Societal decay and collapse. In the case of the Roman Dominate period, it was an inability to sustain the economic surplus to field the professional soldier legions of Augustus. At least in the West. The Eastern half of the empire was richer
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Replying to @zenpundit @Scholars_Stage
The switch of militia legions of farmer citizens to citizen professional soldiers was for a similar reason. Concentration of wealth in aristocratic hands made it impossible for large numbers of plebeians to afford to equip themselves. Thus the Marian reforms were enacted
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Replying to @zenpundit @Scholars_Stage
A lot of it is also straight up logistics. It's hard to have a farmer-soldier when the army's chasing Celtiberian rebels through the mountains of Spain for years at a time.
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The interesting part is the end point - where the state has tenuous control over the the various parts of the military, either because they're being paid by someone else, or because they're barbarians from outside the empire.
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But what to make of it - when the Chinese empires reached this military structure, did it breakup shortly after, as in Rome?
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