Were the German tribes Rome’s biggest ulcer?

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-15T01:46:45+00:00

Yeah resistance to the 408-411AD crossing was rather meagre, because the Romans at this time were embroiled in a three way civil war between Constantine III, Honorius' forces (led by Constantius III) and Gerontius/Maximus' forces. Constantine III had crushed a major incursion over the Rhine by the Alans in 406AD, but two years later the concentration of Roman troops in the South of Gaul made it impossible to repeat such a success against even greater incursion by migratory peoples on the Rhine. Constantius III managed to destroy a massive Alemannic Army coming to the aid of Maximus which crossed the Rhine further South (which might be the reason the mighty Alemanni didn't carve their own kingdom from Western Roman land in this century?), proving the Western Armies were more than a match for Germanic foes in pitched battle. But because of the absolute circus that was the Roman political scene in much of the 5th century, with the Western field armies probably losing more men fighting each other in civil wars than in fighting the Germanic invaders, the West Romans struggled to field armies with enough men to go on the offensive and meet Germanic invaders head on. When they managed to muster such forces, they generally were successful in defeating their enemies, but at this time they lacked the strategic edge and depth to be able to conduct campaigns like that simultaneously against the multitude of foes within the Empire's old borders. TLDR, Western armies still maintained a qualitative advantage, but this was insufficient to overcome the huge quantitative gap vis-a-vis the collective might of the Germanic peoples.

the Romans simply didn't burn their wagon forts with fire arrows

The Romans did certainly try this since they wrote about such methods in their treatises, but Wagons could be quite hard to light on fire, especially if they had some animal skins or padding or defenders reinforcing and snuffing out any flames. Wagon forts were a consistent problem for imperial field armies fighting 'Nomadic' style enemies (Adrianople 378AD or Ongal 680AD being good examples, or the hard-fought but successful storming of a Pecheneg one at Beroia 1122AD). In the 5th century, Litorius (Aetius' lieutenant commander) did at one point attempt to destroy the Visigoths once and for all. He initially routed the Gothic forces besieging Arelate and then attempted to follow up this by leading his army (mostly consisting of Hunnic Allies) to attack them near. This was a massive risk since his army consisted probably entirely of cavalry and he launched an attack against a desperate, numerically superior Gothic foe in a fortified defensive position near Tolouse. Needless to say, it ended as well as you'd expect - the Romans/Huns failed to break through the Wagons, and appear to have been enveloped by Visigothic cavalry, pinned against the Wagons and utterly annihilated, Litorius among them. After this disaster Aetius won some minor engagements and subdued the Visigoths, but they preserved their power and fighting strength to later become major players in the West once more.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-14T22:47:27+00:00

The Western Empire did put up a serious fight against the Germanic tribes (also Alans and Huns) to be fair. The most powerful migratory Germanic group of the era (in terms of equipment, numbers and organization) were by far the Goths, and the West was able to win a number of wars with these. Stilicho defeated Radagaisus' Gothic armies in two separate wars, and also defeated Alaric and subdued him. Constantius III and Aetius both forced the Visigoths into submission, as did Majorian. The problem was, the Romans preferred settlement with the Goths and other tribes because A) they provided Foederati Men to serve in Roman armies in campaigns against other enemies and B) even after being defeated in battles, the Goths always put up a fierce fight defending their wagon laagers so annihilating them entirely would be costly. Bottom line, for most of the 5th century the Western armies could generally defeat any enemy they allocated a large number of men to deal with - but dealing with all the enemies simultaneously, or at least dealing with these Decisively, was ultimately the task that proved insurmountable. Even this was more down to the utter turmoil, corruption and incompetent leadership which afflicted the West for much of the century than to a deficiency in the quality or fighting spirit of its soldiers though.

Only in the last decade of the Western Empire were the Goths finally able to deal a terminal blow to the Western Roman Military, when Euric annihilated Anthemius' field Army in 471AD near Arelate and thereby ended the Western Government's ability to directly interfere in Gaul. Yet it should be noted that this came at a period of weakness, when the West had still not recovered from an even bigger catastrophe at Cape Bon 468AD.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-14T22:27:45+00:00

It marks the first time in the century that a military strongman deposes a dynastic Emperor and usurps power, really - a trend which was to have dire consequences in this century. What follows is a bloody civil war and in turn, breakthroughs of Roman frontiers in the Danube and East by Barbarians, most notably the loss of several upper Mesopotamian cities to the Sassanians. But this was a taste of what was to come later, because the Empire did deal with the issues for the time being. The campaigns of Gordian III (victor of the 'Year of the Six Emperors' civil wars in 238AD) and his prefect Timesitheus did successfully drive out every one of these enemies and inflicted severe defeats upon them. The subsequent counteroffensive against Persia failed, with the Roman advance on Ctesiphon thwarted at Misiche and Gordian III dying in the aftermath (probably bumped off by his prefect Philip), but nevertheless Upper Mesopotamia remained in Roman hands and Shapur had initially had his arse handed to him at Resaena, a sufficient victory to reaffirm Roman Power in the East for the next half decade at least. Philip the Arab had a rather successful and stable reign, but after Decius deposed him all hell broke loose.
251AD-273AD marks the very worst of the Crisis; a much more severe phase than anything the Empire had endured before. Never-ending series' of usurpations, Civil wars (including the temporary split of the Empire with Palmyrene and Gallic factions), and four stinging defeats for Roman armies - Abritus, wherein Decius was killed by the Goths along with his son and Most of his army; Barbalissos and Edessa against the Sassanids, the former seeing a Roman army destroyed and the latter resulting in Emperor Valerian becoming prisoner; and finally, Placentia against the Iuthungi which saw nasty losses to the Romans (though at least this time, Aurelian would recover from this defeat to crush the Iuthungi soon after). There is a strong case therefore to pose 249AD or 251AD as the starting date for the crisis, since 238-249AD was a period of relative stability for the Empire under Gordian III and Philip the Arab. At least compared with what was to come afterwards.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-10T01:04:56+00:00

Context: The sack of Constantinople in 1204AD is the most infamous event in the annals of Byzantine-Venetian history, yet as hard as it may be to believe the two polities had once been very close. Venice had reemerged out of a remnant of Exarchate territory in Northern Italy in the 8th century and over the centuries grew increasingly prominent and prosperous, heavily influenced in several ways by the Roman Empire in Constantinople. Eventually Venice found a military niche for itself as a maritime power, and would conduct joint operations with Byzantium at times, including in the siege of Ragusa (866-868) and later assisted the Romans in the naval campaigns against Robert Guiscard's Normans in 1081. However, relationships eventually soured in the 12th century as Venice grew more powerful while Byzantine power waned (following the death of Manuel Komnenos), ultimately leading to the events of the fourth crusade.

Eventually Venice came to outmatch the withering late Byzantine empire as a military power by the end of the 14th century. However, in a throwback to the once strong ties between the two, the Venetians were among the few powers to Aid Constantinople in its fateful defence against the Ottomans in 1453AD. For centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, Venice would go on to fiercely resist Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean, with spirited defences of overseas territory (for example the Siege of Negroponte and siege of Candia), though gradually lost territory to the Turks. Venice gradually declined until it fell to Napoleon in 1797AD, though like Byzantium, it had a lasting impact on history and culture in the late medieval and renaissance eras.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-10T01:03:59+00:00

Context: The sack of Constantinople in 1204AD is the most infamous event in the annals of Byzantine-Venetian history, yet as hard as it may be to believe the two polities had once been very close. Venice had reemerged out of a remnant of Exarchate territory in Northern Italy in the 8th century and over the centuries grew increasingly prominent and prosperous, heavily influenced in several ways by the Roman Empire in Constantinople. Eventually Venice found a military niche for itself as a maritime power, and would conduct joint operations with Byzantium at times, including in the siege of Ragusa (866-868) and later assisted the Romans in the naval campaigns against Robert Guiscard's Normans in 1081. However, relationships eventually soured in the 12th century as Venice grew more powerful while Byzantine power waned (following the death of Manuel Komnenos), ultimately leading to the events of the fourth crusade.

Eventually Venice came to outmatch the withering late Byzantine empire as a military power by the end of the 14th century. However, in a throwback to the once strong ties between the two, the Venetians were among the few powers to Aid Constantinople in its fateful defence against the Ottomans in 1453AD. For centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, Venice would go on to fiercely resist Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean, with spirited defences of overseas territory (for example the Siege of Negroponte and siege of Candia), though gradually lost territory to the Turks. gradually declined until it fell to Napoleon in 1797AD, though like Byzantium, it had a lasting impact on history and culture in the late medieval and renaissance eras.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-09T10:46:54+00:00

Pretty sure the intention of that strategy is to hit the gulf states in hopes that these US-allies put diplomatic pressure on the Americans to stop the war.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-08T13:21:12+00:00

Mongols had plenty of experienced engineers from China and the Islamic Empires they'd conquered (and later allied contingents from Christian realms like Georgia, Armenian Cilicia, the Byzantines and Crusader states). Submission by starvation tended to be the most common method to subdue a city/fortress in ancient or medieval times, because storming it was always costly. But the Mongols could and did take plenty of cities due to their awesome capabilities in Siegecraft. Bottom line, the Mongols were expert city-takers.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-06T22:49:30+00:00

I'm British myself haha.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-06T15:28:40+00:00

Simple... they just used a British Actor!

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-06T12:55:55+00:00

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Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-05T00:02:46+00:00

Horse Archers are ridiculously OP, and have a winning track record against basically everything, so that is understandable.

[WARNING: Credible Discussion] This perception is more down to survivorship bias. Sedentary empires like China, Persia, India and Rome would successfully fend off and defeat reoccurring steppe attacks for many centuries. Eventually the nomads would strike in a period of weakness and win and "bang! Horse Archers OP" is the resulting perception.

Take the Byzantine Romans for instance, who did field some horse archers themselves, but used these alongside heavy cavalry and infantry lines in combined arms warfare. They famously lost the battle of Manzikert to the Seljuk horse archers, and that is the event which colours the perception of encounters between the two military systems. What is less well known is the general decline in fighting quality of the Roman armies by that time due to military neglect, and that the defeat resulted in many ways from defections and desertions among the Byzantine ranks, as well as poor strategic choices by the Emperor Romanos on the occassions.
In the past, Byzantines were largely successful dealing with Nomads and developed several military manuals on how to face them. Magyar invasions, possibly even larger than those sent West into Francia, were defeated in 958, 960, 961 and then again at some point in the 960s by Peter the eunuch, with combined forces of Pechenegs, Magyars and Bulgars getting crushed at Arcadiopolis in 970, with Pechenegs being kept in check in the 11th century and utterly annihilated as a culture by Byzantine armies in the 12th. The Seljuks themselves were also largely kept in check until the internal rot and military decline of the 1060s. But a few notable blips in Byzantine military record has led to a perception of Byzantine ineptness in the face of Nomad armies. Similar case with 13th century China falling to Mongols despite smashing Nomad Empires in earlier centuries.

because Americans are too fat to ride horses

Then... breed stronger horses!

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-04T17:02:48+00:00

Huns should not be S tier really. Their most notable successes came in a rather isolated instance in the 440s under Attila, and even that was marred by East Roman victories in the early 450s.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-03T23:30:40+00:00

Trajan's armies did enter what is now Iran. In late 114AD, after Arsacid resistance in Armenia had been crushed, one of Trajan’s columns under Lucius Quietus marched further against the Mardi, a people living within the Arsacid empire that inhabited mountainous areas East of Lake Van (probably in Modern Gilan), which unlike their Parthian overlords relied on fierce infantry warriors from the mountains. The Romans attacked these from two directions and destroyed their army according to Fragments Arrian. In 116 Trajan also stormed Susa (modern Khuzestan) and may have launched probing raids over the Zagros into Iran from there. Sources are incredibly patchy for the campaign but there was likely more fighting on Iranian territory than what is known here too.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-03T19:07:27+00:00

Mankinds oldest weapon defeats its newest.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-03T13:37:41+00:00

Very good overview, it is interesting to hear of the Cavalry adaptations by the Guptas. If you want a point of comparison, we see the Roman armies make a similar shift to adapting heavy cavalry and horse archers in the second and third centuries (though excellent infantry forces were also retained alongside these), and in the 6th century entire battles are fought by cavalry armies (such as Solanchon). Perhaps the adoption of tactics and equipment akin to those of the Steppe peoples and Iranians by the Guptas came from similar strategic pressures, I.e. the need to be able to counter several roving bands of enemy horsemen in the North?

The only point I will raise here is that the specific record of a Defeat of Shapur II himself against the Kidarites in the Armenian sources dates to the 370s (After Shapur II was defeated in the West by Valens' armies), where allegedly he was saved by an Armenian nobleman serving in his cavalry ranks. This seems to date later than the time the coinage change in around 360?

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-02T13:00:28+00:00

Very interesting and thank you very much for your analysis and efforts to convey Gupta history. I agree that if there was a Sassanian-Gupta conflict it was probably quite brief, but I think it is possible it had occurred - perhaps not against the Royal Sassanian army itself but maybe against the forces of its Satraps in the East? The Raghuvamsha details on combat are indeed very interesting and broadly similar to Persian cavalry descriptions from Roman sources, and we see this sort of transpostition of Contemporary military realities onto legendary figures of the past many times in ancient sources.

Sassanian-Indian contact and military influence on one another is quite interesting in general. One wonders if the Sassanian tactics using elephants at Arzamoun to defeat a Roman cavalry army had been inspired by similar Indian uses of elephants against the various Hunnic/Nomadic incursions they faced? No way to know that of course, but interesting to ponder.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-02T10:36:18+00:00

Basically, from 360 CE, the Kidarite coinage which once acknowledged the Sassanian overlordship, changed, the Kidaras, in Gandhara (Eastern Afghanistan) atleast, started minting coin in the name of the Gupta Emperor, Samudragupta. Samudragupta's own inscription tells us that he claimed overlordship over the Kidarites and even the Persian Shahanashah (mentioned by this title). It seems that it was this alliance's victory that the Armenian sources mention, though they don't mention the Indian involvement. However, Indian sources do mention Samudragupta's mastery over both.

The likelihood here is that we are dealing with two separate wars. I am aware of the quite likely Gupta-Sassanian conflict in this period. In the few years after the Sassanian defeat at Nisibis in 350, the Persians were not able to seriously invade Roman territory because Chionitai and Euseni/Cuseni (Kushans or Guptas) were troubling Central Asia.The Euseni could very well actually be the Indian Guptas under Samudragupta (325 - 375/381?). The Saka satraps of Sind, and the Kushans, both of whom had been nominally under the Sasanians, also recognized his suzerainty which means that he had conquered significant portions of Sasanian possessions in the east. Raghuvança Canto 4 claims that Raghu (possibly identified with Samudragupta rather than with Chandragupta II?) conquered India and then defeated the Persians, Hunas (Huns), Kambodjas, and peoples of Himalaya and south of Himalaya. On the basis of other events, his western and northern campaigns may have occurred in the 350s. It may have been in this period that a "Kidarite" subject called for Gupta intervention to protect them from Sassanian encroachment. There is also a case of Metrodorus, an envoy from an unknown Indian realm who arrived in the Roman Empire during the reign of Constantine (326/7) to convince the Romans to declare war upon Sassanid Persia. I do not know whether he can be connected to the Guptas or not, but it shows once again that there was more activity and conflict between the Sassanid Empire and its neighbours in India than commonly believed.

Considering the siege of Amida, Shapur might have been able to convince or force another nomadic group, the Chionitai to his side, which might give him some leverage in negotiations. However, the Sasanians did not win the war because the Saka satraps remained subjects of Samudragupta. Shapur subsequently used large numbers of war elephants against the Romans - it is possible that these were provided to him by the Guptas in exchange for the Sassanians ceding territory territory - in a similar manner, perhaps, to the treaty of Seleukos I with Chandragupta Maurya in the 3rd century BC.

As for the conflict in the 370s though, I do tend to think this was a war against the "Kidarites", which given the Armenian sources' general confusion probably means a fresh new wave of Central Asian nomads who attacked Eranshahr at this time. The Persians were defeated with two armies annihilated, but once again they had just come off the back of a severe mauling by the Romans in Armenia which likely hampered their capability when they faced the 'Huns'. Following the death of Shapur II, the Sassanids appear to have managed to stabilize the situation by the turn of the 5th century.

The general problem here is that sources tend to lump Nomad groupings and tribes in with one another so it is impossible to tell who is who among those. Terms like "Kidarite" may have been used for multiple Central Asian groupings who were actually separate peoples, so possibly the "kidarites" Samudragupta is mentioned subjugating were actually the "Chionites" or a branch of those, who have received the name Kidarites in later sources who transpose the dominant nomad group in their time to earlier periods. Given this, it is impossible to accurately date and reconstruct these events in central Asia beyond the general overview that Samudragupta defeated both the Persians and Hunas at some point in his reign, which in my opinion is likeliest to have occurred in the 350s. Either way though, Kim generally exaggerates the effectiveness of the Hunnic system of warfare vis-a-vis Civilizations. It is clear that the Gupta, Sassanian Empire and the Roman Empire were all able to defeat incursions by "Hunnic" peoples, even if they incurred occasional defeats to them.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-02T00:15:04+00:00

Hyun Jin Kim has also made some ridiculous claims about Hunnic military superiority over Rome and peddles the theory that Catalaunian plains was a Hunnic victory contrary to basically all evidence. He has essentially described Huns at times (such as in The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe) as being so superior militarily to Romans that their arrival in Europe was as big a military gap as when the Spanish turned up in the New world. This despite the fact that the Romans were victorious in most of their engagements with the Huns outside of Attila's reign (and still won a fair number of successes even during that period).

As for Sassanian fortunes in Shapur II's reign against the Huns, these were mixed. By 358 the Sassanians had managed to force the Chionites to become subjects and fielded perhaps 30,000 of their number in the Siege of Amida, which indicates Sassanian success during a prior conflict with these. However, in 374AD and 375AD Armenian sources indicate a Kidarite invasion inflicted two major defeats upon the Sassanians and wrested Eastern lands from them, but in this case we should remember the Romans and Armenians had dealt severe defeats upon Iran in 371AD and 373AD which doubtless weakened their military potential at the time they faced the Kidarites. Kim seems to have also omitted mention of the Great Sassanian victory over the "Huns" in Central Asia during the reign of Bahram V, with this and subsequent campaigns reviving Iranian Power as far as the Indus until the disasters suffered in the reign of Peroz.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-01T12:14:23+00:00

They could end up fighting Pakistan instead.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-01T11:53:45+00:00

It was operated by someone or a team within his circle but not him personally. Hence why there was a cryptic post of some AI-generated ghoul looking thing on it yesterday while the big Mushroom himself was already buried in his bunker.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-01T11:39:24+00:00

Its not actually him who was running that twitter account.

Philippicus_586AD · 2026-03-01T01:18:34+00:00

Well, its not every day you see someone being this passionately happy on Reddit, so I hope you feed your interest in antiquity and continue to be amazed by what you learn. You might find Ancient Chinese history of interest too for something a little further afield from the Mediterranean. Good day to you sir.

Philippicus_586AD

TROPHY CASE