395–398 AD Western Roman Expeditionary Army in Claudius Claudianus’ Poem De bello Gildonico: The Aspects of Ethnic Composition

Abstract

The Later Roman court poet and panegyrist Claudius Claudianus (ca. 370 – after 404) supplies a main source on the military-­political history of the Western half of the Roman Empire in 395–404, particularly the account of a revolt of North Africa’s warlord Gildo raised up in spring of 397 and suppressed in winter 398. A relatively fast defeat of Gildo was the one from the series of undoubted victories of the Roman general Stilicho, the commander-in-chief of all the Western Roman expeditionary troops. In this connection, Claudianus’ poem De bello Gildonico supplies the researchers with valuable evidence not only on the course of military events, but also on the internal composition of Stilicho’s troops sent against Gildo. Using the account of this poem, the author of the given paper’s aim is to determine the ethnic origin of the soldiers who fought against Gildo in Africa: the analysis of Claudianus’ data has showed that the military corps sent against Gildo comprised of mainly of German mercenaries and not of the soldiers of Roman origin. The author of this article explains why Claudianus consecutively named the German soldiers as the “Gauls” (Galli) and why the ethnic name Galli was so important to him. The author has extensively considered the ethnic names mentioned by Claudianus and has made the conclusion that Claudianus wanted to hide the presence of German mercenaries within Stilicho’s troops, because, as Claudianus thought, direct mentions of Germans’ participation in the raid would destroy the image of Stilicho as Roman commander. In this way the poet contraposed rebellious Gildo to Stilicho, who, according to poet, commanded only the warriors of the local Roman origin.