SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

by Mary Beard

In practical terms the Romans directed enormous resources to warfare and, even as victors, paid a huge price in human life. Throughout this period, somewhere between 10 and 25 per cent of the Roman adult male population would have served in the legions each year, a greater proportion than in any other pre-industrial state and, on the higher estimate, comparable to the call-up rate in World War I. Twice as many legions fought at Cannae as had fought at Sentinum some eighty years earlier – which is a convenient indication of the increasing size of these conflicts and the ever more complex and demanding logistics of equipment, supply and animal transport. An army of the size the Romans and their allies fielded at Cannae would, for example, have needed around 100 tonnes of wheat alone, every day. The deals with the local communities that this implies, the marshalling of the hundreds of pack animals, who added to the demand by necessarily consuming part of what they carried, and the collection and distribution networks would have been inconceivable at the beginning of the century.