High Imperial Roman army vs Late Roman army

[Robert Vermaat]

This has been discussed to death already, but it’s no problem to refresh that once in a while.

Trajan type army was focused on Heavy infantry as its striking force. Those guys had big shields and used the Gladius for stabbing in formation. They carried the Pilum to soften ranks or as a spear against horsemen. They had small detatchment of Auxilia cavalry to guard the flanks and archers from Crete and Syria

There’s no difference where formations are concerned, it’s not o that legionaries stabbed all at once. Leghionaries had no spears against horsemen – you’re thinking of the auxilia, which you are forgetting here. Auxilia made up quite a percentage of the Roman armies in on the battlefield, and they had mail armour, spathae and a hasta, plus an oval shield (quite like the Late Roman armies). Archers were also present, like other troops throwing stuff throughout the battle.

Late Roman army-The infantry has been weakened their Lorica segmentata was no longer used. They are no longer in ridgid formation with their smaller shields, Spatha longsword and weaker javelins but have better cavalry like Cataphracts plus the East fielded more archers.

As has been mentioned before, ‘weakened’ is incorrect. Also, their shield were by no means smaller, just oval or round (like those of the earlier auxilia). Formations could be as rigid as during earlier Roman periods. The javelins were not ‘weaker’, just for a different puropose – similar javelins were also used under Trajan. It’s just that the pilum was no longer used, probably because the tactics changed from offensive to defensive. Archers were also fielded in the West – Roman armies always used continuing fire throughout the battle.

Different armies for different times. What changed was that due to a changing society, demographics and politics, there was no longer an unlimited resource of soldiers, meaning large battles could no longer be risked as much.