The History of Rome, Book II: From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of ItalyMommsen, Theodor
History
The History of Rome, Book II: From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of Italy
Mommsen, Theodor
Rome -- History
That this new military organization was in the main a Roman, or at any
rate Italian, remodelling and improvement of the old Hellenic tactics
of the phalanx, is plain. If some germs of the system of reserve and
of the individualizing of the smaller subdivisions of the army are
found to occur among the later Greek strategists, especially Xenophon,
this only shows that they felt the defectiveness of the old system,
but were not well able to obviate it. The manipular legion appears
fully developed in the war with Pyrrhus; when and under what
circumstances it arose, whether at once or gradually, can no
longer be ascertained. The first tactical system which the Romans
encountered, fundamentally different from the earlier Italo-Hellenic
system, was the Celtic sword-phalanx. It is not impossible that the
subdivision of the army and the intervals between the maniples in
front were arranged with a view to resist, as they did resist, its
first and only dangerous charge; and it accords with this hypothesis
that Marcus Furius Camillus, the most celebrated Roman general of the
Gallic epoch, is presented in various detached notices as the reformer
of the Roman military system. The further traditions associated with
the Samnite and Pyrrhic wars are neither sufficiently accredited, nor
can they with certainty be duly arranged;(23) although it is in itself
probable that the prolonged Samnite mountain warfare exercised a
lasting influence on the individual development of the Roman soldier,
and that the struggle with one of the first masters of the art of war,
belonging to the school of the great Alexander, effected an
improvement in the technical features of the Roman military system.
National Economy--
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