Inspired by the martial art of the Empire's two main rivals at the time, the Germans and the nomads of the East, the eminent general Belisarius conceived the idea of finding the antidote, which was none other than the dual-role cavalry .
Belisarius had studied the military lessons of battles against the barbarians. The new cavalry he intended to form had to have sufficient agility, but also enough firepower to withstand the onslaught of the dreaded German heavy cavalry, and enough cohesion to deal easily with the disorderly but impetuous attacks of the Oriental horse archers.
These horsemen were called bucellari – a bucella was a type of galette . The men who shared the same bread, that is, the co-bankers, initially formed a single small bodyguard division of Belisarius, in which all his friends were assigned.
Their difference from the common cavalry, the so-called cavalry, was that the buccalarians were equipped with lance and bow and were able to fight both in dense order, making advances like the heavy cavalry, but also in an acrobolization formation, avoiding heavier opponents and slaying them with their arrows.
The heavy armor they carried gave them great survivability against Oriental light cavalry. Initially, Belisarius formed a battalion (band) of buccalarians, whose men he equipped, trained and organized, without the slightest interference from the emperor.
New unit
When Justin had asked him what men he would like to give him to man his battalion, if he had a preference for any people of the empire, or members of a certain social class, he answered them:
“Give me men who can drink dirty water and eat corpses. To be a mixed section of mountaineers, sailors and people of the plains. Do not give me of those whom the lords send as soldiers from their estates (they always sent their worst men), men who have served in other units before or belong to some faction".
Belisarius wished to create an elite body, as he had planned it in his mind. For this he asked for mountain-living, hardy men, warriors by nature, men of the plains, skilled in the care of horses and riding, but also sailors with skillful hands. Each group of people would learn from the other and together they would form an invincible whole.
Belisarius believed that the soldier, from the moment of his enlistment until the time of his discharge, should understand that he will constitute a completely separate part of society, outside and beyond anything "worldly", completely absent from politics, but and from any state of faction, which would owe blind obedience to the orders of the professional officers who would direct it.
Especially this last observation was the cornerstone of Belisarius' military thinking. It could not be conceived that it was possible for the men to be commanded by one who knew less of the military art than they did.
For this reason, if he was especially pressing to the men, in terms of training, he was ten times more pressing to their officers, from whom he demanded crystal thinking, courage, and fighting skill. The officer, according to Belisarius, should in principle be the best soldier, the first in battle, but also in prudence.
Arming and training
With this heterogeneous human resource Belisarios formed his new unit. The men were all equipped with a long chain breastplate, which covered up to the warrior's thighs, with a heavy, solid iron helmet (kasida) and a small shield. Their offensive weaponry consisted of long straight swords, 80 cm long, up to 1 m long lances, approximately 3 m long, and a compound bow, made of superimposed layers of different materials (different types of wood, animal bones), which gave it great endurance and shooting accuracy.
These bows were "hard" (difficult to draw), thus limiting speed. But this disadvantage was compensated by their exceptional accuracy. The weapons that completed the arsenal of the buccalarians were the head breakers and the handguns or riptars. The latter were small javelins – little larger than arrows – which also had balancing fins at the back and were thrown from close range by hand.
Recruits first of all had to learn to ride excellently, almost performing acrobatics on the back of their horse while it galloped. They were then trained in the use of their armor, with their horse first walking, then wheeling, and finally galloping. Belisarius insisted that it was not enough to strike only stationary targets with the spear or arrows.
So he implemented a new training system against moving targets. On a wheeled frame was placed a made of straw effigy of a warrior on foot or on horseback which was either dragged by horses or rolled down a hill. The second method was preferable because no one knew where the wheeled mannequin rolling down the hill would go.
So the trainee had to be constantly on the alert, ready to hit his target, regardless of which direction he changed. In the final phase of his training the buccalarian had to be able to shoot at least three arrows at the dummy, then hit it with handguns and finally spear it, all while galloping the horse, which he also had to direct by holding the reins with his left hand !
After the end of the individual training, the buccalarians are trained by akias (verses), by centarchies (isles) and finally by vando – the entire order. The battalion was the lowest tactical unit, and depending on the tactical situation, it could fight either in a strafing formation or in a dense formation. A division of men was tasked with acting as vanguard, rearguard or flankguard.
Against the Germans
Belisarius was about 20 years old when the emperor Justin entrusted him with the task of forming the new cavalry. When the young officer was convinced that his men were ready for battle, he asked the emperor to allow him to go with his battalion to the northern border, to test the battalion in real combat conditions, fighting against the German Gepids.
Justin did give permission, and Belisarius, at the head of his 250 buccals, reached the Danube and immediately took action. The Gepids, like most Germans, except the Franks, had, under the influence of the Huns, become excellent horsemen. Their infantry was not remarkable.
The German cavalry, however, was elite and especially after the battle of Adrianople, it caused terror to the Byzantines. He was noted for his impetuosity, but not for his discipline and consistency. The Gepids lived in groups, known as "gau", on the north bank of the Danube, which formed the border of the Empire. From there they often crossed the river and carried out raids in great depth in the area from Vidinio in present-day Bulgaria to Istria in present-day Romania.
Belisarius encamped with his men in a region where there was neither city nor village nearby. This he did to accustom his men to privations. A ship had moored on the south bank of the Danube, which was their forward base, on which were small stores of food, stores of arrows, and a workshop of blacksmiths to carry out repairs to the armament.
The buccalarians would visit the ship – on a 10 day basis as needed. Otherwise they would live on supplies captured by the enemies. Each soldier brought with him food – salted meat and barley bread – for 10 days. Water was available in the area so they did not need to bring supplies with them.
Belisarius, having studied the battle tactics of the Gepids, ordered his men not to engage with them until the enemy had been disorganized by the casualties inflicted by the Byzantine arrows. They would deploy in a strafing formation, constantly harassing the Gepid horsemen with shots, attempting to force them to retreat, abandoning their infantry.
In this way the Gepid horsemen would be deprived of the support projectile protection of their friendly infantry and would be easily dealt with by the Byzantine buccalarians. The men, under his watchful guidance, did indeed follow his orders to the letter.
For approximately four months, the 250 Byzantine buccalarians of Belisarius operated in an area where the enemy was 20 times more active, without being defeated by them, even causing them significant losses and capturing several.
Belisarius in these battles had only three wounded and one dead, but he was not lost as a result of enemy action, but by accident - he drowned. The result of testing the new type of cavalry was indeed amazing. So amazing that even the German enemies were impressed by the value of the buccalarians and 40 of the Gepid captives asked Belisarius to enlist them in his elite corps!
Against the Bulgarians
Belisarius received them, together with other soldiers, who hurried en masse to join the corps of buccalarians, whose fame had spread throughout the Empire. Belisarius chose the 400 best men, whom he trained like the first "line" of buccalarians. With 600 buccalarians, he campaigned the following summer, again on the northern borders, against the first Bulgarian forces that had made their appearance in the region.
The Bulgarians, a people of Altaic origin, like the Turks, fought like their Hun relatives, as light horse archers. They galloped on their swift and powerful horses, approached the enemy and shot their arrows at him. If the enemy attempted to approach them, they would flee, but ready at any moment to turn and attack him, as soon as he showed signs of fatigue.
This was the standard tactic of all eastern nomadic peoples, which had by then proved particularly effective against both Roman legions and German cavalry in the recent past. The very fast Bulgarian horse archers represented a different kind of threat to the Byzantine buccalarians, compared to the Germans, which required a different tactic.
Against such an opponent the point was not to keep a safe distance, but to approach him as quickly as possible, so as to avoid losses from his arrows. The fight had to be fought at close quarters, that is, on the field where the Byzantines, due to armament, weight of horses and cohesion, dramatically outnumbered their opponents.
However, a section of buccals would have to be deployed in an acrobolization arrangement, in front and to the side of the main body, to cover its movements, or act as a "bait".
In the first battle with the Bulgarians, Belisarius used exactly this tactic. He sent as a vanguard a small part of his men, those with the fastest horses, while he followed at a short distance with the main body, covered behind a hill.
If the Bulgarians ventured an attack against the procession, Belisarius was sure to annihilate them, for the condition of the ground would not allow them to save themselves by flight. The insolent Bulgarians, however, attacked and were annihilated. On other occasions when the enemy took refuge in forests, Belisarius sent their men to the leeward side and set fire to the trees, forcing the enemies to abandon their hiding places.
The war against the Bulgarians was more like a wild animal hunt than a real campaign. In any case, however, Belisarius and his indomitable buccoli were once again victorious. His buccalarians were able to fight the light oriental horse archers as easily as the German "knights".