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0 pointszardo16d ago0 comments

A fighter pilot is the modern military equivalent of a medieval knight.

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Even the early Roman legions were composed of land owning citizens. Partly because they could afford / knew people they could get equipment from. Also likely because you wanted people in the establishment that you could trust armed and the power that went with it.

cloverich16d ago

I believe the latter was key and democratization of the armed forced was at least one reason the dictators (Julius etc) were able to maintain loyalty of their troops as they eliminated the republic as such. Im not super well read here though.

Higher level, Fukuyamas political order series does a great deep dive into these kinds of topics, really blew my mind, and made many archaic seeming political structures make far more intuitive sense to me afterwards.

senkora16d ago

I’ll have to give those a read. For others, I’ve linked their wiki pages below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Political_Order

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Order_and_Political_...

duxup16d ago

Yeah once a given senator commanded AND paid the local full time legions for a given region, their loyalty followed.

By that time too the men serving in the legions were increasingly locals and not Roman or even from Italy.

mitthrowaway216d ago

I thought that land ownership was offered as a reward for service?

duxup16d ago

Later on yes. Early on it was more strict about who could serve.

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