Profile of a mid 5th century Roman soldier.

[Robert Vermaat]

Agree to disagree is fine, but one has facts to deal with.

My reading of Zosimos, Claudian, and other Late Roman sources that talk about the 5th Century definately give the impression that Goths served in large numbers across the Eastern half of the empire.

Agreed, no argument there.
However, you were talking about the 'typical' Roman soldier, and among a Late Roman army totally about 645.000 (Agath. V.13), any number of Goths would have been a minority.

Their style of dress was different to that of the other Roman infantry shown on the pen and ink drawings of the Column of Theodosius and the Column of Arcadius.

Agreed, again no contest there. However, there is no basis to extend the dress of that group (as drawn by that artist) to all the Goths serving in all the Roman armies.

It is known that large numbers of Goths had been recruited from 376AD onwards because after the Battle of Adrianopolis in 378AD messages were sent to cities all over the East for the Goths stationed in those cities to be lured to their deaths on the promise of receiving back pay. It is entirely conceivable that by 400AD some cities may not have seen what we would think of as a 'Roman' soldier as entire garrisons were made up of Goths. There were odd situations where there was a mix of both Romans and Goths, the Armies of Theodosius I, Gainas and Alaric being examples.

Indeed, large numbers were recruited, and they served in a number of places. Some units 9a few) seem to have been recruited entirely from Goths, but as to the numbers serving in any other unit, it is total speculation to say that a majority was formed by Gothic recruits. I'm speaking of all the units of the entire army. There weren't that many Gothic recruits - how many Goths do you think there were anyway? I think you're totally overestimating their numbers in the Roman army.

I know modern historians have thrown a lot of doubt on the 'barbarisation' of the Late Roman army. However, reading the ancient sources one gets the impression that it was a case of sheer necessity that forced the Roman's to rely increasingly on the new Germanics for troops, and the first large wave of them was the Goths.

Well, that's just it - modern historians take a critical look as ancient sources. Overstaing facts to make a point (as Vegetius probably did when describing the dropping of body armour, resulting in Roman defeat - according to him) was entirely normal. Sources complained about the defence in depth, as they did about the barbarians serving in the army. But were their facts 100% correct? Research, for instance into names, suggest that it was an overstatement.

Sure, numbers went up, especially in the West, when the recruitment of citizens broke down and everybody hired german mercenaries, but by then the military system was already in dire straits.
Anyway, by that time it was any sort of Germanic warrior who could fight for Rome, so that - as was the original question - it's impossible to say that Goths were the typical Roman soldier by the mid-5th century.

As to the Pilum, it was still in use during the late 360's AD and the early 370's AD as troops under Valentinian I and Valens are described in two battle accounts of throwing 'pilis'. The use of the Pilum may have been reintroduced by Valentinian I who appears to have been a bit of a military innoventor, and was described by Ammianus as 'an inventor of arms'.

You should know that Ammianus uses archaizing language throughout his work: his Sassanids are still Parthi, his spathae are still gladii - pili are just a general word for 'spears', regardless of their type. It's no basis to suspect any re-inroduction of the old heavy pilum.

Anyway, its always good to have a healthy, friendly debate, especially during the time of the Festival of Saturnalia!

Indeed!