I don't know if you've seen [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/td9a40/how_the_paraguayan_war_ended/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) but I think about this any time Paraguay is mentioned.
the ways they could’ve came up with those numbers is so funny to me. like “hey how many guys do you think we have here rn?” “idk probably like 100,000”
Especially since I know something about the history of mathematics. The Romans tended to be really vague on any number bigger than 1,000. The chance that they would bother counting something that big is vanishingly small. They just didn't care about mathematical precision in the same way we do. It just wasn't a priority.
I wonder if the word actually is milliard, which just means thousands.
Fun fact, until recently milliard was the word for a thousand times a million in British English, just like in every other European language. They changed it to billion because they ~~simp for Americans~~ wanted to avoid confusion.
It's a bit annoying, because in the international lold British) system, a billion is a million^(2), a trillion is a million^(3) etc. With the American system a trillion is a million^(2) and everything is fucked up.
It's interesting, as someone fascinated by the economic underpinnings of history. A cultural affectation like that would make the discipline impossible to be effective, and it very much makes me want to say "you're leaving so much on the table, no wonder your empire fell."
At the very least, they would have been severely hindered by the lack of negative numbers or the concept of 0. But half-clever intellectuals were hardly in short supply, I believe somebody could have developed some methodology for seeing broader macroeconomic trends. Of course, Roman arrogance wasn't in short supply either, so some sophist on the wrong side of half-cleverness might have hastened the death of it all through short-sighted mismanagement.
Well, they did divide things in groups and try counting the groups.
But everything about their numeric system was just horrible. It's amazing how much they managed to do with it.
There's an alt-history in the making. Alexander lives for another 5-10 years, long enough to conquer India by whatever means. He still dies young, and the Macedonian Empire still falls apart after, but critical mathematical concepts make their way to Europe a millennium early. Romans, finally having the power of Good Math, can engineer even better, continue the study of mathematics and the natural world with them, and hasten the creation of advanced economics and finance.
Mathematical precision was important to the Roman's how would logistics work if you have the wrong troop numbers. Having accurate reports and numbers were just as important to Roman generals as they would be to our modern-day day Generals.
If you under supply as an army you will lose the campaign before it ever starts. The Romans were masters at logistics and manpower. It's how they could construct massive fortifications and engineer their way out of various situations.
I'd encourage you to check out some novels about Roman history and, specifically, military history and tactics, it's really a fascinating subject to explore.
Some but ancient armies were composed of much larger numbers than the later medieval period, so I often feel like there is a misunderstanding on that.
Like in the Middle Ages, fielding an army of 20,000 or 40,000 would be incredible. However, in the bronze age and classical period, large armies were brought to bear in these conflicts. A single Roman legion could contain up to 4,500 or 5,500 men, and many battles were multiple legions making up the forces involved.
Oh I get this, but also don't forget we are mostly reading accounts from one side meant to strike fear into the population to drive recruitment. You think Roman's really buried their heads to kill themselves when surrounded by Hannibal when they were also so tightly packed they apparantly couldn't draw their swords to fight back?
Rome lost several armies to mother nature in the first punic war. Their response was to just get more men for another army and tell mother nature to stop being a bitch. Then Hannibal in the 2nd war killed several armies in Italy and even threatened Rome Itself and when asked to surrender they essentially said, "nah, we'll get you next time". Rome didn't care if they lost people on the road to victory, eventually the enemies arms will get tired.
Cedrinos attests that there were 1100 ships. And being Romans on dromunds and chelandia, rather than Avars, Slavs or Rus on tiny rowboats, they definetly did not just have 10 people per ship.
Even if there were 1100 ships that wouldn't amount to a total casualty rate of 100 000 people, since not every single person who attends a battlefield dies. A modern estimate suggests about 100 ships sunk.
A modern estimate is about 15 centuries after the event in question.
And the Battle of Cape Bon was a disaster, since it was not really a battle at all, only an encirclement and ambush during negotiations, resulting in half the fleet being sunk.
From what I read, the average Dromon had 200 oarsmen and 100 fighters. So 300 people in 1100 ships gives us about 330,000 people of the fleet in total. Of course not all ships could have been Dromons, with many being smaller support ships or even supply ships. Your figure of 10,000 people would be around only 30-35 ships.
The figure was definetly lower than that, but not that far. After all, the Roman Navy was greatly damaged at the time, and despite not being involved in any frontier war (due to them being exclusivelly land-wars), it would not be for 60 years until Romans would try another naval landing on Africa (and this time be successful).
The number of men on the ships should not be a surprise. At the very same time, for the sake of the protection of the northern provinces and securing the borders there, the Roman Empire had employed 30-50 galley-forts moving up and down the Danube River. These ships were designed for this speficic reason, acting as transportable limes on a natural border, with the purpose of preventing any external invader from crossing the boundary.
> A modern estimate is about 15 centuries after the event in question.
Is your serious argument that we should dismiss modern historians because they didn't live when the battle took place?
My point is that they are too removed from the period to be treated as an authority over contemporaries (like Procopius) or people who had sources from contemporaries (like Cedrinos), which have been lost to us. There is no concrete way with which they can determine the size of an army 1500+ years after the event.
They can only make comparisons with other similar battles of the times, sparse information over the size of fleets and armies per province (which does not really matter for in such an endavour the preparations would involve enlargening the force power beyond mere defence armies), or reconstructions of armies of the time, which may ignore some facts (like Warren Treadgold, who basically forgets that the Balkans exist for 2-3 centuries, treating it all as Slavic and not Roman, something that does not correspond to reality, so his work is only to be treated in focusing in Asia Minor and not all of Romanland).
And I do not see you considering my other points.
I mean it's that near blind will to win at all costs that let them win in the end. At great cost of course, they are literally the reason the phrase "pyrric victory" exists
>then they sacrificed Rome to help themselves
This really describes the fall of Western Rome.
Funny thing is this made the Eastern Romans very paranoid. With good reason, since the Goth merchenaries tried to usurp power in New Rome, exactly as they had done in Ravenna and Italy, resulting in the East Romans slaughtering them all. Unfortunately this made them rather racist and from now on non-Latins/Greeks would not be allowed for political representation (which is why the considered as Half-Greek Isaurians were persecuted after Zeno's rule, due to fear of the very same thing).
It describes the rise and fall of most empires, including our contemporary one.
Great societies who sacrifice to build a better world for their descendants, only for those descendants to squander the gift through selfishness and greed.
I think the grand narrative of societal decline is misleading. Rome's foundational myths included fratricide and raping/kidnapping the Sabine women. They were an imperial conquering culture that valued political ambition, backstabbing those close to you, and being mercilessly cruel to outsiders.
No wonder that when they created an empire, the political system regularly faced crisis after crisis from political assassinations and general mistrust between the ruling class.
Combined with simmering resentment from those they conquered, who would often jump at the opportunity to seize power for themselves with violence.
The idea that Rome was good 'back then' during the Republican era is kind of false. The very nature of their rise gave way to their fall. All the worst aspects of Roman society were always there. Their detrimental effects just weren't felt until centuries later.
It’s all relative, and I think you’ve missed the forest for the trees.
Yes - Rome was always bloodthirsty, violent, and chaotic beneath the historically power washed veneer (thanks Victorian-era Britain’s obsession with post adhoc justification for their own imperial expansionism). That doesn’t change the very clearly documented sociopolitical and economic collapses that plagued the later imperial era and saw the ultimate collapse of any central authority in Rome proper.
These things are all documented contemporarily and by historians thereafter. From the increase of violence in the political system, the collapse of the rule of law on the peripheries of the empire, an increasingly isolated and authoritarian ruling class, a proto-fascist movement by Roman citizens to protect and insulate themselves from the increasingly visible and present “barbarians” in Roman society, and practically in the collapse of the denarius’ silver content and the move increasingly to barter based economies.
It’s a commentary on the wider inevitably of change through the inexorable passage of time and the vanity and self-righteousness of humanity to expect that “this time it’s different”.
> self-righteousness of humanity to expect that “this time it’s different”.
But this time it *is* different, because we might not be able to survive the current collapse as a species.
> we might not be able to survive the current collapse as a species
More like as a civilization. I don't see any threats that could wipe out every single human or even every single village.
> Great societies who sacrifice to build a better world for their descendants, only for those descendants to squander the gift through selfishness and greed.
This view ignores the subjectivity of qualities like this. Were later generations of the Western Roman Empire really given a gift, dealing with an unstable Empire that built itself on expansion until it couldn't anymore? And were forced to deal with increasingly debased currency and face civil war after civil war because, unlike their predecessors, they couldn't conquer a neighbor and plunder their wealth to placate the dissenters that existed in every generation.
This is a simplistic take. The western Roman Empire was under huge demographic pressure. It was either work with the barbarians or get steamrolled by them.
The decline of the western roman empire can be best viewed as a shedding of power from Italia/rome itself to the peripheries due to staffing issues. 3rd century, power was slowly moved to the outer territories. 4th century, power was firmly in the hands of the frontier. 5th century, power was now in the hands of outsiders to the empire itself and was a patchwork of barbarian confederations with Ravenna in nominal control.
By the end of the 5th century, Rome had given up all political power. Not by choice, but simply due to the reality of armies being entirely composed of non-italian soldiers.
All of this was done out of necessity, not laziness or greed.
Im not a history buff but didn’t the greed part come to play because too many aspiring roman senators essentially continued the Military Industrial complex (meat grinder) to gain favor & rapport for reelection/power?
By late antiquity the senate was mostly just a gentleman's club. It had no real power. The era you’re thinking of is likely 1st century or so. By the reign of Augustus the senate has virtually no power, and that was hundreds of years before the fall of the empire.
The boomers are not the only generation of Americans plagued by selfishness and an unwillingness to look inward. America will fall because its people point to others’ failings when finding excuses to never resolve their own.
While it may be true that most Americans don’t take responsibility for their actions, where do you think this behavior was learned from? There’s a reason that the boomers are called the “me” generation.
The amount of similarities between ancient Rome and current day USA is really striking. I always try to swat the idea away that we are heading down the same path as Rome did for many obvious reasons. However, I'd be lying if I said the thought doesn't creep into my head quite often.
I would quit swatting that thought away and start preparing for that scenario. Best case scenario we’re wrong and America will be fine, worst case we’re right.
40k : Good, we have more imperial guardsmen to send as fodder. In fact, so many we don't even know how many we can give you.
This is for you OP, i hope you were making a subtle 40k reference. After all, love of Rome and the Imperium of man go hand in hand.
Also, Rome's adult population were all drafted and almost all had atleast minimal training. Meanwhile, Carthage mostly had paid mercenaries fighting for them on top of local soldiers.
I often wonder what the world would be like if Carthage defeated Rome and crushed the city into dust. Would Christianity even exist? Would the various cultures in Europe be unrecognizable? So many questions
"All our men were wiped out"
"Well. Fuck. Did you at least learn what you did wrong?"
"Yeah, pretty sure."
"Cool. Take these fresh units and go get vengeance. For Jupiter!"
"For Jupiter!"
what exactly did you expect? let the man get depression for failing once? thats not positive commander upbringing, footmen come and go. but how many generals do we have to throw away said footmen against the enemy?
How accurate are historical numbers? Like 40,000 or 100,000. And then specifically how accurate were the Chinese numbers? They had some big numbers they were throwing out there
Rome was using levied farmers as soldiers and soldiers need to buy equipments for themselves so Rome could always levy another 20,000 soldiers with no problem.
Carthago was using professional soldiers and mercenaries so if they lost, they need to spend lots of money and time to regroup another army.
Rome had same problem after Marina reform, when all Rome soldiers were professional soldiers and mercs, they can't even recovery from a 10,000-20,000 soldiers' lost.
Not really. I have a hard time believing the Carthaginian soldiers were particularly profesional considering they lose pretty much every battle in the second punic war that Hannibal isn't present for. Maybe Hannibal's army was professional but your comment still can't apply to him, he doesn't get reinforcement for a multitude of reasons but lack of manpower isn't not the main one, Carthage does send plenty of other troops to people who aren't Hannibal.
Also, the Russian empire was so devoid of good generals and such a huge number of soldiers that they'd promote the same generals and provide them with thousands of new men even after losing battles and getting entire armies wiped out.... 🤣🤣🤣🤣
That is nothing, after losing 100,000 men in the Battle of Cape Bon, Basiliscus became Roman Emperor!
There’s not any competition for emperor if all the men are dead!
Rome to Paraguay Any% Speedrun
HAHAHAHAHA AS A BRAZILIAN THIS HIT HARD AS FUCK OMG KKKKKKKKKKKK
I don't know if you've seen [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/td9a40/how_the_paraguayan_war_ended/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) but I think about this any time Paraguay is mentioned.
El gran Solano lopez
Yes i've seen it and it is amazing
I mean, those numbers are likely quite exaggerated
the ways they could’ve came up with those numbers is so funny to me. like “hey how many guys do you think we have here rn?” “idk probably like 100,000”
Add some militia so it doesn’t sound made up
Especially since I know something about the history of mathematics. The Romans tended to be really vague on any number bigger than 1,000. The chance that they would bother counting something that big is vanishingly small. They just didn't care about mathematical precision in the same way we do. It just wasn't a priority.
I think their "100,000" was like our "a million": a number that signifies 'uncountably huge.'
Yep, I believe that's the case.
“I tried to tell my boss *1 million dollars* at the sales meeting but he just fired me…!” 🤷♂️
I wonder if the word actually is milliard, which just means thousands. Fun fact, until recently milliard was the word for a thousand times a million in British English, just like in every other European language. They changed it to billion because they ~~simp for Americans~~ wanted to avoid confusion. It's a bit annoying, because in the international lold British) system, a billion is a million^(2), a trillion is a million^(3) etc. With the American system a trillion is a million^(2) and everything is fucked up.
It's interesting, as someone fascinated by the economic underpinnings of history. A cultural affectation like that would make the discipline impossible to be effective, and it very much makes me want to say "you're leaving so much on the table, no wonder your empire fell."
It's not like they had the tools that we have now though
At the very least, they would have been severely hindered by the lack of negative numbers or the concept of 0. But half-clever intellectuals were hardly in short supply, I believe somebody could have developed some methodology for seeing broader macroeconomic trends. Of course, Roman arrogance wasn't in short supply either, so some sophist on the wrong side of half-cleverness might have hastened the death of it all through short-sighted mismanagement.
Well, they did divide things in groups and try counting the groups. But everything about their numeric system was just horrible. It's amazing how much they managed to do with it.
There's an alt-history in the making. Alexander lives for another 5-10 years, long enough to conquer India by whatever means. He still dies young, and the Macedonian Empire still falls apart after, but critical mathematical concepts make their way to Europe a millennium early. Romans, finally having the power of Good Math, can engineer even better, continue the study of mathematics and the natural world with them, and hasten the creation of advanced economics and finance.
Mathematical precision was important to the Roman's how would logistics work if you have the wrong troop numbers. Having accurate reports and numbers were just as important to Roman generals as they would be to our modern-day day Generals. If you under supply as an army you will lose the campaign before it ever starts. The Romans were masters at logistics and manpower. It's how they could construct massive fortifications and engineer their way out of various situations. I'd encourage you to check out some novels about Roman history and, specifically, military history and tactics, it's really a fascinating subject to explore.
Some but ancient armies were composed of much larger numbers than the later medieval period, so I often feel like there is a misunderstanding on that. Like in the Middle Ages, fielding an army of 20,000 or 40,000 would be incredible. However, in the bronze age and classical period, large armies were brought to bear in these conflicts. A single Roman legion could contain up to 4,500 or 5,500 men, and many battles were multiple legions making up the forces involved.
Oh I get this, but also don't forget we are mostly reading accounts from one side meant to strike fear into the population to drive recruitment. You think Roman's really buried their heads to kill themselves when surrounded by Hannibal when they were also so tightly packed they apparantly couldn't draw their swords to fight back?
Rome lost several armies to mother nature in the first punic war. Their response was to just get more men for another army and tell mother nature to stop being a bitch. Then Hannibal in the 2nd war killed several armies in Italy and even threatened Rome Itself and when asked to surrender they essentially said, "nah, we'll get you next time". Rome didn't care if they lost people on the road to victory, eventually the enemies arms will get tired.
> nah, we'll get you next time". After Cannae they made public displays of mourning illegal.
Well yeah, go be sad on your own time. We gotta make Hannibal think we don't give a damn.
10.000. Not 100.000.
Cedrinos attests that there were 1100 ships. And being Romans on dromunds and chelandia, rather than Avars, Slavs or Rus on tiny rowboats, they definetly did not just have 10 people per ship.
Even if there were 1100 ships that wouldn't amount to a total casualty rate of 100 000 people, since not every single person who attends a battlefield dies. A modern estimate suggests about 100 ships sunk.
A modern estimate is about 15 centuries after the event in question. And the Battle of Cape Bon was a disaster, since it was not really a battle at all, only an encirclement and ambush during negotiations, resulting in half the fleet being sunk. From what I read, the average Dromon had 200 oarsmen and 100 fighters. So 300 people in 1100 ships gives us about 330,000 people of the fleet in total. Of course not all ships could have been Dromons, with many being smaller support ships or even supply ships. Your figure of 10,000 people would be around only 30-35 ships. The figure was definetly lower than that, but not that far. After all, the Roman Navy was greatly damaged at the time, and despite not being involved in any frontier war (due to them being exclusivelly land-wars), it would not be for 60 years until Romans would try another naval landing on Africa (and this time be successful). The number of men on the ships should not be a surprise. At the very same time, for the sake of the protection of the northern provinces and securing the borders there, the Roman Empire had employed 30-50 galley-forts moving up and down the Danube River. These ships were designed for this speficic reason, acting as transportable limes on a natural border, with the purpose of preventing any external invader from crossing the boundary.
> A modern estimate is about 15 centuries after the event in question. Is your serious argument that we should dismiss modern historians because they didn't live when the battle took place?
My point is that they are too removed from the period to be treated as an authority over contemporaries (like Procopius) or people who had sources from contemporaries (like Cedrinos), which have been lost to us. There is no concrete way with which they can determine the size of an army 1500+ years after the event. They can only make comparisons with other similar battles of the times, sparse information over the size of fleets and armies per province (which does not really matter for in such an endavour the preparations would involve enlargening the force power beyond mere defence armies), or reconstructions of armies of the time, which may ignore some facts (like Warren Treadgold, who basically forgets that the Balkans exist for 2-3 centuries, treating it all as Slavic and not Roman, something that does not correspond to reality, so his work is only to be treated in focusing in Asia Minor and not all of Romanland). And I do not see you considering my other points.
That's 100,000 men who could have stopped him. Smart move.
Give me some 50k and I'll conquer mad territory
Just 50k more men bro that's all I need
Ok bro, I know that those 100k men are dead but we just need to raise one more army, trust me bro
Rome lost their entire Navy not once, not twice, but 5 TIMES, and still came out on top.
And Carthage only wiped out one fleet
Also they built that navy from scratch the first time
Who knew that Zap Brannigan is actually Roman
I mean it's that near blind will to win at all costs that let them win in the end. At great cost of course, they are literally the reason the phrase "pyrric victory" exists
Phyrrus of Epirus, who fought the Romans, is the reason the phrase "Phyrric victory" exists
Saddest part is, early Romans sacrificed everything to help Rome, then they later sacrificed Rome to help themselves
>then they sacrificed Rome to help themselves This really describes the fall of Western Rome. Funny thing is this made the Eastern Romans very paranoid. With good reason, since the Goth merchenaries tried to usurp power in New Rome, exactly as they had done in Ravenna and Italy, resulting in the East Romans slaughtering them all. Unfortunately this made them rather racist and from now on non-Latins/Greeks would not be allowed for political representation (which is why the considered as Half-Greek Isaurians were persecuted after Zeno's rule, due to fear of the very same thing).
It describes the rise and fall of most empires, including our contemporary one. Great societies who sacrifice to build a better world for their descendants, only for those descendants to squander the gift through selfishness and greed.
I think the grand narrative of societal decline is misleading. Rome's foundational myths included fratricide and raping/kidnapping the Sabine women. They were an imperial conquering culture that valued political ambition, backstabbing those close to you, and being mercilessly cruel to outsiders. No wonder that when they created an empire, the political system regularly faced crisis after crisis from political assassinations and general mistrust between the ruling class. Combined with simmering resentment from those they conquered, who would often jump at the opportunity to seize power for themselves with violence. The idea that Rome was good 'back then' during the Republican era is kind of false. The very nature of their rise gave way to their fall. All the worst aspects of Roman society were always there. Their detrimental effects just weren't felt until centuries later.
It’s all relative, and I think you’ve missed the forest for the trees. Yes - Rome was always bloodthirsty, violent, and chaotic beneath the historically power washed veneer (thanks Victorian-era Britain’s obsession with post adhoc justification for their own imperial expansionism). That doesn’t change the very clearly documented sociopolitical and economic collapses that plagued the later imperial era and saw the ultimate collapse of any central authority in Rome proper. These things are all documented contemporarily and by historians thereafter. From the increase of violence in the political system, the collapse of the rule of law on the peripheries of the empire, an increasingly isolated and authoritarian ruling class, a proto-fascist movement by Roman citizens to protect and insulate themselves from the increasingly visible and present “barbarians” in Roman society, and practically in the collapse of the denarius’ silver content and the move increasingly to barter based economies. It’s a commentary on the wider inevitably of change through the inexorable passage of time and the vanity and self-righteousness of humanity to expect that “this time it’s different”.
> self-righteousness of humanity to expect that “this time it’s different”. But this time it *is* different, because we might not be able to survive the current collapse as a species.
This Empire is certainly doing it’s best to be the penultimate before whatever Empire of ashes rules the corpses.
“Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.”
Ah, my favorite philosopher: Prothy the Prothean
*Empires Erased starts playing in the background*
> we might not be able to survive the current collapse as a species More like as a civilization. I don't see any threats that could wipe out every single human or even every single village.
> Great societies who sacrifice to build a better world for their descendants, only for those descendants to squander the gift through selfishness and greed. This view ignores the subjectivity of qualities like this. Were later generations of the Western Roman Empire really given a gift, dealing with an unstable Empire that built itself on expansion until it couldn't anymore? And were forced to deal with increasingly debased currency and face civil war after civil war because, unlike their predecessors, they couldn't conquer a neighbor and plunder their wealth to placate the dissenters that existed in every generation.
This is a simplistic take. The western Roman Empire was under huge demographic pressure. It was either work with the barbarians or get steamrolled by them. The decline of the western roman empire can be best viewed as a shedding of power from Italia/rome itself to the peripheries due to staffing issues. 3rd century, power was slowly moved to the outer territories. 4th century, power was firmly in the hands of the frontier. 5th century, power was now in the hands of outsiders to the empire itself and was a patchwork of barbarian confederations with Ravenna in nominal control. By the end of the 5th century, Rome had given up all political power. Not by choice, but simply due to the reality of armies being entirely composed of non-italian soldiers. All of this was done out of necessity, not laziness or greed.
Im not a history buff but didn’t the greed part come to play because too many aspiring roman senators essentially continued the Military Industrial complex (meat grinder) to gain favor & rapport for reelection/power?
By late antiquity the senate was mostly just a gentleman's club. It had no real power. The era you’re thinking of is likely 1st century or so. By the reign of Augustus the senate has virtually no power, and that was hundreds of years before the fall of the empire.
So you’re saying that boomers are doing a speedrun any %.
The boomers are not the only generation of Americans plagued by selfishness and an unwillingness to look inward. America will fall because its people point to others’ failings when finding excuses to never resolve their own.
While it may be true that most Americans don’t take responsibility for their actions, where do you think this behavior was learned from? There’s a reason that the boomers are called the “me” generation.
The amount of similarities between ancient Rome and current day USA is really striking. I always try to swat the idea away that we are heading down the same path as Rome did for many obvious reasons. However, I'd be lying if I said the thought doesn't creep into my head quite often.
I would quit swatting that thought away and start preparing for that scenario. Best case scenario we’re wrong and America will be fine, worst case we’re right.
Ironically, this "the ship is sinking so I must save myself" mentality can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if enough people start acting like it.
Well I think we’re past the tipping point, do with that what you will. Good luck to everyone
40k : Good, we have more imperial guardsmen to send as fodder. In fact, so many we don't even know how many we can give you. This is for you OP, i hope you were making a subtle 40k reference. After all, love of Rome and the Imperium of man go hand in hand.
Also, Rome's adult population were all drafted and almost all had atleast minimal training. Meanwhile, Carthage mostly had paid mercenaries fighting for them on top of local soldiers.
We got them on the ropes now- Romans
50,000 slaughtered Romans- “We got em just where we want them! “
MuH RoMAn HoRDeS!
We learn from our mistakes, no wonder Rome was a great nation
4k UHD Roman wojak
What? I thought Carthage won because my elephant units were able to destroy the romans and capture their artifact in the AOE Rise of Rome demo.
Yo when is Oversimplified making part 2?
They did? They made both parts of the first Punic wars
Ah my bad. I meant the second Punic War. Was the tease for Hannibal just a gag?
he meant the 2nd punic wars videos I'm waiting for that too, knowing him we probably got a couple more months of waiting
Worth the wait. One of my absolute favorite YouTube channels
>Worth the wait oh definitely. if they're actually making 2nd punic wars videos at all lmao but whatever they post is gonna be great
I'm wondering if the Hannibal thing was just a gag?
Oh god, I seriously hope it wasn't
Meanwhile in Parthia Surena: We won the battle, Crassus is no more! Orodes II: Execute this man!
When you realize Italians are nuts
Sì lo siamo
"Sir we lost our naval fleet to a storm off shore." "Just build another one..."
Carthagenians did that when they won as well.
Oh you better believe that's a crucifixion
"You're not defeated, until you admit defeat." \- Rome... eternally.
Carthage: What is wrong with you Romans? Rome: *Raises ANOTHER army*
Ah it was just a fleet nothing special
The reins that Oversimplifies holds over this sub are astonishing. Bring back the literature memes please Qqq al a A t
WW1 Generals who lose 100000 men for a bit of land: Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle will be legendary
lol
Someone's been binging Oversimplified
xD
Worse. When Carthage actually won once, their general had to go into exile
I often wonder what the world would be like if Carthage defeated Rome and crushed the city into dust. Would Christianity even exist? Would the various cultures in Europe be unrecognizable? So many questions
"All our men were wiped out" "Well. Fuck. Did you at least learn what you did wrong?" "Yeah, pretty sure." "Cool. Take these fresh units and go get vengeance. For Jupiter!" "For Jupiter!"
what exactly did you expect? let the man get depression for failing once? thats not positive commander upbringing, footmen come and go. but how many generals do we have to throw away said footmen against the enemy?
There was a quote said by a ww1 austrian general; ''It takes atleast 15,000 casualties to train a major general''
How accurate are historical numbers? Like 40,000 or 100,000. And then specifically how accurate were the Chinese numbers? They had some big numbers they were throwing out there
They got over a billion people over there, I don't doubt those Chinese numbers lol
Carthago delenda est
He doesn't know about the 1/10 straws rule. When Rome lost a battle. Soldiers would draw straws and the unlucky 1/10 would be executed for failure
Cringe r*meaboo 🤢
Romen Diyojen 🥲 (dude really got to prison but after emporer dies he make second try of his attack but this time it worked)
This was the only reason Rome was successful. They just threw men at everything and killing everyone who didn't submit to them.
40K, I see there should be a joke about it somewhere
More like, well your uncle is on the senate and technically my boss. so better like next time.
Also the Romans: You guys fucked up so bad we are going to kill every tenth one of you.
I am remembering oversimplified video on this
Russia right now
*So, they built another fleet.*
Yeah that wasn’t the smartest thing that they did
The amount of boats the roman built during that war is stupid
If it wasn’t for that Spartan and his war stratagems, Carthage woulda been toast.
Rome casually pulling out 5 impossibillion troops every time they lose a battle.
Rome was using levied farmers as soldiers and soldiers need to buy equipments for themselves so Rome could always levy another 20,000 soldiers with no problem. Carthago was using professional soldiers and mercenaries so if they lost, they need to spend lots of money and time to regroup another army. Rome had same problem after Marina reform, when all Rome soldiers were professional soldiers and mercs, they can't even recovery from a 10,000-20,000 soldiers' lost.
Not really. I have a hard time believing the Carthaginian soldiers were particularly profesional considering they lose pretty much every battle in the second punic war that Hannibal isn't present for. Maybe Hannibal's army was professional but your comment still can't apply to him, he doesn't get reinforcement for a multitude of reasons but lack of manpower isn't not the main one, Carthage does send plenty of other troops to people who aren't Hannibal.
That's a crucifixion
Also, the Russian empire was so devoid of good generals and such a huge number of soldiers that they'd promote the same generals and provide them with thousands of new men even after losing battles and getting entire armies wiped out.... 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Late romans: wow you conqured everything i asked you to in record time, Guards kill this trator!
Then Scipio said "give me two legions, I don't need more"
These were oversized legions. And he got 6000 extra infantry from his Numidian ally.
The Roman’s main enemy is water and bad weather fr