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Authors: Michael Grant
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
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the provincial populations.
The rhetorician Libanius of Antioch (Antakya), a contemporary of Constantine, has shown why. He tells of tattered soldiers hanging round wine shops far behind the front line, and spending their time in debauchery at the expense of the local peasants.
Ammianus paints an equally gloomy picture. Before he turned to the writing of history, he had been an officer himself, and when he stresses the vicious savagery and treacherous fickleness of the troops he must to some extent be telling of what he knew. What the soldiers really enjoyed, said the sixth-century Bishop Ennodius of Ticinum (Pavia), was bullying a local farmer. Camp duties they declared to be a bore. And they complained that their .superiors were impossibly oppressive. If there was any move to transfer them from places they had grown to like, they became insubordinate at once. They were, it was said, more like a foreign occupation force than an army of Roman citizens. As a result, they were greatly hated and feared. In North Africa, for example, Augustine criticized the governor's personal bodyguard for the outrageous way in which it behaved. And the congregation of his church disliked the army so much that they lynched its local commander. 'The principal cities on the frontiers', wrote Gibbon, 'were filled with soldiers who considered their countrymen as their most implacable enemies.'
Is this picture exaggerated? Perhaps to some slight extent, since it is largely taken from writers who, because of political and social biases of their own, tend to single out the worst incidents they can find. Nevertheless, all these reports, combined with the glum phrases in Imperial laws, indicate unmistakably that something was wrong with the army.
The military expert Vegetius declared that the solution was a reversion to ancient discipline. There are always conservatives who say that. However, it was impossible just to put the clock back so simply. Valentinian i did what he could, for he set out to be a ruthless disciplinarian. But he did not venture to carry the process to its logical conclusion. For although he was so strict to the soldiers, he felt he had to be lenient with the officers, in order to make sure that they stayed loyal.
The Roman officer corps still contained many good men. But it also frequently fell below the splendid traditions of its past. The troops of the frontier garrisons, particularly, were at the mercy of their officers, who exploited them shamelessly by grabbing the payments in cash and in kind that they ought to have passed on to them, while offering lax discipline as a compensation. There were also stories of officers deliberately allowing units to fall below strength, so that they could pocket the remunerations of non-existent men.
A Greek at the court of Attila told Priscus of Panium (Barbaras) in Thrace, an envoy of the Eastern Empire, how low his personal opinion of the Roman officers was. And Attila's description of war against the Western Empire as 'more bitter' than war against the East was a good deal less of a compliment to the might of the West than it sounded, because he did not mean that he found its soldiers formidable: what he meant was that he appreciated the warlike qualities of the Goths, who by now formed such an important part of the Western army.
For that was why the Emperors were glad to commute the military obligations of Roman provincials for gold: they could buy German recruits to fill their places. This recruitment, in itself, was nothing new. In the earlier days of the Empire, the auxiliary units had already included many Germans, mainly serving under Roman officers. Then, early in the fourth century, Constantine greatly increased the enrolment of such men, mostly recruited under contract on an individual basis, and officered by Romans. In the light of this development, Porphyrius, who wrote a bad poem in praise of Constantine, could justifiably declare to him: 'Your Rhine furnishes you with
The rhetorician Libanius of Antioch (Antakya), a contemporary of Constantine, has shown why. He tells of tattered soldiers hanging round wine shops far behind the front line, and spending their time in debauchery at the expense of the local peasants.
Ammianus paints an equally gloomy picture. Before he turned to the writing of history, he had been an officer himself, and when he stresses the vicious savagery and treacherous fickleness of the troops he must to some extent be telling of what he knew. What the soldiers really enjoyed, said the sixth-century Bishop Ennodius of Ticinum (Pavia), was bullying a local farmer. Camp duties they declared to be a bore. And they complained that their .superiors were impossibly oppressive. If there was any move to transfer them from places they had grown to like, they became insubordinate at once. They were, it was said, more like a foreign occupation force than an army of Roman citizens. As a result, they were greatly hated and feared. In North Africa, for example, Augustine criticized the governor's personal bodyguard for the outrageous way in which it behaved. And the congregation of his church disliked the army so much that they lynched its local commander. 'The principal cities on the frontiers', wrote Gibbon, 'were filled with soldiers who considered their countrymen as their most implacable enemies.'
Is this picture exaggerated? Perhaps to some slight extent, since it is largely taken from writers who, because of political and social biases of their own, tend to single out the worst incidents they can find. Nevertheless, all these reports, combined with the glum phrases in Imperial laws, indicate unmistakably that something was wrong with the army.
The military expert Vegetius declared that the solution was a reversion to ancient discipline. There are always conservatives who say that. However, it was impossible just to put the clock back so simply. Valentinian i did what he could, for he set out to be a ruthless disciplinarian. But he did not venture to carry the process to its logical conclusion. For although he was so strict to the soldiers, he felt he had to be lenient with the officers, in order to make sure that they stayed loyal.
The Roman officer corps still contained many good men. But it also frequently fell below the splendid traditions of its past. The troops of the frontier garrisons, particularly, were at the mercy of their officers, who exploited them shamelessly by grabbing the payments in cash and in kind that they ought to have passed on to them, while offering lax discipline as a compensation. There were also stories of officers deliberately allowing units to fall below strength, so that they could pocket the remunerations of non-existent men.
A Greek at the court of Attila told Priscus of Panium (Barbaras) in Thrace, an envoy of the Eastern Empire, how low his personal opinion of the Roman officers was. And Attila's description of war against the Western Empire as 'more bitter' than war against the East was a good deal less of a compliment to the might of the West than it sounded, because he did not mean that he found its soldiers formidable: what he meant was that he appreciated the warlike qualities of the Goths, who by now formed such an important part of the Western army.
For that was why the Emperors were glad to commute the military obligations of Roman provincials for gold: they could buy German recruits to fill their places. This recruitment, in itself, was nothing new. In the earlier days of the Empire, the auxiliary units had already included many Germans, mainly serving under Roman officers. Then, early in the fourth century, Constantine greatly increased the enrolment of such men, mostly recruited under contract on an individual basis, and officered by Romans. In the light of this development, Porphyrius, who wrote a bad poem in praise of Constantine, could justifiably declare to him: 'Your Rhine furnishes you with
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