{"id":97697,"date":"2026-03-15T01:00:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=97697"},"modified":"2026-03-14T10:46:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:46:03","slug":"qotd-the-roman-empire-worked-for-centuries-because-it-was-run-like-the-roman-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/03\/15\/qotd-the-roman-empire-worked-for-centuries-because-it-was-run-like-the-roman-army\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The Roman Empire “worked” for centuries because it was run like the Roman army"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Roman Empire is a good example. It worked because they ran it like the Army.<\/p>\n

A Roman legion is technically a “manipular phalanx”. A phalanx \u2014 that is, a tactical formation \u2014 that can detach parts of itself to pursue smaller tactical objectives. As far as I know, the Legion was an administrative<\/em> unit, not a tactical one \u2014 the largest tactical formation was the cohort \u2014 but it doesn’t really matter. The point is, the Romans were accustomed to independently-operating tactical units. So long as they maintained formation, the sub-commanders had very broad latitude to do whatever they needed to do. They were expected to be able to command what we’d call “combined arms” (a vexillation<\/em>). Ancient Auftragstaktik<\/em>.<\/p>\n

They ran their Empire the same way. So long as the sub-commanders (the Governors) “held formation”, they could pursue the agreed-upon tactical objectives (peace, revenue maximization) as they saw fit. They could put together what amounted to an administrative vexillation<\/em>, using whoever was available at the time. The Emperor basically dealt with personnel problems, like a general \u2014 he had his broad policy objectives, but most of the stuff he ruled on boiled down to personnel matters; he’d direct his sub-commanders to fix a problem in whatever way seemed best to them.<\/p>\n

We run our polities like bureaucracies \u2014 businesses, not armies. The Army’s basic problem is how to keep itself occupied in peacetime \u2014 it assumes that it exists, and always will exist, because it’s necessary; should the Army cease to exist, so will the State. Business’s basic problem is to generate enough output to keep itself in existence \u2014 a very different proposition, requiring a very different mindset.<\/p>\n

A State bureaucracy is the worst of both worlds \u2014 it assumes it always will exist, like the Army, so it needs to find a way to keep itself occupied during “peacetime”; but that means it needs to produce enough output to justify itself in “peacetime”, because it’s never not peacetime \u2014 the business mentality.<\/p>\n

Severian, commenting on “Means and Ends”, Founding Questions<\/em><\/a>, 2025-09-04.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Roman Empire is a good example. It worked because they ran it like the Army. A Roman legion is technically a “manipular phalanx”. A phalanx \u2014 that is, a tactical formation \u2014 that can detach parts of itself to pursue smaller tactical objectives. As far as I know, the Legion was an administrative unit, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,62,7,41],"tags":[31,509,1343,1462],"class_list":["post-97697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-europe","category-history","category-quotations","tag-army","tag-civilservice","tag-romanempire","tag-severian"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ppL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97697"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101356,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97697\/revisions\/101356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}