Jaden

Its important to understand the difference here between soldiers and warriors. Celts and Germanic armies during the Roman era, like the majority of those of the middle ages, were made up of a massive collection of these 'warriors'. While they were certainly effective fighters as individuals, what they distinctly lacked was the discipline to work together as a unit to defeat their foe. Like the Greeks before them, the Romans possessed this quality, just another reasons they were able to conquer the majority of the known world. In regard to the original question, by and large, the Romans were actually incredibly effective in their initial conquests, usually completely overwhelming any foe and taking control of the disputed region. However, as the trend went, there would often be a rebellion, and a second (usually more vicious) war would take place that would truly decide the fate of the potential 'province'. This can be seen in the conquest of areas like Britannia and Dacia among others.

Actually, an excellent resource I can across some time back was posted in an earlier thread by Virgil61, which you can find here. It deals with the tactics Arrian utilized to defeat the Alans, who relied heavily upon cavalry. It's also an excellent testament to the Roman use of combined arms, a point many casual military historians of the Roman army fail to realize.

In my estimation, the rise of cavalry came about directly as a result of the deterioration of Roman infantry, and not the other way around as many seem to believe. This came largely through the barbarization of the legions, a critical issue even during the reign of Trajan. Increasingly, Rome simply relied upon auxiliaries to fight their wars, and gradually these foreign auxiliaries became the core legions. As a result, the discipline of the legion was a thing of the past as the migration age began, and so they were forced to adopt a much greater cavalry arm in order to counter the many incursions into Imperial territory. Getting back to the question at hand, was cavalry a major weakness for the legions, I would argue no, even during the early Imperial age. They faced a variety of cavalry based enemies (Dacia, Alans, Parthia) and generally triumphed over them in pitched battles, with only a few disastrous exceptions, like the infamous Cannae. Further, contrary to popular belief, Roman cavalry of the early Imperial era was quite effective for its role as legionary support. Of course, as Italia wasn't known for her horses or horsemen, often the cavalry would be allied or auxiliary. In regard to the early feudal age, heavy cavalry came to play such a profound role not as a result of the stirrup, but because of the lack of cohesion and discipline in the infantry of the age. The common peasant levies, poorly armed and armored, simply had no hope of standing against a heavy cavalry charge. However, it's no surprise that as soon as a cohesive, well disciplined infantry once again emerged in Europe (Swiss Pikemen, Landsknechts), even the most heavily armed knights were quickly proven to be out of their league. At this point, the role of European cavalry gradually came to resemble that of Roman cavalry, largely as support for the infantry.

Neos Dionysos, Thanks for these. I'll do what I can to get hold of them, especially that latter, which looks ideal. Does anyone know of any online locations for some decent information on artillery tactics?

I was going to start a new thread to ask this question, but as it relates directly to the more broad concept of 'Battlefield tactics', I'll throw it into the mix here. Does anyone have decent information on the role of artillery in Roman warfare? There is some limited information in the links given above, but my interest lies primarily in the use of artillery in Roman field armies (as deployed against other armies, rather than in siege). While there is much written about other battlefield tactics, there is precious little on this subject. Of course, the very fact that Imperial Roman armies were provided with somewhere between 55-60 ballista, as well as something in the range of 10 onagers is a testament to their reliance on artillery. While the onagers were probably kept specifically for sieging purposes, the existence of carro-ballista, essentially ballista on wheels, reveals the probability of extensive deployment and effectiveness during pitched battle. Critics of the Imperial Roman Army generally point to two major weaknesses; lack of an effective cavalry, and the inadequacy of their missile troops. From all I've seen of Roman artillery, it appears the latter point couldn't be further from the truth. After all, there's no way our efficient Roman troops would lug around sixty pieces of ordnance designed exclusively as anti-personal weapons if they weren't incredibly practical. I would love to see some information on such artillery tactics though, which would provide some greater insight into all I've speculated about above.

This is a topic of Roman history that I actually know very little about, but am especially intrigued by. Having recently read the 'Masters of Rome' series by Colleen McCullough, I'm intrigued at how fair she describes everyone. Caesar himself is blond haired and blue eyed; indeed, the grand majority of the patricians in his time are revealed to be equally fair. She even goes as far as describing a few characters with red hair (Sulla among them) which is about as fair as it gets. I think the popular belief is that the Romans were an olive skinned people with dark features (a belief I myself held), but I was so impressed by the historical accuracy and depth of devotion that Mrs. McCullough put into the series that I question whether or not she might be the one who is correct. I'd be curious where she got her information from, but there can be little doubt that many of the famous Romans were quite fair of skin; Sulla and Augustus spring to my mind. I believe that part way through Empire, Rome had become a melting pot on a scale that wouldn't again be seen for over a thousand years, but I think I could be easily convinced (and tend to believe at this point) that Rome was founded by Indo-Europeans of very fair coloring. This would explain the multitude of patricians described as such.