The Roman army used many tacticts that helped them be successful while fighting and when the soldiers lost energy during battle. Reducing the number of casualties, the most structural and general tactic used by the Roman army was the shield-to-shield tactic. The soldiers standing in the front line would stand close next to one another, holding their shields in front of them. All of the soldiers behind the front line would then hold their shields abover their heads and above the heads of the soldiers in front of them. This tactic made the Roman army less vulnerable and protected all the soldiers from all angles.

     Fighting in such intense battles was hard for a soldier in the front line because the front line was where most of the action took place. If soldiers grow tired during a battle, it is likely they will not perform up to standards. To prevent this, the Roman army used a tactic that would rotate the lines in battle. The soldiers fighting in the front line would stay there for fifteen minutes, and after the fifteen minutes, those soldiers would move to the back. This gave the soldiers fighting in the front line the chance to temporarily relieve themselves from most of the action.

     One of the most common tactics used by the Roman army was the starvation tactic because it was easy and effective. The army would surround the seiged town in full artillery and wait until the town ran out of supplies. Although this tactic tended to take some time, the army would build seige towers that would help them watch and make sure supplies were not getting in, speeding up the process and making it more effective.

    The most important tactic that was valued by the Roman army was the training that every soldier was required to go through. Yes, training is going to be important to any army, but the Roman army took training very seriously because the Romans taught their soldiers to improvise in any situation. Each soldier was trained to make anything out of anything, which prevented the loss of protection when weapons or shields tended to break.

Posted by: Amanda DeMauro