Rome and the Sword: rethinking the role of martial violence in the Roman era

罗马与剑：重新思考罗马时代军事暴力的作用

• 批准号: AH/E504280/1
• 负责人: Simon James
• 金额: $ 3.32万
• 依托单位: University of Leicester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FE504280%2F1
• 关键词: Rome; Sword; rethinking; role; martial

The projected book, Rome & the Sword, will present a radically new understanding of Rome's military aspect. The empire was created and sustained by the violence of soldiers, yet this is often glossed over by those who celebrate the benefits of Roman imperialism, Equally, the realities of the sword are commonly sanitised by military specialists, who tend to focus either on the intricacies of unit organization and frontier systems, or think in idealised terms of 'The Roman Army: war machine', Here the military tends to be treated as a shiny mechanism in a glass box, effectively isolated both from wider Roman society, and even from its antagonists. Rome and the Sword seeks to address these shortcomings, initially by foregrounding the sword itself, The book will examine weapons, what they did to people, how, by whom they were wielded, why, and with what wider consequences, Material evidence will be prominent, including skeletal trauma, In contrast to much modern warfare, martial violence was highly personal, comprising face-to-face acts of muscle-powered physical mayhem, Outcomes of conflicts were cumulative consequences of such intimate lethal encounters, To deepen our understanding of what soldiers did-and how they could do it-the book will draw on disciplines ranging from archaeology and ancient history to military history, anthropology, military psychology and sociology to help us understand the mentalities of soldiers and warriors. It will also rethink our conceptual framework for dealing with the sword, For example, the wars which carved out the Roman empire cost millions of lives, yet they accounted for only part of the violence meted out by soldiers, Equally significant was 'internal' action: armed oppression of civilians and suppression of resistance, 'Warfare' fails to encompass, all these grim activities; 'martial violence' is a better term for what soldiers were about. Centrally, the book attacks the profoundly misleading notion of 'The Roman Army: war machine', Baldly, 'The Roman Army' did not exist: Romans themselves lacked a term equivalent to this modern phrase, because no such monolithic institution existed, They spoke instead of multiple armies, of regiments and, tellingly, of millets, 'the soldiers', Martial violence was dealt not by unthinking cogs, but by men for whom issues of emotion, morale, motivation and ambition were all-important. Soldiers cannot be understood in isolation, but only in the context of their interactions with particular antagonists, and as part of wider Roman society.The soldiers were also in constant interaction with the warriors of neighbouring societies, in conflict but also through recruitment and mutual imitation, Armed men either side of the frontiers constantly reforged each other's identities in war and alliance; we cannot understand Roman soldiers without considering Gauls and Pannonians, Germans and Parthians. Considering the Roman military in Roman rather than modern terms reveals another fundamental truth about 'the soldiers', rendered invisible when they are regarded as cogs in a war-machine, They were often as dangerous to other Romans, not least their own commanders, as to foreign enemies, Rome's famous military discipline was startlingly limited; highly trained, highly motivated and proud, Roman soldiers were also unruly, sometimes murderously mutinous, Their commanders struggled to control them, by rhetoric and persuasion, ritual and bribery, as much as by fear of punishment. Rome & the Sword will put the brutality of Roman power back on the agenda-but it will also put it into historical context and seek to reassess its role in Roman civilization, It will explore the implications of martial violence, from the chaos, misery and destruction it left in its wake to its paradoxical constructive and constitutive aspects, For the sword was not simply destructive; it was also central to the creation, definition and maintenance of Roman and other identities.

预计出版的《罗马与剑》一书将对罗马的军事方面提出全新的理解。帝国是通过士兵的暴力创建和维持的，但这常常被那些庆祝罗马帝国主义好处的人所掩盖。同样，刀剑的现实通常被军事专家们所净化，他们往往关注错综复杂的单位组织和边境系统，或者以理想化的方式思考“罗马军队：战争机器”。在这里，军队往往被视为玻璃盒子里闪亮的机制，有效地隔离 既来自更广泛的罗马社会，甚至来自其对手。 《罗马与剑》试图解决这些缺点，首先通过突出剑本身，这本书将研究武器，它们对人做了什么，如何、由谁使用它们，为什么以及产生什么更广泛的后果，物质证据将是突出的，包括骨骼创伤，与许多现代战争相比，军事暴力是高度个人化的，包括面对面的肌肉动力身体伤害行为，冲突的结果 为了加深我们对士兵做了什么以及他们如何做到这一点的理解，本书将借鉴考古学、古代历史、军事史、人类学、军事心理学和社会学等学科，帮助我们理解士兵和战士的心态。它还将重新思考我们处理刀剑的概念框架，例如，开辟罗马帝国的战争夺去了数百万人的生命，但它们只占士兵实施暴力的一部分。同样重要的是“内部”行动：武装镇压平民和镇压抵抗，“战争”未能涵盖所有这些残酷的活动； “军事暴力”是描述士兵行为的一个更好的术语。本书的中心内容是攻击“罗马军队：战争机器”这一具有深刻误导性的概念，直白地说，“罗马军队”并不存在：罗马人自己缺乏与这个现代短语相当的术语，因为不存在这样的整体机构，他们所说的不是多支军队，而是军团，以及引人注目的小米“士兵”，军事暴力不是由不假思索的齿轮处理的，而是由 对他们来说，情感、士气、动机和野心问题至关重要。士兵不能孤立地被理解，而只能在他们与特定对手的互动背景下以及作为更广泛的罗马社会的一部分来理解。士兵们还与邻近社会的战士不断互动，在冲突中，但也通过招募和相互模仿，边境两侧的武装人员在战争和联盟中不断重塑彼此的身份；如果不考虑高卢人和潘诺尼亚人、日耳曼人和帕提亚人，我们就无法理解罗马士兵。考虑到罗马军队在罗马而不是现代术语中揭示了关于“士兵”的另一个基本事实，当他们被视为战争机器中的齿轮时，他们就变得隐形了。他们对其他罗马人，尤其是他们自己的指挥官，和对外国敌人一样危险，罗马著名的军事纪律是惊人的有限;罗马士兵训练有素、积极性高、骄傲，但他们也难以驾驭，有时甚至凶残叛乱。他们的指挥官通过言辞和说服、仪式和贿赂，以及对惩罚的恐惧，努力控制他们。 《罗马与剑》将把罗马权力的残暴重新提上议程，但它也将把它置于历史背景中，并寻求重新评估其在罗马文明中的作用。它将探讨军事暴力的影响，从它所留下的混乱、痛苦和破坏，到其矛盾的建设性和构成性方面，因为剑不仅仅是破坏性的；它还具有破坏性。它也是罗马和其他身份的创造、定义和维护的核心。