This blog follows the Roman soldier Quintus in the year 202 BC. He fights in the Battle of Zama between Carthage and Rome. This battle was the climax of the Second Punic War, perhaps the most famous conflict that Rome experienced during the Republican period. 

Since the expulsion of the kings in 509 BC until the announcement of the Principate in 27 BC, Rome was a republic. The period of the Roman Republic is usually divided into the Early, Middle, and Late Roman Republic. It should not be thought that the 'republic' was a constant: according to the scholar Jeremy Armstrong, this period can better be divided into as many as 13 parts.

The ideal of the republic formed the foundation of Roman identity; the Romans never called themselves an empire until the fall of the Western Empire. From the Middle Republic, we see the emergence of a bureaucratic machine that was necessary to manage the complexity of Rome. Prominent patrician families played the key role in this. 

Rome had grown from a small city-state to an empire that governed almost all of Italy in the early centuries of the republic. This occurred in some cases through bloody wars of conquest, such as against the Etruscan city of Veii in 396 BC, which was only 16 km from Rome. However, in most cases, this 'conquest' involved a cunning strategy of incorporating and merging warlords from other Italic cultures. Rome often chose allies to attack their enemies together and then incorporated both peoples into the republic. Finally, there were ample opportunities for the elite of these other peoples to join the elite of Roman society. 

The beginning of the Roman Republic is characterized similarly to the regal period by warlords, each with their own retinue of clients. They descended from the Latin peoples and were not originally Roman or attached to Rome. They lived the Indo-European tradition of undertaking annual raids on enemy tribes. They returned with the spoils they had 'heroically' won and were the celebrated heroes for the rest of the people. This group became the Patricians.

The major difference between the early Republic and the period before is that these warlords occasionally united and acted more on behalf of the Roman Republic. Other Latin warlords could join, and as long as they acted in the name of the Republic, it was a welcome addition.

This situation had several notable features. Firstly, it marks the open nature of the Romans towards 'outsiders.' After all, all neighboring peoples had the same Indo-European foundation and the same martial tradition. It was therefore attractive for an ambitious warlord from another tribe to become a 'Roman.' Around this time, we should think more of collectives of war bands than of the Greek type Poleis.

From this tradition, we also see the Triumphs and the claiming of spoils by the patricians who had conquered them 'in the name of Rome.' This tradition would remain and led to a very different image than the one in which we often try to place Rome as a unity.

From this standpoint, the gap was widened between the 'haves' (patricians) and the 'have nots' (the plebeians), resulting in long political friction where the plebeians sought more share in the rights of patricians. Although we try to reflect much of our modern worldview on the Roman Republic, it was different from our democratic system. Only male Roman citizens had voting rights and legal personality. Lower classes in society had little influence with their vote. They were politically dependent on their patron with whom they maintained a client-patron relationship. These relationships were based on cosmic reciprocity and came with obligations. The more clients a patron had, the more prestige and political influence he could exert. At the same time, it was a disgrace for a patron to let his clients live in poverty. He protected them in case of a legal dispute and functioned as a bank. This client-patron relationship was non-binding, and both parties could dissolve the cooperation. Slaves and women had no political influence at all, although freed slaves automatically became clients of their former master, providing a start-up capital. 

During the fourth century BC, the republic had absorbed other small city-states and regional rulers, but as a result, increasingly came into conflict with other imperial powers around the Mediterranean. For instance, between 264–241 BC, Rome had a conflict with Syracuse, which escalated into a war between Rome and Punic Carthage . As a result of the First Punic War, Rome developed a powerful fleet, directly copied from the Carthaginians. Peace between these mighty empires would not last long, and the conflicts that followed would be the most tragic and devastating wars of classical antiquity.

In 218 BC, war broke out again between Carthage and Rome, this time in Iberia. However, the Carthaginian general Hannibal would bring the conflict to Rome and nearly destroy the powerful city-state. He traveled with Carthaginian troops, including his famous elephant riders, through the Alps into the Italian peninsula. There, he gathered Celtic tribes and other peoples with grievances against the Romans into an army (50,000 strong) that was almost always outnumbered, but he employed brilliant strategies.

In the battles of Ticinus, Trebia, and Lake Trasimene, he managed to outsmart the Romans behind their own lines, causing enormous losses and the death of several consuls. His greatest victory was at the Battle of Cannae (216 BC), where he annihilated what remained of the larger Roman force (roughly 80,000 soldiers) down to the triarii, resulting in 50,000 dead and 20,000 prisoners, an unheard-of number in this period of warfare. After this, he would terrorize the Italian peninsula for years.

However, he failed to besiege Rome. Hannibal's years-long campaign in hostile territory was extremely challenging, and he had to outsmart the Romans at every moment to keep his allies and supply his army. Ultimately, he had to return to Carthage in 204 BC after 15 years of campaigning (13 of which were in Italy) because he received no support from the Carthaginian senate and there was hardly any support for his campaign among the other Latin peoples of Italy. In Italy, he had left nothing but total devastation, but it had all been for nothing: Rome had endured his campaign and immediately began preparing for a vengeful counterattack.

Despite the enormous losses the Romans had suffered over multiple generations, they quickly managed to raise a new army led by the dictator Publius Cornelius Scipio, a strategist on par with Hannibal himself. In 202 BC, the Romans and Carthaginians met again on the battlefield at Zama, an ancient city near Carthage. In this battle, the Roman army was outnumbered, and Scipio used Hannibal's own tactics against him (for example, by forming alliances with the Nubians, paralleling Hannibal's use of the Celts). With this, the Romans achieved a decisive victory, and Carthage had to sign a humiliating peace, which prohibited the city-state from maintaining a fleet and attacking Roman allies. With this battle, Rome thus became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region.

In the following century, a Third Punic 'War' took place between 149 and 146 BC. However, this was more of a brutal punitive expedition, which Rome provoked out of fear to finally annihilate Carthage. After the siege of Carthage, the Carthaginian army surrendered definitively, with the promise that the population would be spared. Rome broke this promise and razed the largest Mediterranean city after Alexandria to the ground, resulting in the unparalleled massacre of hundreds of thousands of citizens (estimates run up to 750,000 victims). According to Livy, this action was so terrible that even the Roman commander who had ordered the destruction of the city and its population burst into tears, realizing that Rome could one day suffer the same fate.

It is no wonder that the hierarchy of Roman society was reflected in the army of the Republic. The military was divided into different ranks and groups with their own functions. The vanguard was led by velites, light infantry that harassed the enemy. They were often young men, who wore nothing but a wolfskin and a small shield to move as quickly as possible across the battlefield. Heavy infantry was the main element of the republican army. The formation of these soldiers was divided into three lines based on basic of combat experience and social class. 

At the front stood the hastati: they were the least experienced and armored soldiers who led the attack in the first phase of a battle. 

The middle line was formed by principles such as Quintus. If the line of the hastati was broken during the first phase or if this part of a battle lasted too long, they would come forward, equipped and ready to fight an exhausted opponent. 

The Triarii, the veterans with the best equipment, formed the rearguard of the Roman army. If the formations of the hastati and principes were broken, they would come to the rescue in the final phase of the battle. This rarely happened and was a sign that the fight would continue to the bitter end; the Romans even had an expression for this in daily life, ‘res ad triarios venit’ or ‘it comes down to the triarii’. 

Alongside, there was cavalry on the flanks, composed of the class of the equites (knights), auxiliary cavalry consisting of wealthy Italians without citizenship and other specialists.

In Roman society, the tunic made of wool, linen (and in some cases cotton) was the main garment for both men and women. During the republican period, it was very fashionable to make these long and flowing, to give the same appearance as the more formal toga worn by Roman citizens. However, this was not practical for soldiers, and therefore they wore a short tunic, with or without short sleeves.

The tunic that Quintus wears is dyed blue. In modern depictions, Roman soldiers often wear red, because this colour was a symbol for the war god Mars. However, it is unclear what colors Roman soldiers wore, as the colour was not uniform per legion and also not per maniple. Soldiers during the Republic took care of their own tunics, which they often received from home.

To allow the chainmail shirt to rest on the hips and to attach the sword, a simple leather belt was used during this period. 

The sandals that Quintus wears are a practical military model worn by legionaries. Military sandals were comfortable and light in design: this allowed soldiers to perform hard work, stand on guard for long periods, and march great distances per day without developing blisters. The sandals were fitted by the soldiers themselves with nails to provide grip on unpaved or natural ground. They could also be used to finish off fallen enemies on the battlefield as the Roman units marched over them.

Quintus has a cloak with him for cold or bad weather. The Roman cloak was a large piece of wool, held in place with a fibula. Roman soldiers wore cloaks to keep themselves warm and dry: the latter was very important to protect the equipment from rust or dirt. They may also have played a role in night operations, to camouflage legionaries. The cloak could even be used to protect the arm during a fight: there is a report of legionaries being ambushed by the enemy without shield and wrapping their cloaks around their forearms to use as shield.

From wall paintings, it can be deduced that Roman legionaries mostly wore brown, beige, and gray cloaks. This was because the cloaks were made of undyed wool, so that the sheep's natural oil could keep the cloak water-resistant. Centurions and other field commanders wore red, white, or even purple cloaks to stand out: Julius Caesar was known to wear his cloak during battles for dramatic effect. Our princeps Quintus does not have his cloak with him against cold or rain, but the burning sun of North Africa.

To protect his body, Quintus uses the large republican scutum (shield) and wears a Montefortino helmet and a lorica hamata (chainmail shirt). To fight, he uses a pilum (a heavy javelin) and a sword of the La Tène type B.

Like all other soldiers of the Roman Republic, Quintus wears a Montefortino helmet of the Celtic type. This type of helmet was adopted from the Celts in the 4th century BC after the Celtic sack of Rome and was the longest used of all Roman helmets. The helmet was equipped with cheek plates and a detachable plume of horse hair, which made the wearer appear taller to intimidate the enemy. After armor was mass-produced by the Roman state, the quality of these helmets declined. 

The Lorica hamata was a Roman chainmail shirt worn by Roman soldiers from the third century BC to the fourth century AD. Sleeves were often omitted to make it more comfortable for long periods, especially during marches. Mail may have been directly adopted from the Celts, as the La Tène culture invented this form of armor around 400 BC. In the 4th-2nd century BC, the lorica hamata was very expensive, and poorer soldiers like the hastati could not afford it.

The principles during the Second Punic War wore a single greave of iron or bronze to protect the left leg. This was because this body part protruded below the scutum and was thus a weak point, even though the soldier used his shield. In contrast to greaves of previous centuries, the greave during the Punic War stopped below the knee.

Principes had a pilum as part of their equipment. This was a heavy javelin, which was thrown at the enemy before the legionaries launched a charge. The weapon could also be used as a regular spear. 

From the 4th century BC, the Romans used the scutum, probably adopted from the Celts just like the Montefortino helmet and the Lorica Hamata. This elongated shield was approximately 130 cm long during the republic and had an oval shape. At the front, it had a wooden rib along the length of the shield with a shield boss on it: this allowed the scutum to be used as a thrusting weapon.

The xiphos was still used in the 4th century BC, and very rarely do we find evidence of its use in the 2nd century BC, but already in the 4th century, it was almost replaced by another type of sword: the Celtic sword type La Tène B. This sword was adopted from the Gauls and would become the standard weapon for Roman soldiers until the Second Punic War. 

During the late republic, the Gladius Hispaniensis (Spanish sword) was used, which was adopted from Iberian tribes during the 1st Punic War. The Roman variant had a leaf-shaped blade and was in terms of length comparable to its predecessor, the La Tène type B sword. It became the main weapon of the Republican soldiers during the first century BC after throwing their pilum.