itSUll 1 -J 7 W eW /eA $40.

00

Facing unprecedented pressures from

within and without, in the early fourth cen­
tury A.D. the Emperor Constantine formed
a new military force, a permanent Roman
field army. He levied detachments from
his legions defending the frontiers, and in
a drastic step with far-reaching c o n se­
quences, he recruited soldiers from the un­
conquered Germans east o f the Rhine.
Those new detachments o f auxilia gave
the western Roman army a strongly Ger­
manic, but basically loyal character.
Was Constantine’s decision one o f the ma­
jor causes o f the fall o f the Western Em­
pire? Dr. Cromwell argues that misuse of
that army by later generals who wanted to
intimidate their enemies rather than defend
the empire led to the final econom ic and
military disasters. Using original charts
and clear explanations o f terms, Cromwell
shows both how the Roman field army was
organized and why it was initially success­
ful. He also illustrates the geographical
and political differences which made the
Eastern Empire based on Constantinople
more viable than that o f the West. This
study makes a significant contribution to
understanding the military and social situ­
ation o f the late Roman Empire.

Detail from Roman sculptured slab set up by the

Second Legion at the eastern end of the Antonine
Wall. About A.D. 143
National Museum o f Antiquities of Scotland

Jacket design by Michele R. Fritz

 The R ise and Decline
o f the
Late Roman F ield A rm y
 The Rise and Decline
of the
Late Roman Field Army

Richard S. Cromwell

W hite M ane P u b lish in g C om pany, Inc.

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED —No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

This White Mane Publishing Company, Inc. publication

was printed by
Beidel Printing House, Inc.
63 West Burd Street
Shippensburg, PA 17257-0152 USA

In respect for the scholarship contained herein, the acid-free paper used in this
book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

For a complete list of available publications

please write
White Mane Publishing Company, Inc.
P.O. Box 152
Shippensburg, PA 17257-0152 USA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cromwell, Richard S.
The rise and decline of the late Roman field army / Richard S.
Cromwell,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57249-087-X (alk. paper)
1. Rome—Army—History. 2. Rome-Army-Recruiting, enlistment,
etc. 3. Germanic peoples—Employment. 4. Sociology, Military-
-Rome-History. 5. Rome-History, Military-30 B.C.-476 A.D.
I. Title.
U35.C76 1998
355' .00937—dc21 97-46692
CIP

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Old soldiers never die;
They only fade away.
British army song (c. 1915)
 Table o f Contents

Acknowledgments ix

I. Prologue: Challenge, Response, Questions 1

II. Formation of the Field Army: The Tetrarchy and Constantine 5

III. The Field Army Fully Developed: Constantius II, Julian,

and Valentinian I 13

IV. Disaster and Reorganization: Valens, Gratian,and Theodosius I 22

V. Breakdown in the West: Stilicho 36

VI. The Fading of the Field Army in the West:Stilicho's Successors 46

VII. Conclusion 52

Notes 55

Glossary 69

Bibliography 72

Index 77

Illustrations follow page 24

v/7
 Acknowledgments

No one can write a book absent help from other people, and I am no
exception. This work would never have come to fruition without support from my
daughter, Mrs. Courtney Cromwell Bosler, her husband, James W. Bosler III,
M.D., and the librarians and staff of the Carl Swisher Library, Jacksonville
University. Jim’s expertise in computer technology and formatting was absolutely
essential. He and Courtney always furnished steadfast encouragement. My editors
for White Mane Publishing Company, Martin K. Gordon and Diane Gordon, have
given generously of time and help. Finally, without the interlibrary loan service,
which was cheerfully and efficiently provided by the personnel at the Swisher
Library, nothing could have been done. I am deeply grateful to all concerned.

Richard S. Cromwell
Jacksonville, 1996
 Chapter I

PROLOGUE:
Challenge, Response, Questions

Few Romans from the interior provinces served in the empire's army during
the third century of the Christian era.1 The citizen-soldier militia system of the
classic age of the republic was long dead. The Italian small farmers who had Filled
its ranks no longer existed. They had long been wiped out by war losses,
emigration, debt, and cheap grain prices. In addition, that ancient military system
was not appropriate for the defense of a far-flung empire, a responsibility better
served by garrisons of full-time professionals not distracted by distant homes,
farms, and families. The army had become a professional, long-term force during
the late republic. The prospect of long years of service in far away and dangerous
areas was unpopular with most civilians. By the third century the army was finding
the bulk of its recruits in frontier areas, where the immediacy of the barbarian threat
provided a motive for military service. The necessary soldiers came from
colonized barbarians called laeti, from veterans' sons, and from casual volunteers,
who were usually either provincials or barbarians interested in Roman military
careers. The barbarians were foreigners not raised under Graeco-Roman cultural
domination and regarded by the citizens of the empire, especially the educated, as
crude and uncivilized. Most of the barbarians in the Roman army were Germans
or by the fourth century their closely related cousins the Goths. There were others,
including Iranian speaking Sarmatians from the Lower Danube, but they were less
numerous and less significant than the Germanic peoples. Owing to this system of
recruitment, the army tended to be an jnbred corporation whose members had little
respect for the general population. The civil wars within the empire in the third
century politicized the military service and undermined its discipline, training,
leadership, and reliability. The army made and unmade emperors, brutalized and
looted the civil population, and was no longer an obedient servant of the
government. It had lost much of its sense of professional responsibility.
Corruption among its officers was widespread and generally expected. Venal
commanders routinely sold a portion of their units' rations for their own profit.
Bribery, kickbacks, fraud, and extortion flourished. Military units peddled their
2 Prologue

support to ambitious political aspirants in return for money, land, and favors. The
consequences of those conditions for war readiness, unit strength, and morale led
to repeated defeats at the hands of external invaders, and brought the empire close
to destruction.2
Yet loyalty to the imperial idea remained strong; and in the late third century
and during the early fourth, conscientious soldier-emperors were able to carry out
significant military reforms. Diocletian and Constantine provided an expanded and
reorganized military system which would hold the limits of the empire for several
decades. By the death of Constantine in 337 the dominant feature of this
reorganized army had come to be its division into an elite field force of main battle
troops and a body of static border guards. However, the question of who actually
created this dual structure and why has been the subject of debate and speculation
since the era of Theodor Mommsen.3 Furthermore, it has long been accepted as a
truism that virtually the entire Roman population was by now estranged from
military service, so that barbarians, mainly Germans, became dominant in the field
army. Simply to say, however, that Roman citizens were unwilling to serve raises
questions as much as answers them. Can the conditions of the time be analyzed in
sufficient detail so as to indicate why the Roman population would have remained
alienated from military service even after the curbing of the worst abuses of the
third century? The materials available on the late empire demonstrate that such
alienation did in fact exist and what the causes of it were. That analysis also shows
that the estrangement was mutual, not just the citizens from the army, but the army
and the government from the citizens too. Indeed those circumstances imposed a
grave handicap in both maintaining the field army and defending the empire.
Roman citizens did not stop serving, but the Germanic peoples became more
numerous in the army, playing a greater role than before. Can the participation of
the Germans be described in explicit organizational terms? To what extent did they
actually dominate the army? Were they numerically preponderant?
As the fourth century progressed, moreover, the personalities, abilities, and
policies of leaders such as Julian, Valentinian I, Theodosius I, and Stilicho further
shaped the makeup and character of the field army. Was the army in the early fifth
century merely an unaltered replication of Constantine's? If it was not, as seems
likely, then how had it changed and why? How did the presence of many
barbarians in its ranks affect its efficiency and reliability? What hidden defects did
it have?
The Battle of Adrianople in 378 was clearly a watershed event, but during the
years after that Roman disaster the Eastern Roman Empire and its field force
gradually recovered and defeated attempts by the Goths to dominate them. How
was this reversal of fortune achieved? In the West the outcome was different; but
here lies still another mystery; for in the case of the Western Roman army the
sounds of its victories at Pollentia, Verona, and Châlons are the last we hear o f it.
It disappeared from history, replaced by allied barbarian warriors (federates), as
the Western Roman Empire succumbed to German and Gothic invasions and broke
Challenge, Response, Questions 3

up into German-dominated successor states. Thus puzzles linger, and the purpose
of this monograph is to study the information which is available on the late Roman
field army in order to suggest clear answers to them.
 Organization and Command under
Diocletian and His Colleagues in the Tetrarchy

After the reign of Gallienus (260-268), who barred senators from command
positions in the army, the protectores provided a pool of officers from which the
emperors chose the prefects and the tribunes of military units. Protectores so
promoted were eligible, if they proved themselves, for appointment as duces.
When described on paper, however, this procedure idealizes the reality. In practice
an emperor could appoint whom he pleased to any level of command. Influence,
connections, and bribery of court officials played a great role in the granting of
commissions.
 Chapter II

F orma tion o f the F ield A r m y :

The Tetrarchy and Constantine

During the time of Diocletian's reorganization of the empire at the end of the
third century, the Tetrarchs— Diocletian himself, Maximian, Galerius, and
Constantius I (Chlorus)— frequently utilized a type of small, personal field force
called the comitatus. Typically it was made up of elite units such as the lanciarii,
a new formation whose members were culled from the regular legions, detachments
from famous legions like X I Claudia, IV Flavia and VII Claudia, and a few picked
cavalry squadrons called comites. New legions, like the Solenses, the Martenses,
the Ioviani, and the Herculiani, which appeared at this time and were named after
the protecting gods of the Tetrarchs, also contributed formations which performed
in the same capacity. The comitatus guarded the Tetrarch and served in
emergencies as the cadre of an army of maneuver enlarged by more detachments
drawn from the units on the frontiers. In 294-295 Diocletian reinforced his
comitatus with 18 such detachments to crush Achilleus’s rebellion in Egypt. The
idea of a centralized mobile army levied from the legions on station was not new,
having originated with Gallienus between 259 and 268. His standing comitatus had
been a large, independent cavalry force, some of whose units had been newly raised
and others seconded from the legions. However, legions which Gallienus kept
concentrated in Venetia provided infantry as needed. At full strength with its
infantry his comitatus probably numbered close to 30,000 men. It was a mobile,
quick response force, which provided a defense that was both elastic and deeper
than the linear system used by the early empire; and it was also a weapon ready to
hand for use against domestic political rivals.1
Diocletian was uneasy with Gallienus's system. He thought with good cause
that it fostered favoritism and political armies. Strengthening the frontiers was his
main concern. He realized that the military force which he had inherited was too
small to defend the empire's over-extended and much beset boundaries, so he
greatly increased the army's size, raising about 25 new legions. As a result of those
and other additions by previous third-century emperors, the army at his retirement
in 305 contained 67 legions as compared with 25 in the Augustan military
establishment and 33 in the Severan. He deployed the bulk of these units on or
near the frontiers, typically two legions to each military province. Diocletian chose
the commanding officers for the units in his expanded army from the protectores,
a corps of favored officers created by Gallienus, who had excluded senators from
command positions in the army. The senators were usually very wealthy. They
could buy armies. With military expertise they could lead them too and become
dangerous rivals to an emperor. The protectores, who had replaced them, came
from the ranks of the army’s regular officers, their favorites, their sons, and also,
as time passed, the sons of friendly barbarian kings and chiefs, usually Germans.
Diocletian had himself been a protector. Distrustful of the senatorial aristocracy,
he did not change the social make-up of the protectores. He did, however, disperse
or at least greatly reduce Gallienus's cavalry comitatus by sending its squadrons to
the frontiers to support the legions. Nevertheless, the practice of keeping picked
detachments together as the nuclei of task forces for the achievement of special
military objectives meant that the comitatus as a concept and as an institution did
not disappear.2 Furthermore, Diocletian's associates were watching each other
warily and anticipating the power struggle to come when he died or retired. After
he stepped down in 305, the commander in Gaul, Constantine (the son and
successor to Constantius I, who died in 306), began to prepare for such a challenge
and rapidly expanded his comitatus. In so doing he recruited many free-born
Germans from east of the Rhine to create a Field force without weakening his
frontier defences. He placed the recruits in infantry units o f a new kind called
auxilia. They were probably first created by Maximian or Constantius I, and not
formed from the old auxiliary numeri which had long served on the borders of the
empire. Favorable impressions of the Germans as soldiers and the need for
manpower seem to have played the main role in Constantine's decision to use this
new formation in his comitatus. He brigaded them with his best units of Roman
regulars to create an army of maneuver of nearly 40,000 men. In the ensuing civil
warfare, which resulted in his becoming the sole emperor in 325, the auxilia
performed so well that they became one of the main elements of Constantine's
mobile force.3
The military culture o f the Germans made them eager, psychologically and
physically well prepared recruits and aggressive warriors. The recruitment of
Roman citizens on the other hand presented many problems. The invasions and
disasters of the third century had led to the depopulation or partial depopulation of
the frontier areas in northeastern Gaul, Noricum, Pannonia, and Raetia which had
earlier been major sources of recruitment. To offset this development the
government had often brought in barbarian settlers on condition of military service.
But those laeti were not Roman citizens and usually served in the border numeri
or, starting with the Tetrarchs, especially Constantine, in the new, comitatensian
auxilia along with barbarians hired from beyond the limits of the empire. Even
those auxilia which, out of tradition, bore Celtic names were heavily manned by
laeti and by Germans from east of the Rhine. Theoretically all Roman citizens
stood at the emperor's disposal for military duty, and Diocletian and his successors
enforced conscription. However, in an effort to insure tax revenues for his
expanded army, Diocletian had reorganized the Roman state and society in such a
way as to create a large, new bureaucracy and to bind whole classes of Roman
citizens to their trades, professions, and occupations while exempting them from
military service. Government officials and, after Constantine, the Christian clergy
too were draft exempt, so that veterans' sons (who were now required to serve),
vagrants, small peasant proprietors, and the coloni or tenants on the latifundia of
great landowners were the main source of drafts for the army.4
O f course most of the population of the empire was agricultural; but with a
few exceptions, like the warlike Isaurian and Phrygian mountaineers in Anatolia,
the peasants were peaceful farmers and not a military population like the Germans.
Typically, fourth-century Roman citizens were unarmed tax payers who were
governed through local landowners and civic officials by an imperial bureaucracy
and defended by an army which had been a professional long-term service force for
centuries. They were not raised from the cradle up to be warriors. Unless actually
inducted into the army they received no military training; and they usually did not
want to leave their homes, fields, and families for military service. The empire's
social and administrative system added to the difficulty. The most significant
social distinction among citizens in the later Roman Empire was between
honestiores and humiliores. The honestiores, who were themselves divided into
numerous ranks and grades, were the privileged class of officials and landowners
who saw to the work of government at all levels. They collected rents and exacted
compulsory work from the humiliores, the majority of whom, given the
predominantly agrarian economy, were peasants. The landowners paid the taxes
of their peasants but charged rents which exceeded the tax. The honestiores
themselves were liable with their own property for any arrears; so they made use
as needed of coercion, including the leaded lash, imprisonment in the mines, and
the death penalty, in order to attain their quotas. Social antagonism was continuous
and frequently intense, and the government feared its own population. To protect
itself it made it illegal for Roman citizens to possess military weapons of any kind
and required 20 years of active duty by all men conscripted into the army. The
manufacture of military weapons was a state monopoly. Under Diocletian and his
successors the government produced all arms needed by its defense forces in its
own factories, whose workers ranked as soldiers. They were branded like soldiers,
and like soldiers they received rations and were hereditarily bound to their
profession. Military law gave the soldiers a special legal and social status. Its
intent was by means of time and discipline to destroy any sense of identity on the
part of the troops with the humiliores. The very long service requirement was,
however, a great disincentive to military duty. The conscripts and their families felt
that the men were leaving home forever. The coloni were provincial in their
concerns, including security. They looked to their patrons, the large landowners.
Constantine was by profession a general. Thus it seemed logical enough for him
to appoint masters of infantry and cavalry to command these branches under him.
A great benefit of this arrangement for Constantine, however, was that it barred any
one officer, except for the emperor himself, from commanding the entire field
army.

* In the limitanei prefects commanded legions, vexillations, and alae, and tribunes
commanded cohorts, as in the old army of which the limitanei were the
continuation.
and not to the distant imperial government for protection against the rigors of the
system. By means of extra services they paid those with influence to keep them out
of the draft. The landowners in each district were collectively charged w ith
selecting the men to be included in the annual levy. Since their wealth depended
heavily on the agricultural productivity of their estates, they typically wanted to
retain their more industrious and reliable clients. So they bribed recruiting officers
and officials to accept the least desirable workers, or they arranged to pay a money
tax instead of presenting recruits. The small-holders, who predominated in some
regions, accomplished the same draft avoidance by maintaining village bribe
funds.5
Thus, unless he were unlucky enough to be conscripted, soldiering was not
the job of the average Roman citizen. It had become a lost art for him. He usually
regarded the military career with the same apprehension as he did crop failure and
epidemics, and he had valid grounds for these misgivings. Under Diocletian's
system soldiers were paid mainly in rations and not with money, and a recruit (tiro)
did not receive the full allowance of a soldier. Even when he completed his
training and became entitled to a full ration he could expect to be bilked out of a
considerable part of it by corrupt officers and supply officials.6 The prospect of
this kind of service for 20 years in far parts of the empire from which he would
likely never return was disquieting for the prospective conscript. And he sought
to avoid it by means of bribery and the influence of a patron. The empire's system
of conscription was meant to provide soldiers under long terms of service for its
professional army. It was not designed to create a nation in arms. Evasion of it
was an integral part of the patron-client relationships and the bribery which
permeated Roman society from top to bottom. Recruits for the legions were,
therefore, barely sufficient in quality and number even in peace time to maintain
the strength of the huge army which Diocletian had created in his concern to
protect the frontiers. When the army sustained heavy losses—which it did at
Mursa in 351 (in the civil war between Magnus Magnentius and Constantius II),
during Julian's failed campaign against Persia in 363, and above all in the disaster
at Adrianople in 378— replacement problems became acute.
When Constantine raised the largely German auxilia to strengthen his
comitatus after his father's death, he hired Germans both because they were
available, warlike, and loyal, and because he needed to find good soldiers quickly.
He had seen that a civil war for supremacy in Roman politics was coming. He w as
an ambitious politician, and the penalty for defeat in Roman politics was death.
Moreover, like his predecessors, Constantine found himself compelled to cope not
only with domestic political opponents, but also with attacks by external enemies
on Rome's borders. He had to campaign against Frankish assaults on Gaul in 310
and 313, and he had to repel a Gothic invasion of the Danubian provinces in 315.
He came to realize more clearly than had Diocletian that, given the size of the
empire and its extensive frontiers, its military forces could never be large enough
to hold its limits by means of a static defense. It was beset by enemies who could
retreat into impenetrable forests or endless steppes, and who had no vital fixed
assets which the Romans could seize. The Roman political system in which the
emperor was often chosen by civil war tended to complicate the situation, since it
politicized and undermined the quality of the army, hampering timely responses to
foreign aggression.
The expanded comitatus which Constantine created from the old army of
Gaul after 306 was loyal to him personally, and could be used against both foreign
and domestic enemies. Thus following his defeat of Licinius in 324, he organized
it into a large mobile field army permanently stationed near a few cities, Trier,
Reims, Milan, Sirmium, which were strategic hubs of the Roman road system. He
called the troops who formed it comitatenses. To expand this strategic strike force,
he levied detachments from the legions on the Rhine, the Danube, and the southern
frontier of Egypt. The parent legions, which now came to be called limitanei and
ripenses, continued to guard the frontiers. Constantine did not, with one exception,
levy comitatensian detachments from the units manning the borders of the empire
in Asia from the Black Sea to the Red Sea in the Prefecture of the Orient, and his
successors likewise did so very sparingly if at all.7 The main reason that they did
not draw more on the eastern legions was because the system of defense erected
there against Persia by Diocletian was holding well over a long front with few
natural obstacles; and they did not wish to disrupt it. Constantine also distrusted
the eastern forces, which had not been among his initial supporters, and he believed
that the units in his own army of Gaul were superior to them in quality. This
assumption of superiority was gratuitous. For reasons which the author will
develop in this work in great detail the western army had to be repeatedly
reorganized and nevertheless finally disintegrated, while the eastern army
maintained itself and survived.
To organize the comitatenses and to insure their cohesion and autonomy
Constantine created two new officers, the magister peditum for the infantry and the
magister equitum for the cavalry. They commanded the comitatensian army under
the supervision of the emperor himself. The establishment of this command system
was an essential step in the formation of the permanent field force separate from
the frontier troops and is strong evidence that the reorganization of the
army—begun by Gallienus and then reversed to some degree by Diocletian—was
completed by Constantine. The comitatenses consisted of legiones comitatenses,
vexillations (vexillationes) of cavalry, and the auxilia, which now became known
as auxilia comitatensia. The basic policy was for Roman citizens to serve in the
legions and the barbarian recruits and laeti in the auxilia. But exceptions were
frequent. In Constantine's time and for some years after, the auxilia were to be
found only in the army of the west. They did not appear in the east until
Constantius II became familiar with them as a result of his victory over Magnus
Magnentius at Mursa in 351, and they did not arrive there in large numbers until
Julian brought them with him in 363 for his Persian campaign. Constantine's
successors gave better pay and more generous tax exemptions to the comitatensian
soldiers than they did to the limitanei. Moreover, except when the comitatenses
were campaigning in the field, they were billeted in private homes and inns in the
cities. The limitanei, on the other hand, were quartered in forts and permanent
camps near villages or in open country. As time passed, they gradually declined
into a border militia, a lowly status which Diocletian had never intended for the
forces which he had kept stationed near the empire's limits. After Constantine,
when a major invasion took place, it was the comitatensian formations which were
expected to turn it back. They were the empire's elite central reserve and the
maneuver army.8
The men in the auxilia were light infantry. They did not wear the defensive
armor worn by the legionaries and lacked the latter's staying power, but they could
move faster in situations requiring mobility.9 The elan and loyalty of the auxilia in
the battles with Maxentius and Licinius greatly assisted Constantine in defeating
his rivals and convinced him that they were among his finest and most useful units.
He always looked after them and cared for them very well. Indeed he immortalized
them upon the triumphal arch which, known by his name, stands in Rome to the
present day. The frieze about the middle of the arch shows his army as consisting
not only of regulars and Moorish archers, but also of soldiers wearing on their
helmets a distinctive homed emblem used by the Cornuti, one of the most senior
and famous of the auxilia. And on a pedestal relief a Cornutus appears carrying
a shield decorated with a stylized buck’s head and the military goddess Victoria,
the insignia of the Cornuti. Retrospectively one can see that the Arch of
Constantine was prophetic. The Germans are in Constantine's victorious army, not
in Maxentius's defeated one.10
The strength of Constantine's comitatensian army can only be surmised
because exact data are lacking. In 1923 E. C. Nischer speculated that it numbered
between 269 and 286 units; but this guess, based on arbitrary assumptions, seems
much too high. A more cautious estimate by the German researcher, Dietrich
Hoffmann, in 1969 set the probable strength of the comitatensian army in 364, a
little less than thirty years after Constantine's death, at 137 to 150 units, excluding
the African forces, which were highly indigenous and rarely utilized elsewhere.
This number included approximately 64 comitatensian legions, six scholae of
bodyguards, 36 cavalry vexillations, and 31 auxilia."
The forerunners to the comitatensian legions had first appeared in the third
century as detachments from the regular legions on the frontiers. On paper under
Constantine a comitatensian legion numbered about 1,000 men, far less than had
the parent formations under the Principate, the Severi, and Diocletian. The
comitatensian legions often bore names, such as. Secundani Italiciani, Octa\>ani,
or Undecimani, which referred to their mother units.12 On paper too the vexillations
o f cavalry and the scholae (bodyguard units) each contained about 500 men.
Evidence exists which suggests that each auxilium also contained 500 men, but
estimates of 600-700 and 800 have also been proposed.13 Thus their strength is
uncertain and disputed. The paper strength of an army of 137 units could have
ranged between 97,500 and 106,800. It seems likely that in 337 the field army was
smaller than in 364 because by the latter date there were more auxilia and more
comitatensian detachments levied from legions stationed on the Lower Danube as
weJl as in western Europe and Egypt.
Even in the field army, however, the paper strength of units rarely
corresponded to the real strength. Desertion and problems of recruiting accounted
for some of the disparity, but the main difficulty lay in the venality of a large part
of the officers. For pay and supply purposes they reported more men than they had
and kept the difference in money for themselves. It was an old game with origins
which are lost in the mists of Roman history, but it had become a blatant way of life
in the military during the third century. Even a disciplinarian as stem as Diocletian
had not been able to stamp it out. It was a type of corruption which was not just
confined to the army. It ran through the entire patron-client based society of the
empire, civil and clerical as well as military. Moreover, the phenomenon was
exacerbated by inflation for which Diocletian himself bore much of the
responsibility. Owing to the huge costs of the expanded army, bureaucracy, and
court which his system established, imperial expenditures tended to exceed
revenues all through the fourth century. Diocletian's tax legislation made matters
worse. It legalized and institutionalized the capricious and arbitrary system of
requisitions in kind which had come into being during the third century. The great
landowners in the senate and in the higher bureaucracy used their contacts and
influence at court to push the burden down to the coloni and the small and medium
holders; and this part of the population responded by evading taxes as obstinately
and inventively as it did conscription. Although the practice was technically
illegal, soldiers constantly had to be used to collect taxes. The fiscal problem was
chronic. The government met it by adulterating the coinage, a practice which made
the dishonest selling of supplies at market prices by officers and officials an
excellent means by which they could augment their pay and maintain their living
standards.14
 Chapter III

Th e F ield A r m y F ully D eveloped :

Constantius II, Julian, and Valentinian I

Throughout the fourth century, holding the frontiers— especially in the west
against the Germans, who were land-hungry, aggressive, and whose military cults
and brotherhoods were by this time organized in regional federations—proved to
be consistently difficult for the Roman army. It not only had to guard the borders,
but also decided by means of civil war and murder who should be emperor.
Constantine’s sons, Constantius II, Constantine II, and Constans, each inherited a
portion of the empire. However, Constantine II and Constans fought over
seniority, with Constantine II being killed in 340. In 350 Magnentius, an army
officer of German descent (a laetus), overthrew and killed Constans. By 351
Constantius II ruled in the east, and the usurper, Magnentius, held Gaul. During
these years a new grade of general officer appeared, the military count or comes rei
militaris. He commanded a corps of comitatenses and was charged with protecting
an area smaller than would be appropriate for a magister militum. Probably created
by Constans, the new office was a needed innovation. Constantius II took up the
idea and by 350 had a comes rei militaris protecting the Lower Danube, while the
emperor himself watched the Persians along the Euphrates.
By a kind of unwritten but well understood code political battles between
Roman armies were supposed to be settled as much as possible by maneuver and
bribery with a minimum of bloodshed. Once one side had the advantage, the other
would capitulate. The victors killed only the leaders of the losing side. It was the
way of Roman politics.
In 351, however, at the Battle of Mursa, where Magnentius led the army of
Gaul against a larger force under Constantius II, military pride and passions
became so aroused that many of the men fought to the death. Magnentius and his
western soldiers thought of themselves as superior to their eastern counterparts, and
their arrogance led them into a deadly trap. Constantius's army was strong in heavy
cavalry and mounted archers. The broad, level, northeastern Pannonian plain about
Mursa, where Constantius lured his rival, provided exactly the kind of terrain
which his cavalry required to be most effective. The heavy cavalry, supported by
infantry, forced Magnentius's men to stay concentrated to repel charges while the
horse archers hovered about them out of reach, inflicting terrible casualties. Many
of the simple barbarians in the auxilia did not understand the double dealing of
Roman politics; and following their warrior code of loyalty and military honor, a
large number of them fought to the last even when their units were isolated from
each other and hemmed in on the battlefield. By the late afternoon of the day of
the battle, when the issue had been decided in favor of Constantius, he rushed
frantically from one scene of butchery to another screaming at the men on both
sides to stop and promising no reprisals against anyone; but a large number,
whether eastern or western, were beyond control; and the carnage did not cease
until the moon illuminated a field strewn with the mutilated corpses of thousands
of first class warriors who could have contributed much to the defense of the
empire 1
The army of Gaul was disrupted and the defense of the Prefecture of Gaul
was disorganized. The Franks, a German tribal federation on the Lower Rhine, and
the Alamanni, a similar federation on the Upper Rhine, seized upon the situation
to break across the river and to seize or devastate much of the region. Evidence
indicates that when Diocletian and his fellow Tetrarchs had reorganized the
defenses in Gaul at the end of the third century, they did so along traditional lines,
deploying four legions, I Minerva, XXX Ulpia, XXII Primigenia, and VIII Augusta.
with supporting cavalry along the Rhine frontier. However, Constantine, his sons,
and Magnentius levied on these formations for at least five comitatensian legions
which willingly or unwillingly served with Magnentius. What remained behind
when this usurper moved his comitatenses east against Constantius was not enough
to hold the border. The remnants of the four old legions were annihilated. By 355
the Franks and the Alamanni were well established west of the Rhine and were
raiding and encroaching to the west *
These events could not have come at a worse time for Constantius, who had
to watch for a likely Persian invasion coming across the Euphrates. Reluctantly
and believing he had no other alternative, he appointed his nephew, Julian, to be
his Caesar or lieutenant in the west and sent him with a small force to defend Gaul
as best he could. Constantius, however, was making a mere gesture to buy time.
He hoped that Julian would keep the Germans busy for some months, so that when
Constantius had dealt with the Persians, he could go to Gaul himself and restore the
border.3 But. to his horrified surprise, Julian, who had not had a military education,
showed himself to be a formidable man of action. With great energy and zeal he
reorganized the army of Gaul, creating at least six new auxilia of hired Germans
from beyond the Rhine. Some of these formations, like the Invicti, the Salii, and
the Felices, came to be numbered among the most famous and valued in the Roman
service.4
In those days, when the Germans still stood in considerable awe of Rome's
military reputation, it was possible to teach them to fight in the Roman manner.
 Probable Structure a Few Years
before the Division of the Army in 364 A.D.

The protectores domestici still provided officers from which the emperor chose
tribunes for the field army and prefects and tribunes for the limitanei.

The position of the comites rei militaris seems anomalous. From his rank a comes
should have served immediately under a magister militum, but existing evidence
suggests a position at this time directly under the emperor, probably because the
comites controlled many soldiers. With the authorization of the emperor a comes
could issue orders to duces within his corps area.
They accepted hard training designed to endow them with superior endurance and
fencing skills. On the battlefield they advanced on the enemy slowly with the
ancient anapaestic cadence which the army favored to keep them synchronized and
under control. As they advanced they sang the Barritus, an undulating war song
imported from Germany. They held their mouths close behind their shields so as
to create a deep, hollow, echoing, and terrifying sound. Under Julian, who honored
the ancient civic religion, they alternated the Barritus song with a rhythmic
chanting of the names of the old gods. During the battle, after closing with a short,
hard rush, they rotated their ranks sequentially in order to preserve their own
strength and to wear down the enemy. They could form close formations to repel
cavalry charges, and they could also speedily extend their front and maneuver and
fight in cellular formations in order to hold and envelop the enemy. At least
initially they were not meant to replace the legions but to supplement them. At the
Battle of Strasbourg (Argentorate) in 357 Julian placed a legion of the field army,
the Primani (probably from the old Legio I Italica), at the center of his line. When
the Alamanni smashed through the light armed auxiliaries at the height of the
struggle, it was the well armored Primani who stood their ground and broke the
enemy charge.5 The auxiliaries then pursued and finished off the barbarians. In
the heat of battle both the legionaries and the auxiliaries often saw a huge soldier
o f greater than human size and strength fighting on the Roman side. They were
sure that he was the great god Mars, who, pleased by their devotion, had come to
enjoy himself and to bring them victory. Because of the contempt of the German
fighting man for manual labor the auxilia were exempt from the work details which
the legions performed. This practice amounted to favoritism, and over time it
tended to erode morale in the legions and to heighten the resistance o f Roman
citizens to conscription for service in units doing hard work which the auxilia did
not have to do. When campaigning in the field, however, the Roman armies of
Julian’s time still fortified their camps at night, and each century posted regular
watches by duty roster.6 On parade the auxilia like the legions marched in rhythmic
unison to the Pyrrhic measure with their weapons and standards gleaming in the
sun. German youths who were specially commended served in the scholae
palatinae or imperial bodyguard units founded by Constantine after he disbanded
the praetorian guard as punishment for siding with Maxentius. At least since
Constantine, young Germans of aristocratic lineage had served with the sons and
favorites of Roman officers in the protectores domestici, a continuation of the
corps o f protectores created by Gallienus as a substitute for the senators in the
leadership of the army. As such, the domestici were a military elite which enjoyed
great advantages in status, seniority, and promotion. The senior members appear
to have served both as an imperial staff corps and as a body of reliable officers
who, when chosen, became the tribunes of the units in the field army or the prefects
of the legions in the limitanei. The junior members formed a cadet corps. At any
given time many of them were on detached service in the field and when so
employed may still have been called simply protectores. By the second half o f the
fourth century officers who had been protectores domestici dominated the higher
commands of the field army, a situation which goes far to explain why so many
leading officers in the late Roman army had German names.7
During the late 350's, Julian defeated the Franks and the Alamanni and
expelled them from Gaul. His success so frightened Constantius that he challenged
Julian militarily in 360. In the midst of the crisis, however, Constantius died of a
febrile disease; and the entire army recognized Julian as emperor. No serious
fighting among Roman forces occurred. Julian now made two great endeavors, one
religious and one military, which he thought would improve the strategic position
o f the empire. He believed that the turn of Constantine and his dynasty to
Christianity had offended the old gods and caused them to turn their faces away
from Rome. Therefore, he returned personally to the ancient Hellenic religion,
which he loved, abolishing the special privileges which Constantine and his
successors to date had granted to the Christian church. On the military side he tried
to relieve the empire of the burden of holding two major fronts, one in Europe
against the Germanic and Sarmatian peoples and the other in Asia against the
Persians. In 363 he attempted to remove the pressure from Persia through an
offensive campaign to crush that empire.8 For the invasion Julian assembled an
army of about 65,000 men, the largest ever raised by the empire for a foreign war.
He left 18,000 as a rear guard in northern Mesopotamia and led about 47,000 into
Persia. The Persians, however, evaded battle and drew Julian deep into their huge
country, where scorched earth tactics and supply problems ultimately forced him
to turn back. The force which accompanied the emperor into Persia lost heavily
through attrition, starvation, and disease, even though the Persians did not defeat
it in battle. Julian himself was fatally wounded while helping to stop an enemy
attack.9
Thus the attempt to ease the pressure on the empire by means of a decisive
defeat of Persia failed. Julian's religious policy also died with him, for his
successors were Christians. He was a romantic antiquarian who listened too much
to Hellenistic sycophants comparing him to Alexander the Great. He did not
realize his Persian opponents had learned much about resisting Western invaders
since Alexander's time. He also underestimated the problems of space and the
logistical difficulties he would face in Persia. Yet still, his exertion was an epic
one which sought to utilize both divine and human powers to cut through the
difficulties which beset his empire. He was the only late Roman emperor to
attempt to resolve the military dilemma by taking the strategic offensive.

***

Julian's immediate successor, Jovinus, died while leading the army back to
Constantinople. As his replacement, the army elected Valentinian, an able and
experienced general. He was a realist who had opposed the Persian expedition and
predicted its failure. Throughout his reign, except for local spoiling attacks, he
stood on the defensive. As his co-emperor, Valentinian insisted upon the
appointment of his younger brother, Valens. Valentinian took responsibility for the
western half of the empire and left the east to Valens. Valentinian had a strong,
domineering personality. He always believed that he knew exactly what needed to
be done. He chose Valens because the younger brother was obedient. Valens
accepted his authority without question, and as long as they both lived, there was
harmony between them.10
At Naissus in the summer of 364, the two fraternal emperors partitioned the
field army which had accompanied Julian into Persia. It now probably numbered
scarcely 30,000 at best. The units were divided because this was the army's
preferred method of establishing new formations. It is quite likely that, with the
exception of four bodyguard formations, those going west with Valentinian were
called seniores, while those staying with Valens were called iuniores.u If it was
indeed at this time that the Romans began to use the seniores-iuniores designations,
then some fifty troop units—scholae, comitatensian legions, cavalry vexillations,
and auxilia, altogether about a third of the field army— seem to have been
involved.12 Whatever the figure, the aim was to expand the army; for the split
doubled the number of participating formations (i.e., if 50 at first then now 100);
and all were to serve as cadre units which would be built up to strength with
recruits. Valentinian had been much impressed by the performance of the auxilia
during Julian's Persian campaign. And so he established an additional goal that
his junior units provide the nuclei for an improved Eastern Roman infantry, a part
of the army which he thought less effective than it should be. The Eastern Roman
forces were superior in cavalry to the Western, but Valentinian was not greatly
concerned about this because the principal enemies in the west, the forest Germans
who were harrying Gaul at this time, were almost entirely infantry.
After Julian had left Gaul in 361 the Germans had again broken across the
Rhine and ravaged the region. Constantine, as part of his reorganization of the
army, had established a border defense in this area based on limitanei and cavalry,
but both levies and successive German invasions had disrupted the arrangement
and resulted in the loss of many of the border infantry and cavalry units. Julian,
owing to his wars with Constantius and Persia, had not had time to restore the
frontier forces, and Valentinian, while he reconstituted the limitanei, did not
reestablish their cavalry formations. As he saw it, Constantine’s army
reorganization had not worked out.13 Instead he concentrated on creating new
barbarian auxilia, and between 369 and 371, when he was involved in very heavy
fighting in Gaul, he also insisted that his brother transfer to him some of the auxilia
which had remained in the east in 364. The number of auxilia in the Western
Roman field army rose dramatically, from about 24 under Julian to over 40 by
371.14 Valentinian established only two new comitatensian legions, the Divitenses
Gallicani and the Solenses Gallicani, which he created out of the Divitenses and
the Solenses, two comitatensian legions dating from the Tetrarchy. Under
Valentinian the Western Roman army contained about 36 or 37 palatine or
comitatensian legions with a theoretical strength of approximately 36,000 to 37,000
men; so the legions, the specifically Roman infantry component of the army, were
now inferior to the auxilia in the number of their units, although in manpower they
were probably still the stronger element.15 Except in the split in 364, the Roman
government after the death of Constantine in 337 seems to have created in the
western part of the empire no more than seven and possibly as few as four new
comitatensian legions that were not seconded from the limitanei. The task of
raising suitable drafts of men from the largely non-military Roman population by
means of the existing system of conscription was difficult and time consuming. It
placed a great constraint on efforts to create new Roman formations or even to
maintain existing ones. When more units were needed, it was easier to accept a
money tax and to use the funds to hire barbarians for new auxilia."3
In 365 Valentinian placed all of the auxilia in a new elite category of troops
called palatini. They were now auxilia palatina. He conferred this status on only
a few of his legions. The palatini were the most honored of all the troops in the
Roman army, and Valentinian took this step to expedite the recruitment of German
and other barbarian volunteers, who with the passage of time were becoming
increasingly sophisticated about pay, emoluments, and status. Their units now took
pride of place among the elite formations of the field army and surpassed all but the
few palatine legions and cavalry vexillations in status. At this time the army also
began the practice of seconding legionary detachments into the field army from the
limitanei and calling them pseudocomitatenses. The earliest pseudocomitatensian
legions served in the eastern part of the empire and were probably promoted units
of limitanei displaced from Roman territory ceded to Persia as a result of Julian's
defeat in 363. The pseudocomitatemes received less pay and fewer tax exemptions
than the palatine and comitatensian troops and had the lowest standing in the
mobile army. The strength of the pseudocomitatensian legions is uncertain, but
probably varied between 500 and 1,000 each with an effort to keep them at the
latter figure, which would match that of the palatine and comitatensian legions they
were meant to supplement.17 On campaign they gave such support as they could,
often defending fixed positions, bases of operation, and lines of communication,
so that the palatine and comitatensian formations could be kept free to maneuver.
Valentinian I proved to be the last of the great soldier emperors in the
Western Roman empire. He fought vigorously and successfully to eject the
Germans one more time from Gaul. He reestablished the frontiers there. He
restored the Rhenish fortifications, placing them so that barbarians crossing the
Rhine at any point could be observed. Because Julian had not had time to restore
the limitanei. Valentinian assumed that task and strengthened the border force by
creating some 15 new border units from detachments (the size and strength of
which are uncertain) taken from his field army. Nor did he did rely entirely on a
static defense, but kept the Germans off balance by raiding them, burning their
crops and villages, carrying off their women and children to be sold as slaves,
showing them that the Roman army could raid as well or better than the Germans
could. He intimidated the Germans well enough so that their attacks ceased during
his reign and for some years after. When necessary, therefore, he could withdraw
troops from Gaul temporarily in order to campaign on the Danube or in Britain.18
Valentinian was a military conservative. The Roman advantage in warfare
had always derived from superior infantry tactics and techniques, and he was
unimpressed with the cavalry which he found in Gaul.19 Much of the original
cavalry force there had gone east with Magnentius in 351 and had either been
destroyed or incorporated into Constantius’s army. Valentinian created no more
than one or two squadrons for the field army. So this arm of the Roman service in
Western Europe remained weak.20 Cavalry horses would not charge into infantry
which maintained formation without wavering or breaking; and the
Germans—redoubtable enemies, who had learned much from the Romans over the
years— usually did that very well. The heaviest Roman cavalry, the clibonarii,
swathed in chain-link armor from head to foot, served primarily in the empire's
Asiatic armies, where Valentinian had had experience with them. To his frustrated,
profane, helmet-hurling rage they had often collapsed from heat exhaustion before
the weight they and their horses carried could be brought to battle. Their protective
head gear restricted their vision, and they were good for little except a final charge
over level ground in mild weather against a line already wavering from panic and
heavy losses. It seems reasonably certain that Valentinian did not bring them to
western Europe. The typical cataphract or heavy cavalryman in the Western
Roman Empire seems to have worn a metal helmet and a coat of mail and to have
fought with lance and sword; but he was not armored from head to foot; and his
horse was unarmored.21
Fighting the Alamanni at Strasbourg in 357, Julian too had had difficulty with
his cavalry. It had broken and given way early in the battle, when the tribune
leading the formation was wounded and the horse of a rider close to him collapsed
from the weight which it was carrying. Fortunately Julian had kept a tactical
reserve which saved the battle for him. Ammianus in his account of Julian’s retreat
out of Persia in 363 tells us that on one occasion the legions filed a formal
complaint that in an engagement, as the infantry attacked, a cavalry unit, the
Tertiaci, had gradually given ground and shaken the resolve of the entire army.
Julian investigated and punished those who he decided had not advanced as
ordered. He had their lances broken and made them march with the baggage train
and the prisoners. Julian exonerated the leader of the Tertiaci, however, finding
that he had fought bravely, and promoted him to the command of another unit. On
the other hand, he demoted four other cavalry tribunes for “disgraceful conduct,”
whether in this battle or at other times is not clear. Nor is it clear what the
“disgraceful conduct” was or if any infantry leaders or units disgraced themselves
in Persia. But it was during the Persian expedition that Valentinian came to the
conclusion that the Eastern Roman infantry was less effective in combat at close
quarters than the auxilia from the west. By now the Romans had learned that the
best way to defeat Persian long range tactics was to charge them all-out early in the
battle and engage them in close combat. Valentinian believed that the auxilia were
far more aggressive in doing this than the Eastern Roman infantry.22
Moreover, Ammianus does make it clear that not all Roman experience with
cavalry during this era was bad. During the Persian campaign in 363, the cavalry,
through diversionary attacks, twice saved the Roman rear-guard from destruction,
and in 370 Roman cavalry prevented the annihilation of infantry sent to stop a
Saxon attack on Gaul. The cavalry, waiting in ambush near the location of the
battle, heard it, marched quietly with its horses to the sound, charged the Saxons
from the rear, and routed them.23 The best Roman experience was with light
cavalry, mounted archers and javelin throwers, who could harass and wear down
an enemy, so weakening him that determined charges could break through his
formations. It was when used in combination with light forces of this kind that the
clibonarii were most effective. To match the cavalry tactics of enemies along its
Asian and African frontiers the empire utilized numerous mounted archers in its
Asian and African armies, but they were scarce to non-existent among the
vexillations stationed in Western Europe.24
To defend Gaul and the Rhine frontier Valentinian relied primarily on a
powerful comitatensian army stationed at Trier and made up of the best troops
available in the western part of the empire. Thus his field force contained some
cavalry and legions, one of which, the Ioviani, the most senior legion in the army,
served in his campaign of 368 against the Alamanni;25 but the largest element in his
mobile army in Gaul consisted of an elite corps of auxilia palatina. These
formations were aggressive and easier to recruit and keep up to strength than units
made up of Roman citizens. They lacked the staying power of the armored infantry
in the legions, but they usually performed well under Valentinian's leadership. In
the climactic battle against the Alamanni in 368, probably fought near what is today
Heidelberg, his tactics were much like Julian's at Strasbourg. He used the Ioviani
to anchor the center of his line and to hold the barbarians, while he attacked and
turned their flank with the auxilia.2b
 Chapter IV

D isaster and R eorganiza tion :

Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius I

The trust that existed between Valentinian and Valens provided both political
harmony between them and cooperation in defending the empire. The older brother
gave the orders; the younger brother obeyed. However, after Valentinian died
unexpectedly in 375, Valens could not cope with vast new barbarian migrations
which placed the empire and its field army under pressures far exceeding those
which they had withstood in the first half of the century. Valens’s only outstanding
qualification as co-emperor had been his obedience to Valentinian. He had
received neither a liberal arts nor a military education. As a military leader he was
an amateur who lacked the native ability which Julian had possessed. Furthermore,
after his brother's death he became suspicious and jealous of his nephew, Gratian,
who, as Valentinian's son and heir, was now the Western Roman emperor. The
terrible defeat at the hands of the Visigoths near Adrianople in August 378 could
have been avoided if Valens had heeded urgent pleas from Gratian and waited until
their two armies could meet, doubling the Roman strength.1
With stem orders and grim punishments Valentinian had struggled to regulate
and strengthen his army, and had fashioned a powerful force in the Western Roman
Empire. His hand fell most heavily, however, on the common soldiers. With high-
ranking officers he was more lenient, perhaps because he feared that they might
combine against him if he were too strict with them. He never called them to
account for their profiteering at the expense of the public purse, letting the corrupt
practices which so seriously diminished the efficiency and war readiness of the
army continue. A lack of discipline betrayed itself at times. For example, his
officers’ inability to keep the men from looting and shouting at night caused the
failure of an attempt to capture by surprise King Macrianus of the Alamanni in 372.
In 374 rivalry, quarreling, and lack of cooperation between commanding officers
led to the defeat in detail of two legions of the field army, the Pannonica and the
Moesiaca, during a campaign against the Quadi and the Sarmatians in Valeria on
the Danube.2 In spite of its failings, however, discipline in the comitatensian army
in the west at this time was better than in the east. For Valens had neither his
brother's aggressive zeal nor his detailed understanding of the army and always had
difficulty controlling it. During Procopius's attempted usurpation in 365, units
freely changed sides depending on the mood of the moment, first going over to
Procopius and then, as his prospects dimmed, returning to Valens. At the time of
the outbreak of the great Visigothic crisis in 376, caused by the pressure of Hun
migrations out of the Eurasian steppe, the Eastern Roman field army was far from
war ready. Valentinian had weakened it by insisting that Valens transfer
formations, probably 16 (ten auxilia, five legions, and one vexillation), to the
Western Roman army; and although Valens had sought to improve discipline after
Procopius's rebellion, he had not been able to eliminate the pervasive, long­
standing corruption of the officer corps which had the same consequences for the
Eastern Roman army as for the Western.3
Valens failed to perceive the magnitude of the emergency precipitated by the
Visigoths’ request to cross the Danube and stay in Roman territory. He hoped to
use them as laeti, and permitted them to cross the river. At the time the emperor
was in Antioch enganged in negotiations with the Persians over Armenia. Units
from the Eastern Roman field army’s Danubian corps were probably with him,
weakening the forces available in Thrace, where the Visigoths were to be settled.
The Visigoths were divided into two main tribes, the Thervingi and the Greuthungi.
The other great Gothic nation, the Ostrogoths, was still well to the north of the
Danube and did not appear south of it in the Balkans until the second half of the
fifth century. Both nations were Germano-Scandinavian in origin. When the
context was clear the Romans simply called them Goths or barbarians. The Huns,
who were pushing on the Gothic peoples, were Mongolians who had gradually
migrated across the Eurasian steppe from the Orient. In 376 Valens instructed
Lupicinus, the comes rei militaris (count of military affairs) for Thrace to admit
only the Thervingi with whom the Romans had had more contact than with the
Greuthungi. The Roman army officers, officials, and merchants sent to guard and
provision the Visigoths, following standard practice, sequestered foodstuffs in forts
and walled towns. The Romans doled out supplies sparingly, and also following
traditional practice constantly cheated the Thervingi, demanding slaves in return
for supplies. The Goths, not understanding that this was the usual Roman way of
doing things and that they should accept it, rose up, routed Lupicinus and
massacred their tormentors. Taking advantage of the confusion, the Greuthungi
crossed the Danube and the two tribes began to wander about the provinces of
Lower Moesia and Thrace, looting, burning, and plundering. Both Valens and
Gratian reacted quickly. The former hurried to Constantinople, leaving
subordinates to make the best arrangements they could with the Persians. Gratian
dispatched Richomer, his comes domesticorum, the military chief of the domestici
and thus a crack officer, at the head of a small expeditionary force probably
consisting of four comitatensian legions and two auxilia. By the time this corps
reached Eastern Roman territory, it was already weakened by desertions because
24 Disaster and Reorganization

the Germans in the auxilia tended to resent being sent so far from home.
Nevertheless, Richomer took command of the field forces in Thrace, and early in
377 after observing the Goths for some time, he engaged them in battle near the
town of Salices in Thrace. The size of the forces involved is unknown, although
Ammianus believed that the Goths had the numerical advantage. At one point in
the heavy, prolonged struggle they broke the Roman left wing, so that Richomer
had to commit his tactical reserve to save his army from defeat.4
After this battle Richomer hastened back to the Western Roman Empire to
urge Gratian personally to send more reinforcements. Perhaps on his advice
Valens turned to officers who favored a more gradualist strategy to defeat the
Goths. The most realistic was a general named Sebastianus, a competent and
experienced soldier who shortly before had transferred from the west. Since
arriving, Sebastianus had had opportunity to observe Valens's forces. Having
served in the army fashioned by the more competent Valentinian, he saw that the
bulk of the Eastern Roman field army was too poorly conditioned, under-fed, and
under-strength to be risked in a pitch battle with the Gothic horde. The Roman
patron-client system tended to dominate the army as it did civil society and had had
its corrosive effect. The officers were patrons. The men were clients. Officers
and government supply officials withheld army provisions and sold them for their
own profit; officers routinely demanded bribes in return for promotions, transfers,
and furloughs. They frequently neglected the training of their men, whom they
encouraged to work instead at secondary jobs (often for government offices and
officials) in order to make ends meet and to amass a bribe fund.5
Sebastianus, therefore, avoided battle. He formed a small, special force,
consisting of about 2,000 of the most fit and willing men, whom he trained, fed,
and exercised carefully. While Valens sought frantically to improve the condition
and morale of the remaining troops with rhetoric and by making good arrears of
pay and supplies, Sebastianus confiscated all the food and grain he could find and
secured these stores in walled cities, which the barbarians with their primitive
siege-craft could not penetrate. For protection against surprise he based his troops
on these same walled towns, and waged a Fabian war of maneuver and ambush
against the roving Gothic bands. He wanted to wear them down until they could
be easily defeated or would give up and leave Roman territory. This strategy took
time, however, and it soon came under attack at Valens's court. The Gothic
depredations disrupted administration and tax collection. In addition, the
barbarians were looting and burning estates belonging to influential bureaucrats
and courtiers. Valens found himself beset by a storm of pleas and demands that he
attack more aggressively. Again and again he was told that Gratian, who had
recently achieved victories against the Alamanni, would use the situation to
discredit him, an eventuality which he greatly feared, and that the Goths were
already so weakened that he could easily defeat them. Uncertain, fearful even, of
Sebastianus because of this general’s successes, and without the steadying
influence of his brother, he gave in and reversed the Roman strategy. Sebastianus,
Fighting for life and power: Constantine as a young man.
(Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin)
The same head of Constantine from a different angle.
(Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin)
Constantine’s Cornuti form line of battle. An officer in a traditional cuirass alertly
supervises. The homed helmet decoration, whose significance was pointed out in
1939 by Hans Peter L’Orange, still shows clearly on the helmets of two of the
soldiers and the officer. (Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin)
An officer of the Cornuti, wearing a classical cuirass, aggressively reconnoiters the
walls of hostile Verona during the civil war between Constantine and Maxentius,
312 A.D. (Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin)
An auxiliary with the insignia of the Cornuti, a buck’s head and the goddess
Victoria, on his shield and also a regular soldier guard a prisoner. LO range noted
the difference between their helmet crests and pointed out the similarity between
the shield of the auxiliary and insignia number nine, the Cornuti, in the illustrations
in the Notitia Dignitatum of the insignia of the units under the magister militum
praesentalis II where the goddess shows in the middle of number nine's buck's
head emblem. (Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin)
 VI.
Insignia uiri illustris magistri militum praesentalis, bm . p ji

2 Matiarii seniores.
3 Daci.
4 Scythae 5 Primani 6 Undecimani
7 Lanciarii iuniores. b Regii. 9 Cornuti.

The insignia of the magister militum praesentalis II as shown in the Notitia

Dignitatum. Number nine is the Cornuti. By now the auxilium had
transferred to the Eastern Roman Empire, no doubt on the orders of
Theodosius I.
 OC. V MAGISTER PEDITUM PRAESENTALIS.

V.
Insignia uiri illustris magistri peditum. m <i . r- » ·

2 Iouiniani.
3 Herculiani.
4 Diuitenses. 5 Tongrecani. 6 Pannoni- 7 Moesiciaci. 8 Armigeri se­
ciani. niores.
9 Sabarienses. 10 Ociauani. 11 Thebei. 12 Cimbriani. 13 Armigeri iu-
niores.
14 Cornuti. 15 Brachiati. 16 Petulantes. 17 Celtae. 18 Heruli.
19 Bat&ui. 20 Mattiaci. 21 Ascani se­ 22 Ascarii iu- 23 louii.
niores. niores.

Some years later the Cornuti (number 14) are again in the Western Roman
Empire, probably transferred by Stilicho. The buck’s head is now more
abstract and geometric, and the goddess is gone. It is tempting to attribute her
disappearance to the influence of the Christian governments, but the change
could have taken place in later times in the course of recopying.
 VU.

Insignia uiri illustris magistri militum per Orientem. ι»Λ. »

2 Felice* Arcadiani seniores

3 Felices Honoriani seniores 4 Quinta Macédonien
5 Martenses seniores. 0 Septima gemina

The significance of palatine status. The Felices Arcadiani seniores and the
Felices Honoriani seniores, auxilia palatina which from their names must
have been formed very late, take precedence over very old comitatensian
legions like Quinta Macedonia, Martenses seniores, and Septima gemina.
overruled and probably fearing career problems if he objected, yielded too and
went along with the change of plan.6
Thus without waiting for Gratian. who was marching to join him, Valens
threw his main army against the still huge barbarian host near Adrianople on
August 9, 378. The day was very hot, and many of Valens's troops were exhausted
by a long, fast-paced approach march, which lasted from dawn until about two in
the afternoon. The scouts failed to locate the entire Gothic force. The Roman
forward elements engaged before being directed to and were repulsed. Valens
ordered a general attack on the heavily defended Gothic camp before his infantry
units had fully deployed from their march column, and in the confusion and haste
of battle, he failed to cover his flanks with an adequate tactical reserve. When he
was charged from the flank and rear by a Gothic cavalry force of whose existence
he had been unaware, his own utterly surprised cavalry fled from the field. His
infantry was enveloped while only partially in battle order and was soon so tightly
beset that it could not maneuver and defend itself. In the ensuing slaughter Valens
lost two-thirds of his army of about 30,000 men and his own life. It was a
staggering catastrophe.7

Thus Valens's successor. Theodosius I, whom Gratian appointed at Sirmium

in January 379 to govern the Eastern Roman Empire, inherited a desperate military
situation. Theodosius, a capable and experienced officer, spent the rest of his life
trying to cope with it. During his reign, he managed to improve the military posture
o f the Eastern Roman Empire. He lacked, however, the enormous powers of
vision, will, and administrative creativity which he would have needed to
completely save the situation if indeed it was retrievable. Nor were the Goths his
only problem. Throughout his reign he was challenged by the usual usurpers; and
in addition, he was intensely concerned with religion, over which great and divisive
disputes raged within the empire. His responses to the threats raised by usurpers
and his decrees on religion were to have lasting consequences. His most
fundamental problem from beginning to end, however, was the lack of an adequate
field army with which to crush the Visigoths.8 The Eastern Roman mobile army
had been annihilated just when the migration of the Huns into Europe had
enormously increased the barbarian pressure on the empire's over-extended
frontiers. Roman success had always rested on military strength, and now at this
critical juncture the Roman army no longer had the man power and discipline to
maintain that strength. Without it both Theodosius and Gratian were forced into
accommodations with the barbarians which over time would bring about the
disappearance of the comitatensian army in the western part of the empire and its
replacement with allied or federate troops.
The one large mobile force available to Theodosius in 379 was the Asian
field army deployed behind the Euphrates. It contained about ten vexillations, eight
comitatensian legions, and eight pseudocomitatensian legions, altogether some
21,000 men if the pseudocomitatenses had a strength of 1,000 men each.9 But that
army needed to be kept in its current positions in order to prevent Persia from being
a threat to the Eastern Roman Empire. Thus Theodosius had to make do against
the Goths with whatever kind of motley army he could scratch together elsewhere.
Barely 9,000 of the force crushed at Adrianople survived, and their morale was so
low that it diminished their usefulness. Many o f them were staying in walled
towns, isolated and unable to support each other. The cavalry, much of which had
used its speed to escape at Adrianople, was in the best condition. Five vexillations,
about 2,500 men, were available.
Since Diocletian, the empire had been organized for purposes of territorial
administration in four prefectures which were divided into dioceses and the
dioceses into provinces. At the time that Gratian appointed Theodosius, he ceded
him Dacia and Macedonia, the two eastern-most dioceses of the Prefecture of
Illyricum, and gave him a small force of comitatensian legions and auxilia palatina
from the Illyrian field army. With them Theodosius marched overland to
Thessalonica at the head of the Aegean sea. The Visigoths did not resist, for an
epidemic had broken out among them, and they had withdrawn from Macedonia
to Thrace. Once in Thessalonica the new emperor brought over detachments from
the legions in Egypt and assembled a small field army of infantry and cavalry.
Thessalonica made an excellent base of operations for Theodosius. It put his
back to the sea, and under the protection of the Roman navy he could receive
supplies and reinforcements without interference. The city contained a government
arms factory which made weapons for both the infantry and the cavalry; and it was
also the junction point where the road north to Naissus and the Danube forts (many
o f which were still held by limitanei) met the main road east to Thrace and
Constantinople. Using this road system, Theodosius and his second in command,
Modares, a cavalry officer, maneuvered so as to make the Goths feel threatened
with envelopment. Theodosius marched north toward the Danube, capturing small
Gothic bands as he went, while Modares moved east with his cavalry. The cavalry
general rescued some Roman units which had been holding out isolated since the
disaster at Adrianople; and in southern Thrace he destroyed a large, plundering
band of Goths in a surprise night attack. Thus largely by faking and feinting rather
than by fighting, Theodosius and Modares had edged the Visigoths out of southern
Thrace by the end of 379.10
Events did not, however, continue for long to go in favor of the emperor.
Modares's victory was not on a great enough scale to affect the balance between the
Romans and the Visigoths, and Gothic forward observers and Gothic deserters
from the Roman army soon made the weakness of the Romans known to their
kinsmen. The leader of the Thervingi, Fritigem, counterattacked with an invasion
of Macedonia early in 380. Theodosius struck at Fritigem's right flank, but at this
point the remaining damage from Adrianople undid his efforts. The troops which
Theodosius had obtained from Gratian and from Egypt were not enough for him
to fight the Visigoths in the open field with any chance of success. They amounted
to less than half the strength of the army lost at Adrianople. He had to have more
men, and he found them by enrolling Goths. Theodosius enforced the conscription
laws rigorously; but the existing system, with its long service requirement and
built-in, although unofficial, arrangements for evasion, produced too few fit men
to replace the losses in time for another deadly battle. The population of the still
unmolested provinces in Asia showed no sign of dropping its long standing
resistance to the draft. More importantly, a general levy of male citizens in order
to create a nation in arms, as proposed during the reign of Theodosius's son
Arcadius by the Roman writer Synesius of Cyrene," was no part of Theodosius's
vision. He feared the possible consequences of arming the general population,
most of which consisted of humiliores. Under the empire the policy in time of war
had always been to use the unmolested provinces as a tax base to provide the means
for a reinforced mercenary army, and he did not think of following any other
course. He had served in the western part of the empire and had encountered that
region's numerous bacaudae, rural rebels against the government's heavy taxation
and oppressive administration. They infested Gaul, and their brigandage made
even the main roads unsafe.12 Theodosius wanted to do nothing which might arm
and create similar activity in the east. The Goths were available, militarized, and
many of them quite willing to serve him in return for food, lodging, and donatives
(gifts in gold or silver from the emperor on special occasions). He hired them for
the cavalry, the auxiliapalatina, and even for the legions, in which technically only
Roman citizens were supposed to serve.13
The result of this sudden influx was a further deterioration of the Roman
army, for unlike those who had joined prior to the Battle of Adrianople, the new
Gothic recruits regarded themselves as the military superiors of the Romans. They
frequently refused to accept Roman discipline, to learn even rudimentary army
Latin, or to train in the Roman methods of fighting. Their arrogant, belligerent
behavior infuriated the Roman soldiers and led to constant clashes. On the march
they regularly beat and robbed Roman civilians and engaged in bloody skirmishes
with Roman troops who intervened. Order and cohesion within their units
deteriorated. Owing to the confusion and their ignorance of Latin, their written
records frequently ceased to be kept. Since disaffected soldiers were useless, the
Roman authorities agreed that barbarians might leave the service at will if they
provided a replacement. This practice led, however, to constant changes in
personnel which further undermined stability and discipline and opened the way
to desertion, treason, ambush, and more defeats.14
Thus when Theodosius sought to counter Fritigem's foray into Macedonia in
380, Gothic deserters betrayed his plans and position to Fritigem, who launched
a surprise night attack directly on Theodosius's own camp, where the emperor was
saved from capture only by the bravery of one of the Roman units which he had
transferred from Egypt.15 Theodosius's army was scattered. It might have been
annihilated had the Goths not busied themselves with looting instead of pursuing
the beaten Romans. Theodosius had to ask Gratian for assistance; and in the
summer of 380 the Western Roman emperor sent to him a powerful corps of
comitatensian legions and auxilia palaiina led by two Frankish generals, Bauto,
the commander, and Arbogast, his second in command, both officers of the regular
army. With these reinforcements Theodosius was able to lever Fritigem and his
Visigoths out of Thessaly and Macedonia and back into Thrace.16 The Goths
quarreled among themselves about what to do. One of their leaders, Athanarich,
deserted to the Romans. Fritigem died suddenly. His followers avoided battle, but
they sent messengers to the Ostrogoths and to the Alans massed on the Upper
Danube, identifying the Western Roman units which had transferred to the Eastern
Empire. These tribes then broke across the river and occupied much of Pannonia.
In order to oppose them Gratian had to recall Bauto and Arbogast with their men
in September 380.17
Without this force, Theodosius lacked the means to impose a settlement by
arms and had to seek a diplomatic solution with the Visigoths. In November 380
he entered Constantinople and celebrated a bogus triumph for the benefit of the
city's population. But the peace treaty which he finally signed with the Visigoths
in October 382, after long and hard negotiations, was a compromise highly
favorable to the barbarians. The Roman government recognized no king of the
Goths in Roman territory. However, the Visigoths remained in possession of
Lower Moesia and Thrace, where they were to live under their own laws and
princes and pay no taxes. They obtained land to farm. They promised to defend
their territory against invasion and, in return for subsidies, agreed that in time of
war they would supply the emperor with contingents of federates, who would serve
as his allies under their own leaders.18
Thus at this point Theodosius gained a respite from the draining Gothic war.
But serious new military, political, and religious developments in the Western
Roman Empire soon set up the conditions for an eventual disaster there. Up to this
time the Western Roman Empire had maintained its military position better than
had the eastern part, although, owing to the need to help Theodosius, the western
forces since 380 had lost the line of the Danube in Pannonia. The Hun migrations
into Europe had pressed great masses of barbaric peoples against the Roman
frontiers. Even with the return of Bauto and Arbogast with their corps Gratian was
not able to muster enough strength both to retake Pannonia and to continue to guard
the Rhine, where word of Roman difficulties elsewhere had made the German
tribes restless and aggressive. Gratian suffered no great defeat, as Valens had at
Adrianople; but with the memory of this catastrophe in his mind he did not feel
strong enough with the forces available to him in Pannonia to seek a decisive battle
with the barbarians.19
These military difficulties led Gratian, like Theodosius, to enroll undefeated
barbarians, in this case the Alans, a nomadic steppe people of mixed Sarmatian and
Mongolian ancestry, as federates and to grant them lands within the empire. The
ability of the Alans to defeat efforts by Roman troops to eject them from Pannonia
caused their prestige and self-confidence to rise, while the standing and morale of
the Roman troops began to sink. The federates paid no taxes. Gratian, finding
himself unable to defeat them and eager for their support, granted them provisions
and donatives greater than those given to Roman soldiers. Those subsidies drew
money, equipment, and rations away from the regular field army, a development
which marked the beginning of the final phase of its decline. The federates were
becoming the Roman soldiers of the future. The emperor assiduously courted the
friendship of the barbarians, even appearing in public wearing their national dress.
But as he placated the Alans, he outraged the Romans. The resentment among the
regular army was so great that one of their officers, Magnus Maximus, was able to
take advantage of their disaffection in order to overthrow and kill Gratian in
August of 383.20
Coping with his own difficulties, Theodosius sought at first to avoid a civil
war with Maximus. In a compromise move he and the usurper agreed that, as a
buffer between them, Theodosius's young nephew, Valentinian II, should rule Italy
and North Africa, while Maximus would hold the rest of the Western Roman
Empire. Maximus, however, regarded Valentinian as a mere pawn for Theodosius.
As soon as he felt strong enough, he drove the youth out of Italy. Theodosius,
unwilling to accept this breach of faith and attack on his family, mobilized his
forces, including the Gothic federates, and went to war with Maximus in 388. A
civil war at such a time seems absurd, ridiculous, all the more so since the Eastern
Roman field army had not yet recovered from the effects of the Battle of
Adrianople. But Theodosius thought that maintaining his dynasty as the focus of
loyalty was essential to upholding the cohesion of the empire. As he saw it,
nothing could be accomplished against the barbarians with the Romans divided
between the legitimate emperor and a usurper. As for the federates, Theodosius
needed them to insure himself of numerical superiority. In the upshot the Visigoths
remained loyal, seeing no gain in deserting him for an avowedly anti-German
usurper. Theodosius outmaneuvered his opponent whose soldiers then deserted
him with the result that losses were light, the war over quickly, and the general
damage minimal.
During Theodosius's absence, however, a new Gothic uprising in Lower
Moesia and Thrace broke out led by the perennially dissatisfied and angry
Visigothic prince Alaric. Theodosius, upon his return, campaigned against Alaric,
but newly raised Gothic troops failed him again. Owing to their contempt for
manual labor, they usually would not fortify their camps at night. They also
carelessly or deliberately lit camp fires whenever they pleased. One night Alaric
surprised and routed Theodosius’s escort and nearly captured the emperor,
subjecting him to another embarrassing defeat. Fortunately the commander of the
Roman troops in Thrace, Promotus, a good general, was able, with the help of units
which Theodosius transferred from the Western Roman army, to restore the border
and to keep the Visigoths for the time being within their assigned lands in Thrace
and Moesia.21
 Thus Theodosius was never able to do more with the Visigoths than hold
them to their allotted lands within the empire. Nevertheless, during the course of
his reign, he did improve the military position of the Eastern Roman Empire; for
he gradually repaired the losses suffered at Adrianople, reorganized his army, and
pursued a diplomatic policy towards Persia which stood him and his successors in
good stead. After defeating Maximus, he built up the Eastern Roman army both
with transfers from the west and by creating new units.22 He set up three regional
armies to cover Thrace, the Orient (the Asiatic diocese), and Illyricum; and he
established two central or praesentat armies as their reserves.23 The Thracian field
army, originally commanded by Modares and then by Promotus, faced the
Visigoths and was particularly powerful. Well supplied with reliable Roman units,
it usually consisted of about seven vexillations of cavalry and 21 or 22
comitatensian legions, altogether a paper strength of around 25,500 men.24 In the
hands o f a good leader like Promotus it could hold the Goths. In 391 Promotus
was killed in an ambush which was probably arranged by the Praetorian Prefect,
Rufinus, who was jealous of the influential old general and anxious to have him out
o f the way. One of Promotus's subordinates, Flavius Stilicho, a favorite of
Theodosius and the son of a Vandal officer in the regular Roman service,
succeeded Promotus as commander of the Roman troops in Thrace. He would
eventually have a great influence on the fate of the field army.
The Army o f the Orient was stronger than the Thracian army in cavalry,
generally containing about ten comitatensian vexillations; but it was weaker in
infantry, usually having about nine comitatensian legions and ten
pseudocomitatensian legions, which in this part of the empire for the most part
gave a better account of themselves than their low pay and status would suggest.
They did not just hold fixed positions, but served with the field army as specialized
formations, particularly as archery and missile legions. Furthermore, in the Orient
the border defense by infantry formations of limitanei backed by cavalry squadrons
had not been disrupted as had its counterpart in Gaul, where invaders had
eliminated the frontier defense established under the Tetrarchy and Constantine and
never fully rebuilt by Julian and Valentinian I. The legions o f limitanei defending
the Euphrates had not been weakened by heavy levies of detachments to serve in
the comitatensian army. At the time of King Sapor’s invasion in 359 eastern border
legions such as V Parthica, Il Armeniaca, and ll Parthica had fought with great
distinction and had helped to blunt the attack before it could overrun Roman
Mesopotamia and Osrhoene or penetrate Syria. Moreover, the task of the limitanei
in the east was less challenging than in the west; for the Persians, although they
were skilled in fighting at long range, did not wage close combat as aggressively
as did the Germans.25 The Diocletianic system of defense by an array of limitanei
organized in legions, cohorts, and alae (cavalry wings or squadrons theoretically
numbering about 500 riders each) was still fully intact.26 The Eastern Roman
Empire's logistic base in Asia was protected from attrition; and the field army there
was less tied down by requirements of routine defense and had greater freedom of
action than in the west. Under Theodosius the Army of the Orient always had two
auxilia palatina. But this kind of unit never came to predominate in Asia as it did
in western Europe. Theodosius also added a comitatensian legion and two
pseudocomitatensian legions and built up the strength of the field army in Asia to
about 25,000 men, or perhaps a little more, depending on the strength of the auxilia
and the pseudocomitatensian formations.27 In 384 the emperor further covered his
flank in this region with a timely pact of peace and non-aggression which he made
with the Persian king. It bought Persian neutrality at the cost of recognizing
Persian rule over most of Armenia, but preserved Roman control over the two
westernmost provinces of that country and thus protected the northeastern flank of
the Diocese of the Orient.
Following the victory over Magnus Maximus, Theodosius annexed all of
Illyricum to the Eastern Roman Empire; so its field force passed under his control
too. The lists in the Notitia Dignitatum for this prefecture were drawn up between
396 and 410 by which time the region had again been divided between the two
halves of the empire at the insistence of Stilicho. These lists show the West Illyrian
field army with 22 units and the East Illyrian with 26.28 Thus it seems likely that
under Theodosius the field army of all of Illyricum numbered about 50 units, a
paper strength of 31,000 to 44,000 men, again depending on the estimates one
wants to accept for the auxilia and the pseudocomitatensian legions. Owing to its
exposed geographic position on the Danube, the region was heavily beset by
barbarians; and Theodosius, like Gratian before him, set up numerous cantons of
Alans, Ostrogoths, and Huns there as federates. The regular army had not been
able to hold the line of the Danube consistently for some years. The emperor
stationed its units in the Illyrian mountain passes at the hubs of the roads which ran
to the Mediterranean, so that they could defend the routes of access to Greece,
Italy, and the Dalmatian military road which linked the two halves of the empire.29
To provide a mobile reserve for the regional armies Theodosius organized
two central o rpraesental armies. These armies were attached to the court and were
not regional like the other three. He brought them up to strength with nine new
auxilia palatina}0 A majority of the men in these units were Goths. Theodosius's
policy was to utilize their strength and to integrate them into his military system.
He knew very well, however, that they were dangerous; and he carefully excluded
federate princes from commanding Roman troops, a position which would give
them legal access to the government's arms factories. Gothic officers often held
high rank in the army under Theodosius; but they achieved it by coming up through
the ranks of the auxilia and the vexillations of the regular service. Because the
number and influence of ambitious Germans and Goths among the protectores
domestici was great the emperor gradually relegated this corps as much as he could
to ceremonial functions. To offset the influence of the numerous Goths in the
auxilia Theodosius enrolled as many men as possible from beyond the Roman
borders on the Euphrates. Armenians and mountaineers from the Caucasus were
especially welcome. He kept these soldiers garrisoned near him in the hope that his
presence and leadership would help to maintain discipline among them. With such
simple, uncivilized men personality played a particularly important role in control.
They were much less Romanized and reliable than troops of this kind had been
earlier in the century, and their desertions and disinclination to perform the more
onerous tasks of field discipline had gotten him into military difficulties both in
380 and 391. To avoid fighting among the ranks and disruption of units he no
longer mixed Goths with Romans in the same formations. The Goths now served
in the auxilia palatina but not in the legions. He also tried to maintain a numerical
balance of 50 per cent barbarians and 50 per cent Romans in the praesental armies.
In theory each of these two armies was supposed to contain six palatine
vexillations, six comitatensian vexillations, six palatine legions, and 18 auxilia
palatina. The actual makeup was never quite this symmetrical, but Theodosius
kept it close. In 392, just before the expedition against Arbogast and Eugenius, the
First Praesental Army consisted of these formations in a ratio of 5:7:6:18 and the
Second Praesental Army in a ratio of 6:6:6:17 + 1 pseudocomitatensian archery
legion.31
Owing to the decisive role played by the Gothic cavalry at Adrianople, the
prestige of the mounted arm was now very great; and Theodosius consistently
maintained a high 1 to 2 ratio of cavalry to infantry in the praesental armies. All
five armies, whether regional or praesental, had mounted archers and also foot
archers or missile troops (ballistarii), so as to possess the power of both range and
shock; and in this respect they were better balanced than the Western Roman
regular army in Europe, which seems to have completely lacked mounted archers
and to have had fewer missile troops.32 Each army also had its own magister
militum (master of soldiers or field marshal), an arrangement designed to keep any
one general from becoming too powerful. The Visigothic federates, except to the
extent that they were checked by the magister militum of Thrace and his army,
were the least controlled element in Theodosius's military system. They were
uncertain and fluctuating in number but were always numerous, bellicose,
undefeated, and commanded by their own ambitious leaders. Their subsidies made
them an additional drain on the resources of the government.
Another problem heavy with consequences for the future was the religious
question. Theodosius was an Athanasian Christian. Almost all the Christians in
the western part of the empire were, and he came from Spain. In February 380,
during his first Gothic campaign, Theodosius fell seriously ill at Thessalonica and
for a time seemed near death. Like many Christians of his time he had long
postponed his baptism. Now, believing himself close to death, he underwent this
sacrament; and when he subsequently recovered, emerged from the experience a
fanatical believer who fell completely under the influence o f the bishop o f Milan,
Ambrose. The emperor's subsequent prohibition o f the ancient Roman civic
religion, after some years of subjecting it to harassment and abuse, ultimately
resulted in an insurrection by its still numerous and influential followers in the
Western Roman Empire. Led by Arbogast, now the magister militum of Gaul, and
 Theodosius I’s Reorganization of the
Eastern Roman Army

Theodosius intended his reorganization to achieve decentralization of command

authority beneath the level of the emperor himself. Not only the magistri militum
but the comites in Isauria and Egypt reported directly to him. His system remained
in place without major changes until the reign of Justinian. By the time of
Theodosius many protectores domestici obtained their posts through purchase and
connections rather than military qualifications. In addition, the German and Gothic
influence in the corps was strong. Thus Theodosius relied on it less than had his
predecessors.
by his civilian associate, the Roman academic Flavius Eugenius, they rose up in
May 392 and overthrew and killed Theodosius's nephew and agent, Valentinian II.
Theodosius was unwilling to accept either the pagan rejection of Christianity
or the setting aside of his dynasty. To a modem secular observer another civil war,
this time over religion, with the empire so beset by barbarians might seem the
height of folly, but such a point of view is inappropriate to the time and the man.
To Theodosius's mind the establishment of what he fervently regarded as the one
true religion was the fundamental priority. Without the favor of God all other
measures would avail him nothing. His dynasty, which he saw as essential to the
stability of the empire, would fall without divine protection.33 He mobilized levies
from all of his field forces, except the Army of the Orient, and again called up his
Gothic federates, including even Alaric and his followers with whom he had very
recently been at war. The Goths were available and a legally recognized part of the
new order within the empire. In a civil war among Romans they were willing
enough to serve him loyally, and he still needed the weight o f their
numbers—which, if we are to believe the Gothic historian Jordanes, amounted to
20,000 men for this campaign.34 Arbogast and Eugenius countered by
concentrating the Western Roman field army in northern Italy and by hiring
Frankish and Alamannic federates of their own. The field army was not to return
to Gaul until 411 and then only in part. The consequences for the Western Roman
Empire would be catastrophic.
The climactic battle at the Frigidus River in September 394 was a hard-fought
passage at arms. Arbogast and Eugenius deployed so as to catch Theodosius in
march column while debouching from the mountains east of Aquileia with his
barbarian federates in front, and on the first day they repulsed him, inflicting heavy
losses. Only on the day following, with the aid of a mountain storm blowing in the
faces of his enemies, was Theodosius able to win. Both sides saw his victory as
a sign that God was with him. After the battle he went on to Rome, where he
compelled a reluctant senate to confirm his decrees outlawing the ancient civic
religion. In the actual fighting, not only Theodosius but Arbogast too fought
barbarians with barbarians as much as possible. Thus losses among the federates
were heavy; however, on the second day both leaders had to commit their Roman
troops; and these too suffered considerable casualties even though, as was usual
after civil wars, there were no general reprisals against the losers.
Theodosius did not live long to exploit his victory. So he never had the
opportunity to reorganize the Western Roman army as he had that of the Eastern
Roman Empire; nor did he redeploy its units, which remained concentrated at
Concordia in northeastern Italy on the military road to Dalmatia and the east.35 He
died at Milan following a brief illness in January 395. On his death bed he divided
his empire, as he had long intended, between his two young sons, Honorius and
Arcadius, with Honorius, who had been bom in 384, receiving the western portion.
As guardian for Honorius he named Flavius Stilicho, whom he also appointed
magister militum over all the armed forces of the Western Roman Empire. The
appointment of Stilicho was a step taken in haste and in anticipation of imminent
death. Helped by the influence of his Vandal father, a military tribune in the
regular cavalry, Stilicho had begun his rise at an early age, serving in his youth in
the elite corps of imperial bodyguards {scholae palatinae). Later he had been a
member of the highly successful embassy to Persia in 383-384. He was Promotus's
second in command when the old general was killed in 391 and became his
successor as magister militum of Thrace. He had commanded one of Theodosius's
praesental armies in the campaign against Arbogast and Eugenius. His most
important qualification, however, was that he was married to Theodosius's niece
and adoptive daughter, Serena. He was a member of the imperial family; he was
intensely ambitious; and he had extended himself to win Theodosius's favor and
trust. As magister peditum praesentalis, the senior officer of the entire western
army, Stilicho's authority was far greater than that of any general in the Eastern
Roman Empire with its five distinct armies, each under its own commander. For
thirteen years he was to be the real ruler of the Western Roman Empire.
 Chapter V

B r ea k d o w n in the We st :
Stilicho

Stilicho's domination of the army and politics of the Western Roman Empire
was to have far-reaching consequences. He had not been in the west until he went
there with Theodosius during the campaign of 388 against Maximus, and he always
looked toward the east. He was a parvenu, a half-barbarian regent, who knew that
his power was resented on all sides. His anxiety over his own position caused him
to give priority to domestic political rivalries over foreign affairs. In Honorius’s
domain he rapidly consolidated his power over the army. He reduced the office of
magister equitum praesentalis to a figurehead position with no troops to command.
He styled himself magister utriusque militiae (Master of Both Services), and he did
not make much use of the scholae palatinae and their officers, the protectores
domestici, letting them decline to the status of mere palace functionaries. Honorius
did not serve in the field. Thus it was entirely appropriate that his guards and staff
stay with him, but with Stilicho in charge it is likely that there was more to the story
than what appears on the surface. He probably wanted to cut the links between the
combat soldiers and the domestici lest the latter confront him with a rival having
a strong following in the army. He insisted that Theodosius on his death bed had
made him the guardian not only of Honorius but also of Arcadius, who had been
born in 377. His determination to control affairs in the Eastern Roman Empire
brought him into constant conflict with the dominant personalities in its
government— first with Rufinus, the praetorian prefect, then with Eutropius, the
palace chamberlain— and utterly estranged them. The hostility of Constantinople’s
politicians was something he could ill afford, for he also had to cope with the
jealous and aggressive Alaric with whom he at times fought and at other times
schemed and plotted throughout his regency. Originally Alaric was angered
because Theodosius in reorganizing the army had excluded him from the command
of Roman troops; and he also believed, not without cause, that Theodosius had
exploited the federates in the war with Arbogast and Eugenius. Upon his return
from that war Alaric found the Visigoths in Thrace smarting under attacks and
raids by the Huns, who now held the area north of the Lower Danube. Calling on
the Roman government for a grant of safer and more fertile lands, he rallied the
Goths, led them on rampages through Greece and Macedonia, and eventually
established himself in Illyricum adjacent to Italy. Holding this position, he stood
between Stilicho and the Eastern Roman Empire, a situation welcome to the
government at Constantinople, which recognized him as the magister militum of
Illyricum and thus gave him legal access to the four arms factories there. Alaric
regarded Stilicho as a rival and was not willing to see him control both parts of the
empire unless there were a substantial quid pro quo for himself and his Goths.
Alaric was an opportunist. His quid pro quo was not fixed. It varied with
conditions. Sometimes he demanded land, sometimes money, and sometimes both.
Above all he wanted a position in the empire at least equal to that of the Roman
political and military leaders.1
Until his death in 408 Stilicho based the bulk of the Western Roman field
army in northern Italy, most of the time at Concordia in Venetia, where it had been
at Theodosius's death. From this point just west of Aquileia it could easily pivot
to the east and intervene there. Probably because he was initially uncertain about
the army's loyalty to him he obeyed Arcadius’s order and allowed the soldiers who
had come west with Theodosius in 394 to return to the Eastern Roman Empire in
the spring of 395. To compensate for that loss, he kept with him the bulk of the
powerful comitatensian army which Valentinian I had fashioned and had come
from Gaul with Arbogast and Eugenius. It was now Stilicho's army. This
deployment of the field army, which was also responsible for the defense of the
Rhenish and western Danubian frontiers, placed it at a great strategic disadvantage.
For with the addition of Stilicho's eastern orientation, it was committed to covering
three fronts and was over-extended. As a professional soldier Stilicho was aware
of the problem, and he sought to meet it by increasing the size of the field army.
At the time that he returned Arcadius's troops he held back about ten or perhaps a
few more cavalry and infantry units to compensate for those which Theodosius had
transferred after defeating Maximus.2 This addition was too modest, however, to
provide the manpower needed to meet the threats along the Rhine and the Danube,
and the concurrent requirements created by Stilicho's own desire to be dominant in
the east as well as in the west (a policy which entailed the danger not only of
conflict with the Eastern Roman government but also with Alaric, who in 395 was
still in the east). Therefore, like earlier Roman military leaders urgently needing
soldiers, he used Germans to strengthen his Western Roman field army. During his
regency he raised 24 new auxiliapalatina, largely from hired German mercenaries.
Early in the reign he formed three new comitatensian legions;3 and subsequently
he and his successors created five more from detachments of limitanei stationed in
Britain, Gaul, Belgium, and the Rhineland.4 Under Stilicho the Western Roman
field army became a force in which a substantial majority of the first line infantry
units (about 60 per cent) were barbarian auxilia. When all of the auxilia palatina
which he established were operational, there were about 65 of these units serving
with the Western Roman army compared with some 44 palatine and comitatensian
legions. In the European area of the Western Roman Empire, however, the margin
in favor of the auxilia was greater because the government kept about 12 o f its
palatine and comitatensian legions in Africa and Tingitania, while maintaining only
a very few auxilia there. The difference in manpower is less certain. Depending
on the strength of an auxilium, it could have been 52,000 men to 44,000 or 32,500
to 44,000, in the latter case with the Romans still having a modest paper majority
in the Western Roman Empire as a whole. In Europe, however, the full strength
of the Western Roman army in palatine and comitatensian legionaries would not
have been more than 32,000.5
The raw, hastily raised auxilia were hardly different from federates. By now
the Germans had regarded themselves as the military superiors of the Romans for
a full generation; and they were less willing than ever to conform to Roman
discipline, training, and drill.6 Thus in forming the new auxilia the army began to
rely on the size, strength, and temperament of the recruits more than on military
exercises, discipline, and conditioning. The resultant lack of training had serious
consequences for a military service which over a long period of time had already
been seriously undermined by corruption and politicization. On campaign Stilicho
had difficulty controlling the auxilia; their propensity for plundering interfered with
operations; and they behaved so badly towards the Roman civil population that the
latter could see little difference between them and the barbarians they were
supposed to be defending the Romans against. Practice marches and field exercises
in full equipment ceased to be the rule. Sentry posting became more casual, and
camps were often not fortified, which meant that Roman forces were frequently
surprised and routed at night. As barbarian invaders occupied territories with
Roman arms factories and as money and the production of lands were diverted
from the regular army to subsidize the federates, the difference in equipment
between the two was diminished and the training of the Roman troops had to be
curtailed. The Roman forces, both legionaries and auxiliaries, began to lose the
advantages of superior conditioning, tactics, maneuvering, and fencing skills.7
In the early days of his reign, Stilicho raised four new vexillations of regular
cavalry; but even with this addition the Western Roman field army on the European
continent remained weak in this arm with only about 18 units, a ratio o f cavalry to
infantry of about 1:6 as compared to 1:2 in the praesental armies of the Eastern
Roman Empire, nearly 1:2 in the army of the Diocese of the Orient, and 1:3 in the
Thracian army. Owing to the failure of Julian and Valentinian to replace the Gallic
cavalry units lost during the fourth century, the Western Roman Empire had only
nine alae of border cavalry as compared to 76 in the Eastern Roman Empire. Of
the nine, five were in Britain, which had escaped the troop levies and German
attacks that had affected Gaul, three were in Raetia and one in Pannonia.8 Thus
there was little in the way of cavalry strength for Stilicho to call up from the border
The ceremonial status of the protectores domestici under Stilicho was probably in part due
to his fear of rivals. After Theodosius I, however, the emperors, east and west, no longer
took the field personally, and the protectores domestici naturally tended to be transformed
into palace functionaries.

The organization of command in the west was characterized by centralization under Stilicho,
as magister utrimque militiae, in contrast to the decentralization in the east. The commands
of the magister equitum praesentalis and the magister equitum per Gallias seem to have
been hollow with few or no soldiers. In July 408, however, Stilicho gave command of the
field army concentrated at Ticinum (Pavia) to a favorite, Chariobaud, the magister equitum
per Gallias. Chariobaud was to lead this army, in company with Alaric and his Visigoths,
against the barbarian invaders of Gaul. But the scheme fell through when Chariobaud was
assassinated in the anti-German uprising of the Roman soldiers at Ticinum in August of that
year.
forces; and to supplement his mounted units he drew heavily on the Alans, Goths,
and Huns now established as federates in Pannonia, a practice which increased the
cavalry at his disposal but further heightened the unruly character of his army.9
Stilicho's internal political priorities and his deployment of the Western
Roman field army at Concordia placed the security of Gaul at great risk. Between
396 and 398 he reorganized the region's defenses, gambling that the Germans had
been sufficiently intimidated by defeats at the hands of Julian, Valentinian I, and
Arbogast, so that they would not invade it even when the Roman forces there were
greatly reduced. As a precaution in case they did attack, he moved the capital of
the prefecture from its exposed position at Trier in the north to Arles in the south.
He concluded treaties with Frankish federates on the Lower Rhine, and he left only
federate detachments and a thin screen of limitanei to defend the Middle Rhine.
With this arrangement Stilicho was taking a great chance because these forces were
not capable by themselves of holding the Germans. For this function Valentinian
I had relied primarily on the strong comitatensian army which Stilicho now kept in
Italy. To guard the approaches to southern Gaul and the left flank of Italy Stilicho
established a small comitatensian force under the Count of Strasbourg (comes
tractus Argentoratensis) on the upper Rhine. Made up of 12 new units created
since 395, this army probably consisted of six auxilia palatina, three comitatensian
legions, and three vexillations of cavalry, altogether a paper strength of about 9,300
men and a much weaker force than the one which had guarded Gaul under
Valentinian I and the magister militum Arbogast.10
Between 397 and 401 Stilicho found himself forced to deal with a rebellion
by Gildo, the magister militum of Africa, and with an Alan invasion o f Raetia; but
he defeated those challenges; and Gildo's confiscated treasury provided financing
for the formation of the new auxilia palatina. In 401, however, Alaric took
advantage o f the situation in Raetia to put more pressure on Stilicho by leaving
Illyricum and invading Italy. Alaric had earlier (396) tried to take Constantinople
but had been repulsed. In 400, making use of the confusion created by an abortive
uprising of Ostrogothic laeti in the province of Phrygia in Anatolia, the Gothic
general Gainas, who had commanded Theodosius's federate units in the campaign
against Arbogast and Eugenius, also sought to seize control of the eastern capital.
His motley army of about 35,000 consisted mainly of federate bands which had not
followed Alaric into Illyricum and of such Gothic rebels from Phrygia as could
reach the environs of Constantinople and join him. Although barbarian by birth,
Gainas had, like Stilicho, come up through the regular army; and his aim was to
force Arcadius to scrap the quintuple command system established by Theodosius
and to give him a position comparable to Stilicho's in the west. However, his
attempted coup aroused massive popular opposition in the capital; and the anti-
German faction in the senate used the situation to gain control over the
government. In Phrygia the Roman inhabitants of that mountainous province
attacked the rebellious Ostrogothic laeti so fiercely that only a badly mauled few
of them ever reached Gainas. Loyal units o f the Eastern Roman army, assisted by
Constantinople's population, which Arcadius took the chance of arming in this
crisis, were able to drive him from the city. On the orders of the government the
Roman towns in the area sequestered all supplies and closed their walls. In a
desperate attempt to find food and fodder Gainas tried to transport his army across
the Hellespont to the Asiatic side, but the Roman navy caught his force on the
water and destroyed it. He fled and managed to cross the lower Danube, where the
Hun king Uldes, who now held this area, captured him. Uldes wanted to sustain
the Romans as a counter-weight to the Goths; so he killed Gainas and sent his
severed head to Arcadius as a token of his friendship and esteem." Thus the
Theodosian military system had withstood a great crisis. The Eastern Roman
Empire had won a decisive victory over the Goths. With control over
Constantinople, and with its navy to guard the passage over the straits, it could
keep them from disrupting its rich, populous, tax producing provinces in Asia and
Egypt. And with the Huns holding Dacia and hostile to the Goths, no support for
Germanic barbarians was forthcoming from that flank either. Arcadius’s
understandably xenophobic government saw to it that the heavily Germanized
protectores domestici, who had already begun to become ceremonial under
Theodosius I, lost their remaining military functions. The scholae palatinae
became mere palace guards recruited mainly among the Isaurians in Anatolia.
The Eastern Roman Empire was, therefore, well defended; and with the
defeat of Gainas its government no longer needed to be as forthcoming as
Theodosius had been in distributing rations to federates. With Stilicho absent in
Raetia, Alarie believed that Italy, which had still not been plundered, offered him
the best prospects. His invasion forced Honorius to flee from his capital at Milan.
The emperor took refuge in the nearly inaccessible port of Ravenna on the Adriatic
coast. Stilicho hastened back from Raetia; and during 402 and 403, with battles at
Pollentia and Verona, he maneuvered Alaric out of Italy. However, he was either
unwilling or unable to destroy the Visigothic army;12 and in 405 he found himself
confronted by a new threat from another large and motley barbarian host led into
Italy by the German prince Radagaisus. In order to cope with this attack Stilicho
transferred the Count of Strasbourg's small comitatensian force and concentrated
it along with the field army in northern Italy.13 Stilicho no doubt believed that he
needed every man he could obtain. For to control the flanks of the invasion many
comitatenses had to be used to guard bridges, road junctions, passes, and towns.
In 406 Stilicho with a striking force described by Zosimus as consisting of thirty
infantry units, reinforced with federate cavalry, was able to trap Radagaisus on the
high ground at Faesulae near Florence.14 Bringing up additional comitatenses and
federates from blocking positions they had taken elsewhere, he besieged the
barbarian leader and eventually forced him to surrender unconditionally. During
the course of the crisis of 406, Stilicho called for volunteers from among Roman
citizens and offered a money inducement. He did the same with slaves, who in
addition were promised their freedom.15 However, like Theodosius before him, he
made no effort to utilize the draft to convert the citizens into a nation in arms.
 Stilicho believed that his victories over Alaric and Radagaisus had greatly
strengthened his position, and he schemed with Alaric to depose Arcadius and to
make Honorius the sole emperor. In return for Alaric's help, he promised the Goth
a subsidy and a generous grant of lands.16 In order to keep the field army
concentrated and to overawe Alaric, Stilicho kept in Italy the comitatenses he had
taken from the Count of Strasbourg, while he made plans to intervene in the east
with the support of his Ostrogothic, Alan, and Hun federates, whom he now
concentrated and reinforced at Bononia (Bologna) convenient to the Adriatic ports
of Ariminum and Ravenna. These deployments, however, left the Rhine frontier
with inadequate first class combat forces to protect it. Through spies anti forward
observers the barbarian peoples east of the Rhine detected that weakness. And so
at the end of the year 406 hordes of Vandals, Alamanni, Suevians, and Alans from
the same mass of barbarians which had earlier produced Radagaisus and his
following poured across the Middle Rhine. They encountered little resistance; for
not only were the comitatenses gone but, during the civil wars and military
emergencies at the end of the fourth century, the Gallic limitanei had again been
levied for pseudocomitatenses, probably by Magnus Maximus and Arbogast to
serve with their expeditions to Italy against Theodosius. Stilicho, although he may
not have combed out more border units, did not return any either. The invaders
easily brushed aside the weakened limitanei and the federate detachments which
were left to protect that area. They overran much o f Gaul and even penetrated
Spain, a staggering catastrophe and one which Stilicho's disposition o f his army
had invited.17
This military disaster and Stilicho's intrigues with Alaric discredited the
magister militum with his Roman troops, strengthened the hand of anti-German
elements at the court of Honorius, and brought about Stilicho's downfall and death.
In the summer of 408 he moved the Roman field army to Ticinum (Pavia), which
was closer to Gaul than was Concordia; and he entertained the idea of sending it
to Gaul accompanied by Alaric and his horde. Whether these two forces could ever
cooperate to retake Gaul was highly problematic. At least they would neutralize
each other, while he, with the aid of his federates mobilized at Bononia, would take
control over affairs at Constantinople, where Arcadius had died in May 408.
However, at the instigation of Honorius's master of offices, Olympius, the leader
of the anti-German party at court, the soldiers of the field army mutinied at Ticinum
in August 408 and assassinated Stilicho's appointees in the government. Olympius
told the soldiers and finally convinced Honorius himself that Stilicho was a traitor
who was conspiring with the barbarians and planning to usurp the throne. When
Stilicho hurried to Ravenna to confer with Honorius, the emperor had him arrested
and killed. Anger on the part of the regular troops over the plan to send them to
Gaul with the Goths, whom they regarded as enemies, and their resentment over the
rations, equipment, and donatives being diverted from them and lavished on the
federates also played a role in what happened at Ticinum. Subsidies to
federates— particularly those who made up the prospective expeditionary force at
Bononia— were undermining the Roman units. At Stilicho's behest the government
was scrimping on supplies and replacements for the regulars, and the quality of the
regular formations was further deteriorating. Their morale had suffered; their men
were bitter and disaffected. One of the first actions the Roman soldiers took after
the mutiny at Ticinum was to massacre the federates' dependents, who were
quartered as hostages in various Italian towns, and seize their provisions. The
federates at Bononia retaliated by joining Alaric. Whether the deserters amounted
to 30,000 men, as Zosimus says, cannot be verified; but their number was
considerable. Their defection greatly strengthened the Visigothic leader's army and
gave him an advantage which he had not previously possessed.18
Stilicho did not plan to go as far as Olympius said. He did not intend to make
himself emperor. Quite apart from the difficulty posed by his partly barbarian
background, he knew that for him to seize the purple would only open the door for
more usurpers. His way was always to be the power behind the throne.19 However,
his short-sighted, self-centered hostility to the government at Constantinople
allowed Alaric to play off the two parts of the empire against each other. In
addition, Stilicho’s disposition of the field army also left Gaul open to invasion.
A leader resolutely determined to defend the Rhine frontier might have
concentrated his army at Strasbourg. This deployment would have defended Gaul
directly and Italy indirectly through the threat the army would then pose to the rear
of an enemy going toward that peninsula. Such a deployment, coupled with better
relations with Constantinople, would also have threatened an invader of Italy with
a second active flank coming from Eastern Roman forces.
Yet, as matters stood, the Western Roman Empire was so over-extended and
beset that it is certainly arguable whether any mere deployment of the field army
could have saved it. The strength of the barbarian mass which broke into Gaul at
the close of 406 is unknown. The Vandals when they reached Spain, however,
could field about 25,000 warriors. But because they were allied with two other
major tribes when they entered Gaul, it seems safe to assume that at that point the
barbarian alliance could have produced at least twice that number of fighting men.
That force alone would have been a lot for the field army to deal with. But Stilicho
also had to face Alaric's horde, which was still intact, numbered close to 40,000
warriors, and was waiting for any opportunity.20 One fact, however, deserves
special emphasis. Stilicho did not take advantage of the opportunity offered him
by the Italian campaign of 402-403 to simplify his problems by striking decisively
at Alaric and destroying him. At that time the barbarians on the Rhine were still
quiescent. The Roman field army was concentrated, and that if ever was the
moment to take a chance and try for a decisive victory. It is not necessary to know
whether Stilicho's irresolute behavior stemmed from cautious reluctance to risk his
army in an all out battle of annihilation, or from a desire to keep Alaric and his
force in being so as to be able to use them. The result was the same whatever the
motivation. With the Visigoths smashed it would have been much easier to defend
Gaul. With Alaric capable of battle Stilicho’s strategic dilemma remained. It is,
of course, highly suspicious that this same lack of resolution had also characterized
Stilicho's actions during two earlier encounters with Alaric in 395 and 397 in
Greece, but it is well to remember that on those occasions the Eastern Roman
government had refused to cooperate with him and that in 397 the looting and
indiscipline of his own troops may have helped Alaric to evade him.21
Whether a more intelligent policy toward Constantinople would have brought
significant help from that quarter and how effective it might have been are
questions that cannot be answered with certainty. After Stilicho's death relations
between Ravenna and Constantinople did improve. When Alaric invaded Italy and
took Rome in 410, the government of Theodosius II sent 4,000 m e^ to assist
Honorius in holding the walls of his Adriatic capital, where he was threatened by
Alaric's Roman puppet Attalus.22 That timely aid helped the Western Roman
emperor to survive the worst crisis of his reign, but the Eastern Roman
expeditionary force was not large enough to challenge the Visigoths in the field.
So Honorius, holding on to Ravenna with the help of his Eastern reinforcement,
fought the Goths with a strategy of exhaustion. He confiscated food supplies, and
the Roman commander in North Africa halted grain deliveries to areas occupied by
the barbarians. Hungry and frustrated they finally retreated to southern Gaul and
Spain when Alaric died shortly after the sacking of Rome in August 410. For more
than fifty years the Eastern Roman Empire continued to give help which was
sometimes effective and sometimes not. Thus in 425, assisted by a vexillation of
mounted archers from North Africa, two Eastern Roman auxilia palatina aided
Honorius's sister, Galla Placidia, and her son, Valentinian III, in defeating the
usurper John.23 In 452 an Eastern Roman victory over a Hun army in northeastern
Illyricum which posed a threat to Attila’s line of communications may have
influenced the Hun leader's decision to withdraw from Italy that year. On the other
hand, Eastern Roman help did not avert the loss of North Africa after the Vandals
arrived there in 429. This was a disaster, for the region was the granary of the
western part of the empire and produced the surplus grain which the government
at Ravenna used to provision its army. The Western Romans were too beset to be
able to stop the Vandals without assistance, and the government at Constantinople
had to devote most of its resources to defending its own Balkan and Asian frontiers
and its capital. Thus Eastern Roman naval and military expeditions sent against the
Vandals in 431,441, and 468 for the purpose of dislodging them from North Africa
were too weak to achieve their goal, and all failed.
Owing to its geography, the Western Roman Empire could not refuse its flank
in the way that the Eastern Roman Empire could by simply defending its capital at
Constantinople. Furthermore, the docile, law-abiding majority of the empire's
caste-organized society was used to doing only what it was told to do and usually
showed no capacity for spontaneous resistance to the barbarians. For centuries it
had depended on a professional army to protect it.24 Some exceptions to this
pattem of behavior emerged, however. After 406 the inhabitants o f Armorica in
Gaul rose up and expelled the barbarians from their region. The rebellious
bacaudae, a minority of the population which was not law-abiding and docile,
fought all who interfered with them whether Roman tax collectors or barbarian
marauders. They seldom offered help to the Roman government, at least not
voluntarily; and the Armoricans acted in the same way. After clearing the
barbarians from their province they ejected the Roman civil service too. When the
field army entered a province, it often found it necessary to force the fiscally
abused and resentful population to pay taxes before it could begin to deal with
foreign invaders. In the Eastern Roman Empire—where geography and the still
fully intact Diocletianic military system were still protecting the inhabitants—
popular resistance to Gainas and to the Phrygian Ostrogoths was effective and did
not take the anti-government direction which it did in Armorica and with the
bacaudae.
Stilicho's giving his domestic political rivals priority over the barbarians,
while it did much harm, was in no way new or unique, and that policy did not cease
with his removal from power. When Alaric invaded Italy after Stilicho's death,
Honorius and his commanders did not use the main Roman field army at Ticinum
against him. Reinforced by the Bononia federates the Goths were a more
formidable force than ever, and the Roman leaders feared the outcome of a pitched
battle with them. Moreover, Honorius, like Theodosius before him, believed that
usurpers had to be defeated first. He wanted above all to keep the field army in
tact, so that it could provide an expeditionary force for use against Constantine III,
a usurper from Britain. Since 407 Constantine had penetrated Gaul and even Spain
and was trying to organize resistance to the barbarian invasion.25 It was in Gaul
against this usurper that the field army would next go into action.
 Chapter VI

Th e F ad in g o f the F ield
A r m y in the We st :
Stilicho's Successors

Stilicho's next significant successor as magister militum of the Western

Roman army, Flavius Constantius,1 led an expeditionary force of the field army,
supported by federate cavalry, from Ticinum into Gaul in 411. Although Honorius
had rid Italy of the Visigoths the year before with his strategy of blockade and
exhaustion, the regions through which the Goths had passed had been so wasted
that the emperor had to remit their taxes. He did not, therefore, want to have to
utilize that strategy against other barbarians who might appear. His answer was to
split the field army. Thus 42 troop units— 13 palatine and comitatensian legions,
20 auxilia palatina, two pseudocomitatensian legions, and seven cavalry
vexillations— stayed at home. This was a paper strength o f between 28,500 and
34,500 men. To it should be added the 22 infantry units— 19 of them first line— of
the Illyrian army, the real purpose of which by this time was to defend the
approaches to Italy. In Gaul Constantius defeated and captured Constantine III.
Owing to the presence of barbarians in Spain, he established a small field army
consisting of 11 auxilia palatina and five comitatensian legions there. He added
Constantine Ill's British soldiers to his own army. He also rescued about 21
legions o f limitanei which had held out in various parts of Gaul since 407 and
incorporated their combat worthy elements into his field force as
pseudocomitatenses. By 413 he disposed of an army in Gaul numbering about 59
troop units— 16 auxilia palatina, 12 vexillations of cavalry, probably 10 palatine
and comitatensian legions, and 21 pseudo-comitatensian legions— perhaps more
than 40,000 men, depending as always on the uncertain strength of the auxilia and
the pseudocomitatensian formations.2 This was a considerable army; but
Constantius found the barbarization of Gaul so entrenched that, although he was
a Roman and not a German, he made no effort to reverse it. His
pseudocomitatenses were usually not able to hold their own against the Germans
except from behind fortifications. His first line formations—vexillations, auxilia,
palatine and comitatensian legions—were more capable; but only 38 of the
elements in his army belonged to that category. Constantius, therefore, had at his
disposal in Gaul less than half of the 97 units of this class in the Western Roman
field army in Europe. Gildo's treasure was exhausted. It had been a temporary
windfall, while the cost of subsidizing federate elements continued, draining money
and supplies away from the Roman soldiers. Because of the collapse of
administration and taxation the government could not afford to create new regular
formations or even to keep its existing ones up to full strength.3 So he feared the
casualties his army would sustain in trying to achieve a military solution. After
defeating Constantine III he rarely committed his forces to battle and then only
when the odds were overwhelmingly in his favor. He used the Visigoths in Spain
to subdue the Vandals and the Suevians, but left these peoples in Spain with the
status of federates, while he moved the Visigoths to Aquitaine. He suppressed the
bacaudae as best he could, even stipulating in the treaty under which he finally
settled the Visigoths in Aquitaine that they must also suppress the bacaudae. When
Jovinus, a new usurper, rose up in Gaul after the defeat of Constantine III,
Constantius used Visigothic federates to destroy him in 412-413. He checked
expansion by the Franks and Burgundians and settled them in northern and eastern
Gaul as federates. He squeezed the population for taxes; and he maintained control
over the coastal road linking Italy with Spain. Thus he stabilized Gaul and Spain
during his lifetime by settling barbarians there as federates, balancing them against
each other, and utilizing their aristocratic leaders to help in repressing the
bacaudae .4
Constantius’s ability to stabilize Gaul and his victories over usurpers brought
him considerable prestige. Well before he married the emperor’s half sister, Galla
Placidia, and became co-emperor, Honorius granted him the title of patrician,
clearly implying early on that he was something more than just another general.
The Roman rally did not long survive Constantius’s death in 421. For loss of
territory also meant loss of revenues and recruits. The federates paid no taxes and
served under their own princes. Moreover, even when provinces were not lost they
were frequently devastated and their economies disrupted; so the emperors had to
grant them tax remissions. The confusion caused by the barbarian migrations also
disorganized administration. Taxes were often simply not collected, and revenues
fell off drastically. Lacking the means to hire and maintain adequate regular
troops, the Roman government had to resort to defending the lands remaining to it
by settling still more federates on them. The federates drew subsidies; and the
government, anxious to hold their support, forbad its generals "on pain of
punishment with the sword" from taking any percentage of their rations as these
officers routinely did with their own men.5 Thus in a kind of vicious circle the
 Probable Organization under Flavius Constantius

From this time on the magister militum utriusque militiae always held the title of
Patrician. Aëtius held the position during 433-455 and was the real ruler of the
Western Roman Empire. Ricimer bullied his way into the position in 456 and used
it to further undermine what remained of the regular field army, making the
government utterly dependent on federates led by his relatives and friends.
system further reduced tax revenues and funding for the Roman regular army and
led to the replacement of the regulars with still more federates because the regulars
could no longer be kept up to strength. Vacancies in the regular field army created
by casualties, sickness, desertion, and discharges could not be filled. A sales tax
imposed by Valentinian III (425-455) late in 444 to provide funds for the army was
generally evaded and failed to provide enough revenue to help.6 By the close of his
reign, when North Africa had been lost and little remained as a tax and supply base
except Italy itself, most of the units either had been disbanded or had simply melted
away.7 Some Roman units joined regional Roman magnates; some agreed to serve
barbarian rulers or their Roman puppets; some were disbanded by the government;
others, finding themselves unpaid, simply dissolved. The men sought new
employment, sometimes in the church. A few formations survived at greatly
reduced strength, hardly more than paper entities. Even the once prized auxilia
palatina suffered the same fate. The government lacked the means to maintain
them; and after the time of Stilicho, there had been increasingly little to distinguish
them in quality from the federates. By the second half of the fifth century the still
considerable army which Constantius and Honorius had held at their disposal in
411 existed only in a shrunken form. It had atrophied because it was inadequately
supplied, constantly despoiled by venal leaders, and neglected in favor of the
federates. In order to achieve military objectives regular elements had to be
supplemented by more and more federates. Accounts of the military operations of
the time show the trend clearly. The allied barbarians played an ever greater role.
Thus when Constantius marched against Constantine III in 411, he felt it necessary
to reinforce his army with federate cavalry. As for Constantine, he had come to
Gaul in 407 to organize the defense there against the barbarians. The difficulties
he encountered, however, led to a quarrel with subordinates which cost him control
over much of his army. Faced by Constantius he tried to strengthen his position
quickly by sending one of his generals, Edovicus (Edobich), across the Rhine to
recruit an army of Franks and Alamanni. Thus he brought still more barbarians
into Gaul, defeating the original purpose of his intervention. When Edovicus
returned with his Franks and Alamanni, Constantius offered battle with his infantry
in the valley of the Rhone river near Arles while he concealed the bulk of his
federate and Roman cavalry in ambush. Constantine's general took the bait and
attacked the infantry. Constantius's cavalry charged the enemy warriors from the
rear, routed them; and Constantine's cause soon collapsed. By the time of the
Battle of Châlons some forty years later (451 ) the number of regular troops had so
shrunk that more than two-thirds of the force with which Aëtius defeated Attila
consisted of federates. In order to counterbalance the Germans, he had for many
years relied primarily on Hun federates; but Attila's decision to invade Gaul, where
Aëtius sought to maintain the tenuous Roman hegemony established by
Constantius, forced the Roman general to turn to the Visigoths, Alans, and Franks.
As allied barbarians settled in Gaul, they had good reason to want to defend it. The
Roman regular troops performed quite creditably in the battle. They seized the
high ground early on, repelled Hun counterattacks, and enveloped Attila’s right
wing. Their pressure on this flank along with that applied by Aëtius's Visigothic
federates on Attila's left forced him from the field and into retreat. The Roman
soldiers, however, had made up only the extreme left wing of Aëtius's army.
Without the federates he would have failed against Attila.8
Moreover, as the federates or allied barbarians became ever more
preponderant, the ability of the few remaining Roman soldiers to hold them in
check in the Western Roman Empire's turbulent internal politics declined
proportionately, a trend which had first begun to set in seriously during the reign
of Gratian. By the death of Stilicho in 408 the process was already well advanced.
He expanded the federate troops at Bononia into a powerful force at the expense
of the Roman elements of the army, so that he could use the federates to assert his
control over the Eastern Roman Empire. Meanwhile he planned to neutralize both
Alaric and the Roman field army by sending them to Gaul together. Such was the
sense of superiority among the federates at Bononia over the Roman units that
when news of the coup at Ticinum reached them, their leaders wanted to attack the
Roman troops and "punish the ringleaders" among them. However, the erosion of
the field army was not yet far enough along for Stilicho, always cautious about
battles, to regard the outcome of such an engagement as a foregone conclusion.
Furthermore, as an officer of the regular army, he also had reservations about
setting barbarians against Roman soldiers who recognized Honorius as emperor.
Thus he refused their proposal and tried instead the course of negotiation with
Honorius which cost him his life.9
After the death of Stilicho, both Honorius and Valentinian III tried to control
the army’s foreign soldiers by keeping command in the hands of Roman generals.
For forty years Romans with military ability, Constantius, Castinus, Felix,
Bonifacius, and Aëtius, led the army. German generals like Ulfilas, Sarus, and
Sigisvultus played secondary roles. However, by the death of Valentinian III in
455, when the territory directly subject to imperial taxation and recruitment
consisted of little more than Italy itself, Roman formations were no longer a force
with which the federates had to reckon seriously, and one of their leaders, Ricimer,
was able to make himself commander of the entire army. He gave senior command
positions to his fellow Germans, ruled Italy through puppet emperors, and
determined the distribution of supplies until his death in 472. The last Roman
military leaders, Majorian, Julius Nepos, and Orestes, contested the barbarian
domination, but they were literally Roman generals with no or at least very few
Roman soldiers. When in the summer of 476 Orestes refused demands to vest his
federates with lands in Italy, a type of settlement comparable to those already made
in other dioceses, they turned on him. Crushing the small force loyal to him in a
one-sided battle at Ticinum, they captured him. After killing him, they replaced the
last emperor with a barbarian king, Odovacer, a leader of federate troops from their
own ranks, who gave them the settlement they wanted. The Roman field army in
the west was, from the reign of Gratian on, as much replaced by federates as it was
defeated by them. Without this process Odovacer's easy coup would not have been
possible.10
 Chapter VII

C onclusion

Retrospectively it is clear that the comitatus system fashioned by Gallienus

and the Tetrarchs was the precursor to the comitatensian army of Constantine. The
latter emperor, going further than his predecessors, broke entirely with the
Principate's tradition of a self-sustaining linear defense. He constituted a
permanent army of maneuver stationed in the interior and independent of the static
troops left in the camps and forts on the frontiers.1 In the process of barbarization
of this mobile army, fostered by Constantine's German recruitment policy, the
transitional formation between those of the old regular Roman army and the final
federate army was the palatine auxilium. This new unit appeared during the
Tetrarchy, and Constantine and his successors enormously expanded its numbers
and role in order to maintain and to augment the comitatensian army, which in the
Western Roman Empire became completely dependent on these barbarian
formations in order to sustain its strength and fighting power.
In creating and relying on such formations the emperors were simply utilizing
an available source of ready recruits in order to defend overextended and heavily
beset frontiers. The barbarian soldiers were all the more needed because the
empire's legal and social institutions inhibited any all-out draft of Roman citizens.
For some years the new troops were manageable and the system worked reasonably
well. Julian utilized them effectively in clearing the Alamanni from Gaul in 357-
359. Instilling fear into the Germans by means of a comitatensian army in which
the auxilia were more numerous than the legions. Valentinian I, during his lifetime,
provided an effective defense for Gaul. This was a genuine achievement, for
Constantine's elastic system of defense in depth, while it had much to recommend
it in military theory', never worked well for any length of time on the Rhine. There
the attacks of the Germans were usually too much for the limitanei to hold even
temporarily— partly because in the Western Roman Empire, in contrast to the
Dioceses of Pontica and the Orient in the east, the border units were from the
beginning drained heavily for detachments to serve with the comitatenses. The
almost constant involvement of the comitatenses in the empire's internal political
conflicts made this situation far worse than it would have been otherwise, for it
often kept the field army from responding to attacks in a timely manner. In practice
much of the Western Roman Empire became a battle zone, a situation which
encouraged the rise of the bacaudae with their defiant, violent efforts at self-help.
The pervasive corruption and politicization of the field army contributed
enormously to its decline. The rottenness sabotaged defense against invaders by
undermining the quality and the real strength, as opposed to the paper strength, of
the comitatenses, thus rendering increasingly uncertain the outcome of combat
between them and enemy forces. Nowhere does the nature of the situation betray
itself more fatefully than in the campaign ending in the disaster at Adrianople:
corrupt officers who failed to keep the army disciplined, up to strength, and ready
for action; the maltreatment of the Goths which led to their revolt; and a militarily
incompetent emperor whose one significant qualification had always been complete
obedience to his older brother. Valens's fears, bred by his own inadequacy and by
the Roman political system in which he functioned, were the source of the fatal
errors of judgment which brought about his defeat and death. The corruption of
the military system would last as long as the empire and would always complicate
the administration and maintenance of the army. By the fifth century the spoliation
of troop units by their commanders had become so institutionalized that Honorius
and Theodosius II did not issue decrees forbidding it, as Constantine had, but
sought only to keep it within customary limits.2 —^
The difficulty in disciplining, training, and controlling the auxilia in the years
after 378 made the situation much worse. Uncertain of the quality of their troops
and with the strength and morale of the army undermined by the defeat at
Adrianople, Gratian and Theodosius I became hypercautious and reluctant to join
battle unless assured of overwhelming numerical superiority, which under the
conditions of that time, with its great migrations of peoples, they never enjoyed.
Their successors, whether emperors or generals, were in the same difficult position
and followed the same policy. Unlike Julian, who had defeated 35,000 Alamanni
with 13,000 regulars and auxiliaries at Strasbourg in 357,3 they avoided battle and
tried to incorporate barbarian invaders into the Roman system by transforming
them into federates. Theodosius I and his Eastern Roman successors, partly by
means of his reorganization of the Eastern Roman army and partly through the help
of the navy and geography, bequeathed means and a system which the Eastern
Roman Empire used to save itself from barbarian domination. It succeeded in
preserving the revenues from Egypt and the Prefecture of the Orient. Thus the
government at Constantinople did not have to give away its lands in order to
purchase the services of federate troops, and the eastern division of the empire
survived. During the early fifth century, however, the federate leader, Alaric, in
the course of manipulating to his own advantage the Roman obsession with internal
political vendettas, and the half-barbarian Roman magister militum Stilicho,
concerned about expanding his own political position, brought about an irreversible
military catastrophe for the Western Roman Empire. The rivalry of the political
leaders of the two halves of the empire prevented them from cooperating against
Alarie. The decision to deploy the main mass of the field army in Italy against him
opened the way to the loss of Gaul and Spain. Stilicho's dogged determination to
dominate the Eastern Roman government led him to dangerously expand the
already large and aggressive federate army which he kept concentrated at Bononia,
a base from which he intended it to be able to quickly reach Greece. The mass
desertion by these federates after the death of Stilicho tipped the balance away
from the field army and toward Alaric, whom Stilicho had previously been able to
keep in check, and contributed greatly to the subsequent successes of the Visigoths.
The huge territorial losses resulting from those policies and events had the
consequence that the federates would still further increase in number and
increasingly displace the regulars and the auxilia. They drew away from the Roman
soldiers such money and supplies as were offered by the Western Roman Empire's
diminishing resource base. Ultimately they brought an end to that empire as we
know it.
 Notes

Chapter / . Prologue: Challenge, Response, Questions

1. All dates in this monograph, whether centuries or years, are A.D.

2. Studies o f the army in the third century are numerous. See Géza AJföldy, Römische
Heeresgeschichte (Amsterdam, 1987), pp. 36-42; Ramsay MacMullen, Soldier and Civilian in the
Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1963), pp. 55-56, 63-65, 117-118, 132, 153-
154 et passim; Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century
A.D. to the Third (Baltimore and London, 1976), pp. 127-190; Arther Ferrill, The Fall of the Roman
Empire: The Military Explanation (London, 1986), pp. 23-41; Otto Seeck, Geschichte des Untergangs
der antiken Welt (Stuttgart, 1921), II, 25-33 et passim; Robert Grosse, Römische Militärgeschichte von
Gallienus bis zum Beginn der byzantinischen Themenverfassung (Berlin, 1920), pp. 1-22; A. H. M.
Jones, The Later Roman Empire, (Norman, Oklahoma, 1964), 1, 14-36; André Alföldi, "La Grande
Crise du Monde Romain au III Siècle," L’Antiquité Classique, VII (1938), 5-18; Benjamin Isaac, The
Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East (Oxford, 1990), 372-401 et passim', J. F. Gilliam,
Roman Army Papers (Amsterdam, 1986), pp. 137-139.
3. For Mommsen's views see his Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin, 1905-1913), VI, 206-283. For a
more recent account o f the debate with good references and documentation see William Seston, "Du
Comitatus de Dioclétien aux Comitatenses de Constantin," Historia'. Zeitschriftfur alle Geschichte, IV,
1955, 284, 292-296. A brief summary is also in Luttwak, Grand Strategy, pp. 187-188.

Chapter II. Formation o f the Field Army: The Tetrarchy and Constantine

1. Seston, Dioclétien et la Tétrarchie (Paris, 1946), pp. 298-299, 306; Grosse, Römische
Militärgeschichte, pp. 15-18, 32; Denis Van Berchem, L’Armée de Dioclétien et la Réforme
constantinienne (Paris, 1952), pp. 105-106; H. M. D. Parker, "The Legions o f Diocletian and
Constantine," The Journal of Roman Studies (hereafter cited as JUS), XLIII, 1933, 181, 183-184;
Dietrich Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer und die Notitia Dignitatum (Düsseldorf, 1969),
I, 1-2,217-222.
2. Seston, Dioclétien et la Tétrarchie, pp. 298-307; idem, "Du Comitatus de Dioclétien aux
Comitatenses de Constantin," 292-295; Van Berchem, L'Armée de Dioclétien, pp. 21-22, 103-106;
Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 219-221; E. C. Nischer, "The Army Reforms o f Diocletian and
Constantine and their Modifications up to the Time of the Notitia Dignitatum,” JRS, XIII, 1923, 6-8,
II.
3. Their Barritus war song and many of their shield insignia were Germanic, and even units raised
west o f the Rhine often consisted o f Germanic laeti. Ammianus states unequivocally that in his time
(c. 360) senior auxilia such as the Batavi, the Aeruli, and the Petulantes contained many Germans from
beyond the Rhine. Indeed the Aeruli took their name from a Gothic tribe, the Herulians. Zosimus also
confirms that Germans played a major role in the army which Constantine raised to fight Maxentius.
See Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 137, 170-173, 199-201; Emilienne Demougeot,
La Formation de l’Europe et les Invasions barbares: De l’avènment de Dioclétien (284) à l’occupation
Germanique de l'Empire Romain d'Occident (Paris, 1979), II, première partie, 72; Jones, The Later
Ronum Empire, I, 98; Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 240; Ammianus Marcellinus Res gestae
XX. 1.3. 4.2-5 (Translation by John C. Rolfe, Cambridge Mass., London, 1950 edition: Hereafter cited
as Ammianus); Zosimus Historia Nova 11.15 (Translation by James J. Buchanan and Harold T. Davis.
San Antonio, Texas, 1967: Hereafter cited as Zosimus).
4. Grosse, Römische Militärgeschichte, pp. 200-215; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungs­
heer, I, 138-139; Demougeot, La Fomuition de l'Europe, II, première partie, 72; Adolf Lippold,
Theodosius der Grosse und seine Zeit (Stuttgart, 1968), pp. 142, 151.
5. Demougeot, La formation de l'Europe, II, première partie, 72; Grosse, Römische
Militärgeschichte, pp. 200-215; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, L 138-139; Ammianus
xix.l 1.7; Harold I. Bell et al., The Abinnaeus Archive: Papers of a Roman Officer in the Reign of
Constantius II (Oxford, 1962), pp. 62-64, 73, 79, 87, 103-115. The difficulty of raising taxes and
recruits from the population runs like a refrain through these papers. Service with the field army was
particularly dreaded because it took men away from home and family for many years.
6. The Theodosian Code and Novels (Trans, by Clyde Pharr, Princeton University Press, 1952)
vii.4.16, vii.4.24, vii.4.28; infra, n. 14, p. 57.
7. The only legion on the Persian frontier levied upon by Constantine was Legio X Fretensis in
Palestine. It provided a detachment which became the comitatensian legion Decimani Fretenses. This
unit was later annihilated in battle with the Persians at Amida during King Sapor s invasion of the
Roman empire in 359. See Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 213; Jones, The Later Roman
Empire, II, 1427, 1439-1440: Table IX; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 416-417;
Ammianus xvii.9.3; Parker, “Legions,” 179.
8. The first unambiguous use of the term comitatenses appears in a rescript issued by Constantine
in 325; but this is not to say that the term was not in earlier use, as it may have been. A text from a
court trial in March 295 in which a proconsul presiding as judge uses the phrase in sacro comitatu
Diocletiani et Maximiani, Constantii et Maximi, milites Christiani sunt is sometimes cited because of
the use of the ablative singular construction in sacro comitatu as implying the existence in 295 of a
permanent comitatensian army made up of four standing field armies, each under a Tetrarch. In my
opinion this interpretation reaches too far. The root of comitatus is comes, companion. The
companions (comites) of an emperor made up his comitatus, neither more nor less. Roman political
theory regarded the imperial authority and its institutions as seamless entities being shared collegially
and for purely practical reasons by the Tetrarchs, and a proconsul speaking for the record at a trial
would no doubt have used the politically correct formulation. Thus soldiers serving in the comitatus
of any of the Tetrarchs would be spoken of as in sacro comitatu even though no single force with a
separate and permanent organization and command structure yet existed. However, what this and other
fragments and inscriptions do indicate is that by this time the comitatus was a highly militarized kind
of body and that Constantine was not the first to have one. Zosimus, who detested Constantine as a
betrayer of the ancient civic religion, condemns him for depleting the frontier legions and establishing
his units in the interior of the provinces. Zosimus ii.34. Parker, writing in 1933, argued that Zosimus
was so prejudiced against Constantine that it vitiated his judgement on him. Moreau, writing 20 years
later, repeated the same charge, citing Parker. There are, however, two parts to Zosimus's statement:
1) Constantine removed units to the interior; 2) Zosimus thought that this hurt the army by weakening
the garrison legions. Even if Zosimus's verdict in the second statement were completely wrong, that
would not necessarily make what he said in the first one untrue. On the formation of the comitatensian
army see Van Berchem, L'Armée de Dioclétien, pp. 8-9, 85-86, 87, 90. 93-100, 108-111, 117, 193-194;
Seston, Dioclétien et la Tétrarchie, pp. 306-307; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, 1, 199-
201,416-417 et passim; Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 209-236; Demougeot, La Formation
de l'Europe, II, première partie, 71-72, 75-76; Parker, “Legions,” 177, 183, 184, 189 et passim; J.
Moreau, "Zur spätrömischen Heeresreform," Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl Marx Universität
Leipzig, 3. Jahrgang 1953/54 Gesellschafts und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe, Heft 2/3, Herausgeber:
Der Rektor der Karl Marx Universität Leipzig, pp. 289-292.
9. Ammianus xvi. 11.9; xx. 1.3; xxiv.2.8, 6.9; xxi.4.8.
 10 For a description of this frieze see Hans Peter L'Orange. Der spätantike Bildschmuck des
Konstantinbogens (Berlin. 1939). pp. 42-43. 47-48. 123-124. Plate (Tafel) 28c in the photographic
portfolio shows the soldier with the buck's head emblem and the goddess on his shield, an enlargement
of which appears in plate 32i. One can of course argue about the accuracy of the representations in the
Notitia Dignitatum; but the similarity between the emblem displayed on the soldier's shield and the one
shown for the Cornuti in this document seems rather striking to be purely accidental. However, for a
critique of the reliability of the emblems in the Notitia Dignitatum see Robert Grigg. "Portrait-bearing
Codicils in the Illustrations of the Kotina Dignitatum," JRS LXIX (1979). 107-109; idem.
"Inconsistency and Lassitude: The Shield Lmblcms of the Sontia Dignitatum." JRS LXXIII (1983),
134. The shield emblem in question may be studied in Otto Seeck's Xotitia Dignitatum (Frankfurt a.
M . 1876; reprinted Frankfurt a M . 1962). OR VI: Insignia viri illustris magistri militum praesentalis.
9.
11. Nischer believed that Constantine was the first to create units designated as palatini and as
seniores or tumores, w hile to the contrary. except for the scholae palatmae (the bodyguard formations),
no mention of such troop units occurs in the sources until 365 I le also took no account o f the division
o f the army in 364. an event which greatly increased the number of its units. He assumed that
Constantine had 71 auxilia in his comitatcnsian army and justified himself by saying that the auxilia
established by Valentinian I and Theodosius I were "raised in the main in substitution for units that had
been annihilated or disbanded, a process that entailed no substantial alteration in the general perspective
as contrasted with the period of Constantine " However, at no point does he demonstrate how any such
huge number of auxilia or other units were lost between Constantine and Theodosius 1. The likelihood
is that the comitatensian army grew gradually out of the comitatus of Constantine and w as at first only
an enhanced version of his old army of Gaul See Nischer. “Army Reforms." 1-55 but especially 29n 4;
Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer. I, 387-391; II, I65nn. 631 and 634. 166n 634; Parker.
“Legions." 182-189
12 In this case probably D’gio 11Italica. Legio l III Augusta, and Legio XIC '/audio respectively;
however, comitatensian legions were also named after gods, emperors, geographical locations, and
sometimes for their functions (Lanciarn and Bahstaru. for example)
13 Most researchers have set the strength of an auxilium at 500 men Hoffmann, however, says
"indirect evidence" suggests that it might have been as many as 800 He argues that other writers have
assumed 500 simply because the old auxiliary numen on the frontiers each contained that many men
This last assertion does not hold true for Robert Grosse, who pointed out in 1919 that two passages in
Ammianus, w hen taken together, suggest that at the crossing of the Tigris under Jovinus in 363 the
army was led by an auxilium made up of Germans and Gauls and numbering 500 men Moreover.
Hoffmann's assumption based on "indirect evidence" is a little bit self-serving because it derives from
his belief that many of the auxiha were split in 364; and it troubles him to come out w ith the small,
uneven number of 250 men per unit See Hoffmann. Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer. I, 4, 396,
Grosse. Römische Mihtärgeschichte. 42η 3; Ammianus xxv 6.13. 7 3. Λ Η M Jones speculated that
an auxilium would have 600-700 men; however, this estimate rests on the assumption the six numen
with a strength of 4.000 men which Arcadius sent to support Honorius in 410 were all auxiha: and
Jones himself points out that it is not known if this was the case See Jones. The Later Roman Umpire.
1.682
14 The emperors m their constitutions consistently concerned themselves with the problem of
peculation in the army For examples m Constantine's time see The Theodosian ('ode and S'ovels
Vii 4 I. 12 1.21 1 On soldiers as tax collectors see Bell et al . Ahinnaeus Archive, pp 13. 18-19, 56

Chapter III. The Field Army Fully Developed: Constantius / / , Julian, and
Valentinian I

1 Zosimus makes it clear that losses were heavy but gives no numbers Sec Zosimus ii.50-53
2 In 359 Constantius sent the Tricensimam, whose mother unit was AXV ΙΊρια. and two other
legions w hich had fought under Magnentius to help defend Amida The names of the latter tw o legions
are unkown. Ammianus tells us that Constantius distrusted them and wanted them stationed where only
foreign war was to be feared. All three of these legions were wiped out. Two additional field army
legions, the Minervii and the Octavani, formed from the old Rhineland mother units, I Minerva and VIII
Augusta, survived this era and appear in the Notitia Dignitatum. That Legio I Minerva was on the Rhine
under Diocletian is indicated by a temple which the legion built at Bonn in 295. No such neat
archeological proofs exist for XXX Ulpia and VIII Augusta, but the fact that they contributed
comitatensian detachments suggests that they still existed in the era o f the formation o f the field army.
See Ammianus xviii.9.3; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 188, 342-344; Seeck, Notitia
Dignitatum, OR. 9:37; OC. 5:153.
3. On Constantius's decision to send Julian to Gaul see Ammianus xvi. 11.13 and Zosimus iii. 1.2.
Although the two writers disagree on some details, they emphatically agree that the emperor, who was
profoundly suspicious o f his relatives, did not want his Caesar to be too successful.
4. For a discussion o f the evidence on Julian's creation o f new auxilia, see Hoffmann, Das
spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 158-160, 204-205 et passim.
5. Ammianus's description o f the role o f the Primani in this battle differs from the assertion by
Hoffmann that Roman officers by this time considered the auxilia to be their best troop units. Julian
placed his best troops, the Primani, who were the heavy infantry, in the center of the line and on the
high ground just as Julius Caesar advised. In reality which troops were best depended on the task to
be done. The auxilia were light infantry and excelled in raids, surprise attacks, and flanking maneuvers
in which rapid movement was needed. See Ammianus xvi. 12.49; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische
Bewegungsheer, I, 212.
6. On the army's fortified camps in Julian's era see Ammianus xv.4.9; xvi. 11.14; xvi. 12.1-3;
xvi.12.12; xviii.2.11; xx. 11.6; xxiv.5.12; xxv.1.2; xxv.6.I; xxvii.2.5; xxxi.12.4. In xviii.2.6 Ammianus
describes the disdain of the auxiliaries for manual labor and the success o f Julian, owing to his
charismatic influence over them, in persuading them to help repair the fortifications o f recaptured towns
on the Rhine in 359. Robert Grosse, perhaps remembering the description o f second-century German
warriors given by Tacitus, has argued that this distaste for manual work is in itself strong evidence that
the auxiliaries were recruited from elite German warrior brotherhoods. See Grosse, Römische
Militärgeschichte, p. 39.
7. For discussions o f the scholae palatmae and the domestici see Demougeot, La Formation de
l'Europe, II, première partie, 119-120; Richard Ira Frank, Scholae Palatinae: The Palace Guards of the
Later Roman Empire (Papers and Monographs o f the American Academy Rome 33, 1969), pp. 59-72
et passim; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 279-301.
8. If Ammianus's account o f Julian's speech to his army before embarking on the campaign is to
be believed, then the emperor explicitly told the men that his aim was to render Rome's eastern flank
("this flank of the commonwealth") safe by destroying Persia See Ammianus xxiii.5.18-20. Benjamin
Isaac has rightly warned against overconfidence in attributing to the Romans strategic insights which
they do not articulate in the sources. Isaac, Limits of Empire, pp. 373-377,393, et passim. In this case,
however, Julian's expression of intent seems to be quite clear. This passage in Ammianus also appears
to be a point against A. H. M. Jones's contention that neither Julian nor his historians left any clear
indication o f the motives which prompted the invasion. See Jones, The Later Roman Empire, I, 123.
It is possible that in practice Julian might have been willing to settle for the replacement o f Sapor with
his half-brother, Ormisda, who was friendly to Rome.
9. In their accounts both Ammianus and Zosimus leave no doubt that losses were heavy, but they
give no numbers. See Zosimus iii.26-33; Ammianus xxv.2.7-8.
10. For observations on the personalities o f Valentinian and Valens see Ammianus xxvii.10.10;
XXX. 8.9.
11. It seems certain that the army at this time was split. See Ammianus xxvi.5.3 and Zosimus iv.6.
The traditional view is that Constantine formed the seniores and the iuniores. However, recent critics
have pointed out that there is good evidence against this theory. Only in 364 did a division o f the army
and the administration into two equal halves take place. The sources do not mention either seniores
or iuniores until 365, when, according to Ammianus, Procopius bribed two comitatensian legions, the
Drvitenses and the Tungricani iuniores, to support his effort to overthrow Valens. Yet during this same
year two comitatensian legions called the Divitenses and the Tungricani were in action far away in
Gaul. The implication is that the two units in Gaul were the seniores. A building inscription o f the
 Tungricam seniores found in Switzerland and dating from the reign of Valentinian I offers further
support for this view. Ammianus also rather clearly implies that the Heruli, the Batavi, the Celtae, and
the Petulantes, auxilia which Constantius II ordered Julian to surrender in 360, were the only units with
those names. See Jones, The Later Roman Empire, II, 1426-1427; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische
Bewegungsheer, I, 120-122; Demougeot, "La Notitia dignitatum et l'histoire de l'Empire d'Occident au
début du Ve siècle," Latomus, 34 ( 1975), 1106, 1108; Ammianus xx.4.2; xxvi.6.12; xxvii. 1.2.
12. Starting with the theory that the seniores and the iuniores dated from the division o f the army
in 364, Hoffmann eliminated seniores formations which from their names or positions in the Notitia
Dignitatum could be seen to be of later origin in order to arrive at a possible number of 50. He ignored
the iuniores because a number of them were destroyed at the Battle of Adrianople. He readily conceded
that this figure was only an estimate, but thought that it was close; for in the Notitia the listings o f the
units within their categories under the magistri militum are by seniority; so, for example, an auxilium
with a name like Brisigavi seniores, which appears after the Honoriani Marcomanni seniores, would
probably not have existed in 364 Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 387-391 et passim.
13. Since Constantine's system of border defense in Gaul was disrupted very early, we do not know
many details about it. On the Danube, however, he supported the limitanei in some areas with cavalry
"wedges" called cunei equitum. Whether Constantine established these cunei in Gaul is perhaps
uncertain, but in 357 Julian ambushed a band of plundering Alamanni there with three cunei equitum.
Ammianus xvi. 11.5; Van Berchem, L Armée de Dioclétien, pp 93-100; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische
Bewegungsheer, I, 193-194; Herbert Nesselhauf, "Die spatrömische Verwaltung der gallisch­
germanischen Länder," Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Jahrgang 1938,
Philosophisch-historische Klasse Nr. 2, Berlin, 1938, 76n. 1; Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 39, OR.
40, OR. 41, OR. 42.
14. Ammianus and Zosimus agree that Valentinian I reinforced the army. Zosimus says explicitly
that he did this w ith barbarians from near the Rhine and with laeti. His description of their training,
discipline, and drill indicates that they were commanded by Roman officers and were not federates.
See Ammianus xxx.7.6; Zosimus IV 12. In the Notitia Dignitatum located between the auxilia
established by Constantine and Julian and those named after Honorius are a number o f these units
named after Valentinian I or his son Gratian and others with German tribal names or geographical place
names. The zealous and energetic Valentinian I probably created these formations See Seeck, Notitia
Dignitatum, OC. 5:181, 187-195. Through transfers subsequent to his death some of his auxilia may
have served in the eastern army too. See OR. 5 :58-59 and OR. 6:58-59; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische
Bewegungsheer, I, 403-404, 457.
15. In estimating the number of legions, I have started with the number shown for the Western
Roman field army by the Notitia Dignitatum, and from this figure I have deducted legions named after
Honorius and five others which seem to have been seconded from the limitanei to the field army well
after the reign of Valentinian I. See Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OC. 5:239, 241, 243-247; OC. 7:81,
84-89. For a discussion of whether the five latecomers were comitatenses or pseudocomitatenses see
infra n. 4, p. 64.
16. See Grosse, Römische Mihtärgeschichte, p. 39; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer,
I, 138-139, 153-155. 403-404. The fifth-century Athenasian church historian Socrates denounced the
practice o f accepting a money tax instead of recruits. He falsely attributed it entirely to Valens, possibly
because he disliked this emperor for being an Arian See his Ecclesiastical History (Translation by
A C. Zenos, New York. 1890: Hereafter cited as Socrates) iv.34
17. Until quite recently researchers have assumed that the palatini and the pseudocomitatenses were
established by Constantine; however. Van Berchem, A H. M. Jones, and Hoffmann have argued that,
except for the scholae palatinae, this was not the case The first mention of the palatini occurs in a
constitution issued by Valentinian I in May 365; and the pseudocomitatenses first appear in the same
imperial decree. It seems unlikely, moreover, that Constantine would have created palatini,
comitatenses, and pseudocomitatenses from the same first line legions. It would have been an insult
to the officers and men denied the status of palatini, and Constantine did not lightly offend his troops.
In addition, the content of Valentinian's constitution, stipulating the pay and allowances o f the palatini
and the pseudocomitatenses, suggests that these were new troop categories whose situation was just
being defined. The pseudocomitatenses must have begun service w ith the field army long after 337
when years of static service and neglect had undermined the quality of their mother units in the
limitanei and when emergency conditions required that detachments from the limitanei serve with the
field army. See Van Bcrchem, L Armée de Dioclétien, pp 109-110; Jones, The Later Roman Empire,
1. 125-126. 375-376; II, 1449: Table XV; Hoffmann. Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, 1, 4, 397-399,
402-408, 416-424; Nischer, “Army Reforms,” 33; The Theodosian Code and Novels, viii. 1.10.
18. The link between units of limitanei and the comitatenses shows in the names o f border troop
units designated as soldiers (milites) or units (numen) of comitatensian legions and auxilia like the
Fortenses, the Defensores, the Prima Flavia Pacis, and the Solenses. By the time o f the composition
of the now extant version of the Notitia Dignitatum some o f the Comitatenses had transferred to other
parts o f the empire. Sec Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 338-344, 353-358, 470-476,
482-485; Van Berchcm, L 'Armée de Dioclétien, pp. 100-109; Ammianus xxx.5.1-2; Seeck, Notitia
Dignitatum, OR 5:46,57; OR. 6:57; OR. 7:40. 43; OR. 8:34, 35; OC. 5:148, 249; OC. 7:80, 130, 142,
152; OC. 28:13, 14; OC. 37:19; OC. 38:9; OC. 40:28, 23,27. 29; OC. 41:19. 16,21,23. 15,24, 18.
19. Ammianus xxviii 3 9
20. In the Notitia Dignitatum only two cavalry units carry the name of Valentinian. The Western
Roman section of this document, which dales from late in the reign of Honorius, shows the Roman field
army in Western Europe as having for certain only 19 active cavalry vexillations, on paper about 9,500
men; and two of these were created by Honorius. I have not included four mysterious British
vexillations which probably transferred to the continent with Constantine 111, but are not listed in any
o f the Roman armies on the European continent. Perhaps they were destroyed in the course o f
operations, or possibly they were broken up to provide individual replacements. One may have been
sent to Africa. The armies of Africa and Tingitania had 22 vexillations. See Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum,
OC. 6:42-62, 64, 82; OC. 7:158-178, 180, 182, 200-205. Numbers 202 and 205 from the six listed
under the command of the Comes Britanniarum appear to have been incorporated into the army o f
Gaul.
21. No clibonarii are shown in Western Europe by the Notitia Dignitatum, although the fact that
the surviving Western Roman version of this document was drawn up under Honorius and not
Valentinian I should be kept in mind. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OC. 6:42-62.
22. On cavalry problems see Ammianus xvi. 12.38; xxv. 1.7-9; xxviii.3.9; and John Eadie, "The
Development of Roman Mailed Cavalry," JRS, LVII, 1967, 161-173.
23. Ammianus xxv.6.9; xviii.5.6-7.
24. The Notitia Dignitatum shows six vexillations which can be identified as mounted archers in
the Eastern Roman army, in the African and Tingitanian armies seven for certain and possibly ten, and
in the Western Roman army in Europe none. However, two vexillations of Moorish cavalry were in
western Europe; and these troops were probably mounted javelin men. Literary accounts o f fighting
by clibonarii in western Europe exist, but the only clibonarii shown in the Western Roman army by the
Notitia Dignitatum were stationed in Africa. See Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum , OR. 5:30; 6:31; 7:33;
8:30-31; 9:19; OC. 6:43-62, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 83, 84, 58 and 61 (two Moorish
vexillations); OC. 7:159-165, 167-178, 185, 186, 188. 189, 190, 191, 192, 195,208, 209, 164 and 177
(two Moorish vexillations); Eadie, “Roman Mailed Cavalry,” 171.
25. Ammianus xxvii.l0.10.
26. The Romans called the site o f the battle Solicinium. See Ammianus xxvii. 10.8-16.

Chapter IV. Disaster and Reorganization: Valens, Gratian, and

Theodosius I

1. Ammianus xxvi.4.3; xxxi.12.1, 5, 7; 14.5.

2. Ammianus does not say whether the two legions defeated in Valeria in 374 were seniores or
iuniores. If they were the latter, then they must have been on loan from the Eastern Roman army.
Ammianus xxix.4.5-6, 6.12-14; xxx.5.3, 9.1; xxxi.7.4. See also Zosimus iv. 16.
3. Zosimus iv.20.22-24 Owing to Zosimus's dislike o f Christianity, he took considerable delight
in pointing to defects in government and the army under the Christian emperors. What he says about
corruption in the army, however, is supported by the constitutions o f those emperors themselves. See
 The Theodosian Code and Novels vii.l .2, 1.7,4.16,4.24; viii.7.12. Ammianus gave Valens credit for
trying to maintain discipline in the army, but thought that his "impatience with toil" and lack o f military
training hampered his effectiveness. See Ammianus xxxi. 14.2,14.5. On transfers of military units see:
Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 384-386, 453, 457 et passim.
4. Ammianus xxxi.7.5-16; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 384-386 et passim.
5. Zosimus iv.20.22-24; The Theodosian Code and Novels, v ii.l.2, 1.7, 4.16, 4.24; viii.7.12;
Corps de Droit Civil Romain en Latin et en Français: Les douze Livres du Code de l'empereur
Justinien de la seconde édition (Trans, by P. A. Tissot, Metz, 1807) xii.26.13. Libanius too presents
a dismal picture of the army and argues that its poor condition was one of the reasons for its defeat at
Adrianople. See Libanius Discours (Trans, by Jean Martin, Société d'Édition «Les Belles Lettres»,
Paris, 1988) ii.37-39, 53 (Hereafter cited as Libanius).
6. Zosimus iv.20.22-24; Ammianus xxxi. 11.1-6; 12.1, 6-7. My figure on the size o f Sebastianus's
special force is from Zosimus. Ammianus does not give an overall number, but states that the general
chose 300 soldiers per individual troop unit (trecentenis militibus per singulos numeros lectis), which
could have amounted to more men than Zosimus's figure. Ammianus also says that in his reports to
Valens, Sebastianus exaggerated his successes which made the emperor jealous. If Sebastianus did
indeed exaggerate, then he might have done so at least in part to encourage the emperor to stick to the
gradualist strategy.
7. Ammianus states that only one-third o f the Roman army escaped. Zosimus says the emperor
led his main force to action "in disarray" and that the barbarians wiped out "almost all" o f it. Ammianus
xxxi. 12.1-17; 13.1-19; Zosimus iv.22-24. Libanius declares that at Adrianople Valens engaged "with
more ardor than skill"; but he gives no figures on losses. Libanius i. 179. Hoffmann has estimated that
16 o f the units which Valens received in the division of 364 were lost at Adrianople: two vexillations,
nine legions, and five auxilia. He also argues that Valens had previously transferred to his brother 14
o f the troop units which he had acquired through the division of the army in 364, so that o f the 50 units
which he received at that time only 36 could have been engaged in the Battle o f Adrianople
Formations were no doubt present, however, which had not been involved in the division o f 364. When
the Goths had first rebelled, Valens, in Antioch, had sent men ahead o f him from the Prefecture o f the
Orient; and Ammianus tells us that the Western Roman general Richomer, who had led an
expeditionary corps to the east in 377, fought in the battle and escaped with his life. His corps had
suffered from desertions, but some of his men must have still been with him. In 1973 T. S. Bums
surmised that the Roman army at Adrianople numbered about 60,000 men. He noted that A. H. M.
Jones, working from the Notitia Dignitatum, had estimated that Theodosius I created 30 new units (five
palatine vexillations, one comitatensian vexillation, 11 auxilia palatina, 1 comitatensian legion, and
12 pseudocomitatensian legions). This, Bums says, would represent about 20,000 men and "must
reflect the magnitude o f the Roman losses at Adrianople." But 20,000 is not two-thirds o f 60,000; it
is two-thirds of 30,000. The proposition that Theodosius’s new formations were meant to make up the
losses at Adrianople is not unreasonable; so my estimate is that about 30,000 Roman troops fought in
that battle. Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, 1,448, 455-457; Ammianus xxxi. 7.4-5; 8.2;
12.4, 15, 17; 13.9; T. S. Bums, "The Battle of Adrianople: A Reconsideration," Historia. Zeitschrift
für alle Geschichte, 23 (1973), p. 344 and 344n. 55; Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 11, 1434: Table
V.
8. Zosimus iv.29.
9. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 7; Jones, The Later Roman Empire, II, 1434: Table V.
10. Zosimus iv.25.29. A good reconstruction of the events and chronology of Theodosius's war with
the Goths is in Albert Güldenpenning and J. Ifland, Der Kaiser Theodosius der Grosse: Ein Beitrag zur
römischen Kaisergeschichte (Halle, 1878), pp. 58-61,65-74.
11. The call for an all-citizen army with which to drive out the Goths was in an address, De Regno
(About Royal Power), which by tradition Synesius delivered before Arcadius sometime between 397
and 400. Since the extant version is scathingly critical of the government, it is possible that it represents
what Synesius would have liked to have said rather than what he really said. See Augustine Fitzgerald
(Trans), The Letters of Synesius of Cyrene (Oxford University Press, 1926), pp. 21-24.
 12. On the bacaudae see Ammianus xxviii.2.10; and Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 11,811-812.
13. Zosimus iv.29-30; Demougeot, La Formation de l'Europe, II, première partie, 144; Grosse,
Römische Militärgeschichte, p. 260.
14. Zosimus iv.29-30; Demougeot, La formation de l Europe, II, première partie, 144; Gülden-
penning and Ifland, Kaiser Theodosius, pp. 79-83.
15. Zosimus iv.31.
16. Zosimus iv.32-33.
17. Zosimus iv.34; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 464-465.
18. Themistius, the court orator for Theodosius, confirms that the Roman army was unable to defeat
the Visigoths. He eulogizes the emperor for achieving through diplomacy what military action had
failed to accomplish. See Themistius, Die 34. Rede des Themistios. Übersetzt und kommentiert von
Hugo Schneider (Winterthur, 1966), pp. 79-83. St. Ambrose saw the hand o f a higher power in the way
in which the Goths were brought to a halt "without benefit of a soldier." Ambrose o f Milan, Letters
(New York, 1954, Trans, by Mary Melchior Beyenka), p. 202: Ambrose to the clergy and people o f
Thessalonica (383). Modem writers are sometimes critical o f Theodosius for his lack o f wisdom in
making such an accommodation with the Visigoths. See Jones, The Later Roman Empire, I, 156-157
and Ferrill, Fall of the Roman Empire, pp. 68-85. However, the emperor's policy o f negotiation was
dictated by his inability to mass sufficient reliable troops to defeat the barbarians. Unable to expel them
from the empire by force, he resorted to diplomacy. The most realistic appraisal of Theodosius and his
situation is in Guldenpenning and Ifland, Kaiser Theodosius, pp. 82-89, 127, et passim.
19. Zosimus iv.34; Jordanes, The Gothic History (Translated by Charles Mierow, Princeton, 1915:
Hereafter cited as Jordanes) xxvii.141; Demougeot, “La Notitia dignitatum," 1099. 1107;
Güldenpenning and Ifland, Kaiser Theodosius, pp. 82-89.
20. Theodosius too granted provisions and donatives to the federates which were so generous as to
enrage his Roman troops. Zosimus tells of a Roman commander named Gerontius at the Black Sea port
o f Tomi who was so outraged by the emperor's policy that he attacked the local federates with his troops
and took their belongings. Theodosius had him arrested, but Gerontius was able to extricate himself
by bribing the right palace officials. See Zosimus iv.35.40. On Gratian's provisioning of the barbarians
see Jordanes, xxvii.141. The writings of Ambrose of Milan show a distinct awareness o f the threat
posed by the settlement of federates in Roman territory. Ambrose rightly predicted that their weapons
would be used more against the Romans than to defend them. In a letter to Valentinian II written in
386 he also refers bitterly to the way in which the barbarian federates drew supplies away from the
Romans. See Ambrose, Letters, p. 60: Ambrose to Valentinian (386); Hans Freiherr von
Campenhausen, Ambrose von Mailand als Kirchenpolitiker (Berlin and Leipzig, 1929), p 185;
Demougeot, “La Notitia dignitatum," 1099, 1107.
21. Zosimus iv.48-51.
22. Hoffmann estimates that Theodosius transferred at least 15 units, consisting of two vexillations,
six legions, six auxilia, and one schola palatina, and he tries to identify them. In some cases this is
easy because the formations are designated as seniores, but in others he has to perform considerable
feats o f interpretation based on indirect evidence. See Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer,
1,469-485,492-493 et passim. Basing himself primarily on the names of the formations, A. H. M. Jones
believed that Theodosius fashioned 30 new units after 379; however, 12 o f these were
pseudocomitatenses, of which six in Illyria, named after localities in that region, would seem to have
been promoted from the limitanei. The Transtigritani, the last listed in the field army in the Diocese
o f the Orient, must have been recruited from beyond the Tigris, perhaps in the western Armenian
districts which Theodosius received as a result of his treaty with Persia in 384 The five remaining
pseudocomitatensian legions raised by Theodosius are named after him and not for parent units or
localities; so their origins are uncertain See A. H. M Jones, The Later Roman Empire, II, 1425, 1429:
Table I; 1434: Table V; Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR VI 69
23. This is the organization of the Eastern Roman field army shown in the Notitia Dignitatum See
Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Zosimus iv.27. Zosimus emphasizes the expanded
corruption which went along with the increased number o f command organizations.
24. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 8.
25. Ammianus XXV. 1.18.
 26. The chapters in the Notitia Dignitatum indicate that the limitanei in the east were in better order
and more numerous than in the west. But efforts at quantification vary because it is not possible to
accurately equate the units involved. How. for example, did a formation of milites in Armorica or
Moguntiacum compare with a cohort in Syria*7 For attempts to estimate the number o f limitanei east
and west see Jones, The Later Roman Empire. II. 1450: Table XV (135,000 in the west and 248.000
in the east); and L. Vârady, "New Evidences on some Problems of Late Roman Military Organization,"
Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae." 9, 1961,360 (107,200 in the west and 165,700 in
the east) Nesselhauf found 72 cohorts in the Eastern Roman Border forces as compared with only 47
in the west, 17 o f which were in Britain. He pointed out that the island had escaped the devastating
German invasions of the fourth century and disagreed with Mommsen, who questioned the accuracy
o f the chapter o f the Notitia Dignitatum on the Dux Britanniarum (OC 40) and argued that in the
surviving copy it had simply not been kept up to date. Either way the overall picture indicates the
greater persistence in the east of a border army of the early Diocletianic type See Nesselhauf. “Die
spätrömische Verwaltung,” 46-47; Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 214η. 2; and Seeck, Notitia
Dignitatum, OC. 37, OC. 38, OC. 40, OC. 41; OR. 28. OR 31-38. Note the striking contrast o f the
chapters on the provinces in the Dioceses of Pontica and the Orient with OC. 37 and OC. 41, which
have only milites, and with OC. 38, which in addition to its naval base on the Channel has only one unit
o f milites and one lonely cavalry squadron.
27. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 7; Jones, The iMter Roman Empire, II. 1449.
28. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 9, OC. 7, 40-62; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer,
1, 20- 21.
29. Demougeot, “La Notitia dignitatum." 1112; Ammianus xxx.5.2. Ammianus says that in his
time Carnuntum on the Danube was deserted and in ruins but still useful as a shelter for the field army
in operations against the barbarians.
30. A H M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire. II, 1429: Table I; 1434: Table V.
31. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 5 and 6; Demougeot, La Formation de l'Europe. II. première
partie, 155, 157; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 469-483, 492-493.
32. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 5:27-66, 6:27-69, 7:24-58, 8:24-53, 9:18-48.
33. Theodosius's views on the importance of having the right religion show clearly in his edicts.
See The Theodosian Code and Novels XVI. 1.1.7 1, 10 7 His outlook was no doubt much influenced
by St. Ambrose. See Ambrose, Letters, pp. 15-18 Ambrose to Theodosius (388); Campenhausen,
Ambrosius von Mailand, pp. 173-177.
34. Jordanes xxviii 145.
35. In 1873 a late Roman Christian cemetery was discovered at Concordia. Excavation revealed
37 sarcophagi with inscriptions bearing the names of 22 or possibly 23 cavalry and infantry units of
which 20 also appear in the Notitia Dignitatum as field army units. See Hoffmann, Das spätrömische
Bewegungsheer, I, 75-78, 92-93.

Chapter V. Breakdown in the West: Stilicho

1. Zosimus iv.58.; v 1,4; Demougeot, La Formation de l’Europe, II, première partie, 158, 161;
Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 516-517.
2. A total of 14 cavalry and infantry units which appear in the Notitia Dignitatum for the two
praesenta! armies and the Thracian army o f the Eastern Roman Empire also appear in the Western
Roman Notitia Dignitatum, which was drawn up years later. Two additional auxilia palatina, the
Ascarii seniores and iuniores, which came from East Illyricum and also show up in the Western Roman
Notitia Dignitatum, did not transfer until 410. Hoffmann argues that the ten "choicest" and most senior
o f the 14 which came earlier were those taken by Stilicho. Four less "choice" and senior formations,
he thinks, came west with the Ascarii seniores and iuniores as part of an expeditionary corps which the
Eastern Roman government voluntarily sent to Honorius in 410 after he had had Stilicho killed. If these
four stayed in the west and are the ones showing in the Notitia, then Stilicho brought only ten over in
395; however, if they returned to the east and are unknown, then he must have brought over 14 in 395
For the units concerned see Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 26, 35-40. 46-48; and
Secck. Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 5. OR. 6, OR. 8; OC. 5. OC. 6, OC. 9. Zosimus says simply that
Stilicho kept the best soldiers for himself. Sec Zosimus v.4.
3 Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I. 96-97. 186, 198, 365; Seeck, Notitia Digni­
tatum. OC 5. OC 6. 7
4 The five were the Secundani Britones, the Usartenses. the Praesidienses, the Geminiacenses,
and the Cortonacenses Stilicho may not have created all of them; and Hoffmann, troubled about their
having been formed from limitanei, has argued that they were pseudocomitatensian legions counted as
comitatensian by mistake To assume otherwise, he says, would be "audacious"; however, all five are
listed as comitatensian legions in both OC. 5 and OC. 7, and Nessclhauf has pointed out that these units
could have been pseudocomitatenses at some time before they were recorded as comitatenses in the
Nonna Dignitatum Demougeot, in harmony w ith this view, also counts the five as comitatenses, as
does Jones furthermore, at least one other comitatensian legion, the Tertia lulia Alpina, stationed in
Italy, seems to have been promoted directly from the limitanei. See Secck. Notitia Dignitatum, OC.
5-241.243-246. 248; OC 7:35. 84-88, Hoffmann. Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 181, 184, 189,
408-409. Nessclhauf. “Die spatrömische Verwaltung.“ pp. 38-39, 53-54; Demougeot, “La Notitia
dignitatum." 1130. n 224. n 225; Jones. The Later Roman Empire, II, 1435: Table VII.
5 See Seeck. Notitia Dignitatum. OC 5:145-156. 158-222. 224-255. OC 7:3-8, 28-30, 32-33.
35. 53-57. 80-83. 89. 130-134. 155 The station of one comitatensian legion is uncertain It could have
been in Tmgitama or in Lurope; and if Hoffmann is right and five units listed as comitatensian legions
were really pseudocomitatenses which at some point were misplaced in the listings, then the strength
of the first line legions would have been less by this number See OC 5:241-246, OC 7:31, 84-88 and
Hoffmann. Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer. I. 181. 184, 189, 408-409. On the units in Africa and
Tm gitama see OC 5 151, 155. 156. 242 (which is doubtful), 205. 221, 222, 235, 249-255; OC.
7 31/139 (the doubtful case), 142, 143. 145, 144, 146-152, 136, 137, 141. Both OC. 5 and OC. 7 show
only 3 auxilia palatma stationed in Africa and Tingitama.
6 Jordanes χχιχ. 146. "The contempt of the Goths for the Romans soon increased."
7 According to Flavius Vegetius, Roman infantry ceased to wear cuirasses and helmets in the
reign of Gratian Because of negligence, sloth, and relaxation of discipline, he says, the men found the
equipment too heavy and obtained leave from the emperor to lay it aside. This statement seems
inherently incredible and suspect. It is likely that Vegetius either did not fully understand what had
happened or that he altered the truth. He was addressing his work to an emperor, probably Valentinian
111. and it would have been politically incorrect to attribute blame to the government. He was not a
soldier and lacked practical experience of the army. A rhetorician and antiquarian, he tended to explain
the problems of his time by simply insisting that the Romans of his day were not the men their ancestors
had been The sections of the Notitia Dignitatum dealing with the magistri officiorum indicate that the
government's arms factories continued to manufacture defensive armor. Moreover, the column o f
Theodosius of 386 shows Roman troops in helmets, and this column as well as the reliefs o f a now
destroyed late Roman arch in Arles, certain Christian sarcophagi in Arles, and Vatican documents
dating from the fifth century show Roman soldiers wearing cuirasses which seem to have been made
o f raw hide or leather, a type of equipment which had long been in use in the army. Drawings o f the
column o f Arcadius show Roman troops wearing only breeches and tunics with their hair blowing in
the wind; however, these men could have belonged to the auxilia, which did not use the defensive armor
worn by legionaries Thus archeological evidence suggests that either Vegetius could have been wrong
or that leather cuirasses and metal helmets were restored by Gratian's successors. To the extent that
Vegetius may have been right, then I think it quite likely that the reason for any change (i.e . either the
abandonment of protective equipment, as he charges, or the substitution of raw hide cuirasses for metal
ones) was not that the legionaries suddenly became too decadent to carry the weight of the armor which
had always been one of their principal advantages over their enemies. A more likely cause w as that the
government reduced or altered their supplies of this equipment in order to have more w ith which to
subsidize the federates Deprivations of this kind, consequent on changed government priorities, would
further help to explain the rage of the Roman troops against Gratian in August 383 and at Stilicho and
his supporters at the time of the Ticinum mutiny in 408 See Flavius Vegetius, The Military Institutions
of the Romans (C lark trans , Greenwood Press, 1985 reprint), pp 25. 38; Paul Couissin. Les armes
romaines (Paris, 1926). pp 509, 512-513; Grosse, Römische Mihtärgeschichte. pp 101. 261-262;
Zosimus v.7; Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OR. 11:18-39; OC. 9:16-39; and the insignia too; Demougeot,
La Formation de l’Europe, II, première partie, 144; idem, De l’Unité à la Division de l'Empire Romaine
395-410 (Paris, 1951), p. 25n. 43; Jones, The Later Roman Empire, II, 834-835; John Michael O'Flynn,
Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire (Edmonton, 1983), pp. 32-34; J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz,
Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom (Oxford,
1990), 273-278 and Plates.
8. Nesselhauf, “Die spätrömische Verwaltung,” 46-48.
9. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, OC. 6:43-62. Until 407 two o f the vexillations in this series, the
Equites Honoriani Taifali iuniores (59) and the Equites Honoriani seniores (60), were probably still
in Britain. The addition o f the federate cavalry increased the size of this arm in Roman service, but did
not necessarily improve performance. Claudian tells how at the battle o f Pollentia the Alan cavalry
panicked, threatening to expose the Roman flank. Stilicho intervened with a legion which he had been
holding back as a tactical reserve and restored the situation. See Claudian, De Bello Gotico (The Loeb
Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass., 1922, Trans, by Maurice Platnauer) 580-597.
10. Demougeot, La Formation de l'Europe, II, première partie, 190-194, 196, 202-203; and for a
more detailed reconstruction idem, “La Notitia dignitatum," 1097-1099, 1125-1127, 1129-1133.
Camille Jullian makes the same point: Camille Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule (Brussels, 1964 reprint),
VII, 320-321.
11. On the anti-German reaction in Constantinople and the war with Gainas see Zosimus v. 13-22;
Socrates vi.6; Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History (Trans, by Chester D. Hartranft, New York, 1890:
Hereafter cited as Sozomen) viii.4; Grosse, Römische Militärgeschichte, pp. 263-265; Jones, The Later
Roman Empire, 1, 178-179; Demougeot, De l'Unité à la Division de l'Empire Romain 395-410, pp. 222-
234; Johannes Kollwitz, "Die Arcadiussäule," Bericht über den VI. Internationalen Kongress für
Archäologie Berlin 21.-26. August 1939, Archäologisches Institut des Deutschen Reiches, Berlin,
1939, pp. 594-596; Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, pp. 111-125.
12. According to the court poet Claudian, caution constrained Stilicho from forcing the Goths to
fight for their lives. Claudian, De Bello Gotico, 95-100.
13. Demougeot, “La Notitia dignitatum," 1 125-1 127; idem. La Formation de l'Europe, II, première
partie, 196.
14. Zosimus v.26.
15. The Theodosian Code and Novels vii. 13.16-17.
16. Mommsen. Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 521-527, 533; O'Flynn, Generalissimos, p. 55; Sozomen
viii.25.
17. Demougeot and Nesselhauf argue that the ten pseudocomitatensian legions shown both in OC.
5, the list o f the Magister Peditum Praesentalis in the Notitia Dignitatum, and in OC. 7, the Distributio,
were levied before 407 and that the 11 additional formations of this type shown with the field army in
Gaul only by the Distributio (OC. 7) were limitanei which stayed in place in Gaul and were recouped
by the Roman command after 411 and then added to OC. 7. Demougeot is able to localize all but one
o f these 11 formations. On the question of mobilizing limitanei for the field army during this period
see Demougeot, La Formation de l'Europe, II, première partie, 181-182, 194-196; idem, "Notes sur
l'évacuation des Troupes Romaines en Alsace au Début du V Siècle," Revue d'Alsace, Tome 92 (1953),
15, 18, 20, 23 et passim; idem, “La Notitia dignitatum," 1130-1132 et passim; Hoffmann, Das
spätrömische Bewegungsheer, 1,46-47; Jullian, Histoire, VIII, 102-103; Nesselhauf, “Die spätrömische
Verwaltung,” 40-41.
18. Zosimus v.31-35.40; Sozomen xi.4; Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 521-527, 533;
Demougeot, De l'Unité à la Division de l'Empire Romain 395-410, pp. 418-420. Femll's assertion that
"Stilicho's army had dispersed after the fall o f the general" seems to require some qualification at least
as far as the regular units at Ticinum are concerned. The bulk o f the federates joined Alaric; and some
Roman troops gave up on Honorius and deserted to serve under Priscus Attalus, a prefect o f the city of
Rome who threw in his lot with the Visigoths; but the Ticinum army was still strong enough to provide
Constantius with a substantial expeditionary force to take with him to Gaul in 411; and if, as recent
scholarship suggests, the Western Roman sections of the Notitia Dignitatum reflect the situation as late
as 413-418 or 413-420 then most of the legions, auxilia, and vexillations were still at the government's
disposal at that time, although they were no doubt under strength. See Hoffmann, Das spätrömische
Bewegungsheer, 1, 95-96; Demougeot. “La Notitia dignitatum," 1080-1082, 1129-1133; Ferrill, Fall
of the Roman Empire, p 104; Secck, Notitia Dignitatum, OC. 7.
19 Mommsen. Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 527-530; O'Flynn, Generalissimos, p. 22.
20 Zosimus v 35 42; Jones, The Later Roman Empire, I, 194-199. The very high figures generally
given tor the strength in men of the Late Roman army are misleading, for they include the limitanei who
were not organized as units of maneuver. Different researchers have estimated the Western Roman
comitatenses at between 94,000 and 123,000 men; however, all such estimates are speculative because
of the uncertain numerical strength of the auxilia palatina and of the pseudocomitatensian legions, and
then too there is the problem of the relationship between paper and real strength. It is also necessary
to remember that some units were stationed in Africa and were thus not immediately available, although
they could be transferred My own estimate is that in the early years of the fifth century the Western
Roman field army, excluding pseudocomitatenses and formations probably stationed in Africa,
numbered approximately 32 palatine and comitatensian legions. 62 palatine auxilia, 19 vexillations o f
regular cavalry, and five scholae of bodyguards. On paper this would have been a force o f between
75.000 and 93,600 men. The large contingent of pseudocomitatenses shown in Gaul by the Notitia
Dignitatum was probably set up by Constantius after 411 from the remnants of the limitanei there, but
the three shown for Illyricum and the two for Italy may have been created earlier. For results of
calculations by various authors see Nischer, “Army Reforms.” 54 (1 11,000); Jones. The Later Roman
Empire, II. 1449 Table XV (113.000); Vârady, “New Evidences,” 358, 360 ( 123,800). These figures
include the armies in Africa and Tingitama and so are higher than mine.
21 Zosimus v.7 Stilicho blockaded Alaric in the high country east of Elis on the Peloponnesian
peninsula during the spring of 397, and Demougeot argues that it is "very nearly certain" that the Goths
escaped and crossed the Gulf of Corinth at Rhion with the collusion of Stilicho because they would have
been too weak and lacking in means (i.e., boats) to do it any other way J B. Bury contented himself
with the surmise that "Stilicho came to some agreement with Alaric" and allowed him to go free
However, owing to the outbreak of Gildo's rebellion in Africa, Stilicho had his own supply problems,
and this circumstance may have contributed to looting by his troops and forced him to lift his siege o f
Alaric See Demougeot, De l'Unité à la Division de l'Empire Romain 395-410, pp. 170-172; and J. B.
Bury, The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians (New York, 1967), p. 70.
22 Zosimus vi 8; Sozomcn ix 8; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 47-48
23 After completing their mission the vexillation and the two auxilia transferred to the Eastern
Roman army This was a victorious homecoming, and on October 23, 425 the Eastern Roman
government dedicated a suitable inscription on the Golden Door of the Wall of Theodosius Since all
three of these formations appear in the Notitia Dignitatum for the Western Roman Empire, it seems
likely that this document was drawn up before that date Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer,
I. 55-60
24 Claudian presents a dramatic picture of the helplessness of the Italian population at the time of
Alaric's first invasion of 401 Claudian, De Bello Gotico, 463-468.
25 Zosimus v 36 Orosius tells us that "the emperor, Honorius, seeing that nothing could be
accomplished against the barbarians with so many usurpers opposed to him, ordered that the usurpers
be destroyed first." See Paulus Orosius, The Seven Books of History Against the Pagans (Catholic
University of America, Trans, by Roy J Deferrari, 1964) vn 42.

Chapter VI. The Fading of the Field Army in the West: Stilicho’s Successors
1 He married Honorius’s half sister, Galla Placidia, in 417; and in February 421, as Constantius
III, became co-emperor with Honorius However, his reign lasted only seven months, for during the
following September he died
2 This evaluation assumes that OC 7 (the Distributio Numerorum) of the Notitia Dignitatum
shows the field army in Gaul approximately as it was about 413-418 under Constantius. If Hoffmann's
argument that five of the units shown as comitatensian legions were really pseudocomitatensian is right,
then Constantius had only five palatine and comitatensian legions in Gaul instead o f ten and 26
pseudocomitatensian legions instead of 2 1 The large number of pseudocomitatensian formations, many
with Gallic place-names, and the presence of a small comitatensian army in Spain support the
contention that OC. 7 shows the situation as it was about 413-418. The figures are estimates, however,
for duplications and inconsistencies in the original document make complete certainty impossible. The
portion o f OC. 7 describing the army in Gaul is more recent than the part on Britain which shows field
forces on the island that came to the continent with the usurper Constantine III in the spring o f 407.
The most generally accepted explanation for this anomaly is that the surviving version o f the Notitia
Dignitatum for the Western Roman Empire was a working document which at some point was filed
away while still containing additions to some sections without the corresponding deletions in others.
See Demougeot, “La Notitia dignitatum," 1115-1133; Jones, The Later Roman Empire, II, 1417;
Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 181,408-409; Seeck. Notitia Dignitatum, OC. 7:2-62,
157-165; 63-110, 166-171. That the deployment shown by OC 7 was after Honorius and Constantius
split the Western Roman field army is further suggested by the fact that seven of the units with
inscriptions at Concordia are shown by OC. 7 as being in Gaul or Spam and four in Italy. There are
postings to other parts o f the empire; and since the inscriptions do not always show whether the unit
was senior, junior, palatine, or comitatensian, there are also several uncertain cases. Compare OC.
7:63-134 and 166-171 with Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 92-93.
3. The Notitia Dignitatum shows only one unit—the Placidi Valentinianici felices, probably an
auxilium— which was without any doubt at all created after the large group set up by Stilicho with the
help o f Gildo's money. It may well have been the last regular Roman army unit ever established in the
Western Roman Empire. See Demougeot, “La Notitia dignitatum," 1102; Seeck, Nonna Dignitatum.
OC. 7:36.
4. Jordanes xxxii. 164-165; xxxiv.176-177. The echoes of this policy are clear in both passages.
See also Demougeot, “La Notitia dignitatum." 1119; idem, “Notes sur l’évacuation,” 24-26; O'Flynn,
Generalissimos, pp. 71-72; Hoffmann, Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer, I, 95-96.
5. The Theodosian Code and Novels The Novels of the Sainted Theodosius Augustus 24.2.
6. The Theodosian Code and Novels. The Novels of the Sainted Valentinian Augustus 24.1.
7. Vegetius attributed the decline o f the army to "the neglect o f our predecessors." It would have
been more accurate to have said "corruption and neglect." But by this time the most basic problem was
that in its reduced circumstances the government could no longer afford the forces necessary to defend
its frontiers in depth. Novels o f Valentinian III issued in 440 and 444-445 say explicitly that existing
revenues were insufficient to "restore" and maintain an adequate army. "Food and clothing cannot be
furnished and the soldier cannot be saved from destruction by hunger and cold " The Theodosian Code
and Novels'. The Novels of the Sainted Valentinian Augustus 6.1, 15.1; Vegetius, Military Institutions,
pp. 38-39. Contemporary scholarship has tended to take more account of the reduced circumstances
than o f the corruption. See Johannes Sundwall, Weströmische Studien (Berlin. 1915), pp. 150-161;
Demougeot, “Notes sur l’évacuation,” 7-8; Grosse, Römische Mihtàrgeschichte, pp. 268-269;
Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, pp. 34, 40, 42. A. Η. M. Jones acknowledges the existence of
peculation by army officers, but presents it more in terms of isolated instances than as a revealing
pattem. He also tends to question the accuracy of the sources which report it, a kind of critique which
is not very convincing because the sources are so unanimous on the subject See Jones, The Later
Roman Empire, I, 628, 645-646 et passim. His great interest was institutional history, and the
organization of his work makes it fundamentally an encyclopedia of the late Roman Empire's formal
institutions. However, these institutions, the army included, were largely a facade; for their efficacy and
effects were heavily determined by the underlying, corrupt patron-client system. The reality which lay
beneath the formal institutions is more clearly rendered by the documents in Bell et al.. Abinnaeus
Archive, pp. 103-115, 121-122 et passim.
8. On Constantius's campaign against Constantine III see Sozomen ιχ 11, 12. 13, 14 and Orosius
vii.42. 1 doubt that Attila during the Battle o f Châlons, whatever he may have said to rally his men,
avoided making his main effort against the Roman troops because "at the mere sight of our dust they
close into defensive formation with their shields raised" and were therefore cowardly and beneath
contempt. The battle was going badly for him; he was trying to turn the tide and win. The Alans were
by far the least reliable troops on the Roman side, and this is no doubt why it was that Attila
concentrated his attack against them after losing the high ground to the Romans Aétius, however, had
hoped for this development and had placed the Alans at the center of his line, so that when they gave
ground he could subject Attila to double envelopment. Events worked out as he had planned, and he
won a decisive victory The oldest complete description o f the battle is by Jordanes, who drew mainly
on now lost accounts by Cassiodorus and the Greek historian Priscus o f Panium. See Jordanes
xxxviii.201-212; and Helene Homeyer, Attila, der Hunnenkönig von seinen Zeitgenossen dargestellt
(Berlin. 1951), pp. 156-162. Few battles have caught the imagination of historians more than Châlons,
and many modem reconstructions exist. For examples see Sir Edward Creasy’s venerable Fifteen
Decisive Battles of the World (New York, 1900 ), pp. 141-155; J. F C. Fuller, Decisive Battles: Their
Influence upon History and Civilization (New York, 1940), pp. 130-150; E. A Thompson, A History
of Attila and the Huns (Oxford. 1948), pp. 140-143; Ferrill, Fall of the Roman Empire, pp. 145-150.
9 Zosim usv.34
10. Sozomen ix.8; Procopius, The Gothic War (Loeb classical library, 1928. trans, by H. B. Dewing,
1954 reprint) i.2-11; xii. 16-19; Sidonius, Letters (Loeb Classical Library, 1936, trans, by W. B.
Anderson. 1956 reprint) ii.1.4; Bernard S. Bachrach, "A Note on Alites," Byzantinische Zeitschrift, LXI
(61), 1968. p. 35; Sundwall, Weströmische Studien, pp. 6-7; Grosse, Römische Militärgeschichte, pp.
268-269 Like Vegetius, Orosius did not understand or at least does not mention the role o f economics
and finance in the military debacle, which he blamed entirely on the malign influence o f barbarian
generals. After the appointment of Constantius as magister militum, he rejoiced that with Honorius "the
Roman state had at last realized what advantage it received in finally having a Roman general lead its
army and to what extent it had been destroyed though subjugation to barbarian generals." See Orosius
vii 42

Chapter VII. Conclusion

1. The basic argument o f writers like Seston, Parker, and Moreau who depreciate Constantine's
responsibility in this matter seems to be that what he did was only a further development o f the
comitatus system already evident under the Tetrarchy. They agree, however, that the permanent
concentration of detached units to form the comitatensian army separate from the frontier army was his
work See Parker, “Legions,” 183; Moreau, “Heeresreform,” 292; Seston, “Du Comitatus de Dioclétien
aux Comitatenses de Constantin,” 295.
2. The Theodosian Code and Novels vii. 4.29. Synesius gives a graphie account o f spoliation o f
both troops and civilians in Cyrenaica by Cerialis, a particularly corrupt general. Fitzgerald, Synesius
of Cyrene, pp. 219-221; No. 130 How severe the effects of such venality must have been may be
gathered from more recent examples. See Philip Longworth, The Art of Victory. The Life and
Achievements of Generalissimo Suvorov (Lonâon, 1965), pp. 31-35, 91-92, 130, 181-182, 220; Charles
Romanus and Riley Sunderland, United States Army in World War 11. Time Runs Out in CBI
(Washington, D C., Department of the Army, Historical Division, 1959), 66-67, 242-243, 369-371;
idem, United States Army in World War 11. Stilwell's Command Problems (Washington, D C.,
Department of the Army, 1956), pp. 4, 327, 381-382. Informative about the results o f favoring elite
units (in this case Iraq's Republican Guards) over regular formations is Robert H. Scales, Certain
Victory: The United States Army in the Gulf War (Washington, D C., 1993), pp. 113-1 14, 358-359,
361.
3. Ammianus xvi. 12.2, 26.
 Glossary

Alae Cavalry “wings” or squadrons of the limitanei traditionally

having a strength of 500 men each.
Auxilium A light infantry unit manned mostly or entirely by
Germans who were regular soldiers of the Roman mobile
field army.
Bacaudae Rural bandits most commonly found in Gaul.
Barritus German war song used by the late Roman army.
Cataphract Cataphractus, a heavy cavalryman.
Clibonarii Cavalry of the heaviest type, both riders and horses
armored with chain mail.
Colonus A Roman serf.
Comes rei militaris A count, a general commanding a regional corps of the
mobile field army.
Comitatenses Soldiers of the mobile field army.
Comitatus Early on merely the imperial entourage but after
Constantine the mobile field army.
Comites Plural for comes but also applied to a few elite cavalry
units.
Cornuti An early auxilium created by Constantine and depicted on
his arch in Rome.
Cunei equitum A type of cavalry squadron created by Constantine to
reinforce the limitanei along the Danube and probably the
Rhine too.
Diocese The next unit of territorial administration under a
prefecture. Dioceses were governed by vicars and
subdivided into provinces which were administered by
governors. See also prefecture.
Dux Under the late empire a general commanding limitanei.
Federates Foederati or allied barbarian soldiers. They were usually
Germans but other peoples were not excluded. In the fifth
century Hun federates were common.
Honestiores The upper social and legal class of the late Roman Empire.
Humiliores The lower social and legal class of the late Roman empire.
luniores The junior formations of paired units with the same name
in the mobile field army, the juniors usually having been
split away from the seniors. See also seniores.
Laeti Barbarians, mostly Germans, settled in small groups on
Roman soil and on condition of military service with
regular units of the army, usually auxilia.
Limitanei Roman border troops.
Magister equitum Master of cavalry, but could and did command infantry
too, a field marshal.
Magister militum Master of soldiers, the most general term for a field
marshal. Also known as magister utriusque militiae
(master of both services) or as magister militum
praesentalis if commanding a force normally stationed in
the presence of the emperor.
Magister Officiorum Master of the offices. He directed numerous departments
of the central government such as judicial appeals,
petitions, official correspondence, and the agentes in rebus
or secret service. He had charge of the scholae palatinae,
although in the field these units were led by their senior
military officer, the comes domesticorum. During the late
fourth century the magister officiorum administered the
government’s arms factories. See also scholae palatinae.
Magister peditum Master of infantry, but could also command cavalry, a
field marshal.
Numerus The general term for a military unit in the late Roman
army.
Palatini The best paid and most elite category of soldiers in the
mobile field army.
Praetorean Prefect In the fourth century the chief civilian administrative
official under the emperor in each prefecture of the empire.
See also prefecture.
Prefecture Any one of the four great territorial jurisdictions, Gaul,
Italy and North Africa, Illyricum, and Orient, into which
the empire was divided by Diocletian.
Protectores domestici Combined staff and cadet corps which provided trained
leaders for the late Roman army.
Pseudocomitatenses Units called up from the limitanei to serve with the
comitatenses.
Ripenses Limitanei who guarded the banks of frontiers formed by
rivers.
Scholae palatinae The imperial bodyguard units.
Seniores The senior formations of paired units with the same names
in the mobile field army, the junior units usually having
been split from the senior ones.
Tetrarchy The imperial system created by Diocletian but which did
not survive him. The Tetrarchy was ruled by two senior
emperors and two lieutenants or caesars.
Vexillation Vexillatio, originally merely a detachment but under the
late empire a cavalry squadron having a strength of about
500 men.
 Bibliography

/. Ancient Sources

Ambrose, Saint, Bishop of Milan. Letters. Trans, by Mary Melchior Beyenka. New York:
Fathers of the Church. Inc.. 1954.
Ammianus. Res Gestae. 3 Vols. Trans, by John Rolfe. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, revised ed. 1950-1952. Loeb Classical Library.
Bell, Harold et al. The Abinnaeus Archive. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.
Claudian. De Bello Gotico. Trans, by Maurice Platnauer. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1922. Loeb Classical Library'.
Corps de droit Civil Romain en Latin et en Française: Les douze Livres du Code de
l'empereur Justinien, de la seconde édition. Trans, by P. A. Tissot. Metz: Behmer,
1806-1807.
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. 5 vols. Berlin: Berolini, 1862-1931.
Jordanes. The Gothic History. Trans, by Charles Mierow, Princeton University Press, 1915.
Julian. The Works o f the Emperor Julian. Trans, by Wilmer Cave Wright, London:
Heinemann; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913.
Libanius. Discours. Tome I. Collection des Universités de France. Établi par Jean Martin
et Traduit par Paul Petit. Paris: Société d'édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1979.
---------. Discours. Tome II. Collection des Universités de France. Établi et Traduit par
Jean Martin. Paris: Société d'édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1988.
Notitia Dignitatum. Edited by Otto Seeck. Berlin: Berolini apud Weidmannos, 1876.
Orosius, Paulus. The Seven Books o f History Against the Pagans. Trans, by Roy J.
Deferrari. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1964.
Procopius. The Gothic War. Trans, by H. B. Dewing. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press; London: William Heinemann, 1914.
Sidonius. Letters. Trans, by W. B. Anderson. Cambridge: Harvard University Press;
London: William Heinemann, 1936. Loeb Classical Library.
Socrates. Historia Ecclesiastica. Trans, by A. C. Zenos. New York: The Christian
Literature Co., 1890.
So/omen. Historia Ecclesiastica. Trans, by Chester Hartranft. New York: The Christian
Literature Co., 1890.
Synesius of Cyrene. The Letters o/Synesius o f Cyrene. Trans, by Augustine Fitzgerald.
London: Oxford University Press, 1926.
Themistius. Die 34. Rede des Themistios. Übersetzt und kommentiert von Hugo Schneider.
Winterthur: P. G. Keller, 1966.
The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions. Trans, by Clyde Pharr.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.
Vegetius. The Military Institutions o f the Romans. Trans, by John Clark. 1767. Reprint,
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985.
Zosimus. Historia Nova. Trans, by James Buchanan and Harold Davis. San Antonio:
Trinity University Press, 1967.

II. Books

Alfoldy, Géza. Römische Heeresgeschichte Beitrage 1962-1985. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben,

1987.
Berchem, Denis Van. L'Armée de Dioclétien et la Réforme Constantinienne. Paris:
Imprimerie National; Librairie Orientaliste Paul Greuthmer, 1952.
Berenson, Bernard. The Arch o f Constantine or the Decline o f Form. London: Chapman
and Hall, 1954.
Bidez, Joseph. La vie de l'empereur Julien. Paris: Société d’édition “Les Belles Lettres,”
1930.
Bums, Thomas S. Barbarians within the Gates o f Rome: A Study o f Roman Military Policy
and the Barbarians ca. 375-425 A.D. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 1994.
Bury, J. B. The Invasion o f Europe by the Barbarians. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1967.
Campenhausen, Hans Freiherr von. Ambrosius von Mailand als Kirchenpolitiker. Berlin:
W. de Gruyter, 1929.
Couissin, Paul. Les armes romaines. Paris: H. Champion, 1926.
Creasy, Sir Edward. Fifteen Decisive Battles o f the World. New York: Co-operative
Publication Society, 1900.
Delbrück, Hans. Geschichte der Kriegskunst. Berlin: G. Stilke, 1909.
Demougeot, Emilienne. La formation de l'Europe et les invasions barbares: De
l'avenement de Dioclétien (284) à l'occupation germanique de l'empire romain de
l'Occident. 2 Vols. Paris: Aubier, 1979.
--------- . De l'Unité à la Division de l'Empire Romain 395-410. Paris: Adrien-
Maisonneuve, 1951.
Ferri 11, Arthur. The Fall o f the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation. New York and
London: Thames and Hudson, 1986.
Frank, Richard Ira. Scholae Palatinae : The Palace Guards o f the Later Roman Empire.
Rome: American Academy, 1969.
Fuller, J. F. C. The Decisive Battles: Their Influence upon History and Civilization. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940.
Gilliam, J. F. Roman Army Papers. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1986.
Grosse, Robert. Römische Militärgeschichte von Gallienus bis zum Beginn der
byzantinischen Themenverfassung. Berlin: Weidmann, 1920.
Güldenpenning, Albert, and J. Ifland. Der Kaiser Theodosius der Grosse: Ein Beitrag zur
römischen Kaisergeschichte. Halle: N. Niemayer, 1878.
Hatt, J. J. Histoire de la Gaul romaine, 120 avant J. C.-45I après J. C. Paris: Payot, 1966.
Heather, P. J. Goths and Romans 332-489. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
Hoffmann, Dietrich. Das spätrömische Bewegungsheer und die Notitia Dignitatum.
Düsseldorf: Rheinland-Verlag, 1969.
Homeyer, Helene. Attila, der Hunnenkönig von seinen Zeitgenossen dargestellt. Berlin: W.
de Gruyter, 1951.
Isaac, Benjamin. The Limits o f Empire: The Roman Army in the East. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1989.
Jones, A. H. M. The Later Roman Empire. 2 Vols. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1964.
Jullian, Camille. Histoire de la Gaul. Vols. 7 and 8. Paris: Hatchette, 1920; reprint
Brussels: Culture et civilization, 1964.
Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G. Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age o f
Arcadius and Chrysostom. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
Lippold, Adolf. Theodosius der Grosse und seine Zeit. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1968.
Longworth, Philip. The Art o f Victory: The Life and Achievements o f Generalissimo
Suvorov. London: Constable, 1965.
L’Orange, Hans Peter. Der spätantike Bildschmuck des Konstantinsbogens. Berlin: W. de
Gruyter, 1939.
Luttwak, Edward N. The Grande Strategy o f the Roman Empire: From the First Century
A D. to the Third. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
MacMullen, Ramsay. Corruption and the Decline o f Rome. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1988.
---------. Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1963.
Matthews, John. The Roman Empire o f Ammianus. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1989.
Mommsen, Theodor. Gesammelte Schriften. IV, VI. Berlin: Weidmann, 1905-1913.
O'Flynn, John Michael. Generalissimos o f the Western Roman Empire. Edmonton:
University of Alberta Press, 1983.
Romanus, Charles, and Riley Sunderland. StilwelTs Command Problems {Stillwell's
Mission to China, Department of Army, Washington, D.C.) Washington, D.C., 1956.
--------- . Time Runs Out in the CBI, ibid., 1959.
Rostovtzeff, Michael. The Social and Economic History o f the Roman Empire. 2 Vols.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957 ed.
Scales, Robert H. Certain Victory: The United States Army in the Gulf War. Washington,
D.C.: Office of the Chief of Staff United States Army, 1993.
Seeck, Otto. Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt. 6 Vols. Stuttgart: F.
Siemenroth & Troschel, 1897-1920.
Seston, William. Dioclétien et la Tétrarchie. Paris: E. de Boccard, 1946.
Sundwall, Johannes. Weströmische Studien. Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1915.
Thompson, E. A. A History o f Attila and the Huns. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948.

III. Articles and Special Studies

Alfoldi, André. "La Grande Crise du Monde Romaine au III Siècle," L'Antiquité Classique.
VII, 1938, 5-18.
Bachrach, Bernard S. "A Note on Alites," Byzantinische Zeitschrift. LXI, 1968, 35.
Bums, Thomas S. "The Battle of Adrianople: A Reconsideration," Historia·. Zeitschrift für
alle Geschichte. 23, 1973,336-345.
Demougeot, Emilienne. "Notes sur l'évacuation des troupes romaines en Alsace au début
du Ve siècle," Revue d'Alsace. 92, 1953, 8-27.
-------- . "La Notitia dignitatum et l'histoire de l'Empire d'Occidant au début du Ve siècle,"
Latomus. 34, 1975, 1079-1134.
Eadie, John W. "The Development of Roman Mailed Cavalry," The Journal o f Roman
Studies. 57, 1967, 161-173.
Grigg, Robert. "Portrait Bearing Codicils in the Illustrations of the Notitia Dignitatum," The
Journal o f Roman Studies. LXIX, 1979, 107-124.
-------- . "Inconsistency and Lassitude: The Shield Emblems of the Notitia Dignitatum ,"
The Journal o f Roman Studies. LXXIII, 1983, 132-142.
Kollwitz, Johannes. "Die Arcadiussäule," Bericht über den VII. Internationalen Kongress
für Archäologie Berlin 21.-26. August 1939. Archäologisches Institut des Deutschen
Reiches. Berlin, 1940, 594-596.
Moreau, J. "Zur spätrömischen Heeresreform," Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl Marx
Universität Leipzig, 3. Jahrgang 1953/54 Gesellschafts und Sprachwissen­
schaftliche Reihe. Heft 2/3. Herausgeber: Der Rektor der Karl Marx Universität
Leipzig, pp. 289-292.
Nesselhauf, Herbert. "Die spätrömische Verwaltung der gallisch-germanischen Länder,"
Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Jahrgang 1938.
Philosophisch-historische Klasse Nr. 2. Berlin, 1938, 105 pp.
Nischer, E. C. "The Army Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine and their Modifications
up to the Time of the Notitia Dignitatum," The Journal o f Roman Studies. XIII,
1923, 1-55.
Parker, Η. M. D. "The Legions of Diocletian and Constantine," The Journal o f Roman
Studies. 43, 1933, 175-188.
Seston, William. "Du Comitatus de Dioclétien aux Comitatenses de Constantin," Historia·.
Zeitschrift für alle Geschichte. 4, 1955,284-296.
Vârady, L. "New Evidences on Some Problems of Late Roman Military Organization," Acta
Antiqua Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae. 9, 1961, 333-395.
 Index

A ________________________ c ______________
Achilleus, rebel in Egypt 296-297 A.D., 5 Cataphract, 20, 69
Adrianople, battle 378 A.D., 25-26 Cavalry, 5-6, 10-11, 13-14, 16, 18-21,
Alamanni, 14-16, 20-22, 42, 49 25-27, 30, 32, 35, 37-38, 40-41,46, 49,
Alans, 28-29, 40, 42, 49 60nn. 20, 22, and 24, 63nn. 35 and 2.
Alarie, 29, 36-37, 40-45, 50, 53-54 See also cataphracts, clibonarii,
Ambrose, Bishop o f Milan. 32, 62nn. 18 vexillations
and 20, 63n. 33 Clibonarii, 20-21, 60nn. 21 and 24, 69
Amida, siege 359 A.D., 56n. 7, 57n. 2 Colom, 7, 12, 69
Arbogast, Roman general, 28, 32, 34-35. Comitatenses
37, 40, 42 soldiers of the field army. 10-11, 13-14,
Arcadius, emperor. 27, 34. 36-37, 40-42 41-42, 52, 64n. 4, 66n. 2, 69
Attalus, Priscus, 44 individual legions
Attila, 44, 49-50, 67η. 8 Decimani Fretenses, 56η. 7
Auxilium Tricensimani, 57η. 2
new type o f barbarian unit in Roman Minervii. 57η. 2
army. 11,38. 52, 57n. 13,69 Octavani, 11, 57η. 2
individual units Primani, 16, 58η. 5
Cornuti, 11 Divitenses, 18, 58η. 11
Invicti, 14 Solenses, 5, 18. 60η. 18
Salii, 14 Divitenses Gallicani, 18
Felices. 14 Prima Flavia Pacis, 60n. 18
Batavi, 55n 3. 59n 11 Fortenses, 60n. 18
Heruli, 59n 11 loviani, 5, 21
Celtae, 59n. 11 Secundani Italiciani, 11
Petulantes, 55n 3, 59n. 11 Undecimani, 11
Defensores. 60n. 18 Lanciarii, 5, 57n. 12
See also comitatenses, palatini, and Balistarii, 57n. 12
field army Tungricani, 58n. 11
Tungricani iuniores, 58n. 11
See also auxilium, comitatus and
B ------------------------------------- field army
Bacaudae. 27, 45, 47, 53, 69 Comitatus, 5-6, 9-10, 52, 56n. 8, 57n. 11,
Barritus, war song used in Roman army, 68n. 1,69
16, 69
Conscription. 7, 9, 12, 16, 19, 27
Bauto, Roman general, 28
Constans, emperor, 13
Constantine I, emperor, 2, 6-7, 9-11, 13,
16-17, 19, 52, 56n. 8. 57n. 11,
59nn. 13 and 17, 68n. 1
Constantine 11, emperor, 13
Constantine III, usurper, 45-47, 49
Constantius I (Chlorus), Caesar, 5
Constantius II, emperor, 10, 13, 17,
57n. 2, 58n. 3
Constantius III, emperor, 46-49, 66n. 1
Corruption, 1-2, 12, 23, 38, 53, 61n. 3,
62n. 23, 67n. 7
D ________________________
Diocletian, emperor, 2, 5-7, 9-12, 14, 26, 30
E ________________________
Eugenius, usurper, 32-35, 37, 40
F ________________________
Federates, allied barbarian soldiers, 2,
28- 29, 31-32, 34, 37-43, 47, 49-51,
53-54, 69
Field army, 2-3, 10, 12, 14, 16-20, 22-26,
29- 31, 34, 37-38, 40-43, 45-47, 49-51,
53-54. See also comitatenses
Franks, 14, 17, 47, 49
Frigidus River, battle, 394 A.D., 34
Fritigem, 26-28
G ________________________
Gainas, 40-41,45, 65η 11
Galerius, emperor, 5
Gallienus, emperor, 5-6, 10, 16, 52
Germans, 1-2, 6-7, 9, 11, 13-14, 16, 18-20,
24, 30-31, 37-38, 40, 47, 49-50, 52,
55η. 3, 57η. 13. See also Alamanni,
Franks, Ostrogoths, Suevians, Vandals,
Visigoths
Gildo, 4 0 ,47,66η . 2 1 ,67η. 3
Gratian, emperor, 22-26, 28-29, 50-51, 53,
64n. 7
Greuthungi, 23
H ___________________
Honestiores, 7, 70
Honorius, emperor, 34, 36, 41-42, 44-50,
53, 66nn. 25, l,a n d 2, 68n. 10
Humiliores, 7, 27, 70
Huns, 2 3 ,2 5 .3 1 ,3 7 , 40-41. See
also Attila
I ________________________
Juniores, military unit designation, 18,
57n. 11, 59n. 12, 70
J ------------------------------
Julian, emperor, 2, 9-10, 14, 16-22, 30, 38,
52, 58nn. 4, 6, and 8
L ________________________
Laeti, 1,6-7, 10, 23,40, 70
Licinius, emperor, 10-11
Limitanei
border soldiers, 10-11, 16, 18-19, 26,
30, 37, 40, 42, 46, 52, 70
individual legions,
X Fretensis, 56n. 7
I Minerva, 14, 57n. 2
XXX Ulpia, 14, 57n. 2
XXII Primigenia, 14
VIII Augusta, 14, 57n. 2
V Parthica, 30
II Armeniaca, 30
II Parthica, 30
Μ __________________________
Magnentius, usurper, 9, 10, 13-14
Magnus Maximus, usurper, 29, 31,42
Maxentius, emperor, 11
Maximian, emperor, 5-6
Modares, Roman general, 26, 30
Mursa, battle 351 A.D., 7,9-10, 13
N ________________________
Naissus, 18, 26
Ο ________________________
Ostrogoths, 2 3 ,2 8 ,3 1 ,4 5
P ________________________
Palatini, military unit designation, 19,
59n. 17, 70
Persia, 9-10, 13-14, 17-18, 20-21, 23, 26,
30-31
Pollentia, battle 402 A.D., 2, 41, 65η. 9 V ________________________________
Procopius, usurper, 23, 58n. 11 Valens, emperor, 18, 22-25, 53
Promotus, Roman general, 29-30 Valentinian I, emperor, 2, 17-24
P r o t e c t o r e s , 6, 16. Valentinian II, emperor, 29, 34
P r o t e c t o r e s d o m e s t i c i , 16-17, 31, 36, 41, 70 Valentinian III, emperor, 44, 49-50
P s e u d o c o m i t a t e n s e s , military unit Vandals, 42-44, 47
designation, 19, 26. 42, 46-47, Verona, battle 403 A.D., 2, 41
59η. 17, 65η. 17, 66ηη. 20 Vexillations, cavalry squadrons. 10-11,
and 2, 70 18-19, 21, 25-26. 30-32, 38-40. 46-47,
60n. 24, 71. S e e a l s o cavalry and
R ___________________ c o m ita te n se s
Visigoths. 22-23, 25-30, 37, 43-44, 46-47,
Radagaisus, 41-42
49, 54
Religion. 16-17,25.32-34
Richomer (Richomeres), Roman general.
23-24, 61n. 7

S ________________________
S c h o la e P a la tin a e ,
16, 35-36. 41, 71
Sebastianus, Roman general, 24
S e n i o r e s , military unit designation. 18,
57η. 11, 58η. 11, 59η. 12,62η. 22,
63η. 2, 71
Stilicho. Roman general. 2, 30-31,34-45,
63η. 2. 65η. 9, 66η. 21
Strasbourg (Argentorate), battle 357 A.D.,
16, 20, 53
Suevians. 42, 47

T ___________________
Theodosius I. emperor, 2. 25-37
Thervingi. 23, 26

U ----------------------------
Uldes. Hun king, 41
Richard S. Cromwell began his researc
because he was never satisfied with ea
lier explanations o f the breakdown o f Û
Roman Army at the end of the fourth cei
tury. Dr. Cromwell received his doctora
from Stanford University, has publishe
articles and a book on aspects o f Europea
military and cultural history, and has stu(
ied in Europe as well as in the Unite
States. He has received many awards an
honors both during and after his tenure ;
Jackson ville U niversity, Jacksonvilli
Florida.

O k R elated Interest
INVASION BALKANS!
The G erm an C am paign in the B alkan
Spring 1941
G e o r g e E. B l a u
W ith a new F oreword by John E. Jessui
In a later millennium another German an
invades ancient countries, taking advi
tage o f local divisions and decay. But ti
time, the Yugoslavia o f Serbia, Croat
Bosnia, along with Greece, fights ba
without a central em p:re to concern the
ISBN l-57?imnn g *19.
With chain o f command charts drawn especially
for this book and a useful glossary of late Roman
Army military terms, this book presents material
for those interested inthe initia
disintegration o f the late Roman army.

After an exhaustive search of the relevant published ma­

terials, Professor Cromwell has produced a highly read­
able text on the Roman field army. This is a remarkable
work of historical detection devoted to answering such
questions as who was responsible for the division of the
Roman army into a dynamic field force and a static corps
of border guards (a question first raised by Theodor
Mommsen), how and why the Roman citizenry was alien­
ated from the military and the military estranged from the
citizenry, and what was the role of the Germans in the
army. All classicists as well as those interested in civil/
military relations will find this book a necessary addition
to their libraries.
Norman Itzkowitz, Professor, Princeton University