What happened to Roman soldiers who fought for the losing side in a civil war?

[Lord Finnish]

Whether fighting for Brutus and Cassius, or for the Gordians against Maximinus, and so forth, what was the general fate of defeated legions after a civil war? I'm perhaps more asking about battles here, if a large number of Romans surrendered to other Romans, could they expect to be just discharged or would there be any consequences?

 

[Premu]

If I remember it correctly rebelling legions who surrendered were "decimated": Every 10th soldier was executed, the rest was still kept in the army...

I don't know if this was also applied to legions fighting on the other side in a civil war, though.

 

[Freebot]

Interesting. Never occurred to me before. If the "traitors" were executed, then Rome wouldn't have had periods of near constant civil war since rival factions would be more or less liquidated after a handful of rounds.

 

[keynes2.0]

Interesting. Never occurred to me before. If the "traitors" were executed, then Rome wouldn't have had periods of near constant civil war since rival factions would be more or less liquidated after a handful of rounds.

Or they would fight to the bitter end and hole up in whatever territory they could and never surrender.

Didn't ole Julius make a big deal about forgiving all his enemies after he won?

 

[Freebot]

Or they would fight to the bitter end and hole up in whatever territory they could and never surrender.

Didn't ole Julius make a big deal about forgiving all his enemies after he won?

Of course, we are both oversimplifying things. If you are sufficiently powerful, leniency toward your enemies works nicely. If your hold on power is precarious, you may reap great gains by eliminating your enemies but you must be able to withstand any backlash from the friends of your enemies (or from those who feel threatened by the growth of your power).

 

[keynes2.0]

I dont really feel like this is a on the one hand on the other hand situation. Rome had a lot of remote areas. If a common soldier during a civil war knew that death was the punishment for rebellion he would absolutely hole up in Britain or Pontus rather then surrender. First we'd see Britain and Pontus become kingdoms, then we'd see Hispania and Syria and so forth and so forth.

 

[DoomBunny]

From what I know, Roman policy domestically was somewhat similar to Roman foreign policy. Initially an enemy might be treated well after defeat, or well enough. But if things really went bad and an example needed to be set then it really was a free for all of slaughtering the enemy and mutilating their corpse. I.e., if one looks at the Socii War and the Roman response is rather accommodating. Then look at Octavian's War and it was rather gloves off.

 

[pithorr]

I'm curious if there were any common POWs at all.
Or the defeated legions just broke out in disarray and soldiers were escaping the battlefield on their own.

 

[Narwhal]

It really depends on the war, but getting the other soldiers to join your side [rarely their command though] was clearly the most commonplace.

That's for Late Republic / Imperial period anyway. For the numerous rebellions in Early and Mid-Republic, it was not going to end well for the rebels, Livius even going at great lenght detailling the reasons for the rare exceptions that happened.

 

[Calad]

Well maybe it tells us everything we need to know that this is never mention anywhere.

Romans were very brutal: loyalty was highly valued and as a defeated soldier you were likely enslaved, if not executed right away. There is also reasons why Rome collapsed. I could imagine one reason to be constant civil wars and gradual loses of educated officers which eventually lead into feudalism.

 

[Arilou]

The fact that we have few mentions of it seems to indicate the reverse: If they executed their enemies for repression they'd trumped it far and wide to encourage the others.

The fact that we don't really see legions being constantly re-constituted kind of argues against it too. Seems more likely that while officers and ringleaders might be executed, and units punished by eg. decimation, most were just put back in the lines, given new officers and marched back to the frontiers. A trained soldier is too expensive to waste, after all.

 

[keynes2.0]

constant civil wars and gradual loses of educated officers which eventually lead into feudalism.

What? Like just.... what??? How fast do you think they were doing these civil wars, dude?

Rome collapsed when there wasn't a native army or tax base any more.

 

[Calad]

What? Like just.... what??? How fast do you think they were doing these civil wars, dude?

Rome collapsed when there wasn't a native army or tax base any more.

You can see it from here. After Neros dead even the most successfull Emperor reigned at the best less than 30 years. Not to mention there were multiple of rivals and each battle meant dead and slavery for losers. Almost permanent civil wars destroyed educate elite, taxation which you mention, trade and ability to govern.

Last known battle where Roman legions were mainly used was battle of Andriapole (378 AD), after this battle Roman professional army was gone because centuries of almost permanents civil wars and battles (Nero died in 68 AD, it took a bit more than 300 years of constant battles to cripple core of Roman army and began Feudalism).

 

[keynes2.0]

I was talking about the ridiculous statement about attrition among the officers.

 

[Calad]

I was talking about the ridiculous statement about attrition among the officers.

I can see you disagree and thats all you will do.

Like Stalin said - no man, no problem.

 

[keynes2.0]

Plus the idea of having the lack of officers leading to fuedalism is very anachronistic. Feudalism predated the lack of officers by a century and a few decades. It's the exact sort of "stands to reason" statements about history that people start repeating and then we end up with ridiculous myths cluttering the popular consensus.

And actually, let's talk for a sec about "no man, no problem" too. It's a made up quote! It's an example of what someone imagined Stalin saying based on the popular culture image. But then people treat it like a real quote and use this imaginary evidence to support the popular culture image. Pay a little attention to what you say or else you are just injecting ignorance into the conversation!

 

[Calad]

You are just disagree and not giving any context. For example logistics are very complex issue and Roman army gradually lost its ability to launch distant campaigns. Centuries later even Ottomans had not enough good logistics like Romans had and they had to adjust their warfare according seasons. Now if not gradual decline of knowledge, ability to govern and education are not main reasons behind this then you can enlighten me.

 

[keynes2.0]

I thought you were talking about the legionary system and how the professional corp became dilluted among the provincial levies. You would be off by more then a century but it's something that would fall in the general misconceptions of the way that western rome declined. Ascribing the disappearance of a professional corp in the legions to the Crisis of the Third Century would be saying that Diocletian for instance didn't have a professional army. But still, it's only getting things off by a century or two.

But logistics? That's even more wrong. The western roman empire was capable of supporting professional field armies as long as it could afford to keep any armies in the field at all. The last emperor to muster a proper field army was Majorian and he marched it all over Gaul and Hispania. And of course the logistical system remained quite strong after the western half of the empire fell. Justinian launched his famous far reaching campaigns but even after Justinian there were large naval invasions like the recapture of Alexandria. So we've gone from a century or two to half a millennium of error.

 

[Conanteacher]

Like Stalin said - no man, no problem.

More like "As I read in a video game, Stalin must have said: No man, no problem"

Any reliable resources on that?

 

[yerm]

No man no problem is from a scathing biography someone wrote about Stalin. I don't remember the name and haven't read it. Cursory google isn't showing me it but I'm SURE it's right there and I just need to search a different term.

Roman logistics never went bad. The Byzantines had solid logistics in place even when the landed aristocracy had largely dismantled the military. The Ottomans who moved in were even considered to have relatively better logistical ability than others (Austria, Poland) and usually any flaw in mobility gets blamed on things like overly garrisoning the Balkan region, leaving too few troops to be mobile... along their excellent logistical structure.

Roman treatment of others seems wildly arbitrary. You can have the senate throw a fit and order slaves released, or you can have my favorite time travelling emperor drag a hundred thousand home. Treatment of actual Romans, however, you can't just slap down what they did to non-citizens and apply it locally. People who butchered Romans weren't well regarded (usually) and dudes like Galba VERY quickly lost support.