Total War: Attila

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Aaron,

Rome went from using in house Italians because obviously that's where they started.

Exactly that. And they immediately incorporated non-Roman peoples. By those I mean all the groups and tribes who were living outside the city and had, at one time, been conquered enemies: Etruscans, Samnites, Greeks, Celts, you name it. All became nicely incorporated in the Roman state, first as allies, then as citizens. Why should the Romans, with that development in mind, have treated the ‘barbarians’ any different? Only with our modern hindsight do we see a difference, but treating this as a black and white difference would be painting it as a wrong image.

. No one with an Italia heritage wanted to join the Legions anymore. It was dangerous, dirty, no money in it, and if some disease didn't kill you most likely an opposing Army would.

Actually that included other citizens from other provinces: Greece, Spain, Gaul, you name it. It’s a common development for many empires. Notwithstanding that, it does not mean the end of any empire, as the East Romans proved.

After the extreme Roman failure of Adrianople, it was pretty much over as Italian armies were replaced with Barbarian mercenaries.

Sorry but that’s not an accurate description. The legions had for a very long time not been ‘Italian’ anymore. That’s just wrong. Non-Roman soldiers, mercenaries and allies had long been fighting in the armies, and many in the standing units too. Italian had become a minority for a long time, the rest of the provinces being the bulk of the troops. This did not change after Adrianople. What did change was the strategic decision not to risk large battles if possible. What also changed was the political decision to accept foreign groups under their own leadership. The legions were not replaced with barbarian mercenaries, that’s a myth.

Instead the Romans spit in their eye, and we got the sacking of Rome.

Alaric was denied a fixed position within the Romanpolitical landscape, based on a standing army command which would confirm his leadership over his ‘clients’. Racism had nothing (or very little) to do with the sack of Rome.

Only reason the East kept in power as long as they did was because of the Theodocian walls though Pope Innocent III helped out with that when he sent a crusade to it.

Wrong on all accounts.
The eastern Roman Empire lasted longer for many reasons, these being strategical, political, religious and economical. The walls played a part but they were not the only reason.
Pope Innocent III never sent a crusade against Constantinople. One of his conditions for the crusade was that no Christian city would be attacked. It was the venetians who, after the promised money as not raised (the French failed to live up to their promise) they first attacked Zara (well, the French again) and then Constantinople. Pope Innocent at first excommunicated the perpetrators when he learned of this afterwards but was forced to retract that to keep the crusade going.

Note: Didn't Edward Gibbons write the fall and decline of the Roman Empire in the 18th century? Thought he wrote it during the American Revolution or maybe before it. I'll go look it up.

You are quite correct there. I lumped him together with the many ‘scholars’ of the 19th century who wrote very silly things about the Romans.