Goths: Moving Whole Populations

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Aue!

I have done some rough numbers about the move of the Tervingi to the Danube, and then when marching towards Martianopolis, which I am about to tell in my Historical Fiction novel about Alaric, tentatively titled The Goth.

Please, excuse the shameless plug, but I'd also like to have some discussion over my blog, if you are kind enough:

de praeterito tempore

Now I'll provide the complete text, for your convenience.

Thanks a lot for your help!

uale!

PS- the blog entry:

2006-04-10
Numbers that Astonish
It really is astonishing, but, sometimes, you must do the Math just to start believing it...

Tervingi. About 100,000 children, women and men, plus mules, oxen, etc. led by chiefs/kings Alavivus and Fritigern.

They walked to the Danube, then they walked to Marcianopolis before starting to walk around Dacia and Tracia for a while. A Roman road allowed a two oxen cart to move comfortably (depending on the road, some were wider than others). The same way would allow for 4 people to walk tighly packed in formation, so let's say some 3 people moving with some equipment around in a loosely civilian formation, with about 1 meter of separation in between. The same road would allow for two horses (and mounted knights or walking by their side) and maybe 3 mules, although I'll use two as an average because people would put different weight on the animals, depending on their belongings, and therefore they wouldn't walk in a tidy formation. As for a two oxen cart, I'd say it would be some 6 meters in length, counting the animals.

Let's make the numbers, then, to some reasonable estimates:

* 100,000 people, where some 10,000 would be warriors.
* 90,000 men, 3 men-row(meter) ~ 30,000 meters
* 10,000 warriors => 9,000 infantry in 4 men-per-row ~ 2,250 meters
* 100,000 people, 10 people-per-family ~ 10,000 families, and about 1 cart per 4 families:

o 2,500 carts, 7 meters per cart ~ 17,500 meters;
o and about 5 mules every 4 families (at least 1 per family) => 40,000 mules, 2 per row, ~ 25,500 meters more.


And about 1,000 cavalry, which we can put on the sides of the train for protection of some kind, but which by itself would take some 2,000 meters.

Putting this all together, we have: 30 + 2.25 + 17.5 + 25.5 = 75.25 km (~ 46.75 miles)

A possible distribution of this would be:

* 1,000 men as scouts
* 9,000 civilian
* 4,000 mules
* 250 carts

totaling: 7.5 km

and approximately 10 times, to allow for adecuate defense to each clan or family (after all this is not an army on the march!).

Now add to this some extra "tributaries", like some Alans, Baltics and other Germanic tribes that could have moved alongside the bulk of Tervingi population. That could reasily reach some 100 km.

And, to make things funnier, add a similar size for the migrating Greutungi plus Alans, led by Safrax and Alateus.

At the time of the battle of Hadrianopolis, when all the Goths were united (all Tervingi, Greutungi (plus associated German tribes) and Alans), the numbers were well over 200,000 men, and the migration train, moving through Roman territory, using Roman roads, would be somewhere around 200 or 250 km long (say 140 miles long).

I'll save you the logistics nightmare that must have been!

(now, do you understand why I am writing this novel? :-) )

Kallisti!

[L.Valerius Gaudentius]

Aue!

I have done some rough numbers about the move of the Tervingi to the Danube, and then when marching towards Martianopolis, which I am about to tell in my Historical Fiction novel about Alaric, tentatively titled The Goth.

Please, excuse the shameless plug, but I'd also like to have some discussion over my blog, if you are kind enough:

de praeterito tempore

Now I'll provide the complete text, for your convenience.

Thanks a lot for your help!

uale!

PS- the blog entry:

2006-04-10
Numbers that Astonish
It really is astonishing, but, sometimes, you must do the Math just to start believing it...

Tervingi. About 100,000 children, women and men, plus mules, oxen, etc. led by chiefs/kings Alavivus and Fritigern.

They walked to the Danube, then they walked to Marcianopolis before starting to walk around Dacia and Tracia for a while. A Roman road allowed a two oxen cart to move comfortably (depending on the road, some were wider than others). The same way would allow for 4 people to walk tighly packed in formation, so let's say some 3 people moving with some equipment around in a loosely civilian formation, with about 1 meter of separation in between. The same road would allow for two horses (and mounted knights or walking by their side) and maybe 3 mules, although I'll use two as an average because people would put different weight on the animals, depending on their belongings, and therefore they wouldn't walk in a tidy formation. As for a two oxen cart, I'd say it would be some 6 meters in length, counting the animals.

Let's make the numbers, then, to some reasonable estimates:

* 100,000 people, where some 10,000 would be warriors.
* 90,000 men, 3 men-row(meter) ~ 30,000 meters
* 10,000 warriors => 9,000 infantry in 4 men-per-row ~ 2,250 meters
* 100,000 people, 10 people-per-family ~ 10,000 families, and about 1 cart per 4 families:

o 2,500 carts, 7 meters per cart ~ 17,500 meters;
o and about 5 mules every 4 families (at least 1 per family) => 40,000 mules, 2 per row, ~ 25,500 meters more.


And about 1,000 cavalry, which we can put on the sides of the train for protection of some kind, but which by itself would take some 2,000 meters.

Putting this all together, we have: 30 + 2.25 + 17.5 + 25.5 = 75.25 km (~ 46.75 miles)

A possible distribution of this would be:

* 1,000 men as scouts
* 9,000 civilian
* 4,000 mules
* 250 carts

totaling: 7.5 km

and approximately 10 times, to allow for adecuate defense to each clan or family (after all this is not an army on the march!).

Now add to this some extra "tributaries", like some Alans, Baltics and other Germanic tribes that could have moved alongside the bulk of Tervingi population. That could reasily reach some 100 km.

And, to make things funnier, add a similar size for the migrating Greutungi plus Alans, led by Safrax and Alateus.

At the time of the battle of Hadrianopolis, when all the Goths were united (all Tervingi, Greutungi (plus associated German tribes) and Alans), the numbers were well over 200,000 men, and the migration train, moving through Roman territory, using Roman roads, would be somewhere around 200 or 250 km long (say 140 miles long).

I'll save you the logistics nightmare that must have been!

(now, do you understand why I am writing this novel? :-) )

Kallisti!

I will pay for see that.

David, the link is wrong is this: http://praeter.blogspot.com/

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

I will pay for see that.

David, the link is wrong is this: http://praeter.blogspot.com/

Heh... :-) )

Thanks for the link typo, I have corrected it now...

aue atque uale!

[Robert Vermaat]

Tervingi. About 100,000 children, women and men, plus mules, oxen, etc. led by chiefs/kings Alavivus and Fritigern.

Where do you get those numbers?
Blockley once numbers of 200.000 all told, but most scholars today think such number manifestly absurd. Burns, Delbrück, Grabriel&Boose, Nicasie settle near a figure of 75.000 for all the confederacy, including warriors, women&children, elderly and slaves.
If it took the Romans several days to ferry this number across it would have been some task: if the number would have been much higher it would have taken weeks! :!:

[Thiudareiks Flavius]

. Burns, Delbrück, Grabriel&Boose, Nicasie settle near a figure of 75.000 for all the confederacy, including wariors

I totally agree with Robert. It's most likely Fritgern had 20-25,000 warriors at Adrianople. This is including the allied Greuthungian, Taifalian, Sarmatian and Hunnic cavalry under Altheus and Saphrax. Given that Fritigern's Tervingian Goths had their backs to the wall and his force would have included all able-bodied men, this gives approximately 75-100,000 Goths overall, with the lower number being more likely.

That fits with the fact that many Goths stayed north of the frontier with Athanaric, the numbers Thrace could sustain and the troop numbers that faced Valens. Even this number was a massive strain on the Eastern Empire's resources, so any higher figure is getting towards fantasy.

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

To be honest, I don't know where I got those numbers...

I've checked all my books, but none has ventured a number so far... Maybe I did got it using the 10% warriors rule and the numbers from the battle of Hadrianopolis, or maybe some website... (BTW, is the "about 10% of population can be warriors" rule good enough? Should I use 15%? Help appreciated...

Even lowering the numbers a 25%, those are pretty awesome anyway...

Would you agree (or say) that, with those numbers (normalized to the 75%) the proportions of men, women, children, slaves to horses, cattle, mules, oxen and carts is correct?

I am not interested in the numbers in themselves (at least not for my novel, although they do seem pretty impressive) but in getting the overall feeling of how this would have worked out...

the next step, once this gets settled out, is to get them to move, day to day, but that will wait for next week... :-) )

Lastly, if 75,000 were the Tervingi crossing the Danube, how many (in total) were marching from Martianopolis to Hadrianopolis? I count in here Tervingi, Greutungi, Alans, Huns, Sarmatians, Taifali, and probably other Germanic and Baltic tribes, although in small numbers...

Thanks for the help and references!
uale!

[Robert Vermaat]

Would you agree (or say) that, with those numbers (normalized to the 75%) the proportions of men, women, children, slaves to horses, cattle, mules, oxen and carts is correct?

75%? No, 75.000, instead of 200.000.
I'd say that number could be correct for the whole lot of them, not just the Tervingi, not just the warriors.

[Atrectus]

David, thanks for bringing that up here. I wanted to ask you on your blog how you got those numbers but then forgot. Because I also use the appr. 75.000 for my Visigoth novel.

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Aue tote

thanks for your help, I haven't been able to contribute because I was AFK for holidays, but I have been thinking about what you've told me, and now that I'm back, I'm letting you see my thoughts.

According to http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/9 ... aborig.htm about Canadian aboriginal populations, I systematically get a 20% warrior-to-totals population ratio.

I have also used the http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbpyr.html IDB Census Pyramids for African and American countries with "young" populations (the same way I would expect the Tervingi to be)...

Taking a rough average of several countries of all the males between ages 15 and 55, I get a 43.5% of all male population. Considering a 0.5 male-to-female ratio (war and hunt deceases "compensate" for birthing deaths and so...), that means about 21.75% of warriors, and we are talking about most fighting-able males in the tribe.

Now, I have some problems relating a "healthy" population for this migration: some elders and weaklings were left behind, and I expect only the Tervingi would show some "normalized" population curves (considering they "decided" to march), while the Greutungi, Alans and later Hunnic additions would show displaced population curves because of so many casualties for war fights. My trouble in here is to decided which percentages would they have (would nomad warriors be mostly warriors, or would they show a more normalized profile? Would the Huns hordes move to help the Goths with their wives and sons (two or three wives per Hunnic warrior)?)

Anyway, if we have to take statistically found "extremes" 21.75%, taking the numbers Thiudareiks Flavius gave above, we have:

W = total number of warriors in Battle of Hadrianopolis

T(W) = total number of population

W T
20,000 91,954.0
21,000 96,551.7
22,000 101,149.4
23,000 105,747.1
24,000 110,344.8
25,000 114,942.5

These are the numbers I get... Using the 20% for the Tervingi, and considering that about half the warriors were from the Tervingi Gutthiuda (i.e. maily Tervingi but also some Taifali, Balti and Sarmatians, and some other smaller German tribes?) I get something between 50,000 and 62,500 Tervingi, and 42,000 and 52,000 others...

Suming up:

W T Tervingi Greutungi et al. (note: ',' is the decimal separator)
20000 91954 50000 41954
21000 96551,7 52500 44051,7
22000 101149,4 55000 46149,4
23000 105747,1 57500 48247,1
24000 110344,8 60000 50344,8
25000 114942,5 62500 52442,5

where the new arrivals apported an extra-powered-up 23.84% of their populations as warriors (I have taken into account the towards the warrying side of the new arrivals, but then I may be wrong)...

Briefly summing this up: the total number of Goths in Hadrianopolis was btween 92,000 and 115,000, with 20,000 to 25,000 total soldiers, of which about half were those of Alaviv and Fritigern Tervingi, and the other half were Alatheus and Saphrax Greutungi, Alans, Taifali and Huns.

Any comments to this numbers?

thanks and uale!

[Robert Vermaat]

Comments

One: if you count the Alans and Huns as part of the warriors, you must exclude them for the 20% warriors-rule. They were not part of the tribal movement but most likely allies, only consisting of warriors.

Two: upon entering the Empire, many slaves but also children, were sold to the Romans for food. That means the number of Gothic warriors will have been higher than the 20% you're using.

Both mean a lower number of civilians.

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Robert, thanks for pointing that out.

Yes, I guessed the Huns would just be the warriors and maybe their slaves. If the Alans were also just warriors, then the group of Alatheus and Saphrax would have a higher ratio of warrior-to-civilians... I didn't thought about the selling of slaves and children to the Romans after the crossing of the river, though, good point.

Before crossing the Danube, the Tervingi would have a ratio close to 20% (the deaths of warriors against the Huns would be compensated by the death of the elders and some children due to Winter suffering in the Carpatos).

Let's, for the sake of simplicity, deal with the lowest estimations (some 20,000 Gothic warriors at the Battle of Hadrianopolis, half of whom were Tervingi).

This roughly means some 50,000 Tervingi.

We know many of the elders and weaklings were left behind. They account for some 3% of the population, let's suppose half of them were left behind, so we have some 49,000 Tervingi. Call this number T.

Now, let's try to get an account of what's going on: the roughly 20% of warriors would be among the free men, but let's simplify including all able men, including slaves.

In 'young' populations, age pyramids show that about half the population is under the 15 years old age, so we get as many children as adults.

A familiar core would be comprised, in average, of mother, father, some 4 or 5 sons, one grandparent and a slave or two, although this would vary wildly depending on the economic and social status (the higher the status, the more slaves and the lesser children, in order to avoid heavy fighting for the power).

In average, anyway, we have a familiar core of some 10.5 members. This means that the Tervingi was formed of some 4,666 family cores. Call this number F.

Now, once on the other side of the river, they started to get too hungry and started to sell slaves and sons to keep the rest fed and alive. How many sons per family would have been sold? We can only speculate.

The richer families would have had gold and slaves to avoid selling their younglings, or probably one of the younger girls, while the poorer families would have sold families up to all their sons except the first one (maybe two if the first one was a female, but undoubtly)... It also depends on how much food they got from the sellings, and how long would it have served to feed the rest of the family.

Anyway, we know it was bad enough for people to be at unrest but not as bad as to force them to rebel right away, so I'd say that an average of one to two sons per family would be a realistic number (let's say 1.5).

That means the total population now is close to T - 1.5F ~ 42,000 of which 10,000 are warriors (per the 20% rule before starting to lose civilians).

Now, if the 42,000 Tervingi were able to provide some 10,000 warriors to Hadrianopolis, led by Fritigern, then the rest of the 10,000 were provided by the fleeing Greutungi led by Alatheus and Saphrax, and their Alan and Hun allies.

Let's say that the number of allies wasn't greater than the number of warriors the Greutungi were able to muster, in case of a mutiny. That would put the maximum number of Alans and Huns at 5,000.

Now, in this case, we know that the Greutungi had suffered heavy losses against other Hunnic and Alannic tribes the previous two years. And we know that most if not all of the Greutungi were forced to abandon their lands, so we must expect a big number of population. The Tervingi only decided to leave Athanaric, but we know he kept many retainers on the Carpatos, although we can only especulate. They were enough to allow them to survive against the smaller Hunnic bands, but not so many as to allow them a huge victory. Considering 3,000 would be a big army, I'd say a maximum of 2,000 (about 4 comitives) which would throw some 10,000 more Tervingi, or roughly the 16% of the total Tervingi population (and we aren't taking into account the losses of several skirmishes against the Huns because we are told that Athanaric was pretty good in retreating without heavy losses).

So we have that the total Greutungi population, if of somewhat similar size to the Tervingi, would be some 60,000 people, of which some 12,000 would, originally, been warriors. Heavy losses were to be expected when an army lost some battles, but considering they managed to be fighting for some years, that would mean that either they had the ability to replenish their ranks faster than others, or that they were able to keep their losses relatively low.

Now, the final number should be about 5,000 or bigger, or they would be at the mercy of their allies if they decided to defect them. Let's say the Greutungi suffered heavy losses, about half their warriors.

That would mean the total Greuthungi population would be of 54,000 people, of which 6,000 were warriors. And so we have about 4,000 for the Alans and Huns. Now, before jumping on conclusions, we will take half the civilian population from the Greuthungi, who fell under Hunnic power precisely because they had been let without warriors (simple, I know, but it's a rough estimation).

So, we get 24,000 civilians and 6,000 warriors, about 30,000 Greuthungi.

Summing all this up we have, for the aftermath of the rebellion at Martianopolis, when the Tervingi and the Greuthungi united, but before the battle of Ad Salices in 377:

* 42,000 Tervingi, with 10,000 able warriors.
* 30,000 Greuthungi, with 6,000 able warriors.

Later, about 4,000 Alans and Huns joined in as well. And later on, Athanaric's Goths crossed the Danube and joined the Goths in Illiricum, when they signed the foedus with Theodoric. The proportion of populations are 14 Tervingi to 10 Greuthungi, almost 3 to 2, which would justify the leadership of Tervingi over the whole population later on (first Fritigern, then Athanaric, then who-knows until Alaric is raised reiks and judge in 395 (specially since the kings were elected by the warriors).

All this is, as you can see, highly especulative, however I think it seems reasonable. I have supposed that, as the Goths didn't have siege experience, they weren't able to recover their sons or slaves from their Roman buyers.

So, approaching the Battle of Hadrianopolis, we have a grand totale of 76,000 people, of which 20,000 were soldiers, and about 55,000 were women and children of both sexes.

Now, do these numbers make more sense? I hope that the process I have followed is, if a bit especulative, at least plausible enough, considering the lack of data we have.

The main points are: Tervingi and Greuthungi populations were of similar size before the arrival of the Huns, the Tervingi suffered heavy civilian losses after crossing the Danube, while the Greuthungi suffered heavy military losses before crossing it, and only about half of them managed to escape the Huns.

If we follow this process for the 25,000 highest number of warriors, we would roughly get the following numbers:

* 53,000 Tervingi, with 13,000 warriors
* 36,000 Greuthungi, with 7,000 warriors
* 6,000 Alans and Huns

And a total of 95,000 people, of which 25,000 would be warriors.

Best regards!

[Robert Vermaat]

Yes, makes far more sense. I agree with you it's highly speculative, but it's a better guess than those hundreds of thousands or even millions...

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Cool,

thanks for all the help, this will make it far easier to write on the novel (and I am getting there, so I'll add 'just in time')... :-) )

Now if I am able to do a similar plausability analysis for cattle, carts and other animals to be transported, I'll have a viable model to move Goths around half Europe... :-) )

I am, obviously, strongly influenced by Gary Brueggeman's work on the Roman legion, at http://garyb.0catch.com/march1/march_intro.html . I find that discussion intellectually stimulant and highly interesting, as it helps to visualize the complex logistics involved in a campaign.

Same, in my case, for the Goths...

thanks and laters!

[Felix]

A great deal of thought has been put into numbers of people.

If I may be so bold, some background about where and when to move people may be useful. If you don't already know about it, I would like to strongly recommend Donald Engel's Alexander the Great and the Logisitics of the Macedonian Army. This work delves into the mechanics of pre-industrial supply, and is brilliantly written. He goes into how much food, water, and fodder are needed, how fast and far you can move an army between food and water sources, what time of year you can move most easily, and scads of details useful to a migrating people (who do not wish to starve in the process).

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Felix,

thanks for the suggestion!

In this case, however, I have many of the "variables" fixed, and, sadly (or not, who knows?) many Goths did starve when the Roman comes kept them just right where they crossed, or after the rebellion broke and Lupicinus was defeated, because most limes towns were able to resist a Gothic assault...

Anyway, it's a cool book to have... thanks!

uale!