Bearing the Brunt: Roman Army Size

From: Nick Brooke <100270.337_at_compuserve.com>
Date: 05 Mar 95 16:22:27 EST


Re: tedious numerical stuff.

Anyone who truly believes they're interested in the question of how large the Roman Army was in absolute terms, and how large such an army would be relative to the population it's recruited from, should go to their local library and ask for Peter Brunt's magnum opus, "Italian Manpower". After looking at the sheer size of this hefty tome for a few moments, I hope they'll realise that it's far easier to sidestep this highly technical question altogether and wing it by using 1% of a civilised population as professional soldiers (my own approach, speaking as a qualified ancient and mediaeval historian who researched this field for my essays)...

A kinder, gentler approach to the whole question is in Keith Hopkins' excellent sociological study, "Conquerors and Slaves", which includes illuminating graphs to show the effects of different lengths of service and assumed life expectancies on the proportion of the male population that has to be enlisted in the Army. This, too, is technical (though far less tedious); Hopkins quotes Brunt extensively but selectively, and is usually a fascinating author.

This has been a public service announcement. Normal service will now resume for a couple of months, while various net.bores pretend they are interested and/or desperate enough to read through the whole of Brunt (something most of the classicists and ancient historians I know would strive desperately to avoid doing!). All the answers are in there: you just have to work out which questions you should have been asking...

As with the Great Urine Debate, I suggest contributors seek out the more widely available sources for this tedious technical issue. This parallel brings a crude Anglo-Saxon expression of banishment to mind, but I am in far too jovial a mood to spoil your reading pleasure on this fine Sunday evening by inflicting it on the malefactors responsible.



Nick

Powered by hypermail