Title: Augustus | Warfare in Roman Culture
Headings: Augustus
Augustus
Content: Previously, the Roman army was an Greek/Italian style army made up by the common man. The average Roman soldier would be a volunteer who might have been a farmer or artisan in everyday life, was untrained, and would serve for around 10 years. Under Augustus, the Roman army was transformed into a true, professional army. Roman legionnaires were highly trained and served for closer to 20 years. Since the army is still made of volunteers, Augustus needed convince young Romans to dedicate their working life to the army. Thankfully for him, his entire reformation process was based around centralizing the Roman focus to the needs of the state, so he was already on his way to building a massively strong army. However on top of that he enacted a few laws that provided benefits for soldiers in the Roman army. For example, Augustus set aside a portion of the Roman treasury for the aerarium militare, or military treasury, which provided financial support such as pensions for the troops (“Augustan Army Reforms”). With more reason to join the army, Roman men jumped on the opportunity, and once again followed along with the visions of Augustus. Like every reform Augustus made this strengthened both Rome itself and the desire of the common man to further Roman glory.