Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

western collapse 297
however, showed migrating tribes that the key to safety was the occupation
of land, which they might hope to secure through successful participation
in Roman civil strife. 33 Although it has been argued that tribes were allocated
no more than the tax revenues for certain territories, it is much more
likely that they took possession physically of land: the tribesmen needed
somewhere to live and so would take up residence in the areas which sustained
them. The difference between a grant of tax income and of real
estate was perhaps not significant, since, whatever the legal arrangement,
the individual tribal warriors supported themselves as a military élite
through the labours of others. The impact on imperial administration
would also have been similar: control over the land and tax wealth of a
specific area was lost, either directly through the cession of land or indirectly
through allocation of tax revenues whose extraction the tribesmen
would have to supervise in the absence of effective imperial control. 34
The result of this process was that by the 440s only Italy and southern
Gaul were under imperial control, and even in these areas it was difficult to
exploit human or economic resources without the consent of local élites.
A military challenge could be met only by the construction of a coalition
of local interest groups – for example, the alliance of Gallic military
resources, tribal as well as Gallo-Roman, brought together by Aetius to
oppose the common challenge of Attila’s Huns, or on a smaller scale the
grouping organized by Anthemius to fight the Visigoths under Euric. 35 The
aristocracy of Rome was long accustomed to being protected by the efforts
of others, and so was reluctant to take the actions or make the concessions
that might have preserved a western emperor at Ravenna. Outside Italy,
however, local aristocrats, including in some cases bishops, could organize
effective armed forces, such as Ecdicius, the brother-in-law of Sidonius
Apollinaris, in the Auvergne, Syagrius at Soissons, or the élite of Saragossa
in Spain, but their range of action was limited: 36 it was not that all western
Romans had lost the ability or will to fight, but that the state could not
deploy this military potential, since the complex system for raising, paying,
supplying and moving armies no longer functioned.
Valentinian attempted to assert imperial authority by personally killing
Aetius with the help of the chamberlain Heraclius, but participation in military
affairs removed him from the safety of the palace and he was assassinated
by two of Aetius’ former retainers on the Campus Martius. 37
Thereafter the army of Italy was controlled by its magister militum Ricimer,
33 Heather, Goths and Romans 220–1.
34 Allocation of tax revenues: Goffart, Barbarians and Romans, though he accepts that tribesmen soon
became landowners (ibid.ch.viii); Barnish (1986); Heather, Goths and Romans 220–3.
35 PLRE ii s.v. Aetius 7, at pp. 27–8; also Elton (1992) 171–3.
36 Sid. Ap. Ep. iii.3.7–8 with Elton (1992) 173–4, and Harries (1992b); Greg. Tur. Hist. ii.27.
37 Moss (1973) 729–30; Marc. Com. s.a. 455.
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