Gallo-Roman bishop Sidonius Apollinaris wrote a letter to his uncle describing his meeting with the Visigothic King Theodoric II, sometime in the 450s. Sidonius describes him as a temperate and Christian ruler, giving a picture of the life of a Post-Roman Germanic king. A thread:
Before daybreak, the king prayed with a small group of priests, before devoting his mornings to the administration of his kingdom and meetings with foreign diplomats.
He hunted for pleasure, a servant carrying his bow for him. Theodoric was such an expert archer that he would ask his companions what to shoot, never missing the target they selected.
During meals, the king avoided drunkenness and ceremony, engaging in serious conversation with his nobles and guests.
Theodoric enjoyed playing board games, probably similar to backgammon, and did so well. Although he was gracious in defeat, Sidonius mentions letting him win so the king would favor his petitions.
He spent his evenings listening to petitioners. He disliked wild parties and loud music, preferring music which would "charm the ear with virtue." When he slept, guards watched the royal treasury throughout the night.
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One Roman legion was founded by Augustus and is last attested fighting against the Islamic conquest of Egypt. It had the longest known service history of any Roman legion - 680 years. Its history is that of the empire itself. A thread on Legio V Macedonia:
Legio V was one of the original 28 legions raised by Octavian in 43 BC. It almost certainly fought at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC against Marc Anthony before being transferred to Macedonia in 30 BC, where it acquired it's nickname. It would remain in the province until 6 AD.
In 62 AD, some detachments were sent to Armenia to fight the Parthians. Traditionally a Roman client, the Parthians had managed to put their own man in the throne. Legio V was part of the army sent to remove him. Although Rome suffered some defeats, they did so in the end.
Almost everyone has at least heard of the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Franks, and Saxons, and of their legendary leaders like Attila, Clovis, and Hengist and Horsa. However, few know anything about Odoacer, the general turned king who actually ended the Western Roman Empire. A thread:
It's not clear what, exactly, Odoacer was, although he certainly wasn't considered Roman. Classical sources variously call him a Hun or a member of various east Germanic tribes that had just broken out of Attila's collapsing empire.
The earliest supposed mention of Odoacer is from the Life of St Severinus. The future king, then a young man, met the holy ascetic while traveling through the Alps to Italy, who told him, "Go to Italy, go, now covered with mean hides; soon you will make rich gifts to many."
Were the armies of the Germanic kingdoms of Post-Roman Europe essentially Roman, the descendants of Late Roman field armies; essentially Germanic, the descendants of tribal warbands; or something in between? A thread:
It's clear that all of them were based around the retinues of powerful individuals, whether kings, lesser noblemen, or even bishops. However, the political and social role of such men was more complex than might be imagined, acting variously as royal officials or elite soldiers.
The 6th century Frankish Salic Law describes two types of royal retainers: the higher ranking antrustiones and the pueri regis - literally "royal boys." The antrustiones, at least, were a legally distinct category, with a higher weregild than ordinary citizens.
I wanted to do a thread on the complex relationship between civil wars and barbarian invasions in the last decades of the Western Roman Empire. I decided to illustrate this through the life of one man: Aegidius, a Roman general who made himself an independent ruler:
Aegidius began as a loyal supporter of Majorian, one of the last capable western emperors, who took power in 457. The two men had served together in the army, and Aegidius was made Magister Militum per Gallias - commander of Roman forces in Gaul.
They had their work cut out for them. By this point, Rome had lost control of much of its territory to semi-independent barbarian kingdoms, including the critical breadbasket of North Africa. They had to force these rulers to submit to imperial authority.
One of the commonly given causes of the fall of the Western Roman Empire is the barbarianization of its army - the army was increasingly made up of foreign Germanic tribesmen, with a corresponding decrease in loyalty and effectiveness. Was this true? A thread:
It isn't really in doubt that the Roman Army was increasingly made up of ethnic Germans, both recruited individually into professional field army units and incorporated as whole tribes of Foedreti. Still, the majority of soldiers were probably born within the empire.
An analysis of soldiers mentioned in sources found that 52% were born in Gaul and Illyricum, and only about 25% were born outside the empire's borders. However, they appear to have been more numerous in the most elite units, and this was still an increase over the early empire.