Barbarization?

[Nathan Ross]

why would ANY Goth settle for being a lower paid federate, when he could join the regular army? Same with Alaric - why did he not join the regular army if there were apparently so many vacancies for people like him?

I would guess they would not have wanted to join for the same reason that many citizens did not - 20-25 years compulsory service, under harsh discipline, with compulsory service for your descendents as well. A foederatus (if that's a word!) could come and go much more freely, presumably... (I realise that you could then turn that around, and ask why any Goth would join the army when he could be a federate!)

As for Alaric, from what I can work out so far he was constantly angling for a better position, and knew that he could get a better deal out of the Roman state, both east and west, as a free agent than he could by taking a regular military position.

@ massacre - The tekst only says 'the Romans'... I don't think this is anything but a confrontation between Roman troops and families of non-Roman troops.

Do you mean the text of Zosimus? I admit I didn't check the original. It does say 'soldiers' were doing the massacring though? But yes - it's soldiers (presumably) killing Gothic civilians. My point was that they weren't the same group of Goths killing their own families (!) - but it is rather hazy...

I'm trying to work out the possible identity of the soldiers who apparently mutinied at Bologna, and were threatened with decimation by Stilicho - the foederati under Sarus are the obvious choice, but could they be punished in that way? (if so, my point above about discipline is out the window!) Or was it the 'four arithmoi' (Sozomen 9.4) that were due to be sent east with Stilicho? I doubt there is any way to know...

so how would he not only have managed to ‘entice’ the barbarian invaders of 406 into Spain, send all the other remaining Roman troops in Gaul (your proposal, not mine)

It strikes me that if this horde of barbarians crossed the Rhine in midwinter, they would need to keep moving - with all grain and other food supplies kept in stores, mostly inside fortified towns, their abilities to live off the land would be very limited, and if they remained in one place long they would face starvation. This might have been one reason why they ended up so far away from northern Gaul.

The note in Orosius (7.42.4) just says that the Spanish usurper Maximus, "stripped of the purple and abandoned by the troops of Gaul, which were transferred to Africa and then recalled to Italy, is now a needy exile living among the barbarians in Spain" (militibus Gallicanis, qui in Africam traiecti, deinde in Italiam reuocati sunt) - Orosius was a contemporary source, and I think we should take him seriously. The 'troops of Gaul' must have been sent across the Pyrenees by Constantius III, although I admit this isn't as clear as I would like!

However, Orosius's description of the original 'invasion' under Constans mentions another group: "certain barbarians, who had at one time been received as allies and drawn into military service, and who were called Honoriaci". Who these might have been (and what relation they had to the 'troops of Gaul') is obscure.

Interestingly, Orosius mentions that, prior to their domination by these Honoriaci, the Pyrenees were defended by a "faithful and efficient peasant guard" (rusticanorum fideli et utili custodia, Oros 7.40.4). That, and the need of Honorius's cousins to raise an army from their own slaves, speaks against the existence of a large and efficient regular Roman army in Spain at that point.

and we full well know that he did not ‘denude the island of soldiers’ as Gildas et al claimed later

That's most certainly your field and not mine! I'm curious, though - what evidence do we have for troops in Britain after c.400? (aside from the ND, I mean...)

If the Rhine had really been overrun and deserted all the towns in Gaul would have been plundered, the countryside ful of marauders. No source says it was. Ergo, the Rhine was defended.

Orosius (him again!) writes that "the Alans, Suebi, Vandals as well as many others with them, overwhelmed the Franks, crossed the Rhine, invaded Gaul, and advanced in their onward rush as far as the Pyrenees. Checked for the time being by this barrier, they poured back over the neighboring provinces." He then describes them "roaming wildly through Gaul."

No source, by contrast, suggests that any military force opposed these successive barbarian influxes and movements. Why not? As for the Rhine, Orosius puts it neatly: Francos proterunt, Rhenum transeunt, Gallias inuadunt. So - the Rhine was defended by the Franks!


[EDIT - p.s. - as for 'no source' talking of the plundering of Gaul, I would direct you to the extract of Jerome you quoted yourself! Pretty fruity, maybe, but a source nonetheless! ]