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Oct 16, 2011 4:41:57 GMT -5
Post by Tails82 on Oct 16, 2011 4:41:57 GMT -5
A bit of stuff on the Roman military. One theory is the "grand strategy" where troops went on the frontiers, directed outward against threats to restore domestic peace from the civil wars that ended the republic. Kind of like an egg, hard on the outside. Worked well as long as nobody broke in, and for a time barbarians were unable to really do anything. The author blames the collapse on the increased barbarization of the Roman military. Also the separation of frontier defenses from the central army which made the frontier forces have secondary importance, lowered morale...pulling out to a central, defensive army displays a weakness of sorts because it admits there's no way to defend all the points along the frontier and is responding to threats as they play out, not preventing threats from happening.
Then the second author thinks the grand strategy is not a good theory because we're looking back and connecting the pieces in hindsight, also Romans weren't map-oriented in their thinking or something, they thought about points along routes but I don't know why that would rule out a frontier line strategy, especially when they build freaking frontier walls to serve as the line. The other criticism I can see better. Just because frontier forces were second to the central army doesn't mean they lost morale. They were used in later centuries, implying they weren't bad. Usually when Rome lost it wasn't because of a decline in military skill, but bad leadership or planning.
Then the second author thinks the grand strategy is not a good theory because we're looking back and connecting the pieces in hindsight, also Romans weren't map-oriented in their thinking or something, they thought about points along routes but I don't know why that would rule out a frontier line strategy, especially when they build freaking frontier walls to serve as the line. The other criticism I can see better. Just because frontier forces were second to the central army doesn't mean they lost morale. They were used in later centuries, implying they weren't bad. Usually when Rome lost it wasn't because of a decline in military skill, but bad leadership or planning.
Spinning round and round like the deadly hands of a radium clock. 
