414 The entry of the Barbarians 



the yearly payments of the provinces 1 on filling up the ranks, the 

 treasury would gain a great sum of gold. It would seem that they 

 reported to the emperor in favour of the request, for Valens granted 

 the petition of a Gothic embassy. Arrangements were made for trans- 

 porting them over the river, and it was understood that they had leave 

 to settle in the parts of Thrace. But now troubles began. Greedy 

 Roman officials fleeced and maltreated the hungry horde, who were 

 at length driven into rebellion. With the sequel, the great battle (378) 

 near Adrianople, and the death of Valens, we are not here concerned. 

 But the account 2 of their ravages in Thrace gives us a picture of the 

 countryside in a harassed province and of the slave labour employed. 

 The rebels, unable to take fortified places by regular siege, overran the 

 country in raiding bands. Captives guided them to places stocked with 

 food. But they were especially encouraged and strengthened by the 

 great number of people of their own race who came pouring in to join 

 them. Ammianus describes 3 these deserters as men who had long before 

 been sold (into slavery of course) by traders, and with them very many 

 whom at the time of their passing the river, when they were perishing 

 of hunger, they had bartered for thin wine or worthless scraps of bread. 

 This scene may serve to remind us that slavery and the sale of 

 slaves to Roman dealers were recognized features of German tribal life 

 as described by Tacitus. It also gives us a glimpse of the way in which 

 opportunities of imperial advantage could be wasted or turned into 

 calamities by the unpatriotic and selfish greed of Roman officials. In 

 this case potential recruits were turned into actual enemies; and the 

 barbarian slaves, who should have been tilling Thracian fields in the 

 interest of Rome, were left to guide and recruit the hostile army of 

 their kinsmen. It must not be supposed that all schemes for raising 

 barbarian troops in large bodies were thus by gross mismanagement 

 brought to a disastrous end. The value of sound flesh and blood in the 

 ranks was well understood, and a successful campaign against German 

 tribes could be made profitable from this point of view. Thus in 377, 

 when Gratian had a whole tribe at his mercy, he required of them a 

 contingent 4 of sturdy recruits to be incorporated in Roman army-units, 

 on delivery of whom he set free the rest to return to their native homes. 

 That such recruits became under Roman discipline so far Romanized 

 as to provide efficient armies is clear from the victories that still delayed 



1 et pro militari supplement, quod provinciatim annuum pendebatur, thesauris accederet 

 auri cumulus magnus. I hope I am right in referring this to the temonaria functio or 

 obligation of paying the /m0 = the price of a recruit. Cod Th XI 16 14, 15. 



2 xxxi 6 5. 



3 dudum a mercatoribus venundati, qdiectis plurimis quos primo transgressit necati inedia 

 vino exili vel panis frustris mutavere vilissimis. 



4 XXXI 10 17, iuventute valida nostris tirociniis permiscenda. 



