(at the bottom of the page is the conclusion)
R o m a n E m p i r e
Roman Army
http://www.usna.edu/Users/history/abels/hh381/Romimparmy.htm
28 LEGIONS, c. 168,000 men, and equal number of AUXILIARIES until AD 9; 25 legions plus auxiliaries in AD 23, about 300,000 men in all. Legions were about 5300 men.
PRECLUSIVE DEFENSE. Second century (Pax Romana). By reign of Hadrian (117-138) the borders of the Roman Empire were clearly defined as most of the client states were absorbed in Rome's provincial system. ). The legions and auxiliaries (29-33 legions + auxiliaries, approx. 300-350,000) were now stationed in permanent stone fortresses along the frontier. (6,000 mile land perimeter.)
number of legions fluctuated between 29 and 33 (under Trajan).
DIOCLETIAN (284-305) appears to have doubled the number of legions, increasing the size of the army dramatically, to about 400-500,000. (John the Lydian in the 6th century gives the figure 435,266.) To raise troops Diocletian made military service hereditary and instituted a new system of conscription based on land tax: burden fell exclusive on agricultural population, as landowners were responsible for send specified quotas of soldiers.
A. Numbers: Notitia Dignitatum provides at least paper numbers Western armies, ca. 423, and Eastern armies, ca. 408 (Jones, Later, vol. 3:table 15):
Western comitatus 113,000 limitanei 135,000 scholae 2500
Eastern comitatus 104,000 limitanei 248,000 scholae 3500
Total Western forces: 248,000 % limitanei 54%
Total Eastern forces: 352,000 % limitanei 70%
Total imperial forces: 600,000
These numbers agree with the figure given in the 6th century by Agathias. They represent, probably, the PAPER strength of the armies (the fiscal cost of these forces) rather than the true combatant strength.
a. Length of service: Ordinary term of service was 20 years to achieve an honorable discharge; 24 years for a veteran's discharge. Some NCOs stayed on for as many as 48 years. Veterans enjoyed fiscal privileges (immunity for themselves and their wives from the poll tax; discharge allotments of land with oxen and corn or cash bounties)
Jones does point out, however, that the FIELD ARMIES of the early fifth century were still formidable military forces capable of defeating larger barbarian armies (Stilicho's victories of Pollentia, Verona, and Faesulae), and the Byzantine armies of Justinian conquered Italy and Africa because of their tactical superiority (Belisarius's army in N. Africa in 533 numbered only 15,000 troops).
THE ONLY BATTLE THAT A BARBARIAN DEFEATED A REGULAR ROMAN ARMY IN THE 4TH AND 5TH CENTURIES WAS ADRIANOPLE, WHICH WAS EXCEPTIONAL BECAUSE OF THE POOR LEADERSHIP OF THE EMPEROR VALENS, WHICH LED TO THE ROMANS BEING CAUGHT BETWEEN THE GERMAN CAMP AND THE GERMAN CAVALRY RETURNING FROM ITS FORAGING EXPEDITION.
But, again, one must ask what was the difference by 400 AD, at least in the West, between a 'Roman' and a 'barbarian' army?
G. BARBARIANS AND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ROMAN ARMY, 410-500: (Goffart 31-34; Geary, Before France and Germany, ch. 1-2; Roger Collins, Early Medieval Europe, 1991):
I. CULTURAL INTEGRATION. Germans (Goths, Alemmans, Burgundians, etc.) living within the Roman provinces or across the borders in Late Antiquity had been "ROMANIZED" through long contact with the empire.
CULTURAL INTERACTIONS WAS NOT ONE SIDED. Along the Rhine and Danubian borders of the empire, Germans were Romanized through commercial contacts, military arrangements, diplomacy, etc. 'Romans,' on the other hand, were increasingly 'barbarianized.'
b. FOEDERATI. Development from client system. Federates were barbarian tribes allied to empire, could be called upon to provide contingents for distant operations (e.g. bedouin force from Syria defended Constans against the Goths in 378). Constantine, who favored Germans for his imperial guard, the scholae, made a treaty in 324/32 with Gothic chieftains for 40,000 western Goths to defend Constantinople as federates. (Macmullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome [1988] 202; Eusebius Vita Const. 4.5, Amm. 21.10.8).
After 378 (ADRIANOPLE) the situation was altered. Because Valens permitted in 200,000 Goths in 376 and was subsequently defeated by them in battle, THEODOSIUS (379-95), after indecisive warfare with the Goths, made treaty with the Visigoths and allowed them to settle in Thrace as a federate people under their own king and with their own laws and customs. The Burgundians and Alans were later given the same privilege.
THESE FEDERATE BANDS, UNLIKE THE EARLIER FEDERATES OUTSIDE THE EMPIRE OR THE GERMANS SERVING IN THE ROMAN ARMY, PROVED UNRELIABLE, LOYAL TO THEIR OWN CHIEFS RATHER THAN EMPIRE AND ALWAYS WILLING TO MOVE AGAINST EMPIRE TO GAIN BETTER DEAL.
Again, the example of ALARIC is instructive: "Nothing shows better how weakened had become the resistance against the barbarians, taken into the empire since 380, than the settling of German federates in 397, under a king provided with a Roman office" (Demouget, quoted by R. Macmullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome [1988], 204).
Macmullen concludes:
BY THIS DATE [410], IN ANY MILITARY SENSE, THE EMPIRE WAS NO LONGER A SOVEREIGN STATE AND THE SACK OF ITS ANCIENT CAPITAL BY ALARIC--A HIGH IMPERIAL OFFICIAL AND EVEN A BORN ROMAN, SO FAR AS THE WORD HAS MEANING--HAD NO QUALITY OF INVASION ABOUT IT AT ALL. HE AND HIS MEN WERE THE ROMAN ARMY, AND HAD BEEN FOR DECADES." (Macmullen 204).
One of the paradoxes of Roman military history is that the Roman army in the late 4th century had close to 600,000 men in the field (or at least on the books), yet the LARGEST expeditionary force ever raised by Rome was the 65,000 men of Julian's Persian campaign (361-63). Stilicho could only muster about 20,000 men to fight the major threat of Alaric in 407.
Justinian dispatched only 10,000 troops with Belisarius to reconquer Italy in 536. (He received reinforcements of 6500 a year later.) Belisarius's forces in Africa numbered about 15,000 regular troops and 1000 allies. Even though the Gothic armies numbered only around 20-30,000 combatants, nevertheless, the Romans found themselves outnumbered consistently. Why?
Theodoric the Great, conqueror of Italy 488-89 and Ostrogothic king of Italy, led an army of maybe 30-40,000 men (Burns). Contamine (11) provides estimates of other barbarian forces: Alamans in 357--25,000; Visigothic coalition at Adrianople 378, 18,000; Gaiseric's Vandals in Africa 429, 16,000 fighting men.
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http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/topics/romhstry.html
Hannibal
Hannibal was now twenty-eight years old...and had received a soldier's training through nineteen years in camp. He had disciplined his body to hardship, his appetite to moderation, his tongue to silence, his thought to objectivity. He was "the first to enter the battle, and the last to abandon the field", according to Livy...The Romans accused him of avarice, cruelty, and treachery, for he honored no scruples in seizing supplies for his troops, punished disloyalty severely...Yet we find him often merciful, always chivalrous.
The Romans could not readily forgive him for winning battles with his brains rather than with the lives of his men...Hannibal led his troops north...and then struck eastward into the Alps. Celtic tribes had crossed those ranges before him...but he had difficulty getting his elephants through narrow or precipitous passages.
After a climb of nine days, he reached the summit and found it covered with snow...His army of 59,000 was reduced to 26,000 by the time he reached the plains of Italy, so great were the hardships. Fortunately, he was welcomed as a liberator by the Cisalpine Gauls, who joined him as allies. The Roman settlers fled southward across the Po River.
Rome mobilized all its resources and called upon all the states in Italy to defend the land. The Romans raised an army of 300,000 foot, 14,000 horse, and 456,000 reserves. Hannibal won two battles in North Italy, but he knew he was still outnumbered 10 to 1. He failed to persuade the Italian states to join him, and his Gallic "allies" were losing heart.
The Romans attacked Hannibal at Cannae with 80,000 infantry, and 6000 cavalry. Hannibal had 19,000 Carthaginian and Spanish veterans, 16,000 unreliable Gauls, and 10,000 horse. He placed the Gauls at his center, expecting them to give way, which they did. When the Romans followed them into the pocket, his veterans closed in on the Roman flanks and the cavalry attacked from behind.
The Romans lost all chance of maneuvering, and 44,000 fell in one day's battle, including eighty senators who had enlisted as soldiers. This battle ended the days of Roman reliance upon infantry and set the lines of military tactics for two thousand years.
The Conquest of Gaul
Caesar had himself appointed governor of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul in 58 B.C., and he shortly took up his duties there. The Germans had moved across the Rhine River into Gaul for the past 20 years, settling in Flanders and other northern areas. During the same period, Helvetii, from Geneva, some 400,000 strong, were moving west through territory now governed by Caesar.
In early 52 B.C., Caesar received word that the Gaul Vercingetorix was lining up nationalistic tribes in rebellion. Caesar's legions fought several battles against the Gauls (at Bourges, Orleans, etc.) which took a steady toll of his men and supplies. He found his fortunes at a low ebb.
He staked everything on a siege of Alesia (modern Alise Ste. Reine), where Vercingetorix had 30,000 troops. Caesar surrounded the town with about as many soldiers. But he got word that there were at least 250,000 Gauls coming from the north to Vercingetorix' relief.
The fate of Gaul was decided, and the character of the French civilization was set. Territory twice the size of Italy was added to the Roman Empire, and 5,000,000 people became Rome's customers.
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http://www.legionxxiv.org/
Imperial Rome was the Super Power of the Ancient World ! At its peak, during the 1st Century AD; the Roman Imperial Army, composed of up to 150,000 legionaries; conquered, ruled and guarded an Empire that stretched from Scotland to Syria; governed 50 million people and covered a region which comprises more than 40 nations today.
At its height, the City of Rome had a population of one million people. Such a population density in another european city would not occur until the City of London, England in the early 1800's; which had been founded as "Londinium" by the invading Roman Legions. For historians, senators, students, young or old; movie producers and movie goers alike; as well as for most everyone else, its appeal has never gone out of style.
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http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/printable/9/0,5722,109199,00.html
By the end of the 3rd century Christians actually predominated in some of the smaller Eastern towns or districts, and they were well represented in Italy, Gaul, and Africa around Carthage; all told, they numbered perhaps as many as 5 million out of the empire's total population of 60 million.
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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/mango.html
One eminent scholar has nevertheless ventured the view that Justinian's Empire, including the reconquered western provinces, had no more than 30 million inhabitants. Not taking into account the losses caused by the great plague of 542, this appears to be too low an estimate: we may be nearer the truth in postulating 30 million for the eastern half of the Empire.
In very approximate terms, the distribution would have been the following: 8 million in Egypt, 9 million in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia combined, 10 million in Asia Minor, and 3 to 4 million in the Balkans.
If these figures are anywhere near the truth, it would follow that the native Greek speakers represented less than a third of the total population, say 8 million, making allowance for the unassimilated peoples of Asia Minor and for the Latin and Thracian speakers of the Balkans.
The Greek, Coptic and Aramaic elements would thus have been on a footing of near parity. Compared to the spread of Latin in Gaul and Spain, it must be admitted that the Greek language had made very limited progress between the third century BC and the sixth century AD. This was no doubt due to the fact that Hellenization was largely centred on cities. About a century after the Arab conquest Greek had become practically extinct in both Syria and Egypt, which can only mean that it had not grown deep roots.
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http://website.lineone.net/~vstuk/history/byzhist.html
Constantinople
By Justinian's time the population of the city numbered 600,000 and included Cappadocians, Phrygians, Bulgars, Persians, Palestinian Jews, Syrians, Armenians, Illrians and Goths as well as the Greek and Roman families that had come with Constantine. Citizenship could be granted to anyone who spoke Greek and belonged to the Orthodox Church.
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http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~calong/tape.byzantium.html
Constantinople was a state-controlled, world trade centre which enjoyed the continuous use of a money economy – in contrast to the localised systems found in the west. The city's wealth and taxes paid for a strong military force and financed an effective government.
Excellent sewage and water systems supported an extremely high standard of living. Food was abundant, with grain from Egypt and Anatolia and fish from the Aegean. Constantinople could support a population of a million, at a time when it was difficult to find a city in Europe that could sustain more than 50,000.
In Constantinople the Circus took place in the Hippodrome, a structure that could hold 80,000 spectators.
The end came finally in May 1453. The last emperor, Constantine XI, led his forces of 4,000, half of whom were Genoese, to hold off the 160,000 Turks for seven weeks. Finally, the Ottomans, with the help of Hungarian artillerymen, breached the walls of the beleaguered city. After 1123 years, the Christian capital fell.
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http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04301a.htm
FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE; CAPITAL OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE
When the tragic hour struck, the emperor had only about 7000 men, including all foreign succour. Since March, 1453, the Turks, to the number of 200,000, had invested the city; the preceding year they had built on the Bosporus the redoubtable fortress of Rumeli-Hissar.
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http://www.maki.simplenet.com/cgm/tnet/kuwae.htm
By 1453, Constantinople's population, once a million strong, had shrunk to a mere tenth of that.
On April 6,1453, the Ottoman forces, under the command of Mehmet himself, set up camps outside the city's imposing triple defensive walls. Mehmet's army, which historians estimate numbered 80,000 men, vastly outnumbered the 7000 or so Greek, Venetian and Genoese troops under siege.
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http://www.peicommerce.com/HISTORY/ROMAN/MISC/CNSTOPLE.HTM
As the center of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople had a population to rival Rome's anywhere from 500,000 to 800,000 people. Aqueducts supplied the water needs, and Egypt's fields provided the food.
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http://www.jt-board2.itgo.com/archive_23/4631.htm
Rome had a little over half a million men in its army and navy at the height of its power and a population of around 50,000,000 people according to most estimates I've seen.
The Byzantine army numbered some 40,000 professional soldiers in the Tagmata, plus around 150,000 in the semi-professional Themata. Adding the levy for MT and Anorien to the 30,000 of the Southern Fiefs of say a further 10,000 we get 40,000 non-standing troops.
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Because no government in the west regularly counted its people, our population figures for this era are sketchy. Currently we estimate the Roman Empire had 45 million people in its heyday, the second century A.D. Thereafter the population declined slowly; by 400 the Empire probably had 36 million subjects, a 20% drop.
This fall did not cause the subsequent collapse of the Western Empire, for the Romans still outnumbered their German opponents by at least two to one, but it certainly made defending the realm tougher. The Empire needed farmers and slaves, and the loss of both forced it to operate on a smaller scale in the fifth century.
This contraction continued for most of the period covered by the previous chapter. Between 400 and 600 it dropped another 25%, bringing the Mediterranean world down to 27 million. As farmers abandoned their land, it became harder to feed those people remaining, encouraging them to move away. In the west there weren't enough German immigrants to offset the population losses; in the east nomads poured in everywhere, declaring a dramatic triumph for the pastoral way of life.
But while the whole world did not suffer from a cultural slump, it does appear that there was an economic one--a dramatic universal slowdown. The total change in world population from 400 to 1000 is now figured at 205 million at the beginning of the period, and 235 million at the end--a 15% increase. In the previous 600 years the increase had been nearly 100% and it would be 100% in the following 600 years.
Nowadays we are worried about too many people, and rightly so--a 100% increase takes less than 60 years, not 600. But at a time when many areas of the world were empty and its resources were not efficiently used, a static population meant that life was too short and that civilization could not solve its social, economic and technological problems.
Disease epidemics are another possibility. We know that a really bad one can reduce population by at least a third, because that is exactly what happened with the Black Death and the Irish Potato Famine. We also know that a plague hit China around 160 A.D., spread to Rome twenty years later, and caused a series of aftershocks until 250.
Another wave of outbreaks hit the Eastern Roman Empire from 540 to 590. Together these plagues could have done the demographic damage we see. The problem lies in the amount of time involved. Europe only needed 150 years to recover from the Black Death, so the seven or eight hundred years it took to get population back up to Roman levels seems a bit on the long side. If epidemics are the main culprit, they didn't work alone.
B a r b a r i a n s & R o m a n s
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,75778+1+73847,00.html?kw=turk
In Iran the family of Oguz tribes known as Seljuks created an empire that by the late 11th century stretched from the Amu Darya south to the Persian Gulf and from the Indus River west to the Mediterranean Sea. In 1071 the Seljuq sultan Alp-Arslan defeated the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Manzikert and thereby opened the way for several million Oguz tribesmen to settle in Anatolia.
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http://www2.4dcomm.com/millenia/1000ad.htm
c600 Bulgars 10,000 Bulgar horsemen arrive in Pannonia to the court of Bayan kagan. This was but a small part of the Bulgars which settled along the Danube.
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In 370, the Romans were shocked at the sight of 200,000 Goth men, women and children pleading to be let in peacefully in the Empire. The Goths were perhaps Rome's most ferocious barbarian threat; they had led bold raids into the empire for almost a hundred years with ought showing a glimmer of restraint. But the Goths were in terror; the tribes adjacent to them had all suddenly been conquered by a people known as the Huns or Hsiung-nu.
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http://killeenroos.com/4/Turkeyre.htm
Turks called their state the Sultanate of Rum, since it occupied territories that once belonged to Rome-although to the Turks "Rum" no longer meant Latin civilization but Greek, for the Eastern Roman Empire had long since lost what Latin veneer it once had possessed. So the Seljuk sultanate was a successor state ruling part of the medieval Greek empire, and within it the process of Turkification of a previously Hellenized Anatolian population continued.
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Most of the Hellenized population of Anatolia had become Islamic during the centuries of invasion and disruption, but important pockets of Christians remained. Most of the Greek Orthodox peoples of Rumelia ( Turkish name for todays Bulgaria meaning the land of Romoisini or Eastern Romans or Byzantines ), more swiftly conquered by the organized Ottoman State, retained their traditional faith. Yet numbers of Greek Orthodox did apostatize in Rumelia; an outstanding example is the Serb peasantry surrounding the Islamicized towns of Bosnia, a distinct group of Muslims embedded in the generally Christian Balkans.
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In 376 AD the Visigoths were driven from modern Romania by the Huns and moved south across the Danube. Their strength was estimated at 60,000 men, women, and children.
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3. The Collapse of the Visigothic State and the Islamic Conquest
The Visigothic state which the Muslims found such an easy victim was an ethnically stratified society, with a fragmented political structure, a depressed and unbalanced rural economy, and a town life which was rudimentary at best. These Goths (who also called themselves Thervings, or [28] "People of the Woods") were a herding people who, entering the peninsula in the early sixth century, tended to settle in areas ecologically suited to their traditional economic pursuits. Thus the greatest concentration of Visigoths settled in a triangle traced by Palencia, Toledo, and Calatayud, with the densest settlement in the present province of Segovia, the Campi Goticl, or present-day Tierra de Campos. About 200,000 Goths ruled an indigenous population of about eight million Hispano-Romans as a military elite. The ethnic cleavage between German-speaking rulers and Latin-speaking subjects was heightened by religious difference; the Goths were Arian Christians who denied the divinity of Christ, while the Hispano-Roman majority was Catholic.
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http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leguin/165/barbarian.html
The Visigothic army is estimated to have had around 25,000-30,000 fighting men, (the Goths of Radagaisus and other angry barbarian soldiers swelled the ranks to around 40,000 by the time Alaric attacked Rome in 410), but not all the men in the army were Visigoths. Some were Alans and there were even some Huns and other peoples in their ranks. Even including women and children, the entire Visigothic population is estimated to have been around 100,000 people.
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The Huns were actually a far more fearsome lot than the Visigoths whom they had run off the Black Sea steppes in 376. At that time, the Huns were a group of Turkic-speaking nomadic tribes from Asia without a centralized leadership, but by 432 CE they had gathered a huge army which included troops from the numerous peoples they had previously conquered, including the Ostrogoths, and were united under a single leader named Rugila. When he died in 434, his nephews Attila and Bleda took over. Attila murdered Bleda in 445 and assumed sole leadership of the Huns. For a number of years, Attila was content extorting money from the Eastern Roman Emperor, who had been paying the Huns a yearly tribute since the 420's to refrain from raiding its provinces, but in 450, the new emperor Marcian came into power and refused to ante up the protection money. Attila decided to try his luck in the Western Empire. In 451, at the head of a great army, (the size of the Hunnic army has been variously estimated at between 300,000 and 700,000) he crossed the Rhine and swept across Europe looting, pillaging, and burning.
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http://eric.anctil.net/users/eric/history/npmp-en.html
AD 268
The Eruli take part in a Gothic attempt to conquer
Rome. 200,000 Goths with Eruli and other federates
on 6,000 ships according to probably exaggerated
Roman sources cross the Bosporus and plunder
the Greek archipelago, Crete, Cyprus and once more
take Athens.
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http://www.roman-empire.net/decline/decline.html
Then in AD 268 a massive Gothic invasion of the Balkans took place, the barbarians attacking in such huge numbers, they overwhelmed the Roman frontier defences.
Supported by the vast fleet of the Heruli, over 300'000 Goths borke into Thrace and Macedonia.
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http://www.roman-empire.net/collapse/valens.html
In the same year, AD 376, the Visigoths flooded across the Danube in unbelievable numbers. The cause of this unprecedented invasion was the arrival of the Huns hundreds of miles to the east. The Ostrogoths (the 'bright Goths') and Visigoths (the 'wise' Goths) were being smashed by the arrival of the notorious horsemen, pushing a first wave of 200'000 terrified Visigothic refugees across the Danube.
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http://www.midhnottsol.org/public/teuton/006_01.html
Next day he called the heroes together. He is going to tell them the old tale, he says---How in Vitigis' time at Ravenna, 7000 Greeks had conquered and robbed of kingdom and liberty 200,000 rich and well-armed Goths. And now that they were raw levies, few, naked, wretched, they had conquered more than 20,000 of the enemy. And why? Because of old they had looked to everything rather than to justice; they had sinned against each other and the Romans. Therefore they must choose, and be just men henceforth, and have God with them, or unjust, and have God against them.
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378. The Battle of Adrianople. Two hundred thousand desperate Visigoth (Thervingi) refugees seek asylum as a group in the Roman empire due to attacks by the Huns. The Romans allow them to stay (in what is now Bulgaria) and profit handsomely as the starving Visigoths are having to sell their children into slavery for food. Although expected to act as a defense buffer for Rome, the Visigoths soon begin to raid for food and realize their strength. Attempts to assert Roman authority lead to battle. Surprisingly, the Roman legions are annihilated and the emperor killed. The Visigoths take no prisoners. The emperor's body is never found. The Visigoths were recent "converts" to Arian Christianity and had been invited into Rome originally by an Arian emperor. This battle was fatal to Arian Christianity. Goth military superiority results from the use of massed cavalry (50,000 horsemen). The Goths can defeat the Romans in open battle, but cannot force entrance into walled towns. This battle establishes the superiority of cavalry over infantry, which is to last over a thousand years. Rome has no defense against "horse-barbarians" "It is the end of all humanity, the end of the world."
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http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/Mediterranean/Adrianople.html
Valens decided to march from Constantinople to attack the Goths. He was unwilling to wait for aid from Gratian, the Roman emperor of the West. Before the battle began, the 20,000 men of the Roman cavalry and the 40,000 men of the Roman infantry outnumbered the 50,000 Gothic foot soldiers. Valens attacked the Goths at an opportune time: while their cavalry was away on raids. (Bunson; 4) At the outset, the skilled Roman legions and cavalry seemed to have the battle well in hand, but suddenly the Gothic cavalry, numbering 50,000, returned. The Roman army was overpowered and their cavalry was quickly routed, which left the Roman foot soldiers defenseless to the attacks of the Gothic horsemen. The Roman army was crushed. Roman casualties numbered 40,000, including Valens. After the Goths crushed the Romans, they attempted to take the city of Adrianople, but could not penetrate its walls. (Dupoy; 157)
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552. The Turks in Mongolia throw off their Avar overlords. The Avars are typical "horse-rulers" who have ruled Mongolia for around 150 years, extracting tribute from the more settled native Turkic population. The weather leaves Avar horses with insufficient grass, fatally weakening Avar power. The Avar refugees begin a 3,000 mile march to Europe, moving as a massive refugee convoy that picks up many other refugees.
568. The Avars, who have marched 3,000 miles in 16 years, establish a new empire in the "horse-country" of central Hungary. The Avars rapidly revert to their "horse-ruler" empire building, extracting tribute from large Slav populations.
1150. The population of England is around 1.5 million.
1189. The Mongolian tribes become unified under Genghis Khan. In the next 100 years the Mongols rapidly built almost a "world-empire". Unlike previous Asiatic horse-empires, triggered by factors such as weather, Genghis Khan deliberately set out to conquer the world. The Mongols were illiterate; their military superiority relied on a population that lived in the saddle and could rapidly move and assemble huge "horse-armies". These armies fought entirely on horseback using the Mongolian composite bow. These bows were made from glued layers of bone and sinew, and were as effective as any bows ever built (including the English longbow). The Mongols favorite tactic was to lure an entire army into a large kill-zone (perhaps by a feigned retreat), and then ambush it from behind hills and enclose it in a huge U or circle of tens-of-thousands of horse-archers, who would use the range of their bows to rain huge barrages down on the enemy, galloping in and out constantly, guiding their horses with only their legs, using both hands to fire arrows, both while rotating "in" and "out" to get more arrows. The Mongols were exceptionally mobile. During the winters, when major rivers froze in much of Asia, the horse-armies used the rivers as giant "interstate highways". They routinely moved 80 miles a day, and when pressed could move 120. Every man in these armies had 10 horses, all of which were mares (dummies were sometimes mounted on the excess horses). Mongol armies in the field could survive indefinitely on mare's blood and mare's milk. Horse dung was burned for fuel, blood was stored in horse-intestines, and meat was tenderized for eating raw by riding on thin strips between saddle and saddle-pad. You could sometimes smell a Mongol army at 20 miles. Mongols could sleep on horse-back, and often stayed in the saddle for days. The Horde was rigidly organized by powers of 10. Ten men formed a troop, 10 troops a squadron, 10 squadrons a regiment, and 10 regiments a division. A division thus had 10,000 men and 100,000 horses. Men from different tribes were deliberately mixed together so no unit would have an ethnic preponderance. Mongols were not sensitive towards their horses. Mongol ponies were selected for toughness and trained by a near "test-to-destruction". Two out of every 5 Mongol horses died during training.
1240-1242. The Mongols invade Europe, penetrating to the gates of Vienna. Like the Roman Legions, the Mongols are not as effective in Northern Europe as elsewhere due to heavy forest, which limits horse mobility and does not provide the grazing necessary for large "horse-armies". Literate men are drawn to the Mongol court. The history of the Mongol empire, up until about 1240, is recorded around this time in The Secret History of the Mongols. Pope Innocent IV sends a Franciscan to the Mongolian court in Qaraqorum, and the Great Khan returns him with a letter in Persian (still in the Vatican) demanding surrender of the West. The Franciscan writes Ystoria Mongalorum. Another Franciscan follows in 1253, William of Rubouck, an aquaintance of Roger Bacon, who stays for many years at the Mongolian court arguing before the Khan, with representatives of the other great world religions, the merits of catholocism. William ultimately writes Itinerarium.
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The Genghis Khan imprinted in the memory of the west bears little relation to the Chinggis Khaan revered by Mongolians. Not only is the spelling different: to Europeans, his name lives on as the epitome of mercilessness and warmongering; to the Mongolians, he embodies strength, unity, law and order. He's the young king who united the warring clans, gathered a loyal army (up to 200,000 men), stamped out feuds and gave Mongolians a sense of direction. Genghis set up his capital in present-day Kharkhorin, and launched his important cavalry - built on Mongolia's prized takhi horses - against China and Russia. By the time of his death in 1227, the Mongol empire extended from Beijing to the Caspian Sea.
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324 Constantine became the only Emperor. The Goths lived north of the Danube River (now part of the border between Romania and Bulgaria) and occasionally tried to invade the Roman Empire. In 324 they invaded Thrace. When Licinius did not move against them, Constantine led his army to the rescue. Then, after the Goths were driven back across the Danube, Licinius and Constantine attacked each other. Licinius had 160,000 men. Constantine had only 130,000 men, but he won the war, and thereafter did not appoint a co-emperor. [Durant, Vol. III]
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http://shell1.dn.net/~bswett/Church300.html
376 The Huns had conquered the Ostrogoths north of the Black Sea and pressed on westward to attack the Visigoths in Dacia (now part of Romania and Hungary). Some Visigoths fled with Athanaric into the mountains of Transylvania, but the majority petitioned the emperor Valens to be taken into the Roman Empire. About 200,000 Visigoths crossed the Danube and settled in the province of Pannonia, but oppression by Imperial officials soon caused them to revolt. They traversed the country plundering as they went.
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http://library.thinkquest.org/26907/fall.htm
In 370, the Romans were shocked at the sight of 200,000 Goth men, women and children pleading to be let in peacefully in the Empire. The Goths were perhaps Rome's most ferocious barbarian threat; they had led bold raids into the empire for almost a hundred years with ought showing a glimmer of restraint. But the Goths were in terror; the tribes adjacent to them had all suddenly been conquered by a people known as the Huns or Hsiung-nu.
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http://www2.4dcomm.com/millenia/1000ad.htm
582 The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian
The coming of the Khazars and Bulgars was borrowed from the 6 volume church history of the cloister of Peskin by John the Ephesian. Thirty thousand Scythians were lead for 65 days across the mountain passes of the Imaon Mtns (northern Iran). They came during winter because the rivers were frozen. They reached the Tanaisz (volga) river which flows into the Meotis (Sea of Azov) and into the Pontus (Black Sea). As soon as they reached the border of the Romans one of them called Bulgarios separated with 10,000 men from his brothers, crossed the Tanais and the Danube, which also flows into the Pontus (Black Sea). He sent a message to Marikios, the (Byzanteen) emperor, and asked to be given land in which to settle. For this reason he and his people became the vassals of the Byzanteens. The emperor gave him upper and lower Moesia, and Dacia. The remainder Scythians, the other two brothers, settled with their people in the land of the Alans which was called Berzylia, territories whose cities were built originally by the Romans. The Bulgars and Puguryeh (called Ugor by others) who were originally the city dwellers of Barzilya, became in time Christians. As soon as this foreign race occupied the country they began calling themselves Khazars, after the eldest brother's name. This nation became strong and branched out.
c600 Bulgars 10,000 Bulgar horsemen arrive in Pannonia to the court of Bayan kagan. This was but a small part of the Bulgars which settled along the Danube.
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http://members.vavo.com/Berosus2/europe/eu07a.html
The Fury of the Northmen
Charlemagne's conquest of Saxony brought his frontier, and the frontier of civilization, to the base of the Danish peninsula. This gave the Franks new neighbors, the Scandinavians. No one thought much of this; Scandinavia was off the beaten path, poor, pagan, and likely to remain that way.
Denmark at this time was bigger than it is today. The Danes had absorbed their neighbors to the south, the Angles, and lorded over the southern part of Sweden. A population of nearly half a million made them the most important of the Scandinavian peoples. North of the Danes lived the Norwegians or Norse. About 100,000 of them lived on the shores of the Vik, facing Denmark. An equal number lived in settlements scattered along the Atlantic coast as far north as Trondheim.
The third group, the Swedes, originally lived near the Baltic around Lake Malar, with a tribe of Goths between them and the Danes. This was the parent tribe of the Goths who had colonized east Germany in the first century A.D., migrated to the Black Sea in the third and then played such an important part in bringing down the Western Roman Empire. Near the end of the sixth century the descendants of those Goths who stayed behind were conquered by the Swedes. The name Gotland (Goth-land) remains in use as a name for southern Sweden but the people were absorbed. This brought Swedish numbers up to a figure near the Danish one.
In Charlemagne's time Sweden and Denmark had their own kings, though usually the Danes were quarrelling over who the king was. The Norse had not yet reached the stage where they could think of themselves as a nation: if you asked a Norseman what his nationality was, he would think of his home fjord and say he was a Hordalander or a Trondheimer or whatever.
What made the Scandinavians appear on the stage of history with such destructive force? It now appears that the first factor was overpopulation; their homeland was so harsh that the figures quoted above were enough to fill up all land that was fit to live on. When the Goths moved out they left behind a thinly populated wilderness, dotted with crude villages that made a living through farming, fishing and a little trade. A series of unusually warm years just before 800 allowed these communities to grow larger than they normally would have. At the same time the climate bred a bold people with an urge to go adventuring. This desire to explore was increased by two customs commonly practiced by Scandinavian chiefs: polygamy and the leaving of one's entire inheritance to the eldest son. The result was a surplus of disinherited younger sons, who went forth to find new homes for themselves.
The most important reason why the Scandinavians came into their own is because in the eighth century they learned how to make something no one else had: a really efficient sailing ship.
Viking does not mean any Scandinavian but it does mean any Scandinavian raider. Their victims had difficulty telling the difference between Norse and Danes so the word does well for both. It was a different case with the Swedes, who did their raiding (and later trading) across the Baltic to the east, in areas where the Norse and Danes did not intrude (mainly Russia). For that reason the Swedes are usually called Varangians, though from contemporary accounts it seems that they were just as much the ferocious Viking type as their Norwegian and Danish kinsmen.
The aim of every Viking was to do something worthy of a saga--a long poem that celebrated deeds of unusual bravery or daring.
Each time a Viking raid succeeded, they were encouraged to come back again--and in greater numbers. Around 886 a reported armada of 700 ships and 40,000 men sailed up the Seine and laid siege to Paris--probably the greatest fleet Western Europe had seen so far.
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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/mango.html
It would be wearisome to describe here all the ethnographic changes that the Empire witnessed after the sixth century, but we must say a few words about the greatest mutation of all, which started happening a few decades after Justinian's death. Its first sign was the massive installation of the Slavs in the Balkan peninsula. The Slavs came in several waves and, unlike earlier invaders, they came to stay. In an oft-quoted passage John of Amida (also known asJohn of Ephesus) records that in 581
"an accursed people, called Slaonians, overran the whole of Greece, and the country of the Thessalonians, and all TXrace, and captured the cities, and took numerous forts, and devastated and burnt, and reduced the people to slavery, and made themselves masters of the whole country, and settled in it by main force, and dwelt in it as though it had been their own.... And even to this day [584 AD], they stili encamp and dwell there, and live in peace in the Roman territories, free from anxiety and fear, and lead captive and slay and burn."
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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/mango.html
Another source, the so-called Chronicle of Monembasia, states that in the year 587-8 the Turkic Avars (with whom the Slavs were usually allied)
"captured all of Thessaly and all of Greece, Old Epirus, Attica and Euboea. Indeed, they attacked the Peloponnese and took it by war; and after expelling and destroying the native Hellenic peoples, they dwelt there. Those who were able to escape their murderous hands were scattered here and there. Thus, the citizens of Patras moved to the district of Reggio in Calabria, the Argives to the island called Orobe, the Corinthians to the island of Aegina.... Only the eastern part of the Peloponnese, from Corinth to Cape Maleas, was untouched by the Slavonians because of the rough and inaccessible nature of the country."
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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/mango.html
In this way an enormous demographic gap was created. The Empire urgently needed farmers as it also needed soldiers. To achieve this end it had to resort to massive transfers of population. The Emperor Justinian Il, in particular, applied this policy on a wide scale. He moved a good part of the population of Cyprus to the region of Cyzicus on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmora. It was, apparently, a failure: many of the immigrants perished en route, and those who reached their destination later asked to be repatriated. Justinian II also moved 'a great multitude' of Slavs to Bithynia. Once again, he had little luck: the thirty thousand soldiers he raised from among this group to fight against the Arabs defected to the enemy, whereupon the emperor inflicted cruel reprisals on their families. In the 760s, however, we are told that 208,000 Slavs came to live in Bithynia of their own accord. In the eighth century we repeatedly hear of the organized settlement of Syrians in Thrace.
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Greek Historian Menander reports a rare situation when Avars and Slavs were not allies but rather foes.
" At the fourth year of the rule of the Emperor Tiberius ( 581 ) , some 100,000 Slavonians devasted Trakia and many other regions..Tiberius didnt have enough force to stop Slavonians and Avars.He sends a delegation to Avar Ruler Bayan , whom , at that moment didnt have antagonistic views towars the Byzantines.In such conditions Tiberius succeeds in his plans. Some 60,000 armed and armour plated Avar warriors cross Illyria,Scythia ( at that time a region between Lower Danube and Black Sea ), and finally Danube itself - with boats , whish were build in such a manner that they made the passage passable in both directions.As soon as Avars reached the other side of the river and landed , they started burning Slavonian villages , completlly destroying them and also they started ravaging the fields : everything that was able was running for cover inside the deep forests ".
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Slavery faded away in Western Europe after 1000 because the Slavs, who formed the raw material, were now Christian, so slavers could no longer capture and sell them with a clear conscience.
Population Growth in the Middle Ages
From the eighth century onward, Europe showed its recovery by growing its population at a slow but steadily increasing rate. Our current estimate has a growth of 7.5 percent in the eighth century, 10 percent in the ninth, and 12.5 percent in the tenth. This means that at the end of the Dark Ages Europe had 36 million people, a figure equal to the highest in Classical times. The next three centuries saw a real push in procreation: 20 percent growth in the eleventh, 30 percent in the twelfth, and--are you ready for this?--36 percent in the thirteenth century. Thus in the period covered by this chapter, the European community more than doubled, reaching an unprecedented total of 80 million.
By contrast, the Moslem world merely marked time. North Africa grew slightly, while the Middle East had no more people in the fourteenth century than it did in the eighth.There probably was a modest increase in Asia Minor, when Byzantium prospered under the Macedonian dynasty, but these gains were abruptly erased when first the Turks, then the Mongols, stormed in from the east.
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http://members.vavo.com/Berosus2/europe/eu09a.html
The plague germs found new hiding places in the countryside, and in 1357 a second outbreak began in Germany. It advanced slower this time, but it got to most of the Continent during the next eight years. There were heavy casualties in areas that had escaped the first epidemic, and a new outbreak would occur about once per decade for the rest of the century, with a really bad one striking in 1400. Instead of recovering, Europe's population bumped against a ceiling of 60 million.
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http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h14eu.htm
CHRISTENDOM IN THE 14TH AND 15TH CENTURIES
Between CE 1000 and 1300, economic conditions in Christendom had allowed its population to grow 2.5 times. Paris, Milan, Florence and Venice had become cities with more than 80,000 inhabitants. London, Cologne and Barcelona had more than 40,000. Rome, Naples, Vienna, Prague and Lisbon had more than 20,000. And Dublin had more than 10,000. But a temporary decline in the economy was on its way, and soon it would be followed by one of the worst of plagues.
By observing the above informations and primarily the numbers provided in them one can concludes following :
1) Roman Empire had around 60 milion people of which roughly 50% / 50% was devided between Eastern and Western Roman parts of the Empire.
2) Byzantine Balkan part had 3-4 million people ( Constantinople alone between 0.5m.-1.0 m. ) . Regions which are equivalent to todays Greece had around 1 million thus leaving between 1.5 to 2 million Byzantines in Illyria ( ~ 0.7m. ) , Makedonia ( ~ 0.5m. ) , and Trakia ( ~ 0.6m ) .
3 ) Bulgars numbered at most 20.000 people thus explaining why they didnt leave a bigger racial impact on the population of modern Bulgaria ( Trakia = ~ 0.6m ) .Bulgars were Turcic people with minor Iranian admixture and their remains are members of the "Turanid" racial type in NE Bulgaria . Eastern Med racial type (related to hellenistic thracians and byzantine hellenophone romans and others greeks there is dominant in todays Bulgaria especially southern Bulgaria (region where southern hellenistic thrace existed).
4) Turks ( original Mongoloids with minor Persian influence ) numbered several million ( 2-3 ) while the Byzantine ( mainly Greeks ) population of Anatolia numbered during the time of Justinian empire ~ 10m. That would make the Byzantine population in Anatolia in the next 3 or so centuries after Justinian ( ~10cen. was when Seljuks penetrated Anatolia ) at liest 10m up to 15m ( likely say 13m ).Byzantines outnumbered Turks 4-1.
Turanid ( mixed Mongol Turks with Meditterenian autohronius people ) population today in Turkey doesnt exceed 20-25% of Total . Greek racial elemet is ~ 1/2 of Turkey ( Coastal and Western Regions ) while Iranian ( Primarily Kurds ) is 1/4 of the total population.
5) Slavs in the Balkans numbered around 100,000 ( the all mighty Goths were were the most responsible for the fall of Rome numbered only twice that ) an the time of Barbarian invasions and they were dispersed troughout Balkans making them present in smaller numberes at various locations inside Balkans ( ~ 1/3 in Trakia , ~ 1/3 Macedonia , ~ 1/3 in Illyria ).Even if taken as 100,000 total in each area they are vastly bellow the numbers of Hellenic populations of Hellenic Trakia,Illyria and Makedonia thus explaing why "Novodanubian " racial type is present is such low numbers in most of Balkans while it is almost nonexistent in mountain parts of Illyria ,Macedonia and Trakia .
