CHAPTER IV.
ROMAN GERMANY AND THE FREE GERMANS.
Limitation of Roman Germany.The two Roman provinces of Upper and Lower Germany were the result of that defeat of the Roman arms and of Roman policy under the reign of Augustus which has been already ([p. 55 f.]) described. The original province of Germany, which embraced the country from the Rhine to the Elbe, subsisted only twenty years, from the first campaign of Drusus, 742 U.C.12., down to the battle of Varus and the fall of Aliso, 762 U.C. A.D. 9.;but as, on the one hand, it included the military camps on the left bank of the Rhine—Vindonissa, Mogontiacum, Vetera—and, on the other hand, even after that disaster, more or less considerable portions of the right bank remained Roman, the governorship and the command were not, in a strict sense, done away by that catastrophe, although they were, so to speak, placed in suspense. The internal organisation of the Three Gauls has been already set forth; they embraced the whole country as far as the Rhine without distinction of descent—except that the Ubii, who had only been brought over to settle in Gaul during the last crises, did not belong to the sixty–four cantons, while the Helvetii, the Triboci, and generally the districts elsewhere held in occupation by the Rhenish troops, doubtless did so belong. The intention had been to gather together the German cantons between the Rhine and Elbe into a similar association under Roman supremacy, as had been constituted in the case of the Gallic cantons, and to bestow upon it, in the altar to Augustus of the Ubian town—the germ of the modern Cologne—an executive centre similar to that which the altar of Augustus at Lyons formed for Gaul; for the more remote future the transference of the chief camp to the right bank of the Rhine, and the restoration of the left, at least in the main, to the governor of the Belgica, were doubtless in contemplation. But these projects came to an end with the legions of Varus; the Germanic altar of Augustus on the Rhine became or remained the altar of the Ubii; the legions permanently retained their standing quarters in the territory, which properly belonged to the Belgica, but—seeing that a separation of the military and civil administration was, according to the Roman arrangement, excluded—was placed, so long as the troops were stationed there, for administrative purposes also under the commandants of the two armies.[62] For, as was formerly stated, Varus was probably the last commandant of the united army of the Rhine; on the increase of the army to eight legions, which was consequent upon that disaster, the division of it to all appearance also ensued. What we have to describe in this section therefore is not, strictly speaking, the circumstances of a Roman province, but the fortunes of a Roman army, and, as most closely connected therewith, the fortunes of the neighbouring peoples and adversaries, so far as these are interwoven with the history of Rome.
Upper and Lower Germany.The two headquarters of the army of the Rhine were always Vetera near Wesel and Mogontiacum, the modern Mentz, both doubtless older than the division of the command, and one of the reasons for introducing that division. The two armies numbered in the first century four legions each, thus about 30,000 men[63]; at or between those two points lay the main bulk of the Roman troops, besides one legion at Noviomagus (Nimeguen), another at Argentoratum (Strassburg), and a third at Vindonissa (Windisch not far from Zürich) not far from the Raetian frontier. To the lower army belonged the not inconsiderable fleet on the Rhine. The boundary between the upper and the lower army lay between Andernach and Remagen near Brohl,[64] so that Coblenz and Bingen fell to the upper, Bonn and Cologne to the lower military district. On the left bank there belonged to the upper German administrative circuit the districts of the Helvetii (Switzerland), the Sequani (Besançon), the Lingones (Langres), the Rauraci (Basle), the Triboci (Alsace), the Nemetes (Spires), and the Vangiones (Worms); to the more restricted lower German circuit belonged the district of the Ubii, or rather the colony Agrippina (Cologne), those of the Tungri (Tongern), the Menapii (Brabant), and the Batavi, while the cantons situated farther to the west, including Metz and Treves, were placed under the different governors of the three Gauls. While this separation has merely administrative significance, on the other hand the varying extent of the two jurisdictions on the right bank coincides with the varying relations to their neighbours and the advancing or receding of the bounds of the Roman rule conditioned by those relations. With these neighbours confronting them, matters on the lower and on the upper Rhine were regulated in ways so diverse, and the course of events was so thoroughly different that here the provincial separation became historically of the most decisive importance. Let us look first at the development of things on the lower Rhine.
Lower Germany.We have formerly described how far the Romans had subjugated the Germans on both banks of the Rhine. The Germanic Batavi had been peacefully united with the empire not by Caesar, but not long afterwards, perhaps by Drusus ([p. 28]). They were settled in the Rhine delta, that is on the left bank of the Rhine and on the islands formed by its arms, upwards as far at least as the Old Rhine, and so nearly from Antwerp to Utrecht and Leyden in Zealand and southern Holland, on territory originally Celtic—at least the local names are predominantly Celtic; their name is still borne by the Betuwe, the lowland between the Waal and the Leck with the capital Noviomagus, now Nimeguen. They were, especially compared with the restless and refractory Celts, obedient and useful subjects, and hence occupied a distinctive position in the aggregate, and particularly in the military system, of the Roman empire. They remained quite free from taxation, but were on the other hand drawn upon more largely than any other canton in the recruiting; this one canton furnished to the army 1000 horsemen and 9000 foot soldiers; besides, the men of the imperial body–guard were taken especially from them. The command of these Batavian divisions was conferred exclusively on native Batavi. The Batavi were accounted indisputably not merely as the best riders and swimmers of the army, but also as the model of true soldiers, and in this case certainly the good pay of the Batavian body–guard, as well as the privilege of the nobles to serve as officers, considerably confirmed their loyalty. These Germans accordingly had taken no part either preparatory to, or consequent upon, the disaster of Varus; and if Augustus, under the first impression of the terrible news, discharged his Batavian guard, he soon became convinced of the groundlessness of his suspicion, and the troop was a short time afterwards reinstated.
Cannenefates.On the other bank of the Rhine next to the Batavi, in the modern Kennemer district (North Holland beyond Amsterdam), dwelt the Cannenefates, closely related to them but less numerous; they are not merely named among the tribes subjugated by Tiberius, but were also treated like the Batavi in the furnishing of soldiers. Frisians. The Frisians, adjoining these further on, in the coast district that is still named after them, as far as the lower Ems, submitted to Drusus and obtained a position similar to that of the Batavi. There was imposed on them instead of tribute simply the delivery of a number of bullocks’ hides for the wants of the army; on the other hand they had to furnish comparatively large numbers of men for the Roman service. They were the most faithful allies of Drusus as afterwards of Germanicus, useful to him in constructing canals as well as especially after the unfortunate North Sea expeditions ([p. 53]). They were followed on the east by the Chauci, Chauci.a widely extended tribe of sailors and fishermen along the coast of the North Sea on both sides of the Weser, perhaps from the Ems to the Elbe; they were brought into subjection to the Romans by Drusus at the same time with the Frisians, but not, like these, without resistance. All these Germanic coast tribes submitted either by agreement or at any rate without any severe struggle to the new rule, and as they had taken no part in the rising of the Cherusci, they still continued after the battle of Varus in their earlier relations to the Roman empire; even from the more remote cantons of the Frisians and the Chauci the garrisons were not at that time withdrawn, and the latter still furnished a contingent to the campaigns of Germanicus. On the renewed evacuation of Germany in the year 17 the poor and distant land of the Chauci, difficult of protection, seems certainly to have been given up; at least there are no later evidences of the continuance of the Roman dominion there, and some decades later we find them independent. But all the land westward of the lower Ems remained with the empire, whose boundary thus included the modern Netherlands. The defence of this part of the imperial frontier against the Germans not belonging to the empire was left in the main to the subject maritime cantons themselves.
Limes and desert–frontier on the lower Rhine.Farther up the stream a different course was taken; a frontier–road was here marked off, and the land lying between it and the Rhine was depopulated. With the frontier–road drawn at a greater or less distance from the Rhine, the Limes,[65] was associated the control of frontier–intercourse, as the crossing of this road was forbidden altogether by night, and, as regards armed men, by day, and was permitted in the case of others, as a rule, only under special precautions for security and on payment of the prescribed transit–dues. Such a road was drawn opposite to the headquarters on the lower Rhine, in what is now Münster, by Tiberius after the disaster of Varus, at some distance from the Rhine, seeing that between it and the river stretched the “Caesian forest,” the more precise position of which is not known. Similar arrangements must have been made at the same time in the valleys of the Ruhr and the Sieg as far as that of the Wied, where the province of the lower Rhine ended. This road did not necessarily require to be militarily occupied and arranged for defence, although of course the defence of the frontier and the fortification of it always aimed at making the frontier–road as far as possible secure. A chief means for protecting the frontier was the depopulation of the tract of land between the river and the road. “The tribes on the right bank of the Rhine,” says a well–informed author of the time of Tiberius, “have been in part transferred by the Romans to the left bank, in part withdrawn of their own accord into the interior.” This applied, in what is now the Münster country, to the Germanic stocks earlier settled there of the Usipes, Tencteri, Tubantes. In the campaigns of Germanicus these appear dislodged from the Rhine, but still in the region of the Lippe, afterwards, probably in consequence of those very expeditions, farther southward opposite to Mentz. Their old home lay thenceforth desolate, and formed the extensive pasture–country reserved for the herds of the lower Germanic army, on which in the year 58 first the Frisii and then the Amsivarii, wandering homeless, thought of settling, without being able to procure leave from the Roman authorities to do so. Farther to the south at least a portion of the Sugambri, who likewise were subjected in great part to the same treatment, remained settled on the right bank,[66] while other smaller tribes were wholly dislodged. The scanty population tolerated within the Limes were, as a matter of course, subjects of the empire, as is confirmed by the Roman levy taking place among the Sugambri.
Conflicts with the Frisii and Chauci under Claudius.In this way matters were arranged on the lower Rhine after the abandonment of the more comprehensive projects, and thus a not inconsiderable territory on the right bank was still held by the Romans. But various inconvenient complications arose in connection with it. Towards the end of the reign of Tiberius (28) the Frisians, in consequence of intolerable oppression in the levying of tribute in itself small, revolted from the empire, slew the people employed in levying it, and besieged the Roman commandant acting there, with the rest of the Roman soldiers and civilians sojourning in the territory, in the fortress of Flevum, where, previous to the extension of the Zuyder See that took place in the Middle Ages, lay the eastmost mouth of the Rhine, near the modern island Vlieland beside the Texel. The rising assumed such proportions that both armies of the Rhine marched in concert against the Frisians; but still the governor Lucius Apronius accomplished nothing. The Frisians gave up the siege of the fortress, when the Roman fleet brought up the legions; but it was difficult to get near the Frisians themselves in a country so much intersected; several Roman corps were destroyed in detail, and the Roman advanced guard was so thoroughly defeated that even the dead bodies of the fallen were left in the power of the enemy. The matter was not brought to a decisive action, nor yet to a true subjugation; Tiberius, the older he grew, became ever less inclined to larger enterprises, which gave to the general in command a position of power. With this state of things was connected the fact that in the immediately succeeding years the neighbours of the Frisians, the Chauci, became very troublesome to the Romans; in the year 41 the governor Publius Gabinius Secundus had to undertake an expedition against them, and six years later (47) they even pillaged far and wide the coast of Gaul with their light piratical vessels under the leadership of the Roman deserter Gannascus, by birth one of the Cannenefates. Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, nominated governor of Lower Germany by Claudius, put a stop with his fleet to these forerunners of the Saxons and Normans, and afterwards vigorously brought back the Frisians to obedience, by organising anew their commonwealth and stationing a Roman garrison among them.
The occupation of the right bank abandoned.Corbulo had the intention of chastising the Chauci also; at his instigation Gannascus was put out of the way—against a deserter he held himself entitled to take this course—and he was on the point of crossing the Ems and advancing into the country of the Chauci, when not only did he receive counter–orders from Rome, but the Roman government wholly and completely altered its attitude on the lower Rhine. The emperor Claudius directed the governor to remove all Roman garrisons from the right bank. We may well conceive that the imperial general with bitter words commended the good fortune of the free commanders of Rome in former days; in this step certainly there was a conclusive admission of defeat, which had been but partially owned after the battle of Varus. Probably this restriction of the Roman occupation of Germany, which was not occasioned by any pressure of immediate necessity, was called forth by the resolve just then adopted to occupy Britain, and finds its justification in the fact that the troops were not sufficient for accomplishing both objects at once. That the order was executed, and matters remained afterwards in that position, is proved by the absence of Roman military inscriptions on the whole right bank of the lower Rhine.[67] Only isolated points for crossing and sally–ports, such as, in particular, Deutz opposite Cologne, formed exceptions from this general rule. The military road keeps here to the left bank and strictly to the course of the Rhine, while the traffic–route running behind it, cutting off the windings, pursues the straight line of communication. Here on the right bank of the Rhine there is no evidence of Roman military roads, either through the discovery of milestones or otherwise.