I was going to call this post “Slaves don’t fight” but of course that is wrong as anyone who heard of Spartacus knows. So I amended the title.
In the Ancient Greek world a Citizen was a freeborn man who would put his life on the line to defend his Polis (City State). If he were very wealthy he might build a Trireme, or present himself accoutred with full armour and a chariot, or mounted on a horse. The average citizen trained as heavy infantry, a hoplite with some armour, a great shield, the hoplon, and with spear and sword. Poor citizens might fight as light infantry, scouts, or would pull an oar on a rich mans warship.
The point here is that the average Greek Polis had a population of around 10,000 citizens, but might have as many slaves on top of that, and another 20,000 women and chidren. It was hard to field an army larger than 10,000. They also had within their walls a variety of ex-slave freedmen and non-citizen freemen. Not every inhabitant of the Polis was a citizen who would stand in the phalanx to defend the city in the hour of need.
There are good reasons why you don’t train and arm slaves, so you don’t add them into the mix.
Greek city states were limited in their expansion by this dynamic. Sparta created an entire economic model which involved enslaving the healots to work the land and in manufacturing trades to free up as many citizens as possible for war. The Pelopennesian war became a beauty contest between Athens and Sparta as each tried to recruit as many allies as possible to expand their fleets and their armies.
When Rome was founded as a Republic it was founded on the model of the landowning smallholder. The Roman farmer would set aside his plough and take up his sword to defend the state. As Rome grew in size and strength it conquered neighbouring states. The citizens of those states were enslaved and contributed to the Roman economy.
Many of these slaves ended up working the larger farms. The landowners became relatively wealthier than the smaller farmers. When land became available the larger farmers added it to their manoir and purchased more slaves to work the extra land. In times of drought or pestilence smaller farmers might go bankrupt. The large landlords were on hand to buy up the farms.
As the “Enemies” of Rome emerged further and further away the farms went to ruin as the farmers fought in Sicily, Africa and Spain. Instead of fighting for a few weeks in the summer these campaigns lasted years.
Gradually the erosion of these small farms became a problem. Fewer and fewer large landlords owned more of the land. These were the Senators of Rome. As the Senators became wealthier it became harder and harder to fill the legions in times of war. All these great Senatorial estates, the latifundia, were worked by slaves, and slaves don’t fight in the Legions.
Land reform became the issue that broke the Roman Republic.
Fast forward two thousand years to the USA which was founded using the Roman Republic as both a model and an inspiration. The founding fathers saw the landholding citizens of the USA as the very heart of the nation. They provided in the second amendment for the rights of these citizens to bear arms and to form a militia to defend the nation from tyranny. Right up to World War 2 the typical US doughboy was straight off the farm in Nebraska. So much so that the military insurance provided to these farmboys would pay off the family debts and mortgage if they died in combat. Hence the saying “he bought the farm” when a US soldier died.
The rise of the commercial food corporation in the USA has driven the small farmers off the land. Huge swathes of America are devoid of the small villages and towns that used to support these farmers. Instead nomadic armies of contractors plough, sow and harvest, crossing the plains like migratory birds. Here one day and gone the next.
The children of the small farmers now work in impermanent jobs, seasonal work, warehousing, distribution, the gig economy. They are modern day wage slaves cleared off their land by billionaire senators with Gown and Sword and Law. When the day comes to defend the nation, will these slaves stand up to fight? For what? To preserve their poverty?
Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, 1862; by John Greenleaf Whittier
When first I saw our banner wave
above the nation’s council-hall,
I heard beneath its marble wall
the clanking fetters of the slave!
In the foul market-place I stood,
and saw the Christian mother sold,
and childhood with its locks of gold,
blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.
I shut my eyes, I held my breath,
and, smothering down the wrath and shame
that set my Northern blood aflame,
stood silent, where to speak was death.
Beside me gloomed the prison-cell
where wasted one in slow decline
for uttering simple words of mine,
and loving freedom all too well.
The flag that floated from the dome
flapped menace in the morning air;
I stood a perilled stranger where
the human broker made his home.
For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword
and Law their threefold sanction gave,
and to the quarry of the slave
went hawking with our symbol-bird.
-=o0o=-
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