When did the Roman Empire fall (your thoughts)?

[Theodosius the Great]

It was said that c 138 BCE "Spain aroused such fears in Rome (due to the successful resistance of Viriathus) that levies were hard to raise." Sometimes guys got scared. But Italian or Roman patriotism persisted as it did after Augustus.

Yes, I remember reading about that. I also seem to remember the fear was deliberately caused by the returning general in order to hamper his successor's task of winning the war. In any event, I only meant to demonstrate that from the time of Augustus onward that the emperors had to resort to conscription and relaxing military discipline regarding legionaries taking up common wives and raising children in order to maintain the ranks. Things were very different during the Republic.

During the Marcomannic Wars Italy itself was invaded. Marcus Aurelius was so desperate to raise troops he drafted gladiators into the army. Granted there were other problems like plague and the Parthian War but conscription was and had been the norm for raising new legions.

At least they had weapons; the Jews also had a history of successful rebellion, under maccabeus. The christians were practically defenseless.

There were three Jewish-Roman wars during the principate: The Great Revolt of 66 A.D., the Kitos War of 115-117 A.D., and the Bar-Kokhba Revolt of 132-135 A.D..

The second one, Kitos War, began outside of Judea by the diasporic Jews living in Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Cyprus where they massacred many civilians and destroyed pagan temples and imperial buildings.

Given the opportunity and some careful planning I don't think procuring weapons would have been much of a problem for the Christians, especially the Jewish-Christians who could have joined the revolt.

The christians may not have been against the Empire; most were probably honest, taxpaying, lawabiding people. But I don't think they could identify very strongly with Rome, to the point of fighting like crazy to keep it going. Now of course you posted a link about christian soldiers. But they must have been more the exception than the rule.

I agree. And I think what you said also applies to the pagan populace during the principate.

But I note that Augustine had to tell one it was OK for a christian to be a soldier.

You're right. This shows that Christians as a group were not monolithic in their views which is what the author of the link stated. He also stated there was a host of military saints already being venerated both during and before Augustine's time.

Some examples are: Saints George, Demetrius of Thessaloniki, Sebastian, Theodore of Amasea, and Theodore Stratelates.

Even in the east, which made considerable effort to win christian support by portraying the emperor as the champion of nicene christianity, it seems to have taken time for this to work i.e. for more citizens to serve reducing need for barbarians.

Hard to say one way or the other. According to Libanius, Julian was killed by one of his own Christian soldiers.

But I think it's safe to say that the army was almost purely Christian by the sixth century. This army was able to reconquer many of the Western provinces and stand up to Persia.

~Theo