The Decline of the Roman Military

[John Adams]

Why would this make the army weaker?

The Germanic mercenaries did not owe Rome alliegence. Rather, they increaseingly owed their own tribal chiefs loyalty. Indeed, as the Germanic satuation increased, entire Germanic tribes were hired in one body to fend off rival Barbaric incursions. Also, as they began to increasingly spread into Rome, they gradually (and not so gradually) began to cast off Roman military ways... Instead, they substituted it for their own.

In really short, gradually the Germanic calvery morphed into the knight of the medieval era.

~John