lord Martiya wrote:Thanas wrote:Indeed you horrendously simplified. But I am still hard pressed to find any argument in your post about why the Romans changed their army in view of a new enemy between the second and third century. The challenges were essentially the same. The real change in tactics we can see (Gallienus cavalry corps, Diocletian and Constantine's reform) is more an organizational development borne out of the need to mass a field army quickly. However, that change is not only due to the larger number of enemies (not their tactics per se), but also to deal with usurpers.
About the cavalry, you forget one thing: the Parthians. Caesar and Crassus cavalry was more a glorified scouting force, nothing that could resist more than five minutes against a cavalry meant to actually fight like the Parthian one,
And neither of these examples are in any way indicative of Roman Army cavalry.
and the Romans needed something to keep occupied their thrice damned mounted archers while being capable to fight Parthians' cataphracts (they knew they wouldn't always have a Ventidius with an army of slingers and terrain that forced the mounted archers in melee combat like at Mount Gindarus).
They had that already, especially their artillery and infantry. What is even funnier is that even after the reform of Gallienus, it was Roman infantry which decided the battle against the eastern cavalry forces. Meanwhile, heavy cavalry units were to great success employed against the Germans. Thus, it does not immediately follow that Roman cavalry was a direct consequence of the
That was why the Romans started employing cataphracts on their own, first as small but growing numbers of mercenaries and then as actual military units, since as early as Hadrian's reign (the first officially recorded cataphract unit in Roman service is the ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum catafractata under Hadrian, but Polybius stated the existance of Roman cataphracts as early as 2nd century BC).
You misunderstand a great deal about the Danube situation. First of all, the Romans encountered heavy horsemen in their wars with the Dacians, as early as Augustus. It is also often said (though not proven) that Vitellius used clibinarii against the forces of Vespasian. The first real experience with these armored horsemen was in the Dacian wars of Domitian, when the Jazyges allegedly destroyed a whole roman legion. The naming convention and the placement of the units also is more of an indication that they were meant to counter the sarmatian, not the parthian threat. The Roman heavy horseman seems more based on the Sarmatian one than the Parthian one, at least for the early formations.
Meanwhile, if we look at actual battle records, we see that the Roman infantry countered the Parthian cavalrymen, as seen by the campaigns against Zenobia and the Sassanids. The same is true of Julian's persian campaign. The roman developed specialized infantry legions to deal with the Parthian cavalry. They did not try to match cavalry with cavalry, they dealt with it with specialized infantry. Unlike in their dealings with the Germanic and sarmatian tribes, where they used a lot of cavalry.
And now, while I curse my inability to actually prove it's not a coincidence that Hadrian was the successor of the first Roman emperor to sack Ctesiphon and actually was in that victorious army, could you tell me the administrative part of replacing the older infantry equipment of rectangular shield, shortsword, a couple javelins and the optional dagger and darts with round shields, longswords and spear?
What administrative part, actually? The romans replaced as needed. As for the equipment, you seem to miss a lot of things that were actually carried by the late Roman infantrymen.
If you mean whether there was a conscious decision to replace older equipment, that one is pretty hard to find out. However, note that what we perceive as a standard legionnary, never actually existed. For example, the rectangular scuta were never adapted by all units.
That said, there is one example of whole legions being retrained for one specific purpose, and that is under Aurelian when he retrained the Palastinian legions against the Palmyrian cataphracts (note: instead of assigning this role to the cavalry).
However, I am still looking forward to your listing of changes in legionnary equipment and how you can prove it was due to the enemies changing. I have no doubt that some was (for example, the heavier neck guard seems an indication of the heavier cavalry role), but to say that Rome changed mainly because of their enemies is an exaggeration. It seems more that the Romans, as always, constantly adapted new developments (both foreign and indigenous, for example the plumbatae) when they could.
ray245 wrote:
However, if the late army was more specialised than the early army, can't we assume that it is harder to replace the losses in the late Roman army than the early army?
One would think so, but note that even after loosing the entire Gallic army in the Battle of Mursa, the Caesdar Julian managed to rebuilt it within less than two years and that is while simultaneously campaigning. At the same time, the Emperor also campaigned with his field armies and made an offensive campaign against the Sarmatians etc. The Romans must have had a highly extensive system in place - I know of no other army that managed to replace its losses so quickly. My guess is that veterans, who had been discharged but were often kept on as armed guards for cities or settled in specialized colonies, or the sons of those veterans, provided an excellent reservoir for manpower. Thus, I would suggest that there was a pool of "militia", if you want, that could quickly receive additional training for their specialized role.
Also, note that the Romans often simply convinced prisoners to switch sides, these were then sent in a remote area of the empire, freeing up soldiers there who could then be transferred to the front.
EDIT: With regards to the above-made point about Roman cavalry, I can now say with near certainty that the goal of their introduction was not to go up against Parthians, but to provide the Roman Army with additional combined-arms potential.