Barbarization?

[Robert Vermaat]

Although it's also clear that these landowners were very loath to surrender their men, and in many cases it might have been easier to rely on settled barbarian laeti or even more recent arrivals.

Reecruitment was not easy, given all we hear about amputated thumbs et al, but I doubt that the 'problems' were the norm. Hiring barbarian mercenaries was much easier, but they were clearly temp souldiers, and they were sent home after the campaign.

If indeed most soldiers of the army are supposed to be non-Roman volunteers (and you'd need a 'Völkerwanderung' of these migrating into the Empire each year for the numbers alone), how on earth do we get the problem that Alaric and his troops were still outside of the regular army - a status he wanted changed as one of the main points leading to his invasion of Italy? If all the Roman soldiers were Goths, why would Alaric and his men not simply have joined the ranks of their brethren and served as Roman soldiers at full pay?

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It seems to me that the purges, or anti-Gothic pogroms in AD408, were principally directed at the families of foederati billeted in the cities of northern Italy. It isn't clear who was carrying out the massacres - it could just as easily have been the citizens of the towns in question as soldiers. We have seen all too often how readily people can turn on 'unwelcome foreigners' in their midst...

But even if the troops were largely of barbarian/Gothic origin, that doesn't mean that they were naturally allied to other groups of Goths, foederati or otherwise, or had some Gothic 'national' affinity. The British in India commonly used Indian troops to fight Indian rebels, after all, and had few problems. Presumably, once a man joined the Roman army he became a Roman soldier and his loyalty was to the emperor, his unit, and (increasingly, maybe) his commanding officer.

However, I was interested in the idea that Bileta seems to suggest in his paper, and which I've heard elsewhere recently, that there was perhaps a kind of hybridised Romano-Gothic culture developing throughout the Roman army after about AD380, that blurred the boundaries between Roman and barbarian and made the 'fall of the empire' rather more of a fade from one type of control or loyalty to another. Interesting, if perhaps impossible to prove in any way!

The purges, as far as we know, were hardly directed at persons but against all the troops supporting Stilicho. I can't tell from the sources if those troops were all non-Roman, or all wore red ribbons.. how did they tell one family from another? Or were they all belonging to one group, billeted on one town? the survivors joined Alaric in large numbers - I can't see other non-Roman troops remaining in the Roman army being very at ease there. Yet later we hear of more Gothic troops (Sarus), enemies of Alaric, fighting Constantine III.
I really don't know. yet my feeling when reading this is that the purge was directed at non-Roman troops, and not a certain bband of Goths?

About that hybrid culture, how can we tell? I've read some about hybrid cultures among the civilians (Franks, Saxons, Thracians, Bavarians) which apparently show a new population where inavders mixed with the indeginous provincials to create new groups. But that's usuall later 5th c. and as far as I know unrelated to a hybrid military culture - how would one make that visible anyway?

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About the apparent 'abandoning of the Rhine’, I am more in favor of Evan’s argument than that of Nathan and Marco.

Yes, on the one hand we have Claudian about the troops along the Rhenus being pulled off for the defense of Italy. And indeed, we have an invasion of barbarians shortly later, and a difficult situation in Gaul for years to come.

However, there are a number of arguments against this.
Claudian mentions the legions being moved, but not Stilicho’s opponents? Claudian also mentions such removals before’; the removal of ’the legion that reads the tattoos from dead Picts’ from Britain in my opinion rather shows a point of describing an active defense policy rather than a terse defense of what was considered a disaster.

There were problems in Gaul in 406, yes, but utter chaos? No. The British diocese shows 3 rebellions in rapid succession, no doubt aimed at the crisis in Gaul, but despite Constantine III leaving with a number of troops – and no doubt gathering more in Gaul – Britain is not left defenseless (despite the moans of later authors), nor does is fall for invaders within decades to come.

Nor does Gaul for that matter. Despite authors claiming all the diocese being in flames and ruin this is clearly not the situation. The invaders move on, fairly quickly to the south and into Spain. Why? Clearly there were enough forces present in the border regions of Gaul to threaten them. Constantine III and/or the troops present in NE Gaul clearly number enough to make plundering all the cities of Gaul unattractive for the invaders (how different from the Alamannic invasions of the 350s). And even the defeat of Constantine III in 411 does not change that.

So what was the defense of Britain, Gaul and the Upper Danube about in the period 400-450?
A number of sources indicates that the military were weak, but present. Severinus indeed shows that by the 450s, despite about 2 generations removed from the ‘chaos of 406’, there was a border force accustomed to being paid (ir)regularly, and only taking action when that stopped. Britain, despite being outside of the Empire to all extent and purposes, does not fall into chaos until c. 440. Neither does Gaul, which is rather untouched by the invasions of 406 but suffers from Frankish expansions only later, and still it does not fall – clearly it was not undefended.

I would say that, although it is very hard for us to see them, Roman forces are still present in the provinces and indeed also in Gaul. Procopius wrote about them, possibly Frankish or Alamannic troops mixed with their Roman ancestors and still carrying on the traditions of the military – fable or real?