>>2956572

>If they really had half a million men under arms, of even half of it, none of that would have happened.

Revolts and rebellions were cropping up like weeds, and to the East the Sassanid Empire was salivating at the chance to conquer Mesopotamia and the Near East.

but the army was bigger than it ever had been. The reason it fell apart was because they used their men to kill each other, so by the time the germans were settling in gaul the romans had been busy killing each other for centuries and their forces were just beaten down by centuries of conflict and an uttrrly destroyed sense of roman unity, all they knew was roman treachery and betrayal, that all the great men who could handle the hard times were inevitably betrayed by other romans, dooming everyone in the process. Stilcho comes to mind

>but the army was bigger than it had ever been
Could you source that? I'm far from an expert, but most of what I'd read suggested the 5th century army was pretty downsized compared to the 250,000 or so of the early 4th century.

As far as I can tell, the regular Roman troops remained effective until right up to the very end - they were just spread far too thin. I don't think internecine conflict really affected their capability that much - the legions of the late Republic were highly effective despite decades of civil war.

>but the logistical and strategic capacity to raise and equip large numbers of soldiers
This. They probably didn't have the equipment or other supplies at the ready to maintain a larger fighting force. It's fairly simple to downsize a military, but upgrading its size is more than just recruiting more people, especially for a professional military like the Roman Legion. They needed more barracks to house troops, they needed to make more arms and armor of the Legionary standard, they needed more veteran officers to train and command all the new recruits. The paucity of veteran officers is probably the worst shortage an army can have.

The WRE abandoned Britain due to costs of maintaining legionary forces there being outweighed by the cons of closer threats to home in mainland Europe. Large scale Roman forces in the western empire did not simply evaporate over night and usurpers and upstart governors constantly had large support to wage civil war with each other even ignoring Germanic and foreign mercenaries/troops in their forces.

The Sassanids and Eastern Romans were too busy dealing with Hunnic and Turkic threats They also had as many treaties and mutual pacts/alliancse with each other as they did wars.

>tfw every book I have on the "Late" Roman Army stops around the end of the 4th century
Where do I go if I want information on the 5th century army?

>joining the legion just to die in some literal fag's civil war

spread too thin and branching off like a tree, with provinces constantly going rebel and taking their military contributions with them. There is theoretical strength, then there's what you can actually deploy. The independence that various provinces had gain by virtue of necessity ultimately paved the way for medieval divisions by making it incredibly hard to muster the whole empire. Each individual general can ignore this call on a whim and if the emperor is mustering to fight some invading force he cant very well waste time subjugating other romans just to get them to empty their border defenses for the emperor's big fancy coalition, so what happens is that many provinces straight up ignore the emperor because they have their own problems, he cant do shit about it, and so his theoretical army numbers are way different tham what he actually has when the campaign starts. Romans stopped functioning as a top-down system and became a ln increasingly loose and independent coaltion of provinces that occassionally helped each other but mostly deapt with their own problems. These individual groups were invaded and subdued one by one since they wouldnt help each other, ironically just like how the romans conquered the estruscians and samnites.

It is worth noting as well that economically the empire in the west was pretty fucked after the crisis of the third century when we see cities start shrinking and becoming walled

Anything on Aetius is probably your best bet - look for primary sources they reference

Give a citation because everything they I've read says that not only the WRE army severely lacked manpower in the 5th century, but it was collapsing as an institution.

E.g at Châlons they refused to fight Attila without a huge amount of Germanic allies.

>Revolts and rebellions were cropping up like weeds

These are not unique in Roman history and aren't limited to one specific period.

>Large scale Roman forces in the western empire did not simply evaporate over night

One century is hardly "over night".

>Adrianople showed that the Romans could be beat
As if the Romans had never been defeated by the Goths before that. The Goths killed an emperor in 251, and they had been defeated in 250 before by the Goths

Notice how I said "beaten and capitulate to barbarian demands". Of course Rome has lost to barbarians like the Goths before, they just decided to mitigate the situation and give the goths what they wanted.

No but the cumulative effect of civil wars is that Romans thought very little of service in the Empire. This user gets it.

The Roman Empire was bad and you should all feel bad for pining for it.

t.Adumtorix Hanno

>They just decided to mitigate the situation and give the goths what they wanted.
The goths either migrated away into the west or were driven back into thrace. The East did not give them anything

I believe it's essentially just the apathy of the civilian population of the empire.

There was obviously 10s of thousands of Roman citizen males who could potentially be recruited, yet the Empire had to rely on mercenaries and allied troops while very few of their own citizens fighting in comparison. Why, because they didn't want to fight, we know from records that they deserted constantly, they felt no real affiliation to the empire anymore, they didn't care, it made little difference to a farmer if he's rule by a Frank or a so called Roman anymore, the distinction was gone. The military also had a terrible reputation.

There's a really good osprey book which creates a fictional but historical chronicle of a Roman soldier in the 5th century, how he's recruited in France and ends up in Syria and everything is fucking shit and he's billeted in some Syria assholes house and then gets captured by Persians or something. I forget which book I'll have a look.

I TRIED SO HARD

>No but the cumulative effect of civil wars is that Romans thought very little of service in the Empire

There have been more intense and devastating civil wars in the late Republic and during the crisis of the 3rd century. Yet after these periods it was still possible to recruit enough new soldiers. Most of the recruits were from poor families anyway, it's not like they had a chance to study military history of Ancient Rome in a university. Yes, there was a risk of dying in a battle with other Romans, but no more than in 1st century BC or 3rd century AD.

In my opinion it's mostly related with increasing over-taxation, early elements of serfdom and expansion of the state bureaucracy starting with Tetrarchy. Inflation, debasement of currency and problems with money supply to pay soldiers also played a huge role.

There were still massive forces of Roman armies being used in civil wars up to the mid and late 5th century, so no.

Still clinging to the myth of
>There were 500,000 men in the Roman Army in the 5th century
?

I never said 500,000 anything. That's a completely different poster then me.

I think it kind of depends on what you mean by a Roman soldier. I think it's fair to say that by the middle of the 5th century the majority of Roman soldiers in the west were foederati, but foederati weren't "barbarian mercenaries" by any stretch of the imagination.

>E.g at Châlons they refused to fight Attila without a huge amount of Germanic allies.
Sounds more like they were scared shitless of the guy who was conquering people all over and seemed invincible.

>Stilicho, scraping together thirty legions (roughly 30,000 troops - legions during the Late Roman Empire had around 1,000 soldiers) through a variety of desperate methods, including efforts to enroll slaves in the army in exchange for their freedom, led a coalition of Romans, Alans, and Huns to defeat Radagasius at Ticinum (Pavia) in 406.[16][17]

The entire roman army in the early 5th, plus slaves and allies.

The Western army around 400 was at minimum 120,000 strong. This was far too small. Twice that was needed to defend the Western Empire, but they could afford no more than that, and as others have said, native Romans tended to desert or resist conscription. The was failing, meaning those who did serve were paid very little. The army began to decline in quality after Caracalla granted citizenship to all free peoples within the Empire's borders. It took time for the decline to become apparent, of course, but before Caracalla, the army was strictly professional. This was due to the divide between legionaries and auxiliaries. Only Roman citizens could be legionaries, and they were very well paid. They also received the cream of the crop when it come to the spoils of war. Plebians fell over themselves to join the legions, as the benefits were so good. The patricians had less of an incentive to join as they were already rich, but service to Rome was guaranteed to make you popular and garner the attention of the emperor. The auxiliaries were non-Romans who received citizenship upon completion of their service. This, however, did not transfer to their children, meaning if they wanted citizenship then too would have to serve. This system created a large pool of manpower which could be called on at any time. After the Edict of Caracalla, the legions lost their elite status. The lowliest barbarian was now upon the same level of actual Roman citizens, patricians included. Thus, the incentive to serve in the army disappeared. Likewise, without citizenship to serve as an incentive, the provincials no longer had reason to serve in the army in large numbers. The negatives now hugely outweighed the positives. Why would you risk your life for a paltry wage when you could make money farming or trading in the security of the Empire's interior? The only solution, then, was mercenaries, who tended to be expensive and of dubious loyalty.

I think you're off the mark here. I think it's fair to say that military participation from Italy decreased after the Edict of Caracalla, but we know from memorials and sarcophagi that military service was very highly regarded as a very noble profession elsewhere in the empire, particularly in Thrace and Gaul.

Plus the army only reached its highest numbers after the Edict of Caracalla, and that isn't even including the foederati.

There was still a divide in the Roman army between comitatenses and limitanei, broadly corresponding to the divide between legionaries and auxiliaries, though they had far different functions.

That's why I said it took time to set in. Diocletian ended the classical army by breaking up the legions, and Constantine advanced it by dividing the army into palatina, comitatenses, limitanei, and foederati. The symptoms began to appear after his death, as the reliance on mercanaries, particularly foederati, began to increase. After the death of Theodosius, the Western Empire was left in a very vulnerable position. It was economically backward, and outside of Italy, Africa, and the larger cities in Spain, and Gaul, largely rural. The Eastern Empire was left with around 200,000 men after the division in 395, while the Western Empire was left with nearly half of that, despite possessing longer borders. The lack of troops was so bad that Stillicho was forced to withdraw limitanei from the Rhine in order to face Alaric in Italy. This left the frontiers undefended, allowing the barbarians to cross the Rhine. All of this happened in an Empire that had an estimated population of over twenty million people, seven million of which lived in Italy alone. Raising an extra 100,000 men should have been simple with those numbers.