The Empire is dead, long live the army

[Erpingham]

If coins are being used to pay for anything, then you have some sort of money economy.

I disagree, for reasons stated above.  Coins can be used as convenient pieces of portable wealth, or for prestige exchange.  I'm not saying there wasn't a money economy - insufficient information - but it isn't necessary to "pay" troops anyway.

Procopius does not mention any barbarian foederati fighting for Syagrius against the Franks, but he does make the point that the Arborychi (Gallo-romans of Armorica) fought them. The implication is that the bulk of Syagrius's army was Gallo-roman. Gallo-romans had fought in the Roman military tradition for centuries, being to a large extent the backbone of Western Empire's legions.

<snip> Do we have to believe that Syagrius's forces were untrained barbarians under Roman banners?

I presume Procopius avoided calling Belisarius' army Roman because he knew it had barbarians in it?  I suspect not.  Also, to be honest, I have no problem with Gallo-Romans being in Syagrius' army.  But Gallo-Roman ethnicity doesn't automatically translate to trained regular soldier to me.

Why shouldn't Syagrius have a Roman army like Aetius or Belisarius?  Operationally, why can't he have something that more closely parallels everyone else around him - a core of well-armed cavalry provided by himself and his major supporters (landowners, allied tribal leaders, towns) plus a militia of (indigenous Gallo-Roman) infantry?  Kit these out with Roman standards and legacy Roman equipment and you have a Roman army.

I'm not saying I'm right but I am saying that this is a plausible proposal which isn't contradicted by what evidence we have.  I'm afraid the regular Romans model does feel a bit like something out of "Age of Arthur", where whole sub-Roman histories are built on odd snippets from histories that are asides to the main narrative and the non-miraculous bits of saints lives.

[Justin Swanton]

Why shouldn't Syagrius have a Roman army like Aetius or Belisarius?  Operationally, why can't he have something that more closely parallels everyone else around him - a core of well-armed cavalry provided by himself and his major supporters (landowners, allied tribal leaders, towns) plus a militia of (indigenous Gallo-Roman) infantry?  Kit these out with Roman standards and legacy Roman equipment and you have a Roman army.

The problem then is to explain Syagrius's confidence. It is clear from the record that he took the offensive against Clovis, reoccupying Soissons and then moving on to engage him in battle. To lead an army composed substantially of militia against barbarian warriors of the calibre of the Franks is suicide, cavalry core nothwithstanding. I'm not aware of any military leader of that time who tried it with any success. Belisarius attempted it once at Rome and it did not go well.

Native militia had success only in defending cities, where city walls and barbarian inepititude at siege warfare equalised the odds. To say that Syagrius's militia were sufficiently trained and equipped to be able to take on the Franks in the field with at least equal chances is tantamount to saying they were Roman soldiers. The only military traditions and methods Gallo-roman recruits would have known about or been formed in were those of the Roman army. Without them they wouldn't have stood a chance.

[Jim Webster]

If coins are being used to pay for anything, then you have some sort of money economy. I tend to doubt that buccelarii or household troops belonging to landowning notables would be paid in coin. It would be simpler for their lord just to provision them from his own resources: why pay someone else to do something you can do yourself for less? Paying money to troops implies that someone else other than the payer is doing the provisioning.

No, because in the late Roman army you got provisioned, but then at various set times (Emperors accession, fifth anniversary etc) you were paid a donative.
I'd say that if gold coins are found, if they have anything to do with military matters (as opposed to being a generally good way of carrying wealth easily) then they're donatives. There is no reason why a general's buccelarii  or barbarian mercenaries shouldn't be paid and receive donatives.

Jim

[Jim Webster]

The problem then is to explain Syagrius's confidence. It is clear from the record that he took the offensive against Clovis, reoccupying Soissons and then moving on to engage him in battle. To lead an army composed substantially of militia against barbarian warriors of the calibre of the Franks is suicide, cavalry core nothwithstanding. I'm not aware of any military leader of that time who tried it with any success. Belisarius attempted it once at Rome and it did not go well.

Native militia had success only in defending cities, where city walls and barbarian inepititude at siege warfare equalised the odds. To say that Syagrius's militia were sufficiently trained and equipped to be able to take on the Franks in the field with at least equal chances is tantamount to saying they were Roman soldiers. The only military traditions and methods Gallo-roman recruits would have known about or been formed in were those of the Roman army. Without them they wouldn't have stood a chance.

Firstly the Franks weren't particularly formidable at this point. They were a number of mutually antagonistic petty kingdoms. It wasn't until 509 that Clovis united them. The only person he beat, other than other Franks, was Syagrius. This merely means that Franks were competent at fighting Franks

There is a school of thought that Clovis and his father were Roman Military commanders under Aegidius and they controlled Belgica Secunda. So their forces need not have been particularly huge or formidable

Jim

[Justin Swanton]

Firstly the Franks weren't particularly formidable at this point. They were a number of mutually antagonistic petty kingdoms. It wasn't until 509 that Clovis united them. The only person he beat, other than other Franks, was Syagrius. This merely means that Franks were competent at fighting Franks

There is a school of thought that Clovis and his father were Roman Military commanders under Aegidius and they controlled Belgica Secunda. So their forces need not have been particularly huge or formidable

Jim

That would mean that Clovis, even before he united the Franks in 509, succeeded in beating, not only Syagrius, but also the Alamans and the Visigoths, the latter undoubtedly the greatest barbarian power in western Europe at that time. Not bad for a small band of warriors who were barely a match for Gallo-roman militia. 

[Jim Webster]

Firstly the Franks weren't particularly formidable at this point. They were a number of mutually antagonistic petty kingdoms. It wasn't until 509 that Clovis united them. The only person he beat, other than other Franks, was Syagrius. This merely means that Franks were competent at fighting Franks

There is a school of thought that Clovis and his father were Roman Military commanders under Aegidius and they controlled Belgica Secunda. So their forces need not have been particularly huge or formidable

Jim

That would mean that Clovis, even before he united the Franks in 509, succeeded in beating, not only Syagrius, but also the Alamans and the Visigoths, the latter undoubtedly the greatest barbarian power in western Europe at that time. Not bad for a small band of warriors who were barely a match for Gallo-roman militia. 

We are talking about 486
It was after this he united at the Franks so that with their help, in 496 he apparently narrowly defeated the Alamans 
In 500 he couldn't subdue the Burgundians
After this he allied with the Armoricans and then he fought the Visigoths in 507.
So the forces he led against the Visigoths were very different from those he'd controlled when he fought Syagrius twenty years before. I don't think you can compare them. Against Syagrius he was just one among a number of minor Frankish kings.
Against the Visigoths he led the combined Franks plus the Armoricans and perhaps Alamans as well. A very different army.

Jim

[Justin Swanton]

One would still need to explain how Clovis's Franks could beat Alamans and Visigoths when they were on the level of Gallo-roman militia. Getting help from those same Gallo-romans would hardly have improved their chances.

The extensive use the late Empire made of barbarian foederati, particularly Franks, I think sufficiently confirms their fighting ability. Barbarian tribes who could not cut it on the field of battle in those times simply went under.

[Jim Webster]

One would still need to explain how Clovis's Franks could beat Alamans and Visigoths when they were on the level of Gallo-roman militia. Getting help from those same Gallo-romans would hardly have improved their chances.

The extensive use the late Empire made of barbarian foederati, particularly Franks, I think sufficiently confirms their fighting ability. Barbarian tribes who could not cut it on the field of battle in those times simply went under.

Remember that they only have to be no worse than each other.
Take as your benchmark late Roman troops. A lot of them were 'semi-professional' and even the regulars were a mixed lot. Julian is commended for using his good troops to provide a hard shell to protect the poorer troops.
But however good or bad they were, it was easier and cheaper to replace them with barbarians because you couldn't recruit enough citizens. Some of this was that landlords wouldn't release men, (so why they should suddenly have had a fit of conscience and released them for Syagrius so he could build a 'national army' is something that hasn't been explained).
The use made of foederati merely shows that they were cheap and could be hired without the political difficulties that you'd face if you tried to make landowners pay tax and release the men necessary to raise more regulars.

Then let's look at the Visigoths. They'd been fought to a standstill by Stilicho and his successors, they'd been starved into submission and they'd been given lands. Once settled the men have got their land, their lifestyle. The mixture of Visigoths (and all other sorts of goths) and freed slaves and deserters  aren't combat veterans in drilled units, they're now a collection of small landowners dispersed over a fair area. Yes they can be summoned to arms, from what we know of other peoples in a similar position, they might have been summoned once or twice a year to be inspected and even paid (which might explain the solidi). Sometimes they'd be called out for desultory fighting (which for a while consisted of blockading a city until whoever was Patrician sent a force to chase them off home again.
I think we have to be careful not to over-estimate the competence or professionalism of any army in the west in this period.
The problem is that if you assume someone is good, then you end up having to assume that their neighbours were equally good because they survived contact with them.
Actually if they're all pretty mediocre it still works. Also if you assume mediocrity, then it becomes more apparent how someone like Aetius who probably was competent and has some authority behind him can restore order and overawe people.

Jim

[aligern]

Though you would be arguing with Merobaudes who spoke of the Visigoths in the mid Vth century as  not just the unsophisticated easy tobeat barbarians that they had once been.
In fact, though,  armies change a lot and do decline and rise quickly, The troops who were a tough proposition ten year ago could decay into uselessness in a decade or so of being in a comfy garrison. Soldiers tombstones show an average career span that is well less than the 25 years of nominal service (of course the 25 year men have let and end up being buried on the farm) . Hence personnel could turn over quite quickly.
Clovis has four good reasons that enable him to beat the Visigoths.
Firstly he is a hard , driving man who is a warrior rather than a king
Second the Goths have a lot of their men in Spain and the Visigoths' Gallo Roman Allies do not get there in time.
Third he has assembled a large army of elites by taking in the comitatuses of those he has subdued or brought to alliance
Fourth,  his army is experienced, he has a lot of troops who have a recent track record of success.
That said his objectives are limited and he does not go on to face off Theoderic the Great or take Provence.
Roy

[Andreas Johansson]

No, because in the late Roman army you got provisioned, but then at various set times (Emperors accession, fifth anniversary etc) you were paid a donative.
I'd say that if gold coins are found, if they have anything to do with military matters (as opposed to being a generally good way of carrying wealth easily) then they're donatives. There is no reason why a general's buccelarii  or barbarian mercenaries shouldn't be paid and receive donatives.

If ca AD 500 barbarian mercenaries were like their Viking Age equivalents, they'd expect to be provided with both pork and bling by their employers.

(Note tangentially that the vast amounts of silver coins found in Viking Age Scandinavia didn't come with a money economy.)

[aligern]

discussion in Penny McGeorge Late Roman warlords. Her take is that the production of a debased form of Late Roman silver coins is just inconclusive. It goes on into the period that the Franks rule the area and I assume they were not paying Roman troops. The coins could be for trade, for paying soldiers or for tribute (as Andreas says) . They may have been buying federate troops or buying off Franks or other threatening neighbours.
the coin evidence does not take us anywhere because it is not particularly associated with military sites.

One interesting point in her coin section was that the early medieval military system in the area is different from other Merovingian systems and is of levying troops by city. That I would take as support for the view that Syagrius has his buccellarii (largely barbarians?) and that the bulk of his troops are the garrisons of the cities who may be downgraded ex Romans, local recruits or hired in bands of barbarians. This method of raising troops is then taken over by Clovis.
Like Jim I don't think that being a city garrison makes you a bad person, but it does not give you the efficiency of a large, professional Late Roman unit of professional soldiers who have full time officers who have followed a military career in the army, not some garrison and have the attributes in terms of discipline and learning and technique that being a comitatensian professional officer who has moved from unit to unit,brings.
To gloss Jim's pont about professionnels versus a land based army I suggest that the elites of a land based foce such as knights may well be better at certain élan based actions than professionals. Its like aristocratic led British cavalry in the Peninsula versus  Bourgeois led French forces:-)0
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

One curious aspect of the situation is that when Syagrius is - unexpectedly - beaten by the Franks, he does not try to hold out in his domain, but flees straight to the Visigoths.  Is this because the local lords will not have him (despite determinedly opposing the Franks; it took Clovis about a decade before he subdued or compounded with them all) or because he thinks a Visigoth army will be a better bet than his lords' 'militia'?

Syagrius' behaviour seems best explainable by his having a decent palatini army (regular troops using Roman organisation and techniques) as the foundation of his power.  This would give him the confidence to take on Clovis - and once it was lost, may explain his preference for obtaining a Visigothic army as a temporary substitute rather than trying to last out in the long haul and go it alone with his pseudo-limitanei.  Naturally, he may have wished to avoid the Visigoths joining in with the Franks to dismember his domain, but the impression I get is that his authority was tied to a central army and went when the army did.  To me, this implies the existence of a proper palatini army, maintained by taxes and arsenals (fabricae), in line with the basic system used by Constantine and his successors.

If we have to guess at quality, most of the armies in the area were getting fairly regular practice against each other, at least up to AD 476 - and all were familiar with Roman military systems and tradition (they had all beaten and/or been beaten by the Romans at some point or other).  They had been campaigning on and off for the better part of three quarters of a century, fighting both for the Romans and against them.  Their fathers had beaten off the Huns and tweaked the metaphorical nose of the Scourge of God.  Alaric II of the Visigoths may have been Alaric the Unready, but he seems to have been the exception rather than the norm.

[Jim Webster]

One curious aspect of the situation is that when Syagrius is - unexpectedly - beaten by the Franks, he does not try to hold out in his domain, but flees straight to the Visigoths.  Is this because the local lords will not have him (despite determinedly opposing the Franks; it took Clovis about a decade before he subdued or compounded with them all) or because he thinks a Visigoth army will be a better bet than his lords' 'militia'?

Syagrius' behaviour seems best explainable by his having a decent palatini army (regular troops using Roman organisation and techniques) as the foundation of his power.  This would give him the confidence to take on Clovis - and once it was lost, may explain his preference for obtaining a Visigothic army as a temporary substitute rather than trying to last out in the long haul and go it alone with his pseudo-limitanei.  Naturally, he may have wished to avoid the Visigoths joining in with the Franks to dismember his domain, but the impression I get is that his authority was tied to a central army and went when the army did.  To me, this implies the existence of a proper palatini army, maintained by taxes and arsenals (fabricae), in line with the basic system used by Constantine and his successors.

Actually it might just mean he was running 'a protection racket' based on the strength of his personal buccellarii (which he might have inherited from his father, just as Sebastianus seems to have inherited those of Bonifacius.)
To do this he doesn't need arsenals etc, just blacksmiths and basic metal workers, and he doubtless called them taxes, those he collected them off might have felt them justified whilst he was winning, but once he'd gone and had no buccellarii, there was no point in paying him.
It's a far simpler solution

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

Simpler, true, though it does not explain why this son of a Magister Militum felt he and his presumed bucellarii 'racketeers' could go out and beat a Frankish army.

As we seem to have run through the evidence and arguments on this subject, I wonder, Jim, if you could give us a walk through of the Roman police, estate guards and other non-regular/'private army' forces that you have discovered in various parts of the Empire.  It may have some bearing on the topic, and I would be interested to learn. 

[Jim Webster]

That will take some time to put together, it's a project I started a while back, and then had to put it on hold because of life and waiting to get hold of sources.
But it's something I do want to do.
As for why he felt his bucellarii 'racketeers' could beat Clovis, he was of the opinion that his bucellarii 'racketeers' plus the part time farmer/militia soldiers he could field were stronger than Clovis and his bucellarii 'racketeers' plus the part time farmer/militia soldiers

That's why, when Aetius or someone like that turned up with a proper army with long service professionals, they could restore order so quickly.

But for those who really wonder why Syagrius wasn't too bothered about the barbarians, here is Sidonius's letter to his Brother in Law in 474AD

To his brother-in-law Ecdicius
A. D. 474
[1] THERE never was a time when my people of Clermont needed you so much as now; their affection for you is |67 a ruling passion for more than one reason. First, because a man's native soil may rightly claim the chief place in his affection; secondly, because you were not only your countrymen's joy at birth, but the desire of their hearts while yet unborn. Perhaps of no other man in this age can the same be said; but the proof of the statement is that as your mother's time advanced, the citizens with one accord fell to checking every day as it went by. [2] I will not dwell on those common things which yet so deeply stir a man's heart, as that here was the grass on which as an infant you crawled, or that here were the first fields you trod, the first rivers you swam, the first woods through which you broke your way in the chase. I will not remind you that here you first played ball and cast the dice, here you first knew sport with hawk and hound, with horse and bow. I will forget that your schooldays brought us a veritable confluence of learners and the learned from all quarters, and that if our nobles were imbued with the love of eloquence and poetry, if they resolved to forsake the barbarous Celtic dialect, it was to your personality that they owed all. [3] Nothing so kindled their universal regard for you as this, that you first made Romans of them and never allowed them to relapse again.1 And how should the vision of you ever fade from any patriot's memory as we saw you in your glory upon that famous day, when a crowd of both sexes and every rank and age lined our half-ruined walls to watch you cross the space between us and the enemy? At midday, and right across the middle of the plain, you brought your little company of eighteen 2 safe through some thousands of the Goths, a feat which |68 posterity will surely deem incredible. [4] At the sight of you, nay, at the very rumour of your name, those seasoned troops were smitten with stupefaction; their captains were so amazed that they never stopped to note how great their own numbers were and yours how small. They drew off their whole force to the brow of a steep hill; they had been besiegers before, but when you appeared they dared not even deploy for action. You cut down some of their bravest, whom gallantry alone had led to defend the rear. You never lost a man in that sharp engagement, and found yourself sole master of an absolutely exposed plain with no more soldiers to back you than you often have guests at your own table. [5] Imagination may better conceive than words describe the procession that streamed out to you as you made your leisurely way towards the city, the greetings, the shouts of applause, the tears of heartfelt joy. One saw you receiving in the press a veritable ovation on this glad return; the courts of your spacious house were crammed with people. Some kissed away the dust of battle from your person, some took from the horses the bridles slimed with foam and blood, some inverted and ranged the sweat-drenched saddles; others undid the flexible cheek-pieces of the helmet you longed to remove, others set about unlacing your greaves. One saw folk counting the notches in swords blunted by much slaughter, or measuring with trembling fingers the holes made in cuirasses by cut or thrust. [6] Crowds danced with joy and hung upon your comrades; but naturally the full brunt of popular delight was borne by you. You were among unarmed men at last; but not all your arms would have availed to extricate |69 you from them. There you stood, with a fine grace suffering the silliest congratulations; half torn to pieces by people madly rushing to salute you, but so loyally responsive to this popular devotion that those who took the greatest liberties seemed surest of your most generous acknowledgements. [7] And finally I shall say nothing of the service you performed in raising what was practically a public force from your private resources, and with little help from our magnates. I shall not tell of the chastisement you inflicted on the barbaric raiders, and the curb imposed upon an audacity which had begun to exceed all bounds; or of those surprise attacks which annihilated whole squadrons with the loss of only two or three men on your side. Such disasters did you inflict upon the enemy by these unexpected onsets, that they resorted to a most unworthy device to conceal their heavy losses. They decapitated all whom they could not bury in the short night-hours, and let the headless lie, forgetting in their desire to avoid the identification of their dead, that a trunk would betray their ruin just as well as a whole body. [8] When, with morning light, they saw their miserable artifice revealed in all its savagery, they turned at last to open obsequies; but their precipitation disguised the ruse no better than the ruse itself had concealed the slaughter. They did not even raise a temporary mound of earth over the remains; the dead were neither washed, shrouded, nor interred; but the imperfect rites they received befitted the manner of their death. Bodies were brought in from everywhere, piled on dripping wains; and since you never paused a moment in following up the rout, they had to be taken into houses which were then hurriedly set |70 alight, till the fragments of blazing roofs, falling in upon them, formed their funeral pyres. [9] But I run on beyond my proper limits; my aim in writing was not to reconstruct the whole story of your achievements, but to remind you of a few among them, to convince you how eagerly your friends here long to see you again; there is only one remedy, at once quick and efficacious, for such fevered expectancy as theirs, and that is your prompt return. If, then, the entreaties of our people can persuade you, sound the retreat and start homeward at once. The intimacy of kings is dangerous; 1 court it no more; the most distinguished of mankind have well compared it to a flame, which illuminates things at a short distance but consumes them if they come within its range. Farewell.