Why did the Late Empire fail at recruiting italians for the army?

[DarkKayder]

So throughout the late Roman empire there were multiple attempts at boosting the army recruitment in Italy that failed completely. Were the reasons for this entirely demographic? How and to what extent did social factors influence this problem? What could the empire had done (if anything) differently to change this trend?

For contrast, the empire heavily depended on Illyria for recruitment. What was so good about it in that respect (other than the idea of "soldier races")? Was it any different than, say, Gaul or Hispania at providing soldiers?

Thank you very much to anyone who answers.

 

[darthfanta]

From what I've heard,it's got a lot to do with people largely serving as tenant farmers for the aristocracy who for obvious reasons would not yield this manpower to the government willingly.

 

[RodentRevolution]

From what I've heard,it's got a lot to do with people largely serving as tenant farmers for the aristocracy who for obvious reasons would not yield this manpower to the government willingly.

From what I know of the subject while there may be a more complex and detailed answer this would seem to be a part of it.

 

[Karolus Rex]

Quote from "The Roman Army - The Greatest War Machine of the Ancient World"

From "The Earlier Roman Empire, 27 BC - c. AD 200"

Chapter "The Development of the Imperial Roman Army"

Under Augustus, Italy, especially the colonies of the Po valley, was the prime recruiting ground for the legions, to be joined by the colonies and other veteran settlements of southern Gaul and Spain (...) By the end of the 1st century AD the proportion of recruits from Italy was already in decline (...), veteran settlements in the Danube provinces now emerge as an important resource to supplement other provincial suppliers of manpower.

One important factor that encouraged recruitment from veteran families was the prohibition, until the reign of Septimus Severus, on marriage for serving soldiers. This meant that the children of the soldiers' inevitable liaisons were illegitimate and hence excluded from Roman citizenship, which, however, they could secure by joining the legions. The same incentive operated for the auxiliaries (..)

If we take this statement as true, then the reason Italy declined as the main manpower reserve of the Empire was the displacement of the veteran colonies from northern Italy to the Danube.

Given that the sons of veterans had to serve to gain citizenship, there is an extra incentive to do so, while the Italian born-citizens wouldn't have that extra incentive and would either join by volunteering or being conscripted into the Army.

I also once read that service in the army became unpopular in Italy and that there were riots when Augustus was forced to mass conscript Italians to compensate the losses of Teutoburg Forest.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Quote from "The Roman Army - The Greatest War Machine of the Ancient World"

From "The Earlier Roman Empire, 27 BC - c. AD 200"

Chapter "The Development of the Imperial Roman Army"



If we take this statement as true, then the reason Italy declined as the main manpower reserve of the Empire was the displacement of the veteran colonies from northern Italy to the Danube.

Given that the sons of veterans had to serve to gain citizenship, there is an extra incentive to do so, while the Italian born-citizens wouldn't have that extra incentive and would either join by volunteering or being conscripted into the Army.

I also once read that service in the army became unpopular in Italy and that there were riots when Augustus was forced to mass conscript Italians to compensate the losses of Teutoburg Forest.

This is kind of right - although Caracalla's edict just after the period your source quotes would make all free born men citizens so location of the troops would be irrelevant. Once everyone was a citizen then in theory they could now join the legions but as you point out, enlisting in the legions became less popular - probably due to a combination of casualty rates and lack of any prospect of a land grant afterwards.

So the auxillaries are now gutted because no one needs to join up to get citizenship and the legions are not attractive as Rome wasn't winning every time - the borders had stabilised

 

[Mikestone8]

The increasing number of Germans in the army may also have been a factor. Istr a surviving letter in which a Roman speaks of a relation as having "gone with the barbarians" ie joined the Roman army. There may well have been a reluctance to serve alongside such creatures. The way Stilicho's German soldiers got massacred on his fall is suggestive, and Istr something similar happening in Constantinople at around the same time.

 

[Red Orm]

For contrast, the empire heavily depended on Illyria for recruitment. What was so good about it in that respect (other than the idea of "soldier races")? Was it any different than, say, Gaul or Hispania at providing soldiers?

Honestly not much wrong with the idea of "soldier races" back in that time. Caesar loved recruiting from the Po Valley because so many of them were genetically Gauls, taller and beefier than most Italians. For the same reason, why would the Romans not recruit in Illyria, which even today is home to the tallest people on Earth, on average? Even an inch or two of average soldier height gives an advantage, let alone four or six inches. Greater muscle strength, greater carrying capacity, greater capacity for marching.

 

[darthfanta]

The increasing number of Germans in the army may also have been a factor. Istr a surviving letter in which a Roman speaks of a relation as having "gone with the barbarians" ie joined the Roman army. There may well have been a reluctance to serve alongside such creatures. The way Stilicho's German soldiers got massacred on his fall is suggestive, and Istr something similar happening in Constantinople at around the same time.

I must say I am skeptical of such claims.There was always a lot of barbarians within the Roman army.To my knowledge,they generally also serve in separate units from the Romans.They most certainly hated the Germans ,but I don't think they are not joining the army because there are Germans in it.

If anything though,one of the reasons why the people were reluctant to serve in the army was due to the atrocious reputation of the army itself.From what I've read,by the fourth century,the army already has an atrocious reputation of being a gang of thugs.The various emperors stationed the comitatus within cities and had them billeted in the homes of civilians.They were allowed to 'requisition' supplies and equipment from the civilians without any clearly defined limits as to what they can take,which rendered a law ordering them not to steal anything from the civilians irrelevant and unenforceable.It's also implied that the soldiers also had a reputation of sexually harassing the female members of their host families.The army was essentially seen as little better than the people it's supposed to defend the civilians from.

 

[Nik]

Didn't a lot of Romans end up in those 'high rise' tenements on a dole of 'Bread & Circuses' ? That would leave such unsuited and unfit for legionary service...

 

[Faeelin]

Didn't a lot of Romans end up in those 'high rise' tenements on a dole of 'Bread & Circuses' ? That would leave such unsuited and unfit for legionary service...

Late Rome's population was lower and there were fewer free rations.

 

[DarkKayder]

Honestly not much wrong with the idea of "soldier races" back in that time. Caesar loved recruiting from the Po Valley because so many of them were genetically Gauls, taller and beefier than most Italians. For the same reason, why would the Romans not recruit in Illyria, which even today is home to the tallest people on Earth, on average? Even an inch or two of average soldier height gives an advantage, let alone four or six inches. Greater muscle strength, greater carrying capacity, greater capacity for marching.

But that only makes sense when you have a large pool of potential recruits. In the final decades of the Western Empire, they were geting a large proportion of their soldiers from Illyria, as if the province were somehow more rich in volunteers than all the others, or the soldiers from there were more reliable in some way.

 

[darthfanta]

Another major problem was that being a soldier means all your children are automatically soldiers by law.You are basically dooming all of your descendants in a military career.

 

[calvin1417]

From what I've heard,it's got a lot to do with people largely serving as tenant farmers for the aristocracy who for obvious reasons would not yield this manpower to the government willingly.

So how do you change that so the late Roman army has more recruits?

 

[DarkKayder]

The reason I'm interested in this particular aspect of the late Empire is because I've been considering writing a Gothic-led imperial restoration timeline. So I wanted to know if even 100 years or so after the fall of Rome, with a stable government in place and urban prosperity slowly returning, it would be posible for a state centered in Italy and Illyria to rebuild some form of effective standing army and, if so, from where would they get the majority of their recruits? Had the Gothic pillaging of Illyria destroyed whatever factor made it a good recruiting ground?

 

[avernite]

Honestly not much wrong with the idea of "soldier races" back in that time. Caesar loved recruiting from the Po Valley because so many of them were genetically Gauls, taller and beefier than most Italians. For the same reason, why would the Romans not recruit in Illyria, which even today is home to the tallest people on Earth, on average? Even an inch or two of average soldier height gives an advantage, let alone four or six inches. Greater muscle strength, greater carrying capacity, greater capacity for marching.

Except the tallest people don't live in Illyria, but anyhow, I'd be more inclined to blame culture; see for a good example the Steppe empires. They managed to recruit extreme numbers of troops given their manpower base, not because mongols or khazars were tall or genetically good at being soldiers, but because the Steppe lifestyle made the switch between civilian and soldier easy.

 

[calvin1417]

Except the tallest people don't live in Illyria, but anyhow, I'd be more inclined to blame culture; see for a good example the Steppe empires. They managed to recruit extreme numbers of troops given their manpower base, not because mongols or khazars were tall or genetically good at being soldiers, but because the Steppe lifestyle made the switch between civilian and soldier easy.

So what does that make the Illyrians?

 

[Jürgen]

So what does that make the Illyrians?

People who lived in a area, which didn't lent itself to large scale estates, but instead was a place of small poor farmers. If you ever visit the east Adriatic you will get what I say. It's incredible hard to go from the coast inland and the land are rocky and full of hills. The Po Valley on the other hand are a fertile lowland.

 

[Red Orm]

People who lived in a area, which didn't lent itself to large scale estates, but instead was a place of small poor farmers. If you ever visit the east Adriatic you will get what I say. It's incredible hard to go from the coast inland and the land are rocky and full of hills. The Po Valley on the other hand are a fertile lowland.

But the Romans used both population in mass recruitment, more than other peoples. So since they were geographically and culturally different, what made them such desired soldiers? Again I say the height. This even fits avernite's theory, as height undoubtedly confers an advantage to infantry, in general. If the Romans had been steppe nomads, no doubt the Cisalpinians and Illyrians wouldn't have been ideal soldiers at all.

 

[avernite]

But the Romans used both population in mass recruitment, more than other peoples. So since they were geographically and culturally different, what made them such desired soldiers? Again I say the height. This even fits avernite's theory, as height undoubtedly confers an advantage to infantry, in general. If the Romans had been steppe nomads, no doubt the Cisalpinians and Illyrians wouldn't have been ideal soldiers at all.

I've often heard herders and small-holder farmers make good soldiers, but especially small-holder farmers. Sweden got to be a Great Power on their backs, the early Roman citizen-soldier was a smallholder, and the American Revolution featured them aplenty.

Plus I don't know why Illyrians are supposed to be tall, got any statistics to prove that? Though I expect small-holding farmers are often healthier than city dwellers (and plantation labourers can't just up and join the army, often), so maybe the two points are just the same with height being an expression of having many farmers.

 

[Agricola]

Didn't a lot of Romans end up in those 'high rise' tenements on a dole of 'Bread & Circuses' ? That would leave such unsuited and unfit for legionary service...

Of course not! The census during Claudius reign showed about 5 Mio. male romans in Italy. But the dole was limited to 150.000 families. And only in Rome itself. So no, the dole is just a very small minority and almost always overestimated.