Roman Laws of War

Rome was not built in a day. Neither, too, did it remain the same in its thousand-year reign. This Chapter must therefore be specific in its analysis and addresses the rough range of the Roman Republic and the Julio-Claudian Empire - approximately 350 BC to 60 AD. This allows for analysis of the developments of the Roman Republic to be incorporated, without the fractured nature of the late Imperial period. These dates further exclude the impact of Christianity on the Empire and the codes brought in by the Emperor Maurice in his Strategica and the recordings of Ruffus.

It further captures a rather Latin approach to the laws surrounding war from which modern international humanitarian law takes its etymology - the laws around the right to declare and wage war (jus ad bellum) and the laws for the conduct of operations in war (jus in bello). Combined, these made the jus belli - the laws of war. Misleading as it may be, these laws were not codified but were a matter of custom; custom that evolved and adapted as it contacted other cultures and methods of warfare. The malleability of Latin culture to more effective or efficient methods of war was indeed a defining feature of the Roman Empire - its so-called interpretatio Romana. In particular, the absorption of Greco culture after its annexation shaped the Roman interpretation of the jus in bello forever. These Hellenistic tendencies, however, never overrode unique Latin cultural rules. Specifically, as will become clear, the idea of maintaining fides permeated throughout all international dealings.