Excubitores
The Excubitores (Latin for “guardians”; Greek ἐξκουβίτορες) were an elite unit that formed the most important guard of the Eastern Roman emperor in the late late antiquity .
The troop was founded around 460 by Emperor Leo I , who was then about to increase the ruler's room for maneuver. According to Johannes Lydos, the 300-strong unit was recruited from experienced soldiers; their introduction had become necessary because the original bodyguards , the scholae palatinae and the protectores domestici , which in turn had replaced the Praetorians after 312 , had become parade troops of no great combat value. Above all, the emperor, who at that time was in a power struggle with the army master Aspar , could no longer be sure of the loyalty of these guardsmen. Leo therefore realized that the emperors needed more effective protection in order to be able to act confidently against powerful aristocrats and the military. Around the same time as the excubitores were set up , the emperor passed a law that only allowed selected dignitaries to surround themselves with an armed group ( bucellarii ) .
Already in the early imperial period a soldier on guard was called an excubitor in Latin ; Leo, at whose court Latin was still spoken, took up this name. The fighting strength of the new troops, which were posted at the side entrances to the palatium , had already proven itself in 471 when, after the assassination of Aspar, his armed detachment launched an attack on the imperial palace, which was repulsed by the excubitores . In the beginning, many Isaurians apparently served in the new guard, but early on men of other origins, especially from the Latin Balkan provinces, were recorded as excubitores .
At the head of the new guard was the comes excubitorum . This office soon became very important; several of its owners even became emperors themselves in the 6th century , such as Iustinus , Tiberius Constantinus and Mauricius . In addition, they were used early on as generals or accompanied Eastern Roman armies in order to control the military leaders in the name of the emperor. The rank of scribo was also important ; these scribones often commanded smaller sections of the guard that carried out special assignments . The scribo Anthinus, for example, arrested the Roman bishop Vigilius on behalf of the Emperor Justinian in 546 and transferred him to Constantinople; Something similar happened in 653 when Pope Martin I was captured by a group of excubitores . The guardsmen may also act as executioners.
When the Eastern Roman army was fundamentally restructured around the middle of the 7th century in view of the defeats against the Arabs ( Islamic expansion ) - the office of magister militum also disappeared - the excubitores also seem to have changed their character significantly. Around 750 they were completely reorganized, together with the scholae, transformed into elite regiments ( Tagmata ), which then formed the core of the Byzantine Imperial Guard and the various expeditionary corps until the 11th century. The Tagma of the ἐξκουβίτορες is mentioned for the last time in the army of Emperor Alexios I at the devastating battle of Dyrrhachion against the Normans in 1081.
See also
literature
- Otto Fiebinger: Excubitores . In: RE VI / 2, 1909, col. 1577.
- AHM Jones : The Later Roman Empire. 284-602. A Social Economic and Administrative Survey. Volume 2. Blackwell, Oxford 1964, pp. 658f.
- Alfred Neumann: Excubiae. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 2, Stuttgart 1967, column 477.
- Mary Whitby: On the omission of a ceremony in mid-sixth century Constantinople: candidati, curopalatus, silentiarii, excubitores and others. In: Historia . 36, 1987, pp. 462-488.