Although the exact historicity is unclear, since the Romans often assigned one name to several distinct tribal groups, or conversely applied several names to a single group at different times, some mix of Germanic peoples, Celts, and tribes of mixed Celto-Germanic ethnicity were settled in the lands of Germania from the 1st century onwards. [130] In 150 BC, Galba betrayed the Lusitani leaders he had invited to peace talks and had them killed, ingloriously ending the first phase of the war.[130]. In 69 AD, Marcus Salvius Otho, governor of Lusitania, had the Emperor Galba murdered[285][286] and claimed the throne for himself. The Empire became gradually less Romanised and increasingly Germanic in nature: although the Empire buckled under Visigothic assault, the overthrow of the last Emperor Romulus Augustus was carried out by federated Germanic troops from within the Roman army rather than by foreign troops. At the Battle of Actium,[243] Octavian decisively defeated Antony and Cleopatra in a naval battle near Greece, using fire to destroy the enemy fleet.[244]. [19], The first of the campaigns fought by the Romans in this legendary account are the wars with various Latin cities and the Sabines. Many theories have been advanced in way of explanation for decline of the Roman Empire, and many dates given for its fall, from the onset of its decline in the 3rd century[349] to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. [302] The Jews' anger turned on Rome following robberies of their temple and Roman insensitivity Tacitus says disgust and repulsion[303] towards their religion. Most of this was unknown to the Romans at this time, who still had purely local security concerns, but the Romans were alerted when a particularly warlike tribe,[52][53] the Senones,[53] invaded the Etruscan province of Siena from the north and attacked the town of Clusium,[54] not far from Rome's sphere of influence. The Latins of Antemnae and those of Crustumerium were defeated next in a similar fashion. A war against Bahram V in 420 AD over the persecution of the Christians in Persia led to a brief war that was soon concluded by treaty and in 441 AD a war with Yazdegerd II was again swiftly concluded by treaty after both parties battled threats elsewhere.[348]. In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. 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. Iberia was fully occupied by 25 BC and the last revolt put down by 19 BC[137], Rome's preoccupation with its war with Carthage provided an opportunity for Philip V of the kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece to attempt to extend his power westward. See world news photos and videos at ABCNews.com Constantine's son Constantius II inherited his father's rule and later defeated the usurper Magnentius in first the Battle of Mursa Major and then the Battle of Mons Seleucus. A late-20th-century paradigm analyzed Roman sexuality in terms of a "penetratorpenetrated" binary model, however this model has limitations, especially in regard to expressions of sexuality among individual Romans. In the testudo formation, the men would align their shields to form a packed formation covered with shields on the front and top. The Romans then proved victorious at the Battle of Bovianum and the tide turned strongly against the Samnites from 314 BC onwards, leading them to sue for peace with progressively less generous terms. Grass crown (Latin: corona obsidionalis or corona graminea), was the highest and rarest of all military decorations.It was presented only to a general, commander, or officer whose actions saved the legion or the entire army. [49] After defeating the Veientes, the Romans had effectively completed the conquest of their immediate Etruscan neighbours,[50] as well as secured their position against the immediate threat posed by the tribespeople of the Apennine hills. [63] The First Samnite War of between 343 BC and 341 BC that followed widespread Samnite incursions into Rome's territory[64] was a relatively short affair: the Romans beat the Samnites in both the Battle of Mount Gaurus in 342 BC and the Battle of Suessula in 341 BC but were forced to withdraw from the war before they could pursue the conflict further due to the revolt of several of their Latin allies in the Latin War.[65][66]. [99] Xanthippus managed to cut off the Roman army from its base by re-establishing Carthaginian naval supremacy and then defeated and captured Regulus[100] at the Battle of Tunis. It was at this point that Pope Leo I managed to convince Attila to leave. Despite their successes, their mastery of the whole of Italy was by no means assured. [127], Following two small-scale rebellions in 197 BC,[128] in 195194 BC war broke out between the Romans and the Lusitani people in the Lusitanian War, in modern-day Portugal. This was done, and Tarquin formed combined units of Roman and Latin troops. In the peace negotiations that followed, Tarquinius received the town of Collatia and appointed his nephew, Arruns Tarquinius, also known as Egerius, as commander of the garrison which he stationed in that city. [183] Rome was plagued by several slave uprisings during this period, in part because in the past century vast tracts of land had been given to veterans who farmed by use of slaves and who came to greatly outnumber their Roman masters. By 59 BC an unofficial political alliance known as the First Triumvirate was formed between Gaius Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus to share power and influence. [206][212] In 52 BC, following the Siege of Avaricum and a string of inconclusive battles,[213] Caesar defeated a union of Gauls led by Vercingetorix[214] at the Battle of Alesia,[215][216] completing the Roman conquest of Transalpine Gaul. The Germanic tribes of the Cimbri[179] and the Teutons or Teutones[179] migrated from northern Europe into Rome's northern territories,[180] where they clashed with Rome and her allies. Roman power appointed the priests who were in charge of the religious sites of Palestine. Successive emperors Valens and Theodosius I also defeated usurpers in, respectively, the Battle of Thyatira, and the battles of the Save and the Frigidus. Engineering was also institutionally ingrained in the Roman military, who constructed forts, camps, bridges, roads, ramps, palisades, and siege equipment amongst others. In this sense had Odoacer not renounced the title of Emperor and named himself "King of Italy" instead, the Empire might have continued in name. [335] Ironically, while it was these usurpations that led to the breakup of the Empire during the crisis, it was the strength of several frontier generals that helped reunify the empire through force of arms. Like other items of legionary equipment, the dagger underwent some changes during the 1st century. The triumvirate expired on the last day of 33 BC and was not renewed in law and in 31 BC, war began again. The Second Samnite War, from 327 BC to 304 BC, was a much longer and more serious affair for both the Romans and Samnites,[69] running for over twenty years and incorporating twenty-four battles[62] that led to massive casualties on both sides. [143] In the Battle of the Aous Roman forces under Titus Quinctius Flamininus defeated the Macedonians,[145] and in a second larger battle under the same opposing commanders in 197 BC, in the Battle of Cynoscephalae,[146] Flamininus again beat the Macedonians decisively. [29] According to the Fasti Triumphales, Tarquin also won a victory over the Sabines. [181] The Cimbrian War was the first time since the Second Punic War that Italia and Rome itself had been seriously threatened, and caused great fear in Rome. As early as 53 BC, the Roman general Crassus had invaded Parthia, but he was killed and his army was defeated at the Battle of Carrhae. They defeated Aurelian at the Battle of Placentia in 271 AD but were beaten back for a short time after they lost the battles of Fano and Pavia later that year. Civil war flared again when the Second Triumvirate of Octavian, Lepidus and Mark Antony failed just as the first had almost as soon as its opponents had been removed. [131] The Lusitanians were initially successful, defeating a Roman army at the Battle of Tribola and going on to sack nearby Carpetania,[132] and then besting a second Roman army at the First Battle of Mount Venus in 146 BC, again going on to sack another nearby city. [92] Before the First Punic War in 264 BC there was no Roman navy to speak of, as all previous Roman wars had been fought on land in Italy. Most of the battles are not recorded, due primarily to the turmoil of the time, until Diocletian, a usurper himself, defeated Carinus at the Battle of the Margus and became emperor. Under pretence of siding with Vespasian, Civilis of Batavia had taken up arms and induced the inhabitants of his native country to rebel. Stilicho again attacked at the Battle of Verona[358] and again defeated Alaric,[359] forcing him to withdraw from Italy. This pattern of meeting aggression in force and so inadvertently gaining territory in strategic counter-attacks was to become a common feature of Roman military history. The Samnites were a people just as martial[61] and as rich[62] as the Romans and had the objective of their own to secure more lands in the fertile[62] Italian plains on which Rome itself lay. [328], At the same time, Franks raided through the North Sea and the English Channel,[329] Vandals pressed across the Rhine, Iuthungi against the Danube, Iazyges, Carpi and Taifali harassed Dacia, and Gepids joined the Goths and Heruli in attacks round the Black Sea. While Caesar was fighting against Vercingetorix in Gaul, Pompey proceeded with a legislative agenda for Rome that revealed that he was at best ambivalent towards Caesar[224] and perhaps now covertly allied with Caesar's political enemies. The structural history of the Roman military concerns the major transformations in the organization and constitution of ancient Rome's armed forces, "the most effective and long-lived military institution known to history." 17:51:25 Russia rejects oil price cap and warns 'Europe will live without Russian oil' [141], The First Macedonian War saw the Romans involved directly in only limited land operations. [3] The second is the civil war, which plagued Rome from its foundation to its eventual demise. According to tradition, he took the Gauls by surprise, when Brennus, having tricked the weights in which the gold rescue that had been set for the city was measured, uttered the expression Vae Victis! By the beginning of the 3rd century, Rome had established itself in 282 BC as a major power on the Italian Peninsula, but had not yet come into conflict with the dominant military powers in the Mediterranean at the time: Carthage and the Greek kingdoms. The Roman army, camped outside Ardea, welcomed Lucius Junius Brutus as their new leader, and expelled the king's sons. By 410 AD, Britain had been mostly denuded of Roman troops,[367][368] and by 425 AD was no longer part of the Empire,[353] and much of western Europe was beset "by all kinds of calamities and disasters",[369] coming under barbarian kingdoms ruled by Vandals, Suebians, Visigoths and Burgundians.[370]. The Pannonian revolt in 6 AD[245] forced the Romans to cancel their plan to cement their conquest of Germania. The Celtic problem would not be resolved for Rome until the final subjugation of all Gaul following the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC. Following the First Punic War, naval battles were less significant than land battles to the military history of Rome due to its encompassment of lands of the periphery and its unchallenged dominance of the Mediterranean Sea. The Roman army (Latin: exercitus Romanus) was the armed forces deployed by the Romans throughout the duration of Ancient Rome, from the Roman Kingdom (c. 500 BC) to the Roman Republic (50031 BC) and the Roman Empire (31 BC395 AD), and its medieval continuation, the Eastern Roman Empire.It is thus a term that may span approximately 2,205 years (753 The Latin noun limes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk marking off the boundaries of fields; a boundary Since the Alps formed a natural barrier to the north, and Rome was none too keen to meet the fierce Gauls in battle once more, the city's gaze turned to Sicily and the islands of the Mediterranean, a policy that would bring it into direct conflict with its former ally Carthage.[86][87]. It was known as Xylokopia in Ancient Greece and Fustuarium (a Latin abstraction from the Latin fustis, a branch or rod) in the Roman military.. [138] Desiring to prevent Philip from aiding Carthage in Italy and elsewhere, Rome sought out land allies in Greece to fight a proxy war against Macedon on its behalf and found partners in the Aetolian League of Greek city-states,[139] the Illyrians to the north of Macedon and the kingdom of Pergamon[140] and the city-state of Rhodes,[140] which lay across the Aegean from Macedon. 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. [280] Decebalus rebuilt his power over the following years and attacked Roman garrisons again in 105 AD. Significant development of the Auxilia appears to have taken place during the rule of the emperor Claudius (4154 AD).. A minimum term of service of 25 years was established, at the end of which the retiring auxiliary soldier, and all his children, were awarded Roman citizenship. [108] At the famous Battle of Zama Scipio decisively defeated[120] perhaps even "annihilated"[108] Hannibal's army in North Africa, ending the Second Punic War. 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. [233][234] Pompey initially defeated Caesar at the Battle of Dyrrachium in 48 BC[235] but failed to follow up on the victory. These forces drove out the Roman garrisons near the Rhine and defeated a Roman army at the Battle of Castra Vetera, after which many Roman troops along the Rhine and in Gaul defected to the Batavian cause. The First Punic War began in 264 BC when settlements on Sicily began to appeal to the two powers between which they lay Rome and Carthage in order to solve internal conflicts. 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. [337] However, Avitus himself, after taking the imperial name Elagabalus, was murdered shortly afterwards[337] and Alexander Severus was proclaimed emperor by both the Praetorian Guard and the senate who, after a short reign, was murdered in turn. For the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire after the division of the Empire in West and East, see List of Byzantine revolts and civil wars (3301453). By the year 68 AD, Jewish resistance in the Galilee had been crushed. A revitalised Parthian Empire renewed its assault in 161 AD, defeating two Roman armies and invading Armenia and Syria. However, rebellions in Babylonia and the Jewish revolts in Judea made it difficult to maintain the captured province and the territories were abandoned. Centuries of military campaigning throughout the Mediterranean and increasing invasions and uprisings [208] Although "fierce and able"[207] the Gauls were handicapped by internal disunity and fell in a series of battles over the course of a decade.[207][209]. From 314 AD onwards, Constantine defeated Licinius in the Battle of Cibalae, then the Battle of Mardia, and then again at the Battle of Adrianople, the Battle of the Hellespont and the Battle of Chrysopolis. [142], Macedon began to encroach on territory claimed by several other Greek city states in 200 BC and these pleaded for help from their newfound ally Rome. Additionally, in 91 BC the Social War broke out between Rome and its former allies in Italy,[187][188] collectively known as the Socii, over the grievance that they shared the risk of Rome's military campaigns, but not its rewards. [322] The Goths remained a major threat to the Empire but directed their attacks away from Italy itself for several years after their defeat. [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. Roman power appointed the priests who were in charge of the religious sites of Palestine. In 51 BC, some Roman senators demanded that Caesar would not be permitted to stand for Consul unless he turned over control of his armies to the state, and the same demands were made of Pompey by other factions. [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. The army was mostly spared further infighting until around 273 AD, when Aurelian defeated the Gallic usurper Tetricus in the Battle of Chalons. However, after training more sailors and inventing a grappling engine known as a Corvus,[95] a Roman naval force under C. Duillius was able to roundly defeat a Carthaginian fleet at the Battle of Mylae. After early Sassanid successes including the Battle of Amida in 359 AD and the Siege of Pirisabora in 363 AD,[347] Emperor Julian met Shapur in 363 AD in the Battle of Ctesiphon outside the walls of the Persian capital. The Romans raised a consular army under Quintus Caecilius Metellus, who swiftly defeated Andriscus at the Second battle of Pydna. Constantine then turned upon Maxentius, beating him in the Battle of Verona and the Battle of Milvian Bridge in the same year. During the reign of the Tetrarchy, emperors Diocletian and Galerius brought a decisive conclusion to the war, sacking Ctesiphon in 299 AD and expanding the Roman eastern frontier dramatically with the Treaty of Nisibis. In response Trajan again marched into Dacia,[281] besieging the Dacian capital in the Siege of Sarmizethusa, and razing it to the ground. After overthrowing the Parthian confederacy,[310][340] the Sassanid Empire that arose from its remains pursued a more aggressive expansionist policy than their predecessors[341][342] and continued to make war against Rome. Since the enlargement the population in Apennine peninsula had increased and led to certain changes in agriculture, such as switch to goat breeding from cattle, indicating higher levels of protein supply in the diet which played a crucial role in stature of the locals.[51]. [229] Pompey's forces retreated south towards Brundisium,[230] and then fled to Greece. [228][231] Caesar first directed his attention to the Pompeian stronghold of Iberia[232] but following campaigning by Caesar in the Siege of Massilia and Battle of Ilerda he decided to attack Pompey in Greece. [269], On the continent, the extension of the Empire's borders beyond the Rhine hung in the balance for some time, with the emperor Caligula apparently poised to invade Germania in 39 AD, and Cnaeus Domitius Corbulo crossing the Rhine in 47 AD and marching into the territory of the Frisii and Chauci. The ambitious Octavian built a power base and then launched a campaign against Mark Antony. [345], Certainly, the Sassanids had not been cowed by the previous battles with Rome and in 253 AD the Sassanids under Shapur I penetrated deeply into Roman territory several times, defeating a Roman force at the Battle of Barbalissos[345] and conquering and plundering Antiochia in 252 AD following the Siege of Antiochia. [337] His murderers were working on behalf of the army who were unhappy with their lot under his rule and who raised in his place Maximinus Thrax. [162] The Jugurthine War of 111104 BC was fought between Rome and Jugurtha of Numidia and constituted the final Roman pacification of Northern Africa,[163] after which Rome largely ceased expansion on the continent after reaching natural barriers of desert and mountain. Perseus initially had greater military success against the Romans than his father, winning the Battle of Callicinus against a Roman consular army. The new war in Sicily against Carthage, a great naval power,[93] forced Rome to quickly build a fleet and train sailors. They were beaten again in 298 AD at the battles of Lingones and Vindonissa but fifty years later they were resurgent again, making incursions in 356 AD at the Battle of Reims,[324] in 357 AD at the Battle of Strasbourg,[325] in 367 AD at the Battle of Solicinium and in 378 AD at Battle of Argentovaria. [38] One by one, Rome defeated both the persistent Sabines and the local cities that were either under Etruscan control or else Latin towns that had cast off their Etruscan rulers, as had Rome. The two armies met again on the Via Postunia, in the First Battle of Bedriacum,[294] after which the Othonian troops fled back to their camp in Bedriacum,[295] and the next day surrendered to the Vitellian forces. Some small measure of stability again returned at this point, with the empire split into a Tetrarchy of two greater and two lesser emperors, a system that staved off civil wars for a short time until 312 AD. [38] Rome defeated the Lavinii and Tusculi in the Battle of Lake Regillus in 496 BC,[37][39][40] were defeated by the Veientes in the Battle of the Cremera in 477 BC,[41][42] the Sabines in an unnamed battle in 449 BC,[39] the Aequi in the Battle of Mount Algidus in 458 BC, the Aequi and Volsci in 446 BC,[43][44] in the Battle of Corbio,[45] in 446 BC the Aurunci in the Battle of Aricia,[46] the Capture of Fidenae in 435 BC[42][47] and the Siege of Veii in 396 BC,[42][45][47][48] and the Capture of Antium in 377 BC. The Alamanni seized the opportunity to launch a major invasion of Gaul and northern Italy. His military ability was tested by an attack from the Sabines. [277], Emperor Trajan recommenced hostilities against Dacia and, following an uncertain number of battles,[278] defeated the Dacian general Decebalus in the Second Battle of Tapae in 101 AD. 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. [223] The death of Crassus removed some of the balance in the Triumvirate and, consequently, Caesar and Pompey began to move apart. Civic crown (Latin: corona civica), was a chaplet of common oak leaves woven to form a crown.During the Roman Republic, and the subsequent These accounts were written by various authors throughout and after the history of the Empire. Its chronicles, military and otherwise, document the city's very foundation to its eventual demise.Although some histories have been lost, such as Trajan's account of the Dacian Wars, and others, such as Rome's earliest histories, are at least semi-apocryphal, the extant histories In the West, following humiliating defeats at the hands of the Sugambri, Tencteri and Usipetes tribes in 16 BC,[245] Roman armies pushed north and east out of Gaul to subdue much of Germania. [141] A treaty was drawn up between Rome and Macedon at Phoenice in 205 BC which promised Rome a small indemnity,[125] formally ending the First Macedonian War. And Jesus openly denounced these priests, so much is known. Nevertheless, it was generally the fate of even the greatest of Rome's enemies, such as Pyrrhus and Hannibal, to win the battle but lose the war. [152], Rome now turned its attentions to Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire to the east. He is said to have shown valour in the campaign, and to have routed a great army of the enemy. [82] Facing unacceptably heavy losses with each encounter with the Roman army, and failing to find further allies in Italy, Pyrrhus withdrew from the peninsula and campaigned in Sicily against Carthage,[83] abandoning his allies to deal with the Romans.[73]. Formally, a string is a finite, ordered sequence of characters such as letters, digits or spaces. Rome bested the Latins in the Battle of Vesuvius and again in the Battle of Trifanum,[66] after which the Latin cities were obliged to submit to Roman rule. After the Cimbri inadvertently granted the Romans a reprieve by diverting to plunder Iberia,[182] Rome was given the opportunity to carefully prepare for and successfully meet the Cimbri and Teutons[180] in the Battle of Aquae Sextiae[182] (102 BC) and the Battle of Vercellae[182] (101 BC) where both tribes were virtually annihilated, ending the threat. The historicity and exact dates are uncertain, and some historians do not consider that the Empire fell at this point. However, the Visigoths were defeated in battle that summer near the modern Italian-Slovenian border and then routed in the Battle of Naissus[322] that September by Gallienus, Claudius and Aurelian, who then turned and defeated the Alemanni at the Battle of Lake Benacus. In 197 AD, Emperor Septimius Severus waged a brief and successful war against the Parthian Empire in retaliation for the support given to a rival for the imperial throne Pescennius Niger. If they tried to charge the enemy, the enemy did not suffer more and they did not suffer less, because the Parthians could shoot even as they fledWhen Publius urged them to charge the enemy's mail-clad horsemen, they showed him that their hands were riveted to their shields and their feet nailed through and through to the ground, so that they were helpless either for flight or for self-defence, "Never was there slaughter more cruel than took place there in the marshes and woods, never were more intolerable insults inflicted by barbarians, especially those directed against the legal pleaders. [180][189][190] Despite defeats such as the Battle of Fucine Lake, Roman troops defeated the Italian militias in decisive engagements, notably the Battle of Asculum. After swiftly recovering from the sack of Rome,[60] the Romans immediately resumed their expansion within Italy. [309] In 224 AD, the Parthian Empire was crushed not by the Romans but by the rebellious Persian vassal king Ardashir I, who revolted, leading to the establishment of Sassanid Empire of Persia, which replaced Parthia as Rome's major rival in the East. Following two major military expeditions to Iberia, the Romans finally crushed Carthaginian control of the peninsula in 206 BC, at the Battle of Ilipa, and the peninsula became a Roman province known as Hispania. Early in his reign, Servius Tullius warred against Veii and the Etruscans. Plutarch describes how Pompey first swept their craft from the Mediterranean in a series of small actions and through the promise of honouring the surrender of cities and craft. Rome steadfastly refused to negotiate with Pyrrhus as long as his army remained in Italy. 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. However, just as he had been raised by the army, Maximinus was also brought down by them and despite winning the Battle of Carthage against the senate's newly proclaimed Gordian II, he too was murdered[338] when it appeared to his forces as though he would not be able to best the next senatorial candidate for the throne, Gordian III. [18] Very little is known of Rome's military history from this era, and what history has come down to us is more legendary than factual. The Second Mithridatic War began when Rome tried to annex Bithynia as a province. The power of the censor was absolute: no magistrate could oppose his decisions, and only another censor who succeeded him could cancel those decisions. The Cimbrian War (113101 BC) was a far more serious affair than the earlier clashes of 121 BC. Despite this grave danger, or perhaps because of it, the Roman army continued to be wracked by usurpation, in one of which Stilicho, Rome's foremost defender of the period, was put to death. During a period of civil upheaval in Persia, emperor Carus led a successful campaign into Persia essentially uncontested, sacking Ctesiphon in 283 AD. At the Battle of Mutina Antony was again defeated in battle by Hirtius, who was killed. Rome had achieved its objective of pre-occupying Philip and preventing him from aiding Hannibal. The Roman army battled first against its tribal neighbours and Etruscan towns within Italy, and later came to dominate the Mediterranean and at its height the provinces of Britannia and Asia Minor. The fortunes of the two sides fluctuated throughout its course: the Samnites seized Neapolis in the Capture of Neapolis in 327 BC,[69] which the Romans then re-captured before losing at the Battle of the Caudine Forks[62][69][70] and the Battle of Lautulae. A Roman dictator was an extraordinary magistrate in the Roman Republic endowed with full authority to resolve some specific problem to which he had been assigned. Despite being defeated in Iberia in the Battle of Baecula, Hasdrubal managed to break through into Italy only to be defeated decisively by Gaius Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius Salinator on the Metaurus River.[108]. In the last century BC, at least twelve civil wars and rebellions occurred. 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. The Romans were defeated at the Battle of Suthul[169] but fared better at the Battle of the Muthul[170] and finally defeated Jugurtha at the Battle of Thala,[171][172] the Battle of Mulucha,[173] and the Battle of Cirta (104 BC). [84] Effectively dominating the Italian peninsula,[85] and with a proven international military reputation,[86] Rome now began to look to expand from the Italian mainland. Mithridates the Great was the ruler of Pontus,[192] a large kingdom in Asia Minor, from 120 to 63 BC. The army that faced the Romans at the Battle of Sentinum[70] in 295 BC included Samnites, Gauls, Etruscans and Umbrians. [54] The Romans met them in pitched battle at the Battle of the Allia[52][53] around 390387 BC. Unable to defeat Hannibal himself on Italian soil, and with Hannibal savaging the Italian countryside but unwilling or unable to destroy Rome itself, the Romans boldly sent an army to Africa with the intention of threatening the Carthaginian capital. Carthage was left without a fleet or sufficient coin to raise a new one. [94], Rome took to naval warfare "like a brick to water"[87] and the first few naval battles of the First Punic War such as the Battle of the Lipari Islands were catastrophic disasters for Rome, as might fairly be expected from a city that had no real prior experience of naval warfare. Roman armies under Germanicus pursued several more campaigns against the Germanic tribes of the Marcomanni, Hermunduri, Chatti,[251] Cherusci,[252] Bructeri,[252] and Marsi. In the Roman army, it could also be applied to every tenth man of a whole The Kingdom of Armenia between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea became a focus of contention between Rome and the Parthian Empire, and control of the region was repeatedly gained and lost. In just four years, a state without any real naval experience had managed to better a major regional maritime power in battle. He then followed the main body of the pirates to their strongholds on the coast of Cilicia, and destroyed them there in the naval Battle of Korakesion. Early successes by the rebels, including the repulse of the First Siege of Jerusalem[304] and the Battle of Beth-Horon,[304] only attracted greater attention from Rome and Emperor Nero appointed general Vespasian to crush the rebellion. Pompey was decisively defeated in the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC[236][237] despite outnumbering Caesar's forces two to one. By 284 AD, Gothic troops were serving on behalf of the Roman military as federated troops. From its origins around 800 BC to its final dissolution in AD 476 with the demise of the Western Roman Empire, Rome's military organization underwent The Romans became more efficient at considering laws and punishments. [77][79][80] Despite these victories, Pyrrhus found his position in Italy untenable. [205] After slaughtering the Helvetii tribe,[206] Caesar prosecuted a "long, bitter and costly"[207] campaign against other tribes across the breadth of Gaul, many of whom had fought alongside Rome against their common enemy the Helvetii,[204] and annexed their territory to that of Rome. [134] In 139 BC, Viriathus was finally killed in his sleep by three of his companions who had been promised gifts by Rome. The situation was complex, often with three or more usurpers in existence at once. In the Battle of Locus Castorum the Othonians had the better of the fighting,[293] and Vitellius' troops retreated to Cremona. Otho decided to commit suicide rather than fight on.[296]. Although Antony failed to capture Mutina, Decimus Brutus was murdered shortly thereafter. From 206 BC onwards the only opposition to Roman control of the peninsula came from within the native Celtiberian tribes themselves, whose disunity prevented their security from Roman expansion. By 304 BC the Romans had effectively annexed the greater degree of the Samnite territory, founding several colonies. [129] By 179 BC, the Romans had mostly succeeded in pacifying the region and bringing it under their control. Early in his reign Tarquinius Superbus, Rome's seventh and final king, called a meeting of the Latin leaders at which he persuaded them to renew their treaty with Rome and become her allies rather than her enemies, and it was agreed that the troops of the Latins would attend at a grove sacred to the goddess Ferentina on an appointed day to form a united military force with the troops of Rome. For a maritime power, the loss of their access to the Mediterranean stung financially and psychologically, and the Carthaginians again sued for peace,[102] during which negotiations, Rome battled the Ligures tribe in the Ligurian War[103] and the Insubres in the Gallic War. A number of points of view have been proposed. The Mediterranean had at this time fallen into the hands of pirates,[196] largely from Cilicia. After Varus' defeat in Germania in the 1st century, Rome had adopted a largely defensive strategy along the border with Germania, constructing a line of defences known as limes along the Rhine. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia would draft 300,000 reservists to support its military campaign. The pressure of tribal groups pushing into the Empire was the result of a chain of migrations with its roots far to the east:[317] Huns from the Russian steppe attacked the Goths,[318][319][320] who in turn attacked the Dacians, Alans and Sarmatians at or within Rome's borders. Conquest of the Iberian peninsula (21918 BC), Macedon, the Greek poleis, and Illyria (215148 BC), Campaign against the Cilician pirates (67 BC), Triumvirates, Caesarian ascension, and revolt (5330 BC), Struggle with the Sassanid Empire (230363 AD), Collapse of the Western Empire (402476 AD), wars with various Latin cities and the Sabines, preliminary low-scale invasions of Britain, Usurpation of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi, Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jurgurthine War, Wars of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Campaign_history_of_the_Roman_military&oldid=1125954499, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, "Events before the city was founded or planned, which have been handed down more as pleasing poetic fictions than as reliable records of historical events, I intend neither to affirm nor to refute. [287][288] However, Vitellius, governor of the province of Germania Inferior, had also claimed the throne[289][290] and marched on Rome with his troops. 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. [198] The pirates had seized the opportunity of a relative power vacuum and had not only strangled shipping lanes but had plundered many cities on the coasts of Greece and Asia,[197] and had even made descents upon Italy itself. The assembled warbands of the Alamanni frequently crossed the limes, attacking Germania Superior such that they were almost continually engaged in conflicts with the Roman Empire, whilst Goths attacked across the Danube in battles such as the Battle of Beroa[315] and Battle of Philippopolis in 250 AD[315] and the Battle of Abrittus in 251 AD,[315] and both Goths and Heruli ravaged the Aegean and, later, Greece, Thrace and Macedonia. [104], Continuing distrust led to the renewal of hostilities in the Second Punic War when Hannibal, a member of the Barcid family of Carthaginian nobility, attacked Saguntum,[105][106] a city with diplomatic ties to Rome. Emperor Caracalla, the son of Severus, marched on Parthia in 217 AD from Edessa to begin a war against them, but he was assassinated while on the march. , Servius Tullius warred against Veii and the Battle of Chalons power the! Fight on. [ 296 ] Pompey 's forces retreated south towards Brundisium, [ 196 largely... 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