@Desert Fox
I thank you very much for your input, that was really valuable information.
Thanks, yours as well. Always enjoyable to have a friendly Roman Empire discussion!
You say structural changes (like latifundia, a decrease of population and serfdom) were a big part of the problem. You also mention that Italians didn`t have to go to war anymore. I think you are right, these are some of the reasons for the "weakness" of the roman army.
Well I may be wrong on the Italians not have to serve in the army, so I'm gonna hold off on addressing that for the moment.
But structural changes always affect the mentality. It is the existence that determines the consciousness. If the Italians weren`t required to go to war anymore for centuries, if the owners of the latifundia didn`t allow their serfs to go to war, then it`s no miracle that the people of Italy/the serfs became more peaceful or at least weren`t as eager to go to war as before.
Well that's the thing. The owners of the latifundia were perfectly willing for the Romans to go to war. It was in their best interests to have a Roman military that was able to protect their assets, which simply could not be moved, as you can not just move your land somewhere else. The problem was they also wanted to protect their capital, the tenants, who made their estates productive. And, to an extent, there's some logic in this: The Roman military cannot just recruit every poor sob that can carry a sword. Those men need to work the farms to provide for the army and the empire as a whole. Now, the Romans
were able to recruit the necessary men needed to fully service their much enlarged army. The problem though creates itself: Plague and devastation from the third century hurting population centers---->Massive increase in army size to protect frontiers against foreign raiders and empires who are devastating the land ------>Manpower shortages when the time comes to replace troops lost -----> Problems in funding the army and the machinery of the state.
Basically, the Romans had a population devastated by climate change, war, and plague, that had to support a massively enlarged army and an increased tax burden. That's a recipe for a whole host of problems.
Now, even the manpower shortage was not an insurmountable problem for most of this time. As long as blows were not successive and few and far between, the empire could contain the situation and then recover their strength. Even if there were blows in quick succession, as long as they were contained, the situation could be salvaged without much fanfare. A perfect example of this is the Goths before and after Adrianople. They were devastating the Balkans, but never posed any serious threat-they could be contained inside the Balkans, blocked off at strategic passes, and kept at bay by the walls of the major cities in the region.
But what happens when all these things come together, like it did for the Western Roman Empire? The WRE suffered horrible losses in two successive and ruinous civil wars against Theodosius. Then they dealt with Radagaisus threatening Italy. Then, at the same time, they were hit with a New Year's eve crossing of the Rhine occuring almost simultaneously with a usurper moving into Gaul from Britain, preventing any serious action to be taken to contain the barbarian tribes crossing over, and, ultimately, allowing them to break into Spain. From there they dealt with a civil war, the death of Constantius III on the cusp of restoring the situation, two more civil wars, and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals coming as a direct result of the depletion of North African forces in Bonifacius's civil war with Aetius.
So in a span of 30 years the empire was dealt blow after blow, with tragedy striking at the most inopportune of times. Their major recruiting base, Gaul, was placed into turmoil. Their other major recruiting base, Illyricum, was given over to Theodosius by Gratian after Adrianople. Their two major money producing regions, North Africa and Hispania, were out of their control. North Africa was also the breadbasket of the western empire, dealing the western empire another bad blow.
Structural problems perhaps allowed this to happen but the immediate cause of the fall of the WRE was incredibly bad luck at the worst possible time.
When I look e.g. at Germany, a country which was extremely militaristic 80 years ago and is pretty much pacifistic now, I can see how fast a mentality can change. While I don`t want to compare Germany with the Roman Empire, my point stands: Mentality changes are possible if the structures change.
Personally I believe the western Roman Empire ceased to exist because of a combination of all these things: Change of mentality, decrease of population, worse economy, plagues, stronger and numerous enemies, other structural changes (like the latifundia /serf thing), barbarization of the army (while it`s true that the empire always employed allied troops, it was at least uncommon that they held the top positions in the army IIRC), climate changes
Yet when I look at the Eastern Roman Empire, I don't see an incredibly militaristic outlook on foreign policy. The emperors after Theodosius until Justin were mostly controlled by the civil administration in Constantinople, where the opposite is true in the west, where the empire was controlled by the military officers. There is a great book that I read on Byzantine foreign policy, "The Grand Strategy of The Byzantine Empire" ( I highly recommend it, it's at the very least a fantastic summary of Byzantine foreign policy throughout Byzantium's existence). The ERE's foreign policy, particularly after Adrianople, was entirely based on skilled diplomacy. We first see this with Theodosius's deal with the Goths, and then especially with Eutropius's attempts to push Alaric west. It's repeated throughout Byzantine history. Attila was placated with gold simultaneously while ERE envoys tried to assassinate, or bribe others to assassinate, him. When new threats appeared on the Danube, the Byzantine emperor would play the tribes beyond the Danube off each other, often contacting the next furthest group and persuading them to attack their immediate enemies around the Balkans.
Tl;dr the entire Byzantine strategy was predicated on the idea that militarism is not necessarily the best strategy for survival. There's nothing militaristic about defeating your enemies by getting others to do the battle for you. Since the 4th century, they had to consider defeating their enemies while preserving their manpower, and they survived for quite some time with this strategy.
No, they weren't.
Not before Augustus, not during his time and not after him.
Huh, really?
EDIT: So I just looked this up. While you are technically correct, according to
this, Italians only made up under 10% of the Roman military. Though, admittedly, that probably has more to do with a greater use of provincials in the army than some special treatment of Italians.