Limitanei

The limitanei, meaning "the soldiers in frontier districts" (from the Latin phrase limes, denoting the military districts of the frontier provinces established in the late third century. They reflect the organization of the Late Roman army and subsequently the Byzantine Empire. They were light infantry similar to spear men and served as a policing force to patrol Rome's distant, far-flung border regions and when necessary, to delay advancing enemy forces until counter-attacks could be arranged. They are historically significant in that their appearance, as part of a plan of military reforms enacted in the late 3rd century, was able to extend the life of the Roman Empire by pushing back the great barbarian invasions of late antiquity.

History

Historians believe that the final set of military reforms in the Roman Empire prior to its fragmentation, were begun in the late 3rd century by the Emperor Diocletian. In all respects however, the Limitanei owe their existence to the reforms of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman Emperor, who divided the Roman military into two types of soldiers in 300 AD. Henceforth, all the Roman Cohorts were characterized as either frontier garrisons to police border provinces and keep the peace in fringe settlements or mobile field armies to confront attacking enemy forces in mass engagements. The first known written reference to Limitanei was recorded in 363 AD.

Military changes

The creation of the limitanei occurred at roughly the same time as the creation of the Comitatenses. The limitanei were the lighter and less experienced of these two groups, armed primarily with spears and clad in Lorica hamata, and designated with the task of harassing or delaying invading enemies and otherwise buying time for a larger, more capable force of comitatenses to arrive and destroy an invading force. The comitatenses represented the bulk of the Roman legions and were professional heavy infantry veterans akin to the earlier Roman Republican Principes and Triarii who were heavily armoured swordsmen.

Although the limitanei were a militia of sorts and perhaps looked down upon by the rest of the more discliplined Roman legions, they were nonetheless a fairly well equipped and trained, division of infantry for their time, especially in relation to other standing armies of the day fielded by Rome's Germanic, Celtic Iranic, and Eastern neighbours, collectively referred to as Barbarians by the Romans themselves.

Effects

Although these military reforms brought about a more effective defensive army than the previous arrangement had, it did have its pitfalls.

Constantine I was criticised for allowing what were perceived as "second-class" infantry, often recruited from non-Roman backgrounds, to be given the responsibility of watching over Rome's most troublesome regions. The elite Comitatenses and Scholae Palatinae (the personal bodyguards of the late Roman Emperors such as Constantine I) resented being reduced to trivial home guard duties and acting more similarly to an urban police force until such a time that a serious enough threat presented itself at a nearby border, when they were called upon for duty.

The quality of these border troops declined because the limitanei had to live in poor conditions in impoverished and isolated towns, unlike their well-off counterparts the comitatenses, who were typically assigned to more urban and prosperous areas of the empire. This affected the discipline and morale of the late Roman army. In the past it was usually assumed that over time the limitanei settled down more permanently in their posts and became farmers and land owners as well as soldiers; raising families and earning a living from agricultural means rather than purely military service. It is now more generally assumed that there is no good evidence for this.

It can be surmised due in part to these reforms, that the Roman Empire continued to live on for another 140 years after the end of Constantine's reign, in the face of numerous migrations and invasions from northern and eastern, nomadic peoples such as the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Sarmatians, Alans, Burgundians, Saxons and Franks, which continually weakened the Empire until its eventual collapse in 476 AD.

References

Primary Sources

(none yet)

Secondary Sources

Benjamin Isaac, The Limits of Empire: the Roman Army in the East (Oxford University Press, revised ed. 1992)

External links

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See also

• Akritoi