While it’s no surprise that real life is very different from re-creations done for show, we often get the very basics wrong. So let’s take a look at what combatants from the distant past actually had to look forward to, and hopefully better appreciate how far removed we are from that reality.
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It's not really about modern nationalism. It's about what happens when the mercenaries cease to be:
1. Individuals integrated in auxiliary units of standard organization.
2. Specialist troops from ethnic groups within the empire, who form auxiliary units of standard organization.
3. local tribal or similar troops used as scouts or garrison in local areas.
And become:
4. Tens of thousands of people from self-identified tribes/nations who serve under the command of their own kings and aristocrats under perhaps the overall leadership of a few Roman officers, and who get rewarded with large regions of territory to settle in and run as they see fit. Alongside:
5. Increasingly hard to fill out formations of actual Romans.
In a situation of chronic manpower shortage this newer model was both necessary and almost inevitably suicidal. The Eastern empire solved it by having much better [everybody on YT will insist on ignoring] geography when considering threats from the north, being richer in every way than the west, having less of a population crisis, and by purging their army of large formed units of Germans at the earliest opportunity and recruiting more citizen peoples like the Isaurians. Not by ending the practice of hiring mercenaries in more structured, less stupid ways.
This is really not that difficult a set of distinctions to make.
I imagine an ancient battle was among the most intimately terrifying possible experiences, just in different ways from say trench warfare. Less chronic, less arbitrary in terms of not so often failing to notice what kills you, but still terrifying. I'd be curious what PTSD looked like in those times and how it compared. Or whether anyone thought it possible or worth helping a sufferer. We're still talking about iron age society here. What could they really do about it, and how much did they think about it compared to the chance of death in civilian life?
Emperor Fabius?
To be fair, the ss had their uniforms designed by Hugo Boss, so it wouldn’t have been out of the question…
But weren't the Germans clad in Hugo Boss in WW2?
When you said 'save his army' i thought you were going to say 'save his arse'
I agree that Rome's fall was complicated and due to many factors, of which 'barbarians' were just one. But you didn't demonstrate that it was a misconception. You only demonstrated that they played a part in it's rise. Nepotism and corruption, a succession of bad emperors, a slave based economy that required constant warfare to replenish itself, pissing off basically everyone. You didn't even try to mention other reasons. Rome's tradition of auxiliaries and mercenaries doesn't in of itself, demonstrate how the assertion "Barbarian mercenaries caused the decline of Rome" to be incorrect.
7:23 or Hugo Boss… oh wait, bad example.
7:20 or Hugo Boss?
As far as Number 10 goes; the argument is that Rome became reliant on outside mercenaries to the point where the Legions composed of citizens went into significant decline. Not that the "barbarians" were poor soldiers.
Yes, Rome always had a heavy reliance on mercenaries and auxiliary units from within the Empire (some of which were among the most elite and formidable units among the Roman military), but the backbone eventually was eroded away.
And those same Germanic mercenaries were the same ones who carved away at the empire piece by piece until Odoacer eventually seized Rome, declared the Western Roman Empire dissolved, and crowned himself King of Italy.
The show The Witcher came under criticism more for the deviation from the books and juvenile writing style than anything having to due with female warriors.
But I should have been a cowboy
A Barbarian is someone who speaks "Bar, bar, bar. IE. Not Greek or Latin.
I expected "the past was the worst"
And remember, the past was always the worst.
Vikings did slaughter entire villages, but there's no direct accounts because it was very late period and there were no witnesses.
Christanity brought fuedalism with large centralized armies. Iceland was being blockaded and they, at least in part, traded for their winter food.
But they could grow enough for half their population. The other half could leave for a village of serfs not allowed to even carry arms, pull their ship in right before snow locked down the land for the winter, and kill everyone and everything they didn't plan on taking home with them during the first thaw.
When the first travelers of spring reached the village they would find no bodies, signs it had been lived in recently, and perhaps some runic carvings. Vikings loved doing graffiti. No blood, no violence, the Vikings had lived there all winter after all.
It was called overwintering and it was as practical as it was brutal. No Vikings starved because of the blockade, and there was little risk to them.
Yeah but those armies that had women soldiers… Where are they now?
Lame
The WWII Germans uniform was made by Hugo Boss
👍🏻
"The past was the worst." – Simon Whistler
Nobody will get this reference but it matches with the swords too well
Oh you can't swing abroad sword when you're in the forest
The Eastern fighters learn to their dismay
Oh you can't swing a broad sword when you're in the forest.
That extra steel keeps getting in the way.
Many of the Roman troops stationed on Hadrian's Wall were sourced from Britain itself, makes so much sense really and doesn't need that much thought!
As for uniforms the Nazi military had Hugo Boss design many of its military uniforms. Yes mostly for Officer's , but units like the SS had their uniforms designed by Hugo Boss!