Originally Posted by
ThiudareiksGunthigg
I promised myself I'd stay away from this dumb thread, but I'm now waiting for my plane, so what the hell ...
There is zero evidence the Huns had stirrups or that anyone in Europe had them before their introduction by the Avars in the Seventh Century. Some try to argue that they might have existed without leaving any trace of archaeological, linguistic or iconographical evidence for 300 years, but that's pretty unconvincing.
A Roman legion could also run at one million miles an hour, wrestle a raging tornado and kill a yak at 200 paces using mind bullets.
Strange, then, that it was only used by Roman units raised or equipped in the western Empire (their eastern equivalents continued to use hamata) and was abandoned by the Roman Army several centuries before the Western Empire collapsed and over a millennium before the East fell.
If segmentata was the uber-armour of the armchair fanboy's fervid imagination, it's weird that their Roman heroes dumped it in favour of mail. People I know who have actually made and used segmentata - experienced Roman re-enactors - tend to be rather more low key about its virtues than the armchair experts.
The man inside would have been more than "shaken up and bruised", he'd be dead or dying from massive internal injuries. And, as Ringeck has pointed out here many times, there are many problems with these kinds of armour trials. One that instantly comes to mind here is how "authentic" these reproductions of segmentata actually were. Making or buying a reproduction produced from uniformly milled, modern spring steel probably would give you the results described, but that would not be an "authentic" reproduction of the level of late Iron Age metals technology the Romans had got to. And I'm finding it rather hard to believe that these experiments were done on segmentata made from lames of individually hand-forged iron produced using genuine Roman techniques. Unless they were, these "experiments" are just the usual whizz-bang TV documentary eye candy - they mean nothing.
That was a fairly bizarre and warped summary of the events in question. To begin with, if you're trying to argue that the West fell and the East survived because this one massacre (one of many in the string of palace revolutions and army purges in the period) somehow cleansed the East of barbarians then you've chosen a bizarre example.
This little massacre made only a minor difference to the numbers of barbarians in the Eastern forces and was more of an assertion of dominance by one group of barbarians in the Army over another. You've forgotten (or perhaps you're unaware) that "the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno" began life as plain old Tarasicodissa, an Isaurian barbarian hill-tribesman from Armenia. The politics leading up to and during Zeno's reign (or reigns actually, he was deposed at least once) consisted of struggles between the Isaurian barbarians in the Eastern Army and the Alanic and Germanic barbarians in the same army. After recovering from being deposed in 476, Zeno spent the next five years playing the two rival Ostrogothic chiefs against each other until Theodoric Strabo died in 481. To prevent the surviving Theodoric, the Amaling, from taking control of Strabo's forces as well as his own Zeno offered him free rein in Italy and then eliminated as many of Strabo's men as he could get his hands on.
To pretend this was a noble and wise "Roman" emperor saving the East from barbarians is hilarious. This was a barbarian who had found his way onto the throne thanks to the machinations of Eastern military politics and who then diverted one rival barbarian threat and dealt with the remnant of the other with the traditional army purge and massacres.
The Ostrogoths had not "taken control of all aspects of the Army", given that Zeno's Isaurians were the dominant faction in the Eastern Army (the fact that an Isaurian tribesman was the Eastern Emperor would be a bit of a clue about that). And where you've got the idea that Theodoric "stupidly took the offer, believing Odoacre would hand over Rome and Italy" is anyone's guess. Theodoric didn't march on Italy with his entire people because he thought Odovacar was going to give him the place - all the sources and evidence indicates he was going there to fight for it. Theodoric was renowned for many things but "stupidity" was not one of them.
Back to the topic of this thread (if I must) - the formation described here as "Repellere Equite" seems to be loosely based on one described by Arrian:
They should deploy in eight ranks and their deployment should be close ordered. And the front four ranks of the formation must be of spearmen, whose spearpoints end in thin iron shanks. And the foremost of them should hold them at the ready, in order that when the enemies near them, they can thrust the ironpoints of the spears at the breast of the horses in particular. Those standing in second, third an fourth rank of the formation must hold their spears ready for thrusting if possible, wounding the horses and killing the horsemen and put the rider out of action with the spear stuck in their heavy body armour and the iron point bent because of the softness. The following ranks should be of the javelineers. The ninth rank behind them should be the foot archers, those of the Numidians, Cyrenaicans, Bosporans and Ityraeans. Artillery pieces must be deployed on each flank to fire at the advancing enemies at maximum range, and behind the whole battle formation.
(Arrian, Array against the Alans)
What Arrian describes, however is a formation where the front ranks are standing with lancea (not pila) ready for thrusting, supported by other ranks with pila. That doesn't fit the textbook picture of Roman legionaries armed with pila only and not spears, but our sources often don't fit the textbook idea of what the Roman army was like. What we also see as the Roman Army increasing faced more cavalry is the old pilum declining in use and various forms of the lancea becoming the primary weapon of the Roman soldier.
So the classic legionary beloved of the fanboys could resist cavalry, but had to abandon their classic legionary equipment and tactics when doing so became something they had to do regularly to win battles. Which should indicate that the classic fanboy legion wasn't terribly good at repelling cavalry.
I'll let those who want to rejoin the "Spiderman could beat Batman" debate make of that what they will.
Re: How would Roman legions fare against Medieval armies?
nope, you're absolutely right, and while i do not concede that the armies of Rome would have lost against a medieval army, i will concede that i ought have commented without reading all 17 pages through. my apologies for taking up a space on the first page that another, more useful topic could have used instead.
