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Stilicho The Vandal Who Saved Rome Ian Hughes Books

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Stilicho The Vandal Who Saved Rome Ian Hughes Books

I found Ian Hughes' book on Stilicho to be an excellent entry among the many books I've read about the late fourth and early fifth century Roman Empire. Hughes' book is the only book on the subject that I've read that has attempted to give a complete, chronological commentary on the career of Stilicho and imperial politics in the late Western Roman Empire. Using admittedly imperfect and often contradictory primary sources, Hughes presents a measured survey of the period. In treating confused and/or controversial events of the period (again given the poor contemporary source material available), Hughes discusses the various interpretations of these events and then gives his suggested interpretation with cogent support arguments. Of great interest to me is Hughes' discussion of the complicated relationship between Stilicho and Alaric. Contemporary sources - and later modern histories - have offered confused and, in my opinion, incomplete explanations about this relationship and about whether or not Stilicho was complicit in allowing Alaric to 'escape' destruction on many occasions. Hughes offers a more complete and reasonable interpretation of this relationship that rings true. His discussion recognizes Stilicho's limited military resources as well as his political difficulties with the senatorial elites in Rome, a discussion missing in many of the modern books I've read on the later Roman Empire in the West. In conclusion, for anyone interested in this period of later Roman history, I strongly recommend Hughes' book. He is a serious scholar with a great interest in his subject.


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Stilicho The Vandal Who Saved Rome Ian Hughes Books Reviews

This is a fascinating study of the late Roman Empire focused on Stilicho, who was the leader of the Western Empire under the Emperor Honorius from 395 - 408AD. This is a key period of time of the Western Roman Empire leading to its fall later that century. The book does an excellent job of laying out key reasons why that happened (shared briefly below).

The author starts the book by laying out the primary sources of that period providing the pros and cons for each source. This is something that I've seen in other books on the Roman Empire but never done quite this well.

The author then provides the lead in to Stilicho's period the battle of Adrianople, the reign of Theodosius, the two civil wars, the battle of Frigidius (which was a lot more intensive and resulted in a lot more casualties especially in the Western Roman Empire than earlier authors mention), and the death of Theodosius.

The book then lays out a chronology of the events of Stilicho's period of leadership including his campaigns and battles with Alaric and his troops, the destruction of Radagasius and his invaders, the invasion of Gaul by the Vandals, et al in early 407AD, and the arrival and fight with Constantine III who took over Gaul, Britain and Spain in 407AD, ending with the events leading to Stilicho's fall and death.

Through the tracing of these events, some common themes are presented (1) the Roman army of this period was small, often fewer than 10,000 Roman troops were used in a battle (and in a couple of instances 5-6,000 were the size of the Roman forces - which is backed by facts listing the units) enhanced by barbarian foederati; (2) Stilicho had to beg the Senate for money and recruits to support the army and it became impossible to replace troops making it necessary to be very conservative in battle (due to concern with irreplaceable losses); (3) parts of the Western Empire were left undefended or poorly defended, e.g. Northern Gaul, Britain, Spain, due to the shortage of troops, and (4) puling the troops from these areas impacted the local economy negatively - closing of farms, and reduction of population and importance of cities, e.g. Trier.

These four points are a fascinating, detailed study of key elements to why the Western Roman Empire fell 45-70 years later. The analysis that the author provides to lead to these conclusions is very logical and powerful. This makes the book very valuable in my opinion to any reader interested in this period of the Roman Empire.
In this work, Ian Hughes traces the career of one of Rome's most famous/infamous generalissimos, Flavius Stilicho. Hughes should get high praise for even attempting this work. There is a dearth of objective historical data concerning Stilicho, and historians have had to chose between the obvious flattery by his master of propaganda, Claudian, or later-day Christian sources that lambast Stilicho for his reliance on heathen barbarians. Hughes takes a middle approach and argues that Stilicho was a competent--but not great--general and politician, that did the best he could with the resources available to him and was loyal to the family that brought him to power.

I give this book 4 stars. 5 for content and 3 for presentation. I will deal with the negatives first. I personally did not like the way this book was organized. The book is arranged (generally) chronologically by chapter and within each chapter are numerous subheadings. For instance, a chapter dedicated to a particular event or campaign will have subchapters for each actor, the general political conditions, state of the army, etc. The problem with this approach is that at times the book reads as a disjointed series of essays. The constant back and forth between topic areas breaks up the narrative flow, and also results in the reader losing his/her place because the subchapters tend to wander from the main topic. Also, the book could use a little more editing, particularly with use of pronouns. Often when the book is discussing multiple events or actors within the same sentence or paragraph, too many pronouns are used so that it is hard to tell to which event/person the author is referring.

Now, the positives--which greatly outweigh any negatives. While this book is titled as a biography of Stilicho, it provides a very vivid depiction and thorough analysis of the turbulent times of the last era of Roman dominance. This book is a really good companion to many of the "why Rome fell" books because its level of detail. Hughes has a knack for pointing out and discussing from a "boots on the ground" perspective, what was actually happening during this time period. In so many other books of this era, the author is focused on grand macro trends and theories for why Rome fell, and a lot of the detail is overlooked. In other books so many names and battles are discussed that anyone without a sincere interest in the topic will get lost. Hughes does a great job of breathing life into the personalities of characters, detailing the ever changing personal alliances and political factors in operation, and discussing matters in enough detail that the reader understands what was actually happening. That said, this is not an academic book that get bogged down in details (actually, I would have liked the author to use footnotes instead of endnotes)

One other area in which Hughes excels is his frankness when it comes to informing the reader when he is speculating and in presenting different interpretations of the same events. Many other books take a particular thesis and run all the facts through the paradigm the author has constructed, so that all the evidence seems to fit. In doing so, many other authors make assumptions or interpret events in a particular manner without informing the reader that there are alternative views. Hughes is brutally honest about the paucity of written material and the difficulties with using archeology to infer conditions for specific decades across the empire. When there is useful evidence, Hughes informs the reader of all possible interpretations and then explains to the reader why he is choosing a particular viewpoint. More often than not, Hughes takes the approach that there is a little truth to all sources and he tries to find a "middle ground" interpretation. This is refreshing. While certainly the ancient sources all have their biases and agendas, modern scholarship all to often throws the baby out with the bathwater and authors will summarily reject a source as "unreliable" or biased and thereby discount everything the ancient author has to say. Hughes also shies away from conspiracy theories about Stilicho, Alaric, and the eastern and western governments, and instead adopts practical explanations for the events at issue.

Topic wise, I would be remiss if I did not mention how happy I was to see Hughes' treatment of the battle of the Frigidus and the other conflicts fought by Theodosius before he died. Far too many authors place so much significance on the battle of Adrianople, and gloss over Theodosius' subsequent campaigns as "mopping up" operations. Hughes is the first historian that I have seen that actually recognizes the devastating impact of Theodosius' subsequent loss to the Goths and the irreversible damage he caused to the western army during the battle of the Frigidus and the preceding civil war. All too often historians simply declare triumphantly that Theodosius "reunited the empire" and then act as if all was well. This leads to many authors questioning "what happened to the western army?" The truth is that the Romans lost the majority of the eastern army at Adrianople. Theodisius lost what was left in his subsequent "clean up" operation. This explains the extremely favorable terms of the peace treaty with the Goths. Using whatever manpower was left, Theodosius trained his new gothic recruits in the art of Roman warfare and made plentiful use of his new barbarian "federates." He then stripped the frontiers of their defenses, "upgraded" the homeguard troops and took this reconstituted army and fought two bloody civil wars with the west during which he devastated the western army. Hughes recognizes that the losses inflicted on the west were worse than the loss at Adrianople. Once this is understood, and once one understands the extreme manpower shortage faced by Stilicho, his "inability" to defeat Alaric, and Stilicho's use of gothic troops is perfectly understandable.

Hughes also does well in painting a portrait of the real world effects of what occurred when the armies were withdrawn for these civil wars. The frontiers were raided; barbarians were resettled to protect the "Roman" frontier; the local economy that was so dependent on the army dried up; local landowners felt abandoned and switched their loyalties to their new barbarian "protectors"; and the practical "power" of the western empire shrunk down to Italy and southern Gaul. Hughes offers great insight as to the effects of these changes on Roman society and allegiance to the empire. When one considers this picture as a whole, it becomes much more evident why the West fell, what happened to the army, and why the imperial court was unable to stop the course of history. Hughes also explains the political constraints under which Stilicho was placed faced with a landowning class that would not allow its laeti or coloni to be conscripted and that resisted taxation to buy "mercenary" troops, Stilicho could not afford to fight a "decisive battle" and was instead left to employing Fabian tactics and court his old adversary, Alaric.

One quibble I had is that Hughes' introductory comments about the state of the late Roman army are inconsistent with the facts discussed in the book. Hughes recognizes that both western and eastern armies were almost eradicated in civil wars and losses during the Gothic war. Rome had to rely on large contingents of untrained barbarian federates fighting en masse under their own tribal leaders. Guard troops were "upgraded" to field army status. However, early on, Hughes seems to adopt the now-chic view that the army was just as disciplined and effective as before. Whether due to a need to see the barbarians as "equal" to the Romans, or the desire to refute anything Gibbonish, this viewpoint of the late roman army simply does not square with remainder of the text. The truth, as borne out by Hughes' narrative, is the army was NOT as effective and efficient as it once was. No longer could groups of "highly trained, highly disciplined" legionaries hold their own and win in the face of superior numbers. The need to withdraw border troops and hire large swaths of barbarian mercenaries indicates that warfare was now simply a matter of attrition with men being thrown in waves into the battle. Thus, Ammianus Marcellinus' depiction of Adrianople "the two lines of battle dashed against each other, like the beaks of ships, and thrusting with all their might, were tossed to and fro, like the waves of the sea." Even Hughes notes that Stilicho's army disobeyed orders on several occassions and surmises that Sticho did not have confidence in his own army. Hughes also does not discuss in any detail the significance in the change in equipment, and views the abandonment of the gladius, scotum, and lorica segmentata in favor of spears, circular wooden shields, and longswords as being merely an "evolution" not a degradation of equipment.

Hughes' Stilicho is neither the great barbarian conspirator nor the formidable "last of the Romans" that ancient sources make him out to be. The story of the fall of Rome is a story of an empire eating itself over and over again and barbarians picking up the scraps. Stilicho, who was more political appointee than brilliant general, tried to keep as many scraps together in the face of limited resources, internal enemies, and constant threat of barbarian invasion. Stilicho, a man of average abilities was thrust into this mess upon the death of Theodisius and did his best to preserve what was left of the roman "empire." Due to the actions of the Roman Senate, the continuous discord with the east, and constant invasions, Stilicho lacked the time, money, and recruits he needed to build and deploy an effective fighting force. Faced with a Senate that wouldn't allow its peasants to be conscripted, yet oppossed paying taxes for employing mercenary troops, Stilicho was forced to deal with Alaric as a political and military equal and for that he was murdered.

In the end, Stilicho must be evaluated based on the fact that he did not declare himself Imperator, despite having the only organized effective fighting force in the west and his familial claim to the throne. He followed orders, even when they were not issued in the best interest of Rome, and he willingly gave his life rather than cause another civil war. In an era where anyone with an army could claim to be emperor, Stilicho's actions demonstrate long-term thinking and loyalty which seems to have been absent from most Roman leaders, including the Senate. Perhaps a more fitting (albeit less catchy)title of the book would have been "Stilicho The Vandal That Defended and Died For Rome."

All in all, a great book and good read. I highly recommend it.
I found Ian Hughes' book on Stilicho to be an excellent entry among the many books I've read about the late fourth and early fifth century Roman Empire. Hughes' book is the only book on the subject that I've read that has attempted to give a complete, chronological commentary on the career of Stilicho and imperial politics in the late Western Roman Empire. Using admittedly imperfect and often contradictory primary sources, Hughes presents a measured survey of the period. In treating confused and/or controversial events of the period (again given the poor contemporary source material available), Hughes discusses the various interpretations of these events and then gives his suggested interpretation with cogent support arguments. Of great interest to me is Hughes' discussion of the complicated relationship between Stilicho and Alaric. Contemporary sources - and later modern histories - have offered confused and, in my opinion, incomplete explanations about this relationship and about whether or not Stilicho was complicit in allowing Alaric to 'escape' destruction on many occasions. Hughes offers a more complete and reasonable interpretation of this relationship that rings true. His discussion recognizes Stilicho's limited military resources as well as his political difficulties with the senatorial elites in Rome, a discussion missing in many of the modern books I've read on the later Roman Empire in the West. In conclusion, for anyone interested in this period of later Roman history, I strongly recommend Hughes' book. He is a serious scholar with a great interest in his subject.