RomanArmyTalk

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Vortigern Studies:7cnxrsg1 Wrote:A thing which I'm ignorant about - when did the Roman army introduce conscription? I know it from late Roman times as a given, but I have no idea as to when it was introduced.

It was normal in Republican times. A man was supposed to serve for at least six campaigns between his eighteenth and forty-third (-second?) birthday. When Rome's empire expanded, these were often six consecutive years in a faraway country, which was the first step towards a standing army. Keppie has an excellent chapter on it in The Making of the Roman Army.

So was there conscription in the time of Augustus, or was service voluntary, as stated in the article?

Quote:So was there conscription in the time of Augustus, or was service voluntary, as stated in the article?

I think most service was voluntary, but I think that the recruitment of the auxiliary cohortes c.R. after the Teutoburg Forest disaster was forced; but I do not remember where I read this, so I may be wrong.

There was forced conscription during the Bar Kochba-crisis: at least, that's what W. Eck, says in 'The Bar Kokhba Revolt: the Roman point of view' in the Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999) 76ff.