Romans And Greeks

I don't know everything about what hapenned between lets say Alexander the Great era to M2TW era. I do know some things but not everything. I was just wondering what hapenned to some of the formidable warriors and tactics of the past.

Why do the HRE and Byzanthium units have no similarities to the Roman units? I think I can easily say for their time Roman Legions were elite of infantry. I'm not trying to say its inaccurate historically I was just wondering why the legions weren't used anymore. You know the sword, javelin? shield, and heavy armor. The tstuedo?(sorry about spelling)?

Secondly I'm greek myself so I also wonder where the Spartans or the phalynx went. Surely some of the tactics had to have been kept. It was literally a inpennetrable front.

Any one care to take the time to explain some of this to me or send me a link?

Haha sorry for wasting anyones time.

Cavalry, especially heavy, Sarmatian style cavalry came to dominate the battlefield for the most part. Not a Ph.D. in military history but I am guessing it was a natural switch to meet the forces coming their way, ie-Huns and other horseborn steppe fighters. Wasn't til massed pikes came back into fashion that the old hammer and anvil came back into the playbook for the most part, although it was probably not until King Gustav of Sweden that the first army in history Alexander would NOT have been right at home commanding was actually fielded. Gustav modernized the use of gunpowder and based the entire army around it to very very potent effect.

Edit -The allcaps NOT was edited in, I was in hurry in the initial reply.

Everybody's riding horses now as good infantry is hard to come by in the Middle Ages. I was kind of hoping for some 'fantasy units' like Byzantine Musketeers, Cataphract Dragoons and Greek Pikemen, but sorry, they're just not in the game. Blame it on the Byzantines, they died too quickly. If they had held out another hundred years, we might have had some historical units along those lines.

What happened to the phalanx? The Romans did. The phalanx was impenetrable to infantry or cavalry attacks from the front, but its flanks are quite a different matter. Later armies would learn to exploit this. Another tactic used against them was missile fire, specifically javelins. The Romans made use of a lighter troop type (the legions) that could outmaneuver the densely-packed phalanx.

Not too sure about the rest, but I beleive the Romans defeated the Spartans and disarmed them at some point, pretty much forcing them to adopt Roman culture.
The Phalanx fell out of use in main stream warfare after the Romans stomped the Greek states into tiny bits.

what about lack of funds during the dark ages to maintain a well trained infantry arm. after several hundred years of no funds to field well trained infantry armies maybe the old ways were forgotten.

the byzantines were still able to do it but since they were at war against swift moving invaders they had to adopt the cataphract armed with bow and lance. infantry was mostly relegated to units who were proficient with both sword, buckler and bow who supported the heavy cavalry.

apparently for some reason the byzantines didnt put much faith in spearmen most of the time if they wanted to control a cavalry charge they would dig trenches and pit traps and spread a bunch of caltrops on the ground. and fire from behind it all with their infantry. actually a very similiar tactic to what the english used hundreds of years later.

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Originally Posted by Laconic

What happened to the phalanx? The Romans did. The phalanx was impenetrable to infantry or cavalry attacks from the front, but its flanks are quite a different matter. Later armies would learn to exploit this. Another tactic used against them was missile fire, specifically javelins. The Romans made use of a lighter troop type (the legions) that could outmaneuver the densely-packed phalanx.

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The Romans dominate due to their advanced politocoeconomical structure, the HUGE vacuum that Alexander's death left, the complete disindegration of the shock Hetairoi cavalry by the successors and the fact that couched lance tactic and stirrups havent been invented...yet.
Once these came into play the almighty Roman legion crumbled under the charge of cavalry men because you just cant stop a charge with a short sword....
The Roman legionary died and never revived while the Pike phalanx revived to kill another gloryfied and hyped up myth: The knight....

Just to note here guys, the Holy Roman Empire wasn't really holy, it's the place where protestantism started, wasn't even related to Roman times, the Romans never conquered most of their region, and definitely wasn't an empire, it was more of a republic that wasn't a republic.

The Roman army, as you probably see it, went out of fashion in the 300s when the emperor conscripted a huge amount of troops. As the Imperial treasury was not especially wealthy they were not as well trained as the classical legionary and they were not as well equipped. At this point the Roman legion as most see it was lost.

The shield wall formation (a dense tightly packed formation) was really a more modern version of the phalanx. The tactics survived well into the Middle Ages and were used at famous battles such as the battle of Hastings.

it is true that any tightly packed mass of soldiers regardless what weapon they have is known as a phalanx.

I know that wikipedia hasn't the best rep around here (or so I gather), but for a start you could look at that article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_History

and the ones it links to. Sorta the evolution of modern warfare.

The basic description is that the romans beat the greeks and the greek dissappered. Then the Romans just got too big, (too few men to defend their borders), became corrupt and was hit by HA all at the same time. The Roman empire bassiclly frgmented and the world decended into the dark ags with the exception of the eastern roman empire which was renamed Bazantynium.

When the rest of the world went into the dark ages all military knowloge was virtually lost and only the wealthy had equimpment worth mentioning. they tended to prefer to fight from horseback.

The Roman Legions took a lot of time money and effort to train and equip. Once ecnomic hardship and lack of good military knowlage kicked in it became impossibbile for most armies to equip their units well, and even those that could lacked the knowlage of the Roman Legion and thus wouldn't have feilded legion like formations anyway, even if they could have afforded to do so.

Well the Dark Ages didn’t begin until the Muslims (Muselmen) cut off the Mediterranean trade. As to why you don’t see many Roman style armies in this time period is (as has been stated) due to the lack of funds (no trade, no funds). The Romans didn’t seem too keen on training locals to defend themselves as they were more interested in keeping control. Evidence of this is their withdraw from the British isles. From all accounts I’ve seen, they simply left. Plus you have to consider local/regional etc culture. Do you value individual fighting style or logical, ordered formations. Good luck trying to get the early Irish to adopt the phalanx.

Well i didn't know the specifics but the basic gist is that the Romans counqured the greeks, so the greeks now changed their military to match that of the romans. The romans then got overun by barbarians and thier military went barbarian like too. The roman legions dissppered with rome and no one after that had the money to create them for a long time, and even if they had have had the money, they wouldn't have thought to try a legion like formation.

the muslims appeared near the latter part of the dark ages. i believe it began when rome was sacked in 400 something.

I think money was the main factor. I sword was a major investment in the Middle Ages, about the equivalent of a car in todays money. Never mind armor. So most infantry are running around in long t-shirts with pointy sticks.

A sword. Poor grammar.

Simple answer:

The Holy Roman Empire was Semi-Romanized and Germanic. The Byzantines were a mix of Latin, Greek, and Oriental/Steppe/Persia-Media influences.

For Middle Age Phalanx, see Swiss.

i dont really think lack of funds was a huge factor in the disinegration of good infantry. well trained infantry went bad because wasnt the dark ages mostly just constant warfare so it would make no sense to train a good army if you are just going to lose it right away and you could just levy the peasants to fight for you. i think it just wasnt economical to train a good infantry arm when heavy cavalry could just obliterate it without spears. yes regional fighting style probably did take much precendent in determineing how a army would be made. also werent huscarls like legionaries they were well trained and armored and very effective against most oppnents, battle of hastings. the pike formation died becasue it took time to train to be used efectively and they were not exactly mobile and were just light infantry with long spear very suseptible to missle fire

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Originally Posted by Omanes Alexandrapolites

Just to note here guys, the Holy Roman Empire wasn't really holy, it's the place where protestantism started...

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You do realize the implication of this wording is a bit offensive to anyone Protestant?

And at any rate, the Reformation was toward the end of the middle ages, not the beginning. The entire story of the Holy Roman Empire is a pretty complicated one involving who has the right to rule where and whom can declare a ruler and how the pope thinks he should figure in. And pointedly, the Reformation started inside the HRE, not as the HRE. It initially was a matter of much smaller, localized civil wars within the empire.

Another reason why the lack of civil wars and the lack of faction introduction is a sad subtraction from the game. We lose things like the Swiss, or the possibility of battling out the Reformation on one side or the other, which would be a very interesting late game monkeywrench to throw in.

There is another point in regard to why martial tactics of the Romans were lost, and that was a matter of culture. The kings and nobles grew out of tribal leaders and chieftans of germanic and celtic groups. Whereas the Roman senate were the leaders and sat back while they hired soldiers to go fight for them, and occasionally hired a caesar to lead for them... the germanic and celtic leadership were part of a culture that expected and even demanded they lead from the front. Whereas a Roman or Greek upper class person might take up military interests if they desired, and would then study and be officers at the rear, the tribal leaders were all expected to be in the thick with their warriors swinging a weapon. This led to knightly culture, etc. And pointedly, among them a leader who wouldn't risked coup. It wasn't until later the larger urbanization put pressure on this to change for various reasons, and eventually saw the end of the knightly era as well.

The TS asks very difficult questions which are not easily answered. It was/is a complicated network of political, social, economical and military reasons and coincidence (!) which changes history.

Rome defeated the Greek sucessor states between 200 and 30 BC mainly because of greater manpower and the typical Roman determination. You can not only say "manipel tactics defeated crappy phalanx", as it is done some times. Roman manipular warfare, copied from the Samnites and other southern Italian enemies of Rome, may be one cause for victory as it is more flexible, but it was not the only one and in my opinion by far not the main reason. Rome could afford defeats and in fact the Romans were defeated many times by their foes (remember Hannibal f.e.) but they stood up again, formed new armies and won the wars due to better economic resources and a huge reservoir of people (and a great moral and believe in Rome).


Why did the Roman empire and the military collapse? That is a question ever disputed since the 18th century. Many reasons occur. Of course I can not explain it but I would like to give some thoughts.

The typical ancient citizen moral declined over the time. Christianity had negative effects because many people cared for otherwordly empires and not the state in which they actually live. In/after the 3rd century AD the Roman empire changed very much. The emperor was no longer the principes but a dominus of absolute power, later supported by christian theory. This led to a decline of identification with the state which became intolerant, dictatorial and oppressive more and more. The regions and local rulers became more important and loyality was more with them and not the empire. The late Roman empire showed in fact many medieval aspects.

Very important in my opinion: there were heavy epidemics in the later 2rd century AD which led to a decline in manpower and degraded both economy and military affairs. At the same time Germanic tribes unified more and more and pressed against the Roman borders. Later steppe people like the Huns added pressure. The empire faced threats which were not known before and had to react on a smaler economical basis. Finally it crumbled simply perhaps because there was no longer the wish to fight for such an arkward construction.

From the 3rd century AD onwards Roman military changed dramatically. The legions declined to local units and the more mobile auxilia became the true fighting force, later resulting in the exercitus comitatenses. Fighting techniques changed according to new threats. Cavalry became far more important. The Roman army was by far the best fighting force in the west still but the borders were long and the menaces abundantly. A great mistake was the later practise to use Germanic or other people not as individuals in the Roman army but as part of foreign troops led by their own nobility and fighting in their own style. Not a good thing for discipline and loyality.

In my opinion there was some mysterious additional cause, less obvious and more on the moral side. Although the individual soldier of 400 AD was probably as good as a warrior (or perhaps even better) as his forefather 300 years earlier, something was wrong. When you look at the battle of Adrianople 378 AD mistakes and low moral among some professional Roman soldiers came into view which could hardly be seen with earlier armies.


HRE: it has not very much to do with the Roman empire in reality. It was the remaining German-Italian-Burgundian eastern and southern part of the Carolingian empire. In state theory though the Roman empire never had disappeared and so the Carolingian state and later HRE claimed to be the Imperium Romanum, similar to the Byzantine empire.

HRE (or better the Imperium Romanum as it was mostly called till the 12th century; Holy Roman Empire = Sacrum Imperium Romanum it was mainly called from the 12th century onwards till the words "of the German nation" were wisely added in the 15th century) was mighty in the 11th and 12th century but even then the denomination was presumptuous.

Roman legions were long gone even at the time of the crash of the western Roman empire and had nothing to do with HRE or the Byzantine empire.