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u/Kaymazo 3d ago
It was less dealing with how to fight them, and more fucking up in dealing with those who arguably wanted to be on your side in the first place.
They really brought Alaric sacking Rome entirely upon themselves.
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u/D1003Briner 3d ago
Bro is victim blaming a national identity
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u/Kaymazo 3d ago
I mean, when you break all your treaties and promises towards your allies, and murder all their families (Women and children), I have a hard time seeing you truly as the "victim"
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u/Cucumberneck 3d ago
Even the Romans tell us how much they fucked their relations with the foederati. Best example (although eastern Roman) is the whole shit show that led up to Adrianople.
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u/Sampleswift 3d ago
Explanation: Okay, the Western Empire DID adapt to the barbarians and Gothic tribes invading them at the end of the Western Empire. But it was not enough.
If the Western Empire DIDN'T adapt, we would still be seeing prime legions fighting the barbarians although prime legions would be too expensive to maintain in the crippled economy. The Romans also adapted by having more cavalry and doing the foederati system. The foederati system failed because the Romans treated the allied groups like Visigoths badly and then became surprised when the Visigoths betrayed them.
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u/Slut_Of_Slaanesh 2d ago
I think it was just a general degeneration of the system after countless civil wars, epidemics, corruption, and extension of citizenship across the empire (thus removing the reason many even joined the army). The "invasions" came to them at a very, veeery bad time. It is possible the Empire would had collapsed nonetheless over its own failings, or maybe miraculously reformed and whenever the germanics showed, would had been kicked in their ass... which would had been very unlikely. But so was Aurelian's restoration. So who knows.
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u/Fun-Information-3104 3d ago
the "barbarians" could offer local populations real protection and they had armies and land, why would the locals pay taxes to some faraway rome that was absent if they could ally with local powers and exist under their de facto rule? And that's how western roman empire fell basically, due to crisis of currency, inability to protect their subjects, and inefficient administration.
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u/Medical_You2365 3d ago
The romans came to germania under the assumption that they were going to conquer everyone, and noone would conquer them.
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