ABSTRACT
THE Republic had always had men under arms. Military forces had been raised as required, either by conscripting citizens who had been chosen by lot or, under the Late Republic, by enrolling volunteers, usually from the proletariat. In the provinces, moreover, there were forces more or less permanently mobilized. According to a recent estimate the fourteen provinces existing c. 60 b.c., between them normally contained fourteen legions. Nevertheless, when serious trouble arose, armies literally had to be improvised even in the provinces. This was a makeshift method, adequate perhaps for the needs of a city-state but hardly for those of a world empire. Under the Republic there was in fact no regular military establishment such as would be needed to police and protect the Mediterranean basin. There was not even a commander-in-chief, a state of affairs that contributed not a little to the notorious difficulty of controlling ambitious generals. It was one of Augustus’ greatest services to the Empire that he stopped the raising of emergency armies. No doubt the genesis of his system is to be sought in his determination never to relinquish that control over the armed forces which his defeat of Antony and Cleopatra had assured him. But the man who was bent on establishing order and regularity in all spheres of public activity would most certainly not have overlooked the army in any case.
