Examine the character and political significance of the Roman army in the later second century BC. Was there a manpower shortage? Illustrate your essay with specific examples.

For many centuries, the Roman republic had survived with a military and political framework that had ensured the survival and prosperity of the city state. However, it is clear that by the later second century BC the nature of Rome was changing to adapt to varying internal and external stimuli. The army began a significant process of change that would eventually culminate in the creation of a thoroughly professionalised land force by the time of the Principate. The other primary issue, manpower in Italy, is not so easy to establish. The truth is that very little evidence remains either to confirm or refute the long accepted assumption that there was a manpower shortage. Many scholars have used conjecture and mathematical hypotheses to support their arguments, and though we shall examine these more closely it remains clear that to answer the question we must explore other related issues such as the Roman class system and the effect of war upon Roman society in this period. Therefore, the relationship between soldiers and the State they were fighting for requires close consideration.
The year 146 BC is widely considered to be an important watershed in the annals of the Roman State. It heralded the end of the third and final Punic War and the utter destruction of Carthage, which up until then had been the only state with the military power to challenge the Romans. Rome acquired an additional six overseas provinces: Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Nearer and Further Spain, Africa and Macedonia, with Asia and Transalpine Gaul added in the subsequent few decades. Thus, the size and rate of growth of the Empire had been increased dramatically. The Mediterranean was at their mercy.
Until this time, the Roman army had been militia based. This system made it compulsory for men above a certain property level to temporarily abandon their work on the farms and take up arms for the nation. This was advantageous in several ways: firstly, the abundance of able and willing recruits allowed the determined and indefatigable Roman State to withstand the appalling losses of the Punic Wars and prevail. Also, as well as providing a large proportion of the male population with military experience it also gave the peasants a collective strength, a sense of belonging to a state that they had a personal stake in.
By the mid-second century, however, it was clear that the situation was changing. The dramatic increase in the size of the Roman Empire highlighted the limitations of a militia army. The process of calling men to arms was a stop-start process that didn’t allow for any consistency. Also, there was no place for specialist troops such as engineers, which reduced the army’s ability to besiege Cities. Once the army was disbanded it would have to wait until a new war demanded the recruitment of new inexperienced troops. This perhaps reflects the high number of defeats in the period 150-100 BC. It has been noted that nearly every campaign in this period began with defeats that were sometimes so huge as to be embarrassing, such as at Arausio in 105. Such losses made the issue of recruitment all the more relevant especially as the number of permanent legions had been steadily declining throughout the Century.
Since troops had to travel longer distances to fight, a permanent garrison might be necessary to maintain order in certain far away outposts. Much debate has arisen as to how the long-term abandonment of farmland might affect the rural community. In a militia based system, the army was the community, so the increasing divide between rich and poor in this period had a profound effect on the nature of recruitment.
As a result of Carthage’s defeat, huge amounts of wealth flooded into the City of Rome, allowing the construction of harbours and the development of new industries. In truth it was mainly the elite who profited from this new flow of revenue – money was often distributed to the lower orders in the form of public displays, games and grand buildings designed to promote Roman power and instil a sense of pride in it’s military achievements. Meanwhile, contemporary commentators felt that the aristocracy were being corrupted by their new found opulence and the competitive drive to achieve personal glory. As a result, they began to lose touch with common people who dwelt in slums whilst noblemen’s vast houses on the Palatine Hill or in the countryside would become the stuff of legend.
Here we see how the issue of land ownership tied in with military service: as small farmers spent increasing amounts of time on campaign, avaricious equestrians attempted to move on to public land and develop vast personal estates – estates that were increasingly being laboured on by slaves from the conquered territories who often had greater skill and craftsmanship than the peasants of Italy. To the aristocracy, land was the easiest and safest way to invest. Their acquisition of plots was achieved “partly by purchase, partly by persuasion and partly by force, cultivating wide estates instead of single farms.”
We should also consider the new businesses related to the empire (such as roads, sewers and army equipment) that also increased their wealth. As a result, some soldiers returning home would find they had no land and no work prospects, which in turn led to the increase in the number of landless peasants heading to Rome itself. The urban population subsequently swelled into overcrowded slums. There were indeed economic incentives to go to the City. For example in 123 BC, the inhabitants of Rome had their wheat supply subsidised. Some of Rome’s allies openly complained about the sheer number of their own people that were being re-settled in the Capital, expressing fears that there would be no one left in their own settlements.
As the land ownership situation deteriorated, opinions were divided as to how it should be dealt with. The problem was that conservatives like Nasica defended these rural changes because they were the very people who profited from it. In 140BC, 20,000 slaves rebelled on Sicily, thus putting doubt on the validity of mass slave labour in Italy. Even so, news travelled slowly and it would take time before people became fully aware of these problems, even though revolts such as those at Sipontium and Buxentum were especially brutal. Tellingly, such revolts tended to arise on aristocratic estates and there was even a full scale slave war by 135 BC. The fact that the army was stretched to the limit at this point made things difficult enough. But added to this was the increasing problem of desertion from soldiers who had grown tired of the long periods of service required of them. Nasica had them punished severely but it was clear that change was needed.
The man who came to highlight the issues of land ownership and military manpower in this period was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus the Younger, an aristocratic soldier and politician. On a famous trip through Etruria in 138 BC, Gracchus saw for himself the abundance of slave labour. He also saw the danger of putting disloyal and militarily useless men on Roman land. Disillusioned with the greed and hypocrisy of Rome’s rulers, Gracchus was the first politician to identify with the lower orders. He actively championed Plebeian issues in open defiance of the Nobility. This is important not just because it heralded a greater integration of soldiers and lower orders into politics, but also because Gracchus addressed the issues of manpower directly. Throughout this period, the minimum property requirements for army recruits was being steadily reduced, suggesting that there were fewer men eligible for military service.
Gracchus used Census and Levy reports to prove his point that the population was in decline. Some modern scholars like Morley and Rosenstein have tried to disprove this. Unfortunately their theories are based on suppositions and localised archaeological evidence that do not reliably show us the whole picture. Both Keaveney and Goldsworthy agree with this. Though archaeological evidence provides evidence of wealth on small farmsteads in the later second century BC, it can only prove it in that particular area, not on a nationwide scale. It is perfectly possible that some small landowners would have survived and even flourished but to make such an assumption about the majority of the population would be foolhardy.
Aside from this, the levy clearly showed a steady decline in the population from 164 BC to 136 BC. The possibility remains that some men may have avoided the census in order to avoid military service. This seems possible when one considers the ongoing wars in Spain that were a thorn to Rome’s might throughout this century. The Numantines had constantly thwarted Roman efforts to neutralise them thanks to the use of guerrilla tactics that the Roman army was unable to deal with. Not only did soldiers risk long periods away from home and even death but also there was little prospect of booty in the barren plains of northern Spain. Though some may have avoided the levy, Gracchus is most likely to have known about this and taken it into account. After all, both he and his father had been to Spain to fight and negotiate peace with the tribesmen. Therefore it stands to reason that Gracchus was right to believe in a manpower shortage.
Rosenstein has nevertheless argued that there was still a property count in this period so the supposed shortages cannot have been very dire. There must have been plenty of penniless citizens to support Gracchus and give him the political weight he mustered against the senate. But some, including Tiberius Gracchus himself, have pointed out that even by this stage there is evidence that the property rules were being overlooked and a capite censi was being implemented. As well as this the army had began to recruit boys younger than the minimum age of seventeen. For whatever reason, it is clear that commanders were ignoring recruitment regulations so we must therefore assume that they could not find enough recruits.
Perhaps we should consider the point that the uprooting of people from the countryside was a gradual process. We have seen that men could use booty to pay off their debts, thus proving that the army was not necessarily a path to financial destruction. Some have argued that families could cope with recruitment. Indeed, there is evidence that soldiers had fought in year long campaigns centuries before this period, and yet the farms had managed to prevail despite missing the harvest. The republic had a system called a stipendium that allowed payment to men who fought for a particularly long time. This may be true but long-term service did not happen on such a wide scale or for as long a time as it did in the 100’s BC. We should also remember that new conquered territories meant new farmland for dispossessed tenants. But according to Rosenstein this does not justify the amount of men sent to fight in the period between the Third Samnite and second Punic wars.
Erdkamp has even gone so far as to suggest that the population and manpower potential increased in the second century. He points out that Rome’s allies made a significant contribution to the military (about sixty percent even at this stage when it was becoming an increasing burden). He has also argued that the Gracchan reforms were initiated more out of concern for the declining citizenry than for supposed manpower shortages. But in suggesting this he is overlooking the fundamental point that the citizenry and the army were closely interlinked. Therefore, a decline in the lower orders would inevitably have a knock-on effect on manpower. Even he admits that the same citizenry was dwindling. Nevertheless, Erdkamp persists by renouncing the belief that high casualty rates during the Punic Wars would have effected the population several generations down the line. He suggests that many households could cope with casualty rates because families would bond together into a larger multi-generational household. Erdkamp even suggests positive economic effects of recruitment, believing it could serve to cull excessive labour. Despite this theorising, Erdkamp’s argument seems too specific in its analysis, referring as it does to particular examples that may not reflect the experiences of the majority. Also, his argument that the dwindling assidui would have been less likely to register on the census seems to be mere speculation. Anyhow, the increase in population is irrelevant in relation to the decrease of peasants and labourers.
It is true that Rome was going through serious economic hardship by 133 BC. Industry had been stifled, whilst the price of grain had doubled and doubled again. Whilst the ongoing war in Spain drained the treasury, the landless population increased, thus swelling the level of urban unemployment. These were the very people whose rights Gracchus stood up for, many of whom would have been ex-servicemen. In a speech directed to the peasants, Gracchus pointed out that “the men who fight and die for our country enjoy the common air and light and nothing else.” Though Gracchus’ radical politics and open defiance of his own class led ultimately to his assassination he nevertheless highlighted an important question that would continue to haunt the republic until its demise: who should benefit from the growth of the empire? Was it not reasonable to suggest that those soldiers who gave Rome its empire deserved more of the spoils than those born with privilege?
Keith Hopkins has highlighted the importance of military affairs among the elite, not just the common people. Throughout the history of Rome, commanders always came from the equestrian class who were expected to balance army service with civic duties. Aristocrats simply had to possess military gifts. Magistrates would be given positions en masse and ten years of military service from as young an age as seventeen was standard practise for many. This was an era in which vast conquests saw the emergence of great generals, and as the spoils increased and the stakes became higher, military rivalry became increasingly intense. If a commander won a suitably stellar victory he could request a triumphal procession in Rome. The Second Century BC in particular saw a large number of these. Historical accounts at the time were obsessed with battles, and in some cases an individual’s thirst for glory could even be a cause for war in itself. Military service figures for the period are questionable but at a rough estimate it seems that over fifty percent of citizens served for a period of no longer than seven years in the later second century BC. This was an age of belligerence, so the strain on Rome’s military resources could only increase.
Of course, the true cost of warfare was much more apparent to the civilian population than it was to their rulers. The fact that contemporary accounts largely overlooked casualty rates is a tell tale sign of this. In the early Second Century alone there had been approximately 100,000 deaths in war out of a male population of less than 1,000,000. Even then, this does not take account of deaths from epidemics and discrepancies in records. This could only create vacancies on agricultural land. Since the nobles were out of touch with the impact of their campaigns on their people, a class divide further developed tension.
Adrian Goldsworthy has further suggested a theory that the destruction of the Punic Wars could have directly affected a fall in population. We must remember that Hannibal had spent fifteen years campaigning across Italy, during which time his marauding army had caused havoc in the countryside, destroying farmland, killing livestock and ruthlessly murdering much of the population. In order to stop him, some of the Roman Generals like Fabius Maximus had adopted a scorched earth policy that may have been a short term remedy to the threat but which must also have caused serious long term damage to farmland, making it uninhabitable for prospective settlers. This is especially convincing since many ex-soldiers would return home after their campaigns without enough money to restore their property. Booty might be plentiful enough to ease the financial concerns of luckier veterans, but many would return home to face large debts and might even have their land sequestrated to deal with it. On the other hand, we must bear in mind that Hannibal had mainly operated in southern Italy where there was less valuable land than there was in the north. So even though we can’t blame this alone for a decline in the peasantry, it remains a contributory factor to the manpower decline of the later Second Century BC.
Mention should also be made of Caius Marius, the famous General and military reformer of the period. Marius re-structured the army and put it on the path to professionalization – a path that would profoundly alter the character of the Roman army and it’s relation to the State in the following Century. Though his example was not unprecedented, it was Marius who made capite censi a common practise and simultaneously eradicated the property law. Perhaps it was inevitable given that he was being denied fresh troops from the senate. We can use this evidence to further support the theory that the republic was struggling to produce enough troops.
In conclusion, though it is impossible to say for certain that there was a manpower shortage during this period we can assume that it was most likely. The strains relating to the massive expansion of the Roman Empire combined with the expulsion of the Roman peasants from public land must have taken their toll. Though we cannot confirm that the population was either rising or falling significantly, we can at least say that the class of people that traditionally provided soldiers was seriously suffering, thus leading the way for a permanent, professional army that subsequent Generals would use to overthrow the Roman Republic.