1 The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army, First Edition. Edited by Yann Le Bohec. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118318140.wbra1476 Tactics: Late Empire PHILIP RANCE The tactics of the late Roman army must be recon- structed from scattered and often incidental evi- dence, which is chronologically and geographically uneven and poses difficult questions of interpreta- tion. The most important historical sources are the works of Ammianus Marcellinus (covering 353–378 CE) and Procopius (527–552 CE), which illuminate relatively brief periods of warfare with detailed, sometimes eyewitness, reports of mili- tary operations. Corresponding accounts are lack- ing from the late 3rd and 5th centuries, seemingly crucial transitional stages in the evolution of Roman armament and tactics. Classicizing histo- rians typically focus on set-piece engagements and sieges, in fact relatively rare events, to the det- riment of other, more common forms of combat including routine low-intensity warfare along the frontiers. They wrote for an essentially civilian readership more interested in dramatic prose sequences than technical detail, and in some cases their carefully wrought “battle-pieces” rehearsed a stock repertoire of rhetorical themes which sub- stituted for a dearth of factual information. For the 6th century CE, non-literary chronicles by pseudo-Joshua and John Malalas provide a mod- est corrective to the content and perspectives of classicizing historiography. An equally challeng- ing genre, military treatises prescribe tactical pro- cedures, which sometimes find parallels in contemporary narratives, although other recom- mendations lack corroborative evidence and their practical application remains open to doubt. The evidence of battlefield archaeology is negligible, with the exception of the atypical fieldworks con- structed at Dara in 530 (Lillington-Martin 2007). Wide variations in geography, environment, ter- rain, and opponent caution against abstractions such as “standard tactics” or “the typical battle,” and underline the fundamental adaptability of late Roman armies. Although simplistic notions of “decline and fall” linger in modern assessments of late Roman combat operations (e.g. Southern & Dixon: 168–178), the evidence does not point to a general or systemic decline in tactical capabilities, regardless of shifting strategic and political cir- cumstances. Throughout Late Antiquity, the Roman army won far more actions than it lost and training in close-order maneuvers and tactics, underpinned by discipline, drill, and tradition differentiated Roman operational methods from those of their opponents. Tactical Roles and Capabilities Infantry continued to form the bulk of Roman armies up to the mid-6th century CE and perhaps beyond: at the Battle of Strasbourg in 357 CE, Julian commanded 10,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry; in 478, a large eastern army group com- prised 30,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry; in 533, Belisarius invaded North Africa with 10,000 infantry and c.7,000 cavalry (Amm. Marc. 16.12.2; Malchus fr. 18.2.14–18; Procop. Wars 3.11). If overall proportions of infantry and cav- alry remained constant, their utilization in com- bat shows certain changes of emphasis. At the end of the 4th century CE, infantry was tactically the most important branch of the army on the bat- tlefield, where it bore the brunt of the fighting, often in close-quarters combat. Cavalry typically performed supporting roles – securing flanks, disrupting enemy deployment, and exploiting successes. By the early 6th century, cavalry appears to have become the main offensive arm in battle, and increasingly so toward the end of the century, hence its higher profile in historical sources. The course and causes of this evolution are obscure, not least because 5th-century devel- opments are poorly documented. Roman interac- tion with a succession of nomadic “steppe” peoples, notably Huns from the 380s, Bulgars from the 480s, and Avars from the 560s, clearly left their mark on the equipment and fighting techniques of Roman cavalry, and it is probable that efforts to counter “steppe” cavalry tactics accentuated the existing attributes of Roman cav- alry, chiefly its tactical mobility, and in some measure required new capabilities, including enhanced flexibility and mounted archery. It is