1.04. The Decline of the Infantry
The day of infantry had in fact gone by in Southern Europe: they continued to exist, not as the core and strength of the army, but for various minor purposes, to garrison towns or operate in mountainous countries. Roman and barbarian alike threw their vigour into the organization of their cavalry. Even the duty of acting as light troops fell into the hands of the horsemen. The Roman trooper added the bow to his equipment, and in the fifth century the native force of the Empire had come to resemble that of its old enemy, the Parthian state of the first century, being composed of horsemen armed with bow and lance. Mixed with these horse-archers fought squadrons of the Foederati, armed with the lance alone. Such were the troops of Aetius and Ricimer, the army which faced the Huns on the plain of Chalons.
The Huns themselves were another manifestation of the strength of cavalry; formidable by their numbers, their rapidity of movement, and the constant rain of arrows which they would pour in without allowing their enemy to close. In their tactics they were the prototypes of the hordes of Alp Arslan, of Genghiz, and Tamerlane. But mixed with the Huns in the train of Attila marched many subject German tribes, Herules and Gepidæ, Scyri, Lombards, and Rugians, akin to the Goths alike in their race and their manner of fighting. Chalons then was fought by horse-archer and lancer against horse-archer and lancer, a fair conflict with equal weapons. The Frankish allies of Aetius were by far the most important body of infantry on the field, and these were ranged, according to the traditional tactics of Rome, in the centre: flanked on one side by the Visigothic lances, on the other by the imperial array of horse-archers and heavy cavalry intermixed. The victory was won, not by superior tactics, but by sheer hard fighting, the decisive point having been the riding down of the native Huns by Theodoric’s heavier horsemen.
To trace out in detail the military meaning of all the wars of the fifth century does not fall within our province. As to the organization of the Roman armies a few words will suffice. In the West the Foederati became the sole force of the empire, so that at last one of their chiefs, breaking through the old spell of the Roman name, could make himself, in title as well as in reality, ruler of Italy. In the East, the decline of the native troops never reached this pitch. Leo I (457–474 A.D.), taking warning by the fate of the Western Empire, determined on increasing the proportion of Romans to Foederati, and carried out his purpose, though it involved the sacrifice of the life of his benefactor, the Gothic patrician Aspar.
Zeno (474–491) continued this work, and made himself noteworthy as the first emperor who utilised the military virtues of the Isaurians, or semi-Romanized mountaineers of the interior of Asia Minor. Not only did they form his imperial guard, but a considerable number of new corps were raised among them. Zeno also enlisted Armenians and other inhabitants of the Roman frontier of the East, and handed over to his successor Anastasius an army in which the barbarian element was adequately counterpoised by the native troops.
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