Late Emperor
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Posts posted by Late Emperor
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Since they were a militaristic culture, then I think that a gun or a rifle would REALLY impress a roman guy.
Focusing on a small thing that a casual time traveller could have in his pockets, I think that a multi-function swiss knife would impress them too.
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Wonderful pictures
: the comparison with high-medieval Europe was humiliating. Byzantium was really the last remnant of the splendid greco-roman civilization: IMHO european medieval scholars visiting Costantinople felt like they were brought back in time to a golden age 
that they knew only through literature and ruins. Criminal fourth-crusaders.
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I think that the answer is yes. Without a professional military divided in self-sufficient legions, it would have impossible for Caesar to have a private army and seize the power with it.
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@caldrail, thanks for the answers: do you know if the navy fleets frequently mutinied too?
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Caracalla killing his own brother Geta and then killing several thousands of Geta's supporters in 211.
After that massacre, Caracalla moved to Egypt in 215 and killed thousands citizens in Alexandria, allegedly for making fun of him about his fratricide.
Another roman atrocity are the tens of thousands citizens killed by Justinian and Theodora in 532 (Nika Revolt), although the hooliganist costantinopolians actually deserved it by rejecting the Justinian's attempts to peacefully placate them and going on to riot and devastate the City.
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Probably not. Climatic changes in the Bronze Age had resulted in extensive deforestation,
Then conquering it would have been a walk in the park compared to conquering the heavily forested Germania. Roman legions excelled in open and flat terrain: Ireland was a perfect playground for them and besides I doubt that the irish had a cavalry that could create problems to the roman infantry.
The Romans were a consumer economy in imperial times, not agrarian, although farming was obviously an important factor. Agriculture was only important on a local level unless it generated profit, or an identifiable regional export. Since there was plenty of land to be had, the importance of it wasn't so pronounced as today.
Didn't Ireland have anything of value to export regarding agricultural products?
They did colonise Germania. The remains of Roman towns have been uncovered well inside the generally accepted frontier and appear to have been abandoned following the victory of Arminius. The whole sorry debacle was sparked by Augustus sending Varius to gather taxes, a man known for his greed, which illustrates that wilderness colonisation was not about ownership of land, or high minded cultural principles, but rather a matter of bringing barbarians into the taxation system.
So why they didn't try to bring the irish under the roman taxation system in order to raise state revenues?
This is particularly surprising regarding the late empire because AFAIK since Diocletianus rule, the roman state became even greedier than before looking desperately for everything they could tax to sustain the huge army: since Ireland was an easy prey, then I would have expected Diocle and Costantine (or later IVth century emperors) to try to conquer Hibernia and heavily taxate the natives.
All emperors were worried about their security. Rome was a competitive society full of ambitious upwardly mobile individuals who were waiting to sieze opportunities. The size of Ireland was largely irrelevant. What was of concern was a victorious army returning to Rome. With booty and success, the soldiers would have been loyal to their general, not the emperor, thus Domitian avoided the possibility of a coup by preventing outright victory in Caledonia. In fact, Agricola was asked if he wanted a triumph for his successes to date. Had he accepted, he would have have labelled himself an ambitious rival to Domitians power, giving Domitian the excuse to have him removed. Agricola wisely refused.
Yes, this is true: absence of a blood based hereditary monarchy (like in medieval/modern era Europe) was the main handicap of the Roman Empire. Without it and the resulting devastating power struggles, it could have gone on existing much longer.
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It needs to be borne in mind that battle tactics in the late empire were exactly what the Romans had become unused to. Whereas in the past the Romans tended to deal with a situation from one direction massed into a large force, by the late empire they were dealing primarily with a very long turbulent frontier, a security situation they had to adapt to. Their answer was to have more but smaller legions, and a two tier system of frontier guards and 'response' legions. They no longer fought set piece battles as a rule, but conducted low level warfare.
There's something I don't understand: the romans became unused to large battles and fighting with large armies along the border marked by the rhine/danube rivers but along the border with the parthian empire, the situation was very different: the parthians weren't uncivilized raiders like the IVth century germanics but an organized and civilized state deploying large armies on the battlefied. The romans had still to mantain and use large old style armies along the middle-eastern border, otherwise the parthians would have wiped out the empire: so how is possible that they lost the expertise to manouver large armies and fight large battles?
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I like frontier societies, so I think that i would have lived in Roman Britain or along the rhine or danubian border.
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A very interesting thread caldrail.
I've some questions regarding the issue if these rebellion against army officers and commanders were as frequent in the late empire as in the previous centuries (of course I know that legionaries still followed their want-to-be-emperor general against "Rome").
1) AFAIK since the Aurealianus' reform, the Roman Army became more democratic allowing the low rank soldiers to climb ALL the military hierarchy to the top office of general and from general even to emperor (the best example is Diocletianus, son of poor illirian peasants): I guess that this reform could have made the soldiers more loyal to the army which offered the possibility of great social climbing and especially loyal to their officers, commanders and even generals who were "like them", as opposite to the first/second centuries legions in which the common soldier could hope at best to become only a centurion and officers/commanders/generals were only recruited from the aristocracy. Is my assumption correct?
2)Were the huge self-sufficient legions abandoned for smaller mobile "regiments" of comitatenses and fixed limitanei units of farmer-soldiers by Diocletianus/Costantine, also in order to make rebellions more easily suppressible and in the case of limitanei to give the soldiers a personal reason to defend the border (their own land)?
3)Could it be speculated that Diocletianus turned the office of Emperor in a sacred, divine oriental style leadership also in order to raise troop loyalty and decrease the rate of rebellions?
4)How christianity, a monotheistic religion similar to an ideology, affected the loyalty of the troops since Theodosius the Great turned it in a state religion? Were they brainwashed into fight to defend the Faith against the pagan barbarians and parthians (despite many soldiers being christianized germanics themselves) and at the same time convinced that rebellion against he Imperial Army was a rebellion against God himself, incarnated by the Empire?
5)Regarding questions 3 and 4, were rebellions a frequent event also among the regular troops (not the mercenaries) of the very christian eastern roman/byzantine empire, during its long post-western roman history?
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Agricola didn't think so, and I suspect his military intelligence was better than ours on that subject. A huge demand in men and logistics would be necessary if the Irish were presenting a common front. However, the national patriotism we see today didn't exist back in Agricola's day. To him, the irish were a collection of barbarian tribes, and as the Romans knew from experience, such a setup was relatively easily handled, because the Roman policy in such situations was 'divide and conquer'.
Was Ireland densely wooded in Agricola time?
However, inasmuch as an invasion of Ireland was going to prove a logistic challenge, then I agree. There is implicit in this debate an idea that the Romans could simply go on conquering to their hearts content, and by implication, that they had every intention of doing so. Despite this, there was no clear impetus for the Romans to seek territory in the way we do.
For us, territory is important in itself. With large populations dispersed over wide areas, territory allows (please excuse the term) living space, agricultural space to feed them, and a sense of status. Since in Roman times the vast bulk of territory was empty wilderness, they had little reason to regard territory as important. Instead, they saw value in resources. Mines, quarries, cities, harbours and river networks, places where things were made. In other words, while we see conquest in terms of area, they saw conquest in terms of ownership. We shouldn't forget the over-riding impulse for Roman expansion was money, pure and simple. When Hadrian gave back Dacian territory conquered by Trajan, he kept the bits with gold mines.
Didn't they value also agricultural space since they were an agrarian economy? Besides they gained a lot of living space with the conquest of Gaul and Iberia that before being conquered were scarcely urbanized.
There is also the idea that the Romans had already reached a psychological frontier where Britain was concerned. Previous to Julius Caesar, the British Isles were thought of as mysterious lands filled with all manner of exotic inhabitants. In making his two landings on British shores, Caesar popped that bubble. At once he proved he was a true conqueror, taking the Romans where no Roman had gone before (which of course wasn't entirely true), but also demonstrating that beyond the frontier was more wilderness, and little else.Possibly but as far as I know before Teutoburg they were going to colonize the germanic wilderness.
There are also political reasons. Agricola was recalled to Rome before he completed the conquest of Caledonia by Domitian, who regarded the prospect of a conquering hero returning to Rome in triumph as a rival for his authority, and potentially a very real military threat if he got ideas into his head. Agricola was a little more wary and realised the danger he was in, preferring not to make a big deal of his success and live happily ever after.I agree that being the size of Hibernia unknown, first century emperors feared a new Caesar.
Notice that Claudius, who had ordered the conquest of Britain, had travelled there to receive the honour of victory personally. How many emperors were willing to travel to Ireland to do that? Conqueror of what, exactly?I agree, there wasn't much glory in conquering it.
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Did they try to use indian elephants? They are known to be quite docile.
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Thanks for the very interesting infos: so it seems that conquering Ireland wasn't just cost effective.
Regards
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Hi, I've wondered why the romans didn't incorporate elephants in their legions after defeating Carthage in the Second Punic War. War Elephants could be defeated but still they were (especially if armoured) fearsome war machines, real ancient tanks which could charge and smash enemy infantry and work as mobile towers for archers or scorpio artillery.
Is there a reason that suggested the romans to not use them? Did the romans tried to employ them in some legions but gave up?
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Hi,I've a question. Why the romans didn't conquer the Emerald Island? Was it too well defended? Or was it too resourceless (from a roman point of view)?
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There was a discussion on this issue previously:
Very interesting thread, thanks for linking it: it answered my question and I learnt something else.
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I'm not sure what you're asking for. Do you mean the rounded rectangle, or the oval?
I wrote rounded but I was mistaken. I actually meant oval and asked why during the third century there was the transition from this:
to this:
I'm curious to understand if there were practical reasons for this change or if it depended from the fact that during the third century turmoil the roman emperors started to recruit many german troops and they introduced their shield in the roman army.
Personally I see the late empire oval shield as less efficient than the old rectangular one since it offers a smaller protecting surface and it makes the tactic of the testudo less efficient since during an enemy archery barrage some arrows can enter the empty spaces between the shields.
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The basis of the feudal economy wasn't created by Diocletian's policies, it was already inherently part of Roman culture.
How? I thouhgt that roman culture in republican and early imperial times was very trade oriented.
Rather than see Diocletian as a man tinkering with policies to invent a different social order, perhaps it might be more useful to see him as attempting to stabilise a difficult situation? Or even more to the point, as a manager of a large multinational corporation beset with labour problems and low profits?The empire had become somewhat bloated and inefficient by Diocletians reign. Increasing bureaucracy had all but rendered the empire ungovernable by one man. The extent of corruption and increasing numbers of sinecure seeking functionaries hd reached breaking point. In order to prevent a schism in Roman politics and the ugly prospect of civil war between rivals and possibly break-away regions, Diocletian created his tetrarchy, which effectively produced a federal Rome. He is also credited with ending the crisis of the third century for these very reasons. His persecutions were designed to prevent divisions in Roman society, to reaffirm the pagan order of things, and prevent religious strife in Roman society, but they were carried out because of pressure from others, and the extent of persecution was therefore down to public pressure. He was, after all, a very conservative man.
Notice that with Diocletian in charge, regardless of the nature of his policies, the system worked. Only when he retired did the empire break down into civil war exactly as he had tried to avoid. A cynical observer might wonder if he was doing what Tiberius had - making the next reign far worse than his, in order to look good in historical records, but then why would he have bothered to share power if he was so self-important?
I agree that politically and militarily he stabilized the empire and gave it 2 centuries more of life (even more if we consider the eastern empire) but I argued that he placed an heavy statalism on the imperial society and economy.
His attempt to control prices was unsuccessful, but then, the Romans did not have any real control of their economy to begin with, and his policies here were largely ignored by the roman populace. His autocratic style obviously helped, as some measure of stability did return, but whereas obstructing social mobility would create a more ordered society, it was also against the competitive and ambitious nature of the Roman mindset.So do you argue that his edicts remained largely on paper both regarding taxation and tying sons to the profession of their fathers?
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Why the roman military abandoned the traditional roman shield used in republican and early imperial times to adopt the germanic rounded shield typical of the late imperial army? What where the advantages of this kind of shield?
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Have a look (listen to) this website:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978539
The lectures on 4/23 and 4/25 would probably best answer your questions.
Thanks
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Didn't Diocletian attempt to fix prices, and make many occupations hereditary?
This is what I meant: AFAIK he destroyed monetary trade by fixing prices, turning it partially in barter and he also halted social mobility crystallizing roman society. Plus Diocletianus placed a heavy taxation on citizens turning free farmers in people as poor as slaves and by applying taxes collectively on whole communities, enforced by a single functionary, he placed the bases of the medieval feudal economy.
Therefore I wondered if Diocletianus can actually be blamed for breaking the back of a still thriving imperial economy in order to sustain heavy military expenses or he just increased the economic decadence of already very impoverished Empire.
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Hi,
I've wondered if Diocletianus can be considered the main guilty for the fall of the Roman Empire due to his soviet-style economic reforms wich turned the Empire in an ancient USSR destroying its semi-capitalist economy. Am I right or the economic decline had started much earlier than him and was unstoppable when Diocletianus rised to power?
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As far as the "Defender of Europe" Byzantium didn't do it out of kindness or sense of duty she did it to survive. Two thirds of Europe's wealth was in Eastern Rome and she was always afraid of being out flanked by her enemies who saw her as the jewel in the crown.
The greedy idiotic crusaders which sacked Costantinoples and destroyed the Empire could not imagine that they were removing their only safeguard against deep muslim expansion in Europe (like it happened in the following centuries).
Without that betrayal the byzantines would have probably halted the turkish westward expansion for a long time or even permanently.
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Also, there's probably some evolutionary improvement since ancient times. Not much though, if evolution were that quick one would expect more variance between genetically disparate groups of humans. But the IQ of equally well fed Africans is only about ~5 points lower than Caucasians (if that), differences between all the other groups fall in a similar range. (By the way I'm about 1/4 black so I'm not making some kind of racist argument here, just looking at the evidence).
AFAIK the difference found in average IQ between the equally well fed caucasian-americans and african-americans (which are partially caucasian BTW) is about 15 points and there are significant differences even between european populations.
The comparison with equally well fed africans isn't reliable IMHO because in those poor and undeveloped societies only the upper classes can be well fed while in western societies (e.g USA) even the lower classes are well fed.
Regarding the Ancient's IQ I think that it can be said the same as modern third world societies: most inhabitants of the ancient world were illiterate and badly fed farmers and other manual workers while only a minority of the population was literate and well fed. The ancient science, phylosophy, technology, organization, etc... that we know were the intellectual product of this minority; I think therefore that it is possible that their average IQ was significantly lower than the modern one in the same countries (although 48 is exagerated IMHO) despite the intellectual achievements, infrastructure and organization of the ancient societies (which were quite technologically static BTW).
Everyday modern things that might impress an ancient Roman
in Romana Humanitas
Posted · Edited by Late Emperor
Another one: a banknote.
At first my roman interlocutor would look at it as a worthless piece of colored paper but once I'd explain him that where I come from, we use it as money...he would probably find it one of the funniest thing he has never heard.