I just finished reading Peter Heather's (PH) Rome Resurgent, which I now have to write a review for. When I first heard about the book, I was both excited and horribly disappointed: excited because I love the topic and have read some of Heather's other work, disappointed because it looked like he had done what I had done. The good news, for me, is that he doesn't quite seem to have done what I had intended: write a detailed study of the impact of Justinian's wars on the fate of the empire. Yes, this is what the book purports to do - and to some degree it does just that, but not quite in the way that I would.
I'm not going to get into all the nitty-gritty here; most of that will have to wait for the review. That being said, there is one issue I want to raise, which PH got to, or at least underlined, at the end: how do you rule for a really long time? As PH makes clear, Justinian (J) did a lot of things while he was emperor, some of which are quite significant, with four items the accomplishments that usually get most of the attention: wars of conquest, legal reforms, building of Hagia Sophia, and the closing of the Academy in Athens. Besides those accomplishments, PH illustrates well J's determination in a number of other capacities, including the religious sphere, for J, like many before and after, strove to bring unity to the Christian church, though with mixed results.
As PH sees J, a great deal of his accomplishments should be ascribed to his attempts to prove his credentials (for rule) and, in the aftermath of the Nika revolt, restore order and his lost prestige (or something to that effect). J didn't have a clear plan with the west. Rather, with real challenges to his rule all around, J needed to find some means of consolidating his power, and military success in far-flung places, as the opportunities arose, seemed the best bet. Yes, there was some strategic thinking on J's and his empire's part, but little of it was long term, and PH argues there's not much in the way of concern for the wellbeing of that empire. Ultimately, then, while J doesn't deserve the blame for the later ills of the empire, which were largely the result of the world war (as PH calls it) of the later sixth century, most of his success would seem to be a combination of opportunism and - as I take PH's underlying message - dumb luck.
Like others, PH sees J as an emperor only out for number one, with little regard for his people and what impact his policies had on them. He was quite happy to plunder and pillage if it got him what he wanted, and that was control of the empire. So, the many thousands who died in Constantinople itself, or the wider parts of the empire at large (Antioch, North Africa, Italy), mattered little. Many have seen J as a particularly harsh ruler, and PH would seem to fall on this side of the spectrum, if not quite at the far end.
This is where I come in. I don't want to make a judgement on J's cruelty here, but I do wonder if the absence of long term strategic planning fits well with what we know about J's reign. Few emperors lived and reigned as long as J. While many of PH's explanations are perfectly reasonable, is it really possible to rule for nearly 40 years on dumb luck, or something a little more sophisticated than that? Augustus' long reign is undoubtedly due to his careful networking, planning, and plotting - and like J, he was a master propagandist. Even if J didn't have any real long term version at the start of his reign, the near disastrous Nika riot would, to my mind, seem to have provided just such an opportunity, after the dust settled, for J to carefully, with Theodora's help, work out how to rule for a long time without the same kinds of crises. Rather importantly, it seems to have worked, despite all the challenges that he later faced, from the death of his wife and the onset of the plague, which might have afflicted J himself, to the Persian invasions of 540 and the 559 Kutrigur attack of Constantinople.
This doesn't necessarily mean that J had a long term plan to conquer the west and rebuild the ancient pan-Mediterranean empire. A good part of J's initiatives on that front truly could have been the result of circumstances, and I don't doubt that J did many of the same things that many if not all pre-modern rules have done to ensure rule, including prove their religious and military mettle. I think the absence of detail - and insufficient evidence - are the cause of some of my dissatisfaction with the explanation PH offers. I guess then too that what I'd also like to know more about is how exactly an emperor like J went about carrying out his foreign policy objectives - and even how he created them in the first place. To what degree were there sets of instructions, or guidelines, left from previous rulers that laid out some of this stuff? Anyway, what the book proves to me, at least for the moment, that my 'great' "impact of war under Justinian" project isn't dead yet, and in fact might be in better shape than I'd feared. Now if only I hadn't just sent in a proposal for a big research project on Ammianus. Oh well, maybe it'll get rejected in April? :)
Showing posts with label Procopius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Procopius. Show all posts
Wednesday, 10 October 2018
Thursday, 19 April 2018
Scrubbing Out Procopius, or the Anti-Kaegi "Procopius the Military Historian"
It's pretty hard to escape the pull of the Procopius-black hole when it comes to the sixth-century East Roman Empire, at least if you're interested in military and political issues. That's part of the reason why scholars like Roger Scott have devoted so much attention to the other historians like Malalas. Scott's four pillars of the age of Justinian are: the construction of Hagia Sophia, the codification of Roman law, the closing of Plato's Academy in Athens, and Justinian's reconquest of the west. Although Procopius does devote considerable attention to Hagia Sophia in the Buildings, it's the reconquest that garners so much attention in the Wars. There's no doubt that this presents a skewed view of Justinian's world. In this post, however, I'd like to flip things around. To what degree does Procopius' interests in war obscure other pertinent matters, and in turn cause most of us to overlook other important pieces of evidence? Bearing all this in mind, I want to discuss six aspects of Procopius' military history: his classicizing vocabulary, his descriptions of combat, his interest in the conquest of Africa and Italy, and his focus on Belisarius in the Wars, his account of the fortifications of the northeast frontier in the Buildings, and his account of the malaise of the empire's soldiers in the Secret History.
Let's begin with the latter, and proceed in reverse order, finishing with Belisarius. In the Secret History Procopius' emphasizes the suffering of most of the empire's inhabitants, and the soldiers are no exception. One particular group that Procopius complains suffered a great deal are the border troops, who got into such a sorry state that they effectively stopped being soldiers. If we forget about Procopius' comments here, and in the other two texts for that matter, in which frontier troops feature hardly at all, and instead look at the surviving evidence we get quite a different picture, at least potentially. We have plenty of documentary evidence for frontier soldiers in Egypt and Israel/Palestine, and to a lesser degree Jordan. That material points to thriving frontier communities full of soldiers, who identify as such. Most seem fully integrated into local life, and if anything the abundance of property documents, not to mention marriage certificates, point to some degree of wealth and prosperity amongst those very soldiers. So where are they getting their money? Have they managed to supplement their income through other means, as some has suggested was the case with the soldier from Aphrodito who also served as a boatmen? Or is their income derived primarily if not entirely from their state income? If we didn't have Procopius' comments, I suspect the argument would be that the frontier soldiers were flourishing, at least in the sixth-century southeast. The legal evidence, which is full of material concerned specifically with soldiers, would reinforce these sorts of arguments.
Next we move to the forts of the northeast. Procopius' love-in for Justinians' building programme has led to a great debate: just how many of the fortification work we read about is really attributable to him? Many have highlighted the work of Anastasius, for instance, though in other cases the jury is still out. What if all we had were the surviving fortifications and a few incidental anecdotes? Justinian's efforts would certainly be diminished, but then so too might Anastasius'. There are plenty of forts still standing in Syria (or there were until recently), and plenty more in Jordan. The date of some of those Jordanian forts are ambiguous, while others are more obviously fourth century in date. Some seem to have been occupied regularly, though only some have been privy to detailed excavations. If all we had to go on was these Jordanian (and the neighbouring Israeli/Palestinian forts) forts, we wouldn't see Justinian's reign as an age of considerable frontier work in this part of the frontier, though the comparative epigraphic and papyrological evidence would imply that many if not most of the fortifications continued to the sites of a good deal of activity.
Procopius tends to use archaic vocabulary, vocabulary better suited to the world of Thucydides, or so goes the usual complaints. This applies to military matters too, and we get hints of this in the words he uses for divisions within the military. Much of his terminology is vague: the men with general X, the infantry, the horsemen, etc. In other cases, his diction has occluded more than it has illuminated. He likes to use the word katalologos, for instance, a word rarely used by classical or even classicizing historians, when describing groups of soldiers (units or even regiments). Quite a few have taken this to mean that the term had a more technical meaning, and more specifically that it denoted the army's field units. It's not an unreasonable assumption if we assume that Procopius is mostly concerned with the field unit soldiers (at the expense of frontier soldiers). That it features in virtually no other military source for the sixth century should give us pause, however, and A H M Jones is one of the only ones to have done so. If we didn't have Procopius' Wars narrative where he used words like katalogos we'd probably devote more attention to the words we do occasionally find in the inscriptions and papyri. The newly published inscription form Perge would receive a great deal of attention - and scholars would likely be obsessed with how we get from the regiments of the eastern section of the Notitia Dignitatum to the units of Maurice, with no unnecessary - even unhelpful - pauses to consider Procopius. To some degree this might still happen, though maybe it should happen sooner. Is it not, for example, interesting that Theophylact can talk of legions on the eastern frontier around the same time that we find the word "legion" in Egyptian papyri - and just a few decades after that Anastasian inscription detailing the structure (it seems) of a legion?
Turning to combat, Maurice's Strategikon might give the impression that cavalry played a major role in combat at the end of the sixth century. But it wouldn't explain quite which proportions of the military dominated decades earlier. Our material evidence is limited, while the other evidence is ambiguous. If we had to rely on Pseudo-Joshua, we wouldn't get too far. Corippus' Iohannis, though quite detailed, is a panegyrical epic, and his combat scenes are vaguely Homeric: they involve single combats, and the dashing to and fro of soldiers into and out of battle. Agathias, on the other hand, does go to some lengths to describe the experience of combat even if he spends only a little on the finer details. In his most detailed battle, the Battle of Casilinum, there's little in his account that betrays a clear emphasis on either cavalry or infantry. That might help provide context for the anonymous treatise of political science which includes that fictional debate between Menas and Thomas on the relative merits of the two solitudes to borrow a Canadian literary-cum-historical phrase. But whether cavalry had supplanted infantry would not yet be clear.
Moving on to the conquest, we would suspect that the campaign in Italy had the smallest of impacts on matters in the capital, which would be in line with some of Scott's arguments. Even the more local evidence, the Lives of the Popes, devotes only a little bit of attention to the war, with the siege of Rome, such a central feature of Procopius' account, restricted to a few lines. North Africa, on the other hand, is something else. Later writers, like Photius and Theophanes, who had read all of part of Procopius, either paraphrase or quote Procopius' narrative of the Vandal Wars. The aforementioned epic of Corippus also gives the impression that a significant conflict had taken place in the region. In fact, we could even look to another of the four pillars, Roman law, for yet more evidence of the war's impact. Besides the overt propaganda at the opening of the Codex of Justinian, there are specific laws that point the acquisition of significant territory in North Africa, and the efforts of the state to administer the new lands. What this evidence might imply was that a long and significant war had taken place in North Africa, which resulted in a lasting Roman victory.
That North African success brings us to the last point, the reputation of Belisarius. It seems to me, and many others besides, that his reputation rests largely on the literary efforts of Procopius. A closer look at the epigraphy, on the other hand, might bring greater attention to Solomon, who published his successes in North Africa quite widely. Belisarius features in maybe a dozen Latin inscriptions, and a handful of Greek ones. Solomon, however, features in nearly three times as many Latin inscriptions from North Africa. On this limited evidence the impression might be that Solomon was the great general of the age, or at least the campaign. Thanks to Agathias, Narses' reputation might rise too, and though the historian is not unflattering towards Belisarius, his account gives only the vaguest impression of the man's military accomplishments. Indeed, if all we had to go on was the many later references to Procopius' works, we'd be left wondering what the scope of Belisarius' accomplishment truly was, and perhaps a little baffled the comments of authors like the one who wrote the entry on Procopius in the Suda, or the later Byzantine historian Manasses.
All this is to suggest that the survival of Procopius' long works has not only obfuscated our understanding of the wider world of sixth-century Byzantium, but also more specifically Byzantine military affairs. While his work has undoubtedly shed a great deal of light on matters like combat, in other instances, such as the careers of "lesser" generals like Solomon or the hardships of the frontier soldiers, what he has provided has obscured other important aspects of the empire's military history. A greater focus on these other kinds of evidence for sixth-century military affairs might bring a much more about this period to light.
NOTE: I'd forgotten about Foss' paper on Theodora. He does this, only with the Secret History. I've got a copy, but haven't read it yet (will do so now...)
Let's begin with the latter, and proceed in reverse order, finishing with Belisarius. In the Secret History Procopius' emphasizes the suffering of most of the empire's inhabitants, and the soldiers are no exception. One particular group that Procopius complains suffered a great deal are the border troops, who got into such a sorry state that they effectively stopped being soldiers. If we forget about Procopius' comments here, and in the other two texts for that matter, in which frontier troops feature hardly at all, and instead look at the surviving evidence we get quite a different picture, at least potentially. We have plenty of documentary evidence for frontier soldiers in Egypt and Israel/Palestine, and to a lesser degree Jordan. That material points to thriving frontier communities full of soldiers, who identify as such. Most seem fully integrated into local life, and if anything the abundance of property documents, not to mention marriage certificates, point to some degree of wealth and prosperity amongst those very soldiers. So where are they getting their money? Have they managed to supplement their income through other means, as some has suggested was the case with the soldier from Aphrodito who also served as a boatmen? Or is their income derived primarily if not entirely from their state income? If we didn't have Procopius' comments, I suspect the argument would be that the frontier soldiers were flourishing, at least in the sixth-century southeast. The legal evidence, which is full of material concerned specifically with soldiers, would reinforce these sorts of arguments.
Next we move to the forts of the northeast. Procopius' love-in for Justinians' building programme has led to a great debate: just how many of the fortification work we read about is really attributable to him? Many have highlighted the work of Anastasius, for instance, though in other cases the jury is still out. What if all we had were the surviving fortifications and a few incidental anecdotes? Justinian's efforts would certainly be diminished, but then so too might Anastasius'. There are plenty of forts still standing in Syria (or there were until recently), and plenty more in Jordan. The date of some of those Jordanian forts are ambiguous, while others are more obviously fourth century in date. Some seem to have been occupied regularly, though only some have been privy to detailed excavations. If all we had to go on was these Jordanian (and the neighbouring Israeli/Palestinian forts) forts, we wouldn't see Justinian's reign as an age of considerable frontier work in this part of the frontier, though the comparative epigraphic and papyrological evidence would imply that many if not most of the fortifications continued to the sites of a good deal of activity.
Procopius tends to use archaic vocabulary, vocabulary better suited to the world of Thucydides, or so goes the usual complaints. This applies to military matters too, and we get hints of this in the words he uses for divisions within the military. Much of his terminology is vague: the men with general X, the infantry, the horsemen, etc. In other cases, his diction has occluded more than it has illuminated. He likes to use the word katalologos, for instance, a word rarely used by classical or even classicizing historians, when describing groups of soldiers (units or even regiments). Quite a few have taken this to mean that the term had a more technical meaning, and more specifically that it denoted the army's field units. It's not an unreasonable assumption if we assume that Procopius is mostly concerned with the field unit soldiers (at the expense of frontier soldiers). That it features in virtually no other military source for the sixth century should give us pause, however, and A H M Jones is one of the only ones to have done so. If we didn't have Procopius' Wars narrative where he used words like katalogos we'd probably devote more attention to the words we do occasionally find in the inscriptions and papyri. The newly published inscription form Perge would receive a great deal of attention - and scholars would likely be obsessed with how we get from the regiments of the eastern section of the Notitia Dignitatum to the units of Maurice, with no unnecessary - even unhelpful - pauses to consider Procopius. To some degree this might still happen, though maybe it should happen sooner. Is it not, for example, interesting that Theophylact can talk of legions on the eastern frontier around the same time that we find the word "legion" in Egyptian papyri - and just a few decades after that Anastasian inscription detailing the structure (it seems) of a legion?
Turning to combat, Maurice's Strategikon might give the impression that cavalry played a major role in combat at the end of the sixth century. But it wouldn't explain quite which proportions of the military dominated decades earlier. Our material evidence is limited, while the other evidence is ambiguous. If we had to rely on Pseudo-Joshua, we wouldn't get too far. Corippus' Iohannis, though quite detailed, is a panegyrical epic, and his combat scenes are vaguely Homeric: they involve single combats, and the dashing to and fro of soldiers into and out of battle. Agathias, on the other hand, does go to some lengths to describe the experience of combat even if he spends only a little on the finer details. In his most detailed battle, the Battle of Casilinum, there's little in his account that betrays a clear emphasis on either cavalry or infantry. That might help provide context for the anonymous treatise of political science which includes that fictional debate between Menas and Thomas on the relative merits of the two solitudes to borrow a Canadian literary-cum-historical phrase. But whether cavalry had supplanted infantry would not yet be clear.
Moving on to the conquest, we would suspect that the campaign in Italy had the smallest of impacts on matters in the capital, which would be in line with some of Scott's arguments. Even the more local evidence, the Lives of the Popes, devotes only a little bit of attention to the war, with the siege of Rome, such a central feature of Procopius' account, restricted to a few lines. North Africa, on the other hand, is something else. Later writers, like Photius and Theophanes, who had read all of part of Procopius, either paraphrase or quote Procopius' narrative of the Vandal Wars. The aforementioned epic of Corippus also gives the impression that a significant conflict had taken place in the region. In fact, we could even look to another of the four pillars, Roman law, for yet more evidence of the war's impact. Besides the overt propaganda at the opening of the Codex of Justinian, there are specific laws that point the acquisition of significant territory in North Africa, and the efforts of the state to administer the new lands. What this evidence might imply was that a long and significant war had taken place in North Africa, which resulted in a lasting Roman victory.
That North African success brings us to the last point, the reputation of Belisarius. It seems to me, and many others besides, that his reputation rests largely on the literary efforts of Procopius. A closer look at the epigraphy, on the other hand, might bring greater attention to Solomon, who published his successes in North Africa quite widely. Belisarius features in maybe a dozen Latin inscriptions, and a handful of Greek ones. Solomon, however, features in nearly three times as many Latin inscriptions from North Africa. On this limited evidence the impression might be that Solomon was the great general of the age, or at least the campaign. Thanks to Agathias, Narses' reputation might rise too, and though the historian is not unflattering towards Belisarius, his account gives only the vaguest impression of the man's military accomplishments. Indeed, if all we had to go on was the many later references to Procopius' works, we'd be left wondering what the scope of Belisarius' accomplishment truly was, and perhaps a little baffled the comments of authors like the one who wrote the entry on Procopius in the Suda, or the later Byzantine historian Manasses.
All this is to suggest that the survival of Procopius' long works has not only obfuscated our understanding of the wider world of sixth-century Byzantium, but also more specifically Byzantine military affairs. While his work has undoubtedly shed a great deal of light on matters like combat, in other instances, such as the careers of "lesser" generals like Solomon or the hardships of the frontier soldiers, what he has provided has obscured other important aspects of the empire's military history. A greater focus on these other kinds of evidence for sixth-century military affairs might bring a much more about this period to light.
NOTE: I'd forgotten about Foss' paper on Theodora. He does this, only with the Secret History. I've got a copy, but haven't read it yet (will do so now...)
End of Term, Continued
The term may be over, but the deadlines remain. Besides the pile of marking that awaits, I have a conference paper to write, two book chapters to finish/tweak, a pile of research grants to review, a volume's worth of Phoenix articles to read, and a webinar to think about. And all of this is due by the 10th of May.
All that being said, and perhaps not surprisingly, I want to start with Netflix. I waited with eager anticipation for the arrival of the new Troy show. The first episode left me wanting, though I was surprised by how varied the quantity of myths connected to Troy they included (death of Menelaus' father, Paris' first love as a shepherd, the Odysseus' madness and his son story). Because I wasn't enamoured, and all I really want to do is travel the stars, Lost in Space stole me away a little into episode two of Troy. I'm more than halfway through, and am thoroughly enjoying it. Admittedly, I tend to like shows like this more for how they stir my imagination (what would it be like to travel the stars) than anything else.
Anyway, I did manage to go back to Troy, and I think the second episode was thoroughly enjoyable, at least what I've seen so far. Although Agamemnon was underwhelming at first, once the issue with the winds cropped up, and the decision was made to sacrifice his daughter, I was impressed with how they presented it. I wondered too, like the fate of the Trojans as a whole, if it was somehow more emotional (for me the viewer) because I knew what was going to happen. To have to meet Iphigenia, and see how she reacted to her father's confession - and his anguish, Clytemnesra's pain, Odysseus' subterfuge: that scene to my mind was something else. Suffice to say, I'm now hooked, even if I've always wished the Trojans had won. They may have left out ole smelly-foot's abandoning (Philoctetes), or the thrilling landing on the shore at Troy, but I'm looking forward to what comes next. It's definitely something I'll be using in myth class next year - and Troy as a whole will be getting much more attention.
Over the next few days, I need to do some thinking about Procopius, as I'll be participating in the Virtual Centre for Late Antiquity's first webinar on Monday (10:30...or 10am CST) on said historian. We have a few bigger themes that we're going to discuss, and I guess I should get a better handle on where I land on all of them, or even if there is somewhere I land. I don't want to give the game away - is it possible to build up suspense for a webinar on Procopius - but they're big issues, some I've been thinking about for the purposes of this SSHRC grant that is getting closer to its end. Along those lines, rather than spilling the beans, I'd like to highlight a question I asked an undergraduate student (Dan Russell) who defended his honour's thesis just a few days ago: how would you approach the subject if you didn't have Procopius? Because the central item (Procopius book one sequel) that will emerge from the grant deals with him, I've started wondering that myself. How would a monograph-length account of military matters in the sixth century East Roman Empire look if you didn't have Procopius? To some degree, I'll be answering this in my follow-up, which will focus more specifically on limitanei (think all these trips to Jordan). But it's easier to do in that case as you have inscriptions, papyri, and the physical remains of fortifications, some of which have been fully excavated. What do you do if you want to focus on matters that pertain to war and that have a direct impact on the heart of the state, and the central activities that an army is engaged in? Battle would be difficult, though not impossible, without Procopius: you'd still have Maurice, Pseudo-Joshua, and Agathias for instance. You could even cover aspects of Justinian's reconquest thanks to authors like Malalas, Corippus, and the author/s of the lives of the Popes. It would be easier still if you used Theophanes, though given he both quoted and paraphrased Procopius it would seem a bit like cheating. This (leaving out Procopius) is an easier question to ask/issue to tackle if you're not interested in war. It's much more difficult if you are. Would anyone read/accept an article on the things Procopius covers that doesn't include Procopius? Maybe I'll do a post on this over the weekend to get me thinking about the webinar.
I'm going to stop there. For all the challenges I faced with my Roman army (and myth) class this year, the former's essays were just about the best, collectively, I've ever read. I'm not sure if this is because I've gone soft, I've forgotten past years, they're cheating (some), or the abstract/outline assignment actually worked, but I'm pleasantly surprised. And with that, I'm going to do some Procopius reading/thinking, at least when I'm not thinking about the Jets' playoff run - one more tangent. I seem to have reached a stage in my sports-fan life when there are very few teams that I really care about (i.e. there used to be so many more): number one the Sens (Ottawa Senators), two the Jets (Winnipeg Jets), and three the Jays (Toronto Blue Jays). I used to be much more into certain national team things, and random teams from other sports, but really it's Sens, Jets, and then Jays. Who was I kidding?
Till next time...
All that being said, and perhaps not surprisingly, I want to start with Netflix. I waited with eager anticipation for the arrival of the new Troy show. The first episode left me wanting, though I was surprised by how varied the quantity of myths connected to Troy they included (death of Menelaus' father, Paris' first love as a shepherd, the Odysseus' madness and his son story). Because I wasn't enamoured, and all I really want to do is travel the stars, Lost in Space stole me away a little into episode two of Troy. I'm more than halfway through, and am thoroughly enjoying it. Admittedly, I tend to like shows like this more for how they stir my imagination (what would it be like to travel the stars) than anything else.
Anyway, I did manage to go back to Troy, and I think the second episode was thoroughly enjoyable, at least what I've seen so far. Although Agamemnon was underwhelming at first, once the issue with the winds cropped up, and the decision was made to sacrifice his daughter, I was impressed with how they presented it. I wondered too, like the fate of the Trojans as a whole, if it was somehow more emotional (for me the viewer) because I knew what was going to happen. To have to meet Iphigenia, and see how she reacted to her father's confession - and his anguish, Clytemnesra's pain, Odysseus' subterfuge: that scene to my mind was something else. Suffice to say, I'm now hooked, even if I've always wished the Trojans had won. They may have left out ole smelly-foot's abandoning (Philoctetes), or the thrilling landing on the shore at Troy, but I'm looking forward to what comes next. It's definitely something I'll be using in myth class next year - and Troy as a whole will be getting much more attention.
Over the next few days, I need to do some thinking about Procopius, as I'll be participating in the Virtual Centre for Late Antiquity's first webinar on Monday (10:30...or 10am CST) on said historian. We have a few bigger themes that we're going to discuss, and I guess I should get a better handle on where I land on all of them, or even if there is somewhere I land. I don't want to give the game away - is it possible to build up suspense for a webinar on Procopius - but they're big issues, some I've been thinking about for the purposes of this SSHRC grant that is getting closer to its end. Along those lines, rather than spilling the beans, I'd like to highlight a question I asked an undergraduate student (Dan Russell) who defended his honour's thesis just a few days ago: how would you approach the subject if you didn't have Procopius? Because the central item (Procopius book one sequel) that will emerge from the grant deals with him, I've started wondering that myself. How would a monograph-length account of military matters in the sixth century East Roman Empire look if you didn't have Procopius? To some degree, I'll be answering this in my follow-up, which will focus more specifically on limitanei (think all these trips to Jordan). But it's easier to do in that case as you have inscriptions, papyri, and the physical remains of fortifications, some of which have been fully excavated. What do you do if you want to focus on matters that pertain to war and that have a direct impact on the heart of the state, and the central activities that an army is engaged in? Battle would be difficult, though not impossible, without Procopius: you'd still have Maurice, Pseudo-Joshua, and Agathias for instance. You could even cover aspects of Justinian's reconquest thanks to authors like Malalas, Corippus, and the author/s of the lives of the Popes. It would be easier still if you used Theophanes, though given he both quoted and paraphrased Procopius it would seem a bit like cheating. This (leaving out Procopius) is an easier question to ask/issue to tackle if you're not interested in war. It's much more difficult if you are. Would anyone read/accept an article on the things Procopius covers that doesn't include Procopius? Maybe I'll do a post on this over the weekend to get me thinking about the webinar.
I'm going to stop there. For all the challenges I faced with my Roman army (and myth) class this year, the former's essays were just about the best, collectively, I've ever read. I'm not sure if this is because I've gone soft, I've forgotten past years, they're cheating (some), or the abstract/outline assignment actually worked, but I'm pleasantly surprised. And with that, I'm going to do some Procopius reading/thinking, at least when I'm not thinking about the Jets' playoff run - one more tangent. I seem to have reached a stage in my sports-fan life when there are very few teams that I really care about (i.e. there used to be so many more): number one the Sens (Ottawa Senators), two the Jets (Winnipeg Jets), and three the Jays (Toronto Blue Jays). I used to be much more into certain national team things, and random teams from other sports, but really it's Sens, Jets, and then Jays. Who was I kidding?
Till next time...
Friday, 10 November 2017
Back to the Future: More Battles
It turns out, at least for me, that moving from one kid to two kids is a lot more draining than the shift to one. I've had lots of ideas cross my mind, but I haven't had a chance to write anything down. At the moment, the dog's locked in the basement, the youngest is happily bobbing away behind me in her chair, while the eldest is sorting out dinosaur-themed number cards.
This term I'm teaching a course on Hannibal, and it's been a great experience for all sorts of reasons. For one, it's allowed me to revisit a topic and period that I'm very interested, but not thought about for a long time. While I've sometimes thought that the mid-republic and Punic wars were a bit saturated, it seems clear there's still things to be said. I've been struck by all the exciting new finds that have added to our understanding (the wrecks of ships of the Egadi Islands from the First Punic War, the remains of Roman and Punic camps from Baecula in the Second Punic War). As before, I've been fascinated by all the research on the wider context of the wars: the demographic challenges, the international relations issues, and the difficulties with the historiography. In fact, in terms of the latter, I find myself contemplating undertaking a lengthy of study of Polybius (and if you've read this blog you know where I'm heading): Polybius as military historian, with an emphasis on his love of all things tactical and generalship-y, and whether we can deduce underlying hints of his lost Tactica (or how many of it we can). On the other hand, whenever I decide to write this large book on Justinian's wars of reconquest, I've often thought I'd draw heavily on all this interesting work on the impact of the Hannibalic wars. So, like I've said, very useful.
I'm in the middle of a discussion of Cannae in the class, which is a bit concerning if only because we've only got a few weeks left. That said, it's been useful for thinking about this Sensory History of War popular-history book, as well as one of the grant offshoots, the book on battle in classicizing histories from late antiquity. While preparing for the class I've had the fortune of reading Ted Lendon's new two-part study of ancient battle, which was originally, I've deduced, meant to appear in the Wiley Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles. My name appears in the study (a bit of a thrill), and he makes, not surprisingly (I'm quite receptive to his views), quite a lot of insightful comments.
One of the points he argues, which I brought up in class, is that we can't or shouldn't expect to know anything about the specifics of any individual battle from antiquity with a few exceptions. We can know a lot about the generalities - and so here he's in keeping with work by Goldsworthy and Hanson on the face of ancient battles - but the ancient accounts are just too vague and stereotypical to get much deeper. He also, quite wonderfully, illustrates and introduces the point by referring to Lucian's True History, which includes some fantastical battles between the people of the Moon and the Sun. I read it all last academic year in my second year Greek class, and I'll be doing the same again next academic year (2018-2019). Like him, I noticed all these cliched battle (and historiographical) elements, which added considerably to the story. I can see myself drawing on it at a later point.
Anyway, I think Lendon's points are well-taken, and it's had me wondering what to do with the late antique battle book. That book will include, essentially, a series of case studies of big ancient battles in late antique classicizing authors (Ammianus, Jordanes, Procopius, Agathias, Theophylact). It aims to show the variety in approaches those authors adopted (they're not all the same stereotypical accounts), while staying true, so to speak, to the conventions of the genre. It'll bring in some narrative theory, look at rhetorical practices, contextualize in terms other late antique approaches to battle (panegyric, imperial monuments, epic poetry, chronicles), and make some comments on the classical tradition.
For all the generalities, there are still a fair few idiosyncrasies in the classical tradition, at least that I've picked up on. Few of the later historians seem to have adopted Herodotus' specific approach to combat. There aren't many episodes, like that post-Marathon involving Epizelus, where classicizing historians include anecdotes that could be likened to instances of PTSD. Herodotus' attention to individual casualties from the Battle of Thermopylae also stands out. While you could make the case that Herodotus includes this because of the gravity of the situation, it's hard to argue this wasn't the situation in many later battles. Why no catalogue of the fallen in later historians? While they often do highlight the exploits of elite individuals (cue Lucian), the regular folk get left out, or grouped together at the very least, with some exceptions - I confess that as I write this I'm revisiting my views on the roles of all those bodyguards in Procopius.
Reading Livy and Polybius in tandem has been useful for this too. My class was divided into two parts and each told to focus on one version or the other of the Battle of Lake Trasimene. Because the battle takes place in a fairly distinct spot, at least in geographical terms, we can use those two authors to pinpoint the precise location (a valley and then a plain along the lake on the side closest to Cortona). While the two accounts are hardly long and detailed, they do indicate that there is quite a lot more room for teasing out the individualities of specific battles than Lendon suggests, even if, in this instance, it is largely a question of location. On the other hand, this might well be what Lendon was implying: you can find the specifics by looking for the unusual in the battle accounts. If an historian mentions things that aren't part of the usual battle fodder, then that probably means that it was something that happened in that particular engagement. We'll see if there's anything in those five case studies that bear this out.
So, all this is to say that not all is lost. I'm back to battles a lot more than I'd planned on being. I've also left out my planned inclusion in an SCS panel on lesser battles (I'm going to write on the Catalaunian Plains, believe it or not), which has given me much food for thought.
This term I'm teaching a course on Hannibal, and it's been a great experience for all sorts of reasons. For one, it's allowed me to revisit a topic and period that I'm very interested, but not thought about for a long time. While I've sometimes thought that the mid-republic and Punic wars were a bit saturated, it seems clear there's still things to be said. I've been struck by all the exciting new finds that have added to our understanding (the wrecks of ships of the Egadi Islands from the First Punic War, the remains of Roman and Punic camps from Baecula in the Second Punic War). As before, I've been fascinated by all the research on the wider context of the wars: the demographic challenges, the international relations issues, and the difficulties with the historiography. In fact, in terms of the latter, I find myself contemplating undertaking a lengthy of study of Polybius (and if you've read this blog you know where I'm heading): Polybius as military historian, with an emphasis on his love of all things tactical and generalship-y, and whether we can deduce underlying hints of his lost Tactica (or how many of it we can). On the other hand, whenever I decide to write this large book on Justinian's wars of reconquest, I've often thought I'd draw heavily on all this interesting work on the impact of the Hannibalic wars. So, like I've said, very useful.
I'm in the middle of a discussion of Cannae in the class, which is a bit concerning if only because we've only got a few weeks left. That said, it's been useful for thinking about this Sensory History of War popular-history book, as well as one of the grant offshoots, the book on battle in classicizing histories from late antiquity. While preparing for the class I've had the fortune of reading Ted Lendon's new two-part study of ancient battle, which was originally, I've deduced, meant to appear in the Wiley Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles. My name appears in the study (a bit of a thrill), and he makes, not surprisingly (I'm quite receptive to his views), quite a lot of insightful comments.
One of the points he argues, which I brought up in class, is that we can't or shouldn't expect to know anything about the specifics of any individual battle from antiquity with a few exceptions. We can know a lot about the generalities - and so here he's in keeping with work by Goldsworthy and Hanson on the face of ancient battles - but the ancient accounts are just too vague and stereotypical to get much deeper. He also, quite wonderfully, illustrates and introduces the point by referring to Lucian's True History, which includes some fantastical battles between the people of the Moon and the Sun. I read it all last academic year in my second year Greek class, and I'll be doing the same again next academic year (2018-2019). Like him, I noticed all these cliched battle (and historiographical) elements, which added considerably to the story. I can see myself drawing on it at a later point.
Anyway, I think Lendon's points are well-taken, and it's had me wondering what to do with the late antique battle book. That book will include, essentially, a series of case studies of big ancient battles in late antique classicizing authors (Ammianus, Jordanes, Procopius, Agathias, Theophylact). It aims to show the variety in approaches those authors adopted (they're not all the same stereotypical accounts), while staying true, so to speak, to the conventions of the genre. It'll bring in some narrative theory, look at rhetorical practices, contextualize in terms other late antique approaches to battle (panegyric, imperial monuments, epic poetry, chronicles), and make some comments on the classical tradition.
For all the generalities, there are still a fair few idiosyncrasies in the classical tradition, at least that I've picked up on. Few of the later historians seem to have adopted Herodotus' specific approach to combat. There aren't many episodes, like that post-Marathon involving Epizelus, where classicizing historians include anecdotes that could be likened to instances of PTSD. Herodotus' attention to individual casualties from the Battle of Thermopylae also stands out. While you could make the case that Herodotus includes this because of the gravity of the situation, it's hard to argue this wasn't the situation in many later battles. Why no catalogue of the fallen in later historians? While they often do highlight the exploits of elite individuals (cue Lucian), the regular folk get left out, or grouped together at the very least, with some exceptions - I confess that as I write this I'm revisiting my views on the roles of all those bodyguards in Procopius.
Reading Livy and Polybius in tandem has been useful for this too. My class was divided into two parts and each told to focus on one version or the other of the Battle of Lake Trasimene. Because the battle takes place in a fairly distinct spot, at least in geographical terms, we can use those two authors to pinpoint the precise location (a valley and then a plain along the lake on the side closest to Cortona). While the two accounts are hardly long and detailed, they do indicate that there is quite a lot more room for teasing out the individualities of specific battles than Lendon suggests, even if, in this instance, it is largely a question of location. On the other hand, this might well be what Lendon was implying: you can find the specifics by looking for the unusual in the battle accounts. If an historian mentions things that aren't part of the usual battle fodder, then that probably means that it was something that happened in that particular engagement. We'll see if there's anything in those five case studies that bear this out.
So, all this is to say that not all is lost. I'm back to battles a lot more than I'd planned on being. I've also left out my planned inclusion in an SCS panel on lesser battles (I'm going to write on the Catalaunian Plains, believe it or not), which has given me much food for thought.
Thursday, 17 August 2017
Procopius Revisited
Time for some more reflection. First, I love the fact that Cameron's and Kaldellis' chapters bookend the book. I also confess a great love - too strong? - for reading about how scholars came to their chosen topics/views. Reading Cameron's discussion of how she came to Procopius were fascinating. At the same time, I like Kaldellis' idea that more of us (those writing about Procopius) ought to say why we like reading him. I admit in my own case I was influenced by three things. I knew little about late antiquity (why did we cut off there?), but I started doing some background reading to bring myself up to speed. One particularly influential book for me was Cameron's first edition of the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity. In that book, this fellow Procopius kept popping up. While I don't remember what stood out, I do remember the sense that he seemed an intriguing figure who deserved closer attention. I seem to recall too that some of the formative thinking about this took place on a stationary bike at the McMaster University athletic centre (circa 2001, 2002).
Second, I love these sorts of chapters/papers: ones that highlight key aspects of a topic, some gaps in the scholarship, and avenues for future work. More often than not, these are the ones that have the most scribbles in my copies. Given my love for Roman military things, historiography things, and late antique things, it's no surprise that these chapters here really float my boat.
Third, I want to go back to a couple of points that both Cameron and Kaldellis have made (separate ones, more or less), which have given me much to think about. One is Cameron's emphasis on narrative and storytelling, that I mentioned in my woe-is-me post (which also has me thinking: what sorts of efforts should we make to publicize our books, and how can I make my work reach more people?). Cameron notes that his narrative approach relates to writers of sixth century history as well as other types of Byzantine prose writing, like hagiography. That's a fascinating idea, and I'm sure not wrong. I remember coming across all sorts of useful discussion vaguely related to these comments in Clark's 2004 book, History, Theory, Text. Maybe this is one avenue that deserves more exploration: Procopius and hagiography. After all, Procopius spends a lot of time characterizing a few individuals in his Wars, to say nothing of his Secret History. In crafting his portraits of Belisarius, has Procopius adopted and adapted some of the techniques employed by hagiographers?
Cameron also draws attention to Procopius' writing practices, especially with respect to what he chose to include and exclude. I talked about this a bit, but I'll be touching on it even more in the sequel. It seems to me that one of the hardest things to grasp (and it's almost certainly impossible) is why Procopius left things out, and one particular topic I'll be looking at in the book is recruitment. I suspect that as work continues on this sequel, I might have to address quite regularly why things were left out: did it suit his literary objectives somehow, is it a desire to make his work more palatable to his audience? There's so much he likely did know, even the regularly military stuff I'm interested, that he doesn't discuss.
Yeah, I seem to be trailing off so I'll move on to the next topic. Cameron stresses that all three of Procopius' works are anchored in material life, while Kaldellis (following Turquois) highlights the materiality of Procopius' writing. This is how he "structures, textures, surfaces, and fleshes out a world for us" (Kaldellis 2017: 265). His point is that Procopius has produced a literary simulacrum of sixth-century experience, and he draws attention to a number of topics for which this might be true including weapons, wounds, and forts. What I need to do, clearly, is read Turquois' thesis in its entirety and bear her conclusions in mind when looking at all the war stuff. One current project, stemming from the grant, is on battle narrative in late antique classicizing historiography. It might be worthwhile to consider all this as I examine (or continue - it's well on its way) my intended subjects, Ammianus, Jordanes, Procopius, Agathias, and Theophylact. As it happens, when it comes to open or pitched battle, Procopius might well be one of the weaker ones of the group. I think, if anything, Agathias and Ammianus might be the strongest in this regard, though only time will tell (and more reading).
Unfortunately now Cameron and Kaldellis have me wanting to write a third and fourth sequel of my Procopius book, the third on narrative techniques in the Wars as a whole (maybe narrative and character), the fourth on the materiality of warfare in Procopius. But then I'll never do any of these other things. Maybe I could combine the two into my eventual study of Agathias? If nothing else, this book has so far reminded me why Procopius might still be one of my favourite topics. It's also been a very challenging year or three professionally, and it's stimulating discussions like these that keep me going.
Second, I love these sorts of chapters/papers: ones that highlight key aspects of a topic, some gaps in the scholarship, and avenues for future work. More often than not, these are the ones that have the most scribbles in my copies. Given my love for Roman military things, historiography things, and late antique things, it's no surprise that these chapters here really float my boat.
Third, I want to go back to a couple of points that both Cameron and Kaldellis have made (separate ones, more or less), which have given me much to think about. One is Cameron's emphasis on narrative and storytelling, that I mentioned in my woe-is-me post (which also has me thinking: what sorts of efforts should we make to publicize our books, and how can I make my work reach more people?). Cameron notes that his narrative approach relates to writers of sixth century history as well as other types of Byzantine prose writing, like hagiography. That's a fascinating idea, and I'm sure not wrong. I remember coming across all sorts of useful discussion vaguely related to these comments in Clark's 2004 book, History, Theory, Text. Maybe this is one avenue that deserves more exploration: Procopius and hagiography. After all, Procopius spends a lot of time characterizing a few individuals in his Wars, to say nothing of his Secret History. In crafting his portraits of Belisarius, has Procopius adopted and adapted some of the techniques employed by hagiographers?
Cameron also draws attention to Procopius' writing practices, especially with respect to what he chose to include and exclude. I talked about this a bit, but I'll be touching on it even more in the sequel. It seems to me that one of the hardest things to grasp (and it's almost certainly impossible) is why Procopius left things out, and one particular topic I'll be looking at in the book is recruitment. I suspect that as work continues on this sequel, I might have to address quite regularly why things were left out: did it suit his literary objectives somehow, is it a desire to make his work more palatable to his audience? There's so much he likely did know, even the regularly military stuff I'm interested, that he doesn't discuss.
Yeah, I seem to be trailing off so I'll move on to the next topic. Cameron stresses that all three of Procopius' works are anchored in material life, while Kaldellis (following Turquois) highlights the materiality of Procopius' writing. This is how he "structures, textures, surfaces, and fleshes out a world for us" (Kaldellis 2017: 265). His point is that Procopius has produced a literary simulacrum of sixth-century experience, and he draws attention to a number of topics for which this might be true including weapons, wounds, and forts. What I need to do, clearly, is read Turquois' thesis in its entirety and bear her conclusions in mind when looking at all the war stuff. One current project, stemming from the grant, is on battle narrative in late antique classicizing historiography. It might be worthwhile to consider all this as I examine (or continue - it's well on its way) my intended subjects, Ammianus, Jordanes, Procopius, Agathias, and Theophylact. As it happens, when it comes to open or pitched battle, Procopius might well be one of the weaker ones of the group. I think, if anything, Agathias and Ammianus might be the strongest in this regard, though only time will tell (and more reading).
Unfortunately now Cameron and Kaldellis have me wanting to write a third and fourth sequel of my Procopius book, the third on narrative techniques in the Wars as a whole (maybe narrative and character), the fourth on the materiality of warfare in Procopius. But then I'll never do any of these other things. Maybe I could combine the two into my eventual study of Agathias? If nothing else, this book has so far reminded me why Procopius might still be one of my favourite topics. It's also been a very challenging year or three professionally, and it's stimulating discussions like these that keep me going.
Wednesday, 16 August 2017
The Monograph Do-over
I've been reading some of the chapters, particularly the opening and closing sections, in Lillington-Martin and Turquois' new edited volume on Procopius, and a few things have jumped out at me, much as I suspected they would. For one, it's a bit disappointing my book came out as late as it did, as the gestation period of the edited volume meant that no one really had the chance to digest what I had to say. On the other hand, had the edited volume come out before the book, there's every chance I might have seriously considered tweaking (to put it mildly) some of the book to respond to the interesting points that have been made. One other, general observation: some of the avenues for future research proclaimed in this book I have already embarked upon.
Let's begin with the first point. A couple of contributors (Whitby and Kaldellis) draw attention (or at least refer in passing) to the heroic, even Homeric, character of the Gothic War narrative, especially as it applies to the siege of Rome (537/538). I discuss all this in detail in the book (chapter 4). Somewhat frustratingly, I'd initially stumbled across this character to the narrative back at the start of the PhD in 2006. But things being what they are, Hornblower managed to comment on it before I did, at least in print, owing to the publication of his contribution to the Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare. Still my chapter, a revised version of what was in the original PhD, discusses this in detail.
Indeed, Kaldellis (2017: 261) notes that Procopius' "coverage has breadth and detail in the right proportions as a military historian". That, in a nutshell, summarizes what I argue on the book, though my focus is more narrowly on battle. To complicate things, the follow-up, or sequel (which I've discussed regularly in this blog) as I'm thinking about it, will look at this more broadly, though more on this a bit later.
Another point that Cameron, Van Nuffelen, and Kaldellis draw attention to (to some degree or other) is the relationship between author and text. On the one hand, there's caution about how much we can take an author at his word (Cameron, Kaldellis). On the other, Van Nuffelen notes scholars have hardly ever heeded the advice of literary scholars that author and text are two different things. I did - and had planned to do more of this in the monograph. My desire to do so, however, was regularly tempered (by others) at the various submission/revision stage, such that I ended up including a background chapter (one that I'd planned to add to the end - after the reader had seen what I had to say about the text).
The narrative structure of Procopius' works features too, unsurprisingly. There's a sense that more could be done on this. Cameron (2017: 15) identifies this as an approach that "seeks to analyse the techniques by which narrative is constructed" and highlights his techniques of narrative and storytelling , while Kaldellis (2017: 261) says that Procopius' "ontology of action" remains to be studied. Although my focus was narrower (combat), this, again, is precisely what my book does. I ask (or answer), how does Procopius tell the story of battle, and what sort of narrative techniques does he employ? See, for instance, the second sections of my second, third, and fourth chapters. It involves bringing some narrative theory into the discussion, though also hints of rhetoric and classicism, among other things.
On the other hand, doubt is cast on the value of genre in understanding a text. Admittedly, I stressed the importance of genre in understanding how Procopius describes and explains combat. I even went so far as to claim that Procopius was constrained by his chosen genre (classicizing history). I think my point, however, was that this explained why he didn't include all those little details that military historians are often so keen on. Indeed, I also tried to show that for all this influence of genre, he was able to craft some truly remarkable accounts of battle, and that his latent classicism didn't necessarily mean that he couldn't represent reality truthfully (Van Nuffelen 2017: 40 - the prologue, section four in my introduction, and chapter six). Additionally, I spent a good part of the time showing what makes his accounts of combat in the Wars such dramatic narratives (section three in chapter two, and sections 2a, though maybe 2b and 2c too, in chapter four).
Then there are the avenues for future research (they are many), some of which I've started to take up (or will do soon). Cameron (2017: 18) says it's inadequate to evaluate Procopius' three works in terms of reliability and truth-telling. This had been my intention with the follow-up, under the preconception that people would rather read that sort of thing than what I had done in Battles and Generals. Some months ago that approach seemed better left for something else (a commentary, maybe), and some sort of unifying theme would make for a much better project. Well, lo and behold, that's when I stumbled across the emphasis on fear, raiding, booty, and defence that unifies all three texts, at least if your focus (like mine) is on military issues. Along the way I plan to situate Procopius' writing on war in the real-world context. This means, to follow Kaldellis (2017: 269) to some degree, to look at the sixth century empire's military institutions through an analysis of the papyrological, legal, and narrative evidence, though I too will be using, where warranted, the epigraphic evidence. Increasingly, it seems, scholars are seeking to understand the relationship between Procopius and Justinian's laws (Kaldellis 2017: 268), and I plan to do this, where possible, and where it pertains to military issues, in the sequel.
So there's me responding to what I've read so far. There's more, and there will be more, but my bicycle's busted and I think my youngest daughter (all of 1.5 months) may soon crack.
Let's begin with the first point. A couple of contributors (Whitby and Kaldellis) draw attention (or at least refer in passing) to the heroic, even Homeric, character of the Gothic War narrative, especially as it applies to the siege of Rome (537/538). I discuss all this in detail in the book (chapter 4). Somewhat frustratingly, I'd initially stumbled across this character to the narrative back at the start of the PhD in 2006. But things being what they are, Hornblower managed to comment on it before I did, at least in print, owing to the publication of his contribution to the Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare. Still my chapter, a revised version of what was in the original PhD, discusses this in detail.
Indeed, Kaldellis (2017: 261) notes that Procopius' "coverage has breadth and detail in the right proportions as a military historian". That, in a nutshell, summarizes what I argue on the book, though my focus is more narrowly on battle. To complicate things, the follow-up, or sequel (which I've discussed regularly in this blog) as I'm thinking about it, will look at this more broadly, though more on this a bit later.
Another point that Cameron, Van Nuffelen, and Kaldellis draw attention to (to some degree or other) is the relationship between author and text. On the one hand, there's caution about how much we can take an author at his word (Cameron, Kaldellis). On the other, Van Nuffelen notes scholars have hardly ever heeded the advice of literary scholars that author and text are two different things. I did - and had planned to do more of this in the monograph. My desire to do so, however, was regularly tempered (by others) at the various submission/revision stage, such that I ended up including a background chapter (one that I'd planned to add to the end - after the reader had seen what I had to say about the text).
The narrative structure of Procopius' works features too, unsurprisingly. There's a sense that more could be done on this. Cameron (2017: 15) identifies this as an approach that "seeks to analyse the techniques by which narrative is constructed" and highlights his techniques of narrative and storytelling , while Kaldellis (2017: 261) says that Procopius' "ontology of action" remains to be studied. Although my focus was narrower (combat), this, again, is precisely what my book does. I ask (or answer), how does Procopius tell the story of battle, and what sort of narrative techniques does he employ? See, for instance, the second sections of my second, third, and fourth chapters. It involves bringing some narrative theory into the discussion, though also hints of rhetoric and classicism, among other things.
On the other hand, doubt is cast on the value of genre in understanding a text. Admittedly, I stressed the importance of genre in understanding how Procopius describes and explains combat. I even went so far as to claim that Procopius was constrained by his chosen genre (classicizing history). I think my point, however, was that this explained why he didn't include all those little details that military historians are often so keen on. Indeed, I also tried to show that for all this influence of genre, he was able to craft some truly remarkable accounts of battle, and that his latent classicism didn't necessarily mean that he couldn't represent reality truthfully (Van Nuffelen 2017: 40 - the prologue, section four in my introduction, and chapter six). Additionally, I spent a good part of the time showing what makes his accounts of combat in the Wars such dramatic narratives (section three in chapter two, and sections 2a, though maybe 2b and 2c too, in chapter four).
Then there are the avenues for future research (they are many), some of which I've started to take up (or will do soon). Cameron (2017: 18) says it's inadequate to evaluate Procopius' three works in terms of reliability and truth-telling. This had been my intention with the follow-up, under the preconception that people would rather read that sort of thing than what I had done in Battles and Generals. Some months ago that approach seemed better left for something else (a commentary, maybe), and some sort of unifying theme would make for a much better project. Well, lo and behold, that's when I stumbled across the emphasis on fear, raiding, booty, and defence that unifies all three texts, at least if your focus (like mine) is on military issues. Along the way I plan to situate Procopius' writing on war in the real-world context. This means, to follow Kaldellis (2017: 269) to some degree, to look at the sixth century empire's military institutions through an analysis of the papyrological, legal, and narrative evidence, though I too will be using, where warranted, the epigraphic evidence. Increasingly, it seems, scholars are seeking to understand the relationship between Procopius and Justinian's laws (Kaldellis 2017: 268), and I plan to do this, where possible, and where it pertains to military issues, in the sequel.
So there's me responding to what I've read so far. There's more, and there will be more, but my bicycle's busted and I think my youngest daughter (all of 1.5 months) may soon crack.
Friday, 9 June 2017
Plundering the Sixth Century Mediterranean
I've been a bit overwhelmed, for lots of reasons. But, as I trudge on, I think I am making progress. In fact, the principal offshoot of my grant (SSHRC Insight Development Grant), one part of what was once conceived as one large book-length project and now three, is starting to take shape. In fact, I think I've found the ties that should bind it all together in a meaningful way. Given that I expect to start typing before too long, this seemed a good time to pause and write my thoughts/intentions down.
The overarching plan for the grant and now this book was to look at all three of Procopius' works in tandem with a focus on military matters, but more than the battles that occupied book one (and the thesis). The plan was to make my approach as holistic as possible, with Procopius serving as the foundation for all matters pertaining to war, from organization and strategy to logistics and tactics. As I plugged away, however, it started to seem that it was going to become something I'd rather it wasn't: a psuedo-commentary in which I went through all the key topics usually associated with military matters found in Procopius and evaluated them systematically. While that's important, it has the danger of forcing modern concepts or ideas on Procopius. And, it might be a bit dry: I'd rather there be some sort of thread underlining such an approach.
A number of years have passed since I started working on this, and a few things have influenced my thinking including my continued interest in the cultural approach to warfare, which I will likely address in some capacity or other in this book, world history, and in particular the sixth-century Roman state's place in the wider Eurasian world and how it was impacted by people to its west, north, east, and south, and its evidently evolving approach to warfare. Some significant publications have helped too, particularly Justinian's Codex, but also aspects of some of Anastasius' imperial edicts (a bit earlier, yes, but part of the same broader context).
What I've found is that the two central themes that tie the three works together, at least from the perspective I'm interested in, are defence and plunder. In the Secret History (SH) Procopius lambastes Justinian for, among other things, his greed and desire for money, his inability to protect the empire from plundering raids carried out by myriad peoples in the Balkans and the Near East, and the damage he wrought on newly conquered lands like North Africa and Italy, as well as those of the very people he's trying to protect the empire from, the assorted barbarians. In the Buildings (B), Procopius is obviously obsessed with Justinian's (alleged in parts) building programme, and much of it is connected with defence. Indeed, as Procopius sees it in the B, Justinian's job is to protect the empire, and this is done by means of both men and materiel. The B is, of course, filled with forts and fortified settlements, which Procopius alleges Justinian either built himself or repaired. While good questions have been raised about how much of this he actually effected, there's good reason to think that he did devote considerable attention to fortification work, as a host of studies have shown. As I suggested, however, he also regularly mentions the garrisons of these forts in the B, and he even implies that it's not enough to build fortifications, for they need men to man them. Then there's the Wars (W), and Procopius focuses on either defence or plunder depending on the context of a particular war. So, there's much more on defence in the PW than there is in the VW and GW. In fact, defensive-issues tend to surface in those latter two wars after Rome has managed to win, at least initially. The VW is rife with plundering Roman (or allied) soldiers. While it is not quite as prevalent in Italy, it remains a problem, as the actions of Bessas, for instance, illustrate.
I've only just given you the briefest of summaries: the final version will flesh out the details. Suffice to say, what we seem to have is a world rife with armies, Roman, Persian, and otherwise, eager for plunder, in which no one entity is greedier than another. Procopius' works, when read collectively, seem to agree, in some way or another, on this. Indeed, his perspective is understandably pro-Roman, but even he touches on the impact of Rome's actions in this regard on other places in both the W and SH. It's also become clear to me that Procopius' emphasis on the importance of a strong defensive outlook is reflected in much of our additional evidence, from inscriptions and papyri to the law and some of our other literary sources. There is, for instance, a strong undercurrent of fear that seems to pervade life (I've found), and Procopius, and Justinian, really, seems keen on countering this by means of defensive measures that provide safety and security. It's possible that that this climate of fear was constructed by Justinian, and I think that many feel that this was the case. What's less clear (and so new to me), I think, is that this extended to foreign affairs too, i.e. not only natural disasters and the social unrest that often plagued Constantinople.
Anyway, so that's it, or what I'm running with. The final version, obviously, will be much longer. Should add that once all this is finished a few years from now (that's all three parts), I'll be delighted to be free from Procopius. Not sure what I'd do next (I had something I now think I need a prolonged break, if not a clean break, from that former resident of Caesarea), but that's a few years away yet.
The overarching plan for the grant and now this book was to look at all three of Procopius' works in tandem with a focus on military matters, but more than the battles that occupied book one (and the thesis). The plan was to make my approach as holistic as possible, with Procopius serving as the foundation for all matters pertaining to war, from organization and strategy to logistics and tactics. As I plugged away, however, it started to seem that it was going to become something I'd rather it wasn't: a psuedo-commentary in which I went through all the key topics usually associated with military matters found in Procopius and evaluated them systematically. While that's important, it has the danger of forcing modern concepts or ideas on Procopius. And, it might be a bit dry: I'd rather there be some sort of thread underlining such an approach.
A number of years have passed since I started working on this, and a few things have influenced my thinking including my continued interest in the cultural approach to warfare, which I will likely address in some capacity or other in this book, world history, and in particular the sixth-century Roman state's place in the wider Eurasian world and how it was impacted by people to its west, north, east, and south, and its evidently evolving approach to warfare. Some significant publications have helped too, particularly Justinian's Codex, but also aspects of some of Anastasius' imperial edicts (a bit earlier, yes, but part of the same broader context).
What I've found is that the two central themes that tie the three works together, at least from the perspective I'm interested in, are defence and plunder. In the Secret History (SH) Procopius lambastes Justinian for, among other things, his greed and desire for money, his inability to protect the empire from plundering raids carried out by myriad peoples in the Balkans and the Near East, and the damage he wrought on newly conquered lands like North Africa and Italy, as well as those of the very people he's trying to protect the empire from, the assorted barbarians. In the Buildings (B), Procopius is obviously obsessed with Justinian's (alleged in parts) building programme, and much of it is connected with defence. Indeed, as Procopius sees it in the B, Justinian's job is to protect the empire, and this is done by means of both men and materiel. The B is, of course, filled with forts and fortified settlements, which Procopius alleges Justinian either built himself or repaired. While good questions have been raised about how much of this he actually effected, there's good reason to think that he did devote considerable attention to fortification work, as a host of studies have shown. As I suggested, however, he also regularly mentions the garrisons of these forts in the B, and he even implies that it's not enough to build fortifications, for they need men to man them. Then there's the Wars (W), and Procopius focuses on either defence or plunder depending on the context of a particular war. So, there's much more on defence in the PW than there is in the VW and GW. In fact, defensive-issues tend to surface in those latter two wars after Rome has managed to win, at least initially. The VW is rife with plundering Roman (or allied) soldiers. While it is not quite as prevalent in Italy, it remains a problem, as the actions of Bessas, for instance, illustrate.
I've only just given you the briefest of summaries: the final version will flesh out the details. Suffice to say, what we seem to have is a world rife with armies, Roman, Persian, and otherwise, eager for plunder, in which no one entity is greedier than another. Procopius' works, when read collectively, seem to agree, in some way or another, on this. Indeed, his perspective is understandably pro-Roman, but even he touches on the impact of Rome's actions in this regard on other places in both the W and SH. It's also become clear to me that Procopius' emphasis on the importance of a strong defensive outlook is reflected in much of our additional evidence, from inscriptions and papyri to the law and some of our other literary sources. There is, for instance, a strong undercurrent of fear that seems to pervade life (I've found), and Procopius, and Justinian, really, seems keen on countering this by means of defensive measures that provide safety and security. It's possible that that this climate of fear was constructed by Justinian, and I think that many feel that this was the case. What's less clear (and so new to me), I think, is that this extended to foreign affairs too, i.e. not only natural disasters and the social unrest that often plagued Constantinople.
Anyway, so that's it, or what I'm running with. The final version, obviously, will be much longer. Should add that once all this is finished a few years from now (that's all three parts), I'll be delighted to be free from Procopius. Not sure what I'd do next (I had something I now think I need a prolonged break, if not a clean break, from that former resident of Caesarea), but that's a few years away yet.
Tuesday, 13 December 2016
Agathias, a Herodotus for the Age of Justinian
I've been slowly working my way through Agathias, reading the text, in translation I admit (though with the accompanying Greek text), much closer than I ever have before. Some of it I'd already gone through before, but this time I'm trying to soak it all in, so to speak, partially keeping my open for certain things, like evidence of combat motivation (for a paper) and military communities (again for a paper), but while also keeping my eyes open to interesting features. I've found more than a few, and as I near the end there are a few things stand out. I'd planned to discuss a few of them here, but the others, the careful crafting of his historian persona, his abundant (in comparison to Procopius) methodological statements, his interest in the personal or intimate anecdotes, and his interest in the sensory and the emotional will have to wait for another day, because I'm tired. So here, a couple of observations on his Herodotean proclivities.
For one, Agathias is, in many respects, far more Herodotean than I had appreciated before. Some time ago Averil Cameron went carefully through a set of supposed correspondences identified by Franke and highlighted some of the glaring problems. Much of what she said all that time ago makes a lot of sense. Some years later, Whitby (nb - former supervisor) highlighted, if briefly, Agathias' love of digressions. While I take Cameron's point, it's worth highlighting those digressions. While they might seem weird and unnecessary - Agathias has been criticized for spending too much time on things that matter too little - I think they do offer him a means of engaging more fully with his audience. He wants to show us what he knows, though more on that personal aspect in a second. It also gives him a chance to display his learning, while also adhering to the grand classical historical tradition. Digressions were important, and this was one of their distinctive features that he chose to pay attention to, in part because he knew what his strengths were.
Now the very fact that his longest of digressions concerns the Persians should be a red flag: he has Herodotus on his mind. Yes, it's also relevant. The most recent Persian war was drawing to a close, and the historian who professed to be succeeding, Procopius, had devoted considerable attention to them. But the most obvious ancient historian, for any late antique or Byzantine historian to my eyes, when Persians are the subject is Herodotus. That doesn't necessarily mean that he needed to flood his Persian-themed discussions with Herodotean-borrowings. In fact, it would be difficult, given Herodotus wrote in Ionian Greek and Agathias favoured the Atticizing Greek of Procopius and their predecessors. While there likely are a host of particular episodes in Herodotus that are paralleled in Agathias, I'm not so sure it has to be so exact.
There's one last Herodotean characteristic, a smaller one, admittedly, that I want to draw attention to. Agathias regularly presents two explanations or theories in his digressions. So, something along the lines of, some think this is the case, others think this is the case. Quite often, and possibly in the latter half in particular - though I'd have to check, it might just be my memory - Agathias will also finish a digression or extended discussion with something along the lines of, let the reader decide for him or herself how she feels. To me, that screams of Herodotus, more so than anything else. It'll do with some fleshing out, however.
So, his Herodotean-leanings deserve additional attention. Plus, it has me rethinking what I said about his Thucydidean-borrowings in a chapter that'll be out next year. Basically, I said he was less successful, by some margin, at the Thucydidean-style history than Procopius. While this hasn't changed my mind, I would, on further thought, have made greater emphasis on the possibility - lo likelihood - that this was ok, because that wasn't what he had in mind: Agathias didn't want to be a modern-day Thucydides, for Procopius had already done that. Indeed, he spends lots of time commending Procopius for what he's already done, and stressing what he'll do differently. Rather, Agathias, I'm starting to think, was much more interested in being a modern-day Herodotus.
For one, Agathias is, in many respects, far more Herodotean than I had appreciated before. Some time ago Averil Cameron went carefully through a set of supposed correspondences identified by Franke and highlighted some of the glaring problems. Much of what she said all that time ago makes a lot of sense. Some years later, Whitby (nb - former supervisor) highlighted, if briefly, Agathias' love of digressions. While I take Cameron's point, it's worth highlighting those digressions. While they might seem weird and unnecessary - Agathias has been criticized for spending too much time on things that matter too little - I think they do offer him a means of engaging more fully with his audience. He wants to show us what he knows, though more on that personal aspect in a second. It also gives him a chance to display his learning, while also adhering to the grand classical historical tradition. Digressions were important, and this was one of their distinctive features that he chose to pay attention to, in part because he knew what his strengths were.
Now the very fact that his longest of digressions concerns the Persians should be a red flag: he has Herodotus on his mind. Yes, it's also relevant. The most recent Persian war was drawing to a close, and the historian who professed to be succeeding, Procopius, had devoted considerable attention to them. But the most obvious ancient historian, for any late antique or Byzantine historian to my eyes, when Persians are the subject is Herodotus. That doesn't necessarily mean that he needed to flood his Persian-themed discussions with Herodotean-borrowings. In fact, it would be difficult, given Herodotus wrote in Ionian Greek and Agathias favoured the Atticizing Greek of Procopius and their predecessors. While there likely are a host of particular episodes in Herodotus that are paralleled in Agathias, I'm not so sure it has to be so exact.
There's one last Herodotean characteristic, a smaller one, admittedly, that I want to draw attention to. Agathias regularly presents two explanations or theories in his digressions. So, something along the lines of, some think this is the case, others think this is the case. Quite often, and possibly in the latter half in particular - though I'd have to check, it might just be my memory - Agathias will also finish a digression or extended discussion with something along the lines of, let the reader decide for him or herself how she feels. To me, that screams of Herodotus, more so than anything else. It'll do with some fleshing out, however.
So, his Herodotean-leanings deserve additional attention. Plus, it has me rethinking what I said about his Thucydidean-borrowings in a chapter that'll be out next year. Basically, I said he was less successful, by some margin, at the Thucydidean-style history than Procopius. While this hasn't changed my mind, I would, on further thought, have made greater emphasis on the possibility - lo likelihood - that this was ok, because that wasn't what he had in mind: Agathias didn't want to be a modern-day Thucydides, for Procopius had already done that. Indeed, he spends lots of time commending Procopius for what he's already done, and stressing what he'll do differently. Rather, Agathias, I'm starting to think, was much more interested in being a modern-day Herodotus.
Friday, 2 December 2016
War and the Plague in the Sixth Century (AD)
I've been going back over some material on the sixth-century plague in the past month or two, partially for another project (digital textbook), partially for this new (ish) research project, and partially out of interest. I've made Meier's new article (Early Medieval Europe 2016) bus reading, and so I've been slowly working my way through it, and definitely enjoying it. My bus trips are short, so I only ever get so far.
So far, just over halfway through, I think he's done a good job of summarizing earlier research - it's an excellent introduction as is to the subject - and is making some good points all the same. Earlier today, I came across his brief sections, lines even, on the effects of the plague on waging war. As he notes, this is an issue that hasn't been resolved.
Some hold that the plague had a significant impact on Rome's ability to wage war, let alone that of other states like Persia. This impacted everything from financing war to the paying of troops. The varied instances of military unrest that cropped up afterwards in places like Africa should be attributed to the lack of money to pay the men. Problems with recruitment too - Belisarius had to rely on finding men himself later during the war in Italy - would also come down to the impact of the plague. There simply weren't enough men.
Others, however, hold the opposite line. Rome was able to wage war on at least two fronts simultaneously during the outbreak of the plague, which would seem to minimize its impact on the empire's ability to wage war. The thinking goes: if plague really did have a significant impact on Justinian's military, how could they put 1000s of men in the field in Africa, Italy, Bulgaria, and Syria at the same time?
As noted, this is an issue that hasn't been resolved, and it's one that's interested me for a little while. Coming back to it again now, however, is it even possible to get any kind of resolution? Most importantly, how could we hope to measure the plague's direct impact on the state's ability to wage war? Our evidence isn't good enough, so far as I can tell, to indicate changes in the number of soldiers fighting for Rome before or after the plague took hold. There are a few big figures for the military as whole, and references to various armies by Procopius and others. But those are very much context specific, and there's often a lot of material that gets left out.
We also know little about the specifics of recruitment. There are a few pieces of legislation that get into recruitment, and some of this we can date with a good deal of precision. But the recruitment material is from the years before the plague broke out. It also tends to be about the process itself: these are the sorts of men who can and should be recruited, and this is what they should and should not do. It doesn't reveal anything, really, about where they might be from and what to do if men couldn't be found. There's no legislation that reveals any sort of crisis in recruitment in the middle years of the sixth century.
The truth is, the evidence, as a whole, is often ambiguous. While it might reveal things like damage, depopulation, financial instability, and mixed success in war, it doesn't connect these potential impacts of war to the wars themselves or the plague. For instance, was the Roman Empire in the 540s and 550s struggling in war so much because of the plague, or because it was engaged on so many different fronts? To take another example, Procopius spends a good deal of time on the impact of the plague on the empire in his famous passage. He also details the impact of the wars in his Wars and Secret History. What he doesn't do, however, is connect the plague to the mixed success at war. It could be because there was no connection. It could also be that he didn't realize that there was a connection. Or it could be that there was one that he recognized, but one he chose to ignore in favour of other explanations, like the evils of Justinian.
In short, there's no resolution yet for this problem, but I'm not sure we could ever get a definitive one. With that said, the best, I think, that we could hope for is an analysis of the indirect or circumstantial kind. There seems to be better evidence for the impact of the plague on other aspects of life, like the broader economy and rural agriculture. If we can establish its impact on all these other matters, it seems likely that it would have had an impact on the military too.
So far, just over halfway through, I think he's done a good job of summarizing earlier research - it's an excellent introduction as is to the subject - and is making some good points all the same. Earlier today, I came across his brief sections, lines even, on the effects of the plague on waging war. As he notes, this is an issue that hasn't been resolved.
Some hold that the plague had a significant impact on Rome's ability to wage war, let alone that of other states like Persia. This impacted everything from financing war to the paying of troops. The varied instances of military unrest that cropped up afterwards in places like Africa should be attributed to the lack of money to pay the men. Problems with recruitment too - Belisarius had to rely on finding men himself later during the war in Italy - would also come down to the impact of the plague. There simply weren't enough men.
Others, however, hold the opposite line. Rome was able to wage war on at least two fronts simultaneously during the outbreak of the plague, which would seem to minimize its impact on the empire's ability to wage war. The thinking goes: if plague really did have a significant impact on Justinian's military, how could they put 1000s of men in the field in Africa, Italy, Bulgaria, and Syria at the same time?
As noted, this is an issue that hasn't been resolved, and it's one that's interested me for a little while. Coming back to it again now, however, is it even possible to get any kind of resolution? Most importantly, how could we hope to measure the plague's direct impact on the state's ability to wage war? Our evidence isn't good enough, so far as I can tell, to indicate changes in the number of soldiers fighting for Rome before or after the plague took hold. There are a few big figures for the military as whole, and references to various armies by Procopius and others. But those are very much context specific, and there's often a lot of material that gets left out.
We also know little about the specifics of recruitment. There are a few pieces of legislation that get into recruitment, and some of this we can date with a good deal of precision. But the recruitment material is from the years before the plague broke out. It also tends to be about the process itself: these are the sorts of men who can and should be recruited, and this is what they should and should not do. It doesn't reveal anything, really, about where they might be from and what to do if men couldn't be found. There's no legislation that reveals any sort of crisis in recruitment in the middle years of the sixth century.
The truth is, the evidence, as a whole, is often ambiguous. While it might reveal things like damage, depopulation, financial instability, and mixed success in war, it doesn't connect these potential impacts of war to the wars themselves or the plague. For instance, was the Roman Empire in the 540s and 550s struggling in war so much because of the plague, or because it was engaged on so many different fronts? To take another example, Procopius spends a good deal of time on the impact of the plague on the empire in his famous passage. He also details the impact of the wars in his Wars and Secret History. What he doesn't do, however, is connect the plague to the mixed success at war. It could be because there was no connection. It could also be that he didn't realize that there was a connection. Or it could be that there was one that he recognized, but one he chose to ignore in favour of other explanations, like the evils of Justinian.
In short, there's no resolution yet for this problem, but I'm not sure we could ever get a definitive one. With that said, the best, I think, that we could hope for is an analysis of the indirect or circumstantial kind. There seems to be better evidence for the impact of the plague on other aspects of life, like the broader economy and rural agriculture. If we can establish its impact on all these other matters, it seems likely that it would have had an impact on the military too.
Thursday, 1 December 2016
Procopius, War, and the Law
One of the
biggest surprises of the summer was receiving a grant for a research project on
more sixth-century things. I’ve applied
for all sorts of grants over the years, and generally been unsuccessful. I’d all but dismissed my chances of getting this
one until I received the shocking notice.
The grant is,
effectively, for a book that will be the follow-up to Procopius book one, and
it will look more at the history side than the historiographical one. That means Procopius is still important, but
he’s one part of a whole, with the other part/s occupied by the archaeological,
epigraphic, legal, and papyrological evidence.
It also entails considering, at least to some degree, the other literary
evidence. Ultimately the book will
provide something of a commentary on how Procopius deals with war in the sixth
century, with the discussion ranging from military organization to planning and
logistics, and even how war was fought.
The book
will offer a holistic approach, and we’re fortunate in that the age of
Justinian is so well documented, perhaps more so than just about every other
period of the ancient or late antique worlds, at least in my opinion. The catch is that the voluminous evidence
doesn’t always cover the same affairs, and this is particularly true for military
matters. There are, for instance, some
detailed reports on fortifications in Jordan and Bulgaria, but scarce reports
on those same structures in our surviving literary evidence. We have detailed descriptions of battles from
Procopius and some other authors, but little in the way of surviving
weaponry. This means we can’t always
compare this disparate material, and trying to make sense of all of it can be a
bit of a challenge. The danger, lo
temptation, too is trying to make all the pieces fit together, when, in reality,
the pieces come from different puzzles. Still,
one of the great thrills of this project is that it’s given me the opportunity
to dabble into all sorts of other kinds of evidence that I’ve paid less
attention to in the past.
To this point,
when I haven’t been embroiled in all sorts of other work matters, I’ve been concentrating
a great deal on the other evidence. I’ve
discovered, for instance, that there is far more epigraphic evidence for military
matters in the sixth century than I’d previously believed. While we’re nowhere near the epigraphic
heights of the first two centuries AD, there are a few inscriptions in Latin
that either mention Justinian, a general, and assorted other commanders as well
some military units. There are even more
Greek ones. Many of these have only a tangential
bearing on my project, for most of the war-related ones have more to say about
war’s impact than about how it is waged, and I’m starting to think I won’t be
able to get into those matters. There’s
also the Anastasius edict, which I’d only been vaguely familiar with
before. I certainly hadn’t realized what
a fabulous document it is.
In fact, I
feel fortunate that there are so many wonderful research tools at our disposal
now, from the two excellent epigraphic databases (for Greek and Latin), to the
papyrological one, and the TLG, which does require access to a research library
of some capacity or other.
We also now
have the wonderful text and translation of the Justinianic Codex, and the grant allowed me to buy a copy. I’ve been looking at this legal material in
more depth than I ever have before, and it’s forced me to come to grips with
what is quite a substantial body evidence, and one that’s been scarcely applied
to the military sphere, especially in the sixth century, apart from Jones. So far it’s posing all sorts of interesting questions
for me. For one thing, there’s a
staggering amount of legislation, and it seems aspiring lawyers would have had
to understand, even know, just about all of it.
If Procopius himself had been a lawyer, and I think he had, this means
that he too would have had to have been intimately familiar with the material. It turns out too that assessors were tasked
with knowing the law, and even providing guidance to judges who might require
assistance.
If
Procopius was both a lawyer and an assessor, this in itself raises interesting
questions about Procopius’ practices as an historian, but also what or who was considered
an essential part of an army. Surely
Procopius wasn’t the only assessor acting in a military environment, just the
only one who wrote quite so much and so well.
It also raises questions about the long reach of Justinian, and how
exactly Procopius might have got the job.
Were generals assigned assessors by Justinian so that he could, in some
ways, keep a check on the generals?
Maybe not directly, but indirectly.
In other words, were the generals expected to follow the letter of the
law as dictated by Justinian, and were they assigned assessors to ensure that
this happened? It seems unlikely, perhaps, but then quite a lot of the legislation
found in the Corpus Iuris Civilis that
specifically concerns military matters actually deals with what could be
considered property duties and expectations of generals and the like.
The legal
material also has me wondering if it, in some way, should be considered an
ideal: this is how things should be, in
Justinian’s eyes. How often would they
work that way in practice? And for my
purposes (military stuff), can Procopius provide evidence for this? Is the law in some sense the rhetoric, and
what Procopius describes the reality?
Anyway,
there’s a lot to chew on, and quite a bit more to digest, so I hope to provide
more posts in the coming months.
Tuesday, 2 February 2016
A Sensory History of Combat in Late Antiquity
Several months ago, Jonathan Eaton introduced a book to me on Twitter that presented a seemingly novel way of approaching historical combat. The book in question is Mark Smith's The Smell of Battle, the Taste of a Siege: a sensory history of the Civil War, does what it's title suggests. I haven't finished it yet, but I've been working through it while working on a number of other things.
Admittedly, and for my sins, I've contemplated/started working a sensory history of combat in late antiquity, and the sixth century in particular. While it's early days yet, there are a few things that have struck me about this approach to war, especially when the ancient world is the subject matter. The first is the inevitable, "is this even possible". Smith's book draws on all sorts of different kinds of evidence, from letters to newspaper and magazine articles, and paintings. He's also able to draw on the perspectives of a wide swath of the 19th c. US. As always, we don't have the same quantity of material, and the perspectives are much more limited. What's more, even if there is considerable variety in the kinds of literary evidence that we have from the sixth century, and if it comes from all sorts of different people, that late antique swath wasn't all interested in the same things. We may have monks and officers and local elites writing about all sorts of things, but it's still a restricted group of people who write about war: historians, though not always, and the occasional poet. We do have letters, of course, both the more polished published ones (say of Augustine), and seemingly more authentic ones preserved on papyri, but even when we have letters with military figures they're not writing home about war. So, we're still restricted: we have well-educated men, writing in Greek and Latin, operating in an archaic, by their own day, literary world, with some exceptions. This makes it tough to get a balanced picture.
Another thing that has struck me is related to the first. Most of our evidence for combat comes from literary descriptions that, for right or wrong, follow a traditional model. The bulk, majority, even all the writers were classically educated, and well-versed in rhetorical exercises. Those rhetorical exercises, when they were discussing battle or not, emphasized the sensory. Indeed, battle itself was classed as an ekphrasis, and the purpose of an ekphrasis was to bring the thing described before the eyes of the reader or listener. You could, too, extend the eyes to the mind - the reader/listener should be able to imagine what they're reading/listening to. And, while a great deal of attention is placed on the visual, some of the language is directed towards other senses, like sound. The conundrum, then, should be all too obvious. I'm looking for evidence of the sensory experience of battle. To find it I'm having to rely on, by and large, literary accounts that are, in turn, heavily dependent on classical models that emphasize the sensory. How do you separate the literary from the historical? Book 8 of the Wars and Agathias' History provide very descriptive sensory accounts of combat, which aren't dissimilar from the literary flourishes of Corippus, the epic poet, in his Iohannis. Is it possible to disentangle this material?
One last thing I want to draw attention to is the character of Smith's book, at least so far. It seems to be heavy on description, and short of analysis. Granted, the purpose seems to be to get a sense of what it was like to experience an historical event, in Smith's case the Civil War (US), based on what evidence and tools we have at our disposal. In the case of war, however, this seems to be a version of Keegan's "face of battle", which advocated approaching battle from the perspective of the common soldiers rather than the officers and generals that had featured so heavily. I am, then, struggling to see what makes this sensory history unique. Granted, I've read almost nothing, and none of it has focused on antiquity, but at this point I'm quite sceptical.
I have a growing list of items to read, one of which combines archaeology and the senses. Indeed, when I decided to give it a go, I thought about how I might find comparative evidence to support (contradict, or other) what I find in the literary accounts, and the physical evidence seemed to be a way forward. I've thought about the kinds of weapons that we're likely to be used, and what sorts of sensations they were likely to give: what do iron swords sound like when they crash together, what does it feel like when 100s or 1000s of horses come barrelling down a hill, what does it taste like to have your face in the dirt as you're trampled by your comrades in the midst of mad dash to escape? If I know something about the environment of a battle (near a city or out in the middle of nowhere), the season (what temperature might it have been, and what sort of precipitation might they have had to deal with), the time of day, the number of participants, and their constituent parts perhaps I can draw on this factual material along with some comparative evidence (the feel of 100s/1000s of horses) perhaps I can write a sensory history of sorts.
At this point, however, and to be perfectly honest I'm not sure. Indeed I might be able to pull this off, though I might also end up writing an essay that all-but-slams this approach to history. And yet, on the other hand, while my mind says yes, my heart says no (don't do it) - this has often been what I'd like to know most. What was it like to be alive and experience a particular epoch? Well, perhaps I'm finally about to find out.
Admittedly, and for my sins, I've contemplated/started working a sensory history of combat in late antiquity, and the sixth century in particular. While it's early days yet, there are a few things that have struck me about this approach to war, especially when the ancient world is the subject matter. The first is the inevitable, "is this even possible". Smith's book draws on all sorts of different kinds of evidence, from letters to newspaper and magazine articles, and paintings. He's also able to draw on the perspectives of a wide swath of the 19th c. US. As always, we don't have the same quantity of material, and the perspectives are much more limited. What's more, even if there is considerable variety in the kinds of literary evidence that we have from the sixth century, and if it comes from all sorts of different people, that late antique swath wasn't all interested in the same things. We may have monks and officers and local elites writing about all sorts of things, but it's still a restricted group of people who write about war: historians, though not always, and the occasional poet. We do have letters, of course, both the more polished published ones (say of Augustine), and seemingly more authentic ones preserved on papyri, but even when we have letters with military figures they're not writing home about war. So, we're still restricted: we have well-educated men, writing in Greek and Latin, operating in an archaic, by their own day, literary world, with some exceptions. This makes it tough to get a balanced picture.
Another thing that has struck me is related to the first. Most of our evidence for combat comes from literary descriptions that, for right or wrong, follow a traditional model. The bulk, majority, even all the writers were classically educated, and well-versed in rhetorical exercises. Those rhetorical exercises, when they were discussing battle or not, emphasized the sensory. Indeed, battle itself was classed as an ekphrasis, and the purpose of an ekphrasis was to bring the thing described before the eyes of the reader or listener. You could, too, extend the eyes to the mind - the reader/listener should be able to imagine what they're reading/listening to. And, while a great deal of attention is placed on the visual, some of the language is directed towards other senses, like sound. The conundrum, then, should be all too obvious. I'm looking for evidence of the sensory experience of battle. To find it I'm having to rely on, by and large, literary accounts that are, in turn, heavily dependent on classical models that emphasize the sensory. How do you separate the literary from the historical? Book 8 of the Wars and Agathias' History provide very descriptive sensory accounts of combat, which aren't dissimilar from the literary flourishes of Corippus, the epic poet, in his Iohannis. Is it possible to disentangle this material?
One last thing I want to draw attention to is the character of Smith's book, at least so far. It seems to be heavy on description, and short of analysis. Granted, the purpose seems to be to get a sense of what it was like to experience an historical event, in Smith's case the Civil War (US), based on what evidence and tools we have at our disposal. In the case of war, however, this seems to be a version of Keegan's "face of battle", which advocated approaching battle from the perspective of the common soldiers rather than the officers and generals that had featured so heavily. I am, then, struggling to see what makes this sensory history unique. Granted, I've read almost nothing, and none of it has focused on antiquity, but at this point I'm quite sceptical.
I have a growing list of items to read, one of which combines archaeology and the senses. Indeed, when I decided to give it a go, I thought about how I might find comparative evidence to support (contradict, or other) what I find in the literary accounts, and the physical evidence seemed to be a way forward. I've thought about the kinds of weapons that we're likely to be used, and what sorts of sensations they were likely to give: what do iron swords sound like when they crash together, what does it feel like when 100s or 1000s of horses come barrelling down a hill, what does it taste like to have your face in the dirt as you're trampled by your comrades in the midst of mad dash to escape? If I know something about the environment of a battle (near a city or out in the middle of nowhere), the season (what temperature might it have been, and what sort of precipitation might they have had to deal with), the time of day, the number of participants, and their constituent parts perhaps I can draw on this factual material along with some comparative evidence (the feel of 100s/1000s of horses) perhaps I can write a sensory history of sorts.
At this point, however, and to be perfectly honest I'm not sure. Indeed I might be able to pull this off, though I might also end up writing an essay that all-but-slams this approach to history. And yet, on the other hand, while my mind says yes, my heart says no (don't do it) - this has often been what I'd like to know most. What was it like to be alive and experience a particular epoch? Well, perhaps I'm finally about to find out.
Monday, 25 January 2016
Procopius on the Battle of Satala
Surprise, surprise, I'm not done with Procopian battles yet. More of the historical in the sequel, however, and less of the military historiographical.
In the first book the idea was to try to discern something of Procopius' military mind, and how that fit into larger cultural and historiographical trends from his era. Reading through these same accounts again, and in the same kind of detail, but with what I guess you could call a more balanced perspective, thanks in part to all the work I've done in between finishing the PhD and finishing the book, I'm encouraged to see that I'm still seeing that P has understood combat in the way that I surmised. In other words, my head isn't in my hands and I'm not shouting, "Oh God, what have I done/what was I thinking?" It's tempting to say too that, in hindsight, it seems to have made a lot of sense to have tackled "Procopius on War" aspects in the order that I have. Understanding something of his approach to describing and explaining combat should now make it easier to make sense of what he says.
I've just taken a look at the Battle of Satala (530) again, which you can find around 1.15.1ff. For Procopius, the battle seems to hinge on the bravery of one elite Roman individual (a Florentius - 1.15.15), who charges the Persian line, at a point when no one side seems to be making much headway, and manages to seize the Persian general's standard (to strategikon shmeion) and thrust it to the ground before meeting his fate. The Persians panic, freak out, and return to base in light of this, before heading home the next day. And the battle ends. For Procopius individuals, especially those in command positions, are important, and with in mind it's no surprise that things turned out the way they did. But while this might tell us something about what Procopius and some of his peers thought about what happened and understood as important in what happened, does it tell us anything about might what have happened?
The trick, this time round, is to cut through what Procopius says, and I confess that upon looking it over it's more than a little maddening. Still, there are some things we can pick out. We find, for instance, the importance of numbers. Procopius' implies that the Persians had almost twice as many soldiers as the Romans (30,000 to less than 15,000), and that they were all cavalry. Whether these numbers are feasible or not is something that I'll have to look at later. For the moment, while the difference does seem to be significant, it's also important to note that Procopius himself seems to imply that both sides are perhaps less than aware of some important details about each others' contingents. Procopius (1.15.12) claims that the Persians couldn't work out how many men the Romans had - aided in part by the all the dust kicked up by the conditions, though I suspect too by the speed of the Roman advance, as well as their height advantage. There is then a hint of the sensory here - sight, sound (implied if not stated), and perhaps too taste (we could imagine the taste of the dust on a hot summer's afternoon). We also get some of the concerns highlighted by the authors of military manuals (Vegetius and Maurice): conceal your numbers, especially if you're at a disadvantage.
I've been reading Decker's book on Byzantine warfare, and he implies that the Byzantine state (which includes this era) was lacking exceptional commanders, but did have some competent ones. It's hard not to think that this might be a bit harsh, or at least that we have evidence of some better-than-competent performance is on view here, if Procopius is anything to go. For we also read that the Roman force had been split up, with a comparatively small contingent (about 1000) sent up high onto the hills that surround Satala (and you can see them on Google Earth), while the rest moved inside the city walls. The barbarians had moved outside the city walls when Sittas' force came down upon them from on high, as noted earlier. He also split it in two - this allowed him to use gravity and the conditions to his advantage against a clearly superior-in-numbers foe. It also seems to be the case that the Persians were amassed in some sort of confined space round the city walls, which meant that they were bunched up. Indeed, if you take a look at Satala on Google Earth (best I can do without going there), the ancient city is in a little valley, with a plain, and is surrounded by hills. In other words, it's easy to imagine this happening, especially if the Persians had as many men as Procopius claims. So while Sittas may have had more than 1000 with him, contra Procopius, the conditions all seem to support Procopius' claims: Persians crowded together, backed up against the city walls on one side, looking up at the hills on another side, and seeing an indeterminate number of men charging down on horseback, in the middle of a large dust cloud, and then another army charging out from the city gates. It's easy to think that the Persians would have been terrified, as Procopius implies.
While the Persians may have had the numeric advantage, everything else so clearly favoured the Romans - spatially, they were much better off. It's hard to work out (impossible really) what the units were at the Romans' advantage - 15,000 seems a large garrison for Satala, and one wonders when all the soldiers arrived and whether any were based there (that's something to check). Interestingly, Procopius says all the participants on both sides were horses, which seems astonishing to me. Either way, he also says that the battle became fierce, but even, with both sides constantly, owing to their abundant cavalry, charging and then withdrawing. In this I'm reminded of Van Wees' suggestions about Homeric warfare, for which he drew on research on warfare in Polynesia (or, well, somewhere). Basically, there's a lot of each side sitting back while contingents, individuals, what have going forward regularly to charge and so forth. Not sure if the Homer/Van Wees/Polynesia (somewhere) parallel works - quite different kinds of soldiers involved (see Procopius' preface even). It seems to imply not a lot of tactical wizardry, however, at least based on how things were going. So maybe I'm coming round to Decker's claims (competent but not exceptional leaders - still, given they were outnumbered).
I better wrap this up - and so, this is the historical that I can deduce so far (at this early stage). Procopius's account is short on detail, full of drama, but most certainly plausible. This brings us back to the charge of Florentius: is this not, then, too a plausible outcome for why the Romans won? Given that the two sides seem to have been evenly matched based on all the other available criteria, if Florentius' charge is all that's left, might it not be the reason for the outcome? This battle may not tell us too much about how the Romans waged war in the sixth century, but I think it does point to the veracity of Procopius' writing, which in turn would lend greater credence to those other, more detailed battles that he describes. They'll all have to be checked independently and compared with all available evidence, but suggestive. NOTE: I tend not to edit these posts, so apologies for typos/moments of awkwardness.
In the first book the idea was to try to discern something of Procopius' military mind, and how that fit into larger cultural and historiographical trends from his era. Reading through these same accounts again, and in the same kind of detail, but with what I guess you could call a more balanced perspective, thanks in part to all the work I've done in between finishing the PhD and finishing the book, I'm encouraged to see that I'm still seeing that P has understood combat in the way that I surmised. In other words, my head isn't in my hands and I'm not shouting, "Oh God, what have I done/what was I thinking?" It's tempting to say too that, in hindsight, it seems to have made a lot of sense to have tackled "Procopius on War" aspects in the order that I have. Understanding something of his approach to describing and explaining combat should now make it easier to make sense of what he says.
I've just taken a look at the Battle of Satala (530) again, which you can find around 1.15.1ff. For Procopius, the battle seems to hinge on the bravery of one elite Roman individual (a Florentius - 1.15.15), who charges the Persian line, at a point when no one side seems to be making much headway, and manages to seize the Persian general's standard (to strategikon shmeion) and thrust it to the ground before meeting his fate. The Persians panic, freak out, and return to base in light of this, before heading home the next day. And the battle ends. For Procopius individuals, especially those in command positions, are important, and with in mind it's no surprise that things turned out the way they did. But while this might tell us something about what Procopius and some of his peers thought about what happened and understood as important in what happened, does it tell us anything about might what have happened?
The trick, this time round, is to cut through what Procopius says, and I confess that upon looking it over it's more than a little maddening. Still, there are some things we can pick out. We find, for instance, the importance of numbers. Procopius' implies that the Persians had almost twice as many soldiers as the Romans (30,000 to less than 15,000), and that they were all cavalry. Whether these numbers are feasible or not is something that I'll have to look at later. For the moment, while the difference does seem to be significant, it's also important to note that Procopius himself seems to imply that both sides are perhaps less than aware of some important details about each others' contingents. Procopius (1.15.12) claims that the Persians couldn't work out how many men the Romans had - aided in part by the all the dust kicked up by the conditions, though I suspect too by the speed of the Roman advance, as well as their height advantage. There is then a hint of the sensory here - sight, sound (implied if not stated), and perhaps too taste (we could imagine the taste of the dust on a hot summer's afternoon). We also get some of the concerns highlighted by the authors of military manuals (Vegetius and Maurice): conceal your numbers, especially if you're at a disadvantage.
I've been reading Decker's book on Byzantine warfare, and he implies that the Byzantine state (which includes this era) was lacking exceptional commanders, but did have some competent ones. It's hard not to think that this might be a bit harsh, or at least that we have evidence of some better-than-competent performance is on view here, if Procopius is anything to go. For we also read that the Roman force had been split up, with a comparatively small contingent (about 1000) sent up high onto the hills that surround Satala (and you can see them on Google Earth), while the rest moved inside the city walls. The barbarians had moved outside the city walls when Sittas' force came down upon them from on high, as noted earlier. He also split it in two - this allowed him to use gravity and the conditions to his advantage against a clearly superior-in-numbers foe. It also seems to be the case that the Persians were amassed in some sort of confined space round the city walls, which meant that they were bunched up. Indeed, if you take a look at Satala on Google Earth (best I can do without going there), the ancient city is in a little valley, with a plain, and is surrounded by hills. In other words, it's easy to imagine this happening, especially if the Persians had as many men as Procopius claims. So while Sittas may have had more than 1000 with him, contra Procopius, the conditions all seem to support Procopius' claims: Persians crowded together, backed up against the city walls on one side, looking up at the hills on another side, and seeing an indeterminate number of men charging down on horseback, in the middle of a large dust cloud, and then another army charging out from the city gates. It's easy to think that the Persians would have been terrified, as Procopius implies.
While the Persians may have had the numeric advantage, everything else so clearly favoured the Romans - spatially, they were much better off. It's hard to work out (impossible really) what the units were at the Romans' advantage - 15,000 seems a large garrison for Satala, and one wonders when all the soldiers arrived and whether any were based there (that's something to check). Interestingly, Procopius says all the participants on both sides were horses, which seems astonishing to me. Either way, he also says that the battle became fierce, but even, with both sides constantly, owing to their abundant cavalry, charging and then withdrawing. In this I'm reminded of Van Wees' suggestions about Homeric warfare, for which he drew on research on warfare in Polynesia (or, well, somewhere). Basically, there's a lot of each side sitting back while contingents, individuals, what have going forward regularly to charge and so forth. Not sure if the Homer/Van Wees/Polynesia (somewhere) parallel works - quite different kinds of soldiers involved (see Procopius' preface even). It seems to imply not a lot of tactical wizardry, however, at least based on how things were going. So maybe I'm coming round to Decker's claims (competent but not exceptional leaders - still, given they were outnumbered).
I better wrap this up - and so, this is the historical that I can deduce so far (at this early stage). Procopius's account is short on detail, full of drama, but most certainly plausible. This brings us back to the charge of Florentius: is this not, then, too a plausible outcome for why the Romans won? Given that the two sides seem to have been evenly matched based on all the other available criteria, if Florentius' charge is all that's left, might it not be the reason for the outcome? This battle may not tell us too much about how the Romans waged war in the sixth century, but I think it does point to the veracity of Procopius' writing, which in turn would lend greater credence to those other, more detailed battles that he describes. They'll all have to be checked independently and compared with all available evidence, but suggestive. NOTE: I tend not to edit these posts, so apologies for typos/moments of awkwardness.
Thursday, 21 January 2016
Finding Evidence for Strategic Thinking in the Age of Justinian
Besides the aforementioned Roman military textbook, I'm also working on the follow-up to book one on Procopius. The follow-up exists - something I've referred to in past blog posts - because of some of the troubles I had with that earlier project. Basically, it nearly fell off the rails completely, then I attended a conference in Oxford (2014 on Procopius), which got me back on, by which point I had already made plans to go in a different direction. The result was that the original project was rejuvenated, while the new one became a follow-up. In a nutshell, that's why it exists.
Anyway, I happen to be on sabbatical, and so I have the time to work on these two projects, and if all goes well I'll have made considerable progress by the time the period draws to a close in July. Like a lot of things, my enthusiasm waxes and wanes depending on my progress, but there is as much positive as negative, which is more than I can say about the hockey I've been watching most of the year (and am right now - mostly negative).
Today, and presumably for the next little while, one of the topics in that project that I'll be working is strategy, fortifications, frontiers and Procopius, in part because I've been (re-)reading Procopius' Buildings, with what could be considered a fine-tooth comb. A number of things are jumping out at me this time round, and one that I'll be devoting more attention to, and which I want to flag here, is his emphasis on defence. In particular, my reading of Procopius' Buildings so far seems to point towards a strong emphasis on defence in east Rome, and there is a real sense that the purpose of the fortifications was both to monitor and to prevent/check incursions of Saracens and Persians. Now, maybe this isn't all that surprising. The Buildings is on, well, buildings, and so of course he's going to talk about fortifications, and if you're talking about fortifications it seems self-evident that you'll be talking about their defensive properties, particularly based on the character of late antique fortifications. So, of course its defence, and scholars have argued in support of this defensive mentality for quite a while - Luttwak and defence-in-depth, Greatrex more recently on a longer-term defensive mentality.
Now, in this book/project, the idea is to test as often and wherever possible Procopius' views/comments/descriptions/ with other evidence, whatever shape it comes in. How do you do this, however, when your subject is strategy? Given I'm dealing with Justinian, what I'd like is his memoirs, commentarii, or some such thing that sets his foreign policy thinking. Of course, these things don't exist. Now, if I'm arguing for, or better testing for whether the strategic mentality with respect to the frontiers was defend and if I'm taking as my starting point the Buildings, there's always the Wars to compare. I could (will) take a look at all known conflicts in the east and identify who in each case is the aggressor. If you're always been attacked, then a defensive mentality would seem likely. On the other hand, it is presumably more than a little bit sketchy to check Procopius by means of Procopius. In other words, it would be easy enough for him to make sure his statements in one of those works support his statements in the other.
Thus, I'll certainly have to take a look at the other accounts we have, works like those of Count Marcellinus, Malalas, Pseudo-Joshua, Pseudo-Zachariah, and Agathias. It would be helpful to visit all known fortifications, but of course this isn't feasible (cost, political situation, etc.), so I suspect that Google Earth and assorted published excavation reports and otherwise will become my friends. On the other hand, a fort on its own can't say what a fort is doing, and that's where things get stickier. I could also take a look at Justinian's legislation - does he delve into defensive concerns at any point in his massive collection of Roman law, and if he does is it the case that this reflects a defensive strategic mentality? There's what evidence of propaganda I can find too - though would you emphasize a defensive mentality?
If I adopt the definition of strategy that I've adopted in the past (following Kagan's 2006 article), that would mean that I should look for evidence of the Roman state using its resources to pursue various foreign policy ends, and in the earlier Roman imperial situation we have all sorts of really good evidence for troop movements, dispositions, and so forth. In late antiquity, especially after about AD 400, the situation is dire. The Notitia Dignitatum is a fabulous piece of evidence, and recent research has emphasized the accuracy of the list as we have it for the east (based on examinations of the situations in Egypt and in the Caucasus). Should we really expect the list as we have it to still be applicable by the time that Procopius is writing though, nearly 150 years later? Perhaps not, or not exactly, and unfortunately we just don't have something from the sixth century that I'm aware of that provides the desired level of detail. What are we, then, to do? To be honest, I'm not sure yet, though I'll be getting to this issue soon enough.
If the defensive approach does turn out to the case at least with respect to the east, that makes for a nice contrast with the wars in Africa and Italy, so clearly offensively-minded, at least on the surface. I was wondering if these could be taken as attempts of Justinian to counter criticisms that he was too defensively-minded. If that were true, however, why not take a more offensive approach in the east rather than the west? Also, if all anyone has known for some time was a defensive approach in the east, who would really criticize a presumed-defensive mentality?
So, I anticipate a considerable amount of trouble with this topic, and more so than for some of the others that I have in mind. Only time will tell, I guess, whether I can't find some sort of resolution.
Anyway, I happen to be on sabbatical, and so I have the time to work on these two projects, and if all goes well I'll have made considerable progress by the time the period draws to a close in July. Like a lot of things, my enthusiasm waxes and wanes depending on my progress, but there is as much positive as negative, which is more than I can say about the hockey I've been watching most of the year (and am right now - mostly negative).
Today, and presumably for the next little while, one of the topics in that project that I'll be working is strategy, fortifications, frontiers and Procopius, in part because I've been (re-)reading Procopius' Buildings, with what could be considered a fine-tooth comb. A number of things are jumping out at me this time round, and one that I'll be devoting more attention to, and which I want to flag here, is his emphasis on defence. In particular, my reading of Procopius' Buildings so far seems to point towards a strong emphasis on defence in east Rome, and there is a real sense that the purpose of the fortifications was both to monitor and to prevent/check incursions of Saracens and Persians. Now, maybe this isn't all that surprising. The Buildings is on, well, buildings, and so of course he's going to talk about fortifications, and if you're talking about fortifications it seems self-evident that you'll be talking about their defensive properties, particularly based on the character of late antique fortifications. So, of course its defence, and scholars have argued in support of this defensive mentality for quite a while - Luttwak and defence-in-depth, Greatrex more recently on a longer-term defensive mentality.
Now, in this book/project, the idea is to test as often and wherever possible Procopius' views/comments/descriptions/ with other evidence, whatever shape it comes in. How do you do this, however, when your subject is strategy? Given I'm dealing with Justinian, what I'd like is his memoirs, commentarii, or some such thing that sets his foreign policy thinking. Of course, these things don't exist. Now, if I'm arguing for, or better testing for whether the strategic mentality with respect to the frontiers was defend and if I'm taking as my starting point the Buildings, there's always the Wars to compare. I could (will) take a look at all known conflicts in the east and identify who in each case is the aggressor. If you're always been attacked, then a defensive mentality would seem likely. On the other hand, it is presumably more than a little bit sketchy to check Procopius by means of Procopius. In other words, it would be easy enough for him to make sure his statements in one of those works support his statements in the other.
Thus, I'll certainly have to take a look at the other accounts we have, works like those of Count Marcellinus, Malalas, Pseudo-Joshua, Pseudo-Zachariah, and Agathias. It would be helpful to visit all known fortifications, but of course this isn't feasible (cost, political situation, etc.), so I suspect that Google Earth and assorted published excavation reports and otherwise will become my friends. On the other hand, a fort on its own can't say what a fort is doing, and that's where things get stickier. I could also take a look at Justinian's legislation - does he delve into defensive concerns at any point in his massive collection of Roman law, and if he does is it the case that this reflects a defensive strategic mentality? There's what evidence of propaganda I can find too - though would you emphasize a defensive mentality?
If I adopt the definition of strategy that I've adopted in the past (following Kagan's 2006 article), that would mean that I should look for evidence of the Roman state using its resources to pursue various foreign policy ends, and in the earlier Roman imperial situation we have all sorts of really good evidence for troop movements, dispositions, and so forth. In late antiquity, especially after about AD 400, the situation is dire. The Notitia Dignitatum is a fabulous piece of evidence, and recent research has emphasized the accuracy of the list as we have it for the east (based on examinations of the situations in Egypt and in the Caucasus). Should we really expect the list as we have it to still be applicable by the time that Procopius is writing though, nearly 150 years later? Perhaps not, or not exactly, and unfortunately we just don't have something from the sixth century that I'm aware of that provides the desired level of detail. What are we, then, to do? To be honest, I'm not sure yet, though I'll be getting to this issue soon enough.
If the defensive approach does turn out to the case at least with respect to the east, that makes for a nice contrast with the wars in Africa and Italy, so clearly offensively-minded, at least on the surface. I was wondering if these could be taken as attempts of Justinian to counter criticisms that he was too defensively-minded. If that were true, however, why not take a more offensive approach in the east rather than the west? Also, if all anyone has known for some time was a defensive approach in the east, who would really criticize a presumed-defensive mentality?
So, I anticipate a considerable amount of trouble with this topic, and more so than for some of the others that I have in mind. Only time will tell, I guess, whether I can't find some sort of resolution.
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
Thucydides in Late Antiquity
One of my tasks over the next few months is to write a chapter for a companion that explores the place of Thucydides amongst the historians of late antiquity, which both has something for the specialist and the uninitiated. It's no small task, and to make this manageable, and in the vague hopes of saying something (even if it's little more than a sentence or two) somewhat new, I'm going to focus my attention on one episode in Thucydides' History that has had a particularly marked impact: his description of the Siege of Plataea. Yes, this also means I get to touch on something I know reasonably well - the ins and outs of siege descriptions. It turns out that there are three historians (that we know of) who modelled at least one of their accounts on Thucydides' Plataean siege: Dexippus (3rd century), Priscus (5th century), and Procopius (6th century). The main question that I will address is how far can we take this Thucydidean influence, and what does this mean for how we read these later historians?
As I comb through the modern literature and read and re-read some of the relevant ancient accounts, there are a number of issues that have jumped out at me thus far as I have considered those questions. First, why have those historians chosen to base their description on a siege found in Thucydides and why Plataea? Combat is ubiquitous in the ancient world, and we can find descriptions of sieges in all sorts of different historians. What is it about Thucydides' siege that makes it so special? I wonder how many moderns would ran it as a pivotal moment in the the text, let alone the war? A siege like Syracuse? OK - and it did have an impact on Procopius, for it seems to have influenced his account of the siege of Rome in 537/538, and just as Syracuse ushered in big changes in the course of that war, so too did Rome in the Gothic war. There must have been something about Thucydides, then, and this particular siege that stood out in their minds when they sat down (so to speak) to describe their respective sieges (Philippopolis in Dexippus, Naissus in Priscus, and Naples in Procopius).
Of course, ancient historians are less likely to be motivated by the relative importance of a siege in selecting models, or so I would think. Rather, it's the literary character that carries of the day more often than not. This then brings up the second consideration, the impact of education and the rhetorical handbooks. Indeed, as it happens a number of the surviving progymnasmata highlight Thucydides' account of Plataea as one worth noting. If those three historians, and others, had read any of those rhetorical handbooks, and they likely would have done in the course of their similar educations, it seems likely the primacy of Thucydides' account would have been hammered into their heads and so it's not surprising, then, that they did think of Plataea. If anything, maybe we should have been asking not why Thucydides, but which other historian and siege could they have used instead? Could there ever have been any doubt?
This, though, brings up a third issue. Is it really Thucydides they have in mind, or some sort of list of key phrases, quotes, or even passages, the sort of thing that was said to be present (common, ubiquitous?) in late antiquity? Did they remember Thucydides from school, then turn to the section they needed and simply copy what they wanted? Less of a full appreciation of Thucydides then than something far more superficial? If you read Lucian's How to Write History you get the impression that there were a number of historians (most lost - and assuming he was alluding to real historians) from the first and second centuries who might have fallen into this superficial category, so to speak.
In fact, this brings up a fourth issue. Although there are all sorts of interesting potential examples of intertextuality involving Thucydides and other authors like Procopius, a topic discussed in a number of provocative works by Pazdernik, is this the same sort of thing we have when we focus on episodes like these sieges or, as suggested above, are they something more superficial? Can they ever really be something more than a sytlistic choice? Given the comparative lack of importance it would seem unlikely. And, the fragmentary state of both Dexippus and Priscus makes this a difficult issue to discuss outside the bounds of Procopius' Wars. It is worth asking, however.
A fifth point, related to the previous one, if tangentially, has to do with what this Thucydidean impact then has on the veracity of the respective accounts. If they're all based on Thucydides - and a handful of studies have highlighted the profound linguistic impact - does this mean their sieges are little more than literary artifices? Ought we then throw out the baby with the bathwater? The sieges are too closely modelled on Thucydides for comfort, they (the descriptions) couldn't then be based on the actual accounts, and so we should discard them as little more than something of literary interest. Valuable for what they say about the impact of Thucydides: check. Useful for historians with a real interest in the respective conflicts: no.
A sixth issue, what does all this tell us about the practice of history-writing in late antiquity, when such a seemingly significant chunk of the works of one segment of the era's historians can be reduced to what we could consider examples of flagrant plagiarism? In other words, from this perspective, should we consider going back to the old appellation, dark ages? Are the classicizing historians of the age not deserving of the credit we tend to afford them if this is what they call history? Perhaps, then, it really is the Malalas', the Jordanes', the Eusebius', the Theodorets and the Marcellinus Comes' that really deserve our attention, as they seem to be the ones who were really doing something different. Or does the fact that there were still individuals capable of engaging with arguably the world's greatest historian in the age in addition to those experiementing with new forms and new subject matter reveal to us the age's vitality, at least from the perspective of historiography?
All this from Thucydides, late antique historians, and one little siege. Should be a fun (if endlessly frustrating) chapter to write.
As I comb through the modern literature and read and re-read some of the relevant ancient accounts, there are a number of issues that have jumped out at me thus far as I have considered those questions. First, why have those historians chosen to base their description on a siege found in Thucydides and why Plataea? Combat is ubiquitous in the ancient world, and we can find descriptions of sieges in all sorts of different historians. What is it about Thucydides' siege that makes it so special? I wonder how many moderns would ran it as a pivotal moment in the the text, let alone the war? A siege like Syracuse? OK - and it did have an impact on Procopius, for it seems to have influenced his account of the siege of Rome in 537/538, and just as Syracuse ushered in big changes in the course of that war, so too did Rome in the Gothic war. There must have been something about Thucydides, then, and this particular siege that stood out in their minds when they sat down (so to speak) to describe their respective sieges (Philippopolis in Dexippus, Naissus in Priscus, and Naples in Procopius).
Of course, ancient historians are less likely to be motivated by the relative importance of a siege in selecting models, or so I would think. Rather, it's the literary character that carries of the day more often than not. This then brings up the second consideration, the impact of education and the rhetorical handbooks. Indeed, as it happens a number of the surviving progymnasmata highlight Thucydides' account of Plataea as one worth noting. If those three historians, and others, had read any of those rhetorical handbooks, and they likely would have done in the course of their similar educations, it seems likely the primacy of Thucydides' account would have been hammered into their heads and so it's not surprising, then, that they did think of Plataea. If anything, maybe we should have been asking not why Thucydides, but which other historian and siege could they have used instead? Could there ever have been any doubt?
This, though, brings up a third issue. Is it really Thucydides they have in mind, or some sort of list of key phrases, quotes, or even passages, the sort of thing that was said to be present (common, ubiquitous?) in late antiquity? Did they remember Thucydides from school, then turn to the section they needed and simply copy what they wanted? Less of a full appreciation of Thucydides then than something far more superficial? If you read Lucian's How to Write History you get the impression that there were a number of historians (most lost - and assuming he was alluding to real historians) from the first and second centuries who might have fallen into this superficial category, so to speak.
In fact, this brings up a fourth issue. Although there are all sorts of interesting potential examples of intertextuality involving Thucydides and other authors like Procopius, a topic discussed in a number of provocative works by Pazdernik, is this the same sort of thing we have when we focus on episodes like these sieges or, as suggested above, are they something more superficial? Can they ever really be something more than a sytlistic choice? Given the comparative lack of importance it would seem unlikely. And, the fragmentary state of both Dexippus and Priscus makes this a difficult issue to discuss outside the bounds of Procopius' Wars. It is worth asking, however.
A fifth point, related to the previous one, if tangentially, has to do with what this Thucydidean impact then has on the veracity of the respective accounts. If they're all based on Thucydides - and a handful of studies have highlighted the profound linguistic impact - does this mean their sieges are little more than literary artifices? Ought we then throw out the baby with the bathwater? The sieges are too closely modelled on Thucydides for comfort, they (the descriptions) couldn't then be based on the actual accounts, and so we should discard them as little more than something of literary interest. Valuable for what they say about the impact of Thucydides: check. Useful for historians with a real interest in the respective conflicts: no.
A sixth issue, what does all this tell us about the practice of history-writing in late antiquity, when such a seemingly significant chunk of the works of one segment of the era's historians can be reduced to what we could consider examples of flagrant plagiarism? In other words, from this perspective, should we consider going back to the old appellation, dark ages? Are the classicizing historians of the age not deserving of the credit we tend to afford them if this is what they call history? Perhaps, then, it really is the Malalas', the Jordanes', the Eusebius', the Theodorets and the Marcellinus Comes' that really deserve our attention, as they seem to be the ones who were really doing something different. Or does the fact that there were still individuals capable of engaging with arguably the world's greatest historian in the age in addition to those experiementing with new forms and new subject matter reveal to us the age's vitality, at least from the perspective of historiography?
All this from Thucydides, late antique historians, and one little siege. Should be a fun (if endlessly frustrating) chapter to write.
Monday, 2 March 2015
Procopius' Wars: Second Edition
At some point after writing the first seven books of his Wars, Procopius published them, and apparently to widespread acclaim. Lo, he was so successful that he decided to write an update, of sorts, book 8. Book 8, as Procopius readily admits, is something of an anomaly. For him it was the organization that stood out: he struggled finding a way to update the material of the first seven books, and must have reckoned that tacking them on to the first seven, or each war, wouldn't have worked that well. Instead, then, he lumped it all together in one book: 8. Once he decided on this, he did, at least at the most basic of levels, proceed to arrange it (book 8) as he'd done the first seven. So, the first chunk of book 8 is devoted to PW matters, a wee paragraph is devoted to VW matters, and the last chunk to GW matters. All good.
When we take a closer look, however, things are rather different. Yes, there are lots of battles and sieges, much as there had been before - and given that it's a history of war it well should have this sort of stuff. But, his descriptions of combat in book 8 aren't consistent, at least for the most part, with those in books 1-7. Rather, it's more of a hodgepodge, with an especial emphasis on the factors he raises in the GW (for more on this, for the moment, see the relevant chapter here: (http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/view/theses/Department_of_Classics_and_Ancient_History.type.html)
There's plenty more that's different in book 8, however. For one thing, there are far more methodological statements than we find, at least per capita, in the first seven books. I would suggest that there are also far more "philosophy of history" statements. Along those lines, we find a number of cases where our narrator feels the need to set the record straight: "this or that matter has been discussed in a variety of ways by various sources, and they're generally wrong. Here's how it really is." That sort of thing. We might well expect these sorts of statements to pertain, by and large, to key historical events, like battles. And, near the end, in his description of the Battle of Busta Gallorum/Taginae, we find just such a comment, and it pertains to the various reports concerning the death of Totila. It seems reports differed, and given the comparatively detailed account he presents first, I'm inclined to believe that it's the one he liked best. Interesingly, however (and in Herodotean vein), he doesn't take a stand - he mentions the other version, and provides some detail, and then lets is stand for the reader to sort out, at least indirectly (as noted, I think he's pointing towards option 1). Much more often, however, he chimes in when the matter pertains to matters of geography, less often ethnography, but quite too often mythology. He's not unusual in this - again, this is very much a Herodotean thing. What is unusual, however, is that Procopius himself tends not to do this in the first part of the Wars (books 1-7).
There are other unusual things. There is far more attention on geography, again per capita, and on sensory aspects, at least from the perspective of combat. In fact, you would be no worse off in writing a "face of battle" account of Justinianic era combat using book 8 alone than you would if you only had books 1 through 7. There's also all that myth. We read about Jason and Medea, Orestes, Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Odysseus, Aeneas, and so forth. The placing of his discussions of myth does make sense: for the first of the lot, it comes in the heart of his Lazican discussion, and the setting for those myths tends to be in the lands that are the focus of that part of the war with Persia. The same's true for the war against the Goths and Italy-based myths (Odysseus' voyages primarily). So, all well and good, as I suggested. But, why didn't he do the same in the first seven books?
The Procopius of book 8, then, is, for all intents and purposes, not the Procopius of books 1-7. Why is that? What made Procopius adopt this notably different approach, an approach that on the surface (and possibly deeper down?) is much more Herodotean than the very Thucydidean (even Polybian) first seven books? It could be that in the absence of autopsy Procopius sought to supplement his narrative with details that he could provide given the resources at his disposal, ie the ancient/classical texts that he alludes to throughout book 8.
But, I wonder if there isn't another possibility, one that doesn't necessarily preclude the former, though which might seem to contradict Procopius' statements at the start of book 8. He claimed that his work was popular, and there might be something to these claims, but its appeal might not have been quite as universal as he had imagined. In other words, some - many? - might have criticized the historian. Reading Procopius again in full (in translation, admittedly - Kaldellis' new one) for a seminar I'm teaching, it's clear that he isn't for everyone. Indeed, if you're not terribly interested in military history, it's hard not to read the Wars as little more than "one damned thing after another", where the thing, or things, in question is combat (and its attendant battles, sieges, and campaigns). I hate to admit it, but even my eyes glossed over a little from time to time. Maybe, then, there were others who lampooned Procopius for just this problem, and so to counter this - and to reach even greater renown - he sought to add extra episodes of interest, the types of scenes that would appeal to a broader audience. What with all the myth, geography, and literary argumentation it's hard not to think that these were included for just this purpose. Secular military history wasn't as popular in the sixth century AD as it was in the early fourth century BC. Readers (and listners) had other options, even if Procopius was part of a grand tradition, and even if he is succeeded by Agathias, Menander, and Theophylact, In sum, I read book 8 as a response to Procopius' critics, even if its character is to some degree conditioned by his resources. Perhaps this pseudo-Herodotean approach might also reflect the appeals of his similarly-educated readers, those who spent years pouring over rhetorical treatises and argued over the respective merits of different figrues from myth. Maybe they expected more of this, and told Procopius to include it in his update.
I realize that this reading is conditioned by my own circumstances - not everyone loves Procopius, and Herodotus is undoubtedly the most popular of classical historians, as evidenced by the success of Holland's recent translation. What interests us, then, might not have interested Procopius' peers. Still, might be worth considering - or exploring in more detail (at some unspecified point in my future, if I still have the fortitude to persevere with these Procopian projects).
When we take a closer look, however, things are rather different. Yes, there are lots of battles and sieges, much as there had been before - and given that it's a history of war it well should have this sort of stuff. But, his descriptions of combat in book 8 aren't consistent, at least for the most part, with those in books 1-7. Rather, it's more of a hodgepodge, with an especial emphasis on the factors he raises in the GW (for more on this, for the moment, see the relevant chapter here: (http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/view/theses/Department_of_Classics_and_Ancient_History.type.html)
There's plenty more that's different in book 8, however. For one thing, there are far more methodological statements than we find, at least per capita, in the first seven books. I would suggest that there are also far more "philosophy of history" statements. Along those lines, we find a number of cases where our narrator feels the need to set the record straight: "this or that matter has been discussed in a variety of ways by various sources, and they're generally wrong. Here's how it really is." That sort of thing. We might well expect these sorts of statements to pertain, by and large, to key historical events, like battles. And, near the end, in his description of the Battle of Busta Gallorum/Taginae, we find just such a comment, and it pertains to the various reports concerning the death of Totila. It seems reports differed, and given the comparatively detailed account he presents first, I'm inclined to believe that it's the one he liked best. Interesingly, however (and in Herodotean vein), he doesn't take a stand - he mentions the other version, and provides some detail, and then lets is stand for the reader to sort out, at least indirectly (as noted, I think he's pointing towards option 1). Much more often, however, he chimes in when the matter pertains to matters of geography, less often ethnography, but quite too often mythology. He's not unusual in this - again, this is very much a Herodotean thing. What is unusual, however, is that Procopius himself tends not to do this in the first part of the Wars (books 1-7).
There are other unusual things. There is far more attention on geography, again per capita, and on sensory aspects, at least from the perspective of combat. In fact, you would be no worse off in writing a "face of battle" account of Justinianic era combat using book 8 alone than you would if you only had books 1 through 7. There's also all that myth. We read about Jason and Medea, Orestes, Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Odysseus, Aeneas, and so forth. The placing of his discussions of myth does make sense: for the first of the lot, it comes in the heart of his Lazican discussion, and the setting for those myths tends to be in the lands that are the focus of that part of the war with Persia. The same's true for the war against the Goths and Italy-based myths (Odysseus' voyages primarily). So, all well and good, as I suggested. But, why didn't he do the same in the first seven books?
The Procopius of book 8, then, is, for all intents and purposes, not the Procopius of books 1-7. Why is that? What made Procopius adopt this notably different approach, an approach that on the surface (and possibly deeper down?) is much more Herodotean than the very Thucydidean (even Polybian) first seven books? It could be that in the absence of autopsy Procopius sought to supplement his narrative with details that he could provide given the resources at his disposal, ie the ancient/classical texts that he alludes to throughout book 8.
But, I wonder if there isn't another possibility, one that doesn't necessarily preclude the former, though which might seem to contradict Procopius' statements at the start of book 8. He claimed that his work was popular, and there might be something to these claims, but its appeal might not have been quite as universal as he had imagined. In other words, some - many? - might have criticized the historian. Reading Procopius again in full (in translation, admittedly - Kaldellis' new one) for a seminar I'm teaching, it's clear that he isn't for everyone. Indeed, if you're not terribly interested in military history, it's hard not to read the Wars as little more than "one damned thing after another", where the thing, or things, in question is combat (and its attendant battles, sieges, and campaigns). I hate to admit it, but even my eyes glossed over a little from time to time. Maybe, then, there were others who lampooned Procopius for just this problem, and so to counter this - and to reach even greater renown - he sought to add extra episodes of interest, the types of scenes that would appeal to a broader audience. What with all the myth, geography, and literary argumentation it's hard not to think that these were included for just this purpose. Secular military history wasn't as popular in the sixth century AD as it was in the early fourth century BC. Readers (and listners) had other options, even if Procopius was part of a grand tradition, and even if he is succeeded by Agathias, Menander, and Theophylact, In sum, I read book 8 as a response to Procopius' critics, even if its character is to some degree conditioned by his resources. Perhaps this pseudo-Herodotean approach might also reflect the appeals of his similarly-educated readers, those who spent years pouring over rhetorical treatises and argued over the respective merits of different figrues from myth. Maybe they expected more of this, and told Procopius to include it in his update.
I realize that this reading is conditioned by my own circumstances - not everyone loves Procopius, and Herodotus is undoubtedly the most popular of classical historians, as evidenced by the success of Holland's recent translation. What interests us, then, might not have interested Procopius' peers. Still, might be worth considering - or exploring in more detail (at some unspecified point in my future, if I still have the fortitude to persevere with these Procopian projects).
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