.

It was fighting, for the most part, undisciplined rabble.

Never mind that. Check the complaints log.

I think training and discipline has to be at the top of the list somewhere.

The gladius usually had a pretty nice edge.

Pitiful Opponents.

There is a scene in the otherwise Lame third series of Blackadder where he describes his distress at having to fight the Germans after signing up for a carefree career battling Natives armed only with Fruit.

While this was a sad and unfunny insult by Mister Bean to the men of the British Army, it DOES serve as a fair metaphor for the look that must have been on the face of the average Legionary when he found out the Parthians had finally given up and been replaced by the Persians, and then saw the Ostrogoths coming over the hill being ridden by the Huns.

Pat

They read and believed the Aenied.

Of course, the Parthians, Persians, Ostrogoths and Huns each scored notable victories over the Romans.

Single Factor was Hannibal!!!!!!!

Frumentum.

Grain Allen?

The biggest source of grain was from Egypt wasn't it? Where they had a reall cool fort that held out for 600 years?

But Hannibal gave the Romans a memory of tragic defeats and occupation in their own back yard that would be a major motivation for them to become a major power!!!

No need to curse, Allan.

Anyway, troops who failed were decimated. If that didn't work, they were made to eat garum.

There was no single factor.

Latium

it gave the logistical support to keep armies in the field longer, and the human resources to keep replacing every year – which meant no reason to surrender.

If Latium had been as fertile and populated as the Peloponese, we wouldn't be asking this question now.

Flexibility was huge.

A professional organized military with high levels of training, discipline, logistics. Add to it a national sense of manifest destiny, that won't accept defeat, and you got a army that won't quit.

It also didn't hurt that most of you opposition was disorganize tribes of barbarians.

Regards,

Rome conquered most of its empire nominally as amateurs – Italy, Spain, Greece, North Africa.

They were snappy dressers.

Logistics – being able to fight after your enemies have gone home is the biggest advantage.

"The biggest source of grain was from Egypt was't it?"

Not so much at first. Campania and the rest of Latium, as Keraunos says, then Sicily, then Africa--the "granary of the empire"--(both these latter as a result of the Punic wars), then later certainly Egypt, and elsewhere in the east: even Pontus sold grain to Rome!

Allen

They were able to replace their losses quickly; so, population.

If you can boil it down to one word, I think it would be "organization."

That is related to, not only the military, but the culture as a whole. Like the Egytians, the Romans were socially, militarily, logistically, and politically organized.

When Rome suffered defeats, it was by enemies who were better organized in one of more aspects than they.

It is no different today.

Training,training! Even with poor leadership they still won! Mike Adams

Fishpickle.

Fear.

Fear and surprise.

Fear, surprise, and an almost fanatical devotion …

Oh, skip it.

Russell Crowe?

But really, this about sums it up: YouTube link

They read and believed the Aenied.

I like this one.

PR. Public Relations is the true reason of success for any business. Sure they lost a few battles but the spin they put on them made them heroic last stands that today centuries later even the decendants of the victors remark and uphold the prowess of the Romans.

Unity perhaps?

I know that may sound like a joke to the hardened roman historians but I refer to the "conquest/republican" period.

They surely must have been very unified as a people to win the punic wars the way they did. Far more unified than carthage from what I know. I'm pretty sure the same can be said for most of their big opponents?

I'm reading a little about the 3rd century at the moment and it seems like every time rome was disunited (rather often) the persians had a whack and vice versa.

A willingness to keep doing the same thing over and over despite all disasters until the guys you were attacking gave up.
Then, using the exhausted people you had just conquered to pick a fight with the next sovereign state that was inconveniently within "logical defensible borders".

That carried the Romans a long way.

Determined, unlikeable leadership mostly.

I don't see any real superior military methods. The Roman army lost as often, if not more, than they won. That does not argue for superior methods.
They just kept coming back. Sooner or later, your methods will win.

I'll go with training. Josephus called "their exercises unbloody battles, and their battles bloody exercises".

Of course, they had to have the resources to support a bunch of people who trained all the time.

The Romans had a uniformly, well equipped army that fought with tactics and strategy and was very disciplined. Being a paid army meant that the Roman army did not go away during harvest time. It could and did persist in the field almost year round and had a massive logistical system to support it while it was in the field. Many of Rome's enemies were farmer soldiers -- they had to stand down in fall/winter. More importantly, the Romans did not give up easily, but instead preferred to fight on despite the hardships.

Agree with much of the above – but I would throw in (certainly for the Republic and thus the acquisition of empire) a peculiar brand of cultural stubbornness and psychopathia towards everyone else. Always strikes me as a little odd that the Spartans get singled out for their peculiarities that produced such militarily effective capabilities (and yes, TableTopWarrior, reputation) but the peculiarities that marked out the Romans are less remarked upon.

The Roman republic is just so damned predatory. As soon as one war with one neighbour is over, start the next one. (And once the republic gets big enough, sometimes don't have to wait even for the end of the first war.) A year does not go by without some poor sods getting a visit from the legions. This is unique in contemporary civilised Mediterranean cultures; the likes of the Illyrians or Gauls or the Iberians may perhaps enjoy continual raiding, but not the organisation of the state to conquest. Yes, some individual monarchs, particularly in the Hellenistic period, become campaign junkies, but once they pass away, their state typically reverts to a more passive military posture.

And as Adrian Goldsworthy, among others, has argued so cogently, the Romans refuse to play by the rules; if they suffer a setback, they don't have the decency to be good losers, throw their hands up and come to a settlement. No, they keep on and on, even with terrible losses, until things start going their way. Any defeat must be avenged. Varus' defeat MAY have played a part in defining the limit of empire at the Rhine and Danube, but even under Augustus there was no let-up on massive thrusts into Germania until enough tribesmen had been slaughtered, enough villages burned, and Eagles retrieved to repay the blood lost in those three legions.

logistics

nastiness

A paid army versus an army that has to pay. GreyONE is correct in the difference that makes in agrarian societies. Initial successes led to surplus; surplus leads to better training and equipment and the ability to have a standing army. Standing army means even more training. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. The "predatory" nature of the Republic to which DBS303 refers can really be viewed as the snowball starting down the hill. It gains in size and destructive power the longer it rolls.

Logistics gave them a huge advantage. They could force opponents to give up all and any tactical advantages simply because they were going home whilst the Romans could hang around almost indefinitely.

GreyOne is correct. It is the entire system. The Roman's didn't need great generals to win but . . . if they did have a great general (and they did produce these from time to time) they were really tough.

mjc

Did no one mention the inbuilt tactical system of employing reserves?

As front ranks tired, the Romans were able to commit fresh troops by 'interpenetration' of sorts (the manipular, and later cohortal system). This allowed their tired troops to rest, possibly to be re-committed when the 'reserves' tired. Few other classical armies could do this to anything like the same degree and it often proved decisive.

Otherwise, woe betide me, what John the OFM said.

Training and discipline at first. Later it was Training discipline and treachery. After that, it was all down hill.

Mars

Mars

That's right. They chose the right god to go with at the time.

They just kept coming back. Sooner or later, your methods will win.

That sounds like the Nicky Santoro way

Interstate roads.
John

In the longer term, assimilation.

The Romans themselves pondered why their Empire was so great and so long-lived whereas – say – the Athenian Empire, while great in its day, proved fragile and short-lived.

I think they came to the correct conclusion. As the Athenian Empire grew, they became stretched and weakened.

As the Romans grew, they turned their allies and the people they conquered into Romans. They snowballed while others stretched themselves thin.

Tenacity. No matter how many times they got whooped on (and there were many!), they kept coming back until they won.

Seconded, tenacity.

They wore red, it can never hurt to go into battle looking like an Englishman.

What single factor gave the Roman Army its superiority?

Agriculture. The surplus production from farming allowed for specialization of trades, one of those being an a standing army and the ongoing training to support it. That edge combined with the opponents the Romans faced allowed them the success they experienced.

Jeff

Strength in depth. Often suffering defeats but even more often able to come back with even greater strength.