Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

military power and authority 471
fighting each other during the deliberations that preceded the elevation of
Justin I in 518, 6 the only occasion between Leo I and Phocas when there
was no clear dynastic successor. The changes in ceremonial location and in
the military units involved might indicate that the field army lost influence
while the palace guards increased in importance; this, however, should not
be inferred solely from accession ceremonies, since in the 450s the ascendancy
of the general Aspar in Constantinople may have ensured extra
prominence for the mobile army. There had always been tension between
the ‘inside’ power of the imperial guards – originally the praetorians in their
camp on the outskirts of Rome – and the provincial armies: greater proximity
normally allowed the guards to decide inheritance within a dynasty,as
with Claudius in 41 and Nero in 54, whereas the greater muscle of the frontier
legions would conclude non-dynastic succession, as in the year of the
four emperors in 68–9 or in the civil war which followed Commodus’ assassination
in 192. Thus, the prominence of the guards at successions in
Constantinople after Leo is one token of the east’s ability to arrange a more
civilian and orderly presentation of the continuity of imperial rule: the
accession ceremonies were public demonstrations of the links that held
together the overlapping spheres of imperial, religious, civilian and military
authority.
In the west, both in the remnant of the Roman empire and in the tribal
kingdoms, the military were regularly prominent at the moment of succession.
In 425 Valentinian III could only inherit his grandfather’s throne with
the support of a large eastern army which ousted the usurper John from
Ravenna. In 455 Avitus was placed on the throne of Italy through the
support first of the Visigoths under Theoderic at Toulouse, which was then
backed up by the Gallo-Roman aristocracy at Ugernum. After the deposition
of Avitus by the Italian army in 456, all subsequent successions were
determined either by the magister militum in Italy (first Ricimer, then
Odoacer) or by the intervention of the eastern emperor, whose nominee
Anthemius and representatives Olybrius and Julius Nepos all briefly held
power. Military force determined who occupied the throne, or indeed
whether it should be left vacant, until Theoderic the Amal captured
Ravenna and created the Ostrogothic kingdom by conquest.
Most of the tribal kingdoms reveal a conflict between the dynastic aspirations
of the dominant family and the military claims of their associates
and retinues. This is most clear in Merovingian Gaul, where the successive
partitions of Clovis’ spear-won territory between his sons, and then his
grandsons, were determined by military might. A son, such as Theuderic’s
heir Theudebert I in 533, would need the support of his leudes, or military
following, to counter the ambitions of uncles or cousins; a royal claimant
6 De Caer. i.93.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008