The Military Reforms of Consul Marius had turned the Roman army into a cohesive, professional military force which was the envy of the known world. The army reached its best during the reign of the Emperor Trajan, when the equipment and training were at their best, and the variety of auxiliary forces available lent versatile support to the nearly-undefeated legions.
A New Breed Of Barbarian
The Germans which invaded the outer territories of the Roman Empire, however, were not the “half-armed savages of the first century” that the Romans had defeated so handily in the past. These men were well-armed and armored—for example, the Franks carried the francisca, a throwing axe which easily penetrated Roman armor. The flagging morale and equipment of the Roman Army needed to be overhauled considerably in the face of this new threat.
Perhaps the most profound change in the Roman military system at the end of the empire in the West was the introduction of Germanic soldiers into the ranks of the army. Those who had been fighting the emperor began to fight for him. As C.W.C. Oman states, the Roman army had lost most of its homogeneity, and “the insufficient supply of recruits was eked out only by enlisting slaves and barbarians in the legions themselves…” This policy was begun in earnest during the reign of Theodosius, and led not only to the aforementioned demoralization to the once-elite Roman Legions, but to the dissemination of Germanic arms and armor in the Roman army. For example, the spatha, or Gothic long broadsword was initially only used by auxiliaries, but by the time of Theodosius, it had begun to replace the ubiquitous gladius. Other examples exist, such as the lancea, a lighter javelin which replaced the famous pilum.
The Rise Of The Cavalryman
A striking result of the incorporation of Germanic soldiers into the army came in the form of the improvement and expansion of cavalry as a part of the Roman army. In 378CE, the Roman army was handed a humiliating defeat at Adrianople when the Visigothic cavalry crushed the Roman left flank. In response, the Emperor Theodosius reorganized the Roman Army around cavalry, and recruited Germanic chieftains to swell the cavalry ranks. By 384, there were over 40,000 cavalry at his disposal.
All of this having been changed, the combined Roman and Gothic Army of Aetius defeated the Huns at Chalons in 451CE, but by this time the Roman Empire was on the verge of collapse. At this time another Germanic custom was introduced into the Roman ranks, that being a rudimentary system of vassalage. The Gothic and Germanic Cavalry which patrolled the vast borders of the crumbling empire swore allegiance not to the Emperor (perhaps they did, but certainly only nominally), but to the leader of their warband, or Comitatus. The fact that this practice was so widespread is a striking reflection of the Empire’s weakened central authority.
The Roman army had gone from a legionary system of professional soldiers to a cavalry-centered, heterogeneous force which fought for lords, not emperors. Something remarkably more Medieval was developing under the auspices of the Empire.
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The Military Reforms Of Marius
Sources:
Brown, Thomas. “The Transformation of the Roman Mediterranean, 400-900.” In The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe, edited by George Holmes, 1st ed. New York, Oxford University Press 1988.
Oman, C.W.C. The Art Of War In The Middle Ages. Ithica, NY, Cornell University Press, 1953.
Warry, John. Warfare in the Classical World. New York: Salamander Books, 1998.
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