The Battle That Stopped Rome by Peter S. Wells

Author:Peter S. Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

MORALE

The men who served in the Roman legions were trained for a career of fighting, and their occupational and cultural worlds differed greatly from most of ours. They were highly motivated to stand their ground in combat and to perform their assigned duties. The centurions were directly responsible for guiding the troops in battle, and they earned their positions of command through their own heroism and effectiveness in combat. The soldiers respected them and did not want to let them down. Neither did they want to let down their fellow soldiers. As in most armies, the legionaries shared a strong sense of belonging to a community of soldiers. It was better to die fighting for the unit than to be among a handful of survivors in a lost conflict.

In addition to these values, which helped keep the soldiers loyal and obedient, more direct sanctions could be brought to bear. In the Roman army of the second century B.C., according to the author Polybius, there existed the practice of beating to death soldiers who failed in their assigned tasks. The harshest collective punishment for a unit that disobeyed orders was decimation (see above).

Most important in guiding the combat behavior of the individual soldier and of the unit was the set of values—bravery and loyalty—inculcated into the legionaries during their training and service. Individual soldiers, and units within legions, were sometimes singled out for special honors for meritorious behavior and rewarded with crowns, medals, or cash bonuses. These values were represented materially by the standards that every legion carried.

In every legion, a member of the esteemed first cohort carried a pole that had at its top an eagle of gilded silver or of solid gold, symbolizing Rome. In its claws the eagle often gripped thunderbolts, and in most cases its wings were spread as if it were about to take flight. Another member carried a standard with the emblems of his particular legion, usually including an animal, such as a bull, ibex, lion, or ram, that identified it. The bases of the poles had pointed metal tips so that the poles could be stuck easily into the ground. Every military base had a sacred place—a shrine within the principal administration building—where the standards were kept. Over their uniforms, the standard-bearers wore animal skins, especially those of bears or lions, to distinguish them from the other troops. The legion’s standards were treated as religious objects and even worshiped; they embodied the spirit of the legion. The loss of a legion’s standards to an enemy, especially of the eagle standard, was a profound disgrace to the legion and to every man in it. Such a loss could be grounds for the dissolution of a legion.

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