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Posted on 09/24/2026 8:57:47 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Why did the world's most powerful empire almost never use archers in battle?
The Romans had access to bows. They trained archers. Yet they refused to make them central to their military strategy -- even as enemies surrounded them with arrows.
It wasn't ignorance or cowardice.
It was a deliberate choice rooted in Roman military philosophy, engineering, and culture. The Romans built their empire on heavy infantry, disciplined formations, and controlled violence. Archers -- with their unpredictability, distance, and dependence on open terrain -- threatened everything Rome's military system was designed to achieve.
In this video, we uncover why the Roman Empire rejected the archer: how Roman military tactics evolved, why the legion's armor and formations made archers secondary, what role archers actually played in the Roman army, how the Romans viewed ranged combat compared to close-quarters fighting, what changed when Rome faced mounted archers from Parthia and beyond, and why this military philosophy shaped Rome's greatest victories -- and contributed to its eventual defeats.
We'll also explore the auxiliary archers Rome did employ, how other civilizations weaponized the bow while Rome weaponized discipline, the rare moments when Roman commanders broke their own rules, and how Rome's reluctance to embrace ranged warfare reveals something fundamental about Roman culture itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
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If the English longbow is any guide, it takes longer to train a bowman and the unit he belongs to proficiency in battle than it does to train up a legionnaire to use the sword, the shield, the pilum, and helmet in battle.
That sort of training builds confidence and cohesion in a team. And the rigors of marching and camp-building build his stamina for the battles ahead when he must march, endure slings and arrows, and fight hand-to-hand with the slingers and shooters at the place of decision.
It was only the Kamikaze(divine wind) that kept Kublai twice from taking over Japan.
Right. Rome had to learn the hard way against the Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae.
You must be new around here.
No artillery, huh?
My recollection is that the Romans often recruited or allied with other military formations that included archers but did not make them a permanent part of the Roman army itself. Close quarter fighting was the Roman army’s unmatched core competency and they saw little value in adding archers that could be had when needed.
Heh, good one!
Perhaps the plumbata filled that niche?
They were among the aux I’d guess (without typing in a search, I’m tired, and just got the old CPAP cleaned up so I can nap decently in the recliner in an hour or so).
Oh, okay, here, some legionaries carried them later in the main imperial period, by that time the only thing Roman about the Roman legions was the training and Latin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumbata
The main force being multiplied was always the heavy armored infantry.
Heavy, 155mm or 4.2 mortar??
More details on the Battle of Carrhae. The Parthian horse archers were armed with the short powerful recurved bow. they carried a quiver with 70 arrows which they could fire very rapidly. In combat there were support troops who carried many quivers of arrows to be given to the horse archers as they emptied their allotment of 70 arrows. The captured Roman general Crassus who was famed for his greed, was reportedly killed by pouring molten gold down his throat. Probably not true but a good story illustrating the price of greed.
Shakespeare’s “yon Cassius of the lean and hungry look” as a Roman officer succeeded in gathering around 10,000 defeated Roman soldiers and successfully escaped back to Syria where he fought off attacks by Parthians before returning to Rome and the killing of Caesar just before Caesar was leaving for Parthia to avenge the battle loss, recapture the Roman military standards, and rescue 10,000 Romans soldiers enslaved by the Parthians. Cassius was against this plan and killed Caesar either because of the stupidity of fighting again with the Parthians, or because winning would cement Caesar’s power as dictator of Rome.
This is news to me. I wasn’t explicitly aware that the Roman military did not employ massed archery formations in warfare.
That said, I am reasonably certain that had the Roman military chosen to employ archers en masse up to including mounted archers, they would have been highly proficient. I have no doubt that Roman military archers would be highly trained and very capable. The Romans excelled in whatever skills they required their troops to master.
The bottom line is that massed archery formations apparently were not needed for Rome to win battle after battle. The Roman defeat at Carrhae cited in the video is the exception that proves the rule, demonstrating how pathetically rare enemy archers were able to defeat Roman armies.
Necessity is the mother of invention. There was no necessity for Roman armies to feature massed archery in their military strategy. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The Mongols took over Asia because they were savage, brutal and merciless.
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