The Roman army was full of men’s bodies

Against my better judgement, I have been reading a veritable word salad of impenetrable jargon, allegedly advancing the study of the Roman army.

Sentences like these — “the rapid and violent expansion of the Roman empire was accomplished through the reterritorialisation of geographical terrain and, likewise, of bodies and identities. Yet, this reterritorialisation did not generate perfectly ‘Roman’ simulacra, rather a synthetic, mass-produced military mutation which purported the illusion, and enforced the sovereignty, of Romanness” — are an unnecessary affront to plain English, in my opinion.

There is more like this, much more, in “The military step: theorising the mobilisation of the Roman army”, a 25-page article by Dr Hannah-Marie D Chidwick.

Chidwick lectures in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Bristol, where (her “Research Outputs” on the university web site suggest) she specializes in Lucan. I cannot imagine that hers is a straightforward appreciation of the poet, but I cannot be sure, as neither her doctoral thesis nor any of her published papers have been made available to the reading public — with the single exception of this one, for access to which Taylor & Francis charge £41.00 per 48hrs (which thankfully is quite long enough to form a sound opinion).

Unnecessary obscurity

It’s not an easy read. It’s not an entertaining read. I must admit to harbouring mixed feelings about published work that, even when read by a native speaker, requires frequent consultation of a dictionary. I immediately wonder if perhaps the commonplace is being stylistically disguised to appear profound. (And none of this is helped by an overabundance of poorly-placed commas.)

Here is an example: Chidwick contends that “The Roman empire’s rapid expansion was, of course, made possible by a fluctuating body of men’s bodies, revered as the most ruthless military force in the ancient world”, for which she cites Cicero. (But the Cicero passage, De Re Publica 3.36, simply says “But our people by defending their allies have gained dominion over the whole world” — no mention of rapidity, no mention of ruthlessness.) Here, she is saying that the Roman army was responsible for the expansion of the Roman empire.

Here is another: “The review of Roman sources in this article therefore has at its philosophical heart this perception of the army as a state operated, territorialising machine – a force mobilised for the safeguarding of sovereignty and the continuance of government power”. Here, Chadwick is saying that the Roman army was employed by the Roman state to protect and enlarge it.

And another: “Roman military praxes can be read as mechanistically deterritorialising recruits of their ‘original ethnicity and social level’ on many overlapping strata, reterritorialising them as Roman military”. This one serves to illustrate Chadwick’s often shaky grasp of Roman military studies, as she is suggesting that new recruits shed their old identities to become Roman soldiers, which is manifestly untrue. The same error is clear later on: “Whether Roman or ‘barbarian’, the body had to be overcoded, reterritorialised, from citizen to soldier, from head to toe”.

One final example: “Military presence disrupts spaces that were formerly rural or civic with the potential of becoming a base or battleground, a potential manifested in modes geographical and human”. Here, Chadwick (pictured at Hadrian’s Wall milecastle 39) is saying that the movement of large armies and their periodic requirement to encamp tends to devastate terrain and displace inhabitants.

Often, Chidwick’s prose is so ambagious that her meaning remains obscure. Here is an example: “This article contends that the activity of being-Roman-army exemplarily makes manifest philosophies of territorialisation, in terms of the dynamic interrelation between movement, space and identity”. Sometimes, we must throw up our hands and admit that life is too short to waste another moment on deciphering such banalities.

Back to the sources

Leaving aside her verbose articulation, Chidwick’s command of the ancient sources is not always sure. She cites Tacitus, Annales 13.40–41, as evidence of Roman “scorched earth” tactics, but this passage describes Corbulo’s attack and capture of Artaxata (Annales 15.27 would have been a better choice, where the Romans advise their Parthian enemies not to provoke an attack but to accept a “kingdom untouched by devastations”).

And again, to support her contention that “The devastation of armoured territorialisation was not lost on Roman writers like Lucan, Cicero, or Sallust”, she cites Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 10.6, but this passage is a diatribe against the evils of avarice and a desire for power. It’s not about devastation, or armour, or territory. But then, she also informs us that Frontinus’ Strategemata “survives only in fragments. It is mentioned in Aelian’s Tactics, a Greek work on the Hellenic military”, but neither of these statements is true. (Chidwick is perhaps confused by the fact that Aelian briefly met Frontinus and mentions the fact in his Taktika.)

To conclude: quite frankly, I am baffled by the whole thing. If it advances our understanding of the Roman military in any way, then I am none the wiser. And on that note, let us give the last word to Dr Chidwick: “Thinking with philosophies of territorialisation reconfigures how activity is environment, how bodies are territories, and their actions generate these landscapes as much as the ground beneath them”. Hmm.