Reluctance to Serve in the late Roman Army

[John Conyard]

You could try and level a charge of the late army finding it hard to recruit, but it is hard to make stick even considering the greater size of the army compared to the early Imperial period. Rather I suspect the charge that it is hard to recruit soldiers is a constant refrain through history, up to and including today.

People always quote the law of AD 406 allowing slaves to serve, but this is only a special temporary measure. The famous story of men cutting off their thumbs to avoid enlistment is due to attempts to specifically conscript in Italy, with little record of recruitment and ruled by large land owners unfriendly to recruitment amongst their “tenants”. Recruits generally came from elsewhere, and were of better physical stature.
Rather than trying to throw people into the army, in fact there was a whole raft of people who were excluded from recruitment. In AD 370 we have laws exempting Imperial estates providing recruits, and restrictions on recruits drawn from a whole range of social groups. A law of 407 exempted tribunes and praepositi from providing recruits from their estate. Another of 423 exempted decurions and silentiaries. Some palatini and agents in rebus were also exempt.

Certainly the late Roman army made use of “barbarians” but the army always had used such soldiers. After the non Roman auxiliaries were assimilated into the legions there was a greater need of foederati with their own internal organisations. Marcus Aurelius had already recruited slaves, gladiators and robbers into the army. Plague in the Antonine period meant more mercenaries were employed. A large list of foreign units serving with the third century army can be put together. Constantine continues the trend, and many of his elite units (Cornuti , Brachiati, Petulantes and Celtae) came from tribesmen from north Germany and Denmark. Constantine’s army of AD312 came in part from ex-prisoners of war re-settled in Gaul.

The 4th century frontier units have a stake in the empire via land ownership, and Ammianus suggests that some field army units are linked to specific regions. Certainly units of Julian’s army seem to have resisted transfer to the east. The anonymous de Rebus Bellicis advocates land grants to veterans along the frontiers to improve security. Late 4th century limitanei appear to have enjoyed a salary roughly equivalent to their Hadrianic brethren. In pure cash terms they were paid less, but received food and equipment on top of this. They were certainly paid better than their late 2nd and early 3rd century counterparts who suffered from Empire-wide inflation and the debasement of currency.

Rather than a steady decline I see an army developing by the end of the 4th century into perhaps the first “modern” army in the way we understand such terms.