"Greatest Roman disaster?" Topic

Rome had some spectacular victories and some equally spectacular defeats.

What do you think was the greatest defeat Rome suffered on a battlefield?

Cannae – Paullus and Varro's walk-on roles in Hannibal's masterpiece link

Arausio – a barbarian slaughterfest that led to the Marian reforms link

Carrhae – Made "Parting (Parthian) shot" a common phrase even two thousand years later. I still picture Crassus as Sir Laurence Olivier, though. link

Teutoburg Forest – Because one epic barbarian slaughterfest in the woods just wasn't enough for the glory that was Rome. link

Teutoburg Forest sprang to mind when I read the title before opening it. The notion of Octavian pacing the halls muttering "Varus, where are my legions?" is powerful.

Hi there

I think Cannae. A big army in a fair and open battle put back in it's box pretty comprehensively.

db

Adrianople- Let the Goths in link

Edessa- 70k lost including Emperor Valerian link

Manzikert- Effectively shut Rome(Byzantium) out of Anatolia and the east link

Teutoburg Forest had almost no long term effect. Neither, really, did Carrhae.

Adrianople springs to my mind as at least as bad as those listed, with much worse long-term flow on results.

I see the Hussar beat me to it! Agree regarding Manzikert, if you go that late.

Cannae will always be considered a major one. If not in numbers, in impact – not the least being the victor's reputation.

The Sinking of the Andrea Doria!

Otherwise Edessa and Manzikert.

So, was Actium a victory or a defeat. It did mean the end of the Republic and changed Rome forever. A lot of Roman battles were civil war and it's hard to tell if they won or lost.

I was thinking: nothing was truly disastrous as the Roman empire always seemed to bounce back afterwards.

I guess Manzikert would be my pick.

Edessa- 70k lost including Emperor Valerian

Who apparently got turned into a manure-stuffed foot stool. Seriously. That's pretty crazy.

Teutoburg Forest had almost no long term effect.

It marked the end of Serious Roman expansion into Germania. It emboldened Rome's Barbarian enemies. Teutoburg Forest was a huge loss. They were forever fighting some Barbarian coalition from that point on.

Cannae, I like reading how Paulus got ran down by a party of Numidians… Scipio was fortunate to make it out.

What a mess.

Frigidus 394 AD.
The Western army was pretty ineffective from then on, let alone the political consequences.

Adrianople – beginning of the end.

The complete disappearance of the IX Legion.

Adrianople by a mile.

Teutoberger Wald gets overstated because it became part of the German Nation's foundation myth. 'always fighting some sort of Barbarian afterwards' ? Yes, and nearly always winning.

Rome didn't expand into Northern Germania for the same reason they didn't expand into northern Britania – there was nothing there worth the trouble of going.

Pat

I think Carrhae, to be honest …

Teutoburg Forest had almost no long term effect. Neither, really, did Carrhae.

I agree with the former, broadly … but Carrhae I think defined that the Roman Empire in the East would never (and did never) encompass the lands of Alexander and his Successors. I don't think that was a foregone conclusion as Rome moved East.

I was tempted to go for the naval disaster in the first punic wars when 100 K romans drowned – but while it (may) have ended attempts to take carthage in that war, it wasn't the end of the war, so its still too indicisive to be the greatest disaster.

adrianopole was the culmination of a series of failings, rather than a decisive change.

cannae changes nothing, rome kept crossing borders after teutoburg, so I don't think that counts as decisive either..

on ballance, Carrhae does look to be the battle that truely changed a policy on a frontier – although you could argue that even then attmepts were made a few centuries later to extend control.

But I'm going to go with the Allia – after which Rome was sacked – something which did not happen again for another 700 years.

The casualties caused by Hannibal around Lake Trasemene – Cannae etc. – effectively doomed the Roman state in the long term. Basically it exterminated the middle class who made up the majority of the legions, leaving the wealthier upper classes (Eques & Patricians) who were mounted or under represented and the low end Plebians who were too poor to serve in the legions largely untouched.

The Marian 'reforms' were more a move to make the poorest class of Roman society liable to take their place in the legions are there were no longer enough modestly wealthy left to recruit from.

The Marian reform is a century after the 2nd Punic War, and Rome didn't seem to suffer any very great manpower shortage in the meantime.

"Greatest" disaster is a bit polysemous. Teutoburger Wald wasn't very decisive, but it was certainly spectacular.

Yarmouk has to be a candidate as far as consequences are concerned. The Arab conquest has to be the best place for a Roman/Byzantine dividing line, if one is to be drawn.

While the forests of Northern Germany were unattractive to a nation that had yet to master the heavy plow, the Romans had been moving steadily north and the Teutoburger Wald effectively ended that – had the Romans expanded to, say, the Elbe they would have had more defensive frontiers – plus more space

Adrianapole was a big one – although the Romans did beat the barbarians a lot after that, they never really recovered

Allia and the sack of Rome, 370 BC

Or any game that I play the side of the Romans.

Mike B

Edessa. Rome finally stopped and humiliated. How many others where the Emperor was captured?

Adrianople – it was the first of many dominos that fell and killed off the Western Empire.

If you are going to judge by the most disastrous consequences, then Myriocephalum (1176) is arguably the greatest disaster to the "Roman empire". Manzikert only precipitated a c. 20 year civil war, from which the empire largely recovered, and was making headway in regaining all of Anatolia, until Myriocephalum put a permanent end to those aspirations. That defeat led to the later loss of Constantinople in 1204, because the weakened empire could not resist the crusaders. It was all downhill after that. The final denouement in 1453 was a mere whimper….

I agree with others that Adrianople was the greatest disaster since the strategic implications were considerable.

I think Cannae is a bit overrated as a disaster (though still a disaster.) First, I think the Roman numbers are inflated by later Roman memory to make the disaster sound more imposing. I can't see how 8 full legions can be taken down by Hannibal. The sheer frontage of such an army, even with greater depth of the legions would be overwhelming. And as Goldsworthy and others have noted, the Carthaginians suffered huge casualties at Cannae. And strategically it didn't really change anything. I do find bsrlee's comment that the losses at Trasimene and Cannae weakened the Roman middle class (exterminated is a bit overstated!) an interesting observation however.

If my Syracusans or Gauls ever defeat the Romans, it will a a disaster for the ages.

But back to the question. There are so many choices, but I had to go with Carrhae. Grossly disproportionate losses and Crassus ending up with a mouthful of molten gold.

Their roads with all of those speed bumps for chariots.

Crassus ending up with a mouthful of molten gold.

at least they waited until he was dead. Mithridates did it while Mannius Aquilius was still alive!

Go Eupator!

Pat

Caligula
Nero
Commodus
Just the first 3 Roman disasters off the top of my head.

Milvian Bridge, it was beginning of the end of what I think of as "Rome".

"Greatest" disaster is a bit polysemous.

If you don't like my wording, start your own poll! Now get off my lawn!

If you mean the bloodiest defeat it was the battles of Arausio against the Cimbri and Teutones in 105 BC
link

Polanksi

Don't know. That's a little 'fore my time.

The defeat of the senate.

Teutoberger Wald. Loss of two legions and supports against an enemy that was considered almost subhuman. That at a time when the legions were at their most effective.

The shock was enough to make Rome rethink expansionism.

Of course, read another way, Caligula.

Adrianople, Manzikert and Yarmouk.

Jersey Shore

The abolition of the Agrarian Laws.

'a manure-stuffed foot stool'

You can't stuff a human being. A lot of expert taxidermists have tried. This story seems to come from over-imaginative vengeful Christian chroniclers…

The Barbarian Conspiracy was pretty devestating, from POV of Romans in Britain. If they'd been minded to settle instead of just raid it could have prematurely ripped britain off the Empire?

crackpot emperors

and their crackpot wives ,and more often than not ,crackpot mothers..

Cannae, you got surrounded by a numerically inferior force…..

The Emperor Constantine for sending the empire down the road of Christianity, draining resources from the state and creating a second over-arching bureaucracy to crush the peasants.

Cannae, you got surrounded by a numerically inferior force…..

Although it went all for nothing, I would agree. Many historians call Cannae the worst defeat of all time.

Teutoburgerwald had more significant effects. Curtailing Roman expansion was quite a win for Herman…

Christianity