However, military service was still a dangerous and difficult way to make a living, and did not strongly appeal to those who had other options.Īs you noted, this trend continued into the early modern period. In the medieval period, political and economic power was generally correlated with military service among the elite, and medieval peasants were not the unwilling spear-carriers that they're often made out to be. In ancient antiquity, some of the Greek states and the Roman Republic made military service a civic duty for the middling and the elite, but these systems collapsed under the strain of more frequent military campaigning over wider areas and the need to garrison captured territory.
In at least Western history, it might be easier to find times when military service, particularly service in the ranks (broadly speaking) was not left to the poor and marginal.
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