caldrail

By the gods! Another barbarian trick! Have that woman arrested and brought to my tent for questioning - And have our men reminded they're fighting a battle in ten minutes... It would have been quite a sight had it really happened. I've never seen any report this myself. Or... was it high spirits from a camp follower? Thats one way to drum up trade.

So our viewpoint isn't that far apart. I see a greater emphasis on the way soldiers lived because to me it has great bearing on their activities. If you billet rough tough soldiers amongst civilians sooner or later you get problems. One roman advised his friends not to argue with a legionary and just let him take what he wants - and that wasn't even the relatively lawless late empire. Most people of course simply wanted to get on with their lives. Constant demands for taxation and recruitment were making them feel a little under the thumb. If your children disappear to the front who brings in the harvest this year? Worse still, the troops guarding you aren't roman. Most don't speak latin. Would you trust them? It would have been a difficult time to live I guess. Interestingly enough I understand Adrian Goldsworthy ("The Complete Roman Army") has an opposite view to me in many respects. Ok, he's done research on this but as yet I can't see it that way myself. I'm certainly going to look deeper into this period.

I'll let Tacitus have the last word on roman promiscuity. In his Germania, he describes the Germans as - not thinking it 'up to date' to seduce or be be seduced. You said it Tass.

Rome went to considerable trouble to patch up her armies. Of course she did. They needed defence. All too often it wasn't there however in the late stage. Communities were hiring tribes wholesale as mercenary defenders because the roman army could not adequately contain an enemy threat. They simply weren't there. Roman defense policy was no longer offensive, it was about bringing enemy incursions to a halt before they penetrated too deep. Actually I doubt EVERY unit in the late roman army was terrible. They were trying to live up to the old reputation in many cases and with a decent commander I can imagine a 1000 strong legion proving effective at its chosen task. Most could not, or would not. The impression I get is a sense of hoplessness toward the end - a sense of 'why fight too hard, we can't win'. There is definitely a problem with morale and motivation in the late army. Given that a large percentage of that army were in fact Goths, and that a large percentage of their attackers were roman deserters, I can also see an increasing amount of brigandage by both sides. Even those attempting to enforce the law weren't to keen on obeying it. Law and order, like any modern society riven by warfare, was becoming a lost art. There are many examples of this situation today. The balkans? Iraq? Many african states?

Well maybe its just me, but I get bored with dry technical descriptions of every possible nuance or detail that the author can possibly conjure out of thin air. Usually it doesn't explain anything. I prefer to say what I think is right. You don't agree? Cool. But if I don't believe you're materially adding to understanding why would I shift position? Broader explanations aren't always required. Even if an event has a compound cause it can still be explained in simple terms. Also I cannot believe that the romans are alien to us. Our culture is based on the ruins of theirs. We belong to same family trees. Our inheritance is their experience and monuments. They were no different as human beings and their behaviour can easily be classified in similar terms to ours. Indeed, this point makes understanding the roman character much easier in my view. Why attempt an intellectual analysis when all you need to do is get to know these people. History is so much easier when you look at it from the viewpoint of the people who made it. Rich, poor, or indescribably mundane - it makes no difference. They all have stories to tell us through writings, relics, tombstones, archaeology etc. Sure their culture has differences to ours. I accept their mindset was different. But isn't that what fascinates us? How people can be like us yet so different? Isn't it the ability of the roman world to go to extremes that we find so shocking on the evening news today? Of course we don't agree. You're looking for clever insights in some complex jigsaw puzzle by describing each piece. I prefer to look for the picture on the box lid.

Sex was more freely available then. Even a wealthy domus might have alcoves at the back to rent out to prostitutes. I agree. They did bonk a lot. Not everyone though. Impotence and overbearing wives for instance are nothing new. Some people led very moral lives.

Weaponry is an important factor in warfare. Is it any good? Are you troops able to use it to good effect? Are they being trained to do so? The adoption of the spatha in preference to the gladius says two things. Firstly that the soldiers were not so willing to get in close with a short blade. Secondly that they were no longer being trained to fight close in and therefore requiring less skill. No longer were the legions massed in battle formations to steamroller the opposition aside. They formed compact skirmish units a sixth smaller for a more mobile approach. This requires lightweight forces. Heavy infantry can't force march everywhere. It certainly isn't irrelevant that the late roman army was less effective. The external threat to rome was becoming constant and the legions of the time were both unwilling and unable to contain it. Their forces were poorly trained, poorly disciplined, poorly equipped, badly led, badly organised. The huns for instance would not likely have succeeded against rome at its height. Against the 'soft' later army, they made deep penetrations. Roman was surviving on political and military momentum and it was running out. That doesn't mean they couldn't win victories if any particular leader managed to motivate and lead his men effectively. But were there any such leaders? Not many. The roman infrastructure was becoming insular, with country manors almost cutting themselves off from what remained of mainstream life. Rome simply wasn't what it was, neither were her armed forces, whom she relied on to keep the borders safe. Which they weren't....

Perhaps some of us are falling into the modern mode of thinking that sexuality equality is the norm - it certainly wasn't in Rome. By tradition women were either the property of fathers, husbands, or masters. We would find the ideal roman woman as horibbly mousy and downtrodden. But roman women weren't always ideal were they? Like us, they varied in character and ambition. Some women became influential, others ran businesses when society said they shouldn't. Julia was a party girl. She liked the night-life, enjoyed a dalliance, and I see her as something of an incorrigible flirt. Eventually her fun lifestyle reached the desk of her father. Now Augustus wasn't squeaky clean by any means, and since he'd lectured all and sundry on roman standards and morality, it would paint him as a hypocrite to let his daughter party the night away and sleep around a bit. Worse still, she had done this with some important people in Rome. The embarrasement must have been acute. Julia was the first daughter of the principate - this wild party behaviour wasn't going to pass unnoticed. If she can't behave, then she's off to some island until she does. Contrary to the post above, as I said earlier Julia did eventually return from exile. She was was allowed back provided she lived discreetly, and as far as I'm aware, she did so. Lesson learned there I think, though as always with the romans the lesson was a cruel one. The lucky ones were the male partners of Julia. Quite frankly it wouldn't suprise me to read of Augustus having the lot of them thrown to the lions. He didn't. He had more sense than to create enemies from these mens families.

To begin with the romans relied on auxillary cavalry, who were basically foreign horsemen trained in roman tactics etc. These men fought as light cavalry. From Constantius onwards, clibinarii were introduced to emulate the persian cataphracts. These were indeed heavy cavalry and remained in use to the end of the west and beyond. Heavy cavalry were never used by the early roman army, and they never really had much cavalry at all. A legion after Marius contained 120 horsemen for scouting and courier duties. They certainly weren't equipped or trained for head-on cavalry charges.

No thought process? Domus is latin for house. nero's original home on the Palatine wasn't badly damaged from the fire, but having seen the empty space left he just couldn't resist the temptation to use it for himself. Rome of course was always a very crowded place, and I think even the palaces were crammed in. With all this space available, a private park was now possible inside the city boundary. This kind of aggrandisement happens all the time when people become powerful and wealthy. Not everyone falls prey but the temptation is always there. Its an instinctual need to advertise your own status to other people in terms of property.

No-one actually knows, and don't believe anyone who says they do. Traditionally the thumbs down meant death, and this is something Gerome included in his painting, reinforced by early silent hollywood epics. Some historians believe the opposite is true. Possibly, but to me that seems an odd and artificial gesture. There are other variations, for instance one where the thumb is hidden inside the fist to suggest a sheathed blade. I take a more natural view - in that the roman audience would have 'stabbed' with the thumb to demand death. What would have meant life? A raised thumb? A hidden thumb?

I wouldn't have said so. Nero wanted a big house. Bigger than everyone elses - but then he was Nero wasn't he? Didn't he deserve such a dwelling? Only then could he 'live like a human being'. The Domus Aurea was a gross exercise in vanity and it certainly never won him any friends.

Where does it say this? I know a majority of the army was light troops, but the backbone of the army, the fighting core was the field armies, which was heavy infantry. The frontier troops were designed to stall, delay, interupt major pushes into Roman lands, but they were never expected to actually defeat or repulse the threat. The Field Armies were designed for this, they were lower in number compared to the Frontier Troops but the Field Armies was the heany infantry used to engage, defeat and repluse the threats Rome faced in the Late Empire. Cavalry was more important now true, but it was almost always recruited from barbarian groups. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree, since I cannot see at all how heavy infantry was being slowly shunned by Rome after Constantine. His reforms officialized what had been going on in the army since the early 3rd century, smaller, more flexible units instead of the larger legions of the High Empire, but the core, the more highly paid, better equipped and better respected units of this new army was the Comitatenses and the Palatini which were the Heavy Infantry. The evidence from archaeology suggests a sudden downturn in the quality of equipment from around the civil wars of Constantine. Gone are the lorica segmentata, replaced with chain or sometimes scalemail (which has a serious flaw inherent in its design). Helmets are no longer roman, but more barbarian in style. The pilum has gone, replaced with a series of spear-like weapons. Gone too is the gladius, replaced by the longer cavalry spatha. Training was therefore in decline, and with the ability of troops to continue the old style tactics. Vegetius himself moans that troops of his day were not up to the old standards, although I must say they did try. Roman soldiers in the late army were less disciplined too - and I sense a certain reluctance of that army to actually meet the enemy in battle. Recruitment was a thorny issue. No longer was the roman army a respected career and people generally did what they could to avoid military service, by hiding, finding excuses, or cutting off a thumb. The later emperors of course made rulings that one excuse after another was no longer valid and you had to serve anyway. Press gangs roamed around finding able-bodied men that could be...erm... volunteered for service. I do accept that heavy infantry technically still existed, but it simply wasn't the equal of the legions of the golden age. Their attitude, equipment, and training weren't even close.

I take it you didn't make any denarii on the side then

The civil war of Constantine changed the roman army forever. After him, the old style heavy infantry was in decline, replaced by lighter troops. Seriously, the emphasis in the late roman army was for skirmishers rather than testudo formations. This was no different for their allies. Cavalry did retain a heavy element (cataphracts/clibanarii) and therefore a foretaste of medieval times. Actually thats it isn't it? The late roman army was already migrating toward a federalised medieval style army of light troops and heavy cavalry. Didn't quite get there of course, but the men who took over western empire completed the process by the time the dark age had finished.

Games were held in the provinces well beyond this. The prohibition by Constantine (under pressure from christian campaigners against bloodshed) in 325AD was not fully enforced, and the games fell into decline within Rome certainly. Out on the frontiers, at least in some places, it continued for much longer. I've already come across a reference to gladiators in Burgundy in the early 700's AD. Not a widespread activity anymore, and possibly not continuous to that time either.

Yes, I was generalising somewhat. The late roman army (non-foederate) trained its men differently from the golden-age legions. Gone was the day of close packed heavy infantry. Light infantry were far more prevalent, as were cavalry. It was a smaller mobile army better suited for ambuscades and policing (border patrol dare I say it) than the head-on battle mentality of old. Such a light army is often more difficult to control because they become used to using initiative, and therefore want to do their own thing. Its ironic isn't it? Initiative makes an army flexible but deaf.

You might be trying to find meaning in something merely decorative. Although Nero was an astonishing personality, I doubt he was an architect and decorator. True, he no doubt had a say on the buildings apperance, but some other nameless engineer was called upon to unveil the scale model or blueprints hoping to satisfy Caesar as to its magnificence. Nero possibly said that he wanted such and such a room decorated like this, or like that, but these decisions reflect his personality and taste, not his ideology.

Strictly speaking Rome was defeated more than once. Rome was sacked in the 4th century BC was it not? Again in 410AD. Hannibal could have done it if only he'd had the foresight to capitalise on his victories and move in quicker. If you want to get serious about this, then Sulla, Julius Caesar, Vespasian, Severus Septimus - All marched on Rome in civil war. What kept Rome from disaster more often than not was its huge reserve of manpower. The sheer size of the territory it ruled meant that the recruitment pool was potentially massive at any time. Just ask Hannibal...

Its an educated guess, but I've come to the conclusion that burial clubs did most of this if it happened at all. Officers would probably only concern themselves with especially courageous men, veterans, or senior personnel. Burial clubs existed to ensure the dead soldier was interred and the cost of this came out of their pay.

With any organised army, both ancient and moern, latrine duty gives a centurion yet another task to keep soldiers busy. It also has the advantage of being unpleasant and therefore something of a punishment. It also provided centurions with another way of extracting cash from their men. Officers of course were suitably impressed with the cleanliness of the men. Permanent barracks would usually have normal toilet facilities where-ever possible so latrine duty was nothing more than mopping up and scrubbing down. In marching forts or barracks without running water it really was a matter of getting your feet dirty and digging the stuff out to be disposed of elsewhere. I wonder if a few soldiers made some denarii on the side selling it for fertiliser?

Reading 'An Empire Divided' by John Moorehouse I've come across a reference to the usage of gladiators by the Burgundian king in the early 8th century to see off the 'romans'. How interesting...

Traditional roman tactics were based on the deployment of heavy infantry, of a more flexible format than the older phalanx. The huns preferred a mobile strategy using horsemen to good advantage. Of course the later roman armies were using much more cavalry than before, but the huns were using horses that could be astonishingly hardy and quick. Bad leadership had something to do with it, but it was also the reluctant nature of the late roman soldiery that didn't help. Becoming a soldier of Rome was no longer seen as a desired career. Also remember that although discipline was fierce in the legions - it had to be. Roman soldiers didn't obey without question. Mutinies were frequent and even Julius Caesar nearly lost control of his men once. A roman leader didn't just order his men to battle - he had to inspire and cajole them too. This pprobably got worse in the later roman armies although the question of cash wasn't so important (I think). The increasing use of barbarian units may not have helped either. I wonder if this made the command structure worse too? The Huns had already got the measure of them in any case. The Huns were aggressive, tough, and simply not afraid of Romes reputation.

No. But then we never asked him to write those screenplays. Nor did anyone ask Suetonius to write his biographies. He simply wanted to record their lives and entertain his readers. Thats quite an industry today isn't it? However, its also true that Suetonius wasn't punished for writing them. That either means he got it right or that it was politically correct. Difficult to tell which.