03-09-2017, 08:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-09-2017, 09:25 PM by Nathan Ross.)
Glad you've escaped the dreaded manflu! Plenty of that about at present.
Lot's of speculation, yes, and I think if the text of the ND is all we have to go on we're unlikely to squeeze any new meaning out of it. In as much as riverine defences are always going to involve boats or ships to some degree, these 'milites' may have had something to do with that. But I don't think we can sort of retro-fit them as marine contingents!
This had always been the case - inscriptions from the principiate list (for example) milites classis praetoriae Misenensis. A miles was a soldier, and it didn't matter whether he was on land or water! But the word is used for almost every other military application too.
I agree that the 'milites' of the ND would fit best as a sort of locally-raised force, maybe a kind of militia in fact. Alternatively they could be barbarian troops, like the band of foederati that did so badly trying to protect a town in Noricum (I think) in the life of St Severinus.*
[*Edit - "Comagenis... very strictly guarded by the barbarians established within, who had entered into a league with the Romans" (Vita San.Sev 1) - the same account has Mamertinus the tribune with a small number of 'milites' holding Favianis.]
There certainly was a significant riverine naval capacity - there's that note in the Theodosian Code about several hundred (I think) lusoriae on the Danube*. We could probably imagine the same sort of thing on the Rhine, and on Lake Como too.
But we'd have to ask what the purpose of a river navy actually was - the Romans weren't intending to fight battles on the Danube or the Rhine. The sort of small craft involved - if we can take the Mainz ships as typical - would have been useful for scouting and patrolling, keeping the shipping routes open and attacking small bands of marauders. Even a hundred vessels like that could be manned and operated by a couple of thousand men. Once any larger barbarian incursion managed to cross the river, the ships would be of little use. All the more unnecessary, then, to turn all the frontier milites garrisons into marines, I think!
[*Edit 2 - 100 lusoriae in Moesia and 135 in Scythia: Co.Theo 7.17.4, Jan AD412)
Lot's of speculation, yes, and I think if the text of the ND is all we have to go on we're unlikely to squeeze any new meaning out of it. In as much as riverine defences are always going to involve boats or ships to some degree, these 'milites' may have had something to do with that. But I don't think we can sort of retro-fit them as marine contingents!
(03-09-2017, 05:01 PM)Longovicium Wrote: McAndrews points to Vegetius' use of the term in a naval context to describe what we today call marines.
This had always been the case - inscriptions from the principiate list (for example) milites classis praetoriae Misenensis. A miles was a soldier, and it didn't matter whether he was on land or water! But the word is used for almost every other military application too.
I agree that the 'milites' of the ND would fit best as a sort of locally-raised force, maybe a kind of militia in fact. Alternatively they could be barbarian troops, like the band of foederati that did so badly trying to protect a town in Noricum (I think) in the life of St Severinus.*
[*Edit - "Comagenis... very strictly guarded by the barbarians established within, who had entered into a league with the Romans" (Vita San.Sev 1) - the same account has Mamertinus the tribune with a small number of 'milites' holding Favianis.]
(03-09-2017, 05:01 PM)Longovicium Wrote: it does open up the possibility that late Roman naval capability (certainly in terms of its non-maritime aspect) was more developed and organised than I had perhaps appreciated in the past.
There certainly was a significant riverine naval capacity - there's that note in the Theodosian Code about several hundred (I think) lusoriae on the Danube*. We could probably imagine the same sort of thing on the Rhine, and on Lake Como too.
But we'd have to ask what the purpose of a river navy actually was - the Romans weren't intending to fight battles on the Danube or the Rhine. The sort of small craft involved - if we can take the Mainz ships as typical - would have been useful for scouting and patrolling, keeping the shipping routes open and attacking small bands of marauders. Even a hundred vessels like that could be manned and operated by a couple of thousand men. Once any larger barbarian incursion managed to cross the river, the ships would be of little use. All the more unnecessary, then, to turn all the frontier milites garrisons into marines, I think!
[*Edit 2 - 100 lusoriae in Moesia and 135 in Scythia: Co.Theo 7.17.4, Jan AD412)
Nathan Ross
