[gothic-l] Re: Rome Turning Into a Sewer

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at y..., "Bertil Haggman" <mvk575b at t...> wrote:
> My recent contributions on the downfall of the
> West Roman empire mainly at the hands of the Goths
> has emphasized the cowardness of the Roman soldiers
> more interested in running away than fighting.



Categories like 'cowardness' have no explanatory value in serious
research and add nothing to the understanding of the events. Also, a
war is not over until one side does not get up to fight another day.
If I remember correctly, it was the Goths and Vandals who suffered
final defeat at the hands of the excellent Roman generals like
Belisar and Narses and - as usual- its Germanic auxiliary troops.

Applying your own categories we must conclude that at the end it was
the Goths and Vandals who were the cowards. This is of course just as
non-sensical as your labelling of the Roman army as suffereing from
cowardice.


>
> There were indeed Roman citizens that were soldiers,
> but few as the decades rolled on. The Germanics was
> quite another matter. These federates
> certainly helped Stilicho and Odoacer to win a number
> of crucial battles against the invading Goths.
>
> Arthur Ferrill in _The Fall of the Roman Empire: The
> Military Explanation_ underlines that the Romans
> (not the Federates) lacked discipline. In general the
> Romans as fighting force were eliminated. Especially
> typical: "Romans could be expected to huddle behind
> their screen of shields; Visigoths and Alans would do
> the fighting."
> This pretty well describes the situation of
> the Roman army in relation to the Federates. The Roman
> army was thus no problem for Attila at Chalons in 451 AD.



Unfortunately, the Gothic army was seemingly also no problem for the
Huns in the late 4th century. In fact, the Goths did a good deal of
running then. In fact, measured by distance covered, the Goths must
be the masters of all runners ;-).






> Attila told his troops to ignore the huddling Romans and concentrate
> on the real danger facing them from the associated Visigoth
> and Alan troops.
>
> The truth was that the Roman army (of Romans) was now totally
> dependent on foreign mercenaries. The difficulty of raising
> Roman (not Federate) troops was acute and even the
> minimum height for recruitment had to be lowered from
> five foot ten inches to five foot seven inches. Interesting
> is the period work _De Rebus Bellicis_ which desribes the
> reliance of foreign troops. The urban population of the empire
> was also often in reserved occupations debarred from military
> service. They sought a professional army that would look
> after them. The Goths and other Germanic peoples were in
> reality masters of the empire long before it fell.
>
> Sidonius catalogued with pride the different groups that fought
> as Federates:
>
> "Bastarnian, Rugian, Burgundian, Visigoth, Ostrogoth have ranged
> themselves behind the eagles" (I left out the tribes not migrating
> from Scandinavia).


Then you should not have mentioned any of these tribes. Sorry, but in
my view your overall argumentation reveals that your views are shaped
by national pride and patriotism (to put it mildly), which is poison
to any real understanding of these events.

Dirk




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