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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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It’s really funny when reactionaries think they would’ve been some patrician army general in ancient and medieval times, or some noble chivalric knight trying to win m’lady’s hand, and not some peon peasant who’s sent as a decoy to be killed while the main army is flanking the side
They don't understand how crazy unlikely that would be. To be appointed a General, you had to be the patrician class, be in the Senate (only a few hundred members) and have the right connections, experience, age etc. The vast majority of Roman's were subsistence farmers outside of big cities. A life of tilling a field and wondering if your elderly parents or young children might starve if the season is bad.
And even if you as a commoner joined a legion, were the strongest/smartest/luckiest/bravest soldier your career would plateua at a senior centurion. And even if you were senior centurion commanding the first cohort (nearly 1000 men equivalent to roughly a full bird colonel), you are still a plebian and it's exceedingly unlikely to you to rise any higher unless someone adopted you into a noble house and that was uncommon (though not rare).
Wasn't it even more bleak than that: consolidation of land under wealthy owners of slave plantations meant that instead of even subsistence farmers working their own land a huge portion of the free population were effectively seasonal migrant laborers with no steady income or housing?
This is true of the middle and late Republic, but after the major conquests end and the large numbers of slaves stop being imported the slave numbers decline and the migrant farmers regain power. Eventually the big plantations become patronage/taxation networks for peasant families, and eventually those become the economic base for the fuedal system.
Depending on the era you were a peasant in, you might even get the opportunity to participate in a secessio, the Roman equivalent of a general strike.