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The military of ancient Rome was one of largest pre-modern professional standing armies that ever existed. At its height, protecting over 7,000 kilometers of border and consisting of over 400,000 legionaries and auxiliaries , the army was the most important institution in the Roman world.
The term late Roman army is often used to include the East Roman army. The army of the Principate underwent a significant transformation, as a result of the chaotic 3rd century. Unlike the Principate army, the army of the 4th century was heavily dependent on conscription and its soldiers were more poorly remunerated than in the 2nd century.
A soldier earned a one-time praemium or discharge benefit [6] upon completing his service (sixteen years for the Praetorian Guard, twenty for regular duty in the army). At the end of Augustus's reign, the pension for a Praetorian guard was 20,000 sesterces (HS) , and that of a legionary 12,000. [ 7 ]
The flavour of the Roman military, however, was now dictated by the increasing number of regional recruits, leading to a partial barbarisation of Rome's military forces beginning in this period. [97] The barbarisation of the lower ranks was paralleled by a concurrent barbarisation of its command structure, with the Roman senators who had ...
Military of ancient Rome. 753 BC – AD 476. Structural history. Army; Unit types and ranks; ... and later a term used to describe "soldiers" in Medieval Europe ...
When soldiers were not engaged in military campaigns, the legions had little to do, while costing the Roman state large sums of money. Thus, soldiers were involved in building civilian works to keep them well accustomed to hard physical labour and out of mischief, since it was believed that idle armies were a potential source of mutiny.
The use of bows as primary weapons probably originated in the East in the later 4th and earlier 5th centuries to help the Roman army counter Persian and Hunnic bow-armed cavalry. By the time of Procopius 's histories and Maurikios's Strategikon , the main effective field arm of Roman armies was cavalry, many of them armed with bows.
An ala (Latin for "wing"; pl. alae) was the term used during the middle of the Roman Republic (338–88 BC) to denote a military formation composed of conscripts from the socii, Rome's Italian military allies. A normal consular army during the period consisted of two legions, composed of only Roman citizens, and two allied alae.