Less Civilized Factions

[Aemilius Paulus]

But it seems that the main source of the statements about the "cowardice" of the later Roman army and their relative "inferiority" to Principate forces is Vegetius, who was called more than once by people more well-read than me more of a dubious, armchair source.

Not at all. No, that was not the point I was making. I despise those sorts of arguments myself. Not at least because the Domináte armies were tailored to deal with entirely other threats. And very well too. But once again, that is entirely not what I wanted or did debate about.

Now, I did mention the fact that Romans had a hard time recruiting soldiers, but I will make no judgment on the overall fighting quality of the army itself. Just the state of the Empire.

All this is evidenced by my previous post:

I never meant this to be an argument for the decline of the Roman Empire. Obviously, there were many factors, and it is pointless to debate on it, especially with a regular person like you and me, and not a professor. Do not lecture me, we all know the reasons, and I have never stated that it was the weak military that brought the Romans down.

But being an ardent debater myself, I went ahead and argued anyway:

But while we are at it...