In this compact volume, Anthony Kaldellis and Marion Kruse present a new reconstruction of the command, organisation and strategic deployment of field armies in the east Roman empire from Julian to Heraclius. In particular, focusing on the titles, offices and forces of magistri militum, they reassess the evolution of five magistral commands, as classically delineated in the Notitia dignitatum (ND), comprising three regional armies in Oriens, Illyricum and Thrace, and two “praesental” armies stationed near Constantinople. Long-term prevailing opinion deems the ND a unitary imperial register drafted in the mid/late 390s, whose western half was unsystematically updated until c.425. Kaldellis and Kruse observe scholarly tendencies to privilege this enigmatic document and to impose its titulature, structures and administrative geography upon the whole period 395-630. In contrast, their reappraisal of other sources (historiography, laws, papyri, inscriptions) finds no conclusive evidence for this five-army scheme before the early 440s. They further argue that the central strategic reserve depicted in the ND endured barely fifty years, as shifting military priorities, from the late 480s/early 490s, required relocation of praesental units, a dispersive process intensified by Justinian’s overseas conquests. Accordingly, it becomes necessary to redate the eastern ND to the 440s, to revise fasti of magistri militum in standard reference works (PLRE and RE), and to re-evaluate east Roman armed forces, with political, fiscal and demographic implications.
Resolutely provocative in its revisionism, the book pronounces damning verdicts on prior scholarship: “a modern house of cards”, “trapped in a cul-de-sac”, “fossilized”. Some inertia within the proverbial “minefield” of the ND is undeniable, partly reflecting unwillingness to stray from paths marked out by A.H.M. Jones’ The Later Roman Empire (1964), but also a preference for narrower-focused, compartmentalised research. The contribution of Kaldellis and Kruse is not uniformly innovative. Most radical is the proposed origin of the five-army system in the 440s. Post-490s strategic dispersal is variously anticipated in earlier publications, but few are acknowledged in the minimalist bibliography. We should be clear about what Kaldellis and Kruse have done and not done. Their redating of the eastern ND depends specifically on their comprehensive reassessment of evidence for magistral titles/commands/armies, a relatively small and often ambiguous dataset, and not on a comprehensive reassessment of the contents of the eastern ND. Although Appendix 4 deflects potential objections raised in previous studies, those studies never imagined anyone would date the ND as late as the 440s and therefore did not consider this proposition. For example, Kaldellis and Kruse nowhere consider whether their redating of the ND is consistent with its listings of Danubian and oriental limitanei, if likewise, objectively evaluated against external evidence (including archaeology)—obviously a different and larger project. Eschewing broader textual issues, Kaldellis and Kruse leave to others the task of reconciling data in the western half of the ND with their redating of its eastern half to the 440s, an impossible compositional horizon for the western ND, unless it is mostly fictive. Whether or not they entirely avoid the pitfalls of their predecessors, Kaldellis and Kruse directly address interpretative questions regarding silences and variable visibility in the sources. Written with admirable clarity, the book is accessible to non-specialists, despite often technical content. Four narrative chapters and a conclusion are supported by prosopographical and chronological analysis in four substantial appendices.
Chapter 1 (covering 361-395) defines the main issue as distinguishing temporary regional commands, reflecting long-term institutional ad hocism, from Notitia-type, permanently constituted magistral offices with territorial circumscriptions. Rejecting a commonly inferred proliferation of magistri from the late 370s, Kaldellis and Kruse find explicit evidence only for a nascent magister militum per Orientem (from 393) and disallow ex silentio assumption of corresponding magistri for Illyricum and/or Thrace and both praesental commands. Detailed demonstration in Appendices 1-2 exposes some incaution in published fasti, but the main lesson is the slender foundations of all attempts to understand magistral offices, in any period. Kaldellis and Kruse understandably privilege the Codex Theodosianus (CTh) over non-technical nomenclature in historical and rhetorical sources, yet only seven (of the 374) surviving laws of Theodosius I (379-395) name eastern magistri, totalling five individuals in 16 years.[1] Generally, Kaldellis and Kruse find it easier to negate potential indications of magistral tenure or type than to reconstruct whatever alternative rank or function a senior commander held, though the possibilities are never many.
Chapter 2 (395-450) is the most contentious with respect to preceding scholarship. Again at issue is how we interpret silence as much as evidence in a poorly documented era. Kaldellis and Kruse argue that, excepting Oriens, the practice of ad hoc magistral appointments continued for over three decades, during which they discern no significant restructuring, nor much evidence of armed forces at all. They deduce that the system of titles/commands/armies outlined in the ND emerged in the 440s, when, in their view, the ND, current legislation and historical sources first align. They construe this major reorganisation, including the establishment of two praesental armies, as a response to Hunnic invasions, 441-447. Inconvenient evidence intrudes. A serving magister militum per Thracias addressed in CTh 7.17.1 in 412 (PLRE II, Constans 3) must be explained as an “exceptional” or “ad hoc” command (32-33). Even so, as this law requires his regularly staffed magistral officium to submit annual reports for the next seven years, 412-419, any distinction from a “routine” appointment seems moot. And on what grounds is exceptionality determined? The Codex Theodosianus incorporates only nine other laws of 395-438 that designate eastern magistri, seven individuals in 43 years, with evident titular inconsistencies and/or omissions. Furthermore, while the authors’ restricted focus on comitatenses in the Balkans leads them to date the eastern ND to the 440s, this chronology cannot easily accommodate regional limitanei and military infrastructure, insofar as listed forts/cities, especially in Moesia I and Dacia ripensis/mediterranea, were destroyed in the early/mid-440s and not reconstructed/reoccupied for decades. Could Naissus, sacked by Attila in 441-442 and desolate when Priscus visited in 449, still be the location of an armaments factory (ND Or. 11.37)? Could Viminacium, razed in/after 441 and partly rebuilt only under Justinian (r. 527-565), be the base of a cavalry unit, an infantry detachment and a riverine flotilla (ND Or. 41.16, 31, 38)? Similar questions arise elsewhere: e.g. Ratiaria, Margus, Singidunum. In short, can Attila’s campaigns simultaneously be the starting point of the five-army scheme of the eastern ND and the end point of other sections of the same document?
Appendix 3, reevaluating published fasti of magistri militum praesentales, culls doubtful cases and finds the earliest certain tenure in/after 441. Undoubtedly Kaldellis and Kruse detect errors, inconsistencies and ambiguities. Among prior cases, some implications are not considered: e.g. Florentius and Sapricius in CTh 1.8.1 (415), categorised as “generic MMs, two among many at the court” and not necessarily present in Constantinople (132). In fact, Florentius oversees his own officium, which must henceforth comply with a central bureaucratic reform and avoid interdepartmental friction over fees. Uncited CTh 1.8.3 (424) retrospectively affirms that this dispute concerned formalised magistral authority (not vacantes or honorarii). The evidence cannot make Florentius and/or Sapricius “praesentales”, but the context of a turf war among palatine ministries should be recognised. Overall, the incidental nature of evidence for “confirmed” post-441 cases, and its concentration in a few title-conscious sources (notably Malalas), underlines the haphazardness of the record.
Chapter 3 (450-506), according to the authors’ model, concerns the brief “classic” era of the five-army system. They examine complex military-political events in the Balkans during the 470s-480s, when different Gothic warlords, alternating imperial service and trouble-making, leveraged control of personal followings to obtain magistral titles and remuneration, while Isaurian manpower periodically underpinned imperial control. In this turmoil, Kaldellis and Kruse endeavour to show that two full-strength praesental armies did exist, although inexplicably inactive and/or invisible, an operational pattern not dissimilar to pre-441 and post-500, when, they contend, these armies did not exist. Thereafter, Kaldellis and Kruse perceive rapid and permanent reassignment of praesental forces to Oriens, traceable by the early 490s. Older scholarship, going back to Jones, detected this process but inferred a more protracted development.
Chapter 4 (506-630) aims to demonstrate continuing dispersal of praesental units until the mid-sixth century and the “non-existence” of centrally-based praesental armies thereafter. If the authors’ strategic analyses and fiscal-demographic inferences are debatable, their core argument seems unexceptionable. Indeed, the complete disappearance of praesental armies was argued 20 years ago.[2] It has long been recognised that praesental units were reassigned to a new magisterium in Armenia in 528. Others demonstrably participated in Justinianic conquests in the West and probably never returned. Studies of Balkan warfare in the 580s-590s discern typically one operational army in Thrace. Efforts to derive the seventh-century command (later thema) of Opsikion from praesental remnants were always tenuous and (in seeking to implicate the Strategikon) circular. Ultimately, Kaldellis and Kruse take a pessimistic view of the evidence or lack thereof; other scholars may differ regarding degree, timescale and/or consequences. Kaldellis and Kruse also overlook praesental units named in several fifth-/sixth-century inscriptions in the Constantinopolitan hinterland: SEG 48.887(146) (Bisanthe/Panion, Europa; V/VI): Defensores (ND Or. 5.57); SEG 45.852 (Constantinople; mid/late VI): Brachiati (ND Or. 5.50, 6.29); AE 1995.1427 = 1997.1410 = SEG 37.1023 = 42.1124 = 45.1692 = 47.1683 (Pylae, Bithynia; 531): Constantiniaci = Constantiniani (ND Or. 6.52). A wider focus on military developments in Oriens might have provided circumstantial support: e.g. longer-term localisation of regional comitatenses in urban garrisons, weakening operational distinctions between comitatenses and limitanei, and the higher profile and proliferation of ducal commands collectively point to fundamental changes in the deployment and function of field forces.
Appendix 4 addresses the date of the eastern ND. Kaldellis and Kruse do not adduce new evidence or positive arguments in favour of their 440s dating, but seek to remove obstacles in prior scholarship and pre-empt counterarguments. It might have been preferrable to introduce Constantine Zuckerman’s firm post quem dating of 398/9 at the start of this appendix (or of the book), rather than in the final pages, as it uncoupled the ND from Theodosius I and the “partitio imperii” of 395, thereby nullifying some older arguments and any need for detailed rebuttal. For example, extensive and occasionally abrasive critique of “the Hoffmann thesis” (167-172), exaggerating its influence on (even German-language) scholarship, seems largely superfluous. While Kaldellis and Kruse declare previous arguments “wrong, unconvincing, or inconclusive” (157), their own analysis is not beyond criticism. Two examples must suffice.
First, Kaldellis and Kruse briefly mention much-discussed evidence that “Illyricum”, the dioecesis Illyrici listed in the western ND, was transferred to eastern administration in/by 437. In response, they note recent epigraphic confirmation that Dalmatia was still/again under western control in 452. However, this debate was never about the status of a single constituent province, but whether any part of that diocese was reassigned: e.g. previous studies cite Nov. Just. 11.1 as evidence that Pannonia II, or at least Sirmium, became part of the eastern Prefecture of Illyricum before 441—a terminus ante quem?
Second, as “a firm terminus ad quem” Jones adduced a “comes of the diocese of Pontica”, mentioned in a law regulating emeritus honorifics in 413 (CTh 6.13.1, 14.3; cf. CJ 12.11.1), but absent from the ND and deemed a later creation. Kaldellis and Kruse wish to identify this official as the dux Armeniae (ND Or. 38), but their strained argumentation misses the point that this “comes Ponticae” is “equal in dignity” (quorum par dignitas est) to the comes Aegypti, a comes rei militaris with diocese-wide authority (ND Or. 28). Correspondingly, the law explicitly ranks these honorifically paired diocesan comites above duces provinciarum. Nor is it acknowledged that Jones (192, 534, 641) recognised a comes rei militaris, charged with countering well-attested Isaurian depredations across Pontus in the 400s. Nonetheless, Kaldellis and Kruse can still contend that, contrariwise, the eastern ND postdates abolition of this office.
This is a well-written and stimulating book that compels readers to reassess what they know or believe about the military administration and defensive capabilities of the east Roman empire. The appendices provide valuable correctives to the prosopography of military personnel. Even if the authors’ preferred chronology of the late emergence of field armies does not persuade, their “stress-testing” approach refocuses scholarly attention on compositional questions about the Notitia dignitatum that many thought closed or feared to reopen.
Notes
[1] Kaldellis and Kruse mistakenly claim (126) that CTh records Promotus as magister.
[2] O. Schmitt, ‘From the Late Roman to the early Byzantine army. Two Aspects of Change’, in A.S. Lewin and P. Pellegrini (eds.), The Late Roman Army in the Near East (Oxford 2007), 411-419.