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