The Whole North Into Gaul

[Justin Swanton]

Jordanes can't be taken at face value though. It is well known the Alans were Aetius' most reliable allies. They defected to the Romans at Bazas in 414, and had served faithfully as the cavalry arm of the Gallic army for decades by the time of Chalons. Bachrach in his "History of the Alans in the West" explicitly notes Jordanes is extremely biased against the Alans. Tackholm mentions this severe bias too, and so does the more recent Ian Hughes and Hyun Jin Kim.

I'm gonna post some images for my current thoughts of how the battle went. I have to draw up a map of the Les Maures ridge first though.

Thank you for your comments though.

My own feeling is that if one starts discounting important sections of Jordanes' account - and he is our principal source on Chalons - then we are left with very little we can say with certitude about the battle other than that it took place. Doubt has been cast on other aspects of his narrative: Attila's speech, the presence of trained Roman infantry (the 'testudos'), etc. My own approach is to accept at face value what the primary sources affirm unless they are provably wrong or self-contradictory - but please feel free to ignore what I say!

Alans could have been reliable allies before deciding that they were backing the losing side. It was Attila they were facing after all. The Franks served the Gallo-Romans faithfully for decades until they turned against them in 486. Jordanes may not have liked the Alans, but would that dislike have enabled him to make up something as important as the fact that Aetius surrounded them with faithful troops at the deployment?

The list of authorities is impressive, but what evidence do they offer that the Alans were in fact reliable at the time of Chalons?

Having said all that, I am impressed by the erudition of your article.