Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T13:32:37.658Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Warfare and the state

from Part I - The Late Republic and the Principate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Dominic
Affiliation:
Professor of Ancient History, King’s College London
Richard
Affiliation:
Professor of Ancient History, Royal Holloway, University of London
Philip Sabin
Affiliation:
King's College London
Hans van Wees
Affiliation:
University College London
Michael Whitby
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Get access

Summary

MILITARY FINANCE AND SUPPLY

Dominic Rathbone

The extant literature of the Roman world of the late Republic and Principate has only occasional brief references to soldiers’ pay, preparations for particular campaigns and the burden of military expenses. No coherent discussion survives of the financing of the Roman army, let alone of the economics of Roman war. The province of Egypt furnishes a broad but random sample of records on papyrus and ostraca from the first to third centuries A.D. (and beyond), mostly about supplies, which is supplemented by sparse documents elsewhere, notably the tablets from Vindolanda (Britain) and Vindonissa (Upper Germany), the Bu Njem ostraca (Africa) and Dura-Europus papyri (Mesopotamia). Soldiers’ dedicatory and funerary inscriptions, of which the richest concentration is from Lambaesis (Africa), occasionally help, and other archaeological finds in and around military camps, mainly in the north-western provinces, represent further potential data on the military economy.

the remuneration of soldiers

In the long first century B.C., as part of the revolution from Republic to Principate, the Roman army was transformed from an annual peasant levy to a standing professional force (see pp. 30–7 above), although formal recognition of changes often lagged behind them. The Republican ideology that legionary service was restricted to property-owners who could arm and maintain themselves lived on into the second century A.D., although landless volunteers must have been enrolled in large numbers from the late third century B.C., and their recruitment had supposedly been regularized in 107 B.C. by Marius.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Warfare and the state
    • By Dominic, Professor of Ancient History, King’s College London, Richard, Professor of Ancient History, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521782746.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Warfare and the state
    • By Dominic, Professor of Ancient History, King’s College London, Richard, Professor of Ancient History, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521782746.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Warfare and the state
    • By Dominic, Professor of Ancient History, King’s College London, Richard, Professor of Ancient History, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521782746.006
Available formats
×