Magnus Maximus is remembered in the British (Welsh Language) texts as Macsen Wledig and it's said that he's the first son of Crispus (eldest son of Constantine.) And that he was a native Brit hailing from the area which is now called North Wales. More specifically Segontium (Modern day Caernarfon.) The Welsh language texts which mention him were in existence many centuries before the enlightenment thinkers began piecing Roman history together from the various Latin texts. Thought you may find this interesting.
Seeing the lockdown mentality of Diocletian and similar forms of government gives me greater appreciation and understanding of authoritarian governments.
Chain maille was actually the most common type of armor you would have seen in the Roman army even during Julius Caesar's time and even during the Carthaginian Wars which the Romans adopted from the Celts.
Theodosius' achievement in ending the rather misleadingly titled Arian Controversy, which had been going on for nearly 60 years, when his reign began, is probably how he earned the title The Great.
This is nitpicking but Gallus never set foot in the West. He was placed in charge of Syria. For anyone interested in this time period , or fiction for that matter, I can't recommend the book Julian by Gore Vidal high enough. Actually just about any thing by Gore Vidal is great but my particular favorites in no order are Julian, Creation,Burr, and Lincoln. Though I must admit personally I believe Lincoln might be the greatest literary character study I've ever come across
Chainmail is vastly superior to earlier segmentata. For one thing, soldiers could repair it in the field, the armor could serve for decades. The only "vice" is the added weight, but troops were carrying less equipment by then.
Who was Delirious? *Galerius* was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. During his reign, he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sassanid Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across the Danube against the Carpi, defeating them in 297 and 300. Wikipedia
Chainmail was always used by legionaries, was more expensive to produce, as well as more difficult to produce, and can be argued, was more effective than segmented plate armor. It was segmented plate armor that was mass produced in the 1st-3rd centuries. Scale armor was also used throughout all these eras. Also, the molded bronze breastplates continue to show up in art throughout the late Roman period. Constantine himself wore one, and probably had one of the best militaries in a long time. Military technology is always improving and adapting as time goes on. It's a popular misconception in anglo-american circles to see some sort of decline in military technology.
@@lawrence9506 Well, from the late 3rd to late 4th century, the Roman army was nigh unstoppable, and defeated every enemy that came up against them. Even Julian's army in Persia wasn't defeated militarily.
@@blkgardner It's also much easier to maintain and repair. A trooper could repair a few busted mail rings but needed a smith to fix broken segmented armor.
arguably Battle of Ongal of 680 and Achelous of 917 were worse. Although we don't necessarily know the exact numbers of casualties it is possible the casualties could be worse for both of these compared to Adrianople. But the first one was surely more important than Adrianople as it set the stage for the eventual ascent of the Bulgarian empire as a superpower. The second one was the culmination. It was also possibly the biggest medieval battle and most probably the byzantines suffered more casualties than at adrianople (the byzantines numbered 50,000 and just a small fraction of that army escaped).
OMG. @41:00, in 375 A.D., Emperor Valentinian has an aneurysm while screaming at a Barbarian leader? HAHAHAHAHA! ROTF LOL, that is so fucking funny... I can only image what that Barbarian leader was thinking... "This Roman turkey thinks he is better then us, but he drops dead from yelling?.. they are weak minded and now is the time to attack!" And yea, right around ~375 A.D., some of the other Barbarians started to come over the Rhine escapaing the Huns. Coincidence? i think not. I think once that story traveled to the Eastern Barbs, they knew the Empire was weak and defeatable...
Be nice to see a treatment of the historiography of this era and Late Antiquity in general. I grew up with JB Bury, Pirenne, and AHM Jones. But I'm cognizant that there's a whole 2/3 generations or so of recent scholarship and interpretation of this period. More pedestrian books like 428AD are kind of meh and don't really get into any substantive commentary, while others like Innes's Intro to Early medieval Europe are dense and almost meta-historical in their treatment. I've never read Heather or Wickham's books. It would be cool to see a breakdown of the authors and texts, schools of thought, in vogue, out of vogue, and why.
Historiography is essentially what grad school history classes focus on. Some of the debates and discussions can trend toward tedium, at least one you venture beyond scholarship on military and political topics. The other problem with historiographical treatments is that only people who are more or less experts in a field can provide a good rundown of the state of scholarship on any particular topic. I can do historiography on most topics in Greek history and a few in Roman history, but nothing this late chronologically. I still very much enjoy J.B. Bury, by the way. As a history of events, it still seems relevant.
OK. @49:35 Emperor Gratian, son of the Valentinian Emperor who died in 375 A.D. while yelling at a Barbarian, so first, his Eastern Emperor **uncle Valens** was killed in the Battle of Adrianople in 378 A.D. against the Goths, then Garatian is in Britain in 383 A.D. trying to put down a revolt and *his men turn on him* and he gets killed? WTF happened here? What did he do that pissed off so many people, including those sworn to protect him? Again, I will say this, the Barbarians were realizing first in 375, then 378, now in 383... that the Roman leadership was weak, incompetent and defeatable. And they would soon open the flood gates on the Roman Empire.
Gratian was defeated in battle at Paris by Magnus Maximus. His troops deserted him and he fled towards Lugdunum. He was captured en route and executed. Maximus was popular, and allowed to keep Britain, Spain, Gaul, and Africa. He soon had designs on Italy and attempted to depose the other western emperor(Gratian's co-emperor, Valentinian II) So Theodosius marched out west and destroyed him in a number of battles. The Senate then damned the memory of Magnus Maximus the Great.
He seems to have been a perfectly good emperor and it isn't clear why he became so unpopular, though his anti - pagan deeds may have annoyed the senators.
Curiously reluctant to criticize the policy of a command economy.I absolutely love Theristes but he's young and still has some faith in the efficacy of socialism as an anodyne in human affairs. As did I when young. By the way I was originally intrigued by the choice of his nom we plume. For those who don't recognize the allusion I recommend looking it up. Theristes in the Illiad is perhaps the first fleshed out depiction of commoner in world literature
The Fourth Century was a period of prosperity. I think this idea of a late Roman Command Economy is rather misconceived though. The Government was mainly concerned that the army be properly equipped and supplied.
Yeah the idea that it was a command economy is kind of ridiculous. A command economy isn't one where the large majority of production is privately owned and govt taxes and bureaucracy is a small fraction of what it is in todays market based economies. Shows how even in subjects like an ancient history class, students are being given socialist propaganda points.
In this case economic policy was pragmatic and wasn't guided by political ideology, so in Rome's particular case it served its purpose. We can't apply contemporary standards for older times, nor can we assume that people in the past were just morons who didn't know how basic economics worked.
To some extent, yes. I think that the analogy works, although there are still some major differences since today's private military contractors are well-connected, get paid a king's ransom, and often recruit some of the military's best personnel away with the lure of better pay and less dangerous assignments. The barbarians who signed up to serve Rome got decent offers, but they weren't given the same kind of red carpet treatment that modern American mercenaries receive.
In most of Nato allies countries , the draft has been abandonned, and the provatization of the military is evrywhere , with in parallele a declin of peoples' involvment in elections or politics....in a very connected "west" a military coup seems unprobable but do we have to wait for a big crisis , for overwhelming circumstancies to see the danger of a military might changing in the "west" from armed citizens to corporates ??? do we have to wait to see feodalism replacing democracy to be worried ?? it happened in old western roman empire, the death of stilico and aetius signed the death of an unified west replaced by private armies of warbands' chiefs !!
@@redcapetimetraveler7688 I think it's a false dichotomy to assume that it comes down to either an armed citizenry or a corporate military arm - from what I've seen it's often the same factions supporting both more liberal gun rights (as opposed to capital 'L' Liberal in the political sense) AND supporting these type of PMCs.
@@fuzzydunlop7928, i agree gun rights' supporters like PMCs too , but to own guns doesn't mean political awareness ,, most of ppl left and right are not eager to risk their lifes for democracy of for their nations' interests -despite their strikes or demonstrations about geater good matters , violence and wars are an higher level of committment- when vote is boring who will think of fighting to the death for rights ?? I wrote about the army being privatize , but education , health , taxes , religions, culture are more and more out of states control..and without states can the concept of nations survive ?? it's a steady process of erosion , not a crisis or a revolution , just a concept fading day after day.
@@fuzzydunlop7928 The "vassalage" of lower classes was in the full swing by this time. Upper class considered arming the serfs to be bigger issue, than threat of foreign invasion. So they relied more and more onto foreign mercs. Late Rome was turning into Carthage.
Sure, they may fly farther and more can be carried and thrown but if they all bounce humorously off the armor of the opponent I think those advantages might be rendered moot. It kinda reminds me of that Aztec (or is it Maya?) dart weapon that they threw using inertia - the Cuatluatl, something like that. I feel like there must've been real resistance from the more conservative elements of the Roman military to switch from the Pilum to those darts. Sorta like switching from big bulky wooden battle rifles to the "plastic" M16 in the 1960s. Coincidentally - for the same exact reasons as the Romans switching to those darts.
The Romans never abandoned the Pilum for smaller darts. They merely added smaller darts to parts of the combined arms army. They continued using light, medium, and heavy Javelins and throwing spears. There were different types of Pila, and even different names. In later Roman times, "Spiculum" was often used to refer to different types of Javelins, including the "classical" Pilum.
Magnus Maximus is remembered in the British (Welsh Language) texts as Macsen Wledig and it's said that he's the first son of Crispus (eldest son of Constantine.) And that he was a native Brit hailing from the area which is now called North Wales. More specifically Segontium (Modern day Caernarfon.)
The Welsh language texts which mention him were in existence many centuries before the enlightenment thinkers began piecing Roman history together from the various Latin texts.
Thought you may find this interesting.
"Now, despite the fact that Magnus Maximums is Great the Greatest, he was still defeated by Theodosius in the year 388." Rofl
He remained popular in Wales and some aspects of the Arthurian legend (such as Arthur's battle in Gaul) seem to be derived from his career.
Best channel ever
toofer cool
"Great, the Greatest" - That part had me rolling, it's like the Latin equivalent of an Idiocracy name.
The city was originally "Nova Roma", Constantinople came later.
He said that in a different video
Great video, rewatched it after 2 years.
Seeing the lockdown mentality of Diocletian and similar forms of government gives me greater appreciation and understanding of authoritarian governments.
Chain maille was actually the most common type of armor you would have seen in the Roman army even during Julius Caesar's time and even during the Carthaginian Wars which the Romans adopted from the Celts.
Theodosius' achievement in ending the rather misleadingly titled Arian Controversy, which had been going on for nearly 60 years, when his reign began, is probably how he earned the title The Great.
Likely. Religious strife is the last thing the empire needs, when under pressure from all sides.
This is nitpicking but Gallus never set foot in the West. He was placed in charge of Syria. For anyone interested in this time period , or fiction for that matter, I can't recommend the book Julian by Gore Vidal high enough. Actually just about any thing by Gore Vidal is great but my particular favorites in no order are Julian, Creation,Burr, and Lincoln. Though I must admit personally I believe Lincoln might be the greatest literary character study I've ever come across
Chainmail is not a bad armor. Western Knights used it. Moreover, it was lightweight but expensive due to the techniques needed for making it.
Chainmail is vastly superior to earlier segmentata. For one thing, soldiers could repair it in the field, the armor could serve for decades.
The only "vice" is the added weight, but troops were carrying less equipment by then.
Chainmail was not lightweight you goon
Who was Delirious?
*Galerius* was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. During his reign, he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sassanid Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across the Danube against the Carpi, defeating them in 297 and 300. Wikipedia
Most of them, apparently.
Chainmail was always used by legionaries, was more expensive to produce, as well as more difficult to produce, and can be argued, was more effective than segmented plate armor. It was segmented plate armor that was mass produced in the 1st-3rd centuries. Scale armor was also used throughout all these eras.
Also, the molded bronze breastplates continue to show up in art throughout the late Roman period. Constantine himself wore one, and probably had one of the best militaries in a long time. Military technology is always improving and adapting as time goes on. It's a popular misconception in anglo-american circles to see some sort of decline in military technology.
Christus Regnet If they don’t use the best technology they lose.
@@lawrence9506 Well, from the late 3rd to late 4th century, the Roman army was nigh unstoppable, and defeated every enemy that came up against them. Even Julian's army in Persia wasn't defeated militarily.
Christus Regnet Good technology.
I've heard that chainmail is easier to wear than segmented plate armor, since it is flexible.
@@blkgardner It's also much easier to maintain and repair. A trooper could repair a few busted mail rings but needed a smith to fix broken segmented armor.
Commenting as I watch this video for the third time. Great channel.
arguably Battle of Ongal of 680 and Achelous of 917 were worse. Although we don't necessarily know the exact numbers of casualties it is possible the casualties could be worse for both of these compared to Adrianople. But the first one was surely more important than Adrianople as it set the stage for the eventual ascent of the Bulgarian empire as a superpower. The second one was the culmination. It was also possibly the biggest medieval battle and most probably the byzantines suffered more casualties than at adrianople (the byzantines numbered 50,000 and just a small fraction of that army escaped).
13:55 hits differently after 2020
OMG. @41:00, in 375 A.D., Emperor Valentinian has an aneurysm while screaming at a Barbarian leader? HAHAHAHAHA! ROTF LOL, that is so fucking funny... I can only image what that Barbarian leader was thinking... "This Roman turkey thinks he is better then us, but he drops dead from yelling?.. they are weak minded and now is the time to attack!" And yea, right around ~375 A.D., some of the other Barbarians started to come over the Rhine escapaing the Huns. Coincidence? i think not. I think once that story traveled to the Eastern Barbs, they knew the Empire was weak and defeatable...
If only Valentinian had attended an anger - management course a lot of trouble would have been avoided.
Be nice to see a treatment of the historiography of this era and Late Antiquity in general. I grew up with JB Bury, Pirenne, and AHM Jones. But I'm cognizant that there's a whole 2/3 generations or so of recent scholarship and interpretation of this period. More pedestrian books like 428AD are kind of meh and don't really get into any substantive commentary, while others like Innes's Intro to Early medieval Europe are dense and almost meta-historical in their treatment. I've never read Heather or Wickham's books. It would be cool to see a breakdown of the authors and texts, schools of thought, in vogue, out of vogue, and why.
Historiography is essentially what grad school history classes focus on. Some of the debates and discussions can trend toward tedium, at least one you venture beyond scholarship on military and political topics. The other problem with historiographical treatments is that only people who are more or less experts in a field can provide a good rundown of the state of scholarship on any particular topic. I can do historiography on most topics in Greek history and a few in Roman history, but nothing this late chronologically.
I still very much enjoy J.B. Bury, by the way. As a history of events, it still seems relevant.
You should definitely read Peter Brown's,
The World of Late Antiquity.
Brown owes a good deal to Pirenne but his scholarship is much more reliable.
I've seen pictures of the tetrarchy statue many times, but I always thought the stone was black.
OK. @49:35 Emperor Gratian, son of the Valentinian Emperor who died in 375 A.D. while yelling at a Barbarian, so first, his Eastern Emperor **uncle Valens** was killed in the Battle of Adrianople in 378 A.D. against the Goths, then Garatian is in Britain in 383 A.D. trying to put down a revolt and *his men turn on him* and he gets killed? WTF happened here? What did he do that pissed off so many people, including those sworn to protect him? Again, I will say this, the Barbarians were realizing first in 375, then 378, now in 383... that the Roman leadership was weak, incompetent and defeatable. And they would soon open the flood gates on the Roman Empire.
Gratian was defeated in battle at Paris by Magnus Maximus. His troops deserted him and he fled towards Lugdunum. He was captured en route and executed. Maximus was popular, and allowed to keep Britain, Spain, Gaul, and Africa.
He soon had designs on Italy and attempted to depose the other western emperor(Gratian's co-emperor, Valentinian II) So Theodosius marched out west and destroyed him in a number of battles.
The Senate then damned the memory of Magnus Maximus the Great.
He seems to have been a perfectly good emperor and it isn't clear why he became so unpopular, though his anti - pagan deeds may have annoyed the senators.
Curiously reluctant to criticize the policy of a command economy.I absolutely love Theristes but he's young and still has some faith in the efficacy of socialism as an anodyne in human affairs. As did I when young. By the way I was originally intrigued by the choice of his nom we plume. For those who don't recognize the allusion I recommend looking it up. Theristes in the Illiad is perhaps the first fleshed out depiction of commoner in world literature
The Fourth Century was a period of prosperity. I think this idea of a late Roman Command Economy is rather misconceived though.
The Government was mainly concerned that the army be properly equipped and supplied.
Yeah the idea that it was a command economy is kind of ridiculous. A command economy isn't one where the large majority of production is privately owned and govt taxes and bureaucracy is a small fraction of what it is in todays market based economies.
Shows how even in subjects like an ancient history class, students are being given socialist propaganda points.
In this case economic policy was pragmatic and wasn't guided by political ideology, so in Rome's particular case it served its purpose. We can't apply contemporary standards for older times, nor can we assume that people in the past were just morons who didn't know how basic economics worked.
Can you put these lectures in a playlist?
'Having their posteriores kissed' hahahahaha.
So, do you think those Barbarians they hired out for military duty were like their equivalent of "Private Military Companies" today?
To some extent, yes. I think that the analogy works, although there are still some major differences since today's private military contractors are well-connected, get paid a king's ransom, and often recruit some of the military's best personnel away with the lure of better pay and less dangerous assignments. The barbarians who signed up to serve Rome got decent offers, but they weren't given the same kind of red carpet treatment that modern American mercenaries receive.
In most of Nato allies countries , the draft has been abandonned, and the provatization of the military is evrywhere , with in parallele a declin of peoples' involvment in elections or politics....in a very connected "west" a military coup seems unprobable but do we have to wait for a big crisis , for overwhelming circumstancies to see the danger of a military might changing in the "west" from armed citizens to corporates ??? do we have to wait to see feodalism replacing democracy to be worried ?? it happened in old western roman empire, the death of stilico and aetius signed the death of an unified west replaced by private armies of warbands' chiefs !!
@@redcapetimetraveler7688 I think it's a false dichotomy to assume that it comes down to either an armed citizenry or a corporate military arm - from what I've seen it's often the same factions supporting both more liberal gun rights (as opposed to capital 'L' Liberal in the political sense) AND supporting these type of PMCs.
@@fuzzydunlop7928, i agree gun rights' supporters like PMCs too , but to own guns doesn't mean political awareness ,, most of ppl left and right are not eager to risk their lifes for democracy of for their nations' interests -despite their strikes or demonstrations about geater good matters , violence and wars are an higher level of committment- when vote is boring who will think of fighting to the death for rights ?? I wrote about the army being privatize , but education , health , taxes , religions, culture are more and more out of states control..and without states can the concept of nations survive ?? it's a steady process of erosion , not a crisis or a revolution , just a concept fading day after day.
@@fuzzydunlop7928 The "vassalage" of lower classes was in the full swing by this time. Upper class considered arming the serfs to be bigger issue, than threat of foreign invasion. So they relied more and more onto foreign mercs.
Late Rome was turning into Carthage.
I forgot to add Khalki to the list While not historical perhaps the funniest apocalyptic novel of all time
Welfare Queens aren't a myth I know several
Julian, the last great Roman emperor.
LOL, read more.
are u a history professor?
I'm working on it. I hope to finish my PhD within the next year or so.
Nice. 😊
If it's all about Hoosier Daddy . . . then this man wins: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Harrison
Sure, they may fly farther and more can be carried and thrown but if they all bounce humorously off the armor of the opponent I think those advantages might be rendered moot. It kinda reminds me of that Aztec (or is it Maya?) dart weapon that they threw using inertia - the Cuatluatl, something like that. I feel like there must've been real resistance from the more conservative elements of the Roman military to switch from the Pilum to those darts. Sorta like switching from big bulky wooden battle rifles to the "plastic" M16 in the 1960s. Coincidentally - for the same exact reasons as the Romans switching to those darts.
The Romans never abandoned the Pilum for smaller darts. They merely added smaller darts to parts of the combined arms army. They continued using light, medium, and heavy Javelins and throwing spears. There were different types of Pila, and even different names. In later Roman times, "Spiculum" was often used to refer to different types of Javelins, including the "classical" Pilum.
There is literally nothing, that pilum is better at, than plumbatii. Yet, you can carry far more "darts" with yourself. As a spear, pilum was useless.
Julian was killed in a riot rally fair all together.
Magnus Maximus tho, lol
too big to rule by one man, too small for many to rule at once.
Μέγας Κωνσταντίνος καί Αγία Ελένη....
poutses ble caramelle !!!!
@@IchimaruGin19877 αυτά τα λές..εκ του ασφαλούς?
Εχετε δικηω Κοστανδινε και Ι μητέρα του ΕΛένη ι τανε από τιν Ιλλγρια,όλος Ιυστιλιανο , διοκλισιανο ,μασιμιλιανο.
❤
papyrus is pronounced papAYrus.....
But y makes an e sound. ae makes an i sound. This is what I know but is there a difference I do not know?
Diocletian in his prime years looks just like Trajan. Am I the only one who notices this?