Recently, I decided to purchase a Maurikian Byzantine army, primarily for use with DBM. I did not want to limit myself to just these rules as my club likes to dabble with others. In addition, I may one day find myself in amongst a new lot of gamers who use another rules set; this as a result of my military career which takes me to some exotic places.

I decided to select this army as I had a Sassanian Persian army and wanted a new opponent to supplement my Later Roman army. It was also suitable to research as I am living in Cyprus and I have access to numerous Byzantine art collections which were useful in selecting colour schemes for uniforms and determining the colour of armour.

My aim was to check available sources to identify units, troop types and numbers of the so-called Maurikian army (575-650 AD). The list of sources is given below. Generally, most of the sources agree with the following information with any differences or significant information identified by the source.

My starting point was the DBM army lists to see what I would need to purchase. I then checked to see which companies produce the 15mm figures suitable for the army list. So far it was all the typical actions for acquiring a new army. I also like to do a bit more research before deciding what to buy.

This meant checking my own sources and reading about the army. I do not have my complete library with me on this tour so my research was limited to a few books and the journals that I do have. While limited they did provide a good over view of the army for wargamers. In addition, I checked the Internet which was less satisfying as I could not locate anything specific on either Byzantine military subjects or the history of the period. I did find some interesting collateral material but it was not applicable to this topic.

I was assisted in my research by two friends; James Manto, who provided comments and checked one book which I did not have (Boss, Roy. Justinian's Wars: Belisarius, Narses and the Reconquest of the West. Montvert Publications, 1993) and Simon MacDowall, who has written several books and articles on the Later Roman and Early Byzantine periods. Since both are interested in wargaming and the Byzantine armies, they were invaluable in developing this article. I incorporated many of their ideas.

Notes in Lists

One of the problems that I find with the published lists is that they do not provide much in the way of notes and descriptions of the troop types. The writers do face a daunting task in compiling information about hundreds of armies and space does not permit detailed notes. I have accepted the generic terminology (reluctantly) used to identify the troop types but I do not accept all of the classifications of the troops. What is often not clear from the sources is what weapons, armour and tactics were used. The translation of the Strategicon has been the centre of several debates, particularly in Slingshot. While the writers argue with confidence for a particular interpretation, it is still confusing when all of the theories are compared.

This is when I began to experience the frustration mentioned in the title. I do admire those who have compiled the army lists because it obviously involves a lot of work. On just this one list, I spent many hours reading and then reviewing the sources listed below. I compared the various assessments of the contemporary sources which were used to produce the existing army lists of WRG and other companies and private submissions to the various hobby journals. After doing just one list, I would not like to tackle hundreds of others without help.

I was amazed at the differences between the interpretations of the contemporary sources. I appreciate that this is partly due to the translation into other languages from the original. Many words have been translated using more modern terms. It would be useful to have the original text handy and a dictionary to check the military terminology. One of the old controversies that surfaced in my research was the use of darts by cavalry. The older WRG army lists, for example, allowed them because of an error in translation which changed mace to dart.

While having access to Byzantine art, it was a limited source because of the concentration on saints in military garb. Most of the pictures are of later Byzantine dress (10-11 Century AD) and show saints armed with spear and sword. Christodolou mentions a series of metal plates which were discovered in Cyprus depicting Biblical scenes of David and Goliath. These show soldiers in what may have been typical Byzantine military dress for the 6th Century.

Unfortunately, artistic license was in use then as it is now and there may have been significant differences. Apart from churches and museums exhibiting mainly religious icons, there are very few pictures of the military forces to study.

Changes

One significant problem encountered when reading the sources is the number of changes because of the influence of more recent research. In the last decade, there have been several scholarly books written in English which have altered the traditional image of the Maurikian army. One then has to be careful with older books such as those published by WRG in 1981 and earlier translations of the contemporary sources like the Strategicon. I have tried to base my comments on the undisputed information, although I have included some which is debatable because I deemed it worthwhile.

Archeological evidence is also scarce and I checked several local museums in search of information. This lack of information was mentioned in several of the sources as well. This is significant because researchers must rely more on books and pictures, which as mentioned are not always hard evidence of reality. It would nice to havesamples of the arms and armour of the Byzantine military to compare against other source material. May be one this will be the case in the future.

Despite these problems, I pushed forward and I present my impressions of the army below.

Terminology

The contemporary sources used both Latin and Greek terms. The main sources for most studies are the histories of Procopius and Agathias, and the Strategicon. These tended to mix classical Greek and contemporary Greek terms which indicates the shift from Latin to Greek during the 6th Century as the common language. Many words have been adopted from Latin, German and Persian such that the Latin word numerus became arithmos in Greek.

A knowledge of earlier Roman practices is useful to understand the transition during this period. There are many similarities once one understands the terminology. For example, I found that while the legion was no longer a formation of 6000 troops as it had been in the Republic and Early Roman Empire. By the 6th Century, it had been replaced by the meros, which is a Greek word for a formation of 6000-7000. There was no explanation given for the introduction of meros but I still find it curious that the Byzantines adopted a formation similar in size to the old legion.

When using the Strategicon, one must bear in mind that its author refers to past, present and proposed practices. The past was a combination of Hellenistic (Macedonian and Successor military practices) and Roman, present is similar to that described in Procopius and proposed is the author's concept based on Avar and other contemporary foes. I was surprised that no mention was made of Vegetius or other Later Roman period writers. Vegetius was well known in medieval Europe and has survived to modern times. I can only conclude that his work and others were either not known or not used by the Byzantines. Some of the Byzantine authors give the impression that the Byzantine armies were descended from Macedonian/Hellenistic armies with little Roman influence. For example in the first treatise of Dennis' book, the author used Aelian, Asclepiodotus (available with Aeneas and Onesander in a Loeb Classical published in 1923) and Arrian as sources for his book. This adds to the confusion because the authors often refer to the pre-Roman period as past practice, although a period of 800 years separated them.

General

The military was divided into armies called exerciti or stratoi under magistri militum (senior generals). Under Justinian, there were nine; two praesentales (in attendance on the emperor) which provided a central or strategic reserve, and the regional or provincial armies of Armenia, Orient, Thrace, Illyricum, Africa, Spain and Italy. These were later changed by the amalgamation of the two praesentales into the Obsequium, elimination of Illyricum, Spain was reduced to Septem, and Sardinia was split from Africa. Some of these changes were made during the period encompassed by the Maurikian army list but I could not identify when they occurred. I only mention this because the location of armies may be of use when doing campaigns and also selecting units for a table top army. I like to represent a specific army or force rather than having a generic army. This means that shield patterns and unit histories are normally studied before buying any figures. That way I can refer to the units by name.

The period encompasses the wars against the Avars and Slavs in the Balkans, against the Sassanian Persians and the Arabs in the Middle East. All were lengthy conflicts although there are few detailed Byzantine accounts concerning any of them. The best sources were Arabic for the Muslim conquests of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the other Byzantine provinces of the east.

There were other conflicts in the other provinces such as the intermittent fighting against the Lombards in Italy. These may also be of interest as backdrops for battles or campaigns. The Byzantines fought against a wide variety of foes as noted in the army lists. This gives plenty of scope for campaigns and tabletop battles between historical opponents.

More Research

Researching A Maurikian Byzantine Army: Introduction
Researching A Maurikian Byzantine Army: Army Organization
Byzantine Army Composition (Saga 64)
Byzantine Skoutatoi Composition (Saga 55)

Response

Response (Saga 65)