Little is known about the Roman army of the early king-
dom. Probably small, the army was led by the king and con-
sisted of the royal bodyguard and a few hundred citizens of
the city. By the end of the seventh century b.c.e. the army, a
militia of citizen soldiers, had grown, with its organization
deriving from the supposed three tribes that inhabited the
Roman kingdom: the Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres.
Each tribe contributed 1,000 soldiers, who supplied their own
weapons and armor and who were under the command of a
tribune, or tribal offi cer. Further, each tribal subdivision pro-
vided 100 men to form a unit known as a century. Th e total
3,000-strong body was called the legio, or levy, better known
as a legion. Attached to the legion was the cavalry, numbering
some 300.
Th e infantry would remain the core of all Roman armies.
Infantry units could move more quickly and readily than
cavalry through the oft en mountainous Italian terrain and
in later centuries were more easily transported by sea to dis-
tant confl icts. Chariots, popular in other parts of the ancient
world, were impractical and rarely employed by the Romans
in war because of their legacy of fi ghting in rugged Italy. Be-
cause of their reliance on infantry, the Romans would always
favor close-quarter, or hand-to-hand, fi ghting. Roman cavalry
would act primarily as scouts and as protection from enemy
cavalry as well as for rear attacks against opposing troops.
War for early Rome was a seasonal business, with the
summer being the traditional battle season for the city. Win-
ter conditions were generally too poor for combat, and the
Roman soldiers, being mostly farmers, had to plant in the
spring and harvest in the fall. At the end of summer cam-
paigning, the legion was disbanded to be reformed the fol-
lowing year.A CHANGE IN STRATEGY
Beginning in the fi ft h century b.c.e., the fi rst years of the
republic, Rome used its army to conquer and dominate its
Etruscan neighbors north of the Tiber. Th is initial series of
conquests culminated with Rome’s victory over its archrival
Veii in 396 b.c.e.
Th is series of conquests marked a change in Roman
strategy that would dictate the course of all Rome’s wars until
the time of the later empire. Prior to the fi ft h century b.c.e.
Rome’s strategy was primarily defensive, countering specifi c
threats posed by neighboring peoples. However, in the fi ft h
century b.c.e. Roman warfare became almost exclusively of-
fensive with the Romans coming to view war as a means of
subjugating others and thus expanding their territory. From
the fi ft h century onward the Romans engaged in wars of con-
quest that in the end would give them control fi rst of Italy and
then of much of the Mediterranean. Th is expansion would
off er Rome increased protection from attack by pushing its
enemies farther from the city itself. Expansion in Italy also
brought more farm land under Roman control. An important
consequence of this larger food supply was the growth of the
city of Rome.Gaining dominance over other states required a battle-
fi eld strategy of not just defeating an enemy army on the fi eld
but also destroying the enemy force by killing as many op-
posing warriors as possible. Without the protection of its own
army, many enemy states surrendered to the Romans. Any
that continued to resist through use of their remaining sol-
diers or by arming noncombatants suff ered bloody reprisals
from the Romans, who oft en killed many of the surviving
adults and sold the rest along with children into slavery.
Rome sometimes resorted to other means of winning
a war that did not involve direct combat. Roman soldiers
might burn enemy fi elds and thus force surrender through
the threat of starvation. Th ey might wait until an enemy army
disbanded, either because the soldiers had to return to tend
their fi elds or because they ran out of money to pay merce-
nary troops. On the whole, however, Romans preferred meet-
ing and besting their enemies on the battlefi eld.PHALANXES AND SIEGES
Th e Roman army of the early republic had grown to a legion
of 6,000 infantry, to which 18 centuries of cavalry were at-
tached. Th e legion was still divided into centuries, but the
number of soldiers in each century varied. (Exact numbers
are not now known.) Soldiers were recruited from fi ve so-
cial classes of citizens, with those of the top class being able
to aff ord to equip themselves with the best weapons and
armor and with those of the lowest class lacking armor and
armed only with slings and stones. Additionally, the Ro-
man army was now modeled on the Greek hoplite forces,
in which warriors carrying long thrusting spears and with
shields overlapping marched in a succession of rows, vary-
ing in number from eight to 16, toward the enemy. Th ese
massed lines were called a phalanx, Greek for “roller,” and
allowed fallen soldiers in the front line quickly to be re-
placed from the lines behind.
Although they continued to prefer close-quarter infan-
try engagement during this early period of expansion, Ro-
mans learned siege craft when they attacked the Veian city
of Fidenae. Unable to breach the city’s defenses, the Romans
laid siege. Th e purpose of a Roman siege, like any siege, was
to cut the enemy off from supplies—food, weapons, and
sometimes water—and then through repeated attacks to
wear down resistance until Roman soldiers could gain en-
try to the besieged city. In later centuries the Romans would
employ siege engines such as battering rams to bash in gates
or to knock holes in defensive walls and ballista and onagers
capable of hurling large rocks against enemy walls (the lat-
ter could also throw fl aming pitch into an enemy city). Th e
use of these engines helped bring a siege to a quicker end. At
Fidenae the lack of such engines led to a siege lasting six or
seven years.DEFEAT AND REORGANIZATION
By the fourth century b.c.e. Rome was the strongest military
power in central Italy. In terms of weapons and armor, Ro-1150 war and conquest: Rome0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1150 1150 10/10/07 2:31:15 PM