Napoleon was a decent commander.

Kind of an apples/oranges comparison. Napoleon was known for his brilliance in how to use artillery--something that didn't exist in the Romans' time.

Napoleon was one of the top battlefield commanders of all time... and perhaps the most amazing human being of the past 1,000 years.



Luxuriate in the eclectic...
http://www.eccentric-cinema.com

Let's just say that Napoléon had such British notaries as William Moorcroft (1767-1825), the founder of Britain's first veterinary college, pretty well scared while he was working for the East India Company. Fear that the French would march all the way to India after Napoléon's treaty with Russia settled at Tilsit (1807) with Czar Alexander I.

I will but address, under correction, the tactical and not the political realm:

My impression of the Romans is that they had a very stubborn habit of once they had an army that they didn't improvise all that well, much was borrowed from the Greeks, for instance, such as medicine, but..: garrisons that wouldn't want to move from their habitual station on the Frontier in the latter days in order to defend the Empire (why leave their families to go defend somewhere else in the Empire sort of deal) and a navy only built when necessary (Punic Wars), though they had the entire Mediterranean to convoy troops about from place to place wherever danger occurred. Overall a very bad record based on a system of necessary perpetual conquering in order to appease the masses with property won and divided, and if a Roman general was indeed successful a fear of that self same general by the Caesar over absolute power. But the Romans were quite ingenious when it came to fortifications and defensive posturing. But any general of any notoriety, unfortunately, most are remembered for being a defeated general ("Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!" -@ Teutoburger Wald), (Paulus and Varro @ Cannae and Gaius Flaminius @ Lake Trasimene; Marcus Antonius @ Actium and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus @ Pharsalus) not a successful one (Quintus Fabius Maximus / though 'Fabian' tactics may be notorious and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa @ Actium), can be easily overlooked in place of a military discipline that the Roman State inculcated (citizenship won in service), though very rigid when it came to tactical improvisation on the battleground, for instance, contra the Parthians (Marcus Licinius Crassus) for example, or even Hannibal (16 years of conflict). Successful Roman generals, of any note, the seige of Alesia by Gaius Julius Caesar was a masterpiece; Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus against Mithridates VI, Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. But was it really the generals or the Roman State system that won/lost? Still I find that a necessary concomitant to consider overall. Then of what Roman generals mentioned of note after the Pratorian Guard became enhanced after the time of Tiberius?

Besdies which, when did the Romans ever borrow the tactical maneuver of the oblique method of Epaminondas (that defeated the Spartans at Leuctra - 371 BC) that Philip II of Macedon picked up on and passed on to Alexander III? Roman history is at times very confusing and disheartening on motivational grounds, to say the least; not much room for a successful general to begin with. Not much to mention besides from the time of Tiberius on until Alcibiades during the reign of Justinian, a gap of nearly five hundred years.

Napoléon studied war and outwitted (one instance wherein the Russians led by Czar Alexander I showed up twelve days late - after Ulm was captured - for a battle previously agreed upon with their allies because they were utilizing the Julian Calandar that replaced the Byzantine while most of Western Europe, Austria and Prussia included, evidently, was using the Gregorian - I mean, dumb is dumb) most of his opponents by outmarching them, insofar as the Allies, such as the Prussians for instance, if not all others, marching fifteen miles a day seemed a hard day's work. The French soldiers had proved they were capable of forced marches of 20 to 25 miles a day for weeks on end, fighting while they marched, advancing with a front at times extending for thirty-eight miles wide and as much to the rear, being able to concentrate all of his forces at one spot within 48 hours. The result being a flexible formation able to attack in any direction, a formation that would go down in history as the 'bataillon carré,' outgunning them, and developing a strategic advantage from tactical success. Marching three or four columns of soldiery under his Marshals and bringing them together for the main battle; defeating piecemeal by isolating and dividing his opponents for the most part. A mere two of his classic strategic maneuvers to consider being: 'manoeuvre sur position centrale' - maneuver on the central position - and 'manoeuvre sur les derrières' - maneuver on the enemy's communications - serve as examples. Most Romans sneered at the Greeks for being too soft insofar as being honorable in war; though they could easily of learned from such as Xenophon and Thucydides, that was beneath their dignity though, evidently, though Publius Cornelius Scipio was one of the few that did. Napoléon learned from Frederick the Great on the one thing most military historians appreciate beyond the known factual evidences as the subject matter is viewed in a cursory fashion by the general populace, and that's provisioning the quartermaster ordnance, logistics, though he would have been wise to have allowed same pensions of his veterinary officers that kept him provisioned with a cavalry, reputed to being the best on the Continent at the time, as his other officers; another branch of the military that the Romans never patronized that won many a battle for Napoléon. Most Romans treated their underlings/troops as just a mere equivalence to slaves not to be cared about one way or another (Marcus Licinius Crassus with unit decimation when confronting Spartacus and his fellow escaped gladiators for instance, or the exiled 5th & 6th Legions to Sicily after Cannae), striving to be 'citizens' once service in the legions was completed. The French had the first citizen army ever to work with, which lost mainly because of attrition over the years. The patriotic fever of just how equipped was the French Army in Napoléon's first excursion into Italy, for instance. Thankfully the one General during the time of Napoléon that would have been the most difficult was also worn out by the time he was 81 (d. 1800) and that was Alexandr Vasiliyevich Suvorov. He, in my estimation, would have been the best to avoid at all costs on a field of battle.

lol, I'd be wary about using absolutes like "any". Otherwise there wouldn't have been a gothic invasion of 'the Eternal City' in the A.D era, no need to put up walls to keep out the pesky Celts, and so forth.

Hell, a grand battery of French artillery would've done quite a number on a legion or 2!
Regardless, Roman & Greek tactics had been resurrected 200 years earlier so Napoleon was well versed in his enemy's way of war, while the Romans might not have caught on, in time, on the updated version of their tactics.

[deleted]