Permanent army and Democratic rule

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Hum about roman soldiers few of them got the booty and a place to go latter, don't forget that in the second century B.C 3/4th of the men who served in the army did so in Spain and Macedonia, suffering high casualty rate and frequent small scale battle for almost no reward and came back to find their farm ruined and their life shattered.

 

About the aristocracy's view on the subject some saw the problem ( i.e Gracchi ) but also thought for ideological reasons that soldiers should not get land for it would mean that the ideology of the roman landlord soldier raising to defend his farm could not be defended anymore. Until the first century BC not war was taken with an overt imperialist cause, the idea of the "good war" ( that had to be done to defend Rome from her ennemies ) was still in full force ( even if they were real imperialistic tendencies and aristorcratic egoism at play )

[ASCLEPIADES]

Second about victorious generals the trend in any form of government was to get wary of them : Scipio Africanus was forced to leave the political stage, athenian generals had the same problem ( look at the strategoi after the arginusai who were put to death officially because they had left the site of battle without rescuing everyone but more because they were feared by their rivals who manipulated the peoples, look on Alcibiades too and Miltiades before him ). So their is indeed a tendency to get rid of good military leaders after a time. But it has less to do with democracy than it has to do with the aristocratic and oligarchic rivalries inside the elite which manipulated the people. Other form of government either exiled rivals or had them killed but it did not make as much noise ( and was less recorded in history ) than in democraties where everything was done publicly.

Edited March 11, 2009 by ASCLEPIADES

[Vibius Tiberius Costa]

Didn't Spain during the republic have a permanent army?

 

vtc

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

The spanish situation in the republic after 214 is that of a permanent force present but the soldiers in the force rotated and often rotated too slowly for they did so every 6 to 10 years ( ten years being the maximal duration of a consecutive stay under arms for a roman soldier ) and this is what made those soldiers ( and their brothers in Macedonia ) so poor while regular troops were kept under arms for only 1 to 5 years max.

[M. Porcius Cato]

The problem for ancient (and modern) popular regimes would be that it is not so easy for them to deny the Glory to victorious commanders (vg, Bonaparte after the Italian campaign of 1796-1797). That was evidently a regular problem for the Roman Republic from the very beginning (vg, Spurius Cassius Vecellinus or Gaius Marcius Coriolanus). The political failure of those early generals would be at least partially explained by their lack of general support among the Roman army.

 

Why do you think that Coriolanus lacked general support among the Roman army? Seems to me that Coriolanus' political failure came from his opposition to the plebs, who formed the majority in Rome.

[ASCLEPIADES]

The problem for ancient (and modern) popular regimes would be that it is not so easy for them to deny the Glory to victorious commanders (vg, Bonaparte after the Italian campaign of 1796-1797). That was evidently a regular problem for the Roman Republic from the very beginning (vg, Spurius Cassius Vecellinus or Gaius Marcius Coriolanus). The political failure of those early generals would be at least partially explained by their lack of general support among the Roman army.

 

Why do you think that Coriolanus lacked general support among the Roman army? Seems to me that Coriolanus' political failure came from his opposition to the plebs, who formed the majority in Rome.

You're right, I included Cn. Marcius Coriolanus as a populist leader by mistake.

 

He was indeed exactrly the opposite, an aristocratic snti-plebeian commander.

 

I was thinkinking in people like Sp. Cassius Viscellinus and M. Manlius Capitolinus.