The culmination of this early form of the western way of war was the Roman army. I want you to consider that for roughly 500 years it was able to establish its domination over the entire Mediterranean bastion and, actually, further out. 500 years this empire survived. 500 years this empire was able to triumph and dominate its others. But the success of the Roman army was not necessarily because the Romans were braver or were better led. Frankly, sometimes the Roman generals were actually not very good. Even because they had better equipment. They were better trained. That is, the Roman army is characterized by its training. It's characterized by its imposition of discipline. The coherence of the Roman army is provided by training and the mutual confidence in the system. That is, that every soldier not only knew his duty, but also was fairly confident that those around him also knew their duty. This sense of this it's more than an esprit de corp. It is a capacity to work together and depend on each other which creates then this much more powerful, this much more destructive organized force. Now the heart of this was the legion. The Romans adopted a much more fluid version of the phalanx known as the maniple, which served as the basis of the legion. Now these numbers, and these arraignments changed at the core of it was three lines. Okay, and with each, with ten maniples each, about roughly 100 men again. Over the 500 years, this distribution and these particular numbers change. The first two lines had javelins and swords. The javelins would first be used in order to disrupt, again, the unity of the other army and then the classic short sword of the Roman Legionnaire would come into play. The third line would have spears, in order to support these first two lines. Later on it became 10 cohorts of about 480 men each, composes into the various maniples. The key thing here is that, this is this checkerboard pattern. And what this allowed was, for this first line, if you will, to meet the enemy. As this line became exhausted, as it became tired, a second line could come in and replace them, and then a third line and so on. You might have a whole arrangement of legions behind this. What this meant is that there was constant delivery to the line of battle of fresh individuals, of individuals who were not wounded yet, of individuals who still had some energy, while the enemy over here, that was engaging often in kind of heroic individual acts, would be tired. Now the major change here, is the social structure of Rome, as it transforms from a volunteer army, an army of farmers, to one of professionals. And as this happens, the legion becomes more complex. The kinds of units become more complex, the kinds of weapons becomes more complex, but the center of it is still that required confidence in the group, that faith in the ability of this to triumph. That faith in the technique to triumph and the use of that technique in order to destroy sometimes much more large much larger enemies. Now, of course, this had its limits. At Cannae in 216 B.C., despite the success of this innovation, we also see where even this fantastic system can have its destruction. The Carthaginian Hannibal was able to surround the Roman army. Essentially Hannibal played what would be called later on in 20th century boxing rope a dope. They allowed the Roman army to come in and come in and come in, down this valley in Cannae. And the Roman army, as it was meant to, followed the discipline, followed this legion, this large sense of a square right into this valley. Hannibal was able to train the front line of his men to be able to retreat slowly enough, so, again, to suck in the Romans, while another group was able to move around the sides. This followed the destruction of much of the Roman cavalry. Was able to move around the side and actually make a circle, actually make a noose, in a sense, around the Roman army. Livy tells us that about 50,000 Romans died in this single afternoon, asphyxiated and not being able to move their weapons. And again, this is, now, while this is a case of annihilation, note that it is not from the quality of the weapons. It is from the technique of using the force of men, in this case the legion, almost against itself. It is by being able to arrange yourself around the enemy and threaten the enemy in a way that he did not expect. Even in this case, where the Roman organization failed, you can see that the kind of social organization and institutional complexity is still what is triumphant. [BLANK_AUDIO]
