Admiral Breetai wrote:Romes size isn'rt helping their armies against olyphants and trolls I mean while they're gonna do better than a dark age army they'd need to borrow some metallurgy tech from Gondor and maybe pay Dwarves to make their weaponry.
Fear of death or lack thereof Nazgul can still mind rape
As Tolkien wrote in Letter1 #210 about the Nazgul:
Their peril is almost entirely due to the unreasoning fear which they inspire (like ghosts). They have no great physical power against the fearless; but what they have, and the fear that they inspire, is enormously increased in darkness.
That's one reason why the Nazgul fear Elves, since Elves have no fear of death, being immortal. In contrast, mortals in Arda fear death due to the lies of Melkor-- who never existed for the Romans.
Likewise, the Holy Roman Empire was devout Christians, i.e. they followed the one true God, in addition to their tradition of Roman stoicism; and so they wouldn't be affected by the Nazgul.
And again, only the Witch-king can actually see in the daylight; that's why when he's killed, his Lieutenant, a man named "Gothmog,' had to take over to lead the Siege of Gondor. Kamul, the second Nazgul, was unable to do so.
Second: you think Oliphaunts and trolls are that powerful?
First of all, Oliphaunts aren't that huge; they're "as big as a house, " and can definitely be killed by Roman war-engines like giant crossbows. Alexander the Great was able to defeat Hannibal's forces of elepants using axe-men, IIRC. (Yes, I know he was Greek, but the Romans adopted his strategies). Likewise, the men of Gondor were able to defeat the Oliphaunts by getting close enough to shoot them in the eyes.
And there aren't very many Oliphaunts; there are a few during the Siege of Gondor, and their main benefit was that the horses of Rohan would not go near them.
And there were no Oliphaunts at all mentioned among the forces of Mordor-- only Minas Morgul and Harad.
Likewise, only the hill-trolls can fight in the daylight, and one of them can be killed by a hobbit with a knife. Likewise, Hurin himself was able to kill 73 trolls using an axe.
Finally, a cave-troll was able to be beaten and driven off by a single hobbit.
In all, trolls didn't play much part in the War of the Ring, and neither did Oliphaunts; you're completely ignoring numbers.
By vast and large, it was about 200,000 men from Asia, at most; this is what Denethor saw in the Palantir, and this is what drove him to end his own life to escape certain defeat.
But in contrast, Rome would have not too much problem dealing with that, with Rome being based on the model of citizen-soldiers.