The Dilemmas of Victory by Richard Sale

     I read a lot of history because the wars in history all exhibit many of the same factors. 

      It has always been my impression that Rome was an aggressive power, opportunistic, always eager to expand whatever the cost. This impression is false. Many times, just like any other power, it was the victim of fear and of necessities that drove and intensified fear. Fear, as a component of rivalry which dreads any attempt to fend off superiorities under which one is liable to be subjugated, is a much underestimated component of history and foreign policy. (Trump appeals to such fear.)

  In any case, one of Rome’s first wars, with the Etruscans, was occasioned by pressures of population growth along with Rome suffering from famine and pestilence because of having too little land to sustain its people. By conquering Veii, the great Etruscan city, and defeating the Etruscans, Rome would gain fertile badly needed territory that could be farmed. In other words, Rome’s fear was mixture of the self-defensive and of aggression.

     The Etruscan confederation of city-states had no unity, no small factor in its defeat. The Romans provoked the Etruscans by occupying a place called Fidenae, and full war followed. It was in 396 BC that it destroyed Veii, the chief Etruscan city. (I don’t know much about the Etruscans except they were 12 city-state league and that the gladiatorial games was perhaps one of their inventions, along with, perhaps, the Samnites.) In any case, the war left Etruria fell into Roman hands. At a stroke Rome doubled the size of its territory. Rome got Etruria’s excellent system of roads and Rome=s farmers got farms.

      Roman leaders replaced the two annually elected consuls, civilians, with three, later six -- all army officers with the same power.

     Trouble soon followed victory. It usually does.

      In 390 BC there was a terrible invasion by the Gauls under King Brennus. Rome was sacked and the name “Gaul” called up terror in the Roman mind for centuries to come.

     At the time, Rome did not even control half the Italian peninsula, nor was it any giant of distinction in the field of architecture or government. For example, Rome was said to have no building that rivaled the lighthouse of Alexandria, which was a magnificent city and center of learning in upper Egypt.

     In any case, the invasion of the Gauls combined with Rome’s internal disunity and economic distress stopped any attempts expansion until the time of the first Samnite War. In two or three books I have read, practically nothing is known of it, but we do know a bit about the Samnites --  they were four large tribes of herdsman and warlike peasants, who lived in villages near the Appenines mountains in the central part of the peninsula. They were Hellenized and by 350 BC had spread their power to the coastal plains east and west from their homeland in the Apennines. They had twice as much territory and population as the Romans, and they had strayed south into rich agricultural land of Compania, called “Greater Greece,” which was full of rich cities, the greatest of which was Capua, a major manufacturing center (bronze, ceramics, iron goods) and the second city of the Peninsula. The Samnites too were acting under the pressure of population and the need for more land.

     The first Samnite War involved the Romans taking control of this area. The problem was the Samnites, although defeated in this war, were able to retire with their military power intact. They would return.

     But Rome learned that no success is a plateau or a resting place at the summit. Reaching a summit is not the time nor the place for any relaxation of effort.  It simply places the victor in a situation fraught with new challenges that require resourcefulness and ingenuity and originality of thought to deal with them effectively. Above all, it requires renewed effort. Rome had the backing of the members of the Latin League who were stout allies for 150 years. But no one, not even a friend, ever watches the gains or successes of a colleague or even a friend with indifference. In any relation of two groups, competition/ self-comparison are a constant elements and the victorious gains of the first can spark rivalry and resentment in the second. The success of another poses questions of one=s own ability versus theirs, and it asks questions about fairness of distribution and the worth of one=s own contribution to the victor=s and how one=s own sacrifices and contributions were valued, etc. That is what happened here.

    The Latin League’s watched the Roman acquisition of Compania with a rising tide of jealous misgivings. The league’s feelings of loyalty were already beginning to cool after the clash with the Gauls since the threat that had produced unanimity had been removed. Before the invasion of the Gauls, when Rome gained Etruscan farmlands, it didn’t share them with the members of the league and Rome aroused resentment by ostentatiously pluming itself on its superiorities. This stung the league whose members felt they could prosper better on their own, in independence. After some time, Rome realized its relations with the league were worsening and tried tact and generosity, sharing some of the Etruscan spoils and founding two colonies in Etruria.

     But these measures were too little too late. The league members felt they’d been dealt a raw deal. They were forced to pony up money for Rome’s wars and contributed soldiers, but they never enjoyed a fair share of the spoils. Rome’s new acquisitions in Compania acted to outflank them and enabled Rome to consolidate real economic gains for itself and itself alone. In 381 BC, Tusculum grew hostile but Rome extended full citizenship to its inhabitants who became docile. But hostility continued to spread among the rest. The league had a treaty of equals with Rome, called the Foedus Cassandium, apparently the league asked Rome for full restoration of previous parity and equality. Rome rebuffed this rather brutally, and the two parties went to war. It was a very bitter war. The league raised a formidable coalition, but Rome won, and the league ceased to exist as a military power except as it was a component of  Rome’s.

     But Rome was not an arrogant victor. In diplomacy, Rome, even more than Greece, proved itself a master tactician. In the settlement of 338 BC, Rome treated with each city individually, a very clever tactic, punishing the most hostile while granting citizenship and treating with great conciliation those who had been less unrelenting. Some cities got full citizenship, some half, some were permitted their former status, the right to vote, the right to marry, the right to enter into contracts under terms of Roman law. Some cities were allowed to sign treaties but only with Rome, not each other. Rome managed each city’s foreign policy (just as the British would when they had their Empire), and they were obliged to raise troops for Rome’s defense. The league was finished as an independent unit of power, but there resulted a whole system of graded privileges and interlocking loyalties that was enormously clever. The balance between the bitter and the sweet, punishment and dignity, supervision and independence was struck exactly right. One marvels at such an intelligent and foresightful system of calculation.

     But what can learn from watching Roman history is to note that every party in a political system wants a means of redress from the slights, detractions, injuries inflicted by the most powerful and rich members of the party that domineers. It wants an equal start in the race of life. Of course, if you are not a member of an advantaged class, you may want an equality of condition, but to any sensible opponent, realizes that they lack the means and power to possess what they want. When a subordinate group realizes its demands have no way of being met or their wants satisfied, you get war. The class wars in Greek cities between the landless and the aristocracy were incessant, bloody and horrible. They undermined economic progress without broadening political participation. Redistribution of land and abolition of debts was the war cry of the impoverished. Oceans of blood were split trying to realize or hold victory back from those who wanted their grievances met. But even the inferior members of any society always want to have a say in what affects their destiny. They also want to share equally in the sum of benefits available in that society, and if equality is not granted, they will obviously settle for a lesser share. But if the inferiors get nothing but shut out, they will finally fight.    

     In the current election season, it pays to keep such facts in mind. The most generous policy in victory is usually the best.

Comments

[kao_hsien_chih]

I offer a slightly different view on the Roman history, and its implications for today.

Romans were either generous in victory or utterly ruthless, but hardly ever somewhere in between. The conquered cities and tribes in Italy and Greece were generally given relatively generous terms and became Romans sooner or later. Others, e.g. the Carthaginians, were crushed with absolute brutality to the point that there is no one left who could even think of revenge. The Roman genius lay, to a large degree, in leaving no vanquished enemy resentful enough and strong enough simultaneously to seriously contemplate revenge. Contrast the Entente powers in World War I: Germany was defeated, but it was left both too resentful and too strong. John Maynard Keynes criticized the Versailles Treaty as too harsh and Ferdinand Foch thought it too lenient. They were both right.

But the Roman generosity had an additional layer: those whom Romans vanquished but were given generous terms knew that they were treated generously and mercifully. They could have been utterly crushed, and, if they tried to resist Rome again, they will be, for they are too weak to seriously contemplate further resistance. The benefits from the favorable terms were too valuable to risk by a likely hopeless attempt at fighting the Romans. This, of course, is why Carthage had to be destroyed: it could not be made so dependent on Rome, so hopeless and weak, so that a future confrontation was inevitable.

I think the lesson from the Roman way of conquest is not that we should simply be generous to the vanquished, but think ahead to the terms of the generosity. A zero-sum game is out of question: the vanquished will have to have some benefits from cooperating with their erstwhile enemies. If the Democrats win, say, at least some Republican programs will have to be accommodated, for example. If this is not possible, then the Republicans cannot be allowed to exist. Proscription, after all, was a Roman political practice. A "democratic" political order where the victor enjoys all spoils (to the degree of imposing terms unacceptable to the other) without proscribing the other completely, I think, cannot exist. I was thinking about American electoral politics, but this reminded me of the "democratic" fetish we have worldwide. Even in countries with all powerful elected cabinets, say, the stereotypical parliamentary government a la UK, the other party retains a huge benefit: they stand a reasonably good prospect of winning an election, even if it might take a decade or two. I don't think, say, an Islamist victory in a typical Middle Eastern country would allow for any possible return of secular-militarist faction to power in the future, while both factions would be too powerful to lay low as grateful recipients of charity--even if such charity is offered, which is highly improbable in the first place. So proscription rules the day until another Caesar emerges (literally in the Roman case). Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Amir]

The Romans understood a third way as well: recognizing that
Hadrian Wall and their "relative" acceptance of a non-aggressor as independent neighbor, once they were thought a few lessens at Cannhae and Legio Nona Hispana.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carrhae

[kao_hsien_chih]

Fair enough point. I suppose there are two dimensions of Roman pragmatism that sustained their empire: a useful mixture of generosity and ruthlessness within their borders and/or near their home base (e.g. within Italy and around the Mediterranean) and wise recognition of their limits along the edge of their empire. Still, both seem lacking in the hearts of many in the West today.

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks for this post and excellent comments! My understanding is that the number of Roman Legions was less than 60 at anytime and there movements during Roman history are quite well documented thanks to Caesar and others. Still astounding given the extent of the Empire at its maximum breadth. But is there any complete documentation of Roman Naval Strategy and number of warships under direct or indirect state control?

Where does Luttwak's MILITARY STRATEGY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE rate with other scholarship?

[William R. Cumming]

My knowledge of maps of the world during the Roman Empire is limited but review of the linked map that follows may indicate that whatever the significance of the Mediterranean Sea in the history of the Roman Empire, the Arctic now plays the same role but magnified:

http://www.bfi.org/about-fuller/big-ideas/dymaxion-world/dymaxion-map

[YT]

Prof. Kao,

Many in the [occident] west do not read (much) History, save for what counts as 'elementary' or crude 'revisionist' "pop"-versions of it.

Many share not the vast Athenæum or Bilbliotheca of Facts & Evidence that our host the Col. & Mr. Richard Sale exhibits.

Sad (& Tragic) how 'dumbed-down' the youth of to-day are: with naïve 'flights of fancy' re. the world at-large ("people are the same everywhere regardless of race or religion.")

Pff!, juvenile Weltanschauung...

[Babak Makkinejad]

Richard Sales:

My understanding has been that the 3 civil wars that ended the Roman Republic were waged among the same privilege class of Romans and not between a so-called Ruling Class and the poor oppressed Ruled Classes.

[Richard Sale]

I believe that to be mistaken.

Richard Sale

[Barish]

You had the "Optimates" and "Populares" pitted against each other towards the second half of the second century, BC. Both were elites, that is true, yet where the former stood for the established order with the senate at the top, the latter advertised themselves as championing lower classes' benefit. The land reforms of Tiberius Gracchus, Lex Sempronius Agraria, the purpose of which was to limit more privileged landowners' allowed ownership of agrarian land, thereby making more available for poorer farmers, were one such gesture by the "populares" to placate the Plebs - not meant in a derogatory sense here, yet the negative connotations of "plebs" or "plebeian" we have today rather obviously come about as a result of the way Roman historiography relays these struggles of Optimates against Populares to us.