Defeated Romans in other armies?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Ok, I'm ignorant of this, and I expect any answers to be pretty minor ones, but I'm wondering if there are *any* examples of other cultures (Greeks, Celts, etc.) forcing Romans (or maybe other Latins) to fight in their armies. Even if it's a little out of the timeline of our game. Our unit roster is pretty set, but I'm just personally curious as to any examples of this sort of thing - maybe even if it's only for a very brief time or if it's even in other parts of the growing Roman Empire. Not talking about speculation here - any actual examples?

[pezhetairoi]

Parthia, i think. I remember after Valerian lost his army in Persia (Was it Valerian?) some years later Chinese records report fighting strange white barbarians at a fortress in the Tarim whose armour was described as Roman... o_O But that's not confirmed.

[Sarcasm]

I believe there are examples of Iberian cities being asked to turn in Roman deserters as part of the conditions of surrender. Presumably they would fight too, since there's also some records of these guys leading peninsular warbands. However I don't think they'd be forming entire units of infantry, IMO they'd basically fight among the heavier ranks of iberian infantry.

[Zaknafien]

there is no proof that the Romans ever set foot in Gansu before the Christian era, there are reports that have revived discussion over whether a group of Romans offered their services to the Hun warlord Jzh Jzh in 36 B.C.

This idea was first proposed by Homer Hasenphlug Dubs, an Oxford University professor of Chinese history, who speculated in 1955 that some of the 10,000 Roman prisoners taken by the Parthians after the battle of Carrhae in southeastern Turkey in 53 B.C. made their way east to Uzbekistan to enlist with Jzh Jzh against the Han. Chinese accounts of the battle, in which Jzh Jzh was decapitated and his army defeated, note unusual military formations and the use of wooden fortifications foreign to the nomadic Huns. Dubs postulated that after the battle the Chinese employed the Roman mercenaries as border guards, settling them in Liqian, a short form of Alexandria used by the Chinese to denote Rome. While some Chinese scholars have been critical of Dubs' hypothesis, others went so far as to identify Lou Zhuangzi as the probable location of Liqian in the late 1980s.

So, the question remains, but its plausible, at least.

[abou]

Goldsworthy makes mention of Roman deserters in his book The Fall of Carthage. I cannot remember if he mentioned them fighting for the Carthaginians, but the return of deserters was an important part of the treaties for the 1st and 2nd war. When I get the chance I can read those chapters again, but I am pretty sure that during the 1st war there were Roman deserters fighting in Sicily for Carthage. Whether that was forced...

[HamilcarBarca]

Roman Deserters

This is an interesting topic. Roman deserters featured in the Punic Wars on a number of occasions. Those that spring to mind are;

1. During Hannibal's campaign in Italy he attempted to seize a city by deceit, approaching the city in column, with his deserters in the van, pretending to be a force of Romans. The ploy failed, the gates were shut behind the deserters, and they were slain.
2. During the siege of Syracuse, the most determined ppart of the garrison were the Roman deserters. It seems a significant number of them had fled Italy (or were Cannae veterans who had gone AWOL after being sent to Sicily) and entered the service of the Syracusans. When Syracuse became an ally of Carthage in around 215 BC, these troops did too. These deserters refused to surrender to Marcellus, even when the defence of Syracuse was hopeless, and fought to the bitter end.
3. In the Third Punic War the last group of defenders with Hasdrubal on the Byrsa citadel were Roman deserters. They knew they couldn't surrender.
4. Rome always stipulated that deserters had to be returned in its peace treaties. I think Hamilcar Barca in 241 BC may have succeeded in avoiding this obligation, and bringing the Roman deserters that served with him back to Carthage. I will have to check this.
5. After Hannibal entered the Po Valley, in 217 BC, a Roman commander betrayed a key installation to him in exchange for a fat bribe.

Roman deserters were obviously welcomed into Carthaginian service. There must have been enough of them to enable Hannibal and other commanders to form whole units of them. They obviously had a high morale - they could never risk capture! Why did they desert? Unhappy or abused conscripts? Soldiers who felt they had been harshly punished by the Republic following battlefield defeats? Ex-prisoners and slaves? Italics forced to serve in Roman armies who deserted because they hated Rome? Adventurers and men whose loyalty was bought. Probably all these.

The opportunity to build a unit of deserters would be cool. Maybe a random script that might see one simply arrive at a held city following a heroic victory?

H.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Ok, then how did they fight? Equipped and in the style of hoplites or some other style? Or were any roman techniques, equipment still used? If we don't know for sure, what are good guesses (speculation, I know, but it's a very good argument for recruitment in Italy being somewhat special for other factions besides Romans). Fun discussion here what.

[abou]

They would probably fight with whatever equipment they had when they deserted. If that is not the case, I think it is possible that their services would be valued enough to have access to good equipment. Maybe mercenary Princepes?

[oudysseos]

I don't have a source in front of me, but was it not a Roman soldier who killed Pompey as he landed in Egypt? I don't think that that was an example of desertion, but rather of a neglected local garrison, cut off from central control during the civil war, and coming under the sway of local potentates. Roman soldiers and magistrates could certainly be bribed for specific purposes if not induced to desert wholesale.

Another example is Quintus Sertorius in Spain. This is an example of a proto-civil war, really, except that Sertorius' power base in Spain were tribes like the Lusitanians who had had enough of being fleeced by Rome. To the 'Real Romans' he was nothing more than a deserter and rebel, and he was joined by other deserters and rebels in his fight against Sulla and Pompey.

But if you're looking for examples of Roman mercenary cohorts fighting for, say, Pontus, then I am not aware of any.

[paullus]

A better way to figure this out would be for someone to look closely at the Mithridatic wars and see if any of the Roman/Latin settlers were recruited into the Pontic armies.

Romans fought as mercenaries in many armies all over the world, but rarely--if ever, perhaps--as units of Romans (probably within units of heavy infantry, as Sarcasm suggested). A deserter Roman unit you could get after a certain percentage of major battles would be cool. It'd probably have to be limited to certain factions. Also, are we sure the deserters are Romans, and not allies?

[Taliferno]

Didnt Jugurtha, the King of Numidia, bribe loads of Roman forces to fight for him? I think they were mostly Roman allies/auxilarys though, and not proper Romans.

[-Praetor-]

In the Punic Wars (and before that, in the Sicilian Wars with Siracuse), the carthagineans hired campanian mercenaries. Although they are not specifically "romans", they are pretty close, and are almost identical in every way to the romans...

Even in the 2nd punic war, they fought as cavalry, comprising whole squadrons of them...

But they may be considered as roman`s "allies", and not roman`s "citizens", so the question remains, at least from my part.

Bye.

[CaesarAugustus]

there is no proof that the Romans ever set foot in Gansu before the Christian era, there are reports that have revived discussion over whether a group of Romans offered their services to the Hun warlord Jzh Jzh in 36 B.C.

This idea was first proposed by Homer Hasenphlug Dubs, an Oxford University professor of Chinese history, who speculated in 1955 that some of the 10,000 Roman prisoners taken by the Parthians after the battle of Carrhae in southeastern Turkey in 53 B.C. made their way east to Uzbekistan to enlist with Jzh Jzh against the Han. Chinese accounts of the battle, in which Jzh Jzh was decapitated and his army defeated, note unusual military formations and the use of wooden fortifications foreign to the nomadic Huns. Dubs postulated that after the battle the Chinese employed the Roman mercenaries as border guards, settling them in Liqian, a short form of Alexandria used by the Chinese to denote Rome. While some Chinese scholars have been critical of Dubs' hypothesis, others went so far as to identify Lou Zhuangzi as the probable location of Liqian in the late 1980s.

So, the question remains, but its plausible, at least.

Wow, that is fascinating Zaknafien. I've read something similar, but I wasn't sure to believe it because it was an online source.

In EB terms, would these Roman deserters/mercenaries be made into mercenary units that you could hire in specific territories? If not v 0.8/1.0, maybe EB2?

[Zaknafien]

Paullus, at the time of the Mithridatic wars, most of the Roman settlers in Pergammon were merchants and private tax collectors--publicani. There were no garrisions although each tax-lord surely had his own bodyguard and private forces. Lets not forget that Mithridates incited the locals to murder every Roman citizen in their territory..

[VandalCarthage]

A deserter Roman unit you could get after a certain percentage of major battles would be cool. It'd probably have to be limited to certain factions. Also, are we sure the deserters are Romans, and not allies?

Perhaps make some sort of Roman unit recruitable as mercenaries in certain regions outside of Italy where a defeated Roman force might not have as many options.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

It's a very difficult question for us to try and solve indeed. It seems like we would have to speculate here for the first time if we made a unit. But it seems like that sort of thing really would be necessary, since there's nothing else in central italy if you put a type4 in. Something (unit) a little better and only available in a type3 or 4 would be supersweet though. Pretty much any faction would have access to it though. This is all talking out my ass though - I dunno if there is much desire for such a thing in the team. I just hate conquering italy because I know I get none of my own troops and none of theirs. Blech. Not realistic.

[CountArach]

IMO, the only thing that I would consider likely to fight for any outside invader would be the allied companies, for example Hannibal had several armies conprised of these Southern Italians/Greeks when he was late in his campaign. They never performed too well, in fact they were downright poor, and were no where near his own Veterans, but the point remains that these conquered people would probably fight for outsiders. I don't think that many Romans owuld go to the other side in large numbers.

[pezhetairoi]

Indeed, little incentive for the Republican Romans to do so, since they would invariably be Roman peasant/metropolitan citizens marching to war in defence of their own lands. Perhaps later, after Marius, when the franchise for military service was cut loose from the land-owning (and therefore the interest-holding) group and extended to those whose primary and overriding concern was money.

[Watchman]

On the other hand, I'm under a rather strong impression Roman attitude towards "turncoats" was somewhat Stalinist for pretty much their entire history. And if I were a Republican grunt with the dubious distinction of taking part in one of those famous bloodbaths Hannibal was so good at arranging, by the time his soldiers were exhausted enough they could no longer promptly massacre me on the spot I'd be very eager indeed to surrender and enlist in his forces if that saved my head from becoming some Gallic merc's newest trophy. And if I've understood correctly the Roman view of such courses of action around the last thing I'd ever want is to get to explain to my erstwhile peers why exactly I've been spending time under Carthaginian standards...

The Romans were human like everyone else, and I'm sure if given the chance would defect and fight for someone else to save their sorry asses rather than become a part of some impressively huge heap of corpses.

[-Praetor-]

The Romans were human like everyone else, and I'm sure if given the chance would defect and fight for someone else to save their sorry asses rather than become a part of some impressively huge heap of corpses.

Well, that sums it. It`s just pure common sense (the less common of senses BTW ).

If we are to speculate (due to the lack of information), the questions we should be asking are not "how", "if", or "why", but :

"why not?"

I think that Watchman`s argument is very plausible...

Cheers!!!

[Taliferno]

Some more stuff about The Jurgurthine War from Sallust:

"XXXVIII. Jugurtha, seeing the propraetor's vanity and ignorance,
artfully strengthened his infatuation; he sent him, from time to time,
deputies with submissive messages, while he himself, as if desirous to
escape, led his army away through woody defiles and cross-roads. At
length he succeeded in alluring Aulus, by the prospect of a surrender
on conditions, to leave Suthul, and pursue him, as if in full retreat,
into the remoter parts of the country. Meanwhile, by means of skillful
emissaries, he tampered night and day with our men, and prevailed on
some of the officers, both of infantry and cavalry, to desert to him
at once, and upon others to quit their posts at a given signal that
their defection might thus be less observed[135]......Of those whom I have just mentioned as beingbribed, one cohort of Ligurians, with two troops of Thracian horse, and a few common soldiers, went over to Jugurtha; and the chief centurion[136] of the third legion allowed the enemy an entrance at
the very post which he had been appointed to defend, and at which all
the Numidians poured into the camp."

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/7ccat10.txt

[Tellos Athenaios]

Romans fighting in the service of for example Greek or Punic master would probably make up Thureophoroi, Thorakitai, Lybian/Puni Infantry, or Lybian/Puni heavy infantry (like) units. It's the closest thing to Hastati and Principes other factions got.

Maybe there were some 'deserter cavalry' forces as well. Skirmishers could probably service their new masters the way they served Rome before as well.

[oudysseos]

'Mercenary' Units of Roman Legionaries would serve several useful purposes in the game, even if they are speculative.

1. Would represent bribed deserters, turncoats and disaffected allies fighting against Rome as a unit. It may be hard to find solid historical evidence that this ever happened, but is not hard to imagine how it might have really happened, and it is easy to imagine it happening in an alternative history mileu such as EB.

2. Would allow non-Roman conquerors of the Italian penisula access to the fighting style of the conquered people. There are many parellels- indeed the Romans themselves picked up things from people they conquered. There is no reason why that particular shoe shouldn't be able to fit another faction's foot, if you follow the metaphor.

3. Would account for the possibility of 'imitation' legionaries. I mean something different than point 2 above- what I have in mind here is Hannibal arming his men with Roman weapons even though he never really conquered the Italian penisula or eliminated Rome as a 'faction'.

4. Would also account for some of the Romans' actual historical recruitment methods. What I have in mind here is the practice, relatively common during the late Republic and into the Civil Wars, of calling retired veterans back to the colours as Evocati. Think of Pompey's boast of stamping his foot. These men were not quite mercenaries, of course, but they are also not easily represented by the normal recruitment process. They were experienced men, paid substantial bounties to return to service immediately. 'Mercenary' units would cover that nicely, I think.

If Rome were to suffer a catastrophic defeat (Hannibal attacks, burns the city, sells all the women into slavery, sows the ground with salt, chops off the hands of all the men he captures), there might very well be large bands of armed men still together with their centurions but who no longer answer to the consuls, as they have been killed. Would they just go home to their farms? Farms are gone. What would they do? Either turn into brigands or hire out.

[Forgus]

It is pure speculation, but...

If any conqueror defeated Rome early, they would be much likely to have rorari and hastaty as ligth infantry, whereas unlikely triarii. If the conqueror is Hellenic or Punic some phalanx type stuff might appear. Principes? Perhaps, though I think principe aged citizens would then fight in Kleruchoi units methinks.

[Watchman]

You can get Samnites in their characteristic "national" getup regardless of date and so on, don't you ? Ditto for about any other area-of-recruitement populace/unit combo like the various Celts and Germanics and steppe nomads. I don't really see why the Romans should be treated much differently. AFAIK the basis of Roman ecology was not so meaningfully different from what was practised in, say, Hellas that Romans properly integrated into a Hellenic empire could not be easily enough enlisted as for example phalangites - the same "doughty farmer" background is there, right ? Conversely the quick-and-dirty govt's for "local flair" troops ought to result in something along the lines of Hastati, Principes and maybe Triarii since they represent an allied/loosely subjugated region whose military traditions are left largely untouched by the new overlords - and the Republican militia system is presumably no markedly more difficult to involve, mutatis mutandis, in such setup as for example the old Persian territories, Greece, Gaul or Carthaginian North Africa.

Although the little detail with the two or three military reforms the Romans get might complicate things a bit...

[Kralizec]

I think most agree that a foreign overlord who conquered Rome would at least have considered the idea of recruiting natives in their own fighting style.
Would they have used Roman military jargon to designate these units? I'd guess not. So it's down to the name.
"Latin infantry" (translated) seems suitably generic for a unit recruitable to factions like Karthadast, Epeiros, etc. But as mentioned many of Rome's non-Latin allies fough in the same manner..."Italian infantry" (again, translated) would be an alternative, but that's too generic IMO.
Maybe something like foederati legionarii, but I feel like I'm stretching here and my latin skilz suck...

[adishee]

The only thing special about pre-marian troops was their elan and discipline. Their equipment was common. If an outside invader was to conquer italy, you would just have Italian troops armed and armored as Romans were (scutum, montefortino helmet, spear, breastplate, etc), but not nearly as usefull.

[Watchman]

Depends. I've read the inherently temporary nature of the Republican reservist armies tended to make them somewhat tactically unsophisticated - critics point out they tended to win their battles more with brute force and sheer stubbornness than clever tactical maneuvers. The longer the soldiers were on the field the better they naturally became at operating and maneuvering as formations, but once the legion was disbanded back to its civilian pursuits the whole process had to be started all over again when the next call to arms came. The Roman idea of warfare was apparently also somewhat excessively focused on linear clash head on, which in turn tended to lead to an over-eagerness to get to grips with the enemy also among the commanders and every now and then got the legions into serious trouble.
Just ask one Hannibal Barca.

'Course, ones having to deal for example with the hit-and-run tactics of mountain tribes such as the Ligureans and many of the Iberians naturally quickly learned to be more versatile and careful.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Lysandros PM'd me about Quintus Labienus. He was the ambassador to the parthians and after Caesar was murdered and Brutus and Cassius defeated (whose side he took) he defected to the Parthians. He then led a sizeable roman-parthian army and took pretty much all of Asia Minor, but was killed a year later by a roman counterattack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Labienus

Does anyone know much about the army composition? Were many of those soldiers romans? I know it's not in italy, but this discussion of romans refusing to serve in other armies might be enlightened with more information on this event.

[Gazius]

"Latin infantry" (translated) seems suitably generic for a unit recruitable to factions like Karthadast, Epeiros, etc. But as mentioned many of Rome's non-Latin allies fough in the same manner..."Italian infantry" (again, translated) would be an alternative, but that's too generic IMO.

Maybe leave it at latin infantry, and just have them available from capua to the northernmost provinces Rome owns at the start of the game, while expanding the samnites to the south? This would make more sense to me, since I doubt until the marian reforms that they truely ever lost what made them samnites. Reformed some, but in general they already do fight like romans. Or at least that's how I use them. Maybe in the north if you didn't want to use romans, then another famous tribe, like the Estrucans?

Also, recruitment by event seems much more fitting than regular recruitment outside of Italy. If one of those historic battle markers forms, maybe that province would have defected Romans in them? Or else, if you fought a large battle with the Romans and won a clear or heroic victory, maybe some units would defect to you?