The Battle of Chalons AD 451

[Justin Swanton]

Taking another look at this passage:

Adgrediamur igitur hostem alacres: audaciores sunt semper, qui inferunt bellum. Adunatas dispicite dissonas gentes: indicium pavoris est societate defendi. En ante impetum nostrum terroribus iam feruntur, excelsa quaerunt, tumulos capiunt et sera paenitudine in campos monitiones efflagitant. Nota vobis sunt quam sint levia Romanorum arma: primo etiam non dico vulnere, sed ipso pulvere gravantur, dum in ordine coeunt et acies testudineque conectunt. - Jordanes, Getica XXXIX/204 Let us then attack the foe eagerly; for they are ever the bolder who make the attack. Despise this union of discordant races! To defend oneself by alliance is proof of fear. See, even before our attack they are smitten with terror. They seek the heights, they seize the hills and, when it is too late, clamor for defence works in the open fields. You know of how little consequence Roman arms are: they are weighed down, not even by the first wound, but by the dust itself, whilst they form up and join their battlelines and tortoises.

The bit about seeking defence works on the level ground is applied to the allied army as a whole, not necessarily to the Roman infantry specifically, which Attila then goes on to talk about. One could assume that the only part of the army that would want field defences is the infantry, specifically the  Romans and Auxilia. This leads to the reasonable conclusion that the Roman foot were on level ground, at least in part.

Notice how Attila urges his men to attack the Alans and Visigoths as a means of bringing down the Romans:

Despise their battle line. Attack the Alani, smite the Visigoths! Seek swift victory in that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken away the bones.

The implication is that the Alans and Visigoths are giving vital support to the Romans. One could take it simply as a question of numbers: with the Visigoths and Alans gone, the Romans will be too few to withstand the Huns. But one could also take it in a more military sense: the Alans and Visigoths are covering the Roman right, which is in the plains, hence vulnerable to outflanking. Sweep the Alan-Visigothic support away and the Roman infantry will be outflanked and destroyed (implicitly leaving too few survivors on the ridge to have a chance against the victorious Hunnic host).

[Patrick Waterson]

That is certainly one way of looking at it (in fact that is a rather good post).  One does wonder, though, whether defeating the Visigoths and Alans would in itself gain the victory, with all else simply being mopping-up: if not, this argues for a rather more formidable Roman presence than is generally assumed.

In essence, we seem to have two overall options and several sub-options for interpreting this bit of Jordanes:

Option 1: the Indicative Option
Option 1a: the Romans have come down onto level ground, and are vulnerable and in need of defences, so Attila encourages his men to attack the Alans and Visigoths, presumably to give the Romans time to create defences, or
Option 1b: the Romans have come down onto level ground and are in need of supports: attacking the supports will leave the Romans out on a limb.  (The question here is which Visigoths are to be attacked, as Theodoric is on the wrong side of the battlefield to support Aetius - under this interpretation Attila is presumably encouraging an attack on Thorismund, who is ensconced on the high ground.)
[Is this a fair representation of the implications?]

Option 2: the Subjunctive Option
Option 2a: the Romans are sitting pretty on the heights, and Attila wants to use the opportunity to crack the Alan and/or Visigoth line before the Romans can organise an attack, so speaks dismissively of the Romans, or
Option 2b: the Romans are sitting pretty on the heights, and Attila needs to boost his troops' morale and make the best of a bad job, so he disparages the Romans before sending his main strength against the Alans and Visigoths.

What is clear is that after the initial repulse from the high ground, Attila is not going to take on the Romans.  Had they actually descended to the low ground, his rhetoric about them seems incompatible with his actions.

The bit about seeking defence works on the level ground is applied to the allied army as a whole, not necessarily to the Roman infantry specifically, which Attila then goes on to talk about. One could assume that the only part of the army that would want field defences is the infantry, specifically the  Romans and Auxilia. This leads to the reasonable conclusion that the Roman foot were on level ground, at least in part.

The assumption I agree with, but do not see how it leads to the conclusion unless one credits Jordanes with knowledge of the subjunctive and deliberate application of the indicative in this instance.

If Jordanes were capable of expressing the subjunctive in this case (he might have transcribed Cassiodorus), perhaps we should consider the possibility that:

et sera paenitudine in campos monitiones efflagitant

should be read as:

ut sera paenitudine in campos munitiones efflagitent

Textual emendation is not something I advocate except where it seems inevitable, so this is just floated as a possibility.

Notice how Attila urges his men to attack the Alans and Visigoths as a means of bringing down the Romans:

Despise their battle line. Attack the Alani, smite the Visigoths! Seek swift victory in that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken away the bones.

The implication is that the Alans and Visigoths are giving vital support to the Romans. One could take it simply as a question of numbers: with the Visigoths and Alans gone, the Romans will be too few to withstand the Huns. But one could also take it in a more military sense: the Alans and Visigoths are covering the Roman right, which is in the plains, hence vulnerable to outflanking. Sweep the Alan-Visigothic support away and the Roman infantry will be outflanked and destroyed (implicitly leaving too few survivors on the ridge to have a chance against the victorious Hunnic host).

To me, this looks valid as far as it goes, but the presumably easier course of knocking out the Alans and leaving the Visigoths locked in combat with the Ostrogoths would have the same effect of exposing the Roman right (albeit not the left) and potentially rear - and if the Alans could be routed, rounding on the Visigoths would be a better way to exploit the situation.  Timing might also be tricky, as defeating the Alans and Visigoths could take most of the day, leaving the Romans able to get back to their camp as darkness closed in (pretty much what Attila did when things went against him).  Naturally, if the Visigoths and Alans could be driven off the field and the Romans induced to fall back to their camp it would be a victory on points for Attila and thereafter very hard if not impossible for Aetius to hold the coalition together.

I would see this as Attila's overall intent: having given up on trying to beat the Romans in that sector of the field, he encourages his men to an all-out effort along the rest of the line in the hope of getting the Romans to retire once their allies started to crumble.  However as evidence for the Romans being on level ground at the time he was speaking it seems to bear a curious contradiction: on the one hand, a Roman line is so feeble that even the weight of the dust it raises exhausts it, whereas on the other combat with it is implicitly to be avoided.

One might note that the central point Attila seems to be making is:

Nota vobis sunt quam sint levia Romanorum arma: primo etiam non dico vulnere, sed ipso pulvere gravantur, dum in ordine coeunt et acies testudineque conectunt.

(You know of how little consequence Roman arms are: they are weighed down, not even by the first wound, but by the dust itself, whilst they form up and join their battlelines and tortoises.)

It is as if he is reassuring his troops that they need not fear a Roman attack, implying that they were apprehensive on precisely this point.  Had a Roman attack been developing as he spoke (I see no other reason for the Romans to leave their recently-captured heights) then just dismissing the threat with a few airy words and encouraging his men to concentrate on the other sectors of the line seems to be just asking for trouble.

[Duncan Head]

A little information (albeit in panegyric form) on what Aetius brought with him from Italy.
In essence: Aetius arrived from Italy with a force of auxiliaries expecting to meet up with the Goths.
There is no mention of legions with him (although they are mentioned as being in Italy).
[Sidonius, Carmina 7.329]
"Aetius had scarce left the Alps, leading a thin, meagre force of auxiliaries without legionaries...

"vix liquerat Alpes Aetius, tenue et rarum sine milite ducens robur in auxiliis..." - literally, without milites - soldiers rather than "legionaries". Quite what that means I am not sure - the point did crop up in the old thread.

[aligern]

Don't be too quick to rubbish panegyric Justin. Frequently they would be declaimed in front of the hero by the writer. It is OK to exaggerate and flatter a bit, but not to tell such biatant lies that ypu make the recipient look stupid. So we are not told that Avitus was at Chalons and thus very likely he was not. Its not a panegyric to Aetius and thus telling us that he came from Italy with a few federates only is most likely true.
Of course you could fly sky high with the idea that Sidonius deliberately ignores Aetius' large regular Roman army because he wants to enlarge Avitus' part in bringing the essential Visigothic. host to the battle:-))
For me the meaning of  the speech that Attila puts into Attila's mouth is much more likely to mean that he despises the Roman army because it hides behind fortifications rather than fights in the open. That would refer to the recent campaign in Northern Gaul and , perhaps, look forward to the campaign in Italy where the Roman troops did not meet Attila in the field.
This is a battle of which we have no contemporary account. I admire your abilities in teasing out a theoretical course from Jordanes words, and as an interpretative exercise it is fun, but it is a leap too far.


Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Don't be too quick to rubbish panegyric Justin. Frequently they would be declaimed in front of the hero by the writer. It is OK to exaggerate and flatter a bit, but not to tell such blatant lies that you make the recipient look stupid. So we are not told that Avitus was at Chalons and thus very likely he was not. Its not a panegyric to Aetius and thus telling us that he came from Italy with a few federates only is most likely true.

Avitus is termed 'saviour of the world' (!), which suggests a fairly high-flown rendering of events, though if we strip out the adjectives we may be able to extract a core likelihood, namely that Aetius, at least initially, brought a force of auxilia out of Italy to meet up with the Goths (and possibly with the Roman contingent in Gaul, but nobody says this).  When the Goths declined the rendezvous, Aetius according to the panegyric relied exclusively on Avitus' powers of persuasion, and lo! the Goths appear in his train.

I have no evidence for the following so it is merely a surmise: following the Gothic decision to await the Huns within their own borders and the despatch of Avitus to try and talk them out of it, Aetius may well have called together further forces, stripping Italy and Gaul of their remaining mobile troops and whatever garrisons he could coax or cajole or order to join him.  The resultant increase in the size and scope of his army might have been the deciding factor in the Visigoths' final decision to join his coalition.

Sidonius may thus have mentioned the initial contingent Aetius brought from Italy but passed over any subsequent reinforcement as not wholly relevant to the purpose of glorifying Avitus' diplomatic success.

Meanwhile, Gregory of Tours (II.7) has his own version of the battle.

"Meanwhile Aetius and his allies the Goths and the Franks [sic] had joined battle with Attila.  When she saw that his army was being exterminated, Attila fled from the battlefield.  Theodoric, the King of the Goths, was killed in this conflict.  No one has any doubt that the army of the Huns was really routed by the prayers of the Bishop about whom I have told you; but it was the patrician Aetius, with the help of Thorismund, who gained the victory and destroyed the enemy."

If this is not just idle chatter on the part of Gregory, dare we link Gregory's mention of Aetius and Thorismund (note, not Theoderic) gaining the victory with Jordanes' mention of Visigoths 'separating from the Alans' and charging the Huns, putting Attila at risk?  If so - and this is speculating - could Thorismund have been Aetius' tactical reserve on the coalition left wing?  He could have supported the initial seizure of the heights, been sent to buttress the Alans (or at least 'police' their rear) and finally extracted his command to charge the Hunnic centre in flank or join such a charge led by Aetius.

Just a thought.

[Justin Swanton]

A little information (albeit in panegyric form) on what Aetius brought with him from Italy.
In essence: Aetius arrived from Italy with a force of auxiliaries expecting to meet up with the Goths.
There is no mention of legions with him (although they are mentioned as being in Italy).
[Sidonius, Carmina 7.329]
"Aetius had scarce left the Alps, leading a thin, meagre force of auxiliaries without legionaries...

"vix liquerat Alpes Aetius, tenue et rarum sine milite ducens robur in auxiliis..." - literally, without milites - soldiers rather than "legionaries". Quite what that means I am not sure - the point did crop up in the old thread.

The Latin is a bit odd. Literally it means: "Aetius had scarcely left the Alps, leading a thin and meagre force without a soldier in (the) Auxilia."

Not "ducens robur auxilium" - "leading a force of Auxilia" as you would expect.

The best sense I can make of it is this: "Aetius had scarcely left the Alps, leading a thin and meagre force without a single soldier in the Auxilia." i.e. not only was Aetius force small, it also consisted of irregular and untrained Auxilia. The poor guy was really down on his luck, says Sidonius. Thank heavens for Avitus.

[Jim Webster]

Actually Justin, that does make sense.
The Emperor/court/power brokers in Italy might well be very loathe to see Aetius lead a strong force into Gaul and leave Italy under-defended

Jim

[Justin Swanton]

Actually Justin, that does make sense.
The Emperor/court/power brokers in Italy might well be very loathe to see Aetius lead a strong force into Gaul and leave Italy under-defended

Jim

Which would go with the tension between the emperor and the MM which seems to have dominated events in this century. As I said earlier, I see this tension as the principal cause of the downfall of the empire in the west.

[Justin Swanton]

Less sure about Attila having to get rid of the Alans and Visigoths first - if the Romans were on the flat and, in theory, vulnerable, the way to eat them up from the flanks would be to deprive them of their immediate cavalry supports - Aetius' mounted troops and Thorismund's contingent - rather than to launch the Hunnic army's main strength into an uncertain engagement against the Visigoths and Alans.  Hence, to me at least, simply holding the Alans and Visigoths while concentrating on the Romans' cavalry support (perhaps this is what Jordanes meant by 'monitiones'?) would be the best and fastest way to render the Roman infantry vulnerable, especially as help would be unlikely to be provided by the allied centre, consisting as it did of the apparently reluctant Alans.

But it is too late for the Huns to redeploy. They are facing the Romans, Alans and part of the Visigoths on the allied right wing. The Gepids are facing Thorismud (which would explain how he managed to gain his part of the heights) and the Ostrogoths face the remaining part of the Visigoths on the allied right wing (which would partly explain why they were not given short shrift like the Alans). Attila's speech seems addressed to the Huns only, and their options are limited - attack the Romans again, or attack the Alans/Visigoths and outflank the Romans.

[Justin Swanton]

I would see this as Attila's overall intent: having given up on trying to beat the Romans in that sector of the field, he encourages his men to an all-out effort along the rest of the line in the hope of getting the Romans to retire once their allies started to crumble.  However as evidence for the Romans being on level ground at the time he was speaking it seems to bear a curious contradiction: on the one hand, a Roman line is so feeble that even the weight of the dust it raises exhausts it, whereas on the other combat with it is implicitly to be avoided.

One might note that the central point Attila seems to be making is:

Nota vobis sunt quam sint levia Romanorum arma: primo etiam non dico vulnere, sed ipso pulvere gravantur, dum in ordine coeunt et acies testudineque conectunt.

(You know of how little consequence Roman arms are: they are weighed down, not even by the first wound, but by the dust itself, whilst they form up and join their battlelines and tortoises.)

It is as if he is reassuring his troops that they need not fear a Roman attack, implying that they were apprehensive on precisely this point.  Had a Roman attack been developing as he spoke (I see no other reason for the Romans to leave their recently-captured heights) then just dismissing the threat with a few airy words and encouraging his men to concentrate on the other sectors of the line seems to be just asking for trouble.

One could also see this as an assurance by Attila that the Roman infantry are slow: they are weighed down by their equipment, such that they will not be able to respond when the Huns attack on the left, in other words, Attila is telling his men not to worry about them - they will have plenty of time to engage and beat the Alans and Visigoths, after which enveloping and crushing the Roman infantry will be an easy task (as the Goths did at Adrianople).

All this translates into interesting precisions on troop types of this period. Visigothic cavalry can just about beat Ostrogothic and Gepid cavalry. Roman and Allied infantry can effortlessly beat Hunnic cavalry on a slope and just about withstand it frontally on open terrain (presuming part of the Roman line was on open terrain...) but cannot handle a flanking attack. Hunnic cavalry can beat any allied cavalry but not infantry. So...

Hunnic cavalry: Elite
Visigothic cavalry: Superior
Ostrogothic cavalry: Ordinary
Gepid cavalry: Ordinary
Alan cavalry: Ordinary
Roman and Allied infantry: Ordinary but with slightly superior basic factors against cavalry.

[Patrick Waterson]

The Latin is a bit odd. Literally it means: "Aetius had scarcely left the Alps, leading a thin and meagre force without a soldier in (the) Auxilia."

Not "ducens robur auxilium" - "leading a force of Auxilia" as you would expect.

The best sense I can make of it is this: "Aetius had scarcely left the Alps, leading a thin and meagre force without a single soldier in the Auxilia." i.e. not only was Aetius force small, it also consisted of irregular and untrained Auxilia. The poor guy was really down on his luck, says Sidonius. Thank heavens for Avitus.

Sidonius modestly addresses Avitus as 'Saviour of the World', but my impression is - and someone please correct me if this is wrong - that a 'miles' is a soldier who is a citizen of the Empire, whereas an 'auxiliaris' is a member of an auxilium, a regular soldier but theoretically a non-citizen until he finishes his term of service.

One could also see this as an assurance by Attila that the Roman infantry are slow: they are weighed down by their equipment, such that they will not be able to respond when the Huns attack on the left, in other words, Attila is telling his men not to worry about them - they will have plenty of time to engage and beat the Alans and Visigoths, after which enveloping and crushing the Roman infantry will be an easy task (as the Goths did at Adrianople).

That certainly makes sense, and I think we can read him as emphasising the Romans' slowness rather than their vulnerability, reassuring his presumably shaken troops that despite their just-received repulse there will be no more to worry about in that sector for the immediate tactical future.

Actually Justin, that does make sense.
The Emperor/court/power brokers in Italy might well be very loathe to see Aetius lead a strong force into Gaul and leave Italy under-defended

Jim

Which would go with the tension between the emperor and the MM which seems to have dominated events in this century. As I said earlier, I see this tension as the principal cause of the downfall of the empire in the west.

This may well have been the case, with the Goths refusing to budge until a more significant Roman force was made available - despite Valentinian's wishes.  The fielding of such a force following the incident prompting Sidonius' remarks would also accord with Valentinian suspecting Aetius of aiming at empire - especially if Aetius had kept the (presumed) extra troops in hand following Attila's defeat and not released them back to Italy.

[Patrick Waterson]

All this translates into interesting precisions on troop types of this period. Visigothic cavalry can just about beat Ostrogothic and Gepid cavalry. Roman and Allied infantry can effortlessly beat Hunnic cavalry on a slope and just about withstand it frontally on open terrain (presuming part of the Roman line was on open terrain...) but cannot handle a flanking attack. Hunnic cavalry can beat any allied cavalry but not infantry. So...

Hunnic cavalry: Elite
Visigothic cavalry: Superior
Ostrogothic cavalry: Ordinary
Gepid cavalry: Ordinary
Alan cavalry: Ordinary
Roman and Allied infantry: Ordinary but with slightly superior basic factors against cavalry.

Just one question: can Hunnic cavalry actually beat any allied cavalry?  They seem to have had some success against the Alans but to have been defeated by Goths (and perhaps Romans in the initial clash) at Chalons.  Following Attila's death the Gepids defeated the Huns at Nedao (Jordanes Getica L/260-262).

[Justin Swanton]

To create the empire they did I'm working on the presumption they could beat without too much trouble any cavalry army in the area. To beat them would require a tactical or terrain advantage. Do we have any details of Nedao besides Jordanes' account? (which does not go into tactical specifics) Also keeping in mind that by Nedao the Huns were divided against themselves, each son of Attila clamouring for his portion of the empire without much display of solidarity between them:

Finally, after many bitter conflicts, victory fell unexpectedly to the Gepidae. For the sword and conspiracy of Ardaric destroyed almost thirty thousand men, Huns as well as those of the other nations who brought them aid. In this battle fell Ellac, the elder son of Attila, whom his father is said to have loved so much more than all the rest that he preferred him to any child or even to all the children of his kingdom. But fortune was not in accord with his father's wish. For after slaying many of the foe, it appears that he met his death so bravely that if his father had lived, he would have rejoiced at his glorious end. When Ellac was slain, his remaining brothers were put to flight near the shore of the Sea of Pontus, where we have said the Goths first settled. Thus did the Huns give way, a race to which men thought the whole world must yield. So baneful a thing is division, that they who used to inspire terror when their strength was united, were overthrown separately.

[Jim Webster]

I'm not sure about this Patrick, "Sidonius modestly addresses Avitus as 'Saviour of the World', but my impression is - and someone please correct me if this is wrong - that a 'miles' is a soldier who is a citizen of the Empire, whereas an 'auxiliaris' is a member of an auxilium, a regular soldier but theoretically a non-citizen until he finishes his term of service."

Remember after Caracalla everybody within the Empire was a citizen. Unless Auxilia were recruited entirely from outside the Empire then they would have been composed of citizens. I suspect that in two hundred years the link between citizenship and auxiliaris might have broken down.


Also "This may well have been the case, with the Goths refusing to budge until a more significant Roman force was made available - despite Valentinian's wishes.  The fielding of such a force following the incident prompting Sidonius' remarks would also accord with Valentinian suspecting Aetius of aiming at empire - especially if Aetius had kept the (presumed) extra troops in hand following Attila's defeat and not released them back to Italy."

We've no evidence that Aetius got more Romans, there is speculation he found some in the north of Gaul, but frankly it is purely speculation, the auxiliaries he found there might merely have been Barbarians who had fought with the Romans before, and had since been settled on land before Aetius 'recalled them to the colours' or whatever the Roman equivalent of the phrase is.

Jim

[Justin Swanton]

We've no evidence that Aetius got more Romans, there is speculation he found some in the north of Gaul, but frankly it is purely speculation, the auxiliaries he found there might merely have been Barbarians who had fought with the Romans before, and had since been settled on land before Aetius 'recalled them to the colours' or whatever the Roman equivalent of the phrase is.

Jim

Bear in mind that the 'Romans' who fought at Chalons were not the Auxilia, as Jordanes makes clear:

dextram partem Hunni cum suis, sinistram Romani et Vesegothae cum auxiliariis occuparunt, relictoque de cacumine eius iugo certamen ineunt. The Huns with their forces seized the right side, the Romans and the Visigoths with the Auxilia the left, and then began a struggle for the yet untaken crest.

Notice how the taking of the heights to the discomfiture of the Huns involves primarily the Romans and Visigoths, and secondarily the Auxilia. The implication is that the Roman regular infantry (whose trained and professional nature is also clear from Attila's description of them) were more numerous than the Auxilia, i.e. they were a powerful and significant force, such that Attila did not contemplate attacking them directly again.