Barbarization?

[Nathan Ross]

Every single garrison along the Rhine from the Sambre-Meuse Limes south to the origin of the Rhine was garrisoned until 450.

That seems a rather bold claim! While you might be able to show evidence of occupation at some (or all?) fort sites in the 5th century, that does not tell us who was doing the occupying.

The Notitia gives no military garrisons for the lower or upper Rhine, and only a clutch of milites units on the middle Rhine around Mainz, and we don't know when that information dates from (although we do know that the Romans were still building river galleys at Mainz in the 380s).

The grave evidence that does exist from military sites appears to show as much Elbe-Germanic as 'Roman' influence - but, as you know, it's impossible to determine ethnicity from the material record. It's also impossible to determine whether or not somebody was a regular Roman soldier.

Drinkwater himself mentions that it was Burgundi and Alans who acclaimed Jovinus in AD411 - and that was in Mainz, supposedly the centre of the Roman Rhine defences; both Jovinus and Constantine III before him seem to have relied largely on barbarian troops. Not a mention of a 'Roman' soldier anywhere!

Extremely hard to get rid of a 400 year old institution like that.

I know you're paraphrasing Drinkwater here, but it strikes me that the 'institution' was partially 'got rid of' on at least two occasions - the 260s and 350s - and seems in fact to have been rather fragile, relying on supply infrastructure, and food supplies from either Britain or the Gallic hinterland to a large degree. Keeping up Rhine navigation might have been an incentive, but for how long was that possible?

Basically the standard: Alamanni being recruited into normal military regiments until about 450-455ish... there was some sort of imperial military presence along the length of the Rhine until around 455...

I'm still not convinced, I'm afraid! Drinkwater's idea of 'an anomalous projection of Roman military power from northern Italy to the North Sea' (p.329) doesn't seem terrifically supportable - or at least, the available evidence seems to support the idea of an allied Germanic occupation of the Rhine area far better. I don't think we need dismiss Claudian quite as easily either - inventing a withdrawal from the Rhine would not make Stilicho look good, but he had to mention it in order to excuse it somehow.