The fall of the roman military power

[Antonius_X]

Hi, theres a question thats been buggin me about the late army
By 180AD by the time Marcus Aurelius had the war in Germania with the different barbarian tribes the roman army was a killing machine but slowly that machine became weak. At what point did this happen were the reforms made by Constantine what killed the efficiency of the army or what was it , was it the influence of the barbarians in society , what happened ? What made the once invincible roman army weak and beatable

[Theodosius the Great]

the roman army was a killing machine but slowly that machine became weak. At what point did this happen were the reforms made by Constantine what killed the efficiency of the army or what was it , was it the influence of the barbarians in society , what happened ? What made the once invincible roman army weak and beatable

Blaming Constantine's military reforms for the decline of the Roman army represents a small school of thought in scholarly circles. Most scholars, I believe, actually praise him for restructuring it the way he did. There's a book written by someone from the aformentioned school of thought titled "The Fall of the Roman Empire" by Arther Ferrill. It's thought provoking and I own it although I disagree with the author's conclusions.

I think the consensus isn't that the army became weak. In fact, just the opposite. The army during the principate was for the most part a peace time force. Discipline was actually higher from the 3rd century AD onward due to continuous warfare.

The army didn't become weak, it's just that when ever you fight an enemy for decades or centuries without actually conquering them outright, they learn your tactics and adapt to them. So when the Romans are fighting barbarians during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries the wars they fight are more akin to civil wars than to the wars of expansion during the time of the Republic and early Empire.

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

Antonius_X,

a good book about the late Roman army is:
Warfare in Roman Europe, Ad 350-425 by Hugh Elton.

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi, theres a question thats been buggin me about the late army
By 180AD by the time Marcus Aurelius had the war in Germania with the different barbarian tribes the roman army was a killing machine but slowly that machine became weak. At what point did this happen were the reforms made by Constantine what killed the efficiency of the army or what was it , was it the influence of the barbarians in society , what happened ? What made the once invincible roman army weak and beatable

two things.

One, civil war. that blead the Empire, killed off too many soldiers, making it impossible to kep up standards.

Two, changing tactics. Being nearly unbeatable in the field, the enemy changed tactics both of the European as well as the Asian fronts. We see the Germans shifting to small raids, ambushes, surprise tactics. The Persians use scorched earth tactics, because even when it came to pitched battles the Romans could beat them.
Another changed tactis was the deep raid, also difficult for the old style army.

Reacting to that was not possible for a legion, nor an army organised the way the 'classic' army was. Therefore you get the 'defense in depth' and the development of the Mobile reserve (already under Gallienus, probably, not Constantine) and the gradual re-development of the army into Limitanei and Comitatenses.

Oh and, where did you get that 'Hollywood'-notion that the Legions were unstoppable and the Late Roman army wasn't? The latter was probably far more versatile, but facing stronger opposition and a worse economic situation, that was nonetheless the army that went under.

Sources:
Luttwak, E.N., The grand strategy of the Roman Empire (Baltimore 1976) 255p.
Nicasie, M.J., The twilight of empire. The Roman army from the reign of Diocletian until the battle of Adrianople (Amsterdam 1998)321p.

[Theodosius the Great]

Luttwak, E.N., The grand strategy of the Roman Empire (Baltimore 1976) 255p.

I have it too And the book I mention is basically a rebuttal to "The grand strategy..." written a few years after during the 80s.

Therefore you get the 'defense in depth' and the development of the Mobile reserve (already under Gallienus, probably, not Constantine)

From my understanding ; yes and no. Gallienius didn't implement any permanent changes. Gallienius assembled his mobile forces in an ad hoc manner and during a civil war on two fronts to boot. Whereas Constantine implemented reforms during his decade-long reign as sole Emperor.

You could also say that Severus had a strategic reserve which comprised of the II Parthica legion plus the Praetorians making a combined force of some 40,000 men based in Italy. Yes,he could have used them as such but didn't. Nonetheless, it foreshadows what was to occur in the later empire. I think, from what I've read, that goes for Gallienius as well.

[Artorius1960]

Nicasie, M.J., The twilight of empire. The Roman army from the reign of Diocletian until the battle of Adrianople (Amsterdam 1998)321p.

How is this book? I see it on Amazon for a mere $125.00 (US). Is it a monograph or a collection of essays? I'm certainly not opposed to spending absurd amounts of money for a book, but I just don't like spending absurd amounts of money on bad books.

Thanks.

[Praefectusclassis]

It's a PhD dissertation and a good one too.

[Robert Vermaat]

A darned good one! Although I spent much less on it...

[L.Valerius Gaudentius]

A darned good one! Although I spent much less on it...

Where did you buy or what did you do? hock:

[Robert Vermaat]

Second-hand bookshop (internet).

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

I agree wholeheartedly with the members who have disagreed with the notion of a weaker army in the Late Empire.

My investigation for my current novel, about Alaricus, the king of the (so-called) Visigoths, is clearly showing me that the Romans were able to lose battles when deep into internal wars, vastly outnumbered, or clearly misguided. However, not going to the great generals of the late empire like Stilicho, Constantine, or Aetius, you find many instances where even the limitanei were able to contend against attacks from outsiders, the comitatenses managed to force barbari to accept defeat with incredible terms (allowing huge Roman interference in their politics, for example) and only the huge invasions provocked by the pressure exerted by the Huns on the Alans and Goths (Tervingi and Greutungi first, with the Eastern army concentrated on the Sassanid Persians, then to the Hun Empire of Attila, and then on the Suevi, Vandals and Alans, Alamani, Burgundians, etc... you see several Roman losses until the Empire (West or East, depending on the side) manages to prepare an effective army.

The only instance I can think of or a real badly situation is the destruction of the Eastern Empire armies by Attila in the 440s... He didn't press on because he had no way of taking over Constantinople, despite the superb siege tactics of the Huns, but even the famed Battle of Hadrianopolis showed a very veteran, tough army, that had been marching for months from Antioquia (Valens's "favorite" capital town), weakened by a rush march from Hadrianopolis, fighting against an unknown army without noticing the Tervingi had received reinforcements from the Greutungi, Alans and even Huns during the rampage of the year 377...

No, I think that the late comitatenses were really tough guys that could march over everything with the right general, tactics and supply lines... the fact that they did what they did with smaller armies (circa 20,000-25,000 versus the 40,000 and even 80,000 ones in republican and early imperial times) is to be taken into account...

anyway,

BTW, I am reading a book which I am enjoying a great deal, Heather, Peter, _The Fall of the Roman Empire_, 2005., in a Spanish edition. Very interesting points of view, according to him the fall of the Empire was not due to military revisions, economical, fiscal pressure, or whatnot, but as a dire consequence of the arrival of the Huns and the massive movements of the barbari (Germanians and Iranians). Particularly, I think that a key point (I am not sure he says so, but it's my interpretation) is the fall of Carthague to the Vandals and Alans, and the need to recall the comitatenses of the Eastern Empire to fight Attila when Aetius was concentrating the Army in Sicily for a reconquest: Rome lost a good deal of food and tax money when it lost those provinces (the rest of the Mauretaniae only contributed some 5% of the taxes!).

anyway...

best regards!

[John M McDermott]

I would offer the following suggestions:

1. The military operations of the later empire were on a smaller scale. Why? Money perhaps.

2. But, political instability might be another factor. The emperors were always on guard to hold onto power. Any general with sufficient success and a large army posed a problem. Generals from the Republic were drawn from the senatorial class, which was expected to contribute its sons to the leadership of the army. In the later empire, this class was not used for this purpose, in fact, in many ways, it no longer existed. Generals were trained, it seemed, as professional military men, but had no other function in the body politic. They also did not come from the highest classes of the empire. They were not entrusted with the large armies of previous centuries. The only time large armies were assembled is when the emperor himself was going to take command. This created a limitation on operations. Unless the emperor commanded, the army assembled was likely to be a small one. On the other hand, the emperor could not be everywhere in the empire at all times, so this imposed a further operational limitation.

These aren't my ideas. I gleaned them reading one of Adrain Goldsworthy's books.

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Publius Johanne sal.

You are 100% right. Due to the raise of the Sassanid Persian Empire to a Superpower, the IV Century emperors, specially Valentinian, were forced to raise the tax pressure close to the limit of the possibilities of the Empire, which meant they could only afford so many soldiers.

According to the Notitia Dignitatum and other sources, the late Empire was maintaining an army between 300,000 to 600,000 soldiers, between limitanei and comitatenses. But despite de fact the Romans managed to stop the Sassanid Empire, they didn't destroy it as a superpower, and as much as 40% of the whole army was deployed permanently on the East (protecting the biggest grainaries of the East, Egypt and Upper Armenia, where today's Georgia).

Add to this the huge invasions and intestinal battles between candidates to the purple that implied the death of big numbers of veterans (Hadrianopolis, but also Frigidus river between East and usurper Eugenius, the incursions of the Goths in 405-406 that, after the death of Stillicho, implied the loss of about 20,000 Goth and other German tribes and coalitions involving Sarmatians, Alans--and whatnot--effectives in the Western comitatenses who joined Alarico, usurpers in Gaul and Britain, the incursions of the Alans, Vandals and Suevi in 405 until 420 which supposed the loss of vast quantities of tax income in those provinces, and the deaths of Constantine troops against the Visigoths, and frontier tribes in the Rhin, and in the campaigns of Aetius against Attila's Huns, and teh Vandals in Africa, etc...)

If the lands you can get money from don't increase (by predating your neighbors'), your tax income is severely reduced from the loss of large portions of your most fertile lands, or by the destruction of other lands that force you to reduce your taxes so they can recover, and your combat ready population don't grow because you are at the limit of your possibilities, you can only do so much...

The difference between East and West is that the Eastern Empire had pretty secured the pass to their fertile crops by Constantinople, and the West, however, had the huge Rhin-Danube frontier to defend, and the Germanic (Vandals, Suevi, Goths, Alamani, Burgundians, Franks, ...) and Iranian (Alans, Sarmatians, ...) tribes pushed by the Huns with nowhere else to go but into the Empire ... Thus, the same economical and military systems survived in the East when they failed in the West... Once the Arabs and Islam attacked the grainaries of the Eastern Empire at the beginning of the VIII Century, the Eastern Empire dissappeared as well, and became the Byzantine Empire (Kingdom) which was substantially smaller and weaker...

This is what I am learning about the late empire... both from "classical" views as Gibbon's, as from Dr Heathers's book I mentioned before... More to learn, but the picture looks cleaner and sharper now...

best regards

[Felix]

My understanding of the finances of empire is that the armies of the early and middle Republic were only paid minimally, and were conscripted. These two factors make it much easier to raise very large armies. In the late Republic the armies were becoming professionalized, and paid accordingly. Of course, there were wealthy and accessible lands to conquer and loot, which helped ease any difficulties in paying an army. In the later Empire, the armies were pretty much fully professional, which demanded greater pay, and the supply of easily plundered lands had all flowed into the Empire, which was a great incentive to outsider attackers, and meant the armies were not supposed to plunder these properties. This would make it difficult to raise or maintain armies in the way the Republic did.

[L.Valerius Gaudentius]

My understanding of the finances of empire is that the armies of the early and middle Republic were only paid minimally, and were conscripted. These two factors make it much easier to raise very large armies. In the late Republic the armies were becoming professionalized, and paid accordingly. Of course, there were wealthy and accessible lands to conquer and loot, which helped ease any difficulties in paying an army. In the later Empire, the armies were pretty much fully professional, which demanded greater pay, and the supply of easily plundered lands had all flowed into the Empire, which was a great incentive to outsider attackers, and meant the armies were not supposed to plunder these properties. This would make it difficult to raise or maintain armies in the way the Republic did.

I think in the same way, the Republic armies were paid less than the Late Empire armies. In spite of this, in the Republic times there were more accesible lands to conquer, but in the Late Empire it wasn´t that lands. However, this isn´t the main problem.