re: #104 engineer cat

it’s curious how this process mirrors marius’ professionalization of the roman army

but a side effect was to divorce the army from the roman citizenry, and create an army “class”

and then after a while the army discovered that it could make and unmake emperors

of course, this sort of thing doesn’t happen today - except for pakistan, egypt…

Actually, Egypt still has universal conscription, so it doesn’t truly fit.

Then there is also the fact that the landless men of Rome Marius recruited had been made landless after Hannibal burned them out of their lands during the Second Punic War. The Fabian strategy used to deny Hannibal decisive battles was ultimately successful, but it allowed the Carthaginian general to subject the Italian countryside to severe depredations. Unable to farm, many people fled to cities and sold their lands to nobles for often only a fraction of what it otherwise would have been worth. After the war, the nobles worked the land with slaves, and thus was the commonwealth structure of the Roman Republic undone.