Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

490 17. armies and society in the later roman world
west, where the complex fiscal system could not have survived the tribal
migrations of the early fifth century and the allocation to war-bands of substantial
territories for settlement, the passage of troops was bound to be
more disruptive. A signal distinction of Clovis’ attack on the Visigoths in 507
was his order forbidding his followers to plunder church lands along their
route: only grass and water could be taken, and a transgressor was personally
killed by Clovis (a similar story is told of the Persian king Hormizd IV). 85
On the campaign against Septimania in 585 the Frankish army, which contained
various urban contingents, killed, burned and pillaged even before
entering enemy territory, and after the expedition’s failure the churches
around Clermont near the main road were stripped of their plate; the
journey from Paris to Spain of the princess Rigunth in 584 was almost as
destructive through the combination of casual pillaging and unpaid requisitioning.
In the Balkans in the 480s the Goths of Theoderic, allegedly the
friend of Zeno, drove off cattle and killed farmers in Thrace. 86
Armies might pillage their own side, but the depredations of an enemy
were far worse: from Antioch in 540, Dara in 573, Singidunum in 595,
Jerusalem in 614 or Cyprus in 649/50 thousands of captives were led away,
along with transportable booty that might extend to marble columns and
mosaic tesserae. 87 Decades of fighting in Italy resulted in destruction at
almost every important city and fortress, with the exception of Ravenna,
and had a long-term impact on settlement patterns. 88 Casualties would have
been as great. Outside Naissus the bones of those killed in the city’s capture
by Attila were still littering the river bank years later, and any successful
besieging army was likely to go berserk once inside a place that had resisted
their efforts, as at Amida in 502 or Dara in 573. Only speedy surrender could
avoid such destruction, though the bargain might not always be kept, as
Apamea discovered in 540 after opening its gates to Khusro. Few transported
captives would ever return. In Persia they would be settled in special
communities, such as Khusro’s New Antioch, while north of the Danube
they would be incorporated in the subject populations of the Hun or Avar
federations, perhaps as the basis for a separate military unit, as with the
tribe led by Maurus/Kouber; the Slavs had the reputation of being abnormally
kind to their captives, who might choose not to return home if
offered the chance. 89 A long-delayed home-coming had its own problems,
as revealed by the survivors of the Hunnic sack of Aquileia who discovered
that their wives had innocently remarried. Invasions created refugees:
85 Greg. Tur. Hist. ii.37; Tabari 265–8 (Nöldeke). Cf. Belisarius in Africa: Procop. Wars iii.16.1–8.
86 Malchus fr. 18.4.2–7; Greg.Tur.Hist. viii.30; vi.45.
87 Procop. Wars ii.9.14–18; John Eph. HE vi.6,7; Theophylact vi.10.1; Antiochus Strategus 9–17;
Chrysos (1993) 10. 88 Brown, Gentlemen and Officers 39–42.
89 Priscus fr. 11.2.51–5; Joshua 53; John Eph. HE vi.5–6; Procop. Wars ii.14.1–4 with Theophylact
v.6.11–7.3; Miracula S. Dem. ii.286–8; Maurice, Strat. xi.4.8–16. Thompson (1982) 84–6, 100–9.
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