In a tradition going back to Polybius, scholarly attention to the military of the Roman Republic focused on the legions as an instrument of empire and imperialism. This tendency was only reinforced by the image of the Roman military juggernaut as an invincible machine sweeping away all opposition before it with a relentless momentum and unwavering purpose in depictions of blockbuster Hollywood films in the heyday of Cecil B. DeMille. Individual legionary soldiers were tiny cogs in a gargantuan wheel, as it were, of little scholarly interest and possessing no real agency. Polybius, our best source for the greatest expansionary phase of Roman imperialism, was most interested, as a military historian (he wrote a lost Tactica), in battles as chess-piece affairs and the strategy, resolve and ratiocinations of elite field commanders; he does not dwell on the psychological dimensions of rank-and-file soldiers who fought and died on the battlefields.
Post-Keegan historiography of warfare has helped to rectify the situation, repopulating Roman armies with flesh-and-blood people, reconstructing and reimagining lived experiences of legionaries in the camp, on the march and in battle, with a brilliant article by Philip Sabin in this journal worthy of especial mention and praise in the field of Roman military studies (JRS 90 (2000), 1–17). Dominic Machado's book advances this line of scholarly inquiry, concentrating on Roman soldiers as a self-directed collective, with common concerns and economic, social and even political objectives. In short, the Roman republican soldiery was conscious of itself as a community with considerable leverage and bargaining power to promote its own interests and well-being.
While acknowledging that there is a relative dearth of epigraphical evidence for Roman republican armies, M. begins with an attempt to downplay distinctions between soldiers of the Roman Republic and later armies of the Principate. He might also have mentioned the relative paucity of archaeological evidence for encampments (with Schulten's famous excavations at Numantia being a notable exception). In any event, M. takes issue with A. D. Lee's insistence that the proper framework for the study of the army in the Empire cannot work for armed forces of the Republic because republican recruits were part-time, seasonal soldiers eager to rush back to their farms at the end of the campaigning season (20). In sharp contrast, later Roman armies in long-term, quasi-permanent settlements were putatively capable of forming social and communal bonds of a sort that their republican counterparts were not. As Rosenstein and others have shown, it is not a difficult task to explode the dichotomy in its starkest formulations. This is low-hanging fruit, so to speak, but it is rhetorically effective in launching the stimulating chapters to follow.
Ch. 1 (39–66) argues for republican armies as ‘natural’ and ‘ideological’ communities (within castra), and as extended families. In ch. 2 (67–93), M. proposes ‘unit identity’ as a central concept, considering the legionary maniple, Italian socii, and auxiliaries. Ch. 3 takes up community beyond encampments, with stress on movement and mobility among slaves, traders and merchants; prostitutes, wives and businesswomen; and seers, soothsayers and priests. This is followed by two chapters (131–88) on various aspects of collective agency (decisions in the absence of an imperator, division of war loot, stipendia and rations, and economic benefits of association with non-military personnel). In ch. 6 (189–217), M. turns to important themes of status and honour (cf. Polyb. 6.39.1–11). The following two chapters (219–90) explore political dimensions of rank-and-file soldiers’ collective actions (‘playing both sides’, negotiations with commanders, shaping domestic politics), thus supplying a military complement to the controversial theme of ‘democratic Rome’, launched by Fergus Millar in the 1980s with several influential articles in this journal. A concluding chapter (291–302) provides a summary, implications of the study and openings for future research.
A great deal of work on republican armies (e.g. on demography and ecology, supply chains and logistics, intelligence and reconnaissance) has supplemented more traditional approaches to the Roman military in the republican period. M.'s book helps to open another vista, a sort of subaltern account of collective agency, communal strategy and political power of ordinary Roman soldiers. Perhaps most interesting is the way M. creatively frames collective disobedience, manifesting in rebellion, mutiny or acting as a ‘fifth column’. Also useful are his development of relations with non-military camp followers and his consideration of social, cultural and political consequences of republican armies’ presence among indigenous local communities surrounding them.
M. opens his account with the gruesome public beheading at Rome of usurpers at Rhegium before the outbreak of the First Punic War. In doing so, he unintentionally issues a caveat that helps us keep his arguments in their proper perspective. While we may not have duly appreciated aspects of republican soldiers’ collective power, on the long view that power was contained within Rome's imperial projects. The mutiny at Sucro in 206 b.c. serves as a fine case in point (176–9). Scipio Africanus did address complaints of the mutineers by requisitioning funds from local communities, but he publicly executed the thirty-five ringleaders in a spectacle before the assembled army. Polybius admired how Scipio regained control (11.25–30). This repressed uprising was not anomalous. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain how the Roman Republic attained supremacy in its anarchic international environment.
