> The affair of 214 suggests that even in a period where Roman armies were regularly being destroyed completely, the draft-dodger rate was something just below 1%.
One of the things that made Rome successful was that they would absorb horrendous losses and still keep going. Their ability to mobilize contributed to their power.
To give an example, at the Battle of Cannae, in a single afternoon, Rome lost an estimated 65,000 men killed. To put this in context, the US lost 58,000 soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam War.
Casualty numbers that large are highly unusual, you generally only see them in legendary tales that are almost certainly exaggerated tenfold if they happened at all. Ancient armies were not particularly well organized and would usually dissolve rather than fighting to the last man. Also keep in mind that the non-US death toll of the Vietnam War was well in excess of 3 million.
> Carthage was trying to conquer Rome. They had no choice but to keep fighting.
Not really. They could have reached a negotiated settlement. Both the first and second Punic wars ended in a negotiated settlement (of course very much in favor of Rome). Carthage would likely have been ok with Rome agreeing that all of Spain would be in Carthage’s sphere of influence. Worst case, they would return Sicily which they gained in the first Punic war.
Rome’s decision to keep on fighting was not one necessitated by survival or maintaining independence.
190 million is the common estimate for 200 AD, the battle took place in 216 BC when the estimate was ~150 million.
And on a related note, our sources for the death toll in the Battle of Cannae is poor. The main source is Livy, writing from a biased point of view nearly 200 years after the battle.
The overall point that Rome came back from a tremendous loss in the Battle of Cannae is true, I wouldn't focus too hard on the numbers.
I can’t speak for that given example but considering the scale of total war at the time, cities raised, populations slaughtered / sold into slavery. Probably have to keep fighting.
Army sizes and casulaties in the ancient world were typically off by a huge margin. For example, Thermopylae had ancient estimates at over a million Persians, which just doesn't make sense. The ancient world simply couldn't support an invading army that large by foraging or traditional supply. Just think about how many ships that would require.
Herodotus, who was useful in many other ways, also gave figures that are likely at least an order of magnitude too large.
More modern estimates of Cannae seem to be 10-16,000 on the Roman side. Part of the reason is that Hannibal was unlikely to be able to (or would necessarily want to) prevent a rout by the infantry.
Ancient warfare was very psychological and would typically end in a rout rather than a slaughter. Even now with far deadlier weapons, when we talk about "casulaties" we tend to include wounded and those outnumber the killed often by 2:1 or more (side note: your Vietnam casualty number is fatal casualties and pretty much correct).
Also, at this time the population of Roman Italy was likely close to a million or more. The city of Rome peaked at 1-2 million population before the Fall. Even in Republic times it was probably 200-500k+.
So the damage of Cannae was probably hugely psychological and presented a short-term problem in that it takes time to raise and train an army but given the demographics of the Roman Republic, it probably didn't represent a massive loss of military-age men in the same way that, say, World War One or Two did.
I wonder if this partly reflects a reality where life sucks pretty bad for most people, so the possibility of a comfortable respectable life as a military veteran was worth the obvious risk and misery of being a legionnaire on campaign. That said, I'm sure the travel and/or combat and/or patriotic aspect was also exciting to some.
It's why the Romans were able to put down pretty much every uprising for centuries.
There's a famous one in my country led by a former Roman general. After it was put down his tribe was never mentioned in historical chronicles ever again.
And there is ofcourse the Jews whose brilliant strategy involved God- he never showed up on the battlefield.
The 65k figure is what ancient historians reported, in reality it’s almost certainly order of magnitudes lower. Exaggerated figures are usually the case with ancient reports (especially about battles).
There were eight Roman legions and a lot of allied troops that had been mostly annihilated. Rome was subsequently no longer in a position to oppose Hannibal in an open field battle. From this alone one can conclude that the Roman losses must have been considerable. The figures given by Polybius and Livius may or may not be approximately correct, but I think they are in the right order of magnitude.
Yes, we actually always travelled, the biggest difference was naturally the time it took, and the high probability not to reach destination due to road assaults.
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One of the things that made Rome successful was that they would absorb horrendous losses and still keep going. Their ability to mobilize contributed to their power.
To give an example, at the Battle of Cannae, in a single afternoon, Rome lost an estimated 65,000 men killed. To put this in context, the US lost 58,000 soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam War.
...But they didn't raise a full army again until the next generation of soldiers was raised and Carthage had returned to North Africa.
Not really. They could have reached a negotiated settlement. Both the first and second Punic wars ended in a negotiated settlement (of course very much in favor of Rome). Carthage would likely have been ok with Rome agreeing that all of Spain would be in Carthage’s sphere of influence. Worst case, they would return Sicily which they gained in the first Punic war.
Rome’s decision to keep on fighting was not one necessitated by survival or maintaining independence.
And on a related note, our sources for the death toll in the Battle of Cannae is poor. The main source is Livy, writing from a biased point of view nearly 200 years after the battle.
The overall point that Rome came back from a tremendous loss in the Battle of Cannae is true, I wouldn't focus too hard on the numbers.
Herodotus, who was useful in many other ways, also gave figures that are likely at least an order of magnitude too large.
More modern estimates of Cannae seem to be 10-16,000 on the Roman side. Part of the reason is that Hannibal was unlikely to be able to (or would necessarily want to) prevent a rout by the infantry.
Ancient warfare was very psychological and would typically end in a rout rather than a slaughter. Even now with far deadlier weapons, when we talk about "casulaties" we tend to include wounded and those outnumber the killed often by 2:1 or more (side note: your Vietnam casualty number is fatal casualties and pretty much correct).
Also, at this time the population of Roman Italy was likely close to a million or more. The city of Rome peaked at 1-2 million population before the Fall. Even in Republic times it was probably 200-500k+.
So the damage of Cannae was probably hugely psychological and presented a short-term problem in that it takes time to raise and train an army but given the demographics of the Roman Republic, it probably didn't represent a massive loss of military-age men in the same way that, say, World War One or Two did.
I’m always a bit surprised by that but i suppose arming the poor is expensive and risky.
There's a famous one in my country led by a former Roman general. After it was put down his tribe was never mentioned in historical chronicles ever again. And there is ofcourse the Jews whose brilliant strategy involved God- he never showed up on the battlefield.
42,000 or 2,040?
Even the illuminati can't get old numbers correct (these days).
Different tribes called up at different times have their perspective candidates traveling back and forth and all over the place.
Still people would do it.