IDonT

Please give your arguments as to which nation could best each other in a conflict. Circa: 100-50 BC.

Edit: its Western Han

zraver

The Roman scutum would deal a death blow to the Han Crossbow armies. without an effective way to keep the legions at arms length the gladius would come into play and then its all over. The Han advantage is cavalry,and its tactical mobility. And thats where the battle will turn. Which commander can either close with the infantry and baggage trains or use his horse archers to the best effect.

Merovee

The good ole Celtiberian gladius was quite the effective tool. I do agree with Zraver that the Romans would prove victorious in a one time battle with both sides having no advantage in terrain.

In a full scale and lasting conflict though it depends on who attacked who and where the two sides met in battle. The Han with enough resources to cover the distance and attacking Rome could have not held onto it regardless of the damage caused to Rome. If Rome continuing their model of expansion and following the road of Alexander leading them closer to the Han would have attacked, they might have been able to conquer and become the nobility, but as all invaders of the Han in the past have learned, the Han are a people who have never been conquered in the sense that the conquerers, if they plan on staying, are always and eventually absorbed into the Han. They would have became the Han, down to speaking their tongue as their native tongue.

Now if they met in the middle they simply would have engaged in a war of attrition with no side gaining enough ground to effectively conquer the other.

Officer of Engineers

Wait a minute. They did meet in battle. Let me look it up.

__________________
Chimo

Kansas Bear

Sir,
The closest Rome and China ever got

Officer of Engineers

Now I remember. The tests were positive but that really did not mean anything. We know that Roman traders had reached China and vice versa. All that this really means is that some Romans reached China.

IDonT

The western Han had two types of armies: the standing army and the frontier army. The standing army consists of an elite cadre of professionals and conscripts that are there for a total of 2 years (1 year training, 1 year in their units). The frontier armies, on the other hand, are fully professional due to their expeditionary nature. Reinforcements from allied nomadic tribes serve to bolster their numbers (similar to Ceasar's campaign in Gaul). The other difference is that the frontier armies tend to consists entirely of cavalry, due to the large distance they cover. These frontier troops closely resemble the horse archer nomads they were fighting.

At the beginning of the Eastern Han, around 24 AD, conscription was entirely abolished. Conscription, itself, was a throwback to the warring states period where large standing armies were required. With the threat coming entirely from the nomads, there was no need to have a system requiring large standing armies. In addition, the Han court were very suspicious of the militarily trained peasantry that can become potential rebels, as clearly proven by Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han throne.

The Eastern Han reached its zenith around the late 1st century AD. It had a professional military unit that are backed by barbarian auxiliary units (in similar fashion to what Rome was doing). These were the military units that were sent west towards Bactria, Sogdiana, and Parthia.

Unfortunately, we currently have no documents that detailed the Han army in the same way the Roman army was described. We have no mention of their small unit tactics. The best sources we have is the vague descriptions from era historians, who were schooled in the pacifist confucian tradition and achaeology.

Han infantry showing their large shields.


Guarding the tomb of Zhu Yafu, a general who served under Emperor Jing, these terra-cotta soldiers stand roughly 20 inches (50 centimeters) tall and compose part of a miniature army 3,000 strong.

The same sheild in bronze, taken from the terrocota army of the Qin.

zraver

Merovee, the one thing about Roman/Hellenistic world that is shared with the Han was a very powerful over culture that was remarkably capable of subverting other cultures.

Cactus

The Seleucids would have come off the better of both parties: Imagine a new breath of life pumped into an otherwise dying empire by power politics of more robust empires in conflict... much like the Ottoman and the Qing Empires did in late the 19th Century. Seriously though, in the Central Asia, both the Romans and the Han would be out of their natural element. Their respective successes/failures will be decided more on their diplomatic prowess in swaying the nomadic tribesmen's loyalties.

Cactus

The same may be said of any one of the hundreds of modern nation states. All have been unconquered, as per your wishy-washy definition. Yet all have been conquered one time or another as the conventional sense of the word is understood. The present-day existence of all those nations is only proof to the fact that they have not been annihilated by their conquerors, not that they were unconquered.

Cactus

In their period of dominance, the Romans were socially inclusive, but ideologically exclusive in their interaction with the people they interacted with. Conversely in their period of dominance the Greeks were ideologically inclusive, but socially exclusive* in their interaction with others.

In this context, the Roman approach to making alliances and establishing conquests would differ significantly from Hellenic efforts. Not sure whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing in the context of the most likely arena of conflict - Central Asia. But if the Romans ever got to China, the Roman presence would certainly be a lot diferent from the Hellenic overlordship in foreign lands (i.e the Seleucids, the Ptolemys etc).

*Note: True, Alexander had tried to be more socially inclusive, but it had been a failure within his own lifetime and certainly so after his death.

zraver

cactus, by the fall of the Western Empire there were nominally only Romans and those who wished to be Romans. Since citizenship could be earned it became a powerful tool for assimilation. probably the most famous non-Latin Roman citizen is Saul of Tarsus.

Inst

Battle of the Caspian Sea / Sogdiana (?, not sure on the second name), where the Romans were supposed to have encountered soldiers using crossbows.

xunil

Before West Han fought with Xiongnu, they were not good at horse back fighting. What they used were chariots(picture one), which suitable for fighting in plain. The infantry used double-edged straight sword(picture two), Ge(picture three) tied on long stick and crossbow(picture four).


Picture one:
http://elib.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/tech...arriage/41.jpg
picture two:
http://www.qj.gov.cn/upload/1118549177699.jpg
picture three:
http://www.qj.gov.cn/upload/1118549219460.jpg
picture four:
http://www.qj.gov.cn/upload/1118549272571.jpg

I think those weapons would be more efficient to fight with Roman if they meet on plain. If west Han meet Roman, it's more likely that they would use the same tactics which used in Qin dynasty(221AD-206AD).

Inst

Han Vs Rome comes down to one thing, really. How effective is the crossbow versus the Roman legions? If a Qin dynasty or a Han dynasty crossbow can pierce the scutum and kill the legionnaire, then the Han dynasty will rout. If it can't pierce the scutum and the legionnaire's body armor, then the Chinese forces will be in a lot of trouble.