Just over 70 years after the Battle of Adrian Fort, another great war broke out in 45 1 year, and the Romans fought a decisive battle with the barbarian invasion in a place called Sharon in modern France. But in fact, the Roman army included many peoples who had already settled in the empire, such as Visigoths, Franks, Alans and so on. Their opponents are many foreign barbarian coalition forces, such as Hungarians, ostrogoths, Gepide and others. In Trump's vocabulary, old immigrants have to build walls to stop illegal immigrants.
It is said that the two sides are huge in scale and prosperous in military power, but the most decisive factor for the Roman Coalition to win in the battle is not the Roman legion deployed on the left. At this time, the Roman Legion has long been misnamed, and its establishment has shrunk (only 1000 people in a legion). It relies on the shield wall composed of large shields to resist the impact, but it is the right-wing Visigoth heavy cavalry that further weakens its offensive ability. After the start of the campaign, the central front of the Roman Coalition forces composed of Alan and other ethnic groups could not resist the Hungarian assault and kept retreating. Finally, the Visigoth cavalry defeated the opposite ostrogoths and Hungarians one after another, sweeping the other's left wing to win.
In fact, this battle can be said to be a reaffirmation of the results of the Battle of Adrian: the era of the classical infantry phalanx has indeed passed. In this era when all kinds of barbarians entered European land with cavalry as the main force, the infantry regiment suffered a big loss in tactics from the beginning.
After all, at this time, the cavalry had a strong impact, and the heavy infantry had to assemble into a dense phalanx to resist, but such a dense formation was bound to be easily killed by the other light cavalry's dense bows and arrows. The Romans wrapped shields in metal and replaced javelin with lighter and longer-range styles, which enhanced the impact resistance and the killing ability of projecting firepower, but it was still not enough, and the shortcomings of mobile power were more serious.
Therefore, after two large-scale battles in Adrian Fort and Sharon, the western and eastern parts of the empire bid farewell to the classical era and entered a new era of military construction.
The beginning and foundation of the empire
With regard to national strength and military strength, many people tend to focus only on factors such as land area, population and economic output. Of course, more attention is paid to the number of troops. These are of course important, but they are by no means all. An easily overlooked key factor is its internal integration: the strength of an empire largely comes from this. This integration is based on many factors, such as ethnic composition, religious belief, density of settlement, mode of production and so on.
The fundamental reason why later historians continued to use the title of Rome and named the eastern part of the Roman Empire "Byzantine Empire" was that the fundamentals of the Eastern Roman Empire finally changed decisively.
The west of the empire is Latin and the east is Greece. The education level in ancient Greece was higher than that in Rome, and the economic development and population density in the Eastern Mediterranean were also higher.
However, the Romans living in the Italian peninsula provided the cornerstone of the whole empire-the Roman legion. The Romans in classical times had a strong sense of identity and centripetal force, and their yeomen and small landlords had martial culture and good equipment, which constituted the core of the heavy infantry forces, thus safeguarding the unity and security of the whole empire.
In addition, the change of religion also shaped Byzantium's character different from that of Rome. Ancient Rome pursued the traditional polytheism for a long time, but we know that Christianity became popular in the 1 century, gained a firm foothold among the bottom people, gradually pushed out and overwhelmed the traditional polytheism, and was finally recognized by the upper class of the Roman Empire. Constantine the Great founded Constantinople and converted to Christianity in his later years.
After he succeeded to the emperor, his nephew Wu Lin tried to revive polytheism against the trend with the help of imperial power, and soon failed.
In other words, the Roman Empire was an empire with polytheism as its belief, Latin as its cultural carrier, and the Romans on the Italian Peninsula as its political order and military power. The Byzantine Empire, on the other hand, took Christianity as its belief, Greek as its cultural carrier, residents of Asia Minor Peninsula and southern Balkan Peninsula as its main body, and professional troops recruited and supported by the state as its military guarantee. The two empires showed different styles in all aspects, and this difference was intuitively reflected in the architecture. Roman architecture is like the Pantheon or Colosseum in Rome, Italy, and the Byzantine style is like Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
As mentioned earlier, as early as the Battle of Adrian Fort and the Battle of Shalong, the legions of ancient Rome had completely declined and gradually disappeared in the long river of history. Under the constant impact of barbarians, the Eastern Empire with Constantinople as its capital had to build a powerful military force to survive.
Of course, due to the long history of Byzantine countries, its military can be divided into several historical periods to analyze, otherwise it will be difficult to sort it out clearly. The first is the wonderful opening of Justinian the Great. This period is the most prosperous period of Byzantine economy and the most brilliant period of military achievements, but it is not the most typical period. In my opinion, there are three fundamental reasons:
One is the famous Great Plague. In 542, when Justinian the Great made a western expedition to recover a large area of the Western Empire and restore the momentum of the Roman Empire, an unexpected outbreak of bubonic plague interrupted his trip. Before the plague, Constantinople had a population of nearly one million and was extremely prosperous. However, the plague led to a sharp decline in the imperial population, accompanied by financial collapse, a decline in military resources, and the great cause of imperial rejuvenation ran aground, with far-reaching effects.
In fact, this also tells us that there are too many factors affecting historical issues, and it is not so easy to see what truth is hidden behind some historical phenomena, such as the decline and fall of Mayan civilized cities in history.
The deeper we go, the more complex and true the internal relationship will be, which is the significance of the continuous development of historical research.
Another problem is Islam. After Islam founded by Muhammad unified the Arab tribes and began to expand outward, the Byzantine Empire was no longer confronted with other rivals encountered in previous centuries, such as Sassanbos or Gothic Kingdom. This is a more fierce enemy, combining religious beliefs with expansionist impulses.
In fact, although most history books say that it was related to the loss of Byzantium and Persia that the Persian Empire was easily destroyed and the Syrian and Egyptian territories of Byzantium Empire were seized after the rise of the Arab Empire, it may actually be more related to the previous great plague that exhausted the civilized world. This can only say that Arabs are really lucky.
Under the military threat of Muslims, the Byzantine Empire had to reorganize the whole country. For example, the Sem system, that is, the military region system, was established through military reform, and the imperial army restored its strong combat capability through various means.
The third is cultural issues. In other words, the Justinian era inherited the heritage of the classical era, but in his hands, the empire gradually transitioned to the Middle Ages and eventually became an empire highly integrated with Christianity.
Therefore, on the whole, Byzantium in Justinian era and the empire in the next eight or nine centuries must be separated.