Odd Historical Account, Late Roman Empire

[Mosaic]

I wonder if any history buffs have views or interpretations of the following. Ammianus Marcellinus described an incident around the year 379, when Gothic mercenaries who had been granted 'permission to stay' in the Roman Empire were enslaved and exchanged for dogs.
I'm struggling to understand the significance of this.
Why 'exchanged for dogs' - was this some symbolic humiliation above being enslaved? Was there a sudden need for dogs?
The phrase is repeated widely across all kinds of sources, but not explained.

[woofgang]

I wonder what dogs they were exchanged for? Dogs were valued in war, as hunters to feed the house and as guardians of flocks and herds. Germany in general has a history of carefully guarding its dog bloodlines and refusing to sell breeding stock outside of the breed club or association. Its a bit far fetched but maybe the whole thing was a ruse to get hold of breeding stock of a greatly desired fighting breed?

[atalanta]

In the time of the Roman Empire, the most sought-after hunting dogs and guard-dogs came from Britain. It would be odd if the Romans went to great lengths to force the goths/germans to give them dogs when there was already a busy and unrestricted trade in dogs from Britain.

[Mosaic]

Thanks Dive - I'm not confused at all by the incident, and your explanation of the route into slavery and mine (above) tally. However I'm interested in the allusion to dogmeat as opposed to dogs being the medium of exchange.
Can you give any references for the actual source of this?
All the translations I've read, including Ammianus, are translated as 'dogs' or 'hounds'.
Part of the problem I'm finding is that so many sources are derived much later from Ammianus.
It would be very interesting and useful to be able to pin down the dogmeat reference, as that part of eastern Europe still has a dog-eating subculture, namely one group of Gypsies in eastern Slovakia. Food taboos are powerful sources of identity - could it be that this identity goes back that far?

[humbersloop]

Mosaic, fwiw, my thoughts are there wasn't much more to it than venal opportunism from the Romans at that point.

Romans also ate dogs occasionally themselves I believe, so I don't think that, as an exchange mechanism, was any particular humiliation in itself. On a frontier, they're a quickly reproduced mobile meat source with a handy working function, pre-catering stage.

There'd already been a good weed out of the refugees allowed to cross the Danube in the first place, with only the fit, healthy and the nobility involved. So trading one (starving) Goth child for a dog to feed their family gets top quality goods at a relatively knock down price in very much a buyer's market.

I've also seen another account - and I can't for the life of me remember where, or the source, sorry - that instead says the children were "taken," to be educated as Romans in Thrace, and it was the Thracian hosts who reneged on the deal and sold them on for dogs.

Either way, I think the same circumstances probably applied.

[Mosaic]

Thanks Humbers - food for thought there (oh dear, a bit close to the bone...oh, there I go again...)
I hadn't come across the 'Romanised' Romans as dog-eaters, but given that the reality was that of a vast mix of cultures there's no reason why pooch pudding wouldn't be eaten.
Dog bone isn't found in most archaeological contexts of Romanised sites, with butchering marks that demonstrate Rover got ate, one notable exception being Ashkelon in Israel where there had long been a dog-eating tradition.
I find it all very intriguing, and I'm dead against repeating unproven remarks that get passed off as evidence, hence I'm chewing on this a bit. Like a dog with a bone?

[jno]

this account (page 2)

http://tinyurl.com/l5klypp

backs up divebuddy's: that in essence they didn't enslave the Goths but invited them to enslave themselves in return for cheap meat for their tribes. That any Goths accepted this suggests the dire straits they were in.

[Mosaic]

Thanks Jno - Lardner in the excerpt you linked to is (once again) citing Ammianus - he then gets to this being an exchange involving food not pets but doesn't cite how he gets to that conclusion.
Ammianus actually wrote:
2When the barbarians after their crossing were harassed by lack of food, those most hateful generals devised a disgraceful traffic; they exchanged every dog that their insatiability could gather from far and wide for one slave each, and among these were carried off also sons of the chieftains"

He doesn't extrapolate further that the dogs were for meat. So it seems I'm missing a point of information that would make it obvious to a reader of Ammianus' time that he meant that.

Being of a literal turn of mind, and also not a classicist, I could do with the info being made explicit, if anyone can.

[humbersloop]

I don't think it's got anything to do with a dog-eating tradition, it's the good old human abilty some have to exploit others' misery....

...whole new meaning to "sold a pup" maybe?

[Mosaic]

Lol Humbers!

[jno]

I would have thought that was encompassed by the remark about the Goths' lack of food? Especially if it was all in the same sentence: "The Goths had no food, the Romans gave them dogs" seems to bear only one meaning.

The other possible explanation - that they were for hunting food - doesn't seem to hold water, becaue (a) it seems it involved every dog they could find rather than proper hunting dogs; and (b) the Goths didn't like it and Ammanius didn't either.

Whether the Romans themselves ate dogs seems neither here nor there; the issue is more whether the Goths would. I don't know the answer; maybe they didn't, or maybe they did but the price this time was too high.

[Mosaic]

Thanks Dive - again thought, the notion of the Goth incomers being signposted to another town in Thrace to get food is only mentioned on later sources, then in the 20th century is embellished into a 'death march'.

Thanks folks for all your insights into small but highly embellished incident from the distant past!

[Peter Pedant]

Do you have a reference in Ammianus for this

It should be book 30 but I can t find any mention

[DaisyNonna]

Mosaic, am making enquiries

[Peter Pedant]

It is Amm 31 4 11
[11] When the barbarians after their crossing were harassed by lack of food, those most hateful generals devised a disgraceful traffic; they exchanged every dog that their insatiability could gather from far and wide for one slave each, and among these were carried off also sons of the chieftains.

which is not bad for
[11] Cum traducti barbari victus inopia vexarentur, turpe commercium duces invisissimi cogitarunt, et quantos undique insatiabilitas colligere potuit canes, pro singulis dederunt mancipiis, inter quae et filii ducti sunt optimatum.

10 isnt much help

I am not sure you will find independennt corroboration of this

[DaisyNonna]

Goths permitted to cross Danube frontier in376 to escape Huns. exploited by Roman state starving , many sold children for food and given dogs to eat. Led to Gothic revolt which Valens, eastern Roman emperor tried to put down which led to battle of Adrianople, AD378, Rome's greatest single military defeat. Goths henceforward never left the Empire.

[Peter Pedant]

Yup Daisy from my two nights c Ammianus I reckoned that is what happened

[Jackdaw33]

I am impressed PP, but, as my Latin master used to say when returning my proses with a low mark, "I know it's strictly grammatically correct, but Cicero would not have put it like that." My only response was, "...and look what happened to Cicero."

[Peter Pedant]

I think the account is true
but I am not sure if it has significance other than trying to show how the two generals [Lupicinus and Maximus] were complete and utter assholes