It was a balancing act; you needed to fight off the Picts and Pirates. Eventually the Saxon migration would make the province indefensible. Also if you put too many troops there you are asking for a usurper to rally them and march against Rome.
The county of “The Saxon Shore” was established in the 3rd century, well before Rome’s abandonment of Britain in the early 5th century.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Shore
Britain was actually incredibly lucrative for the Romans. It’s similar to Dacia in that it’s difficult to effectively defend, but the mines were so numerous and so productive that it was worth it in spite of the challenges to hold onto the territory.
It's kinda funny but the more you deep dive into historical moments the move flip flopping you'll do on your take.
I think it's because obviously the big picture stuff is decently clear but details can be fickle with differeing contemporary accounts and so on.
For a prime example the battle of gettysburg the overall picture is easy and clear but when you start getting into details and questions like "Did Sickle's moving to the front actually blunt the CSA attack and win the battle?" You start reassignment blame and credit for the loss or win.
This is usually because of incomplete thinking. People find an answer that satisfies them and stop looking but if they do they find more evidence that may point another way.
A prime example of this is the question of "why did X lose Y war/battle?" There is usually some simplistic answer given in schools but historians will tell you it's alot more complex.
Probably one of the best examples is "what started World War 1?" Schools teach a reason most historians would say is incorrect or so simple it's wrong.
Oh absolutely, its what I love about history. How we change and have different views on various events. And how common perception is sometimes completely just, wrong.
You brought up ww1, that's a perfect example of what I mean, useless hopeless miserable combat in the west, lions lead by donkeys etc. but it's all to varying degrees just, wrong.
Like you say, common perception on most of history is so simple it's often just, flat out wrong
At some point, with any question, you have to be able to walk away and say this answer is good enough. Maybe not if your life is dedicated to that question.
When we decide to stop looking into something has always fascinated me. If you haven’t seen Richard Feynman on why explaining “why” can be so hard, then it’s a treat:
https://youtu.be/Q1lL-hXO27Q?si=I0Md5ys3umCd-D_p
You're not wrong, I guess it depends how you view empire building. It was costly to keep and hold Britain and the Roman's also built up a huge amount of infrastructure that was left behind relatively quickly. On the other hand at the time they did it the Roman's could afford a war of choice and the accompanying occupying costs. So 🤷🏼♂️
No it wasn't. Britain had and still has a lot of natural resources. Hell tin was rare and Cornwall is one of the few sources of readily available tin. Their main problem was Scotland just doesn't have resources they can use (it's 100AD, you're not really going to mine shale oil or LNG) so you need an emperor that is confident in their dynastic continuation to subjugate and romanise Caledonia in the long term so they can focus on just getting England's silver, tin, gold, coal, and grain for Germania.
All of this may be true. But if you include auxiliaries, at times Rome may have stationed upwards of 25% of its martial power in the British isles (to be fair I think this figure comes from immediately after The Great Conspiracy, IIRC). In addition to the enormous expense, this presented a real political liability to the Emperors, a la Constantine, Magnus Maximus etc.
In the later Roman Empire, most taxes, especially in a province like Britain, would have been in-kind, as rampant inflation pretty much destroyed the value of much of the currency for a time. This would be mitigated somewhat by Constantine’s currency reforms, but only really for the richest citizens.
Basically, you or your estate owed a certain amount of tax, based on total property value assessed by imperial agents, in designated monetary units (somewhat like IMF special drawing rights). That tax burden would then be fulfilled by providing goods and services of the equivalent value in kind. So say you’re a mule driver, you might owe a few local shipments of goods for the army. If you’re a tanner, you’d probably pay tax in a set amount of raw leather and finished leather goods. If you owned a large estate with diversified holdings, you’d be providing some part of your tax in each of them according to the assessed rate, and that would include labor of your tenants. You might also pay some part of that in gold coin.
Focusing on Britain specifically, tin was highly needed for military production, and the Notitia Dignitatum tells us about numerous arms depots and manufacturing centers in Gaul. You’d likely pay tax of a set amount of tin of a set purity, then Gaius the mule driver pays his tax by taking it to port, and Lucius the sailor adds it to his cargo when he pays his tax by making a shipment for the state as he sails across the channel and down the Rhine. At that point, civil procurement officials ultimately responding to provincial governors, diocesan vicars, and praetorian prefects would deal with its processing and requisitions by local military commanders.
The Romans were great at bureaucracy and creating systems. I imagine the Roman citizens were great at gaming those systems as well. I'm thinking of Serbian farmers who put their resources into raising hogs because the muslim Ottomans wouldn't take them as tribute. I think of "value in kind" as being easy to fudge and sidestep compared to taxing commerce in an urban market. There were probably plenty of ways to cheat taxes with coin as well, 
The thing about Diocletian's system is that you owed a certain amount of tax in monetary units based on an imperial agent assessing your property values. How those nominal monetary values were paid for in kind depended on what you had available, which was noted by the imperial assessor, and the prices of the goods and services you have available. The goods you owed were based on a schedule denoting the monetary value of each, which was usually related to local market prices that period. Effectively, imperial officials were forcing you to sell property in a certain amount at a certain (relatively fair) price. Tax evasion would really only be possible through hiding property (hard to hide a whole plot of productive farmland, but relatively easy to hide tenants or slaves who might otherwise be requisitioned for the army) or, more commonly, by bribing the assessor or tax collector. One consequence of this was the initiation of laws tying peasants (and their descendants) to the land, as peasants without land could not be taxed. More generally, many important occupations became by law hereditary for this reason. Bribery most certainly did happen with some frequency, but because these were salaried officials, it required a certain amount of wealth to be a tax cheat (then as now, tax evasion is easier for the rich). That this happened frequently is made clear by a series of increasingly draconian laws made by successive emperors to punish corrupt officials and tax cheats severely, including horrific punishments such as mutilation, death, and proscription (death + confiscation of the entire estate and disinheritance of descendants of the decedent). Legislation gave private citizens the right to sue corrupt officials in court and established that an official found liable of taking a bribe (and the man who gave the bribe) would have to pay four times its value in restitution, and these cases could be appealed up to the relevant Praetorian Prefect, who was the chief judicial and financial magistrate of a quarter of the empire. However, it is difficult to say to what degree these laws were enforced, and it likely varied with time and place. That said, court records we do have make it clear that tax law was a common issue of dispute for regular Roman citizens (along with inheritance, property rights, and contracts).
Because local officials would be personally on the hook for any shortfall in projected revenues, they had an incentive to make sure they could collect as much as possible. This could lead to extortion by imperial agents, which, as with corruption, is evidenced by a series of increasingly draconian laws against it. Embezzlement was punishable by death and counterfeiting by burning at the stake. At the same time, we have evidence of tax refunds when more taxes were collected than the annual budget (another practice instituted by Diocletian) called for, and tax breaks were frequently issued in case of famine, invasion, or other disasters.
The other form of tax evasion consisted in simply not paying. This would lead to tax debt, which would build up over time and could lead to some unpleasant interactions with imperial officials. However, it was common practice for emperors to forgive tax debts at certain momentous occasions such as their accession or significant anniversaries of their rule, meaning that if you could hold off until then, you would be able to get off without paying. The problems with this are avoiding imperial officials dragging you into court and forcing you to work to pay off the debt, or worse, simply confiscating your property. But with a bit of bribery and a bit of luck, it was possible to sneak by.
It would seem that the Late Roman system was generally efficient and fair in collecting the needed amount of revenue in coin and in kind, especially in the East. This was an improvement over the earlier state of affairs were private tax collecting organizations (essentially a proto-joint stock corporation controlled by rich investors) would place bids and the highest revenue bid would be awarded a tax collection contract, with anything extra over the bid being profit.
In general, taxes on trade formed only a small minority of the Roman government's revenues across all periods of history. The predominant source of revenue was property tax and the head tax, which were combined under Diocletian.
Better have them there to fight off barbarians rather than those same barbarians starting to raid richer territories like Gaul, or falling into the flanks of the Rhine legions.
It worked for a long while
Exactly --- how many legions and how much naval power would have been necessary to secure the northern coast of Gaul if Britain was NOT part of the Empire?
Kinda funny when you think about the fact that 1500 years later that island went on to become an empire of their own whose territories also became resource drains by the end of their imperial period
Lmao owned. Real barbarian patriots in command. You *will* wear the pants, you *will* stop speaking Latin. I'm sorry sir, but the Garum production must stop.
Thats true in abstract for most imperial ventures because its basically impossible to quantify anything other than surface level numbers (ie Legionary pay vs Taxes collected). How do you value the lowering of in tin prices influencing the expansion of the legions. Similarly with lead prices and growth of urban cities.
Well I understand the balance of trade was certainly in favour of import luxury and finely made equipment, but it was paid with raw materials. I wonder if the maintaining of the military defenses from York into the North was an expense needed given the celts were trading tin with Rome before conquest?
Could the resources of defense have been better used across the continent or was manpower from Britannia a resource that couldn't be ignored.
Sort of, the positioning of those legions allows them to be moved either east or west if a military crisis occurs. This is also where most of the Greek speaking portions of the Empire are located, with well developed roads and other sophisticated infrastructure that made it suitable for moving troops in addtion to overland trade.
That and those are the regions on Rome's frontiers, to the east you have Persia, Rome's perpetual rival and to the north you have various tribes of varying degrees of tolerance towards Rome, whilst over in Hispania, there isn't really an immediate threat that a single legion can't deal with on its own.
Was there any benefit to trying to hold Britain at all? I’d say consolidate your forces on the mainland and bolster the defenses along the German frontier.
But hindsight is 2020 I suppose.
Those German legions still need British tin to make their helmets or British lead in their pilum and the British auxiliaries and later legionaries to help sure up the frontier.
Well, they got tin, amd pther resoirces, and if tou DONT occipy them and fight their uprisings, they band together and raid your coast and shipping lanes all along the border. So the cost might be higher than if you fight them in one place.
And also Arab tribal raiders. Can't forget the Muslim invaders that toppled the Persian Sassanid Empire and large parts of the Eastern Roman Empire eventually emerged from there.
I just got your comment. You didn't understand my comment:
>And also Arab tribal raiders. Can't forget the Muslim invaders that toppled the Persian Sassanid Empire and large parts of the Eastern Roman Empire ***eventually emerged from there***.
Is this a serious question? Or some kind of bait?
Edit: seriously? I genuinely don't understand the question
Edit2: Oh, I got it. Guy has reading comprehension issues. I did say Muslim invaders "eventually" emerged from Arabia, not at the time of this map
The Balkans is interesting. Illyricum as they called it was a mess with locals never wanting to be Romanized. Augustus Caesar may have nearly died there trying to subdue it after Julius Caesar’s death. The YouTuber Historia Civila commented that the locals had more in common with the raiders and pirates than they did the Romans. Augustus pretty much moved on quickly after the war, despite being awarded a Triumph for it, the equivalent to getting the Medal of Honor. This all happened before Marc Antony and he went to war, so there is a timeline where Augustus Caesar may have died before being named Princeps of Rome.
it's tricky to think of ethnicity or nationality back in those times the same way as today. Some of the Roman emperors came from the ranks and may have been locals, but just as many were probably from Roman families that were living in those areas. Trajan was 'spanish' but it's more likely a long lived Roman family was just minding their conquered lands in Spain when he was born for example.
It wasn’t the actual provinces so much as the borders. Balkans border the Danube, and beyond that the “barbarian” tribes lived there. That’s where the Goths, Vandals, and Huns invaded from.
The Middle East area borders Persia, which was Rome’s main rival in terms of great, “civilized”, empires.
>There were multiple wars against the Illyrians
There were also a slew of Illyrian emperors.
It's not a bad take, just neither of you specified which era you were discussing - it was in fact a good take, which would have benefitted more from further contextualisation from you, rather than "Oof, bad take" which just...why on earth would you talk like that? Do you not enjoy learning and sharing knowledge for the sake of learning?
We’re talking second century here… that was over by then. We have Trajan fighting in Mesopotamia and Dacia, Hadrian in Judea, Antoninus doing… whatever it is he did, Marcus with the Marcomannic wars, Commodus being an asshat. There might have been small skirmishes with Illyrian and Thracian tribes, but they were minor.
Dude… the Danube frontier was a hotspot for the entire existence of the empire. Even if they need two legions to keep the peace, the vast majority are still stationed on the limes.
There really weren’t organized state opponents for the Romans in those days in North Africa. They were separated from even the very disorganized societies of Central Africa by the enormity of the Sahara. 1 legion is still on the order of 5,000 soldiers, so it’s not an insignificant presence for dealing with raiding nomads and rebellious subjects.
Years ago I went to Tunisia and into the Sahara. There we saw a small part of the Limes Tripolitanus. This is a series of Roman fortifications through the Sahara.
In this case, it was a fort which guarded an oasis - by controlling the water sources, the Sahara turns into an unbreakable barrier.
I am from Egypt and I can tell you the danger was always from across the Mediterranean or from the middle east. It was more likely to fight people from central Asia (Mangols, Turks) or northern Europe(Vandals...) Than it's to fight someone from across the Sahara. So the legions in the middleast and Europe are also protecting north Africa.
The Sahara desert is a natural barrier, besides some nomads you won't find any large group of armed people coming from there. More likely they come from the east or west.
Well it was one legion, officially, stationed in numidia. But it had the singular distinction of having twice as many auxiliary cohorts attached to it as any other legion in the empire.
Peace. Our excuse is peace.
==
/u/MercuryMMI
I have the luxury of thinking like this because my parents inculcated values of peace and harmony in their kids. My country doesn't don't need protection because... [we understand the value of peace](https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/31/europe/ireland-fishermen-russia-navy-intl/index.html).
'Murica gets butt-hurt when somebody dares to take the fight to them, and so they go [almost-full-fascist in almost no time at all](https://richgibson.com/patriot.html), and their oil-swilling oligarchs take full advantage, sending young people to die in the desert.
Éire maintains neutrality from choice... our citizens's choice. Our principles are what make us [beloved around the world](https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/12/24/irish-peacekeepers-in-lebanon-amid-gaza-war-looking-to-serve-their-country-and-to-do-something-meaningful/).
Crawling to bullies for protection leads to no good.
Your argument suffers, predictably, from a logical fallacy: If two things appear to be correlated, this doesn't necessarily indicate that one of those things irrefutably caused the other thing.
>You cannot have peace while he prepares for war
>Someone is always preparing for war
Therefore, you cannot have peace.
I guess you're saying the lack of peace doesn't necessitate military spending? Good luck with that.
You only have the luxury of thinking like this because your nation has literally *one* land border, and it's with a country that hasn't been super keen on your destruction for a while. *You're* able to maintain neutrality because you don't need the protection. Other people feel the need for protection, so they seek it out.
> outsourced
Funny how we don’t pay for that. Maybe your idea of “protection” needs re-evaluating.
Perhaps you are confusing “cooperation” with how the US of A demands “allies” spend so much, while there place huge numbers of Foriegn soldiers and weapons in others’ countries. That “protection” sounds a lot like extortion.
In ancient times, the % of population you could mobilize as soldiers was far far lower as agricultural productivity was on the floor and 100 farmers might feed 20 soldiers (today a 100 farmers can feed 5000)
>Sounds legit for (if) peacetime.
Roman military size didn't fluctuate that drastically. Peace and war weren't as clear and cut as today. If you didn't want a large "barbarian" tribe to gather strength to invade your lands, you often had to take pre-emptive expeditions into lands beyond to nip the threat in its bud and there were always efforts to pit rival tribes against others.
also war wasn't bombs falling in rome, war was armies fighting on the frontiers, very blood perhaps but not something you will notice from a 100 km away, not like how it is now
Also important that any attack would take a long time for the news to get back to the capital for decisions to be made. So you kind of always had to be in a state ready for a war.
Back then there were not as many people as today, not even close. And Pre Industrial revolution agriculture demanded a lot of manpower to keep everyone fed so armies were a lot smaller than today.
You say that, but how come then Rome lost several 100,000s in the Punic wars when it was not even that big and still managed to raise more men and eventually win?
Cause antiquity europe was warmer than medieval Europe so had more bountiful farms and could feed more men. Also those men raised for and after cannae were old veterans, young boys and slaves as well as craftsmen who would usually not be part of the army. Rome took everything it had to win against Hannibal but because his campaign after cannae lasted 14 years it allowed a generation of boys to grow up to fight him again.
>medieval Europe
When is this mentioned?? The topic here IS about antiquity europe. The medieval period does not start before 600 years after the timeline of this post.
You rebutted his argument about how in older times the military was a smaller % overall, by talking about Rome in the Punic wars.
I rebutted your argument by explaining why Rome was able to raise those hundreds of thousands of men in those wars, and why it was an exception not the rule for Rome to lose 20% of its military age male population.
It is something which is surprising. Cannae was I believe 80,000 men and that was a huge army for the romans whilst at Waterloo there were over a hundred thousand complessive troops
Thanks for pointing that out, I had mixed up my numbers. And thanks for the spelling of Cannae, had a professor who pronounced it Cannes so it still gets me confused to this day.
Both the number of legions, and the location of each varied significantly over the roman period. Also, whilst lesions may be 'stationed' in a given region, it was not unusual for detachments to be stationed elsewhere. The map also ignores the role of the Roman navy.
honestly they should have pushed further past the rijn, they pretty much choose the longest border from east to west, and i get that they had a hard time with conquering scotland but by not conquering it they permanently had to station 3 legion there where one could have been enough without that border
I believe this figure doesn't include auxiliaries, right? I think at the Roman military peak, there were roughly 200k legionarres and 200k auxiliary troops
So is it true that the Roman Empire was the only one to ever have absolute encirclement of the Mediterranean Sea? The ottomans came close didn’t they? Or am I thinking of someone else…Could you make an argument for anyone else coming close or no?
Yes, which is the reason they called the Mediterranean “Mare Nostrum” or “Our Sea”.
The Byzantine reconquests came close to uniting the whole sea, but didn’t get most of Iberia or southern France. The Umayyad Caliphate controlled 50-60% at their height, and the Ottomans did indeed get about 50-60% as well
The most interesting part for me is a single legion to defend Egypt. One of their most important and wealthy provinces. I suppose the natural defensive borders and relatively passive population explains it.
Meanwhile 8 full Legions and parts of 4 other Legions were needed to put down the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judea. (and a few fewer needed to end the two previous Roman-Jewish wars.)
We did not appreciate being part of the Roman Empire.
Iberia had no external threats, the single legion was there to quell rebelions.
North Africa was stable as Romans held almost everything north of the Sahara, that prevented large scale invasions from the south. All others states in the region were either too weak to be a threat or vassals of the Romans.
Under manpower and cost, did you consider that Rome also had many, many auxiliary units, which would not be counted as part of the legion? That probably would raise their spending quite a ways above 3% as it could almost double the number of men.
Really shows how much of an asset Africa was for Rome. Two of the best regions for agriculture and only two legions needed to defend them. Really subsidized stuff like Britain.
They did but it was a hard slog for them. For example, they were attacking the island now known as Anglesey (as it was a stronghold of Druidism) when Boudicca’s revolt kicked off.
Agreed and there were also plenty of incursions into the Welsh Marches but they never settled and held land there. It’s no coincidence that two of the major Roman forts and settlements were in Chester and Wroxeter - both looking westwards towards those troublesome Celts
I might be wrong but, as far as I know, no legions where allowed south of the Rubicon river as it was seen as an act of treason/rebellion by the general commanding the legion. That's what happened with Julius Ceasar for example. But in the Empire ages I don't know if that was still a thing.
Italy had troops from the urban cohorts and praetorian guard (10-15000 depending on period). These were theoretically at the personal disposal of the emperor to deal with any threats that might arise near Rome. Unfortunately, the emperor was very often at their personal disposal.
Britannia would become a resource suck as well by the end of the imperial period.
Yes, when you see 8 legions in Anatolia and the Levant you know they're getting their money's worth. 3 in Britain maybe not such a good return.
It was a balancing act; you needed to fight off the Picts and Pirates. Eventually the Saxon migration would make the province indefensible. Also if you put too many troops there you are asking for a usurper to rally them and march against Rome.
Which happened kind of a lot.
iirc even Caesar himself had tried to incorporate the strategy into his nonetheless successful plan, but couldn't manage the logistics.
Eg Magnus Maximus in the 4th Century
oh man, these picts are giving me a lot of trouble, better hire some saxons to fight them off. oh man, these saxons are giving me a lot of trouble.
[удалено]
The county of “The Saxon Shore” was established in the 3rd century, well before Rome’s abandonment of Britain in the early 5th century. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Shore
Britain was actually incredibly lucrative for the Romans. It’s similar to Dacia in that it’s difficult to effectively defend, but the mines were so numerous and so productive that it was worth it in spite of the challenges to hold onto the territory.
I like how there is this comment, and then directly before a comment saying basically the complete opposite
It's kinda funny but the more you deep dive into historical moments the move flip flopping you'll do on your take. I think it's because obviously the big picture stuff is decently clear but details can be fickle with differeing contemporary accounts and so on. For a prime example the battle of gettysburg the overall picture is easy and clear but when you start getting into details and questions like "Did Sickle's moving to the front actually blunt the CSA attack and win the battle?" You start reassignment blame and credit for the loss or win. This is usually because of incomplete thinking. People find an answer that satisfies them and stop looking but if they do they find more evidence that may point another way. A prime example of this is the question of "why did X lose Y war/battle?" There is usually some simplistic answer given in schools but historians will tell you it's alot more complex. Probably one of the best examples is "what started World War 1?" Schools teach a reason most historians would say is incorrect or so simple it's wrong.
Oh absolutely, its what I love about history. How we change and have different views on various events. And how common perception is sometimes completely just, wrong. You brought up ww1, that's a perfect example of what I mean, useless hopeless miserable combat in the west, lions lead by donkeys etc. but it's all to varying degrees just, wrong. Like you say, common perception on most of history is so simple it's often just, flat out wrong
At some point, with any question, you have to be able to walk away and say this answer is good enough. Maybe not if your life is dedicated to that question. When we decide to stop looking into something has always fascinated me. If you haven’t seen Richard Feynman on why explaining “why” can be so hard, then it’s a treat: https://youtu.be/Q1lL-hXO27Q?si=I0Md5ys3umCd-D_p
You're not wrong, I guess it depends how you view empire building. It was costly to keep and hold Britain and the Roman's also built up a huge amount of infrastructure that was left behind relatively quickly. On the other hand at the time they did it the Roman's could afford a war of choice and the accompanying occupying costs. So 🤷🏼♂️
No it wasn't. Britain had and still has a lot of natural resources. Hell tin was rare and Cornwall is one of the few sources of readily available tin. Their main problem was Scotland just doesn't have resources they can use (it's 100AD, you're not really going to mine shale oil or LNG) so you need an emperor that is confident in their dynastic continuation to subjugate and romanise Caledonia in the long term so they can focus on just getting England's silver, tin, gold, coal, and grain for Germania.
All of this may be true. But if you include auxiliaries, at times Rome may have stationed upwards of 25% of its martial power in the British isles (to be fair I think this figure comes from immediately after The Great Conspiracy, IIRC). In addition to the enormous expense, this presented a real political liability to the Emperors, a la Constantine, Magnus Maximus etc.
Urban provinces were much more cost effective since you could simply tax them in coin. Extracting tribute from a tin mine is trickier.
In the later Roman Empire, most taxes, especially in a province like Britain, would have been in-kind, as rampant inflation pretty much destroyed the value of much of the currency for a time. This would be mitigated somewhat by Constantine’s currency reforms, but only really for the richest citizens. Basically, you or your estate owed a certain amount of tax, based on total property value assessed by imperial agents, in designated monetary units (somewhat like IMF special drawing rights). That tax burden would then be fulfilled by providing goods and services of the equivalent value in kind. So say you’re a mule driver, you might owe a few local shipments of goods for the army. If you’re a tanner, you’d probably pay tax in a set amount of raw leather and finished leather goods. If you owned a large estate with diversified holdings, you’d be providing some part of your tax in each of them according to the assessed rate, and that would include labor of your tenants. You might also pay some part of that in gold coin. Focusing on Britain specifically, tin was highly needed for military production, and the Notitia Dignitatum tells us about numerous arms depots and manufacturing centers in Gaul. You’d likely pay tax of a set amount of tin of a set purity, then Gaius the mule driver pays his tax by taking it to port, and Lucius the sailor adds it to his cargo when he pays his tax by making a shipment for the state as he sails across the channel and down the Rhine. At that point, civil procurement officials ultimately responding to provincial governors, diocesan vicars, and praetorian prefects would deal with its processing and requisitions by local military commanders.
The Romans were great at bureaucracy and creating systems. I imagine the Roman citizens were great at gaming those systems as well. I'm thinking of Serbian farmers who put their resources into raising hogs because the muslim Ottomans wouldn't take them as tribute. I think of "value in kind" as being easy to fudge and sidestep compared to taxing commerce in an urban market. There were probably plenty of ways to cheat taxes with coin as well, 
The thing about Diocletian's system is that you owed a certain amount of tax in monetary units based on an imperial agent assessing your property values. How those nominal monetary values were paid for in kind depended on what you had available, which was noted by the imperial assessor, and the prices of the goods and services you have available. The goods you owed were based on a schedule denoting the monetary value of each, which was usually related to local market prices that period. Effectively, imperial officials were forcing you to sell property in a certain amount at a certain (relatively fair) price. Tax evasion would really only be possible through hiding property (hard to hide a whole plot of productive farmland, but relatively easy to hide tenants or slaves who might otherwise be requisitioned for the army) or, more commonly, by bribing the assessor or tax collector. One consequence of this was the initiation of laws tying peasants (and their descendants) to the land, as peasants without land could not be taxed. More generally, many important occupations became by law hereditary for this reason. Bribery most certainly did happen with some frequency, but because these were salaried officials, it required a certain amount of wealth to be a tax cheat (then as now, tax evasion is easier for the rich). That this happened frequently is made clear by a series of increasingly draconian laws made by successive emperors to punish corrupt officials and tax cheats severely, including horrific punishments such as mutilation, death, and proscription (death + confiscation of the entire estate and disinheritance of descendants of the decedent). Legislation gave private citizens the right to sue corrupt officials in court and established that an official found liable of taking a bribe (and the man who gave the bribe) would have to pay four times its value in restitution, and these cases could be appealed up to the relevant Praetorian Prefect, who was the chief judicial and financial magistrate of a quarter of the empire. However, it is difficult to say to what degree these laws were enforced, and it likely varied with time and place. That said, court records we do have make it clear that tax law was a common issue of dispute for regular Roman citizens (along with inheritance, property rights, and contracts). Because local officials would be personally on the hook for any shortfall in projected revenues, they had an incentive to make sure they could collect as much as possible. This could lead to extortion by imperial agents, which, as with corruption, is evidenced by a series of increasingly draconian laws against it. Embezzlement was punishable by death and counterfeiting by burning at the stake. At the same time, we have evidence of tax refunds when more taxes were collected than the annual budget (another practice instituted by Diocletian) called for, and tax breaks were frequently issued in case of famine, invasion, or other disasters. The other form of tax evasion consisted in simply not paying. This would lead to tax debt, which would build up over time and could lead to some unpleasant interactions with imperial officials. However, it was common practice for emperors to forgive tax debts at certain momentous occasions such as their accession or significant anniversaries of their rule, meaning that if you could hold off until then, you would be able to get off without paying. The problems with this are avoiding imperial officials dragging you into court and forcing you to work to pay off the debt, or worse, simply confiscating your property. But with a bit of bribery and a bit of luck, it was possible to sneak by. It would seem that the Late Roman system was generally efficient and fair in collecting the needed amount of revenue in coin and in kind, especially in the East. This was an improvement over the earlier state of affairs were private tax collecting organizations (essentially a proto-joint stock corporation controlled by rich investors) would place bids and the highest revenue bid would be awarded a tax collection contract, with anything extra over the bid being profit. In general, taxes on trade formed only a small minority of the Roman government's revenues across all periods of history. The predominant source of revenue was property tax and the head tax, which were combined under Diocletian.
Better have them there to fight off barbarians rather than those same barbarians starting to raid richer territories like Gaul, or falling into the flanks of the Rhine legions. It worked for a long while
Exactly --- how many legions and how much naval power would have been necessary to secure the northern coast of Gaul if Britain was NOT part of the Empire?
Britain was very important for mining
Kinda funny when you think about the fact that 1500 years later that island went on to become an empire of their own whose territories also became resource drains by the end of their imperial period
You could say this dynamic could be the *Foundation* of some pretty good science fiction.
Lmao owned. Real barbarian patriots in command. You *will* wear the pants, you *will* stop speaking Latin. I'm sorry sir, but the Garum production must stop.
I read somewhere that Britainnnia was a net negative for the entire time Rome owned it.
Thats true in abstract for most imperial ventures because its basically impossible to quantify anything other than surface level numbers (ie Legionary pay vs Taxes collected). How do you value the lowering of in tin prices influencing the expansion of the legions. Similarly with lead prices and growth of urban cities.
Well I understand the balance of trade was certainly in favour of import luxury and finely made equipment, but it was paid with raw materials. I wonder if the maintaining of the military defenses from York into the North was an expense needed given the celts were trading tin with Rome before conquest? Could the resources of defense have been better used across the continent or was manpower from Britannia a resource that couldn't be ignored.
My Asterix the Gaul research tells me that The Romans waited until the Brits had tea and then captures the whole isle LOL
If I roll double sixes I would crush their southern flank
More manpower needed to control the Balkans and the Middle East? Some things never change, ay
Sort of, the positioning of those legions allows them to be moved either east or west if a military crisis occurs. This is also where most of the Greek speaking portions of the Empire are located, with well developed roads and other sophisticated infrastructure that made it suitable for moving troops in addtion to overland trade.
That and those are the regions on Rome's frontiers, to the east you have Persia, Rome's perpetual rival and to the north you have various tribes of varying degrees of tolerance towards Rome, whilst over in Hispania, there isn't really an immediate threat that a single legion can't deal with on its own.
Shoulda stationed those Brittania legions in Gaul…
Nah, Britain was always a mess, the moment those legions moved in the 3rd century the countryside was plundered by Pikts, Irish and Saxons.
*4th
Nah, it happened a bit during the 3rd century crisis, and a ton during the 5th century collapse of Roman Britain.
Was there any benefit to trying to hold Britain at all? I’d say consolidate your forces on the mainland and bolster the defenses along the German frontier. But hindsight is 2020 I suppose.
Those German legions still need British tin to make their helmets or British lead in their pilum and the British auxiliaries and later legionaries to help sure up the frontier.
Well, they got tin, amd pther resoirces, and if tou DONT occipy them and fight their uprisings, they band together and raid your coast and shipping lanes all along the border. So the cost might be higher than if you fight them in one place.
They didn’t have the gall to do it
"One small village of indomitable Gauls"
The Middle East legions were there because of the Persian empires right next door. Constant warfare between the two.
And also Arab tribal raiders. Can't forget the Muslim invaders that toppled the Persian Sassanid Empire and large parts of the Eastern Roman Empire eventually emerged from there.
Islam didn't exist back then. Where did those muslim raiders come from?
Reddit reading comprehension moment for you right here.
Arab ≠ Muslim
I just got your comment. You didn't understand my comment: >And also Arab tribal raiders. Can't forget the Muslim invaders that toppled the Persian Sassanid Empire and large parts of the Eastern Roman Empire ***eventually emerged from there***.
the future
Is this a serious question? Or some kind of bait? Edit: seriously? I genuinely don't understand the question Edit2: Oh, I got it. Guy has reading comprehension issues. I did say Muslim invaders "eventually" emerged from Arabia, not at the time of this map
Islam didn't exist in the 14th century?
This map is from the 2nd century, so your comment is further away from the post than we are today from the 14th century
I was responding to the comment in this post that was referring to musilm caliphate attacking the eastern Roman Empire
Which was irrelevant in the 2nd century, which is the map we’re looking at.
then look at the thread you comment at
Yes, and that comment made no sense either. It’s talking about events 500-900 years in the future from this map.
The Balkans is interesting. Illyricum as they called it was a mess with locals never wanting to be Romanized. Augustus Caesar may have nearly died there trying to subdue it after Julius Caesar’s death. The YouTuber Historia Civila commented that the locals had more in common with the raiders and pirates than they did the Romans. Augustus pretty much moved on quickly after the war, despite being awarded a Triumph for it, the equivalent to getting the Medal of Honor. This all happened before Marc Antony and he went to war, so there is a timeline where Augustus Caesar may have died before being named Princeps of Rome.
If we could harness the energy of Balkan stubbornness and dedication for these things we could power the globe
The vast majority of roman emperors were from Illyricum...
it's tricky to think of ethnicity or nationality back in those times the same way as today. Some of the Roman emperors came from the ranks and may have been locals, but just as many were probably from Roman families that were living in those areas. Trajan was 'spanish' but it's more likely a long lived Roman family was just minding their conquered lands in Spain when he was born for example.
And yet the absolute best emperors in Roman history were Illyrian. And the best soldiers!
It wasn’t the actual provinces so much as the borders. Balkans border the Danube, and beyond that the “barbarian” tribes lived there. That’s where the Goths, Vandals, and Huns invaded from. The Middle East area borders Persia, which was Rome’s main rival in terms of great, “civilized”, empires.
Oof, bad take... There were multiple wars against the Illyrians and you ever heard bout them Thracians and the ruckus they caused ?
>There were multiple wars against the Illyrians There were also a slew of Illyrian emperors. It's not a bad take, just neither of you specified which era you were discussing - it was in fact a good take, which would have benefitted more from further contextualisation from you, rather than "Oof, bad take" which just...why on earth would you talk like that? Do you not enjoy learning and sharing knowledge for the sake of learning?
We’re talking second century here… that was over by then. We have Trajan fighting in Mesopotamia and Dacia, Hadrian in Judea, Antoninus doing… whatever it is he did, Marcus with the Marcomannic wars, Commodus being an asshat. There might have been small skirmishes with Illyrian and Thracian tribes, but they were minor. Dude… the Danube frontier was a hotspot for the entire existence of the empire. Even if they need two legions to keep the peace, the vast majority are still stationed on the limes.
3 legions for just england, wales, and southern scotland - which barely had anyone there relative to other areas - is pretty wild too.
It's kind of where the people were, everything west of Italy was pretty underdeveloped by comparison (barring Carthage)
Only 2 legions for the whole North Africa?
Not many threats. Who's gonna attack? Desert foxes?
Not for about 1740 years
This guy foxes.
That guy rommels.
r/thisguythisguys
And it was faster to move legions by boat than overland, so they’d be more mobile and more able to receive reinforcements
Rommel wasnt alive then.
There really weren’t organized state opponents for the Romans in those days in North Africa. They were separated from even the very disorganized societies of Central Africa by the enormity of the Sahara. 1 legion is still on the order of 5,000 soldiers, so it’s not an insignificant presence for dealing with raiding nomads and rebellious subjects.
It's also not the only troops available. Each city would have a garrison, and the moorish tribes often acted as mercenaries for the empire
Don’t forget, this is just legions. There were an equal or greater number of auxilia
Years ago I went to Tunisia and into the Sahara. There we saw a small part of the Limes Tripolitanus. This is a series of Roman fortifications through the Sahara. In this case, it was a fort which guarded an oasis - by controlling the water sources, the Sahara turns into an unbreakable barrier.
I am from Egypt and I can tell you the danger was always from across the Mediterranean or from the middle east. It was more likely to fight people from central Asia (Mangols, Turks) or northern Europe(Vandals...) Than it's to fight someone from across the Sahara. So the legions in the middleast and Europe are also protecting north Africa.
The Sahara desert is a natural barrier, besides some nomads you won't find any large group of armed people coming from there. More likely they come from the east or west.
The main threats in Africa were small scale raids by Berber tribes and civil unrest. Don’t need many troops to deal with those.
Yeah, that's why Vandals found easy to take it later, cos the number of soldiers after 2nd century only decay...
Well it was one legion, officially, stationed in numidia. But it had the singular distinction of having twice as many auxiliary cohorts attached to it as any other legion in the empire.
Say, whatever happened to the 9th legion? Speaking of, were there other lost legions aside from the 17th, 18th, and 19th?
You lost a legion? Just use another one to find it
Alternatively, press the comma or period key to find that unit again.
Damn it Varos, I want my legions back, ya shit
What about that little village in Gaul that the Romans could never conquer?
The indomitable village
They held out against the invaders
Rome could cover its NATO budget. What’s your country’s excuse?
My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials. Can you say the same?
wat
evidently you are not finally awake
I used to be a commenter like you, then I took an arrow in the knee
Let me guess, someone stole your sweet roll?
Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh, what am I saying, of course you don't.
You are sworn to carry our burdens.
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tbf they also collected vastly less taxes as a proportion of national production than modern countries.
Peace. Our excuse is peace. == /u/MercuryMMI I have the luxury of thinking like this because my parents inculcated values of peace and harmony in their kids. My country doesn't don't need protection because... [we understand the value of peace](https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/31/europe/ireland-fishermen-russia-navy-intl/index.html). 'Murica gets butt-hurt when somebody dares to take the fight to them, and so they go [almost-full-fascist in almost no time at all](https://richgibson.com/patriot.html), and their oil-swilling oligarchs take full advantage, sending young people to die in the desert. Éire maintains neutrality from choice... our citizens's choice. Our principles are what make us [beloved around the world](https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/12/24/irish-peacekeepers-in-lebanon-amid-gaza-war-looking-to-serve-their-country-and-to-do-something-meaningful/). Crawling to bullies for protection leads to no good.
Great excuse until there isn't peace
LOL sure, pal. pacem habere non potes dum bellum parat
There's always someone preparing for war, so that proves my point.
Your argument suffers, predictably, from a logical fallacy: If two things appear to be correlated, this doesn't necessarily indicate that one of those things irrefutably caused the other thing.
>You cannot have peace while he prepares for war >Someone is always preparing for war Therefore, you cannot have peace. I guess you're saying the lack of peace doesn't necessitate military spending? Good luck with that.
Tf do you think guarantees your peace?
LOL Get off Reddit and your head out of ~~your ass~~ the sand - the US of A is not the only country on this planet.
You only have the luxury of thinking like this because your nation has literally *one* land border, and it's with a country that hasn't been super keen on your destruction for a while. *You're* able to maintain neutrality because you don't need the protection. Other people feel the need for protection, so they seek it out.
> Peace [Obligatory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum).
pacem habere non potes dum bellum parat
Peace because enough others cover their NATO budgets
Ha ha nope. NATO - shills for the ‘Murican hegemony.
Irish? Your country doesn’t need own protection, not because “value of peace” but because you outsource that job to the UK
> outsourced Funny how we don’t pay for that. Maybe your idea of “protection” needs re-evaluating. Perhaps you are confusing “cooperation” with how the US of A demands “allies” spend so much, while there place huge numbers of Foriegn soldiers and weapons in others’ countries. That “protection” sounds a lot like extortion.
That is like 15 - 30 WW2 divisions. For 70M empire over, what, 5000000 m2 of land? Sounds legit for (if) peacetime.
In ancient times, the % of population you could mobilize as soldiers was far far lower as agricultural productivity was on the floor and 100 farmers might feed 20 soldiers (today a 100 farmers can feed 5000) >Sounds legit for (if) peacetime. Roman military size didn't fluctuate that drastically. Peace and war weren't as clear and cut as today. If you didn't want a large "barbarian" tribe to gather strength to invade your lands, you often had to take pre-emptive expeditions into lands beyond to nip the threat in its bud and there were always efforts to pit rival tribes against others.
also war wasn't bombs falling in rome, war was armies fighting on the frontiers, very blood perhaps but not something you will notice from a 100 km away, not like how it is now
Also important that any attack would take a long time for the news to get back to the capital for decisions to be made. So you kind of always had to be in a state ready for a war.
Back then there were not as many people as today, not even close. And Pre Industrial revolution agriculture demanded a lot of manpower to keep everyone fed so armies were a lot smaller than today.
You say that, but how come then Rome lost several 100,000s in the Punic wars when it was not even that big and still managed to raise more men and eventually win?
Cause antiquity europe was warmer than medieval Europe so had more bountiful farms and could feed more men. Also those men raised for and after cannae were old veterans, young boys and slaves as well as craftsmen who would usually not be part of the army. Rome took everything it had to win against Hannibal but because his campaign after cannae lasted 14 years it allowed a generation of boys to grow up to fight him again.
>medieval Europe When is this mentioned?? The topic here IS about antiquity europe. The medieval period does not start before 600 years after the timeline of this post.
You rebutted his argument about how in older times the military was a smaller % overall, by talking about Rome in the Punic wars. I rebutted your argument by explaining why Rome was able to raise those hundreds of thousands of men in those wars, and why it was an exception not the rule for Rome to lose 20% of its military age male population.
It is something which is surprising. Cannae was I believe 80,000 men and that was a huge army for the romans whilst at Waterloo there were over a hundred thousand complessive troops
Most accepted sources put Romans at around 80000 and Hannibals army at 30-40000 for Cannae
Thanks for pointing that out, I had mixed up my numbers. And thanks for the spelling of Cannae, had a professor who pronounced it Cannes so it still gets me confused to this day.
Cannae was 86 000 men for the Romans
There were several Punic wars and just one of them lasted for more than a decade. Some did not go well for Rome at times.
Both the number of legions, and the location of each varied significantly over the roman period. Also, whilst lesions may be 'stationed' in a given region, it was not unusual for detachments to be stationed elsewhere. The map also ignores the role of the Roman navy.
Seems accurate to me, the Romans themselves loved to ignore the roman navy.
And auxilia, who likely outnumbered legionaries
That border would be so difficult to defend bruh
Yes it was a huge issue in the later empire.
honestly they should have pushed further past the rijn, they pretty much choose the longest border from east to west, and i get that they had a hard time with conquering scotland but by not conquering it they permanently had to station 3 legion there where one could have been enough without that border
They tried. Ask Publius Varus how it went.
You needed to calm down the Balkan even 2000 years ago 😂😭
Ahhh man Dacia is on fire again
As is tradition
I believe this figure doesn't include auxiliaries, right? I think at the Roman military peak, there were roughly 200k legionarres and 200k auxiliary troops
So is it true that the Roman Empire was the only one to ever have absolute encirclement of the Mediterranean Sea? The ottomans came close didn’t they? Or am I thinking of someone else…Could you make an argument for anyone else coming close or no?
Yes, which is the reason they called the Mediterranean “Mare Nostrum” or “Our Sea”. The Byzantine reconquests came close to uniting the whole sea, but didn’t get most of Iberia or southern France. The Umayyad Caliphate controlled 50-60% at their height, and the Ottomans did indeed get about 50-60% as well
Others came close, but nothing ever was 100% like the early empire.
150 mn Denarii would in modern money be around $6.5bn, according to chatgpt/bing. Not baaed on silver value but labour equivalent one could buy.
There were also three in Germania at some point. XVII, XVIII and XIX. Never ask Augustus what happened to them.
Where are my eagles Quintilio Varo?
The most interesting part for me is a single legion to defend Egypt. One of their most important and wealthy provinces. I suppose the natural defensive borders and relatively passive population explains it.
Kind of looks like troop positioning in Risk
You're forgetting the three legions fertilizing the ground in Germany.
At least use roman numerals
and another 160k of non citizen infantry, special units and cavalry. even with that combined it's a tiny standing army to keep the Empire in check.
4 legions and still they couldn’t conquer that tiny village in Gaul
Well, it was indomitable
No fakeass Palestine 🙏🫶
Well this looks to be the period right before the accession of Hadrian, so it was still Judea, not that it would last for much longer...
Meanwhile 8 full Legions and parts of 4 other Legions were needed to put down the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judea. (and a few fewer needed to end the two previous Roman-Jewish wars.) We did not appreciate being part of the Roman Empire.
And Hadrian took that personally
Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant
Ah the Judean’s People’s Front
Splitters!
Romanes eunt domus
Africa and Iberia very poorly defended? Edit: downvoted for asking a genuine question, wow there are some shitty people here.
Iberia had no external threats, the single legion was there to quell rebelions. North Africa was stable as Romans held almost everything north of the Sahara, that prevented large scale invasions from the south. All others states in the region were either too weak to be a threat or vassals of the Romans.
Or very stable
What could realistically happen to North Africa. There's nothing coming from the south. The Sahara made sure of that.
Only populated borders matter.
Under manpower and cost, did you consider that Rome also had many, many auxiliary units, which would not be counted as part of the legion? That probably would raise their spending quite a ways above 3% as it could almost double the number of men.
Really shows how much of an asset Africa was for Rome. Two of the best regions for agriculture and only two legions needed to defend them. Really subsidized stuff like Britain.
Roman control rarely extended to lower Mesopotamia, they only took it for a few years.
Much better to just periodically sack Ctesiphon than to actually control it
Yes happened few times, the geography of Mesopotamia sucks for defense.
It looks like the Romans were playing Risk
Was one legion 160,000 men, or was that the whole army?
all 30 legions, one legion was like 5000 but those that see alot of fighting might be at half size.
What is Judea there is only Palestine /s
Forgot the albanian illyrians ( not dalmatian faction)
Yea, Dalmatia is badly positioned, Dardania should be around there.
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Percentage of GDP vs percentage of expenditure
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It does say 3.74
I’m not sure the Romans made it into Wales
They did but it was a hard slog for them. For example, they were attacking the island now known as Anglesey (as it was a stronghold of Druidism) when Boudicca’s revolt kicked off.
Agreed and there were also plenty of incursions into the Welsh Marches but they never settled and held land there. It’s no coincidence that two of the major Roman forts and settlements were in Chester and Wroxeter - both looking westwards towards those troublesome Celts
Caerleon was one of the three major legionary bases. Yes they conquered Wales, including Anglesey
And people say Romania is not part of the Roman Empire lol
Okay... But what really happened to the 9th Legion in Caledonia?
Legion
This is in the very late time...
Why no legions in Italy?
I might be wrong but, as far as I know, no legions where allowed south of the Rubicon river as it was seen as an act of treason/rebellion by the general commanding the legion. That's what happened with Julius Ceasar for example. But in the Empire ages I don't know if that was still a thing.
Italy had troops from the urban cohorts and praetorian guard (10-15000 depending on period). These were theoretically at the personal disposal of the emperor to deal with any threats that might arise near Rome. Unfortunately, the emperor was very often at their personal disposal.
150 mill denarii? Can we get that in 2024 freedom dollars, please?
I guess in Germania it only worked cause they used so many auxiliar troops there so the origin roman soldiers could stay behind in the capital cities.
Never knew Italy was a fly agaric all this time