Romans vs \"Barbarians\". Could someone explain...

[Taxiarches]

Good thing you pointed that out Frank - the term "Barbarian" is a very vague one and that's why I added quotation marks. Just to clarify, I'm primarely referring to the Celtic Gauls, Dacians, Germanic tribes and the slaves of the third Servile war, but also to some extent the Celtiberians, Sarmatians and Numidians.

[Bryan]

Good thing you pointed that out Frank - the term "Barbarian" is a very vague one and that's why I added quotation marks. Just to clarify, I'm primarely referring to the Celtic Gauls, Dacians, Germanic tribes and the slaves of the third Servile war, but also to some extent the Celtiberians, Sarmatians and Numidians.

Nearly every enemy Rome faced could be then considered "barbarians." Only occasionally did Rome make war against other defined and successful kingdoms or city states, like the Carthaginians, Macedonians, Seulicids, Numidians, etc. Most of the time it was against individual tribes (like those within the umbrella of the Celtibernian/Ibernian/Gallic/Germanic classification), or confederation of these tribes. Considering how vast the overall amounts of these tribes were, and that defeating one often did little to subjugate neighbors, its no wonder Rome was constantly at war with them. Not only did they individually have to defeat every one, but often multiple times, as treaties were often ignored by follow on tribal chieftain/kings.

From what I know of them, most of the reforms commonly attributed to Marius are better attributed to others and overall had little to do with any techniques or tactics for combating any specific type of enemy, other than ensuring the Romans were just better trained and more organized.

[Justin I]

The big part of Germania over the Rhine was usually not included as Roman province because it wasn't considered quite worthy. The investment needed to make that a clasic Roman province was considered to big compared with what they could extract from there, as resources and economy,

I think this is the root of it, at least during the Principate. By the time the Migration Period started, the Germanic tribes east of the Rhine had cut down a lot of the forests and learned new farming techniques, so the carrying capacity of the lands beyond the Rhine increased significantly.
The big tribal confederations of the 4th and 5th centuries became possible because of the poulation increase east of the Rhine. Strategically, the later Roman commanders were probably caught flat-footed and surprised by the size of the migratory groups that came from what they had long considered "the middle of nowhere." Really, it's no wonder the limitanei and other border forces were overwhelmed, because they had grown accustomed to fending off bandits and small warbands.
The Romans, like Jerry Seinfeld, would have wondered "who aaaare these people?"

[Robert Vermaat]

The big tribal confederations of the 4th and 5th centuries became possible because of the poulation increase east of the Rhine. Strategically, the later Roman commanders were probably caught flat-footed and surprised by the size of the migratory groups that came from what they had long considered "the middle of nowhere." Really, it's no wonder the limitanei and other border forces were overwhelmed, because they had grown accustomed to fending off bandits and small warbands.
The Romans, like Jerry Seinfeld, would have wondered "who aaaare these people?"

I'm sorry but where did you find that?
The Romans of course knew fully well what was happening east of the Rhine, why on earth would they not know that? Relations existed, wars were fought, why would germania be a 'terra incognita'? Barbarian groups were resettleld all the time as a result of Roman troops being wasted in civil wars, in which hundreds of thousands of Germans were hired as short-term mercenaries. A pretender emperor could (and ofen did) send a lieutenant to the border regions with a big sack of gold and promises, to hire a s many waariors as were available on short notice. Surly they knew what numbers lived on the opposite of the Rhine!

Your scenario makes me think of those old school plates which show endless lines of ox-drawn carts filled with fur-clad barbarians.. We know this did not happen, and Gaul was never overrun by large groups of immigrants either.. By far the most barbarians which settled the Empire were settled there with full knowledge of and cooperation with the Roman government.

The big confederations seem to have sprung into being by the 3rd century as a result of them being pressed together between a well-defended border and pressure of groups to the east. A development in the social system allowed for many group to work together, but they were never 'one people'. The Franks for instance consisted of a dozen or more competeing groups until Clovis while the Goths were never one, not even under Alaric. They could act together if needs arose, but they fell apart immediately after the leaders of these groups deemed it a better idea.

The limitanei collapsed locally because so many were drafted into the field armies and they were never meant to withstand large invasion forces anyway - that's what the field armies were meant to do.