Roman Army

The Roman Army occupies two sharply contrasting roles in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political argument: it is first the citizen force through which Rome won its victories, then an instrument of paid service and domestic control. The change matters because it marks a reversal in the relation between military power and political liberty: soldiers who once defended their country as citizens become troops whose obedience can be used against their fellow citizens.

Early military and civic foundations

At Rome’s foundation, the army of its founder consisted of Albans, Sabines, and foreigners. Its organization into three tribes, each divided into ten curiae and further into decuriae, was accompanied by a body of one hundred equites from each tribe. These divisions, Rousseau argues, were initially military in character, even though they also gave the small city a framework suited to its future political importance.

Rousseau’s account connects the Roman military tradition to civic attachment rather than payment. The early Romans’ victories, like those of Alexander, were won by brave citizens prepared to give their blood in their country’s service but unwilling to sell it. That distinction supplies his standard for the army’s original virtue: military service expressed membership in a common political cause.

The turn to paid service

The transition was gradual. Payment of Roman infantry began only at the siege of Veii. Later, during the Jugurthine War, Marius introduced freedmen, vagabonds, and other mercenaries into the legions, a change Rousseau describes as dishonouring them. These developments contrast with the earlier citizen force: the army increasingly relied on men serving for compensation rather than on citizens whose military commitment followed from their place in the republic.

The danger becomes explicit in Rousseau’s account of tyrannical government. Rulers maintained regular troops ostensibly to resist foreign enemies, but in practice to bring their own countrymen under control. Raising such forces removed men from the land; the resulting shortage of labour reduced provisions, while the cost of maintaining the troops brought new taxes and higher prices. Popular discontent then prompted governments to increase the forces used to suppress it, intensifying the hardship that had provoked the complaints.

Mercenaries and political decline

Rousseau presents the mercenary’s allegiance as a further break with civic duty. In his account, Caesar’s soldiers regarded service as Caesar’s followers as more honourable than defending Rome. Their obedience was blind, and their weapons could therefore be turned against their fellow citizens. Rousseau links this military arrangement to the Roman Empire’s ruin, calling it one of its principal causes.

This institutional criticism sits within a broader account of political decline. As government’s particular will presses against the general will, it can ultimately suppress the sovereign people and break the social compact. A standing force that answers to rulers rather than to citizens makes that danger concrete: military power ceases to be simply a means of collective defence and becomes a resource for undermining the political community it ostensibly serves.

Later regular armies and the argument’s reach

Rousseau extends the warning beyond Rome. In modern Europe, artillery and fortifications had led princes to return to regular troops for garrisoning towns. Even where their stated purposes were lawful, he feared that these establishments could have similarly destructive effects. Removing people from the countryside to fill armies and garrisons weakens production; supporting the forces through public burdens further oppresses the population.

The Roman Army’s history thus functions as a warning about the cost of separating military service from civic participation. In Rousseau’s account, conquest and increased military expenditure can enrich a single town while impoverishing a whole country; the growth of regular forces also threatens to depopulate Europe. The army’s significance lies not only in its victories, but in the political reversal by which a force once constituted by citizens can become an instrument of their subjection.