Globalizing Sixth Century Combat in the Mediterranean (Eurasian Way of War Part 2)

I broke up this post into two chunks largely because I don't want my posts to get too long.  Additionally, it seems that more than one or two people are reading the blog, so I should try to keep what posts I make a manageable as possible.  So, back to the Eurasian Way of War...

One issue surrounding the supposition that sixth-century Rome had adopted a Eurasian way of war centres on the problems with our evidence.  There are two many holes in our information for organization and combat in the Mediterranean in the third and fifth centuries for my liking, to say nothing of the second, fourth, and sixth centuries.  These make it hard to pin down when certain practices were adopted, and in what circumstances.  Granted, this is, for all intents and purposes, just the way things are for the ancient and medieval worlds; nevertheless, it's still a bit of an issue.

Another issue is the replacement of one of two labels with a third.  Hanson's and Keegan's western way of war, and its corollary, the eastern way of war, has been the object of sustained criticism for some time.  To that end, recently I've read Mark Humprhies' plea for bringing more of the global into late antiquity in the Studies in Late Antiquity journal.  In it Humphries' suggests we look beyond the Mediterranean to the wider world in our research on late antiquity, and that we bring in more comparative material, at least where possible, which might allow for greater collaboration (the challenges to his approach are significant, as he notes), and for new questions to be asked.  His piece appealed for a number of reasons. For one, for a year or two, with some pauses, I've become increasingly unsatisfied with what little reach my work has and so have been eager to reach out to larger audiences (see this blog as one such avenue).  Pushing this larger Procopius-centric project into the realm of something global history would seem to serve some of those ends, and might even get more people reading my stuff.  For another, I found myself immersed in this world, at least in part, as a result of some pedagogical tools I worked on in the fall.  So, attempts at globalizing some of my foci have been on my mind for many months now.  At the surface, then, the notion of a "Eurasian Way of War" appeals. 

When it becomes clear that the Eurasian in the title refers entirely not to some pan-Eurasian mode of combat but to something more specific, a recognition of the impact of the steppes, I wonder if it's not the case that we're replacing one set of labels (western and eastern) with another.  While efforts to expand the net more broadly when looking at the myriad influences on the Roman Empire to include the steppe warriors are to be commended, to some degree or other this has been going on for some time.  Ammianus himself put great stock in the Hunnic role in the invasions that led to Adrianople (a battle which Humphries thinks we should downplay, though many have been doing this for some time too).  Peter Heather, who's written a great deal on the subject, has long stressed the roll of the Huns in the fall of the western empire, though this sort of impact is, admittedly, of a different sort than that discussed so far. 

But I have another issue/question.  Even if Graff had intended Eurasian to be something more wide-reaching, it would then seem to be the case that we would be heading for a type of interpretation that some have seen as anachronistic.  In military history debate sometimes centres on universals versus the more specific.  Certain aspects of the experience (and more) of war are universal across time and place.  Or it's all conditional on the specific contexts, both temporal and geographic.  A closer look at horse archery and Eurasia would seem to lead us back toward the world of the universal; if we broaden our scope, it's worth considering the mounted archery that emerged in other parts of the world, and here in particular I'm thinking about the part of the world I live in, the North American prairies. 

Horses disappeared from North America some 10,000 or so years ago.  They returned with Europeans in the early 1500s, and eventually were found across the continent.  Some of the indigenous groups who lived on the prairies adopted horses and incorporated them fully into their lives.  Horses were used in hunting, for instance, and hunting could often involve the use of bows and arrows.  Before long, some indigenous groups were hunting with bows and arrows from horseback (to say nothing of combat), likely using practices similar to those found on the steppes.  In this instance, there's no suggestion, so far as I know (I must stress this research is VERY preliminary), that they were influenced in anyway from contemporary horse archers from the steppes.  The employment of mounted archers by peoples like the Comanche of the American plains was an independent action - i.e., not influenced by contact with the steppes.  This very adoption would imply that this means of hunting (and by proxy fighting) was something perhaps shouldn't be associated with any particular group.  Rather, it's a universal, of sorts.  And if the indigenous people in the right conditions could adopt the mounted archer on their own, why might not this be the case in the Mediterranean?  Might not the Romans have done the same?

Granted, the contexts are different, and there is plenty of evidence for interaction in the case of Rome with peoples from the steppes.  It's worth stressing, however, just how much of it is circumstantial.  If this suggestion - horse archery is a universal thing, not something specifically associated with the steppes - is true or not I cannot say. I haven't done nearly enough work yet, and I don't even know where I'd go from there anyway (and this is one of my problems now).  If nothing else, I think these are points worth making, and I plan to come back to some of these issues before too long.

Qasr el-Hallabat and the Edict of Anastasius

Last spring, an internal grant allowed me to make a grand tour of the UK, which included stops at Roman military sites, and some libraries (London, Oxford).  At the Institute for Classical Studies Library in London, I spent some time pouring through its excellent collection of published volumes on epigraphy in late antiquity.  One inscription I came across was the Edict of Anastasius found in Qasr el-Hallabat.  I had already spent a bit of time reading about the similar edict (or one of several edicts) Anastasius had published at Perge, so coming across this other one was something of a boon.  I made some notes, made a scan, and determined to come back to it at a later date.  Needless to say, I would never have expected that I'd be able to visit Qasr el-Hallabat, an unknown entity to me in early May of 2016, only nine months later.  I owe that opportunity to a major external grant I never imagined I'd get.

When in Jordan I put a visit of Qasr el-Hallabat near the top of my list.  And on the fourth day, it was our first top, sometime after 8:30am.  We were just about the only ones there, barring a few people working at the beautiful welcome centre.  The site itself is some ways up from the centre, and it sits on a little plateau with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside.

Once I made it to the top I resolved to make a tour of the walls, which included a stop at the "Roman" crane in righthand side of the photo.  I then plunged in, eager to find traces of the edict.  Much of the structure, which at various times was an imperial-era (Roman) fort, a late antique quadriburgium, a monastery, and eventually an Umayyad (?) palace, had been reconstructed and reinforced.  The presence of the crane suggests that more is planned.  Among the many interesting things I stumbled across were yet more mosaics, in this case carefully protected behind a gate.

If the mosaics are, roughly, in the eastern section of the structure, the fragments of the edict are in the southern section.  Several pieces are fixed into the walls.  Some were placed in the middle of other bricks, as below.

Some are placed with the letters oriented as they should be, like the photo above.  In other spots, the letters are upside down.

In yet others, the letters are sideways, and even partially cut off.

As it happens, these fragments are, well, only a fraction of the original total, and by all accounts they seem to be in situ, at least with respect to the time when these blocks were fixed into these walls at el-Hallabat.  Many more fragments, however, had toppled over, and though these particular fragments were visible to early excavators, those that had fallen over were not.  Although I don't have any visual evidence for what the pile of rubble is likely to have looked like, there are other sites in Jordan, military ones too (it seems), that are overrun with blocks, and which are undoubtedly concealing all sorts of wonderful things.  For instance, the fortress at the heart of the World Heritage Site of Umm er-Rasas is strewn with blocks.

This is in contrast to many of the surrounding structures, many of them churches, which are filled with incredible mosaics, like those below.

Anyway, in good time many more fragments of the edict were recovered, and these have been fixed to a wall in the visitor centre.  A picture of one of those fragments is below, with a shot of a good portion of the total below that.

One feature that stands out about these fragments is their colour:  it contrasts, sharply, with the limestone found in the modern visitor centre (above), and the majority of the blocks in the reconstructed structure.  A little detective work determined that these blocks had likely come from Umm el-Jimal, some 20km down the road (a fair distance by car, as it happens), and just south of the modern border with Syria (and not far from a Syrian refugee camp incidentally).  Umm el-Jimal, a remarkable site itself, and with hardly a visitor, me aside, is filled with these black basalt blocks.  Note, for instance, the photos below, the first a shot of the town, the second a larger house/villa.

Archaeologists four blocks from the larger edict at Umm el-Jimal, and largely on that basis (and the coloration), it seems likely the edict was initially posted at this larger, and seemingly more prominent centre.  Umm el-Jimal was at the halfway point (roughly) on the road between Bosra and Gerasa, unlike Qasr el-Hallabat.  A copy of the edict is posted on a wall on the visitor centre at Umm el-Jimal.

Now, we don't know where the edict was originally posted, though the suggestion that it was posted at the praetorium (headquarters) at Umm el-Jimal, which happens to be near the main gate to the town, seems sensible enough.  At present work continues on the edict.  Professor Denis Feissel, along with Drs. Ignacio Arce and Thomas Weber, have been working away, and it seems that a complete edition will be published before long (a precis http://www.klassische-archaeologie.uni-mainz.de/Bilder_allgemein/Hallabat_Report_2013_2014Final-lightVersion.pdf I found of theirs forms the basis for this post).  Regrettably, the easily accessible (free, online) version of the text contains only a portion of the total - fragments discovered later have filled out our picture of the original, though 20% of the total remains lost.  You can see that earlier version on the link below.

http://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/321948?hs=96-108

A majority of the fragments remain at Qasr el-Hallabat.  Some more are scattered at Umm el-Jimal, and assorted museums, universities, and military (contemporary) mess halls in Jordan.  It's hard to overstate the importance of this text.  While there are other comparable edicts from Anastasius, including an English translation of a comparable edict found at Cyrenaica (Libya) below, this particular edict seems particularly important for some of the administrative and military-organizational changes implemented by the emperor. 

https://books.google.ca/books?id=zBurLat60hIC&pg=PA253&lpg=PA253&dq=ancient+roman+statutes+anastasius+libya&source=bl&ots=gfQoq-N-ZX&sig=hLO_M4YB4rAu4hrrgrKHoNLYb98&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIlpKE7bjSAhVB9YMKHeH2CCkQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=ancient%20roman%20statutes%20anastasius%20libya&f=false

We are told, for instance, that this edict, covers a number of issues ranging from the salary of dukes and assorted branches of the military administration in the east, to the regulations regarding soldiers unfit for service and the requirement that public money for churches not be funnelled to military issues.  Needless to say, I eagerly the publication of this edict, and for the time being will content myself on working my way through the currently published portion of the text.

Water and Frontiers in Roman Jordan

I just got back from a short visit to Jordan.  It took me just under a day to get there.  I had five full days visiting the sites.  And then just over a day to get back home.  I took between 1500 and 2000 photos (the total eludes me because of some copying errors), which I plan to use in a host of publications.  Though brief, the trip was incredible.  So much so, in fact, that I'm pretty sure I want to shift my focus more squarely to Roman Jordan. 

It's fair to say I've loved (or at least really, really liked) the Near East for some decades now.  In the early days of my indoctrination in Classics, I even contemplated shifting to Near Eastern studies, and Assyriology in particular.  I was spurred, in part, by my first visit to the British Museum in 1999, when I saw the incredible Assyrian frieze.  It was only the relatively limited options for Assyriologists that kept me away. 

But there's more.  For a few years when I was little (1983 and 1986 - I was born in 1978), we lived in Saudi Arabia, first in Tabuk in the northwest, then in Dhahdran/al-Damman in the southeast.  While there, we visited Jordan and Egypt.  Somewhat surprisingly, many years later my parents returned to the Middle East, only in this case to the UAE, first Abu Dhabi, and for several years now Dubai.  There is, then, good reason for this personal affection for the Middle East. 

Coming to Jordan now, however, after I've managed to make a career (or at least started one) as an ancient historian/Classicist/Byzantinist, made the visit all that much more special, especially given that I've done some work on the area, and have desired doing more.  To see, then, some of the sites I've written about and/or studied as an undergraduate and graduate student was fantastic. 

The intention of the visit was to visit as many Roman military sites as possible, and I managed to make it to Petra (honorable mention on the military front - inscriptions, papyri), Udruh, el-Lejjun, Qasr-Bshir, Umm er-Resas, Qasr el-Hallabat, and Umm el-Jimal.  I missed quite a few, and hope to see some of those next year, in addition to some of the ones I've already seen. 

One of the purposes of the visit was to get a sense of Roman strategic sense in the choosing of these sites.  It's a big issue that's attracted a good deal of attention thanks in part to the work of Luttwak, Whittaker, and Isaac on frontiers more generally, and Parker, Mayerson, and Graf on the southeast frontier more specifically.  It is, admittedly, hard to know why certain sites were chosen, particularly new ones like el-Lejjun, which weren't occupied beforehand, unlike, say, Udruh, the history of which seems to stretch back to the Nabataean age.  We don't, really, have documents that explain their decisions, so scholars have tried to figure this out by means of evaluating the locations of the forts and fortifications themselves, and careful analysis of what documentary and literary evidence of relevance we have. 

I've visited Roman military sites in the opposite frontier before, namely Roman Britain, particularly along Hadrian's Wall.  Of the few that I've seen, it can sometimes be difficult to tell why particular places were chosen.  Roman Britain, however, is another story - and I think I would need to visit them all to really appreciate the British context.  The same's true for what little I've seen myself of Roman Bulgaria, though what I did see suggests to me that crossing points played a big part. 

Having now visited these few in Jordan, one of the last of Rome's frontiers, it seems careful consideration was given to sight-lines and general visibility, and access to water.  First, the site lines.  I've attached below some photos of select views from some of the fortresses I visited.  Udruh, el-Lejjun, Qasr-Bshir, Umm er-Resas, and Qasr el-Hallabat all offer excellent views of the surrounding countryside in all or most directions.  This is especially true of Qasr Bhsir (top) and Qasr el-Hallabat (bottom).

But this is also true, to a large degree, of Udruh (top) and el-Lejjun (bottom), two late Roman legionary sites of roughly the same size. 

But it's also the case that access to water was important.  Funnily enough, about two weeks before this trip I'd been in Vancouver giving a paper.  During the talk I mentioned el-Lejjun, and someone asked me about its water supply after I'd finished.  I didn't have a good answer, for it wasn't something I'd given much thought to beforehand.  Given the desert conditions, I'd assumed the water had to come from somewhere.  What I hadn't appreciated, however, was that each of the forts I visited was constructed with access to water well in mind.  Some were adjacent to free-flowing water (or what had been free-flowing water).  Note, for example, el-Lejjun below.

There was no obvious water source at Qasr Bshir (the wadi we crossed to reach the fort was dry), but the immediate environs of the fort itself was green, as you can see below.

Then those that were a bit removed from water sources had cisterns to store said water.  Note, for instance, this re-purposed - and still in use - cistern from Umm el-Jimal, admittedly not solely a military site.

In many ways, then, visiting these sites reinforced some of the beliefs I'd already had about Roman decision making when it came to the construction of forts.  But it also opened my eyes to others, especially when it came to water.  Suffice to say, the trip has done its trip and more, and I have reams of data to process as a result. 

Roman Military Kaibos (i.e. loos)

One of the biggest surprises of my tour of select Roman military sites on the British frontier/s has been coming across the "prominently" placed, and often signposted, Roman military loos (in Britain, so loos).  Of course, there had to be a place where people did numbers ones and number twos, but in normal conversation or discussion - at least in my experiences in class and in the course of my research - it's not something that's entered my stream (pun intended) of consciousness.  Toilets have come occasionally, or rarely even, in my preparation in years past for the UofW's Roman Society course.  It's always fun too to bring up the famed bleaching of Roman togas, for which we have such great evidence from Pompeii.  Indeed, I remember learning all about it in my 4th year honours seminar class on Pompeii at Mac.  

Anyway, point is it's come up on occasion, I know it had to be there (in the back of my mind), but I hadn't given much thought beyond that.  I've come across five Roman military loos on this comparably short and condensed tour:  one at Caerleon in Wales, one at Chesters in England, one at Housesteads in England, and one at Arbeia in England.  Evidently too, though I haven't seen it myself, they've found a wooden "posh" toilet seat at Vindolanda.  What's familiar about seeing what few "seats" we've found is that the shape is basically the same that you find in most toilets, at least in the west, today.  What's less familiar, again in the west, save for those troughs you find in so many UK mens' toilets, is the public aspect of the urination and defecation.  Some of us don't have any trouble doing the duty in the presence of others; others of us, myself included, like to keep our number ones and numbers twos on the down-loo.  In the Roman forts, however, at least those that I've seen, the common soldiers are more often than not going to be doing the business - how many euphemisms can I use? - in the presence of their comrades.  Sure, we can't prove that those long-dead Roman soldiers who shared my views didn't go off into the middle of the woods to do their thing, but I'm guessing given various rules and regulations surrounding movement into and out of a fort on duty, this might have been more difficult to do.  

Ultimately, this public pooing raises all sorts of interesting questions.  For one thing, from the perspective of the sensory experience of Roman life, it's not hard to imagine what it might have been like.  If you've ever had some experience of port-o-johns, as they called them in my youth, put up for construction workers or at outdoor concerts and the like, or even the kaibos and outhouses of the Canadian cottage-country world, then you know how bad those things can smell when you're inside.  Many of those, at least the former, would be emptied on some sort of rotation; of the latter, I've never really known.  In the case of Roman military bases, however, would anyone every empty those things?  Presumably something would have to give, though beyond my experience with dog poo in the cities and wilds of Canada, I know little-to-nothing about how long it takes for it decompose.  Still, if it was allowed to pile up, and if the all the men (to say nothing of the women and children) in a base were regular (no fibre needed), it wouldn't be long before you might have something approaching "Aegean Stable" proportions with no Herakles in sight.  Even so, even if the emptying of the loos wasn't regular, the smell, possibly even the taste, of those environments would have been remarkable unless they made some attempt to mask the smell or keep things in check.  And, these loos were also found within the confines of what where enclosed settlements – Roman military forts were without fail surrounded by walls, often stone ones that would, I’m guessing, trap the smell inside.  For, as bad as it might be for those who went in to do a number one or number two, there’s also the issue of the smell wafting over to those who lived beside the loos.  If I recall, at Caerleon the loos were positioned right beside one part of the barracks.  Perhaps if you’d been a bad soldier you’d have to live at that end for a time?

As many forts as possible, it seems, from what I can gather, tried their utmost to be self-sustaining.  Should the loos be seen as part of this practice?  When it comes to urine I would think so, if we assume that there was some sort of piping that led the urine to some sort of fulling centre.  On the other hand, I don’t recall ever coming across some sort of place in a fort.  Maybe they’re there and I missed them, but maybe not.  Of course, Roman soldiers, the odd officer aside, would likely have little concern with getting their togas gleaming white.  If we get back to the poo, might it have been used as part of wider fertilization practices in and around the fort?  I have no idea how useful human poo is when it comes to fertilization, though I imagine it would have some benefit.  At the same time, their diets wouldn’t have been comprised of the same sorts chemicals and processed foods that ours are today, so their poo might have been more valuable from a re-use perspective, though I’m speculating.

Another issue is the standing or sitting for number ones – and one can’t hope to resolve (I think?).  We thinking of men standing to pee and, well, obviously sitting to poo.  From a practical point of view – and bear in mind you would get a whole row of these toilets – would those who had to pee be standing, hypothetically, between those who had to poo?  What happened if the spray got out of control?  On the other hand, did you just sit in these environments?  Standing while peeing, at least among males, seems like a biological characteristic, at least when toilets aren’t involved.  But if you were in this environment would you change your habits?

One last thing to note:  unit cohesion.  What better way to bond with your fellow soldiers than in the loos?  Those who shit together, fight better together.  Might these public military loos have had some sort of advantage from that perspective?  I guess the only catch with this angle is that I believe that public loos were a common thing in the Roman Empire in general.  In that instance it might have been less the case that it provided soldiers an opportunity to bond and more the case that it was just part of regular Roman urban life.  Indeed, many see Roman forts as mini-outposts of Roman urban life, which I think is a reasonable enough assumption.  

All in all, much food for thought – or in this case digest.  And I leave you with a photo of the Roman military kaibos at Arbeia.

England, Hadrian's Wall, and the Romans Part 2 (images)

In the previous I blabbed a bit about the trip and included a few observations. Above are a few of the highlights.  I'd have done more but the internet connection here is slow.  Suffice to say, there are shots from Roman Cardiff (the wall at the start), a helmet, the amphitheatre, and part of the barracks at Caerleon (Wales), some shots from a milefort and the wall at Cawfields on Hadrian's Wall, and a couple of shots from Vindolanda, one with the spaces underneath the floor (I believe) and the other, a gravely block, which is where they found the remains of a child (evidence for children in the fort).

More next time, possibly in a few days.

England, Hadrian's Wall, and the Romans Part 1 (text)

I’m currently in the tail end of my whirlwind tour of British libraries and military sites.  After making the trek, by car, from Winnipeg to Brantford with the dog, I flew off to London to head to the Institute for Classical Studies library.  Had four productive days, then, after a brief layover just outside of Worcester, it was off to Wales – with another family layover at the start, this time in Cardiff.  I spend two nights taking photos of the area around Caerleon, site of some well-preserved legionary ruins.  Next I charged off for two nights in Aberystwyth, for a lecture on cohesion and combat motivation.  Went down well, and got some excellent feedback.

A brief sojourn to Devon (Sidmouth and family) was followed by a trip to Oxford for some more library work – and some typing.  I also squeezed in two nights in Birmingham to catch up with some friends and colleagues, including my former PhD supervisor.  Then a night back in Oxford (family) and a night in Devon (Sidmouth, family again).  This week, however, I’ve been in the north, along Hadrian’s Wall.  The purpose of this portion of the trip has been to visit as many Roman military sites along the wall as is feasible and to take as many photos as possible.  These photos, or the best of them, will appear in an introduction to the Roman military, in the works.  I think in a follow-up post I’ll attach a couple of the pictures.  Perhaps, too, I’ll consider joining Instagram.  Although I’ll be posting this written entry from Newcastle, I’m writing it on the train from Carlisle, a train trip I’ve done twice before. 

Anyway, there’s probably any number of things I could say at this point, from how I’m feeling about the news about Gord Downie (hits close to home in a number of ways) to the remarkable beauty of this landscape, but I should say a thing or two about military stuff, since I’ve devoted this blog to work matters.

What I’d like to draw attention to here is how well-sited most of the bases are along the wall.  The wall, one of the most glorious archaeological sites in the world, in my humble opinion, runs for about 73 miles (British? – never understood the difference, if there is one, between US and UK miles) from coast to coast, or sea to sea.  That’s from just west of Carlisle to Newcastle.  Now, at many points the isle of Britain tends to be much wider, so that they’ve chosen one of narrowest points, though not necessarily the easiest in terms of landscape, to build the wall reflects, I think, Roman practicality.  Sure, their geographical knowledge differs from ours, but after brief consideration it’s a remarkable coincidence that they built it at this point.  I’m sure there were geographical and tribal considerations in part, but practicality and cost must have been a major consideration.

The other matter, or the principal matter, that I wanted to touch on was also how well-placed the sites are.  In nearly all those sites that survive that I saw – and the forts and fortlets in particular – you are afforded excellent views of the surrounding countryside.  This, too, could be chance:  it’s not the case that the landscape has changed enough that my modern perspective is defective, as you can see when you notice how the wall hugs the landscape.  No, some thinking went into choosing the locations, and again, in an albeit small sample size, and without making any mathematical calculations using, say, Google Earth, it’s clear they wanted their forts in spots where they could observe approaching visitors with comparable ease.  In some cases too they went to such remarkable lengths to do this that certain forts were built into the side of hills.  Housesteads, for instance, is one the side of the hill, and the slope is not inconsiderable.  I don’t doubt that there might have been some levelling in the past, but the surviving foundations suggest that this was limited.

 Now, there are obviously lower points – the wall goes in as straight a line as possible, but the landscape is anything but flat and straightforward.  This means it snakes its way up and down up and over hills and then down into valleys.  That also means that certain spots would have been easy to get across for a determined group.  Even there, however, it should be stressed that there were towers or forts or something every mile (or is it Roman mile? – can’t remember off the top of my head).  And given you could see that sort of distance fairly easily, unless the conditions were dreadful, I don’t think they need have been too concerned, and they probably weren’t. 

All in all, as I’m sure commentators have noted time and again, even when they have disagreed over the precise function of the wall, it’s clear that a great deal of care, consideration, and planning when into its construction.  This was no mean feat for any number of reasons, and it is a testament to Roman ingenuity and practicality – and in some instances their efficiency.  Plus, while I don’t doubt that the wall had all sorts of functions ranging from the control of peoples to the movement of goods, when you’re here and you see it on the ground it’s hard to get past its defensive function too.

From the train south of the wall, until next time.

Unit Cohesion - Part 2

In the previous rambling post I babbled on about some of the terms and discussions that have surfaced about unit cohesion and related matters, and I highlighted two of the key concepts (for my purposes, but in general too) from Marshall's famous book.  Here I plan to outline my course of action for the paper, and I'll draw on some of the other stuff I've read (not hitherto mentioned) - and some of the past stuff I've written, both in the earlier Warwick blog, and in the Procopius book.  I don't think the copy I submit will say too much on the background that I mentioned in the previous post, as it seems there's a lot to say, and I want to cover as much as I can in my 7000 words (and that's all in).

So, let's start with the definition:  " the bonding together of soldiers in such a way as to sustain their will and commitment to each other, the unit, and mission accomplishment, despite combat or mission stress".  From what I can gather, there are a number of ways that I might look for evidence of how, or even if, soldiers bonded together in combat, despite the limitations of the evidence.  Those that seem most profitable include:  the institution of the army/military and its mission; unit sizes within the army/military in all their variety, and in what contexts we expect to find them; the objectives of particular wars, and whether they were achieved or not (success or failure); brotherhood, and in particular whether there is evidence for men forming these sorts of bonds; ideology, whether there was any particular ideology that might have motivated soldiers; and the leadership, especially at the highest levels.

In terms of the army as institution, it seems it would be useful to set out how men were recruited and why, and even what the purpose of the military was.  For unit sizes, it would be good to set these out - from the largest to the smallest.  Here the evidence of Maurice is likely to help the most, even if the divisions he describes are a combination of the factual and the fictional, or so it seems.  If I can establish the presence of smallish units, like the contubernia of old, then I'll have the size of unit most relevant to discussions of primary group cohesion.  Whether I'll be able to tell if the men in these units spent a lot of time together is another matter, both when it came to combat and times of rest (at home - bases, etc.).  Did each little unit fight as a whole as part of a larger whole?  Would they always be mixed in with the others in larger formations, and how did this effect any perceived sense of brotherhood?  Vaguely related to units sizes is the standard and/or battle flag.  Do they serve as symbols of units still, and what impact do they have on cohesion?

When it comes to objectives, I'll focus on some Justinianic-era wars, and the three big ones that fill the pages of Procopius' Wars.  Can we deduce Roman objectives in those wars?  Were they successful?  Did they fail?  Can we find evidence of the performance of particular units?  Do we have evidence for particular units within particular battles or conflicts?  Related to this, were any soldiers ideologically motivated, and what sort of ideologies might they be?  In the case of Persia we could imagine them fighting for freedom, or better security.  But what about those western invasions?  Perhaps some were compelled, while others when voluntarily.  Why?

Finally (at least at this stage in the planning), there's leadership. What role did Rome's generals play in ensuring the cohesiveness of the participating units, if any?  This pops up in a small portion of the material I've read - in an interesting paper by Eckstein, for instance, who highlights the stress that Polybius places in the role of leadership.  Incidentally, and not surprisingly (for all sorts of reasons), so does Procopius.

Anyway, that's where I am.  These two posts have taken me quite a lot longer to do than I'd expected.  They also seem to be inspiring to undertake a larger study of combat motivation in Roman antiquity.  That's another matter, however - and I seem to be getting ahead of myself.  If nothing else, I think too much Procopius is probably a bad thing, so I should try to limit my exposure.

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.

The Roman Military Revolution

One of the projects that I have on the go at the moment is a textbook/survey of Roman military history that will be arranged thematically, and run from the late republic (let's say the Gracchi) to the late empire, at least in the west (let's say Theodosius II, even though he's an eastern emperor).  Today I've been working on the two main background chapters:  the first is the historical overview, which will present a fleeting survey of Roman history over the course of the period in question, with an emphasis on those events that have special bearing on the subject matter (Roman military); the second surveys the sources, and the historiography and varied approaches to Roman military history.  The first chapter is well under way - I have some material from past courses that I'm going to use for this, with some new material tacked on.  As it happens, I have a good chunk for the late republic through the high empire, and less for late antiquity.  Given that in some ways I feel far more comfortable about late antiquity, this is good news.

The second chapter is well underway too.  The first half will present the myriad of sources at the disposal of students of Roman military history, and my plan in the chapter and the book is to incorporate as much of it as possible into my discussions.  Thus, it won't be a history of the military based on the literary sources, or the archaeological evidence, or the papyri, or the epigraphy, but all of this and more (legal evidence, visual evidence, etc.).  Sprinkled in amongst those overviews of the various sources will be some detailed discussions of select pieces of evidence that the problems they create and the questions that arise.  So, for example, I'll take a brief look at Caesar's take on the rivalry between Titus and Pullo, Ammianus' description of his harrowing escape from Amida, Hadrian's speech to his troops in Africa (which survives in an inscription), our evidence for the soldier-poets from North Africa, the famous birthday party invitation from Vindolanda, and so forth.  There'll be a few - and I'll likely have to cut down my working list to keep the discussion readable and workable.

The second half of the chapter provides an overview of the scholarship on the military (not in any way complete) and various approaches that have been adopted, and it will range from the impact of Keegan's "Face of Battle" to notions of western way of war, under which Rome would fall, and cultural readings of military history, those which look at the relationship between how war should be fought (in Rome's eyes) and how it actually was.  In this discussion I'll raise the issue of military revolutions, and this, at long last, brings me to the subject of this little post. 

Rome's military is famous, perhaps justly so.  Its impact continued well after the end of Rome into the middle ages, and resurfaced again in late medieval/renaissance/early modern Europe, thanks in part to the influence of Vegetius (somewhat surprisingly) and the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the concomitant flood of things Roman, and Greek, to the west, amongst other things.  What surprises me, however, is that no major revolutionary advance has been attributed to the Roman military.  Indeed, most change in the Roman military was gradual, and this is true for nearly every aspect, from their equipment to their tactical preferences.  In other words, ostensibly, there doesn't seem to have been any one thing that revolutionized Rome's military and which we could say led to its impressive string of successes, like the advent of iron weaponry, or the gunpowder.  Rather, the Romans were good at a whole host of things, few if any of which could be attributed to them specifically. 

The only possible exceptions - at least to my mind at this point in the writing process - might be the professionalization of the military under Augustus, admittedly a process that seems to have been under way for decades before that.  When I say professional what I mean is:  men were paid to fight on a permanent basis, the military became a career for a large number of people, and the state even regulated their supplies, housing, equipment, training, payment, and so forth.  One issue is whether this really should be deemed a military revolution - or, like with so much else in the military sphere, whether it should be considered a specifically Roman development.  It does seem to have been an important thing, and perhaps played no small part in Rome's longevity, but they gained their empire without such a thing.  Could they have started with a professional military, and if they had, would they have been so successful in accruing an empire?  But then, as I say, what really constitutes a professional army?  Is it misleading in Rome's case because it seems to resemble modern militaries?  What about the Macedonian army?  Or the assorted Assyrian armies?  Or the Egyptian ones?  Because they organized, supplied, and supported their armies in slightly different ways does that make them any less professional? 

Of course, even if we cannot attribute any particular military revolution to Rome, it's probably worth asking whether any state, kingdom, nation, or empire that could be associated with any such development actually enjoyed the level of success that the Romans did.  In other words, does it matter?  It seems to worked to their benefit to be good at a large number of things, revolutionary in none, and perhaps excellent in but a few.

Perhaps one important issue that I will have to consider in the book is why I think they were so successful in the first place.  The Roman military succeeded because of X, Y, and Z.  Another post, perhaps.  Intriguingly, some answers might be sought in the armies and warfare that immediately followed Rome in the Byzantine east and early medieval west.  To follow what I said above, it is perhaps significant that some military historians see "Roman military organization, training, strategic and tactical principles, and patterns of campaigning as pervasive throughout the early medieval world" (Morillo and Pavkovic 2013:  96-97).  In other words, it's this sort of collection of things that are seen as representative of Roman military prowess, not any one thing.

Moesian Vexillations

I think I'm getting into the stretch drive when it comes to my book on the Moesian army (which I'm thinking of renaming - Exercitus Moesiae/Moesicae).  Many of the chapters are ready to go, and a couple need some tweaking.  Of those in need of tweaking, I think I'm about ready to do the major rewriting for one entitled, at present, "Vexillations and the Black Sea". 

I've been catching up, so to speak, on my reading on the Roman military's presence on the northwest coast of the Black Sea and into the Crimea.  There seems to have been a demonstrable military presence in a handful of cities (settlements) including Tyras, Olbia, Chersonesus, and Charax, and by demonstrable I'm thinking of the remains of fortifications, from the walls of forts to the remains of towers.  There is also evidence of the units that manned those sites, though it's more difficult to pin down when they arrived and in what quantities.

The - or a? - significant component of that contingent was comprised of vexillations, a common option from the late first century (AD) onwards.  Eventually they'd become a type of unit of their own, though that wouldn't be until late antiquity.  During the second century and into the third, vexillations were, for the most part, detachments from legions, auxiliaries, or some combination used for any one of a number of purposes (temporary reinforcement, building work), though we have little in the way of specifics about their numbers and make-up.  That hasn't stopped some, Saxer and Tully most notably, from delving into their intricacies, at least where possible.

Getting back to the lower Danube and the Black Sea, it seems that the bulk of the Roman soldiers active in the region (Tyras, Olbia, etc.) were housed in vexillations.  This I knew already.  By my 2005 reckoning, there were maybe a half-dozen to a dozen known references to vexillations in the region.  My current reckoning is well into the double-digits.  What I wasn't aware of, until a recent search on the principal epigraphic database, was the range of differently named vexillations. 

At the moment, I've found 21 different names for vexillations used/present in the region, and obviously in some cases names are used more than once.  Those names are (in the order I've found them):
vexillatio classis Ravennatis
vexillatio XII Catafractariorum
vexillatio Moesiae inferioris
vexillatio legionis V Macedonicae
vexillatio legionis I Italicae et legionis II Herculiae
vexillatio legionum I Italicae V Macedonicae XI Claudiae et cohortium
vexillatio Chersonissitanae
vexillatio exercitus Moesiae inferioris
vexillatio exercitus Moesiae
vexillatio equitum scutariorum
vexillatio Capidavensium
vexillatio expeditionis per Asiam et Lyciam Pamphyliam
vexillatio legionis VII Claudiae
vexillatio legionis XI Claudiae
vexillatio legionum I Italicae V Macedonicae et VII ad Tropaeum Traoiani
vexillatio legionum V Macedonicae XI Claudiae
vexillatio per Germaniam et Raetiam et Noricum et Pannoniam et Moesiam
vexillatio Ponticis aput Scythia et Tauricam
vexillatio Egisseis Valerius (?)
vexillatio legionum I Italicae XI Claudiae
vexillatio legionum I Italicae XI Claudiae classis Flavia Moesicae

That is a ridiculous number of vexillations for one region, at least to me and based on my earlier understanding.  On the one hand, it is perhaps easily explicable:  vexillations, by their usual understanding, were ephemeral in nature and I probably shouldn't be surprised to see such a hodgepodge.  On the other hand, it's worth stressing not just the number of different names, the different types.  Not only are there the vexillations named for the legions that they are comprised of, or even the auxiliary units, but there are vexillations named after larger armies, like the army of Moesia Inferior (or just Moesia), vexillations for places (Capidava - possibly a hint at an auxiliary unit?), vexillations named after the various places where they seemed to have been active (how else to understand per Germaniam, etc.), vexillations named after the region in which they are currently based/active (Ponticis and Chersonissitanae), vexillations for the fleet/s (Moesian and Ravennan), and a, well, randomly named one (Egisseis - not sure what's going on there and will have to look more closely). 

So, again, while I wouldn't have expected the technicality and consistency that we find, for the most part, with the names of legions and auxiliary units, I wasn't expecting this - and it was only directed towards one particular region.  Some of those names might reflect the ad hoc nature of a vexillation's creation, but perhaps some, like the "vexillatio Ponticis aput Scythia et Tauricam" and the "vexillatio Chersonissitanae", reflect the increasingly long-term character of their deployment, or that's my running theory.  Could this be pointing towards the emergence of the vexillation units that we later find in late antiquity?  Catch is those later vexillations were cavalry regiments, and names like "Ponticis" and "Chersonissitanae" don't tell us much about what kind of soldiers comprised them, and certainly not in the same way that vexillations named after legions do (legions being still primarily staffed by infantry).

Anyway, much food for thought.

Military Language in [Late] Antiquity: an Addendum on Inscriptions

OK.  Just got back from a swim - had knee surgery recently and things seem to be coming along, well, swimmingly.  Was thinking a bit more about military language and started drifting back into the Roman imperial era, and Latin epitaphs in particular.  Now, it's been a while since I've read anything about an inscription beyond some papers/chapters/books that use them for the material they contain, rather than as something to be evaluated as an end itself.  Thus, what I'm about to say may in fact be bollocks - someone or more likely some ones have probably discussed this somewhere.  I'll have to take a look. 

Anyway, if my memory serves me, and it may not, as you from the early first century (AD) to the late second century (AD) the abbreviations, at least with respect to those epitaphs that honour deceased military men, tend to become more pronounced.  Granted, some other more standard abbreviations emerge while others disappear, but if we're talking about those used for military units and titles I think they become shorter and shorter.  If this is true, why might they have done this?  Well, it could be for economic reasons.  Tombstones became more affordable, so more people wanted them.  In turn, to churn out an increased number of stones those producing them might have had to cut corners - minimize time by using shorter and shorter epitaphs with more and more abbreviations. 

What I'm wondering, however, if there's any correlation between an increase in the use of abbreviations and the findspot of epitaph of a soldier.  If more and more soldiers were being buried where they were based (and I do believe soldiers were less and less likely to go back home after their term of duty came to an end) then the need to spell out the units they served in might have been minimized.  In other words, with epitaphs found in environments filled with soldiers, this target audience may not have felt the need for the names of military units to be spelled out.  They're could read and understand the abbreviations, just like my friends could understand each other.  So, a possible hint at military language and its prevalence in military environments.

As I type this, however, I realize a lot more work would be needed before any such idea went futher than this.  I'd have to do some reading.  I'd have to look closely at not just the military inscriptions from a region (the whole empire might be unrealistic), but all of them, their findspots, and so forth.  And, if there is an increasing number of abbreviations used in the Roman period over time in general and in a variety of contexts (that is not more likely in a military environment - i.e., they're used everywhere) then the theory goes out the window.  Still, when I start looking a bit more closely at inscriptions again, hopefully in the not too-too-distant future, I might give it some more thought.

Roman Soldiers and Camels at Nessana Continued

Been delving a bit deeper into the world of Roman soldiers and camels today.  Might be a little while yet before I actually get to the soldiers and their varied relationships.

As noted in the last related post, there are two papyri from Nessana that deal with camel requsitions.  Haven't looked at them, or the discussion about them, in detail just yet, but Kraemer was of the opinion that P.Ness. 35 had to do with camels used, at least in part, with combat, while P.Ness. 37 had to do with camels for transport.  Interestingly, the former includes both related terms, κά(μηλος) and δρο(μεδάριος), the latter just κ(άμηλος).  To the unitiated, namely me, the appearance of both kamelos and dromedarios was a bit surprising, since to me a camel was a camel was a camel, though some obviously have one humps and others two (Arabians mostly one).  This even though I had a trip to the local zoo a few months ago and they had both of the one- and two-humped variety.  Obviously, I had to get to the bottom of this, and dromedary seems to be the term used most often to refer to the one-humped variety, camel to the two-humped variety.  With that said, and just to complicate things even more, the Latin names of the two species are a little less than helpful:  the one-humped variety is the camelus dromedarus (!!), while the two-humped variety is the camelus bactrianus.  Ok, fair enough. 

The presence of the two terms in these Nessana papyri would seem to suggest that in these official circles (if we can call it that), there was an awareness or at least knowledge of the two varities.  On the other hand, what few known units of camel-riders we have are all (an earlier one called the ala I Ulpia dromedarium Palmyrenorum and a few units listed in the Notitia Dignitatum in Egypt and Palestine) called dromedarium (or some cognate).  One other sixth century source, my dear friend Procopius, does get into the military's use of camels: in his Secret History in the midst of one of his many diatribes he complains about Justinian's abolition of the camels set aside by the state for the transport of people and goods (SH 30.15-16).  The term he uses, however, is κάμηλος.  Although Procopius isn't, perhaps, the best item of comparison, and given my research, thus far, has been rather preliminary, is it possible that there wasn't a widespread awareness of the two different varieties, at least among the general populace?  Would not those with experience in the (Near East that is) most likely have been familiar with the one-humped variety.  I'm wondering two if the distinction should be between κάμηλος as simply camel, and δρομεδάριος as the camel-rider, though P.Ness. 35 doesn't really suggest this. 

All of this early work has to do with my attempts at determining, or at least revisiting, the nature of the soldiers based at Nessana, for I'm still not convinced that they should be considered a unit of dromedarii, simply because the evidence isn't good enough.  Indeed, following this thread I ended up taking a glance at the finds from Dura Europos, for most see the cohors XX Palmyrenorum as comprised partly of camel-riders (dromedarii).  This clincher for this argument (and not everyone refers to this, quite disappointingly) is one of the Dura papyri, particularly P. Dur. 82, which reads, early on, "...ṣ[esq(uiplicarius)] ị drom(adarii) xxxiiii in his sesq(uiplicarius)..." (find it in Campbell 1994, 180, Fink's RMR 47).  The papyrus is in Latin, and it's fragmentary, but it seems to refer to a umber of dromedarii under the command of someone at Dura - at least 34 of them, perhaps.  This has, in part, led to some speculation that this particular unit was equitate (cohortes equitatae).  Cohorts tended to be infantry, while alae tended to be cavalry.  Equitate cohorts were those composed primarily of infantry, with a few cavalry tacked on.  Indeed, in that same papyrus, what has been called a morning report (essentially a summary of what the troops at a locale were up to), we find several references to equites.  I wonder though if these dromedarii were necessarily attached to the unit, even if they were likely based at the site. 

Anyway, the point is I'm not entirely convinced that there were camel riders specifically attached to the Palmyrene cohort at Dura.  In turn, I'm still not convinced that the unit at Nessana was a camel-unit, per se, whatever that would have entailed.  Neither relevant papyri are very long, and I don't think we know if the names listed represent a suitable sample of the garrison at the base.  They might just include those soldiers who made use of camels to undertake the unit's various duties.  This could be simply the travelling from point A to point B, and they might not have made up a significant part of the total animals present.  Indeed, although I haven't gotten very far in my reading on camels at el-Lejjun, what I have found for that other desert near-eastern-locale is that there were all sorts of animals present, and this on the basis of the animal bones found on site.  Some were camels, but there were a whole lot of other animals.  There were sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, chickens, and so forth.  The majority were domestic, and used for a variety of things (working animals, and for consumption, for instance).  There might have been all sorts of other animals at Nessana, which for whatever reason haven't surfaced in our surviving evidence (in this instance consisting of papyri).  They might have made extensive use of horses for combat.  It could just be that the receipts or what have you detailing their requisition haven't survived.  It seems highly likely that all sorts of other animals were there too used by the military in some of the same ways that we find at el-Lejjun. 

Maybe the soldiers were somehow involved in the raising and selling of camels to units or government officials in Egypt - which is where some of the camels listed in P. Ness. 37 seem to be off to?  As noted, there were units of dromedarii in Egypt found in the Notitia Dignitatum, and maybe Nessana was a region known for its raising of camels.  It's also not 100% certain that P. Ness. 35 and 37 were official documents.  They certainly seem to have involved soldiers, but the soldiers might have been operating in an unofficial capacity.  There might not have been a whole lot going on at Nessana, and so they passed their time in other ways (dealing in property, raising families, selling camels). 

In the end, and so far (in this research), I'm leaning towards this unit not being particularly comprised of camel-riders, though that doesn't mean that camels weren't a significant part or at least involved in the unit's activities, particularly when it came to transport, and maybe even scouting.  Although only indirectly relevant, I also have my doubts about the cohort at Dura - not a camel unit (though they likely used).  Not quite sure if the distinction was made between camel types in the ancient world.  That will require some more reading.  Anyways, as always, more to come...

Auxiliary Constitutions and Recruitment: some thoughts

It's become quite clear that spending too much time with one person is bound to bring some disquietude.  And, I've been spending too much time with Procopius.  So, where possible, I've taken a little break to continue work on finishing up a project on the Roman military in the Moesias.

Today I've been thinking about auxiliary constitutions (the official citizenship document in Rome) and diplomas (the copies, the ones found all across the empire), and the related matter of recruitment.  Just read a paper by Paul Holder on copies of constitutions.  He calculated that if every province with auxiliary units had men eligible for discharge every year there could have been some 4,000 men "recorded on the original bronze constitutions set up at Rome".  That's a staggering number - and as I said just an estimate.  The figures that supported his claim include:  c. 50% of serving men lasted 25 years and so were eligible for discharge; 10 men each year from a quingenary unit (about 500-man unit); 18 men from a milliary unit (about 800-1000-men); 370 units in existence during the reign of Hadrian.  A number of questions popped into my mind upon reading this (and some of this other observations).

First, if those numbers hold up, and they don't seem unreasonable to me at first glance, how many bronze constitutions might have been produced and stored in Rome each year?  Would there necessarily have been just the one constitution issued per province per year?  Would the government want a record of each soldier?  Depending on how the numbers add up, we could be dealing with a staggering number of documents kept by Rome.  Would there be some sort of file for each soldier that tracked his record throughout his career?  Would this be in Rome, or would it just be an outline, so to speak there, with the details in his respective province?  Or, would it all be kept in his province?  And yet, many soldiers moved around (or those with some initiative might), and so would a file move with him?  Perhaps these would have been on less permanent materials, and only the really important stuff, like discharge certificates, would be recorded on permanent materials.  Anyway, it might be that this is unanswerable, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

The other issue alluded to above was recruitment.  Should we expect regular recruitment, that is a consistent number of men each and every year?  Or was it always, or partly, a hodgepodge approach?  Things are happening in province X, how many men are in province X, and so let's then raise Y men to compensate.  Most likely it always did vary - we know additional units (both auxiliary and legionary) were raised at different times.  Some units were lost, some were depleted, and some additional ones were needed for major campaigns, like Trajan's war of conquest.  I guess that means we should expect some 25 years or so after the start of a major campaign that there should be an explosion, of sort, of men available for discharge.  And yet, these new units often weren't disbanded once a war ended.  A unit might move on, but they didn't get dissolved just because a war was over.  Perhaps then it's a series of steady periods of recruitment followed by giant spikes at war time (major war).

I think I might be rambling now...so...best stop.  Besides, I have some diplomas to read/compare, and some more reading to do.  Thinking too about the merits of updating Watson's The Roman Soldier.