J.Alco
10-21-2007, 16:39
Anyone who followed the 'Spears are very unbalanced' thread would, if you had the patience to actually sit through it all, noticed Maksimus' post claiming that 2500 Romans could defeat 50000 barbarians. A comment that was, to be polite about it, amusing to the say least.
Of course, Maksimus' comment was swiftly answered with referrals to Roman defeats at the hands of 'barbarians' and, although I may be thinking of the wrong thread here, Carrhae came up. An EB forum-er stated that although Carrhae was a pretty devastating defeat, Rome was able to recover fairly swiftly and once more deal severe blows to the Parthian empire. That forum-er was of course tackled by the EB member specializing in the Pahlava faction, who argued that such gains were not really severe at all, and that the Parthians arguably won the last and greatest battle they fought against Rome.
After seeing the debate this sort of thing can generate, I've decided I would give my own tuppence about great Roman disasters, and whether they actually deserve the hype they've been given. Obviously, the Big Three - Cannae, Carrhae, and Teutoburg Forest - will be considered, as well as less-publicised battles such as Arausio, Gergovia, and even the destruction of Roman forces at Camulodonum (During Boudicca's uprising). I'll kick-start the controversy (:laugh4: ) now and state that the grand majority of these defeats have been over-hyped in terms of their severity, completeness, and significance.
Let's start with what is perhaps the best-known example of a great Roman defeat, Cannae. In terms of numbers, tactics, and damage, it is easy to view Cannae as a total disaster for Rome. Certainly, in the tactical sense, it was a piece of sheer genius on Hannibal's part, and the fact that Hannibal was outnumbered 4 to 1 (80,000 Romans against 20,000 Carthaginians, roughly) makes it all the more remarkable. It is with good cause that Cannae is remembered as a textbook example of how to encircle and destroy a numerically superior enemy. Cannae's reputation, its hype if you will, is that it was the greatest Roman defeat ever. After all, the Roman army was destroyed in its practical entirety, it lost the cream of its military, aristocratic, and political nobility, and to top it all off, Hannibal collected hundreds of gold rings from dead Roman knights. Provinces in the south defected to Hannibal, Rome was in disarray, and yellow-bellied Roman nobles fled to Greece. It was, it can be said, a complete victory for Carthage and Hannibal.
OR WAS IT? Let's review for a moment. Cannae was a disaster for Rome yes, and any other sane nation would have capitulated and sought peace, and that's probably what Hannibal thought would happen. Of course, that didn't happen. Not only did Rome not surrender, and refuse to discuss terms with Hannibal, but she dug deep into her remaining citizenry, and even her slave population, and produced another army in less than a year! On top of that, the Fabian strategy was once again implemented, and the Romans refused to fight Hannibal on open ground in Italy again, instead waging a guerilla war against him, annoying and forcing him to go on a pillaging spree in Italy in order to keep his army supplied. The majority of the provinces which defected to Hannibal were soon back on Rome's side again, and Hannibal was locked into a sixteen-year hiatus in Italy in which he arguably accomplished nothing. While all that was going, Scipio up and conquered Spain, taking away Carthage's richest province and severing the only potential lifeline Hannibal could have had. And about Scipio...
Cannae saw the destruction of a Roman army, yes, but not its total destruction. Although Hannibal was able to encircle the Romans (and from there butcher them at leisure) his centre, which had lured the Romans into the trap, was broken and about 14000 Romans were able to escape from the field of battle (counting, of course, the Roman horsemen who were chased off the field by the Carthaginian cavalry). 14000 Romans lived to fight another day. True, 14000 out of an army of 80000 isn't all that impressive, but it is still a considerable number, and among those survivors was Scipio. If Cannae had been as complete a victory as has been suggested, those 14000 men would not have escaped, and Scipio would have died on that field (Hell, if Hannibal had had another 10000, or even 5000 men, that's probably what would have happened). Of course, one can argue that the fact that 14000 men escaped doesn't mean much, since the vast majority of those men were sent to Sicily in disgrace after the battle. However, when Scipio was elected Consul in 205 BC, guess where he was sent off to govern? Sicily, of course, and what did he find there? Plenty of disgruntled veterans who probably jumped at the opportunity to avenge their honour. Scipio formed a volunteer army in Sicily with those men at the core, and went off to Africa, where he enlisted the help of the Numidians. Arguably, Hannibal owed his success at Cannae in great part to the Numidian cavalry in his army, which had struck the Roman rear and completed the encirclement. Well, not only had Scipio taken Spain, rallied the survivors of Cannae, he also won the loyalty of those who had been Carthage's greatest allies (Just to add insult to injury). And then what happened? Scipio deals Hannibal a devastating defeat at Zama, in which he repeats Hannibal's strategy at Canne by trapping the Carthaginians in a pincer movement with Roman infantry in front and Roman cavalry behind.
And as to the battle of Cannae itself, we must remember that the Roman leadership was, at best, mediocre and overconfident. The Roman army's numbers worked against them in how they were pressed together and how their natural flexibility was not used. The Roman commanders instead preferred power over maneuverability, and that was their undoing. In my opinion, a great commander could have defeated a Roman army with that kind of leadership, even if it was that big. To be fair, though, it took a brilliant commander like Hannibal to destroy them.
So what is the point of this analysis? Canne was not a complete triumph, and has been over-hyped as such. In my opinion, it was at best a temporary success for Hannibal, and at worst a hollow and meaningless victory. Great victories in battle are all well and good, but if those great victories don't win the war for you, then what the hell are they worth? Cannae did not cripple Rome, it only panicked it for a short while. It did not weaken Rome militarily, not for long anyway, and it did not convince Carthage to support Hannibal, since even after that battle the ruling oligarchy was still not showing their best general any support. In a sense, Cannae didn't do a damn thing, while Zama, on the other hand, crippled Carthage and won the war for Rome. In a tactical and strategic sense, Cannae is a near-perfect victory, nearly, but the breakout of those 14000 Romans means that it wasn't a perfect victory, and the mediocre Roman leadership demonstrated during the battle means the army wasn't as formidable as one might believe. When considered in the context of the war, Cannae means nothing, except a brief illusion of triumph for Carthage.
Why don't we talk about Arausio now? I believe it was mentioned by another EB member. Arausio saw the absolute destruction of a Roman army about the same size as the one that fought at Cannae (80,000 men) at the hands of 'barbarians', namely the Cimbri and Teutones tribes. Unlike Cannae, at Arausio there were no, or EXTREMELY few, Roman survivors, and if the Cimbri and Teutones had but pressed on into Italy, Rome could very well have been sacked. Arausio is another one of the great Roman defeats.
BUT, first we must look at Roman leadership during the battle, which seems to have been sadly overconfident, or just plain stupid. I mean, who in their right mind picks a battlefield where you will have to fight with your back to a river? Honestly! The Cimbri and Teutones destroyed the Romans at the front, and when the Romans tried to flee, they drowned in the river. It was not really the fighting prowess of the Cimbri and Teutones which won the day, but poor Roman leadership, and poor co-ordination between Roman leadership, and poor Roman positioning in the battle. Plus, if we are to believe ancient sources, the Roman army at Arausio was outnumbered, probably not 2 to 1 as the Romans claimed, but certainly by a considerable margin.
That said, the Roman was still destroyed, and the Cimbri and Teutones could have marched into Rome at that point. But, like idiots, they pick fights with the Arverni and march to the Pyrenees, and once they marched back to Italy, three years after Arausio, they encounter Marius, and the newly-reformed Roman army. At Aquae Sextia and Vercellae, Marius inflicted on the Cimbri and Teutones two defeats which, to the tribes, were at least as devastating as Arausio had been to Rome. The 'barbarians' did not press their advantage when they gained it, and by destroying the Romans at Arausio, Marius was able to instigate his military reforms. Thus, not only did the Cimbri and Teutones help to create a new, deadlier Roman army, they were annihilated by it. Arausio was, again, a temporary victory, and the men who won that battle were slaughtered in their practical entirety by the Romans three years later. Arausio, like Cannae, meant nothing in the long run.
Now Carrhae. Carrhae is, perhaps, one of the Roman defeats that could merit its reputation. By all accounts, a Parthian army, which was outnumbered at least 4 to 1 (10,000 Parthians against as many as 40,000 Romans), utterly destroyed a Roman army under Marcus Licinius Crassus, and captured several Roman eagles. It was a devastating defeat for Rome, not least because the Romans, unlike the previous mentioned examples, did not have a real revenge. There was no 'Roman Carrhae', no great battle which saw the total destruction of a Parthian army. as the EB member who specializes in the Pahlava faction said, Carrhae was the last great battle fought between the Roman and Parthian empires, and it was a Roman defeat. Not only that, it was humiliating for Rome. Crassus, arguably the richest in the empire during his lifetime, was killed, as was his son, and his head was turned into a Parthian palace ornament. Roman eagles were in Parthian hands for years. It was devestating.
How devastating was it? According to most accounts, the Parthians won the battle by out-shooting the Romans. Yes, the Cataphract charge destroyed what was left of the army, but arguably that charge just finished off a dying beast. The Romans had lost their cavalry and been surrounded and bombarded by arrows (The coward's weapon as a Spartan would say:laugh4:) until they were in no position to offer any serious resistance to the Parthian cavalry charge. The Parthians had the battle won almost before it began due to their naturally superior bowmanship and horsemanship.
Not only that, but Crassus was not a great general. He was a rich and influential man, yes, but he was not particularly skilled when it came to war (Arguably, the only reason he destroyed Spartacus was by buying anyone who could have aided the rebellion and then trapping the slaves in an impossible situation where the only thing they could do was fight and die). Crassus marched deep into Parthian territory without adequate support because he wanted glory. As someone on this forum said, Roman armies were only as good as their generals, and Crassus was not the man with the skills to lead his men out of a trap like Carrhae.
It was his subordinate, Caius Cassius Longinus, who did. If I remember correctly, Cassius was able to lead about 6000-10,000 Romans out of Carrhae and fight their way back to Roman territories in Syria, and from there he was able to repel further Parthian attacks. Cassius was a good Roman commander, and he is the proof that it was not impossible for the Romans to escape and salvage something from a trap like Carrhae. Perhaps if a better man than Crassus had been in charge of the Roman army at that moment...
The captured Roman eagles were eventually returned to Rome, although it took decades of diplomacy to do so.
Another EB Forum-er rightly pointed out that after Carrhae, the Romans were still able to grab Parthia's easternmost territories, most notably Ctesiphon in 165 BC. Although EB's Pahlava expert has effectively argued that these Roman gains were not real blows to Parthia, they did coincide with a general decline in Parthian power, and although the Roman capture of Ctesiphon wasn't smooth (They had it for a while, then they relinquished it, then took it again, etc etc) it was still a setback for an empire that was becoming steadily weaker, as was the loss of northern Mesopotamia, although that gain was not particularly advantageous to the Romans either. Yes, in the end it was the struggles with Armenia which weakened Parthia considerably, rather than struggles with Rome. However, Rome's re-capture of Ctesiphon in 198 BC, and the subsequent looting that took place, impoverished the Parthian empire beyond recovery.
Carrhae was a Parthian victory, and Rome never won a great victory against them. In the end, they didn't have to. Small triumphs which hit the Parthians where it hurt turned out to be several nails in the eastern empire's coffin, and after the Parthia's internal struggles and their conflicts with Armenia, they were left in such a state that they were simply not in a state of either military or political preparation to repeat another Carrhae.
The battle does, in a sense, deserve its reputation in that it was a humiliating Roman defeat, but it was another example of how poor Roman leadership (Crassus) led to disaster while a competed Roman commander (Cassius) was able to salvage something from it. And ultimately, Carrhae did not save Parthia from Rome.
And what if we consider, now the other two, lesser-known victories? Let's start with Gergovia. During the Gallic wars, Julius Caesar had to deal with the Gallic rebellion being led by Vercingetorix, and after a series of earlier conflicts with the Gallic rebels, he besieged Gergovia. Unfortunately for Caesar, Vercingetorix wasn't stupid, and wasn't about to leave the security of a heavily fortified Oppida to meet a Roman army in open battle, especially when Vercingetorix knew that Caesar was running out of supplies. Long story short, Caesar tried to lure Vercingetorix out of Gergovia, the plan backfired, the Gauls attacked, Caesar lost a considerable number of men and had to beat a swift retreat. It was a decisive Gallic victory.
But Vercingetorix had it easy. Gergovia was well-fortified and supplied, and Caesar was having to deal with low supplies and having to carry out a difficult siege. Not only that, a large part of Caesar's previously steadfast allies, the Aedui, defected to Vercingetorix, which caught Caesar by surprise. In such a situation, a retreat was really the only viable option, and defeat was practically inevitable. Vercingetorix did not brilliantly outmaneuver Caesar, all he did was pick the best ground for battle and attack when his enemy was at his weakest and most disorganized. That was all. During the battle of Alesia, the Romans had the best pick of ground and were more steadily supplied than the Gauls, and the result? The numerically superior Gauls were crushed, and Vercingetorix surrendered. Gergovia was a setback for Caesar, and an inevitable one when all things are considered. Nothing more, nothing less.
And what of Boudicca? The great British warrior-queen is certainly renowned for having destroyed a Roman army en route to relieve Camulodunum, which her army was besieging. Boudicca's army destroyed the Ninth Legion, and after that she went on to raze Londonium and Verulamium, with little resistance. It's rumoured that the Emperor Nero was so panicked by this turn of events that he considered abandoning Britannia. Certainly, Boudicca's triumph at Camulodunum merits its reputation?
Again, that's debatable. The Ninth Legion was destroyed, yes, and afterwards Londinium was ransacked without any resistance. That's because the Roman commander Suetonius withdrew from the city in order to build up a larger force to face off against Boudicca. Londinium was simply un-defendable, and because Suetonius knew it, he left it to its fate.
As to the destruction of the Ninth Legion, well, if the average size of a Roman legion was between 5000 and 7000 men, then they were facing Boudicca's considerably numerically superior army on their own. If we believe Roman sources, he may have had as mane as 100,000 men at her command. 5000 against 100,000? No contest. Doesn't matter if you're King Leonidas' Spartans re-incarnate, you cannot defeat a force that vast with a force that small on open ground, which is probably what happened. Also, we must consider the possibility that the Romans were unsure of how large Boudicca's force was, and when Ninth Legion was attacked, they were caught by surprise by the sheer number of enemies.
Suetonius wasn't. After he had amassed an army 10,000 strong, he picked a battlefield which would maximise his force's strength while turning the Briton's numbers against them, (The Roman army's flank was protected by a gorge and its rear by a forest, the Briton's were essentially funneled into the front of the Roman battle-line) then he had his men used unconventional tactics (Multiple wedge formations) and do not appear to have been intimidated by the number of Britons facing them during the battle. The Britons were predictably slaughtered, and Boudicca committed suicide. Once again, Camulodunum was only a temporary victory, and the Romans used the time given to them by the Britons pillaging of three cities to create an army that could put down the rebellion.
As to Nero considering leaving Britain? That's unlikely. I doubt the Romans would have just packed up and left just like that.
Finally, Teutoburg forest. The best for last. To make a complicated story short, the Roman commander Varus was duped by the Germanic chieftan Ariminius, who had been educated in Rome but was secretly organizing the Germanic into an organized and unified resistance, into passing through unfamiliar German territory in order to quell an uprising, fabricated by Ariminius, in one of the Germanic provinces. The 17th, 18th, and 19th Legions marched into the Teutoburger Vald and didn't return. I won't get into all the details of the battle, but the Germanic tribes launched ambush after ambush on the Roman forces, who were tramping through poor ground at key points, and then caught them in a final trap, surrounded them, and slaughtered them. Varus died, Ariminius got his victory, and three Roman eagles were lost. There were few, if any, Roman survivors from that battle.
In my opinion, Teutoburg Forest is the only battle that truly deserves its reputation. The three numbers of the Legions lost in the battle were never again used, and Augustus suffered a nervous breakdown. The Germanic tribes would never be conquered like the Dacians, Britons, or Gauls had been.
However, the battle did not, as one website I read stated, halt any further Roman expansion and begin a period where Rome's territories would only shrink. Far from it. Augustus' nephew Tiberius launched punitive raids into Germania with the objective of re-establishing Roman dominance in that area. Two of the three eagles lost in the battle were recovered seven years later, and the third recovered in 41 AD, 32 years after the battle. The second Roman expedition which penetrated Teutoburg forest in 14 AD found the site of the battle, and the bones of their comrades. The Germanic tribes, despite being able to expel the Romans from their holds, were unable to invade the Danube area after their defeat at the battle of the Weser river and during the Marcomannic wars. Ariminius was never able to unite the Germanic tribes politcally, and for most of their history those same tribes co-existed relatively peacefully with the Roman empire, with trade between the two nations still carried out.
Teutoburg Forest does deserve its reputation as a massive, if not total, Roman defeat, and it did perhaps discourage any real invasion of Germania. However, its aftermath has been exaggerated. It did not discourage further Roman incursions, and it did not mark the absolute limit of where the Roman empire would expand, given that Dacia would fall afterwards.
And that's it.
Agree? Disagree? Think I'm a jerk who doesn't know what he's talking about and doesn't deserve his freedom of speech? Please, by all means tell me! I'm hoping this thread can encourage good, civilized debates about whether Rome's defeats were really as bad as they have been made out to be or not, so please, tell me what YOU think!
That said, and on a more serious note, I will not tolerate trolling or insults of any kind. If this thread gets deviated from its original purpose and, Godwin's law is proved, I'm closing it down. Just so's you have a fair warning.
Of course, Maksimus' comment was swiftly answered with referrals to Roman defeats at the hands of 'barbarians' and, although I may be thinking of the wrong thread here, Carrhae came up. An EB forum-er stated that although Carrhae was a pretty devastating defeat, Rome was able to recover fairly swiftly and once more deal severe blows to the Parthian empire. That forum-er was of course tackled by the EB member specializing in the Pahlava faction, who argued that such gains were not really severe at all, and that the Parthians arguably won the last and greatest battle they fought against Rome.
After seeing the debate this sort of thing can generate, I've decided I would give my own tuppence about great Roman disasters, and whether they actually deserve the hype they've been given. Obviously, the Big Three - Cannae, Carrhae, and Teutoburg Forest - will be considered, as well as less-publicised battles such as Arausio, Gergovia, and even the destruction of Roman forces at Camulodonum (During Boudicca's uprising). I'll kick-start the controversy (:laugh4: ) now and state that the grand majority of these defeats have been over-hyped in terms of their severity, completeness, and significance.
Let's start with what is perhaps the best-known example of a great Roman defeat, Cannae. In terms of numbers, tactics, and damage, it is easy to view Cannae as a total disaster for Rome. Certainly, in the tactical sense, it was a piece of sheer genius on Hannibal's part, and the fact that Hannibal was outnumbered 4 to 1 (80,000 Romans against 20,000 Carthaginians, roughly) makes it all the more remarkable. It is with good cause that Cannae is remembered as a textbook example of how to encircle and destroy a numerically superior enemy. Cannae's reputation, its hype if you will, is that it was the greatest Roman defeat ever. After all, the Roman army was destroyed in its practical entirety, it lost the cream of its military, aristocratic, and political nobility, and to top it all off, Hannibal collected hundreds of gold rings from dead Roman knights. Provinces in the south defected to Hannibal, Rome was in disarray, and yellow-bellied Roman nobles fled to Greece. It was, it can be said, a complete victory for Carthage and Hannibal.
OR WAS IT? Let's review for a moment. Cannae was a disaster for Rome yes, and any other sane nation would have capitulated and sought peace, and that's probably what Hannibal thought would happen. Of course, that didn't happen. Not only did Rome not surrender, and refuse to discuss terms with Hannibal, but she dug deep into her remaining citizenry, and even her slave population, and produced another army in less than a year! On top of that, the Fabian strategy was once again implemented, and the Romans refused to fight Hannibal on open ground in Italy again, instead waging a guerilla war against him, annoying and forcing him to go on a pillaging spree in Italy in order to keep his army supplied. The majority of the provinces which defected to Hannibal were soon back on Rome's side again, and Hannibal was locked into a sixteen-year hiatus in Italy in which he arguably accomplished nothing. While all that was going, Scipio up and conquered Spain, taking away Carthage's richest province and severing the only potential lifeline Hannibal could have had. And about Scipio...
Cannae saw the destruction of a Roman army, yes, but not its total destruction. Although Hannibal was able to encircle the Romans (and from there butcher them at leisure) his centre, which had lured the Romans into the trap, was broken and about 14000 Romans were able to escape from the field of battle (counting, of course, the Roman horsemen who were chased off the field by the Carthaginian cavalry). 14000 Romans lived to fight another day. True, 14000 out of an army of 80000 isn't all that impressive, but it is still a considerable number, and among those survivors was Scipio. If Cannae had been as complete a victory as has been suggested, those 14000 men would not have escaped, and Scipio would have died on that field (Hell, if Hannibal had had another 10000, or even 5000 men, that's probably what would have happened). Of course, one can argue that the fact that 14000 men escaped doesn't mean much, since the vast majority of those men were sent to Sicily in disgrace after the battle. However, when Scipio was elected Consul in 205 BC, guess where he was sent off to govern? Sicily, of course, and what did he find there? Plenty of disgruntled veterans who probably jumped at the opportunity to avenge their honour. Scipio formed a volunteer army in Sicily with those men at the core, and went off to Africa, where he enlisted the help of the Numidians. Arguably, Hannibal owed his success at Cannae in great part to the Numidian cavalry in his army, which had struck the Roman rear and completed the encirclement. Well, not only had Scipio taken Spain, rallied the survivors of Cannae, he also won the loyalty of those who had been Carthage's greatest allies (Just to add insult to injury). And then what happened? Scipio deals Hannibal a devastating defeat at Zama, in which he repeats Hannibal's strategy at Canne by trapping the Carthaginians in a pincer movement with Roman infantry in front and Roman cavalry behind.
And as to the battle of Cannae itself, we must remember that the Roman leadership was, at best, mediocre and overconfident. The Roman army's numbers worked against them in how they were pressed together and how their natural flexibility was not used. The Roman commanders instead preferred power over maneuverability, and that was their undoing. In my opinion, a great commander could have defeated a Roman army with that kind of leadership, even if it was that big. To be fair, though, it took a brilliant commander like Hannibal to destroy them.
So what is the point of this analysis? Canne was not a complete triumph, and has been over-hyped as such. In my opinion, it was at best a temporary success for Hannibal, and at worst a hollow and meaningless victory. Great victories in battle are all well and good, but if those great victories don't win the war for you, then what the hell are they worth? Cannae did not cripple Rome, it only panicked it for a short while. It did not weaken Rome militarily, not for long anyway, and it did not convince Carthage to support Hannibal, since even after that battle the ruling oligarchy was still not showing their best general any support. In a sense, Cannae didn't do a damn thing, while Zama, on the other hand, crippled Carthage and won the war for Rome. In a tactical and strategic sense, Cannae is a near-perfect victory, nearly, but the breakout of those 14000 Romans means that it wasn't a perfect victory, and the mediocre Roman leadership demonstrated during the battle means the army wasn't as formidable as one might believe. When considered in the context of the war, Cannae means nothing, except a brief illusion of triumph for Carthage.
Why don't we talk about Arausio now? I believe it was mentioned by another EB member. Arausio saw the absolute destruction of a Roman army about the same size as the one that fought at Cannae (80,000 men) at the hands of 'barbarians', namely the Cimbri and Teutones tribes. Unlike Cannae, at Arausio there were no, or EXTREMELY few, Roman survivors, and if the Cimbri and Teutones had but pressed on into Italy, Rome could very well have been sacked. Arausio is another one of the great Roman defeats.
BUT, first we must look at Roman leadership during the battle, which seems to have been sadly overconfident, or just plain stupid. I mean, who in their right mind picks a battlefield where you will have to fight with your back to a river? Honestly! The Cimbri and Teutones destroyed the Romans at the front, and when the Romans tried to flee, they drowned in the river. It was not really the fighting prowess of the Cimbri and Teutones which won the day, but poor Roman leadership, and poor co-ordination between Roman leadership, and poor Roman positioning in the battle. Plus, if we are to believe ancient sources, the Roman army at Arausio was outnumbered, probably not 2 to 1 as the Romans claimed, but certainly by a considerable margin.
That said, the Roman was still destroyed, and the Cimbri and Teutones could have marched into Rome at that point. But, like idiots, they pick fights with the Arverni and march to the Pyrenees, and once they marched back to Italy, three years after Arausio, they encounter Marius, and the newly-reformed Roman army. At Aquae Sextia and Vercellae, Marius inflicted on the Cimbri and Teutones two defeats which, to the tribes, were at least as devastating as Arausio had been to Rome. The 'barbarians' did not press their advantage when they gained it, and by destroying the Romans at Arausio, Marius was able to instigate his military reforms. Thus, not only did the Cimbri and Teutones help to create a new, deadlier Roman army, they were annihilated by it. Arausio was, again, a temporary victory, and the men who won that battle were slaughtered in their practical entirety by the Romans three years later. Arausio, like Cannae, meant nothing in the long run.
Now Carrhae. Carrhae is, perhaps, one of the Roman defeats that could merit its reputation. By all accounts, a Parthian army, which was outnumbered at least 4 to 1 (10,000 Parthians against as many as 40,000 Romans), utterly destroyed a Roman army under Marcus Licinius Crassus, and captured several Roman eagles. It was a devastating defeat for Rome, not least because the Romans, unlike the previous mentioned examples, did not have a real revenge. There was no 'Roman Carrhae', no great battle which saw the total destruction of a Parthian army. as the EB member who specializes in the Pahlava faction said, Carrhae was the last great battle fought between the Roman and Parthian empires, and it was a Roman defeat. Not only that, it was humiliating for Rome. Crassus, arguably the richest in the empire during his lifetime, was killed, as was his son, and his head was turned into a Parthian palace ornament. Roman eagles were in Parthian hands for years. It was devestating.
How devastating was it? According to most accounts, the Parthians won the battle by out-shooting the Romans. Yes, the Cataphract charge destroyed what was left of the army, but arguably that charge just finished off a dying beast. The Romans had lost their cavalry and been surrounded and bombarded by arrows (The coward's weapon as a Spartan would say:laugh4:) until they were in no position to offer any serious resistance to the Parthian cavalry charge. The Parthians had the battle won almost before it began due to their naturally superior bowmanship and horsemanship.
Not only that, but Crassus was not a great general. He was a rich and influential man, yes, but he was not particularly skilled when it came to war (Arguably, the only reason he destroyed Spartacus was by buying anyone who could have aided the rebellion and then trapping the slaves in an impossible situation where the only thing they could do was fight and die). Crassus marched deep into Parthian territory without adequate support because he wanted glory. As someone on this forum said, Roman armies were only as good as their generals, and Crassus was not the man with the skills to lead his men out of a trap like Carrhae.
It was his subordinate, Caius Cassius Longinus, who did. If I remember correctly, Cassius was able to lead about 6000-10,000 Romans out of Carrhae and fight their way back to Roman territories in Syria, and from there he was able to repel further Parthian attacks. Cassius was a good Roman commander, and he is the proof that it was not impossible for the Romans to escape and salvage something from a trap like Carrhae. Perhaps if a better man than Crassus had been in charge of the Roman army at that moment...
The captured Roman eagles were eventually returned to Rome, although it took decades of diplomacy to do so.
Another EB Forum-er rightly pointed out that after Carrhae, the Romans were still able to grab Parthia's easternmost territories, most notably Ctesiphon in 165 BC. Although EB's Pahlava expert has effectively argued that these Roman gains were not real blows to Parthia, they did coincide with a general decline in Parthian power, and although the Roman capture of Ctesiphon wasn't smooth (They had it for a while, then they relinquished it, then took it again, etc etc) it was still a setback for an empire that was becoming steadily weaker, as was the loss of northern Mesopotamia, although that gain was not particularly advantageous to the Romans either. Yes, in the end it was the struggles with Armenia which weakened Parthia considerably, rather than struggles with Rome. However, Rome's re-capture of Ctesiphon in 198 BC, and the subsequent looting that took place, impoverished the Parthian empire beyond recovery.
Carrhae was a Parthian victory, and Rome never won a great victory against them. In the end, they didn't have to. Small triumphs which hit the Parthians where it hurt turned out to be several nails in the eastern empire's coffin, and after the Parthia's internal struggles and their conflicts with Armenia, they were left in such a state that they were simply not in a state of either military or political preparation to repeat another Carrhae.
The battle does, in a sense, deserve its reputation in that it was a humiliating Roman defeat, but it was another example of how poor Roman leadership (Crassus) led to disaster while a competed Roman commander (Cassius) was able to salvage something from it. And ultimately, Carrhae did not save Parthia from Rome.
And what if we consider, now the other two, lesser-known victories? Let's start with Gergovia. During the Gallic wars, Julius Caesar had to deal with the Gallic rebellion being led by Vercingetorix, and after a series of earlier conflicts with the Gallic rebels, he besieged Gergovia. Unfortunately for Caesar, Vercingetorix wasn't stupid, and wasn't about to leave the security of a heavily fortified Oppida to meet a Roman army in open battle, especially when Vercingetorix knew that Caesar was running out of supplies. Long story short, Caesar tried to lure Vercingetorix out of Gergovia, the plan backfired, the Gauls attacked, Caesar lost a considerable number of men and had to beat a swift retreat. It was a decisive Gallic victory.
But Vercingetorix had it easy. Gergovia was well-fortified and supplied, and Caesar was having to deal with low supplies and having to carry out a difficult siege. Not only that, a large part of Caesar's previously steadfast allies, the Aedui, defected to Vercingetorix, which caught Caesar by surprise. In such a situation, a retreat was really the only viable option, and defeat was practically inevitable. Vercingetorix did not brilliantly outmaneuver Caesar, all he did was pick the best ground for battle and attack when his enemy was at his weakest and most disorganized. That was all. During the battle of Alesia, the Romans had the best pick of ground and were more steadily supplied than the Gauls, and the result? The numerically superior Gauls were crushed, and Vercingetorix surrendered. Gergovia was a setback for Caesar, and an inevitable one when all things are considered. Nothing more, nothing less.
And what of Boudicca? The great British warrior-queen is certainly renowned for having destroyed a Roman army en route to relieve Camulodunum, which her army was besieging. Boudicca's army destroyed the Ninth Legion, and after that she went on to raze Londonium and Verulamium, with little resistance. It's rumoured that the Emperor Nero was so panicked by this turn of events that he considered abandoning Britannia. Certainly, Boudicca's triumph at Camulodunum merits its reputation?
Again, that's debatable. The Ninth Legion was destroyed, yes, and afterwards Londinium was ransacked without any resistance. That's because the Roman commander Suetonius withdrew from the city in order to build up a larger force to face off against Boudicca. Londinium was simply un-defendable, and because Suetonius knew it, he left it to its fate.
As to the destruction of the Ninth Legion, well, if the average size of a Roman legion was between 5000 and 7000 men, then they were facing Boudicca's considerably numerically superior army on their own. If we believe Roman sources, he may have had as mane as 100,000 men at her command. 5000 against 100,000? No contest. Doesn't matter if you're King Leonidas' Spartans re-incarnate, you cannot defeat a force that vast with a force that small on open ground, which is probably what happened. Also, we must consider the possibility that the Romans were unsure of how large Boudicca's force was, and when Ninth Legion was attacked, they were caught by surprise by the sheer number of enemies.
Suetonius wasn't. After he had amassed an army 10,000 strong, he picked a battlefield which would maximise his force's strength while turning the Briton's numbers against them, (The Roman army's flank was protected by a gorge and its rear by a forest, the Briton's were essentially funneled into the front of the Roman battle-line) then he had his men used unconventional tactics (Multiple wedge formations) and do not appear to have been intimidated by the number of Britons facing them during the battle. The Britons were predictably slaughtered, and Boudicca committed suicide. Once again, Camulodunum was only a temporary victory, and the Romans used the time given to them by the Britons pillaging of three cities to create an army that could put down the rebellion.
As to Nero considering leaving Britain? That's unlikely. I doubt the Romans would have just packed up and left just like that.
Finally, Teutoburg forest. The best for last. To make a complicated story short, the Roman commander Varus was duped by the Germanic chieftan Ariminius, who had been educated in Rome but was secretly organizing the Germanic into an organized and unified resistance, into passing through unfamiliar German territory in order to quell an uprising, fabricated by Ariminius, in one of the Germanic provinces. The 17th, 18th, and 19th Legions marched into the Teutoburger Vald and didn't return. I won't get into all the details of the battle, but the Germanic tribes launched ambush after ambush on the Roman forces, who were tramping through poor ground at key points, and then caught them in a final trap, surrounded them, and slaughtered them. Varus died, Ariminius got his victory, and three Roman eagles were lost. There were few, if any, Roman survivors from that battle.
In my opinion, Teutoburg Forest is the only battle that truly deserves its reputation. The three numbers of the Legions lost in the battle were never again used, and Augustus suffered a nervous breakdown. The Germanic tribes would never be conquered like the Dacians, Britons, or Gauls had been.
However, the battle did not, as one website I read stated, halt any further Roman expansion and begin a period where Rome's territories would only shrink. Far from it. Augustus' nephew Tiberius launched punitive raids into Germania with the objective of re-establishing Roman dominance in that area. Two of the three eagles lost in the battle were recovered seven years later, and the third recovered in 41 AD, 32 years after the battle. The second Roman expedition which penetrated Teutoburg forest in 14 AD found the site of the battle, and the bones of their comrades. The Germanic tribes, despite being able to expel the Romans from their holds, were unable to invade the Danube area after their defeat at the battle of the Weser river and during the Marcomannic wars. Ariminius was never able to unite the Germanic tribes politcally, and for most of their history those same tribes co-existed relatively peacefully with the Roman empire, with trade between the two nations still carried out.
Teutoburg Forest does deserve its reputation as a massive, if not total, Roman defeat, and it did perhaps discourage any real invasion of Germania. However, its aftermath has been exaggerated. It did not discourage further Roman incursions, and it did not mark the absolute limit of where the Roman empire would expand, given that Dacia would fall afterwards.
And that's it.
Agree? Disagree? Think I'm a jerk who doesn't know what he's talking about and doesn't deserve his freedom of speech? Please, by all means tell me! I'm hoping this thread can encourage good, civilized debates about whether Rome's defeats were really as bad as they have been made out to be or not, so please, tell me what YOU think!
That said, and on a more serious note, I will not tolerate trolling or insults of any kind. If this thread gets deviated from its original purpose and, Godwin's law is proved, I'm closing it down. Just so's you have a fair warning.