Peasants fighting for their own destruction

[Jauchart]

Some historian of the 1970s wrote that Roman peasants, by participating in the Roman army's conquests, were fighting for their own destruction. Can anyone tell me who wrote this and where?

 

Thanks.

[Maty]

Some historian of the 1970s wrote that Roman peasants, by participating in the Roman army's conquests, were fighting for their own destruction. Can anyone tell me who wrote this and where?

 

Thanks.

 

I can't help directly, but take a look at Faulkner's 'Empire of the Eagles' - he has pretty much the same views (so did Tiberius Gracchus, come to that), so you may well find a reference there.

 

Maty

 

(In blood and foam at Trafalgar

And on Alberra plains

We did and died like lions

To keep ourselves in chains

G.K. Chesterton

 

Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

[caldrail]

Personally I find that a daft assertion. Their motives may have been many and various (mostly concerned with regular pay and booty I suspect) but they hardly wished to fight for suicidal reasons. No-one does. Of course that misses the point of the statement in that the writer means they helped create the situation that brought about Rome's downfall.

 

Thing is, an individual soldier in the Roman legions wasn't in command. He didn't make decisions. He was, to all intents and purposes, an asset in the hands of the senior Roman elite. Since Rome was a succesful conquest state, we can hardly view the actions on one man in serving twenty five years as significant in the decay of the empire, especially since they were fighting to defend it for most of the latter half.

 

Furthermore, it could be argued that with the diminishment of republican institutions in the principate, the increasing cosmopolitanisation of Rome and diminishment of latin values, plus the change from old to new money over the course of empire, the Roman peasant was reinforcing the bond of loyalty to the system by participating in it, even if his motives were essentially selfish rather than patriotic, in that the Roman legions during the pax romana were feudal in nature to begin with and not a national army in the modern sense, at least until the late empire anyhow.

[Melvadius]

Personally I find that a daft assertion. Their motives may have been many and various (mostly concerned with regular pay and booty I suspect) but they hardly wished to fight for suicidal reasons. No-one does. Of course that misses the point of the statement in that the writer means they helped create the situation that brought about Rome's downfall.

 

 

Caldrail,

 

You have made some good points but I think you may have misunderstood the original query which to me seemed more general in nature and did not imply the peasants knew what they would create their own way of life's destruction.

 

You actually mentioned what I think was meant by the query at the end of the paragraph above - the original author indicated that unknowingly the Roman peasants particuipated in events which led to the destruction of their way of life.

 

However to me, probably as it does to you, that seems a bit of an obvious statement in so far as nothing remains the same after any conflict. Although 20/20 hindsight is a great thing and usually granted to a few serious thinkers, if not everyone, long after the events no one going into a conflict can comprehend all of the ramifications of the combatants combined actions.

 

However, self destruction by the Imperial process is the kind of viewpoint that Neil Faulkner is prone to take so I agree with Maty that he may well provide a suitable reference for the 'original' assertion or at least may suggest near contemporary sources for further research.