Download PDF | David Nicolle - Romano-Byzantine.Armies.4th-9th.Centuries-Osprey Publishing (1992).
51 Pages
INTRODUCTION
‘The Fall of the Roman Empire has been explained in economic, moral and even racial terms, but the facts of military collapse are easier to chart. Roman frontiers were often artificial; for while forests and mountains formed real barriers, a means of communication than an obstacle. ‘The Rhine and Danube had for centuries marked the limit of Roman rule, but behind them — apart from the Alps which protected Italy ~ there were few effective barriers. Most Roman limes or frontiers consisted of zones rather than lines, and here peoples met rather than being separated.
In general the Eastern half of the Roman Empire was, by the mid-gth century AD, economically stronger than the West, and there was no real evidence to indicate that Eastern ‘Greek’ soldiers were inferior to Western ‘Roman’ soldiers. Various military reforms had, however, been based upon Hellenistic Greek rather than Roman concepts, and also reflected Germanic or Iranian influences from beyond the frontier. Meanwhile the military importance of frontier peoples grew. Nor should the fact that half the Roman Empire fell to barbarian assault hide the remarkable effectiveness of this late Roman defence structure, given the weakened foundations on which it was built. A water-tight frontier was now impossible, so the late Roman army relied on a screen of garrisons backed up by mobile field armies. Garrisons were to hold minor enemy incursions and, by forcing an invader to disperse in search of food, they also made him vulnerable to counterattack by the nearest field army
‘The weakness of this system lay in the slow speed even of field armies, which also had to be spread over a wide area decreasing the Emperor's control. The Roman army also failed to achieve a decisive superiority in cavalry, while troops tied down in static garrison duties declined in quality. Meanwhile late Roman Emperors generally owed their position to the army; power often lay in the hands of competing generals, while civil wars were more of a threat to ordinary people than were foreign invasions.
‘The Byzantine Empire was, of course, merely the Eastern part of the old Roman Empire under a new name ~ the disappearance of the Western half in the sth century generally being regarded as the moment of transition. Though deeply Christian, Byzantium was very militarized and as cruel as any of its foes, with religious strife being almost as common as religious debate, The Sassanian invasions of the early 7th century were also very destructive. For a generation Byzantium lost Egypt, Syria and eastern Anatolia, Many cities were destroyed, the overall population of what is now Turkey declining for another five hundred years until the Turkish conquest led to a revival
Although the Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire and faced similar military problems, its solutions were very different. In North Africa, for example, Rome's large army concentrated on securing main roads and urban Byzantium’s smaller army built more fortifications and took a defensive stance. The most striking characteristic of later Byzantine military thinking was, however, the theme or provincial army system, which owed nothing to ancient Roman tradition The basic character of Roman and Byzantine armies also differed, Rome relying on discipline and drill, Byzantium on strategy and generalship. It has even been suggested that, from the 7th to 12th centuries, there was no ‘East’ no ‘West’ in the Mediterranean world. Such a view might be oversimplified, but in purely military terms Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim lands did share a common heritage,
In terms of technology the sth to gth centuries were certainly a time of great change. Greek Fire, the ‘terror weapon’ of the Middle Ages, was probably invented in Egypt towards the end of Byzantine rule and there were also major developments in horse harness, most stemming from Central Asia, with improvements to saddle, bridle, horse-shoes and, most striking of all, the introduction of stirrups Other changes could be seen in naval tacties, with the ship-disabling beak replacing the ancient shipsinking ram, Meanwhile Mediterranean shipwrights moved from the old hull-first 10 the modern frame construction system, and the triangular lateen sail was introduced from the Indian Ocean. The hinged stern rudder of Chinese origin may have been known to Muslim sailors in the Indian Ocean by the gth or 1oth centuries, but whether it was used by Mediterranean sailors as vet remains unclear.
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