Why did nobody want to join the legions in the late roman empire? IIRC Rome even resorted to conscription and thr branding/tattooing of new recruits to prevent desertion. While in the early empire the legions had no shortage of volunteers.
>empire stops expanding and plagues ravage the populationGee I wonder why willing fools are hard to find.
defensive garrisons in a declining empire don't get to spend their career looting
Rampant inflation made a soldier’s wages basically useless for starters. In the Pax Romana the avg recruit was making pretty good money.
Because in the early Empire the Legions fought against the very nobodies, who didn't want to join the Legion of the late Empire.While in the late Empire they fought against huge German Barbarians, who are a foot taller than them and adopted their armor, weapons and fighting style. The average German was 6'3 and built like a modern football athlete with wide shoulders. And despite their poor economic conditions these people were not motivated simply by acquiring riches. They genuinely loved war. They constantly fought private wars with each other, which were feuds. They would casually meet each other or their enemies and organize war like sports matches with literal lines in the field to mark the different positions and the extent of battlefield. And these autists actually stuck to these rules and didn't try to cheat. All for the love of the game.They fought against psychopathic nomadic raiders, who intentionally distorted their own skulls during early childhood development to resemble Demons. These "people" were the equivalent of Olympian athletes of today, only they had no specialization weakness. They were olympian-tier horse riders, olympian-tier archers and generally extremely fit, while living such a poor lifestyle and under such oppressive leadership styles of their warchiefs, that they would fight to the bitter end for any amount of scraps.What the fuck are you, a 5'4 grain-fed scared little peasant boy of the Roman Empire supposed to do against these freaks of nature? Why they fuck would you ever join the Legion and waste your entire life away to fight for the Empire with THAT as your competition?
>>18528124Mummy pretty!
>>18528099>Why did nobody want to join the legions in the late roman empire?They did. Recruitment based on region. Egypt and Illyria had waiting lists to join because so many men from that region wanted to join. The East enjoyed constant recruitment even without conscription to the point where it was done away with by at least the time of Justinian and Belasarius was able to recruit an entire army from funds given to him. There isn't any real cases of manpower shortages in the 4th century, even during the reign of Valentinian maybe 20% of the western armies were filled with foreign soldiers at most while in the East there isn't really any evidence they made use of treaties to enroll foreigners into their armies consistently or with any great number.>IIRC Rome even resorted to conscription and thr branding/tattooing of new recruits to prevent desertion. Conscription always existed in some part, Diocletian expanded it massively, branding was used as a sort of punishment for those that tried to, or they believed were liable to desert, but it wasn't common. >While in the early empire the legions had no shortage of volunteers.The early empire also had an army half the size. If you based it merely on how many men were being put into the army locally, the late empire had far more. They could have easily filled the army of the earlier empire without an issue, but they also had a far greater need for manpower.>>18528116Soldiers in the 4-5th century were either paid in kind, which has nothing to do with inflation or were paid in Solidus which was a stable currency. The problem of inflation for state finances was a solved issue by Constantine and Late Roman Emperors learnt the lessons of the 3rd century from it and rarely debased coinage and never the Solidus, for the most part they did the exact opposite.
>>18528124nonsense, the average germanic/slavic tribesman probably looked fit but not to that extreme, you need a specific lifestyle and diet to become a football player. The tribes entering the empire were part farmers running from nomadic tribes and climate change with their families and animals. Seeking first and foremost a land to live in and cultivate. The kind of lifestyle you're describing will only become possible with the raise of knights in the early medieval era
>>18528187This, the Goths invaded the ERE because the Huns had pushed their shit in and they were suffering from a bad famine. Alarics army was a bunch of malnourished dirty refugees. They were successful because the empire by that point was a late stage bureaucratic clusterfuck that couldn’t get out of its own way.
>>18528187>>18528195
>>18528195than why did the WRE collapse and not the ERE?
>>18528224That changes literally nothing I just said>>18528239Better political maneuvering and dumb luck. Stilicho had a chance to crush Alaric in Greece until the Eastern government basically forced him to leave. What happened in 410 was entirely avoidable if the WRE had been even marginally competent
>>18528099Christianity. People who should have become soldiers or generals instead became monks or priests
>>18528255The germanics were also (Arian) Christian
>>18528124Holy cringe. Go read a book, or better yet go back to wherever you came from.
>>18528124>>18528124The average german was definitely not 6'3 and built like a football player lmao. They were still taller and more muscular than the Romans. The roman "grain-fed peasant boys" were consistently beating the germans up until the 5th century.
>>18528137And what about the late 4th century and the 5th century in the west. Didn't they face severe manpower shortages? I remember reading that by that point a career in the army became far less attractive than before, even for poor provincials. So this was wasn't the case in provinces like Illyria and Pannonia? And then there was the problem of landowners not being willing to let their tenants get drafted.
>>18528099Maybe for the same reasons we do not wish to serve our militaries today.
>>18528422>And what about the late 4th century and the 5th century in the west.The late 4th century, and even the early 5th century also didn't have a problem with it. It was only past the 420's when this became a real issue, in the late 4th century there was the issue that a major army had been defeated both East and West and they needed time to refill their ranks, in the East it happened without an issue, and in part in the West as well. After Constantius III died, there was no longer a single powerful ruler in the West and manpower was spread across the entire empire fighting and as the invading peoples took over land, entire swaths of the empire were no longer taxable or able to be used for manpower. So losses at that point became unrecoverable which could have been absorbed beforehand, all of Spain and Britain fell out of Roman hands by the end of Honorius' reign which represented massive pools of manpower gone. So to make up for it, they had to turn to using invading people to fight alongside their armies, with the exception of the Comes in Illyria who never had the issue. >I remember reading that by that point a career in the army became far less attractive than before, even for poor provincialsJoining was never highly popular. Late Roman soldiers received more benefits and superior legal status compared to their earlier counterparts. I'm not aware of any knowledge of recruitment outside of Egypt, where we have the documents and Illyria and Moesia, which were targeted regions for recruitment.
>>18528463>And then there was the problem of landowners not being willing to let their tenants get drafted.Diocletian when instituting conscription took that into consideration, either you pay a levy for each man that was supposed to be sent, or you send the men. Most preferred to pay the levy, so it wasn't always a negative, but it was an issue and tax evasion was known and even rampant in places like Aquitaine where Paulinus of Pella actually got fucked over because he always paid on time and in full. Which made the Goths think he was exceedingly wealthy and made him Attalus' head of the household, who was in charge of taxation, and he had to pay out of pocket the difference since he couldn't actually tax anybody. Then his estate got looted later on but that's a different issue entirely.
>>18528239science or something
>>18528248>Stilicho had a chance to crush Alaric in Greece until the Eastern government basically forced him to leave. What happened in 410 was entirely avoidable if the WRE had been even marginally competentNever happened as Goths were best military.
>>18528099Multiple reasons:>Inflaction made the average soldier's pay less worth the risk>Many joined to get citizienship. Then Caracalla happened>A pacified land eventually will see its warmongering fraction of population become smaller and smaller>The Empire forbidding non-soldiers to bear arms made most people outside military families unsuited for the job
>>18528422>So this was wasn't the case in provinces like Illyria and Pannonia?They were under constant invasions so they learned to fight to survive since childhood. And once adult, if war its all you know, why not trying to climb the social ranking troughts the army?
>>18528239one thing that's interesting to me is the stuff in the 5th century that actually did topple them was probably less of a crisis than what they had already survived
>>18528463Oh ok, interesting. I was under the impression that Rome started having serious problems with recruitment in the late 4th century and that the reluctance of men to enlist was a factor. >Joining was never highly popular. Late Roman soldiers received more benefits and superior legal status compared to their earlier counterparts.I remember reading somwhere that this was the result of the declining attractivity of a career in the army. Basically the emperors trying to attract more volunteers. I don't exactly remember where I read/heard it. I think the argument was that by that point, service in the army was more dangerous than ever before (maybe with the exception of the third century crisis) while pay and retirement bonuses were worse than ever before. And that discipline was enforced more harshly with commanders using draconian punishment far more frequently than before.So this wasn't the case?
>>18528099Universal citizenship eliminated one of the greatest incentives for auxillia to enlist.The end of expansion meant there was no incentive for citizens to enlist as legionaries either; there were no more land grants to give. this shit isnt rocket science, man. army composition shifted to whoever would accept pure coin. in the very worst cases, the Romans had to grant land to foreigners in exchange for service.
>>18530697>I remember reading somwhere that this was the result of the declining attractivity of a career in the armyI've always seen it as an issue of needing more manpower than they once did. Diocletian doubled the size of the army, and thus the need for men. The rhetoric around soldiers by the state was elevating their position far more than they once had, especially as many emperors in the 3rd century owed their position to them, rather than the Senate. Although there is just part practicality, manpower needs doubled, and so they needed more to attract those extra soldiers. Even during most of the 4th century and the reign of Diocletian, where Roman armies were largely successful in all corners, they used conscription to fill in these extra numbers.>while pay and retirement bonuses were worse than ever beforePayment wasn't too poor, although they received most of their income from donatives, where every year, or for a special event they would receive extra pay such as a solidus for a soldier on the day of the Emperor's ascension. his birthday or on celebrations, which could really add up. Soldiers in general earned around 4-5 Solidi a year, cavalry earned slightly more to also pay for their feed, while a labourer could expect 6 on average, so the pay was lower, but far more consistent which was a draw. Retirement bonuses were far more ad hoc in the early empire, the Late Empire institutionalised it, where a retiring soldier would receive numerous tax exemptions, a bonus, start-up grants, they could request land they would be given an allotment of land, two oxen, a hundred modii of seed corn and cash for initial expenses and they were open to positions to work on behalf of the state once retired, but this was likely more an offer for officers. I'm not sure if I am remembering it right but I do believe their spouses also enjoyed the tax exemptions even as their husbands were soldiers. They also became Honestiores which gave them greater legal protections/
>>18528099mostly a case of the benefit where no longer as worth while with a compounded issue of massive population decline due to plagues and less food overall due to changing climate, and the fact local elites gained far greater prominence during the later empire phase many of whom found ways to prevent the locals under them from joining the legions so that they could keep the manpower
>>18528099They did join but they didn't want to travel large distances to their postings anymore. Units hated it when a commander took them away from home.
