The Romans: The Rise & Fall of the Greatest Warriors of the Ancient World

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on a battlefield will think hard before starting a war. So said Chancellor Otto von Bismarck who was himself responsible for inciting the Prussian Wars of Independence. War is horrific and yet despite its carnage and senseless destruction we can see heroism, endurance and willpower that goes beyond the call of duty. In this series we pay tribute to elite soldiers, men and sometimes women whose bravery and discipline speaks to us down the centuries. They lived by the Julius Ubius, a Roman legionary who will not only have to fight the enemies of Rome but also his own demons. It is early in the first century Common Era. The Roman Empire is expanding in all directions. At its peak it will cover an area of around five million plus square kilometers. But in Germania, the birth land of Julius, the Roman legions encounter a fierce resistance from one of their greatest foes, the Teutonic tribes. For centuries Roman legions were the enforcers of the Pax Romana, a familiar and feared presence throughout most of their known world. Specifically regarding the ancient Romans, we could consider three things in particular that would render them cold and calculating as ice. Three things. I.C.E. incentive, conviction and execution. Incentive. You need to give one an incentive to do whatever job, especially when the task comes to letting loose the dogs of war. So you need a material incentive, economics, some financial gain, among other things. There may be aspirations for not only glory in this world but in the afterlife. That will lead to the second factor, namely conviction. If one is satisfied with the incentives, then one will be convinced to carry out the task, which leads to the third point, execution. Execution of tasks for the immediate as well as preparation before battle, during battle, after battle. Of course, over the centuries there have been some who admired and even tried to copy Roman military might, usually for all the wrong reasons. But what made the Roman legions such a formidable fighting force? Until the sack of Rome in 390, when a Gaulish army invaded Rome and sacked the city, Rome's army was not a standing army. It was an army composed of farmer soldiers. We find that the soldiers are becoming professionals. We find that their weaponry is mass-produced. We're finding that the Romans themselves are becoming a sufficient organized professional fighting force. The Romans like to boast that while they sometimes lost a battle, they seldom lost a war. But the Germanic tribes will put that theory to the test, more than once. And here is where things get complicated for our young hero, Julius Ubias. For Julius is actually an Ubi tribesman born on the left bank of the Rhine, in a Roman controlled part of Germania. His grandfather, who raises him, fought as a mercenary under Julius Caesar. His father, Willemut, serves as a foreign-born auxiliary soldier. Prior to the ancient Romans, the vast majority of any troops were taken from the mercenary class. Hired killers, basically. With the Romans, we have the creation of the world's first standing army. Discipline, support. However, the Romans, being very pragmatic, maintained at least this vestige from ancient warfare tactics, the use of auxiliaries, primarily for defense of the standing army, that is, of the legion itself. So on the first attack or the first series of attacks, the first to do so for the Romans would be their auxiliary troops. The first duty of these vital support troops was to protect the legions. They would often march in front or guard the flanks. They were also paid less than half of the citizen soldiers, the legionaries. It's not surprising that there were sometimes uprisings or mutiny among the auxiliaries. The auxiliaries are trained as if they are part of the Roman army, and they are, to all instincts and purposes, part of the Roman army. But you've always got that problem with the auxiliary in that they could potentially be turncoats because they're not Roman citizens. They don't have loyalty to Rome that the standing army does have. An auxiliary, like the father of Julius, witnesses examples of that brilliant Roman strategy at work. He serves alongside the legions in Lycia, modern-day Turkey, and in Pannonia, the modern-day Balkans. He fights bravely, so bravely, in fact, that his service to the emperor is rewarded. After a couple of decades in the army, auxiliaries could finally become Roman citizens. It wasn't automatic, but citizenship would be awarded according to various criteria, such as one's importance. A chieftain was more likely to receive it than a common warrior. And the cultural assimilation of Roman ways, which could include one's haircut, diet, and dress. Although Julius grows up in a Germanic settlement on the very fringes of the empire, he dreams of becoming a soldier. But not just any kind of soldier, a Roman legionary. Well, he used to be in the British army, you know, join the army and see the world. And I suppose in the Roman world, there was something of that, too. I mean, you had the opportunity, particularly after the reign of Augustus, that the whole of the Mediterranean would possibly be your port of call as a Roman legionary. However, the postings could be around the Mediterranean or they could be to the wild and brutish north. So I don't think it was primarily to see the world that a Roman legionary joined up. Regular pay, regular food in a unstable world and a good pension. The possibility of a land allotment when you retired. One day after an especially long absence, the father of Julius returns to his family. But there's something different about him. And it's not just a few more crow's feet or a couple of gray hairs. In the Roman army, the foreigners, non-Roman citizens needed to serve for military purposes for a period of 25 years. After this period, they could have the right to retire. They could have the right to become a Roman citizen. So this is a very important point. He shows his young son, his Roman gladius, a symbol of his hard-won Roman citizenship. When it came to the auxiliaries, Roman citizenship was not always transferred from father to son. But these are trying times for Romans in the Rhineland. Conquering and controlling Germania is proving a much tougher task than even the Roman juggernaut was prepared for. And they need fresh blood in the ranks. And so it is. Julius, like his father, is made a citizen and admitted to the Roman legions. He soon leaves the village where he has grown up and spent nearly all his days. To begin on the warrior's way. If Julius wants to be a Roman legionary, as well as a citizen, he must first go in front of a recruiting commission. With his family background, he sails through. But then, like every other common soldier new to the legion, Julius would have had to start at the bottom and work his way up. That meant beginning as a munifex, a soldier with no rank, the equivalent of a private in today's army. A munifex could be called upon to chop wood, carry water, clean the latrines and any other menial or dirty jobs as required. An ordinary soldier could aspire to becoming a centurion and aspire to lead a cohort of troops. However, the upper echelons of the army were always members of the aristocracy. So a new recruit, be it a 16 year old boy somewhere in the Roman Empire, if they've decided that their forward momentum, their upward mobility would be to join the army, then that would begin with at least at the very least a half a year, a four to six month period of intensive training, learning all of the basic fundamentals of being a legionary by oneself, as well as with the entire group, using the gladius properly, knowing how to defend oneself and also remembering how to defend the rest of the unit, the cohort, the legion itself. The fact is, even a common legionary was still a step and a pay grade up from being an auxiliary. And the uniform, weapons and armor still command respect today. The Romans were armed with four elements, basically a shield, a scutum. Now, the scutum itself was a full body shield, which meant if the Roman crouched down behind it, they were guarded from chin to ankle. So they were covered with a piece of armor that was their fighting shield and then a pilum. Now, the pilum was an interesting piece of equipment. It was a spear that was designed for throwing, but it wasn't just an ordinary spear. The organization of the Roman army had changed over the years and the unification of Roman equipment wasn't always the same. If we take the Roman army at the time of the Republic or the first emperors, the level of standardization was high. That means essentially a fighter got weapons as part of his gear and had to use those he was given. Over time, as the Roman army changed more and more, they had the possibility for their own, let's say, personal weapons. Now, given that many of the soldiers weren't of Roman origin, it led to some barbarism of the army, both ethnically and with respect to their weapons. So by the time of the late empire and the migration period, the weaponry had completely changed. However, at the peak of the Roman Empire, we can assume that the legionnaires were practically all armed the same way. The Roman javelin or pilum was a little over two meters long and, of course, lethal. Even when they didn't kill or injure an opponent, they could still put them out of business. These spears would bend on impact and stick in their enemies' shields. Since pilum javelins were so tough to dislodge, the enemy could not simply throw them back at the Romans. And since their own shields were now useless, they had to be discarded. Now vulnerable, the Roman soldier would come at his opponent with sword and dagger. The famed gladius or short sword was light and maneuverable, ideal for quick stabbing motions. The gladius was worn high on the right side of the body. It could be drawn underarm by the right hand without getting in the way of the shield, which a legionary carried in his left. Another important weapon of Roman legionaries was the Puzio dagger. Basically, we can imagine it as a small sword. It was a short stabbing dagger with a relatively wide blade and a variety of handles that actually copied the shape of the gladius sword to something similar. Obviously, this dagger was only for close combat and wasn't used in combat unless the conditions were optimal. Remember, the Roman army relied more on tactics and the overall organization of the battle and troops than on the individual performances. Let's not forget the legionary's shield. After all, it was his first line of defense in battle. But how can we be so sure of what they looked like? Today, the Yale University Gallery houses the only surviving scutum or Roman shield. It seems like a work of art, but had a very practical purpose. The best known use of the shield was when troops advanced in the testudo or tortoise formation, a kind of shield wall. This formation was employed during siege warfare when troops advanced under fire. The famous testudo formation, that is the tortoise formation using their scutum of the shields and short edged swords for close range combat in conjunction with their other defenses, their other defense mechanisms. They were virtually impenetrable. They were like a tank made up of individuals working together in unison. That's fine for the Romans and it's fine for the open warfare. They even adopted the same thing at sea. These highly disciplined bodies of men with their uniforms and battle tactics would conquer much of the known world. However, when the legions entered Germania, they began to see the limits of tried and tested tactics. When they move into the northern lands, when they go beyond the Alps and particularly when they go beyond the Rhine and into a different type of terrain, this type of formation warfare doesn't work. You cannot assemble a legion in a testudo in a forest. There is just not the space for it. And of course, the whole military machine falls apart in a forested terrain. For forested terrain, the Roman war machine needed to develop more versatile and nimble battle tactics than it had traditionally used. But even as Roman legionaries at the front were having to adapt to new realities, at the rear of the Roman army, life remained unchanged. Everything from life in the barracks to morning reports, from working in shifts to field hospitals, from the right to receive a pension all the way to field entertainment concert parties for the troops. All of this was already standard practice in the Roman legions. By the time Julius is old enough to think about becoming a soldier, the legions have chalked up many victories on the board, but they have yet to face their fiercest, most formidable enemy. Fifty years before Julius was born in 52 BCE, the most famous Roman general of them all, Julius Caesar won perhaps his greatest victory, the battle or siege of Alesia. He was up against Vercingetorix, the most feared and clever of warriors in ancient Gaul. With the Battle of Alesia, we are in the year 52 BCE. It's a battle celebrated as one of the greatest Roman victories or one of the greatest victories of Julius Caesar against his enemy, Vercingetorix. Julius Caesar famously decides in a stroke of true military genius to bring the war to one of Rome's more famous great enemies, the Celts. And therein lies the famous series of battles with the chieftain leader of the Celts, Vercingetorix, who had, Caesar himself would probably admit, great charisma and among the Celts also a great knowledge of their own style of combat and warfare, which leads us to the famous Battle of Alesia in which the Celts presumed themselves to be at the advantage, that is to remain fortified in the citadel that they had constructed for themselves. The siege of Alesia was a showcase for Roman strategic and tactical genius. Over six weeks, Caesar's troops built two rings of defensive fortifications around the town to stop reinforcements from reaching the Gauls. What Caesar did was set up a 10-mile wall around the city, hemming Vercingetorix and his troops in their winter quarters, basically there to starve Vercingetorix. Even when a relief force was sent to attack Caesar's troops, he thought about it and had prepared a second rampart 15 miles in circumference to defend his own troops. So we have a double rampart around the city, hemming in the Gauls and keeping out the Gauls, looking inwards and looking outwards. Once inside the town, it was a massacre. Some 40,000 Gauls were slain before their leader, Vercingetorix, finally surrendered to Caesar and was taken to Rome in chains. The strategy of most armies of the day could be summed up as gather your fiercest warriors together and then charge wildly at the enemy and give it all you've got. This was crude but could be effective until you encountered the Romans. To this day, it is true that wars are won with logistics and not merely with the bravery of specific fighters. Julius Caesar once said that he won all of his battles with a spade, meaning groundworks, fortifications and so on, as we can see in the siege of Alesia. Josephus, in his text, Jewish war, writes verbally, their drills, the drills of the Romans, were bloodless battles and their battles were bloody drills. So we can already see from here, from these wars, the strict connection that existed between the training, the level of the troops and the reality of the war. So training drills, all this was very important for the Roman soldier because by means of doing this, he basically prepared himself on a daily basis for the reality of war, which was a constant kind of element in the life of the Republic, the first period, but also in the period of the Roman Empire as well. New recruits to the Legion were also instructed in practical matters such as setting up camp, building fortifications and digging trenches and marching, always marching. The Roman training was that they would actually, as part of their training, train with full kit on route marches of 20 kilometers or 20 miles a day. Well, for a legionary, one who is in full service to the Roman army as a legionary, typically had a pack of somewhere around 20 kilos or 40 to 50 pounds that they would have to march with. They were expected to march with every day for as many as 15 to 20, sometimes 25 miles a day. This pack included, obviously, their own armor, their shield, the gladius, a few other implements of battle, not to mention utensils for cooking. Each roughly group of eight to 10 legionaries would also have assigned two individuals to take care of whatever extra needs that they might have as well. All that marching instills discipline, something even modern day armies still swear by. Recruits had to practice carrying weights of up to 60 pounds, running, leaping, vaulting and swimming, and weapons training using slingshot, bow and arrows, sword and javelin. All that and, well, even more marching. The constant Roman legion practice of drilling troops served a number of purposes. One, for the sake of maintaining what a legionary had already learned years earlier as a new recruit in training. Drilling keeps you fresh, keeps you sharp, keeps you ready, because at any moment you never know when you will be called into direct service in military combat. When on campaign, and even after a long day's march, Roman soldiers would usually have to set up a camp complete with a ditch and a defensive wall of wooden stakes. And as if that wasn't enough, they would be expected to get up the next day and do it all over again. Failure to do so would result in the most severe of punishments. So we have an interesting case from this point of view. So the first century general Domitius Corbulo once had to punish a soldier, one of his soldiers. Why? Just because he was digging, he was digging a trench without having with him his own sword. And what kind of punishment did he decide to give to the soldier? Death. So he was executed on the spot just because he forgot to bring together with him his sword. Punishments could be extended beyond the individual and be applied to an entire cohort of men. A classic example was the so-called decimation or one in ten punishment. The decimation also is an interesting kind of punishment that you can have as a Roman soldier when it's not really possible to identify specific individual responsibilities. In that case, the entire group of people, the entire cohort maybe is punished by the general. How? By reducing the number of its components by 10 percent. Basically, this means that one out of 10 will be executed. Lucky for Julius, he escapes the worst punishments meted out in training and is sworn in as a new Roman legionary. Step forward, new recruit Julius Ubias, and swear by the gods of Rome, the names of your ancestors and your own honor, an unbreakable oath that you will follow your commander wherever he may lead you. You will obey orders enthusiastically and without question. You relinquish the protection of the Roman civil law and accept the power of your commander to put you to death without trial for disobedience or desertion. You promise to serve under the standards for your allotted time of duty and not to leave before your commander discharges you. You will serve Rome faithfully, even at the cost of your life, and will respect the law with regards to civilians and your comrades in camp. You are now a soldier of Rome. Soon, Julius will march off to join the legion on campaign. The year is 15 CE. At that time, the Romans were fighting wars on many fronts and, in most cases, winning them. But the exceptions to Roman dominance were spectacular. When Julius is sworn in, it is only a few years since Arminius, chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe, led an alliance of Germanic tribes at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. This was a humiliating and costly defeat for the Romans, in which three Roman legions were virtually wiped out. In the year 9 CE happens the famous battle of the Teutoburg Forest. It's possibly the worst defeat for the Roman army ever. The Roman legions, three Roman legions, found themselves in an unknown land, flanked by their auxiliary cavalry, which they assumed would defend them, but in actual fact turned upon them and slaughtered them to a man. The auxiliaries, trained in Roman military ways but treated as second class soldiers, could sometimes mutiny and turn on their masters, as they did at Teutoburg. Arminius, the leader of the Cherusci Germans, so he had promised to General Varus to help the Romans. Arminius used to be quasi-Roman individual because he had been living in Rome for many years as a hostage in the past. Arminius of the auxiliaries may have promised to help the Roman legions in the Rhineland, but this was all a front. He, in fact, had a very different plan in mind, and that was to betray the legions, leading them into hostile territory and then turning the might of the auxiliaries against them. The Roman historian Paterculus wrote, hemmed in by forests and marshes and ambuscades, the Roman army was exterminated almost to a man by the very enemy whom it had always slaughtered like cattle. Teutoburg was such a crushing defeat that it became known as the Varian disaster after Varus, the vanquished Roman commander. So the Roman legions famously or infamously had suffered losses prior to the first century with the Celts, the Carthaginians. But the nature of their loss, one of the more famous losses in the Teutoburg forest in Germany, was due to perhaps two factors that the Romans had not been prepared for. They basically entered the fray not keeping in mind two important considerations. One, that they were not on their own turf. They were preparing to battle on enemy territory, not playing on their home field, so to speak. Secondly, the terrain itself, the topography. One of the things that rendered the ancient Roman military war machine effective was their construction of the famous ancient roads. Entering the territory of various Germanic tribes, they did not have that luxury, that necessity, really. Secondly, the terrain itself, apart from the occasional plains, was scattered with a variety of dense forests. And that directly affected the Roman military strategy in fighting. Familiar with Roman ways, Arminius also has both the advantage of surprise and of fighting on his home turf and terrain on which he was entirely comfortable. Advantages that prove devastating. I suppose, in a nutshell, the sort of interest, the difference between the Germanic warrior, the individual Germanic warrior and the Roman fighting machine is really summed up in the career of Arminius himself. This is a young chieftain who is taken to Rome as a 10-year-old hostage, brought up in Rome and trained as a Roman soldier. He's trained as a Roman soldier, but because he's Germanic of German origin, he's not put in the army, but is given command as a chieftain's son. His royal lineage is respected, given command of an auxiliary cavalry unit. That's quite something. He's learned Roman tactics, but is not absorbed into the army proper, but is fighting with the army and is fighting on horseback. So he's not an ordinary soldier marching with the squaddies, but actually given command of a large troop of horsemen. Three Roman legions were wiped out in 15 CE at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, the 17th, 18th and 19th, between 2,600 and 3,000 men. Their eagle standards were captured, the ultimate humiliation and disgrace for a Roman was very important for the Roman troops. It identified the specific point where all the troops had to regroup or had to look at during battle. It was also a means of communication in the age in which they did not really have. The Roman eagles represented the army, the Roman standards, the eagles were carried by the standard bearer. They were the first into battle. It was the rallying point of the entire legion. When you entered the legion, you were expected to defend the legion's honour and the legion's honour was embedded in the eagle, the symbol of the legion. And you would expect to fight to a man to defend the eagle. If the eagles were lost, it meant complete dishonour. After the terrible experience, the terrible defeat of Teutoburg, the Romans, a few years later, they tried to go there again. So they tried again that expedition to the German territories with Germanicus. So Germanicus tried more than once to conquer and he actually managed to advance. Through the German territory beyond the Rhine River, he also managed to recover two of the standards that had been lost, Teutoburg, a few years before. The mission is further proof of Roman determination. Remember, it was said that while the Romans may have lost battles, they seldom lost a war. Recapturing the eagles would restore some wounded pride. Still, it can't have been anyone's dream assignment. The Romans would have to adapt in a sense. They had to fight like the Germanic tribes. Because of his Germanic background, Julius is made an explorator, a scout sent to reconnoitre the movements and deployments of the enemy. But then the watchers are detected. In battling these various Germanic tribes in the first century, they were forced into guerrilla warfare. Julius becomes separated from his centuria after an attack by Germanic tribal warriors now lost and alone in the forest. This Roman son of a Germanic warrior must do everything to avoid being caught by men who are, after all, his own kith and kin. After these raids, the Romans never again tried to advance east of the Rhine, and these territories were never incorporated into the empire. But the Germanic tribes that had united under Arminius would never forget the Roman incursion into their lands. And it was from those same eastern lands that the ultimate Roman nemesis would eventually emerge. Around 400 years after the Battle of Teutoburg, German Gothic forces under the leadership of Alaric I became the first foreign enemy to enter and sack Rome in 800 years. History is always written from the point of view of the victor. Although the Romans were not successful in Germany ever to any great extent, they did have a great propagandist in Tacitus who writes his great history of the Roman campaigns in Germany. And he presents us with a picture of barbarians, which in actual fact is purely propaganda, probably. Posterity is now the last thing on the mind of Julius Ubias. His focus is purely on survival. It's ironic. Part of what ultimately saves Julius are the survival skills he learned as the son of a German living by and in the woods. But it's his iron discipline as a legionary which sustains him. And he is in no doubt where his allegiances lie to the eagle standard, the legion and to Rome. Julius, the citizen soldier, has found himself and will live and die defending the honor of Rome, which for centuries is as much about an idea of nationhood as it is physical borders. The north eastern border, the border dividing, separating the Roman world and the Germanic world was a peculiar one. It was very wide. There were so many different tribes, Germanic tribes pushing to enter the Roman world on that side. They were actually eager to enter the Roman world. And to some extent, they were already part of the Roman world. They were doing their daily business with the Romans. They were trading. They were also fighting for the Romans as allies, as federati, as we say. But by the 5th century C.E., the Pax Romana was steadily crumbling as the tribes of Germania and Gaul began to flex their muscles against the yoke of Rome. The Roman Empire then collapsed also under the wave of this mass of populations eager to enjoy what the Roman territories could have for them. Trying to understand the decay, the decline, the eventual fall, collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, 476, remains the subject of much scholarly debate and discussion. A few things that we can say with certainty that led to this demise, and it's directly connected to the military war machine in ancient Rome. The Roman warrior, if we want to consider him the Roman great general, didn't stop with Caesar, didn't stop with Trajan, but continued into the 4th and 5th centuries with the great general Belarius, for example. So we find that although Rome had fallen, the Roman mentality continued right up until 1453 with the Roman Empire in the east. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor did it fall in a day. In the end, all three eagle standards that were lost at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest were recaptured. But the aura of invincibility around the glory and greatness of Rome had been lost forever.