Rome at War

by Rosenstein, Nathan Stewart

• ISBN13: 9780807828397
• ISBN10: 0807828394
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

Historians have long asserted that during and after the Hannibalic War, the Roman Republic's need to conscript men for long-term military service helped bring about the demise of Italy's small farms and that the misery of impoverished citizens then became fuel for the social and political conflagrations of the late republic. Nathan Rosenstein challenges this claim, showing how Rome reconciled the needs of war and agriculture throughout the middle republic. The key, Rosenstein argues, lies in recognizing the critical role of family formation. By analyzing models of families' needs for agricultural labor over their life cycles, he shows that families often had a surplus of manpower to meet the demands of military conscription. Did, then, Roman imperialism play any role in the social crisis of the later second century B.C.? Rosenstein argues that Roman warfare had critical demographic consequences that have gone unrecognized by previous historians: heavy military mortality paradoxically helped sustain a dramatic increase in the birthrate, ultimately leading to overpopulation and landlessness.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Chapter 1. Introduction: Agriculture in Italy from Hannibal to Tiberius Gracchus	3	(23)
Chapter 2. War and Agriculture: A Critique of the Conventional View	26	(37)
Chapter 3. War and the Life Cycles of Families: Three Models	63	(44)
Chapter 4. Mortality in War	107	(34)
Chapter 5. Military Mortality and Agrarian Crisis	141	(30)
Appendix 1. The Number of Roman Slaves in 168 B.C.	171	(3)
Appendix 2. The Accuracy of the Roman Calendar before 218 B.C.	174	(7)
Appendix 3. Tenancy	181	(2)
Appendix 4. The Minimum Age for Military Service	183	(2)
Appendix 5. The Proportion of Assidui in the Roman Population	185	(4)
Appendix 6. The Duration of Military Service in the Second Century B.C.	189	(2)
Appendix 7. The Number of Citizen Deaths as a Result of Military Service between 203 and 168 B.C.	191	(2)
Notes	193	(96)
Bibliography	289	(32)
Index	321