Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

navies 293
This massive army could only move slowly, and the scope of military opertions
was severely curtailed by logistical problems: this was one reason why
Anastasius’ generals demanded the construction of Dara on the eastern
frontier as an accessible base from which to move against Nisibis. 14 A more
normal size for a large army on the eastern front was 20,000, as at
Callinicum in 530; 10,000–15,000 was perhaps a normal maximum in the
Balkans, where repeated invasions had undermined the administrative substructures
for large-scale deployment away from the Danube, which the
Roman fleet controlled. 15
Campaigns away from normal lines of supply required careful preparations.
For Belisarius’ expedition against the Vandals, supplies of bucellum,
biscuit, were prepared, but inadequate firing caused this to deteriorate and
when the fleet reached the Peloponnese, Belisarius requisitioned supplies
from local inhabitants to avert starvation and disease: receipts must have
been issued, to be offset against future tax demands, part of the bureaucratic
palaver of the late Roman army on the move. 16 Movement by land
was harder and slower, and expeditions would have been supported by
extended wagon-trains: against the Bulgars in 499, Aristus’ army of 15,000
campaigned from Constantinople with 520 wagons, while the vulnerability
of such transport is illustrated by the Roman ambush in 479 which captured
2,000 wagons from a Gothic column that must have stretched over
five miles or more. 17
ii. navies
Relatively little is known about Roman fleets in the fifth and sixth century,
partly because there were few major sea battles. Vandal naval dominance
after their arrival in Carthage, a surprising achievement for a Germanic
group, posed a threat with which the western empire could not cope;
Sicilian and Italian coasts were regularly raided, which contributed
significantly to western collapse. In 455 the proximity of Geiseric’s large
fleet encouraged the overthrow of Petronius Maximus, and the Vandals
then thoroughly pillaged Rome. In 456 Ricimer defeated Vandal raiders on
the plains of Agrigento in Sicily, and on Corsica, but each time he seems
only to have achieved a land victory: these perhaps resembled the success
in Campania under Majorian when the Vandals, though prevented from
ravaging, could flee to the safety of their ships. In 456 the Vandals deployed
sixty ships and, in spite of reverses, retained control of the sea and interrupted
the food supply of Rome, which contributed to the unpopularity
14 Marc. Com. s.a. 514; Procop. Wars i.8.1–5 (Marc. Com. s.a. 503 records 15,000 men, but this
perhaps relates to only part of the overall force); Joshua 54, 70, 77; Zachariah vii.6.
15 Procop. Wars i.18.5; Marc. Com. s.a. 499, 505. Whitby (1995) sec. 6.
16 Procop. Wars iii.13.12–20. 17 Marc. Com. s.a. 499; Malchus fr. 20.226–48.
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