Download PDF | Conor Whately - Battles and Generals_ Combat, Culture, and Didacticism in Procopius’ _Wars_-Brill Academic Publishers (2016).
291 Pages
Prologue: The Case of Callinicum
In Easter of 531, the Roman Army, which had famously defeated the Sasanid Persians just a year earlier at Dara, faced those very Persians again near Callinicum. On this occasion, however, we know that the Romans were defeated, and that the defeat was severe enough that the Roman state, led by Justinian, launched an inquiry into the debacle, which resulted in the reassignment of the general Belisarius. How the Romans managed to suffer such a misfortune, however, is less certain. To some degree, this is understandable given that battles are notoriously complex affairs.
Yet, it might be a surprise to learn that unlike many other ancient battles, in this particular instance we have not just one description, but three. For the Battle of Callinicum is included in: the Ecclesiastical History of Pseudo-Zachariah;1 the Chronograph of Malalas; and the Wars of Procopius. And, there are a few basic points of detail about the battle on which all three historians agree. As noted, it took place near the Euphrates in Easter of 531,2 Belisarius was at the head of the Roman forces, and the battle itself came not long after – relatively speaking – the major victory at Dara. All three authors also agree that the Persians were victors, and that they managed to turn the Romans, and Belisarius himself, in flight, with the result that the Romans sustained heavy casualties. Why, then, the alleged uncertainty? Well, there are many other points on which the three authors disagree with the names of Roman participants providing a particularly illustrative example.
For instance, only two of the three, Malalas and Procopius, name leading Roman commanderssuch asHermogenes and Arethas, not to mention Belisarius.3 On the other hand, Malalas mentions Dorotheus, Sunicas and a Stephaniciusin his account of the battle,while Procopius namesDorotheus and Sunicas earlier in the Wars,4 and a Stephanicius the Isaurian in his account of the battle.5 Procopius’ Stephanicius is likely Malalas’ Stephanicius.6 Procopius excludes other commanders,such as Apscal, Mamantius, and Simmas. If we look at Pseudo-Zachariah’s brief account we find that he excludes most Roman participants, save Belisarius.7 On numbers too the historians disagree. Both Procopius and Malalas include figures, and the totals Malalas and Procopius provide for the Romans are comparable: Procopius assignsthe Romans around 20,000 men,8 and the Persians 15,000;9 Malalas gives Belisarius a force of 8,000 men, Arethas 4,000 men, Sunicas 5,000 men and Stephanus, Apscal, and Simmas 4,000 men (21,000 total).10 Malalas excludes the Persian numbers, while Pseudo-Zachariah does not mention any figures, Roman or Persian. The historians also differ over Belisarius’ role in the defeat, though there are places where we find some agreement.
According to Pseudo-Zachariah, Belisarius was unwilling to engage the Persians at Callinicum because of his piety, and his respect for the Persian commander’s wishes that the two sides not fight during the Easter fast.11 The pious Belisarius consents, but he is rebuked by his unholy troops. In Procopius’ account too the Roman soldiery had been fasting, yet in that case Procopius highlightstheir zest for Persian blood.12 Belisarius, bolstered by the newly arrived Hermogenes, sought to dissuade them from their desired course of action – attack the Persians at all costs. Belisarius gave a speech which failed utterly; the soldiery responded to his pleas with cursing and by openly questioning his martial virtues.13 Belisarius relented and reluctantly arranged the army for battle, which ultimately led to defeat. Malalas’ account hints at some of the very concerns raised repeatedly by Procopius in the Persian Wars: there was discord among the various Roman forces leading up to the Battle of Callinicum,14 though he does not say that the soldiers were unwilling to stand idly by beforehand (unlike Procopius – hinted at by Pseudo-Zachariah). When it comes to explaining why the Romans lost, upon which all three agree, they differ in important ways. Pseudo-Zachariah’s and Procopius’ accounts both suggest an initial unwillingness on Belisarius’ part to engage his foes at Callinicum.
All three authors state that Belisarius turned and withdrew from battle, but Procopius adds the detail about the shift in momentum following the Persians’ breaking of Arethas’ line. Pseudo-Zachariah and Malalas omit the struggle that preceded Belisarius’ withdrawal. Pseudo-Zachariah does not cast blame on Belisarius for the outcome and stresses that the general had been willing to honour the fast. If anything, for him it was the Roman soldiers that were the problem. For Malalas, Belisarius let his anger cloud his judgement. Once the battle began and started to go in the Persians’ favour Belisarius took his standard and fled.15 Indeed, it is Malalas who says that the Roman defeat led to a commission, which found Belisarius guilty of cowardice, and which led to his subsequent dismissal. All this being said, Callinicum is unusual amongst Justinianic-era battles, for unlike many others we have more than one account, and on key details, like who was involved (Romans and Persians), the location (the environs of Callinicum), Belisarius’ flight, and the outcome (Persians won), they agree. For many other battles and sieges, however, we have but one source: Procopius.
If those battles and sieges described by Procopius are to be used with any profit, especially when we lack comparable evidence, we need to understand how he goes about describing and explaining combat. Does he rely on a series of clichés and stereotypeswith the resultthatthe battles and sieges are interchangeable, or does he make attempts to give those descriptions individuality? This book offers just that, a detailed reading of Procopius’ descriptions of combat, battles and sieges alike, and uncovers the narrative and explanatory strategies that he employs in the descriptions of combat. For it is only when we have determined how Procopius described and understood one of the most complex of ancient experiences, combat, that we can make full use of Procopius as a source for ancient warfare.
Acknowledgements
Almost a decade and a half ago, while sitting on a stationary bike at the athletic centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, I came across a fellow named Procopius, who kept on popping up in Averil Cameron’s The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity (London, 1993, 1st edition). My education to that point was almost entirely comprised of classical persons, places, and events before Hadrian, so these late antique things, like Procopius, were mystifying and exotic. Some digging on Procopius fuelled my interest further, and while considering graduate school Isent an expression of interest email to MichaelWhitby,then atWarwick,who ultimately suggested IreadTed Lendon’s “Rhetoric of Combat” article.
It was that suggestion that inspired this project. Although I didn’t go to Warwick for my MA (I stayed in Canada and pursued earlier Roman military things), I did for my PhD, which was completed in 2009. This book has, not surprisingly, taking me far longer than I would have liked to finish, though in the long run I’m grateful that this is the case: I got a job at the University of Winnipeg in 2009, and remain there to this day. Many of my peers are unemployed – or just as bad, underemployed – and so the fact that other responsibilities (a host of book chapters and encyclopaedia articles, university service, and, the big one, teaching, amongst other things) prevented me from finishing earlier is to be celebrated and not bemoaned. I have incurred all sorts of debts along the way, the majority of which I can neverrepay.
A host of teachers and professorsinspired me to go further,whether they knew it or not. Some of those include Mr. Cullen at BCI, Dr. Kavanagh at Queen’s University, Drs George, Kaczynski, and Murgatroyd at McMaster, as well as Dr. Haley, also at McMaster, my MA supervisor. Also worth noting are my fellow graduate students at McMaster, and Alex, Chris, Donald, Jessica, Juanita, Mike, Serena, Stephanie, and Tamara in particular. A number of people at Warwick deserve consideration, such as the members of the Postgrad Society as well as my peers in Classics including Allison, Etienne, Eva, Ian, and Kate. Amongst the staff then at Warwick, thanks go to Drs. Cooley, Davidson, Ireland, Laird, Newby, Orrells, and Swain. There are other late antique and Byzantine scholars out there who helped me in some way or other (conversation at conferences and seminars, emails, offprints) with this, including Henning Börm, Dariusz Brodka, Jitse Dijkstra, Hugh Elton, Greg Fisher, Geoffrey Greatrex, Maria Kouroumali, Chris Lillington-Martin, Philip Rance, Meredith Riedel, Alan Ross, Alex Sarantis, Ilkka Syvänne, Elodie Turquois, and John Vanderspoel. The University of Winnipeg gave me financial assistance at various stages, not the least of which was gainful employment.
Then there are my colleagues at the University of Winnipeg and those down the road at the University of Manitoba, all of whom deserve thanks, whether they read any of this or not. Indeed, Winnipeg has far more Classicists than it should. Those individuals (not named below – and both past and present) include Samantha Booth, Laurence Broadhurst, Jane Cahill, James Chlup, Keith Collins, Liyana Fauzi, Mark Joyal, Matt Maher, Michael MacKinnon, Beth Munro, Rob Nau, Michael Sampson, Lea Stirling, Tyson Sukava, and Allison Surtees. Everyonewho hasread or heard some form of this deserves my thanks. Then there are those who suffered through reading drafts of this manuscript, some more than once. There are the initial examiners of the thesis on which this is based, Kevin Butcher and Doug Lee, the latter of whom also read a draft of a more recent iteration. My colleagues Matt Gibbs and Pauline Ripat both read parts of this, and my poor – now former – neighbour Mark Golden read the whole thing in an earlier stage.
The people at Brill, especially Julian Deahl, Marcella Mulder, and the editors of this series, were helpful in so many ways. A big thanks is due to the anonymous reader, who made some extremely helpful suggestions, and ultimately made this a much better manuscript. Then there are people who read this manuscript and its various iterations far more often they should have done and who offered so many useful suggestions, such as Kyle Sinclair and Mike Stewart. Michael Whitby was the supervisor for the thesis, and he has read more versions of this project than anyone else besides me – and he’s been patient, enthusiastic, and insightful throughout the process. I doubt I’ll ever be able to repay my debt to him.
Finally, I want to thank all my non-Classics friends and family for their support over the years, including those in Brantford, Kingston, the GTA, the UK, and Winnipeg. Hannah’s family, Katie, Mark, Gill, and Steve have been supportive and interested in my career from the beginning. My sister, and my parents supported me throughout my educational career, both personally and financially – and through all those ups and downs, of which there were a few. In the case of my sister it tended to involve late night drinksin the UAE, my dad bike roads and canoe trips in southwestern Ontario, and my mom at movie theatrestheworld over. Undoubtedly, however, I owe my biggest thanksto Procopius himself, for if he’d never caught my attention, I’d never have moved to Leamington Spa and met my incredible wife Hannah. Now, in Winnipeg, I’m fortunate to have the love, friendship, and companionship not only of Hannah, but also of Ella, and Don. Their help has been immeasurable, and in their own various ways, even if two of them have only been with usfor the past few years. I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive wife (who, besides agreeing to marry me, agreed to move from the temperate west Midlands to the frozen tundra of southern Manitoba), daughter, and dog. It is to them that I dedicate this book.
Note on Translation and Transliteration
All translations are my own unless specified. For Procopius, I have consulted Dewing’s translation (recently revised by Kaldellis). Transliteration is a bit more problematic, for there is no one standard means of doing this. For my sins, my approach has been to followthe practice used in some standardworks, like the Cambridge Ancient History. That means Latinizing the majority of the names – the feeling was that this would be more familiar to a greater number of readers. Growing up in Canada has meant that this sort of custom seems to be standard practice for me, only in my personal experience it tended to involve the anglicising of French names and terms, and the Gallicising of English ones – and usually all on the backs of cereal boxes and the front of road signs. What this Latinising in practice means is that I have spelled Procopius, “Procopius”, and not “Prokopios”, and Belisarius, “Belisarius”, and not “Belisarios”.
With Persian and Arab names, I have, again, adopted the forms frequently found inworkslike the aforementioned Cambridge Ancient History. The exceptions to my practice involve Byzantine names, which for me means persons living after the sixth century (and with the exception of Theophylact Simocatta). These have been transliterated more or less as is, unless a part of their name is much more common – so “George” instead of “Georgios” (as in George Kedrenos). I have called the main characters of this book Romans because this is what they called themselves (i.e., not east Romans or Byzantines), and because there was still a great deal continuity with earlier fourth and fifth century (AD) Romans. Finally, all dates are AD (CE) unless stated otherwise.
Introduction
1 The Premise In 527 Procopius of Caesarea became the secretary to the late Roman general Belisarius. Over the course of the next decade or two, Procopius accompanied Belisarius as he campaigned across much of the sixth century Mediterranean world, from the Persian frontier in the east to Vandal North Africa in the west. Thisincredible journey left its mark on Procopius, for it inspired him to write a war monograph on the wars waged by Justinian, a work which has come down to us as the History of the Wars of Justinian, or Wars for short. Procopius composed his history in the grand manner of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius, which meant a number of thingsfor histext: the narratorwould be omniscient, and the implied author (Procopius) would be self-effacing;1 the account would be truthful and generally devoid of bias; the work would have some moral and/ or didactic value for future readers; the narrative would be replete with digressions, both ethnographic and geographic; it would contain speeches (even letters), particularly before battle; and the narrative would be full of battles and sieges.2
The resulting military history, the Wars, fills five Loeb volumes, and thanks to the detail of his military narrative we have an extended treatment of the battles and sieges that occupied the sixth century Roman Empire at this time. This book is not, however, a traditional study of ancient warfare, but rather a study of military historiography. For Procopius’ descriptions of combat have presented a number of problems to scholars for some time, and what appraisals there have been of Procopius’ descriptions of combat have been mixed. Some time ago Cyril Mango bemoaned the subject matter of Procopius’ Wars (along with Agathias’ History, for that matter), arguing that they failed to capture the tenor of the age,3 a view that was later echoed by Cameron.4 Writing around the same time as Mango was John Keegan, and although he did not cover Procopius in his ground breaking Face of Battle, he did criticize the tendency amongst many pre-modern historians to romanticize and idealize, and, on occasion, to reduce battle pieces to a series of conventional images,5 the sort of criticism that might well be applied to Procopius.6 Brent Shaw, in his wide-ranging paper on war and violence in late antiquity, made the following disparaging remarks: “most of Procopius’ accounts of sieges and set battles [are] dependant on rhetorical devices and images adopted from earlier historians“.7
The feeling among some scholars, then, is that Procopius’ battles and sieges are not worth considering because of their peripheral value, and because of their derivative nature.8 Are these varied criticisms of Procopius’ descriptions of combat warranted? There is little doubt that Procopius presents a complicated case. After all, Procopius was a Roman, from Caesarea, writing in Atticizing Greek at the end of antiquity during a period in which both the long-established views about how history ought to be written and how armies fought, were changing. He wrote in the manner of historians like Thucydides and Xenophon, who had written about a way of war that involved Greek citizen hoplites and phalanxes. Procopius lived in the time when a Roman emperor, Justinian, did not participate in any of the wars of his reign;9 and although republican Rome had won its empire on the back of its infantry-based legions, cavalry and horse-archery had become increasingly important in late antiquity. Finally, not onlywere historians describing and explaining their world in different ways, but they were also choosing to emphasize different things such as the history of the church, and the role of God in determining human affairs.
Thus, besides presenting a complicated case, by some definitions Procopius presents a particular case. By choosing to write about war in an older, traditional way, that is by deciding to write a history of the wars of Justinian in a classicizing manner, that meant that as a writer and historian Procopius would be somewhat constrained by the conventions of his chosen genre. There would be specific features that his audience would expect which were alluded to above, from pre-battle speeches and ethnographic digressions, to Atticizing Greek, a moral purpose, and detailed narratives of battles and sieges, all conveyed in a partic ular way.10 Yet, all was not lost, for while operating within the conventions of the sub-genre there was scope for Procopius to tailor his work to suit his own interests, expertise, and subject matter. In fact, the varying of his historywas an important task: it was incumbent upon Procopius to stand out, for the writing of history in late antiquity was a competitive enterprise, and there was no shortage of alternativesto Procopius’ potentially unfashionable subject matter (war) and approach (classicizing history).11 What all of this implies is that when evaluating Procopius, like any other author, we need to bear the context in mind.
Given our interest in combat, that means we should not evaluate Procopius’ descriptions of combat with a view towards whether he adhered to what we think a military historian should discuss;12 rather, we must be cognizant of his own cultural milieu. Simply stating that Procopius’ descriptions are derivative and rhetorical is unhelpful.13 While it goes without saying that authors such as Homer, Thucydides, and Polybius, not to mention antiquity’s rhetoricians,14 or at least their materials (the progymnasmata for instance), influenced Procopius, some aspects of the practice of war in antiquity were consistent, which means that a recourse to models should not therefore lead to charges of slavishness, unoriginality, and artificiality.15 Instead, we need to evaluate Procopius’ descriptions on his own terms. Indeed, before we can properly evaluate, and so utilize, Procopius as a military historian, we must set out precisely what “factors were decisive in battle, what details ought to be related, and how the narrative of events should be structured”16 in the eyes of Procopius, and we can only do this by undertaking a close reading of all of the battles and sieges that fill the Wars.
One aspect of the classicizing history that we will emphasize in our reading of Procopian combat is didacticism, the importance of which has long been understand, but which has rarely been assessed in studies of Procopius. Kaegi long ago recognized and stressed Procopius’ belief in the utility of his Wars for military leaders.17 Even earlier Cameron stated, “Many factors, including convention and didacticism as well as political bias, may have influenced both content and form”.18 But that is asfar as we get. As we willsee, the key to understanding Procopius’ descriptions of combat is to pay attention to his didactic aims, which were determined by the conventions of classicizing history and the interests of his audience. There was, after all, a long-standing belief amongst many ancient historians that their texts would have real practical value. One of the topoi of the prefaces to works of ancient history is the emphasis on the didactic value of the work. Thucydides, for instance, hoped that his History would be profitable to those who might read his work in the future.19 In fact, de Romilly even argued that Thucydides presented battles as lessons.20 A little later, Polybius adopted this practice, for he too believed that the purpose of his History was, among other things, to provide lessons for future statesmen and generals.21 Thucydides and Polybius are two of the historians who had the greatest impact on Procopius, and so we should well expect the didactic quality of their works to have been adopted by Procopius. Classicizing historians, then,were expected to produce historicalworksthat were instructive, and full of historical lessons.22 At the same time, Johnson identified didacticism as one of the categories that best characterized Greek literature in late antiquity.23 Moving from literature to military affairs, in the late Roman world, in the absence of any sort of military college, save for the scholae domesticorum,24 and outside of practical experience,25 there was a belief – expressed by some – that it was the historical texts rather than the military treatises that provided the knowledge a general might need.26 Eunapius (frag. 44) and Theophylact (1.14.2) all suggest as much.27 Ammianus Marcellinus implies that Julian had some Polybius at hand to consult when needed in the midst of the campaign against Persia, for a comparison is drawn between Julian’s actions at Pirisabora and Scipio Aemilianus’ at Carthage (Amm. Marc. 24.2.16).28 The late Byzantine historian Michael Attaleiates, whom Polybius influenced a great deal, emphasized the advice his text offered.29 The fact that later Byzantine authors referred to Procopius’ Wars as the campaigns of Belisarius (rather than the wars of Justinian) points towards the very real possibility that Procopius’ work was read in the same way.30 Members of the military elite, then, whether some of their lot were part of the cultural and intellectual elite or not as much, might also have made up a good portion of the audience. Indeed, Procopius makes it clear just a few lines into his Wars that he wants his great history to have this same function: namely, to provide lessons for future generations in similar situations to those experienced by the figures in his text (Procop. Wars 1.1.1). What is more, immediately after he states his hopesthat the text will have value he stressesthat it is generals he has in mind first and foremost: “τοῖς τε γὰρ πολεμησείουσι καὶ ἄλλως ἀγωνιουμένοιςὄνησίν[for those who are to wage war or participate in any other struggle might profit…]“ (Procop. Wars 1.1.2). In terms of thewider context, and Procopius’ own aims as an author, at least as found in the preface itself, an appreciation of the didactic quality of the Wars is important for an understanding of the descriptions of combat found therein.31 Thus, while we examine Procopius’ descriptions of combat the underlying emphasis will be on the instructional value of Procopius’ accounts. In this introduction we set the stage for the narrative to follow. We begin with a brief overview of the merits of a cultural approach to combat. There follows a succinct overview of the “history as literature” debate, the rhetorical aspects of Procopius, and his position on truth in history. We then turn to methodology and look at three factors of paramount importance to ancient accounts of combat, namely description, explanation, and military leadership. The introduction closes with a breakdown of the chapters and a few brief comments on the merits of the approach adopted here.
2 A Cultural Approach to Procopian Combat As Greatrex’s recent papers on Procopian scholarship indicate, there has been a great deal of work on Procopius in the last decade or two.32 Of that increasingly larger corpus, only a portion has been devoted to military matters, and only a small handful to combat itself.33 What is more, as noted, Procopius’ descriptions of combat are some of the most disparaged parts of his Wars even though combat is an integral component of the classicizing history, and the number and variety of those found in the Wars means they provide a significant and consistent (in terms of distribution) body of study in the text. For another thing, in many ways Procopius makes a better object of study than most other ancient historians. Procopius was both an eyewitness to a number of the battles that he describes, and his subject matter has attracted relatively little attention. Kagan,inhermonograph,focusedonthebattlenarrativesof bothAmmianus and Caesar,34 carefully examined the narrative techniques employed by those two ancient historians and their means of expressing causality, all while situating their approaches in relation to Keegan’s Face of Battle, as well as other psychological and sociological theories.35 Kagan’s book forces us to think about the many ways that battle has been, and can be, studied, particularly in the context of interdisciplinary studies. Battles are notoriously complex and nonlinear events, and one observer, like Procopius, cannot expect to know all the central points, an issue which was alluded to (albeit indirectly) in the prologue above. To make sense of Procopius’ descriptions of combat we need to unpack his literary techniques and strategies, and the mental framework that underscored his military writing. How do we go about doing this? One fruitful approach to combat is the cultural approach. This approach rests on the premise that descriptions of combat reflect culture.36 A general definition of culture is “the values, norms, and assumptions that guide human action. Culture enables choicesto be made by predisposing people to interpret situations in a limited number of ways.”37 This is the approach adopted in this book, and the impetusforthis decision comesfroma thought-provoking paper, “The Rhetoric of Combat”, by Ted Lendon in which he makes the following salient points: What is described in a battle description depends on unconscious cultural and conscious intellectual decisions about what it is important to describe…the way ancient authors describe the details of battle can tell us about the mental rigging of the societies in which they lived… Understanding the mechanics of battle in ancient authors also offers a corrective to traditional methods of reconstructing ancient battles… ancient authors have their own conventions with which to accord: not merely obvious large-scale stylistic models like the invented paired harangues with which some classical historians adorn their battles, but deep-seated inherited convictions about what factors were decisive in battle, what details ought to be related, and how the narrative of events should be structured…study of ancient conventions may…offer insight into ancient realities which the arrogant imposition of modern convention hides…38 Lendon’s views are fundamentalto thisreading of Procopiancombat. Following Lendon, in order to properly evaluate Procopius as a military historian we must be cognizant of how he understands battle, not whether his descriptions fit our understanding.39Of course, it is notsimply a matter of looking at battles on their own, but also in the context of the respective sections of the text in which they are found. Indeed, Cameron noted some time ago the importance of intratextual context in her pioneering study of Procopius.40 A cultural approach to combat in Procopius also has the potential to raise important questions about Procopius’ place in the wider discourse of war in the age of Justinian. John Lynn’s 2003 book, Battle: a History of Combat and Culture, provides a synthesis of the role of preconceptions and values in shaping the course of combat. As a whole, Lynn’s book is light on theory, though at the end he provides an exposition of his model, which has two parts: the discourse of war, which includes the “preconceptions, values, ideals, and so forth concerning conflict…war as it is supposed to be, as imagined”, and the reality of war, “the objective facts of conflict”.41 This is a book about the former, the discourse of war in the Age of Justinian, and in particular as evidenced in the Wars of Procopius, with a special emphasis on combat. With that said, Procopius’ discourse of combat is built upon the reality of combat: what he described were real events. Indeed, while in some ways the analysis offered here is a literary one, an important underlying assumption is the veracity of Procopius’ accounts. We need, then, to say a fewwords aboutwhatwe mean by a literary analysis, and how, if at all, this impinges on the truthfulness of Procopius’ Wars. 3 History as Literature What does a literary reading of Procopian combat entail? The “literary turn” captured the attention of classicists studying historiography several decades ago;42 however, there has been less willingness to apply literary readings to works of late antique and Byzantine historiography. Positivist approaches to ancient and Byzantine historiography persist,43 even though scholars have demonstrated an interest in the literary character of historiography for some time.44 They are now commonplace amongst classical scholars,45 and by their very nature the late antique and Byzantine histories lend themselves to these sorts of approaches. Nearly twenty years ago Jakov Ljubarskij,46 in a special section of volume 73 of Symbolae Osloenses, pointed out the lack of applications of modern critical and literary theory to Byzantine texts, including histories. Amongst otherthings, Ljubarskij felt that the claim of some narrative theorists that “the author is dead” (essentially the author is irrelevant to the text itself) was particularly applicable to Byzantine texts because in most cases, for all intents and purposes, the author was dead in that we know next to nothing about their background, life, and the specific context in which they wrote. Ljubarskij’s arguments bear consideration, and indeed we will, in part, undertake a literary reading of Procopian combat, for aspects of literary theory will inform the analysis of the narrative structure of Procopius’ descriptions of combat.47 Literary approaches to descriptions of combat in works of fiction have been adopted before, with Rossi’s analysis of Virgilian battle narrative a case in point. She discussed the textual relationship between Greek and Latin epic narrative and historiography.48 There is, then, a modern precedent for analysing the literary factors in descriptions of combat. There are additional reasons for engaging with literary theory when analysing ancient narrative constructions of combat, precedent (Rossi) aside. The ancient historians themselves had a penchant for writing what we might call literary histories. Clark, for instance, says: “The ancients…saw history as a species of literature – a claim that makes ancient history-writing readily amenable to aspects of recent literary critique”.49 Indeed, we even have a late antique exposition of this view. Though Eunapius’ History survives only in fragments, one of those deals specifically with methodological issues, and his comments have some bearing on modern concerns with the value of utilizing literary theory. In fragment one Eunapius summarizes Dexippus’ arrangement of his History. Early on he hints at the relationship between history and rhetoric, noting that Dexippus avoids earlier poetic material and instead uses those later writers who are more likely to persuade the readers about what happened (ἀναπείθοντι τὸν ἐντυγχάνοντα).50 Dexippus had filled his preface with beauty (κάλλους),51 and arranged it by Olympiads(ὀλυμπιάδας)52 – he had also made it clear and produced evidence of unhistorical factsreported by his predecessors (ἔνδηλος ὢν καὶ σχεδόν τι μαρτυρόμενος ὅτι τῶν ἀπιστουμένων ἕκαστον ἕτερος προλαβὼν εἴρηκεν).53 Dexippus’ sources were many and varied, the narrative was coherent, the language suitable, and it focused on mattersthat mostwould considerrelevant(πάντα δέ,ὅσαπρός τε τὸ κοινὸν ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων ἀξιόλογα),54 or so Eunapius. After the summary, Eunapius turns to a detailed discussion of the perils of too great an emphasis on chronological specificity,55 before setting out his practice in his own work. To engage his audience and after consultation with his peers, he has concluded that absolute precision (dating by seasons, for example) is disruptive (he opts for imperial reigns), with the implication being that it hinders the narrative’s arrangement.56 What does this overview of the views of Eunapius suggest about the use of theory in the study of ancient historiography? For an historian like Eunapius – who was himself one part of a long and esteemed tradition – three things were paramount in the writing of history: narrative structure, audience expectations, and the presentation of facts. Thus, although their language differed from ours, ancient historians often engaged with some of the same sorts of concerns as literary theorists, and in particular those interested in narratology, reader response criticism, and contextualist theories, all without ignoring that fundamental aspect of modern history, adherence to the truth. This is not the place for a detailed overview of those three theoretical frameworks, though some words of introduction would be of some value. The first theoretical approach to discuss is narratology,57 “the general principles underlying narrative texts”.58 Narratologists are concerned with narratives, and the structure of narratives, of all sorts of texts and media, and they do so from a host of positions and using a dizzying array of terms. It is the interest in narrative structure that is mostrelevant to thisstudy, and in particular those theorists who have focused on perspective (focalization) and the narrative time of a discourse (analepses and prolepses). Focalization essentially refers to the perspective in a text. Internal focalization refers to the perspective of a figure involved in the text, while external focalization refers to a bird’s eye perspective, that of an omniscient narrator. The difference between primary and secondary focalization is one of relative position, with a primary focalizer being the more important figure to the text. An analepsis is, for all intents and purposes, a flashback, while a prolepsis is a flashforward. A significant part of this book is devoted to how Procopius shaped his narratives, and so it is no surprise that the narratological interest in perspective and narrative time will be of considerable value to this study. Part of narratology is deciding what order authors present things (linearization59), discussing, amongst other things, whether there will be chronological deviation,60 and the degree to which an author alternates between abstraction and vividness.61 Given that battles might be considered as smaller narrative episodes, the employment of a number of narratological tenets makes sense. Bearing these points in mind, throughout the book the terms focalization and analepsis/prolepsis will be deployed as relevant. The next theoretical approach is reader-response criticism.62 As its name implies, reader-response critics are concerned with a reader’s experience of a text, and how they create meaning. There are two facets of reader-response criticism that are most relevant here. The first is the implied reader, the reader that a work requires. The second aspect is the “horizon of expectations”, “the objectifiable system of expectations that arises for each work in the historical moment of its appearance, from a pre-understanding of the genre, from the form and themes of already familiar works, and from the opposition between poetic and practical language”.63 Another contention of my reading of combat in the Wars is that our implied author Procopius shaped his narrative for a particular group of readers, that is Procopius wrote the words with the language and expectations of his sixth century audience in mind.
One problem with the aforementioned theory of narratology is that its practitioners sometimes have a tendency to analyse a text in isolation, that is independent of its “discoursive, rhetorical, social, and political context”.64 Indeed, Marincola has argued that form and content cannot be separated from context,65 and Bal has noted that the relationship between text and reality contributes significantly to a text’s meaning.66 It is, in part, because of these criticisms that the final theoretical approach considered here is that of contextualists, or New Historicists.67 New Historicism emphasizes the contextualization of texts.68 For its adherents, texts do not originate in an historical vacuum. Rather, texts are produced in certain historical and social situations, and knowledge of that era will not hinder interpretation, as narratologists, for example, have sometimes alleged.Momigliano argued long ago that knowledge of the context is fundamental to the appreciation of an ancient historian.69 The importance of contextualizing a text is the facet of New Historicism that is most appropriate for this book, and one which, admittedly, has already been a part of the study of many pre-modern texts for some time.70 On the other hand, one tenet that has little bearing here is the desire of New Historicists not to privilege high literature. Procopius’ Wars is, of course, a piece of high literature; its very language (Atticizing Greek), if nothing else, makes it so. With that said, it is hard to imagine another text (a chronicle or a saint’s life, for example) being asimportant asthe Warsisfor a study of sixth centurywarfare. Following on from reader-response criticism then, it should go without saying that an awareness of, and appreciation for, context is essential to this reading of Procopius. Thus, while we will be looking closely at Procopius’ descriptions of combat, we will also touch on context (intellectual, classical, and more recent sixth century) as is fitting. These three theoretical approaches, narratology, reader-response criticism, and New Historicism, will inform the reading of Procopius’ descriptions of combat offered here. Thus, as unusual as the adoption of literary theory is in a book on a late antique/early Byzantine historian mightseem, itshould be clear too that Eunapius had anticipated the majority of those theoretical tenets outlined above by some fifteen hundred years. Before we turn to the methodology of this book, one aspect of the literary approach to histories still bears consideration. In the next section, then, we discuss the role of truth in history, as well as the rhetorical trappings of Procopius and late antique historiography in general. 4 Rhetoric and Truth in Procopius’ Wars Many theoretical discussions of ancient historiography inevitably turn to the role of rhetoric and veracity in such accounts.71 Indeed, a fundamental part of the literary turn in its application to historiography has been an awareness of the impact of rhetoric and the use of topoi. The set-pattern of literary descriptions of battle were set quite long ago,72 with Diodorus of Sicily perhaps representing the culmination of a developing set of battle topoi.73 We have at least one good example of a battle in a late antique work that bears the apparent hallmarks of these rhetorical topoi, namely Evagrius’ Ecclesiastical History. Therein we find the Battle of Melitene, the historicity of which some have questioned.74 It is easy to see why, for Evagrius remarks: Now when he [Khusro] saw opposite him the Roman army, which was organized by Justinian, the brother of the Justin who had been miserably slain by Justin, meticulously equipped, the trumpets resounding the war cry, the standards raised for battle, the soldiery bent on slaughter and breathing rage though combined with exceptional good order, and cavalry of such numbers and quality as no monarch ever dreamed, with many appeals to the gods he groaned deeply at the unexpected and unforeseen event, and was unwilling to begin battle.75 Comments like “trumpets sounding”, “soldiers bent on slaughter”, and “of such numbers and quality as no monarch ever dreamed”, among others, highlight the artificial nature of the description, and make it easy to understand why the historicity of aspects of this battle have been doubted. Diodorus Siculus, the late first century BC historian, has also been criticized for his reliance on rhetorical literary motifs and stereotypes.76 What about Procopius? The importance of rhetoric in medieval Byzantium has long been recognized.77 The same is largely true for ancient historiography, following from the work of Wiseman,78 and later Woodman.79 Indeed, it is safe to assume that historiography was a branch of rhetoric in the ancient world.80 What is more, there is a broad consensus that rhetoric had an important role not only in ancient and Medieval Greek society, but also in literary composition. Despite a curtailing in freedom of speech, at least in relation to classical Athens and Republican Rome, orations, whether public or private, were still quite common in late antiquity,81 and though rhetoric’s greatest impact was probably felt in the realm of literature,82 its importance in late antique society at large should not be overlooked.83 In sum rhetoric was important, and many have read not only Procopius, but also the works of ancient historians, as shaped by rhetoric.84 Indeed, by the thirteenth century Procopius was considered by some Byzantine authors, such as Joseph Rhkendytes, as a model of rhetoric, a point worth bearing in mind.85 What do the rhetoricians say of relevance to Procopius? For one thing, Procopius undoubtedly had a rhetorical education – more on this in chapter one below – which would have entailed the close study of the progymnasmata. Some of the authors those progymnasmata favoured included Thucydides, an historian of war and battle. What is more, rhetoricians tended to focus on the visual and oral in their work, such as the handbooks of rhetorical exercises, the progymnasmata. The relevant part of those progymnasmata for our purposes is the ekphrasis. For Aelius Theon, Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus, the definition of an ekphrasis is bringing what is shown before the eyes.86OnlyAeliusTheon and Pseudo-Hermogenes give usthe virtues of an ekphrasis,with both conceding that they are clarity and vividness.87 There is, however, broad agreement over what sorts of things constitute an ekphrasis. Indeed, the list of types of things that could be described was quite extensive, with the general categories being events, persons, places, and things. Most significant for us is that many rhetoriciansinclude war, battle, and the construction of siege engines, ships, and weapons of war as suitable subject matter for an ekphrasis,88 and it is the inclusion of battles among possible ekphrases that has probably led some to denigrate ancient descriptions of battle.89 What exactly do the rhetoricians suggest an orator or historian include in a description of a war or battle? While discussing the education of the young, Aelius Theon simply refers to Thucydides’ descriptions of the siege of Plataea, and various cavalry skirmishes and naval battles, without identifying them.90 When he turns to the subject of ekphrasis he again singles out the Plataean siege, as well as the making of Achilles’ arms from Homer, and the preparation of a siege engine fromThucydides.91 Aelius Theon alone singles out the siege of Plataea, while the night battles at Syrcacuse are mentioned by Aelius Theon, Pseudo-Hermogenes, and Aphthonius alike, as examples of an ekphrasis.92 When it comes to specifics, Aelius Theon says: “in an ekphrasis of war we shall first recount events before the war: the raising of armies, expenditures, fears, the countryside devastated, the sieges; then describe the wounds and the deaths and the grief, and in addition the capture and enslavement of some and the victory and trophies of the others”.93 Pseudo-Hermogenes gives a similar account,94 as does Libanius, who provides even more detail – though his account isstill a generic one, at best.95If there is one thing that the progymnasmata have in common, it is that Thucydides serves as an exemplary model for describing battle, and sieges in particular are highlighted.96 What these rhetoricians do not do, however, is give much detail about what exactly it is about Thucydides’ descriptions of combat that are so exemplary. Aelius Theon and Pseudo-Hermogenes may both give an outline of what is to be included in war and battle, but that is all it is: an outline. They provide the foundation for a description of a battle or siege, and it is then incumbent upon the historian to fill in the pieces to suit the historical circumstances. This goes some way towards explaining why authors who would have had similar educations, such as Ammianus, Procopius, and Agathias, could go out and produce such different descriptions of combat.97 Ultimately, in the course of his education, the ekphrases of progymnasmata provided Procopius with a framework, which he could then develop to suit his particular needs. Ekphrases aside, the style that Procopius adopts overall would make many a rhetorician happy. This should not surprise. For instance, style is a particular concern of the rhetoricians, and in that regard, Aelius Theon, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus lay out a narrative’s characteristics. For Aelius Theon the three most important characteristics of a narrative are clarity, conciseness, and credibility. Aphthonius says that the most important characteristics of a narrative are clarity, brevity, persuasiveness, and, interestingly, what he calls Hellenism (ἑλληνισμός).98 On the other hand Nicolaus gives five, brevity, clarity, persuasiveness, charm, and grandeur, with, like Aphthonius, Hellenism (ἑλληνισμός) tacked on to the end.99 As we will see, Procopius’ descriptions avoid excessive technicality and are not overly verbose, unlike those of hissuccessors Agathias and Theophylact.100 Rather, they are comparatively concise, clear, and from an ancient perspective, credible. In short, Procopius’ Wars has just the sort of character thatwould make it appeal to a rhetorician, and the broader audience that they command.
The impact of rhetoric on descriptions of combat is best seen in the style of the battles themselves, rather than the veracity of the accounts. This is an important point. Procopius’ descriptions would please both ancient historians and rhetoricians alike. With this in mind, it remains to discuss Procopius’ position on truth in history writing. Probably the most famous pair of linesfrom the 1992 movie A Few Good Men come from Tom Cruise’s character Kaffee, and Jack Nicholson’s character, Jessep. In the middle of a heated round of questioning in the courtroom Kaffee shouts at Jessep, “I want the truth!”, to which Jessep replies, “You can’t handle the truth!”. This foray into pop culture serves to highlight one of the most important debates with respect to ancient historiography: adherence to the truth.101 Ever since the literary turn in classics made its mark on ancient historiography and scholarsstarted to pay attention to the impact of rhetoric on the writing of history, debate has raged about the degree to which the practices of ancient historians meshed with those of modern historians. Before the turn, we had wanted the truth, and we usually assumed that they – and historians – did too, a view perhaps best encapsulated by Ranke. With the insight of literary theory, however, whereas we still usually argued that we (practising historians) were to be shorn of bias and to present things precisely while adhering to the truth,102 some scholars argued that the practice of ancient historians was something else entirely, and the mendacity of these rhetorically minded writers was highlighted instead.103 Rather, ancient historians frequently engaged in inventio,104 a practice thatseemsto undermine suggestions that the ancient historians always strove for truth in their writing.105 Although this is not a book about the reality of warfare per se and we will not engage in Quellenforschung, since the relationship between rhetoric and reality has attracted a lot of attention it is incumbent to make a few points about Procopius’ “concept of truth”.106 The basic question to address, then, is are the literary qualities of Procopius’ descriptions of combat at odds with the reality as we know it? As it happens they are not, and a quick look at the historiographical tradition will bear this out. Despite claims to the contrary, an historical work must describe things “as they happened”.107 This conviction isfound among both classical and classicizing historians from Herodotus to Theophylact Simocatta.108 Thucydides, Dionysius, Josephus, Plutarch, Lucian, Herodian and Eunapius all stress the importance of truth in works of history. Some historians, however, are a little less than straightforward in regard to the status of “truth” in their accounts. Herodotus, for one, is a bit more liberal in his presentation of “factual” and “fictional” evidence.109 Polybius, on the other hand, put truth on a pedestal: in his vehement attacks on his predecessors and contemporaries he refers over and over to the importance of truth in history. In fact, he goes so far as to say that historywithout truth is nothing.110 Procopius proclaimed his adherence to this philosophy in the Wars.111 In the preface he says that “he [Procopius] believed that while cleverness was appropriate for rhetoric, story-making was appropriate for poetry, and truth for history”.112 Thucydides had stated in his preface that his work was devoid of myth making,113 a jab at the perceived character of Herodotus’ Histories,114 and Procopius here seems to be situating himself within that discussion, and seemingly on the side of Thucydides. Procopius also claims that he has not covered up any of the failings of his acquaintances – an allusion to Belisarius. This alleged full disclosure is a significant one: the Wars is not simply a tract on the greatness of Belisarius.115 As we have seen in the prologue on Callinicum, Procopius did not aim to falsify his accounts; rather he chose different points to emphasize from the other historians, as was his prerogative. Rhetoric influenced Procopius’ writing, much as it had Graeco-Roman historians for generations. With that said, the influence of rhetoric should not be equated with a propensity to invent or falsify the truth; as an historian, truth was fundamental to Procopius’ project, at least the Wars. Thus, regardless of how Procopius went about describing and explaining combat, the material that hewasworkingwithwasfactual.116 That is, the facts underline his descriptions, andwhatwe are concernedwithhere ishowhepresentedandinterpreted them: no assumption is made that he wilfully created fictional episodes.
5 Methodology
The ultimate goals of this book are threefold: to test the notion, with a view to disproving it, that Procopius’ descriptions of combat are, by and large, generic; to set out and explain Procopius’ grammar of combat; to situate his descriptions, and the preconceptions, values, and ideals that they reveal into their proper sixth century context. Therefore, though the primary emphasis of this book is a close reading of Procopius’ descriptions of combat, it also intends to ask where Procopius’ work fits in relationship to competing sixth century discourses, of which there are a number.One need only think of the sixth century’s secular and ecclesiastical histories, the chronicles and chronographs, and the epic poetry and monuments. Many of these discuss war and combat too: was Procopius’ approach so different from theirs?
By focusing on those aforementioned goals, this book seeks to move late antique military history forward, by advancing a cultural history of combat in Procopius’ Wars.117 In the process, we will uncover how Procopius has handled two “fundamental questions about history: how do we explain the past (what is our theory of causation); and how do we understand the past (what is our theory of access to historical mentalities)”.118 In addition to addressing those questions, we intend to look at some related ones, such as: what influence do individuals have on combat in Procopius? Along the same lines, what role do humans play in combat? Can a battle’s participants, from the frontline soldiers to the generals, influence a battle’s outcome, or are they ultimately at thewhim of fate, or God, or even technology? Getting back to the importance of didacticism, much military history, ancient, medieval, and modern, aims to set forth principles of generalship for would-be leaders.119 Does Procopius take an awareness of the influence of individualsin combat a step further and set forth any principles of generalship, at least as he sawthem?In looking closely at how Procopius describes, explains, and understands combat can we uncover something of the social structures and cultural beliefs that influenced his narration, explanation, and understanding? Taking a close look at Procopius’ descriptions should help shed some light on all of these questions. As stressed above, Procopius must be understood in his context.120 We are trying to uncover the assumptions, theories, and models that underscore Procopius’ descriptions of combat to try to reveal his sixth century military mind, and to accomplish this we need to be cognizant of the social and cultural factors that influenced his writing. For this purpose, then, evaluating Procopius’ descriptions of combat in terms of the factors modern scholars feel are important to success in battle would obscure the factors specific to Procopius and his age. What factors, then, will we focus on?
6 Three Facets of Ancient Accounts of Combat: Description, Explanation, and Military Leadership Inour analysisof Procopius’descriptionsof combat,besides keepingProcopius’ didactic aims in mind throughout, we will concentrate on three aspects that are fundamental to ancient descriptions of combat. They are as follows: the varied, and often literary, character of the descriptions of their component parts, from the generals’ exhortations to the narrative pace and heroic characterization; the variety of explanations employed to explain combat, from the tactical manoeuvrings to the hand of God in the siege of Antioch; the pivotal role played by leading generals, and the many different ways that they can effect victory (or defeat). The methodology employed here has been influenced bywidertrendsinancient historiographicalthinking aboutthe character and mechanics of ancient battle. a Describing Combat in Antiquity A number of ancient theorists discussed the narrative features of historiography. From the point of view of these ancient critics, “the impact of the text” on the readers’ senses was more important than the subject matter discussed therein.121 Three of the most important to this discussion include Lucian, Dionysius, and Plutarch,122 all of whom delved into the intricacies of writing history and describing battle. The satirist Lucian offers one of the most perceptive of ancient analyses of the writing of history in his How to Write History.123 His aims are neatly outlined in the following passage: So first let us say what the writer of history has to avoid, from what contaminations he must in particular be free; then what means he must use in order not to lose the rightroad that carries him straight ahead – I mean how to begin, how to arrange his material, the proper proportions for each part, what to leave out, what to develop, what it is better to handle cursorily, and how to put the facts into words and fit them together.124
What Lucian describes above is a carefully arranged story: not everything can be covered, and it is up to the historian to choose what to keep and what to purge. With respect to describing battle, it is more than just experience and knowledge of military affairs that matters, for clarity of expression is important too:125“let his mind have a touch and share of poetry,since that too islofty and sublime, especially when he hasto do with battle arrays, with land and sea fights; for then he will have need of a wind of poetry to fill his sails and help carry his ship along, high on the crest of the waves.”126 Lucian gets more explicit later when he notes that not only must a history be carefully arranged, written by an experienced person, useful, and truthful: it must also be entertaining. Lucian provides an example in chapter 49. For Lucian one need not stick to a strict chronological framework: it should be attempted in an historical narrative, but, if there is some contemporaneous action taking place elsewhere, the historian could switch locations if needed. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a critic of Thucydides, believed that Thucydides’ battles shared many of the same features of the narrative at large: “His treatment of land-battles is similar, being either unnecessarily extended or excessively condensed.”127 Thucydides, however, is not entirely to blame, for with respect to the sea battle between the Athenians and Syracusans at 7.69.4– 72.1 Dionysius says: “this and narratives like it seemed to me admirable and worthy of imitation, and I was convinced that in such passages as these we have perfect examples of the historian’s sublime eloquence, the beauty of his language, hisrhetorical brilliance and his other virtues.”128 Dionysius’ principal interest was Thucydides’ “powers of expression”:129 the primary concern is the reader’s satisfaction. For, if that reader gets lost, then the historian, such as Thucydides, has failed.130 Drama and emotion131 represent two of the most important elements of an historical narrative, and can often be evoked through the arrangement of the narrative itself. For example, in his letter to Gnaeus Pompeius where he lays out the five most important tasks of an historian, Dionysius puts considerable stress on the construction of the narrative. The second of those tasks is to pick an appropriate place to begin and end the narrative; the third is to determine whatmaterialto include andwhatmaterialto omit; and the fourth isto arrange the material properly and to put each point in its proper place. In fact, it is significant deficiencies in some of these areas that led Dionysius to censure Thucydides;132 he was not the only ancient or Byzantine critic to highlight Thucydides’ arrangement.133 Plutarch, in his On the Malice of Herodotus, stresses some of the same issues. He allows that some omission is permissible, so as long as nothing that deserves a place is left out. According to Plutarch, Herodotus seems to have gotten this wrong, when he describes him as “omitting the good and failing to omit the bad”.134 Lucian’s discussion is per haps the most colourful, for he likens an historian to a sculptor,135 such as Praxiteles, whose job it is to take the medium, which in this case is “the facts”, and “glue” them together, “polish” them, and “align” them.136 But, this is not to belittle the task for he says: “as to the facts themselves, he should not assemble thematrandom,butonlyaftermuchlaboriousandpainstakinginvestigation”.137 Even Polybius, that alleged bastion of historicity,138 acknowledges that more goes into history than mere reporting of the facts,139 for he condemns Phylarchus because “in general this author reports many thingsthroughout his whole work without plan or purpose and seemingly at random.”140 Accordingly, it is not enough for an historian to report the truth as he saw it in his narrative; he must also assemble the facts in a meaningful way, paying particular attention to the construction and shape of the entire narrative, and all in the name of reader (or listener) satisfaction and edification. Given the widespread currency of these views amongst classical history theorists, and the number of features which Procopius’ Wars shares with classical history, we need to consider these factors in Procopius’ own descriptions.
b Explaining Combat in Antiquity
Describing combat is only one of the military historian’s primary duties. A good, competent, military historian must also explain. This is one of the primary criticisms lodged at Procopius – his explanations are facile, and his classicizing tendencies undermine his attempts at analysis.141 Ancient historians usually identified two primary factors that determined a battle’s outcome: tactics142 and morale. The two factors make up the poles of the Greek military theory spectrum.143 While discussing the organization of the primary group (the deme levy) of the (Athenian) phalanx in his book on Athenian hoplite psychology, Jason Crowley concentrates on the importance of eutaxia, “good order”, to contemporary (5th and 4th century) commentators.144 Victory in fifth and fourth century (BC) hoplite battle hinged, in no small part, on the ability of the phalanx to maintain its order;145 moreover,without that orderthe phalanx and its hoplites were all but useless in battle, or so Aristotle suggested.146 A number of Thucydides’ accounts of Athenian defeatsin Sicily reinforce Aristotle’s aphorism.147 The nature of classical hoplite combat practically demanded an emphasis on good order, which itself came to be identified with tactics. Polybius, for instance, stands as one of the most ardent proponents of the tactical approach to descriptions of combat.148 Indeed, Polybius is most rancorous when Callisthenes is describing the formation of Darius’ or Alexander’ armies and their employment. He is not concerned with what points to emphasize in the narrative, or necessarily their chronological order, but rather whether his military discussion describes military mattersin a mannerthat accordswith Polybius’ understanding of them.Thisiswhy,for example, when Polybius criticizes the alleged emplacement of the troops in front of the phalanx with the river so close and the troop numbers so high, he adds the following statement: “For to be really useful cavalry should be at the most eight deep, and between each unit there must be a space equal in length to the front of a unit so that there may be no difficulty in wheeling and facing around.”149
We also see Polybius’ interest in tacticswhen he comparesthe Roman legion with the Macedonian phalanx in the battle of Mantinea that follows.150 Polybius attributes the Romans’ string of successes against the Macedonians, who had been very successful in Asia and Greece, to their superior battleorder.151 In the discussion itself, Polybius notes that in ideal conditions the phalanx is unstoppable, that is in frontal assaults.152 One of the principal conclusions which Polybius draws from his comparison is tied to his belief that it is imperative for a general to be well prepared: the phalanx is only really useful under certain fixed conditions, and since Polybius knows that anything is possible while on campaign, it is the legion’s adaptability that makes it so effective.153 When Polybiusturnsto the battle itself, it isthe tactical advantage, which the Romans enjoy, that determinesthe outcome.154 Tacticsrule the field of battle, and it is up to thewell-prepared general to determinewhich onessuit the occasion. Where Polybius lands on the tactical side of the Greek military theory spectrum, Xenophon generally lands on the other side: morale. Xenophon155 ardently emphasizesthe importance of morale in combat, and thisis expressed clearly inhisCyropaedia.156Inthemidst of Cyrus’ chatwith hisfatherCambyses Cyrus says: …you finally asked mewhat in theworld he had been teaching me that he professed to have been teaching me generalship. And thereupon I answered, ‘tactics.’ And you laughed and went through it all, explaining point by point, as you asked of what conceivable use tactics could be to an army, without provisions and health, and of what use it could be withoutthe knowledge of the artsinvented forwarfare andwithout obedience [Xen. Cyr. 1.6.14, trans. Miller]. Xenophon here makes the case that tactics represent only one small part of generalship; morale is also of considerable importance. Much later, after discussion of the value of the hunt and the use of deception to catch small game (Xen. Cyr. 1.6.39–40),157 Cambyses finally turns to battle itself and highlights morale again.158 For Xenophon the outcome of a battle ultimately rests on the general’sshoulders. Once the battle begins, however, the morale of the soldiers plays the decisive role; even if a tactical formation fails, a boost in morale can snatch victory from defeat.159 Besides the importance of tactics and morale, it is worth emphasizing the Christian context within which Procopius was writing. Many late antique historians were heavily influenced by the role of the divine in historical causation.160 War is some remove from the affairs of the church,161 as Blockley and others have noted.162 Nevertheless, secular activities play a significant role in some ecclesiastical histories, and battles do, on occasion, attract attention, particularly when they shed light on the piety of the victors.163 To give but three examples, Theodoret, Socrates, and Sozomen describe combat atsome stage or other,164 even if these descriptions are often confined to the latter books and chapters of their histories, the parts of theirworkswhere theywrite about their own times. Rather unsurprisingly for these three, where war and battle do feature God is often not far behind.165 Ecclesiastical historians do sometimes demonstrate familiarity with military matters; Evagrius even drew on Procopius in his account.166 Theodoret betrays an awareness of technical matters; when describing the siege of Nisibis in 350, he refersto “helepoleis” and saysthat“many other engineswere advanced to the walls”.167 He also understands some of the realities of warfare for he chastises Julian for failing to provide for the army while on their disastrous eastern expedition in 363.168 Later the narrative shifts away from technical to psychological matters as Theodoret describes the efforts of the bishop to embolden the soldiers and citizens.169 In other places a Christian element underscores Theodoret’s military discussions: in the Persian siege of Theodosiopolis in 421/422 a bishop saves the city from disaster where the military had failed.170 There are also a few places where we find God rousing an army on to war: God is said to have roused the Goths against Valentinian I because of his impiety.171 Though unfamiliar with the technicalities of warfare, Socrates recognizes the role that psychology plays in combat. Not surprisingly, however, he adds a Christian twist: “When the emperor [Theodosius] saw the barbarians [allies] perishing, he cast himself in great agony upon the ground, and invoked the help of God in this emergency”.172 There are other interesting characteristics of his descriptions; as a result of Theodosius’ prayers, one of his officers, a Bacurius, charges some pressed barbarians and breaks through their ranks. Accordingly, the rebellious forces of Eugenius turn and flee. This bold charge, which comes in his account of the Battle of the Frigidus,173 is soon followed by the somewhat familiar ascription of an “act of God” to the course of a battle:174
Another marvellous circumstance also occurred. A violent wind suddenly arose,which retorted upon themselvesthe darts cast by the soldiers of Eugenius, and at the same time drove those hurled by the imperial forces with increased impetus against their adversaries. So prevalent was the emperor’s prayer [HE 5.25, trans. Zenos]. Sozomen too had understood the exigencies of military campaigns; in book six of his Ecclesiastical History he discusses a number of the problems that arose as a result of Julian’s poor preparation for the invasion of the Persian Empire. Much of book six concentrates on the Gothic wars of the late 370s and so we find details about battle. But, it isin book nine – a book that marks a significant shift in emphasis in the work as a whole with its increased focus on political affairs – that we find the greatest concentration of military narratives. In the siege of Rome in 410 Sozomen notes the suffering that it caused, and attributes it to the wrath of God, “for their luxury, their debauchery, and their manifold acts of injustice towards each other, as well as towards strangers”.175 This is the only place where he testifiesto divine retribution, and here he refersto the suffering of the citizens. In the end, amongst chroniclers and ecclesiastical historians we do find emphases on God in the context of certain military encounters, though not as often as we might expect. This does not mean that they are non-Christians. Rather, this mixing of divine causation with human agency points towards the melding of Christian history and secular history that, perhaps, reachesits peak with Theophylact Simocatta. Tactics and morale, then, were important factors in determining – and explaining – a battle’s outcome. In late antiquity,so toowasthe role of God and his Christian agents, especially in the context of siege warfare.176 We will have recourse to explore the impact of all of these aspects on Procopius’ descriptions of combat in the pages that follow.
c Generalship and the Role of the Individual
in Ancient Histories In his penetrating study of Procopius, Evans argued that Procopius saw victory in terms of leadership, an idea worth exploring further.177 Indeed, the general is a central figure in much sixth century military thought.178 Most ancient historians emphasize the importance of the individual, and some to the point where the work is very much the history of one man. Indeed, the individual had long been a big part of Greek literature and society: great individuals, historical and otherwise, such as Achilles, Odysseus, Alcibiades, and Brasidas had enraptured ancientwriters centuries earlier.179 Xenophon’s Anabasis isfocused on the escape from Persia of a group of Greek mercenaries, though Xenophon himself is central.180 Arrian was undoubtedly influenced by Xenophon’s work when he sat down to write his own Anabasis. But, whereas Xenophon does not explicitly base his narrative on his own achievements, Arrian centres his work on Alexander the Great; it is not simply the Anabasis, but the Anabasis of Alexander.181 In his letter to Lucceius Cicero does not explicitly claim that an historical work should be focused on one man, though he does note that the history of a particular period can be made more interesting by focusing on an individual: “Which of us is not affected pleasurably, along with a sentiment of compassion, atthe storyof thedyingEpaminondasonthe fieldof Mantinea?”182 A little later Cicero adds: “But in the doubtful and various fortunes of an outstanding individual we often find surprise and suspense, joy and distress, hope and fear; and if they are rounded off by a notable conclusion, our minds as we read are filled with the liveliest gratification.”183 Cicero is trying to persuade Lucceiusthat hisforthcoming history of the period can be made more interesting by focusing on the changes in his own circumstances (Cicero’s). The individual has an important role to play, particularly in terms of historical causation, for it is often the choices of one man that determine what will follow. Procopius’ readers have recognized his interest in great individuals such as Belisarius for some time. Rubin, Cameron and Pazdernik, among others, have all recognized the central place which Belisarius occupies in the narrative.184 Even before modern scholars delved into the Wars, ancient and medieval authors recognized the dominance Belisarius had over the action. Although we cannot say whether Syrianus ever read the Wars, he does refer to some of Belisarius’ actions: “That is what Belisarius used to do [attack detachments of the enemy broken up because of lack of supplies]. When the enemy force was so large that he was unable to face up to it, he would destroy the provisions in the area before they appeared”.185 Evagrius, one of the first authors to refer explicitly to the Wars, says the following: “Procopius the rhetor in composing his history concerning Belisarius”.186 The bishop Photius opens his overview of Procopiuswith thewords:“The history recountswhat happened to the Romans in the reign of Justinian against the Persians and the Vandals and Goths, and especiallywhat the general Belisarius did”.187 The Suda entry for Procopiussays something similar: “He wrote a Roman history, or rather the wars of the patrician Belisarius”.188 On the other hand, not only is Belisarius’ role in Procopius’ magnum opus recognized, so are his military accomplishments: the Wars of Procopius could be read as an extended essay on the generalship of Belisarius. Thus, inwhat follows, a great deal of the focuswill be on Belisarius, the leading character of the text and the “general” highlighted in this book’s title, with attention given to his characterization in relation to other significant persons in the Wars, such as Khusro and Totila, as well as his (Belisarius’) role as a model for, as Procopius says, those men (especially generals) who ever find themselves similarly stressed, whether in war or otherwise.189
Ultimately, those three facets of ancient writing on combat – their literary quality, the place of tactics and morale in their explanation, and the role of the individual are fundamental to this reading of Procopius’ descriptions of combat in addition to the didactic character of the Wars stressed earlier. As a result, this book has been structured, and the battles and sieges have been evaluated, in such away thatthese factors are emphasized above all else.Where Procopius goes beyond the aspects of those three criteria and instead emphasizes other, even related, factors, this will be noted. It should come as no surprise that in a work that was meant to instruct and which was filled with combat that Procopius put a great deal of thought in those descriptions into their literary quality so that his readers would keep reading, the explanations so that those readers would find them plausible, and generals so that his reader could imagine themselves in those situations.
7 Chapter Organization
These three key elements of historiographical thought, on the drama, emotion, and arrangement of a text, on the role of tactics and morale in explaining combat, and the role that a general plays in determining the outcome of much of the combat so described, have had a significant impact on my reading of Procopian combat, and in turn the shape of this book. Thus, chapters have been structured with a view to describing and explaining their influence on Procopius’ descriptions of combat. The book has six chapters. Procopius does not treat any of the major conflicts that he describes, the Persian War, the Vandal War, or the Gothic War, in a uniform way; as such, Procopius’ descriptions of combat are treated within the context of their respective war, and section of the text. The four core chapters of the book correspond to the four sections of the Wars, and in many ways each chapter builds on the discussion of the previous one, with the fifth marking something of a departure from two through four. Thus, chapter two is focused on the Persian Wars, three on the Vandal Wars, four on the Gothic Wars, and five on book eight. There are three aspects of Procopius’ descriptions of combat that will provide the subject matter for the four core chapters of this book: the literary character of Procopius’ descriptions, the explanations of combat that Procopius provides, and the role of generalship in his descriptions. The first chapter, “The Life of Procopius”, as its title implies, sets up the context, at least with respect to what we know about Procopius the author, and also provides some information for those less familiar with Procopius background. Topics include his life, family, and social background, his rhetorical and philosophical background, and his religious views. We also look at those issues that impinge more directly on his military writing, such as the breadth of Procopius’ reading, his service in the military, and his sources. The second chapter, “How to Defeat the Persians in Combat”, like the next two, has three core sections, and the focus is on combat in the Persian Wars. The first section provides a brief historical overview of the Persian Wars for those less familiar with the context. The first core section, and second section of the chapter, on describing combat, includes subsections with an emphasis on reader engagement and Procopius’ attempts at this early stage to keep his audience reading – the literary qualities of Procopius’ descriptions. Thus, topics discussed include the proto-battle and – siege, exhortations and foreshadowing, and some of the literary devices that Procopius employs to make his descriptions more readable. The third section, on explaining combat, focuses on the role of tactics, morale, and stratagems in explaining pitched battle, and the divine and morality in explaining siege warfare. The fourth section, on generalship, describes the role that the leading generals play in the Persian Wars,so setting the stage for the larger discussion of their rolesin combat in the Vandal and Gothic Wars. The third chapter, “How to Defeat the Vandals in Combat”, turns to the Vandal Wars, and the discussion is separated into the same four sections. In this case, and after the historical background section, the second on describing combat moves from reader engagement to the role of the narrator in shaping the narrative, with the discussion focused on narrative order, narrator interventions, numbers, names, and narratorial authority, and textual unity. In the third section, again on explaining combat, the emphasis on plunder and guerrilla warfare reflects the changing dynamic in the African theatre, as do the discussions on morale and military maxims. The fourth section, again on generalship, moves from the description of the generals’ roles in the Persian Wars to Procopius’ discussion of the reasonswhy Belisariuswasso successful against the Vandals, and again with an eye towards Procopius’ didactic aims in the Wars. Chapter four, “How to Defeat the Goths in Combat”, turns to the longest section of the Wars, the Gothic Wars, a part of the text that in some respects represents the culmination of the military concerns, at least those that pertain to combat, described by Procopius in the earlier parts of the text. The discussion reflects this feature of the Gothic Wars, and so the emphasis is on what I consider to be the particularly Procopian character of much of the combat contained therein. Thus, section two (following the background section), on describing combat, moves from reader engagement and narratorial guidance in the previous chapters to the epic character that pervades much of the combat described therein, from the abundance of graphic wounds and the existence of single combats, to the use of the term myriad to exaggerate the drama played out in the enfolding warfare. The third section, again on explaining combat, takesthe epic character of much of the Gothic Wars’ combat asthe basis for Procopius’ use of heroic displays and horse-archery to illuminate a significant portion of the warfare. The fourth section yet again turns to generalship. In keeping with the general theme of the chapter, here we explore heroic leadership, and the merits of the Achilles ethos versus that of the Odysseus ethos. It is here that Procopius’ thoughts on leadership in combat come to a head. The fifth chapter, “Book Eight”, on combat in book eight, marks something of a departure, for we abandon the sections of the previous three chapters, including the historical overview. Instead, we look at the characteristics of five engagements: the River Hippis, Senogallia, Busta Gallorum, Petra, and Archaeopolis. This format allows us to evaluate what Procopius thought were the most pertinent characteristics in describing and explain combat in the Persian Wars, Vandal Wars, and Gothic Wars; these are the ones that he would likely have reused when he sat down to update the Wars with book eight. The core of this book focuses on Procopius’ presentation of Justinianic era combat. The sixth, and final, chapter situates Procopius’ descriptions in the wider sixth century context, at least in terms of war writing and thinking: it is here that combat in the Warsissituated in the widersixth century discourse of war. The chapterincludes a discussion of his presumed audience. We then turn to what we can say about that audience’s values and interests in light of Procopius’ background, our reading of the descriptions, and the possible composition of the audience. As noted, chapters two, three, and four include very short historical surveys at the start for those a little less familiar with the broad outlines of the various wars covered by Procopius. Along the same lines, appendix one includes a brief overviewof all the battles and sieges discussed in this book. Itwillsupplement those historical surveys, and will point the reader towards some additional bibliography.
. 8 The Wider Applicability of Procopian Combat
Although offering first and foremost a cultural approach to reading and understanding Procopian combat, this book will also shed some light on Procopius’ practices as an historian. Scholars such as Cameron and Shaw are right to play up the rhetorical nature of Procopius’ descriptions of battle, for he is, of course, a rhetoricalwriter; however,such an appreciation does not justify dismissals of his accounts of combat. The variety of the descriptions and the depth of the explanations reveal an historian very much in control of his subject, points made clear once he is evaluated by military specific criteria appropriate to his age, an age for which history and rhetoric went hand-in-hand. Indeed, my study makes a considerable contribution to our understanding of the narrative practices of Procopius, and builds on the work of scholars such as Averil Cameron and Anthony Kaldellis, who have stressed literary aspects of the Wars. Despite the emphasis on the significance of my book for Procopius and late antique historiography, this is not to downplay the importance of studying battle narrative to our understanding of military history in the sixth century, forthis book also arguesthat literary texts,whether historical or poetic, can tell us much more about military matters than most scholars previously would have admitted.190 The cultural history of warfare is a subject that deserves greater attention, and the literary quality of Procopius’ descriptions of battle does not obviate their study; the same can be said both for other late antique authors such as Corippus and Agathias, as well as other media such as manuscript illustrations and silverware.191 A few years ago Geoffrey Greatrex noted: “it is clear that a new phase in Procopian studies has opened up”.192 My book aims to continue this trend by emphasizing further the need for sensitivity when reading the works of Procopius.
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