Vegetius in context?

[Erpingham]

A recent paper attempts to put Vegetius into a specific context in the 390-400 period.  I leave it to our Late Antique experts to assess its worth.

[Duncan Head]

There seems to be no link there.

[Erpingham]

Deeply embarassing - I usually check it works and failed to do so 

Apologies.  Should work now.

[Jim Webster]

Deeply embarassing - I usually check it works and failed to do so 

Apologies.  Should work now.

It did thanks
I've downloaded it 

[Anton]

Thanks Anthony I'm looking forward to reading it.

[Duncan Head]

Thanks - got it.

[Justin Swanton]

I've read through it briefly and as a first impression I don't find his thesis very persuasive. It's highly doubtful that one military defeat would convince someone like Vegetius that the entire Roman army was in decline, especially considering that the spectacular victory at Strasbourg had taken place just twenty years earlier. The Roman losses at Adrianople also hardly constituted a serious drain on Roman military manpower. The Roman army at that battle numbered 30 000 men at the most, out of a military establishment of around half a million men.

My own take is that Vegetius wanted to restore the prestige of the Roman legionary, not recognising that the apogee of heavy infantry was fading, giving way to an increasingly effective cavalry. He was something of an antiquarian, hoping to restore a glorious past by grafting past practices willy nilly onto a very different present.

[Duncan Head]

The Roman losses at Adrianople also hardly constituted a serious drain on Roman military manpower. The Roman army at that battle numbered 30 000 men at the most, out of a military establishment of around half a million men.

Though weren't we recently pointed at a Guy Halsall article suggesting that the Adrianople casualties were a serious chunk of the Eastern army's good troops?

[Justin Swanton]

The Roman losses at Adrianople also hardly constituted a serious drain on Roman military manpower. The Roman army at that battle numbered 30 000 men at the most, out of a military establishment of around half a million men.

Though weren't we recently pointed at a Guy Halsall article suggesting that the Adrianople casualties were a serious chunk of the Eastern army's good troops?

Not what Geórgios Kalafíkis seems to be saying:

In any case, Vegetius' call to replenish and increase the number of troops, even with recruits of lower standard, clearly indicated the terrible losses the army had suffered during those years. Such casualties were the result of numerous barbarian attacks and the successive civil wars that struck the empire. The Gothic War and the disaster in Adrianople had already caused substantial losses in the comitatenses armies of the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly in troops stationed at Illyricum and Thrace. The incessant civil wars in the Western Roman Empire, waged by Theodosius I against the usurpers Magnus Maximus (383-388) and Eugenius (392-394), are also believed to have weakened considerably the local army units. At the turn of the 4th to the 5th century, a renewed series of barbarian invasions aggravated the situation. Alaric's Goths, and—shortly after—Radagaisus' horde, assaulted Italy in 401/2 and 405/6 respectively, several German tribes overran Gaul in 406/7, Alaric's Goths again invaded Italy in 408, and so on.

Can he prove this? In any case the events of 400 and later postdate his assumption of when Vegetius wrote De Re Militari. He needs to be consistent.

[Duncan Head]

Not what Geórgios Kalafíkis seems to be saying:

No, it isn't quite what he is saying. But it is another way of looking at why "one military defeat would convince someone like Vegetius that the entire Roman army was in decline" (or the entire Roman infantry, anyway; as Kalafikis reminds us, Vegetius thought that the Roman cavalry had improved no end).

[lionheartrjc]

We do have evidence that there were factions in the Roman Empire who wanted to purge barbarian troops from the Roman army. Goths were purged from the army after Adrianople and in 386. In the West there was a wave of massacres after the execution of Stilicho. Many of the survivors appear to have joined Alaric.  It wasn't the only example.

Is there any evidence to suggest the legions were recruited from Romans and auxilia recruited from barbarians at the end of the 4th century? I have seen suggestions that legions were 1,200 men and auxilia 500, but this seems to simplistic and actual unit strengths seem to bear little resemblance to paper strengths.

It was the terms under which the Goths were settled after Adrianople that seems to be evidence for how significant a defeat Adrianople was. It is more difficult to draw conclusions on how badly it affected the army itself.

[nikgaukroger]

And the terms of the 382 CE settlement are not clear 

On unit sizes Coello's work is still the best summary of the evidence of actual sizes I think (I'm not aware of anything that has superseded it) and doesn't show any real difference between legions and auxilia IIRC.

[aligern]

There was also a line or tradition of literary publication on military matters. There are other hints on this, one onna debate I referred to, about cavalry importance, in annarticle on the Justinianic army a few Slingshots ago, another being Procopius'. writing on the 'new' armoured and lance equipped horse archer. There was obviously a a lot more publishing activity than we know about and army reform may have been a genre in its own right, rather like mirrors for princes being history written with the didactic purpose of educating a future ruler.
In a scenario in which Vegetius' work would be i literary production, perhaps from someone seeking office or sponsorship  or even just a bit of approval and fame then he does not have to be responding to a significant defeat or change in the army, just writing an opus that neatly combines some ' we have declined from a golden age'  with some ethnology and some ' old virtues will pull us through' topoi. If DRM is to do with a very soecific event then why doesn't he say so?
Roy