The Importance Of Roman Army During The Middle Ages

During the time in which Rome existed in the Middle Ages it accumulated an abundant amount of land and wealth. The way that Rome accomplished this was by defeating the peoples that ruled the land they wanted and incorporating them into their ever expanding empire. The reason the Romans were so successful at doing this is because of their technological advances, logistical capabilities, and ability to implement strategy efficiently and safely. These when put together allow an army during the Middle ages to deploy consistently with high moral and low mortality.

Romans dominated the battlefield in almost every battle they fought during their 507 year reign, holding off barbarians breaking down walls and holding the line in every battle they fought.

Logistics were very flexible and advanced allowing for armies to be sustained far from the capital and allowed for the empire to expand and control much more land than Rome's competitors. Roman roads allowed for materials information and troops to move throughout the empire faster. Roman logistics worked in a similar fashion to the old Greek logistical system roads were constructed to increase the speed of transportation and communication throughout the empire. With their faster communication armies were able to be mobilized faster and reach their destination in a shorter amount of time. The chain of command within Roman legions allowed the commander to coordinate his men easier by giving orders to his legati, the legati to their Centurions, and the Centurions to their soldiers quickly with little time between order and action. Centurions were responsible for a single cohort from the legion, 10 cohorts make up a legion. A cohort was a unit of 70 men (including the Centurion) making up the front lines of the legion. These military logistics followed a strict line everything was planned for and often was able to be changed on a whim this is what gave Rome an edge on its

With concrete Rome was able to build roads, speeding up the movement of goods, improving logistical mobility. Not only did concrete allow the building of roads it also allowed for larger buildings to be constructed more effective at holding resource increasing logistical capacity. The Roman technology that everyone thinks of is the large and devastating Siege equipment like the Ballista, Trebuchet, Battering Ram, or Siege towers. Siege weapons were made to destroy castle walls or doors to break in and pillage the town inside and as such were made to be good at doing that. The Ballista was originally a Greek weapon that when the Romans took Greece the learned how to make it and improved the design to make it fire farther faster and heavier projectiles. Ballistas could be built to launch tree sized missiles sometimes reaching up to 350 pounds and would easily crash through the walls. However Ballistas could be built at any size and can use round or shafted projectiles to shoot making them useful for ground units and anti personal. There was another version of the Ballista called the gastraphetes which were more of crossbows meant for anti infantry also originating in Greece. The Trebuchet though it originated in china worked it’s way over to Rome through the French when the Romans conquered french territories they learned of the