Rome\'s most able general?

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Markus,

My vote goes for Flavius Marcellus Aetius. He beat the greatest threat to the Roman world, Attila the Hun, and took what was left of the Roman army after Adrianople and tried to patch up the crumbling Western Empire.

This is how legends are born! Flavius Aetius rebuilding the Roman army after Adrianople in 378, and still defeating Atilla in 453! Truly the best Roman general ever!

Markus, you confuse three men: Theodosius I who rebuilt the Eastern Army after Adrianople, Stilicho who took over after Theodosius' death in 394, and Aetius who gained power in the west after 425.
:wink:

But joking aside, of course Aetius was a great man. But was Atilla truly such an immense threat? At the time, surely, but I can't help thinking that if Atilla had lived a hundred years earlier, the Huns would not have been such a big problem, as they evidently were for the crumbling West Roman army by the mid-5th c.

Sean Manning\\n[quote]One tricky thing is that we tend to judge “greatnessâ€