Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Roman generals
#1
Hello all,

I am doing a paper and I was just wondering if there was any restriction on who could be a Roman general? Did you have to be part of the nobility class in Rome, or any really good soldier could be promoted? If it makes any difference, my paper is dealing with around 181 A.D., and I've looked everywhere for this little important detail.

Thanks,
Courtney
Reply
#2
The experience and bravory had a great deal into it. Or if you had some powerful friends in Rome, but then you won't last long as a general :wink:
a.k.a. Daan Vanhamme
Reply
#3
Political connections often influenced a person's rise to command. However, gifted officers of humble birth frequently were able to rise to senior leadership due to their merit. In the former case, the wise political appointee would depend on the skills of the experienced officers under him. To depend on one's own limited abilities was a prescription for disaster.

Similarly, when a young officer is appointed to command, the smart ones rely a great deal on the wisdom and experience of their noncommissioned officers (senior enlisted men).
Robert Stroud
The New Scriptorium
Reply
#4
When we read of someone powerful being of 'humble birth' in a piece of Roman literature, it is important to realise that Rome possessed a highly stratified society which may have rubbed shoulders on the street but limited social and political contacts to their own classes. Where someone is said to be of 'humble birth', that may mean that he was actually fabulously wealthy and came from a prestigious family but which came from a less prestigious town than Rome. Alternatively, it might mean that the general was an equites (Roman knight) whose father or grandfather had become a knight through serving as primus pilus in a legion. Equestrian generals would have been common, particularly by the second century AD, but members of the equestrian class might tend to sneer at one of their number whose Equestrian status had been gained in recent times, while their equestrian origins would be shrouded in myths and family legends.

It is worth remembering here too, that primi pilares would be unlikely to originate in the lowest ranks of society, as education and poilitical connections gained through family ties are likely to have been influential in why some centuriones rose to become primi pilares while others did not. Not all centuriones came up from the ranks. It was possible for the son of an equestrian family to be appointed to the centurionate (although their duties may have been more administrative in nature than some other centuriones). Such a man's decendants would probably not be thought of as coming from lowly origins, but the equestrian decendants of a primus pilus who came from one the leading families of a smaller town such as Ariminum or Cumae, or one of the provicial capitals might be seen as being of lowly origins by the senatorial classes in Rome.

For the Romans (particularly those living in Rome, which includes many of the historians), Rome sat at the pinacle of all that was noble and right. Quality diminished the further you went from Rome. Hence 'Upper' (southern) Germany was closer to Rome than 'Lower' Germany in the north. To a Roman senatorial historian then, generals from senatorial or equestrian families originating in Rome itself were more illustrious in their birth than generals from equestrian families from further down the slopes of the idealogical hill which the city of Rome surmounted. No-one of truly humble birth could ever hope to have made it past the middle ranks of the centurionate, even in the second and third centuries AD. The social and cultural gulf between the agrarian and artisan classes and the senatorial and equestrian classes which produced senior military officers was just too great. A general of 'humble birth' then, is likely, in reality, to have been a man of high birth who didn't happen to have been born in Rome of a family which had never moved anywhere else. Remember that Gaius Marius is described by Plutarch as being of humble birth. We know however that his family had monopolised the senior magistracies of Ariminum (I think) for generations. He was probably wealthier and more cultured than many of the senatorial class in Rome but that did not stop many of them (along with the Roman voting public) seeing him as nothing more than a country bumpkin.

In short answer to the original question then, to be a Roman general you had to have come from the very top classes of society. It would be possible for families of what might be termed the middle classes to reach high rank but this would take three to four generations to achieve at least and it would take much longer for the stain of lesser origins to soften sufficiently for them gain any real influence. This would probably apply all over the empire and senior figures, even those originating in the provinces would still come from the upper echelons of society. Ability was one thing but family connections with those in power were everything.

I hope this helps a little.

Crispvs
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers.  :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.romanarmy.net">www.romanarmy.net
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Roman Generals Vowing Things (Games, Buildings)? Lyceum 2 1,596 09-15-2012, 11:04 PM
Last Post: Lyceum
  Roman generals in general lacking rv 8 2,894 08-29-2005, 06:25 AM
Last Post: Theodosius the Great

Forum Jump: