What Was Distinctive about Warfare in Late Antiquity?

While it is evident that the frequency of warfare intensified in late antiquity, there remains the question of the extent to which its character was distinctive from warfare in earlier periods of Roman history, especially in relation to the theme of violence.

Of the two most important shifts in emphasis relevant to pitched battles - the greater roles played by cavalry and archery - it is the latter which is the more significant in terms of violence in battle, since it was almost impossible to make horses charge into a solid infantry formation.

Warfare on the Roman Empire', in C. Carnap-Bornheim (ed.), Kontakt - Kooperation - Konflikt: Germanen und Sarmaten zwischen dem 1. und dem 4. Jahrhundert nach Christus (Neumunster: Wachholtz, 2003), pp. 415-33; for the Roman army see P. Rance, ‘The Later Roman Empire: Battle', in P. Sabin, H. Van Wees and M. Whitby (eds.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), vol. ii, pp. 342-78, at pp.

11 For cavalry limits seeA. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 BC-AD 200 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 230-1; for principal roles see Rance, ‘Battle', pp. 353-4.

12 Details and discussion are in B. Shaw, ‘War and Violence', in G. Bowersock, P. Brown and O. Grabar (eds.), Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1998), pp. 130-69, at pp. 132-3; note, however, the scepticism of C. Whately, Battles and Generals: Combat, Culture and Didacticism in Procopius' Wars (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 161-8, detecting Homeric influence, although this may not take sufficient account of the evidence for written reports of rewards to wounded soldiers highlighted by I. Colvin, ‘Reporting Battles and Understanding Campaigns in Procopius and Agathias: Classicising Historians' Use of Archived Documents as Sources', in A. Sarantis and N. Christie (eds.), War and Warfare in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 571-97, at pp. 590-2.

13 Procop. Goth. 4.32.6-10, Agathias 2.9, with P. Rance, ‘Narses and the Battle of Taginae (Busta Gallorum) 552', Historia 54.4 (2005), 462-3. archery had played a part in the catastrophic Roman defeat at Adrianople in 378 ce, albeit when the progress of the battle left Roman infantry tightly bunched so as to provide an easier target for Gothic arrows.^[512]

If in other respects the basics of battle in late antiquity remained broadly constant compared with earlier periods of Roman history, there is none­theless another rather different way in which the period offers a distinct perspective on battle, with particular relevance to the theme of violence - namely, how one of the most important historians of the period, Ammianus Marcellinus, includes battle narratives which allow readers to gain a more immediate sense of the experience of it, compared with other Roman historians (including, it seems, Procopius).^[513] This feature of Ammianus' writing has been linked in modern scholarship with the so-called ‘face of battle' approach to military history, as pioneered by John Keegan.

Although Ammianus was a junior officer rather than an ordinary soldier, he nonetheless had more direct military experience than most Roman historians in antiquity. ‘He had been in battles, had fought for his life, had seen people killed and had undoubtedly killed some himself, not at a distance, but hand to hand, knowing what he was doing and seeing the effect of it.' The obvious exception in terms of military experience is Julius Caesar, but he of course wrote from a general's perspective - a contrast emphasised in one of the most detailed assessments of the validity of Keegan's approach in the context of Roman military history: Kimberly Kagan's 2006 study The Eye of Command. Although Kagan argues that Caesar's approach provides a better understanding of the reasons for the outcome of battles, she nonetheless endorses the idea that Ammianus' combat narratives provide the partici­pants' perspective and the impression of realism valued by Keegan, even in the case of a battle such as Strasbourg (357 c e), when he was not personally present. While Ammianus' accounts of battles undoubtedly include the sorts of lurid literary stereotypes which an ancient audience would expect, such as the ground being slippery with blood and combatants buried alive under piles of corpses, they also include details of the impact of weaponry which have the ring of authenticity, such as (at Strasbourg) the Alamanni trying to ‘cleave asunder with repeated sword-strokes the shields, closely interlaced in a wall formation, which protected our men', and (at Adrianople) the effects of sword-blows on Goths ‘who had been hamstrung or had lost their right hand or been wounded in the side, on the verge of death'.^{[515] [516]}

However, perhaps unsurprisingly, the most sustained instance of Ammianus providing a ‘face of battle' narrative of combat relates to an episode in which he was directly involved - the Persian siege and eventual capture of the Roman frontier fortress of Amida, perched high above the River Tigris, in 359 ce.

Everyone tended his own wounds as best he could or as medical help was available; some of the seriously wounded gave up the ghost from loss of blood after a long struggle; others, mangled by sword-thrusts, were treated without success, and when they at last expired their dead bodies were thrown aside; in some cases of extensive injury the surgeons forbade any attempt at treatment, which would only inflict further useless pain; a number who faced the hazard of pulling out the arrows endured torments worse than death.

Towards the end of the siege, another perspective on this type of warfare is presented as he describes the approach of formidable bodies of Persians supported by lines of elephants, whose noise and size make them the most frightful objects the human mind can conceive. But while we were beset on all sides by the combined pressure of armed men, siege-works and wild beasts, round stones hurled from the battlements by the iron slings of our machines shattered the joints of the [wooden siege] towers, and threw their artillery and those who worked it headlong down. Some died of the fall without being wounded, others were crushed by the weight of debris. The elephants, too, were forcibly repulsed. As soon as the firebrands thrown at them touched their bodies, they bolted and their mahouts lost control. But though we subsequently burned their siege­works the enemy gave us no rest.^[517]

Ammianus' account of the siege of Amida is significant not only as a particularly good example of a ‘face of battle' narrative, but also because, as previously noted, siege warfare was more broadly a notable feature of warfare in late antiquity, comprising, on one estimate, more than half the military engagements of the period.

Material evidence such as this can be complemented with textual sources, as already seen in the case of Ammianus. Allowance needs to be made for the influence of literary stereotypes in the presentation of sieges, even when written by a participant such as Ammianus, but accounts based on personal experience still warrant attention. Another valuable source is the early sixth­century chronicle attributed to Joshua the Stylite, because, written in Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic), it was much less influenced by the canons of the Graeco-Roman literary tradition. The chronicle includes a detailed account of the Persian invasion of northern Mesopotamia in 502-5 ce, which predomi­nantly comprised sieges of various cities, and although the author lived in one - Edessa - which received less Persian attention, and was writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, his account includes much valuable circum­stantial detail less evident in other reports of late antique sieges. So, for example, his account of the Persian siege of Constantina (Tella) highlights communal suspicion of the Jewish inhabitants as a potential ‘fifth column', which resulted in a pogrom. The author also refers to a range of incidents relevant to the important issue of food and logistics, some of which are relevant to the theme of violence. The Persian king Kavad is said to have abandoned his siege of Constantina because Persian plundering twelve months earlier had left the surrounding countryside so devastated that it was unable to provide supplies to support his forces, while during the Roman counter-siege of Amida following its capture by the Persians, in 503 ce, some of the surviving inhabitants were reduced to such a level of hunger that they resorted to cannibalism - not just of those who had died in the fighting or of malnutrition, but actively killing the elderly or young for food. The author also notes how unburied corpses from battles in the countryside encouraged scavenging by wild animals, who then became emboldened to attack solitary travellers and venture into villages to snatch children.²¹

As these episodes imply, late antique siege warfare had a serious impact not only on the troops involved but also on the civilian population of besieged cities and their hinterland. The successful capture of a city would

Deposition of Military Equipment during the Final Siege at Dura-Europos, with Particular Regard to the Tower 19 Countermine', Carnuntum Jahrbuch (2005), 189-206, at 204 (quotation). For the chemical warfare proposal, see S. James, ‘Stratagems, Combat and “Chemical Warfare” in the Siege Mines of Dura-Europos', American Journal of Archaeology 115.1 (2011), 69-101.

21 F. R. Trombley and J. W. Watt (trans.), The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), pp. 73-4 (pogrom and lack of supplies), p. 94 (cannibalism), p. 102 (wild animals). For other reports of cannibalism in the context of late antique warfare see Lee, War in Late Antiquity, pp. 134-5. almost inevitably be followed by plundering and, especially if the siege had lasted for a significant period (as with Amida in 359 ce (seventy-three days) and 502-3 ce (three months)), by the random slaughter of inhabitants by soldiers venting their anger. Surviving soldiers and civilians were usually enslaved, with all that that implied in terms of deracination from family and community. Specific features of the Persian treatment of some captured Roman cities were less common - for example, the crucifixion of the Roman commander of Amida and his senior officers in 359 ce - and the sources provide particularly vivid insights into the harsh treatment of cap­tives - for example, elderly and infirm prisoners who had difficulty keeping up on the journey to Persia had their calf muscles or hamstrings severed and were left to die. Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that pillaging and the killing and enslavement of inhabitants were standard features of the denoue­ment of sieges throughout antiquity. At the same time a case can be made for the distinctiveness of Persian practices when it came to enslavement. Whereas the normal expectation in antiquity was that war captives would make their way onto the slave market where they would mostly be pur­chased by private individuals, the Persians frequently relocated the entire populations of captured Roman cities to Persia, where they were put to work on state projects, above all the construction of irrigation schemes and of cities. This seems to have been part of a deliberate policy to supplement the workforce available to Persian kings, both numerically and in terms of skills.^[519]

Northern barbarians were generally seen as less of a threat with regard to siege warfare, at least during the earlier centuries of late antiquity, partly because of lack of technological knowledge and partly because of their inability to organise the logistical infrastructure neces­sary for sustaining a successful siege. This did not, however, prevent them from trying their hand when circumstances seemed favourable, as when the Goths, after their victory at Adrianople in 378 ce, tried unsuccessfully to capture Constantinople. If anything distinguished late antiquity in this respect, it was the vulnerability of imperial centres to attack - and sometimes capture - which would have been unthinkable during the Principate. So Rome was famously blockaded three times by the Goths in 409-10 ce, and eventually sacked on the third occasion,

Roman Warfare and Military Violence in Late Antiquity albeit only, it seems, through treachery, and in a similar manner the Vandals pillaged the city in 455. Rome was also subject to a number of sieges during the conflict between eastern Roman and Gothic forces in the 530s and 540s, while in 626 ce Constantinople was besieged (ulti­mately unsuccessfully) by combined Avar and Persian forces. Whether these attempts were successful or not, they gave the inhabitants of these large metropolises, to varying degrees, direct experience of war and its consequences in ways which had not been the case for many centuries.^[520]

Sieges and pitched battles understandably attract the most attention in the narratives of late antique historians, so it is important in concluding this section to note that much of the warfare and associated violence in this period consisted of low-level raiding which was not likely to have an impact at a strategic level, but could help to keep the enemy on the back foot and could certainly have just as serious an impact on non-combatants as other forms of warfare. So, for example, Roman forces based near the fourth­century Rhine periodically made incursions into barbaricum to destroy vil­lages and crops, just as barbarians undertook raids into imperial territory in search of booty - as graphically illustrated by the discovery, in the river gravel at Neupotz in the early 1980s, of barbarian wagons which seem to have been returning home at some point in the mid third century laden with substantial quantities of Roman plunder, as well as prisoners. This type of small-scale warfare was certainly not unique to late antiquity, but there are some episodes from this period which show it in a particularly grisly light. While in charge of Gaul during the later 350s, the junior emperor Julian is reported to have incentivised troops undertaking raids across the Rhine by offering them a financial reward for every barbarian head they brought back; and during the conflict with Persia in northern Mesopotamia in the early years of the sixth century Roman troops raiding into Persian territory were appar­ently under orders (for reasons unstated) to kill all males as young as 12 years old.^[521] However, these actions seem to have been atypical. In terms of what was distinctive about warfare and violence in late antiquity, the focus is better placed on such aspects as the increased use of archery and the increased incidence of sieges, with all that followed from these modes of warfare.