Why were the Roman Legions so dominate?

That must be why Rome fell

What is this normalfag meme with believing Roman military forces were invincible till the end of WRE's final collapse and fall?

they also had standardized weapons and shields that allowed them to fight together with greater cohesiveness than barbarians and the like

Most civilizations at the time couldn't have an entire divison just killed to the last man and keep going, it took a long time to train up that many more. Rome could just drown the enemy in their dead.

Because they were?

...

>as well that Rome was able to train and arm its soldiers much better than anyone else at the time
Not at all. Every contemporary civilization that could have a standing army at the time had soldiers that were adequately trained.

The organization of the Roman army and the Roman state are what gave it the advantage. Their soldiers one on one or even as a single block of say 100 men weren't particularly better than anyone elses trained 100 men.

The difference was everything else. The legionary wasn't just a soldier he was also an expert construction worker. Supply depots were meticulously built on the way to any combat zone. Roman camps were built at astonishing speed and in a solid manner. Resources were brought at speed along well crafted and maintained roads. Reinforcement in the same manner were gathered from allies and Rome itself and transported just as speedily. The Roman tendency to improve upon anything found to be a good idea didn't hurt either.

They had plenty of defeats. One in particular so completely desyroyed the Roman mulitary it necessitated the reform of the whole army and its structure by a fellow named Gaius Marius.

>Cannae
>Carrhae
>Roman/Byzantine-Persian Wars
>Punic Wars
>Germanic Wars
No.

MUH LEEGINS BARGUS :-DD

T. AGUSTUS

This is more or less an advantage enjoyed by almost every civilized sedentary people over nomadic ones. Persians, Romans, Macedonians, Assyrians, etc...all enjoyed having massive logistical support ingrained in their military tactics to train their soldiers, feed them, support large scale movements and travel of armies and fleets, and so forth. Most nomadic or barbaric tribes of peoples like the various Germanics for example had their fighters forged from constant inter-tribal conflicts, raids, and clan feuds which made them hardy soldiers but at the same time they had a feudalistic approach which made them unsuitable to long campaigns or following orders.

ribalistic peoples were downplayed.

the weapons and armor used by the late empire are definitely superior to those used during the pax romana

Because the maniples killed everyone worth a damn.

...

Can you elaborate? Id be keen to know more about the late roman army

Not to the extent of Rome. There's a reason we dont hear of modern Iraqi's, Syrians and Turks still utilizing the extensive and well built seleucid road system.

Nor do we read of the rapidly built Ptolemeic army forts that would be erected by their celtic mercenaries in but a few hours and to exact specifications.

Neither do we hear of the mighty Diadochi losing army after army simply to raise a new one, two, three, four or more times in a single conflict.

In this area, logistics, more than anything else Rome had few that could hope to approach it and fewer that matched it.

>Not to the extent of Rome.
The Persians definitely did. Hell their ability to engineer and use logistics is why a fuck ton of Sassanian 3rd and 4th century dams are still in full use today as well as the qanats, and so forth.

>The Persians definitely did.
Not to my knowledge. Don't really think some dams and subterranean aqueducts justifies regarding their logistical abilities to be as great as the Roman empire or Republic.

Most opponents were either too decentralized to organize armies or actually did fine against the legions (like the Persians)

>Not to my knowledge.
Because your knowledge is severely lacking, dude.

The Persians were able to rapidly move their armies all over their territories due to the heavy profiliteration of rapidly established interconnected roads and highways, hell Shapur II's Arab Campaign is a pretty fucking sterling example of Persian logistic given how he made use of his navy to constantly keep a line of sight with his army as they went down the Persian Gulf and were eradicating Arab fortresses and forces in hostile desert areas within a few months over the areas of Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula. And ultimately even more evidence comes from the Romans themselves who say the Persians were their chief rivals in this regard. Their military had divisions, regiments, brigades, etc..organized by standards and they also used music for coordinating their forces, had a professional corps of soldiers, etc...

Their logistical ability is perfectly comparable to Rome's. You seem to think logistic boils down to "we can keep replacing men or building things really fast", when in fact the nature of logistical support is based around training, preparation, and supplies which is evident that the Persians were proficient just as much as their western rivals were considering the vast size of their empire they had to secure with garrisons, borders, road networks, supply posts, and so on forth.

You are telling me to put the Parthians on the same military logistical level as the Romans based on their irrigation methods.

So user, unless you can better explain yourself, no, not to my knowledge.

He said Persians, not Parthians. Besides the Parthians issue were they were too trusting and lax in their handling with the Romans and not aggressive enough to initiate wars, not their logistical abilities lacking.

Its because your knowledge is shit dude

Well i suppose that's why they were so hard to subdue now weren't they? Doesnt that all seem much more important than what sword and shield they used?

What exactly have I been wrong about?

No one said anything about the Parthians here, we're talking about the Persians, buddy. Besides, I already detailed pretty heavily why the Persians were able to last nearly 500 years as Rome and Byzantine's biggest rival and maintain their empire so securely due to their logistical abilities of being excellent fortress builders, siege engineers, and defensive implements.
Subdue what?

About a lot of things about the Persian logistic or the fact you think Romans were particularly unique super special snowflakes when it comes to logistics. I already said time and time again that any civilized society is going to have better logistics then tribal ones.

I haven't said anything about Parthian logistics.

I think the Romans were special in regards to logistics because by and large they were.

And they were better than almost all their civilized contemporaries.

Why do you keep saying Parthians?
>They were better than almost all their civilized contemporaries
Sure but the Persians matched them completely.

Because it annoys you so much. Come to think of it since the Parthians paid so close attention to their ligistics maybe that's why they didn't get conquered by Romans?

The parthians were far less centralized than their Persian successors

I know

Protip; The roman concept of the legion was copied from the greek concept of the hoplite, which in turn is the copy of original sumerian concept of a tightly packed unit of men with shields in front and spears sticking out

AN ARMY OF ELEFUNS

>the persian royal road was not a thing

Yeah, no, the Romans copied the legion from the Samnites, who learned it from the Etruscans. There is little similarity between the Etruscan legion and the Greek phalanx other than "group of men fighting in formation".

>The roman concept of the legion was copied from the greek concept of the hoplite

This is like saying the American concept of the Divison was copied from the British concept of the Infantryman

You're comparing apples and oranges, one is a unit of organization the other is a concept of individual specialization.

One reason. If a legionnaire survived battle he was promised a secure future for him and his family.

Citizen-soldiers.
There was an entire class of Roman citizens who paid for most of their equipment and supplies, and were mainly volunteers who were very patriotic towards the Roman Republic. It thus fielded large armies for significantly lower cost, and had the manpower from the Italian peninsular to back it up.
By the time the traditional systems of the Republic gave way to conscription and autocracy, the SPQR had nobody that could challenge their power in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe

>Citizen-soldiers.
Oh wow, how speshul. Just like what the Greeks and the Carthaginians have.

>Why weren't other peer-civilizations able to copy them effectively?

What other peers? The Carthaginians, Greeks and Persians were the only one were their peers.

Bruv, most of the empire was conquered with Marius' mercenary legions.

They had lot's of money to afford a standing military, and had the manpower to keep it sustained even after terrible losses. Most countries would have collapsed after some of those terrible defeats, they just had an insane amount of manpower from Italian states.

teaching your soldiers something useful over their really long service also helps

>Because the Sumerian used some close shield formation a thousand years before the Greeks copied them
You're assuming the Greeks even had a concept of a Sumerian. Nice we wuz.

>Neither do we hear of the mighty Diadochi losing army after army simply to raise a new one, two, three, four or more times in a single conflict.
Why *was* Rome able to raise such extensive armies in a single conflict? Was the answer really just greater population base? What were they doing that Carthage and the Diadochi weren't?

Carthage actually has a similar military infrastructure as Rome (citizen soldiers + allied cities' citizen soldiers and mercenaries). Ergo three fucking wars.

But the Diadochii are different. Fun fact: the Diadochii didn't have conscripted soldiers. Nor was reliant on citizen soldiers even.

The Phalangites- most especially the main body of the Phalangites, the Pezhetairoi (Foot Companions)- were straight up professionals. They did nothing else but be soldiers. They were paid in plots of land to liberate them from the drudgery of civilian life. It was what made them to be above the average Greek Hoplite. In fact they were a separate and privileged corps whom non-Hellenics can never join in.

Problem was, shit leadership and a devastating defeat means you just lost thousands of very expensive soldiers. A legion cunt is easy to replace. Not so much a Pezhetairos. That means you have to find another bunch of cunts to reward lands with and train their whole lifetime as professional infantry.

they may seem to be dominant

>Carthage
Conscripted their citizen soldiers and hired shitloads of mercenaries.
>Greeks
Disunited city-states, their armies and fleets were outnumbered by the Romans.

>Conscripted their citizen soldiers and hired shitloads of mercenaries.
Sooo...just like Rome?

The Carthaginian army is basically
>Carthage's Citizen Soldiers + Liby-Phoenician City-States Allied Armies + Mercs.
Meanwhile Rome
>Rome's Citizen Soldiers + Italic Allied Armies + Mercs
Wow. Big difference there, chappy.

>I'm merely PRETENDING to be retarded

Older men pay you lump sums of money in return for you performing sexual favours for them

PERICLES’ FUNERAL ORATION

>Buying into the LE MERCHANT CITY memes.

Carthaginian citizens formed the core of their army.

most carthage soldiers were mercenaries, they didnt have their own army

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Carthage#Carthaginian_military_tradition
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Carthage#Mercenaries_in_the_forces_of_Carthage

tl;dr- Most of what we know of Carthage came from their enemies, the Romans. But it is highly possible that Carthage did have a citizen army, since it built a bigass empire itself. It doesnt help that 18th century fags studying history think you can't be a merchantile power and a military power at the same time because "mercantilism makes men soft and whatever."

Furthermore, the supposed reliance on "mercenaries" was due to the fact that the Romans misinterpreted the presence of Non-Carthaginian Allies like the Liby-Phoenicians as mere mercenaries. When the funny thing is they also did the same thing: the Roman Army was massively augmented by the Non-Roman Italic Allies (the Socii).

>Most of what we know of Carthage came from their enemies, the Romans
and greeks
>since it built a bigass empire itself.
a republic, they were a republic
>Carthage did have a citizen army
like 5%, 95% were mercenaries, carthage elite didnt want an army

>Why were the Roman Legions so dominate?

It was their principate function.

better cavalry is the main thing,Their army was more varied to meet different threats rather than uniformed heavy infantry.

Longer swords and an oval shield that offered the same protection as the rectangle but lighter and less material used also the reintroduction of spears.

The army was more cost effective martial was cheaper but offered the same protection helmets changed and the old lorica segmentata was done away with for the cheaper lighter and easier to put on hamata which had also been used since republic times anyway

Not the most academic source but a good introduction at 8:30

youtube.com/watch?v=064zHhf-q6g&list=PLkOo_Hy3liEJYEQ23l6bDrFrQYdkoZ3BC&index=15

The important battles (read: the second Punic war) were won before Marius.

Logistics.

Even if a legion lost, Rome won.

A bunch of berber NU MALES vs people from all of central and south Italy

Rome lost many wars tho

The further away from their logistical range, the harder it was. Hence they abandoned Germania and never bothered to hold Parthia.

Rome only started seeing serious trouble after the constant civil wars depleted the legions of manpower.

But if you look at the Punic wars or against the Greeks, simply put Rome could always field another army where there opponents couldn't.

That could easily be chalked up to the military culture of the Romans compared to their enemies

Every culture back then was a military culture. Athens and Carthage were just as militarized, Rome simply expanded its citizen base beyond an exclusive bunch in its capital city and integrated other Italian peoples as Socii which gave them a lot larger manpower pool to work with.

Also didn't help that the Diadochii only accepted Greeks/Macedonians for that kind of service, so they already had a limited manpower pool to start off with.

> Why were the Roman Legions so dominate?

Organization and training, as well as being open to accepting new tech and practices.

But the critical difference was that everybody else’s militaries were essentially part-time militias of the local nobility and their personal war bands who would get together only as needed, meanwhile the Romans had a full-time professional army whose only job was being soldiers.

I can't speak for Hellenistic Athens but it's undeniable that Carthage had a less militarized society, given that the army was very much only a small branch of the state that the head of state (suffet) had no control over, whereas the roman state was deeply intertwined with the army

>creates a sound bite so he doesn't have to struggle pronouncing limitanei every time
lol

>Why were the Roman Legions so dominate?
Decent quality and a manpower pool that could replenish losses. They sucked against riders for a long while, tho.

>Why weren't other peer-civilizations able to copy them effectively?
They did not have the manpower.

Rome could and di literally drown their enemies in bodies in its expansion phase. Losing a legion or several merely slowed them down.

That was very obvious in their campaigns against the Diadochi. Rome lost a lot of battles but they could replace their soldiers a lot easier than the Diadochi and thus won. The enemy won themselves to death.

>very aggressive commanders
On average no.
> good individual fighters
Nope, clearly not. They were average. Some were of course better than that, but what gave them their edge as individuals was their constant training and equipment, not being some sort of sword saints.

Greeks were also their enemy, not much of a difference.

>Republic
Thalassocracies can be called empires, such as the Athenian Empire and Carthaginian Empire. It refers to their sphere of influence over multiple nations.

>Pulls % of citizen army out of you ass
Bet you don't have any source on that.

After centuries of war in sicily, it's fair to say they adapted a military culture. The issue is they had a competing merchant faction as well. The barcid faction was the eventual major split. I definitely agree they weren't as military/farmer focused as Rome, but I wouldn't say they didn't have a military culture.

Source on pic?

Thanks Buddy! Appreciate the intro

yeah thought that was odd lol. Surely limitanei is not that much of a tongue twister to repeat after you've heard it once or twice.