Romans vs Germans

The only reasons battle like Carrhae and Adrianople are so famous is because they are so unique and rare...That is, Romans loosing so badly...Overall they did have the best system and the most successAnd there were many other great powers too...Germans, Persians, and Ottomans...etc.



Edited by Komnenos with an unofficial warning sent via PM.

Edited by Komnenos

I think everybody says that Rome was the best-just becouse In fact in the world, if u ganna gather all the Ancient History books, half of them will be books which were dedicated to Rome, and even 1% will not be about Scythians, Sarmatians, Numidians, Goths and so on.

That is the main reason.

But nobody thinks that the was German states too, which fought and defated plenty of roman legioners, and died for their IDEA.

I do not wanna say that Romans were best, becouse they were not, they just were one of the best, that is it

 This guy just doesnt know when to quit

Originally posted by Heraclius  This guy just doesnt know when to quit

Well, you really must admire his tenacity. A lesser man in his situation would have just broken down and become more open-minded.

I wouldn't go so far to say that the Romans mostly thrashed the Germans by
just looking at the figures of dead in each battle. I agree that the Romans
were greater but often these battles were closer than statistics suggest.
Most casualties in Ancient battles actually came from the killing of soldiers
who were routing.

Oh and I think the reason the Romans were so successful in these battles
was because the legions were successful in spite of their generals, not
becasue of them. I know that there are many examples of grat generals who
led their troops to victory, but many times the romans won in spite of
medicore leadership and this was, I think one of the reasons for success.

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Originally posted by Praetorian "The Romans. They had discipline, the Germans did not. The Germans were fierce individual fighters, the Romans were fierce group fighters. Obviously, in massed numbers, the side that fights as a group will triumph over the side that does not. The Romans only really lost when they faced insuperable odds or screwed up badly, like in Teutoberg. Varus was an idiot.

What about the slaughtering of 50,000 Romans in Cannae by Hannibal?

I would vote for Romans

If Germans could make such army as Rome did, then they could also be the best.

In fact, if any enemy of Roman Empire was weak and had not such army, it is their fault, if they had a good army, then Rome was not THE BEST

am i right?

Originally posted by Kafkazli if we'll mention, we'll see that, the battles that Rome fouht, they lost very few men, and battles that they lost, they lost almost all the men

This was no strange here, in the ancient battle, most of soldiers were killed in the one-side slaughter after line of his side was broken , as Romans always said "whatever odds you faces, if you could manage to hold your line, face the enemy with weapon in hand, you will be safe"

  A good source for this appears to be "Germania" by Tacitus...some interesting observations made by Tacitus about Germans.Appearently,Grmans used to laugh at the size of Roman soldiers(maybe this is not Tacitus).Two more very inter. things-when germans got drunk,they didn't quarell with eachother like Romans did-they would often kill eachother without prior argument;this is nice-they seemed to care more for their women then men-Romans knew that and used it constantly-they kidnapped their women and blackmail their husbands-poor sods did everything requested;but when romans kidnapped one of rheir male relatives,they didn't give a dime-"kill him,so what?"...

Anyone here read Germania...?

Edited by Socrates

Originally posted by Socrates   A good source for this appears to be "Germania" by Tacitus...some interesting observations made by Tacitus about Germans.Appearently,Grmans used to laugh at the size of Roman soldiers(maybe this is not Tacitus).Two more very inter. things-when germans got drunk,they didn't quarell with eachother like Romans did-they would often kill eachother without prior argument;this is nice-they seemed to care more for their women then men-Romans knew that and used it constantly-they kidnapped their women and blackmail their husbands-poor sods did everything requested;but when romans kidnapped one of rheir male relatives,they didn't give a dime-"kill him,so what?"... Anyone here read Germania...?

I haven't read it, but about the height thing archaeological evidence suggests that the Germans had an average height of just two inches more than the Romans.