BMCR 2009.08.31: Archibald on Batty, Rome and the Nomads. The Pontic-Danubian Realm in Antiquity

Roger Batty, Rome and the Nomads. The Pontic-Danubian Realm in
Antiquity.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2008.  Pp. xxiv, 652;
figs. 59, tables 10, pls. 32.  ISBN 9780198149361.  $190.00.

Reviewed by Zosia Archibald, University of Liverpool
([email protected])
Word count:  1677 words
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This is a substantial volume, not only in terms of length--575 pages of
text, 32 pages of bibliographic references--but also in respect of
detail. There are ten tables, sixteen colour plates, sixteen black and
white plates, and 81 figures that provide data in visual form,
principally maps, including geographical, environmental, and climatic
information on the regions examined, as well as the political and
social disposition of the various groups investigated. I noted very few
spelling errors across citations and titles in at least seven modern
European languages and references to primary textual material are
meticulously reproduced in Latin or in translation. The book has been
very carefully edited and looks neat, clear, and well organised. The
visual material conveys a fair amount of complex information in a
readable and comprehensible format.

The author has made two important and undoubtedly under-researched
topics his principal foci, namely migration and pastoral economies,
within the context of the Balkans and the territories that constitute
modern Romania, Moldova, and southern Ukraine. The subtitle, the
Pontic--Danubian Realm, suggests a discrete geographical and historical
unit. But, as the author makes clear in the Introduction, the term is
one of convenience, enabling him to make use of comparative evidence in
discussing behavioural matters, and to extend his canvas spatially
where discussion requires it. How should a historian study a moving
target in an expanding landscape?  The fundamental question of what is,
or should be, an appropriate methodology, is not discussed directly.

Following a brief introduction that sketches the principal topics that
are explored further in the book, Batty opens with a survey of the
climate and physical geography of the regions encompassed, dubbed
'zones of interaction'; moving on to Chapter 3, 'Pontic-Danubian
themes', he survey the different peoples described in Medieval as well
as ancient historical sources as entering this geographical space
(pp.107-21); the phenomenon of Nomadism (pp. 138-49), and the nature of
pastoralism in the Balkans (pp.149-61); brigandage; and settlement
forms (pp.170-85).  From Chapter 4 onwards, pace and ambition mount in
a more detailed excursion into 'Vagantes sine Cultu vel Legibus'.[[1]]
This is about immigration, which is here taken to include Greek
settlers (with a brief look at dependent populations); the Sigynnae,
Agathyrsi, Scythians, Celts, Sarmatians, Iazyges and Roxolani,
Bastarnae, and Autariatae. He notes that the ethnic origin of each of
these groups probably became very confused (p.261) and that we have
little information about their impact (p.264). The topic of nomadism is
explored via ancient prose narrative, beginning with the ps-Hippocratic
Airs, Waters, and Places,18 (pp.264-72), followed by discussions of
regional pastoralism (pp.273-78); banditry; and settlement, urban as
well as rural (pp. 283-296).

The nucleus of the volume is contained in Chapters 5-11, which
constitute the bulk of Parts II (Wanderers without culture or laws) and
III (Rome and the Nomads). Chapter 5 is a welcome re-evaluation of Book
7 of Strabo's Geography (pp.297-319). Chapter 6 analyses what can be
drawn from Ovid's poetry of exile at Tomis that relates specifically to
the local environment (pp.320-42), while Chapter 7 explores what can be
learned from Roman historical and, to some extent, epigraphic sources,
about the penetration of the Bastarnae, the Sarmatians, the Dacians,
Alans, Massagetae, Costoboci, the even more mysterious Taifali, and the
Goths into the region, concluding with a series of reflections on the
nature of Roman military and administrative responses. Chapter 8
returns to the topic of nomads in the Pontic-Danubian region, focusing
especially on the apparent absence of collective traditions and laws
among the various wandering groups, the spectre raised by successful
movements that grew beyond the confines of individual collectives, such
as those of Mithridates VI of Pontus and Burebista, which combined the
assets of semi-nomadic groups with more settled communities. There
follows an extended analysis of Roman imperial policy towards the
Bosporan kingdom and the Danubian boundary, subsequently a fortified
frontier (pp.423-56). Chapter 9 looks at land-holding and the demands
made on local stock-breeders for supplying the Roman army; Chapter 10
once more at brigandage, and Chapter 11 at urban centres under the
Roman Empire.

The scope of Batty's text is very extensive. Indeed, it ranges so
widely that a good deal of the material he discusses is presented in a
highly condensed form. This is particularly true of the first four
chapters, before Batty settles into a more sedate rhythm and with
narrative sources with which he is most comfortable. Many readers will
be entirely in agreement with the author that nomadism and pastoralism
have been comparatively neglected in studies of these areas. Although
nomadism has perhaps attracted fewer Anglophone researchers, this is
not the case with pastoralism. Diachronic approaches to pastoral
strategies can yield clear and telling results, as in the case of Lucia
Nixon and Simon Price's study of Cretan shepherds at Sphakia and their
herds, compared with selected upland case studies in northern
Greece.[[2]]  Batty would have made more effective use of his evidence,
had he adopted a more explicit methodology along similar lines. Herds
do represent mobile assets, but only after considerable investment of
energy (including manpower), the products of which may then fall
vulnerable to predation by other groups. Herds therefore need to be
protected. The larger the herd, the more important was the need to
secure suitable pasture throughout the year.   Although access to
pasture was relatively unproblematic in the grass steppe, Batty's
principal focus is not the on steppe regions, but on the Dobrudja, the
Danubian banks and the territories of ancient Dacia and Thrace, where
we might expect conflict over access to resources among competing
groups.

Batty recognises that pastoralism and nomadism existed alongside
settled agriculture and have a reciprocal relationship with it
(pp.33-4, 140-1; 159-60; 273-4). But he feels obliged to explain away
urbanism and to treat urban development as a fragile phenomenon
throughout the Balkans, Danubian regions, and the hinterland of the
Black Sea (pp. 172-85; 507-41). This is too sweeping, insufficiently
documented, and an unnecessary argument for the purposes of his thesis.
It is a pity that he was unable to make use of Christophe Chandezon's
analysis of an important set of inscriptions, mainly from northern and
central Greece, which demonstrate a clear change of scale, and
consequently of the demand for access to pasture, as a consequence of
changes in landholding under the Empire, when intensive stock-breeding
expanded.[[3]] In Greece, where there has been a wide range of studies
of pastoral practices, it is clear that the pasturing of animals on
arable land outside harvest time was a significant component of
agricultural practice, not least because it provided valuable
manure.[[4]] This is a different model of the relationship between
pastoral and agricultural strategies from the one that Batty favours.
Contrary to what Batty claims, there is good evidence of landholding in
Macedonia and the northern Aegean prior to the Roman conquest, whatever
the subsequent degree of social fragmentation,[[5]] and there are
strong reasons for believing that similar patterns of private
landholding existed in Thrace.[[6]] Recognising the existence of
organised land plots does not conflict with areas of under-utilised
resource, although the evidence of travellers' reports from the period
of Ottoman rule is likely to reflect the effects of new patterns of
landownership, including absentee landlords and under-exploited or
disused land,[[7]] and may therefore be less relevant for students of
antiquity.

Batty is disinclined to examine the relationship between incoming
groups and settled ones, although such an exploration could have
strengthened his argument, notably in terms of his emphasis on
brigandage and predation. Predators need prey and potential targets can
readily be identified (pp.480-94). Closer contextual analysis of such
situations could well yield a more nuanced understanding of how mobile
predatory groups behaved in relation to named locations. Mariusz
Mielczarek has looked at the composition of the Bosporan army, using a
combination of epigraphic and archaeological, as well as historical
evidence, to show how Scythian and Sarmatian units were adopted to
fight alongside Greek and Roman mercenaries.[[8]] This parasitic
relationship in part explains the motivation of some nomadic groups to
maintain their interest in the Kingdom. The reasons for continuing
movement southwards into the Balkans need to be examined more closely.
Why were mobile groups moving in this direction, or does the telescope
of the longue dure/e elide significant differences between these
instances?

Close analysis of Batty's bibliographic entries reveals that the
majority are synthetic studies rather than analyses of specific
locations, such as site reports, or case studies. This coincides with a
high level of abstraction in the narrative, which treats all the
individual, historically-attested groups within a single argument.
There is, therefore, no clear social unit of analysis (family or kin
group? clan?), nor has a behavioural model(s) been articulated, which
the reader can follow, in order to understand the operation of pastoral
practice in different times and places. Batty is aware of the problems
presented by historical accounts and does not disguise their
limitations. He has presented readers with a well considered account of
Roman relations with various pastoral communities, whether nomadic or
settled, in the Pontic-Danubian region. The discussion of pastoral
strategies would have benefited from a sustained conceptual model,
which would also have structured the narrative in a way that enables
the reader to evaluate the evidence, material as well as textual, in a
more transparent way. Batty seeks patterns in the transmitted stories,
without making clear what sorts of patterns these were. The kinds of
pastoral strategies he seeks to elucidate are consistent with settled
or with semi-nomadic groups. The distinction between settled and
nomadic lifestyles, and the concomitants in terms of herd type and
size, deserves greater elaboration. Batty has opened up the
possibilities of these topics and I hope that he will pursue these
distinctions in future research.

Bill Hanson and Ian Haynes' Roman Dacia. The Making of a Provincial
Society appeared too late to be taken into account here, to which can
now be added the catalogue of the exhibition at Palazzo Grassi, Venice,
of 2008, the most ambitious attempt to bring together scholarship from
the whole of Europe on the topic of Rome and the Barbarians.[[9]]


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Notes:


1.   Bearing in mind the symbolic significance of this phrase for the
author's thesis, the reader must wait until ps. 271 and 425 for
illumination (Amm. Marc. 27.4.10).

2.   Nixon, L. and Price, S. (2001) 'The diachronic analysis of
pastoralism through comparative variables', BSA 95, 395-424.

3.   Chandezon, Chr. (2003) L'e/levage en Gre\ce (fin ve--fin 1er s.
a.C.) L'apport des sources e/pigaphiques (Bordeaux: Ausonius; Paris: de
Boccard), 397.

4.   The literature on pastoralism is substantial and I cite here only
a few items particularly relevant to Balkan studies: Forbes, H. (1995)
'The identification of pastoralist sites within the context of
estate-based agriculture in ancient Greece: beyond the "Transhumance
versus Agropastoralism" Debate', BSA 90, 325-38.  Halstead, P. (1996)
'Pastoralism or Household Herding? Problems of Scale and Specialization
in Early Greek Animal Husbandry', World Archaeology 28, 20-42. idem
(2000) 'Land Use in Postglacial Greece: Cultural Causes and
Environmental Effects', in: P. Halstead et Ch. Frederick, eds,
Landscape and Land Use in Postglacial Greece (Sheffield Studies in
Aegean Archaeology, 3) 110-28. '...it must be accepted that there is
little evidence to indicate a picture of a pastoral sector completely
divorced from cultivation: it is not supported by the modern
ethnographic or the ancient literary and epigraphic evidence. On the
other hand, it must be accepted that a substantial part of the grazing
of many (if not most) ancient flocks was heavily dependent on grazing
uncultivated lands in certain periods of the year. For some enterprises
(perhaps many) this uncultivated grazing land may have been located at
considerable distances--perhaps several hours' walk--from cultivated
areas.' (Forbes 1995, 331).

5.   See esp. Hatzopoulos, M.B. (1988a) Une Donation du Roi Lysimaque
(Meletemata 5, Athens); idem (1988b) Actes de vente de la Chalcidique
Centrale (Meletemata 6, Athens); idem (1991) Actes de vente
d'Amphipolis (Meletemata 14, Athens/ Paris,);  idem (1996)  Macedonian
Institutions under the Kings. I. A Historical and Epigraphic Study; II.
Epigraphic Appendix (Meletemata 22, Athens/Paris);   idem (1999) 'La
Mace/doine de Philippe II a\ la conque^te romaine. L'apport des
re/cents documents e/pigraphiques', in: XI Congresso Internazionale de
Epigrafia Greca e Latina. Roma, 18-24 settembre 1997, Roma, 257-73.
Hatzopoulos, M.B. and Paschidis, P. (2004) 'Makedonia'. In: Hansen,
M.H. and Nielsen, T.H., eds, (2004) An Inventory of Archaic and
Classical Poleis (Oxford: OUP); Adam-Veleni, P., Poulaki, E.,
Tzanavari, K., (2003) Ancient Country Houses on Modern Roads, Athens,
Archaeological Receipts Fund.

6.   The most obvious evidence is the reference to kleroi in the
Pistiros inscription; the issue of landholding is relevant whether the
site of Adjiyska Vodenitsa, near Vetren, central Bulgaria, is
identified with Pistiros or with another of the emporia referred to in
the text: Chankowski, V. and  Domaradzka, L. 1999, 'Re/edition de
l'inscription de Pistiros et proble\mes d'interpre/tation', BCH 123
(1999), 247-58.cf Z.H. Archibald, 'Inland Thrace,' in: M. Herman Hansen
and T. Heine Nielsen, eds, 2005, An Inventory of Archaic and Classical
Poleis (Oxford University Press) 885-99. Published research undervalues
the extent of organised landholding; on the modern impediments to
spatial analysis see M. Domaradzki, 'The Archaeological Map of
Bulgaria,' in: J. Bouzek, and L. Domaradzka, eds, 2005 The Culture of
the Thracians and their Neighbours. Proceedings of the International
Symposium in Memory of Prof. Mieczyslaw Domaradzki, with a Round Table
"Archaeological Map of Bulgaria", BAR IntSeries 1350, Oxford:
Archaeopress, 261-6.

7.   Beldiceanu, N. (1960) Actes de Mehmed II et de Bayezid II du Ms.
Fonds turc ancien 39, Paris, 89-91; Angelov, D., 'Le fe/odalisme dans
les Balkans du XIIIe au XVe s'. in : H. Antoniadis-Bibicou, Le
fe/odalisme a\ Byzance, Paris, 1974.

8.   Mielczarek, M. (1999) The Army of the Bosporan Kingdom, Lo/dz:
Oficyna Naukowa MS, not cited by Batty.

9.   W.S. Hanson and I.P. Haynes, Roman Dacia. The Making of a
Provincial Society (JRA Suppl. Ser.56), Portsmoth, RI, 2004.  J.-J.
Aillagon, U. Roberto, and Y. Rivie\re, eds, Roma e i Barbari / Rome et
les Barbares, Venice: Palazzo Grassi, Skira Editore, 2008.