Describe the role of army in …

Ans. Next to the emperor and the Senate, the other key institution of imperial rule was the army. Romans had a paid professional army where soldiers had to put in a minimum of 25 years of service. The army was the largest single organised body in the empire with 600,000 soldiers in the fourth century. The soldiers would constantly agitate for better wages and service conditions. These agitation often took the form of mutinies.

The emperor, the aristocracy and the army were the three main ‘players’in the political history of the empire. The success of individual emperors depended on their control of the army, and when the armies were divided, the result usually was civil war. Except for one notorious year (69 CE), when four emperors mounted the throne in quick succession, the first two centuries were free from civil war.

The emperor Augustus reigned from 27 BC to AD 14 with absolute power. He re-established political and social stability and launched two centuries of prosperity called the Roman Peace (Pax Romana). During the first two centuries Ad the empire flourished and added new territories as ancient Britain, Arabia, and Dacia (present-day Romania). People from the provinces streamed to Rome and became soldiers, bureaucrats, senators, and even emperors. Rome developed into the social, economic, cultural capital of the Mediterranean world. Most emperors ruled sensibly and competently till military and economic disasters brought on the political instability of the 3rd century AD.