Wouldn't it be more easy to recruit?
>>18279613It didn't.
>>18279613Because all societies become weaker when they reach a good level of wealth. The germanics and other people that still lived a harder life where better soldiers because of that.
>>18279613Roman women were emancipated and they became Snowsharks
>>18279673Why? Jews?
>>18279613The romans started to use foreign soldiers since the day they conquered territories outside of italic territories By the 2/3 century they became to recruit in mass from the balkansThey had berber light cavalrySarmatian heavy cavalry etc...
>>18279613You know how a lot of Americans like to use illegal immigrants or H1B workers for labor because they have leverage over them, can pay them less, and don't have to uphold safety standards?It's basically the same deal.
>>18279613It was always massively barbarized.But if you mean during the end of the 4th and 5th centuries, then its because constant civil wars and epidemics sapping manpower while the Germanic tribes were getting pushed in due to Hunnic/nomadic incursions
>>18279669>Harder life makes for better soldiers!!!>WWI Germans absolutely rape and demolish the Russian Tsarist Army despite Germans being urbanized gebildet schoolboys and Russians being a bunch of hardass rural peasants
Basically Roman soldiers would get a ton of stuff like money, land and status. They'd start families, some of whom, would join the army.Later on Rome became massively wealthy, more corrupt, unstable and less equal. Large estates owned by a few families used slaves to do the work. And had private armies. The state didn't have the money or land to give away, so the ordinary Roman/Italian had no incentive to fight brutal conflicts in far away lands. Those who had money also turned away from civic duty and politics, I'd say rightfully.
>>18279969>Later on Rome became massively wealthy, more corrupt, unstable and less equal. Large estates owned by a few families used slaves to do the work. And had private armies. The state didn't have the money or land to give away, so the ordinary Roman/Italian had no incentive to fight brutal conflicts in far away lands.You managed to get everything here wrong. Private armies did not exist. The most you get is retinues belonging to generals which were not private and were funded from their salary and could be taken away from them at any time. There was the issue of there being too much land that was free, it was why they invited barbarian peoples in to settle in the first place after they broke up their groups and splintered them across the empire. There were even laws that unused land could be claimed by anybody provided they tended to it. There are even cases like with Paulinus of Pella who lost his Greek estates because he just never showed up to them or used them so his neighbours claimed the unused land. All retired soldiers were granted land and a years worth of material to get them started with the proper equipment. They were given superior legal status and given a payout once they retired. If anything the retirement benefits were even more generous than they had been before Diocletian.
>>18279951Sensitive, young men suffer the hardest struggles.
It was because the Roman central authority did not want to incentivize Roman young men to serve in the army with better pay and benefits, so they settled for barbarians who entered military service just for the right to be in the Roman empire.
>>18279673
>>18279613You know how there's this modern phenomenon wherein populations with greater access to wealth and jobs other than menial agricultural work see their birth rates fucking plummet?I don't think it's a coincidence that the empire kept trying to clumsily legislate its' own core population into having more kids even as far back as Augustus' time. Turns out that converting the entire Mediterranean basin into a glorified resource pump means your people get so hideously wealthy they get a 20+ century head start on that shit.That, and throwing legions of them into the meat grinder whether on the frontier or as a part of the infinite civil wars probably didn't help much.
>>18279669SPBPThe affluence of the empire degraded the once hyper-masculine and militaristic spirit of the Italics. By the time Augustus seized power, half the Roman forces were composed of auxiliaries that were increasingly taking on combat roles, while the legionaries took on more support and logistics roles. It's why from the 1st to 3rd century, the Romans began to believe that the Germanics were better warriors than they were, as it was mostly these peoples that formed a significant number of their auxiliaries.
>>18279985>You managed to get everything here wrong. Private armies did not exist. The most you get is retinues belonging to generals which were not private and were funded from their salary and could be taken away from them at any time.This is an age old myth of how Roman society and its military was structured. Patricians have always had private armies going back to the Latin tribes. Even when a general was assigned a legion raised by the Roman state, the client and patron dynamic existed, and the legionaries were more loyal to their general rather than the state. >There were even laws that unused land could be claimed by anybody provided they tended to it. By the time of the first Triumvirate, the public lands had been abused by patricians and land magnates, who simply seized these lands and privatized them. After Julius Caesar, no emperor ever attempted to address the issue, as the magnates were too strong of a political power block that opposing them was very dangerous. >There are even cases like with Paulinus of Pella who lost his Greek estates because he just never showed up to them or used them so his neighbours claimed the unused land.This is a case of squatters rights. In Paulinus' case, he was a destitute with no influence or power, he had no legal recourse against the squatters.>If anything the retirement benefits were even more generous than they had been before Diocletian.They had to be. Up to the fall of the Western Empire, the Romans were engaging in what every empire did when they were stretched thin economically: they turned on the money printer. They were minting coins at a high volume to keep up with increasing operational expenses, that the late empire was being destroyed by hyperinflation. To keep the soldiers happy, the emperors gave more generous benefits to compensate for the devalued pay.
>>18280067>In the Early Republic they did. The last we see MIGHT have of them was during the invasion of Southern Italy with independent action done by Roman pirates. After this they aren't seen.>the client and patron dynamic existed, and the legionaries were more loyal to their general rather than the state. Fundamentally these were not private armies. They were paid by the state through state salaries from Augustus onwards who destroyed the system of independent generals paying for them out of pocket. >By the time of the first Triumvirate, the public lands had been abused by patricians and land magnates, who simply seized these lands and privatized themThis isn't really relevant to Late Antiquity. Nor did they actually privatise them, they were Roman allies which were broken by Roman reforms in the Late Republic. >After Julius Caesar, no emperor ever attempted to address the issueAugustus as an obvious example.>as the magnates were too strong of a political power block that opposing them was very dangerous. The magnates had no power, they were completely at the mercy of the state. They had no recourse or ability to resist the state, Diocletian was able to completely reform the state and crushed the mass tax evasion by major estates and they couldn't do a single thing.>This is a case of squatters rights.Squatters rights did not exist in the Roman Empire. I was referring to an actual law on desolate land, if you did not use land for over a decade for any purpose it was free game and ownership would transfer legally to those who made use of it.>he had no legal recourse against the squatters.He did actually. Most of his complaints were actually against his relatives trying to take hold of his Greek estates and his legal cases with them. The reason he couldn't do anything against the taking of desolate land was because they were well within the law to do so.
>>18280074>the Romans were engaging in what every empire did when they were stretched thin economically: they turned on the money printerThat's the 3rd century. Emperors from Diocletian onward focused on reversing the extreme debasement of currency that occurred in that period. Diocletian introduced a new pure gold coinage which was expanded by Constantine for more than taxation purposes. It wouldn't face debasement until the 11th century. Constantius II, Valens and Valentinian were focused on increasing purity even at the expense of the treasury. Even the 5th century Western Emperors didn't really touch coinage that much. Eastern Emperors continued to increase purity until Anastasius completely replaced bronze coinage.
>>18279951Russian serfs as all forced labor will never work as hard as a freeman. A kraut slugging it in shitty sweatshop tier labor is more hardened than a serf who has all winter off
>>18280074It's always easy to tell who has worked a day in there life and who hasn't (you). You have loyalty to a good boss not the company. Those soldiers would always remember their service to the general and not the state when that civic nationalism did not even exist yet and the proto forms were reserved to rich men and religion for the commoners
>>18280122>Those soldiers would always remember their service to the general and not the stateThat does not make them private armies. In any case you are projecting an issue of Late Republican politics onto periods which eliminated the issue for the most part. Nearly all cases in the 1st and second centuries were mutinies with no particular head or attempts to sieze the throne in absence of any legitimate ruler namely the year of the four emperors where they all happened to be in the right place and the right time and not chronic leaders of indentured armies. Vitellius only commanded a single army, the rest of his forces defected to him in opposition to Otho. Generals did not serve the same armies for extended periods of time. It only reappeared in the West in the 5th century as central power dissolved. >civic nationalism did not even exist yet and the proto forms were reserved to rich men and religion for the commonersIt is strange to insist that people did not have any loyalty or sense of nationalism to the state they belonged to especially in the classical world where speeches delivered to the public overwhelmingly contained these themes. It is almost a universal value espoused by Romans of all classes. Nationalism does not require an early modern definition made by a council of states to form into existence.
>>18279613The Roman Army always had non-Latins since they became an empire. What changed in the end was that the army was weakened by long civil wars, foreign invasions, and financing issues, so they augmented the actual Roman army with foederati, whole Germanic tribes fighting under their own chiefs. Down the line, this had the effect that these Germanic generals became some of the most powerful men in the empire, and now the emperors had to keep the various tribes loyal, and supressing more internal conflicts between Germanic leaders and older power brokers, which they failed at eventually.
>>18279941Hardly the same when America routinely deports wetbacks when they are past their usefulness and Rome basically just kept expanding the border and giving citizenship to every gypsy they found.
>>18279613The roman legions were completely outclassed by "barbarian armies", if they didnt "barbarise" they would have been wiped out 300 years earlier
>>18279613Who knows
>>18279673Spbp
>>18279613nice feet
>>18279613Germanics were hornier and more willing to breed roman women while there was certain sexual impotence among the latins.
Imagine being a roman and seeing this conscripted in the army.Grim
