Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

soldier and civilian 491
the men of property whose attempted escape from Salona precipitated
their city’s capture by the Croats, the fugitives from Naissus and Justiniana
Prima who spread terrifying stories about the Avars’ siege engines, the
abbot Eustathius driven by the Persian storm from his monastery near
Ankara and deprived of his books, or the starving common people who
gathered for help at the monastery where the patriarch Eutychius was in
exile in Pontus. 90
The sudden arrival of troops would disrupt the economic structure of
even the best-organized cities. Famine in Antioch in 363 is plausibly connected
with the presence of Julian’s army en route to Persia, and the troubles
caused at Edessa when it became the base for the eastern army during the
war of 502–5 are detailed in the Chronicle of Joshua: each household had to
supply ten pounds of iron for last-minute repairs to the defences, wheat
was provided for a compulsory baking of bread for the soldiers, while there
is a catalogue of abuses committed by the quartered defenders upon their
hosts – robbery, violence, rape, drunkenness and murder – until the
aggrieved citizens posted complaints against the general. 91 In Egypt the
monk Shenoute denounced soldiers for pillaging towns, fields and monasteries,
and for despoiling people; this contributes to a centuries-old tradition
of complaints about soldiers giving a ‘shaking down’ to civilians. The
official army is only one aspect of military activity, 92 and if the officers of
a garrison army were reluctant to punish their soldiers’ crimes, it is not surprising
that misbehaviour by an individual soldier outside the group would
also be condoned. The story of Euphemia and the Goth narrates how a
soldier attempted to obtain a slave by promising marriage to a young
Edessene, who only discovered that he was already married after she was
far from home; naturally this Christian tale has a happy ending, and the
proud Goth was punished by the laws of the Romans. But soldiers did not
always escape military punishment: at Corinth two imprisoned bucellarii of
the prefect (presumably of Illyricum) scratched on the wall a plea for divine
help in achieving their freedom. 93
At Edessa, though, it was admitted that not all soldiers were guilty of
misbehaviour, and it is worth reviewing the benefits that military activity or
presence might bring. Protection is the most obvious, and even billeted
troops might provide this, as Paulinus of Pella bemoaned when his house,
at whose exemption he had originally rejoiced, was sacked. 94 Travel would
be made safer on those roads that were regularly patrolled. Booty enriched
the successful soldier: Maurice’s Balkan army was affronted when the
90 Thomas the Archdeacon 26–7; Miracula S. Dem. ii.200; letter of Antiochus the monk, PG
lxxxix.1421–8; Eustratius, Life of Eutychius, PG lxxxvi.2, col. 2344b. 91 Joshua 86, 93–6.
92 Patlagean, Pauvreté 313–15; Bagnall, Egypt 180.
93 Segal (1970) 140–1, quoting Burkitt (1913); Feissel and Philippidis-Braat (1985) p. 361 no. 22.
94 Paulinus of Pella, Euch. 281–90.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008