mans were generally no better equipped than their enemies.
Rather, they owed their success in war to a stress on teamwork
and esprit de corps over individual heroics. Additionally, the
hard—sometimes brutal—training of Roman soldiers led to
profi ciency in the use of arms and to disciplined obedience.
At all times on the battlefi eld, Roman soldiers were expected
to maintain their formation and to stay sheltered behind their
body-length shields, from behind which they delivered quick
stabbing blows with their short swords.
Nonetheless, Romans were not invincible. Indeed, in 390
b.c.e., six years aft er its fi nal victory over the Veii, Rome suf-
fered one of its most humiliating defeats at the hands of Celts
from Gaul. Th ese Gauls fi rst destroyed a Roman army and
then went on to capture Rome and to demand an exorbitant
tribute before retreating back north. Th e weakness that the
Gauls exploited was the phalanx formation. Roman train-
ing and teamwork made the phalanx eff ective against other
massed enemy infantry. Nevertheless, it did not allow Roman
soldiers much fl exibility of movement on the battlefi eld, whilethe Gauls who fought as individuals or in small groups were
more mobile and thus were able to outfl ank the Romans.
Th e Romans quickly abandoned the phalanx and ad-
opted a new battlefi eld formation that divided the legion into
units called maniples. A maniple, from a Latin word mean-
ing “handful,” consisted of 160 soldiers, or two centuries of
80 each. Each maniple acted semi-independently and was
arranged in three lines. Th e front line would engage the en-
emy and then, aft er about 15minutes, would fall back and be
replaced by the second line, which in turn would be replaced
by the third. Th is maneuver gave the soldiers a period of rest
before rejoining the fi ght. Th e single legion of the army was
also replaced by fi rst two, then three, and fi nally four legions.
Each legion had 60 centuries or 30 maniples.PYRRHUS AND WAR ELEPHANTS
Although the defeat by the Gauls left Rome weakened, it soon
grew militarily powerful again and, with its restructured
army, brought the Italian peninsula under its control over
the next century. In doing so, Rome had to fi ght three wars
with the Samnites, beginning in 343 b.c.e. It was in 312 b.c.e.,
during the second of these wars (326–304 b.c.e.) that the Ro-
mans, realizing that they needed a method of moving troops
and supplies rapidly, built the fi rst of their roads, the Via Ap-
pia, or Appian Way, Roman roads would be one of the keys
to Rome’s success in waging successful war in the centuries
to come, as they were able to rush troops relatively quickly to
trouble spots in their holdings.
In 280 b.c.e. Roman expansion in Italy brought war with
the Greek colony of Tarentum, to whose aid Pyrrhus, ruler of
the Greek city-state Epirus, came. Th is war was the fi rst time
that Rome faced one of the Mediterranean superpowers and
the fi rst time that its soldiers encountered war elephants. It
was these latter that gave Pyrrhus a victory in his fi rst two
battles with the Romans.
Th e Romans may have lost the fi rst battles, but as would
be their practice in the centuries to come they refused to con-
cede defeat. Instead, they regrouped and continued the war.
Th ey allied themselves with the other major Mediterranean
power, the Carthaginians, and they adapted their battlefi eld
tactics to deal with enemy elephants. In 275 b.c.e. the Romans
met Pyrrhus for the fi nal time and defeated him by routing
his elephant corps through the use of javelins and fi re and
perhaps at times by hitting the animals on the head.THE FIRST PUNIC WAR
Th e defeat of Pyrrhus left the Greek colonies open to Ro-
man conquest, and Rome quickly defeated each in battle.
As the Romans were fi nalizing their control of Italy, they
became embroiled in a war with Carthage over Sicily. Rome
and Carthage would fi ght three wars, the fi rst from 264 to
241 b.c.e. Known as the Punic Wars, these confl icts would
leave Rome with the beginnings of its overseas empire and
as the strongest state in the Mediterranean world. Carthage
would be destroyed.Bronze statuette of Mars, god of war, Roman Britain, second century
c.e., from Earith, Cambridgeshire; Mars wears the armor of a general,
including an elaborate helmet, sheet-metal leg guards decorated with
thunderbolts, and an embossed chest plate moulded to the form of the
body. (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)war and conquest: Rome 11510895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1151 1151 10/10/07 2:31:15 PM