Was the late Roman army weak and ineffective? #shorts

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#Maiorianus

[Jazmillenium]

Ah yes, Rome's worst enemy. Themselves.

[Quickeasyguitarlessons]

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within“
Will Durant

[christopherg]

"Those Barbarians are no challenge. I guess we have to pick on someone our own size!"

[christophera]

One of the reasons the late Roman army didn't replenish their legions was that wealthy land owners refused to allow the roman empire to recruit large numbers of their peasant worker's into the late Roman army.

[TetsuShima]

Speaking of late Roman army, I hate how, in most movies and even docudramas set in the Ancient Era, the armors Romans wear are always the same models, no matter if the movie is set during Julius Caesar's campaigns or during the invasions of Attila the Hun. For those of you who don't know, Roman armors evolved as the empire fell apart, as they began to wear a scale-covered chainmail and a different helmet (which would eventually become the medieval armor) than the classic uniform we all know. I can understand that many of these productions were low budget and had to reuse uniforms from other products about Ancient Rome (being the sword-and-sandal movies of the 60s and the Italian miniseries of the 2000s good examples of that), but there are also high-budget productions like the movie "Agora", in which the soldiers wear completely anachronistic armor, which is simply inexcusable. At least we have the BBC productions (like "Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire" and "Heroes and Villains: Attila") and the "Total War" games, which accurately depict roman armies during the last years of the Empire

[youvebeengreeked]

The late Roman army was superior,
The late Roman Empire was not.

[valorwarrior]

In fact, the Roman armies in the 4th century AD were far efficient and deadlier because of their experiences with the 3rd Century AD crisis and constant Germanic intrusions and creeping into their territories.

[stefanomorales]

The "COMITATENSES!" voiceline from Attila total war torments me to this day

[s.p.q.r]

the waves of plague and the Late Ancient Ice Age are two other much underestimated reasons

[linming]

Late Roman legions are strong. It's just their enemies also developed an effective fighting capabilities. The fact that Rome still have a strong legionaires can be seen in the last resurgence of rome when Marjorian nearly reunified western Rome.

[matthewyj]

The late Roman army was still a very well drilled, well oiled machine. The fall of Rome is largely economic and political in nature, the army was not one of the primary reasons, if anything the army adapted as best as it could within the context of its new environment. Examples include the inclusion of Foderatii, the division of offensive / mobile and defensive / static elements of the army being made into two seperate branches made sense considering the new defensive nature of the Empire.

[a_l]

Emperor Valerian became Romes first ever emperor to be abducted by the enemy.
🏹 🐴

[redeyecamo]

Still want to know what movies you used in the backgrounds.

[vguyver]

Other factors:

#1 The Roman's also had an economy that was already very bad in this time period due to corruption.

#2 Legion's were paid awful. This was always true, but as the Rome's Denarius was being devalued with less and less rare metals, inflation went up. Meaning all prior raises and reforms were wiped out. Because of this, they had immense trouble recruiting new legions and ended up hiring more disloyal Barbarians.

#3 Though they kept winning battles, they kept losing territory. This further weakened both the economy and their armies. Manpower Recruitment, logistics, and loyalty all took a hit.

#4 The rumors why Rome was considered weak militarily isn't just due to the loss and collapse of the empire. It's partly because of historical accounts. When the Roman Legions went to face off Atilla and saw them forming a Tortuga formation, he remarked "look at them huddling together" in mocking tone to paraphrase. Not sure if it was true, but it was a given account.

#5 The Roman remnants were still incredibly effective even after the Empire collapsed. The best example is Venice, a city founded by Roman exiles that engineered a new state of the art city. Despite being surrounded by two major empires treating the region as a battleground, was able to assert it's independence as a oligarchic republic in. It eventually became a major power in the Mediterranean.

[maximomartin]

So this is basically like Star Wars, where the Galactic Republic had Clones and Clone Armour, but the transformation into the Galactic Empire replaced the Clones and their armour for Stormtroopers and Stormtrooper armour...

[LorenzoCassaro]

There was also the problem of logistics: too much mess at the borders and not enough legions to cover it, even before they started to cull each other.

[OmegaTrooper]

An...incomplete analysis. The biggest issue driver was the lack of manpower. Diocletian's reforms locked people into their parent's professions, sapping the civic virtues that led people to volunteer and sign up for the legions. Compounding this were the massive plagues which depopulated the empire in the 2nd / 3rd century and Caracalla's promotion of everyone in the empire to citizen (which itself eliminated one of the driving forces behind volunteering - to gain citizenship).

To make up for this, more and more recruitment came from the barbarians, who didn't have citizenship and were a pre-existing 'warrior' class more used to hardships.

The 4th century civil wars sapped what little native manpower the West had and accelerated barbarian infiltration into the legions as well as the promotion of barbarian commanders who were not truly loyal to Rome (another problem exacerbated by the weakness of the Roman military post-Adrianople, which saw the Romans inducting entire tribes and not splitting them up as they used to...and allowing barbarians to become generals and high officials). Through this, the Roman army especially in the 5th century fell prey to corruption, where entire units were said to exist but were never actually replenished so their disloyal commanders could just keep the pay for themselves.

Few barbarian high dignitaries were loyal to the Roman apparatus (and indeed Romans too as the corruption rot spread) and instead sought to carve it up. The weakened military allowed for this to happen, and this isn't to speak of the massive invasions of the 5th century even! By the mid 5th century the WRE's army was totally hollowed out. Aetius had few native Romans (and they were his least competent troops too) at the Battle of Chalons, for example.

All of this just highlights how fucking awesome Majorian was, that he was able to nearly rebuild the empire in a few years with a broken, empty army full of demoralised and hybrid troops with conflicting loyalties.

[giglomesh]

All empires dream of becoming strong enough that the only rivals they have are themselves

[chrishamilton]

The late Roman Army was not weak, ineffective, undisciplined and degenerate.
The politicians and leaders were weak, ineffective, undisciplined and degenerate.

[nintendo_fan-]

Honorius, Arcadius, Basiliscus, Ricimer, Valentinian III and Petronius Maximus were a huge pile of poop, when compared to the Late Roman Army