BTW, the post is a joke, I know that real history is much more complicated than that.
by JohannesJoshua
BTW, the post is a joke, I know that real history is much more complicated than that.
by JohannesJoshua
12 Comments
I mean to be fair Rome never had a history of good cavalry
Rome: ‘Our cavalry is terrible’. Also Rome: ‘That’s what Gauls and Numidians are for’.
Gallienus go brrrr
Same with their navy. They’d almost lose wars over and over due to their ships being ass and nobody having interest in naval tactics. And they just never cared to do anything about it.
Its called specialization, too bad they considered land reforms a dump stat.
Italy is high mountain Penisula, hard for cavalery.
cavlary
IIRC the reason for dogshit Roman cavalry was partly social. The social class of equites (horsemen) had social privileges above plebis and below patricians, so they did shorter service periods and were arguably less drilled. As long as they did the basic functions of a calvary it was good enough for purpose. Heavy infantry was the muscle of the army anyway. Generals could always supplement with mercenary/allied cavalry anyway.
*Obviously, correct me if I am off base
Well Machiavelli postulates that when it comes down to the wire, infantry beats cavalry every time. He sites multiple examples (some roman) where when faced with rough odds, cavalry dismounted to become infantry (I think milvian bridge was one?) or how a disciplined army of infantry could break while outnumbered.
On their own, infantry can do more than cavalry in battles and can turn most cavalry when well trained. Essentially cavalry serves as a force multiplier, but at the end of the day infantry is the root of that power itself. So it would make sense for Rome to enjoy such success while neglecting their cavalry, since they focused on their infantry which ended up being more important.
That’s because people stay fixated on the legion. Specialized Auxilia was absolutely a thing and quite effective, while from the 1st Century going forward it became a highly professionalized part of the army.
It took two centuries since the *A****la I Gallorum et Pannoniorum cataphractari*****a**, but the cavalry became the dominant arm around the 4th century up until it started to decline as a force after the 11th century.
Also, I feel like the ***Equites Dalmatae*** are not getting enough credit. Was it not this force that allowed for the world to be restored?
This is why Alexander was the GOAT, he had great infantry and cavalry,
INTERESTINGLY, as far as I can recall Southern Italy (Campania in particular) had a strong tradition of cavalry both as a social class and powerful military arm before Roman conquests, since the land there is much less mountainous and can support animal husbandry and horse breeding better than in the north. I suppose since cavalry wasn’t that important for Roman military mindset from the beginning and they slowly began strong romanization they discarded the old institutions there and focused on creating more legionary arms out of their southern allies.
Someone more knowledgeable about this very topic can probably either confirm or deny this with sources and such, and I’d also gladly hear whether the Southern Italic peoples’ cavalry was used as particularly important part of Socii (Ally) auxiliaries at the beginning of Roman expansion. Later on the whole Italian part of Roman realm produced mostly legionnaires and delegated skirmishing, missile and cavalry roles to their subject people’s where those traditions were much stronger.