TEXT D During the reign of
Augustus the Rome army became a professional one. Its core of legionaires was
composed of Roman citizens who served for a minimum of twenty five years.
Augustus in his reign tried to eliminate the loyalty of the legions to the
generals who commanded them, forcing them to take an oath of allegiance directly
to him. While the legions remained relatively loyal to Augustus during his
reign, under others, especially the more corrupt emperors or those who unwisely
treated the military poorly, the legions often took power into their own hands.
Legions continued to move farther and farther to the outskirts of society,
especially in the later periods of the empire as the majority of legionaires no
longer came from Italy, and were instead born in the provinces. The loyalty the
legions felt to their emperor only degraded more with time, and lead in the 2nd
Centry and 3rd Century to a large number of military usurpers and civil wars. By
the time of the military officer emperors that characterized the period
following the Crisis of the Third Century the Roman army was just as likely to
be attacking itself as an outside invader. Both the pre- and
post-Marian armies were greatly assisted by auxiliary troops. A typical Roman
legion was accompanied by a matching auxiliary legion. In the pre-Marian army
these auxiliary troops were Italians, and often Latins, from cities near Rome.
The post-Marian army incorporated these Italian soldiers into its standard
legions (as all Italians were Roman citizens after the Social War). Its
auxiliary troops were made up of foreigners from provinces distant to Rome, who
gained Roman citizenship after completing their twenty five years of service.
This system of foreign auxiliaries allowed the post-Marian army to strengthen
traditional weak points of the Roman system, such as light missile troops and
cavalry, with foreign specialists, especially as the richer classes took less
and less part of military affairs and the Roman army lost much of its domestic
calvary. At the beginning of the Imperial period the number of
legions was 60, which Augustus more than halved to 28, numbering at
approximately 160,000 men. As more territory was conquered throughout the
Imperial period, this fluctuated into the mid-thirties. At the same time, at the
beginning of the Imperial period the foreign auxiliaries made up a rather small
portion of the military, but continued to rise, so that by the end of the period
of the Five Good Emperors they probably equalled the legionaires in number,
giving a combined total of between 300,000 and 400,000 men in the
Army. The last major reform of the Imperial Army came under the
reign of Diocletian in the late 3rd Century. During the instability that had
marked most of that century, the army had fallen in number and lost much of its
ability to effectively police and defend the empire. He quickly recruited a
large number of men, increasing the number of legionaires from between
150,000-200,000 to 350,000-400,000, effectively doubling the number in a case of
quantity over quality. In the post-Marian army,______
A.auxiliary troops were Italians, and often Latins B.auxiliary troops were made up of citizens from cities near Rome C.more foreigners were included in auxiliary army D.auxiliary troop were made up of foreigners who had gained citizenship for serving Rome for 25years