In 476/5 BC, an Athenian force under Cimon sailed to Thrace to recapture the city of Eion held by the Persians. After a successful battle against the enemy, Cimon besieged the city and forced the Persian general Butes, who would not surrender, to set the whole city – including his family – on fire. In the aftermath of these events, the Athenians authorised Cimon to erect three inscribed monuments at Athens to commemorate the victory. The third of them, as Aeschines and later Plutarch relate (Aeschin. 3.185; Plut. Cim. 7.5), evoked the timeless Athenian superiority in the art of marshalling warriors as exemplified by Menestheus, the Homeric hero who led the Athenians at Troy:

In the inscription Menestheus, praised in the Iliad for his outstanding ability in ‘the arrangement in order of horses and shielded fighters’ (2.554), provided an archetype of the Athenian supremacy in generalship, thus justifying their leadership in the newly formed Delian League. Such evocations of the mythical heroes of the past were by no means unusual as the Homeric epics provided the classical Greeks with an inexhaustible source of wisdom and inspiration. In particular, any subjects related to war were almost inevitably set against the battle narratives of the Iliad, seen as an exemplar in all things military. Mentions of Homer featured prominently in discussions regarding troop arrangement, tactics, bravery, war ethics and even appropriate campaign diets, spread across a variety of classical authors and genres. From the Hellenistic period onward Homeric citations formed an important part of the advice collected in the military manuals on tactics and stratagems, confirming the unquestionable authority of the Iliad for the Greek thinking about war.

One area for which the Homeric epics supplied invaluable guidelines in the eyes of the ancient Greeks was the art of generalship.

Byzantium was heir to a tradition of Greek/Graeco-Roman military literature stretching back to the fourth century BC. This expansive genre, ranging from general compendia to specialised monographs, encompassed prescriptive tactical handbooks, technological blueprints for siege machinery, collections of exemplary historical stratagems and maxims, and didactic manuals for gentlemen who aspired to be generals. Diversity of content, style, language and approach reflects differences of authorship, audience and literary-cultural milieu. Byzantine reception of this military-literary heritage and its inherently intellectual approach to war fostered two complementary strands of scholarship – the collection, copying, editing and adaptation of surviving texts from classical antiquity and the composition of numerous new treatises. The genre seemingly flourished in the sixth/early seventh and especially late ninth/tenth centuries, coinciding with major shifts in Byzantine strategic priorities, though the intervening ‘Dark Age’ was perhaps less barren than is conventionally assumed. Ancient treatises exercised fluctuating and multifaceted influences – practical, educational, literary, lexical, ethical – on Byzantine military culture, and variously shaped and reflected the schooling, tastes, ethos and identities of an educated officer class, military aristocracy and even civilian elites. In addition, from the tenth century, military books written by ancient Roman authors and/or for Roman emperors played a rhetorical role in the self-conscious military-literary ‘renaissance’ and imperial resurgence of contemporary Rhomaioi.

Unsurprisingly, among Byzantine readers, writers and editor-copyists certain ancient military works became more popular and influential than others, with some attaining canonical status. Relative popularity or influence may be variously gauged in terms of manuscript tradition; explicit citations and references; editorial interest evidenced by recensions and interpolations; textual adaptations such as excerpts and paraphrases; and intertextual impact as models for the form, language and/or content of Byzantine compositions. To judge by these criteria, the three most authoritative, often-read and fashionable military ‘classics’ were Onasander's Strategikos (AD 49–57/58), a military-ethical treatise on the qualities, background and conduct of an ideal Roman general; Aelian's Taktikē Theoria (c. 106–113), a schematic exposition of the structures, deployment and manoeuvres of an arithmetically idealised Hellenistic army; and Polyaenus’ Strategemata or Strategika (c. 161–163), an excerptive compilation of historical ruses and aphorisms. Among military-technological treatises a clear favourite is less easily discerned, though Apollodorus’ Poliorketika (c. 101–102) seemingly enjoyed the fullest Nachleben. While scholarship has extensively addressed the late antique/Byzantine reception of Aelian and Polyaenus, Onasander's contribution, though widely acknowledged, lacks comprehensive, detailed or recent inquiry.

The Middle Persian and Zoroastrian texts of the Sasanian period clearly define the role of a military commander: ‘the duty of the warrior is to strike the enemy and to hold their own country and land secure and tranquil’, says the text known as the Spirit of Wisdom. By the third decade of the seventh century AD, the military elite who commanded the Sasanian armies were failing in respect of these stated aims. All-out war between the armies of the Sasanian king Khusro II and the Byzantine emperors raged for twenty-six years (602–628) early in the century, and resulted in the Sasanian military elite not keeping their lands secure or tranquil while internal conflict and civil war wracked the empire. In the decade that followed the peace of 628, both the Sasanian and Byzantine Empires would be defeated in a succession of pivotal battles against the armies of the Rashidun caliphate. The results of these battles in the 630s would be the complete disappearance of the Sasanians and a significant and lasting reduction in the territory of the Byzantines.

The memory of the battles between the Arab Muslim armies of the caliph Umar and the forces of the Byzantine and the Sasanian Empires in the years c. 636–638 looms large in our perception and understanding of the period. The Arab victories in the 630s helped to shape the memory and narrative construction of the empires that came before and the realities of those that followed on from these events. This is also true in the portrayal of the generals in command of the armies that fought these battles. The complex stories of these men cannot be reduced to a simple binary of winner or loser, heroic or villainous, good or bad. On the field of battle were the ‘best of men’, who are remembered as the epitome of masculinity in their own cultures. They were military commanders in societies whose military was the governing elite. These were also men whose actions in command turned the tide of history. The memory of them is embedded in the later narrative accounts, and examining these portrayals helps to illuminate the social complexity of the times. This memory also provides a view of the competing interests that were involved in the creation of the legacy of these fields of battle.

The works of Plato provide great insight into the fundamental connection between warfare and politics in ancient Greece. Generals were often also political leaders who needed a variety of skills to have successful careers. For Plato, generals needed a thorough knowledge of military matters to effectively command soldiers in war. It was imperative that military leaders especially understand how best to deploy various units of hoplites, cavalry and light-armed troops. One passage in particular illustrates Plato's thinking on the natural progression in learning how to become a general. In the Laches, Plato has the Athenian general Nicias explain that ‘everyone who has learned to fight in heavy armour desires learning the next thing, which is tactics; after understanding this and taking pride in it, the person rushes onto everything dealing with generalship’ (182b–c; cf. Euthyd. 273c). Most importantly for Plato, however, a great leader needed to understand all aspects of virtue, or human excellence. Besides knowledge of fighting in armour and military tactics and strategy, generals especially needed to embody the virtue of courage. As Plato has the Athenian Stranger say in the Laws, ‘the leader of fighting men needs to be brave’ (640a). For Plato, courage is one of the key components of virtue, which also includes justice, moderation and wisdom. This ideal combination is stated succinctly in the Laws when Plato has the Athenian Stranger say, ‘justice, mod-eration, and wisdom coming to the same thing, along with courage are better than courage on its own’ (Leg. 630a–b). If a proper balance is not maintained between these distinct characteristics of virtue, each has the potential to become a destructive attribute, such as cowardice or recklessness. In Plato's Laches, in fact, it seems that moderation is the essential component for maintaining balance among the different aspects of virtue.

An important question, however, was whether or not virtue could be taught. Plato seems to assume that virtue is teachable, otherwise philosophical inquiry would lack purpose and relevance for human endeavours. As Richard Kraut writes,

Ammianus Marcellinus has attracted more attention than most late antique histori-ans, and this interest has extended to everything from his value as a source for the government of the fourth-century Roman Empire to the literary artistry he evinces in his Res Gestae. Amongst other things, Ammianus happens to be one of our most important sources for late Roman warfare, and his significance in this regard has long been recognised. Though some aspects of his value as a military historian have attracted more attention than others, including Ammianus’ characterisation of gen-erals, gaps remain. One issue concerns Ammianus Marcellinus’ purported emphasis on the heroic general, one who led an assault, fighting from the front himself. For John Keegan, Alexander the Great exemplified heroic generalship, for he was a general wounded as much as if not more than his fellow soldiers. After Alexander, generals in the Hellenistic and into the imperial Roman world tended to eschew hand-to-hand combat themselves, though there are exceptions. By the imperial era, Ted Lendon notes that the practice had long since fallen into disuse, which made Titus’ apparent employment of just such a practice in the Jewish War all the more remarkable. Lendon has argued that this approach to command re-emerged from the fourth to the sixth centuries AD, with Alexander himself often held up as a model by the central figure of our discussion, Julian. It is this last contention that we will focus on in this chapter: heroic generalship in Ammianus Marcellinus’ Res Gestae. We will concentrate on open, pitched battles. After a brief introduction to Ammianus Marcellinus and his history, we look at how he characterises generals, especially the Caesar Julian at the Battle of Strasbourg in 358, and compare this with the depiction of the emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Then we look briefly at generals in sieges before finishing with some comparative material. As we will see, the generals whom Ammianus holds in the highest regard are best considered Keegan's ‘post-heroic’ commanders, who adhere to the Odysseus ethos, not heroic generals in the mould of Alexander, who adhere to the Achilles ethos.

Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius was the first Roman emperor to die in battle against a foreign enemy. Having seized the throne from his predecessor in AD 249, his most famous act of policy had been an edict commanding all his subjects to sacrifice for the empire's prosperity. That didn't do him much good. He fell victim to his own poor planning in an extended campaign against Gothic invaders that began in the summer of 250 and terminated in May of 251.

The events surrounding Decius’ fatal encounter with Gothic invaders were once shrouded in mystery. The nearest contemporary account, that of Publius Herennius Dexippus, was known only through four fragments: one describing a failed ‘Scythian’ attack on Marcianopolis, another a letter of Decius to the people of Philippopolis (Plovdiv), the third recording the repulse of an attack by ‘Skythai’ on the same city, the fourth simply saying that Decius was killed near Abritus at a place called Forum Thembronios. A series of spectacular discoveries in the past decade have changed this picture. We now have extensive new passages of Dexippus’ Scythian Affairs (Skythika), discovered in a palimpsest at Vienna, and we now know exactly where the battle was fought and by what units. The combination of Dexippus’ expanded narrative with the archaeological evidence from the battle site makes it possible to reconstruct the events surrounding Decius’ catastrophe with far greater probability than has hitherto been the case.

What emerges from the new material is striking evidence for Decius’ strategy at the beginning of the campaign, and his response to the failure of his initial plan. There was no anticipation on Decius’ part that Gothic raiders might resort to misdi-rection, with the result that Roman armies were in the wrong place to meet the main thrust of an invasion. A consequence of this failure was inadequate preparation to resist the raiders once they had breached the frontier. The best Decius could manage was a hasty pursuit of the raiders. The Gothic plan appears to have been to attack deeply into Roman territory, evading Roman forces where possible, and plunder as widely as possible before returning home.

The emotion of ‘fear’ takes centre stage in Procopius’ Vandal War. I am certainly not the first to notice this emphasis. Recent scholarship has underlined Procopius’ stress on the febrile anxiety that gripped Constantinople when the emperor Justinian I (AD 527–565) announced his military expedition to recover the former Roman provinces of North Africa from the Vandals in the summer of 533.

According to Procopius, the generals, who had just waged a series of hard-fought land campaigns against Persia, were reluctant to launch a sea invasion of a realm which had been out of Roman hands for over a century:

The memory of a botched military expedition in 468 against the Vandals had clearly left its mark on the Roman psyche. This defeat had seen a formidable Roman naval force destroyed by Vandal fireships just off the shores of North Africa and had left both halves of the empire's pride dented and their finances in tatters. Yet Procopius reports that the Roman generals were too frightened to speak up. Only the praetorian prefect John the Cappadocian, a man generally denigrated by the historian, had the nerve to warn the emperor about the financial and political ramifi-cations of such a venture. Heeding John's advice, Justinian relented and temporarily abandoned his plan.

It took a religious vision to change the devout emperor's mind. Procopius describes how a visiting bishop related to the emperor a dream where God com-manded the bishop to remind Justinian that ‘after undertaking the task of protecting Christians in Libya from tyrants’, the emperor ‘for no good reason had become afraid (κατωρρώδησϵ)’. God, the bishop reassured the emperor, would be fighting on Justinian's side ‘and make him master of Libya’.

Introduction

John Troglita is not a particularly well-known figure from the ancient world, and many consider Belisarius to have been the last general of renown in late antiquity. But fame is not necessarily the only measure of quality. We first hear mention of John serving under Belisarius during the Vandalic War (533–534), and then under Germanus and Solomon, fighting the African tribes. From 541 to 545/546, Justinian appointed him as dux Mesopotamiae on the eastern border against the Sassanids. In 546 John Troglita was reassigned as magister militum Africae to quell the insurrections in the African territories, which he accomplished. His career was therefore successful enough for him to be re-employed in a number of different contexts, and he was responsible for successfully concluding the campaign against the African tribes – so one must wonder why he does not get more recognition in the ancient sources. Can this be attributed to his style of generalship, or to other factors? And to what extent are the majority of modern scholars justified in referring to him as a competent general, but not especially brilliant?

The Sources

Our two main sources for John's generalship are the works of Procopius of Caesarea and Flavius Cresconius Corippus, both contemporaries of the events they describe. Both focus on three major battles in John's campaign in 547 (possibly concluding in 548), of which John lost the second but was ultimately victorious in the third. The account of Procopius comes at the end of his two books on the Vandalic War. Throughout, he presents examples of good and bad generalship, in line with the didactic nature of his work (Wars 1.1.2), but his description of John's campaign is too brief to be included in this binary. But where Procopius devotes very little attention to John, his strategic skills or his leadership, Corippus gives full rein to a heroic portrait of this military leader in his epic poem.

From the perspective of today's ancient historian both these resources therefore have clear shortcomings from the outset. The aim here is to arrive at a balanced assessment of John's generalship, between the heroic general that Corippus describes and a mere footnote to Justinian's African campaigns, as Procopius would have it.

There are many examples of good and poor generalship in antiquity and a relatively large corpus of literary evidence to show how the art of this leadership role evolved. In this volume a small but representative snapshot of these military leaders, their campaigns and their successes and failures has been presented, as have the works of poets, philosophers, historians and other writers who both commented on the conduct of military leadership and brought into existence its theoretical principles.

Arrian's summary of Alexander the Great's character and abilities suitably closes his history of the Macedonian king's campaigns in Asia. This eulogy serves as an appropriate conclusion, for it is not just a verdict on Alexander but a template for all for the art of generalship.

Amateurism and Command

As the Romans conquered the Italian peninsula and secured dominion over the entire Mediterranean, the men who led the legions were politicians, elected magistrates of the Roman people. Their time in command was short, officially a year, occasionally extended (prorogatio), providing limited time for on-the-job training before a replacement arrived. Most Roman generals were for all intents and purposes amateurs, often enjoying only a few months’ experience commanding their army before they led it into battle for the first time.

Professional generalship, in the modern technocratic sense, was absent from the ancient world at large. There was no ancient equivalent of the specialised education modern general officers receive at various points along their careers (e.g. West Point, the US Army War College), nor were there the technocratic career paths that see modern officers hold a series of alternating command and staff positions at various echelons, working their way up the ranks from second lieutenants in charge of platoons to the ranks of general officers commanding divisions, corps and armies. But many ancient military systems had the capacity to identify men with the aptitude for generalship, and to assign them either to long-term positions or to a series of high-profile commands. Take for example the Achaemenid general Mardonius, who reorganised the Ionian cities after 494 BC, then invaded Thrace and Macedonia in 492 BC, and finally died at Plataea leading Xerxes’ invasion force in 479 BC. Philip II of Macedon (359–336 BC) famously quipped that he envied the Athenians for electing ten generals a year, because he had only found one in his own lifetime: Parmenio.2 The Seleucid king Antiochus III identified Zeuxis as a successful field commander in 221 BC, and Zeuxis was still active, thirty years later, at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC.3 Social status underlay these royal appointments, for Mardonius, Parmenio and Zeuxis would not have been generals had they had not also firstly been well-connected courtiers. But not every courtier was entrusted with high profile or extended commands, and those that were had proven their capacity for generalship at some point along the way.

Introduction

During the period when the Byzantine Empire was ruled by the ‘Macedonian Dynasty’ it experienced an age of recovery and reconquest. On its western, northern, eastern and southern borders the empire witnessed successful campaigns and conquests, including the recovery of Crete in 961 and the annexation of Bulgaria in 1018. Notably in the same period there was a revival in the literature of military science, leading to the writing of several significant manuals on tactics and strategy in the tenth century. Thus, generalship in the age of the Macedonian Dynasty offers a rich field of study, reflected by the increasing number of books and articles on the subject. The focus of this chapter is on particularly arresting aspects of generalship in the period, namely the facts that several emperors of the Macedonian Dynasty were not active commanders themselves and among the generals whose careers distinguish the period there are several who were eunuchs. These aspects are united by the theme of gender: how was the status of emperors as men affected by the fact that they did not play an active military role (so important a feature of the promotion of imperial regimes) and how was the gender identity of eunuch generals perceived? The chapter addresses each aspect in turn, drawing on the rich diversity of sources, especially histories and military manuals but also material evidence such as reliquaries and manuscripts. It will be seen that non-campaigning emperors could present themselves as military authorities with a claim to the virtue of courage and could value a personal active role, and that eunuchs could also lay claim to traditional masculine virtues and be considered successful men. In Byzantium generalship is a vital role to consider in relation to all emperors and in relation to the eunuchs who characterise the existence of the empire.

Non-Campaigning Emperors

The Macedonian Dynasty was one of the longest-lived dynasties in Byzantine histo-ry. It was founded in 867 by Basil ‘the Macedonian’, who came to power through the patronage and then assassination of his predecessor the emperor Michael III (842–867), and lasted until the death of its last representative, the empress nun Theodora, Basil I's great-great-great-granddaughter, in 1056. Although the empire witnessed territorial expansion under this dynasty, most of its members did not take to the field themselves.

The art of generalship or the ability of successful leadership in a military context, as Addison perceptively observed, is not at all dependent on fortune or tyche (meaning in reality good luck) to ensure victory. Victory might be obtained through good luck just happening, but the soundest method of ensuring success relies on fastidious management in the camp and while on the march in conjunction with inspiring leadership on the field of battle. How many or how few generals in antiquity measure up to such a stringent assessment of their capabilities, their practice of the art of being a general, and so deserved the successes they obtained and their subsequent immortal fame? In the following chapters the discussion aligns to this focus. Julius Caesar, for example, makes frequent reference to ‘good fortune’ in his Gallic campaigns (Nolan), but he was an able if not the consummate manager of his military adventures, in Gaul, Italy, Spain and Greece in the first century BC. In political life he perhaps lacked that lightness of touch which his successor Augustus, only a moderately capable military leader, possessed in abundance. Leonidas, the Spartan king (Evans), and the Roman emperor Decius (Potter), on the other hand, no doubt both capable soldiers, found immortality not in success, but in two of the most famous defeats in the history of the Greeks and Romans: Thermopylae in 480 BC and Abritus in AD 251 respectively.

The importance to cultures in antiquity of success in military affairs can easily be measured by noting that Homer's Iliad, among the earliest surviving literary evidence for the history and civilisation of the ancient Greeks, is essentially a tale in verse about the flawed leadership of the protagonists: Agamemnon, Achilles and Hector. All are active participants in the military campaigning around Troy and the battles that took place there (Kucewicz). None is the perfect general, but Alexander the Great (336–323 BC), probably the greatest warrior general of history, and the most sublime practitioner of generalship, constantly sought to emulate these mythical figures; and he was not an isolated example.

Introduction

At Thermopylae in early August 480 BC, after a brief stalemate lasting roughly four days (Hdt. 7.210), the Persians in the next two to three days overcame the Spartan-led defence of the narrow coastal link that joined Thessaly to Boeotia and Attica. The defenders were mostly killed but the greater part of the army of the Peloponnesian city-states, members by then of a Hellenic League, retreated in good order to the Isthmus. When news of the defeat at Thermopylae was related to the accompanying fleet stationed further along the coast opposite Euboea it also retired, and the way was left open for a Persian advance into Attica and the capture of Athens, all within a fortnight. This was the darkest hour for the Greek poleis that had decided to oppose any form of rapprochement with the Persians and their king Xerxes: it was Hellenic independence or death. As Herodotus describes, and what is thoroughly familiar to most, the Greek fleet went on to win an unexpected victory over the Persians at Salamis. Moreover, in the next summer the combined armies of the mostly southern Greek city-states routed the Persians at Plataea. Xerxes’ ambitions to extend his empire westward were ended. Thermopylae was, in practical terms, not at all a contributing factor to the victory of the Greeks over Persia: rather the opposite, since the Boeotian League, politically lukewarm to both Athens and Sparta, the leaders of the Hellenic League, turned instead to Persia for an alliance in order to save its cities from destruction.