This slim, narrow-focused monograph, originating in a doctoral dissertation at Macquarie University (2012), examines how later Roman emperors sought to construct and maintain bonds of loyalty with the army, a crucial institutional interest group and arbiter of political power. Although the first such investigation of the period 235–395 ce, H. acknowledges methodological-conceptual debts to corresponding studies of the Principate, J.B. Campbell, The Emperor and the Roman Army 31 bc–ad 235 (1984) and J. Stäcker, Princeps und miles (2003), while also pursuing lines of enquiry delineated by A.D. Lee, War in Late Antiquity. A Social History (2007). Six chapters examine aspects of this multifaceted and shifting relationship.
Chapter 1 contends that from 235 an emperor's ‘military ability became for the first time ever the key determiner of whether the army considered him suitable to rule’; thereafter, proven or prospective ‘military competence’ transcended all other considerations, including dynastic sentiments. While H.’s interpretation of imperial rule can seem one-dimensional, accentuation of emperors’ martial qualities, primarily through ‘messaging’ on coinage, indicates that military credentials and/or promise – authentic or fictive – enhanced legitimacy. In parallel, H. considers ambiguities in a long-established topos of the emperor as commilito and its compatibility with his identity as imperator. Chapter 2 examines how emperors more frequently and emphatically employed coinage and titulature to publicise their attributes, achievements and/or aspirational claims as agents of victory. H. plausibly relates shifts of emphasis in coin types to military-political circumstances and teases out dynastic-ideological nuances, notably the subtler collegiate image-making of the Tetrarchy and Constantine's progression towards one-man-rule. H. similarly traces varying usage and significance of titular elements, including imperatorial acclamations, cognomina devictarum gentium and preternatural or (semi-)divine appellations (invictus, Iovius/Herculius).
Chapter 3 surveys soldiers’ rewards, remuneration and benefits, which H. collectively terms praemia militiae (a phrase conventionally applied to discharge bonus-payments). Focusing on the emperor's role as provider, H. links the heightened profile and value of donativa (relative to plummeting stipendia) to their political-ceremonial potency within the reciprocal symbolism of imperial generosity/military loyalty. He mulls similar ramifications of annonae, but routine in-kind payments less easily fit this praemia/fides dynamic, as soldiers typically blamed deficiencies on local commanders and bureaucracies. Examination of costly non-monetary dona infers targeted recipients among key military personnel; consideration of gift-giving across the administrative apparatus, in which ‘civilians’ also performed militia, would offer further context. Correspondingly, as the evidence for veterans’ benefits is skewed towards large-scale discharges following internal wars of the Tetrarchy, the longue durée may have proved enlightening.
Investigation of legal privileges and discipline (Chapter 4) finds essential continuity in soldiers’ juridical status and testamentary exemptions, though neither is well explained; fiscal and civic immunities are overlooked. H. struggles to show a ‘special’ emperor-army relationship in this sphere, beyond periodic refinement of long-standing privileges by case-specific rulings. In some instances, fourth-century continuity hardly needs demonstrating (e.g. peculium castrense persisted in ninth/tenth-century Byzantine codifications). In contrast, H. does not discuss legislation to curtail military encroachments on civilian jurisdiction, which thereby circumscribed soldiers’ privilege of praescriptio fori (e.g. CTh 2.1.2 [355]; 9.7.9 [393]). After glancing at state provision for soldiers’ families and rights of ‘barbarian’ troops, H. responds to a late Roman topos of declining disciplina by considering whether emperors relaxed discipline to secure military favour. His discussion implicitly conflates different phenomena (notably ‘indiscipline’ on and off the battlefield), but rightly stresses hostile bias of civilian authors and cites first-/second-century contextualising precedents for third-/fourth-century evidence. Again, later documentation is potentially instructive: e.g. decimatio was still a prescribed penalty c. 600 (Maurice, Strat. 1.8§17).
Chapter 5 assesses ‘ceremonial interactions’ designed to reinforce bonds of loyalty: accessional acclamatio, recurrent adlocutiones and sacramenta militiae. Defining acclamatio as tone-setting consensus building, H. traces adjustments in scale, participation and formalisation, which variously conveyed collegiate and dynastic ideologies. He characterises adlocutiones as expressive, if restricted, episodes in an orchestrated ‘conversation’ between emperor and army, which, in combination with other inducements, could affirm soldiers’ existing opinions. Oaths sworn upon enlistment, to new emperors and annually are likewise interpreted as renewable components of an ongoing discourse of loyalty. Although third-/fourth-century development is not easily discerned, H.’s sensitive analysis of exiguous evidence infers soldiers’ individual and collective attitudes towards a flexible contractual commitment.
Chapter 6 examines three ‘symbolic tools’ emperors employed to promote identification with the army. Military standards, objects of totemic devotion, often bore imperial imagines and/or symbols of authority that functioned as a ‘proxy presence’. Again, later evidence would have eliminated lingering doubts about institutional continuities: for example legionary imaginiferi are attested in the 490s/500s (Perge Edict C16, ed. F. Onur). Bestowal of regimental epithets proliferated, typically imperial nomina/cognomina and/or appellations signifying fidelity or prowess. H. correlates changing usage and construction to the shifting ‘language of legitimacy’, arguing that cognominal honorifics, because used sparingly, retained value. Coinage honouring the army, units or troop-types promoted fides, virtus or concordia; such numismatic messaging was especially common during third-century political-military turbulence but, with changes of focus, remained a mechanism for publicising fourth-century dynastic agendas.
Overall, like Campbell (1984), H. charts how successive regimes customised a repertoire of promotional strategies, concluding that there was no winning formula and emperors were prey to events. While this book is somewhat more than an appendix to Campbell's, H.’s conclusions hold no surprises. Its value lies in his assemblage of diverse source-materials and nuanced interpretation of certain categories, most successfully coinage and titulature/honorifics, to illuminate facets of emperor-army interaction. Important dimensions are not investigated: for example triumphs, adventus and commemorative spectacles; the murky state apparatus of scrutiny and control, including informants, enforcers and trials (thus Ammianus on the liquidation of Silvanus); emperors’ personal influence over military appointments, whereby they could emplace trusted supporters and exercise favouritism in promotions; subcategorisation of regimental precedence and privileges according to symbolic proximity to the emperor (e.g. palatini, praesentales). Religion also merited broader consideration, in as much as emperors (e.g. Diocletian/Galerius, Constantine, Constantius II, Valens) deployed troops in religious coercion and interconfessional conflicts. Leaving aside occasional misspellings and stylistic infelicities, some coin legends are incorrectly reported: BARBARIAM > BARBARARUM (p. 46); VINAS > VINCAS (pp. 98, 180); ILLYRICANI > ILLYRICIANI (p. 200).
H.’s detailed argumentation is cogent and thoroughly documented, but his interpretative framework lacks historical and institutional contexts. The notion of a sea-change from 235 is broadly compelling, in so far as thereafter ‘most emperors were career soldiers’ (pp. 8–9), but plenty were not (e.g. Gordian III, Gallienus, all three sons of Constantine, Maxentius, child-emperors Gratian and Valentinian II). Notwithstanding every capax imperii was obliged to cultivate a martial persona, H.’s insistence that ‘military competence/(cap)ability/genius’ – ill-defined and precarious – was the crucial determinant in each emperor's appointment becomes unpersuasive as an all-encompassing explanation. Although he concedes some accessions involved other factors, by consistently privileging criteria of individual ‘military success’ in the army's choice of one candidate over another, H. arguably risks face-value acceptance of the propaganda he seeks to deconstruct, while simplifying complex motivations of the king-makers/breakers: personal connections, factionalism and/or self-interest – the prospect of reward, preferment, influence or simply being in the winning team.
Correspondingly, ‘the Army’ emerges as monolithic and static, despite H. acknowledging the contrary (p. 201).
Compared to studies of military interventions in Early/Middle Byzantine imperial politics, there is little attempt to distinguish ‘interest groups’ typical of military-political interaction in any regime, ancient or modern – generals, divisional or regimental commanders, junior officers, rank-and-file. Whose opinion matters? What is their role or incentive? Who is being ‘messaged’? By extension, this intercontinental institution is more aptly conceived as ‘armies’, distinct professional environments, reflecting intra-military rivalries and/or regional-security interests, as witnessed in: third-century ‘Soldatenkaiser’ emanating from the exercitus Illyricianus; the separatist military establishment of the ‘Gallic Empire’; regionality of military developments under the Tetrarchy; and military insistence on multiple emperors/courts in 364 and 375, motivated more by access to patronage and political leverage than imperial-dynastic security. Moreover, H. gives little inkling that third-/fourth-century armies underwent profound changes in size, organisation, command structures, strategic deployment and modes of recruitment, which variously affected their political management. A small proportion of fourth-century soldiers ever served with a comitatus or on major campaigns. Many spent much of their careers remote from imperial orbits, engaged in non-combat – fiscal, judicial, administrative – duties. A suspicion lingers that, most of the time, most soldiers did not link immediate service conditions with distant central government and neither questioned nor cared who was emperor.
