PerfectimusPrime

Well, acording to Rome : Total war, they did.

Roman were pretty much known for their tolerance... Roman society has been claimed to be totally colour-barless, or something. Of course from the way they dealed with the jewish revolts you would probaly get the picture that the Romans were antisemitic, but thats not true... They dealt every revlot the same way. EDIT: Oh, and the word barbarian was not a racial class, it only pointed out society's sadicism and social backwardness, and of course bad hygine ... In a sense the romans had a uh,certain 'dislike' for unwhased and drunken germans. But, no, not really racism.

Three? oh,yeah... now I remember...

Common misconception. Because most of the late legionaries were "barbarians" but they were Romanized ones Click here and you know what I mean. The Roman army that fought in adrianapole was highly de-romanized by the huge waves of barbarian recruits. The army's discipline was lost and the armies fought very much like barbarians. Some of the legionaries in adrianapole didn't even wear armour, which meant that the goths archers did alot damage. Romans had cavalry too, but they were very tired by the days of marching. Also the goth's tactics were very good. If a legon of trajan's era would have been in there: only the legions draconian discipline could have been relied to win the day and all the legionaries would have worn an lorica segmentata armou and used better weapons in general. So, my point is that the legions were not outdates but they were poor quality during the battle. The Legion no longer romanized barbarians, but the barbarians barbarized the roman legion.

The Fall of Rome was caused by the decline in the military. Rome's armies after constatine looked more like germanic mob of warriors, nor just looked like it behaved like it. Military discipline was almost lost as the germanic mercenaries killed the centurions, centurions being the backbone of roman army, the enforcers of the discipline. Also equipment level lowered seriously; The legionaries no longer used large shield, and short sword, but instead used spatha longsword wich was much more ineffective than the gladius. Lorica segemtata was also abandoned and replaced by the chain mail lorica hamanta. And as most of the free people in rome were citizens by this time, legionaries came from everywhere and the legion de-romized completley. In every sense the legion became worse army. It is stupid to think that christianity saved or destoryed the empire. In the empire there was about 8-10 per sent christians, correct me if i'm wrong. Christianity saved the roman culture, way of life in the barbaric middle ages.

Adrianapole, and the varus disaster were the worst, I belive. Rome lost two legions in teutoburg, and rome never recovered from the Adrianapole disaster.

When they started to talk greek.

Yes but still germanic mercenarian army..,

I've read somewhere that the army that was fighting in Adrianaple was mostly made of germanic mercenaries and so were very undiscipliened. And some of them didin't even wear armour! The roman army, I mean...

1. De-romanization of the military and the lack of new volunteers and recruits. 2. Bad Emperors and scandals. 3. Civil wars 4. Lack of accepted dynasty. 5. Plagues possibly smallbox and malaria. 6. Corruption 7. And last and least the barbarians. EDIT: I think that christianity didin't have that great of an effect upon the downfall of the empire.

I read somewhere that the Romans did have contact with some nordic peoples, and traded furs with them, but I could be wrong. But there has been some archeological finding where there was roman coins found... but they could have come from the byzantines.

No I've heard that the Britons and Gaul

Augustus, I think, was not the best. He tried to create a good constitutional government but ultimately failed and the principate, in the end, became an incompetent super heavy government, that lacked accepted dynasty. But, the senate also wasn't really competent either... Trajan I think was the best.

He probably secretly wanted to become some sort of King and take over Rome, yet he was also trying to deffend himself against the Senate....I think he used the Senate as a scape goat to gain power for himself, the Senate's declaration of War upon him was his pretext to finnally end the corrupt game of the Oligarchs Well, acualy the senate offered Ceasar to become king, so why didin't he accept that offer? Anyway, its commonly belived that Ceasar ended the republic, but the republic had been under succesfully under one man control after Sulla.