This blog follows the Roman legionnaire Titus of the thirteenth legion in 49 BC. He crossed the Rubicon with his commander Gaius Julius Caesar and is preparing to confront the army of the hostile general Pompeius on the battlefield. Rome is about to plunge into a new civil war: although Titus is loyal to Caesar, he fears that the period of conflict he has experienced his entire life will end the Roman Republic.
The autumn of the Roman republic
The late Roman Republic had a different form of democracy than we have today. Only male Roman citizens had the right to vote and legal capacity. The lower classes in society had hardly any influence with their votes. They were dependent on their patron for political matters, with whom they maintained a client-patron relationship. These relationships were based on cosmic reciprocity and came with obligations. The more clients a patron possessed, the more prestige and political influence he could exercise. At the same time, it was a disgrace for a patron to leave his clients in poverty. He protected them in case of legal disputes and functioned as a bank. This client-patron relationship was non-binding and both parties could terminate the cooperation.
Throughout the history of the late Roman Republic, the legions played an important political role. Because of the professionalization of the army, campaigns lasted longer and legionnaires became dependent on their salary and plunder from their general for their livelihood, which they received from their commander. This made them loyal to individual military leaders, whom they regarded as their patron. However, they were not so much loyal to the Roman senate.
In the late republic, there had been a series of political conflicts between (simply put) two different political groups, the populares who were in favour of land reform and more political participation by the plebs and proletariat, or the aristocratic optimates who opposed it. The civil wars came to an end with the reign of terror of the optimates general Sulla between 82-80 BC. He was able to have himself appointed dictator by means of his military power, and for two years he would massively murder his political opponents with his bloody proscriptions and seize their possessions for himself and his allies. He also brought about major political reforms that curtailed the power of the tribunes of the people severely (with and without violence). The balance of power of the government thus came to lie almost entirely with the aristocracy.
This created a great fear after his death that a legion under another demagogue like Sulla could pose a threat to Rome. In the coming years, this was recognized by the senate and Roman governors were not allowed to leave their provinces with their legions. It was also strictly forbidden for Roman military commanders to enter Italy with a mobilized fighting force: for triumphs within the city, the army had to be officially discharged first.
Julius Caesar and the first triumvirate
The struggle between the optimates and populares was completely halted by the bloody regime of Sulla. However, sympathies remained and in 70 BC Gnaeus Pompeius and Marcus Licinius Crassus, the two most powerful generals of the republic, became consuls together to reverse Sulla's strict restrictions on the tribunes of the people and give the people more say in politics. The young politician Gaius Julius Caesar had become very popular with the people because he was very generous to his clients, openly expressed his sympathies for former populares, and had even had to flee for revenge by Sulla for his political statements. After the death of the dictator, Caesar became one of the most powerful politicians in Rome and during the 60s and 50s BC was part of a three-man rule between himself, Pompeius, and Crassus. Because of this, he was elected consul and proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, where he achieved great victories.
In Gaul, Caesar went to war with Gallic tribes to protect Rome's borders. However, this border conflict escalated into a major conquest war, which gave Caesar much success and prestige. Caesar's legions were the best trained of the entire republic and were completely loyal to him. Many of his legionnaires came from families who had served under Marius. Because of these factors, a great fear arose in the Senate that he would follow Sulla as a demagogue. In 56 BC Crassus died in his war against the Parthians in Syria and the triumvirate came to an end.
Rome had become a political powder keg during Caesar's absence and violence broke out regularly in the streets. Pompeius received special powers with which he arranged this grain supply and could keep the street terror in the city under control: meanwhile he switched sides to the optimates and in an attempt to seize power for himself. Because of Caesar's success, Pompeius and the optimates decided at the end of 50 BC to jointly bring down the popular general; they declared him a traitor to the republic and demanded he disband his army. Caesar put all his chips on the table and caused a constitutional crisis when in the following year he left his province of Gaul and crossed the stream of the Rubicon (the Roman border between Gaul and Italy) to Rome. The die was cast and Rome fell into yet another series of civil wars, after a brief period of peace.
Caesar's civil war
Although the senate had turned against him, Caesar managed in 49 BC to conquer all of Italy with little resistance. Despite a few small sieges, which ended in surrender, Caesar's march through the peninsula went smoothly. Caesar's legions were received with open arms by the population and made no attempts to plunder the conquered areas. Because of this, they were seen as 'liberators' and many supporters of Pompeius and the optimates began to fall away. However, Caesar's mercy had limits - for example, in 48 BC he razed Massalia (now the French city of Marseille) to the ground because it had turned against him.
Meanwhile, Pompeius himself had fled: first to southern Italy, then to the Balkans. Caesar pursued him and ventured across in 48 BC. At the city of Dyrrhachium, Pompeius almost managed to defeat him, but Caesar managed to escape him. His loyal legions were able to regroup and destroyed Pompeius's army at the Greek city of Pharsalus. Pompeius fled to Egypt, where he was murdered by the Ptolemaic king Ptolemy XIII.
However, Caesar was not done in the East. In the following year, he took advantage of the succession dispute in Egypt to use the help of the Jewish king Antipater to depose the aforementioned Ptolemy and place his sister Cleopatra back on the throne, as the ruler of a Roman vassal state. After this was accomplished, he conquered the kingdom of Pontus in Asia Minor with the help of his new allies. Caesar returned to Rome that same year, was appointed dictator, and in the course of 46 and 45 BC ended the remnants of the Pompeian armies that had fled to North Africa and Iberia. With these final campaigns, the optimates were finally defeated and the populares under Caesar had won the civil war.
Caesar was welcomed by the people in Rome in 45 BC as a hero. Despite his harsh military conduct, he was very forgiving towards his opponents: many of them were allowed to keep their position as senator. However, this mercy would also be his downfall, as he increasingly began to behave like a king. In 44 BC Caesar had himself appointed dictator for life, but his rule did not last long. On the Ides of March that same year, he was murdered on the floor of the senate by a conspiracy of senators, including the young Marcus Junius Brutus, whom he had raised as his son. With this, his reign came to a bloody end and Rome would be plunged into a new series of civil wars, which brought the Republican period to an end.
Julius Caesar: despot or social reformer?
Julius Caesar is still a very controversial historical figure. There has been much discussion for more than 2000 years about how we should view him; was he more of a terrible despot who destroyed the republic because he was after personal power, or a hero of the people who overthrew a corrupt system? Nowadays, historians reject such simple moral judgments of historical figures from so far back in our past: understanding Roman society has little to do with this.
Discussing the motivation and mindset of people like Caesar, on the other hand, can help us understand more about the society they were part of. Caesar was in favour of reforming the Roman state because he believed the old corrupt republic was untenable because it placed all power and wealth in the hands of the aristocracy. He did this not primarily out of genuine concern for the Roman people, but for the survival of the Roman state itself. He cleverly became popular with the plebeians and proletarians by promising them what they needed, but he did this by simply promising them what they needed. The Roman Republic was steeped in corruption and incompetence among the aristocracy. The rise of figures like Sulla, Caesar, and Augustus, who saw this corrupt system as fertile ground to seize power and (for the benefit of the people or the aristocracy) exercise their will, had become almost inevitable through an accumulation of political factors over the past centuries.
Titus's equipment, the Republican legionnaire
The armour of the legionnaire was supplied by the Roman government in the late republic. It produced armour, weapons and clothing in special fabricae, workshops throughout the empire. Weapon armour was produced and reused on a large scale: this made the equipment of the legions consistent. The difference between the hastati, principes, and triarii had ceased to exist in this period. Instead, the army was composed of Legionnaires, auxiliary troops cavalry, and auxiliary archers. The advantage of this was that the focus lay on a consistent type of infantry with consistent armament, training, and organization.
The equipment of a legionnaire was designed to be as practical and functional as possible. After all, a legionnaire had to be able not only to fight in his full armour, but also to march long distances in a day or stand guard for long periods.
Roman legionnaires like Titus had similar clothing and equipment, but were not uniform. Although they received their equipment assigned by the Roman state, much was also shared or taken over from previous generations. So Titus received his mail shirt, spear, shield, belt and sandals from the state, but wears the old helmet and gladius of his uncle, an old veteran who fought under Marius in the Social War and the defense of Rome against Sulla. Titus's tunic and cloak were made for him by his mother and sent to him from Rome.
Clothing
Tunica (tunic)
In Roman society, the woolen (or linen) Tunica was the most important garment for both men and women. In the republican period, it was very fashionable to make it long and flowing, to give the same appearance as the more formal toga worn by Roman citizens. However, this was not practical for legionnaires, so they wore a short tunic.
The tunic Titus wears is made of wool and dyed red. In modern depictions, legionnaires often wear red, because this colour symbolized the god of war Mars. However, it is unclear whether legionnaires wore a coloured tunic at all, since the state had their equipment produced as cheaply as possible. Also, the colour was not uniform per legion (or even per cohort). Soldiers often wore tunics from other batches, or had clothes sent from home: Titus's tunic was made for him by his mother.
Neck cloth
The neckline of
