Recruiting Roman Armies in the Civil Wars of the Late Republic

[Jim Webster]

I've always wondered about the armies of this period. I remember the First 'Armies and Enemies' having a legionary in leather armour because it would be a possible way to equip the rapidly expanding legions.

Some of the arming of the legions could be because there was an awful lot of equipment in place. From Plutarch, The Parallel Lives, The Life of Brutus   
24  From thence Brutus put to sea and sailed for Athens. Here the people welcomed him eagerly and extolled him in public decrees. He dwelt with a certain guest-friend, attended the lectures of Theomnestus the Academic and Cratippus the Peripatetic, discussed philosophy with them, and was thought to be wholly given up to literary pursuits. But without any one's suspecting it, he was getting ready for war. For he sent Herostratus into Macedonia, desiring to win over the commanders of the armies there, and he united in his service all the young Romans who were studying at Athens. One of these was Cicero's son, on whom he bestows high praise, declaring that whether awake or asleep and dreaming, he was amazed to find him of such a noble spirit and such a hater of tyranny.

Afterwards he began to act openly, and having learned that Roman transports full of treasure were approaching from Asia, and that an accomplished and well-known man was in command of them, he went to meet him at Carystus. After conferring with him and persuading him to hand over the transports, he prepared an entertainment of unusual splendour; for it was Brutus's birthday.


25  After this, Antistius gave him five hundred thousand drachmas from the moneys which he was personally taking to Italy, and all Pompey's soldiers who were still wandering about Thessaly gladly flocked to his standard. He also took from Cinna five hundred horsemen that he was conducting to Dolabella in Asia.  Then sailing to Demetrias, whence great quantities of arms, which the elder Caesar had ordered to be made for his Parthian war, were being conducted to Antony, he took possession of them. After Hortensius the praetor had delivered up Macedonia to him, and while all the surrounding kings and potentates were uniting on his side, word was brought that Caius, the brother of Antony, had crossed over from Italy and was marching directly to join the forces under Vatinius in Epidamnus and Apollonia.

So it looked as if there was a lot of soldiers still wandering about as well. Brutus seems to have spent time recruiting well born Romans to use as trustworthy officers.

Just where the ordinary legionaries came from is moot, from Cicero

[13] He writes that Antonius is at Apollonia with seven legions. He is either already a prisoner - which Heaven grant! - or at least, being a modest man, he does not venture to enter Macedonia, so as to avoid the appearance of acting against the Senate's decree. A levy has been held in Macedonia through the consummate zeal and assiduity of Quintus Hortensius, a man whose extraordinary spirit, worthy of himself and of his ancestors, you have been enabled to gauge from the letter of Brutus. The legion which Caius Piso, the legate of Antonius, was commanding has transferred itself to my son Cicero. Of the cavalry, which was being marched into Syria in two divisions, one division has left its commander, the quaestor, in Thessaly, and has joined Brutus; the other in Macedonia Cnaeus Domitius, a young man of the highest valour, resolution, and steadiness, has withdrawn from the legate of Syria. And Publius Vatinius, who has been before rightly commended by you, and is at this time rightly worthy of commendation, has opened to Brutus the gates of Dyrrachium and handed over his army.
http://www.attalus.org/cicero/philippic10.html#8


Were the men levied in Macedonia, Roman citizens who happened to be there, or were they Macedonians who would serve in the legions as opposed to as auxiliaries.

Some Roman citizens were excluded, so we read in Josephus that Jewish Roman citizens were not to be levied

Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Book 14
[223] One of these envoys Hyrcanus sent also to Dolabella, who was then governor of Asia, requesting him to exempt the Jews from military service and to permit them to maintain their native customs and live in accordance with them. And this request he readily obtained ; [224] G   for Dolabella, on receiving the letter from Hyrcanus, without even taking counsel, sent to all (the officials) in Asia, and wrote to Ephesus, the chief city of Asia, about the Jews.

Also from Josephus

[271] On the outbreak of the war that followed Caesar's death and the dispersal to various quarters of all in authority in order to raise an army, Cassius arrived in Syria to take over the armies near Apamea.   And after raising the siege, he won over both Bassus and Murcus, and descending upon the cities, he collected arms and soldiers from them, and imposed heavy tribute upon them.

Auxiliaries are mentioned in various places, but were these arms and soldiers he collected Roman, or Roman enough?

Then we have Mark Anthony. Again from Cicero

DCCCL (F XI, 10)
DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME)
DERTONA, 5 MAY
I DO not think that the Republic owes me more than I owe you. You have good assurance of my being capable of greater gratitude to you than those misguided persons shew me: and that if after all my words seem to be dictated by the exigencies of the hour, I prefer your approval to that of all those people on the other side. For your judgment of us proceeds from an independent and sincere feeling: they are debarred from that by malice and jealousy. Let them interpose to prevent my receiving marks of honour, so long as they do not prevent the public service being properly conducted by me. The extreme danger in which that now stands I will explain as briefly as I can. To begin with, you cannot fail to observe what a confusion in city business is caused by the death of the consuls, and how much ambition this vacancy in the office inspires in men. I think I have written as much as can be committed to paper. For I know to whom I am writing. I now return to Antony, who, though when he fled he had only a handful of unarmed infantry, seems, by breaking open slave-barracks and requisitioning every kind of human being, to have made up a very Considerable number.

Certainly Anthony, whilst in dire straits, wasn't fussy who he got provided they were useful. So if he was happy to add slaves to his ranks, and we know Caesar had recruited Gauls, then Macedonians don't seem such a big leap of faith.

I wondered if anybody else has any sources worth following that might throw a little more light on this.

[DBS]

It is an excellent question, and I have also often pondered the particular question of equipping such huge forces in a hurry, even if one assumes that initially have meant helmet, shield, pilum, sword.

It is possible that a lot more equipment than we might imagine was stockpiled in the ancient world, especially if claims such as Polybius' for the start of the Third Punic are taken at face value, when he claims Carthage surrendered 200,000 sets of arms and 2,000 catapults.  Even if one takes that to mean "a lot" rather than a precise figure, either a lot had been in store for half a century or more, or the armourers had been busy adding or replacing stuff with an eye to future needs.  Given what we think we know about manufacturing such items in the pre-industrial age, it must have taken a long time indeed to produce such stockpiles.  You cannot just throw more slaves at the problem as they would need some degree of skill for a good percentage of the labour.

There is also the case of the penal legions supposedly armed with Gallic, etc, trophies after Cannae.  8,000 sets of arms and basic armour (again just shield and helmet at a guess) is still a heck of a lot to find hanging on the temple walls.  Choice items of Gallic equipment, yes, dedicate those.  But enough for a couple of legions?  Perhaps again it is a question of taking statements too readily at face value, and what is really meant is that no old weapon, even one in a temple, was off limits for appropriation in a crisis, bit like arming the Home Guard in 1940?

[Imperial Dave]

My 2 punnets worth is that there is still a pervading impression that equipment was very (erm...) 'uniform' even in the imperial period.

I suspect that there was a reasonable amount of non standard equipment being used at the best of times and that during periods of rapid recruitment and arming pretty much anything you could lay your hands on would do.

[nikgaukroger]

Given what we think we know about manufacturing such items in the pre-industrial age, it must have taken a long time indeed to produce such stockpiles.  You cannot just throw more slaves at the problem as they would need some degree of skill for a good percentage of the labour.

I'd be careful about underestimating the ability of pre-industrial societies to make large quantities of things quite quickly.

To take a much later, but still pre-industrial example (as I happened to be reading it recently), a single specific armourer's workshop of the late C15th in Italy is known to have been able to make 18 full armours a day - "full" being a whole knight's harness.

The late republican Roman world was pretty militarised with almost continuous wars over a prolonged period. I'd suggest there would have been a pretty large industry supplying that.

[Imperial Dave]

Though knowing the Romans either sub contracted out or allowing 'sub standard' stuff to hit a target or a price point

[nikgaukroger]

Though knowing the Romans either sub contracted out or allowing 'sub standard' stuff to hit a target or a price point

Military procurement has probably always been driven by a price point ...

[Imperial Dave]

With the odd siphoned off cut of the action leading to less than perfect outputs 

[DBS]

I'd be careful about underestimating the ability of pre-industrial societies to make large quantities of things quite quickly.

That was why I said "think we know".  What I was trying to infer is that maybe what we think is flawed?

Taking your Italian armourer as an example, what one is talking about there must be output, I am sure not 24 hours start to finish for one harness, let alone 18.  What is difficult to gauge at this distance is the overall industrial commitment along the supply chain to end up with eighteen harnesses being completed in one day; mining and smelting, tanning, etc, etc, before the first plates can be hammered.  Nor how sustainable.  Even in the modern age, one gets the stunts such as building liberty ships or Wellington bombers in impossibly short time for the cameras, but those peak efforts were not sustainable.  Also of course, there needs to be the demand and resource.

That is why I am torn.  Part of me says, they clearly could find or produce stuff at great volume when needed, but equally there seems no trace of it in the available evidence other than the fact that it seems to have been available when needed.

[nikgaukroger]

Clearly you do not produce a whole knight's harness within 24 hours; the ability to produce the volumes indicates the scale of the whole production line dedicated to churning this stuff out. You would have, no doubt, significant numbers of individual craftsmen who were just producing single components for the harness which would then come together to be fitted as the whole. In this case enough to create 18 in a day.

North Italy was bashing this stuff out in huge quantities for decades through the C14th, C15th and C16th. The demand was most certainly there, and the 18 harnesses mentioned are the upper end stuff - when you get into the "good enough for government work" quality numbers are going to be huge.

In fact, to describe it as "pre-industrial" is probably a bit misleading. For example, the Missaglia's of Milan owned the full production process from start to finish, plus after-sales. They owned iron mines, etc. and had salesmen in other countries and people to do final tweaks when armours were delivered.

But back to the Roman question. With the demand, which was there for an extended period, I don't see why something similar would not have come into being to meet the demand - as ever, follow the money 

[DBS]

We are agreeing violently I suspect.  My point is that there seems no trace of continual mass production in terms of finance, resource or demand.  Once you get to the Principate, fine - you have a standing army, imperial finance, and equipment can be turned out at a steady rate by a steady-state labour force (even though slaves) with the necessary skills.  (Ditto, say, for Macedon under Philip II with a clear armament programme.) Before that, however, one either has to postulate that state resources under Republican Rome or Carthage or Syracuse are being invested without notice in our sources in stockpiling equipment, or that entrepreneurs are stockpiling equipment in large quantities against the hope that one day a Caesar or an Antony will come along and say that they need several legions' worth of kit tomorrow please.

It is easier to recruit en masse in a short time than it is to mass-produce unless you have the manufacturing capacity already in place, and how is that kept employed until you suddenly need to field ten legions?  The Italian armourer you mention has a ready market all over Europe for a high quality product to sell to wealthy individuals.  By contrast, at the start of the English Civil War, arms supplies in England were limited because of the reliance on manufacturing zones such as the Netherlands and Rhine - where of course there was already a war in full swing.

I can see a couple of good armourers keeping the hoplites of their city state equipped in the classical period, because there will be a steady if low volume demand for new and replacement kit whether in peace or war.  A gentleman does not wait for a war before getting his panoply.  Asking them to equip a legion in one month might be more of a problem, and in the late Republic civil wars, time was of the essence when mobilising troops.

[Erpingham]

Much as I itch to get stuck into the late medieval armour industry, we should be careful what we apply to the Roman situation.  By the late medieval period, as Nik points out, we really are talking industrial production centres, supply chains (armourers would often subcontract component manufacture and would buy standard components, like buckles, in bulk), warehousing and international distribution.  How much can we say this of Republican Rome?  Do we know how armour was produced, sold and held?

Another parallel with the Middle Ages we might consider is the second hand trade. Pre-owned armour, suitably refurbished, was a commonplace.  Look at the stock books of, say, Datini and he has lots of it, both from known armourers and unidentified.  An enterprise like Datini's could equip as small army from stock, if required. Were there equivalent international arms traders who could be tapped up for a legions worth of kit at a time in the Roman Republic?

[Duncan Head]

Jim started with evidence from Greece, but moving West there are some interesting points in Quesada Sanz's Armamento indígena y romano republicano en Iberia (siglos III-I a. C.): compatibilidad y abastecimiento de las legiones republicanas en campaña, the English summary of which reads:

The fabricae system was not developed in Republican times, and it seems that the Roman State did not provide weapons and clothing for its troops before the last decades of the second century BC. However, during the far-flung and prolonged campaigns in Hispania, first against the Carthaginians and later against Iberians, Celtiberians and Lusitanians, the Roman armies needed a constant supply of weapons and military equipment to replace lost and worn-out items. We believe that most of them –and specially offensive arms- were not brought form Italy, but that they were requisitioned or forged in the Iberian Peninsula, even by local artisans at bases such as Tarraco or Carthago Nova. The key to this lies in the high compatibility between Roman and Iberian weapons of the period, specially regarding offensive weapons and even oval shields, that would make local production for the legions much easier. This would also explain the ease with which Romans could adopt the gladius hispaniensis, the pugio and probably other items of military equipment such as soliferrea and saga.

[DBS]

Were there equivalent international arms traders who could be tapped up for a legions worth of kit at a time in the Roman Republic?

That was what I was driving at originally.  We get glimpses of perhaps something with Carthage surrendering 200,000 sets of equipment (composition unspecified) if Polybius is to be believed.  Whatever the actual figure, that seems to indicate a lot of equipment held in stock.  Polybius does not enlighten us as to who held it in stock.

Is it Baal & Sons, renowned Punic private entrepreneurs of arms and armour mercantilism, forced to empty their warehouses?

Is it the state armoury, of which we know nothing, but with the arms stored in the city walls along with all the elephant stables?

Is it the collective personal holdings of lots and lots of sedentary Carthaginian middle class types who have had the spare set of heirloom armour hanging on the wall ever since great great grandfather failed to came back from Sicily with the Sacred Band?

Or have the priests secretly welcomed the chance to empty out the temple storerooms of all the trophies dedicated by well meaning warriors over the past five centuries, giving them room to store some nice vestments instead?

Or, of course, all of the above.

I mean, even approaching 200,000 sets of equipment, however minimal or comprehensive, takes up a lot of space.  Note Polybius does not tell how exactly it was handed over to the Romans either or how they disposed of it...  bonfires? Sinking it all in a few old merchant ships like the SS Richard Montgomery?  Flogging it off to non-Punic entrepreneurs?

All this means that I personally think Polybius may be terribly unreliable on this point, though clearly it was not thought implausible by his readership, so who knows?

[DBS]

However, during the far-flung and prolonged campaigns in Hispania, first against the Carthaginians and later against Iberians, Celtiberians and Lusitanians, the Roman armies needed a constant supply of weapons and military equipment to replace lost and worn-out items.

The key point here is the far-flung and prolonged campaigns.  Perfectly plausible that local industry gears up in the Roman-held bits of Hispania as it becomes evident that there will be a local demand for equipment over the coming years, and the legions involved at least started with a set of kit.  My problem is when everyone starts mass mobilising legions from scratch in huge numbers and in rather more settled and hitherto peaceful bits of the Roman territories.

[Imperial Dave]

its not just the manufacture of said items but also the distribution. Even in modern times demand often outstrips supply especially in a crisis (toilet rolls anyone?  )