Painting update - bacaudae, soldiers and more!

I'm going to open up with a picture of what I've done so far, with some discussion below...

A cast of thousands!

I've imagined this guy to be an assassin, bandit or a leader of the bacaudae.

Source: Black Tree Designs

There's some contention as to who the bacaudae were: either organised groups of militarised peasants or (less plausibly) the semi-militarised thugs of local strong-men outside of the control of provincial government. Kulikowski settles on "well-organised bandits who were so a general feature of Roman provincial life". Either way, they were a significant enough threat and were dealt with brutally.

Speaking of which, here are some soldiers.

Source: Gripping Beast

I'll be adding more to join them. I see them as an elite unit, or bodyguard, operating in and around the frontiers between Italy, France and Spain... more on my choice of setting another time!

Uniforms and war gear provide little distinction between "Roman" and "barbarian" armies. For the narrators of history, such as Gregory of Tours, the word "barbarian" was typically synonymous with "soldier". When Theoderic Amal (454-526) designed policy, he designed it with a classical ethnographic distinction in mind - "Goths" were typically the military elite, but they served Rome.

When I started painting these I had an alternate icon on the top - a chi ro - which I copied from other examples. I started to wonder why this is so popular... this is perhaps a legacy of Constantine's labara (as seen on some coins), and much later the San Vitale mosaic of Justinian shows a spectacular shield with the chi ro. As these sources are potential loaded with Eastern Imperial propaganda, I started to look around for more information.

The original shield design. A bit bleh.

What we know of shield for the armies of Late Rome are usually drawn from the Notitia Dignitatum. This has a list of the "units" of the Eastern and Western Roman Army with a shield representing each. Peculiar shield designs for each cohort seems to be what Vegetius describes in a passage of Book II of his De Re Militares. The Notitia also lists other "offices" such as political and administrative roles (e.g. the Urban Prefect of Rome). This is presumed correct for the late 4th/early 5th centuries.

But why the excess of chi ro shields in the tabletop armies of Late Antiquity? I don't really have an answer, but they look nice and are probably easy to fit onto your miniatures. Again, the iconography from coinage and art is another source, but may be somewhat misleading.

Further down the track we see that, in the West, Classical iconography presented alongside more contemporary Christian icons like the coin of Athalaric minted in Rome below. The scene above harks back to the myth of Romulus and Remus, still in popular memory in the early 6th Century. Note that bronze coinage probably had a different audience and purpose than the gold Victoria coinage of the period. But every decision made when designing and minting coins is intentional. It can communicate an idea, identity, quality assurance, authority, or serve as an administrative measure. Can we consider shields in the same way?

A bronze coin of Athalaric from the mint at Rome. 

Source: Roma Numismatics Ltd, Auction IX, Lot 870

So, for me, it wasn't a stretch to play around with shield designs.

I've come across some promising images of shields across the web, but will look into this more for another post.

FURTHER READING

Kulikowski, M. (2010) Late Roman Spain and Its Cities, John Hopkins

Wargaming Late Antiquity: Part 1 - The Decline and Fall of an Historical Paradigm

I intimated in my first post that I'd be getting into the historical scholarship of Late Antiquity every now and then and how it's relevant to wargaming. So here's the first post in a series.

Let's talk about the "Dark Ages" a little bit.

It's a term that, over that last 50 years, has progressively fallen out of scholarly use... and rightly so. It is incredibly ill-equipped to explore this historical period. The term "Dark Ages" is a relic, and a major narrative holding this concept together is "the Fall of Rome". Yet, that is also proving to be an inadequate, and misleading, term. This concept originated in the Renaissance and throughout the Enlightenment reached its peak in Gibbons' monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (the first volume published in 1776). It persists to this day. In 1984, Demandt cited 210 reasons for "the Fall", and countless popular histories bear a similarly gloomy title.

As a metaphor, "the Fall of Rome" captures our fears for our own civilisation, and thus as myth it remains relevant. It's also alluring and dramatic, and so it also entertains us. It provides a clear and convenient distinction between eras, as well as valiant protagonists and barbarous antagonists. The never-ending battle between "us" and "them".

But, what happens when there's no "them"?

As the scholarly community have been discovering, and rediscovering, the "Fall of Rome" as a paradigm provides little in the way of historical "truth". There is no global phenomenon, or unanimous contemporary experience, that can be identified as "the Fall of Rome". Not in 376, with the crossing of the Goths across the Danube. Nor in 410, with the sack of Rome by Alaric. And neither in 476, with the deposition of Romulus Augustulus by the usurper Odovacer. "It may have been a chameleon," writes Bowersock, "but it was certainly no phoenix, because there were no ashes".

This is not to say that the turmoil, conflicts and catastrophes that define the period didn't happen. But they need to be reassessed free from the judgments and modern day assumptions. Take the Saxon advent in Britain, which I think casts a long shadow on our perceptions of the period. But the experience from person to person varied: some certainly benefitted, most probably did not. The transition from Roman to Saxon Britain (if we want to call it that) was not a smooth one, but for a variety of reasons. It is not our role to judge whether it was "good" or "bad", but we do anyway.

Another narrative, "The Barbarian Invasions" is similarly problematic. Goffart, one of my favourite scholars on the topic, points out that there has been a disproportionate amount of attention given to the "invasion" narrative in historical study. What happens when we contrast this with an "accommodation" narrative?

A question I continue to ask, and I encourage you to also consider, is "what was it about Late Roman society that allowed barbarians to enter, contribute, but also rise to the highest authority?".

What, in your mind, makes it inherently "better" or (more likely) "worse" than what came before? Is this an assumption, or is it based on "the facts of history"?

I believe that the "Dark Ages" persists in wargaming for similar reasons described above. The narrative, specifically of dramatic conflict amidst a backdrop of apocalyptic destruction: the bread and butter of wargaming. It's also incredibly convenient when you have the good guys, the bad guys, and they have homogenous (often ethnic) identities.

The question is: does that have to change?

In short, yes. Unless you're okay with propagating pseudo-historical narratives and ethnic stereotypes for the sake of entertainment.

But how?

That's a question for another blog.

Vale!

REFERENCES & FURTHER READING (AND LISTENING)

Bowersock, G.W. (1996) “The Vanishing Paradigm of the Fall of Rome” in Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 49, No. 8 (May, 1996), American Academy of Arts & Sciences: 29-43

Carr, E.H. (1961) "The Historian and His Facts" in What Is History?, Cambridge University Press

Demandt, A. (1984) "210 Reasons for decline of Roman Empire" in Der Fall Roms, Beck

Goffart, W. (1989) "The theme of 'The Barbarian Invasions' in Late Antique and Modern Historiography" in Rome’s Fall and After, The Hambledon Press

Wyman, P. (2018) The Fall of Rome Podcast

On the workbench - April

This is what I've got planned for April. These figures have been sitting around for years, so it's nice to finally get to work on them. I've been a bit of a stickler for miniature figure sizes in the past, but must be mellowing with age or something.

They’re based on washers, with a little bit of filler or clay to even out the surface, and some pumice paste for texture. For metals, like the chainmail on a few figures, I gently scrape away the undercoat (black gesso) with a hobby knife.

Here's a rundown of manufacturers (l to r):

Eureka Miniatures: one of Beowulf’s companions (who seems to be a stereotypical representation of a Frank), a Viking and a Saxon archer. These are really nicely sculpted by Alan Marsh, with lovely details.

"Phwoar! Check out that bloke on the left with the furs - he must be a barbarian, yeah?"
"Nah mate, that's Lucius - he just came back from a holiday in the Rhineland."

By the 5th century it seems that warriors of the period had abandoned this peculiar style of dress, although the fashion does have some precedent in literary sources. I wonder if he might instead serve better as a lumberjack? I'm still looking for reliable information on fashions of the time (but this looks promising).

Black Tree Design: The figure in the centre has had a bit of work done. I added an eye-patch, short cape, sword and shield to the base figure. Possibly a little dagger hanging from his belt, too. I see him as a kind of soldier-of-fortune or other roguish type. I'm not sure what happened to retired warriors in the 5th Century... I'll see what I can dig up.

Crusader Miniatures: Purchased for a Gladiator project that flopped spectacularly, I’ve kept this fellow for use as a senator, parvennu or other aristocrat, all whom continued to have an important role in Roman society in the 5th and 6th centuries.

Gripping Beast: Do these need any introduction? The heavily armoured soldiers in the back row are from the Arthurian and Late Roman ranges. Although intended for games set in Cornwell’s Warlord trilogy, they’ll likely see action across the Pond instead (I'll do a post on the where and when soon).

All these figures fit nicely alongside each other, if you’re not too picky, although the sweeping chronology might lead to a few anachronisms. But, nothing that a weapon swap here and there can’t address.

You'll notice that I'm a little wary of using homogenous "ethnic" titles. There's significant debate around this practice which I'd like to go into from a wargaming point of view as we go on. The short version is that when we use terms like Goths or Franks, we are usually referring to the elite minority, and not a homogenous group that identifies ethnically with that term. A term like Germanic, which even more monolithic, is right out (unless we're discussing languages, which we probably won't).

Shocking, I know - what will all those Saga players do now?

I look forward to having these painted soon, and I can already see a few scenarios brewing.

Vale!

Welcome to the blog!

Salvete omnes - welcome to my blog!

Like many I've been drawn into the stories, battles and romance of the Dark Ages. This started off with a passion for learning more about the "historical" Arthur, especially the rich, fictional narrative in Bernard Cornwell's Warlord trilogy. The next step for me was to dive into the ranges from Gripping Beast, Footsore, and others... if you're reading this then it's likely you've done the same!

Things took a different turn for me, as I took the next step and ventured into academic study in Ancient History. This really broadened my understanding of the period and it's nuances but also some of the scholarly debate around the very idea of the Dark Ages.

The "fall of Rome" is an alluring and dramatic narrative, the perfect backdrop for riveting tabletop scenarios... but the very concept is questionable. While the “fall of Rome” as an intellectual paradigm has run its course  – itself, perhaps, an allegory of Gibbons’ monumental 18th Century work - the narrative of “decline and fall” still permeates the public imagination.

In 1971, Peter Brown offered an alternative to this well-worn narrative in his work The World of Late Antiquity. This was the first step in shedding light on a period obscured more by modern prejudices than anything else. The result has been a refreshing, vibrant look at a previously bleak period. So much so, that it is now possible to entertain the idea that the Roman Empire in the West, although disrupted, didn't end with the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, or even the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476. Instead, we see a society capable of accommodating 'barbarian' people who eventually became a part of the fabric of Roman society - its stewards, not its destroyers.

And this, to me, is a much more interesting world to bring to life on the tabletop!

My own scholarly journey has given me the opportunity of in-depth research and publications, but you won't find too much of that here (unless you ask nicely).

At its heart, this is a hobby blog with a scholarly, but accessible, twist that I believe you'll enjoy. There'll be as much miniature painting and terrain building as I can muster, and ripping scenarios taken straight from the pages of history. I’ll also review and suggest relevant source material for interesting ideas, which I’d love to hear your thoughts on.

So, see you at the next post!

Christian