Socii - Military Organisation of The Roman Alliance

Military Organisation of The Roman Alliance

The modern term "Roman confederation" used by some historians to describe the Roman military alliance is misleading, as it implies some form of common political structure, with a common forum for policy-making, with each constituent of the alliance sending delegates to that forum. Instead, there were no federal political institutions, and indeed not even formal procedures for effective consultation. Any socius that wished to make representations about policy could do so only by despatching an ad hoc delegation to the Roman Senate. Military and foreign policy lay entirely in the hands of the Roman executive authorities, the Consuls and the policy-making body, the Senate. There existed Italian precedents for a federal political structure e.g. the Latin League and the Samnite League. But the idea of sharing power with the Latin colonists, let alone the other socii, was anathema to the Roman senatorial elite. Livy relates how after Cannae, as the Senate ranks were depleted by the deaths of 80 senators in the battle, a proposal was put forward that the vacancies should be filled with leaders of the Latin colonies. It was indignantly rejected quasi-unanimously. Livy adds that a similar proposal had been made previously by the Latin colonists themselves, with the same result.

The Roman consular army brought together both Roman and socii units. For the 250 years between 338 and the Social War, legions were always accompanied by allied alae on campaign. Usually, a consular army would contain an equal number of legions and alae, although, because of variations in the size of the respective units, the ratio of socii to Romans in a consular army could vary from 2:1 to 1:1, though it was normally closer to the latter.

In most cases, the socius' sole treaty obligation to Rome was to supply to the confederate army, on demand, a number of fully equipped troops up to a specified maximum each year. The vast majority of socii were required to supply land troops (both infantry and cavalry), although most of the coastal Greek colonies were socii navales ("naval allies"), whose obligation was to provide either partly or fully crewed warships to the Roman fleet. Little is known about the size of contingent each socius was bound to provide, and whether it was proportional to population or wealth.

The confederation did not maintain standing or professional military forces, but levied them, by compulsory conscription, as required for each campaigning season. They would then be disbanded at the end of a conflict. To spread the burden, no man was required to serve more than 16 campaign seasons.

The Roman and allied levies were kept in separate formations. Roman citizens were assigned to the legions, while the Latin and Italian allies were organised into alae (literally: "wings", because they were always posted on the flanks of the Roman line of battle). A normal consular army would contain two legions and two alae, or about 20,000 men (17,500 infantry and 2,400 cavalry). In times of emergency, a Consul might be authorised to raise a double-strength army of four legions and four alae e.g. at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, where each Consul commanded an army of about 40,000 men.