Early Empire

After Caesar's assassination and further fighting his grandnephew, Octavian, took power, and eventually adopted the name of Imperator Augustus Caesar. He is usually considered the first emperor.

There were a number of serious rebellions during Augustus' reign. The site of the famous Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 ce, in which German warriors wiped out three Roman legions, has been found near the modern city of Kalkriese. The description given by Tacitus and the archaeological evidence are generally congruent. Both the literary and physical evidence illustrates a high level of brutality on the part of the Germans, torturing and killing captured Romans. This might suggest that Roman violence was no greater than that of others, but again, one must be careful in drawing conclusions.^[491] A contemporary uprising in Pannonia, although less well known, was far more serious and was put down only with great difficulty. Casualties among both armed forces, as well as civilians, were doubtless heavy, but are unknown.

Compared to the first century bce, the first century of the Christian Era was a period of reduced warfare. Nevertheless, it is in this period that most evidence of extreme Roman military violence is drawn. The Romans invaded Britain in 43 ce, and expanded their power there over the succeeding few decades. Tacitus, in his Agricola, describes the violence during the revolt of British queen Boudicca in lurid detail, but the most frequently quoted passage with reference to Roman military violence comes from his description of Agricola's campaign, in what is now Scotland, in 83 or 84 ce. He quotes Calgacus (the name or title of a Caledonian king or chieftain): ‘To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.'

The fact that a quotation is from a historical text, makes it no less rhetorical, but it is important to keep in mind rhetorical does not necessarily mean untrue or even false. When we read quotations, or speeches, in ancient sources, whether they represent the exact words or the basic meaning of a reliable source or witness is very relevant. In this case, it is (barely) possible that Tacitus heard some details of a speech by Calgacus (which would of course have been made in some dialect of Celtic) from Agricola, who won the battle, or he may have heard a version from a Caledonian prisoner. Even if he heard some details of the speech, it is clear that Tacitus wrote it to express a view of his own and in his own words. Most historians believe, however, that this speech, like those in most ancient histories, is an invention of the author. Indeed, Tacitus may have invented Calgacus altogether.

Ironically, if the quotation of Calgacus is authentic, it is actually less likely to give us genuine information about the nature of Roman imperialism and its violence than if Tacitus had invented it. After all, the leader of a tribe or tribal confederation at the far end of an island itself on the margin of the Roman Empire would not have been very well informed about the history of Roman military practice.

There were some minor wars during the Early Empire, such as the Romano-Bosporan conflict of 49 ce, which we know of only through chance. This should remind us that while large casualty figures might be exaggerated, there were cases in which conflicts, and their human cost, went unrecorded or where our knowledge of which does not survive. Conversely, detailed surviving evidence can take on more significance than it perhaps deserves simply because it is available. Thus Josephus, who wrote an entire book on the Jewish War of 66-73 ce, and refers to it in other works, is frequently cited as a prime witness for Roman military violence. He states that as a result of the First or Great Revolt some 1,197,000 Jews were killed.^[492] Josephus' lurid description of the slaughter and mass enslavement in the aftermath of the Jewish War has been seen as typical of Roman violence under the Roman Empire.

The lengths to which an army will go to crush any sign of resistance can be used as a measure of bellicosity. In a study of Roman military policy, Edward Luttwak claims that this was a Roman characteristic, citing the siege of Masada, a desert outpost held by rebels, in order to emphasise the Roman tenacity in stamping out even the smallest and most remote resistance.^[493] Despite being clear from Josephus' text that the Romans ignored Masada for three years after the capture of Jerusalem in 70 ce, the fact that the siege occurred in (or around) 73 ce had led to the idea of a three-year-long siege. The siege, however, did not last for years, or even for months, but rather was a short one by Roman standards, perhaps as few as four to six weeks.^[494] Luttwak's idea that Rome rooted out even the smallest and most insignificant sign of resistance is thus based on a mistaken reading of Josephus.

While Josephus' account is often pointed to by those claiming a high level of Roman brutality, there are others who see this evidence in a different light. Indeed, Frank Russell argues Rome used restraint during the Jewish War.^[495] A careful reading of Josephus shows that while there were punitive measures taken, for example, banning Jews from the site of the Temple and instituting a Jewish tax, most Jews who did not participate in the uprising seem to have suffered no further punishment. Pro-Roman Jews, such as King Agrippa II and Josephus himself, were rewarded. Gil Gambash accepts that the Romans showed great brutality in the Jewish War, as graphically described by Josephus, but thinks it the exception rather than the rule for Roman counterinsurgency.^[496]

While the Jewish War raged, a revolt broke out among the Batavians, a tribe living in what is now the Rhine delta of the Netherlands on the other side of the Roman Empire. While there were heavy Roman casualties, possibly as many as 20,000, its suppression was not followed by severe measures.^[497] Certainly, the fact that Rome's military resources were stretched and under stress played a factor, but such reticence to punish rebels needs to be considered, and explained, by those positing a ferociously cruel Rome. Both these struggles were ongoing when a military challenge to Nero's rule arose that led to his death and the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. In this political upheaval, called the Year of the Four Emperors (69-70 ce), armies in Spain, Germany and Syria all acted separately to raise their own military commanders to the imperial throne. Tacitus complains that in the civil war during the Year of the Four Emperors, Roman armies treated Italian cities as they did enemy ones.⁴¹ The final result of all this fighting was the decisive victory of Vespasian and the establishment of the Flavian dynasty.

Historians call the period of the Flavian and subsequent Antonine dynas­ties, from 71 to 193 ce, the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace.

There was a hiatus in offensive activities during the Pax Romana, but early in the second century Trajan undertook two wars (101-2 ce and 105-6 ce) to conquer the gold-rich kingdom of Dacia, modern Romania. Trajan's Column, built in around 110 ce, illustrates these campaigns. Above a base, which held the body of Trajan after his death, the representation of a scroll winds up its 34 metres, containing 155 individual scenes. One shows soldiers displaying heads, apparently of Dacians stuck on poles outside a military camp. These may be ethnic Romans or auxiliaries. They may be Celts, who had a traditional custom of headhunting. The fact is that there are many possible interpretations of this image, which may or may not be relevant to Roman military violence.

The Pax Romana was interrupted in the 160s. The Parthians invaded from the east in 161 ce, initiating a five-year war, and the Marcomanni and the Quadi, German tribal confederations, along with the Sarmatians, a Persian­speaking steppe people, invaded along the Danube frontier. Marcus Aurelius spent much of his reign fighting them, which is commemorated in another column, certainly inspired by Trajan's.

The fact that one column's series of illustrations shows more violence than another does not reflect the underlying reality, but even whether it tells us something general about the culture of Roman warfare is also questionable. We do not know why the Romans chose to illustrate particular scenes on these columns, nor who the intended audience was, nor whether other cultures had similar illustrations, which have not survived. Indeed, there is a fundamental distinction between a culture of representing military violence and a culture of military violence. Questions of accuracy and bias need to be asked of all physical evidence: sculpture, reliefs, painting and architecture.^[499] Much of the interpretation of Roman military art, especially in the context of military violence, is seen through the lens of the theory of cultural hege­mony. While it is widely accepted, the idea that elites keep power through a sort of propaganda of images (or of writing, for that matter) is far from proven. Even in modern times, the impact of media, even state-directed media, is a highly controversial subject.^[500]

In the course of the debate over military violence modern historians of war have frequently referred to the overall rate of violent death.^[501] This is proble­matic, of course, as murders are, by definition, not deaths in combat. Yet there does seem to be some overall correlation between these two rates. Reliable evidence is lacking, especially for earlier periods, although some have tried to overcome this dearth of data by gathering what is termed ‘mega-data'. Such extrapolation should be taken with a grain of salt. It has been said that there are no statistics in ancient history, only arithmetic. While it is not a hard and fast rule, it is rare that enough data survives from antiquity to form a statistically significant sample.

Throughout military history undisciplined or poorly disciplined armed forces are much more likely to kill, maim and rape civilians and to steal or destroy property. Disciplina or ‘discipline' is a Latin term and a fundamental element of Roman military culture. It covered a wide number of concepts but a basic one was certainly to instil in soldiers the idea that violence was to be strictly controlled. Not only was combat done only under orders, but also violence against civilians, which was certainly widespread in ancient times, was a matter of command and control. This is especially true in the matter of the plundering and killing or capturing enemies, in the latter case, to be sold as slaves. A disciplined army is one that has a loyalty beyond a mercenary motive, although it may be professional. The reasons for this are obvious from the viewpoint of command and control.

In some military systems, soldiers are allowed to plunder for their own profit, as a reward or a punishment for an enemy. This certainly occurred at times under the Roman system. In general, however, plundering was under­taken systematically, something that tells us much about Roman attitudes towards the discipline of soldiers. Those studying Roman military violence need to clearly distinguish systematic plundering, which is a sign of discipline, and personal looting, a sign of indiscipline.

A factor that certainly affects the war in any state is the presence or absence of powerful and aggressive enemies. It has been frequently noted that during the Pax Romana the Romans lacked such an adversary. The Parthian Empire did attack the Romans but only infrequently. While Roman invasions of Parthia did take place, there were long periods of peace. The German tribes that begin to attack Rome in the second century ce were only able to make significant inroads in the fourth. This is relevant to the question of Roman aggression, as Rome clearly did not make the same effort to conquer its eastern neighbour or to reconquer Germany that it did to create its Mediterranean empire. This fact needs to be addressed by those postulating a highly bellicose imperial Roman culture.

After the reign of Marcus Aurelius the tempo of warfare certainly increased. There were increasing incursions from the northern German tribes and Iranian-speaking tribes from the steppe. After the rise of the Sassanid dynasty in Persia, there was increased conflict to the east as well. The assassination of Commodus ended the Antonine dynasty, and led to another civil war (191-3 ce ) that ended with the establishment of the Severan dynasty, which ended with the death of Alexander Severus in 235 ce. The Roman army had adopted spears and the phalanx organisation again by the end of the third century. This would have had an effect on the ‘face of battle', and we need to recognise that this is also a period of ‘Roman way of warfare'.

The Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century (235-85 ce) saw endemic civil war, plague, inflation and foreign invasion. This might well have led to Rome's end, had not the army saved it. It is certainly relevant to our view of Roman military violence to note that through a series of soldier-emperors the army did not use its predominance to loot the empire's accumulated wealth, but fought strenuously to keep the state united and to defend it.