Talk:Military of ancient Rome/Archive 1

message: Created initial article to remove redirect from roman military to roman legion, logically flawed, since the roman military had a naval element independent from the legions, and the roman legions were not the entirety of the roman army either. A minimal article at the moment, probably a stub, so have flagged it as such - PocklingtonDan 11:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: see talk page for Roman legion for discussion of the revision of superstructure of articles for the roman military - PocklingtonDan 17:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  initial article 

message: I know the article is barely a stub at the moment, its next on my to-do list, will completely overhaul it in next 48 hours - PocklingtonDan 21:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  next on my to-do list! 

message: you overloaded the disambiguation Wandalstouring 13:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you just clarify what you mean by this please? Cheers - PocklingtonDan 14:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  overloaded 

message: Good idea - the older roman military structure article was a historic dog-end that I was trying to fit into the new superstructure but it had little content and most of it questioable value anyway. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 14:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirect of roman military structure to roman military 

message: As per wiki guidelines, article is now too full to be considered a stub. May want to flag as needing expansion, expert help, cites, etc etc if wanted though - PocklingtonDan 17:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  removed stub flag 

message: Hi wandalstouring - seems to be just you and me working on this series of articles at the moment. I dont want to revert an edit without discussion, but I think the Comitatenses Palatini should be a subheading of the comitatens section, rather than as a non-field unit, because in the later Empire, after it had developed fromt he earlier Scholae Palatinae, it was a very rreal, quite large field army, with the sole difference that it was under the direct command of the Empreror. I would have to look for a cite, but they were a very real, active field force. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 18:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, not a huge issue - it could go in either place I suppose. - PocklingtonDan 19:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comitatenses Palatini should be under comitatens section, not no-field unit 

message: This is an expanded disambiguation page in my perspective, so we should keep a low profile in the entry sections about Roman history and move academic discussions elsewhere while providing massively links and some texts to give a short intro what the link is about. Wandalstouring 20:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree 100% - PocklingtonDan 20:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of this page 

message: Could you just cut that part to three sentences. You present here highly controversial material on the decline of Rome and not even all historians do agree on this. Ask oldwindybear before you start pushing one author and his theory on Rome. Wandalstouring 21:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi wandalstouring - we've interested on enough pages that you must know by now that I watch the pages I contribute to - if you flag something as citation needed, I'll go and do exactly that. I have no objection to changing "X is the case" to "Y argues that X is the case (cite)" in any instance. Perhaps if you flag up anything you think needs a cite and then let me know here, or on my talk page, I can add cites to anything you find implausible. The way to achieve an accurate article isn't to cut out something you find doubtful, but to bury it in a perponderance of opposite viewpoints. ie, from "X says Y" to "Although X says Y, A B C D E F G and H all say M". Cheers - PocklingtonDan 21:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Also, I'm not sure which author's views I'm meant to be pushing - the expenditure subsection has one cite each from Gibbon, Hadas and Jones :-) Cheers - PocklingtonDan 21:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expenditures 

message: This is sort of a work in progress so if you have any information that is additional or contradicts what is there at the moment let me know and I will revise it - there is frustratingly little info on most of these taxes and revenue forms and some seem to wink in and out of existence over hundreds of years! - PocklingtonDan 16:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Funding chart

message: Expenditure
The cost of maintaining up to 30 legions and a dozen fleets without revenue coming in from plundering and invasion was astronomical and provided a "crushing burden"[11] on the finances of the Roman state[12].
how does it happen such a big empire is not able to defend its borders if most of them are naturally protected? We should first state what the problem of Roman financing was (corruption and then that the army upkeep was not possible. We have this corruption already mentioned earlier when dead soldiers got paid in the late Empire army. Sorry, I will read some books in time, but not now. Wandalstouring 17:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, a lot of the sources indicate that the Roman military was entirely funded by plundering initially and that it was in effect a self-perpetuating steam-roller - money from plunder wsa used for Roman armies, who plundered, which paid for more Roman armies etc. The Roman army provided a net benefit to the public purse for quite some time, and it was only later when the borders were fixed that funding became a drain on the Imperial purse. As you say, this shouldn't have created a problem given the size of the Empire, but as in the article, there were several reasons why the state was unable to raise the money from the populace. As you note, corruption was also a big problem. Perhaps it should be made clearer that there were no funding problems while the empire was expanding, but that funding became at least an issue (if not a problem) after that, exacerbated by corruption. Althogh it seems crazy that a huge empire of 60 million couldn't fund a military of, say, 500,000 - look at the contemporary situation - the UK has 56 million people and armed forces of just 160,000. Sure, it costs a lot more to trin and upkeep a 21st century soldier plus aircraft carrier and satellite, but then the population is several orders of magnitude richer too. I think its misleading to assume a stable situation too - in a stable situation I'm sure a funding problem could have been overcome. However, the problems of funding the army seem to have been tied in to the problems with the economy - namely the massive inflation, which sometimes reached 1500% - it made the wages of the soldiers worthless almost overnight and created huge problems so they had to be supplemented by massive donatives, or provided instead with goods directly instead of pay which, given the massive inflation, cost the state even more. The bigger picture is massive and complicated - I'm sure there must be an article somewhere in wikipedia dealing with this. Beyond doubt, they DID have trouble funding the military, the reasons why are just complicated! As recently sa the 20th century we were still having trouble controlling runaway inflation. I think maybe some of the info here might need working into the article section but its such a huge larger issue I'm a bit afraid to tackle it. If you can find something on wikipedia on this wider economic problems and link to it with "the wider economic problems made it difficult to effectively tackle the problems of military funding in isolation" or similar, that might be best :-) Cheers - PocklingtonDan 17:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Also, I should point out that the armies of the late Roman empire were larger than they would ideally have been because of historical circumstance - that is, they were unfortunate to have another strong Empire on their immediate borders (Persians), plus they were hammered by successive waves of migrants caused by population displacements as far away as China. It was dumb bad luck in that respect. - PocklingtonDan 17:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Persians also had to fund their army somehow and all the other enemies as well. your numbers are too high, you give 700,000 max for 120 million people - 350,000 max for 60 million. 350,000 are not fully field armies and also serve as police forces. Comparing this soldiers/civilians ratio it is equivalent to France (300,000) or Germany (450,000) during the Cold War, both with about 60 million civilians. While you mention our ressources, you also have to consider that our armies are more expensive, etc. higher degrees of militarization with less population are also possible, such as Prussia or the France under Napoleon have proven. We should mention complex financial problems and not weight down all on an army. It is also of interested why the army was so inflated. A smaller army had priviously been able to kick butts. Wandalstouring 20:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

text: At least this financial system of the Romans reminds me very much of the Nazi financial system, where it was an absolute requirement to make oneself owner other people's property within a limited timeframe in order to avoid a finacial collapse due to a hidden inflation that helped the state to finance the military buildup. Mefo bills Wandalstouring 20:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not logical 

message: Hi wandalstouring, I didn't want to revert your edit without speaking to you, but text as it stands is not accurate - there is no evidence of a Roman Navy until the time of the Roman Republic, tot he bext of my knowledge. There may have been a (very) small fleet or similar prior to the first Punic War, but certainly not back to the Roman Kingdom (or at least there is no evidence of such that i'm aware of). Therefore it is not correct to say that the Roman military "oringinally consisted of....small navy". It needs to read "originally consisted solely of an army. A small navy was added int he early ROman Republic, and substantially expanded during the First Punic War" or similar - I added this text but it was removed in one of your edits - not sure if this was inadvertent or not so didn't want to revert without discussion. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 18:04, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't mean to revert it. Yup, we have to add that there was a Roman navy prior to the Punic Wars. I'm not sure whether it didn't exist during the late kingdom already. Needs some research. Perhaps say an army and later a small navy which was significantly expanded in the First Punic War. Wandalstouring 19:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks wandalstouring, you're doing a grand job of hammering this article into shape. I have to confess I know very little about early Roman navy, I haven't read anything about it existing pre-Republic, but then again I haven't read anything baout it not existing pre-Republic either. - PocklingtonDan 20:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "originally consisting of an army and small navy" 

message: Roman military seemed a large topic to not have a template for easier navigation around the superstructure - I've set up a basic template but ony included it on this page for now - I could do with some input from as many people as possible on which articles should be listed in the template please - PocklingtonDan 14:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template 

message: Added template on talk page to bring it under scope of Military history WikiProject and requested initial peer review. - PocklingtonDan 09:44, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested Peer review 

message: The HIstory section is a little redundant since, ancient Rome no longer existing, ALL of the article is history - the contents are thin in any case and it is impossible to separate history out from eg its sttructural development lower down the article - this is an artifical separation and the structural changes only make sense and can only be described within historical content. The "Branches and Structural overview" section may need renaming "Historical Development" or similar?? - PocklingtonDan 11:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just wantd to point out that this latter section whilst containing some history is still only going to contain history relating to its structural development, not a history of campaigns etc. - PocklingtonDan 11:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Going to delete History section 

message: This hasn't yet been raised int he peer review surprisingly, but I think the Roman Navy section needs completely reworking - the equivalent section on the army shows clearly the structural development over time, whereas the Roman Navy section barely mentions structure or development but rather lists all the equipment and ship types. I realise listing ship types and equipment is analogous to listing troop types and weapon types for troops as in the army section, but the navy section doesn't put any of this in the context of their historical structural development. Does anyone agree or have proposals for re-working this section or is it fine as-is?? - PocklingtonDan 11:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a structure of the Roman navy analogus to the army in military history of ancient Rome it can be expanded by mentioning the use of different ship types and scopes. Wandalstouring 22:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concerns over Roman Navy section 

message: What is the scope of this article now? Wandalstouring 13:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What started off as listing the branches turned into a full article in its own right - the structural history article. The contents that remain now nicely match other "military" articles such as "US military" and "British military", giving a summary of their command structure, expenditure, etc, etc, and allowing drilling down into more details topics. I'd really like to work more on the template and build it into a good navigation tool for the whole ROman military topic - I have started to add the template to other articles but this topic has a huge number of unlinked files often covering the same or similar topics. Trying to sort it out is going to be a headache but I feel we've already hammered some discipline into the superstructure. - PocklingtonDan 16:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The British and US military are no role models, they are essentially stubs or starts. They do mention the campaigns there or the branches, was is clearly missing, but constitutes major parts of these articles. I see no discipline and miss any superstructure, perhaps you could reword the intro so that it is clear what this article should be about. I don't quite get it. Is it about funding? Is it about the development of the command structure? Is it about the development of manpower? Essentially you created new articles where all of the mentioned topics would fit into, but the structure here with its content of a little bit this and that, no scope, no direction is messy. I can add anything on the Roman military here like "Roman military kitchen: they ate lots of beans" and none can say this is vandalism. Wandalstouring 17:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi wandalstouring, I disagree that this article is a stub. It does not contain campaign history because that is such a huge topic it is put in a separate article linked to from this main article. I don't see that as a problem. All the other "Miliary of XYZ" article I can find do the same thing - give a summary of funding, manpower, etc, and then give links to articles drilling down into topics in more detail. I don't think this makes the article a stub but rather an invaluable top-tier page that gives an overview and, along with the navigation template, allows exploration within the topic. I do agree that the intro needs re-wording. I would like to develop the page further into a really good top-level factbook on the Roman military, leading to strong articles on individual topics. I think it already does a good job giving a summary, but obviously you disagree. What would you like to do to improve the article? Cheers - PocklingtonDan 18:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Who said this article is a stub? I listed what your praised examples contain and pointed out the difference - these examples are no good examples.dot. First I would like to know what should be the content (in detail). Wandalstouring 18:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how to tie the sections together better and am open to ideas. I do think there is very valid content here though that doesn't belong in any of the other articles. I suppose it does need tying together better though into a coherent overall article. I am open to ideas :-) - PocklingtonDan 18:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope? 

message: I was working on the Structural History of the Roman military and I'm concerned about issues (like tactics) which fall through the cracks between "campaign history" and "structural history." Anyway, I copied the section over to a new page titled Late Roman military. I plan to copy the appropriate section from the other articles. I suggest discussing appropriate ways to divide the history and creating new period-based articles. Jacob Haller 03:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with this page creation. The issue you have raised is not valid, since pages covering these topics already exist at Strategy of the Roman military and Roman infantry tactics, for example - both linked in the main Roman military navbar at the top of each page. By creating this page, you are duplicating work from other articles and over-populating the category of articles on the Roman military - all the content in this article that you have created is already available in other articles. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 10:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that you have reverted my revisions to the "Structural History" article that is no longer true. I have other articles which need to reference the Late Roman military (including its organization, tactics, equipment, campaigns, etc.) and should not reference any earlier Roman military material. I have had to write extensive sections on Roman military equipment for non-Roman articles because of these organizational issues. Jacob Haller 11:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Moreover, if you do not wish me to add the relevent material, documentation, etc. to the various existing Roman military articles, I shall avoid adding it there, and I will instead add it to the "duplicate" article. Jacob Haller 11:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Jacob, pelase stop and read in-depth response at User talk:Jacob Haller - PocklingtonDan (talk) 14:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Sorry to add here that these sections in articles on non-Roman military seem totally out of place and make little sense. Wandalstouring 19:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the organizational section. Not the weapons section, IMO. I'd like to trim down the Roman weapons section in G&VW but expand it on another appropriate page. Jacob Haller 02:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *But the logical place to expand it would be Roman military personal equipment - it currently has a focus on weaponry from the early empire but oculd easily be split into period sections - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I can see that you are saying, Jacob, that it would be possible (and you say preferable) to have master articles by period rather than by theme. I think the problem with such an approach is that it breaks up the sweep of history to a much greater extent and makes it more difficult to relate eg structural changes from one period to another. I appreciate that splitting the articles thematically isn't perfect either, but it can work - the point is that each article will make slight mention of points covered in far greater depth in the other articles. For example, the structural history article can make some mention of weapons and armour in mentioning hoplite formations of the roman kingdom, but doesn't go into the same detail on personal equipment that the full partner article does. I think the main problem with changing all the articles to be organised by date rather than theme ((quite apart from the mammoth amount of work that would entail) is that you would either have to create eg "personal equipment" articles in triplicate (one for each period) or else pack the main article on each period with mind-numbing detail on tactics and personal equipment that is at far too great a level of detail for an article summarising that period of history. I think essentially, what i'm saying is that neither approach (date or theme) is perfect, buta lot is invested in the current theme organisation, and we have really just got to stick with it! Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organization by Theme or Organization by Date? 

message: Hello Dan, si vales valeo. It looks as though you are wrestling with some plan concerning the footnotes and citations. The "citations" are of course the footnotes. If they are under "citations", what will go in "footnotes"? I think the system allows for only one autogenerated sequence does it not? Should not this problem be faced at some point?Dave 13:13, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Footnotes/Citations

message: I would urge contributors to use the word "decimate" more carefully in Roman history.  It appears throughout various article all through out wiki.  It is being used with its modern definition (i.e. to destroy, obliterate), of course, but the word decimation had a different, specific meaning to the Roman military.  It punished inflicted on disloyal Roman Legions where 1 out of every 10 legionaires was executed and the rest banished.  
Dissento 21:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of the word "decimate." 

message: The chart states that the Consuls were elected by the Senate. This is wrong- they were elected by the Comitia Centuriata  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.161.156.121 (talk) 18:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error on chart for 'Military Command of the Roman Republic' 

message: http://www.crystalinks.com/romemilitary.html- Direct plagiarism present in the supply section  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.22.170.30 (talk) 02:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Copy/paste plagiarism