Talk:Structural history of the Roman military

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PocklingtonDan (talk • contribs • email)
Wandalstouring (talk • contribs • email)
To-do list for Structural history of the Roman military: edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
  • Merge army and navy into single narrative
  • Copyedit
  • Find more reference works on later roman army
  • Bring up to B standard - peer review
  • Bring up to GA standard - GA review
  • Bring u to FA standard - FAC review


Contents

[edit] Archiving earlier talk messages

I would like to set up essjay's bot to automatically archive sections older than 30 days so that the discussion of stuff that is now redundant is not immediately visible (ie the old stuff on the page name etc). If anyone has any objection to this propsal, please post up now. Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey, if you still want the talk page automatically archived now that Essjay's bots are offline, you can try MiszaBot III - WerdnaBot seems to be inactive again, though. Carom 14:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliographical offer

Hi all. I'm not very interested in helping to write this article. I do, however, have some books that those involved in this article might find useful, and that I can make scans of chapters, etc. E.g., Graham Webster's Roman Imperial Army" and G.R. Watson's The Roman Soldier are standard works. I also have Cheeseman's Roman Auxilia somewhere, I think. (I have a lot more, too, and live not far from a university library.) semper fictilis 19:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I've scanned the Table of Contents of a few books and uploaded them:
G. Webster Roman Imperial Army" is in a pdf here
E. Gabba, Republican Rome, the army, and the allies here
Davies, Service in the Roman Army here
Brisson, Problemes de la guerre a Rome here
Tell me if any of these chapters look useful. semper fictilis 22:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cite error 2

I've been struggling to find out what I've done with the references now for abou 20 minutes without any joy! Can someone who knows what they're doing fix the cite error that appears in the article and let me know what was causing the problem so that I can stop it happening again? Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I see citations and references. What exactly is the problem? Maybe you need to clear your cache? 151.202.74.135 20:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
The problem is, as stated above the "Cite error 2" flags on some of the references - speicifically; "Cite error 2; Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no content must have a name". They are dotted throughout the article. I have already refreshed, it is an issue with the ref tags, not with my browser - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Ah...somehow your quotes are not the standard "" ones That may not be it. I'm stumped. Post on help desk? Xiner (talk, email) 20:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Well that was a bugger to fix - thanks for your help Xiner, it seems there are two forms of " marks. Who knew! - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fall of the Empire needs work

It is referenced here and there but even the referenced passages contain errors.

  • Hi, I will admite that my knowledge of the very late empire is poor, I have few sources on this period and it seems that (due to lack of Roman writers in this period) historical knowledge of the military's structure during this period is poor and there is a paucity of literature on the topic. However, I don't think the account given is substantially questionable, in that it accords with what sources I do have. I am always open to reviewing the outline given based on any sources you may have: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PocklingtonDan (talk • contribs) 21:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC).
  1. It's not clear that there ever was one central field army.
  • I have cited sources that state that there was one central field army. If you have sources that say otherwise, you should point out the two different opinions and give a full cite for your source.ie "X says Y but A says B". This is of course an error of some disagreement, and it is good to include different opinions if you can provide cites for them.
  1. The palatini are a class of troops. The two Praesental armies (and the Italian army) are the actual 'central' field armies.
  • The palatini were a class of troops but the comitatense palitini was the central field army, again this is all cited
  1. Who is Santossuoso? Where does he write this?
  • Antonio Santousosso, as listed in the reference section and cited several times
  1. The Notitia Dignitatum lists frontier troops in detail at the same time (c. 400) the article states the frontiers were "entirely denuded of troops."
  • the exact quote is "many of the empire's borders had been entirely denuded of troops " - I'm not saying all borders had been denuded by this period, just that many had, which is unquesitonable, the most obvious example being Britannia of course, though much of Europe was falling to the Franks, Africa to the Vandals etc.
  1. There was no one central field army in the fifth century. The Notitia Dignitatum lists several field armies, and again, three could be considered "central" field armies.
  • It is explained that there were regional field armies in addition to the central field army. If this isn't sufficiently clear it may need to be reworded, but it is definitely stated in the article.
  1. Vast forces? What vast forces? Where are they coming from? What are they eating? I believe most recent scholarship gives the very largest such armies 20,000 or 30,000 fighters. e.g. Heather 1998.
  • Since the Roman forces in existence in around 400 AD numbered perhaps 600,000 total, with maybe 250,000 of them in the west, it seems unlikely that armies of 20,000 would have caused Rome the severe trouble they did. I am willing to rephrase if you can give me some quotes and cites from alternate sources.
Bury clearly writes about such numbers + the same number of supporting slaves, once they were within the borders, who were quickly armed, rising as high as 40k. The 250k Roman soldiers partly deserted to the enemy, partly were so ill equipped that they prefered to stay away from any bloodshed and rather bothered unarmed peasants in the empire. Wandalstouring 19:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  1. Overstates the importance of foederatii (with two is at the end). Understates the importance of regular units. See Elton 1996.
  • I don't think I agree, in the very late empire Rome had practically no troops other than federated troops, as evidenced by the fact they eventually siezed the empire unopposed. Can you provide a qoute or scan of your source that says otherwise?
  1. Pretends the Roman Empire didn't last another thousand years. "Last emperor"? "close"?
  • In this entire series of article I make it clear in the lead I am discussing ancient Rome only, which most certainly did not continued for 1000 years later, that would be the Byzantine empire, which has a separate series of articles. I have changed the wrding to "last emperor of ancient Rome" just to clarify.

Okay, any advice on fixing this? Jacob Haller 19:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section Divisions

I suggest something like the following, upping some subsection headings to section headings:

Early Rome
Prior to the Roman Kingdom
The Roman Kingdom
Republican Rome
(appropriate divisions)
Early Imperial Rome
(appropriate divisions)
Late Imperial Rome (284-500)
Field Armies & Border Armies (284-395)
Barbarian Allies
Collapse of the West (395-476) (Romulus Augustulus falls 476, Nepos 480, Syagrius 486)
Survival of the East (395-491) (with links to Byzantine Army)

I might also suggest moving from the political divisions (Kingdom, Republic, Empire) to the military transitions (Hoplite, Manipular Legion, Marian Legion, Field Armies & Border Armies). Jacob Haller 22:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] naval rise

You should write about the navy where about 100k Romans and naval allies served when it was fully manned at the end of the First Punic War until the days of Cesar. Wandalstouring 19:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Wandals, I have mentioned the navy briefly but the real problem is trying to find information on its structure. I found some small amount of information on the number of men per ship and number of ships per squadron, but getting much more information is proving difficult - a lack of source is proving to be the problem here. I will keep digging! Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I will quote Lazenby in a few days. He calculates the numbers of army and navy for the Second Punic War. Wandalstouring 20:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survival in the East

Can we restore this subsection? Jacob Haller 04:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I had no complaint with the contents - I moved most of them to "Collapse in the west" but it was just odd to have two concurrent sections collapse int he west and survival in the east running with the same dates How about we rename "collapse int he west" to "collapse in the west and survival in the east" or similar? - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
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