THE AGE OF ARTHURPart One - Who was Arthur?This is a question with no quick or easy answer. If he existed (and scholars hotly debated that very fundamental question) it was in the later part of the 5th century, perhaps into the early 6th. This was in the sunset of Roman culture in Britain; itself once the jewel in the crown of the Roman Empire. Arthur was the champion who kept the flame of civilization alive as the rest of Western Europe sunk into the Dark Ages.But before we can discuss Arthur, it is important to understand the world in which he lived.In the first two decades of the 5 th century, Roman Britain (Britannia) was gradually abandoned by the Roman Empire. While both the Britons and the Romans considered it to be part of the Empire, for all practical purposes Roman Britannia became an independent Romano-British state.British Canterbury (Durovernum Cantiacorum) in the Roman Era

Britain was a prosperous, mostly Christian, and outside of the tribal hill country a thoroughly Romanized province. The Celtic inhabitants of the cities and towns spoke Latin as a first language, and throughout the province were governed by elected magistrates, drawn (as elsewhere in the Roman world) from the aristocratic curiales class. In the southern part of the island, the countryside was dotted with prosperous villas, inhabited by this same Romanized Celtic aristocracy and their retainers. Britannia contributed financially to the Empire as a whole; it was not a drain on the Empire.But the Western Roman Empire was caught in a death-spiral of cause-and-effect events that began in 401 AD; and would continue for the next 75 years to slowly strangle the life out of the Western Empire. Crises in the Western Empire This destructive loop of events began with the Visigoths under Alaric invading Italy in 401. These former foederati had rampaged through the Balkans in previous years; plaguing the Eastern Roman government. Alaric’s sudden and rapid incursion into Italy caught the Western Roman authorities surprisingly unprepared, and the Visigoths very nearly captured the young Emperor Honorius in Milan.In response, Stilicho, the Magister Militum (Master of Soldiers) of the Western Empire, at the time campaigning in Raetia and Noricum (modern Austria) along the Danube; was forced to pull troops from that frontier and hurry them back to Italy to fight Alaric. Alaric was defeated at the battles of Pollentia and Verona, and driven back into Illyria.But stripping troops from Pannonia to rescue Italy was not without its own risks: another, hitherto undetected barbarian army appeared from beyond the frontier; led by a warlord named Radagaisus. This pillaged its way through southeastern Noricum and western Pannonia; the very places Stilicho had denuded of troops to deal with Alaric. Crossing the Alps, they entered Italy early in 406, in numbers too strong for Stilicho to face in battle with the forces at his disposal.

Now, to repel this invasion, Stilicho spent 6 months gathering troops from Gaul and the Rhine frontier. A legion was even pulled from far off Britain (likely the remenants of the old Legio II Augusta). By August 406, Radagaisus was blockaded and defeated at Florence with these reinforcements. His force was largely captured or dispersed; with 12,000 of the best taking service in Stilicho’s army, while those who escaped joined Alaric in the coming years.Radagaisus’ sudden and unexpected appearance was not a lone event. His invasion was but the gust front of a coming storm. The Germanic nations were on the move. This was the beginning of the Völkerwanderung period, the “wandering of the peoples”. It was the harbinger of the coming Dark Ages.  Just over four months after Radagaisus’ defeat, the storm reached the Rhine frontier.On New Year’s Eve, 406 AD, just over four months after Radagaisus’ defeat, three Germanic nations : the Vandals, Suebi,  and the Alans, crossed over the frozen Rhine River into Roman Gaul.  The border garrisons were too weakened to stop the penetration; the mobile field army that backed up the frontier (the comitatensis) was with Stilicho in Italy. Gaul was now virtually defenseless. For the next two years, Gaul was mercilessly ravaged by this barbarian horde.The Roman system of defense was a single garment, of whole cloth. As one thread after another was pulled out, the whole became unraveled.The policies of Honorius (really Stilicho) had resulted in disaster. As so often happened in Roman history when the central authority appeared too weak or foolish to deal with a crises, ambitious generals took advantage of the

situation to declare themselves an alternative to the current ruler. Revolts soon broke out in Gaul; and in Britannia the commander of the mobile field army there proclaimed himself Constantine III, revolting against Honorius. Taking the field army of Britain with him, he crossed the Channel in 407 AD.Stilicho was neither weak nor foolish. He had simply gambled that he could put out the fire in Italy before another broke out in elsewhere. The real problem was that there just were not enough troops in any one province’s mobile field army to deal with the massive invasions that now fell on the West one after the other. Only by concentrating all of the available comitatenses could Stilicho field an army of sufficient size. But moving this fire brigade from one theater to another took time. And time was in very short supply.Before he could deal with the unraveling situation in Gaul, Stilicho needed to be sure Italy’s eastern flank would be secure in his absence. That meant negotiating with Alaric, waiting like a vulture in neighboring Illyria. After some wrangling, Stilicho agreed to acknowledge the Visigoth king as Magister Militum in Illyricum; and to pay over a large stipend. This negotiation caused outrage in Rome, and Stilicho (himself of Vandal birth) was suspected of plotting treachery. In August of 408 Stilicho was executed by the Emperor he had served so well.

Stilicho’s death signaled a general slaughter of the defenseless families of German soldiers in the Roman army (presumably while their men were away , in distant army camps). Romanized Germans made up the bulk of all Roman field armies (stationary border garrisons tended to be “Romans”, serving generationally in their forefather’s regiments). This outrage against their families led to a general mutiny among the troops Stilicho had brought to defend Italy, the main strike force of the Western Empire!Alaric lost little time in taking advantage of the chaos in the Western Empire, and invaded Italy a second time. In August of 410, two years after the execution of Stilicho, Alaric and the Visigoths sacked the city of Rome!The Germanic nations that had crossed the Rhine in 406 were never expelled; and were soon followed by Franks, Burgundians, and Alamanni; who settled in the Gallic territories west of the Rhine.  The original invaders moved on into Spain, and in the case of the Vandals eventually into North Africa.For the next 70 years, German settlements and zones of authority laid in a patchwork quilt across the Western Empire. Weak and often corrupt Roman administration remained in the areas between these barbarian occupation zones; sometimes serving the ends of the government in Ravenna (now the capital of the Western Empire), sometimes their own ends. In other places, the provincial nobles set up their own pseudo-governments; carrying on the fight against the barbarians or rebelling against the central government as they saw fit.The Western Empire slowly disintegrated.Deprived of tax revenue, not to mention the recruiting grounds for native soldiers these lost territories had provided; and, in the case of North Africa its main grain source, the Western Empire died a slow death.The Matter of BritainConstantine III departed Britain in 407, at the start of the crises; taking with him all or most of the comitatensis troops that had been the core of Britannia’s defense. His bid for “the purple” failed and in a few years he was dead. His main achievement had been to leave Britain vulnerable.With the shepherds gone, the sheep seemed ripe for the shearing.  The wolves very quickly closed in.That is not to say that Britain was without defenders. The fortress garrisons along the coasts and in the north, remained: these troops were settled on plots of land around their garrisons, in lieu of pay. But these were distinctly second-rate troops, barely capable of holding the walls of their own forts.Hadrian’s Wall had deteriorated badly during the 4th century, and was no longer a continuous defensive line warding the Roman south from a “barbarian” north.By the late 4th and early 5th centuries Hadrian’s Wall had ceased to be a clearly defined frontier. It was now a ramshackle structure between forts which were more like armed and densely populated villages. The Wall itself, its turrets and mile-castles have been abandoned, and the forts were inhabited by the families of second-grade, and probably hereditary, frontier auxiliaries.  – David Nicolle, Ph.D., “Arthur and the Anglo-Saxon WarsEven had the Imperial government in Ravenna ordered their withdrawal across the Channel, the garrisons would likely would have mutinied rather than obeyed. Something like this happened 50 years earlier, in Gaul, when the Augustus Constantius II ordered the mobile field army of the province to the East, to fight the Persians. The soldiers responded by throwing off their allegiance to Constantius, and proclaiming his cousin, Julian, Emperor!While the field army and a few of the willing garrisons had withdrawn across the channel, never to return; the remaining forces stayed in place, accepting the authority of the new British leadership.In the first two decades after the Roman withdrawal, the political situation is murky. The question that looms is who or what was the new British authority?Perhaps some of the senior Roman officers remaining in Britain converted their position to noble status in the post-Roman hierarchy.  In the north, where many of the later Celtic tribal kings traced their lineage to one Coel Hen (“Old King Cole”), it has been suggested that he was the last official Dux Britanniarum (commander of the Wall garrisons). As such, he had command of a wide swath of territory, and influence on both sides of the Wall; and was well placed to dominate affairs in northern Britain in the years immediately after the Roman departure. He may have been the main leader in Britain for the first generation post-Rome; though how much (if any) influence he had south of his headquarters at York is unknown.What we do know is that a “Council of Britain”, likely comprised of representatives of the various tribes, the cities (civitates), and military commanders (like Coel) attempted to organize a common defense. In this they had their work cut out for them, as Britain reeled under ceaseless and destructive raids from all sides.

ROMAN BRITAIN

From the north, the Pictish tribes took to the sea (in curraghs: small, light-weight hide covered boats) circumventing the buffer zone of Roman-friendly tribes north of Hadrian’s Wall and the Wall garrisons themselves; and raided rich British lands to the south. In the West, Irish pirates and raiders pillaged and took slaves back to Hibernia. Some intrepid chieftains even seized portions of south and north Wales, founding temporary Irish settlements. And in the far north, Irishmen from Ulster landed in Dal Riada and founded an Irish kingdom there. These Irish raiders had been known by the Romans (and presumably by their successors, the Romano-Britons) as “Scotti”; and it was these Irish tribes of Ulster who eventually spread throughout Pictish Alba,  giving the land a new name: Scotland.In the southeast, where Britain came closest to the continent, Germanic pirates from north Germany and Scandinavia had been raiding Britain since the 3rd century. These were collectively called “Saxons” by the Romans and Romano-British. Of all the dangerous foes who threatened Britain, the Saxons were the fiercest and the most dangerous.The Councilors of Britain repeatedly begged Rome to return and take up the defense of the island. But the best that they could get was authority from the Emperor Honorius to see to their own defense. While no military aid could be lent, spiritual aid from the Catholic authorities in Gaul was available. In 429 the Church dispatched Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, to Britain to battle heresy. This was the Pelagian heresy, and its doctrine of self-reliance was gathering strength in a land left to its own devices in a time of troubles. Germanus successfully reasserted Catholic

authority. He stayed long enough to also lead the Britains to victory over a Pictish (and Scotti?) raiders in north Wales.Germanus’ arrival in Britain coincided with the early years of a British leader who was to dominate the narrative for the first half of 5th century Britain; and who would unleash forces that changed the history of the Island forever.He was called Vortigern.Vortigern came to power in the 420s, as the recognized war leader of the Britons. His origins are unknown, his very name is in doubt, with some historians theorizing that the name “Vortigern” was in fact a title, meaning “High King”.Vortigern is associated with Powys, where later generations account him the founder of the first dynasty, the Gwerthrynion. Powys was founded around this time, a union of the Cornovii and the Ordovices tribes of the west. Now in east-central Wales, in pre-Saxon days it straddled the Severn and stretched into the Midlands. The Cornovii tribal capital at Viroconium (Wroxeter), on the Severn River, was also the fourth largest city in Britannia. We don’t know where Vortigern fit in the Cornovii tribal hierarchy. But as the progenitor of the future kings of Powys, it is not unlikely that he was either the tribal king or a prince of the ancient Cornovii ruling family.

As with other tribal chiefs in Roman Britain, this meant Vortigern and his ancestors for three centuries had been Roman citizens and curiale magistrates. It is in this role that he likely rose to power as a member of the Council of Britain that took over the province’s administration in the post-Roman era.Gildas the Monk, the only near-contemporary chronicler of the period (his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, “On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain” was written sometime between 530 and 560 AD) addresses Vortigern as the “proud usurper”. Later sources call him “king”. It is therefore likely that at least some in Britain considered Vortigern’s assumption of authority as illegitimate, that he perhaps seized power unlawfully from the Council; perhaps even assuming the title of king.Tradition puts him at odds with Germanus, one author suggesting he was a heretical Pelagian. Perhaps he rode the rising wave of Pelagian heresy to power. But if Germanus’ victory over barbarian raiders took place in North Wales, it would have served Vortigern and Powys well; removing a threat so close to its borders. This would argue for an alliance between the two, and it may have been Vortigern, not Germanus, who was the actual military leader of the operation. 

Interestingly, sometime in approximately this period the Votadini hero, Cunedda, led a migration of a part of the Votadini people of the Pictish border region to north Wales, founding the Kingdom of Gwynedd. Could this have move be somehow related to the events of 429?In 449, three longships manned with Saxon warriors landed at the easternmost tip Britain. None could know that, though small in number, for the Roman Britons they were harbingers of the abyss!

PART 2 - The Saxon Advent: Vortigern Invites the Saxons to settle in Britain

From 429 to the 440s, nothing is known about the events in Britain. It is tempting to say that Vortigern maintained a troubled peace, while concentrating his attention on settling the Votadini in north Wales as a buffer against the Irish/Scotti; and further facilitating the foundation of his own kingdom in the West, Powys. We know that during this period, Viroconium (Wroxeter), tribal captial of Vortigern’s own Cornovii, was the  fourth  largest city in Britain.

But raids by the Picts and the Scotti continued unabated. In the 440s the British (likely the anti-Vortigern faction) sent a letter to Flavius Aetius, the Roman Master  of Soldiers (Magister Militum) in Gaul, Stilicho’s successor as the most powerful man in the Western Roman Empire. Aetius was campaigning to restore some measure of Roman authority in Gaul throughout this decade. Britain still considered itself as subject to the Empire, even if long left to its own devices.The letter, called “Groan of the Britons”, told of their plight; beset by “barbarians” and begging for Roman help:To Agitius (Aetius), thrice consul, the groans of the Britons… the barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians, between these two means of death we are either killed or drowned.                                                                                                This letter is often said to have been sent in response to the Saxon Terror; but the dates don’t match-up. The Saxons don’t arrive till 449; while the “Groan of the Britains” letter was dispatched earlier in this decade. So who were the barbarians who so plagued the Britons during Vortigern’s leadership? The obvious choice is the Picts.

 At this time, the Picts were united under a strong king, Drust son of Erp; called in Irish annuls “Drust of the Hundred Battles”. Under his leadership, Pictish raids on Britain grew more intense and dangerous, becoming an existential threat to the existence of Britain as a viable state.

Perhaps the movement of a portion of the Votadini into Wales had left this border tribe too weak to stop Pictish incursions into Britain. Or, as in the past, the Picts simply used their boats to bypass the Votadini lands and the Wall garrisons as well, to raid into the British heartland. In either case, Pictish raids were on the rise, and Vortigern’s enemies appealed to Rome for aid. The “Groan of the Britons” clearly indicates that Vortigern’s ability to defend the island was (at the least) in question; and likely breaking down. The unity of Britain was a shaky thing, fracturing along tribal lines; along religious, with Catholics againsts Pelagians; and between Vortigern and his opponents. For the aging Vortigern, Roman intervention, had it been forthcoming, would have meant the end of his leadership. To hold onto power, he needed another solution; one that maintained his position against both the Picts and his own British critics and rivals. A solution seemed to appear one day off the coast of Kent. In 449, three longships manned with Saxon warriors landed at the easternmost tip of Britain. None could know that, though small in number, for the Roman Britons these were harbingers of the abyss! Their chieftains were two brothers: Horsa and his clever brother, Hengist. It is unclear as to which is the eldest. Hengist is clearly portrayed in both British and Saxon tradition as the leader of the Saxons. But the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that Hengist becomes King of (Saxon) Kent upon the death of Horsa at the battle of Aylesford. This would suggest that Horsa was King when he died, and thus the elder.Vortigern happened to be in nearby Canterbury, and bid the brothers be brought to him. They hailed Vortigern as “king”, and requested to take service with the “great leader”. Here seemed a ready source of fighting men, loyal only to him (so long as he had gold or land to give). Vortigern accepted these fierce warriors into his service as Federatii (treaty-bound allies, settled on Roman land).The origin of these early “Saxons” is uncertain. Hengist is often described as a “Jute”; the pre-Danish peoples of the Jutland peninsula. Certainly the Romans lumped all sea-wolves from the north under the moniker of “Saxon”: Frisians, Jutes, Danes, Angles, as well as the inhabitants of Saxony in northern Germany. Even Franks, who were not a maritime people, occasionally crossed the channel to join the “Saxons” in their wars against the Britons. The origin of the name Saxon may derive from their ubiquitous knives, the seax: thus “Saxons” would mean, literally, knifemen!

These first-comers were likely a collection of hardened pirates from a variety ofScandinavian and north-German peoples; outcasts banded together for profit and adventure under the strong leadership of a proven leader. Hengist himself is a semi-legendary figure who appears in various British and Anglo-Saxon sources; including “Beowulf”. Which is not to suggest in any way that he is a fictional character. It is not unusual that historical figures from one tradition or era get written into another people’s legends. He was likely an outcast, perhaps outlawed in his own land for some offense, perhaps murder in a blood feud. The numbers of these first Saxon’s is unknown. But considering the size of Scandinavian longships in the Viking Era, and assuming that the Saxon boats were comparable; capable of carrying between 25 and 40 men, then a number of between 75 and 120 warriors is likely. The Picts were marauding south of the Wall; and Vortigern and his army, bolstered by Hengist’s Saxons, marched against them. North of the Humber, the two forces met in battle. According to Historia Regum Britanniaes, “the Saxons fought so bravely, that the enemy, formerly victorious were speedily put to flight.”

British cavalry engage Pictish warband

Vortigern was well pleased with their performance. He thereafter granted the brothers and their crews the Island of Thanet, at the tip of Kent, as a settlement; and encouraged them to invite additional warriors and their families from the Saxon homeland. This Hengist lost no time in doing. Sixteen more “keels” arrived, bearing another 400-700 Saxon warriors. More fatefully, included was Hengist’s daughter, Rowena (or Ronnwen), a girl of surpassing beauty. At a welcome banquet for the newcomers, tradition has it that Hengist encouraged his daughter to serve Vortigern with her own hand. The effect of a young (perhaps teenage) girl on a middle aged man can be profound. Vortigern became obsessed with the Saxon girl, and putting aside the mother of his sons, married the daughter of his Saxon lieutenant. As bride-price, Hengist persuaded Vortigern to give the Saxons all of Kent. According to the 8th century monk, Nennius, Hengist now used his leverage as Vortigern’s father-in-law to his people’s advantage. He advised Vortigern to bring even more Saxons over to Britain; and, again, Vortigern agreed. A fleet of 40 more boatloads of Saxons arrived, including Hengist’s sons, Ochta (or Esc/Oisc?) and Ebissa. It is said the whole of the “Saxon” lands were depopulated, an obvious exaggeration. Likely some 1,400-1,600 Saxon warriors and their families came in this next wave.

Reinforced, Hengist grew ever bolder, demanding more territory to feed the additional mouths. He convinced Vortigern that to effectively deal with future Pictish seaborne raids on the lands south of the wall, the newcomers should be settled along the coast north of the Humber. Growing alarmed, the Council of Britain now demanded that the Saxons be reined-in. One version is that the Council removed Vortigern from his position, replacing him with his own son, Vortimer. An anti-Saxon policy was now in place.

 Wither it was the Council or Vortigern himself behind this, the British now refused further Saxon demands. Hengist had used gentle persuasion to good effect, and his position was now very strong. No more was to be gained with words.The time had come to break with his erstwhile benefactor.  The Saxon’s mutinied: sweeping out of Kent, they spread fire and sword throughout the land! The Saxon Terror had begun.

Part 3  DEFENSE OF ROMAN BRITANNIA IN THE 4TH CENTURY

To understand the army of Arthur and the defenders of Britain in the 4th and 5th century, we need to briefly examine the structure and composition of the Roman army that defened Britannia, before the Roman withdrawal. This was the model  upon which Vortigern (and, ultimately, Arthur) based the defense of Britain.

Roman Britannia had been divided into three military commands: The first was the Dux Britanniarum (Duke of Britain), who from his headquarters at York was responsible for the northern defenses; particularly the garrisons that supported Hadrian’s Wall. The second commander, the Comes Litoris Saxonici (Count of the Saxon Shore), commanded the coastal fortresses fronting the English Channel and the North Sea. And, finally, the senior of the three: the Comes Britanniae (Count of Britain), commanding the province’s mobile field army (comitatensis).

The Roman soldiers in Britain, as in other parts of the Roman Empire, were divided into two rough classes: second-rate, hereditary garrison troops, called limitani; and first-class fighting troops, called comitatenses (sometimes referred to as comitatus, or “companions”, presumably of the comes/counts commanding the field armies). Both classes contained units of cavalry and infantry, light and heavy troops.

The limitani were the descendants of the classical Roman legions and auxilia cohorts, stationed along the frontiers since at least the time of Hadrian, and in places even earlier. Over the centuries, their size and quality had deteriorated. From the 3rd century on, the best were pulled back to the interior of the provinces, to make mobile field armies, commanded by Counts (Comes, “Companions of the Emperor”) capable of responding rapidly to any major breakthrough of the frontier perimeter. These, and new regiments raised by various emperors, comprised the comitatenses: the mobile field armies stationed in each of the frontier provinces.

The strategy of the Late Empire was for the limitani garrisons to deal with low-level threats, such as raids by war-parties or pirates. Major invasions by tribal armies were allowed to pass between the forts (the various “barbarian” races were never adept at siege work, and these border forts tended to get bypassed by invading forces eager for easier plunder); the limitani only sallying out later to harass stragglers or

interdict supply and reinforcements. It was the job of the comitatensisto intercept and defeat these larger invasions.

Until the 5th century, the quality gap between limitani and comitatensis had been narrow. Limitani were capable of being pulled ad hoc out of their garrisons to augment the field armies on specific campaigns. (Limitani so elevated to field force duty were designated pseudocomitatensis.) In the 5th century, as their corn rations from imperial granaries in Africa dried up, these troops became part-time militia; living in their fortresses with their families, and farming the area around. As the situation deteriorated in the Western Empire, these became islands in sea of German-controlled territories. By the last decades of the 5th century, many swore allegiance to the new German authorities, be it Frank, Burgundian or Allemanic.

A third class was the Feoderati. From the 2nd century onward, the Romans made use of small groups of tribal warriors from outside the Empire. These fought in native dress, using their own equipment and tactics under their own leaders. They were hired for specific periods, and not given citizenship upon discharge (unlike auxiliaries recruited from tribes within the Empire). At times they were settled within the Empire after their discharge, often in border regions; to provide both future soldiers and a buffer between civilized lands and the barbarians beyond the frontier.

At the end of the 2nd century 5,500 Sarmatian feoderatii from the Danube frontier were settled in Britannia. Tantalizing enough, these were at one point under the command of a Roman officer named Lucius Artorius Castor! They and their descendants remained in Britain till the end of the Roman period and, presumably, beyond. At least one cuneus (wedge) is recorded as still part of the garrisons that supported Hadrian’s Wall at the time of the Roman withdrawal.

From the 4th century, whole tribes of barbarians were enlisted as feoderatii. As their numbers grew in proportion to the rest of the army, so did their demands. Alaric, who commanded Visigoth feoderatii in the Balkans, revolted with all of his troops when his demand to be named as Magister Militum of Illyricum was denied.

Britain was not warded from attack by the Roman Army alone. In the north, between the long-abandoned Antonine Wall and Hadrian’s Wall, the Romans had cultivated the friendship and alliance of the tribes who dwelt there. Most notable amongst these were the Votadini; who later formed the Kingdom of Gododdin in the north, and a branch of whom , under their legendary leader Cunedda, founded the Kingdom of Gwynedd in Wales (as previously discussed).

This transfer of a Roman allied tribe (or a portion thereof), the Votadini, from southern Scotland to Northern Wales was accomplished sometime between the last days of Roman Britain and the administration of Vortigern; and was a major political achievement. It has been suggested that the Roman or Romano-British authorities used these fierce allies to crush a hostile Irish settlement in north Wales; and replace them with a buffer client-kingdom. As discussed above, it is tempting to link this move to both Germanus and Vortigern’s activities between 429 and 440. This theory of Roman/Romano-British influence in Cunedda’s occupation of north Wales is not, however, without critics. But the suggestion that a major migration of a client people across Roman Britain could have occured without the blessing of the provincial authorities is absurd.

The army that garrisoned Britannia numbered between 3,400 and 4,800 comitatensis assigned to the field army of the Comes Britanniae. The Dux Britanniarum had another 9,000 troops spread across the north; and the Comes Litoris Saxonici commanded some 2,200 manning the coastal forts. 

These units were both cavalry and infantry. The majority were armed with spear or javelin (or both). A portion of the cohorts of auxilia were archers. The later Roman army stressed archery, and cohorts of sagittarii used a powerful “Skythian” composite bow.  Civic militia, conversely, were allowed a weaker “soft” bow, suitable to unskilled burgers doing military service infrequently; asked only to defend their own town’s walls.

In the 4th century, there were only two emaciated remnants of the “old legions” still stationed in Britain: the II Augusta and the VI Victrix Pia Fidelis Britannica.

These were now designated as limitani; the first assigned to the Saxon Shore and garrisoning the fort at Rutupiæ (Richborough), the latter at Eburacum (York). Both would have numbered no more than a thousand each, and likely somewhat less. Like all late Roman heavy infantry, they were armed with a light spear called a lancea, which could be either thrown or retained to use in close-quarters; and possibly either a lighter javelin called a verutum, or (in rare cases) a half-dozen small throwing darts, racked on the inside of their shields. One of these old limitani legions was withdrawn by Stilicho in 406 (likely the VI Victrix).

Few Roman infantry outside of the field armies wore armor beyond a helmet. What designated them “heavy” as opposed to light infantry was their roll in battle and the tactics they employed. Heavy infantry, regardless of the amount of armor  (if any) worn, fought in deep and closely-ordered formations; often with shields either overlapping or touching. Their job was to close with the enemy; and after showering them with missiles, close with spear and sword.

“Light infantry” auxilia were more versatile (and had attained high status in the mobile field forces). They could be used to skirmish on the wings of or in front of the main battle line of heavy infantry. Or, in other cases, to form-up in similar depth and density and fight in the main battle line with the “heavy” legions. They were particularly useful in wooded or rough terrain. Their armament was also lancea and verutum. 

The majority of limitani posted in Britain and remaining after Constantine III pulled the comitatensis out in 407, were light infantry auxilia.

Cavalry too was classified as light and heavy.

Armored lancers in the Sarmatian tradition dominated Roman heavy cavalry of the 4th and early 5th century. Many of the limitani units of cavalry that likely remained in Britain after 407 were classified as “heavy”, armed with lance or  javelins, and wearing  a considerable amount of armor. After the Romans left, the northern parts of Britain and southern Scotland, the Kingdoms of Gododdin and Strathclyde, maintained a cavalry tradition into the 9th century. It is not unlikely that the Sarmatian tradition may have permeated and been partially adopted among the north British nobility.

The Roman garrison also included regiments of armored cavalry equipped with spear or javelins and a large shield. These could either skirmish with the enemy at a distance, showering them with javelin; or charge home with spear or sword. In later Post-Roman Britain, most of the Celtic Romano-British upper class warriors fought as in this fashion; though with emphasis on skirmishing.

Late Roman light cavalry tended to be javelin armed; with either large shields or, occasionally, smaller “target” type. They were useful in skirmishing on the flanks of the heavy troops, and they were skilled at showering enemy infantry with missiles from a distance. They were also quite comfortable riding down fleeing enemies with sword.

Late Roman light cavalry tended to be javelin armed; with either large shields or, occasionally, smaller “target” type. They were useful in skirmishing on the flanks of the heavy troops, and they were skilled at showering enemy infantry with missiles from a distance. They were also quite comfortable riding down fleeing enemies with sword.

The prime secondary weapon of all Roman (and later Romano-British) soldiers was the sword, or spatha. The short gladius of the classic Roman legions had long gone out of usage. The 34” spatha, originally a cavalry sword, had become the standard side-arm of all branches of the Roman army. The spatha was the ancestor of the later medieval broadsword.

Clibanari Saggittari

comandante godo

godo caballeria ligera

godos