The Empire is dead, long live the army

[rodge]

Has anyone seen/read/got:

Alexander Demandt: 'Magister Militum'
In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (RE). Supplementband XII, Stuttgart 1970

Wolfram references it in footnotes in 'History of the Goths' regarding some actions around Arles involving Aegidius and Majorian. I'm curious as to which sources (if any) Herr Demandt got his information from....

[aligern]

Patrick, I think we did consider the possibility that the ridge was between the armies, I am pretty sure that we discussed this for our Armati reconstruction. It was rejected because Attila is retreating and thus very likely on the battlefield first. He could have occupied the ridge in strength if it was trans the field. So that reconstruction fails the Inherent Military Probability test ( no heed to rehearse the pitfalls of that). More likely it is on one flank and the summit is its mid point as one moved along it. The observer would then be looking down  on the ridge with Huns to the right, Allies to the left.
If the Ridge s between the two armies and the Huns are on one end, the Allies on the other and they then fight for the centre there is a severe danger of them having to fight flank to the enemy's front which is hard to believe.
Of course the high ground being on one side fits well with the site the Chalons discussion thought best.
there is the possibility that the ridge is somehow rather smaller and more isolated than we are imagining it and that the battle fir it as described is frontal by cavalry forces from both sides and that one wins on one flank, one the other until the Allues finally take the centre.

Of course we should also bear in mind that the Franks and the Gepids have to hack at each other the night before the battle. That argues that the armies are. quite close.

I am pleased  that we agree that Attila exhorts his men to charge. none of the proposed actions of Attila involves racing all over the place skirmishing. If that was how they operated then it would make most sense for them to have started days before wearing the Allies down.
As I have said earlier, I have no great belief in the truth of the words that Jordanes gives to Attila, but I suppose that we can treat them as being something that would have been sensible and possible on the day.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Then again, the ridge would have had no water, which may be the reason Attila's camp was nowhere near it.  His army would have started their day in the camp, not on the ridge, so I do not think we can say he would have held it (other than with scouts) on Inherent Military Probability grounds, rather once he realised the pursuit had caught up he knew he was going to have to fight that day, so moved his army out as Aetius and friends moved up and the Huns came second in the struggle to be fustest on the ridge with the mostest, to paraphrase Nathan B-F.

[Justin Swanton]

We do have a parallel case with Cynoscephalae, where the Roman and Macedonian armies were camped on opposite sides of a group of hills, only becoming aware of each other when scout parties clashed, leading to a race for the hilltop (which the Romans won on the right flank thanks to their elephants).

On the other hand Jordanes does say that Aetius and Thorismud, along with Aetius's Auxilia, won the fight for the ridge:

Attila sent his men to take the summit of the mountain, but was outstripped by Thorismud and Aëtius, who in their effort to gain the top of the hill reached higher ground and through this advantage of position easily routed the Huns as they came up.

If the ridge stretched the length of the battlefield, one imagines there would be mention of the Visigothic king and the Alans.

There is also mention of the fieldworks:

They seek the heights, they seize the hillocks and, when it is far too late, clamor for fortifications in the level fields.

Does this mean that the allied army descended from the ridge top to the plains below and built fieldworks in front of the huns? Why seize high ground if you don't intend to use it? Fieldworks are the work of trained troops, in other words of Aetius's regulars. The best sense of the passage seems to be this: The Roman infantry, along with the Auxilia and Visigoth cavalry guard under Thorismud, had successfully seize the ridge. Part of the Roman infantry, however, were on the level ground alongside the ridge - i.e. where the ridge dropped to the plain between the armies. This flat ground the Romans fortify, throwing up a hasty earthen barricade to mitigate the impact of a Hunnic cavalry charge. Which would suggest that the ridge did not cover the entire length of the battlefield.

These hasty defences seem not to have been very effective. Jordanes, writing of the Huns' retreat to their camp, mentions:

... there they sought refuge for their lives, whom but a little while before no earthen walls could withstand."

With the rout of the Alans, the Huns would have had no problem outflanking the Roman earthenwork defences, obliging the legionaries to fight them directly.

[Patrick Waterson]

Good point, Justin - and it accords with Roy's earlier observations about the ridge on one part of the field according with the best/most likely site.

We may as well shift discussion to a dedicated new Chalons thread.

[aligern]

Patrick, your point at 7:11 suggesting that Attila returned to the hill once he knew that the pursuit had caught up falls apart when you take into account that  the Franks and. Gepuds had fought the night before.Attila knew the allues were very close, so if the ridge were  between them he would have surely occupied it in strength first thing.

Mind you we. are assuming that Attila is a good general and he might not be. His record is not that good.
Roy
as a suggestion Patrick, can ypu take all the Chalons posts here and append them in sequence to the original Chalons thread as that would be the most elegant answer?
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

I would if I could but failing that have created a new Chalons thread in this section rather than under Battle Day which I think should be reserved for Montaperti at present.

[aligern]

Anthony makes an important point here. In the Late Antique period there is a great change in the nature of Romanness and it is a change which causes confusion in the ranks of commentators.  The problem is the question as to what extent 'barbarisation' of the army occurs because it has been alleged as a reason for the fall of the Western Imperium. Where I perceive the difficulty is that those who want to see continuity see the successor states adopting, or rather maintaining Roman conventions. Those who see a fracture emphasise the extent to which new forms take over. I would see Rance as emphasising continuity so the foulkon is a traditional Roman formation which was called testudo centuries earlier and is Arrians formation contra Alanos. he also has an article on the cavalry formation 'globus' , which he thinks, I believe goes back to Celtic roots.
The concept of buccellarii is one of those institutions which has been seen as Germanic, surrounding the leader with a number of paid men, dependent upon him and issued horses and weapons by him. This institution too cam be seen as either a matter of a barbarian import such as Gratian's bodyguard of Alans or just the descendant of the bully boys that Roman senators and rich equites maintained. It becomes difficult to sort out the parentage of such a concept because the elements that make it unique and are defined in say the Visigothic laws are probably there earlier. What is different is that the Romans did not make their armies of their retainers in a sort of oyramid sales system as their successors did, but then maybe that has more to do with the collapse of the cash economy.
Roy