When did the Roman Army decline?

[Mrbsct]

My point is this...if the Romans were so capable of drawing those numbers why not at Adrianople? Obviously because border troops are incapble of mobilization on mass and often deserted and Valens' Comiatenses was in Persia/Armenian border. Valens had to run back and get as many troops as possible and not all them top tier for mobilization.

My main question is this....when did Border troops along with Field armies get into this bad of shape? Ammianus reports how most of the troops at Adrianople were super tired, unreliable, and charged without orders and the defeat was almost predictable. Compared that to the troops of Constantine who were super agressive and fanatical at the Battle of Chrysopoplis.

Speaking about army sizes...what was the total numbers of Trajan's invasion of Dacia and Persia? And Severus' in Persia?

About Roman cavalry, their role seems to be almost the same, for light attacks and skirmishing as proven in Aurlian's campaigns. Their main difference was strategic as 1/3 of regiments were now cavalry. Cataphracts don't seem to have a huge preformance difference, as they are often slow and prone to get attacked from sides from infanrtry. How does Roman cavalry compare to the Germanic and Sarmatian Foderetii? Sarmatian soldiers seem to be already in the army since Hadrian. Did they loose their horseriding ablity when they gained citizenship?

[ValentinianVictrix]

My point is this...if the Romans were so capable of drawing those numbers why not at Adrianople? Obviously because border troops are incapble of mobilization on mass and often deserted and Valens' Comiatenses was in Persia/Armenian border. Valens had to run back and get as many troops as possible and not all them top tier for mobilization.

My main question is this....when did Border troops along with Field armies get into this bad of shape? Ammianus reports how most of the troops at Adrianople were super tired, unreliable, and charged without orders and the defeat was almost predictable. Compared that to the troops of Constantine who were super agressive and fanatical at the Battle of Chrysopoplis.

Speaking about army sizes...what was the total numbers of Trajan's invasion of Dacia and Persia? And Severus' in Persia?

About Roman cavalry, their role seems to be almost the same, for light attacks and skirmishing as proven in Aurlian's campaigns. Their main difference was strategic as 1/3 of regiments were now cavalry. Cataphracts don't seem to have a huge preformance difference, as they are often slow and prone to get attacked from sides from infanrtry. How does Roman cavalry compare to the Germanic and Sarmatian Foderetii? Sarmatian soldiers seem to be already in the army since Hadrian. Did they loose their horseriding ablity when they gained citizenship?

I am not sure why you believe the Roman army at Adrianople were in your words ' super tired, unreliable, and charged without orders and the defeat was almost predictable' Because that is not what Ammianus actually wrote. This is what Ammianus said about the army at Adrianople-

'He (Valens) had under his command a force made up of varying elements, but one neither contemptible, nor unwarlike; for he had joined with them also a large number of veterans, among whom were other officers of high rank and Trajanus, shortly before a commander-in‑chief, whom he had recalled to active service.' Amm XXXI, 12, 1.

The army at Adrianople contained a number of crack legions, including the Lanciarii and the Matiarii, plus a number of crack Auxila units including the Batavi and probably the Heruli, who were normally brigaded with the Batavi, and the Regii and Victores. He also had some of the Late Roman Empires most experienced military officers in his army, officers such as Richomeres, Victor, Sebastianus, Trajanus, Aequitius etc.

All the evidence points to Valens actually not planning on fighting a battle that day, it really does appear that Valens went to the Gothic camp to conclude treaty negotiations with the Goths before returning to Adrianople before nightfall (hence the reason why he did not take his baggage train with the army and leaving 'a suitable guard of legions' behind in the camp outside the walls of Adrianople instead of just moving the officials and treasury inside the city and taking the legions defending the camp along with him, and he did not stop a short distance from the Gothic encampment to build a field camp as he should have done had he actually been planning on fighting a battle because that is where he would have retreated to had he suffered a reverse).

If you have a situation where your army standing in the sun and suffering from thirst suddenly being attacked by previously unseen Gothic cavalry who proceed to drive away both your cavalry wings, then I suspect then defeat is almost inevitable!

Whilst indeed Roman cavalry still were tasked with defending passes, setting ambushes on roads going through concealing terrain etc, they also fought hand to hand against the opposing cavalry as the situation dictated. The Catafractarii were instrumental in helping the Roman infantry who Valentinian had tasked to ambush a band of Saxon raiders but which infantry then revealed their location too quickly and were almost overun by the Saxons until a troop of Catafractarii who were nearby, on hearing the commotion took the Saxons by surprise, allowing the Roman infantry to rally and the combined force wiped out the Saxons to a man.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Hmm then why was Vegetius miliary writings so influential in the Middle ages and even the Modern era?

Vegetius was influential throughout the Middle Ages and through to the end of the eighteenth century because his Epitoma is chock-full of practical advice on recruiting, training and managing an army in the field that was relevant to armies of all ages, at least until the advent of modern mechanised warfare.

The Clarke translation of Vegetius was being used by the US military even up to 1946 as I have a copy of the US Military School publication of Vegetius from 1946 that was issued to officer candidates in the US army.

[ValentinianVictrix]

One of the largest civil war battles ever fought between two Roman armies was between those of Constantius II and Magnentius in 353AD at Mursa. Between 150,000-300,000 troops fought in that battle and the losses were catastrophic, anything up to 90,000 in Magnetius' army and 50,000 in Constantius'.

Do you mean the battle of AD351?

Potter (Roman Empire at Bay p.456) quotes Zonarus's figures: 36,000 in the army of Magnentius, and 80,000 in the combined force of Constantius and Vetranio. That would make a total for the battle of 116,000 - still quite a big one!

Are there alternative, higher, numbers in another source?

Isn't it the comparatively high percentage of casualties, rather than the unusual number of combatants, that made this battle so particularly destructive?

You are indeed correct Nathan, 353 is when Constantius finally defeated Magnentius.

I have quoted the source for those higher figures from another reference I have to that battle, and I dont have my books to hand at the moment to search for that quote. It may have come from one of Julian's orations dedicated to Constantius, or Zosimus, or possibly in Lieu & Dugeon's first book on the Roman-Persian wars.

I think the number on both sides were significant, especially as Magnetius also bulked out his army with a large number of barbarian mercenaries from beyond the Rhine and Danube.

[Mrbsct]

It is obvious Valens couldn't really handle them since he bothered to negotiate. The Romans were overconfident and broke ranks without orders, just to prove their lack of command and moblike/militia behavior.

The decline of the Roman army is quite obvious at this time period.

Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to fly, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all. By these arguments having prevailed upon the emperor, he obtained his desire. He selected, not such as had been trained to cowardice and accustomed to flight, but strong and active men who had lately been taken into the army, and who appeared to him, who was able to judge of men, to be capable of any service. He immediately made trial of each of them, and obviated their defects by continual exercise; bestowing commendations and rewards on all who were obedient, but appearing severe and inexorable to those who neglected their duty.
Nea Historia (Zosimus)

From the foundation of the city till the reign of the Emperor Gratian, the foot wore cuirasses and helmets. But negligence and sloth having by degrees introduced a total relaxation of discipline, the soldiers began to think their armor too heavy, as they seldom put it on. They first requested leave from the Emperor to lay aside the cuirass and afterwards the helmet. In consequence of this, our troops in their engagements with the Goths were often overwhelmed with their showers of arrows. Nor was the necessity of obliging the infantry to resume their cuirasses and helmets discovered, notwithstanding such repeated defeats, which brought on the destruction of so many great cities. Troops, defenseless and exposed to all the weapons of the enemy, are more disposed to fly than fight. What can be expected from a foot-archer without cuirass or helmet, who cannot hold at once his bow and shield; or from the ensigns whose bodies are naked, and who cannot at the same time carry a shield and the colors? The foot soldier finds the weight of a cuirass and even of a helmet intolerable. This is because he is so seldom exercised and rarely puts them on

Vegetius

[Eleatic Guest]

The Roman army never declined! NEVER!

She only backed off after Chuck Norris told her so!

:mrgreen:

[ValentinianVictrix]

Andy, you really need to read all three Loeb volumes that contain the remaining history of Ammianus rather than relying soley on Zosimus or Vegetius. Ammianus was a Roman Tribune who served during the reigns Constantius II; Julian; Jovian and possibly Valentinian and Valens, at least during the first years of their reign. He was in armies that fought the Alamanni and the Sasanids and barely escaped capture by the Sasanids on two occasions. His history for the perios 355AD to 378AD is far more reliable than Zosimus as Ammianus was either part of what he wrote about or he was contemporary with the events, unlike Zosimus who was writing probably at least nearly 200 years afterwards.
Zosimus culled his history from at least three other historians works, all now sadly lost apart from fragments in other works. I tend to use Ammianus and then consult Zosimus to check to see if there was anything Ammianus perhaps did not comment on.
Enough people, including me, have waxed lyrical on Vegetius on this site and its probably a good idea to do a search here to see what peoples thoughts were on his work.

[Mrbsct]

Vegetius doesn't seem to be an unreliable source, he actually knows how military training and organization works and he is still studied in modern military academies.

[Frank]

Vegetius doesn't seem to be an unreliable source, he actually knows how military training and organization works and he is still studied in modern military academies.

Vegetius was probably an armchair general, who condensed about 4 ancient sources about the imperial army. In doing so, he mixed up eras greatly and created a Neverland-Legion, which never existed. According to Speidel and other historians, his weird figures are not worth to discuss. Most likely he just made the usual rookie-mistakes while calculating legion strength, I did too, when I was 12 year old. He simply found no exact figures in his sources and started speculating wrongly.

Of course some chapters are worthful and more correct than others. But his intention was not accuracy but to get a message across. Perhaps he never saw a roman legionair.

However, I can imagine, that training and discipline in the late roman army was partially worse than in the early empire.

[Mrbsct]

Vegetius true or not, the is beyond a shout of a doubt the army by the time of Julian was no way the army of a century earlier or even the quality of Constantine's army. It is estimated the only 1/3 of the total Danube army was deployed at Adrianople. Army of Thrace, Army escorts I and II in the area would have 60,000 men on paper. Only 20,000 showed up at Adrianople. The condition was so bad that they had to recruit barbrarians by the time of Theodosis.

[Renatus]

The Clarke translation of Vegetius was being used by the US military even up to 1946 as I have a copy of the US Military School publication of Vegetius from 1946 that was issued to officer candidates in the US army.

This is the abridgement of the first three books of Lt. Clarke's translation, first published by Maj. (later Brig. Gen.) T. R. Phillips in 1940 as part of a collection of military classics under the title Roots of Strategy. The collection comprised Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Vegetius, Maurice de Saxe's My Reveries upon the Art of War, Frederick the Great's Military Instructions for the Generals and Napoleon's Military Maxims. In his Synopsis of Contents, Phillips says of these, " . . . all are an indispensible part of an officer's military education and the foundation of a military library." He concludes his Editor's Foreward by saying, "It is hoped that this volume, containing the most influential military works of the past, may increase appreciation of the effect of military ideas on the course of history and the fate of nations, and assist in demonstrating the historical importance of military thought."

It seems, therefore, that Phillips was approaching these works as military history, rather than for their practical value, although no doubt much valuable practical advice could be found in them. On the other hand, it was for its practical value that Vegetius' work was prized in the Middle Ages. The commanders who used him did not care a jot what period of Roman history any part of his work might relate to or whether his interpretations were accurate. It was what he said about the practicalities of maintaining an army in the field that they were interested in and that was timeless.

Vegetius' first book, which he submitted to his Emperor unsolicited, is something of a polemic aimed at improving the recruitment and training of the soldiery. To some extent, therefore, there is an element of hyperbole in it. His subsequent books, which he prepared on the instructions of the Emperor, are somewhat different. In Book 2, he attempts to reconstruct the ancient legion and gets in a muddle in doing so. It is highly unlikely that anyone had written a history of the army, describing its development over time. Vegetius was, therefore, faced with differing descriptions, each relating to the army as it was at the time that the particular source was written. I have argued that Vegetius believed the legion to have remained largely unchanged since its inception, with the result that, in trying to combine the differing descriptions that he had, each relating to a different period, he produced a legion that had never existed. To his credit, he realised that his construction did not really hold together and admitted as much, leaving it to his readers to absorb the information that he had given and to work out the answers for themselves. His remaining books are much more successful and it is in these that is found the practical advice that made him so influential. Apart from Book 2, his Epitoma is, to all intents and purposes, a handbook on how to recruit, train and use an army. The mistake that his critics make is to believe that he was writing a military history; he was not.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Vegetius true or not, the is beyond a shout of a doubt the army by the time of Julian was no way the army of a century earlier or even the quality of Constantine's army. It is estimated the only 1/3 of the total Danube army was deployed at Adrianople. Army of Thrace, Army escorts I and II in the area would have 60,000 men on paper. Only 20,000 showed up at Adrianople. The condition was so bad that they had to recruit barbrarians by the time of Theodosis.

My advice is to do some more reading on this matter.

Most Late Roman armies numbered approximately 25,000 men strong. That was considered more than enough to carry out the task needed. Only invasions of Sasanid Persia required larger sized armies, Julians was estimated at about 60,000 strong. But even then he divided his force into two parts, sending one North into Armenia to then move south-east to catch the Sasanids in a pincer movement which never took place.

Valens was recruiting from the Goths from before 376AD for his proposed Sasanid Empire invasion and some estimates put the force he was going to use at 90,000 strong. The Romans had recruited 'barbarians' for centuries, so I don't understand why you believe this was indicative of the Roman armies decline.

Valens probably did only take the standard size army, 25,000, with him to Adrianople because he left over double that in the Eastern provinces to guard against Sasanid incursions, which had been happening from 368AD onwards. He also did not need to strip the Eastern provinces of troops for his campaign against Fritigern's goths because his nephew Gratian, Emperor of the West, was moving east with probably a similar sized army, both armies had they combined would no doubt have completely wiped out the Goths, leaving them little more than a historical footnote.

[Mrbsct]

Constantine Field armies went up to 100,000 strong. After Constantine with his new tax system and border troops led to increased localism and corruption, mobilization of troops was much harder plus he split up his Field armies among his sons. So the decline did happen somewhere around that time period.(the reason why losing Comiatenses was a so prized and losing them would mean chaos)
Julian's total army was about 80,000 strong another 30,000 strong led by Procopius(the pincer as you mention)

I never said barbarianization was a reason for decline, the fact that the Romans can ONLY draw people across their borders proves their decline. The Auxilia were proffesional troops, Foederetii are not.

Yes, Valens did have his field army in Persia, but you have to realize the Roman army was 500,000 strong at this time well at least on paper. The fact it was only on paper is a clear indication of corruption, militia army, and an inablity to mobilize to defeat the Goths. Field armies were divided up so I do not suspect Valens' Persian field army to be more than 100,000 in the East. The fact that he could only draw 20,000 in Thrace just show the manpower shortages. Again right after Adrianople, the Romans never bothered to muster an army to defeat the Goths in a decisive battle even when losing only 15,000 men. At the Battle of Constantinople the Goths were reported to be "outnumbered" yet the Romans could not finish off the Goths.

Roman armies in the Principate from Aurelius and the 3rd century Crisis was capable of having the quality Legions to deploy in Africa, Germania, Thrace and Persia, the Late army after Julian was totally incapable. The days of the Legions of Marius were the Romans could draw mass ammounts of reserves from its civilians was over and suffer 80,000 complete annihalations and still recover....was over.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The Romans Army was not 500,000 men strong at the time of Adrianople, not even on paper. It was about 220,000 men strong on paper, give or take a few thousand, in 395 and that was after the Army had recovered from Adrianople and the Western Army had been defeated at the Battle of the River Frigidus.

There was NO decline in quality. If the Roman troops acted like a 'mob' as you say then how did Aetius defeat the Huns? How did the Byzantines last another 10000 years?

There were severe manpower shortages, but not until the 5th century and that problem was really only in the West.

A standard 'Legionary' at the time of Julian looked like this:



Albeit his helmet probably wouldn't have been as fancy. (Taken from the Fectio Website)

[Mrbsct]

220,000? The Notitia clearly estimates between 500,000-350,000 in 390 AD. The Wars of Constantius and Julian seem only to have effected the Comiatenses. The Comiatenses reliant mindset is very true judging on Strasbourg campaign.

Mob as in very disorderly as hard to mobilize. Both Vegetius and Zozimus clearly say this. During the Punic Wars, Cimbri Wars, and the 3rd century Crisis, Roman armies were complely annihalted and still recovered. 15,000 men died at Adrianople and no clear recovery but disloyal barbarian troops. There was only about 20,000 total regular Roman soldiers at Chalons.

No decline in quality? No way.
Principate:




Post-Constantine: