Battle of Breitenfeld Essay -- essays research papers fc

It is said that the Romans owed the conquest of the world to no other cause than continual military training, exact observance of discipline in their camps and unwearied cultivation of the arts of war. The historical references of their battles will prove time and again that this statement has validity. How could such an Army rise to the power that was Rome in all its glory while being outnumbered on almost every battlefield? In an attempt to explore this question, one must delve into the foundation of the early Roman army and follow it through the five hundred year reign of power as the city-state rose to an empire (Preston.pg.29) The process by which Rome developed from a small military outpost on a river-crossing to become the dominant power of the Italian Peninsula was by no means swift or continuous. It took the better part of five centuries and during that time Rome itself was twice occupied by foreign powers (Warry. Pg.108). As the strength of Etrurua diminished, Rome asserted its authority over both the Etruscans and the Latins, but at the beginning of the fourth century B.C. the city was overwhelmed, after the disastrous battle of the Allia, by a vast horde of Gallic raiders (Contamine. pg.9). The Romans retreated into their citadel on the Capitoline Mount where they eventually fought off the Gauls, whose immediate interest was in pillaging for anything of worth and not in the land (Dersin.pg.8). Roman history records that the great Camillus, Rome’s exiled war leader, was recalled to speed the parting Gauls with military action, but this tries to hide the fact that the Gauls departed of their ow n accord, having obtained what they wanted. Roman military history is checkered by catastrophes that few great empires could have sustained during the period of their growth. Nobody would deny that the Romans were a formidable military nation; yet the genius which enabled them eventually to dominate the ancient world was as much political as military. Their great political instrument of choice was the concept of citizenship. Citizenship was not simply a status which one did or did not possess. It was and aggregate of right, duties, and honors, which could be acquired separately and conferred by installments (Boatwright.pg.25). Such were the rights of making legal contracts and marriages. From both of these the right to a political vote was not separable; no... ...rise to power, no single people dominated all or even most of that world. Military force and tactics that adapted over time and between enemies were large factors in Rome’s eventual dominance over the entire region, and credit must be given to the resiliency of the Romans in the face of victories and defeats along the way. Works Cited Preston, Richard; Roland, Alex; Wise Sydney. Men In Arms. (Ohio: Thompson Wadsworth, 2005) Warry, John. Warfare in the Classical World. (London: Oklahoma University and Salamander Books Ltd, 1995) Boatwright, Mary; Gargola, Daniel; Talbert, Richard. The Romans From Village to Empire. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) Grant, Michael. The Fall Of The Roman Empire. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990) Nardo, Don. The Rise Of the Roman Empire. (California: Greenhaven Press, 2002) Contamine, Phillip. War in the Middle Ages. (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 1999) Dersin, Denise. What Life Was Like When Rome Ruled the World. (Virginia: Time Life Books, 1997) Harris, Nathaniel. History of Ancient Rome. (London: Octopus Publishing, 2000) Roberts, Timothy. Ancient Rome. (New York: Friedman/Fairfax