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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 Roman army (Latin: exercitus Romanus) served ancient Rome and the Roman people, enduring through the Roman Kingdom (753 BC–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC–1453 AD), including the Western Roman Empire (until 476/480 AD) and the Eastern Roman Empire (until 1453 AD).
Ala – a military formation composed of conscripts from the Italian military allies. Alaris – A cavalryman serving in an ala. Auxilia – were introduced as non-citizen troops attached to the citizen legions by Augustus after his reorganisation of the Imperial Roman army from 30 BC. Architecti – An engineer or artillery constructor.
The Empire was increasingly plagued by usurpations led or supported by military conspiracies, leading to the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284 AD) in the late empire and eventual final decline. Following is a list of topics on the military history of ancient Rome. Structural history of the Roman military
The heavy losses that the Roman military suffered during this defeat ironically forced the Roman Empire to rely still further on such foederati troops to supplement its forces. [144] In 382, the practice was radically extended when federated troops were signed up en masse as allied contingents of laeti and foederatii troops separate from ...
The early Roman army was deployed by ancient Rome during its Regal Era and into the early Republic around 300 BC, when the so-called "Polybian" or manipular legion was introduced. Until c. 550 BC, there was probably no "national" Roman army, but a series of clan-based war-bands, which only coalesced into a united force in periods of serious ...
The core of the campaign history of the Roman military is an aggregate of different accounts of the Roman military's land battles, from its initial defense against and subsequent conquest of the city's hilltop neighbors on the Italian peninsula, to the ultimate struggle of the Western Roman Empire for its existence against invading Huns ...
Roman military tactics evolved from the type of a small tribal host-seeking local hegemony to massive operations encompassing a world empire. This advance was affected by changing trends in Roman political, social, and economic life, and that of the larger Mediterranean world, but it was also under-girded by a distinctive "Roman way" of war.