Conclusion

As has already been shown at the beginning of this chapter, finding a suitable terminology for the many different ways the Romans developed to integrate barbarian soldiers into their army structure poses a number of problems. Foederati is just one possible term among a number of others, and perhaps not even the most likely one. It has indeed been widely applied in the fifth century to barbarian soldiers serving in the Roman army whether for a longer period of time or only for the duration of one campaign. However, no certainty can be attained as to whether the term foederati really describes a coherent concept that was created in the fourth century and that was universally employed for the integration of barbarian soldiers into the military of the late empire. In fact, the military structures in late antiquity seem to have varied as much as the challenges the imperial administrations in the West and in the East had to face. These difficulties notwithstanding this chapter can be concluded with some summarizing remarks that should make developments during that period more transparent and easier to understand.

First of all it is necessary to stress that there was a significant continuity of patterns and practices established under the principate into late antiquity. Neither settling barbarian groups inside the boundaries of the empire, nor employing them as soldiers, nor integrating even comparatively large populations through military service was entirely unheard of before. In northern Gaul the incorporation of successive groups of mainly Frankish immigrants over a period of several generations proved that the Roman military was still quite capable of successful integration even during the fourth and fifth century. Likewise, the settlement of the Burgundians in southern Gaul which - in contrast to the integration of the Franks - took place at comparatively short notice, yielded good results. Burgundians and Franks styled themselves later as descendants of the Romans (Ammianus Marc. 28.5.11; Orosius 7.32.12) or at least of being of Trojan origin (Ps.-Fredegar, Chron. 2.4-6 and 3.2); could integration have been any more successful?

Yet incorporating barbarian populations into the empire was for a variety of reasons not always as easy as in these two cases. Among the most important of these certainly was the interdependency between Rome’s internal affairs and the policy towards the gentes across the Rhine and Danube. Whenever the Romans were preoccupied with internal strife, in the process turning their attention away from potential enemies beyond the frontiers of the empire, they effectively encouraged the barbarians to take advantage of the situation by invading the empire or, if they already settled within its boundaries, by extending their spheres of influence. This phenomenon can already be observed in the fourth century, for instance between 350 and 353 during the civil war between Constantius II and the usurper Magnentius, and later decades right up to the end of the western empire provide ample examples of it. Thus even during its last years Roman rule was significantly weakened by internecine conflict raging mainly in Gaul following the murder of the emperor Majorian in 461; as a result, the last barbarian allies finally joined those trying to divide up the remnants of the empire among them. At that point it was practically impossible to mobilize for military service the barbarian kings still bound by treaties to the emperor, and the garrisons on the Rhine and Danube silently faded away into the early Middle Ages (cf. Eugippius, Vit. Sev. 20). When the western emperor as the guarantor of the treaties they once had agreed upon finally ceased to exist, they once and for all lost a crucial point of reference connecting them to Ravenna and the empire.