Bellator wrote:Of course he based his strategy on those locations, that's the way they approached all their wars. Take out the enemies power centers, and they will fall apart. The reason this did not work in Germany is precicely because of the nature of German society. Even if the Romans held all the power centers, they had little control over the population. Unlike in Gaul, where controlling the power centers was for the most part sufficient. In that sense I wouldn't even considered them real power centers, comparible to the ones found in Gaul, since their "power" was far more limited. There is no German equivalent of Alesia or Avaricum in terms or size, power or control over the population.
Obviously your definition of power center is a different from mine, you mean those centers without one cannot survive, whereas I simply take the term to mean those places where power is consolidated.
In that context, it is certainly true that the german culture was not city-centered. However, it was certainly settlement-centered, in that we have several hundreds of little settlements. You do not need a lot of population to project power, especially political or religious power. We have several reports of Germanicus devestating tribes by ravishing their heartlands. In fact, one of the major successes of his campaign, the recovery of two of the eagles, were in fact made after capturing a major settlement or religious center.
But yes, it is true that the "power centers", if such a term is even applicable in this context, were far less significant in military terms. Yet then again, the Romans never managed to reach the major settlements of Arminius.
German society was only semi-sedentry, and whole people frequently picked up their stuff and moved after they exhausted the land, or if invaders entered. This happened frequently and on a regular basis. Obviously not nearly as frequently as true nomadic people, but the Germans were far less settled than the Gauls. There were almost no long term permanent settlements to speak of in Germany, prior to the age of Charlemagne.
This is quite wrong. German migration was comparitively small until the time of the huns, with migrations like the Alamanni being the exception instead of the rule. Feddersen Wierde, which is an example of a typical german settlement, was populated from the first to the ffth century AD - without interruption.
You are of course correct that the germans were far less settled than the gauls, but to suggest that there were almost no long term settlements is quite wrong.
For all the things the Germans copied from the Romans, building permanent cities was not one of them. The extreme example of Völkerwanderung, though obviously not common, were only possible because of the very nature of German society and the fact that they did not rely on permanement settlements. This was the case when the Cimbrians were on the move, and was still the case at the very end of the Roman empire.
Certainly not, and Julian's campaigns seem to prove otherwise. The germans did rely on permanent settlements (see the example provided above), the problem was that they were quite skilled in evading armies and then rebuilding the settlements within quite a short time. For example, the settlements of the Alamanni were almost the same during the third and fourth century, and this was the german tribe credited with the biggest migration until the fifth century.
I would be vary of such estimates, since there is no real statistical basis to go on.
Archeological evidence of cities shrinking in population (based on the city walls, for instance). This combined with reports from Roman officials complaining about depopulation in the countryside.
Do you have access to a library? If so, I would suggest you read the excellent essays by Whittaker/Garnsey and Ward-Perkins in the Cambridge ancient history, which explain why all this evidence is in fact, nearly worthless. If not, I can try and paraphrase the most important parts here.
Even if that would be the case, the population didn't go back to earlier levels, which is what would have been needed to man and pay for future expansion.
Again, this is doubtful, because we do not even know the extent of the decline of the population besides some literarary evidence which is unreliable due to rhetorics.
As I said, the commonly accepted viewpoint is (paraphrased from the essay linked above):
According to the more recent and authoritative analysis, there was no general decline or transformation of classical cities in the west until the sixth and seventh centuries
And the east was flourishing.
True, there are exceptions. But even if, for the sake of argument, we accept that population wasn't declining, shipping volumes in the mediterian, tax revenues, and the amount of specie were declining.
Your evidence for that is what, exactly? Where do you get that from?
This meant that Rome simply didn't have the resources needed to fund future expansion. And this all may have a different explanation, the most simple one would be shrinking population levels (due to plague, environmental issues, or whatever), for which there is at least some evidence.
Again, this is not definite. I could just as easily point out that in the third and fourth century, the roman empire could afford to guarantee price stability and almost free issue of wine, pork, olive oil and grain in the urbs, a feat not managed before at any time. The average member of the plebs was issued about a gallon of free wine per day.
This speaks against a lack of resources. Furthermore, there is an easier explanation for why the roman empire did not expand anymore - a) it was not worth the cost - true for most german territories and even for Dacia, which was supposed to be "rich" or b) enemies with a different fighting style and a capable military occupied it - case in point, the dacians. In short, lack of resources does not really solve the problem.
) and most of what he writes has already been discussed in far earlier books. I shudder what travesties his new book on Byzantium is going to contain. But I guess this is the end result if an amateur writes such a book. I would prefer Goldsworthy, Hoffmann and Bohec in a heartbeat, but I don't really hate Luttwak. There are far worse. 
