Would the classical Roman army survive the challenges faced by the Empire in the late Empire era?

[ray243]

I thought this is a rather interesting question to be asked, and I don't think anyone down here has really asked this question.

While many people ( at the least the general public) believed that the Roman army declined during the late Empire era, and authors like Vegetius often tried to argue the need for the Imperial Roman army to return to its roots, I think there is a need for us to question whether the Roman military system that was organised under Augustus can survived the challenges faced by the Roman Empires from the 3rd century onwards.

Or in other words, can the Roman army continue to defeat the invading barbarian tribes from the third century onwards if the Romans simply refused to reform their military system after the 1st Century AD?

Is the Roman army under Augustus well suited for defeating the Sassanid Empire, the Alemanni, the Franks and the Goths that appeared on the borders of the Roman Empire during the third century?

[SigniferOne]

Let's ask a contrary question: what qualities of the Late Army would you say were particularly adept at facing post 3rd century AD challenges?

To me the only notably useful feature of the Late army was the limitanei/comitatenses system of border fortifications and inland core armies. Yet I do not see how that's drastically different from the Classical fortifications aided by nearby provincial legions.

[Odovacar]

Let's ask a contrary question: what qualities of the Late Army would you say were particularly adept at facing post 3rd century AD challenges?

Army evolves or changes to face new circumstances. Vegetius could be wise easely, he did not have to organise an army in reality..to provide funds, etc.

To me the only notably useful feature of the Late army was the limitanei/comitatenses system of border fortifications and inland core armies. Yet I do not see how that's drastically different from the Classical fortifications aided by nearby provincial legions.

The difference was -as far as I know- that the limitanei were part time soldiers, and the inner land armies were the pros. The central cavalry army, stationing in Milano was an important change as well brought forward by Gallienus.

[SigniferOne]

Army evolves or changes to face new circumstances. Vegetius could be wise easely, he did not have to organise an army in reality..to provide funds, etc.

Someone like Thiud would say that look, the Late Army has frequently defeated the barbarians which means that there was little deficiency in it. I would argue this: has any Late Army made a successful invasion into Germany, into Caledonia or Ireland?

The answer is no, and not only that, we all immediately know that such an invasion would've been completely impossible for it.

Thus just because the military 'changed' into its Late form does not mean that it changed sufficiently, or successfully. I'm still looking for some concrete difference that made the Late Army particularly adapted to facing its crises.

The difference was -as far as I know- that the limitanei were part time soldiers, and the inner land armies were the pros.

However there is no major tactical shift as it's sometimes portrayed as, and that's my point.

[Last Roman]

I would argue this: has any Late Army made a successful invasion into Germany, into Caledonia or Ireland?

perhaps because Roman strategy changed from going on the offensive to staying on the defensive? We clearly see this in Hadrian's reign, where he pulled back and consolidated rather than expanded.

as per the op: there's a reason the army changed. well, multiple reasons, but a change in enemies and tactics is a key player.

[hellheaven1987]

The difference was -as far as I know- that the limitanei were part time soldiers, and the inner land armies were the pros.

The line was not very clear actually, and certain Limitanei units were granted as pseudo-Comitatenses if they were attached to Comitatenses long enough. It seems that original Limitanei were not part-time paramilitary units, but rather because the lack of proper logistic in border regions forced them to parts of supplies for themselves...

[ray243]

The line was not very clear actually, and certain Limitanei units were granted as pseudo-Comitatenses if they were attached to Comitatenses long enough. It seems that original Limitanei were not part-time paramilitary units, but rather because the lack of proper logistic in border regions forced them to parts of supplies for themselves...

Did the logistic of the army broke down during this period? I would assume that given the works undertaken by Constantine on the Limes, it is fairly acceptable to think that the the logistical system of the Romans did not break down during this time period.

[Lysimachus]

Did the logistic of the army broke down during this period? I would assume that given the works undertaken by Constantine on the Limes, it is fairly acceptable to think that the the logistical system of the Romans did not break down during this time period.

Considering the decentralised nature of the Roman government, i'm pretty sure each army supplied itself rather than receiving shipments of food from Rome so I don't see how there really was much of a logistics system. On the other hand, for the Ottoman Turks their armies were supplied from Constantinople which limited their campaigning time before taking winter quarters (which meant that Vienna was the limit they could go on campaign).

[hellheaven1987]

Did the logistic of the army broke down during this period? I would assume that given the works undertaken by Constantine on the Limes, it is fairly acceptable to think that the the logistical system of the Romans did not break down during this time period.

No, but rather because border regions had less road system, which would cause more difficulty for constant supply transport. The lacking of major supply deposts around border and insufficient transport technology caused more problems. Overall, the situation is similar as Foreign Legion's experience in Algeria during 19th Century - the forts were so isolated that supply would not come until considerable of time, and during this time stationed units must find way to resupply certain specified demand.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

I think that if you just defend it's inevitable that some time you'll fall.. Some people may say that the Eastern Roman Empire did the same, and just defended but the Byzantines undertook some counter-attacks that were enough to keep the enemies at bay for some years or eventually destroy them (like Heraclius did to the Sassanids).. The late Western Empire wasn't able to follow the changes in warfare and didn't develop units with the ability to fight in the same way as their enemies (for example the Byzantines developed cataphracts, clibanarii and archer units that sometimes proved to be better than their sassanid counterparts).. Also the Western Empire didn't posses any able general after Aetius..

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

Guys, your being silly, didn't you know that the only reason the WRE failed was because they changed there troops, who were originally equiped with swords of WIN and armour of EPIC!

In short, the Roman army changed because it was faced with new tasks and challenges, not because they wanted to lose.

[Old_Scratch]

The Romans were proud of their past and tended to look at their history in a way that was bigger than life. IIRC the fourth century saw the reintroduction of bronze helmets and armor, not for practical reasons but for the rising popularity and imitation of its classical past. It's not uncommon for a culture to look at its past as better or more virtuous than the present and blame the problems of the present on the fact that things have changed. Vegetius, among other writers of the time, did just this. The fact of the matter is though that times were very different and the Roman military changed with the times to face new foes and challenges; militarily, culturally and economically. It wouldn't have been feasible to go back to the old system since the foes that they fought were long gone, and the society that made up the old army was drastically different.

The fall of the western empire had little to do with the competence of the legion and everything to do with population shifts, poor leadership, religious rifts, and economic mismanagement. So much more goes into determining the strength of a states military than their tactical or physical prowess.

I would argue this: has any Late Army made a successful invasion into Germany, into Caledonia or Ireland?

The answer is no, and not only that, we all immediately know that such an invasion would've been completely impossible for it.

Was there even an attempt to? Was there any success with these things with the old legions? Conquest and annexation are not good measures of a states military power. It can be an indication that when combined with other evidence can be turned into proof, but alone it's meaningless. It only shows a states power reletive to its neighbors and may not even have anything to do with a superior military system but simply the ability to field more troops and replace massive losses quickly. This was precisely one of the reasons why the Roman republic was so successful militarily.

EDIT: To the OP; Could the manipular system of the republic survive in the late empire? Certainly not. Could the legion of the first century CE survive in the late empire? Maybe, but it wouldn't be any more successful than the late army considering the other pressures of the time.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

One thing that needs to be addressed on this topic is the towering of an innate and ever-present adulation for the past over Roman culture. The Romans of the Polybian era had their eyes turned to the fighting style of the early republican heroes (Titus Manlius Torquatus, Fabius the "Raven"), the Romans of the Augustan era to their predecessors that had conquered the world, the Romans since the Principate onwards to the former Roman and Alexandrian tradition. And this trend kept well into the middle-ages, where in the Eastern Roman Empire the heritage among the infantry from the Macedonian phalanxes and the legions had become unquestioned. Besides, the structure of the legion and the mentality of its officers had always been evolving, even in the Republican era, where from the manipular legion of the aggressive young aristocrats in the Punic and Macedonian wars, it evolved into the legion of the cohorts, the tactically minded staff of aristocrats and the centurions having assumed the former role of the latter with their aggressive behaviour on the field in Ceasar's time; and yet, to Vegetius the past was flat, homogenous, static, a sea of virtue and cleverness.
In this context, his past-mindedness (and that of others like Arrian, Polyaenus, Julian) speaks rather for the theoretical nature and the curriculum of the education enjoyed by the aristocrats of the Empire at that point, which produced a very specific mindset, rather than any deficiencies in the Roman army. The drills, the training, the technological expertise, the discipline, the fighting spirit of the legions had nothing to be ashamed of when compared to their ancestors in the previous eras and if we take a look at the military record of the late empire we will witness many heroic victories (Strasburg, Argentovaria, the crushing of Radagaisus, Chalon) and not more defeats than in any other era. The empire did not crumble because it failed on the battlefield, that's for sure. After all the army was in a constant process of being shaped by contemporary, pressing military necessities, occasionally to a lesser extent by other factors (cultural pressure, economy). So, in my humble opinion the answer is no, the classical Roman army would not have fared any better.
A more suitable question in my view is if the classical Roman society would have fared better, because even though the army itself, composed of agrarian soldiers, was semi-professional at best at that era, the society as a whole was largely militarised and war-orientated and therefore could produce a striking, massive amount of manpower ready for recruitment (more than 700,000 men by Italy alone in the intermediate of the 1st and 2nd Punic wars), whereas the late Roman army could hardly replenish the losses; it could not be used as a bludgeon any more and that is in my view because of the demilitarisation that professionalism brought about and the corrosive effects, dissent and instability among the social base, which stemmed from the religious clashes between christians and pagans and christian sects between themselves.

[SigniferOne]

The drills, the training, the technological expertise, the discipline, the fighting spirit of the legions had nothing to be ashamed of when compared to their ancestors in the previous eras and if we take a look at the military record of the late empire we will witness many heroic victories (Strasburg, Argentovaria, the crushing of Radagaisus, Chalon) and not more defeats than in any other era.

It's all nice and well to talk about the backward-looking, yet in the Late Empire the army was significantly barbarized, and what's even worse, had to pay whole hordes of barbarians to protect itself. There's a very marked difference.

Yes Romans had always been militarily conservative, but that doesn't mean they tried to take the army back to a previous period. Torquatus and Manlius were heroes for the Polybian legions, but only in the context of martial prowess as a model to each of the men; didn't try to revert to the Servian manipular system. The late republicans of Marius adored the heroic Polybian legion, but only in the context of overcoming barbarians; they didn't try to revert to a pre-Marian system. And it all goes similarly for other periods of Roman history. The only time when they thought of an earlier army as a model was in the Late Empire, and for very tangible reasons (these people weren't fools). The reasons were: the army was filled with people who cared less for Roman culture or legacy; Roman administrators had such weak ability to raise armies that they had to get help from outside the empire; and the help they got was from the same babarian hordes whom they'd been used to slap around for centuries, now ostensibly 'protecting' Romans (a bit like a gangster would), but just as frequently turning on them and ravaging Roman cities with them being hardly able to so much as raise a hand in defense.

[Captain Blackadder]

Armies change for a reason no one goes out to make an army worse then what came before it. If a legion from the first century went into the late empire it would be slaughted. The enemies it faced were a different type completly to the foes faced by the late army. What the Romans needed in the latter stages was flexabilty in manovers and bodies of 5,000 men were just too much to move about quickly enough to protect twons not from invasion as the classical army did but from looiting.Also the classical legion was very infantry heavy and would lose badly in the more caverly dominated scene of the 5th Century.

[Lysimachus]

Armies change for a reason no one goes out to make an army worse then what came before it. If a legion from the first century went into the late empire it would be slaughted. The enemies it faced were a different type completly to the foes faced by the late army. What the Romans needed in the latter stages was flexabilty in manovers and bodies of 5,000 men were just too much to move about quickly enough to protect twons not from invasion as the classical army did but from looiting.Also the classical legion was very infantry heavy and would lose badly in the more caverly dominated scene of the 5th Century.

Well since legions are assigned to be guarded to specific provinces, if a legion of 5,000 men was in a province then a contingent can be distributed to the threatened area, if you think they moved as a huge block then that would be wrong. The problem with the Romans wasn't that their armies were bad, it rested with two main issues:

1) Poor government, the power was invested in the army and due to its decentralised nature resulted in constant civil wars.

2) The vast Barbarian migrations, which Rome eventually had to grant permission to settle in their lands to stop them from attacking the empire which in turn weakened it and gradually led to its downfall as it would mean that the Romans had less territory to draw from.

Perhaps a classical legion was infantry heavy, and I would agree with that but they were willing to adapt to circumstances, even during the days of the Polybian legions. Since the Romans knew their cavalry was lacking, they were willing to include mercenary or allied cavalry in to their legions to compensate for the limits of their own.

[Captain Blackadder]

I am well aware that legions did not move as one giant block but the limitations of having such large organisation is what caused the army to reform again. With the 5,000 men Any barbarians who crossed the border would need to make his way across the defences and locally stationed auxiliary forces only to eventually face the nearest legion which would march up from its camp and cut off their retreat. For a long time this system worked well enough.But in the third century it could no longer cope. The old legions became gradually more disorganised, having cohorts detached and sent to various places to fill breeches in the defences. That is what I meant by saying that 5000 men was too large to work effectivly when your main task was border protection.

[Xanthippus of Sparta]

I'd say the problem wasn't in the army itself, but in the numbers and recruitment.

Now the Romans had problems with Italian citizens dodging military service dating back to Republican times, but in the later period it was far more pronounced.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

It's all nice and well to talk about the backward-looking, yet in the Late Empire the army was significantly barbarized, and what's even worse, had to pay whole hordes of barbarians to protect itself. There's a very marked difference.

Barbarisation as in enlistment of foederati from Saxons, Franks, Goths, Vandals and other Germanics or as heavy recrutiment from formerly conquered barbarian populations such as Illyrians, Thracians and Gauls in the properly Roman comitatenses and limitanei units?
As far as the latter are concerned, one could make the case that they had been sufficiently Romanised by that point, in the sense of having adopted Latin language and customs and identified their political and national existence with the Empire, so I would rather posit the enlargement of the recruitment base beyond the barriers of Italian ethnicity as good in principle. After all many peoples around the Mediterranean that eventually ended up conquered had frequently served as auxiliaries or allies in previous eras, the Republican included, and many of them had striken the Romans of that day for displaying highly valued qualities like virtus.
As far as the former are concerned, I do not deny that they were indeed unreliable allies in a perennially uneasy coexistence with the natives and that the Empire resorting to them on such a wide scale indeed raises the topic of difficulties in forcing or attracting recruits, with all the negative connotations for the Roman society at that point, but I would add that this does not by itself reflect a deficiency in the military system that took the recruits and turned them into soldiers, neither in terms of organisation, logistics, technical expertise. The military record of the army, where one can turn his eyes for corroboration of such a hypothesis suggests the opposite, that the Late Empire's army was as effective as it had always been. Therefore, I do not believe you can construct a safe link between barbarisation and decline in military quality. Barbarisation was a symptom of weakness on different planes: demographics, ethos, economy, stability.

The only time when they thought of an earlier army as a model was in the Late Empire, and for very tangible reasons (these people weren't fools). The reasons were: the army was filled with people who cared less for Roman culture or legacy; Roman administrators had such weak ability to raise armies that they had to get help from outside the empire; and the help they got was from the same babarian hordes whom they'd been used to slap around for centuries, now ostensibly 'protecting' Romans (a bit like a gangster would), but just as frequently turning on them and ravaging Roman cities with them being hardly able to so much as raise a hand in defense

The reasons may have also been fundamentally different from what you imagine: reproduction of a specific, hauntingly past-oriantated mindset through meticulous study of classical literature, which was the exclussive type of education every boy received whose parents could afford tutors ever since the second sophistic and perhaps even before that. Gone were the days of the early Republic, where young Roman aristocrats spent their 20s in the legions yearning for displaying their virtus or the days of Ceasar and Pompey, when they had evolved into tactically minded commanders competing focusing on generalship. The aristocratic class in the days of Vegetius had largely been allienated from active military duties with the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine and their approach to war was largely shaped by the second hand experience they gained through their educational system. Under this context and keeping in mind that Vegetius was not an actual military man, it is not absurd to perceive his urgent calls to return to the ancestral fighting style, which in truth had never been static, as one piece in a large puzzle of Roman attempts in the Imperial era to actually recreate the past: Titus emulating Alexander in the siege of Jerusalem, Arrian planning to bring phalanx back to life against the Alans, militarily inactive Sparta and Thespiae providing auxiliary regiments to the campaigns against the Parthians under the Antonines, cavalry masks inspired by and unit names (ex: Celeres) drawn from Greek and Roman mythology in the 3rd century, the shieldwall having emerged out of no apparent reason by the time of Strasbourg or Julian imitating acts of Scipio Africanus and Agathocles in his Persian campaign. In other words, in this context Vegetius' cries do not stand in isolation, therefore being relieved of the element of the extra-ordinary and the weight they may have wielded.

[SigniferOne]

As far as the latter are concerned, one could make the case that they had been sufficiently Romanised by that point, in the sense of having adopted Latin language and customs and identified their political and national existence with the Empire, so I would rather posit the enlargement of the recruitment base beyond the barriers of Italian ethnicity as good in principle.

That's exactly right, the men who filled out the legions from Gaul or Illyria were not barbarians in any meaningful sense. Gaul had a precipitative collapse of Celtic culture, and a transformation into a province more Roman than Italy itself. Illyrians had been Romanized by as far back as the hardened Scipionic veterans fresh off the heels of the Second Punic War.

Compare this to the Alans who were never Romanized, or Goths who were about as alien to the Roman culture as the latter had ever experienced (excluding the Huns).

Consisting armies of the former was good policy, and I don't see a measure by which they could be counted as in any way 'less Roman'. These were Latin-speaking, Latin-reading and educated regions. Armies consisting of them were "Roman" in every way. Armies consisting of the foederati barbarians were Roman in no way, especially in not viewing Roman culture as essential, knowing much about Roman values, or being particularly attached to Roman civilization in any way.

but I would add that this does not by itself reflect a deficiency in the military system that took the recruits and turned them into soldiers, neither in terms of organisation, logistics, technical expertise. The military record of the army, where one can turn his eyes for corroboration of such a hypothesis suggests the opposite, that the Late Empire's army was as effective as it had always been.

However you omit a most important fact: that many of the barbarian tribes fighting on the side of the Empire are not counted by you as part of the "Roman army". The Goths under Alaric who, for a time, found it their interest to leave Roman cities intact rather than burn them, by an objective measure must be accounted as a colossal failure of the Late Military system; not tactically, but strategically. Yet the fact that they never entered Army rolls makes it possible to disregard their existence, and without the long list of quasi-gangster barbarian tribes to whom Late Army had no choice but to resort to (in which lies its fantastic failure), then you're right, its success isn't that much more hampered.

The reasons may have also been fundamentally different from what you imagine: reproduction of a specific, hauntingly past-oriantated mindset through meticulous study of classical literature, which was the exclussive type of education every boy received whose parents could afford tutors ever since the second sophistic and perhaps even before that.

However, you state the fact of the archaic-orientation, with little effort to explain it. Some generals could've wished for the glory days of Pompey or Caesar but why would a regular regional school professor teach his students on the glory days of the virtuous legions, of the non-barbarized culturally Roman warriors, of all efforts of society aimed towards the preservation of Roman existence? Surely you can see that the answer lies in the question.

In the current day, that is in the age of the Late Empire, the legions were half-filled with mongrel, culturally indifferent barbarians, the Legates and Administrators were helpless at raising native armies from a culturally listless millions of Roman citizens, and there seemed to be found little valor in the citizen or the soldier. This, this core difference between the nature of the Late Army compared to its earlier predecessors, is what explains the fact that the archaic-orientation took active form, when it's never done so before. You can take Arrian with his phalanx or Elagabalus with his phalanx, but sensible-minded commanders under Hadrian ignored such foolery, and we do not observe any large-scale efforts to reform or amend the Classical army in any way. This is what changes in the Late period.