The Greatest Commanders of Ancient Rome

1 Julius Caesar, 100 to 44 BC

Lived

100 to 44 BC; assassinated

Served

Roman Republic; conquered Gaul 58 to 51 BC, fought the civil war from 49 BC

Greatest victory

Alesia, 52 BC: by his own count 80,000 Gauls besieged and a relief army of 250,000 foot and 8,000 horse

Record

Won Alesia (52 BC), Pharsalus (48), Thapsus (46) and Munda (45); beaten at Gergovia (52) and Dyrrachium (48)

Legacy

His wars ended the Roman Republic; his own Commentaries are still read

Gaius Julius Caesar, born in 100 BC, went to Gaul with his legions in 58 BC and spent most of a decade conquering it. In 49 BC he crossed the Rubicon into Italy against Pompey and the Senate, won the civil war that followed and was stabbed to death in Rome on 15 March 44 BC.²

The decisive year in Gaul was 52 BC. Repulsed by Vercingetorix at Gergovia, Caesar trapped him in the hill town of Alesia, where by Caesar's own count 80,000 Gauls held out. He ringed the town with an inner line of works about 18 km long and an outer one of about 22.5 km, and held both against a relief army he put at 250,000 foot and 8,000 horse; Vercingetorix surrendered.³

At Pharsalus in 48 BC his 22,000 men beat Pompey's 45,000, after Pompey had driven him from his siege lines at Dyrrachium. Thapsus in Africa and Munda in Spain finished the war; Suetonius writes that the outcome was in doubt only twice, at Dyrrachium and at Munda, where Caesar thought the battle lost and considered suicide. Myth vs fact: he was almost certainly not born by caesarean section, an operation then usually fatal to the mother, and his mother Aurelia lived long into his adult life.⁴

Why it ranks here: He is No. 1 because he is the only Roman with full marks for recognition, consequence and legacy: everyone knows the name, his wars ended the Republic, and his own account of them is still read. Gergovia and Dyrrachium cost him a point on record and his partisan Commentaries a point on certainty, and he still finishes three points clear of Scipio.

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2 Scipio Africanus, 236 to 183 BC

Lived

236 to 183 BC

Served

Roman Republic, Second Punic War, in Spain and Africa

Greatest victory

Zama, 202 BC, over Hannibal; Carthage lost 20,000 killed and nearly as many captured (Polybius)

Record

Took New Carthage; won Ilipa (206 BC) and Zama; lost no battle he commanded (his biographer's publisher)

Legacy

Won the Second Punic War; Carthage kept ten warships and owed 10,000 talents

Publius Cornelius Scipio, born in 236 BC, learned war from Hannibal. At seventeen he rode into the cavalry fight near the Po where his father was surrounded, and at Cannae he saw Hannibal destroy a Roman army.⁵

Sent to Spain, he took the Carthaginian base of New Carthage after learning from fishermen that its lagoon could be waded. At Ilipa in 206 BC, by Polybius's figures, Hasdrubal son of Gesco had some 70,000 foot, 4,000 horse and 32 elephants, and Scipio's victory drove Carthage out of Spain. At Zama in 202 BC he faced Hannibal himself, about 40,000 a side by modern estimate; he left lanes in his line for Hannibal's elephants to run through, and when Laelius and Masinissa came back with the cavalry and struck the Carthaginian rear, Hannibal lost 20,000 killed and nearly as many captured, against more than 1,500 Romans. Carthage gave up all but ten warships and agreed to pay 10,000 talents over fifty years. In ten years of command, as the publisher of Dexter Hoyos's biography puts it, he never lost a battle.⁶

Myth vs fact: writers of his own day made him a favorite of the gods who won by luck; Polybius, who knew his friend Laelius, insists that every success came from calculation and foresight.⁷

Why it ranks here: Full marks for record and consequence: he beat the best general of his age and won the war that made Rome master of the western Mediterranean. He is far less famous than the man he defeated, so recognition and legacy are 4, which leaves him three points behind Caesar and three ahead of Constantine.

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3 Constantine the Great, c. AD 272 to 337

Lived

Born between about 272 and 285 (sources differ); died 337

Served

Proclaimed emperor by his father's troops in 306; sole ruler of the empire from 324

Greatest victory

Milvian Bridge, 312, over Maxentius; Zosimus, writing much later, gives 90,000 foot and 8,000 horse against 170,000 and 18,000

Record

Won Verona and the Milvian Bridge (312), Cibalae (316), Adrianople and Chrysopolis (324); Mardia (316) was a draw

Legacy

Reunited the empire, founded Constantinople, first Christian emperor

Constantine was born at Naissus, in today's Serbia, between about 272 and 285. When his father died in 306, the soldiers of the Sixth Legion proclaimed him emperor, and for eighteen years he fought the rival emperors of the Tetrarchy.⁸

In 312 he crossed the Alps, beat Maxentius' generals at Verona and met Maxentius himself at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome, where the beaten army was driven into the Tiber and Maxentius drowned. Zosimus, a pagan writing much later, gives Constantine 90,000 foot and 8,000 horse against 170,000 and 18,000, numbers nobody can check. Against his eastern colleague Licinius he won at Cibalae in 316 with, by one anonymous account, 20,000 men against 35,000, then fought a drawn battle at Mardia and took Illyricum in the peace that followed. In 324 he forced a crossing of the Hebrus at Adrianople, where Zosimus says nearly 30,000 of Licinius' men fell, his son Crispus destroyed the enemy fleet in the Hellespont, and on 18 September Chrysopolis ended the war.⁹

Myth vs fact: the cross of light in the sky with the words “Conquer by this” comes from Eusebius, who heard it from the emperor years later; Lactantius, writing soon after the battle, tells only of a dream that told him to mark a sign of Christ on his soldiers' shields.¹⁰

Why it ranks here: Full marks for record and consequence: in twelve years of civil war he beat every rival in the field and left the empire under one ruler again. He is remembered first as the emperor who turned Rome Christian, so legacy 3, and his partisan sources, Christian and pagan, hold certainty to 3, three points behind Scipio.

4 Trajan, AD 53 to 117

Lived

18 September 53 to 9 August 117

Served

Roman emperor 98 to 117; led the Dacian wars (101 to 106) and the Parthian war (114 to 117) in person

Greatest victory

Dacia, 101 to 106: Tapae, then the fall of Sarmizegetusa and the death of Decebalus

Record

Conquered Dacia, Armenia and Mesopotamia; failed to take Hatra (116 or 117)

Legacy

Rome at its greatest extent; Trajan's Column records the Dacian wars

Marcus Ulpius Traianus was born at Italica, near Seville, in AD 53, the first emperor born outside Italy, and came up through the army as the son of a general. Adopted by Nerva, he became emperor in 98.¹¹

In 101 he crossed the Danube against King Decebalus of Dacia and beat him at Tapae; Cassius Dio repeats the story that when bandages ran out he cut up his own clothes for the wounded. The Dacians made peace and broke it, and in the second war, over a stone bridge he had thrown across the Danube, Trajan took the capital, Sarmizegetusa, in 106; Decebalus killed himself and Dacia became a province. In 114 he turned east, annexed Armenia, took Ctesiphon and sailed down the Tigris to the Persian Gulf, boasting to the Senate that he had gone farther than Alexander. It did not last. Revolts broke out behind him, his assault on the desert city of Hatra failed, he fell ill and died in Cilicia in 117, and Hadrian at once gave up everything east of the Euphrates.¹²

Rome remembers him through his Column, dedicated in 113: a spiral frieze some 200 m long with over 2,600 figures in 155 scenes of the Dacian wars. It is propaganda in stone, but many of its details match other evidence.¹³

Why it ranks here: Recognition, record, consequence and legacy all score 4: Dacia stayed Roman, but the eastern conquests were gone within months of his death. Our main narrative, Cassius Dio, survives for these years only in a Byzantine epitome, so certainty 2. He ties Agrippa on 38 and ranks above him because he is better known.

Read the full story of Trajan ›

5 Marcus Agrippa, c. 63 to 12 BC

Lived

Born about 63 BC (64 to 62 in some accounts); died 12 BC

Served

Octavian's chief general and admiral from 41 BC; consul 37, 28 and 27 BC

Greatest victory

Actium, 31 BC: Antony had 230 (Lendering) to 500 (Plutarch) warships; Octavian's side 250 to over 400

Record

Took Perusia (40 BC); won Mylae and Naulochus (36 BC) and Actium (31 BC)

Legacy

Won the civil wars for Augustus; his name is still on the Pantheon

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was born about 63 BC into an obscure family and was a school friend of Octavian, Caesar's heir. He was with him in Greece when Caesar was murdered, helped him raise an army, and in 40 BC forced Mark Antony's brother Lucius to surrender at Perusia, the first of his victories for Octavian.¹⁴

Octavian was no admiral, and Sextus Pompey's fleet was starving Italy. Agrippa built a new navy, cut a harbor to train it near Naples, and in 36 BC beat a Pompeian squadron at Mylae. Off Naulochus that September each side put out 300 ships; Agrippa's heavier ships and his new grapnel, fired from a catapult, gave him the day, and Appian counts three ships lost against 28 Pompeian sunk and all but 17 of the rest burned, captured or driven ashore. In 31 BC he cut Antony's supply line in Greece and commanded the whole fleet at Actium. The counts disagree: Plutarch gives Antony 500 warships and Octavian 250, Jona Lendering puts Antony's navy at 230, and World History Encyclopedia gives Octavian over 400. Plutarch, citing Augustus, has 300 ships captured.¹⁵

Myth vs fact: the Pantheon in Rome still carries Agrippa's name across its front, but the building you see was rebuilt by Hadrian more than a century later, who kept Agrippa's inscription.¹⁶

Why it ranks here: Full marks for record and consequence: Naulochus and Actium won two wars and ended the civil wars. His victories were credited to Augustus, so few readers know him: recognition and legacy 3. He ties Trajan on 38 and ranks below him because Trajan is better known.

6 Pompey the Great, 106 to 48 BC

Lived

106 to 28 September 48 BC; murdered in Egypt

Served

Roman Republic; Sulla's civil war, Spain against Sertorius, the pirates, the Mithridatic War, the civil war against Caesar

Greatest victory

The pirate war, 67 BC: the seas cleared in less than three months (Plutarch)

Record

Won in Africa, against the pirates and against Mithridates; outwitted at Lauron, crushed at Pharsalus (48 BC)

Legacy

Annexed Syria and reshaped the Roman East

Gnaeus Pompeius was born in 106 BC, the son of a general, and at 23 raised a private army of three legions from his father's veterans to fight for Sulla. In Africa, Plutarch says, he routed an army of 20,000 of whom only 3,000 escaped, and Sulla greeted him as Magnus, “the Great”. In Spain he met his match: Sertorius trapped him outside Lauron and made him watch the allied town burn.¹⁷

His great work was in the East. Under the Gabinian law of 67 BC he split the Mediterranean into thirteen districts and, by Plutarch's account, drove the pirates from the sea in less than three months, taking 90 warships and more than 20,000 prisoners. Given the war against Mithridates of Pontus in 66 BC, he beat the king in a night battle by the Euphrates, then made Armenia a client kingdom and Syria a Roman province; the inscriptions carried in his triumph boasted of 39 cities founded. Then the civil war with Caesar went wrong. At Pharsalus in 48 BC his 45,000 men lost to Caesar's 22,000, and he fled to Egypt, where he was stabbed to death as he came ashore.¹⁸

Myth vs fact: he did not give himself the name “the Great”; Plutarch says Sulla hailed him so, or the army in Africa, and that Pompey was the last to use it.¹⁹

Why it ranks here: Consequence 4 for the pirate war and a reshaped East, but record 3, because Sertorius outgeneralled him at Lauron and Caesar destroyed his army at Pharsalus; Plutarch and Caesar give certainty 4. He ties Sulla on 36 and ranks above him on recognition, 4 against 3.

Read the full story of Pompey the Great ›

7 Sulla, 138 to 78 BC

Lived

138 to 78 BC

Served

Roman Republic; Jugurthine War, Social War, First Mithridatic War, civil war; dictator 82 to 79 BC

Greatest victory

Chaeronea, 86 BC: Appian gives Archelaus 120,000 men, Plutarch gives Sulla under 15,000 foot and 1,500 horse

Record

Won Chaeronea (86 BC), Orchomenus and the Colline Gate (82 BC); his own wing broke at the Colline Gate

Legacy

First Roman to take Rome with his own army; dictator of the proscriptions

Lucius Cornelius Sulla, born in 138 BC to an old but penniless patrician family, made his name as Marius's quaestor by talking King Bocchus into handing over Jugurtha. Consul in 88 BC, he was given the war against Mithridates of Pontus, and when the command was voted to Marius he marched his army on Rome: the first time a Roman army had broken into the city's sacred boundary.²⁰

He took Athens and then, in 86 BC, met Mithridates' general Archelaus at Chaeronea. Appian gives Archelaus 120,000 men and Sulla fewer than a third as many; Plutarch, following Sulla's own memoirs, gives the Romans under 15,000 foot and 1,500 horse. At Orchomenus his legions broke before the Pontic cavalry until Sulla grabbed a standard and ran out at the enemy himself. Back in Italy in 83 BC, he won the civil war at Rome's Colline Gate, a battle in which his own left wing was shattered and Crassus won on the right. As dictator he posted proscription lists that, by one modern count, cost seventy senators and 1,600 equestrians their lives.²¹

Myth vs fact: the claim that Sulla lost only 14 or 15 men at Chaeronea comes from his own memoirs, a boast no one could check.²²

Why it ranks here: Record 5: he beat Mithridates' far larger armies twice and won the civil war in the field. But he made peace with Mithridates and is remembered as the dictator of the proscriptions, so consequence 4 and legacy 3, and much of what we know comes through Plutarch from Sulla's own memoirs, so certainty 3. He ties Pompey on 36 and ranks below him on recognition, 3 against 4.

8 Aurelian, AD 214 to 275

Lived

9 September 214 or 215 to 275; murdered on the road to Byzantium

Served

Cavalry commander under Claudius II; emperor 270 to 275

Greatest victory

Emesa, 272, over Zenobia of Palmyra

Record

Beaten at Placentia (271); won at Fanum Fortunae, the Metaurus and Ticinum (271), Immae and Emesa (272) and Châlons (274)

Legacy

Reunited the empire as “Restorer of the World”; began Rome's Aurelian Walls

Lucius Domitius Aurelianus was born in the Balkans in 214 or 215, of humble family, and rose to command the cavalry under Claudius II. The troops proclaimed him emperor in 270, when the empire had split in three: the Gallic Empire held the West and Queen Zenobia of Palmyra much of the East.²³

He began badly. In 271 the Juthungi, raiding Italy, beat him near Placentia so heavily that, in the words of the Historia Augusta, the empire was almost destroyed; he recovered and beat them at Fanum Fortunae, on the Metaurus and at Ticinum, then began Rome's new walls, about 19 km long. In 272 he marched east, beat Zenobia's army near Antioch, perhaps at Immae, and again at Emesa, took Palmyra and caught the queen as she tried to cross the Euphrates. When Palmyra rebelled in 273 he destroyed it. In 274 he met the Gallic emperor Tetricus at Châlons; Tetricus deserted his own army, and Gaul and Britain came back to Rome. Aurelian called himself restitutor orbis, “restorer of the world”, and was murdered in 275.²⁴

Myth vs fact: the Historia Augusta says he killed 48 Sarmatians with his own hand in a day and over 950 in a few days, but that collection mixes fiction with fact, and every narrative of his reign was written about a century later.²⁵

Why it ranks here: Consequence 5: in four years of campaigning he put back together an empire split in three. The defeat at Placentia costs a point on record, few readers know him, so recognition 3, and the late and unreliable sources hold certainty to 2, which leaves him one point behind Sulla and Pompey.

9 Gaius Marius, 157 to 86 BC

Lived

Born about 157 BC near Arpinum; died January 86 BC

Served

Consul seven times; Rome’s commander in Numidia and against the Cimbri and Teutones

Greatest victory

Aquae Sextiae, 102 BC

Record

Won the Jugurthine War (107 to 105 BC), Aquae Sextiae (102) and, with Catulus, Vercellae (101); driven from Rome by Sulla (88)

Legacy

Hailed as “the third founder of Rome”; the “Marian reforms” are largely a modern idea

Gaius Marius, a new man from Arpinum born about 157 BC, rose through the army to be consul seven times, more than any Roman before him. Consul in 107 BC, he took over the war against Jugurtha of Numidia and, Sallust writes, filled his legions with volunteers, mostly from the poorest citizens. He beat Jugurtha twice in the field, but diplomacy ended the war: in 105 BC King Bocchus handed Jugurtha over to Marius’s quaestor, Sulla.²⁶

By then the migrating Cimbri and Teutones had destroyed a Roman army at Arausio, and Rome kept re-electing Marius. In 102 BC he destroyed the Ambrones and Teutones near Aquae Sextiae in southern Gaul, and in 101 BC, with Quintus Catulus, the Cimbri at Vercellae in northern Italy. The tolls cannot be trusted: for Aquae Sextiae Plutarch gives over 100,000 killed or captured and Livy’s Periochae 200,000 killed and 90,000 taken; for Vercellae, 120,000 to 160,000 killed and 60,000 captured. Plutarch says the people hailed him as Rome’s third founder. Driven out by Sulla in 88 BC, he returned with Cinna, killed his enemies and died days into his seventh consulship.²⁷

Myth vs fact: no ancient author mentions any “Marian reforms”; as the historian Michał Norbert Faszcza shows, nineteenth-century scholars built that professional army out of a few passages.²⁸

Why it ranks here: Two victories that rescued Italy from the Cimbri and Teutones earn 4 for battlefield record and consequence. Recognition, legacy and certainty stay at 3: few readers outside Roman history know him, his famous reforms may be a myth, and the numbers rest on Plutarch and late summaries. That makes 34 points, one behind Aurelian.

Read the full story of Gaius Marius ›

10 Mark Antony, 83 to 30 BC

Lived

Born 14 January 83 BC; killed himself in Alexandria in 30 BC

Served

Caesar’s cavalry commander and lieutenant; triumvir ruling the East, 43 to 31 BC

Greatest victory

Philippi, 42 BC

Record

Won Philippi (42 BC); beaten at Mutina (43), lost 20,000 foot and 4,000 horse in Media (36, Plutarch) and lost Actium (31)

Legacy

Shakespeare’s Antony: remembered as Cleopatra’s lover more than as a general

Mark Antony, born in 83 BC, made his name as a cavalry officer in Egypt and Gaul and led Caesar’s left wing at Pharsalus in 48 BC. After the Ides of March he fought Caesar’s heir Octavian and lost the first round: at Mutina in April 43 BC the consuls, with Octavian beside them, beat him twice and drove him over the Alps.²⁹

Reconciled with Octavian, he won the war at Philippi in October 42 BC, where Appian gives each side 19 legions. Antony stormed Cassius’ camp while Brutus routed Octavian’s wing, and in a second battle he broke Brutus’ line. Jona Lendering counts him among the best generals of his age. In 36 BC he invaded Media with, by Plutarch’s count, 60,000 Roman foot, 10,000 horse and 30,000 allies, failed before Praaspa and retreated; Plutarch says 20,000 foot and 4,000 horse died, over half of disease. In 31 BC Agrippa penned his fleet in at Actium; Antony broke out after Cleopatra, his army surrendered, and in 30 BC he killed himself in Alexandria.³⁰

Myth vs fact: Plutarch has a lovesick Antony “dragged along by the woman” out of the battle, but Lendering reads a planned break-out on the afternoon wind that saved the leaders and lost the war. Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra fixed the lover in memory, not the soldier.³¹

Why it ranks here: Cleopatra and Shakespeare make him better known than his battles, so recognition 4 but legacy 3. Philippi was his, but Mutina, Media and Actium were defeats, so battlefield record 3, and Philippi settled who ruled only until Actium, consequence 3. He ties Scipio Aemilianus on 33 points and goes ahead on recognition.

11 Scipio Aemilianus, 185 to 129 BC

Lived

Born 185 or 184 BC; died suddenly in 129 BC, amid talk of foul play

Served

Son of Aemilius Paullus, adopted into the Scipios; consul in 147 and 134 BC

Greatest victory

Carthage, 146 BC

Record

Took Carthage (146 BC) and Numantia (133 BC), both by siege; won the mural crown in Spain (151)

Legacy

The destroyer of Carthage who wept over it; patron of the historian Polybius

Scipio Aemilianus, born in 185 or 184 BC, was a son of Aemilius Paullus, adopted by the son of Scipio Africanus. He probably saw his first battle at Pydna in 168 BC, won the mural crown for scaling an enemy wall in Spain in 151 and served as a military tribune before Carthage in 149 and 148; he was made consul for 147 though under age.³²

In command, he walled Carthage off by land and closed its harbor mouth with a mole. In the spring of 146 BC his men broke in and fought house to house for six days and nights, Appian says, until 50,000 people came out of the citadel to surrender. Appian has him weep and quote Homer on Troy, telling Polybius he feared the same fate for Rome; the city was razed and its people sold. In 134 BC, consul again, he went to end the war with Numantia in Spain. He drilled a slack army, refused the battles the Numantines offered and ringed the town with a wall and seven towers; with some 60,000 men against about 4,000 defenders, he starved it into surrender in 133 BC after eleven months.³³

Myth vs fact: nobody sowed the ruins of Carthage with salt; Appian never mentions it, and the story is a later invention.³⁴

Why it ranks here: Ending Carthage as a state earns full marks for consequence, and Numantia closed a second war, but both were sieges, not battles in the open field, so battlefield record 4. Few readers know him apart from his adoptive grandfather, recognition 2, which leaves him level with Mark Antony on 33 points and behind on recognition.

12 Augustus, 63 BC to AD 14

Lived

Born 63 BC; Rome’s first emperor from 27 BC; died AD 14

Served

Triumvir from 43 BC, sole ruler after Actium; in person at Mutina, Philippi, Perusia, in Sicily, Dalmatia and Spain

Greatest victory

Actium, 31 BC, won for him by Agrippa

Record

Shared the win at Mutina (43 BC), took Perusia (40); his wing routed at Philippi (42), beaten at sea by Sextus Pompey (36)

Legacy

Saluted imperator 21 times; founded the empire his generals defended

Gaius Octavius, born in 63 BC, was a political nobody when the murder of his great-uncle Julius Caesar in 44 BC made him Caesar’s heir. He raised an army of Caesar’s veterans on his own authority, and in April 43 BC he fought beside the consuls at Mutina. Suetonius reports Antony’s claim that he fled the first battle, but all agree that in the second he carried a wounded bearer’s eagle himself.³⁵

At Philippi in 42 BC, weakened by illness, he was driven from his camp by Brutus’ men and escaped to Antony’s division; Antony won the battle. He starved Antony’s brother out of Perusia in 40 BC. Against Sextus Pompey he lost fleets to storms and a sea battle, until Agrippa destroyed Sextus’ fleet at Naulochus in 36 BC; Antony jeered that Octavian lay in a stupor until Agrippa had put the enemy to flight. Suetonius says he fought only two foreign wars in person, in Dalmatia, where he was wounded, and in Spain. Yet in his Res Gestae he counts three triumphs and 21 salutations as imperator, and the empire he founded lasted.³⁶

Myth vs fact: Actium is remembered as Octavian’s victory, but the fleet that blockaded and beat Antony there in 31 BC was under Agrippa’s command.³⁷

Why it ranks here: Every reader of Roman history knows the first emperor, recognition 4, and his wars are well documented, certainty 4. Judged on the battles he led himself, with his wing routed at Philippi and Naulochus and Actium won by Agrippa, he takes 2 for battlefield record and 3 for consequence. He ties Titus on 32 points and goes ahead on recognition.

Read the full story of Augustus ›

13 Titus, AD 39 to 81

Lived

Born 30 December AD 39; emperor 79 to 81; died 81

Served

Legate of the 15th legion in Judaea from 67; left in command of the war when Vespasian went for the throne in 69

Greatest victory

Jerusalem, AD 70

Record

Took Jerusalem (AD 70); in 67 to 68 shared in taking rebel towns under his father

Legacy

The Arch of Titus, with the Temple menorah carried in triumph

Titus, Vespasian’s elder son, was born on 30 December AD 39, schooled at court with Claudius’s son Britannicus and served as a military tribune in Germany and Britain. In 67 he took the 15th legion to the Jewish war under his father. Suetonius credits him with taking Tarichaeae and Gamala, but John Donahue warns that Josephus flatters him and that he never wholly subdued a defended town on his own.³⁸

When Vespasian left to win the throne in 69, Titus stayed to finish the war. In the spring of 70 he besieged Jerusalem with four legions; within four weeks his men were through the outer wall, and a siege wall let hunger do the rest. Inside, by our sum of Josephus’ figures, some 23,400 fighters were split between two hostile factions. In August the Temple burned; ancient death tolls run from about 600,000 to Josephus’ 1,100,000. In 71 he triumphed with his father, and around 82 the Arch of Titus rose on the Sacred Way, the menorah among its spoils.³⁹

Myth vs fact: nobody knows whether Titus wanted the Temple destroyed. Josephus, a Jew with strong Roman sympathies, has him vote to spare it and a soldier fire it unbidden; the later Christian chronicler Sulpicius Severus says Titus argued it should be overthrown.⁴⁰

Why it ranks here: The fall of Jerusalem and the Arch of Titus keep his name alive far beyond Roman history, legacy 4. But it was his one great campaign, a siege that ended a provincial revolt, so battlefield record 3 and consequence 3, and Josephus wrote for his patrons, certainty 3. He ties Augustus on 32 points and falls behind him on recognition.

14 Fabius Maximus, c. 275 to 203 BC

Lived

Born about 275 BC; died 203 BC, as Hannibal left Italy

Served

Consul five times; dictator after Lake Trasimene, 217 BC

Greatest victory

Tarentum, 209 BC

Record

Triumph over the Ligurians (233 BC); rescued Minucius (217), retook Tarentum (209); outwitted by Hannibal’s ox ruse (217)

Legacy

“Cunctator”, the Delayer; the Fabian strategy and the Fabian Society

Quintus Fabius Maximus, of the old patrician Fabii, was consul five times and had triumphed over the Ligurians before Hannibal invaded Italy. After Hannibal destroyed a consular army at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC, Rome made him dictator. Knowing his army could not win a pitched battle, he kept to the hills, harried foragers and let the invader wear himself out.⁴¹

It was not popular. Hannibal slipped a trap in Campania by driving some 2,000 oxen with burning torches on their horns at the Romans guarding the pass. “Cunctator”, the Delayer, began as a jibe, and his master of horse Minucius was given an equal command; when Hannibal ambushed Minucius, Fabius came to the rescue, and Polybius judged that all had again been saved by his caution. The consuls of 216 dropped his method and lost at Cannae. In 209 BC, consul for the fifth time, he retook Tarentum with help from inside; Livy reports 30,000 slaves taken, and Plutarch says 30,000 Tarentines were sold as slaves. He died in 203 BC, about when Hannibal sailed from Italy.⁴²

Myth vs fact: delay did not win the war; Fabius fought Scipio’s plan to carry it to Africa, and that plan won it. Still, Livy quotes Ennius, “one man by delaying restored our state”, and in 1884 the Fabian Society took his name.⁴³

Why it ranks here: The word “Fabian” keeps him alive, legacy 4, and Polybius, Livy and Plutarch tell his story, certainty 4. But he won no great battle, battlefield record 2, and Scipio, not he, ended the war, consequence 3. He ties Flavius Aetius on 31 points, on recognition and on consequence, and goes ahead as the older.

15 Flavius Aetius, c. AD 391 to 454

Lived

Born about 391; killed by Valentinian III in the palace on 21 September 454

Served

Commander of the western field army in Gaul from the 420s; master of the Western Empire for a quarter of a century

Greatest victory

Catalaunian Plains, 451

Record

Relieved Arles (427), checked Attila (451); beaten by Boniface near Ariminum (432)

Legacy

“The last of the Romans”, the general who stopped Attila

Flavius Aetius, born about 391, spent part of his youth as a hostage among the Huns and learned their language. He made his name by relieving Arles from the Visigoths in 427, lost a battle near Ariminum in 432 to his rival Boniface, and still came back to carry the fortunes of the West for a quarter of a century. His best troops, J. B. Bury notes, were Hun auxiliaries, who in 436 destroyed the Burgundian kingdom for him.⁴⁴

In 451 Attila invaded Gaul; Jordanes, writing a century later, gives him half a million men. Allied with the Visigoth king Theoderic, Aetius relieved Orléans and caught the Huns on the Catalaunian Plains near Troyes. Theoderic fell, but the Huns were driven back into their camp; Jordanes speaks of 165,000 dead on both sides. In 452 the Huns invaded Italy and razed Aquileia, and in 454 Valentinian III, persuaded that his general threatened him, cut him down with his own sword.⁴⁵

Myth vs fact: the battle did not save Western civilization; Bury notes Attila was already in full retreat and argues the danger “did not mean so much as has been commonly assumed”. Procopius thought Aetius or his rival Boniface could equally be called “the last of the Romans”.⁴⁶

Why it ranks here: Remembered as the last of the Romans, he takes 4 for legacy. But the Catalaunian Plains checked Attila without ending the threat, and the West fell within a generation of his murder, so battlefield record 3 and consequence 3; Jordanes, a century later, is the main witness, certainty 2. He ties Fabius Maximus on 31 points, on recognition and consequence, and goes below him as the younger.