62 See Lee, ‘Warfare and the state’, 396–98, with J.M. O’Flynn, Generalissimos of the Western
Roman Empire (Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta Press, 1983).
63 Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 32–47.
64 For barbarian invasions as the key element (as opposed to internal or structural problems),
the classic statement is that of André Piganiol, made at the end of his book, L’Empire chrétien
(325–395) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1947), ‘the empire did not die a natural
death, it was assassinated’; see Introduction.
65 For discussion see Elton, ‘Military forces’, 284–85 (c. 500,000 in the fourth century,
c. 300,000 by the sixth); Jones, Later Roman Empire II, 1,042 seems to accept a fi gure of over
600,000; see also 679–80. On the Notitia see J.H. Ward, ‘The Notitia Dignitatum’, Latomus
33 (1974), 397–434.
66 See on this Elton, ‘Military forces’, 274–78, though with an emphasis on continuity. Michael
Whitby, ‘Recruitment in Roman armies from Justinian to Heraclius (ca. 565–615)’, in Averil
Cameron, ed., States, Resources and Armies, 61–124, emphasises the reliance on conscription
and puts forward a robust assessment of military strength even at the end of our period (cf.
100 f. on the evidence of the late sixth-century Strategikon of Maurice). However Heraclius’s
recruitment for the war against Persia in the early seventh century involved a major effort,
and by then there had been a retreat from the Danube region under pressure of repeated
Slav migration and attacks (Chapter 9). David Potter, Rome in the Ancient World. Romulus to
Justinian (London: Thames and Hudson, 2009), 317–34, gives a brief but thoughtful review
of the post-Justinianic period and the (multiple) reasons for ‘decline’.
67 See Benjamin Isaac, The Limits of Empire. The Roman Army in the East (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1990, 1992); for the east see the spectacular photographs published by
David Kennedy and Derrick Riley, Rome’s Desert Frontier from the Air (London: Batsford,
1990); David Kennedy and Robert Bewley, Ancient Jordan from the Air (London: Council
for British Research in the Levant, 2004); P. Freeman and D. Kennedy, eds., The Defence of
the Roman Empire in the East, I–II (Oxford: BAR, 1986); D.H. French and C.S. Lightfoot,
eds., The Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire, I–II (Oxford: BAR, 1989) and see below,
Chapter 9.
68 Trans. A. Fitzgerald (1930), II, 477.
69 Heather, Empires and Barbarians, is right to see this, and to include the migrations of the
Slavs (and, he might have added, of Turkic peoples) as a continuation of the story. Similarly
the apparently long-lived empire of Byzantium, which in a real sense lasted until 1453, nev-
ertheless changed profoundly at various periods as the world around it also changed: Averil
Cameron, The Byzantines (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
3 Christianization and its challenges1 The traditional term ‘paganism’ (which I use at times for convenience) is a Christian inven-
tion and obscures the actual variety of cults and practice. For the actual continuance of
pagan practice and thought see Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth
to Eighth Centuries (New Haven, 1997); F.R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization,
c. 370–529, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1993–94). Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010), argues powerfully against the idea promoted in Christian
sources of a stark struggle between Christianity and paganism (and defends his use of the
term ‘pagan’ at 25–32).
2 David M. Gwynn and Suzanne Bangert, eds., Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity, Late Antique
Archaeology 6 (Leiden: Brill, 2010); E. Rebillard and C. Sotinel, eds., Les frontières du profane
dans l’Antiquité tardive (Rome: École française de Rome, 2010); Robert Markus, ‘From Rome
to the barbarian kingdoms (300–700)’, in J. McManners, ed., Oxford Illustrated History of
Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 62–91, at 62–73.
3 See e.g. Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1991); Dale B. Martin and Patricia Cox Miller, The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2