The Battle of Maranga

[Germanicus Julius Caesar]

I have been looking for some time to the modern location of the famed Battle of Maranga, where Julian the Apostate died. I did a search on your site, and did not see any topics pertaining to this.

 

I also would like your opinions to just how great, or not so great a General he was. By all accounts, he had little, if no, military experience.

 

Thanks in advance, and this is truly a terrific site.

 

Germanicus

[Maladict]

I have been looking for some time to the modern location of the famed Battle of Maranga, where Julian the Apostate died. I did a search on your site, and did not see any topics pertaining to this.

 

I believe it was somewhere just south of Samarra, but that may not help you much.

 

I also would like your opinions to just how great, or not so great a General he was. By all accounts, he had little, if no, military experience.

 

Which accounts are those? I think most sources recognize Julian's ample military experience as Caesar in Gaul.

[alibegoa]

Adrian Goldsworthy concludes of Julian in his In the Name of Rome:

 

In Gaul Julian had proved himself to be a reasonably competent commander in spite of his lack of any military experience before his appointment as Caesar. The sort of problems he faced were of the kind routinely dealt by the provincial governors of earlier periods. By the fourth century only an emperor wielded comparable authority and had the capacity to concentrate sufficient resources to defeat anything more than a few minor barbarian incursions. Julian did something to restore the security on the frontier along the Rhine, although in subsequent years this would prove impossible to maintain without a similarly active military presence in the area. He won a number of successes and suffered no serious defeats, but there is nothing in these campaigns to suggest exceptional talent on his part. Some of his decisions were questionable, and he certainly lacked Scipio's or Julius Caesar's talent for judging the mood of his men.

In the Persian campaign the sheer scale of the operation and the problems inherent in operating deep into enemy territory rather than in a friendly province hugely magnified the consequences of his mistakes and failure to understand his soldiers. Exceptionally large Roman armies did not have a very good record - Cannae and Arausio being the two most famous and disastrous examples - and it seems that forces larger than 40,000 or so men were extremely difficult for a general to control effectively. By the fourth century, when unit sizes had shrunk and the army was geared primarily to warfare at a much lower level, an army of 83,000 men was extremely clumsy. No one, from Julian down, had any experience of handling and supplying such a force. This, combined with the same problems which had helped to prevent Trajan's and Severus' campaigns in the east from producing a permanent defeat of the Parthians, eventually resulted in a humiliating failure. Julian's career is interesting not because of his personal ability as a commander, but for providing a good indication of the circumstances in which Roman generals of the Late Empire performed their task.

 

However Julian was not killed at the battle of Maranga, but some days later during a (night?) attack on his rearguard when he galloped to direct the fighting without even stopping to don his armor. During pursuit of the scattered enemy he was struck suddenly by a cavalry spear piercing his side and fixing itself in the bottom of his liver (Ammianus Marcellinus 25.3.6) No one quite knew who had thrown the spear, although Libanius records a rumor that the thrower was Roman, a christian soldier incensed by Julian's promotion of paganism.

Edited November 17, 2007 by alibegoa

[M. Porcius Cato]

The primary source material is Ammianus Marcellinus, whose account can be found HERE. Although the Persian expedition ended in disaster, Julian was a talented general who was popular with his army--he had recovered Cologne and defeated a large Alamannic army in 357 (Ammian. 16.12, with subsequent successes against the Franks (Ammian. 17.1-2, 8-10).

[alibegoa]

I also would like your opinions to just how great, or not so great a General he was. By all accounts, he had little, if no, military experience.

 

Which accounts are those? I think most sources recognize Julian's ample military experience as Caesar in Gaul.

 

I read the original sentence as he had no military experiance before proclamation as Caesar, which is certainly true since before his proclamation he had never held any public position or spent time with the army. Julian had spent his early years in comfortable imprisonment, engaging enthusiastically in academic study at Nicomedia and subsequently Athens, where he was heavily influenced by mystical Neoplatonism.

[alibegoa]

The primary source material is Ammianus Marcellinus, whose account can be found HERE. Although the Persian expedition ended in disaster, Julian was a talented general who was popular with his army--he had recovered Cologne and defeated a large Alamannic army in 357 (Ammian. 16.12, with subsequent successes against the Franks (Ammian. 17.1-2, 8-10).

 

or here much easier to read

[Segestan]

However Julian was not killed at the battle of Maranga, but some days later during a (night?) attack on his rearguard when he galloped to direct the fighting without even stopping to don his armor. During pursuit of the scattered enemy he was struck suddenly by a cavalry spear piercing his side and fixing itself in the bottom of his liver (Ammianus Marcellinus 25.3.6) No one quite knew who had thrown the spear, although Libanius records a rumor that the thrower was Roman, a christian soldier incensed by Julian's promotion of paganism.

 

 

Julian was not killed in a Battle Maranga. The Roman Forces under Emperor Julian had destroyed every Persian attack, in fact the Persian with their light calvary chose to avoid direct battle with the Superior Roman forces. The Persians used a scorched earth policy and harassed the romans in the deserts with showers of darts. On Julian

[Germanicus Julius Caesar]

Yes ,I did not mean historical accounts in that sense of the word. Thanks very much for your thoughts. Now, is there any record of who trained him, or taught him the rudimentary tactics of war? Or did he just have a natural proclivity for leadership and warfare?

 

Thanks again. This has been a tremendous help.

[alibegoa]

However Julian was not killed at the battle of Maranga, but some days later during a (night?) attack on his rearguard when he galloped to direct the fighting without even stopping to don his armor. During pursuit of the scattered enemy he was struck suddenly by a cavalry spear piercing his side and fixing itself in the bottom of his liver (Ammianus Marcellinus 25.3.6) No one quite knew who had thrown the spear, although Libanius records a rumor that the thrower was Roman, a christian soldier incensed by Julian's promotion of paganism.

 

 

Julian was not killed in a Battle Maranga. The Roman Forces under Emperor Julian had destroyed every Persian attack, in fact the Persian with their light calvary chose to avoid direct battle with the Superior Roman forces. The Persians used a scorched earth policy and harassed the romans in the deserts with showers of darts. On Julian

[DecimusCaesar]

In Ammianus, Book 25 - 2.7, it says:

 

His escorts of Guards, who had been scattered in the melee, were crying out to him from all sides to avoid the mass of fugitives as he would the collapse of a badily built roof, when suddenly a cavalry spear, directed no one knows by whom, grazed his arm, pierced his ribs, and lodged in the lower part of his liver.

 

This translation comes from Andrew Wallace-Hadrill's edition, and the italics are his own. The spear might have been thrown by the 'Gyan-Avspar Peshmerga' - a group of Sassanian cavalry warriors who were skilled in the use of spear and sword. Perhaps it was these soldiers that killed Julian.

[Julian the Faithful]

"A horseman appeared through the dust charging at full gallop. He rode up and aimed his cavalry lance directly at the Emperor.It found its mark. The spear grazed julian's arm, pierced his ribs and ended up in the lower part of his liver. It was a double- bladed spear. so sharp that as julian tried to pull it out he cut the fingers of his right hand to the bone".

 

This is a direct quote from Adrian Murdoch's "The Last Pagan". I am not sure of the source he used, but it sounds similar to Ammianus, but what I found interesting is that Murdoch claims that Shapur offered a large, and public award for Julian's death.

 

That reward was never claimed, which helped fuel the rumors it was a Christian Legionnare.

 

I am still reading this book, so sources he used will be forthcoming.