“History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.”

--Napoleon

“The trick with Ancient sources is not to take them at face value or to discredit them but to interpret them (i.e. read between the lines and put the work into context of the author's agenda and times) and wherever possible support them from the archaeological record. A good example is Vegetius. It has been used extensively to design late Roman Empire armies by wargamers and yet Vegetius is neither a military man nor quoting current (i.e. 4th century AD) practice. Vegetius admits to ripping his work off from military works and manuals of the Republic and the Principate (lucky him that he could actually see a copy of these lost works!). The thinking from Bishop & Coulston is that Vegetius is describing a legion of the early 3rd century. And yet, we continue to rely on Vegetius as the source for the late Roman army. I once heard it said that if we ignore Vegetius we are left with nothing for the late Roman army but, judging from the available archaeological and source material for the period, I think this is just an excuse to go for the obvious and not properly assess the available evidence.”

--Society of Ancients Guardroom Online April 2000 by Steve Neate

“Vegetius is an author notoriously difficult to use as an historical source, although the information contained within this work ensures that it is indispensable to any student of the Roman army. While this technical treatise dates to the last decades of the fourth century or first half of the fifth century CE, the author compiled earlier military works, almost certainly including Cato's second century BCE de Re Militari. Hence, the work includes information on the Roman army and military institutions from a number of distinct and different phases of their development. It is difficult for a non-specialist reader to disentangle the chronological threads within Vegetius' writing, and so Milner's new translation of the Epitoma Rei Militaris, with a useful introduction and excellent notes, is of tremendous value in making the work more accessible to a wider audience of general historians, non-classical military historians, and students.”

--Bryn Mawr Classical Review 95.02.19 N.P. Milner, Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993. Pp. 152. $16.95. ISBN-0-85323-288-8. Reviewed by Nigel Pollard, Bowdoin College.

This article is begun with quotes for several reasons; to illustrate the inherent problems of studying history and to point out that the rest of the article is hardly original thought.

Wargaming is partially based on a study of history, albeit very dependent on what the authors of rules, army lists and other publications have selected to study. Even fantasy and science fiction based wargaming may be considered to have some historical influence, although the extent to which this may be true is beyond the scope of this article. So, in the interest of keeping things (hopefully) simple, only historical wargaming will be considered within this article.

One only has to read through the rulebooks to appreciate that history is a common theme, which should be obvious if the rules cover world history:

“The goal of (name deleted) is to produce a historically rooted, mechanically simple, yet elegant game without the confusing jargon that is so prevalent in wargames rules.”

“These rules will provide you with clean, realistic, fast and exciting miniature wargames…”

“You’ll also have the chance to command your armies in the heat of battle as it took place in medieval Europe”

“My intention has been to develop a game, using miniature figures, which will look and feel like eyewitness accounts of ancient battles.”

In these examples, the authors intend for their rules to be based on historical fact rather than fiction. Whether or not they are successful is debatable, as it is the players of these rules, who determine if the rules are good for any number of reasons, which may or may not be related to history.

Yet, the very facts upon which these rules are based must be treated with caution if one accepts the observations made in the quotations at the start of this article. It would be too simplistic to view all historical sources as inaccurate or incorrect, so how does one approach written sources, particularly those produced during the recorded events or surviving as the only record of the events. The obvious answer is to do so carefully and try to determine whether or not the writer was more objective than subjective, which may be beyond the abilities of rules writers and their audience again for a number of reasons.

Only a few examples will be provided herein, although just about any writer could be placed in similar context. Without Livy and Polybius, our understanding of the early Roman military and its conflicts would be difficult. Julius Caesar is the only source covering the conquest of Gaul and the civil wars that followed. Herodotus, despite some incredible numbers (the size of the Persian armies for example), gives a good account of the wars between the Greeks and Persians. Thucydides wrote a good history of the conflicts comprising the Peloponnesian Wars. Even Homer, a poet, was able to contribute to our knowledge of ancient times and was the inspiration for the excavations of Troy in the 19th Century AD. There are only a few surviving texts upon which to base ancient history, and even the work of archaeologists has not been enough in many cases to change our opinions of these historical works.

There are two very good reasons that Vegetius has become a widely used contemporary source. First, his treatise on warfare was widely used during the European Middle Ages and Renaissance with translations into several major European languages. Second, it is one of the few surviving sources describing the Roman military, particularly that of the later imperial period. The latter is pertinent to wargaming since any rulebook designed to include Roman warfare will probably use Vegetius directly or indirectly (that is to say from other sources that did use Vegetius). Thus, we have a source that has acquired much greater use than it may warrant.

It may be better to discard Vegetius as a source, but then what other source provides use with the details about Roman military organization, whether fact or fiction. Good or bad, Vegetius is a difficult source to ignore given his influence to date within the historical wargaming community, and the much larger academic community studying Roman history. Anyone who does ignore him as a reliable source risks being criticized for not including many of the general conceptions of the later Roman military, such as the use of archers within units of Roman legionnaires, widespread use of numerous missiles (darts, javelins and heavy throwing weapons) to complement the Roman sword, the discarding of body armor and specialization of troop types. These all are hallmarks of the army that has been developed over the years for wargames. Figure manufacturers, army lists and rulebooks all reflect these influences.

It is true that some of Vegetius’s information is less influential now because of evidence from other sources and it is also true that not all rules encompass tactical information presented in Vegetius. It is likely, however, that his influence will remain strong until such time as more reliable information is revealed.

Following closely on the heels of Vegetius is another often quoted source, Procopius of Caesarea, who wrote one of the few detailed accounts of the Byzantine military of the Sixth Century AD. More than that Procopius is one of the few contemporary writers that has had his works survive into modern times in what is considered complete form. His accounts of the campaigns of Belisarius, for whom he was the personal secretary (a job that meant more than writing correspondence and fetching coffee), reveal much about the important events and people of his times. But was he really a historian (critical analyst) or just a chronicler or narrator of what he experienced?

One book review included this statement: “Most of our understanding of the age of Justinian is based on the works of Procopius of Caesarea, the most important Greek historian of late antiquity.”

Procopius worked for Belisarius in the Middle East (Persian wars), in Constantinople (during the Nika riots), in North Africa (Vandal war), and in Italy (Gothic wars) until 540. His longest and best-known series of books cover these campaigns and the later Gothic wars. In addition, he wrote about Justinian’s construction projects and a rather critical commentary on the reign of Justinian (Secret History). Apart from these three works, there is nothing else known of Procopius’s writings, if in fact there were any more. In his recounting of the military campaigns, Procopius only briefly mentions events of which he was not a participant nor was Belisarius.

While Procopius provided many details about the composition of Belisarius’s military forces, it is not clear whether his comments can be applied to all Byzantine forces or not. He does demonstrate that Belisarius relied predominantly on cavalry, although he did have infantry in most of his armies. Furthermore Belisarius employed bow-armed horsemen, which is a significant change from the previous detailed recording about the Roman military as provided by Ammianus Marcellinus in the late 4th Century AD. It may be that historians relying on Procopius have made a certain number of assumptions. Procopius opens his account of the wars with a passage describing the armament and attire of a Roman horse archer. Without this description, it would be difficult to determine the standard equipment of many of Belisarius’s cavalry as Procopius usually refers to weapons and armour in generalities throughout the rest of his text. He does not provide an equally detailed representation of Roman infantry, so it is unclear how they were equipped.

Unfortunately, Procopius tends to exclude descriptions of weapons use in battle apart from exchanges of missiles (usually arrows), and cavalry using spears for duels and general melee. There is a tendency to portray Roman cavalry similar to the descriptions given in the later military manual, the Strategikon.

In this book, cavalry are equipped with spear and bow and so appear to be very similar to Procopius’s description of a Roman horse archer. The normal assumption made by historians is that the Roman cavalry as described by Procopius bear a striking resemblance to the cavalry in the Strategikon.

In the majority of Belisarius’s battles, Procopius writes that the infantry were in a support role or not present. Again historians compare the foot troops of Belisarius to those described in the Strategikon, which also suggests that they supported the cavalry or were not used in battle. The normal assumption is that the infantry were inferior to the cavalry. Yet this generalisation overlooks the role of the infantry in the Battle Callinicum (531 AD) during which the left wing (the infantry) of the Roman army successfully withstood the final assaults of the entire Persian army long after the flight of the right (Arab allies) and centre (primarily cavalry). It is with the infantry that Belisarius concludes this battle, a situation that is very different from his normal place with cavalry.

Although Procopius does not specifically state what influenced the increased reliance on mounted archers, many historians have suggested that it was a result of exposure to the Huns of Attila, who dwelt along the Danube River in the 5th Century. Some historians have gone even further to credit Aetius with this development. The Romans were equipped with a composite bow similar to that of the Huns and were trained to shoot in a manner similar to that of the Huns, so it is easy to make the assumption that the Huns were a major influence. Added to this information is the fact that Aetius employed Huns in many of his campaigns. Unfortunately, such an assumption disregards the fact that Aetius was a western general and had little or no contact with the eastern military, which employed predominantly German troops, who did not traditionally use the bow, but rather weapons such as spears, javelins and lances.

So our knowledge of the Roman army for a period of almost two hundred years is almost completely dependent on the study of books by two men, who were civil servants with limited military knowledge. And yet just about every book and article written since then has incorporated the information recorded by Vegetius and Procopius in order to identify the organisation and equipment of the Roman army.

There is a modern parallel that indicates how a writer can gain influence beyond the initial audience of his or her information. In 1986, Arther Ferrill published his “The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation” (ISBN: 0500250952). Professor Ferrill’s book is currently used as a primary source in a variety of history courses available at American colleges and universities (based on an Internet search conducted by this writer in 2002.) It is not the book that is of interest, although its merits have been debated by academics since its first publication, but rather the source of Ferrill’s statements about the size and composition of the Hunnic army of Attila. On page 142, Ferrill states the following: “Several decades of sedentary life in the Great Hungarian Plain led to important changes in the way the Huns fought war. To a very great extent they had been forced by circumstances to abandon their earlier cavalry tactics in favour of infantry…”

This is deduced by the following assumption on page 143: “If one assumes that the Huns used ten horses per cavalryman for a large-scale horse campaigns and that the Great Hungarian Plain…could have supported only about 150,000 grazing horses, then there were enough for approximately 15,000 cavalry.”

Ferrill’s comments are drawn from a single article, which is an essay in the journal Past and Present 92 published in 1981. The article is titled “Nomadism, Horses and Huns” and was written by Rudy Paul Lindner. An Internet search revealed that Mr. Lindner has written at least one other article on a similar topic (Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia (1983)); however, there was nothing about his academic credentials, current status, or other published works.

How does this information influence wargaming?

In 1989, NASAMW published its own army lists to be used with WRG 7th Edition rules. The editor, Michael F Pavkovic, who is a history professor and published author, included a list for the Huns. The list required the user to purchase compulsory Hunnic infantry for the period covering Attila’s reign. Professor Pavkovic supported this requirement with the following statement: “ Recent research shows the Alfold (Hungarian Plain) could not support the large number of horses that the nomadic Huns required and as a result many settled down and fought more in the fashion of their Germanic subjects and opponents, i.e., as MI.”

WRG also noted the influence of Ferrill and Lindner in its 1993 version of the Hunnic army list for DBM: “The over-simplistic calculation of grazing in Hungary used by two modern authors to justify the suggestion that the Huns turned themselves into infantry for lack of horses totally lacks credibility.”

Therefore, the list has no Hunnic infantry, either compulsory or optional.

So, out of all the written sources concerning the Huns and how they fought, Ferrill and Lindner were selected as important writers. The same might be true of Vegetius and Procopius, but we may never know, as there are currently no other important works against which to compare them.