(07-29-2023, 09:59 PM)Lothia Wrote: where were the Soldiers in the Imperial Presence I & II. What were they doing that prevented them from shutting down both of those two men?
That's an interesting question! The apparent inactivity of the regular army of the east in 399-400 is similar to that of the western armies in 408-410. Where were all these soldiers, and why could they do nothing to stop various barbarian warlords rampaging about the place?
I suspect the division of the eastern praesental army might postdate the Gainas revolt, and have been a reaction to it - the army may have been divided to stop one single general having too much power. However, as far as I'm aware we don't know who the eastern Magistri might have been; between the death of Timasius in 395 and the appointment of Gainas in 399, none are mentioned. Leo seems to have been
comes rei militaris (according to PLRE 2).
After his appointment in 399, of course, Gainas was supposedly in command of the praesental army himself (or at least one of them, if there were two at this date), although it seems that he preferred to use his own foederati troops in his
coup d'etat. So we still have the question of where the regular troops might have been.
A few options spring to mind:
1. The praesental armies were billeted in towns across the hinterland of Constantinople, and due to the misgovernment of Eutropius there was no commander with the authority to bring them into the field. This left warlord commanders like Gainas - who could perhaps order his own foederati into the field without direct authority - as the only men capable of taking independent action. Only with the appointment of Fravitta as Magister Militum did the empire have a commander of sufficient authority and ability to muster the praesental armies against Gainas and his foederati.
2. As in the western empire, the 'regular' Roman army by this date was largely a garrison and reserve force, with the foederati fighting the field battles. This meant that Gainas was able to turn the foederati against the central government and operate almost unopposed, until another foederati commander - Fravitta - arrived to oppose him. This situation would therefore have been similar to Italy in 408, when Alaric effectively seized control of the foederati troops and turned them against the emperor, leaving the regular troops shut up in their fortified garrison towns.
3. The 'barbarians' that Gainas led against the emperor actually
were the praesental army! This would fit with Synesius, in
de regno, who wants us to believe that the army had been almost entirely replaced by barbarians. However, this is not such a fashionable view nowadays!