ABSTRACT
From very beginnings Rome had been a state in which warfare was important for personal and national success; military victories gave Rome dominance over its allies in Italy and in due course a Mediterranean-wide empire. Information about recruitment in the late sixth century is meagre, but the essential question with regard to the Roman, or internal, element of the armies is whether conscription was in use. Advancing by a century to the Justinianic Code and Digest at first sight the balance of military legislation appears to be very different, and this change is the primary reason for scholars to postulate a fundamental shift in the nature of recruiting from conscription to volunteering. Even in the 620s after two decades of military failure and severe disruption to the heartlands of the empire, money and the magnet of the imperial presence could produce recruits for Heraclius at the start of his counter-offensive against the Persians.
