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08-05-2003, 12:45 PM

Here's another idea to play devil's advocate with my own arguement: 
 
As far as training goes, would a Legionary soldier have an advantage by having battlefield experience and surviving? This is in opposition to say a barbarian of whatever flavor whose life expectancy may be shorter. 
 
I may not be verballizing this right, please bear with me on this: 
 
Ok, say a barbarian goes on the field, how much "practice" has he had? What are his odds of survival? I'd guess pretty low if he's up against Romans regularly. 
 
On the flipside, the Roman Legionary I would venture to guess would have a better chance of survival. Having some experience would be an enormous advantage. Until that point any soldier is an unknown quantity, but I imagine a legionary would have a greater chance to be out there, in action (at least in some way) and be of a greater experience than a barbarian. 
 
I'm just looking at the value placed on veteran and "blooded" legions over "unblooded" or green Legions by people like Caesar, Agrippa, Augustus, Antony, Pompeii etc. 
 
Just more food for thought... 
 
Oh, BTW, congrats Los on the ETS. 
 
Caius Livius Varus Germanicus ================ 
"Self-Pity" 
I never saw a wild thing 
sorry for itself. 
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough 
without ever having felt sorry for itself. 
 
D. H. Lawrence

Jeroen Pelgrom · 08-05-2003, 01:22 PM

In terms of experience, i think that most Germanic soldiers would have at least some. Life in Germany then was pretty hard with a lot of tribal warfare, compare this with the Celts. 
 
THE main difference between a Roman legionaire and a German would be that little extra that is the difference between an amateur and a pro. I suspec that most of the Germanic soldiers would be part-time soldiers: in peace time farmers and in times of war soldiers. All the men in a Germanic tribe would be tought how to use a weapon, just in case. You would have a small corps of professional Germanic soldiers which acted as police or bodyguard for the leader etc. 
 
But this may also well go for the Roman Republican armies. 
The thing that adds up for a Roman are all the little things -> good armour, tactics on the battlefield, good leadership, confidence, long term overall strategy, plenty supplies. 
 
If you put an experienced Roman soldiers vs an experienced Germanic soldier, both would have had simularities in terms of psychology. 
But if you only have a tunic, small shield and a sword and your opponent is fully armoured and carries a big shield and a rather nasty sword, you will have a really tough time trying to get through. 
 
vale, jeroen

NightHunter24 · 08-05-2003, 02:10 PM

I have another question here: 
 
.....I believe that Legionaries and Barbarians had pros and cons to their training, as you all have expressed here. 
 
1) So how would one explain the more frequent defeats of the later Roman Empire's armies at the hands of Goths, Huns, Visigoths, etc.? 
 
2) What this a result of a degenerative factor in training or was it as a result of more advancements (training, technology, etc.)within the barbarian hordes? 
 
Just a bit curious..

08-05-2003, 02:16 PM

Congrats on Retiring Los...any big plans? Magnus/Matt 
Legio XXX "Ulpia Victrix" Coh I 
 
"I know I was born, and I know that I'll die. But the in between is mine." 
 
- Number of posts: current +1248

Los456 · 08-05-2003, 04:16 PM

Yeah I just want to be a ranker in a cohort somewhere... 
 
Los

Los456 · 08-05-2003, 04:44 PM

RE: value of Veteran status. 
 
I believe that veteran status does make a big deal. While the majority of well trained units and soldiers will do well in their first encounters there are also problem children that won't show their true inabilities until combat. More importantly than how the troops perform is how the leaders perform. You can have a very well trained unit but with a lousy leader it could perform disastrously. And it does seem that there was an uneven quality to the leadership at Tribune level and above. Some green units might have green leaders as opposed to veteran leaders (And I'm talking at higher than Century level since even if a good unit is put into an unrecoverable situation, it's normally screwed). 
 
Another important thing about veteran status is that the units that perform well get "stuck in" more often in the more dicey situations and come out with even more experience and prestige. (there is of course a corollary effect in that they can be ground down and destroyed faster too). 
 
And while there may have been a very methodical approach to training legionaries, we don't have much info on how leaders (tribunes/legates, etc) were trained except OJT. Unless someone does? This would have been passed through word of mouth (from superiors ) and through "professional" reading (i.e. Homer, Polybius, Xenophon and other lost authors) 
 
"1) So how would one explain the more frequent defeats of the later Roman Empire's armies at the hands of Goths, Huns, Visigoths, etc.?" 
 
Certainly by this time much of the standardization evidenced in republican and early Imperial periods seems to have degraded. For instance vegitius' well known treatise on how Romans should train is an attempt to restore some of the old methods to an apparently lackadaisical army. 
 
Here's an important thing to consider: A unit's combat efficiency/proficiency is a highly perishable thing. A veteran legion can just have finished the best campaign in history. But if it goes into garrison and lets lapse it's training routine, and experienced a wave of retirements of transfers, it will not be the same unit. You might get a new legate, who's priority is on road construction in the area, and then policing and then other engineering tasks, and he sets policy that takes time away from training and devotes them to other tasks. You might get an emperor that will let him get away with that, especially if it's a time of relative peace. Or other political intrigues. Regardless, once a critical mass of leadership (at all levels) and experience fades off you have basically a green unit all over again. 
 
 
A good example is the "World-Famous" Tenth legion. (as Josephus puts it) Prior to the Roman-Judeo war it had been allowed to lapse into an incredibly sorry state and it took several years of reorganization, training and campaigning under it's new legate to get it back into an efficient state to allow it to take on the Jews during the revolt. 
 
 
"2) What this a result of a degenerative factor in training or was it as a result of more advancements (training, technology, etc.)within the barbarian hordes?" 
 
Stated above, BUT, the very term "barbarian" ( applied by the Romans) is deceptive as it allows us to believe that Germans were somehow unintelligent or unable to adapt or whatever. It's a deceptive term. The decay of the Roman empire was more than likely accompanied by growing efficiency of Barbarian war fighting methods and operations, (even if individual soldiers remained more or less the same. Just an opinion. 
 
Los 
 
BTW didn't the Romans end up "outsourcing" a lot of their security to the visigoths anyway? They must not have been too shabby.

***Praefectusclassis*** · 08-05-2003, 07:24 PM

On the training via literature of Roman officers, see: Campbell, B., 'Teach yourself how to be a general' in: JRS 77 (1987), 13-29. Greets 
 
Jasper

08-10-2003, 07:12 AM

That is an interesting thread. As usual, it began with one-on-one combat and ended Romans-vs-Germans. Nothing wrong with it. I would say it is inevitable . 
As for one-on-one combat, for me this discussion is rather ...hm... virtual, or imaginary. 
 
Romans didn't like 'duels'. They believed in formation and collective effort. When you have a comrade on your right and left it can hardly be called 'one-on-one', even in the heat of a messy battle. I suppose if there were only two legionaries they naturally formed some kind of formation, for instance, back-to-back. 
 
Every time when there was something slightly qualifying on-on-one combat, Romans were in disadvantage, taken by surprise: 
 
1. When Romans were building a fortifications around their camp. It is very difficult to force legionaries to do such a job fully armoured and armed. There were serious punishments for neglecting these things. But I wander if they worked. 
 
2. When Roman units were getting some food for their army in the neighborhood full of enemies. If you are busy in the field picking up harvest, you are not a match to a German (or a Celt) rushing out from some hiding place . 
 
For me personally there is no doubt that Romans were not worse (to say the least) then Germans or some other barbarians as swordsmen (in fencing) in any kind of combat. Till the second century AD (very roughly) they were the most agressive, bloodthirsty, furious and fearless warriors in the world. 
 
Regards, 
 
warrior11 
<img src="http://www.chathome.com.ua/smile/182.gif" style="border:0;"/>

NightHunter24 · 08-11-2003, 02:40 PM

Ave, Warrior11 
 
But I'm pretty sure that like in armies of any age, the legionary must have had some type of individual training to help him cope with the types of situations you just mentioned ( 3 on 1 ambushes, for example )...right? I mean, maybe I'm a little biased towrds the legionary, but, I'm assuming that a well trained legionary would be able to handle just about anything pertaining to the combat arts of his day. 
 
I remember reading somewhere a passage from a Roman writer ( was it Tacitus? ) that the roman legionary was ( or was trained to be ) more afraid of his commander than of the enemy.

08-11-2003, 04:08 PM

Wholeheartedly agree with all you have said. 
 
Only not sure that this phrase about legionarie 'more afraid of his commander than of the enemy'. Maybe it was said about Prussian soldier of Frederic the Great? 
 
Regards, 
 
warrior11 
<img src="http://www.chathome.com.ua/smile/182.gif" style="border:0;"/>

NightHunter24 · 08-11-2003, 08:59 PM

Like I said I read that a long time ago.....my memory goes from time to time 
 
Well, interesting thread so far.

Wagnijo · 08-18-2003, 07:08 PM

Just a few comments 
 
Size: 
 
A few of you has rightly pointed out that the reported 
largeness of the Germanic tribes should be take with an equally large grain of salt. 
 
But we have to consider that we are not comparing 
whole populations but rather the segments that was 
recruited for military service. 
 
When the Romans first encountered the Germanics in a serious way their citizen/farmer army was already a thing of the past. Instead they were recruiting from the 
poorer classes where you - anything equal - will expect 
a lower average height due to malnutrition in childhood. 
 
The Germanic warriors was OTOH recruited from the sons 
of the free well to do class of an fully agrarian society. 
 
Even though the germanic farmers probably had bad harvests on a regular basis am I confident that these boys would be the last to starve. 
 
All in all I would expect that the average Germanic warrior had an perhaps slight advantage in bodystrength, 
height and reach over the average Roman soldier in the first couple of cent. AD. 
 
Training : 
 
I think there is no match here. 
 
Germanic society was build around a warrior ideology and 
the boys destined to be warriors would have been training and playing combat related games from early 
childhood. 
 
His Roman counterpart would no doubt be tough and streetwise but he would only encounter real military training at some point in his late teens - at the earliest. 
And the the emphasis would be on formation fighting although some individual training would have occurred. 
 
Experience: 
 
Germanic warriors would probably more often fight other 
guys brought up their own tradition than Romans. Hence 
more single combat experience 
 
The Romans soldier would likewise be more likely to have 
meet an enemy fighting in his own style, probably during 
a civil war. 
 
Equipment 
 
The germanic Equipment would be more geared towards 
single combat. 
 
The Roman equipment would probably be of an overall better quality but it would likewise be geared towards formation fighting. 
 
Evidence 
 
It seems that every time the Romans had to bite the dust against an germanic foe they were forced into 
a situation were they either couldn't bring their formations 
up or the formations were broken early on. 
 
The classic example is of course Teutoburger Wald 
where an numeric inferior Germanic army made mincemeat out of 3 legions. 
 
There was of course the element of surprise but TW was 
a protracted running battle going on over several days so 
the Romans must at some early point have figured out what was going on. 
 
They were slaughtered in man on man fighting anyway. 
 
Cheers 
Wagnijo

08-20-2003, 01:39 AM

@Warrior 11 
 
Legions encamping had half their men working, half standing guard didn't they? so initially could only fight at half strength. 
 
Foragers suffer when ambushed because they are not expecting to fight, are often dispersed (so the fights are not 1:1, they are 1:man with the 1 being the forager) or carrying forage that they have to drop. 
 
Neither situation supports any conclusion on the fitness of the Roman legionary for 1:1 fighting. 
 
similarly ambushes such as Tuterberger wald - the Romans were not expecting to fight initially, and when deserted by their guides and erstwhile allies were lost and terrified - again the morale aspects are far more important than the physical ones IMO. 
 
contrast this with the Roman swrodsmen at Pydna who penetrated into the Macedonian phalanx and fought on their own at close quarters with the pikemen.

08-20-2003, 12:41 PM

Wagnijo, 
 
"But we have to consider that we are not comparing 
whole populations but rather the segments that was 
recruited for military service." 
 
I think you are underestimating the Roman military training system. Legionarys were put through an unbelievably grueling basic training course. Those that weren't strong enough physically, didn't make it. The Romans were probably the best trained army in regards to physical fitness aside from the Spartans. Height, in combat has little effect on soldiers armed with tower shields, fighting in ranks. In fact, this would probably make it easier to come underneath a germanic's guard and stab the belly. 
 
"All in all I would expect that the average Germanic warrior had an perhaps slight advantage in bodystrength, 
height and reach over the average Roman soldier in the first couple of cent. AD." 
 
You also stated that the the citizen farmer/soldier ceased to exist. But you are also not considering the fact that Roman legions were also recruited from conquered territories, producing non-native Italian legionarys, as well as auxilliaries from gaul and germany. Now, consider too, that once in the army, the legions had access to the best medical facilities in the entire western world. I don't think germans did. As such, a Roman army had a much higher degree of physical health than say, a germanic one. I don't ever recall hearing anything of germanic surgeons or medical knowledge. 
 
Height is also not an indicator of physical strength. Short, stockey body types have an incredible potential for power, as well, someone that is not very tall, has a lower centre of gravity. Making them much more balanced, and difficult to knock down in combat. Reach is only a factor in a duel with long weapons. I bet you, that 100% of the time, just about every ENEMY of Rome had a reach advantage. Romans were using 20" blades, remember? 
 
Training 
 
I think there is no match here. 
 
Germanic society was build around a warrior ideology and 
the boys destined to be warriors would have been training and playing combat related games from early 
childhood. 
 
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.....Wow. That is one heck of a statement. So based on your theory then, childhood games are an immaculate substitute for professional training and discipline. Which only the Roman army had. I`m sorry, but I can`t see that holding much weight. Ask anyone that`s been in the army. I don`t think we can accurately assess either, whether or not Roman children played the same games. In fact, one of your points was that the legions were more and more recruited from the poor, lower classes. It would make sense to me then, that survival for these kids was an everyday battle. Between surviving on the streets, finding food, etc. 
 
His Roman counterpart would no doubt be tough and streetwise but he would only encounter real military training at some point in his late teens - at the earliest. 
And the the emphasis would be on formation fighting although some individual training would have occurred. 
 
Again, what do prior, childhood experiences have to do with actual combat. As near as I can figure, nothing. The differences experienced in training for warfare and fighting with the local bully are so vast as to almost make these points invalid. You speak of a warrior society. I think of the Spartans when I hear this. When I hear of it applied to `germanics` I consider a culture brought up on a backround of tribal warfare. This is no substitue for discipline. It is no subsititute for an army trained in all aspects of warfare. It is not a substitute for the physical ability and adaptability of the Roman army. 
 
The emphasis on fighting in formation is one of the reaons that the Romans were successful, and why they had an empire and Germany didn`t, I might add. 
 
Germanic warriors would probably more often fight other 
guys brought up their own tradition than Romans. Hence 
more single combat experience 
 
And that is valid when fighting in an army numbering in the thousands how again? And do you speak of these germanics figthing in a context of sword and sheild, or just fist fights? Again, there is a difference eh? Naturally, there is also a wide gap between the experience of fighting with the boys down the path, and fighting in an all out battle. They don`t even compare. 
 
Equipment 
 
The germanic Equipment would be more geared towards 
single combat. 
 
The Roman equipment would probably be of an overall better quality but it would likewise be geared towards formation fighting. 
 
Point here being? 
 
It seems that every time the Romans had to bite the dust against an germanic foe they were forced into 
a situation were they either couldn't bring their formations 
up or the formations were broken early on. 
 
Do you have any idea how long the Romans occupied germanic territory, west of the Rhine and Danube? Centuries. Guess how that was accomplished....it wasn`t through diplomacy. 
 
The classic example is of course Teutoburger Wald 
where an numeric inferior Germanic army made mincemeat out of 3 legions. 
 
There was of course the element of surprise but TW was 
a protracted running battle going on over several days so 
the Romans must at some early point have figured out what was going on. 
 
I think more research on the Varus Disaster is required on your part here. The Roman colum was stretched out over 10 miles, in some parts, the legions were 3 ranks wide. Element of surprise? They were betrayed, and set up in one of the best ambushes ever executed. For further reading, try [url=http://pub45.ezboard.com/fromanarmytalkfrm1.showMessage?topicID=223.topic" target="top]here[/url], [url=http://pub45.ezboard.com/fromanarmytalkfrm1.showMessage?topicID=432.topic" target="top]here[/url], and for a translation of Vellian, go [url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vell.html" target="top]here[/url]. For a good deal of reading on Roman combat tactics, go [url=http://pub45.ezboard.com/fromanarmytalkfrm1.showMessage?topicID=23.topic" target="top]here[/url]. 
 
They were slaughtered in man on man fighting anyway. 
 
They were tired, hungry, constantly on the move, in foreign territory, and as you stated, lost the element of surprise. Not to mention the fact that Ammianus was likely bringing up more troops as the days stretched on. 
 
Are you aware that the Romans made several punitive raids into german territory after this fact, and recovered 2 of thier eagles? I wonder how many germans died during those raids...slaughtered by one of the most efficient fighting machines ever witnessed in human history? 
 
 
 
 
 
Magnus/Matt 
Legio XXX "Ulpia Victrix" Coh I 
 
"I know I was born, and I know that I'll die. But the in between is mine." 
 
- Number of posts: current +1248Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=tiberiuslantaniusmagnus>tiberius lantanius magnus</A> at: 8/20/03 2:45 pm

08-20-2003, 02:30 PM

Stickers, 
 
 
 
QUOTE: "Neither situation supports any conclusion on the fitness of the Roman legionary for 1:1 fighting." 
 
That is EXACTLY what I meant. 
 
 
Regards, 
 
warrior11 
<img src="http://www.chathome.com.ua/smile/182.gif" style="border:0;"/>

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