Military: The Roman Military

Improved Essays
The Roman Military
The Roman Empire was arguably one of the most technologically advanced powers of all time. The feats they accomplished with their limited technology is mind blowing, even today we are still trying to figure out how they accomplished everything. The Roman Military is an example of how advanced the Roman Empire was during this era. From the incredible machinery to their quick witted tactics during a time of war, the Romans were the rulers of the world. Furthermore, they revolutionized military’s for generations to come.
The Romans put emphasis on their military power, their main focus was a formidable military much like the U.S has today. They trained their soldiers hard day in and day out, pounding teamwork into their practice
…show more content…
The Greek inventions played a vital role in the strength of the Roman military. Archimedes a Greek inventor was one of Rome’s most influential figures, and was also well respected by the Roman Empire for his inventions. He was born in Syracuse, Sicily in 287 BC. Not much is known about Archimedes mainly because he kept his personal life to himself. According to history he was murdered by a Roman soldier. The Roman soldiers had been given direct orders not to harm him. The story goes that he was carrying some tools in his hands and was murdered for these tools because the soldiers who took his life thought the tools were of great value. Although Archimedes was a great inventor he never intended to provide weapons for the Roman Army. After his murder the Romans took his work and used it to their benefit. Many of the weapons that Archimedes invented helped make the Roman Army the greatest in the world at that time. One of the most mysterious inventions he created was called the “Heat Ray”. This weapon worked off reflections of the sun, mirrors were placed along the coast facing towards the water and the sun. Soldiers would man the mirrors and point them in the direction of incoming ships, if the mirrors beamed light at exactly the same point of a ship, the ship would burst into flames. There is actually historical record of these being used, in the siege of Syracuse. There were reports of Roman ships that burst into …show more content…
After reviewing all the information I’ve gathered, I have a more educated view of how the Romans ran their military. While the Greeks may have invented much of the technology the Romans possessed, the Romans implement and perfected it and made their Army stronger and more efficient. Part of the reason the Roman Empire was so powerful is because of their strong leaders. The greatest of them being Augustus Cesar. Military leaders hold the soul of the soldiers, it’s up to them to keep morale high and keep the Soldiers fierce. One thing I can’t understand about the Roman Empire is why they decided to make their empire, so massive. The empire grew to be so vast and spread out, it was just too big to maintain. The Roman Empire ended up collapsing on itself because of its sheer size. Too much power only leads to self-destruction, history has shown us this repeatedly. Another issue that the Roman Empire had is that the wealthy stayed rich and prosperous, and the poor remained poor and could never seem to rise above the poverty. Much like current day here in the United States, where millionaires don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes and find loopholes to avoid paying. It’s a crime and they should be ashamed of themselves, I have no doubt in my mind that the wealthy Romans did much of the same. Overall I was very impressed with what I read about the Romans, I’ve been to Rome three times but never

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Essay On Why Rome Fell

    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Roman empire was the ancient world’s largest and most powerful empire. It reached its height in 117 C.E., encompassing nearly 2 million square miles and containing more than 50 million people. Connecting the vast empire were more than 250,000 miles of roads, 50,000 of which were paved. Roman engineers founded or improved more than 1,000 cities and towns. Rome itself was a magnificent example of cultural, technological and social superiority in its time.…

    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    All Roman soldiers were trained well. What was life like in the Roman Army? states, “When the Romans invaded Britain, their army was so good that it took on armies 10 times its size and won!” One of them could march 20 miles a day wearing heavy equipment and armour. They were also trained to swim or cross rivers and build bridges.…

    • 1814 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Roman Empire Dbq Essay

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Roman Empire was one of the greatest civilizations in history, developing advancements in many important areas, like architecture and technology. Its culture was widespread, and it had a big impact on other civilizations to come. The main way Rome was able to become so advanced was being able to adapt to its geography. This allowed them to complete tasks more efficiently, and maximize the effectiveness of what they were doing.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most Roman men did not join the army so they had to recruit foreigners into the military. Most of the foreign military was not fully loyal to Rome and turn to the other side and fought against Rome in the middle of the battle. “Rome became reliant on on hired foreign soldiers to bolster their military, especially Germainiacs, therefore, much of the military was not loyal to Rome,”-DBQ packet document five. The government controls and maintains Rome.…

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Roman Empire Dbq

    • 1231 Words
    • 5 Pages

    It is clear that for an empire to be a great power it must develop an impressive military, but Rome went above and beyond this need. “Basically, the Romans were more successful and more efficient in killing other humans than any other people in their part of the world.” (Tignor 256). They became so efficient by using the cities they conquered to create great forces of manpower for the military. This was a development not used by most in the Mediterranean at the time and so Rome conquered Italy at a very fast rate.…

    • 1231 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rome Dbq Analysis

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages

    My class notes say that Rome was having problems with having a loyal and strong army. For example, there were, “military leaders fighting among themselves”(Data Set). Another example was that there were, “troops in battle, exposed to wounds because they have no armor, think about running and not about fighting”(Document 2). Also, “Hosts of senators, bureaucrats, and clergymen were entitled the avoid the draft…”(Document 3). The Romans were so successful that they started laying back.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Roman Empire Dbq Analysis

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages

    (Doc A) Without a strong leader that the people could trust, the military lost its determination making it grow weaker as time passed on. Eventually, the men in the army became so out of shape that they stopped wearing their chest plates and other heavy pieces of armour. Without the extra protection, the Roman army became susceptible to bow and arrow attacks making them much more vulnerable. They also stopped using certain weapons and tools that they had been trained to fight with in the past.…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The only way to conquer a military of this nature, one has to kill the idea or value, which can be done only through attrition. The enemy of Rome would have to destroy all personnel until there is no one left to carry on the idea or until it becomes an utterly hopeless…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rome and Persia were both successful empires, but they were both very different in the way their empires worked and expanded. There were some similarities the empires shared such as conquering vast amounts of land, political advancements, and bureaucracy. Despite these similarities, there were much more differences with these two empires. One of the reasons Rome expanded was because of its disciplined military. They could also support their big population with the military, and in their military they had skilled archers and horsemen.…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Fall Of Roman Empire Essay

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 4 Works Cited

    Christianity’s control grew greatly and rapidly and this minimized the power of the empire. The church leader’s power increased while the Roman Empire’s power decreased. “Over time, Church leaders became influential and took away power from the emperor.” (Google.com) Some of the Christian’s beliefs and ways of life conflicted with the laws of the empire and the people chose Christian laws over the Empire’s laws. This contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire.…

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 4 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Roman Empire Strengths

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Romans were very observant people. They often learned from their enemies and took many of their tactics and made it their own, be it the development of ships in the First Punic War or how to counter the threat of Hannibal's war elephants in the Second at Zama. Another one of the greatest strengths of the Roman Empire was their administration. Their leaders came up with the ideas for the building the roads and communication tools that were necessary because of the large area of land that they had procured. Even though Rome largely expanded due to the threat of enemies all around their borders, their systems were effective to the point that it would take more than a powerful enemy to take them down.…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This paper will compare and contrast the military, government, and the daily life between Ancient Rome, and the Mongolian Empire. MILITARY The first part between this comparison of militaries will be the military of Rome. The Roman Legion was a military unit of 5,000 soldiers that was supported by cavalry.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the period of 1150 B.C.E up until about 300 B.C.E the interaction between the Persian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine empires have shaped each culture. Through war, trade, religion, migration and expansion these Empire have clashed, and merged and scattered. Although Each Empire varies in core values, government, literature and art, it is easy to find connections to one another through the timeline of each individual Empire. The competition for territory and advancements pushed these cultures forward, in action and reaction to each other; each empire effected one another in unique ways. Some values and beliefs and customs carried on through time, changed to fit the needs of the individual culture or were tossed out altogether.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Each of these advancements put in motion by the Roman Empire have tremendously affected modern life and our path to where we are today. The Roman Empire formed the first known republic, which led the way to the democracy in which we live in today. The Roman Republic was very…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While studying the history of the archaic forces that fought in the Punic Wars, it is important to understand the rise of each side involved. The Punic Wars were fought between the powerhouses of the Western Mediterranean. On one side was the well established Carthaginians and on the other was the up and coming Romans. Both dominant city states would expand and eventually rise to conflict against each other. This essay will delve into the aspects that allowed Carthage to reign successful and come close to overpowering the great and mighty Rome.…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays