Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Late Roman army

Late Roman army

I have a very minor part in writing this article. The work was mainly done by EraNavigator (talk · contribs) who now wants some feedback through a review. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

llywrch

Some unorganized thoughts:

1. First, this is a very broad topic with a lot of traps for the unwary, but I think you've provided a satisfactory coverage of the material, & presented the mainstream opinions accurately. However...
2. Mention of one important source for this period has been omitted: Vegetius' De Re Militari, which is the closest thing we have to an army manual from the time of the Roman Empire. While this document has a lot of problems in itself, I think it's fair to include some mention of it under "Sources".
3. The lack of manpower under the Later Empire is more of a generally accepted hypothesis, rather than a proven fact. I'll admit that I'm somewhat skeptical about this claim, due to my own thoughts about the primary evidence, but I hope we would all agree that rephrasing the language about this theory, & providing some of the sources, would be an improvement.
4. One important detail that needs to be mentioned in the section about cavalry is that the Roman did not make much use of the stirrup -- assuming that they knew of this invention. Without stirrups -- & similar technological improvements -- a horseman will find it a challenge to stay on the back of his steed during hand-to-hand combat. This means a cavalry charge was a far less useful tactic then than it was centuries later, & that horsemen were used instead as scouts, to secure flanks (where a horse's speed would allow a few men to defend a wide fronting), & pursuing a defeated enemy.
5. Part of the debate over the "barbarization of the army" includes the significance of Germanic buckles found in graves that have been dated to the 4th & 5th centuries. While many archeologists/historians convincingly argue against this interpretation of these artifacts (a "Germanic" buckle does not mean it was worn by a Germanic warrior; fashions often cross ethnic & class lines), there are some who use them as evidence for this belief. (And it offers the possibility of some images that can help make the subject more tangible.)
6. The table "Roman Army numbers 24-337 AD" is disappointing because there is no breakdown of figures after Severus. Obviously the legionaries & auxilaries were replaced with different kinds of soldiers (comitatenses & limitanei), but omitting the later qualities of soldiers from the table makes it look, frankly odd.
7. The table "Renumeration of Roman Common foot soldiers" is interesting, but may I introduce my own idea to replace it? There are reliable sources that provide the pay in contemporary coinage, & reliable sources which provide the amount of silver in these coins -- why not create a graph to show how the buying power declined? (I'll admit that I created this exact graph some years ago, & it made quite clear the nature of the problem the Empire had with disgruntled troops.)

Hope this helps. -- llywrch (talk) 21:07, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your helpful comments. I would respond as follows:

1. No comment (thanks for the praise)
2. I took a deliberate decision to ignore Vegetius as being "more trouble than he's worth". Vegetius is an unreliable and misleading source. Neither a soldier nor a historian, his work De Re Militari is a rag-bag of military doctrines/assertions dating (by his own account) all the way from the middle Republic to the time of Hadrian (early 2nd c.), all out of chronological context. Regarding the late army, examples of how misleading his comments can be are (1) his statement that the soldiers in the late army gave up wearing body armour and helmets because they were too heavy. This is clearly contradicted by the archaeological record (cf Elton (1996) 110-4); and (2) his complaint that young men in his day deliberately avoided service in the "legions", preferring the more lenient training and discipline of the "auxilia": at a time when such a distinction no longer existed and when the auxilia palatina were regarded as the best infantry units in the army.
3. I agree we need to state the opposite view on the manpower issue: Elton, for one, doubts there was a recruitment problem (Elton (1996) 152-4). But recruitment (and retention) difficulties within the empire do seem the inescapable conclusion of much heavier barbarian recruitment and coercive measures such as regular conscription, forcing veterans' sons to serve, branding recruits and restricting leave. This dovetails with the point about lower pay. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that soldiering was a much less attractive occupation in the 4th c. than during the Principate, when the army could rely largely on volunteers.
4. The belief that lack of stirrups made charging and melee fighting impracticable has of late been largely discredited. This is due to the recent successful reconstruction of the Roman four-horned saddle, and subsequent testing by re-enactors. This has shown that the saddle gave a very firm seat which compensated for the lack of stirrups. On this issue I would recommend a recent book, Philip Sidnell's Warhorse: Cavalry in ancient Warfare (2006). Written by a veteran mounted re-enactor, the book is described on the back cover by Adrian Goldsworthy as "laying to rest...the persistent myth about the central role of the stirrup in making effective shock cavalry possible".
5. I will add a mention of Germanic-style buckles to the text. But as you say, they prove little about barbarisation. The Roman army's great strength was its willingness to freely copy other peoples' tactics and equipment: most notably the gladius itself, a sword design taken from the Iberian people of pre-Roman Spain.
6. The difficulty with adding a breakdown for the late army's figures is that the comitatenses/limitanei distinction in no way corresponds to the legions/auxilia split. Another problem is that whereas the Principate figures up to 211 are well-documented and robust, the late army's breakdown is far more uncertain and speculative. But I shall endeavour to include the breakdown in the table in a way that is not misleading. The central aim of the table is to show that the late army is unlikely to have been larger than the Principate army.
7. Your graph on military purchasing power sounds very interesting. Would you care to reproduce it on my talk page so I can consider how to integrate it into the text? 86.85.44.73 (talk) 09:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC) Sorry, forgot to sign in EraNavigator (talk) 09:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

JonCatalán

This is not really criticism, but in regards to points #3 and perhaps #5 I have a paper which may interest you on 'Raising New Units for the Late Roman Army'. I also have a number of papers on metallographic reports of Roman weaponry, most of which is from the late Empire. If you're interested, I could email them to you. JonCatalan (talk) 14:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)