Where was Emperor Constans II palace in Sicily?

[Onasander]

I'm trying to track down where Emperor Constans II lived in Sicily.... Syracuse of course, but where?

 

He is a very interesting case, from my understanding, he is the last Roman Emperor to step foot in Rome until the late middle ages, and his rule was preceded by Senatorial Rule three years prior to him coming to age, which was the only time the roman senate ruled as head of state since at least Emperor Augustus.

 

I can't find much about him though, even though his reign throws alot of commonplace assumptions about Rome upside down.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Onasander

[caldrail]

Syracuse.

[Onasander]

Thanks for that insight.

 

Any clue as to a location within that obvious city? Like a modern street address, palacial remains....

[caldrail]

No. You might want to check out out Casale Morgantina just in case -it's associated with earlier emerors but you never know. There are other significant Roman remains in that area too.

[Onasander]

I spent my breaks at work looking into it.

 

Honestly, it makes sense, a kind of Camp David like compound.... rotate a unit out of garrison for guard detail.... you have enough rooms to rotate people in and out in terms of diplomacy.

 

Makes you wonder why not, say.... Capri.... worked for Tiberius.

 

Yes, you would have a few nice villas, but the island is prone to blockade (been watching videos of Capri, including one on the Romanophile Swedish Doctor) and I don't think you could long hold a defensive force out on the island in sufficient number to keep repelling a landing party without near total mastery of the sea.... which the Romans were at that point questionable at best in terms of a regular patrolling naval capacity that far west. Likewise, little farmland on Capri, can't billet a expeditionary army easily....

 

You can do this from Syracuse though.

 

It just occured to me I know nothing about Sardinia and Corsica during this period.

[caldrail]

Tiberius would have have felt himself protected by slaves (and some of them were described as throwing unwanted visiotors off the cliff) or any praetorians posted there. having removed himself from the centre of politics and allowed the Roman world to partially admiister itself, I doubt he had many worries, especially after Sejanus had been uncovered and dealt with. If suetonius is to be believed, Tiberius increasingly became a dirty old man, and thus more concerned with sexual fantasies than real world issues.

[Onasander]

I did the research on Corsica, I already knew of it's history since the French occupation.

 

Looks like he did invade, but Corsica and Sardinia were easy naval targets. Byzantines could only hold one.

 

Find it odd how quick the Romans were at setting up a Navy, in defeating Carthage, but as soon as the Goths burst out of the South Sea, the Roman Navy was useless.

 

You fast foreward to Genoa and Venice, they learned to make excellent use of sea power. You move in, fortify a trade post, take the islands....

 

Romans, post Carthage, seemed to really suck at this, even though they had classical precedents from the Phonecians and Carthage.

 

Mediterranean had plenty of sailors. Warmer climate....

 

I can't see what was stopping the romans in this early era from regaining at least wide trade influence and exploiting their imperial oversight. A merchant fleet carrying trinkets and barter foodstuffs could of bought a lot of far flung mercenaries....

[caldrail]

 

 

Find it odd how quick the Romans were at setting up a Navy, in defeating Carthage, but as soon as the Goths burst out of the South Sea, the Roman Navy was useless.

Strictly speaking the Roman navy in the Punic Wars wasn't that brilliant, but they compensated by using gangplanks called the corvus to utilise their land troops in boarding actions. I'm not an expert on ancient naval wrfare by any means butI am aware that the Romans were never great sailors - the poor performance of the late empire navy probably has a lot of causes. Firslty they weren't using anything like the old galleys, mostly smaller ships of single banks of oars which werer better suited to patrolling than battle - which would have been the main preoccupation for them. Then again, the state of play in late empire armies was pretty bad most of the time. Vegetius tells us that the legions had lost their strength and substance. Zosimus in retrospect was absolutely scathing about their behaviour. It follows the naval forces were of comparable quality.

[Onasander]

I haven't read Zosimus yet. I'm struggling to make sense of the three spanish choniclers.... I got a bad old PDF off of Scribd.

 

He is mentioned alot in a roman demographics book I started a few days ago focusing on late antiquity. I'm liking the book alot.

 

And by south sea I meant Black Sea.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Onasander

[caldrail]

Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to fly, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all. By these arguments having prevailed upon the emperor, he obtained his desire. He selected, not such as had been trained to cowardice and accustomed to flight, but strong and active men who had lately been taken into the army, and who appeared to him, who was able to judge of men, to be capable of any service. He immediately made trial of each of them, and obviated their defects by continual exercise; bestowing commendations and rewards on all who were obedient, but appearing severe and inexorable to those who neglected their duty.
Nea Historia (Zosimus)

[Onasander]

You shouldn't immediately pair off rewards and punishments when dealing with large formations of largely untrained men. It's better to dissociate the two, and offer rewards of prize and rank to the first to seek after a announced task and completes it competently. You'll get your most ambitious and excited men early on, and you use them to corral via eliciting excitement, and create uniformity. Who flocks around such men offer one way of thinking, a natural esprite of association arises. These men can be counted on to do duties and tasks...

 

The other portion, you train and retrain, and use discipline sparingly, if at all, using novel tasks.... such as river crossings or repelling down ravines.... and you award them merit accommodations for their training, and encourage them to talk shit to guys not trained in their specialties. The best specialist holders become your second corps of leaders, and they should be the ones who discipline. Discipline should come late to a unruly unit, after awards and after challenging them to work together and learn together under duress.

 

I think only selecting a two thousand man special forces like taskforce is stupid if it results in alienating the rest of the men, and doesn't fix the underlining ideology that allowed such training to occur.

 

The Ought/Is variable shouldn't too early override the sense of self, and sense of the group too early, and you want to avoid early defection, AWOLs, and discontent. All eyes should be focused on figuring out what crazy task the commander next has for them up his sleeve, as success and learning to overcome, and the shared recognition afterwards, can turn the negative contradictions into loyalty.

 

However, if you start off with rewards and punishments from the beginning, or just punishments, the men will only mechanically respond at best, will hate one another, wil view it's immediate supervisors between them and the commander as yes men and sycophants, and will snap under stress as a group, which will require a scapegoat in training, or goading and limited formations in combat. Such units only give the impression of discipline, but will snap in ingenious circumstances far too often and will fail to adapt. Only the very best trained of units can overcome this phenomena when pressured.

 

 

 

I'm guessing the Romans, unlike in Asia who regularly would draft armies in mass, never had to figure out the composite attitudes, and how to separate them into useful parts and train them.

 

Rome more or less, save for it's distant earliest era, had largely educated drafted armies who understood the needs of the state, or professional armies. They kept their auxiliaries near but separate, hoping for emulation.

 

Don't think the Romans had to deal too often with this problem though.

[caldrail]

 

 

You shouldn't immediately pair off rewards and punishments when dealing with large formations of largely untrained men.

Clearly Sebastianus thought otherwise. Others in his day did too - Vegetius describes how men ought to be motivated and includes both methods - suggesting that harsh discipline alone is not the answer, and we know he was referring to former practises because he states he looked for these precedents in the histories available to him. Valentinian was quite happy about Vegetius' findings. Having read the first book, Vegetius then thanks his Caesar and writes two more.

[Onasander]

I don't think anyone ever did a systematic survey on the concept of rewards and punishments across various civilizations... the rewards and punishment centers in the Thalamus, SMA, and Basal Ganglia have been largely mapped out, we know roughly what they do.... but I don't think anyone tried to apply it to all known excepts such as this, and tried to make a matrix of assumptions each society had, seeing where the similarity, contradictions, and unique understandings popped up.

 

It seems rather obvious seeing the Chinese separating, having much more experience drafting new armies, would advance quicker in this area.

 

And I just answered a mystery I had growing last night, as to why some parts of Scotland and Ireland show no Roman Artifacts, just native, while others, especially in southeast ireland, show Roman.... Romans liked to use native auxiliary, and not draft homogeneous armies from scratch, using their ethnic bonds to keep them together.... like with Denmark after the Romans lost their legion.... several tribes allied as Auxiliary, Romans pursued a different course and never knew how to build a good system from a rotten system, like other countries, including Hannibal, had to. They would Romanize they to a extent by being auxiliaries, and ignored them otherwise, especially if they lacked anything of apparent value economically when not warring.

Edited November 23, 2014 by Onasander