Hello and welcome to the 16th episode of Ancient Warfare Answers.

My name is Jasper Orthaus.

I'm the editor of Ancient Warfare Magazine.

And with me today is the assistant editor, Murray Dom.

And Murray is going to answer Robert's question.

How crap was the late Roman Army 8th, really?

Nice, nice, nice, paraphrasing.

Well, I'm going to be controversial this time round.

And like we've seen in lots of other ancient warfare answers, what was once upon a time an easy answer in saying,

late Roman legionaries were crap and they got beaten by the Goths and then almost beaten by the Huns and then Rome fell.

That answer actually, as so often, is far more nuanced and complicated and complex.

And I'm going to say that late Roman legionaries weren't as bad as they say

and that there's a whole pile of mitigating factors into why Roman armies are defeated

in the way that they are in the 4th and 5th centuries AD.

The first thing, of course, is that the reforms of Diocletian,

which changes the well-known army that we know from the High Roman Empire

into the Comitatus and

the Limitani armies where you've got armies on the border and then you've got campaigning

armies within particular provinces of the empire that would respond to invasions and there's

always been the idea excuse me and then of course you've got the

Palatini troops who accompany the emperor himself. And you've always had the idea that the

Limitani troops are, they're paid less, yes, and that they're terrible. And then you've got the

...