In 334 there is an interesting article about Gothic Wagon Laagers
I don't disagree with the article but it raised a question for me, where did they get the wagons from? Did the Romans ferry them across the Danube for them? Even if the tribes brought them across themselves it would have been an interesting problem to tackle.
Indeed if these are the people who were selling their children into slavery for food, buying dog meat etc, it is probably they'd have eaten their own draught animals first?
Obviously after a year of so being semi-settled their own craftsmen would have been able to get their act together and build genuine 'Gothic' wagons, but were these laagers just composed of Roman farm carts?
It would be interesting to know what sort of wheeled transport Roman farms had. The Goths had looted widely before Adrianople and would have had many opportunities to acquire carts and draught aninals. The article is good,, but I felt that once again we ran into the marshy ground of tge credibility of Ancient numbers and guesswork as to how many people were allocated to each wagon. Jim makes a good point, if the wagons are two wheeled then the size of the circle can be much less.
What would be in a wagon? Food, water, tools, both agricultural and of a trade a plough in some, weapons, particularly arrows and javelins, bedding, spare clothing., cooking utensils and plates, platters, looted items. I'd have thought a large four wheeled wagonbwoukd be good for 20 people
Roy
Quote from: aligern on February 21, 2021, 03:36:13 PM
It would be interesting to know what sort of wheeled transport Roman farms had.
Perhaps Roman Traction Systems (http://www.humanist.de/rome/rts/index.html) is a good place to start.
Quote from: Duncan Head on February 21, 2021, 04:08:01 PM
Quote from: aligern on February 21, 2021, 03:36:13 PM
It would be interesting to know what sort of wheeled transport Roman farms had.
Perhaps Roman Traction Systems (http://www.humanist.de/rome/rts/index.html) is a good place to start.
He seems to concentrate entirely on equid drawn and doesn't mention oxen?
True, she does - it's partly a response to and commentary on Lefebvre des Noëttes, who was writing mostly about horses. I did do a quick search for Roman Thrace and oxen without turning up much.
Quote from: Duncan Head on February 21, 2021, 04:57:44 PM
True, she does - it's partly a response to and commentary on Lefebvre des Noëttes, who was writing mostly about horses. I did do a quick search for Roman Thrace and oxen without turning up much.
I've found pictures of ox carts from other parts of the Roman world, the Villa Romana del Casale is Sicilian and has a nice one in the mosaics
Here's another with a similar low ladder side and 8 spoked wheel as the one illustrated crewed by Dacians in the article.
(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/33/56/83/335683415eb53d0de72a3894298ec3df.jpg)
It suggests to me that illustration shows a Roman-style transport vehicle. Whether such wagons would be used by Goths, or how different Goth wagons might be to Roman ones, I don't know.
QuoteWhat would be in a wagon? Food, water, tools, both agricultural and of a trade a plough in some, weapons, particularly arrows and javelins, bedding, spare clothing., cooking utensils and plates, platters, looted items. I'd have thought a large four wheeled wagonbwoukd be good for 20 people
Much depends on the use of the wagons but, if we are to assume they are part of a folk migration, as opposed to army logistics, I suspect the contents Roy lists are sound (though I'd probably add some sort of tentage). Where I think I'd disagree would be the number of people per wagon. 20 is a good rule of thumb for a medieval army supply wagon but these were bigger and also dedicated to military supplies, not settlers implements. We might be better to use a model of a prairie schooner which tended to be a family group (6-12?).
Quote from: Erpingham on March 01, 2021, 11:56:50 AM
QuoteWhat would be in a wagon? Food, water, tools, both agricultural and of a trade a plough in some, weapons, particularly arrows and javelins, bedding, spare clothing., cooking utensils and plates, platters, looted items. I'd have thought a large four wheeled wagonbwoukd be good for 20 people
Much depends on the use of the wagons but, if we are to assume they are part of a folk migration, as opposed to army logistics, I suspect the contents Roy lists are sound (though I'd probably add some sort of tentage). Where I think I'd disagree would be the number of people per wagon. 20 is a good rule of thumb for a medieval army supply wagon but these were bigger and also dedicated to military supplies, not settlers implements. We might be better to use a model of a prairie schooner which tended to be a family group (6-12?).
That's why I queried the source of the wagons.
Also the amount of 'wagon' a family had would probably relate to their wealth, and the amount of wagon they had would tend to increase their wealth. So if you were wealthy enough to have horses, your family horsemen would be more likely to come across a farm with a wagon than if your family were all on foot. Similarly once you had a wagon you could carry more stuff of more value. Not merely tools and seed but food and stuff you could sell.
Interesting Anthony. We might have to factor in the loss of wagons when crossing the Danube and replacement by looted farm wagons which might be smaller than the wagons that would be constructed forca mass movement of the population .
If the waggons are nn a 6-12 basis ( let us say 10 for simplicity?) then a group of 100,000 Goths and others will need 10,000 carriages. At ten yards for each wagon that's 100,000 yards which is 56 miles . With 4 columns it is 14 miles per column . If the column moves at 3 miles per hour ( more like 2) then for the head of the column to go 14 miles would take 5 hours and then another 5 hours for the tail to catch the head. Of course we are playing with the figures here, but we won't get much in the way of hard data from the sources.
As to there being 100,000 Goths, well there are a lot of them. Its a very large tribe ( the Tervingi) and this is the largest part of them. My reading of Ammianus is not that the Romans found that the Goths had the number of nen their scouts expected and then therevwere cavalry on top, but that the Goths had a lot more men in the leaguer than they had allowed for
Roy
I was instantly reminded of that classic passage in G. Perjes Army Provisioning, Logistics and Strategy in the Second Half of the 17th Century
To keep a train of such magnitude moving would have been impossible as well. Calculating a length of 12 metres for one cart with horses, and a distance of 6 metres between carts, the overall length of a train made up of 11 000 carts would have been 198 kilometres. What the moving of such a monster would have meant with respect to command and marching technique may be seen from the following data: given a marching performance of 25 kilometres per day, the rear of the column would have followed the head at a distance of eight marching-days. The commanding officer could only have been informed of events at the rear — e.g. a raid by the enemy — in no less than two days even with excellent dispatch-riders.
He is over egging the pudding somewhat but the parallel is clear.
I do think there are some interesting things to discuss in Jens Kunz's article around getting the figures to connect up. For example, what was the role of the women and children in the wagon's defence (women and children participated in American West wagon train defence and among the Boer trekkers because attack it was an existential threat. Would the Goths have been any different?
I guess potentially some wagons could have beef buoyant enough to float over too.
Cossacks used to do that apparently, so it's not impossible.
Quote from: Mark G on March 01, 2021, 09:10:45 PM
I guess potentially some wagons could have beef buoyant enough to float over too.
Cossacks used to do that apparently, so it's not impossible.
It was also a design feature of the Conestoga wagon.
It in part depends on how the population crossed the river. There are pictures from the Old West of prairie schooners with wheels removed strapped to rafts to cross rivers.
I realise I am nine months late to the party, but I do have a copy of Pisani Sartorio's Mezzi di trasporto e traffico which covers Roman imperial transport, as well as Crouwel's book on pre- Roman chariots, carts and wagons in Italy. The impression one gets is that there is probably an artistic bias towards horse-drawn vehicles in the surviving evidence, given this tends to be funerary or high status vehicles; high society wants to be seen being driven to their villa or to their funeral behind some nice looking horses, not mules or oxen. However, very clear that all three are options that were used. There are some four wheeled wagons, drawn by oxen, in Alpine rock art tentatively dated to as early as the third millennium, and by the imperial period, depiction of tilts on some types of wagons, such as those in which the passenger(s) might be expected to have a kip.
A few pics I have nicked from Pisani Sartorio's work show a pretty good range, and whilst not Danubian specific, would seem to show that one could imagine a wide variety being available to light fingered Goths once they turned predatory. The rheda, for example, may have been designed as the high speed courier vehicle for the imperial post, but if acquired from an overrun mansio, could doubtless provide a first class ride for Mrs Goth and the children (assuming they had not been sold off previously) through Thrace.
In the discussion of where the wagons came from, I don't recall anyone mentioning Ammianus XXXI.4.5; at the initial Gothic crossing of the Danube:
QuoteIn this expectation various officials were sent with vehicles to transport the savage horde, and diligent care was taken that no future destroyer of the Roman state should be left behind, even if he were smitten by a fatal disease. Accordingly, having by the emperor's permission obtained the privilege of crossing the Danube and settling in parts of Thrace, they were ferried over for some nights and days embarked by companies in boats, on rafts, and in hollowed tree-trunks;
So were the "Gothic" wagons actually Roman vehicles from the start?
Quote from: Duncan Head on December 16, 2021, 12:09:36 PM
In the discussion of where the wagons came from, I don't recall anyone mentioning Ammianus XXXI.4.5; at the initial Gothic crossing of the Danube:
QuoteIn this expectation various officials were sent with vehicles to transport the savage horde, and diligent care was taken that no future destroyer of the Roman state should be left behind, even if he were smitten by a fatal disease. Accordingly, having by the emperor's permission obtained the privilege of crossing the Danube and settling in parts of Thrace, they were ferried over for some nights and days embarked by companies in boats, on rafts, and in hollowed tree-trunks;
So were the "Gothic" wagons actually Roman vehicles from the start?
One assumes that Goths had some wagons, but given they weren't an especially nomadic people, they'd have a lot of farm carts and similar
But I think I'm right in saying they are migrating. So we can use the parallel of US wagon trains, where the wagons in use weren't intended as a permanent mobile home but intended to transport families to a new settled location, at which point the wagons could go back to use in agriculture or commerce. The idea we are dealing largely with adapted Roman agricultural or haulage vehicles, as suggested in the Ammianus quote, seems plausible.
Quote from: Erpingham on December 16, 2021, 12:59:52 PM
But I think I'm right in saying they are migrating. So we can use the parallel of US wagon trains, where the wagons in use weren't intended as a permanent mobile home but intended to transport families to a new settled location, at which point the wagons could go back to use in agriculture or commerce. The idea we are dealing largely with adapted Roman agricultural or haulage vehicles, as suggested in the Ammianus quote, seems plausible.
Oh they were migrating, but they weren't nomads used to living in wagons. They were farmers who would just use what they had.
Perhaps even cleaning it out first ;D
As someone who had the privilege of long conversations with a former Welsh Guards RSM who, as a young sergeant, swam out of Dunkirk to the last waiting destroyer after all the little ships had been pulled back on the last day, I also suspect any vehicular transport available on the north side of the Danube would have been ruthlessly stripped down to allow suitable wood to be repurposed for raft construction, water obstacle for the crossing of... it was what he and his handful of surviving comrades did to get their weapons and kit with them to the destroyer, with the one non swimmer in the group clinging on to the webbing on the top of the raft. His comment was that the beach at Dunkirk on the last day was like a Sandhurst instructor's wettest dream (pun intended) when it came to "stuff from which you can build a raft for this little exercise."
I suspect that any and all carts and wagons that the Goths subsequently came across south of the Danube would have been seized with joy if the draught animals could be sourced, regardless of the intended purpose of the vehicle. As another retired military colleague of mine, this one a lot younger and a former Colonel Commandant of the Defence School of Transport, has always argued very sagely whenever anyone slags off this or that Army vehicle - "That is as may be, but a second or even third class ride almost always beats a first class walk."
Very true David, and I can imagine the mirth as the Gothic farmer's wife took her seat with the chickens in a carriage last used by some Roman matron 8)
Ok, we seem to have a consensus that the Goths would be riding in Roman wagons of various types.
Throwing us back to the beginning, how many wagons do we think would be present at Adrianople and how would they be arranged?
Well, Ammianus (Bk XXXI, 12) says that the Roman scouts saw the wagons ("carpenta") in a circle ("quae ad speciem rotunditatis detornata"). Possibly worth noting that carpentum is thought to be a Celtic loan word for a wagon - whether by Ammianus' time this might have had any specific ethnic connotation that he was seeking to make, or just one of the several words in contemporary Latin that could be used generically for a wagon, I would not dare to guess.
Thing is, how circular is the circle? Given that in his subsequent description of the battle, he talks about different wings of the Roman army making differing progress towards the circle, that seems to indicate a very broad frontage. So either a massive circle, meaning a massive number of wagons, or perhaps not as circular as his prose implies - more rectilinear - or perhaps less of a solid wagon circle, nose to tail, but a more intermittent arrangement, with campfires, bivouacs and gaps between vehicles or small groups of vehicles. Maybe not a very neat arrangement, but still enough to disrupt or channel an advancing infantry line, and offer patches of hard cover for the Goths?
The number of wagons probably has more to do with the ability of a Roman province to supply wagons to enthusiastic and widely travelled looters than it has to Gothic resources. After all, the Goths crossed in 376AD and the battle was in 378AD
If wagons, carts and suchlike were common in the provinces, then the Goths could well have an awful lot of them. Indeed some of the major players could have several, there may even have been an attempt to put together an 'army supply column'. After all if the commander can control looted food it means that there is the possibility of more efficient distribution and better control of men who don't have to spread out to loot.
Given that a lot of the Goths would have military experience serving in the Roman Army I don't think we can rule the idea out
Quote from: Jim Webster on December 18, 2021, 07:17:41 AM
If wagons, carts and suchlike were common in the provinces, then the Goths could well have an awful lot of them.
For what it is worth, Cato reckoned that a vineyard of 240 iugera ought to have three pairs of draft oxen, three pack asses to shift manure, an ass to turn the mill, three large carts and six ploughs.
Quote from: DBS on December 18, 2021, 09:01:27 AM
Quote from: Jim Webster on December 18, 2021, 07:17:41 AM
If wagons, carts and suchlike were common in the provinces, then the Goths could well have an awful lot of them.
For what it is worth, Cato reckoned that a vineyard of 240 iugera ought to have three pairs of draft oxen, three pack asses to shift manure, an ass to turn the mill, three large carts and six ploughs.
Given that 240 iugera is about 150 acres, that means there are an awful lot of carts to go at
Quote from: Erpingham on December 17, 2021, 05:30:56 PMThrowing us back to the beginning, how many wagons do we think would be present at Adrianople
As many as necessary to transport the baggage and dependents of however many warriors there were. Which we don't know.
Quote from: Duncan Head on December 18, 2021, 11:39:43 AM
Quote from: Erpingham on December 17, 2021, 05:30:56 PMThrowing us back to the beginning, how many wagons do we think would be present at Adrianople
As many as necessary to transport the baggage and dependents of however many warriors there were. Which we don't know.
A fair point. However, if one were to try to represent such an encampment in a refight of Adrianople, can we do it the other way round? Choose our preferred make up of the Goth army, then estimate the number of vehicles and animals and propose a scale of encampment appropriate to our chosen army? I think you can probably get away with various estimates but it seems to me, the camp needs to be proportionate to the armies involved or the result may be distorted..
Depends also on how much of the camp you think you need to represent on the table - I don't think we necessarily need the whole circuit of fortification.
We can have a sensible estimation of the number of Goth warriors. The Roman scouts had mistakenly assessed the barbarians as having 10,000 men and this number incited Valens to attack before Gratian could arrive to help. At 10k the Goth army was expected to be relatively easy meat. However, we have to expect that the scouts were not complete tyros and were perhaps deceived by the absence of much of the cavalry on a foraging expedition and perhaps the difficulty of getting a sight and thus count of all the wagons. That suggests that the Goths did not have a huge force of say 40,000 , but a force that was within the bounds of error around 10,000 as an underestimate and many cavalry being missed . Had there been 40,000 men then the Goths would have crushed the Romans with numbers.
Of course, the estimate of the scouts would always be prone to error. Valens will have known that their 10,000 could be out by say 50% and would still be confident of beating them even if there were 15,000.
Hence I suggest a reasonable figure would be :
15,000 infantry
1,000 cavalry with the laager.
5,000 cavalry out foraging.
This would give a force of 20,000 plus, enough to be a challenge to Valens, but still within the Roman army's capabilities, until the arrival of the Gothic cavalry on the flank,is factored in.
Roy
Quote from: Duncan Head on December 18, 2021, 12:19:51 PM
Depends also on how much of the camp you think you need to represent on the table - I don't think we necessarily need the whole circuit of fortification.
As I said at the 2021 conference, following Simon MacDowell's talk. A straight-ish line of wagons bent back on each flank would seem to do the job well enough. I know it's along way off chronologically, but the Flemish at Mons-en-Pevele and the English at Crecy, protected the
rear of their armies with the transport carts and wagons, and, in the latter case the horse-lines as well, since the knights were dismounted, rather than a defensive line behind which to fight. Although, as we know from Thom Richardson's book on the Royal Armouries in the 14thc. at Crecy there were 100 carts known as 'ribauts' also used to provide cover for the archers, presumably in the front rank.
It seems to me, from my very general awareness of the Adrianople battle, that the Roman army needs to be able to attack frontally but also from two flanks. Any wagon fortifications needs to represented in a way that would allow this, so a shallow "C" shape or Matt's suggestion of a line with bent back ends would fit the picture. Would the line cover the whole table width, with any Goth flank marches coming in from the side of the table, or would space need to be allowed for them to come round the wagon line?
Couple of reflections on the discussion so far:
1. The Goths may not have been reliant on captured wagons: as farmers, and woodsmen, with craftsmen amongst their tribes, wood can be felled, farms or boatyards stripped of wood or metals for construction of wagons. They were seeking admission to the Empire to flee an enemy, so wagons to escape the frontier and threat of capture would be part of the plan not simply a last resort?
They may not have expected the initial Roman refusals to assist them, and would have had much involvement with the transportation available when the Romans bargained a heavy price (in enslavement of Goths) for assisting passage across the Danube or assisting survival once crossed.
The Goth anger created by the Roman heavy handed treatment would have stoked a no holds barred response when the Gothic revolt occurred.
2. The Goths used a wagon laager to protect their families and animals while mounted foragers went far and wide. It was intended as a defensive structure. So it was probably the Roman focus of attack, with a Roman intention to enslave or butcher those they encountered. So it should perhaps be the focal terrain item? (Wasn't it on a hilltop too? Long time since I read my sources and wrote about re-enacting this battle in Slingshot.) Thus a Roman army spreading to 'besiege' and assault this 'laager' (whatever its shape); would leave its rear and not just its flanks mightily exposed. The returning Goth cavalry would have the soft under-belly of the Roman army to cut at.
3. The Goth wanderings over many generations from the Baltic to the Danube may not have been a nomadic wandering, more a 'slash & burn' agricultural migration where wagons may have been a permanent feature. (But my assumptions may be too much influenced by the later Hussite wanderings and creation of townships within the walls of their wagon laagers.) Wagons may be a feature of their culture and simply not commented by the Romans on till the Roman defeat at the base of the wagon laager at Adrianople? And not commented on later as other aspects would have pre-occupied the Romans and their commentators, facing a now internal 'enemy' with the booty from defeating the army of one half of the Roman Empire. Much weaponary, armour (mail, and helmets) and military horses must have fallen to the Goths both before and after Adianople as they initially marched south from the Danube the after Adrianople, paid to march West by Roman East.
CarlL
Quote from: CarlL on February 13, 2022, 08:21:11 PM
2. The Goths used a wagon laager to protect their families and animals while mounted foragers went far and wide. It was intended as a defensive structure. So it was probably the Roman focus of attack, with a Roman intention to enslave or butcher those they encountered. So it should perhaps be the focal terrain item? (Wasn't it on a hilltop too? Long time since I read my sources and wrote about re-enacting this battle in Slingshot.)
Terrain at Adrianople is a whole other question... but Ammianus doesn't mention a hill. IIRC one other brief account - Orosius? - says the Gothic laager was "in a suitable location", but that could be anything
A hill does make sense for command and control, oversight of the enemy movements and combat advantage. However, it makes even more sense to be by a river. which would defend one flank and give access to a water supply...and IIRC that isn't mentioned either? If there are 20, 000 warriors and 4-5,000 horses plus 4,000 draught animals and 40,000 dependents...that's a hell of a lot of fluid intake! An opponent who contested the water supply would bring the army to heel in 3-4 days.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on February 14, 2022, 02:24:54 PM
An opponent who contested the water supply would bring the army to heel in 3-4 days.
Roy
I was instantly reminded of something I read during our discussion about horse archers and guns. Its part of an account of Anthony Jenkinsons travels in Tartar territory in 1558
But after we had slaine divers of their men and horses with our Guns, they durst not approach so nigh, which caused them to come to a truce with us untill the next morning, which wee accepted, and encamped our selves upon a hill, and made the fashion of a Castle, walling it about with packes of wares, and layd our Horses and Camels within the same, to save them from the shot of arrowes : and the theeves also incamped within an arrow shot of us, but they were betwixt us and the water, which was to our great discomfort, because neither we nor our Camels had drunke in two dayes before.Jenkinson's caravan had no choice but to pay for safe passage.