Why Didn't Anyone Copy the Roman Army? - The Imitation Legions DOCUMENTARY

The Roman army is remembered today as one of the most effective fighting forces in history. In its own time, the legions proved their strength on the battlefield time after time against all who opposed them. This raises the question, if the Roman army was so powerful, why didn't anyone simply just copy it? To answer this question, we will first dissect the specimen of the Roman legions. This will allow us to understand what are the key features worth copying. We will then be able to discuss what would be required to achieve these same features and to what extent others succeeded in creating their very own imitation legions. If you'd like to lead your own imitation legions, you can do so with our sponsor, Conqueror's Blade. It's a free-to-play PC game with tactical MMO action set in a vast, open medieval world. Here, players customize their own powerful warlords with unique weapon classes and special abilities to then command armies of over 55 diverse units in order to forge an empire. Fight epic PvP siege battles between teams of 15 players where attackers unleash devastating siege equipment like rams, towers, and artillery, while defenders respond in kind with their own cunning countermeasures. With Season 3 around the corner, now is a great time to jump in and take advantage of many awesome promotions. From March 17th to 23rd, get a 50% boost to hero xp, unit xp, and bronze, and from March 18th through April 4th, all players will receive 30 days of free premium. Support the channel and play the game today by clicking the link in the description below to unlock a free and exclusive arsenal of battle supplies to help you in your conquests. Okay, so right off the bat, I want to admit that it's actually quite hard to find a representative specimen for the Roman army since it evolved over the course of almost a thousand years, but with this understanding, we can still make some pretty valid general observations for our video. Let's start from the low-level analysis of the soldier and slowly zoom out to the unit analysis and finally the overall army analysis. You can use these video timestamps if you want to jump ahead. At the lowest level of the soldier, we can look at things like personal equipment, skill, and discipline. In terms of equipment for instance, we're talking about providing gear for a primarily heavy infantry base force. Again, its specific incarnation might vary, but for much of the Roman army's history, that meant equipping soldiers with a short stabbing sword, a throwing javelin, a large oval or rectangular shield, chainmail armor, and a helmet. In terms of personal skill, members of the legion were initially just farmer soldiers called to action as a levy. At first, they had a fairly low skill level and it would be the responsibility of the general to prepare the troops for war at the start of a campaign. However, there was often just a brief window for such activities and most training was done on the job. The more fighting an army did, the more skilled its troops became. Thus, periods of prolonged high-intensity campaigning could transform even the greenest of troops into battle-hardened veterans such that they might even be considered semi-professionals. However, attrition and the inevitable disbanding of forces in times of peace meant that the army's skills could also quickly dull when not wedded by war. This changed by the end of the Republican period and into the empire when Roman legionaries became professional soldiers. Here, they would be enlisted to serve careers of around 25 years that involved physical fitness, weapons training, tactical drills, and more activities to ensure they kept their edge. The historian Josephus noted that it would not be wrong to call their drills bloodless battles and their battles bloody drills. As a result, the overall skill of the Roman army was raised to even higher levels and could be counted on to remain so over the generations. Another benefit of this fact was that the army could now also begin to specialize in all sorts of skills like engineering, siege works, logistics, and more. In terms of discipline, the Roman army did not mess around. Even early on, they employed a wide range of carrots and sticks to instill a high level of order and control. For instance, there were rules against lying, thievery, unmanly acts, and dereliction of duty. Minor offenses might be met with lashings or a fine while major offenses could result in execution, sometimes administered by one's own peers as would occur with a decimation. On the other hand, soldiers could also expect to be rewarded for acts of exceptional bravery. This involved special military decorations, financial payments, and promotion. Thus, discipline was quite high among the rank-and-file Roman soldiers, especially as the army became highly professionalized in its later years. Now that we've covered the individual level of the Roman legion, let's zoom out to talk about the unit, specifically its organization and leadership. In terms of organization, the Romans at first followed the Greek manner by arranging their forces into a rigid phalanx before later adopting the more flexible, manipular system in response to increased fighting in the rough terrain of Samnium. Here, soldiers were grouped together into units of 60 manned sentries, pairs of which formed a maniple. Ten maniples then formed a battle line, of which there were now three. The main advantage here was that each maniple could function independently, giving the army as a whole much more flexibility. This had huge benefits when it came to advancing, fighting, reinforcing, exploiting opportunities in combat, and overall just widening the range of tactics available to the legions. When the Roman army professionalized, it would maintain this concept by joining together six sentries into a cohort of around 480 men, ten of which formed a legion. In this way, the smaller elements of a legion could still operate independently, while boasting more manpower than the previous maniples, which gave the army greater tactical and strategic flexibility. The Roman leadership structure was closely linked to the system of flexible, modular units. Basically, the way this worked is that each sentry had a commanding officer known as a centurion. As sentries were grouped together, their centurions would be ranked into a hierarchical chain of command. Outranking them would be tribunes, and above them, the general. The higher levels of an army were typically members of the upper class who joined over the course of their political careers. The centurions, on the other hand, were often military professionals who might spend decades in the army. Their embedment at all levels ensured that no matter who was in charge at the very top, the army as a whole always had the institutional knowledge necessary to operate effectively. Their presence on the front lines also helped with discipline and morale. It also meant that the flexible Roman units were empowered to make their own decisions on the fly, which could ultimately turn the tide of battle. Their opponents, on the other hand, were basically forced to face the chaos of war wearing a tactical straight jacket. Now, we can finally zoom out to the overall army level. Here, I'd like to talk about matters of resources and logistics. In terms of resources, this has to do with Rome's ability to devote massive amounts of manpower and money towards its military efforts. Such was the level of effort expended that they could often just overwhelm or outlast an opponent who might otherwise beat them in the short term. We see this really first take place during Rome's clashes with Pyrrhus of Epirus. Pyrrhus won multiple battles, but emerged each time bloodier and bloodier, leading him to declare, another victory like that and I am done for, and eventually withdrawing completely. The same phenomenon occurred during the Punic Wars, when huge armies and fleets were raised time and again by Rome in the face of repeated, devastating losses. This ability to deploy such resources can be traced to a variety of factors, including Rome's large pool of citizens, its strong network of allies, its stable political system, and its hard to quantify cultural bullheadedness. As Republic turned to Empire, Rome gained even more manpower and wealth to pour into its military efforts, which made it yet more formidable. The leveraging of resources goes hand in hand with our next topic, of logistics. At first, Rome was quite inexperienced, but gradually built up its skills over the course of its foreign expeditions. Eventually, the legions were able to operate with the whole supply chain behind them, making sure they had adequate supplies of food and equipment. This not only allowed the army to operate at peak capacity, but also gave it the strategic capability to campaign for longer amounts of time and over greater distances than its enemies. We have a whole series of videos on this subject if you want to learn more. Suffice to say, Rome's massive resources, coupled with an incredibly efficient logistical system, provided a huge force multiplier to an army that was already incredibly powerful. Honestly, there's a ton more to be said about all the intricacies of the Roman army, but for now, that should do it. Whew, okay, so that was a lot of content to get through, but it's definitely an important foundation to lay. Now, we can consider why others didn't just copy the Roman army. We will do so by going through each element in the same order as before. So, as a would-be copycat, you'd probably start by trying to replicate the individual Roman soldier. In terms of equipment, this should actually be fairly easy. The type of gear the legions carried wasn't that exceptional. Most of their kit could be found in the other major armies of the Mediterranean, who also fielded heavy infantry. In fact, the Romans are believed to have actually been the ones who copied from others. For instance, the famed gladius sword came from the Iberians, and their large, rounded scutum shield came from other Italian tribes. Over time, however, Roman manufacturing developed to the point where its forces were able to turn large quantities of high-quality gear. This allowed a greater proportion of the Roman army to be suitably equipped as compared to other forces. It also allowed for the development of sophisticated, novel armor sets like the lorica segmentata. This would be quite hard for others to copy without significant investment, but failure to produce such items shouldn't necessarily be counted against would-be copycats. After all, the lorica segmentata fell into disuse by the Romans themselves due to its high production and maintenance costs. And even if it hadn't, minor differences in equipment during this age wasn't a huge differentiator in the outcome of battles. Okay, so your soldiers have acquired or already own equipment comparable to the legions. Now what about matching them in skill? Well again, this shouldn't have been that difficult. As we stated, during the Republican period, Roman troops were just levy soldiers with little training. As such, their individual skills could be easily matched by soldiers from other warrior societies across the Mediterranean. Often, the question of who was better would just come down to simply who had more combat experience. In these matters, Rome didn't necessarily have the edge, as they were not a uniquely martial power. Many of their peers in the Hellenistic, Gallic, Punic, and Persian worlds, for instance, frequently engaged in warfare that produced hardened veterans who could go toe-to-toe with the Romans. Admittedly, this equation began to change as the Roman army professionalized and raised the overall skill of its soldiers. So why didn't other armies do the same? Well in many ways, they already had. Professional soldiers were nothing new, and many other nations had their own full-time soldiers, like the Persian Immortals for instance. Even so-called Barbarian armies had elite troops who made up the retinue of powerful chieftains. Oftentimes, however, these made up just a small part of the overall army. Thus, to match the Romans, you'd have to greatly increase the amount of professionals in your army. This took a lot of money and power, but it could be done. Philip II of Macedon, for example, famously leveraged the vast mineral wealth of the Balkans and his own political position to reform the Macedonian army into a full-time professional force. It was this army that then marched to victory after victory under his son Alexander the Great. Yet opportunities for such sweeping reforms were relatively rare. This was especially true as Rome's rise to power often came at the expense of its rivals, which meant that they were less and less able to pour in the financial and political capital necessary to keep up. Now, let's talk about copying the Roman unit's organization and leadership. This is arguably more important, since as we said most of the time, the quality of the rank-and-file troops was pretty comparable across different armies. In terms of organization, we were left to ask, why didn't anyone else break up the rigid phalanx into something more flexible like the Roman maniple? Again, the answer is that, well, they did. Militaries of antiquity always faced evolutionary pressures from war, and had long identified the potential weaknesses in the phalanx style of fighting. It's for this reason that the phalanx was often accompanied by light troops and cavalry to cover up for its deficiencies. During the wars of the Diadochi, for instance, changes to unit organization were seen with the increasing deployment of a new type of medium infantry, to fit between the heavy pike phalangites and the light skirmishers. These units, known as thoreophoroi, filled a similar role to the maniples, in that they could be used in a far more flexible manner on the battlefield. But unlike the they were never really deployed on a large scale, and remained as more of a support role. But why not? Well, part of the answer is that the phalanx still worked, and could prove devastating when properly supported. Another reason is that switching your whole army over to the manipular system would also require a switch to your command and control system. This now brings us to the question of copying the Roman leadership. All armies have a hierarchy of command, but the depth to which they extend into an army varied greatly in time. Sometimes, the lowest level officer controlled hundreds of men, while other times they might just control dozens. For instance, during the Peloponnesian war, we see that the Athenian system was not as robust as the Spartan one, which extended down to the Edomotarchos in charge of around 40 men, a group smaller than even the Roman century. This helped give the Spartans their edge when it came to tactical flexibility and discipline in battle. Thus, we see that other armies were capable of having officers with similar command scopes to the Roman centurions. The difference, however, was that the Roman centurions had the freedom to independently move their units about. Thus, you see how both leadership and organization are interlinked, and it would require quite the overhaul for someone to copy the Roman unit system. Standing in the way would not only be the tactical knowledge or resources, but also the institutional barriers of the current army model. Oftentimes, this was a reflection of the society it came from, with special roles and privileges for the nobility, which would generally not want to have their boat rocked. Now, we can finally turn to the idea of copying the Roman army's resources and logistics. At this point, it's a pretty tall order to try and copy something on such a macro level. Getting more resources, in terms of manpower and money for example, is far easier said than done with only the major empires of history being able to contend with Rome in these matters. As for logistics, that's also closely tied to the economy and infrastructure of a particular society. Many of Rome's contemporaries already had a logistical system in place, with some being rather sophisticated and robust. But ultimately, they had no hope of competing with Rome without controlling an equivalently large amount of territory from which to draw supplies, and without control of the same Mediterranean sea lanes with which to efficiently link these to an army. So where does that leave us? Well basically, the Roman army had a lot going for it, with much on the unit and army level that was hard to replicate. But that didn't stop some from trying. The longtime enemy of Rome, Mithridates of Pontus for instance, apparently reorganized his forces after initial confrontation with the legions. According to Plutarch, he had swords forged in the Roman fashion and heavy shields welded, and 120,000 footmen drilled in the Roman formation. This was all done under the instruction of turncoat legionaries and centurions recruited by the general. In this way, it appears that Mithridates had created an imitation legion with the equipment, organization, and leadership to match. Unfortunately, we have few records of this incident and little with which to judge its performance. Ultimately however, Mithridates did lose to Rome, so it seems that the experiment was a failure. And therein lies the problem. This was an experiment at best. The Roman military system was successful as a package deal. All of its elements worked together, such that its whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, just copying bits and pieces wouldn't get you the same results. Yeah, your imitation legions might look and even feel like the real thing on the training field, but it won't hold up in the rigors of war. I hope you've enjoyed this video topic. There's a ton more I wasn't able to cover, so definitely let me know what you think made the Roman army so special in the comments below. Thanks for watching, and see you in the next one.