Early Roman army
Until c. 550 BC, there was probably no "national" Roman army, but a series of clan-based war-bands, which only coalesced into a united force in periods of serious external threat.
Around 550 BC, during the period conventionally known as the rule of King Servius Tullius, it appears that a universal levy of eligible adult male citizens was instituted.
The early Roman army was based on a compulsory levy from adult male citizens that was held at the start of each campaigning season, in those years that war was declared.
In 493 BC, shortly after the establishment of the Roman Republic, Rome concluded a perpetual treaty of military alliance (the Foedus Cassianum), with the combined other Latin city-states.
However, the vast amount of archaeological evidence uncovered since the 1970s suggests that Rome did not assume the characteristics of a united city-state (as opposed to a group of separate hilltop settlements) before around 625 BC.
The king (rex, from root-verb regere, literally means simply "ruler") was elected for life by the people's assembly (the comitia curiata originally) although there is strong evidence that the process was in practice controlled by the patricians, a hereditary aristocratic caste.
According to Roman tradition, in 616 BC, an Etruscan named Lucumo, from the town of Tarquinii, was elected king of Rome as Lucius Tarquinius I.
The establishment of this "dynasty" of Etruscan origin has led some dated historians to claim that late regal Rome was occupied by troops from Tarquinii militarily and culturally Etruscanised.
But this theory has been dismissed as a myth by Cornell and other more modern historians, who point to the extensive evidence that Rome remained politically independent, as well as linguistically and culturally a Latin city.
[5] In relation to the army, the Cornell faction argue that the introduction of heavy infantry in the late regal era followed Greek, not Etruscan, models.
[6] It is likely that the revolution that overthrew the Roman monarchy was engineered by the patrician caste and that its aim was not, as rationalised later by ancient authors, the establishment of a democracy, but of a patrician-dominated oligarchy.
The establishment of a hereditary oligarchy obviously excluded wealthy non-patricians from political power and it is this class that led plebeian opposition to the early Republican settlement.
[8] The impetus to form such an alliance was probably provided by the acute insecurity caused by a phase of migration and invasion of the lowland areas by Italic tribes occupying the mountains surrounding Old Latium, notably the Aequi and Volsci, in the period after 500 BC.
The wall, whose 11 km-circuit enclosed 427 hectares (an increase of 50% over the Tarquinian city) was a massive project that would have required an estimated five million man-hours to complete, implying plentiful financial and labour resources.
[13] Against this, Eckstein argues that the history of Rome in the fifty years subsequent to 386 BC appears a virtual replay of the previous century.
[15] In the earliest times, when Rome still consisted of separate hilltop settlements, and into the earlier regal period until c. 550 BC, it is likely that there was no "Roman army" in the conventional sense, but war-bands based on the Roman gentes (clans), led by their clan-leaders e.g. the war-band of the Fabii, which, according to Livy numbered 306 cognati et sodales ("kinsmen and supporters") in 479 BC.
[20] The critical changes were the adoption by the infantry of Greek-style hoplite equipment, most likely borrowed from the Greek colonies of southern Italy (Magna Graecia), featuring metal body-armour; and the concomitant differentiation of the section of the citizen-body who were wealthy enough to pay for such equipment (known as the classis, or "class") from those who were not and continued to serve as unarmoured light infantry (infra classem, or "beneath the class").
[21] According to Livy, Romulus (traditional reign dates: 753–717 BC) raised ten centuriae (military units of 100 men) of infantry from each of the three original "tribes" of Rome which he had founded - the Ramnes, Tities and Luceres.
[24] Until recently, Fraccaro's thesis was not widely accepted because of Alfoldi's view of an "insignificant" early Rome, which could not have supported such a powerful army (or cavalry).
[25] But with a population now estimated at 35,000 inhabitants, a regal military levy of 9,000 is plausible, and the Fraccaro interpretation has won wide acceptance among modern scholars of ancient Rome.
[27][28] Romulus supposedly established a cavalry regiment of 300 men called the Celeres ("the Swift Squadron") to act as his personal escort, with each of the three tribes supplying 100 horse.
Although modest, infantry pay was at least sufficient to cover food rations, clothing and miscellaneous equipment (other than weapons and armor), which until then had been borne by the soldier.
[38] A seminal innovation of the young Republic was the establishment, in c. 493 BC, of an indefinite military alliance with the other city-states of Old Latium, the home of the Latin tribe, to which the Romans themselves belonged.
[39] The treaty remained in force until 358 BC and effectively doubled Rome's military potential to c. 18,000 troops, a huge size for Italian armies of the time.
From this time onwards, instead of fielding a phalanx for battle, the Romans deployed a series of small tactical units called manipuli (maniples), arrayed in three lines (triplex acies) in a chessboard pattern (quincunx).
The period also saw the introduction of new equipment, including armour for the cavalry and chain-mail armor, the gladius (a sword of Spanish design) and the pilum (a heavy javelin) for the infantry.
[40] According to the ancient Greek historian Polybius, whose Histories (written c. 140s BC) are the earliest substantial extant account of the Republic, Roman cavalry was originally unarmoured, wearing only a tunic and armed with a light spear and ox-hide shield which were of low quality and quickly deteriorated in action.
[41] As it appears that early Roman heavy infantry were armed as Greek-style hoplites, so it is assumed that it followed the Greek practice of fighting in a "phalanx formation".
[44] Despite the establishment of a national levy in the Regal Era, aristocratic war-bands continued to play a role into the first decades of the Republic e.g. the war-band of the Fabii, which in 479 BC was charged by the praetores with guarding Roman territory against raids from the neighbouring Etruscan city of Veii (only to be ambushed by the Veientines and wiped out, supposedly leaving only one Fabius alive to perpetuate the clan).
