[PDF][PDF] The Romans demilitarised: the evidence of Procopius
JΗWG Liebeschuetz - Scripta Classica Israelica, 1996 - scriptaclassica.org
JΗWG Liebeschuetz
Scripta Classica Israelica, 1996•scriptaclassica.orgThe classical Romans had a powerful sense of the meaning of Roman citizenship and the
obligations it imposed on the men privileged to utter the proud boast: civis Romanus sum.
1Of these perhaps the most important was readiness to fight, and if necessary to die for the
res publica. It was this aspect of the Roman char acter which made it possible in time of war
to call up for service in the army an extraordinarily high proportion of available manpower,
and to raise the vast armies and to replace the very heavy losses of the Hannibalic war. 2 …
obligations it imposed on the men privileged to utter the proud boast: civis Romanus sum.
1Of these perhaps the most important was readiness to fight, and if necessary to die for the
res publica. It was this aspect of the Roman char acter which made it possible in time of war
to call up for service in the army an extraordinarily high proportion of available manpower,
and to raise the vast armies and to replace the very heavy losses of the Hannibalic war. 2 …
The classical Romans had a powerful sense of the meaning of Roman citizenship and the obligations it imposed on the men privileged to utter the proud boast: civis Romanus sum. 1Of these perhaps the most important was readiness to fight, and if necessary to die for the res publica. It was this aspect of the Roman char acter which made it possible in time of war to call up for service in the army an extraordinarily high proportion of available manpower, and to raise the vast armies and to replace the very heavy losses of the Hannibalic war. 2 Subse quently the same qualities won the Roman Empire. In time the Romans granted their citizenship to more and more of the sub jects of the Empire until in 212 AD the emperor Caracalla issued the Constitutio Antoniniana which conferred Roman citizenship on all inhabitants of the empire (except the dediticii). 3 The expansion of Roman citizenship was however paral leled by a progressive demilitarisation of the core provinces of the Empire. Un der the emperors fighting ceased to be a duty of the citizens and the Empire came to be defended by professional soldiers, who had been recruited in frontier provinces, if they were not the sons of veterans. 4 The development stretched over centuries, but the outcome was that when the existence of the Empire came to be at risk in the late fourth and early fifth century its defence was entirely in the hands of mercenaries, some natives of the Empire, others recruited among barbarians, settled within the Empire or even outside its frontiers. 5 The citizensoldier could not be brought back, not even in the face of the most frightening danger.
As Livy and Polybius in their histories of the Hannibalic war enable us to study the military qualities of the Roman citizen in his finest hour, Procopius’ history of Justinian’s Gothic wars enables us to examine the response of the in habitants of Italy to the hardships and calamities of 16 years of war from 536 to 552, at the very end of the classical period. Procopius’ history has been criti cised. 6 It is at least in part a panegyric turning into an apologia of the author’s patron, the Byzantine commander Belisarius. This certainly slants the presenta
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