War and Society in the Roman World (Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society)

328 Pages·1993·1.1 MB·English

by  Dr John Rich

Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society
Volume 5

WAR AND SOCIETY IN THE
ROMAN WORLD

WAR AND SOCIETY IN
THE ROMAN WORLD
Edited by
JOHN RICH and GRAHAM SHIPLEY

London and New York
First published 1993
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1993 John Rich, Graham Shipley and individual contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
War and society in the Roman world/edited by John Rich and
Graham Shipley.
p. cm.—(Leicester-Nottingham studies in ancient society; v. 5)
Selected, revised versions of papers from a series of seminars
sponsored by the Classics Departments of Leicester and Nottingham
Universities, 1988–1990.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Military art and science—Rome—History. 2. Rome—History,
Military. 3. Sociology, Military—Rome—History. I. Rich, John.
II. Shipley, Graham. III. Series.
U35.W34 1993
355′.00937–dc20 92–36698

ISBN 0-203-07554-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-22120-6 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-06644-1 (Print Edition)
Contents

List of illustrations vii
Notes on contributors viii
Preface ix
Abbreviations x
Introduction 1
JOHN RICH
1 The Roman conquest of Italy 9
STEPHEN OAKLEY
2 Fear, greed and glory: the causes of Roman war-making
in the middle Republic 38
JOHN RICH
3 Urbs direpta, or how the Romans sacked cities 69
ADAM ZIOLKOWSKI
4 Military organization and social change in the later
Roman Republic 92
JOHN PATTERSON
5 Roman poetry and anti-militarism 113
DUNCAN CLOUD
6 The end of Roman imperial expansion 139
TIM CORNELL
7 Roman peace 171
GREG WOOLF
vi Contents
8 Piracy under the principate and the ideology of
imperial eradication 195
DAVID BRAUND
9 War and diplomacy: Rome and Parthia, 31 BC–AD 235 213
BRIAN CAMPBELL
10 Philosophers’ attitudes to warfare under the principate 241
HARRY SIDEBOTTOM
11 The end of the Roman army in the western empire 265
WOLFGANG LIEBESCHUETZ
12 Landlords and warlords in the later Roman Empire 277
DICK WHITTAKER
Index 303
Illustrations
Figures
2.1 Legions in service by five-year periods, 200–91 BC 46
2.2 Triumphs and ovations per decade, 330–91 BC 50
2.3 Consuls assigned overseas provinces per decade, 200–91 BC 51
Table
1.1 Captives enslaved by Rome, 297–293 BC 25
Contributors
David Braund is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Exeter.
Brian Campbell is Lecturer in Ancient History at the Queen’s
University of Belfast.
Duncan Cloud is Associate Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the
University of Leicester.
Tim Cornell is Senior Lecturer in History at University College
London.
Wolfgang Liebeschuetz is Emeritus Professor of Classics and
Ancient History at the University of Nottingham, and a Fellow of
the British Academy.
Stephen Oakley is Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
John Patterson is a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and
University Lecturer in Ancient History.
John Rich is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of
Nottingham.
Harry Sidebottom is doing post-doctoral research at Corpus Christi
College, Oxford.
Dick Whittaker is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and
University Lecturer in Ancient History.
Greg Woolf is Andrew and Randall Crawley Fellow in the History of
the Ancient World at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Adam Ziolkowski is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of
Warsaw.
Preface
There is and has been a powerful reluctance among historians to discuss
ancient warfare and its consequences with a steady eye.’ Thus Moses
Finley, in one of his last published works (Ancient History: Evidence
and Models (London, 1985), 71). This book and its companion volume,
War and Society in the Greek World, constitute an attempt to respond to
Finley’s challenge. Like the earlier volumes in Leicester-Nottingham
Studies in Ancient Society, they are the product of seminars jointly
organized by the Classics Departments of Leicester and Nottingham
Universities. ‘War and Society in the Ancient World’ was the theme of a
series of seminars held in Leicester and Nottingham between 1988 and
1990. The two volumes contain substantially revised versions of a
selection of papers from that series.
We are very grateful to all the participants in the seminar series,
both our colleagues in Leicester and Nottingham and those from
further afield, some of whom regularly travelled long distances to
take part in the discussions. We would also like to thank the Society
for the Promotion of Roman Studies for assistance with the cost of
Dr Ziolkowski’s travel from Poland, Susan Walker for assistance
with the jacket illustration and Adrienne Edwards for invaluable
administrative help.
The translations of Livy, Polybius and Tacitus in chapter 3 are
reproduced by permission of the publishers and the Loeb Classical
Library from Livy: Ab Urbe Condita, 13 vols, tr. B.O.Foster and
others, 1919–51, Polybius: The Histories, 6 vols, tr. W.R.Paton, 1922–
7, and Tacitus: The Histories, 1925–31, tr. C H.Moore, Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press. The translation of Propertius 2. 7 on
p. 120 is reproduced by permission of the publishers from Propertius:
The Poems, tr. W.G.Shepherd, 1985, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
John Rich
Graham Shipley