Did Late Imperial Romans really experimenting with Phalangitai Troops?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The idea that the Roman legion was less disciplined in the later empire is a myth. Discipline did not decline, particularly not in the field army. In fact, since the time of Gallienus, officers were no longer senators who gained their commissions through family influence, but mostly men who worked their way up the ranks and knew how to train and lead men. The problem with the late Roman army was not its soldiers, but its government (which was breaking down, and often lacked the money, resources, and coherence to properly utilize the armies, and often wasted whole armies in bloody civil wars). And the fact that is was simply overwhelmed with enemies (just look at Stilicho- he was a brilliant general, but his regency ended in failure because he simply did not have the troops to hold every front)

This is only true to a point. The Late army was run via the Concillium, and it allowed the army itself to revolt when it didn't like the Emperor's orders. This is why Constantine dispanded the Guard, and why Justinian was forced to turn back when a standardbearer broke ranks and objected. The maniple dates from a time when the Roman soldier was expected to obey unwaveringly, to decimate his friends, and could thus be trusted with independant action to a degree.

I concede that I may have been wrong to say that the Spatha is too different from the Gladius, but I think its popularity came mostly from the influence of Germanic soldiers in the army.

Germans coming into the Auxillia were thougherly Romanised, the actual cause has more to do with the soldiers seeking to differentiate themselves from the populace, and thus deliberately adopting "barbarian" customs. Nonetheless, the Pompeii Gladius is a study in a sword-pattern designed to be produced by an idiot and still be useable. It's parallel edges do not cut as well as the earlier leaf-blade and it's point is not as fine.

I don't agree. Warfare had changed too much since the time of Alexander. Sassanid cavalry was a lot different from Achamenid cavalry. They used more horse archers (we've all seen these guys rip the slow moving phalanxes apart in EB) and cataphracts. The Romans developed military units and tactics designed to counter these threats. The Macedonian phalanx, on the other hand, was designed to fight the Persian and Balkan soldiers of five hundred years earlier.

The Persians were always known first and foremost as archers (hencer Herodotus saying young noblemen learned three things: riding, archery, and truth telling). The difference was in the heavy cavalry, for which the phalanx was much better suited.

Warfare also necessitated smaller, more mobile infantry units. That's why in the late empire the legions shrank to under 1000 men each, with other units, such as auxiliary units, being half that size. The phalanx would have been too big and clumsy. As I said, warfare had changed too much for the phalanx of Alexander's time to work. That's why, after Caracalla's death, you never hear of the Romans using it again.

The units were smaller after Constantine's time because this prevented a single general from garnering the loyalty of 12,000 odd men just sitting in barracks and not even on campaign. The smaller units and lack of concentration prevented the Romans from gathering the Legions to resist the mass incursions of the 4th/5th Century.

And the Macedonian phalanx would have been utterly useless on the empire's other major front, the Rhineland. I could just see the German tribesmen rolling on the ground in laughter as they watch a Roman army taking enormous spears and forming a Macedonian phalanx in that hilly, marshy, forested country.

While this is true, it would have been very useful in Northern Italy.

However, I don't understand where you get the idea that most of the failures of the later Empire are at least in part down to the Roman army being unable to receive and hold a cavalry charge, or to pin enemy infantry. What are some examples? The late Roman army did very well against the cavalry-dominated Persian army. The only example I can think of the Roman army really getting crushed by a cavalry charge is Adrianople, but in that case it is because the Goths used the old infantry/cavalry anvil/hammer tactic on them. In fact, cavalry could not be made to charge a well ordered late Roman infantry formation from the front. Hence, the importance of missile cavalry among Rome's enemies, who used them to pepper the Roman lines, hoping to break up the formation enough to get their horses to charge.

As for pinning enemy infantry, I can't think of this ever being a problem. The Roman army was very successful against infantry dominated armies (Franks, Alamanni, ect.) as long as there was Roman soldiers around to fight these people (unfortunately, often there were none, or at least very few, leading to the breakup of the Western empire). Do you have an sources for problems stemming from pinning infantry?

Look at the casualty numbers, winning isn't everything. Cunctator, Wellington, Washington, etc., will all tell you that. The pike block has endurance for a protracted and constant melee, the Roman system was best when they were able to rotate troops, and to retire and advance. This is why the spear became increasly popular. The army was no longer advancing, and it couldn't afford to retreat, so it had to hold.

In some instances a pike block would have reduced Roman casualties. A properly drilled pike block would have been mobile and resistant to both the infantry and cavalry the Germanic people had. After all, when your enemy get's good at what you're good at; you have to get good at something else.

[Uticensis]

This is only true to a point. The Late army was run via the Concillium, and it allowed the army itself to revolt when it didn't like the Emperor's orders. This is why Constantine dispanded the Guard, and why Justinian was forced to turn back when a standardbearer broke ranks and objected. The maniple dates from a time when the Roman soldier was expected to obey unwaveringly, to decimate his friends, and could thus be trusted with independant action to a degree.

Interesting point. I've never heard the idea of the maniple as a symbol of unwavering loyalty argued before, and never thought of it that way. It's a good point.

What is the reference to the standard-bearer with Justinian from, by the way? I don't recognize it. Are you sure you're not thinking of Gildo's standard-bearer? Nonetheless, the point stands, and you've convinced me.

The units were smaller after Constantine's time because this prevented a single general from garnering the loyalty of 12,000 odd men just sitting in barracks and not even on campaign. The smaller units and lack of concentration prevented the Romans from gathering the Legions to resist the mass incursions of the 4th/5th Century.

Now I disagree with this. Even though the legions were smaller, the duces and comites had authority over more of them, so it roughly evened out. In fact, with the creation of the Magister Militum, control of virtually all troops were in the hands of one general, who often used this power to undermine the authority of the emperor and promote his own interests. Thus I don't think it was about loyalty, it was about the tactical effectiveness of small, mobile units.

The smaller units did not prevent the Romans from resisting the mass incursions of the 4th/5th centuries. Smaller units were actually helpful, because despite the common image of massive barbarian invasions, the majority of threats came from small raiding parties. These did not need to be confronted by 50,000 strong armies, but small, mobile, highly trained groups of soldiers. On the other hand, when needed, the Romans proved quite capable of calling up many of these small units into larger armies if the threat warranted it.

Look at the casualty numbers, winning isn't everything. Cunctator, Wellington, Washington, etc., will all tell you that. The pike block has endurance for a protracted and constant melee, the Roman system was best when they were able to rotate troops, and to retire and advance. This is why the spear became increasly popular. The army was no longer advancing, and it couldn't afford to retreat, so it had to hold.

In some instances a pike block would have reduced Roman casualties. A properly drilled pike block would have been mobile and resistant to both the infantry and cavalry the Germanic people had. After all, when your enemy get's good at what you're good at; you have to get good at something else.

I just don't like the idea of arguing that a military formation that fell out of favor half a millennium before should have been readopted. It's too speculative, and I tend to think that the Roman generals (at least sometimes) knew what they were doing and would have adopted anything that they thought would gain them victory.

Perhaps it would have worked in some areas of the empire, though. Yet it is impossible to tell. It kind of reminds me of Benjamin Franklin's (in)famous suggestion that the US Continental Army should have adopted the bow and arrow: it had a higher rate of fire than the musket, was cheaper to produce, and since armor had disappeared it would have been quite deadly. Whether it would really have worked is impossible to tell, because the bow and arrow was such an archaism that no general was going to equip his soldiers that way. I think something similar could be said of the phalanx in the late Roman Empire.

[alexanderthegreater]

Bow and Arrow hm? it might have worked in open battles. I would make a front line of muskets and put archers behind them to fire over their heads.
Oh, btw the bow could be mass produced but you had to train people to use it properly for quite a long time. In American independence war many were untrained levies?
My opinion is that although the bow probably outranged the musket, the musket could turn untrained citizens into an effective fighting force and was better able to stand up to a cavalry charge due to its firepower at close range. (A horsemen charge can be stopped dead in its tracks by a massed volley, like at Waterloo) I dont think bows could penetrate the armor of those days, and if youd use contingents of bowmen I would just revert to armor and recruit some armoured cavalry. Then you would use musketeers again to counter them. then were back to square one.

[Watchman]

Musketeers by their lonesome get squashed flat by cavalry, unless they also have bayonets and are formed up in close order. (And, of course, appropriately trained - resisting cavalry charges is above all about psychology.) That's why the pike remained an important infantry weapon until the late 1600s, after all; their primary tactical function was to keep the nasty men on horseback from riding roughshod over the dudes with guns who from around mid-Thirty Years' War onwards provided the actual offensive punch of the infantry.

Also, about armour penetration, with massed battlefield archery actually killing people is - somewhat counterintuitively - actually kinda secondary; the important thing is to damage the cohesion and order of the enemy formation, hence greatly reducing their combat effectiveness and making them that much easier to rout. Agincourt is pretty much a textbook example here; the English longbows could only meaningfully hurt the heavily-armoured French foot by sheer dumb luck (random arrow through visor or similar), but they most certainly thoroughly wrecked their already somewhat dodgy cohesion and coordination thus enabling the badly outnumbered English heavy foot to easily check and hold their assault. (At which point the archers double-enveloped the tired and disordered Frenchmen from the sides, and the rest is well known.)

Ditto, more or less, Crécy. The French cavalry mounted a considerable number of charges against the English position, in most cases pressing home (and at least a few individual knights *penetrated* the English line, thus having to make a wide detour to reach their own lines...) - this should say something of the degree of actual casualties the arrow-storms inflicted. But, again, killing power or lack thereof was of very much secondary importance compared to the distruption caused among the advancing units, which so robbed them of cohesion and momentum as to make it something of a relative cakewalk for the English close-combat troops to see them off.

Incidentally, AFAIK during the English Civil War at least during the early phases some rural milita formations relied mainly on Ye Olde Longbow for their firepower, on account of there not being enough firearms to go around. While certainly better than nothing this proved to be not of much use on the pike-and-shot battlefield, which is hardly surprising - already in the previous century (1500s) sensible military men had increasingly come to regard the longbow as severely obsolete, and whenever possible commanders replaced them with firearms and heavy crossbows.
[/digress]

The last I checked the maniple was adopted out of practical necessity (namely, 'cause the old hoplite shieldwall copied off the Greeks proved to suck eggs in the rugged highlands the Samnites hailed from) for an army of part-time citizen militiamen, and was sufficiently complicated that every now and then green formations not yet quite enough drilled in it screwed something up spectacularly. Given that the Roman approach to grand strategy was basically a combination of bloody-minded stubbornness and We Have Reserves, such occasional setbacks were acceptable - they could always raise a new army.

The professional armies of the Empire, paid in full from state coffers and having to make do with whatever volunteers were available, were *much* harder to replace. Between that and the increasingly worrisome attrition rates of the later times, it actually rather makes sense that late-period Roman infantry adopted the simple but resilient shieldwall - the working basics of which can be drilled in complete newbies in a matter of days, and which (as its use by the German tribes themselves amply proves) can be just as "all-terrain".

The Persians were always known first and foremost as archers (hencer Herodotus saying young noblemen learned three things: riding, archery, and truth telling). The difference was in the heavy cavalry, for which the phalanx was much better suited.

Debatable. Neither Parthian nor Sassanid heavy horse was AFAIK particularly keen to come to contact with Roman heavy infantry unless the latter had been thoroughly softened up by the missile support (incidentally, AFAIK the Sassanids relied more on infantry archers for that), and for good reasons. Unless you've gone out of your way to configure your superheavy horse into an unstoppable meatgrinder capable of frontally chewing through good heavy inf, like the Byzantines during some periods actually did, it's a distinctly unsafe prospect even if the footsloggers aren't bristling with long pointy things.
That the Romans got pretty good at making excellent use of caltrops and similar additional anti-cavalry measures didn't hurt.

Another thing to consider: the Roman maniple was quite mobile and flexible (to the point that well-drilled ones could start a counterattack immediately after checking a cavalry charge), and such could be rapidly wheeled around and otherwise redeployed to create solid frontages to resist flanking moves by enemy cavalry. The old Mac pike phalanx was anything but, and horrendously vulnerable at its flanks to boot; exploiting which was AFAIK the SOP by which the Parthians dealt with it back when they ate the Seleucids alive.
That the Romans weren't terribly keen to adopt a formation which had proven to fail against both themselves and their primary Eastern headaches is, really, a given.

The units were smaller after Constantine's time because this prevented a single general from garnering the loyalty of 12,000 odd men just sitting in barracks and not even on campaign.

and because standing, salaried armies fully paid for by the central state adminstration are so expensive it's not even funny. There's a reason the Empire eventually created the provincial militias to back them up you know.

Also, IIRC generals leading armies on campaigns were even more likely to garner the loyalty of the troops under their command if they were good at their job...
Soldiers, after all, have universally always had an inconvenient tendency to be more loyal to their immediate commanders, especially if those are capable and charismatic.

While this is true, it would have been very useful in Northern Italy.

Basic rule of thumb: if a hostile army had made it to the Italian peninsula in the first place, the Empire was already in "desperate damage control" mode since that by necessity meant at least part of the Transalpine frontier (most likely, Rhaetia immediately across the mountains) had collapsed...
Nevermind now that retraining and re-equipping parts of the metropolitan garrison armies according to such an extremely specialised tactical system would have been pretty nonsensical. Doesn't help that the Hellenistic pike phalanx was essentially a support arm - unlike the Romans for the most part, the Macs and the Successors relied mainly on the cavalry for their offensive needs (and attempts to use the phalanx to fill in when enough assault cavalry wasn't available proved... less than consistently succesful, to put it mildly)...

The pike block has endurance for a protracted and constant melee, the Roman system was best when they were able to rotate troops, and to retire and advance. This is why the spear became increasly popular. The army was no longer advancing, and it couldn't afford to retreat, so it had to hold.

In some instances a pike block would have reduced Roman casualties. A properly drilled pike block would have been mobile and resistant to both the infantry and cavalry the Germanic people had. After all, when your enemy get's good at what you're good at; you have to get good at something else.

Healthy reminder: the pike block of Antiquity was not the self-contained "living fortress" pike square of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but rather a decidedly inflexible linear system.
Also crap in poor terrain; why go out of your way to give your opponents such a shortcoming to exploit ? This wasn't an issue for the Medievals, as all relevant Medieval armies were designed mainly for open-fied battle anyway (what with relying a lot on heavy cavalry), but a great lot of the Romans' persistent headaches were specifically rugged-terrain experts...

OTOH, do recall that later on the Romans by and large copied the Germanic shieldwall wholesale and to good effect. (That for a very long time the Romans were able to maintain an edge in level of equipement and discipline over their "barbarian" adversaries rather helped, of course.) It was certainly a rather resilient formation - didn't Caesar's veterans already find the Suebi shieldwall frustratingly difficult to break? - and worked well enough in bad terrain if done right, as the Germanics themselves demonstrated, and could be taught to new recruits quite fast (all the more so as the ones recruited from among the German-speakers were in all likelihood already familiar with it). There was also less that could go wrong with it than with the somewhat complex "chequerboard" Roman system, especially when unseasoned troops were involved - as there increasingly often were, given the rate at which the Empire sometimes lost troops in its later days.
Also, the increasing reliance on cavalry to provide the mobile strike arm meant the infantry could afford to trade some offensive mobility for sheer resiliency.

[KARTLOS]

what are the main differences between a greek style phalanx and a german shield wall?

[Watchman]

The German one included throwing-spears and such, for one. For another having developed in a region where dense forests and similar inconvenient terrain around battlefields was the norm, so logically there had to be some provisions for negotiating such - my guess would be for the drill to include training in crossing such in open order and reforming once back in the clear. Although one imagines that simply the fact that the javelins ment the soldiers could readily act as loose-order "medium" infantry if need be covered most of that.

[Macilrille]

Armour as well, Germans were notoriously low on that.