Were Infantry in Antiquity better than Infantry in Medieval period?

[Argronok0]

Basically when I look at the Greek Hoplites (Especially Spartans) and Roman Legionaries (The Armored ones especially) and then I look at Medieval European Warfare like the Crusades and the Hundred Years War between England and France and I ask why has Infantry quality declined from Antiquity to Medieval period?

Look at this:

https://www.ancient.eu/img/r/p/500x600/152.jpg?v=1485680514

https://pre00.deviantart.net/05a1/th/pre/i/2015/180/b/6/imperial_roman_legionary_by_pegasusandco-d8z8lsw.jpg

And this to me looks like a more quality equipped and trained infantry fighter then the kind we see in Medieval times like this:

https://img00.deviantart.net/235b/i/2010/251/e/a/men_at_arms_concept_by_neilblade-d2ybvfn.jpg

https://orig00.deviantart.net/b38d/f/2016/179/1/7/image_jpg1_zpsh1jos5db_by_jlazaruserzebetblah-da7xait.jpg

[acur1231]

Well, Rome was eventually destroyed by the barbarians, partly because their legions were no longer always able to defeat their barbarian opponents. If a Roman Legion were to fight at Agincourt, I have no doubt they would be crushed under a mass of longbows that blot out the sun, and to which they really have no response. They can form testudo, but these are not small stones or javalins. These are huge projectiles, fired by Longbow who have trained from youth.

[Deathbed Atheist]

Originalmente postado por acur1231:

Well, Rome was eventually destroyed by the barbarians, partly because their legions were no longer always able to defeat their barbarian opponents. If a Roman Legion were to fight at Agincourt, I have no doubt they would be crushed under a mass of longbows that blot out the sun, and to which they really have no response. They can form testudo, but these are not small stones or javalins. These are huge projectiles, fired by Longbow who have trained from youth.

One of Rome's greatest strengths was the adaptability (adopting techniques from their enemies) and use of foreign auxilary troops to supplement their core infantry. If you magically drop a squad of legionnaries in the front of a few rows of longbows yeah your right but if your talking about a fictional Roman legion fighting that battle, they aren't going to show up with their pants around their ankles or be suprised by the longbows.

In my opinion people seriously overestimate 10th century warfare compared to Rome in this thread. The battle of Agincourt was an exception. Professional standing armies were unheard of, and 95% of the poor ♥♥♥♥♥ who died on a battlefield between 500 and 1300 were farmers and village peasants.

[Skadi]

Originalmente postado por acur1231:

Well, Rome was eventually destroyed by the barbarians, partly because their legions were no longer always able to defeat their barbarian opponents. If a Roman Legion were to fight at Agincourt, I have no doubt they would be crushed under a mass of longbows that blot out the sun, and to which they really have no response. They can form testudo, but these are not small stones or javalins. These are huge projectiles, fired by Longbow who have trained from youth.

Well if i am correct the romans lost to the barbarians because their army was weakening, they had too few soliders to secure the borders and a collapsing economy due to corruption, inflation,
civil wars and a series of weak or incompetent leaders. The roman empire at its peak vs the late roman empire is a totally different side of the coin.

[Jerroser]

Originalmente postado por T.w² | Gratefully Dead м:

Originalmente postado por acur1231:

Well, Rome was eventually destroyed by the barbarians, partly because their legions were no longer always able to defeat their barbarian opponents. If a Roman Legion were to fight at Agincourt, I have no doubt they would be crushed under a mass of longbows that blot out the sun, and to which they really have no response. They can form testudo, but these are not small stones or javalins. These are huge projectiles, fired by Longbow who have trained from youth.

One of Rome's greatest strengths was the adaptability (adopting techniques from their enemies) and use of foreign auxilary troops to supplement their core infantry. If you magically drop a squad of legionnaries in the front of a few rows of longbows yeah your right but if your talking about a fictional Roman legion fighting that battle, they aren't going to show up with their pants around their ankles or be suprised by the longbows.

In my opinion people seriously overestimate 10th century warfare compared to Rome in this thread. The battle of Agincourt was an exception. Professional standing armies were unheard of, and 95% of the poor ♥♥♥♥♥ who died on a battlefield between 500 and 1300 were farmers and village peasants.

Longbows really didn't have a significantly higher level of pentration power compared to bows from the antiquty period. Their strengh came more from their range and ability to fire and reload so quickly. in the battle of Agincort for instance most French knight did make it to the English lines alive, they where mostly just so worn out demoralized after having to force their way through mud and contant arrow fire (which largely didn't penetrate their armour) that the English soldiers could take them out very easily.

Also, the later Roman armies featured in Attila where still quite a competant fighting force (when properly organised. The fall of the western Empire was more a matter of its govenment falling apart so much that it was unable to support them. Combined with having to fight on so many different front.

[Zubat Man]

Originalmente postado por T.w² | Gratefully Dead м:

Originalmente postado por acur1231:

Well, Rome was eventually destroyed by the barbarians, partly because their legions were no longer always able to defeat their barbarian opponents. If a Roman Legion were to fight at Agincourt, I have no doubt they would be crushed under a mass of longbows that blot out the sun, and to which they really have no response. They can form testudo, but these are not small stones or javalins. These are huge projectiles, fired by Longbow who have trained from youth.

One of Rome's greatest strengths was the adaptability (adopting techniques from their enemies) and use of foreign auxilary troops to supplement their core infantry. If you magically drop a squad of legionnaries in the front of a few rows of longbows yeah your right but if your talking about a fictional Roman legion fighting that battle, they aren't going to show up with their pants around their ankles or be suprised by the longbows.

In my opinion people seriously overestimate 10th century warfare compared to Rome in this thread. The battle of Agincourt was an exception. Professional standing armies were unheard of, and 95% of the poor ♥♥♥♥♥ who died on a battlefield between 500 and 1300 were farmers and village peasants.

Sorry, but some Roman generals were not adaptible at all, Hanibal and Surena beat them pretty badly due to this, and many medieval generals were great at adapting such as Richard the lionhearted.


And you are making alot of assumptions, an Imperial roman legionare from 100 AD or so would not know what a crossbow or a trebuchet was... So yes they would technically be dropped in with their pants down.


Also I consider the 10th century to be the late dark ages or the Viking age, not the medieval period, so keep in mind when I say medieval I mean late 11th - midish 16th century.



Like I said, if both sides had good generals (Or bad, I don't judge) Imperial era Rome (100 ADish) vs. High Medieval (1270ish) err....France? Rome would win, due to population and reasources as Rome was an Empire.


After fighting a very long and gruling war of attrition and suffering extreamly heavy Casualties.


Rome vs. all of high medieval Europe north Africa and the Roman part of the middle east? Medieval wins hands down, for the reasons you stated about tactics, Medieval people did have more stuff so the had more tactical options, and men were free to use what they felt they needed (or could afford).

[Nota]

If you were looking for a 1:1 comparison of similarly populated high medieval (1250ishAD) VS Roman Army assuming the same budget they would be up against guys lookin like this

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f234d9f36be37f9d32c7e4aa06a4a1b2-c

They would also be dealing with a lot more pikes then they could be used to.

[Argronok0]

Originalmente postado por Ranger_Savage:

If you were looking for a 1:1 comparison of similarly populated high medieval (1250ishAD) VS Roman Army assuming the same budget they would be up against guys lookin like this

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f234d9f36be37f9d32c7e4aa06a4a1b2-c

They would also be dealing with a lot more pikes then they could be used to.

By that point in time guns and cannons were just beginning to be used so the Greco Roman Armies of antiquity gets rekt hard.

[Zubat Man]

Originalmente postado por Ranger_Savage:

If you were looking for a 1:1 comparison of similarly populated high medieval (1250ishAD) VS Roman Army assuming the same budget they would be up against guys lookin like this

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f234d9f36be37f9d32c7e4aa06a4a1b2-c

They would also be dealing with a lot more pikes then they could be used to.

I would say that guy is more late medieval than high myself.

[Nota]

Originalmente postado por Zubat Man:

Originalmente postado por Ranger_Savage:

If you were looking for a 1:1 comparison of similarly populated high medieval (1250ishAD) VS Roman Army assuming the same budget they would be up against guys lookin like this

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f234d9f36be37f9d32c7e4aa06a4a1b2-c

They would also be dealing with a lot more pikes then they could be used to.

I would say that guy is more late medieval than high myself.

Will it is dated for 15th century in the photo itself, the point being made was that well armed infantry in medieval times were more than sufficient to kill a roman soldier. If we compare from 100-900 AD you don't see much change in the war war is fought much besides the hun cavalry hoard. War technology hit a softcap for quite some time as valuble knowledge was lost in the burning/looting and general confusion of the collapse of Rome's empire in the west.

[Dayve]

Quality didn't deteriorate, the states of medieval Europe just didn't have the same level of organization that the Roman Empire had (at least until the 15th/16th century), so they didn't have huge armies all equipped with armour and weapons provided by the state. They had knights who wore 3-4 layers of armour (padded, chainmail, plate and maybe another layer of padded over the plate) and these rich nobility had armour vastly superior to anything anybody had in antiquity. The rest of the army were levied peasants, at best armed with a spear and a shield and maybe no armour at all, or maybe something padded or some looted chainmail or whatever they could get their hands on.

But yeah, in general medieval armour was vastly superior to that of antiquity. Vastly, hugely superior. The states of Europe were nowhere near as organized and prosperous as the Roman Empire though.

[EoNightcore]

Originalmente postado por Samtemdo8:

Basically when I look at the Greek Hoplites (Especially Spartans) and Roman Legionaries (The Armored ones especially) and then I look at Medieval European Warfare like the Crusades and the Hundred Years War between England and France and I ask why has Infantry quality declined from Antiquity to Medieval period?

Here's ProbablyNotLying's, aTotal War fan, paper on the evolution of Greek soldiers from simple citizen hoplites to professional pikemen and mercenary peltest units,
Historic Greek soldiers, from the period of Rome: Total War (pictures inside)

And his next paper on the evolution of Roman soldiers from similar citizen hoplites to the republican infantry we love and know, the velites, hastatii, principes, and triarii. It continues from the republican infantry into the imperial legions many total war players pratically worship, and the evolution from these legions into the foederati armies of the late antiquity.
The historical Roman army (with pictures)

However, I believe the main reason infantry quality declined from the Antiquity to the Medieval period was largely due to multiple reasons, of which the biggest three is the decline in population in the Roman Empire, the evolution of the Roman Army, and the rise of the Frankish Empire.

Decline in Population

Now, I'm sure everyone here knows that Rome during the Antiquity era had prospered under a golden age, known as "Pax Romana", during which Rome had great control over it's logistics system, supplying most of the empire with the fertile farmlands of Egypt.

However, this ended with the rise of Emperor Commodus. Of course, this wasn't entirely his fault, due to the fact that the imperial court had become rife with intrigue and conspiracies, which ultimately culmulinated in the assassination of Commodus. This would cause the Roman Empire to be thrusted into several eras of civil war and unrest, as emperor after emperor were either assassinated or forced to fight rivals for their thrones.

Of course, civil war tends to disrupt trade, and thus this would already see a decline in population in the Roman Empire, as a reduction in trade meant a reduction in safety, thus causing a disruption in communication and logistics. This meant that Rome could no longer feed the people as freely as it could before.

The Germanic migration and invasions of the late antiquity didn't help matters too, as they further disrupted the Roman Empire by roaming across the countryside, settling in territory thaht the Romans increasingly had to abandon or risk losing more of it's already depleted population.

This decrease in population also forced Rome to increasingly rely on german mercenaries, called Foederati, which decreased the professionalism of the Roman military.

Evolution of the Roman military

As is stated by ProbablyNotLying in his paper on the evolution of Roman Infantry, "during the 3rd century, citizens-only rules for legions were dres meant that with no differences between legions and auxiliaries, the specialized infantry nature of the legionary evetually evaporated, as is stated by ProbablyNotLying, as "legions lost their special equipment over the 3rd century as lorica segmenta disappeared, simpler javelins came to replace the complex pila, the spatha replaced the gladius, and the auxiliary's oval shields became the standard."

Of course, this decrease in the quality of Rome's infantry became further decreased as Rome was forced to increasingly rely on Foederati mercenaries as it's military, due to the decreased population it suffered from civil war, inability to provide grain, and loss of land to the encroaching German tribes. In time, it came to fully rely on these german mercenaries, as many german tribes settled in roman lands as semi-independent roman vassals, who were also supposedly roman citizens.

"The result is that by the end of the western Roman empire in the late 5th century," as is written by ProbablyNotLying, "there was almost no difference between foederati and regulars."

The Frankish Empire

The collapse of Western Rome had reduced the former imperial domains into squabbling german tribes who fought one another over the leftover parts. The Franks, one of these many german tribes, managed to carve out a region for themsevles in Western Europe. Their armies tended to consist of the lower-classes commoners serving as infantrymen while the upper-class nobles fought as mounted infantry, riding to a battle and dismounting to fight.

It was during Charlemagne's time, however, that the nobility began to fight as cavalry units rather than as mounted infantry. A part of the reason why this occured was due to the discovery of the stirrup, a simple technology that allowed a horse rider to stay stable on their horse, thus allowing them to fully use the weight and momentum of both rider and horse to deliver an even deadlier blow with a weapon.

As a result, Charlemagne's army grew increasingly deadly as his cavalry, who could be called knights in a sense, took to the field and fought battle after battle with islamic invaders in Iberia to germanic warriors in Italy and Germania. As a result, many realms throughout Europe adopted the cavalry-based army that Charlemagne fielded, which evetually developed into the Knightly culture of the Medieval ages that many today are so enamored by.

Conclusion

In thinking about this, the main reasons for the decrease in quality from the Antiquity to the Medieval eras is due to the decline of the Roman populace, which meant an increased reliance on German warriors, who were in turn decimated by the rise of a new Knightly warrior class that would dominate the battlefields for the next few centuries.

On a final note, I doubt Hoplites can actually be considered to be of higher quality than medieval infantry. Sure, they look heavily armored, but Hoplites tended to fight in only one, and I repeat, only one kind of formation. Group up into a big rectangle and keep marching forward with spears sticking forward.

It's pretty much the most basic of tactics, and one of the few reasons the spartans were successful in Hoplite warfare was because they were capable of... turning. That's right, they had the discipline and training to actually turn around.

[EoNightcore]

Originalmente postado por Samtemdo8:

I also like to add a specific example, that I think the Helmet of the Greek Hoplite, specifically this kind of helmet:

https://images.maskworld.com/is/image/maskworld/bigview/hoplite-helmet--mw-120489-1.jpg

Is the best helmet ever made in the history of ancient warfare, because to me it looks the most balanced, it covers a good majority of the head and face, yet still gives enough vision to the eyes, compared to later Medieval helmets that knigths and men-at-arms wear and they cover two extremes such as not covering the whole head:

https://bottega.avalonceltic.com/rep_immagini/prod/e254_bb_1.jpg

Or completely encasing the head entirely, face included with the most barely visable eye sight:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bf/71/15/bf711530d9d7699e07f15fefb9598c9f.jpg

Supposedly, but that's a Corinthian Helmet[en.wikipedia.org]. The Corinthian appears to be a great helmet, granted, but it's about as bulky and stuffy as that latter Medieval Helmet you've posted. It blocked vision and sound, along with being really expensive to manufacture, probably more so considering the more primitive metalworking techniques and the fact that it's made out of bronze rather than steel, which the latter tended to be much lighter and stronger.

The medieval hat not covering the whole head, so-called as a Kettle Hat[en.wikipedia.org] was created as a cheap helmet for the common foot infantry of the Medieval Age. Not everyone walking around is Men at Arms, there were plenty of levied peasants and recruits who still needed armor, but couldn't afford buying something expensive like steel plated armor for every single piece of their body, including their family jewels.

The medieval helmet covering the entire head, the Closed Helmet[en.wikipedia.org] isn't meant to be worn by infantry, but rather mounted knights I believe. After all, it does contain a little wonderful few pieces that allows the front to the helmet to open up and lock into place, thus allowing a medieval man-at-arm to actually see whatever he's supposed to be looking at, unlike a Corinthian helmet which is one whole piece of armor. Granted of course, Knights typically don't need to look around to see what's happening when they're on the charge.


You seem to be worshipping the antiquity a bit too much, I say. Certainly the units of the antiquity might seem better than those of the medieval era, but one must realize that there's a reason history played out the way it did.