Late Roman Army (Fifth century)

[tlclark]

What do people know about the structure of the scholae Palatini?

Thanks

[S SEVERUS]

Two main conclusions can be drawn of Late Roman units (Nicasie):
a) in practise, the actual number of troops fielded will have been lower than the paper strengths.
b) it seems possible that Late Roman units did not have fixed establishment strength s at, but varied between a certain minimum and maximum according to need.

I can only agree with this. Very good summary! Since the use of vexillations it seems that the Roman Army became more flexible and evolved to smaller units for the field army, I presume.

Can you give me some more detail about iuniores en seniores units. Does this say the the iuniores were not long in service and the seniores were "veteran"of the same unit? Or was this simply a difference in pay like comitatus troops and pseudo comitatus troops? Or was this a new unit of the same name but younger in creation?

[Aryaman2]

"a) in practise, the actual number of troops fielded will have been lower than the paper strengths. "
I think that conclusion holds true for almost every period in history, in fact it is a common mistake in Ancient sources, repeated by modern scholars to think of units as numbering their full strength complement, so that at Trebia, for instance, since the Romans had 4 legions they had either 16.000 or 18.000 roman soldiers (depending on Livius or Polybius). For sure those legions were understrength, I can recall some cases of units understrength mentioned, the 80 cohors of Caesar at Pharsalus numbering 22.000 men, or the legio VI at Alexandria numbering but 1.000, for instance.

[Robert Vermaat]

I think that conclusion holds true for almost every period in history, in fact it is a common mistake in Ancient sources, repeated by modern scholars to think of units as numbering their full strength complement.

Indeed, which is why I added this comment.
It's one think to read about numbers in sources, but to conclude about the paper strength is quite another thing. The Roman practise to combine two weakened units into one will also play havoc with such attempts.

[Robert Vermaat]

Perhaps a hint that the nominal (very likely less in reality) number of men in a unit was either 400 or 600 is that there was a rank of DUCENTENARIUS - Leader of 200 men in addition to the CENTENARIUS - Leader of 100 men. If your unit doesn't have a group of 200 men within its structure the rank of DUCENTENARIUS would be pointless

Nick, where did you find that rank? I can only find a rank called a ducenarius... :?

[L.Valerius Gaudentius]

Robert, was the Late Roman Army less powerful than the Early Roman Army?

Jordanes supposed that Attila said to his warriors before the Catalaunian Plains battle, that they have to worried about the Visigoths, because the Romans was worse than the Visigoths and Alans.

For me, it´s a bit amazing. hock:

Regards.

[Robert Vermaat]

Robert, was the Late Roman Army less powerful than the Early Roman Army?
Jordanes supposed that Attila said to his warriors before the Catalaunian Plains battle, that they have to worried about the Visigoths, because the Romans was worse than the Visigoths and Alans.

As to the first, I think it's hard to compare these times. It's a bit like that ancient discussion how knights would have/not have beaten the samurai.
I think you can't directly compare ceasar's legions to those of Trajan, or to those of Severus, or to those of Constantine. Each existed in their own time, with their own technology and their own set of enemies. Would Caesar have been beaten by the Sassanids? I would presume so. Nonetheless, the Late Roman armies held them at bay. It's an unfair comparison.

As to the second, this was no doubt pure bluff from Atilla, reassuring his men. Of course Roman armies were better than Frank or Visigoths. In direct confrontations on the battlefield they always won, their defeats almost always due to ambushes, surprises or allies in Roman guise being the losers. Often bad generalship was Rome's own worst enemy, but good generalship it's biggest asset. Adrianople was a case of bad generalship, without doubt.

[Goffredo]

Hi
I agree that it doesn't make much sense to compare the roman armies over Rome's long history. In each period the roman army had its enemies and in my opinion it makes more sense to begin by assuming that in each period the army was optimal for that moment in history. THEN I would add additional contingent ingredients to try to explain what actually happened, what went well or bad, why things went this way or that, and see if the simple starting hypothesis (optimality) wants/needs adjustments, i.e. less than optimal army crippled by disease, bad luck (back then armies were distroyed by storms), wrong composition against particular enemies, bad generalship, tactics, strategy, civil wars, politics,... Some of these have nothing to do with optimality as war back then was so full of uncertainties (disease, storms,...). Others are more subtle (politics with emperors fighting civil wars and draing resources). Others yet are quite undoubtedly pertinent (ability to re-compose against various enemies). Maybe at the end I would even conclude that in a particular period the army was extremely far from being optimal.

Jeff

p.s. If one could imagine a machine warping space-time and projecting Ceasar and his Alesian army Eastwards three-four centuries in the future then it would make sense asking if he would be beaten or would win a confrontation with a Sassanid army. But leaving science-fiction alone it is history that Ceasar was organizing a massive campaign against Parthia. Personally I think Ceasar would have have a good chance to do well had he not been killed. Certainly he would have done better than Antony.

[L.Valerius Gaudentius]

If I understand well, the main cause of the defeat of the Late Roman army was bad generalship or other "extern" causes, no?

[Robert Vermaat]

If I understand well, the main cause of the defeat of the Late Roman army was bad generalship or other "extern" causes, no?

No, the bad generalship was the main cause in losing battles, the main cause for the final demise of the army in the West I'd say was economics - too many wars, not enough men, not enough money.

[Robert Vermaat]

What do people know about the structure of the scholae Palatini?

They were possibly created by Diocletian, but since Constantine abolished the Praetorian guard he may have been the one responsible for their creation. We don't know their original strength but later each scholae unit was 500 strong (Cod. Just. IV.65, XXXV.1). All are cavalry units.
Originally there may have been but three, but this was soon expanded. The west had 5 scholae, the east had 7, but we know that the Scola gentilium seniorum later returned to the west.
Later a 7th was added, which continued at least until the time of Justinian who added 4 more, but disbanded them soon(but read below about their real value). The ones we find in the Notitia Dignitatum are best known:

Under the western Magister Officiorum:
Scola scutariorum prima
Scola scutariorum secunda
Scola armaturarum seniorum
Scola gentilium seniorum
Scola scutatorium tertia

Under the eastern Magister Officiorum:
Scola scutariorum prima,
Scola scutariorum secunda
Scola scutariorum sagittariorum
Scola scutariorum clibanariorum
Scola armaturarum iuniorum
Scola gentilium iuniorum
Scola gentilium seniorum

The schola units were also known under numeral names, independent of their official names. For example the ‘scola scutatorium quarta’ is therefore not a short-lived scholae unit, but most probably the scola scutariorum clibanariorum. From the 5h c. onwards this is a normal way of describing the scholae units, while we encounter the official individual names mostly when officer’s careers are described.

Recruits
The scholae were directly commanded by the emperor, and were usually stationed close to his person. We know from the 6th c. that the scholae were stationed in towns outside Constantinople, and this may have been the rule for the time before. Scholae recruits received high pay, annonae civicae, were freed from recruitment tax (privilegiis scholarum) and had excellent career opportunities (see below).
The recruits for these units were first and foremost barbarians. In the 4th c. we see especially Franks and Alamans in the west, and Goths in the east. Officers have Germanic names or are identified as such: Silvanus and Mallobaudes (armaturae), Malarich (gentiles) were Franks, and Ammianus tells us these were especially represented among palace guards as well as the scholae units (Amm XV.5.11). Agilo and Scudilo (scutarii) were Alamans, Gomoar, Bainobaudes (also scutarii) and Balchobaudes (tribune of the armaturae seniores) were at least western Germanics. Arintheus (armaturae) will have been a Goth. Nestica and Barzimer (tribunes of the scutarii) were Germans, whereas Bacurius (tribune of the scutarii sagittarii) was a king of the Caucasian Iberians.
Also in the lower ranks we encounter many Germanic names.
During the 5th century the eastern scholae were especially filled with Armenian recruits, while from the time of Zeno recruits were especially Isaurians.

Apart from the non-Roman background, we can also find evidence that recruits had to be physically excellent. Being tall and good-looking was certainly a good thing if you wanted to serve in the scholae. The scholae guards had shoulder-length hair, after the German fashion, and received especially quality and highly decorated arms and armour. Synesios of Cyrene described them (negatively) as slender young men with long thick hair, smelling of perfume, carrying golden lances and shields. We encounter them also on the Theodosian missorium and the Ravenna mosaics: bare-headed, torqued, with big fibulae and decorated shields.

Martin and Julian
A well-known soldier from the scholae is St. Martin of Tours who served under Constantius II and under the Caesar Julian. The famous scene with St. Martin and the beggar outside Amiens can therefore be pictured during Julian’s campaigns in Gaul. Martin soon afterwards entered the priesthood, which is not especially surprising when one thinks of the attitude that Julian had towards Christians.
But there may be more to it. Ammianus described that Julian had only a personal guard of 360 soldiers when he went from Milan to Gaul. And apparently these soldiers were good for nothing, because Julian is said to have remarked that they weren’t proper warriors, but only able to pay (Zos III.3.2).
But if Martin was indeed with this force (which seems a bit small to be the only guard of a Caesar), would that mean that the scholae were not a crack unit but already a weak palace guard? Or do we have to look a bit further to explain this scathing comment, and remember that Constantius had a sickly mistrust for his family (Julian was after all the last remaining one) and made sure that the scholae accompanying his cousin was not very loyal to their new Caesar? If they were staunch Christians to boot, this may be ample explanation for Julian’s derogatory remark…

Ranks
While the scholae palatine ranked highest among the units of the Late Roman army, the scutarii ranked as most prestigious (while oldest) among the scholae.
The commander of a scholae unit was originally a tribune (tribunus scutariorum) but from the 5th c. we encounter a comes scholarum, which seems to have been a promotion. There’s a law from 413, stipulating that scholae tribunes who were promoted to Comitivia primi ordines during their service, ranked upon discharge as high as the Dux of a province. Not bad for a military career. The commanders of scholae units were also much favoured with commanding units of the field army, since the Late Roman army did not know either army groups or the commanders of army groups. Since therefore no officers existed between the tribunes and the regional commanders (comes domesticorum or magister peditum/equitum), a scholae commander could be among the first in line to command detachments of the field army.

Demise
The scholae continued to be the core of the army, cradle for the best officers, until well into the 5th c. or even into the 6th. Many tribunes made it to dux, comes or magister militum. However, when the emperors ceased to accompany the forces into battle, the corps slowly became an ‘army within the army’ looking for personal gain more than promotion in battle.
Of the western scholae we hear next to nothing after the Notitia Dignitatum. They were disbanded as guards by Theodoric the Great, but continued to exist in a (non-defined) role, possibly as city guards in Ravenna, because a scutarius turns up in several property documents of the 6th and 7th c.
In the east, the scholae continued in their elite role, at least at first. The valour of recruits was for a long time guaranteed, but less called for. Zeno was the first to recruit men whose personal connections were more important than their military usefulness. After that time, it became possible to buy a position with the scholae. With that, the guards became a palace force, good enough to parade on the streets of Constantinople. When the Huns under Zabergan close in on the walls of the city in 559, the scholae are no longer considered a military force. Agathius tells us that they paid to enter the scholae, money being the only criterium, many totally unfit to even carry weapons. They weren’t even military trained, their only role being to guard the place in fine clothing, their role being only to enhance the emperor’s appearance (Agath XV.5.2-6). It came to be that, in order to spare the exchequer the cost of their pay, from time to time they were threatened to accompany real armies into battle. To stay at home the scholae then agreed to be fined several months’ pay… It was already Leo I (457-474) who created a new corps, the 300-strong excubitores. These men, presumably real soldiers, became the real bodyguard of the emperor, displacing the scholae.

[tlclark]

Wow!

Ask and ye shall receive! Thanks Robert!

Agathius tells us that they paid to enter the scholae, money being the only criterium, many totally unfit to even carry weapons. They weren’t even military trained, their only role being to guard the place in fine clothing, their role being only to enhance the emperor’s appearance (Agath XV.5.2-6).

Cool! That's great, that means even a poser like me can do a reasonable impression! :wink:

Thanks again, this was just a tremendous amount of great information.

Travis

[Robert Vermaat]

My pleasure. I had to delve into the books again, but it was fun.

[tlclark]

My pleasure. I had to delve into the books again, but it was fun.

Please, pass on the bibliography.

Travis

[L.Valerius Gaudentius]

Thanks for the information, Robert, could you put a bibliography? :roll:

Regards.