German And Celtic Mercenaries Fill The Ranks Of The Roman Army
The Germans and Celts ended up therefore being the primary source of recruits for the Roman armies - not surprisingly so, as in racial terms they were much closer to the original Romans than the majority of inhabitants of Rome itself, particularly from the 2nd Century AD onwards.
By the time of the end of Caesar's conquests of the Celts, the Roman records show that the average height of the Roman solider had been lowered to 1.48 meters.
As the numbers of German and Celtic mercenaries increased in the Roman army, the average height began to rise - by 300 AD it had risen to 1.65 meters - an indication that the racial types of the average soldier had changed fairly substantially.
So it was that the Roman armies began to fill up with non Roman soldiers, with Romanised Germans and Celts forming a significant - if not the majority - of not only the foot soldiers but also of the commanding officers. These Romanised Germans and Celts were to play a significant role in the remaining years of the Western Roman empire: and it was they, predictably, who formed the backbone of the resistance to the last German invasions which saw the final physical fall of Rome.
A Romanised German soldier was in fact the last (self declared) Emperor in Rome. By that date (476 AD) the last true original Romans had to all practical purposes disappeared, having been swallowed up in a mass of immigrants from the Nonwhite regions of the empire.
German mercenaries in the Roman army, as depicted on the Colonna Antonia in Rome. Within a relatively short space of time the Roman army began to rely heavily on German mercenaries to fill its ranks as White Roman numbers declined.
NEW GERMANIC INVASIONS - FRANKS, SAXONS
In the second century AD, German tribes went on the offensive against Rome and crossed the Danube. They were however bloodily defeated by a Roman army which had a significant number of these German and Celtic mercenaries in it, led by Marcus Aurelius. During the third and fourth centuries, German tribes called the Franks and the Saxons raided Roman settlements in France and Britain respectively. These smaller incursions continued until the final chapter in the saga of the German - Roman wars was to be written by the last of the Indo-European tribes to enter Europe - the Goths.
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