03-23-2006, 09:06 PM
Quote: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
The army didn't lose anything in efficiency. Instead it gained in efficiency in guarding the empire's border by developing a defence-in-depth (oh I love that word :lol: ). This way the limitanei/bordertroops were the ones to stop/slowdown the enemy/put the enemy into some sort of a quarantine and the comitatenses forces, the reserves stationed in the provinces behind the bordertroops, were the actual killers and would come into action when the bordertroops have put the enemy in this 'quarantine'... This actually really worked really well in the late 370's although the Roman comitatenses troops found themselves slaughtered at Hadrianopolis (378).
To answer the importance of barbarians in Roman society: Because the border regions in Gaul suffered severely from constant wars and didn't make money the Romans made the Germans living in these border regions so that they were still able to profit from taxes. Also in exchange they would deliver troops and thus became Federates/Foederati in times of war. Many Germanic noblemen enjoyed a good military career in the Roman army and frequently occupied high ranks.
And no they weren't more disloyal than any other Roman in the same position...
The fact that the Romans are thought to have been invincible is because they were a superb and tactful people in warfare. During the republic is because the Romans never gave up during a war even when they were on the very brick of destruction (like during the Second Punic war when they lost battle after battle). They constantly kept on coming with new and fresh armies.
After the Marian reforms the Romans had a professional army payed by the Roman state. With their superb training and skillful tactics they were very capable force, but still very much beatable various Parthian expeditions ended in disaster although this was more due to logistics and breaches in supply lines. Also three Roman legions under Varus were destroyed by Germans in Teutoburg forest, Germania and even the Roman general Germanicus, although victorious in Germania, also nearly shared the same fate. Also we should not forget that during the relatively peaceful time in the first and part of the second centuries the economy was at a high level.
From the second century plague spread through the empire, causing a lot of deaths and thus leaving more jobs available to men thus wages started to rise. Especially from the crisis of the third century soldiers began to ask for more money and it even became threequarter of the empire's expenses as the emperors of this period totally relied on their soldiers.
In the end (4th and 5th century) cities started to decay and a feudal system rose in the lands surrounding the cities with landowners and farmers who're being protected by these landowners. and partially because of that the army found it hard to recruit men as the army became very impopular. The landowners didn't allow the army to recruit his 'servants' and only people who were very desperate or very impopular in society (perhaps people like half-criminals) would have joined the army. Also the late Roman soldiers didn't really care if they were to loot a Roman city. In fact they were perhaps very eager to do so at times. Also this contributes to the impopularity of the late Roman army. And there was an amount of barbarization in the late Roman armies but even the Romans called Romans were not necessarily pure Roman but might have had Celtic and/or Germanic origins.
The bordertroops of the late Roman empire (limitanei) I've mentioned didn't want to be moved to anyplace else in the empire because they've become attached to the area they were stationed because they lived there with their family. (start of the feudal system in the darkages and middleages)
The comitatenses troops could also become a great threat to the emperor when the general or the leading commander is gaining popularity among his troops and would have been proclaimed emperor. In eitehr way the meaning of emperor in the west started to mean nothing. It was the Generals that were the real emperors.
After all this has been said I think that the true weakness of the later Roman troops was the lack of loyalty of the troops towards the emperor, the morale decline and not having this ideal of fighting for the Emperor, but rather for selfinterest and selfprofit. But the efficiency of the legions was still very high and certainly not less compared to the early imperial legions.
Quote: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.
As far as I know the republic armies didn't get payed until Marius' reforms but got their spoils of war back to their homes instead. Or am I wrong?
Thijs Koelewijn
