Julius Caesar is generally considered Ancient Rome’s foremost general and politician: ‘the greatest Roman of them all’, as Shakespeare has it. Yet most of Caesar’s great successes were against second-rate opponents, and even during his struggle with Pompey in Greece in 48 BC, he enjoyed the great advantage of centralised command, while his rival was hamstrung by a bickering political entourage.
Nor was Caesar much of an innovator. He took hold of a first-class military machine and used it to great effect, but his war-making was not notable for significant developments in logistics, strategy, or tactics. He was a great improviser when he needed to be, but he did not devise a new military system.
Publius Cornelius Scipio (236-183 BC), on the other hand, was the first Roman commander to bring the legion to maximum proficiency and employ it in ways that had never before been attempted; in effect, he turned a somewhat clumsy part-time militia into a well-oiled professional machine capable of rapid movement and complex manoeuvre.
