Topos of Barbarians Lacking Siege Engines

[Sean Manning]

By the first century BCE, there was a Roman topos that barbarians lacked siege machines. Like most topoi, this had some rough-and-ready truth in the present and an ugly psychological root: sure, people like the Caledonians or the Suebi could not build catapults and battering rams like the Romans could, but people like Diodorus did not want to admit that until the 5th century BCE it was only people from Syria, the Levant, and Carthage who knew how to take a walled city , or that Phoenician siege engineers were still respected in the 4th century BCE. It was applied to the Ottomans in the 15th and 16th century by sore losers.

Has anyone gathered passages which use this topos such as Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, V.42.1-3 or Tacitus, Annals, 12.45? I think Procopius has fun with this.

[Robert Vermaat]

Ammianus Marcellinus , The History, XXXI.

"the Goths besieged Adrianople. But lacking the equipment and the experience to conduct a siege and losing many men to missiles, they abandoned the city. Fritigern declared he now 'kept peace with walls'."

[Sean Manning]

Ammianus Marcellinus , The History, XXXI.

"the Goths besieged Adrianople. But lacking the equipment and the experience to conduct a siege and losing many men to missiles, they abandoned the city. Fritigern declared he now 'kept peace with walls'."

Thanks! looks like the citation is Ammianus Marcellinus 31.6.4

I have not seen this topos in Neo-Assyrian rhetoric or Egyptian rhetoric even though they faced people who did not know how to besiege too.

[Nathan Ross]

I'd thought there were a number of references from the 4th-5th centuries to barbarians being unable to use siege technology, or being taught to do so by deserters and renegades, but from what I can find the Ammianus one that Robert mentioned seems to be the only source.

There is one from the 6th century though - Theophylact Simocatta (2.16.10-11) writes that the Avars captured a veteran named Busas who taught them 'to construct a sort of besieging machine, since they had as yet no knowledge of such implements, and he prepared the siege engine for long-range assaults... [thereby]... giving the barbarians skilled instruction in the technology of siegecraft'.

It seems a little unclear what sort of machine was involved - Busas built a helepolis, either to attack 'from on high' or 'from afar', so it could either have been a tower or a catapult of some sort.

[Sean Manning]

Thanks! I don't know the Late Antique writers well. I thought there was a passage along those lines about the Parthians, but so far I can't find it. It may be a modern historian who decided that the Arsacids were ignorant of sieges in comparison to the Sasanids? The late A. Shahpur Shahbazi had that idea ... Enc Iranica "Army i. Pre-Islamic Iran"

The (Parthian) tactic was thus unfavorable to close combat operation, and inefficient in laying siege to forts and walled towns; nor could the Parthians sustain long campaigns, especially in the winter months (Rawlinson, op. cit., pp. 406ff.). Since they lacked siege-engines, the Parthians made no use of Roman machines whenever they captured them (Plutarch, Antony 38). And since the army was composed mainly of the dependants of the āzāts, it had to disband sooner or later and go back to the land and the crops. The Parthian general desired to bring to a close a campaign as soon as possible and return home.
...
Unlike the Parthians, however, the Persians organized an efficient siege machine for reducing enemy forts and walled towns. They learned this system of defense from the Romans but soon came to match them not only in the use of offensive siege engines—such as scorpions, balistae, battering rams, and moving towers—but also in the methods of defending their own fortifications against such devices by catapults, by throwing stones or pouring boiling liquid on the attackers or hurling fire brands and blazing missiles (Ammianus Marcellinus 19.5f., 20.6-7, 11).

[Alexandr K]

I thought there was a passage along those lines about the Parthians, but so far I can't find it. 

Hello Sean,

Iust. XLI. 2:
"Of engaging with the enemy in close fight, and of taking cities by siege, they know nothing."

Tac. Ann. XII. 45:
"There is nothing of which barbarians are so ignorant as military engines and the skilful management of sieges, while that is a branch of military science which we especially understand."

Tac. Ann. XV. 4:
"But the Parthian has not the daring in close combat needed for a successful siege. His thin showers of arrows do not alarm men within walls, and only disappoint himself. The Adiabeni, when they began to advance their scaling ladders and engines, were easily driven back, and then cut down by a sally of our men."

Lucan. Phars. VIII. 384-386:
"They fill no hostile trench, nor in their hands
Shall battering engine or machine of war
Dash down the rampart;"

Cass. Dio XL. 29:
"But when they failed to take Antioch, since Cassius effectively repulsed them and they were unable to carry on a siege, they turned to Antigonea. And since the neighbourhood of this city was overgrown with timber, and they did not dare, nay were not even able to penetrate this with cavalry, they formed a plan to cut down the trees and lay bare the whole place, so that they might approach the town with confidence and safety. But finding themselves unable to do this, because the task was a great one and their time was spent in vain, while Cassius harassed those of them who scattered abroad, they retired with the intention of proceeding against some other place."


Kind regards,
Alexandr

[Sean Manning]

Thanks!

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I'd thought there were a number of references from the 4th-5th centuries to barbarians being unable to use siege technology, or being taught to do so by deserters and renegades, but from what I can find the Ammianus one that Robert mentioned seems to be the only source.

There is one from the 6th century though - Theophylact Simocatta (2.16.10-11) writes that the Avars captured a veteran named Busas who taught them 'to construct a sort of besieging machine, since they had as yet no knowledge of such implements, and he prepared the siege engine for long-range assaults... [thereby]... giving the barbarians skilled instruction in the technology of siegecraft'.

It seems a little unclear what sort of machine was involved - Busas built a helepolis, either to attack 'from on high' or 'from afar', so it could either have been a tower or a catapult of some sort.

I was going to say, I'm pretty sure this comes up several times in the sources surrounding the 408-410 Sieges of Rome several times.

As for the Theofylaktos Simokattes passage, see here: https://deremilitari.org/2014/06/byzanti...trebuchet/

And also the various papers published by Dennis and a few others on Byzantine Artillery. Ildar Kayumenov sent me a list somewhere. Need to dig that up.

[Nathan Ross]

I'm pretty sure this comes up several times in the sources surrounding the 408-410 Sieges of Rome several times.

Our best source (Zosimus, using Olympiodorus) describes the three sieges, but doesn't mention any engines or even an assault on the walls - there may be another that does, in a sort of generic way, but I would rather trust Zosimus! The first siege was apparently just a close blockade, the second was similar but involved the storming of Portus, and the third was presumably similar to the first but very quickly brought to a conclusion. Alaric's siege of Ravenna also seems to have been a blockade.

Portus may or may not have had walls at the time (I notice the 'Portus Project' people seem to be suggesting a later date for the walls, but I'm not sure why. Theodosian seems the best estimate, I think). Alaric also attacked Bologna, which resisted him successfully, so we could probably assume both walls and an assault there.

However, beyond perhaps ladders and battering rams I can't find anything that suggests the use of 'siege machines' or the type of military technology commonly supposed to be beyond the understanding of barbarians! Eunapius mentions the 'Scythians' besieging Thessalonika and Athens in the 250s, but gives no details on how they went about taking these places.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I'm pretty sure this comes up several times in the sources surrounding the 408-410 Sieges of Rome several times.

Our best source (Zosimus, using Olympiodorus) describes the three sieges, but doesn't mention any engines or even an assault on the walls - there may be another that does, in a sort of generic way, but I would rather trust Zosimus! The first siege was apparently just a close blockade, the second was similar but involved the storming of Portus, and the third was presumably similar to the first but very quickly brought to a conclusion. Alaric's siege of Ravenna also seems to have been a blockade.

Portus may or may not have had walls at the time (I notice the 'Portus Project' people seem to be suggesting a later date for the walls, but I'm not sure why. Theodosian seems the best estimate, I think). Alaric also attacked Bologna, which resisted him successfully, so we could probably assume both walls and an assault there.

However, beyond perhaps ladders and battering rams I can't find anything that suggests the use of 'siege machines' or the type of military technology commonly supposed to be beyond the understanding of barbarians! Eunapius mentions the 'Scythians' besieging Thessalonika and Athens in the 250s, but gives no details on how they went about taking these places.

A later date for the walls might be suggested based on Vandal raiding in the 430s into 442.

[Nathan Ross]

A later date for the walls might be suggested based on Vandal raiding in the 430s into 442.

They're actually suggesting the 470s... presumably on some archaeological grounds, although I have been unable to discover any further information as to the selection this strange new date. I did try to contact Professor Simon Keay a while back, as he seems to have been the sole source for the idea, but got no reply and sadly he passed away last year.

The walls themselves appear very similar to Theodosian-era work from elsewhere in Italy, using spolia and the standing remains of ruined buildings, and it would be strange if the harbour had not been defended at all in this critical era, only to receive such massive fortification right at the end of empire when it was silting up and falling out of use! So until somebody presents some good data for the 470 estimate I think we should continue to assume the walls were probably constructed earlier, as previously believed.

[*edit - I've been trying to find any further information on the date of the Portus walls, so with apologies to Sean for going off topic I thought I'd add them here, in case anyone knows of anything else. Professor Keay's last publications suggest a date as late as AD480, which implies that he believed the walls were build under Odoacer. Other publications from the Portus Project suggest a vaguer '470s' date. But an Italian publication from 1992 cites Keay's own work on amphorae to suggest an earlier date - fragments of three amphorae incorporated into the structure of the wall itself appear to date, using Keay's typology, to between the later 3rd and end of the 4th century. This would fit with the estimated c.AD400 construction date. Another study mentions that the line of the walls detours to avoid a large temple or imperial mausoleum, which might suggest that such structures were still accorded some respect by the wall's builders!]

[Sean Manning]

In a chapter from 2006 ("Siege Narrative in Livy: Representation and Reality"), Jonathan P. Roth found two more passages, this time in Livy:

Livy 5.44.3-7 "Now the chance is offered to you, men of Ardea, of proving your gratitude for all the kindness that Rome has shown you —you have not forgotten how great it is, nor need I bring it up against those who so well remember it —the chance of winning for your city a vast reputation for war at the expense of our common foe. Those who are coming here in loose and disorderly fashion are a race to whom nature has given bodies and minds distinguished by bulk rather than by resolution and endurance. [4] It is for this reason that they bring into every battle a terrifying appearance rather than real force. Take the disaster of Rome as a proof. [5] They captured the City because it lay open to them; a small force repelled them from the Citadel and Capitol. Already the irksomeness of an investment has proved too much for them, they are giving it up and wandering through the fields in straggling parties. [6] When they are gorged with food and the wine they drink so greedily, they throw themselves down like wild beasts, on the approach of night, in all directions by the streams, without entrenching themselves, or setting any outposts or pickets on guard. And now after their success they are more careless than ever."

Livy 21.25.6-7 "Whilst they lay shut up in Mutina, the Gauls —who know nothing of the art of assaulting cities, and, besides, are very indolent in regard to siege-works, and were now sitting idly down before the walls without attempting them — feigned a readiness to treat for peace;"