Presenter: John Tuttle
Faculty Mentor: Mary Jaeger, Stephanie Budin
Presentation Type: Oral
Primary Research Area: Social Science
Major: History, Classical Civilizations
The Roman legion built one of the largest empires in the world but it was not the original structure of the Roman military. The Romans adopted this system after it utilized the hoplite phalanx from Greece. The most fundamental difference between these tactical systems boils down to the shields that each soldier carried. The earlier hoplon is much heavier than the scutum and each were used for different advantages. The reason this change occurred was not only for the advantages that the scutum offers a legionary model but because of economic and population constraints the Romans faced after the Gallic sack of Rome in c.a. 390 BCE. Livy reports that the Romans lost much of their wealth in the raid and this would have resulted in a lack of important military resources such as bronze as well as the death of a substantial amount of the population. The lack of wealth as well as a lack of tin or copper deposits within the sphere of influence meant that the Roman citizenry could not afford to trade for enough bronze to make the hoplon. The loss of so many people also made phalanx tactics impractical as well as the use of the hoplon. This forced the Romans to adopt the scutum and change its military into the dominant force of the Mediterranean.