Total War: Attila

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Just to be clear, when you say "Romans" you mean people from the city of Rome itself, right? I was talking about Italy, but this is even more specific.

I'm talking about Roman citizens. There were no "ethnic Romans" at this time, hadn't been since like the 5th century BC. "Roman" became a superculture.

Robert, you and Evan disagree on this?

Somewhat yes and somewhat no. The Romans never had "mercenaries" in their professional units, because that completely breaks the definition of a mercenary. The Romans had ALWAYS recruited non-Romans into the army, in various forms. In the Principate they were the Auxilia, which were professional Roman soldiers.

In the Late Empire the army was entirely composed of professional Roman soldiers, they just weren't always recruited from inside the Empire.

Note: I am working on a novel about a young man who joins the Roman army in 395 A.D. and gets swept up in Stilicho vs. Alaric, which I'm so narrowly focused on this specific time period. Feel free to recommend any books about Stilicho's army.

Have you read Ian Hughes' book on Stilicho?