The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History

by Peter Heather

  25 Marcellinus Comes s.a. 427; cf. Jordanes Getica 32. 166.

  26 The general was Aetius, of whom we will have much to say in the next two chapters; the Hunnic help he had recruited seven years earlier presumably came from the same region (refs as PLRE 2, 22–4).

  27 Royal tombs: Priscus fr. 6. 1. On Attila’s camp: Browning (1953), 143–5.

  28 On Olympiodorus’ affiliations, Matthews (1970). The sea journey: Olympiodorus frr. 19 and 28, both surely referring to the same crossing; cf. Croke (1977), 353. Others have envisaged Olympiodorus visiting the Pontus – e.g. Demougeot (1970), 391–2 – but we also know that in 409 Honorius was expecting the imminent arrival of ten thousand Huns (Zosimus 5. 50. 1). This was after the defeat of Uldin, implying that contact must have been made in the meantime with other Huns. It is tempting to associate this new alliance with general Aetius’ period as hostage among the Huns in c. 410 (refs as PLRE 2, 22).

  29 CTh 7. 17. 1, 28 January 412: ‘We decree that there shall be assigned to the Moesian border ninety patrol craft of recent construction and that ten more shall be added to these by the repair of old craft; and on the Scythian border, which is rather widespread and extensive there shall be assigned one hundred and ten such new craft, with fifteen added by the restoration of antiquated ones . . . These shall be equipped with all their weapons and supplies at the instance of the duke and shall be constructed on the responsibility of his office staff.’

  30 Mango (1985), 46ff.

  31 It doesn’t matter that much to the argument whether the mass of the Huns arrived west of the Carpathians during the crisis of 405–8 or in the course of the next decade or so. After 376, when the Tervingi and Greuthungi abandoned their homes north of the Black Sea, it took some years for the Huns to reach the Lower Danube frontier. Given that their arrival north of the Black Sea had been preceded by a huge demographic convulsion east of the Carpathians, the Huns’ intrusion on to the Hungarian Plain in 410–20 would certainly have been preceded by similar upheavals to the west.

  32 In dealing with an attack on Italy in 401/2, Stilicho had drawn off forces from Gaul and Britain, and there’s every reason to suppose he did the same this time.

  33 The Alans were perhaps recruited from north of the province of Raetia (Claudian Gothic War, 400–3); the Huns were sent by the – at this point – still biddable Uldin.

  34 Orosius 7. 37. 37ff.

  35 Commonitorium 2. 184.

  36 The last two quotations are from Prosper of Aquitaine Epigramma 17–22; 25–6. A good introduction to these poems is Roberts (1992); see also Courcelle (1964), 79ff.

  37 Hydatius Chronicle 49.

  38 Wars 3. 33.

  39 Orosius 7. 43. 14.

  40 The Goths of Fritigern did much the same thing in Macedonia in c. 380 after three years of looting (see Ch. 4).

  41 Zosimus 6. 1. 2 slightly conflated with Olympiodorus fr. 13, on the original of which Zosimus directly drew. The Olympiodorus fragment makes clear that the British usurpations began before 1 January 407 (the seventh consulship of Honorius), whereas Zosimus misunderstood his source to say that they began in the seventh consulship.

  42 This emerges, despite some garbling, from Zosimus 6. 3.

  43 Orosius 7. 40. 4.

  44 This, the consensus view, has been argued against by Liebeschuetz (1990), 48–85, but I remain content with the counter-arguments offered in Heather (1991), 193–9.

  45 Orosius 7. 35. 19.

  46 This was later the case with Attila, who was made a notional imperial general in order to facilitate the pretence that the cash subsidy paid to him was salary for his troops, rather than a subsidy. I suspect that the dodge was first hatched in the case of Alaric, fifty or so years before. On the background to Alaric’s revolt, see in more detail, Heather (1991), 181–92, 199ff.

  47 In my view, this had happened as early as 395, when the revolt broke out. Others argue that it didn’t happen until 408/9 when Alaric’s brother-in-law Athaulf joined him in Italy with a force of Huns and Goths from Pannonia. The date, however, is really a matter of detail. The fundamental point is that old distinctions had been put aside. This was presumably made much easier by the suppression of the two groups’ former leaders (Fritigern, Alatheus and Saphrax, under the treaty of 382), who might have had an interest in preserving the difference. For full details and refs to alternative views, see Heather (1991), 213–14, App. B.

  48 Cameron (1970), 159ff.; cf. 474ff. for a convincing unravelling of the two main sources’ confusion regarding the two campaigns.

  49 On the fall of Eutropius: Cameron (1970), Ch. 6; Heather (1988).

  50 On Gainas and Constantinopolitan politics: Cameron and Long (1993), Chs 5–6 and 8. The Silvanus episode: Ammianus 15.5. The literature on Alaric’s first Italian adventure is enormous, but for an introduction, see Heather (1991), 207ff.

  51 CTh 15. 14. 11.

  52 He had last held office in 383, and had made a number of bad decisions in between, including backing the usurper Maximus (Matthews (1974)).

  53 Letters 5. 51; 6. 2 and 27.

  54 In Rufinem (Against Rufinus) 2. 4–6.

  55 On Stilicho in general, see Cameron (1970), esp. Chs 2–3, and Matthews (1975), Ch. 10. This view of Stilicho’s manoeuvres with Alaric is argued in more detail with full refs in Heather (1991), 211–13.

  56 The next two quotations are from Zosimus 5. 32. 1; 5. 33. 1–2.

  57 CTh 9. 42. 20–2.

  58 The fall of Stilicho and Olympiodorus: Matthews (1970); (1975), 270–83.

  59 According to Zosimus, 30,000 fighters joined Alaric after the pogrom, but that is impossibly high. I suspect that he again misunderstood Olympiodorus, who was certainly his source here, thinking that 30,000 was the number of recruits when it was actually the total for Alaric’s force including the recruits. Thirty thousand would be my guess for the approximate size of Alaric’s force after the reinforcements arrived; i.e. 10,000 each from the Greuthungi and Tervingi of 376, combined with the 10,000-plus former followers of Radagaisus that Stilicho had drafted into the Roman army.

  60 The next two quotations are from Zosimus 5. 48. 3 and 5. 50. 3–51. 1.

  61 Sarus and Alaric had quarrelled at some point before the latter came to Italy (Zosimus 6. 13.2). Sarus met his death at the hands of Athaulf (Olympiodorus fr. 18), and Sergeric benefited from the assassination of Athaulf and his family (Olympiodorus fr. 26. 1).

  62 For more detailed accounts of the events leading to the sack, see e.g., with full refs, Matthews (1975), Ch. 11; Heather (1991), 213–18.

  63 Livy 5. 41. 8–9. The sources for Alaric’s sack are gathered in Courcelle (1964), 45–55.

  64 The quotations in the rest of this passage, unless otherwise stated, are from St Augustine City of God, here 3. 17.

  65 City of God, 2. 19–20.

  66 The ‘lust for domination’ follows Sallust Catiline War 2. 2; the quotation is from City of God 3. 14.

  67 The quotation is from City of God 2. 29. Augustine continues: ‘Among these very enemies are hidden [the Heavenly City’s] future citizens; and when confronted with them she must not think it a fruitless task to bear with their hostility until she finds them confessing the faith. In the same way, while the City of God is on pilgrimage in this world, she has in her midst some who are united with her in participation of the sacraments, but who will not join with her in the eternal glory of the saints’ (City of God 2. 34–5).

  68 The quotation is from City of God 2.18. For introductions to The City of God and the full range of response to the sack, see Courcelle (1964), 67–77; Brown (1967), Chs 25–7.

  69 The next five quotations are from Rutilius De Reditu Suo. The poem is translated in Keene and Savage-Armstrong (1907). On the journey and its circumstances, see Cameron (1967); Matthews (1975), 325–8.

  70 The sun god, pulled in a chariot, by horses, across the sky.

  71 The Carmen de Providentia Dei is partly translated and fully analysed in Roberts (1992).

  72 Usual
ly known by his full name – although the Flavius would normally be dropped – to prevent possible confusions with the usurper Constantine III. Full refs to the sources for his career can be found at PLRE 2, 321–5. The best account of his career is Matthews (1975), Chs 12–14.

  73 Olympiodorus fr. 23.

  74 This usurper is not the Magnus Maximus defeated by Theodosius I in 387, but a much more obscure claimant of the same name.

  75 Matthews (1975), 313–15 (there is a slight question mark over the geography).

  76 On the pay rise, see Sivan (1985) who dates it to 416; but it was much more likely to have been an earlier measure to stimulate loyalty among troops who had followed the usurpers and were now to fight barbarians.

  77 Orosius 7. 43. 2–3.

  78 Fr. 24.

  79 Sergeric: see n. 61 above. For more detailed discussion of Constantius and the Goths, with full refs, see Heather (1991), 219–24. One modius is approximately one-quarter of a bushel.

  80 Chronicle 24.

  81 If by an indirect route: via Photius’ ninth-century summary of the church historian Philostorgius, who used Olympiodorus’ work. The key passage can be found at Philostorgius HE 12. 4–5, or Olympiodorus fr. 26. 2.

  82 North Africa in the 440s, see p. 292–3. On the larger historiographical issue which has surrounded the economic form of barbarian settlement inside the Empire, see p. 423–4ff. with refs.

  83 Two distinguished historians of a previous generation, Professors Thompson (1956) (revolting peasants) and Wallace-Hadrill (1961) (possibly Saxon pirates), virtually came to blows over this. I would particularly recommend to readers the appendix to Thompson (1982c), whose substantive discussion begins ‘Unfortunately, in 1961 discussion of the matter was thrown into confusion by some ill-judged pages of J. M. Wallace-Hadrill . . .’

  84 The authorities in Constantinople have sometimes been criticized for not doing more, but that’s not very realistic: Demougeot (1951), esp. pt III, places a complete split between east and west far too early. More balanced are Kaegi (1968), Ch. 1, and Thompson (1950). For fuller discussion of Constantinople and the west, see Ch. 9.

  85 Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 69, doubted that these Huns ever arrived, although most scholars have thought the auxiliaries did eventually turn up. As part of this agreement, a young man by the name of Aetius, of whom we shall see a great deal more in subsequent chapters, spent time as a hostage among the Huns, which does suggest that the negotiated relationship had a real point.

  86 The agricultural surplus of the Empire can be thought of as being divided between the landowning classes (who received their share in the form of rent) and the imperial authorities (who received theirs in the form of tax). In the interests of satisfying the Goths within a fairly restricted area, Constantius was perhaps willing to forgo the Empire’s share of the Garonne surplus, so that the area’s tax revenues – as well as rents on public lands – could be allocated to the Goths’ support. Again, something similar happened in North Africa.

  87 This quotation and the next one are from Zosimus 6. 5. 2–3; 6. 10. 2.

  88 On the Saxon shore defences, see Pearson (2002). For introductions to the range of opinion generated by these (and a few other references), see e.g. Campbell (1982), Ch. 1; Higham (1992), esp. Chs 3–4; Salway (1981), Ch. 15.

  89 De Reditu Suo 1. 208–13.

  90 Taking a slightly more optimistic view than Matthews (1975), 336–8, on the basis of much the same evidence. Cologne and Trier did not fall into Frankish hands until 457 (Book of the History of the Franks 8).

  91 CTh 11. 28. 7 and 12.

  92 Not. Dig. Occ. 5 and 6; 7.

  93 You can tell the date because, within each category of unit, regiments are arranged in the chronological order of their creation, and there are just a handful named after Valentinian, the son born to Constantius and Placidia in July 419. On all this and what follows, see above all, Jones (1964), App. II.

  94 Uncertainty over late Roman unit sizes (p. 62) prevents greater precision, but 500 men per regiment is the minimum figure.

  95 As with the losses after Hadrianople, we don’t know what percentage of a unit had to die before the decision was taken not to re-form it (cf. p. 181).

  96 For the Notitia and the western army, see Jones (1964), App. III, and the various papers in Bartholomew (1976).

  97 Eucharisticon 302–10.

  6. OUT OF AFRICA

  1 Ammianus 22. 7. 3–4.

  2 Fr. 33.

  3 Ammianus 28. 1. 24–5.

  4 On imperial ceremonial in general and Julian’s impropriety, see Matthews (1989), Chs 11–12; MacCormack (1981). On patterns of appointment, a good introduction is Matthews (1975), passim, with many of the essays collected in Matthews (1985), esp. Matthews (1971) and (1974).

  5 Fr. 11.1.

  6 For an introduction to regime change Roman-style, see Matthews (1975), e.g. 64ff. on the aftermath of the death of Valentinian I.

  7 Ammianus 27. 22. 2–6.

  8 Many of Libanius’ letters, for instance, are surprisingly aggressive to potential patrons, demanding that they show what they are made of: see e.g. Bradbury (2004), Letters 2, 5, 8, 9 etc.

  9 The two commanders were first sentenced to exile but killed on the journey.

  10 The Letters of Ravenna date the assassination to 7 March 413, but this seems too early in the year. Ships did not normally pass between Carthage and Italy between November and March, and we need time for Heraclianus first to land, be defeated and return to Africa. Perhaps he landed in Italy on 7 March. See generally Orosius 7. 42. 12–14; other sources as PLRE 2, 540.

  11 Olympiodorus fr. 33.1.

  12 On Galla Placidia, see Oost (1968).

  13 Fr. 38.

  14 PLRE 2, 1024.

  15 Olympiodorus fr. 43.2.

  16 See Matthews (1970) on Olympiodorus, with Matthews (1975), Ch. 15, on the history.

  17 Prosper Tiro s.a. 425; Chron. Gall. 452 no. 102; the figure of 60,000 is impossibly large.

  18 For Aetius, Felix and Boniface, refs as PLRE 2, 23–4, 238–40, 463–4. The main secondary accounts I have drawn upon in this and subsequent discussions of Aetius’ activities are: Mommsen (1901); Stein (1959), Ch. 9; Zecchini (1983); Stickler (2002).

  19 Refs. as PLRE 2, 22–3.

  20 Ammianus 31. 2. 25.

  21 No law codes survive from the Vandal kingdom, but Procopius’ narrative of the Byzantine conquest notes in passing the pattern observed among other Germanic groups of this period of having two distinct military castes, which I take to be those of the ‘free’ and the ‘freed’ (see Ch. 2). The remains of the Przeworsk culture, from which the Vandals derived, also suggest no obvious difference in social structure compared with other better-documented Germani. For an introduction to the fragile and relatively egalitarian social structures of nomads, see Cribb (1991) with full refs.

  22 Gregory of Tours Histories 2. 9.

  23 Chronicle 42, 49, 67–8, esp. 68: Alani qui Vandalis et Sueuis potentabantur: ‘the Alans who were ruling over the Vandals and Sueves’.

  24 Hydatius Chronicle 68.

  25 Depending on the extent of the exaggeration reported by Victor of Vita, see p. 198–9. On the official titulature of the kings, see Wolfram (1967).

  26 All narrative accounts of the Vandals and Alans in Spain are largely based on the Chronicle of Hydatius. Dating is affected by the controversy over how extant versions of the text should be edited: see e.g. Burgess (1993), 27ff., for an introduction to the dispute. My notes here follow the referencing system used in Mommsen (1894); for our purposes, these arguments fortunately affect details rather than overview.

  27 Hydatius was writing when Visigoths were pillaging widely in Spain, and he is always critical of them. Given how readily they had helped defeat Vandals and Alans in the later 410s, it is unclear why they should have had such a change of heart in 422.

  28 Jordanes Getica 33: 168.

  29 Not. Dig. Occ. 25.

  30 Wars 3. 3. 22f.

 
; 31 The peace was negotiated by the senator Darius, with whom Augustine exchanged pleasantries (Augustine Letters 229–31).

  32 The historical reconstruction offered in the rest of this section depends upon Courtois (1955), 155ff. (with refs).

  33 Not. Dig. Occ. 26.

  34 The quotation above is from Victor of Vita 1. 3. Amongst the bishops tortured Victor names Pampinianus of Vita and Mansuetus of Urusi.

  35 Letter 220. Olympiodorus fr. 42.

  36 The illustrator of one of the later copies of this manuscript mistook these for upside-down ducks, presumably with rigor mortis having already set in, since Africa is holding them by the necks and the bodies are sticking up in the air.

  37 As a politically incorrect and chronologically befuddled sergeant of the British Eighth Army put it in late 1941, after a lecture from the enthusiastic Director of Army Education in Tripoli on the wonders of Roman North Africa: ‘We now know all about this place; it is full of the ruins of buildings put up by the Eyeties before the war, but as far as I can see, it is now just full of camels and Western Oriental Gentlemen’ (quoted in Manton (1988), 139).

  38 Even these were tending to dwarf: a sure sign that they had been cut off from the mainstream for some time.

  39 Tripolitania was also administered from Carthage in the Roman period.

  40 Historians of Roman Africa writing in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries supposed that large-scale immigration from Italy was an important contributory factOr. There certainly was some immigration. When Carthage was refounded as a Roman colony in 29 BC, for instance, 30,000 Italian settlers crossed the sea. Also, the third legion was stationed in North Africa from 23 BC, generating a steady trickle of veteran settlers who bought farms and established townships such as Diana Veteranorum, Timgad, Thurburbo Maius and Djemila. But by the third century AD the vast majority of the 600 Roman towns in North Africa were inhabited by indigenous Romano-Africans, so that the role of immigrants must not be overstated.

  41 A famous inscription from Ain Zraia (ancient Zarai) in Algeria records that whereas most goods were taxed at 2–2.5 per cent, animals and their products (textiles, hides etc.) were rated at only one-fifth to one-third of 1 per cent.