03-12-2014, 07:43 PM
I'm with Nathan on this point.
There definately appears to be a stage where Late Roman infantry do not charge like they did previously against 'barbarian' infantry, and when on occasion they did so it generally went wrong for the Romans. However, when fighting cavalry armed with bows the Romans charged immediately the infantry came in the range of the cavalry's bows, so as to cut down on the casualties they faced. Constantius' army did this at Singara and Ammianus and Libanius tell us Julian did this as well when he invaded Sasanid Persia. There was a little known major battle fought between Valens and Sharpur II where the Romans gave the Sassanids a thrashing, it was called Vagabanda and I am sure the Romans would have rushed the Sassanids to get to grips with them as quickly as possible.
It's worth consulting Phillp Rance's paper on the Late Roman Shieldwall, the Fulcum- https://web.duke.edu/classics/grbs/FTexts/44/Rance2.pdf
There definately appears to be a stage where Late Roman infantry do not charge like they did previously against 'barbarian' infantry, and when on occasion they did so it generally went wrong for the Romans. However, when fighting cavalry armed with bows the Romans charged immediately the infantry came in the range of the cavalry's bows, so as to cut down on the casualties they faced. Constantius' army did this at Singara and Ammianus and Libanius tell us Julian did this as well when he invaded Sasanid Persia. There was a little known major battle fought between Valens and Sharpur II where the Romans gave the Sassanids a thrashing, it was called Vagabanda and I am sure the Romans would have rushed the Sassanids to get to grips with them as quickly as possible.
It's worth consulting Phillp Rance's paper on the Late Roman Shieldwall, the Fulcum- https://web.duke.edu/classics/grbs/FTexts/44/Rance2.pdf
Adrian Coombs-Hoar
