THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES 26

Byzantine Engineering and Ambulance Corps

3.11. Byzantine Engineer and Ambulance Corps

An extensive train of non-combatants was attached to the army. Among the cavalry every four troopers had a groom; among the infantry every sixteen men were provided with an attendant, who drove a cart containing ‘a hand-mill, a bill-hook, a saw, two spades, a mallet, a large wicker basket, a scythe, and two pick-axes,’ besides several other utensils for whose identity the dictionary gives no clue. Thus twenty spades and twenty pick-axes per century were always forthcoming for entrenching purposes; a consummation for which the modern infantry company would be glad if it could find a parallel.

So perfect was the organization of the Byzantine army that it contained not only a military train, but even an ambulance-corps of bearers, skribônoi, and surgeons. The value attached to the lives of the soldiery is shown by the fact that the scriboni received a nomisma for every wounded man whom they brought off when the troops were retiring. Special officers were told to superintend the march of this mass of non-combatants and vehicles, which is collectively styled tuldum, and forms not the least part among the cares of the laborious author of the Tactica.

Those portions of the works of Maurice and Leo which deal with tactics show a far greater difference between the methods of the sixth and the ninth centuries, than is observable in other parts of their military systems. The chapters of Leo are, as is but natural, of a more interesting character than those of his predecessor. The more important of his ordinances are well worthy our attention.

It is first observable that the old Roman system of drawing entrenchments round the army, every time that it rested for the night, had been resumed. A corps of engineers, Mensores, always marched with the vanguard, and, when the evening halt had been called, traced out with stakes and ropes the contour of the camp. When the main body had come up, the tuldum was placed in the centre of the enclosure, while the infantry bands drew a ditch and bank along the lines of the Mensores’ ropes, each corps doing a fixed amount of the work. A thick chain of picquets was kept far out from the camp, so that a surprise, even on the darkest of nights, was almost impossible.

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