The Roman army, arguably one of the longest surviving and most effective fighting forces in military history, has a rather obscure beginning. For the Romans … When invading enemy territories, the Roman army would often construct roads as they went, to allow swift reinforcement and resupply, as well as a path for easy retreat if necessary. In parts of China many bridges had to stand in the spongy silt of river valleys. The legion was the largest unit in the Roman army. However, when on the march, particularly in enemy territory, the legion would, after a day's marching, construct a fortified camp or castra, requiring as raw materials only earth, turf and timber. The Great Stone Bridge, built between 589 and 618 in Hopeh Province, China. Roman roads tended to be built higher than the level of earth around them – this, again, helped drainage. By crisscrossing the logs, the builders allowed water to pass through the piers, offering less resistance to floods than with a solid design. There was one leather sleeping tent to cover a group … 4. Concrete was then poured into the water within the ring of piles. Each Roman legion had a military legionary fort as its permanent base. In the Great Stone Bridge (also called the Zhaozhou Bridge) in southern Hebei province, China, built by Li Chun between 589 and 618 ce, the single span of 37 metres (123 feet) has a rise of only 7 metres (23 feet) from the abutments to the crown. The lines consisted of the least experienced men, the hastate, at the front followed by the principles and then the triarii, or the most experienced soldiers. This was a problem when the piers could not be built on rock, as in a wide river with a soft bed. The story begins in 509 BC with the exile of the last monarch of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus who reigned from 535 BC until the establishment of the Roman Republic. Roman bridges are famous for using the circular arch form, which allowed for spans much longer than stone beams and for bridges of more permanence than wood. Fought between the Roman Republic and several Gallic tribes (mostly from areas constituting present-day France and Belgium), the Gallic Wars from 58-50 BC for-all-intents-purposes alluded to the clash of cultures. One of the most notable examples of military bridge-building in the Roman Empire was Julius Caesar's Bridge over the Rhine River. But so too were soldiers put to use in the construction of town walls, the digging of shipping canals, the drainage of land, aqueducts, harbours, even in the cultivation of vineyards. Fabri were workers, craftsmen or artisans in Roman society and descriptions of early Roman army structure (Phalanx, the Legion came around the conquest of Greece) attributed to king Servius Tullius describe there being two centuriae of fabri under an officer, the praefectus fabrum. IX) on almost the same spot.The spot, according to en.wikipedia. This bridge has remained standing for nearly 2,000 years. It was a segmental arch bridge that helped win the war over the Dacians. Canmore entries on roads, includes Roman roads, military roads, and bridges. This Roman bridge would have spanned the North Tyne River for some 60 metres, carrying the weight of both a military road and Hadrian's Wall upon its arches. They were incredibly efficient. Proactive and routine military engineering, Michael Grant, The History of Rome, p. 52, Julius Caesar's Bridge over the Rhine River, Technological history of the Roman military, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roman_military_engineering&oldid=984734584, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 21 October 2020, at 19:50. They were most of the time at least 2 metres above the body … In front of all of them were the velites, the newest and poorest recruits, whose job it was to attack the approaching enemy with javelins. P&KC ... give strong appearances of a military Roman bridge over the Tay there. Camp construction was the responsibility of special engineering units to which specialists of many types belonged, officered by architecti (engineers), from a class of troops known as immunessince they were excused from or, literally, immune from, regul… Contubernium of Soldiers in the Roman Army. Typical of the best stone bridges, the voussoirs at Alcántara were so accurately shaped that no mortar was needed in the joints. The Roman army also took part in building projects for civilian use. Caesar relates in his War in Gaul that he "sent messengers to the Sugambri to demand the surrender of those who had made war on me and on Gaul, they replied that the Rhine was the limit of Roman power". A road to a Roman was like a map is to us. This was a problem when the piers could not be built on rock, as in a wide river with a soft bed. Roman military engineering took both routine and extraordinary forms, the former a proactive part of standard military procedure, and the latter of an extraordinary or reactionary nature. A second example would be the massive ramp built using thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth up to the invested city of Masada in the Jewish Revolt. The three lines could often stretch for more than … One beautiful example is the bridge over the Tagus River at Alcántara, Spain. Ancient Roman Military. However, the rank and file legionnaires, particularly those of the later Republic and Principate, are widely revered as some of the greatest soldiers ever to engage in warfare. ... Scientists Discover 2,000 Year Old Roman Camps. Dio Cassius 48.33.2. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. The knowledge and experience learned through such routine engineering lent itself readily to any extraordinary engineering foot projects required by the army, and it is here that the scale of Roman military engineering exceeded that of any of its contemporaries in both imagination and scope. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. In order to guard such a large empire, the army took advantage of well built Roman roads to move about the empire quickly. If the Romans could get their people across the bridges over the Tiber, then knock down the bridges, they would be safe from Tarquin. Using thin, curved slabs of stone, the bridges yielded to considerable deformation before failure. #1 The Roman army was divided into units called legions. Training served many purposes like, 1. ensuring combat readiness, discipline and unit cohesion 2. serving as a political tool in foreign and domestic affairs 3. improving and maintaining the infrastructure of the Empire This bridge was completed in only ten days and is conservatively estimated to have been more than 100 m (300 feet) long. The bridge was intended to show otherwise. The largest Roman bridge was Trajan's bridge over the lower Danube, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus, which remained for over a millennium the longest bridge to have been built both in terms of overall and span length. Wooden cantilever bridges were popular in Asia. Judging from the names, they probably used a repertory of camp plans from a set textbook, selecting the one appropriate to the length of time a legion would spend in it: tertia castra, quarta castra: "a camp of three days", "four days", etc. If you look at how the British, in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries were mapping everywhere, they were doing so because it gave them control. The engineers also built bridges from both timber and stone depending on required permanence, time available etc. This structure, almost 270 metres (900 feet) long, has three tiers of semicircular arches, with the top tier rising more than 45 metres (150 feet) above the river. One of the most notable examples of military bridge-building in the Roman Empire was Julius Caesar's Bridge over the Rhine River. After a series of failed attempts to regain the throne, the deposed king sought assistance in Clusium, an Etruscan city. The Roman army and its incredible organizational depth constituted the greatest of Roman strengths, thus setting them… The medics were so effective, in fact, that a soldier serving in the army of ancient Rome had a better chance of surviving his wounds than any who served in the American Civil War between 1861-1865 CE. The Great Stone Bridge thus employed a form rarely seen in Europe prior to the mid-18th century, and it anticipated the reinforced-concrete designs of Robert Maillart in the 20th century. The Romans built many wooden bridges, but none has survived, and their reputation rests on their masonry bridges. After his conquest of Gaul, which extended Rome’s territory to the English Channel and the Rhine, he became the first Roman General to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain. There were sound reasons for the use of the army in building projects: primarily, that if they weren't directly engaged in military campaigns, the legions were largely unproductive, costing the Roman state large sums of money. Where several arches were necessary for longer bridges, the building of strong piers was critical. It was well-trained, well-equipped, and well-organized. Like almost all of the engineering feats we've listed, the Romans didn't invent … The most important of these were the viae publicae (public roads), followed by the viae militares (military roads), then the actus (local roads), and finally the privatae (private roads). At the top the Y-shaped cantilevering piers were joined by long tree trunks. [1][2] The construction was deliberately over-engineered for Caesar's stated purpose of impressing the Germanic tribes,[3] who had little experience of engineering, and to emphasise that Rome could travel wherever she wished. The Greek biographer Plutarch credits the fabled founder of Rome, Romulus, with creating the legionary forces (as they would be known in the Republic and Imperial periods), yet the Roman historian Livy says that the early Roman army fought more along the lines of Greek hoplites in a phalanx, most likel… Roman roads were very important for the Romans. Actually, CJ Caesar built at least two bridges over the Rhine in 55 & 53 BC (DCXCIX & DCCI AUC) according to (Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Liber IV cp. Roman bridges are famous for using the circular arch form, which allowed for spans much longer than stone beams and for bridges of more permanence than wood. To reduce the weight, the builders made the spandrels (walls between the supporting vault and deck) open. This rise-to-span ratio of 1:5, much lower than the 1:2 ratio found in semicircular arches, produced a large thrust against the abutments. The bulk of the actual building was done by Roman soldiers. of Roman bridges, including those in Rome and its vicinity, see O’Connor 1993 and Galliazzo 1994. As these bridges were subject to an unpredictable assortment of tension and compression, the Chinese created a flexible masonry-arch bridge. These achievements granted Caesar unmatched military power, which threatened to overshadow Pompey and his Senate. This Is How the Army Builds a Bridge in 98 Seconds. This wall is estimated to have been over 20 km (12 mi) long. The siege works and the ramp remain in a remarkable state of preservation today. Engineers and skilled workmen formed guilds that were dispatched throughout the empire, and these guilds spread and exchanged building ideas and principles. They were also skilled in conducting mining operations such as building the many aqueducts needed for prospecting for metal veins, in methods like hydraulic mining, and the building of reservoirs to hold the water at the minehead. In so doing, an enormous wooden bridge was built in only 10 days, stretching over 300 feet across the great river. It is not … When the highest of the stone-filled boats reached above the low-water level, layers of logs were crisscrossed in such a way that, as they rose in height, they jutted farther out toward the adjacent piers. Since Roman roads were designed with speed of travel in mind, they … The Roman army had a corps of engineers, logistics and support staff, ordnance corps, communications divisions, and skilled medical support staff. In this respect, these designs presaged some of the advantages of the early iron bridges. In human societies, identity has historically/socially been the primary vector of access to human constructs of space. Stone bridges were made possible by the innovative use of the keystone to allow an arch construction. Some Roman stone bridges survive to this day. Indeed, military engineering was in many ways institutionally endemic in Roman military culture, as demonstrated by the fact that each Roman legionary had as part of his equipment a shovel, alongside his gladius (sword) and pila (spears). The Roman army was the backbone of the Roman Empire and one of the most successful armies in world history. Stirling Bridge, 1297. All of these led to strategic capabilities, allowing Roman troops to, respectively, assault besieged settlements, move more rapidly to wherever they were needed, cross rivers to reduce march times and surprise enemies, and to camp in relative security even in enemy territory. But the involvement of the soldiers in building works, kept them not only well accustomed to hard physical labour, but also kept them busy, since it was the widely held belief that busy armies weren't plotting to mutiny, whereas idle armies were. The farmers and villagers living outside of Rome saw the advancing army and fled into the city of Rome for protection. For them, roads did much more than simply serve transport functions; they were a means of putting the stamp of the authority of Rome across a new territory and then maintaining that territory. However, when on the march, particularly in enemy territory, the legion would, after a day's marching, construct a fortified camp or castra, requiring as raw materials only earth, turf and timber. The tribes felt safe on the eastern side of the Rhine river, trusting the river as a natural border which offered cover from retaliatory attack after their opportunistic raids into the province. The Romans classified their roads into several types. During Caesar's conquest of Gaul it became necessary to secure the eastern border of the new provinces against marauding Germanic tribes. It is likely that they were closely involved in exploiting gold resources such as those at Dolaucothi in south west Wales. Where several arches were necessary for longer bridges, the building of strong piers was critical. They hadn't gotten their army back together yet. The basic design used piles driven into the riverbed and old boats filled with stones sunk between them to make cofferdam-like foundations. Pont du Gard, Roman aqueduct, Nîmes, France, by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, during the Augustan period. In some rare cases soldiers were even used in mining work. The Roman commanding general had forgotten about the bridges while he was getting his arm… Of both military and civilian use was the construction of roads within the boundaries of the Empire, in which the army was heavily involved. This was a Greek-style phalanx which the Romans adapted. Sant'Angelo Bridge and Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome, Roman masonry arch bridge, with spans up to 29 metres (98 feet), built over the Tagus River at Alcántara, Spain, in the early 2nd century. To solve this dilemma, the Romans developed the cofferdam, a temporary enclosure made from wooden piles driven into the riverbed to make a sheath, which was often sealed with clay. Michael Grant credits the Roman building of the Via Appia with winning them the Second Samnite War.[4]. Formations were made based on military rank. Introduction – A Clash of Cultures. Some Roman stone bridges survive to this day. The military engineering of Ancient Rome's armed forces was of a scale and frequency far beyond that of any of its contemporaries. Military engineering is the oldest of the engineering skills and was the precursor of the profession of civil engineering. The only extended praise of a bridge in Rome appears in Symmachus’ panegyric to the emperor Gratian. After this happened, the British Army reportedly sent new orders: Soldiers crossing a long bridge must "break stride," or not march in unison, to stop such a situation from occurring again. The arches, each spanning 29 metres (98 feet), feature huge arch stones (voussoirs) weighing up to eight tons each. It was developed soon after conquest of the region under Frontinus, and the local auxiliary troop came from north-west Spain, a country where gold mining developed on a very large scale in the early part of the first century AD. Unfortunately very little remains of the western side of the support abutments, but on the eastern side there is still considerable stonework to be seen. Caesar was able to cross over the completed bridge and explore the area uncontested, before crossing back over and dismantling the bridge. Another surviving monument is the Pont du Gard aqueduct near Nîmes in southern France, completed in 14 ce. Caesar decided to confront them. The Segmental Arch. 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