[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Matt Lentzner]

I think in the spirit of the original question you need to consider whether a typical army of two to three legions plus auxiliaries could beat an equal number of medieval knights, squires, sergeants, archers, and polearmed foot soldiers. All other things being equal (and yes, they never are) the Romans are at a severe disadvantage for the reasons I have already stated. Yes, the medieval powers would have a great deal of trouble getting even that many soldier on the field.

Now if it's Rome versus any single Medieval entity then all bets are off. Rome has huge advantages in political and economic power (at it's height). Certainly, a Roman army exposed to trebuchets and halberds could copy them and employ the tactics. But a Roman army using advance siege engines and disciplined halberd armed foot soldiers is not really a Roman army anymore. Rome with medieval technology would, of course, be quite formidable.

Having said all that, I think the Roman Legion is overrated. These accounts of them beating three times their number are just Julius Caesar's propaganda (I you believe Delbruck - and I do). More likely the Romans outnumbered the Gauls in all of these battles. This was accomplished by skillful political maneuvering and well as key sieges which forced the Gauls into unfavorable field battles. That was Julius Caesar's greatest skill - not as a field commander.

I disagree that with the earlier comment that the Romans were good field fighters while the Medieval armies were more siege oriented. Sieges just don't get any glamour but that's where all the yeoman's work of war happens. Rome's strength was also in laying sieges. The horse based armies of the East were the one's who were great in the field and didn't do well in a siege.

Hannibal destroyed three Roman armies, but could not get the victory because he could not defeat Rome politically by successfully besieging the capital. The English destroyed three French armies, but suffered the same fate over a longer period of time. Hannibal expedition into Italy was doomed once he lost his siege equipment in the Alps. All Rome had to do was wait him out - I'm not sure this shows any great strength on the part of the Romans other than they were politically strong enough to absorb these losses without falling apart. They were certainly outmatched on the field.

[Philip Dyer]

[Matt Lentzner]

OK, I'll narrow it down:

Crusader army circa First Crusade vs. Roman army circa Caesar's conquest of Gaul.

Go.

[Matthew Amt]

[Philip Dyer]

[William P]

A roman army with medieval techology etc? you mean perhaps the byzantines??

That's effectively what the byzantines were, the roman army adpting to its regional requirements, as evidenceed by the fact the military manals at the time (9th-11th century or so) put a lot of emphasis on being able to resist heavy cavalry, they used lots of pikemen etc,

so that gives us a partial glimpse of what the romans looked like in another 1000 years

[Steven Lussenburg]

[Baard H]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

At least judging from Western European sources, eleventh-century and on Byzantine military culture was wildly different from classic Roman military culture. Western accounts of the Fourth Crusade treat the Byzantine military - especially its leadership - with contempt. Such sources portray the so-called Greeks as cautious and diplomatic at best and utter cowards at worst. That's basically the opposite of classical Roman martial culture. The Romans had courage and aggression in spades. The Fourth Crusade stand out as an excellent lesson against technological determinism. Looking merely at gear, the Byzantines should have resisted the Franks much better than they actually did, but political, institutional, and cultural factors made the Byzantine military perform poorly.

The classical Roman reputation for courage, aggression, and tenacity makes me think it's a mistake to dismiss Roman soldiers in relation to medieval armies. The classicists of the sixteenth century in part erred by attributing extreme order and discipline to the Roman legions. As J. E. Lendon argues, Roman soldiers could be an unruly bunch. I suspect both classical Macedonian phalanxes and many Renaissance units were better at mechanically following orders. Roman soldiers had an ethos akin to medieval knights in that they desired to demonstrate personal prowess and valor. While I do think good medieval cavalry would outmatch both good Roman cavalry and infantry in an open field, such a Roman army would sell their lives dearly. That fierce tenacity was a key part of how the best infantry across the ages operated. The Swiss and English, for example, weren't so successful primarily because of their gear but because of their skill and martial spirit.

[Elling Polden]

Like Dan pointed out, the romans would have raised a new army if they lost.
But it would also have been a army of infantry with kite shields, and lancer cavalry in mass produced segmented plate.
Since one of the roman "superpowers" was the ability to adopt everything that worked.

But on a more tactical level, a medevial infantryman has better armour, mostly because his mail covers much more of his body. He will be taken aback by the aggression of the roman figthing style; With their javelins and short swords the romans forego the cautious "fencing" of spears that would be common for most other armies (including the greek and macedonian phalanx. After all, the romans adoptet the style from the sarmatians after the later defeated the roman phalangite armies)
This tactic might work for the romans if they gain the momentum, but if they fail to do so they will die horribly as their foes cut and stabb at their exposed arms and legs.

When it comes to the macedonians, they would have much the same experience facing early/high medevial infantry as they did with the romans; They would be peppered with thrown spears, and have the corners of their formation turned.
What made the swiss pikemen so efficient was their extremely agressive mode of figthing (not unike the romans here); A pahlanx that stands on the defensive will quickly be outmanouvered.


But it should be kept in mind that a medevial feudal army and a anticent or modern army was two very different beasts.
A feudal army is a gathering of men that have as their primary function to police and protect their native fiefs. They do not form standing regiments, train together or drill for field battle when not levied for a campaign.
Each lord comes to the field with himself and his knights, some mounted and infantry sergants, some infantry and some missile troops, in a number corresponding to his means. Only when the army is gathered the various formations are set up, and leaders appointed. After which coordinated training MIGHT take place.
Thus it stands to reason that the performance of medevial armies could be HIGHLY variable.

[Jaroslav Kravcak]

Well taking roman, or alexandrian empires size and resources at its disposal into account, comparison might be made more even, if several biggest european states were taken into account together as raising forces against them. (Maybe in the form of general long lasting crusade.)

Wouldnt the pool of trained mounted milites/knights/men at arms/whatever and their non mounted entourrage/city militias/mercenaries at the same time period be still enough to replace losses as well as romans would be able to, given the same attrition rate, lets say putting combined manpower of contemporary France, Iberian peninsula, England, Germany, Poland, Hungary and Italy together?

At least for me saying Romans could adapt/copy and could allways raise a new army is very vague and saying nothing, given the same manpower, even theoretical medieval army should be able to come back with another force and basically everyone adapts/copies, if he cant answer enemies advantage in different way. So in the same manner, it can be said romans might be able to beat back cavalry charge once, or twice, before medieval army changes approach, unless complete incompetence and infexibility is presupposed on their part. Romans vs Parthians might be a good paralel, with partian taking first step, surprizing romans at Carrhae and beating Marc Anthony back later, to be then surprized themselves by Ventidius at battles like Mons Graupius, with both siden eventually learning to respect the power of their enemy, the whole struggle, could be said, culminating in rather incoclusive battle of Nibisis?

As for discipline and profesionalism, couldnt republican roman army be likened to comunal militias of middle ages, like that of flemmish/swiss? Even early on they look trained and equipped good enough to be more than just a nuissance.

Regarding barbarians being just hordes of completely untrained men with basically no advanced tactical options, what is the origin of shieldwall then? Could it be rudiment of earlier times barbarian warfare, or rather the result of copying romans by barbarians? Could it be an example of roman-inspired way of waging war?

[Elling Polden]

The early roman and greek levies could indeed be likened to the Swiss levies, or the earlier fyrd/leidang levies in northern Europe.
However, in the middle ages such levies where an exception rather than the norm.

One of the main reason for the effectiveness of these levies was that they where the main focus of their community's military system, and sought to compensate for a lack of heavily equipped elite troops by drill and training.

In the early/high middle ages this was seldom the case. In fact, one might consider the feudal system a way to AVOID having to deal with the troublesome and unpredictable population.
This is illustrated by the clear shifts in tactics adopted by the Scots and English in the early 14th c, to deal with foes fielding a much lager number of knights. By shifting the focus towards the infantry, they where able to deliver nasty shocks to their cavalry based foes, before these adapted to the new tactics (quckly in the case of the English in Scotland, more slowly in the case of the French in the 100 years war.)

As such, it is quite probable that a early medevial army would lack the training and coordination needed to deal with for instance a roman legion, and that the romans with their steady discipline would be able to sustain the cavalry charges without breaking. Their deployment in depth, with a large number of subdivisions, would also be hard to overrun.

It should also be noted that there is a large difference between a battle and a campaign. In the eastern tradition, (such as followed by the various persians and later the arabs), the focus is on extended campaigning, wearing down the enemy army untill they have to retreat: This is what happened to Marc Anthony and Crassus in Parthia. Crassus ended up marching his army onto the rocky, dry plains, where he had no posibility to resupply or rest, Marc Anthony left his siege train behind and consequently lost them, making his subsequent sieges pointless. He returned to Armenia having lost most of his nearly 100 000 strong army without figthing any major actions.

In constrast, the early/high medevial chivalric doctrine focused on swift action. This makes very good sense in the role the knights usually served in; Protecting their fief from numerically superior but untrained brigands or rebels, or fighting other nobles in small engagements. On the larger battlefield it made for swift successes or crushing defeats.

[Jaroslav Kravcak]

Well Im rather oriented into late middle ages/early rennaisance, Swiss were able to repeatedly and decisely defeat larger armies and despite popular claims, their cavalry killcount looks rather low, they seem to have achieved thier biggest sucess against inferior enemy infantry, with unsupported and outnumbered cavalry giving ground then. Still, cavalry seem to be the force, that would give swiss more troubles, than enemy infantry, generally.

Swiss, at least according to Contamine would be able to field 50-60000 able-bodied men in a general muster, quality might vary, but as they showed, they can effectively wage great battles involving sometimes 20000 and more men on their side well before and in 16th century. As for late middle ages and rennaisance heavy cavalry meeting face to face with soldiers equipped in roman style, I think there was a good reason noone ever tryed it at that time as far as I know. Equipment and level of protection might be as heavy, or even lighter, than that of earlier cataphracts, but I dont think, that there can be made any exact extrapolation, like french gendarmes wouldnt beat roman legionaires in open terrain, because there is not a single example of cataphracts doing it earlier. As I see it, medieval cavalry saw gradual shift towards putting emphasis on engaging enemy in close combat, rather than skirmish at range, maybe cataphracts, notwithstanding how heavily armoured, were never meant to fight in the same way as french gendarmes would hundreds of years earlier, because noone had the idea of doing it/noone needed it/noone found it to be a good idea/whatever else. Swiss would at the very least be on par with Romans and french gendarmes were at the very least able to give swiss a good fight and troubles, when they met them, generally in 1:10 ratio, or so.

Flemmish seem to be able to decisely resist and massacre the French, if they fought at the field of their choosing in a set defensive position and with severely obstructed ways of retreat, but were several times defeated, when they attempted to attack. Assuming Courtrai as one notorious example, there might be 2000 french knights charging into difficult terrain, into enemy several times their numbers, still giving them good fight despite inability to attack them other way, than frontally. Would the most elite roman legionaires of the same number fared decisely better in this case? Would they have beaten scots at Bannockburn, given the same number of legionaires as english cavalry? Would they have beaten english at Agincourt, Crecy, Poitiers in same condition? On the other, better organized, more disciplined and led, wouldnt the actual defeated armies be able to gain victories in all these cases?

As for earlier ages, in France for example, numbers of miles, that could be mustered would be significantly bigger, than in later times. So the pool of profesional soldiers still would be great enough and these, while mounted, could server in any role needed. (In referrence to carolignian empire, where, not unlike in rome, every man of set weath would have a responsibility to own arms and answer to muster to fulfill his duties, or face fines. Once again from Philippe Contamines War in the middle ages, estimated size of army carolignian empire was able to muster in years 800-840 would be 35000 riders and army of about 100000 altogether. Though it is true, that they wouldnt stay in field for long and there is no undisputable argument to statement, that they would like to finish their campaign as fast as possible)

Id say, as far as early/high middle ages go, the best scenario would be a roman invasion, with medieval forces in defence. Romans seems to have clear edge in long term operations aimed at conquering enemy territory, on the other hand string of well defended fortifications hard to conquer, draining their resources each time they decide to take one and ability of many small detachments of individually skilled and well led raiding parties composed cheifly of cavalrymen, able to harass romans in the countryside, I dont think they ever met such a type of solution in defence.

[Gene Green]

How many examples are there of knightly cavalry destroying well determined and entrenched infantry ? I was under the impression that most of time, the losing side would break first, and that the infantry that held their ground no matter what tended to avoid annihilation.

Also, didn't the Alexander's army face a large cavalry force when fighting the Persiasns ? I assume in a typical say 1240s feudal army not every knight would be heavily armored.

[Kurt Scholz]

The Almogavars were a successful Late Medieval force in Aragonese and Byzantine service that continued the basic classical Roman fighting traditions.

[Jaroslav Kravcak]

[Randall Moffett]

I do think Rome would have been able to raise more resources but I am not sure it is much great than some are advocating here. the Roman Empire had what, 40 (late antiquity)-46 million (1st AD) people according to Russell (though I have seen some recent numbers for 80-120 million but I am still not sure on their methods being as strong). His numbers of Medieval Europe are something like 70 million late and 100-120 million in the High Middle Ages. If we assume his numbers are similarly put together and have the same drawbacks and advantages in methodology, we may be dealing with places in the High Middle Ages like France at about 25 million or 18-20 million in the later period (post BD). Would not have been that huge an discrepancy but still possibly significant. One state like France could be able to go resource well pretty well. That said France is the largest population of one unified state I am aware of there, so others would have had a harder time. If it was unified theoretically they may have had even more resources. On a state to state manner it would have been won in part by who most efficiently used the resources. Look at England verse France in the 100 Years War or Germania ogainst Rome, more resources does not win a war alone.

I think concentrated uses of missile weapons and such would have been interesting to see against Romans. We know some of their enemies did but I am not sure any had the powerful crossbows and in some cases Longbow traditions and such. They have the massive shields but apart from that much of their limbs are open. And from the Dura Europa find of the partial Scutum they look pretty lightweight so I'd like to see how it would hold up to a bolt. Increasing Siege technology as well, later including gunpowder weapons but the massive 8' springalds had to be pretty amazing. As well a good Heavy cavalry often was a pitfall for Roman armies. Adrianople comes to mind among others.

But you have a very well organized, equipped and disciplined Roman armies. I am the first to say medieval armies were not so ill organized, equipped or disciplined as often said but I think the Roman's made war into a very interesting science, maybe an art to them.

Some very interesting theories to be sure. I'd like to see a well thought up recreation of this. I'd help on the medieval side to organize this!

RPM

[Gene Green]

But how common these heavy crossbows were on the battlefield in say XIII c ? As I posted in another thread, they seem to have made little difference against the Mongols. One would think that a massed cavalry force would make a great target even while moving, after all you're trying to hit any horse.

[Gene Green]

But how common these heavy crossbows were on the battlefield in say XIII c ? As I posted in another thread, they seem to have made little difference against the Mongols. One would think that a massed cavalry force would make a great target even while moving, after all you're trying to hit any horse.