MILITARY REVOLUTION

In the last decades of the fifth century B.C. and the first decades of the fourth, the army of the Roman res publica could lay claim to the unenviable title “least efficient military establishment” of any major state in the Mediterranean world. Despite advantages conferred by population and location, Rome had trouble controlling the other states of the Latin plain and was locked in a struggle with the much smaller city of Veii to its north. In the course of the fifth century, it managed to add only about 200 square kilometers of land to the territory that it controlled. By 290, it was the dominant state in peninsular Italy, and its army was the most effective military force in the Mediterranean world.

The transition of the Roman army from ineptitude to lethal efficiency was the result of one of the most significant military revolutions in European history. A military revolution is defined by the transformation of a state's military and civilian administration to enable a high degree of coordination between the two.I Such structural change is often accompanied by significant developments in military equipment and doctrine that make the revolutionary state superior, for some period of time, to its rivals. Changes of this sort took place in fourth-century Rome, and the Roman military revolution was so profound that it shaped the course of the history of the Mediterranean, Europe, and the Near East for six centuries.