Cowardice In The Roman Army Summary

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Coulston writes in his article Courage and Cowardice in the Roman Imperial Army (2013, p. 14) that the idea of virtus (courage) was a set of qualities that constituted proper Roman citizen behavior”, implying that at least in an organizational body such as the army, common identities was a necessity in order to bind together the troops, an idea which evidently is supported by the same article (ibid). Furthermore the concept of glory is seen in a lot of work from the Principate. In theory a culture’s focuses should have an impact on the people it inhabits, which begs the question of the essay (did Roman military culture deliberately shape the mind of the soldier?) and if this shaping then facilitated the organizational body of the army?

To answer this question, the essay is structured into three parts, with the majority of the chapters being in the theory section, the first one titled “What Was the Imperial Roman Army?” the second “Structure of the Imperial Roman Army”, third: “Individual Life”, and lastly “Relevant terms”, which hereafter in the introductory part will be referred to as 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4. These chapters introduce the origins of the

Instead it seems the Augustian-reforms were used to keep soldiers loyal, as 300,000 newly discharged unhappy men was a potentially mighty force. This is further implied in a History of Rome (2009, p. 231) where the word loyal appears seemingly out of place, and in Emperor Trajan’s answer to Pliny the Younger’s plea about a fire brigade, there are signs towards general fear of disloyalty and organization (Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, 10.34) which strengthens the theory that Augustus might have accepted the reforms due to fear of what happened during the Civil