Tyrol and Its People

by Clive Holland

ROMAN CONQUEST OF TYROL

The Rhætians, however, were a hardy, valorous, and pugnacious tribe, and so frequent were their attacks upon the Roman forces left to hold the conquered country that the Emperor Augustus, about twenty years after the subjection of the Trent district, decided as a measure of self-protection on the conquest of the whole of Rhætia, as far as the River Danube.

And for this work he deputed his two stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius. The campaign, historians are agreed, was planned with great skill, and probably by the Emperor himself. The Roman forces were divided, one portion, under Drusus, entering Tyrol from the south, having Tridentum (Trent) as its base; and the other, under Tiberius, delivering its attack from the west across what is now Switzerland. Tiberius took this route (the most direct, though a difficult one) because at that time he was absent from Italy, in Gaul, as governor. Drusus had a more easy task, and pushed his way up the wide valley of the River Adige[2] to the present site of Bozen. His objective was the Pass of the Brenner, which, once seized, would give him the command of the country. His advance was not, however, made without opposition, for the Breones and Genones, who dwelt in the vicinity of the Brenner, attacked the Roman forces, and a fierce battle and series of skirmishes ensued. Horace, in Book IV., Ode 14 and 4, gives a vivid if, possibly, highly coloured account of the struggle which took place in the gorge near Bozen. The river Icarous ran red with the blood of both conquerors and conquered. And—as has been the case on many subsequent occasions when fighting has had to be done by the Tyrolese—the women played a valorous part, even, according to the historian, Florus, throwing their infant children into the faces of the Roman soldiery when other weapons failed.

The campaign of the two stepsons of Augustus resulted in the complete and final conquest of Tyrol. The victory, won in the narrow gorge of the Eisack, was commemorated in the name of the bridge Pons Drusi spanning the river, hard by which now stands the interesting mediæval town of Bozen.

Successful as Drusus' forces were, none the less so were those of Tiberius. There, however, is less record of his battles, and the actual ground on which they were fought forms still matter for conjecture. And equally uncertain is the exact spot where the two victorious generals ultimately met. It is, however, thought by several reliable authorities to have been somewhere in the valley of the Inn, and probably not far distant from the present site of Innsbruck. This view is made the more probable from the circumstance that a Roman post was established at Wilten (now a suburb of Innsbruck) then known as Veldidena.

Here probably both armies rested after a campaign of great fatigue and severity owing to the nature of the ground over which it was fought and the stubborn resistance offered by the inhabitants.

Soon Veldidena, from a halting-place of armies, became a town with houses of considerable size, temples, baths, and surrounding vallæ, or earthen fortifications formed to defend the inhabitants from sudden attack. Although precautions of the nature we have indicated were taken wherever a Roman post or station was placed, there is no historical data to show that the Breones and other adjacent tribes who were thus brought under the Roman sway did not very speedily accommodate themselves to the new condition of things and become good and peaceful citizens of Rome. It appears probable, however, that the Rhæti did not adapt themselves to the altered conditions as speedily as did their northern neighbours, the inhabitants of Noricum, with whom certain Roman habits and customs (including the system of municipal government) already obtained.

From the evidence adduced by several diligent historians and from that of one comparatively modern writer[3] in particular it is almost certain that after the sanguinary and decisive battle on the banks of the Eisack Tiberius set his face once again westward to resume his governorship of Gaul, leaving his brother, Drusus, to continue the subjection of Tyrol, and ultimately to found the important settlement of Augusta Vindelicorum, now known as Augsburg. Here the Roman general not only threw up a fortified camp, but also built a forum to encourage commerce; and soon the settlement became the most important Roman station to the north of the Central Alps.

Some writers, doubtless bearing in mind the hardihood and bravery of the native inhabitants and the mountainous and thus easily defended nature of the ground the Roman legions had to traverse and fight over, have expressed some surprise at the comparative ease with which Drusus and Tiberius appear to have accomplished the conquest of the country. More perfect discipline and arms of greater effectiveness will not, however, we think, altogether account for this, for history has over and over again proved that knowledge of the ground by the defenders and mountainous regions count heavily against successful attacks on the part of an invader. It can only therefore be supposed that the various tribes who formed the inhabitants of Rhætia were either antagonistic to one another or at least were not welded together in a common cause against the invading Roman hosts, and thus the country was conquered and kept in subjection with greater ease than would otherwise have been the case.