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The themes were administrative and military divisions, comparable to the provinces of the principate. The strategos of a theme was, like a governor of the Roman republic, both administrator and commander of the army within this province.

Sure the execution of the laws was devolved to the themes, as before to the provinces, which were civil during Late antiquity and both civil and military during the Republic and the Principate.



But in both cases you settle hostile armed forces within the Empire and hope they will honor instead of stabbing you in the back at the first opportunity.

Divide large barbarian tribes in little groups, mix these units with groups from other tribes, send them into different parts of the Empire; settle them down as soldier peasants on the model of Byzantine thems; that would be reasonable.
I must agree. What I have in mind is not comparable to settling Franks. Why settle barbarians when there are so many people within the Empire? People say "the barbarians were martial". What does that really mean? If not this: too many Romans were so detached from their political structures that they couldn't be arsed to lift a finger for their defense (because exclusion was an ill-guided policy, and because the Roman imperial state hovered absurdly somewhere above the many regions and cities, being nobody's particular lovechild), while thid was not yet entirely the case with the Frankish tribes.

The solution is to give the MANY Romans or Romanised people this sense of belonging, participation and duty back.
 
I must agree. What I have in mind is not comparable to settling Franks. Why settle barbarians when there are so many people within the Empire? People say "the barbarians were martial". What does that really mean? If not this: too many Romans were so detached from their political structures that they couldn't be arsed to lift a finger for their defense (because exclusion was an ill-guided policy, and because the Roman imperial state hovered absurdly somewhere above the many regions and cities, being nobody's particular lovechild), while thid was not yet entirely the case with the Frankish tribes.

I'm not against settling barbarians (the Empire has many desterted areas on the borders that need to be re-populated), but please, please do it with disarmed barbarians administated by Roman officials.

The solution is to give the MANY Romans or Romanised people this sense of belonging, participation and duty back.

And what is your formula to achieve this?
 
IIf not this: too many Romans were so detached from their political structures that they couldn't be arsed to lift a finger for their defense (because exclusion was an ill-guided policy, and because the Roman imperial state hovered absurdly somewhere above the many regions and cities, being nobody's particular lovechild), while thid was not yet entirely the case with the Frankish tribes.

The solution is to give the MANY Romans or Romanised people this sense of belonging, participation and duty back.

Or most people in the Empire weren't trained soldiers, and instead relied on professional armies?
 
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I must agree. What I have in mind is not comparable to settling Franks. Why settle barbarians when there are so many people within the Empire? People say "the barbarians were martial". What does that really mean? If not this: too many Romans were so detached from their political structures that they couldn't be arsed to lift a finger for their defense (because exclusion was an ill-guided policy, and because the Roman imperial state hovered absurdly somewhere above the many regions and cities, being nobody's particular lovechild), while thid was not yet entirely the case with the Frankish tribes.

The solution is to give the MANY Romans or Romanised people this sense of belonging, participation and duty back.

First of all, were there really that many people? Notice that things start to fall apart in the wake of the Antonine Plague, adding in a century of low level civil war.

Second, the Roman Republic's Romans were martial because pretty much everyone was expected to serve in the military. Take that away, as the gradual evolution of the Roman state did, and the populace is no different than anyone else.
 
The eastern half of the Roman empire could raise troops just fine even in Rome's darkest hour. Give the western empire a good economy again, and it'll be able to recruit a Roman army.

For one keep the Vandals out of Carthage.
 
First of all, were there really that many people? Notice that things start to fall apart in the wake of the Antonine Plague, adding in a century of low level civil war.
On the one hand, yes, the Antonine and Decian plagues really cost many lives. Containing them with quarantine measures would have been very helpful in maintaining the Empire`s strength.
On the other hand, no. Even if we go for really low estimates, there were still some 40 million Romans around towards the end of the 4th century, when things came tumbling down. In comparison, the invading Goths, Franks, Vandals etc. each numbered less than a million people, and even combined, they were still vastly outnumbered by Romans, in terms of population. So, the problem is really this:

Second, the Roman Republic's Romans were martial because pretty much everyone was expected to serve in the military. Take that away, as the gradual evolution of the Roman state did, and the populace is no different than anyone else.
My point was just this: G.Washington_Fuckyeah is looking for ways to strengthen and preserve the Roman Empire. His initial idea was better agriculture. My counterargument was that better quarantine and a higher degree of mobilisation would have been more useful, since a) reducing the death tolls of pandemics would have been more effective than hoping for more population growth via more food and b) there was still enough of a large population in the Empire, it just wasn´t mobilised for the military. So, what you describe as "the gradual evolution of the Roman state" was, seen from this perspective, the biggest factor in its defeat.

And what is your formula to achieve this?
I think your idea of democratised and more autonomous local civitates sounds good.
Another, later, option was to use religion as a motivator. The ERE could rely to some extent on some people`s willingness to defend Christainity, whereas the Empire of the Principate no longer / not yet had such a unifying force.
From among these two, I much prefer option one.

Or most people in the Empire weren't trained soldiers, and instead relied on professional armies?
First of all, I don`t think many people actively "relied" on something because they had no say on the question anyway.
But leaving that apart: Yes, you´re stating OTL´s policy.
I was evaluating it and described it as a dramatic problem.
Relying on professional armies is relatively fine as long as you can and want to afford a lot of them, through a massive and solid tax base. Economic downturns, as they occurred in the Late Principate, as well as increasing tax evasion, and of course a decreasing political will and/or power to divert more resources towards the military (when you have to take them away from the annonae, from representative public building projects, from games etc.) all proved detrimental to this strategy.
A conscript army would have shown itself more resilient vis-a-vis all of these problems.

Of course there are endless ways to account for the Empire´s downfall.
I´m not saying that we should all exclusively focus on military-political weakness.
I´m just still so fascinated by the simple equation that the Visigoths of the late 4th century could field some 30,000-50,000 men under arms when they were not more than 400,000-900,000 people altogether, while the whole Roman Empire of the Principate never had more than, counting the absolute maximum estimates, 375,000 soldiers when its population varied between 40 and 50 million.
So, a ratio between 1-8 and 1-30 for the Visigoths, and a ratio between (if we take the lowest estimates of 120,000 soldiers) 1-100 and 1-400 for the Romans.
Even with the increased efficiency of a professional army, that is quite a discrepancy.
(Please don`t ask me for sources about the numbers since I honestly don`t know remember where I had read them. If you have other numbers available, I´ll gladly concede an error of memory or of information, and will look at your figures and count with them.)
 
I am afraid, that a professional army and a disarmed population was one major key success factor of the roman empire. How do you preserve the states monopoly on legitimate use of power, if every region can mobilise huge armies of at least partially trained soldiers. I expect more civil wars and it becomes harder to keep such an huge empire united.

I agree, that the old republican model works greatly on a smaller scale. But not with an europewide empire.
 
I am afraid, that a professional army and a disarmed population was one major key success factor of the roman empire. How do you preserve the states monopoly on legitimate use of power, if every region can mobilise huge armies of at least partially trained soldiers. I expect more civil wars and it becomes harder to keep such an huge empire united.

I agree, that the old republican model works greatly on a smaller scale. But not with an europewide empire.
I agree that some sort of Pax Augusta was perhaps inevitable and necessary, so that the centralisation and the establishment of the Principate or something like it at some point can perhaps not be avoided with such a huge empire.
But at least when there was civil war anyway (from the 3rd century onwards) and when the dimensions of the external threats were clearly evident (in the 4th century at the latest), someone (even if only in a part of the Empire) should have pulled around hard. Or, let me rephrase it: If this had occurred, then any successor states might have preserved a much more markedly Roman character and later reunifications (or perhaps a cycle of reunification, division and new union, like in China) with a more markedly Roman character seem more likely than IOTL. I don`t know if that fulfills what G. Washington_Fuckyeah wants, but it might be closer to it than OTL.
 
I think your idea of democratised and more autonomous local civitates sounds good.

But how do you keep these civitates from messing around and rebelling if the curiales don't want to pay the due taxes?

I am afraid, that a professional army and a disarmed population was one major key success factor of the roman empire. How do you preserve the states monopoly on legitimate use of power, if every region can mobilise huge armies of at least partially trained soldiers. I expect more civil wars and it becomes harder to keep such an huge empire united.

A trained and partially armed population is only reasonable if the citizens are devoted to the empire and to its government, i. e. to the emperor. Since the Roman Empire relied much on personal relationships and clientilism instead of nationalism, it's hard to get soldiers loyal to every emperor. They might follow one ruler, just to abandon his successor.
 
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