Scholars Day: April 15, 2009

Recruitment, Training, and Discipline Of The Roman Army During The Early Republic

The Roman army was a complex organism that reigned victorious over the Mediterranean basin for a thousand years. Like Rome itself, the army had a beginning and it continued to grow, adapt and evolve, to face whatever obstacle it encountered. The foundational traditions and techniques applied during the early Republic had lasting, and dramatic effect on its ongoing development. While historians such as Florence Dupont have focused on the “Ideal” portrayal of these topics through literary texts, social historians offer less emphasis on the “Ideal” and more on the unpolished actuality of army life. This paper will focus on the recruits used to form the army, their training, and the discipline applied when actual performance did not meet the ideal.