Rome Army

Brady Roth
1 December 2014
History 1001
Paper 2 Rewrite
How Rome Conquered in 53 Years Polybius, a Greek historian, said that the Roman Empire had many elements that lead them to conquer the entire civilized world in fifty-three years, which is why they are revered as one of the strongest empires in ancient world history. They are considered one of the strongest empires of ancient history because of their ability to never surrender and their extreme knowledge for fighting. At Rome’s peak they had conquered everyone and had shown the world that fighting the Roman Empire would not end well. We know this because Polybius makes a strong account of how they were able to march over anyone in their way and how their way of fighting was so organized that every able bodied man could fight in the army and know the Roman system perfectly.
Important things about Polybius are that he was born in Greece but was deported to Rome in 168 BCE after the defeat of the King of Macedon, Persius. While in Rome he became friends with people like Scipio who was a leading aristocrat in Rome at the time following his success in the army at Carthage and Corinth. Polybius followed around Scipio on his journeys and wrote a Hellenistic history of Rome after all he observed. All of Polybius writings have Greek bias in them but non the less they each give the appropriate view from a Roman outsider, which is credible. Polybius asked the following
“Who is so thoughtless and lazy that he does not want to know in what way and with what kind of government the Romans, in less than fifty three years, conquered nearly the entire inhabited world and brought it under their rule, an achievement previously unheard of?”(Polybius)
Here Polybius is showing us how he watched Rome become a world power and that he is questioning how other empires don’t look after the Romans and follow what they are doing. The Romans are clearly a very strong and unstoppable force, as shown in the quote. He also claims that the Romans have accomplished something that has never happened before which just adds on another reason why they were the most powerful empire of their time. They got to be so powerful because the Romans educational system taught young boys how to be a soldier from a young age. The little boys educational system taught them how to fight and fend for themselves. They could have fallen to other empires but due to Hannibal’s greed they defeated him in addition to many other empires.
The real question is how did the Romans become so powerful and conquer everyone in fifty three years. The Romans ability to do this was so impressive to Polybius that he wrote
“There can surely be nobody so petty or so apathetic in his outlook that he has no desire to discover by what means and under what system of government the Romans succeeded in less than fifty-three years in bringing under their rule almost the whole of the inhabited world, an achievement which is without parallel in human history.” (Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, Book I).
The second war with Carthage and Rome lasted fifty three years long and Rome was hanging on the edge. Hannibal came straight from Spain to Italian soil where he ripped the Roman army apart one after another. Even though Hannibal won multiple battles he did not win the war. Rome did not beg for Hannibal to stop. Rome kept rebuilding their armies one after another by finding more and more soldiers and money to pay them to fight in the field. The thought of surrendering never crossed the Romans minds, which made them different from everyone else. That is the kind of mindset that kept the Romans moving forward and this impressed Polybius. Polybius even noted that he did not see this kind of mental strength in the Greeks, his home country. Not only the mindset of the Romans made them powerful but something else as well. Even the Romans at one point were dumbfounded on how they had been so successful. At one point they were staring extinction in the face thanks to Hannibal but then they became the kings of the Mediterranean.
They had been in a constant fight all of their lives but not even a Roman could tell you what set them apart. So leave it up to the Greek Polybius to tell you. Polybius said, “There are three ingredients to your excellence. One is your staunch morality, your principles. Another is your army, which is so well disciplined and well organized. And the last is the constitution of your government. It is unique.” Polybius claimed that the Romans were as tough as they come. An example of this would be how the Romans refused to take back the prisoners of war that Hannibal captured because no Roman should ever surrender.
Hannibal’s biggest victory against the Romans occurred at Cannae. This is where he killed fifty thousand romans and took eight thousand prisoners, this left Rome weaker than ever. Roman officer never considered surrendering. The officers started working on building an army even though Hannibal was starting on a two day march to take Rome. However, Hannibal decided not to march to them for reasons unknown. Some people say that Hannibal was giving his army a rest after Cannae. All this time Hannibal had to take care of his prisoners of war that he captured. That meant that he had to feed them and have his own men guard them. Then he had an idea that he would sell the captured Romans back to their families for money. Hannibal really liked money. The Romans told these prisoners of war that they are not welcomed because the romans only options on the battlefield are either to die for their country or survive in victory. The Romans had not lost their dignity in the face of extinction. They only had focus on what had to happen. This shows how dedicated the Roman army was at the time. After this the Romans bought two thousand slaves to fill the ranks of those who died at Cannae. All the money they had was used to buy horses, weapons and food. They needed to build their army after the huge loss.
Another reason the Roman army was so strong was because Rome was basically an army. Army for the romans was their school. This was where everything was taught in Rome. Every man had to attend this as well. All the men were soldiers first and then civilians. To be a leader they had to have certain virtues that appealed to the military. The Romans were very organized in their army and their schools. They even had their own camp. The camps main points were organization and discipline. Polybius thought the idea of this camp was novel and wise. The romans pitched the same camp everywhere so that way they would perfect it for war time. The set up of this camp made the Romans feel at home and they felt secure inside of it no matter where the camp was located. This is a great example of how organized and disciplined the roman army was.
There is no doubt that the Roman men of this era were one of the toughest of all time. Polybius did a great job of showing us how powerful and dangerous these men where at the time. Even as an outsider, Polybius still paid respect where it is due because he had seen other armies and knew that the Roman army was one of a kind. The Romans were much more then a group of people but an army that accomplished things that had never been done.