Roman History

1200 – 264 BCE – Rome’s Founding and the Creation of the Republic

Livy’s narrative of the first century CE is largely composed a series of wars took place between 509 and 264 BCE. Many of these wars are fairly over exaggerated by Livy, and probably amounted to little more then over glorified border skirmishes or plundering raids. Though, in retrospective, many of the wars of the Roman period can be reduced to border skirmishes or plundering raids, though the ones that feature in the writing of Livy are of much less significance. The fifth century is largely composed of wars between Rome and her immediate neighbours, those who would in the future become the core sources of manpower for the later Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. This particular summary of Roman history will only examine the wars in the period of 509 to 264 BCE of particular significance. In 396 CE, Rome laid siege to her chief competitor in Italian Peninsula, the Etruscan city of Veii. After a ten-year, which if examined in the writings of Livy sounds strangely reminiscent of the siege of Troy in the Illiad, the Romans captured the city, raised it to the ground and then sold the inhabitants into slavery. Not long after Rome’s triumph siege of Veii, Gallic invaders swept through Italy from the north. The Romans made contact with the Gallic forces eleven miles north of Rome. The Gallic cavalry and light infantry easily broke the now outdated Roman Phalanx and descended with a vengeance upon Rome. The Romans were able save their city by paying a ransom of a thousand pounds of gold to the Gallic invaders. The physical damage to Rome during the short period of Gallic conquest was minimal when compared with the damage to Rome’s pride. This event would bring the Roman’s to the decision to build the often-mislabeled Servian wall, a rampart that extended six and half miles around Rome.

Between 343 and 290 BCE the Romans fought three wars with their immediate neighbours, the Sammities. Much of the military history of these wars has been obscured, and the information contained in later writers of the imperial period is undoubtedly false. The most famous and well-recorded battle of the period is that of the battle of Caudine Forks. Caudine Forks demonstrated the inherent weakness of the Roman military structure and the need for rapid change, as the Roman army in this battle became trapped by the Sammites between two mountains in a pass called, the Caudine Forks. The third Samnite war, 298 to 290 CE, saw the final defeat of the Samnites. At the end of the war their lands were annexed by Rome and they were forced to accept the status of Roman Ally (socii). The Samnite allies, the Etruscans and the Gauls fought on, until they were defeated 282.

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The final war of significance in this period is that of the Phyrric Wars. The Phyrric wars are significant because they represent the first time that the Romans became embroiled in a war involving Greek city-states from Greece. The actual events that precipitated the war are rather complex and not overly important. What is significant is that the Roman army, with its newly developed tactics was able to defeat the tried and true method of Hoplite warfare developed by the Greeks. What is perhaps even more significant, as Rome’s victory in this war made Rome a major power of the Mediterranean. Historians have always sought to find some sort of reason that allowed for Rome to become the dominant power in Italy. While there is no single cause that led to Rome’s dominance or even an agreement among scholars about the series of conditions that led to Rome’s dominance, several factors cannot be overlooked. First, Rome’s geographic location made it difficult for the enemies of Rome to conduct coordinated attacks against Rome, but allowed for the Romans to move quickly against attacks on multiple fronts. The resources around Rome and the manpower of Rome itself allowed Rome to absorb defeats more easily. Lastly, Rome through diplomacy was able to secure a series of allies and hold these alliances together despite a never-ending series of wars.

Next: 264 to 146 BCE – The First Punic War to the end of the Third Punic War
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