What made Rome great?
What allowed one city state to ascend to create an empire many have tried and failed to recreate?
What made Rome great?
Grayson Butler
Samuel Hughes
The Senate form of government and the professional army. The first step was taking out all rivals like the Carthage and gaining control of the Mediterranean. But really when you look at how the Roman army evolved and adapted to each new era it's easy to see how they stomped everyone
Levi Sanders
At first, the Romans gained an edge over their Italian neighbors with certain military innovations.
They adapted the phalanx formation to what was called the maniple formation. Basically, the maniple formation is just a bunch of smaller phalanxes arranged in a checkerboard pattern. There would be three lines, plus a solid line of skirmishers (Velites) in front. Fresh troops in the rear would periodically switch with the troops in the front. Experienced troops were in the back to prevent recruits in the front from retreating. In addition to keeping the fresh troops on the front lines, the maniple was much more adaptable to the terrain.
These advantages allowed them to vassalize other Italian cities which gave them the resources to be a major player in the Mediterranean. Once the defeated Carthage and conquered Greece, they were the ONLY player in the Mediterranean. The rest was all downhill from there
Jeremiah Cook
they produced more grain than their rivals
Luke Thomas
Military, and their goal to control the Mediterranean gave them a huge economic advantage. Their form of government as well.
Reminder that the TRUE ROME fell on 476. Fuck off byzantines
Alexander Fisher
Why checkerboard? Couldn't the enemy slip through the gaps and cut off units or entire lines? And why didn't any other army ever adopt this deployment ever again?
Wyatt Cooper
The checkerboard wouldn't be out front, they would be behind the velites
It was like the this so that the troops could swap out without bumping into each other. Troops on the frontline would run through the gaps and the fresh troops would quickly replace them. I'm not sure of the exact details of the swap, to be honest. I imagine it was done in such a way that there would be no holes in the frontline midswap
Adam Cox
So there's 3 genders? And one of them doesn't appear until the other two have all died out?
>Roman Empire
>Byzantine Empire
>Holy Roman Empire
Benjamin Anderson
Overrated, like all Western empires
Ian Parker
The created the most formidable fighting force in the ancient world and it was under the command of the most adaptable form of government to ever exist at that time, and both were borne out of a particularly tenacious and audacious strain of the Grecian cultural tradition. It was basically the stars aligning for something like Rome to happen.