The fall of the roman military power

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Publius Vortigerno sal.

aue!

I think you are understimating the huge difference between the Huns and other mounted archers. The Huns were pushing tribe after tribe for a Century before Attila, and quite effectively, at that.

Sure, they did that, but that had happened time after time with many tribes before them. By itself, it's not a sign of Hunnic invincibility. It's a common nomadic treat - if your enemy wants your land you fight, if you loose you move away.

True, but nobody pushed the Huns.

I mean, the Germanic tribes of the late Republic and early Principicate and Empire were small, politically independent and economically poor, to a point that it wasn't really economically worth for the Empire to conquer them, and many wars of expasion were fought for the personal glory of the Emperor, and therefore they were not a real threat, not even a little threat. The Sarmatians were moving from the Iranian plains for centuries, probably pushing the local non Indoeuropean tribes, and Indoeuropean tribes (like the Germanic, Baltic, etc) as well as being pushed by the Alans.

In an open, all-for-one battle, the heavy cavalry was surely able to crush light cavalry if they could not escape, but in the plains, the Alan archers were more than a match for the heavier Sarmatian cataphracti, and, actually, the Alans proved themselves a fair match and able to overcome all European barbarian cavalries and armies they met in Germania (in a broad sense of the term). If the Huns were able to push, defeat, assimilate a part, and force the rest of the Alan tribes and kings to run away, and even admitting the transitive property may not be applied in here, we can see that if the Alans were archers and won over the West, the Huns who were archers and beat the Alans would also be able to do so, and they proved it later on.

Now a bit of contextual history.

Once the Sarmatians arrived in the Hungarian plains, along the river Tizsa, and the Alans took the fertile lands around the Zahov Sea and the rived Don, the Goths, mainly the Tervingi and the Greutungi, arrived to the Pontus Euxinus following the Dnjester and Dnjepper.

When the Huns started to move following the Volga, one of the "branches" moved south circa 395, and arrived to Armenia, Capadocia, and Syria; the earlier incursions, circa 275, pushed teh Alans too far, and the Alans were forced to move further to the West, colliding with the Greutungi. The Huns pushed further, and as the result of several battles lost by the Goths, most of them moved to Roman land, crossed the Danube (Fritigern, and the Tervingi, later the Greutungi, and in 377 most of the Western Goths) and the whole war to Hadrianopolis until Theodoric peace treaty in 382.

Later on, circa 400, the Huns pushed further Westwards, which provocked the movement of Radagaiso's Goths, who entered Italy ca. 405... They later joined Stillicho's army, and when Stillicho's were killed, they joined Alaric's Goths, forming the Visigoths. In the meantime, the Alans also pushed Westwards the Suevi, the Vandals (Hasdingi and Silingi) and Alamani, which pushed the Burgundians towards Worms, further in the North. In 406 the Alans, Vandals and Suevi invaded Gaul, while Radagaiso's Goths invaded Italy, and in 408-409 Uldino's Huns attacked Castra Martis, in Dacia, although it didn't have too great impact.

Later, while Constantius was busy trying to recover Gaul and Hispania with Visigothic help, pushing the Vandals into Mauretania and, eventually, into Carthago, which was probably the final coup to the Western Empire economy, the Huns keps pushing West, and started to absorb more and more Germanic tribes, while installing themselves along the Danube and Rhenus borders, and being used by the Romans to suffocate Germanic intrusions, who had been forced to join and get stonger. By the time of Attila and his brother, in the 430s, they had been helping Aetius against usurpers and Germans for a while, and knew how the Romans fought.

Which leads us to:

When Rome fought against the Huns, the limitanei were always defeated, even the minor incursions

No, i don't think you can put it just like that. For one, the limitanei were never intended to deal with full-scale invasions.

(...)

Nor were the Huns never defeated. Back in 408 an invasion was dealt with. After that, for a long time they were allies of Rome. It was not until Attila became their leader when they became a major threat to the Empire. For a long time they were bought off. But after Attila's death, they never were a major threat again.

I wasn't trying to imply the limitanei were not good fighters. Actually I am pretty sure they were really good about it: they were always on the edge, with a hereditary position they couldn't leave: either you fight and live, or you die. Evidently, they had to be good. However, the legions were small (500-600 infatry and 500 cavalry men to cover some 50 miles of frontier?) and many times predated to fill in holes in the comitatenses and pseudo-comitatenses to deal with the other threats: actually I think the rebellion of Eugenius and the battle of the river Frigidus was the greater cause of the extreme weakness of the Gaul limitanei in the Rhenus that allowed the Alans, Vandals and Suevi to enter into Gaul so "easily" and the lack of a comitatenses army in the extreme west what allowed them to wander about Gaul for a decade without opposition.

The limitanei must have been good in fighting, pursuing and resisting attacks; the comitatenses would be good at running from here to there... :-) ) (just kidding, but haha only half serious). Anyway, when they had been pretty good containing small Germanic incursions into the Empire, only defeated when massive movements happened (as the ones mentioned, and which they weren't designed to deal with) they didn't managed to stop smaller Hun incursions, which got bigger and bigger until they were big enough to become full blown invasions in the 440s.

Also, you mention Uldino's Huns, and I agree with oyu as well. But it was this collaboration with the Romans what allowed Attila to crush the Romans for so long. Of course Attila's armies were not just Huns, also a good deal of Goths, Sarmatians, and many Germanic tribes he had been conquering as he established himself into the Hungarian plains...

Visigoth and Burgundian armies were not the reason the Huns were defeated, there are no real signs of them becoming more of a military threat. It usually was Roman generalship that made the difference, so my point would be that Aetius managed to (just!) outgeneral Attila.

Well, from my understanding of the battle of the Cathalaunian Fields, the Visigoths managed a good deal of things, forcing the Alans back into their camp, and forcinf Attila itself to do so, while the Romans got around the other side of the hill in the middle of the battlefield.

And according to the sources, Aetius preferred to stop pursuing the Huns so the Visigoths didn't become too powerful if the Huns were destroyed. Actually this led to the creation of the future kingdom of Tolossa.

I don't want to take credit from Aetius, he certainly must have been a huge general, of the size of Stillicho's, Constantii or even Justinian, Constantine, etc... But the Roman Empire army, by itself, wouldn't have been able to defeat Attila, and needed the help of the Visigoths from Aquitania, the Franks, Burgundians, ... Germanic tribes that were becoming the power in the Western praefecturae of the Western dioceses (where most of Hispania and Gaul were, in a way, off the Roman Empire, as most of its tax recollections were kept by the foederati as militari annonae and extra pays).

I have not heard any reason why the Huns would have been better horsemen than, say, the Scythians or the Parthians.

Now, I never said they were better horsemen than the Scythinas or the Partians. However, the Parthians were on the East, and the Scythians were pushed/destroyed/absorbed by the Sarmatians, who where then done the same by the Alans, who where done the same by the Huns.

However, some sources point to their excellent horsemanship, see, for example, this page: http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/398206

Their assymetric, reflex, recurved bow was more powerful than the symmetric ones found in the other nomadic cultures (Alans, Parthians, etc...) which gave them greater fighting reach.

Anyway, I was only tryong to point out that the Huns were a very important element in the late Empire and the trigger of the Western Empire ultimate demise.

It's gotten too late, and I gotta leave, but if you are still interested in this subject, we can keep talking another day...

best regards,

valete