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Barbarian Invasion The Representation of the Roman Army c.363-425AD in Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion Daniel McDevitt Senior Sophister Trinity College Dublin Word Count: 11,539 McDevitt i Acknowledgments An enormous thank you to Dr. Hazel Dodge for all her help with this paper, for not laughing too much when I suggested the idea of analyzing a video game, and for her speedy and timely responses to my many frantic emails. A thank you to my mom and grandmom for encouraging me to pursue my education and supporting me in my moving to a foreign country for university. A thank you to my muse who inspires me to be a better person and has supported me in my many moments of self­doubt. And finally a thank you to my father for always giving me the motivation to succeed. McDevitt ii Table of Contents Abbreviations………………………………………………………….pg iii Introduction…………………………………………………………….pg 1 Chapter 1: Military Unit Types and Titles …………………….…....pg 4 Chapter 2: Army Recruitment, Training, and Upkeep………….. pg 21 Chapter 3: Arms and Armor ……………………………………….pg 36 Conclusion………………………………………………………….. pg 49 Appendix ………………………………………………………….... pg 51 Bibliography……………………………………………………...…. pg 65 McDevitt iii Abbreviations Amm. ­ Ammianus Marcellinus Barbarian Invasion ​­ ​Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion C.Th. ­ C​ odex Theodosianus Not. Dig. ­ N​ otitia Dignitatum Veg. ­ Vegetius Zos. ­ Zosimus McDevitt 1 Introduction The working objective of this dissertation is to examine the manner in which the video game R​ ome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion represents the realities of the Roman army between 363 and 425 AD. Before getting into format and layout, a few notes first on the relevance of the objective of this paper, the time period under study, and the video game itself. The majority of people who do not study classical civilizations academically usually first encounter the subject through artistic mediums, that is to say movies, fictitious books, and, more commonly in the past decade, video games. From blockbuster movies such as G​ ladiator (2000) to tv series such as H.B.O.’s R​ ome (2005­2007) the classical world is a frequent subject of artistic representation in a modern world. R​ ome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion is just one game in a series of strategy games produced by the C​ reative Assembly.​ This same team sold 1.13 million copies of their most recent strategy game R​ ome 2:Total War as of March, 2014. A large number of people then are interacting with classically based media without academic education on the topic first. It is important then that scholarship be aware of how these increasingly popular mediums are representing the historical realities of the classical world. Thus, this dissertation aims to do exactly McDevitt 2 that. It’s important to note that this paper is not simply looking for ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ information in the game, but rather it will examine how the game developers are interacting with the classical material and how they are representing the historical realities. The time period under discussion (363­425AD) is a tumultuous one. The Roman Empire had been administratively split between East and West with and emperor ruling each independently, followed by the official final split in 395 after the death of Theodosius. Various Germanic and Steppe hordes were migrating across Europe, pursued by the Hunnic tribes, leading to militaristic problems for the empires. If the invading foreign armies weren’t enough, plague, corruption, and a weakening economy threatened many parts of the empires. Ultimately it was a difficult time in Roman history, just as it is a difficult time period for historians due to a shortage of surviving evidence from the time period. Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion is a Windows game released in September of 2005 as a stand­alone companion to the critically acclaimed R​ ome: Total War game (released in Sept. 2004). Developed by The Creative Assembly and produced by the companies Activision and Sega.​ The game received critical acclaim from numerous game reviewers such as Metacritic and IGN (two of the largest independent game review companies in Europe and North America) with an average rating of 8.8 out of a possible 10. McDevitt 3 Set in the greater Mediterranean world, the game begins in 363 AD and ends in 476 AD and features a series of playable 'factions' where the player has to successfully administer a contemporary nation (i.e. The Western Roman Empire, The Eastern Roman Empire, the Huns, the Franks, etc). This administration includes warfare, taxation, diplomatic relations, and the upgrading of infrastructure for ones own nation. Warfare is conducted on a battlefield where the player is tasked with commanding an army with the objective of defeating an enemy army. The rest of the game (the imposition of taxes, recruitment of new units, etc.) occurs on a large topographical map which uses figures to represent features such as armies and settlements. The primary objective of the game is expansion through the conquest of neighbors. The paper will break down into three categories, with each chapter featuring one of these categories. The first category will be military unit types and titles, the second will be the recruitment, training, and upkeep of the army, and the third will be the arms and armor of Roman infantry. Each chapter will follow a basic format: it will open with a reconstruction of the Roman army from primary and secondary sources regarding the topic of the chapter, then there will be an outline the features of B​ arbarian Invasion relevant to the same chapter, then an analysis of B​ arbarian Invasion’​s representation of the history will be conducted. McDevitt 4 Chapter 1: Military Unit Types and Titles This chapter aims first to reconstruct the specific types of military units in use by the Eastern and Western Roman Empires in the time period of discussion (c.363­425). This chapter is not intended to provide a full description of the various types of soldiers employed by the Romans, as such research has already been compiled (that information which is available) and is unrealistic given the restrictions of the paper, but rather it will be restricted to a short summary of the military units and relevant information to the reconstruction of such units for the purposes of comparison and analysis to R​ ome Total War: Barbarian Invasion.​ Sections 1.1­1.4 will address the divisions among the standing army regarding a regiment’s individual role in the army as a whole. Sections 2.1­2.2 will then look at the specific types of troops employed. The subsequent sections will outline the troop titles of B​ arbarian Invasion and then analyze the representation of the history in B​ arbarian Invasion.​ The primary sources used in the reconstruction of the army and its units and subdivisions are the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, Vegetius, the N​ otitia Dignitatum,​ and the C​ odex Theodosianus.​ This period of time is a difficult one regarding the reconstruction of military units however due to the blurring of roles of units and divisions from previous generations and the adoption of newer military practices and applications of the army. This will result in a broad yet McDevitt 5 selective reconstruction, but do note that situational variances which alter the realities of these terms were not uncommon. 1. Military Unit Categories: 1.1 Comitatenses The first category a Roman standing army might fall into is the ‘C​ omitatenses’.​ The C​ omitatenses represented the standing field army of the Romans. The term c​omitatenses included both infantry and cavalry regiments, with the regiment being the basic unit of the army.1 All types of units were included under the umbrella term of c​omitatenses,​ but the army could then be subdivided by unit types such as l​egiones,​ a​uxilia,​ and p​alatina (See sections 1.6­1.7).​ The title p​seudocomitatenses was given to units who had been promoted to the field army from the l​imitanei [Veg. 1.17]. Such troops were considered a subdivision of the c​omitatenses army (similar to palatina section 1.6). P​ seudocomitatenses filled the same role as the standard c​omitatenses,​ however they were seen as a less prestigious group, often being viewed as having the same status as l​imitanei.​2 1 Sabin, Philip A. G., Hans Van. Wees, and Michael Whitby. T​he Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare.​ Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007 pgs 273­274 2 Dixon and Southern T​he Late Roman Army p​g 37 for status differences and C.Th 8.1.10 for differences in pay scale McDevitt 6 Comitatenses were the ‘workhorses’ of the Roman army. They were usually not based on the frontiers, but rather in central locations from which they could respond to military threats in nearby regions.3 They made up the bulk of any military force on campaign and acted as reserve forces for the region in which they were stationed in the event of an invasion or attack. Ammianus Marcellinus’ writings place the ratio of infantry to cavalry units as two to one with the number of infantry being double that of cavalry with the average infantry unit size at c.800­1200 and the average cavalry unit size at c.400­600.4 However the size and composition of the c​omitatenses army varied from one situation to another and as such the listed numbers and responsibilities of the troops are subject to situational alterations made by leaders of the time. 1.2 Limitanei Limitanei were the frontier units of the Roman army. Much like comitatenses the title l​imitanei could be applied to any unit within the division, from infantry to cavalry.
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