Why was Rome so suseptable to the Germanic migrations?

Question

Why were the Romans so desparate for troupes that they tried to turn the Germanic people into Roman armies after having just been attacked by them? Why was the capitol of Rome mostly deserted when the Visigoth King Aleric attacked Italy? What caused the downfall of Rome besides the Roman army i guess is my question?

Answer 1

MJR gives an interesting account, and I'll add that the core Roman population was also decreasing due to a lack of children being born. Even Tolkien mentions this in an offhand way when he mentions the lords of Gondor being more interested in the glories of the past than the realities of the present including spending time to ensure children are created.
The empire was also hit by a number of plagues which reduced the population and made it important to find people to replace them. Eventually the germanic tribes were settled in such large numbers that they formed their own germanic lands within the Roman Empire with more loyalty to their own kings than to the Emperor.
The same is happening in the USA today where millions of latin americans are pouring in and being allowed to stay because the birthrates of Americans are so low.

Answer 2

The Roman Empire was so large that there was no way to recruit enough soldiers without relying on "foreigners." For centuries they had been successful in bringing conquered peoples into the empire and their soldiers into the legions. Soldiering had fallen somewhat out of favor anyway, as it was not considered a gentleman's occupation any longer. The Roman legions were far away, defending the Empire's territiories around the Mediterranean and beyond. The army had alwys been banned from Rome itself, for fears of a coup, so there was nobody there to protect the city. Rome was and remains unpleasant and unhealthy in the warm season, and most leading citizens vacation elsewhere.

But for a short, simple answer to your very complex question: The emmpire was old, tired and broke. They had succeeded in bringing their neighbors to a level of sophistication and military might that they could no longer suppress them. In time, all empires grow old, weak and weary, like all people. It was just time.

Answer 3

You ask a complicated question. Rome did not recruit from the Germanic people after just being attacked by them as you put it. Rome had the best army of the ancient world, but nothing lasts forever. After hundreds of years the Roman state began to fall from within. Romans were do busy enjoying their wealth to join the army. Kind of like America today. So they had to recruit from the provinces. No one knows the reason why Rome fell. Just as every nation that was great fell, so did Rome. And so will America.

Answer 4

The short answer to your question is that Rome was in the path of Germanic migrations. As far as hiring foreign armies is concerned, that is a common practice among empires that have begun to weaken internally.

Answer 5

Well, there are a number of factors that played out over the course of many centuries. As an umbrella factor, however, was the state of the economy. The Roman economy completely collapsed in the third century. While the vast trade network of the network disintegrated, the money inflated to the point of irrelevence, and the government swelled to complete absolutism. As the state expanded in size, and taxes became increasingly crushing and onerous, the economy became enfeebled into nonexistence. The state could no longer maintain high standards in the state-owned manufacturing facilities. Equipment became rare, and that which existed was of miserable quality.

Furthermore, the legions had been immobile for well over two centuries along the frontiers of the empire. Over time, towns and cities sprung up around the army camps, and as the central authority withered, the legions became completely dependent on their home cities for equipment. Armies became dependent on the local populations to refill their ranks. The big three as far as recruitment pools were the Gallic-Romans, Germans, and Sarmatians. These were war-like people, who apreciated Rome's fine martial tradtion and disciplined soldiers, and Rome apreciated their eagerness for war. Because the Legions were so far away and because of centuries of peace, Italians themselves became an increasingly rare sight in the army. Usually the only Italians were conscripts, raised by the emperor for a far-away campaign the Italians knew nothing nor cared little about. Italians in particular got into the habit of physically mutilating themselves as a way of medically disqualifying themselves for service. Removing one of their thumbs was popular to the point where there was a word for them (The Murci) and Emperor Theodosius passed a law condemning any murci to be burned at a stake. By the mid 4th century, the only Italians in the army were the generals, and by 400 A.D, there probably wasn't a single Italian in the Army.

If raising and equiping an army was difficult, mobilizing one was much more difficult. Only the Emperor himself could persuade the legions to move, having to pay considerable concessions to the soldiers. On the mere word that Emperor Julian was moving some of the Gallic legions for a campaign in Persia, entire armies mutinied. It was only after considerable favor-buying and promises (for example, allowing soldiers to take their families with them in the baggage train) were the legions calmed down and the campaign able to commence. Thus, proper legions became expensive, fickle, and adverse to change.

In response to this, the State turned to a cheaper alternative by hiring Germans to work as soldiers. One might call them mercenaries, but that is not a word that covers the scope of these soldiers. The Romans called them the foederati, the federated troops. Romans would grant German confederate tribes land within the empire in return for defending the land and providing a quota of troops to the army. For example, after the disastrous defeat of the Eastern Empire at Adrianople, The Goths were given land along the Danube in exchange for defending the Danubian frontier and providing soldiers for the legions. The Goths realized that if it put its mind to it, the Empire could have crushed them, but facing annihilation from the migrating Huns, doing as the Romans told them was the most advantageous thing to do. In reality, it was Rome's best option, giving the pitiful state of her economy, which at this point was more of a proto-feudalism than the market economy of old. But in the long term, it was a lethal move to make. By 400 A.D, most of the Roman lands were divided amongst the confederate tribes, held together only by the clout of wise generals. In the early 5th century, this was a man named Stilicho. Stilicho was a Vandal who had worked his way up the ranks to become Patrician, which was the supreme military commander of the Empire, second only to the Emperor himself. The confederate tribes were fiercely loyal to him, but he was soon assassinated by the Emperor, who feared his ambition. This caused a mass desertion amongst the army, as many of the soldiers of the Empire instead joined up with the Gothic Warlord, Alaric. Most, if not all, of his army was comprised of Roman deserters. He truthfully had no intent of destroying the Empire, or Rome. He had gotten stiffed out of a deal, and demanded retribution. The utterly incompetent Emperor Honorius did little to prevent Alaric's sack of Rome, which in reality was not the most terrible event. It only lasted three days and Alaric, being a Christian, ordered his men to leave the churches and anyone in them unmolested. After the sack the Goths were essentially split into two tribes, the Ostrogoths, which stayed along the Danube, and the Visigoths, which settled in Spain.

After Stilicho, the next Patrician was a Roman by the name of Flavius Aetius. Aetius was a sneaky and underhanded person, but few could deny his ability to do so much with so little. He was able to use various diplomatic techniques to keep the confederate tribes loyal to Rome, but one group of people he was unable to control were the Vandals. The vandals raped and pillaged their way across the Empire, through Gaul, down into Spain, across Gibralter, and into Africa, where they conquered Carthage in a spectacularly bloody fashion. This was a devastating blow to the Empire because Carthage was one of the few areas of the Western Empire untouched by war, thus was its most richest Province (Amusingly, the Emperor declared that the Vandals were now an official federated tribe, 'granted' land in Africa.) From Africa, the Vandals sailed up the Italian coast, sacking Rome again in 455 A.D. Aetius was not able to rouse the confederate tribes to defend Italy, as by now they were, for all intents and purposes, autonomous states. There was little Aetius could do to stop the Vandals, whose 455 sack lasted two weeks and was vastly more devastating to Rome than the Gothic sack had been. Later that year, Aetius was murdered by the jealous Emperor Valentinian III.

Aetius, the man who had united the Roman Empire for a cataclysmic last stand against the Huns at Chalons, is now known as the Last of the Romans. After he died, there was none left who could hold the Empire together. The Empire gradually flickered out, until the Ostrogothic King Odoacer cast the facade off, and declared the Roman emperor irrelevent, and forced him into retirement.

The fall of the Roman Empire had to do with many factors that came together. The State became an expensive, authoritarian, top-heavy bureaucracy. Onerous taxes and crushing inflation destroyed the Roman Economy. Without the backing of a well financed state, the proper army ossified into irrelevence. Then the Romans, desperate for military might, turned to German mercenaries and federated tribes. The flow of capital into Germanic hands made them immensely wealthy, able to form huge confederations of tribes that were more than a match for the enfeebled empire. This trend continued until the state was broke, possessing no wealth to speak of, and unable to control its own demons. By this time, it was only perpetuated by cunning generals, who were under the eye of the petty and jealous imperial court. Once there were no more powerful generals to hold the empire together, the empire passed.