Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the eastern army: men and resources 303
conscripts, at least for the mobile units. 60 Closer examination, however, of
the military provisions in the Justinianic Code reveals that the traditional
dilectus or compulsory levy was still operated, and that recruits could still
be furnished by units of tax-paying landowners (temones or capitula); the
collective responsibility for providing the recruit was delegated in turn to
a president, an onerous burden (protostasia, prototypia), from which exemptions
were sought. Monetary commutation of this obligation was allowed
for imperial lands. 61 This system represents a degree of imperial control
that was signally lacking in the western empire in the early fifth century,
when landowners had been able to demand concessions and emperors
forced to entice volunteers with bribes whose fulfilment was uncertain. Of
course, volunteers were not rejected from eastern armies, and on occasions
when it was necessary to raise troops quickly for a particular campaign
a commander would have to travel round, cash in hand, to attract
the men he needed, rather than wait for the slower procedures of the provincial
dilectus. 62
In addition to conscription there was an element of hereditary service in
all Roman parts of the army. This is demonstrable in the case of limitanei
and static units of comitatenses in Egypt, Palestine and the exarchate of north
Italy, where papyri attest family succession; it probably also applied to the
mobile army, since in 594 Maurice proposed to give preferential enrolment
to sons of deceased veterans, and this was regarded as a welcome aspect of
an unpopular package of reforms. 63 Recruitment was supervised by the
imperial bureaucracy, which would issue instructions about the numbers
needed to bring units up to strength, and then individual approvals would
be sent to the particular regiments to sanction the inclusion of a new name
on their regimental muster. Such a complex system was obviously open to
abuse, but energetic emperors like Anastasius and Justinian were prepared
to risk unpopularity by legislating against corruption and arranging detailed
inspections of regimental strengths and effectiveness. 64
It is difficult to quantify the advantages of soldiering in terms of pay and
conditions of service, since much depended on the nature of the military
action to be undertaken. Membership of a unit of limitanei in upper Egypt
was sufficiently attractive to merit payment of an entry fee, at least by those
who could not claim a hereditary place; for such men, guard duty beyond the
Danube represented a severe punishment, exile to active service in a distant
and dangerous land. 65 In the static units automatic promotion through
60 Jones, LRE 668–70; Haldon (1979) 20. 61 Whitby (1995) sec. 4; CJ x.42.8; 62.3; xi.75.3.
62 Procop. Wars vii.10.1–3.
63 Haldon (1979) 21; Keenan (1990); Brown, Gentlemen and Officers 85–6. Theophylact vii.1.
64 P.Ryl. 609; SEG ix.356; Procop. Secret History 24.5–11; Procop. Wars vii.1.28–33; Agathias, Hist.
v.14; Jones, LRE 661–2.
65 P. Monac. 1, with Keenan (1990) 144; Justinian, Edict 13.11.1�CJ iii.785.
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