Where was the Roman Army in AD408?

[Robert Vermaat]

One idea, I suppose, might be that the troops from Dalmatia were considered to be the 'flower of the army' precisely because, unlike the field army in Italy, they had not received large numbers of barbarian recruits (together with conscripted slaves etc) during the Gothic wars of the earlier 400s. Is that at all likely?

Considering that the Roman state had no problems with hiring non-Roman soldiers - I don't like the term 'barabarians' because of the negative connotation or 'Germanics' because there were also Huns or Persians involved - in such high numbers and on so many occasions that I'm considering that our modern distincions between 'citizens' and 'non-citizens' would be similar to the military use of the old-style 'auxilia'. I think we have been influenced by so many discussions about 'barbarians in the army being one of the causes of the Fall or Rome' that this might blind us to the fact that it did not play a part in how the Romans manned their units.

Apart from the fact that we can't really determine (with Elton here) to whaich extent the standing army was manned by non-Romans, we know that on occasions up to hundreds of thousands were recruited on a temporary base (Constantine vs. Licinius). With non-Roman officers rising through the ranks into the highest positions I doubt that the Romans saw them as basically different. As to the 'barbarization' of the army (meaning to me a change of outlook rather than the manning of the units), I think that this was a process that had been ongoing for such a long time that it may not even have been noticeable. A Goth serving in the comitatenses would indeed not look any different from a Gaul serving alongside him.

I'd love to know how effective citizen recruitment was between say 300 and 350, but I have a gut feeling that the western armies were increasingly suffering from severe manpower shortages, while military crisis management would demand instantly available troops, forcing those in command to send a man with a bag of gold to recruit the nescessary numbers. When Theodosius stole transferred the best units of the Army of the West to the East after the defeat of Magnus Maximus in 388, that may have meant the effective end of the Roman regular army in the West. It would come as no surprise if Stilicho had only limitanei to work with (hence perhaps the promotion of so many limitanei units to pseudo-comitatenses as shown in the Notitia Dignitatum), while relying on non-Roman troops as replacement for his crack units.

So indeed, the palatine regiments may have been filled with non-Roman warriors, loyal to a man and less to a state, who in turn may have been inticed to follow another warlord (Alaric) when their former lord (Stilicho) had been killed.

Would that make any sense? Too bad I can't prove it.