Roman Army Essay

Submitted By kavemankj
Words: 573
Pages: 3

The Roman Army The Roman Army didn't start off being the feared army that everyone became highly scared of. They started off known as a group called the Greek Phalanx, they were under the control of the Etruscan Kings. An extremely important and memorable moment was when Servius Tullius introduced the census to the people. The census graded all of the citizens into five different classes. The classes were all like the different recruiting for ranks in the army. Just like the Hoplite warriors the first class were extremely armed and had the most wealth out of all the citizens. The second, third and fourth all meshed together. Of course the weapons and armor supply went down as the numbers did in chrological order. The absolute worst was being in the fifth class because you had no armor at all.The only thing they had were slings and that and in war that isn't nearly enough to put anyone in danger or enough to even protect yourself at all. After the most embarassing loss to Gaul, The Romans knew that the old system was not working anymore and they knew they had to change immediately which I think is defintely a good move because who wants to stick to something that is not working. When they did abandon the Phalanx it was for the best. They changed it to where there are three different lines of soldiers. One was called the hastati which stood in the front,and were young men who carried body armor and a rectangular shield and they also had many javelins to throw if needed.They had long spears and they were mostly men who came from the second class of the Phalanx. After that you had the second class that was known as the principes. They were most of the time the older more mature males.They were the most equipped people out of the whole group. They were formally known for being the first class citizens of the phalanx. Then in last you had the last group of warriors known as the rorarii and the accensi .The accensi were usually the worst and inexperienced fighters out of all of the classes, and were labeled pretty unreliable. They ended up making some making