Why were the Roman legions unable to defeat the barbarians?

Question

They had the best military technology in the world, the resources of an enormous unified political state, a unified and stable code of laws and economy, and a great system of transportation and communication. How could they have lost to German barbarians?

Keep in mind that the Germans caused trouble for Rome since the beginning, and that at times in her history, Rome was invaded by foreign tribes without ultimately falling victim to them. Why is it that the tide turned and it became impossible to beat the barbarians or have enough soldiers to defend the frontier without hiring disloyal mercenaries?

Keep in mind, too, that the empire survived as a very large entity for a very long time, with Romans always being in a minority in terms of people who actually lived in Rome.

Answer 1

Least we forget that the Romans, the greatest civilization to ever take hold of this earth defeated the barbarians for CENTURIES, and managed to keep an empire/republic alive and well for almost a thousand years. The fact is the Romans did indeed fight back against barbarians who outnumbered them sometimes more than 3to1 many times, one example being the warrior queen Boudica in Great Brittan. The romans used their military brilliance very wisely.

Barbarians did not really conquor the Romans. Three things killed the Roman empire before the Gots invaded. The first being the Pax Romana, if an empire has not fought a battle in more than 200 years (in those days that was over 10 generations) then you would be very suceptable to being defeated by battle hardened barbarians. Even Napoleon once said "in order to have good warriors, one must always be at war". The second was the spread of Christianity, think about it......if America all the sudden converted to islam........would this nation be the same?? or would democracy and capitalism and equal rights become a thing of the past? And lastly it was the death of the Roman citizen. The Romans towards the end of their rein started selling roman citizenship. Nobody cared about being Roman anymore, when the Goths marched over the alps, there were no more true Romans left to defend the valiant civilization

SPQR the mark of the legions

Answer 2

Because Germanic tribes weren't the savages the Romans thought they were and they were born into a harsh world, fighters were born not trained, from father to son the warrior ways were carried on, sure the Romans had massive armies but the Germanic peoples knew they could do more damages to larger army with hit and run tactics, an army the size of Romes would have been a logistical nightmare of problems, the Germanic tribes and clans had fierce reputations that gave the roman soldiers a chill up there spine or so i would imagine after all moral is an effective weapon of war as well.

Answer 3

Both the Romans and the Greeks, being civilized areas, had this snobbish attitude to what they called 'barbarians' (the word 'barbarian' comes from a Greek slur, from the impression that all their languages sounded like 'barbar'...) The Romans looked down on pagan/rural tribes that sacrificed humans, as , despite sacrificing animals they viewed this custom as rather savage. The likes of Tacitus did show admiration of many aspects of Germanic/Gaulish customs and culture, and of their bravery (I believe Tacitus presented them in a good light in contrast to the decadent people back in Rome) They were not totally different, as all Europeans (apart from Basques and the Finnish/Hungarian/Estonian trio) have the same cultural and linguistic roots, but one can make a clear distinction between the rural tribes and Roman civilization - back then even before Christianity there was already a perceived difference between rural paganism/heathenism and supposedly superior urban/civilized polytheism.

Answer 4

If you are referring to the Teutoberg forest defeat, it was a set-up, and Varrus fell for it. If you are referring to the final defeat: well, it was a time of total moral decay, when people didn't want to die anymore for the glory of Rome. The legions were filled with barbarians, who weren't so eager to fight against their fellow tribesmen, so they easily betray Rome. Also, Roman legions became spoiled over time, and convinced their commanders to let them not wear helmets, because they were "too heavy", and then the breast armors, for the same reasons. The armies were overstretched, since the Empire was hit especially by attacks of the Huns, which triggered movement of other peoples, who wanted to run away from the Huns, and tried to settle in Roman lands, fighting with the Romans rather then with the Huns.
That's about it, for now.

Answer 5

After the breakup of the Roman Empire into two (Contantinople) and the conquest of N. Africa by the Vandals, the Roman power began to ebb from the lack of financial resources to keep a standing army in the field. The weakened roman state was thus vulnerable to barbarian invasions.

Answer 6

Militarily, the barbarians, one could argue, defeated the Romans in battle, but only as the empire was in its final stages of decline. It is better said that the empire defeated itself from within, rather than from without.
The glue that held Roman society together for centuries, pride of roman citizenship no longer had any meaning. The common Roman no longer believed in the state.

Answer 7

THE EMPIRE BECAME SO LARGE THAT THERE WEREN'T ENOUGH ROMANS TO COVER ALL THE AREA NEEDED AND IT BECAME NECESSARY TO RECRUIT FOREIGN SOLDIERS TO FILL IN THE GAPS AND THEY WERE NOT FIGHTING FOR ROME BUT FOR THE PAY THEY RECEIVED. THEREFORE THEY WERE UNWILLING TO GIVE THEIR LIVES TO DEFEND THE EMPIRE.