Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Warriors vs. Prof.Soldiers.. ~ Battle of Mons Graupius [83 A.D.]

Like the inter-Feuding tribes of Gaul and Britton,
Caledonian clans also discovered what it meant
to face organized and disciplined forces of Rome.

Like Vercingetorix vs. Caesar in Gaul , they couldn't
just slap together a range of rival tribes and expect
to get it over the Romans with sheer numbers .. also
by this time military reforms by Marius and Augustus
had made the army better than ever.... Gone was the
levy/conscript system...
Soldiers were now full-time career, drawn only from
volunteers, with standardized equipment and training.

Augustus had also much improved the logistics of
supply.. No longer was the army as restricted [as
Caesar was] regarding essential grain, or as bound
to the limits of seasonal warfare (ie) a bad season
of grain in Gaul, or a campaign delayed through
neccesity because crops were not ready, or a
campaign in Germania where Germanics were
not much into agriculture, hampered movements
and the decisions Caesar could make.

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

Good video. Thanks for posting.

Good video.

If you guys enjoyed that, you should acquire a free download of Rome Total War for your PC or Mac.

Romans had a tendency to take it out on
the whole population of a beseiged location
due to built-up frustrations... one need only
look at the seiges conducted by Caesar of
Avaricum, Gergovia, Alesia, in GAUL (52 B.C.)

Caesar pulled his Legionaries out of one the defeated locations above, not for their own safety, but to
prevent them from taking it apon themselves to
deal with the occupants in defiance of his wishes.
But other times he loosed them off their leashes
to vent steam and get booty rewards - coz it was
morale boosting.

Jerusalem tribal zeolots like Gallics, Brittons and
Caledonians traditionally squabbled amongst
themselves to their own detriment...and had Rome
not had ongoing domestic issues on their own
peninsular that required the legions, the rebels of
Jerusalem would have met their fate much sooner.

It was a case of..
"when the cat is away the mice will play".. 😂

The benefits to enlisting in the Roman army must have been seen to outweigh the downside, the sheer hard work, the yoke, discipline, marching, building fortified camps, roads, the vine stick, and danger for recruits to consider the option.

Maybe goes to show how hard regular life was
for many a Roman citizen without joining the
military.

Once the property requirement was dropped
in order to join a legion, it allowed many landless
citizens to work toward receiving their end of
military service land allotment and/or very generous
lump sum payment.

Lump sum payments at one time equaled like 13 years
of one's military pay grade .Land allotments
could be in fertile regions of conquered territory,
where they would establish a Roman colony of
citizen veterans.. These also acted as reserve force
if need be.

****

The non Roman Auxilia which were still part of
the enlisted standing [imperial] army had it tougher,
coz they had to serve more yrs to get citizenship
and their pay was less.... for eg;
A Roman might serve min. 16 - 20 yrs as legionary
before pensioned off, an auxilia 25 yrs.

If one were fortunate enough to be part of the
Praetorian Guard, you got far more generous
pay than a regular legionary and less yrs of
required service (12-16).

Some appear to have preferred the grain dole and circuses. There are accounts of allegable conscripts having a thumb or fingers amputated as a means of avoiding service in the legion.

Generally speaking from Augustus on only Roman
volunteers were accepted (into legions) , but in later
period of Augustus Rome was seriously stretched
for military manpower to maintain its frontiers... so
Aug. turned to pressing Romans into service and
recalling those that had already served..When he
died in 14 AD, legions stationed on lower Rhine
and Danube frontier mutinied.
Germanicus was able to stop this by taking them
on campaign into germanica inferior.
He was much respected by his legions, coz they
were even willing to support him becoming
Emperor over Tiberius...but Germanicus was
loyal and declined the offer.

Some criticize the grain dole, but it was like gov.
giving you a tax break, so you could spend your
money elsewhere...lower income folks could now
buy luxury items and consumables boosting the
trade and commerce in the empire....some say
this caused the empire to fall...LoL.

Late 3rd century, Because of interupted grain
supply from the east, there was revolt in Rome
from disgruntled citizens.. Aurelian didn't mess
about and had troops quell troubles by sword.
He was an extremely accomplished military
campaigner against various barbarians causing
the empire considerable trouble and was just what
was needed to keep the empire intact,.. but was
murdered by officers of the Praetorian Guard.

BTW_I ain't saying the grain/bread supplement
was not costing Roman coffers a considerable
amount, but it was an Empire of excesses..
Not all chunks of the empire made a return for
Rome despite taxes being imposed, hence had
to be administered, militarily maintained and
infrastructure built/maintained at financial
loss to Rome. The eastern sector of empire
was providing far more than the western.
AND administration easier coz the cultures
there were more developed - having systems
already in place which Rome could utilize.

Mark Antony neglected to take care of infrastructure
in the east and this was costing Rome in income coz
it effected port facilities, trade and tax revenue.
Augustus got to considerably improving such
and the coin started to poor in...prior to this
the east didnt provide much different to Gaul
(about 30-40 million p.a. )..then rising to a few
hundred million per year... it built the coffers
of Rome into the billions and allowed costly
actions like invading and occupying Britannia
and to some degree Caledonia and Germania.