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Late Roman army. The West Roman army disintegrated AD 425–470, whilst the East Roman army continued until the Muslim conquests, after which the theme system was created. The Tetrarchs, a porphyry statue on Venice 's Basilica di San Marco, shows the emperor Diocletian and his three imperial colleagues.
The Roman army of the late Republic refers to the armed forces deployed by the late Roman Republic, from the beginning of the first century BC until the establishment of the Imperial Roman army by Augustus in 30 BC. Shaped by major social, political, and economic change, the late Republic saw the transition from the Roman army of the mid ...
The Late Roman army is the term used to denote the military forces of the Roman Empire from the accession of emperor Diocletian in 284 until the Empire's definitive division into Eastern and Western halves in 395. A few decades afterwards, the Western army disintegrated as the Western Empire collapsed.
The structural history of the Roman military concerns the major transformations in the organization and constitution of ancient Rome 's armed forces, "the most effective and long-lived military institution known to history." [ 1 ] At the highest level of structure, the forces were split into the Roman army and the Roman navy, although these two ...
The Roman army had derived from a militia of main farmers and the gain of new farmlands for the growing population or later retiring soldiers was often one of the campaign's chief objectives. Only in the late empire did the preservation of control over Rome's territories become the Roman military's primary role.
These units usually numbered between 300 and 2,000 soldiers and some of them kept their original numbering schemes. The primary source for the legions of this era is the Notitia Dignitatum, a late 4th-century document containing all the civil and military offices of both halves of the Roman Empire (revised in c. 420 for the Western Empire). Legio I
In the Late Roman Empire the army was divided into two major units, the limitanei border guards and mobile armies consisting of comitatenses. The limitanei would deal with smaller raids, or, in the case of larger invasions, try to defend or stall long enough for the comitatenses legions to arrive.
Roman military borders and fortifications were part of a grand strategy of territorial defense in the Roman Empire, although this is a matter of debate.By the early 2nd century, the Roman Empire had reached the peak of its territorial expansion and rather than constantly expanding their borders as earlier in the Empire and Republic, the Romans solidified their position by fortifying their ...