Exploding the myth of the Emperor Gallienus’ battle cavalry
In the dark days of the third century AD, the Roman empire was rocked by enemy invasions. When the emperor Valerian and his son Gallienus came to power in AD 253, they promised secure frontiers and the stability of a new dynasty at Rome. Valerian’s unexpected defeat and capture by the Persians in AD 260 threw all of that into doubt.
In response, Gallienus launched a program of military reforms to streamline the Roman army and maximize its battlefield efficiency. Having forbidden senators to lead his armies, he instituted a new cadre of trusted officers, the protectores, and developed an armed retinue (the comitatus) on the model of the Germanic chieftains’ warbands.
But the centrepiece was his battle cavalry, an autonomous roving task force designed to give him the edge in the struggle against barbarian aggressors. At least, this is the narrative that has been accepted for more than a century by generations of historians. But is it true?
Now, archaeologist Duncan B. Campbell follows the trail of research down through the decades in an explosive new study, piecing together the evidence for these alleged reforms and chronicling the emergence and gradual reshaping of Gallienus’ battle cavalry in the literature of the twentieth century.
Along the way, we meet key figures in Roman military research and consider their contribution to the study of the third-century Roman army. And finally, the surprising truth about Gallienus’ battle cavalry is revealed.
Praise for Phantom Horsemen
Duncan Campbell is to be commended for a very thorough and fascinating investigation and discussion of, as he put it in his preface, “one of those things that Roman Army aficionados *know* without quite knowing *how* they know.” In this case, it is the “battle cavalry” of the Emperor Gallienus. I first encountered this as a wargamer, reading Phil Barker’s Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome where Barker writes ‘The mid third century brought a great expansion of the Roman cavalry arm’, and now I know where Barker was getting that from. As one might deduce from his book’s title, Campbell shows how an idea with basically no real evidence was built upon over the last century (and even earlier) by various historians into something “that we all know”. It’s not a thick book, coming in at 175 pages, but it is copiously footnoted and has an extensive bibliography. I can’t say enough good things about this book. — Reader (Robert Sulentic)
Proper history and historiography. Essential reading on the Crisis of the Third Century and Gallienus’ apparent military reforms. Campbell bursts the bubble of those who have accepted the flawed pronouncements of a squadron of 19th and 20th century historians (from Schiller to Alföldi), who created the myth of Gallienus’ “battle cavalry”. — Dr. R. Cowan, author of For The Glory of Rome
Campbell’s superb devastating debunking of the myth of the battle cavalry army of Gallienus: it never existed. Lucid but packed with detail — not always an easy combination. I wish there were more academic books that echoed this attention to detail. — Francis Hagan, author of The Janus Eagle trilogy
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