Romans at War: The Roman Military in the Republic and Empire

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Battle of the Cremera – All the Fabii except Quintus Fabius Vibulanus are killed in battle with the Veii|Veians. Rome now turned its attentions to Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire to the east. After campaigns as far abroad as Bactria, India, Persia and Judea, Antiochus moved to Asia Minor and Thrace [153] to secure several coastal towns, a move that brought him into conflict with Roman interests. A Roman force under Manius Acilius Glabrio defeated Antiochus at the Battle of Thermopylae [147] and forced him to evacuate Greece: [154] the Romans then pursued the Seleucids beyond Greece, beating them again in naval battles at the Battle of the Eurymedon and Battle of Myonessus, and finally in a decisive engagement of the Battle of Magnesia. [154] [155]

BC – Battle of Crotona – Hannibal fights a drawn battle against the Roman general Sempronius in Southern Italy. The 5th century involves the final fall of the Western Roman Empire to Goths, Vandals, Alans, Huns, Franks and other peoples. However, Rome still controlled only a very limited area and the affairs of Rome were minor even to those in Italy [45] and Rome's affairs were only just coming to the attention of the Greeks, the dominant cultural force at the time. [52] At this point the bulk of Italy remained in the hands of Latin, Sabine, Samnite and other peoples in the central part of Italy, Greek colonies to the south, and the Celtic people, including the Gauls, to the north. The internal unrest reached its most serious stage in the two civil wars or marches upon Rome by the consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla at the beginning of 82 BC. In the Battle of the Colline Gate at the very door of the city of Rome, a Roman army under Sulla bested an army of the Roman senate and its Samnite allies. [191] Whatever the merits of his grievances against those in power of the state, his actions marked a watershed of the willingness of Roman troops to wage war against one another that was to pave the way for the wars of the triumvirate, the overthrowing of the Senate as the de facto head of the Roman state, and the eventual endemic usurpation of power by contenders for the emperor-ship in the later Empire.Battle somewhere in Thrace: a band of Goths led Alaric I is defeated by Romans under Stilicho [15] [16] June – Battle of Samarra (363) – Julian fights the Sassanids and is subsequently killed in battle. Though indecisive, the battle leads to massive losses for the Roman Empire through a forced peace treaty. Luttwak, Edward (1979). The grand strategy of the Roman Empire: from the first century A.D. to the third. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-2158-4. BC – Battle of Vesuvius – Romans under P. Decius Mus and T. Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus defeat the rebellious Latins. Battle of Nisibis – Bloody stalemate between the Parthians and the Roman army under Emperor Macrinus.

The Roman army was made up of legions which had nearly 5000 men each. Legions were organised in a very specific way: Battle of the Angrivarian Wall (16) - Legions under Germanicus defeat the Germanic troops of Arminius, ending the campaigns. The emperor was the most important man in the whole empire. Ultimately, he had absolute power over everyone and everything in the empire. The situation was complex, often with three or more usurpers in existence at once. Septimius Severus and Pescennius Niger, both rebel generals declared to be emperors by the troops they commanded, clashed for the first time in 193 AD at the Battle of Cyzicus, in which Niger was defeated. However, it took two further defeats at the Battle of Nicaea later that year and the Battle of Issus the following year, for Niger to be destroyed. Almost as soon as Niger's usurpation had been ended, Severus was forced to deal with another rival for the throne in the person of Clodius Albinus, who had originally been allied to Severus. Albinus was proclaimed emperor by his troops in Britain and, crossing over to Gaul, defeated Severus' general Virius Lupus in battle, before being in turn defeated and killed in the Battle of Lugdunum by Severus himself. Despite being the only clear champion of the Empire at this point, Aëtius was slain by the Emperor Valentinian III's own hand 2 years afterwards, leading Sidonius Apollinaris to observe, "I am ignorant, sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know that you have acted like a man who has cut off his right hand with his left". [376]Battle of Ravenna – The Germanic foederati led by Odoacer decisively defeated the Western Roman Empire and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustulus. Western Roman Empire dissolved. Odoacer declared himself King of Italy. Marcomannic Wars (166–180) – Roman Empire tried to expand in central Europe and stablish proposed roman province of Marcomannia (parts of the modern states and Slovakia and the Czech Republic) and Sarmatia (on Great Hungarian Plain). In the naval Battle of Thurii, [74] Tarentum appealed for military aid to Pyrrhus, ruler of Epirus. [74] [75] Motivated by his diplomatic obligations to Tarentum, and a personal desire for military accomplishment, [76] Pyrrhus landed a Greek army of some 25,000 men [74] and a contingent of war elephants [74] [77] on Italian soil in 280 BC, [78] where his forces were joined by some Greek colonists and a portion of the Samnites who revolted against Roman control, taking up arms against Rome for the fourth time in seventy years. Roman conquest of the Nabataeans (106) – The Third Cyrenaica legion moved north from Egypt into Arabia Petraea, while the Sixth Ferrata legion, a Syrian garrison unit, moved south to occupy Bostra. When his Sicilian campaign was also ultimately a failure, and at the request of his Italian allies, Pyrrhus returned to Italy to face Rome once more. In 275 BC, Pyrrhus again met the Roman army at the Battle of Beneventum. [80] This time the Romans had devised methods to deal with the war elephants, including the use of javelins, [80] fire [83] and, one source claims, simply hitting the elephants heavily on the head. [77] While Beneventum was indecisive, [83] Pyrrhus realised that his army had been exhausted and reduced by years of foreign campaigns, and seeing little hope for further gains, he withdrew completely from Italy.

First Battle of Capua – Hannibal defeats the consuls Q. Fulvius Flaccus and Appius Claudius, but the Roman army escapes a b De Ruggiero, Paolo (2014). Mark Antony: A Plain Blunt Man. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. pp.44–45. ISBN 9781473834569 . Retrieved 19 July 2019. Battle of the Temple of Hope – Consul Gaius Horatius Pulvillus fights indecisive battle with the Etruscans.Following two small-scale rebellions in 197 BC, [128] in 195–194 BC war broke out between the Romans and the Lusitani people in the Lusitanian War, in modern-day Portugal. [129] By 179 BC, the Romans had mostly succeeded in pacifying the region and bringing it under their control. [128] Battle of Sarmisegetusa – A Roman army led by Trajan conquered and destroyed the Dacian capital. Part of Dacia was annexed to the Roman Empire.

Despite his military success, or probably because of it, fear spread of Caesar, now the primary figure of the Roman state, becoming an autocratic ruler and ending the Roman Republic. This fear drove a group of senators naming themselves The Liberators to assassinate him in 44 BC. [241] Further civil war followed between those loyal to Caesar and those who supported the actions of the Liberators. Caesar's supporter Mark Antony condemned Caesar's assassins and war broke out between the two factions. Antony was denounced as a public enemy, and Octavian was entrusted with the command of the war against him. In the Battle of Forum Gallorum Antony, besieging Caesar's assassin Decimus Brutus in Mutina, defeated the forces of the consul Pansa, who was killed, but Antony was then immediately defeated by the army of the other consul, Hirtius. At the Battle of Mutina Antony was again defeated in battle by Hirtius, who was killed. Although Antony failed to capture Mutina, Decimus Brutus was murdered shortly thereafter. In 144 BC, Viriathus formed a league against Rome with several Celtiberian tribes [133] and persuaded them to rise against Rome too, in the Second Numantine War. [134] Viriathus' new coalition bested Roman armies at the Second Battle of Mount Venus in 144 BC and again at the failed Siege of Erisone. [134] In 139 BC, Viriathus was finally killed in his sleep by three of his companions who had been promised gifts by Rome. [135] In 136 and 135 BC, more attempts were made to gain complete control of the region of Numantia, but they failed. In 134 BC, the Consul Scipio Aemilianus finally succeeded in suppressing the rebellion following the successful Siege of Numantia. [136]

Trajan's Parthian campaign [13] (115–117) – Trajan invaded Parthia (planning its annexation) and occupied Ctesiphon while managed control of western Persia by a client ruler ( Parthamaspates), but died. The Roman army withdrew, immediately abandoning the newly annexed provinces of Assyria, Mesopotamia and Armenia. Roman–Parthian war of 54–53 BCE. This conflict resulted from the Parthian war of succession (57–54 BCE) between Mithridates IV and his brother Orodes II after killing their father, king Phraates III. The Roman invasion of Parthia, commencing in 54 BCE and ending catastrophically at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE, was partially motivated by or justified as supporting Mithridates' claim to the Parthian throne. [6]