The 100 years BC were hardly the “glorious republic”. In fact, what little was left of the Republic died with Caesar in 44 BC. The Republic really died in 110 BC when Marius changed the makeup of the army from property owning citizens to paid soldiers of the urban “head count”. Prior to Marius, military service was a privilege of citizenship. Huge losses of troops on the Northen Borders forced Rome to accept paid professionals to fill out the army. The professionals, strangley enough, were more loyal to the generals who paid them than to the “Senate and People of Rome”. Your observation about the loyalties of paid soldiery is correct but the problem happened long before Caesar (or the emperors) came on the scene. The Social Wars and Dictatorships of Marius, Sulla and Pompey that followed the change in the army composition were the death blows of the Republic.
Caesar did not “declare himself emperor”. He was elected Dictator and then Dictator for life. He may not have been one for the political niceties but he was elected nevertheless. Caesar’s nephew and heir Octvaian (later Augustus) is generally accepted to be the first Emperor albeit the second of the Twelve Caesars.
You have the “caesar” - “emperor” connection backward. Gaius (praenomen, familiar name)Julius (nomen, family name) Caesar (cognomen, nickname) was his full name. He was Gaius of the Julian Family and the “Caesar” was a traditional family cognomen meaning “full head of hair” (particularly galling to the prematurely bald general). His successors, some of whom were actually Julians like Augustus, adopted the cognomen as a means of emphasizing (or legitimizing) their political heritage. The term “caesar” ultimately came to be synonomous with “emperor” because so many emperors adopted it, ultimately becoming the “Tzar” and “Kaiser” of later times.
“Emperor” is the Latin “Imperator”, originally an acclamation by the troops in the field awarded to a victorious general. The term was adoped because “kings” (Rex) were anathema in Rome. (The justification for Caesar’s assassination was that he was seeking the “kingly crown”.) His successors, kings in all but name, needed a different term to be politically correct and adopted the military honorific.
The “Glory that was Rome” is generally ascribed to the Post-Republican Imperial era when Rome reached it greatest political and military power…with a paid professional army and no vestiges of the Republic. Rome did, in fact, deteriorate and die after Caesar…it just took 400 years to do it.
And, to answer the original question, a properly constituted (i.e. not conscripts or mercenaries) and competently led (i. e., not Crassus) legion of Caesar’s time would kick the bejesus out of any horde (Mongol or otherwise) of irregular cavalry.
To follow up on what Notthemama and jti were saying; The Caesar name became synonymous with “emperor”. And this title lasted for 2 millennia. Up into this century 4 nations were ruled by “Caesars”, called “Czar”, “Tsar”, or “Kaiser”.
Not bad. The Nordic ruler Konn the Young ( king ) has a long ways to go.
Pepperlandgirl, The History Channel is nice. Too nice. But an hour-long TV broadcast is not a great format to discuss complex realities. So everything you see is an oversimplification. Plus the network is seeking ratings, so popular events are highlighted and controvesial topics are avoided. Books are the way to go. Or, if you want to avoid all that tough reading, you can start threads like this 1. ( Hey, you are pretty bright. )
An overimplification of my own:
At the end of the Empire many of the wealthy families didn’t resist the “barbarian” invasions. They believed that the invaders would not be able to maintain the complex Roman tax system. They were correct. The taxes were lower under the “barbarians”.
Pepper, I have to agree with 2sense here. For example, I saw THC’s episode on Hadrian’s wall not too long ago. It shows Roman soldiers beating back plad-kilted barbarians. The Scots and/or Picts wouldn’t show up for quite some time. If memory serves me the folks on the other side were the Brigantes.
The Brigantes were a Celtic tribe that inhabited Northern England at that time. They were contemporaries of the Picts (or Cruithne as they referred to themselves). By A.D 70 a powerful army led by the Roman Governor of Britain Julius Agricola, had captured most of southern Britain and advanced into the northern part of our country. Here they defeated two great Celtic tribes, the Brigantes at Scotch Corner to the south of the Tees and the Picts at the Battle of Mons Grapius in Caledonia. Thereafter they decided that the Picts (and Brigantes) were not suitable for adaptation to the Roman wasy of life and that the mountainous, boggy lands of Caledonia would be impossible to entirely subjugate (wusses if you ask me). A great wall was built to mark the Northern extremity of the Roman Empire by Emperor Hadrian.
2sense, you are actually right. I don’t have the time to do the hard research and reading, and so working from memory I got this thread started so all of YOU guys would have to do the leg work. I know how this board works. Ha Ha
Actually, that’s partially true. And I’d like to thank all of you for your posts, I’ve learned something, as I’m sure many of others have.
As for the history channel, it’s not always “a one hour show” the Roman War Machine series was about 6 hours, if memory serves me correctly. It may not, it’s been awhile. Often the History Channel will focus on one thing for an hour a day for the whole week.
Well, gee, here I was going to point out to Pepper that the History Channel is “about” entertainment, but ya’ll beat me to it!
But I WOULD like to thank all the serious historian-types who weighed in with the facts about Romans, etc. Actually, I was kind of hoping that would happen…
I just read a lot, and sometimes the “facts” get tossed into different filing cabinets in my brain, along with how to make real Popsicles, how to figure Miles Per Gallon, and the two different phone numbers we had when I was a kid.
It is worth noting that there never was a “glorious republic” in our sense of the word–the republic was always an oligarchy. On the other hand, Roman citizens, especially before the extension of citizenship to damn near everybody, did feel more investment in thier empire and thier army than other soldiers. This undoutably aided moral. How much difference moral acually makes is much to complicated a question for my simple brain.
The Mongols are usually credited with the largest contigous land empire, neatly sidestepping the whole Brittish question. Although the Mongols did not have the hands-on management style of Romans of Brittish, it would be simplistic to say that thier empire did them no good. They had no particular interest in running a consolidated state, so it is not to thier discredit that they failed to do so. They did extract heavy tributes from everyone they conquored, thier only real goal. Even the Mongals who more or less settled doewn in China never really liked the orginized, agricultural state-there is a story that one of the early generals seriouslt suggested slaughtering everyone with the five most commen patrynms in China --some 90% of the population–so as to transform the land into a herdsman’s paradise. He was overruled.
Despite a few glaring anachronisms, I thought that Gladiator was probably a better depiction of ancient Rome than anything I have seen on the History Channel. The charecter of Maximius was beatifully constructed–he was exactly what the Romans admired, and by the late Empire the embodiment of there own myths about their past. The Roman idealization of the pastoral yeoman farmer was especially well done. The only real problem I had with the movie–and this is something that plauges every gladiator movie–is that although Gladiators might be admired in passing by the crowd, they were the absolute bottom of the social scale–the dregs of society. By law, a freed gladiator had to leave the vicinity of Rome, and when Caraculla extenended universal citizenship in 213 former gladiators and convicted criminals were the only groups excluded. But that in no way detracts from the film.
The Mongolian empire was heading into Europe in the 13th century and smashing every army they met along the way. European armies of the time were focused on large numbers of infantry and heavy calvary. Archery was considered a means of softening up the enemy. So it stands to reason that if the Mongols could cut down 13th century infantry and calvary they could cut down 1st century BC infantry.
The Mongols routinely destroyed infantry forces in northern China.
The Mongols annihilated the infantry forces of 13th century China and Korea. And keep in mind that the Chinese had plenty of archers both mounted and otherwise, and it still wasn’t enough to hold them back.
The Mongols defeated the samurai, an honor-bound heavy infantry and heavy calvary force with decent archery thrown in to boot (although frowned on from an honor perspective). The Mongols were defeated by the kamikaze (divine wind) when a tsunami (sp?) destroyed their korean fleet.
Roman infantry wouldn’t stand a chance. The only hope the Roman empire would have is it’s massive weight. So, here we come down to a “depends”. Is it the Khan Empire vs. Roman Empire? Or a Roman Army vs. a Mongol Army? Army to Army, Mongols. Empire to Empire, Mongols but a closer war.
First of all: all of you making military statements without proper study of military tactics (to say nothing of your improper grasp of historical fact) should keep quiet: you know nothing of relevance to the OP. Opinions are great, I suppose, but it does help to support them with something other than more ignorance.
I won’t discuss the military question much, since my knowledge of tactics is relatively limited; perhaps we have someone in the Teeming Millions who studied military tactics professionally and can offer some decent commentary. However I will note some pretty common things to think about:
Cavalry vs. Infantry depends on a lot of things, including the type of land over which the fight is being waged, and which side is on defense as opposed to trying to gain control of new land. Simply put, you can’t just say “Cavalry always beats infantry” (if you doubt this, ask the Germans about Stalingrad).
Type of weaponry involved is very important. Roman tactics were based on the military hardware available to the Roman soldiers. Give them stronger metal or better distance weaponry and their tactics likely would change. The Mongol invasion of Europe occurred more than 800 years after the Roman legions had kicked the bucket; trying to rely on their military hardware of the time likely would have been suicide. This element to the question makes these debates interesting, since you never really know what would have happened.
One might also comment on some pretty clearly understood historical facts on which to base opinions: the Roman legions were not supremely victorious; they routinely suffered losses to the Germanic trans-Rhinian tribes, for example; the Roman Empire’s ability to support the legions properly subsided with time (is the OP talking about the Roman Empire of 44 B.C. to 150 AD or the Roman Empire of the mid-300’s AD?); the Mongols, while quite consistently victorious in Euro-Asian battles, did not in Europe come against any political entity with the same organization as the Roman Empire (a lot of their rapid expansion through central Asia and into eastern Europe can be laid to the lack of strong kingdoms/empires in the way).
Now, let’s see if we can get some intelligent debate going.
And DS chimes in with his usual “All your posts are crap” followed by his usual either “I could but won’t answer it better” or “I can’t answer it any better anyway.” Brilliant.
So what exactly are you expecting there DS? A 100 page double spaced essay containing all the relevent strategic and tactical implications of the battle? At what scale should we do our analysis? Tactical? Operational? Strategic? What should we assume the manpower of the respective armies to take? How about replacements? Location? Generals? Officers, how many, what quality? Should we use historical examples or some generic ones based on the general quality of each? Can we comprise the hypothetical armies my taking the best of each regardless of historical accuracy? How about supply lines? What will the weather be like? Is there room for flanking moves? What is the timescale of the battle? Is strategic reinforcement a possibility? Etc ad nauseum. Yes, DS you have hit on some rather insightful. Nobody knows what could possibly happen because … drum roll please … there are too many variables. Therefore, an intelligent debate maybe … just maybe might take place by looking at the historical facts, albeit in a summarized fashion, of the respective successes and losses of each of the forces against similar forces (to sum up: Romans losing to the Partians, Mongols demolishing infantry based forces). Even such a complete listing would take far more room then any sane person would try to list here.
What? Asking for facts before launching into a debate over a hypothetical encounter between long-dead empires that were separated by several centuries in time? How ridiculous.
The only quesion I have is, who leads the Mongols? If they march under Temujin with Subotai at his side and Jebe commanding the flank then they win. Game over. Temujin’s campaigns are textbook examples of small, highly disciplined, mobile group tactics overcoming larger forces. The Mongol Hordes were neither undisciplined nor untrained. They did have some favored tactics but they were by no means a one-trick pony. they adapted tactics to the terrain and situation, and they employed foreign talent (engineers, sailors, etc) when their own forces lacked a necessary skill.
Rome had a magnificent fighting force, and the legions set the standard for heavy infantry for centuries. Rome also employed foreign irregulars as both light and medium cavalry. But Rome never evolved the tactics of manuever necessary to counter the Mongols. Rome also never had to face a soldier’s weapon as potent as the Mongol bow. the bows of Europe and the middle east during Rome’s era were poor seconds in range, accuracy and striking power.
In addition, Rome’s armies, for all the brilliance of many Roman generals, followed the traditional military thinking of the time which emphasized territorial acquisition and the control of geography as military golas. The Mongols, however, in many ways prefigured Napoleon’s strategic breakthrough in understanding that destruction of an enemy’s military potential was by far the more important strategic objective.
This is, of course, a game that can never be put to the test. Nevertheless, I’ll take Ghengis and Subotai, TKO in 3 years.
As many have pointed out, the Romans did have excellent organization and some good generals, but were sadly deficient in developing new technologies for war. for example-their cavalry never developed the stirrup-which made their cavalrymen less effective in charges-they had to concentrate on staying ON their horses, and could never have carried a long lance. Second, the Roman’s armor was mostly leather reinforced with bronze plates-no match for steel breastplates. Third, their standard infantry weapon was a short (iron) sword-mostly used for stabbing. They could not make steel in sufficient quantities, to equip their soldiers with good swords. So, even though they endured some 800+ years (in the West), they were technologically stagnant, and a Roman soldier of the 1st century BC would probably be quite at home in a legion of 300 AD. Why Rome never advanced in technology is the real mystery - they just seemed to reach a certain plateau, then stopped.
pepperlandgirl, if you enjoyed the movie (which I have yet to see), then give yourself a treat and pick up the two novels (I, Claudius and Claudius the God) written by the great English writer (and poet) Robert Graves. Granted, they are novels, but I think you will come away with a more ‘balanced’ view of Roman glory.
There’s lots of intrigue, poisonings and skulduggery in the books, also some very good social and military history thrown in. Very entertaining, and written by a man with great love for the subject, as well as small-unit military experience himself (albeit the WWI variety).
Joke:
And as anyone who has seen the film Privates on Parade will know, it was luxury and blasphemy which brought down the Roman Empire.
End joke.
As for the “whose is bigger” portion of the debate, I would say that the British Empire at its height (which if I recall my Jan Morris correctly, maxed out in size about 1930) had the most acreage, plus the greatest cost benefit to the seat of power. After all, we’re talking roughly 25% of the world’s land and population.
Another recommendation to pepperlandgirl: read James/Jan Morris’ excellent trilogy on the rise and decline of the British Empire (Pax Brittanica, Heaven’s Command, and Farewell the Trumpets). It is not dry boring history, but an emotional, colourful evocation of a somewhat haphazard empire.
Now, an argument could be made for the USA having a greater cultural empire: that is, having influence beyond the merely political over the greatest number of people; I doubt if there are many places on earth safe from Coke or Briteny Spears.
Thank you Rodd for the reading suggestions. I will probably read them when I get the chance. Believe it or not, I am an avid reader.
Thank you everybody else for your intelligent, informative posts. Based on what everybody has said, I believe the Mongolian Hordes would win. They practiced guerilla warfare, they were highly mobile, they had excellent weapons, they were ruthless, and the Romans were not unstopable. The “barbarians” in Germania slaughtered them numerous times.
I, Claudius is also available as an acclaimed BBC mini-series. It runs to 7 video tapes, so it’s a bit pricey to buy ($115 at Amazon) but you might be able to find it at a good video rental place.
Wouldn’t the very success of Roman arms be one of the reasons for the stagnation?
After wiping out the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars, Rome was top dog - no-one else had better technology, or posed a threat to Rome. Sure, there was fighting on the borders of the Empire, but none of the western barbarians or eastern nations posed a serious, battering-down-the-walls kind of threat to Rome that would keep them innovating. Instead, they just relied on the same political techniques and military weapons for several centuries.
So, an Adam Smith analysis: no competition, no innovation.
I just wanted to quickly add, after following this for a while, that this was a very good GD topic, Pepper. This is one of the reasons I read this board.
