Roman History

Army and Politics in the History of Rome: from the City's Origins to the Crisis of the 3rd Century CE.

The course is structured in three Parts of 20 hours each, A, B and C.

Part A: Army and politics in the first phase of Rome's history: from the foundation of the City to the age of imperialism (753-146 BC)

In this first part, the problems related to the reconstruction of the most archaic history of Rome will be addressed. After a methodological introduction outlining the nature of the documentary sources in our possession, some of the best known theories about the earliest phase of the city will be analysed. We will then move on to the early republican period, to outline the nature of the clash between the two main components of the civitas, the patrician and the plebeian. Finally, the last lessons of the first part will be devoted to the expansion of Rome in Italy and the Mediterranean. The leitmotif of this first part will be the army, which appears as a decisive element in the political struggle since the most archaic times. The social and institutional structure of the Roman army will therefore be analysed through three fundamental moments: the constitution of the original monarchical army, characterised by patronage ties between soldiers and members of the most illustrious patrician gentes; the reform implemented at the beginning of the republican age, which transformed the army into an element representing the entire city community and recruited no longer on patronage, but on a census basis; the evolution of this corps between the 4th and 3rd centuries as a consequence of the great campaigns of conquest implemented by Rome in Italy and in the Mediterranean context.

Part B: Army and civil wars: from the Graccan crisis to the establishment of the Augustan principate (133-27 BC)

This part will deal with the delicate period that led to the crisis of the republican system and the establishment, following a long series of civil wars, of the principate as a new form of government. The lectures will focus primarily on the reforms implemented by the Gracchi brothers, which led to a rapid radicalisation of the political confrontation and the introduction of violence as a weapon of contention between the parties. The events of the civil wars that pitted the most influential members of the senatorial aristocracy in rapid succession, from Marius and Sulla, to Pompey and Caesar, to Octavian and Antony, will then follow. An analysis of the reforms implemented by Octavian Augustus at the end of the last civil war will conclude this part. Once again, the army will provide the privileged key to reading the events of this period. Starting from the 'crisis' suffered by the citizen army during the second half of the 2nd century B.C. - a crisis caused by the absence of those economic benefits that had always accompanied military activities up to that time - we will deal with the response provided by C. Marius with the opening of the army ranks also to the proletarii - that is, men not regularly registered in the five census classes from which army recruits were normally drawn - and finally with the effects of this 'reform' on the political struggle waged in the last season of the Republican age.

Part C: The Roman Army in the Imperial Age

In this part the history of the Roman army in the imperial age and its impact on political life, from the Augustan reforms up to the establishment of the 'military monarchy' of the Severans (1st-3rd century CE) will be addressed. Particular attention will be devoted to some key moments that testify the increasingly preponderant weight assumed by the army in the conduct of the political life of the State (from the revolts that broke out after the death of Augustus, in 14 CE, to the civil wars that marked the passages of power between some imperial dynasties, such as those that raged in 68-69 and 193-197 CE). This last part will also focus on some particularly important documents that offer invaluable information on the rules that regulated the life of soldiers in the imperial age (from the Egyptian papyri to the Vindolanda tablets).