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

Bottom-line: Professional Standing Armies maintained by the State, are extremely expensive. That's why Europe didn't revisit the idea until the 17th century

@@andresmunoz9078 I hold a master's degree in applied medical

Someone tell that to Caesar's Legion in Fallout New Vegas

Dont promote pay to win games FFS

Does your sponsor thingy have PvE? If so I’m getting that game.

Mayonnaise 😂😂😂😂

It's not often I feel the need to comment to commend someone's brilliancy

Those ancient copyright strikers were killer. Just look what happened when Rome broke the Vandals' copyrights.

"Carthage must be demonetized!" -Scipio Moderatus, ca 2020

Oh please the Romans copied plagiarized and stole every trick formation and equipment they could. Best of all they got away with it!

Indeed, I think people new to Roman history are always surprised by the amount of structures the Romans created while on campaign. I know I was.

"Once in a while"

so they are basically fantasy dwalves

@@Hatypus I think it is a valid comment. How many battles would they face in 25 years of service compared to how many days they would be building? Not to mention garrisoning them. Ceasars double walls is a great example. Not many days of battle, a lot of days building walls and waiting for the enemy to act. (Unless you were in the skirmishing/foraging units.)

once in a while? Caesar would beg to differ kek

Yooo real shit

That's what I was thinking. The people who best knew how to beat the Romans were surely the Romans themselves? Seemed like a loser's bet to try and mimic the Roman way. Major reform at great time and cost for little to no gain perhaps. In pitched battles the most successful early on seemed to be the Punic and Macedonian war machines. They won battles, so clearly their armies/warriors were good enough. Hannibal bloodied Rome's nose, as did Pyrrhus. Their downfall was that they didn't have the depth of force to defeat Rome. If Hannibal or Pyrrhus had a few more armies on hand history could have gone very differently.

@@RJALEXANDER777 Hannibal did defeat the romans but it was before they organized the legions the way he showed it.

@@bernitiel So did Pyrrhus. I don't think the Roman legion was drastically superior to the Maniple in fighting ability. The legionary was better armed and armoured than a Hastati (not necessarily Principes or Triarii), but the legion was more an evolution of doctrine and logistics, making it more capable of defending an empire than the older military system. The maniples were perfectly capable of defending Rome and Italy, and took a significant percentage of the empire before Marian's reforms.

Well then you will also learn how to beat your enemies as well

Rome came about through their market economy. It is where their wealth and innovation came from. It was their secret sauce and what underpinned all of that was their seperation of power so even when the emperors came into being they still had seperation of power that meant power could not centralize too much.

Didn't that legion also fight under Caesar at Zela?

@@y.r._ Yep.

@delavalled Roma Aeterna

@K 😂

@@y.r._ Ave, true to Caesar

not always

Eduardo Borges Seriously long answer:"They did *and* destroyed Rome in the end." In its last century both the people living in the Roman Empire and its rivals understood the Romans well and had good insight both in Roman politics and what made the army tick.

No body copied what the romans did. To do that they would have needed to adapt the roman way of life.

@@equestriangirly2296 i disagree. Rome fell for reasons much bigger than the military. The barbarians that got to rome were not legions nor were they attempting to copy roman success. Thats why after rome fell we got the dark age, an age where technology just seemed to stale. Rome fell for political and economical reasons. By the time the barbarians came the legions were a shadow of its former self and mostly auxiliaries or mercenaries.

@@eduardoborges506 I think the dark age never really happened. The Roman Empire became too big and politically unstable and most of the barbarians at that time were as developed as them (ex the wisigoths who became practically romans, speaking Latin etc). The roman army was just too big and made of too many different people.

@@oldgettingolderNo, but what we’d consider NCO’s today-and those are the backbone of any capable military.

@Mr Storni That’s not true. They had generals. Those are officers. Also, the centurion would be equivalent to today’s first lieutenant.

personal use? are you afraid i'm going to distribute time stamps?

What about Maru's 2/3 rax proxy reaper or marines in 90% of games

Every failed military: i don't like playing the META

Shogun 2 kinda owned though

Classic MMM lol. Fucking WOL was great

@@nwahnerevar9398 yeah, I tried many different approaches, different army types, sneaky approach, you name it. But everyone with op ranged weapons (people just keep using fots units ugh) doing exact same thing and hoping that their army will win.

Illyrian hehe yes son

Never joined the legion. I was always NCR

Steven williams NCR for life

Illyrian dont fuck with the bear bitch boi wearing dinner plates for armor.

@@EmperorNexus the House ALWAYS wins!

Persia had the royal roads long before

It's not only the road building but Rome knowing that this was a huge tactical advantage .

@@ernstholm8070 yes but some Roman roads still lasted to this day……

@@markvonschober6872 i mean theres also some persian road that still exist today

The roads were so good, they still exist.

All that creativity came from their market economy which allowed them to trade and innovate.

That is totally true just look at the American Civil War the South was kicking ass with tactics until they could no longer take supplies from the battlefield.

rhodesia and vietnam would want to have a word with you....

@@ishitrealbad3039 exceptio probat regulam (the exception proves the rule) Guerilla Warfare doesn't fall under the same umbrella as a conventional war and any smaller force can make a larger invading army go home by simply making the war to costly to win the Afghans did this to the russians in the 80s only americans will stay in a country for 20 years trying to win an unwinable war

@Ken Penalosa Modern and soon to come technology may have a word with that, but it's true that when firearms and remote land are involved with only human sight, the attacker is in a terrible position, the same has been seen in Spain and Finland

Bro, Is that Joe Dirt?

demonetized by YT and looses war.

Poor Mithridates! He masterfully and meticulously copied the Roman army, but to no avail. He forgot to build his own legions of copyright lawyers, lost every lawsuit, and died in poverty. Probably not a true story, but if he had tried it today, we all know that's exactly how it would've turned out.

Mithridates had turncoat centurions but failed to get good results? What the heck? My guess is there are a few possibilities. One, his imitation centurions were not given flexibility like the Roman ones, and therefore couldn't exploit the formation's tactical flexibility. Two, the drilling was simply too short and his imitation legions were more like Rome's citizen levy of the earlier days than fulltime professionals. Three, maybe the turncoats were incompetent boobs and figured getting paid good money by Pontus beat returning home as failures.

​@@alex_zetsu They weren't technically turncoats. The legionaries Invicta refers to are legionaries send by his ally Sertorius who was busy with his own anti-sulla revolt in Iberia. Sertorius was essentially a remnant of Marius his army, hence a Roman. After Sertorius was defeated the legionaries betrayed Mithridates. As for his defeat, a lot of it seems to have to do with him just being betrayed by various subordinates (including his own heir).

I mean even if they technically were not turncoats, that still leaves the mystery as to why they couldn't pass along the Roman unit tactics.

I can see this being a good idea for swords and shields. However, wouldn’t you want any throwable objects to be the same weight to accumulate muscle memory and repetitive practice?

@@911ragdoll Probably but on the other hand their pilum were mostly used before charges met as a way of making enemy shields useless (the pilum were designed to become stuck in enemy shields). They had dedicated skirmishers/light missile troops/velites for actual ranged combat.

Isn't wood lighter than iron? Those training swords must have had more than 5 times the volume of the real ones then.

Threw not 'throwed'.

Apparently the wooden training weapons were hollowed and filled with lead to increase their weight.

They necro them out

Don't forget to mention Cato😉

They were massively importing food from Egypt. That was antiquity equivalent of a Marshall plan. For centuries.

In the end only matters whose energy units deplete faster. Similar with strategy games.

That's basically how World War 1 was fought too. People were just material to be thrown at eachother.

Also, the Social War was fought against other Italians who used similar (if not identical) armies.

@Daniel McGrath Right, all cultures borrow and synthesize.

This is why in modern days, commanders are transferred every 3 -4 years

@Daniel McGrath And Greeks copied triremes from the Phoenicians.

@@oveidasinclair982 ...well that and not having commanders be directly responsible for their soldiers' pay. Generals and politicians in Rome were able to stage coups d'etat because their troops became fiercely loyal to their leaders, rather than to Rome itself. They would often go "Huh. This guy is pretty good at winning wars and gives a shit-ton of cash...he should lead the whole Republic!" and then go about making that general leader of the Republic which turned into an Empire which then they tried to turn it back into a Republic and so on and so forth. Julius Caesar and later the events surrounding the Second Triumvirate are prime examples of this.

That was more Karthagos Superpower, together with traditional big skils in seamanship and naval mastership. In Marokko also where African Elephants in the Atlas-Mountains. The speciality of the Romans were the Roman citizen and the Roman law and their developed Rationality and logic and rational thinking they learned from then Greek and the Roman abilitys in craftmanship and masonry and building like the Aquaedukts and Roads and cement and their skillfull military and Legions and so on. The Celts und Germanic tribes still had he special skill to fall in Trance for a fight and get very strong and brave then and become Berserkers and so to say "werewolves". It was not without reason that the Celts became at first the great civillization and great culture, because they were not exactly as big warlike as the Germanic tribes..

@@holgerjahndel3623 Nah.

Batman

Lose to the poor barbarian.

Patriotic army is much stronger than rich army, carthaginian were much more rich than romans and payed mercenaries, they got destroyed in front of roman patriotic soldiers. Carthaginian army fought for money and didn’t care for carthage, romans fought only for the glory of Rome.

The late roman army did conscript people but they did not return to civlian lives after a conflict. Becuae the late roman army had trouble with recruitment. When they were conscripted its for 25 years. There were so many people avoiding service that the roman emperors had to make a law that required sons of soldiers to take up their fathers profession and their sons after them to maintain its army. Its not surprising that the late roman army had low morale and high desertion rates.

It was crazy how legions basically doubled as an engineering corps They were like a Swiss army knife. Edited for typo

@@johnballs1352 China did the same when building the Great Wall. Soldiers built their segment and settled a garrison there.

@@mikecimerian6913 Fascinating. I guess the concept of multiple role soldiers in antiquity wasn't exclusive to Rome, but I must say I'm not a huge fan of China atm. I'll have to research this after I've cooled off over my disdain for their government, I'm simply too peeved to be interested in their history atm. Edited for typo

Don't forget change in tactics. Like Medieval and Rennaisance Pikemen were different from their more classical Phalanx counter parts. While the later was aunit that could overpower nearly every adversary in a frontal attack, it was inflexible and very vulnerable to flanking. Such a unit required other units to cover it's flank and to provide missile fire. The former on the other hand was a much more flexible formation. Smaller in size, they functioned more like the Roman manipular system of units spread apart. Troops were trained to counter cavalry by forming hollow squares rapidly ensuring that only with swift surprise could a pike formation be outflanked. Pikes also had missile troops as part of the unit itself, providing an organic missile defense to them especially against cavalry while in a hollow square. The Greek Phalanx would have performed poorly in the Late Medieval and Rennaisance period. Such an inflexible system would have been constantly outflanked by the more numerious heavy cavalry forces. It's large size would become a detriment with cannons on the field that would be highly effective against a dense formation.

The Carthaginians got the last laugh, in a way.

Sejanus

Salty

@@JamesJJSMilton In what way?

Hungarians did it before 17th century - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Army_of_Hungary

@@ja3044 Interesting, however, there are varying degrees of what constitutes a Professional State Military. While the Black Army was "permanent" and paid regularly, it seems to lack other elements needed to be "Fully Professional". Like - pensions, standardized Strategic Doctrine (Operational), standardized command and control, standardized Logistics. In other words, the Romans had a level of bureaucracy that was slightly more refined and sophisticated. You are correct to point out, that the Black Army was professional, albeit "Mercenaries", and an early attempt at a non-feudal army. But, Europe would not reach the standard of Roman Military organization until the 18th century

@Bgsleo Very true, pre-Augustan Roman Army was like Hellenestic armies - semi Professional

charlemagne 808. If i m not misstaken, first professional army in west EU after the fall of the roman empire.

@@Syladen Charlemagne's army might have been semi-professional, but in the end, it was still the mixed bag that usually made up Feudal Armies. The level of Roman military organizational sophistication would not be seen again until the 18th century.

Silver shield Legionaries

Man, this brings a lot of memories

And the original space marine legions

Well, all the Problem with these numidian and seleucid units is that their description as imitation legionaries come from the Romans. They had a tendency to call anybody with roughly similar equipment an imitation of their own units, disregarding battlefield role, social background, degree of professionalism and even if they existed before military contact with rome. Furthermore, Polybios, who is the base for the whole 'silver shield legion'-myth, never claims that they are imitations, just that they are armed similary to Roman units.

Dont Forget Armenian Legionaries! Backed With Carthaprat Archer

Except that one time they tried to invade Scotland, shat it and built a wall.

TheNathHopkins they sure tried

I always laugh at the concept of Hadrian’s Wall honestly. We all know if Rome a launched a good hard military push into northern England/Scotland they more likely than not would’ve succeeded had they devoted the manpower and resources to it. BUT instead they said “alright look you little shits, this is as far as we’re willing to go. You stay on your side well stay on ours.” Biggest middle finger to the Picts possible lmao.

Alex epic comment

@@Aboot8910 lmao...

You are right about the Romans being bullheaded, although maybe they should have considered a different approach with the Persians, since 600 years is a long ass time to fight for what eventually just amounted to a stalemate 😉

@@Khenfu_Cake Are you saying that they should have been wise and reasonable? How often does that happen? I'm not an expert on that but it's my understanding that things went back and forth between Rome and the Persians. They weren't always at war - but - they both had claims in the same areas, alliances and common borders they disputed. Essentially they were the two most powerful empires in that part of the world and it was pretty much inevitable that they were going to go at each other now and again. It's also my understanding that they were going at each other when the Muslims under Muhammad got started. If it wasn't for their weakening each other - they might have nipped Islam in the bud ... but that's just speculation. .

I was being partially sarcastic lol. I know it was a long series of conflicts between changing powers, which obviously would be expected, just like you said. I was merely trying to joke about how the Romans never really fully managed to conquer or subdue the Persians despite a few attempts to do so, like with Crassus' failed campaign😊

Imagine writing this much in a comment on RU-vid.

@@rasmusgustavsson3426 That's nothing compared to the work the people who made the video did. I'm just not part of the Twitter Generation. .

Δ the Nazis did

actually, it's the other way around the Romans copied off other people. However the turtle formation yeah why didn't people copy that.

I'm sure that went swimmingly. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Half the legions betraying you and dragging half the Imperium and Mechanicus with them?

@@thedarkphantomtdp117 the romans copied parts of enemy armies, if you exclude the phalanx as that was almost universal in the hellenized world. they copied the scutum, the gladius, etc as the video says. however they forged something new using these parts, and thats why they are not the copycat, but mithridates vi, who tries to copy the roman system as a whole.

Mori Adine nah man that’d require the interference of some sort of Dark Gods or demon or something I’m sure that’d never happen

if you're cavalry heavy, you won't need them. Rome struggled against Parthia and later their successor the Sassanids for this reason.

I mean a lot of people who lived close to Rome ended up absorbing a lot of their culture and technology and that included the roads. If you hopped across the Danube to Dacia during the 2nd century you might not even noticed you had crossed the border if no one told you. Despite what some Roman historians might say the other side of the empire's border was not a barbaric wasteland and was actually a lot like Rome. This is because it simply made sense, Rome was an economic powerhouse as well as a military one so orienting your economy towards producing goods they wanted was a good idea and to do that you had to adopt their customs and traditions. And if you're trading with Rome you have a natural incentive to extend their roads into your own territory.

@@brokensky2378outside of 1 battle Rome did not struggle with Parthia. Rome constantly beat them and repeatedly sack their capital. The Sassanids mostly fought against a divided Roman Empire. While they were much more powerful the the Parthians, majority of their success against Rome happened either in the 3rd century when the crisis was going on and when the Empire was split between East and West

@@brokensky2378 Rome struggled against Parthia? My dude, the only thing that kept Persian empires alive was geography. Otherwise, they wouldn't stop at sacking Ctesiphon and occupying all of Mesopotamia

actually there is proof in brittain and france that there was already a vast wooden road structure (i’m talking highways here!). stones last much longer for sure, so now we think romans were the only one doing it.... see how this works?

Yes, or another way of saying the same thing might be "money".. If you have a huge empire resting on the labour of slaves you can have a standing army, equip it and afford to lose battles because you send more troops.

Sestertius store*

@@memyselfandi432 nah it's like Five Below, they have stuff just slightly better than the sestersistore

Genius.

Fake brand legionaries from Sinae

so that's where that stingy Crassus got his

True and by the time of the late republic they had conquered all of their neighbors in the Italian peninsula so basically the entire peninsula was Roman and safe from attack until the goths use the Roman roads to sack Rome 800 years later

True...but Italian men are tiny and weak. So I find it difficult to understand that they had any success on the battle field. Most Germanic or Galic females should have been able to fight 10 tiny mini Italian soldiers. 🧑🏾‍🎓🤷‍♀️

@@Kevin-bl6lg LOL bruh.... to seriously answer your question, the more arable climate and sea access would've provided good opportunity for initial better scale, and I'll add to OP that incorporating many defeated peoples into their ranks was a major factor.

@@Kevin-bl6lg Are you serious with that comment?

@@Kevin-bl6lg while size and strength matters more in hand-to-hand combat, it makes little difference to the sword going through the throat of somebody as long as the person using said sword isnt a midget and knows what hes doing. Also germano-celts wouldve been shorter then their modern counterparts due to general malnutrition

Attila the Hun lived in a wooden palace, but had the finest of Greek marble bathrooms installed.

According to some romans legends they were greeks themselves

It's worth noting that Greek culture was heavily influenced by earlier Egyptian culture. In a later, comedic twist, when Alexander expelled the Persians from Egypt, Egyptian culture was open to being heavily influenced by Greek culture which itself had previously been heavily influenced by Egyptian culture. Would have been a fun time to be alive...

@Nicholas Jevon greeks werent unified in a single nation on that time in some romans legends says that the first romans were survivor of Troy so it explain their hate for "greeks"

@Amber Hoke I don't know if you're trying to say: (A) Every culture is a copy of the culture that it grew from, which is an obvious truism. Or (B) ALL cultures interchanged and inter-borrowed from each other, which is obviously false, owing to geographical restraints. Perhaps you mean some third thing? Help me out here, please.

This is true. Roman never had much of a Art of War manual that gave them victories after victories. It was discipline, back-breaking labour work, and the professional Centurions that made the difference. Tribal society never accepted the risen through the rank concept (exception was Mongolia), hence all the Lt and Captain upwards were mostly nobility. Medical care, education, were another unsung hero of the Legion, that I signed up for personal development and best medical care. Even the Roman system deteriorated later on to mercenary.

Exactly, and I also think that's probably one of the reasons why the Roman Empire lasted for so many centuries.

this is extremely important, in my opinion, since the Roman military is not as invincible as many may think. They fell a lot of time - again the "barbarian", the Carthaginian, the Persian, the Greek. But the Roman can always call upon a new army to fight - something other empires simply can't match. You have to defeat the Roman 4-5 times for them to back down; but if they can defeat you just once, then everything is lost. Hannibal could win several victories - it doesn't matter. Hannibal could lose a single Zama, and it's all over.

I think you meant the late stage of the republic - and early years of the empire -, since earlier the poor were barred from military service and distributing conquered lands was also introduced later (if I recall correctly that was already in effect before Marius but not by much).

The very early romans were also hardened by the place they were coming from: A malaria infested swampland around the Tiber, as my professor put it. So they would simply be less bothered by lack of immediate success than their counterparts.

shoes, yes

Less bull more might......war is NOT a game !!!

And the wine

Mayonnaise that was funny but warfare is not soldiers study and have answers too this.

Okay but did the Germanic tribes defeated the roman yes the German was called Germanic

Glad I saw this: now I don't have to say it.

How exactly would spread formations evolve as a response to cavalry when cavalry in every period destroyed looser formations?

@@chief480 : It was the way the Huns and the Mongols would fight the tighter formations. The used far more advanced tactics. They wouldn't just directly charge into the formation outright. They would harry and circle them and pick them off at the edges, or use mounted archers who would fire into them. Doing this was how both Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun were each able to maraud their way right across Europe and the Middle East. They would charge only after they broke the formation apart. The one reasonably tight formation that could work here would be that of pikemen, mostly due to the reach of the pike.

Marty do you think there’s anyone that’s tried to put an entire pike up their bum?

@@putbye1 : Their own? Maybe once in history. suicidal tendencies and Islamic slavery generated all sorts... Vlad Tepes put pikes up other people's bums. He's famous for it. You should look him up.

Вхламинго I thought that’s what I basically said...read my comment again...in parentheses.

I agree. It's not so easy to simple copy the Romans without also having their education, wealth, resources, size, technology, culture, mindset, etc. Sure, the other nations might catch up after a few hundred years, but for now the Romans would not allow their colonies to gain that advantage so soon anyway. It's like asking why didn't the rest of Europe just copy the Nazis and defeat them. Or why didn't the Earth Kingdom just copy the Fire Nation and defeat them. (It's a cartoon, I know, but same principle.)

@Вхламинго The Romans never "collapsed from within" in the sense that their citizens upturned them. The Western Romans were deposed by mercenaries they relied on more and more, and the massive hordes of Germanics flooding the Empire to escape the Huns. The reason they relied on the Mercenaries was the festering Roman rot within.

@@nicholaslawrence6926 Wow, you got that from a cartoon? Rome was not so advanced just because they were better. Most of what the roman empire gets credit for was simply assimilated into their doctrine from a state they subjugated. And if you look at a map, you can see they did a lot of assimilating. In reality, Rome started as a third rate town that captured/joined forces with a band of Italian city states, and with armies of slaves and soldiers of unmatched discipline (and fear of punishment) conquered their neighbors. The Punic wars specifically really just led to a snow ball effect.

Dan Carlin once said that what marked the first tier classical powers apart wasn't how great their victories were, but how well they could take a body blow/how many body blows they could take and still survive. Rome could afford to lose so much and still have the chance to learn. Same with Han China which literally transformed their entire military from chariot/infantry based to cavalry based just so they could beat the Xiongnu. I always wondered if Persia had faced anybody but Alexander who was determined to conquer it all, if they would have also suffered a few huge defeats but stayed around for a whole lot longer and adapted their military to the degree that it became unrecognisable. If Alexander was just another power like Athens who wanted to inflict a few defeats then grab some land, what would Persia have ended up as.

good organization trumps excellent skill

Uhm, the roman empire didn't exist that long. It changed a lot from a kindom to a republic into empire to the late antiquity. The classic romean empire we often talk about lasted ~500 years. For comparison, the egypt dynastic periods lasted ~3000 years The biggest was the mongolian The romans changed the world sustainable. But full military based empires can't last long.

@Daniele Fabbro I'm not so sure about philosophy imo that's more a creek thing like the word itself. But thats what i meant with romeans changed the world sustainable. It was definitely a or the significant impact in history. But it wouldn't been without the military. It was the backbone, but also a reason for the fall, of the empire. It's hard to imagine a world without. The egypts aren't known for a hughe powerfull army or much conquering.

China?

@Daniele Fabbro Take care when making that comparison. The United States' current dominance is just a blip on a historical timescale. Rome was unrivalled for centuries.

On point.

Phil Conti 😂😂😂😂 corona virus craziness yes

@@CurryRiceN_Chips shhhhh we were trying not to use the word, just a little bit peace from constantly hearing about it.

Common what r u afraid of?We all gotta die, take a number.

Roman: I fear no army... But that thing *trees speaking proto-germanic* Roman: It scares me

too soon...

had it not be for a German traitor (Arminius) teutonburg forest would hardly be a footnote , they were led like sheep to the slaughter for a shit land that had no resources aside from wood that is one of the main reasons Rome never pursued to move beyond eastern france and above the Limes ,germany has nothing of use ...

@@kamikaziking Facts bro

@Nikolas Tyr Brennus., conquered Germans offered tributaries aka (hostage children) to Rome as fielty as to not to rebel Arminius was trained ,schooled , fed and housed like a Roman citizen so he was a traitor , germany is to this day a poor ass land in resources and has only vast capacities of coal and imports most of its resources dont drink the nazi coolaid and learn some documented history not the Germania BS narrative or youll want lebensraum again...

What type of videos he used to post, just curious

@@satyamprakash7030 rome 2 online battles

@@satyamprakash7030 Halo b4 that

Greece did not have the resources of Italy. Italy was also much more united than Greece - Rome was the capital, and everyone was OK with that, whereas in Greece you had city-states like Athens, Corinth, Arkadia and kingdoms like Sparta and Macedon which were all unique, separate entities, with their own laws and customs, but the same religion, language and culture. The first time all of the Greeks united their resources, they beat the Persians back, first at the Battle of Thermopylae, then at the Battle of Marathon and finally the naval battle of Salamis. The second time Greece fully united (minus the Spartans, Πας Ελλήνων πλύν Λακεδεμονίων - don't google translate that, it's Ancient Greek) was when Alexander, from the kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece, decided to go conquer the whole freakin known world and reach India. You know what they say. Rome took over Greece, but the Greeks conquered the Romans. They quite literally fell in love with everything Greek, and incorporated Hellenism everywhere in their culture. From architecture, to literature, to myths, to science...and on the other hand, the Ancient Greeks were kinda cool with that. Italians are very similar to Greeks - both being southern Mediterannean people. Same food, same vibes, same willingness to chill in the sun, have a glass of wine and discuss politics/philosophy/mathematics you name it. It also helped that when the Romans conquered a new area, they did send a Governor, but they mostly let the area govern itself, in the sense that culture was respected, temples weren't destroyed, citizens weren't abused etc.

1453 book is better than the movie, and the movie was awesome!

''i am not those men.. i am Salahadin...Salahadin''

Salahadin had some really great lines in that movie.

Excellent use of the meme here

@Alonso Arguedas right as well

Logan M Well yes we have to keep in mind that the Medieval ages were degradation of the Ancient societies. After the barbarian kingdoms were established they destroyed a lot of Roman inventions and it took them centuries to get on the same level as Rome once was.

@@coolthief8375 I would say that it's only in the time of the renaissance with the resurgence of the pike formation and the professional army that the barbarian kingdom finally went back on the same level as Rome.

Perridan Yes indeed. And again hundreds of years of progress was lost because of them. If Rome didn’t fall we could have achieved much more. They were about to create steam powered machines. It’s a shame.

@@coolthief8375 The medieval ages were a flowering of society in other ways. The Renaissance would never have been possible without the deep and complex cultures that had been nurtured, the existence of universities and centers of learning, and trade leagues like Venice and the Hansa.

I don't understand a single word.

Tielner - Normie, it’s time for you know about the showdown

@@uranusaquarius7394 :D The words are definitively English :D But I am not a native speaker so ... :D :D :D Oh ... it's like ... wherever you go there you are! :D

_why was there no Roman Army 2: Electric Boogaloo!_ It is called the Byzantine Empire.

Pesky Bird...

Rome require their allied nations to copy their legionary so they wont mess up in battle. All legionary imitation will fight on the Roman side.

Ben M - Mithradates had legionaries trained by man send by Quintus Sertorius. Unfortunately next war with Rome come before they finish their work. Pontis legionaries perform well but they werent enough.

@@yulusleonard985 seleucid empire had them too, not romes allies

Yulus Leonard Rome’s enemies often tried to emulate their tactics, including their army structure. It was rare for them to succeed, though Mithradates the Great probably came the closest to pulling it off.

@sum body At that time I doubt the Roman use Legionaire. During Hun/Goth/Franks time, Roman soldier consist mostly German mercenaries. Pontus already described in the Video, they use imitation of Legionary.

I know its a joke,but it kinda happen. Just from the top of my mind i think about the Spanish Tercios and later profesional armies.

yet...

Every modern army worth their salt is similar in structure to the Roman legions. Well trained,heavy emphasis on flexibility and logistics

to be fair they had a tough time in the 'early game' being conquered by Etruscans, being sacked by gauls, etc. but once they got the ball rolling, it just gained momentum.

Specifically they fought in areas where their system made sense. Italy is hilly which breaks up phalanxes and also negates cavalry but makes small independent infantry very effective. They were able to find the same terrain in Spain, Greece, Anatolia and the Levant but once they reached open areas like are found in Mesopotamia they got in trouble. Wide open plains or very cramped fields were their weakness. Now of course the reason they developed this fighting style was because of the areas they fought in so it's a bit of a feedback loop.

Exactly all the pieces just fit together, through every struggle they learned and grew and persevered with a decent bit of luck, that's what defined them over say Carthage another grand civilization that just didn't have the luck Rome had though it did have some as any successful civilization does

It’s not luck. You’re either better or not

Something like one fourth of te adult male population died fighting Carthage. Can you imagine? Proportionally that's more than the USSR lost in World War 2. Rome still refused to stop fighting.

HiDesert004 Even though they received salaries that’s why the Roman army had trouble later. The emperors that commanded the loyalty of the largest armies bought them off with larger salaries and sometimes loot.

Basically why the Klingons are really poor soldiers in Star Trek.

@Max Tang The byzantine empire was the roman empire, literally, it can't really copy itself.

@Bgsleo true, but relatively speaking they were small. Each governed in a different way, and constantly at war with each other. The armies they fielded against each other were smaller than a roman legion. (Contrast this with Rome vs Carthage). The consequences of this lack of governmental sophistication was that even when a great leader like Alexander arose this empire collapsed as soon as he died. I have to concluded that while they may have been rich, they were certainly not well administered as a whole.

Yes, the Byzantines were only known as the Byzantines by those outside of the empire/those in later history. In fact, I believe the Byzantines were given the name by those in the West (following the fall of the Western Roman Empire)as they attempted to don the mantle of being the continuation of the Romans. Regardless, preceding the fall of the classically labeled “Roman Empire” in the 5th century, Rome had to split duties to effectively deal with the rising threats the empire faced. These threats being: stronger foes on the frontiers coupled with ambitious generals who repeatedly mounted rebellions. To deal with this, Diocletian essentially began the split by appointing multiple emperors to be able to administer the territory more effectively. The resultant Western Roman Empire eventually fell in 476 AD while the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantines did not fall until 1453 AD (to the Ottomans)

@Janko Kral You clearly can't understand English properly because that is exactly what I said

Sassanid persians?

What about Tercios ? Dominating battlefield for century and a half ? They were profesional troops, mixing pikes, swords and firearms.

@@dra1212 in the same breath we can mention the Landsknecht, Swiss and East Roman Army

@@yochaiwyss3843 the landkechts et the swiss were mercenaries pikemen. The Tercios were profesional units with skilled commanders, strong fighting spirit and discipline, good training and using the newest tactics and weapons of the time. Soldiers in these units were experienced combat veterans.

That's copycating the pike phalanx of the Greeks.

@@ElBandito Macedonia had the pike phalanx. Greeks used spears, the 'doru' which isnt long enough to be considered a pike. These Hoplites would still be deployed at the flanks of the pike phalanx under Alexander as the 'shield bearers' however.

Because hot

It's called a heroic plastron. It basically means he's the alpha around here.

Like some Greek armors, it was made to "look good / superior" to others and the enemies. There have been some Armor that for example had a relatively large genital area to make others think they were packing something heavy down there. I believe Shadiversity made a Video about the looks of armors and explained it pretty good.

The musculata? For the same reason it has abs. It was supposed to simulate a human torso, and human torsos have nipples and a bellybutton, and abs.

So others know where to pinch and poke respectively

@Garrett McCullough *drums*

I doubt about your second point. It is hard to control grown up men, especially with rebellious upbringing. I would expect most of them being kids around 16 years old. Do you have source of any kind?

In your second point you're mixing up eras. The 'untrained levy's' were part of the old Socii system - Rome paid their Italian "allies" to go to war for them. Your status - in fact your very ability to wage war - was based on whether or not you could afford equipment - the notoriously hidebound Senate didn't think the state should spring for it. But they weren't urban. They weren't even Roman. Problem was, there were drawing from a limited pool, and the punic wars decimated the Italian small farmer. So in about 100BC, Gaius Marius proposed to use the Capite Censi (citizens of Rome with no property to their name - literally "the head count") as Roman soldiers, with the government supplying their equipment. This was met with universal scorn "they'll run from their first battle and leave their equipment behind" and "they'll trade in their swords for a night with some Gallic harlot" - that sort of thing. Marius would never have succeeded with his plan had half a million Germans not appeared in the neighborhood, making the Senate suddenly very flexible. They outperformed the earlier socii, but the reason was as the video said: they had centurians which gave even green legions a semi-veteran status (for a really cool example of centurions making a great heads-up quick tactical change of orders, check out Caesar's charge against Pompey at Pharsalus). I'm not sure where you're getting the idea of rome being a perpetual war of all against all. And a plebian was just someone who couldn't trace their ancestry back to the old aristocracy of the Kingdom of Rome - many plebians were quite wealthy, and as a general class they were more powerful than the patricians, who were always accused of being would-be kings. If you listed all 20 consuls in a random ten years in the last 50 years of the Republic, you might have two or three who were Patricians. They had all but died out. I agree with your first point, and I think in it were the seeds of the fall of the Republic, but my post is already too long.

Strange. I recall reading one of the roman historians saying that people from countryside made much better soldiers than soft city boys

Think you just described the united states more than you did rome lol

It's not medieval, it's medieval-XVIII century xD Also make a video about countering annoying lb players for once instead of teaching peeps how to play them :/