The Provinces of the Roman Empire, from Caesar to Diocletian. v. 1

by Theodor Mommsen

Nature of the Roman task and its issue.When we look back on this war, one of the most singular and most dreadful in all ages, we cannot but own that hardly ever has an army had a task set before it equally severe with that of the two Roman armies on the Rhine in the years 69 and 70. In the course of a few months soldiers successively of Nero, of the senate, of Galba, of Vitellius, and of Vespasian; the only support to the dominion of Italy over the two mighty nations of the Gauls and the Germans, while the soldiers of the auxiliaries were taken almost entirely, and those of the legions in great part, from those very nations; deprived of their best men, mostly without pay, often starving, and beyond all measure wretchedly led, they were certainly expected to perform feats physically and morally super–human. They ill sustained the severe trial. This was less a war between two divisions of the army, like the other civil wars of this terrible time, than a war of soldiers, and above all of officers, of the second class against those of the first, combined with a dangerous insurrection and invasion of the Germans, and an incidental and insignificant revolt of some Celtic districts. In Roman military history Cannae and Carrhae and the Teutoburg Forest are glorious pages compared with the double disgrace of Novaesium; only a few individual men, not a single troop, preserved a pure escutcheon amidst the general dishonour. The frightful disorganisation of the political and, above all, of the military system, which meets us on the fall of the Julio–Claudian dynasty, appears—more clearly even than in the leaderless battle of Betriacum—in those events on the Rhine, to which the history of Rome never before and never after exhibits a parallel.

Consequences of the Batavian war.The very extent and general diffusion of these misdeeds rendered a corresponding chastisement impossible. It deserves to be acknowledged that the new ruler, who happily had remained in person aloof from all these occurrences, in a genuine statesmanly fashion allowed the past to be past, and exerted himself only to prevent the repetition of similar scenes. That the prominent culprits, whether from the ranks of the troops or from the insurgents, were brought to account for their crimes, was a matter of course; we may measure the punishment by the fact that when five years afterwards one of the Gallic insurgent leaders was discovered in a lurking–place, in which his wife had up to that time kept him concealed, Vespasian gave him as well as her over to the executioner. But the renegade legions were allowed to share in the fighting against the Germans, and to atone for their guilt to some extent in the hot conflicts at Treves and at Vetera. It is true, nevertheless, that the four legions of the lower Rhenish army were all dismissed, as was one of the two upper Rhenish legions that took part—one would gladly believe that the 22d was spared in honourable remembrance of its brave legate. Probably a considerable number of the Batavian cohorts met with the same fate, and not less, apparently, the cavalry regiment of the Treveri, and perhaps several other specially prominent troops. Still less than against the rebellious soldiers could proceedings be taken with the full severity of the law against the insurgent Celtic and German cantons; that the Roman legions demanded the razing of the Treverian colony of Augustus—this time for the sake not of booty but of vengeance—is at least as intelligible as the destruction, desired by the Germans, of the town of the Ubii; but as Civilis protected the one so Vespasian protected the other. Even the Germans on the left of the Rhine had, on the whole, their previous position left to them. But probably—we are here without certain tradition—there was introduced in the levy and the employment of the auxilia an essential change, which diminished the danger involved in the auxiliary system. The Batavi retained freedom from taxation and a still privileged position as regards service; a part of them, not altogether inconsiderable, had withal championed in arms the cause of the Romans. But the Batavian troops were considerably diminished, and, while hitherto—as it would appear of right—officers had been placed over them from their own nobility, and the same had been at least frequently done as respects the other Germanic and Celtic troops, the officers of the alae and cohortes were afterwards taken predominantly from the class from which Vespasian himself was descended—from the good urban middle class of Italy and of the provincial towns organised after the Italian fashion. Officers of the position of the Cheruscan Arminius, of the Batavian Civilis, of the Treverian Classicus do not henceforth recur. As little is the previous close association of troops levied from the same canton met with subsequently; on the contrary, the men serve, without distinction as to their descent, in the most various divisions; this was probably a lesson which the Roman military administration gathered from this war. It was another change, probably suggested by this war, that while hitherto the majority of the auxiliaries employed in Germany were taken from the Germanic and neighbouring cantons, thenceforth the Germanic auxiliary troops found preponderantly employment outside of their native country, just like the Dalmatian and Pannonian troops in consequence of the war with Bato. Vespasian was a soldier of sagacity and experience; it is probably in good part a merit of his if we meet with no later example of revolt of the auxilia against their legions.

Later attitude of the Roman Germans on the lower Rhine.That the insurrection, which we have just narrated, of the Germans on the left of the Rhine—although it, in consequence of the accidental completeness of the accounts preserved respecting it, alone gives us a clear insight into the political and military relations on the lower Rhine and in Gaul generally, and therefore deserved to be narrated in more detail—was yet called forth more by outward and accidental causes than by the inner necessity of things, is proved by the apparently complete quiet which now ensued there, and by the—so far as we can see—uninterrupted status quo in this very region. The Roman Germans were merged in the empire no less completely than the Roman Gauls; of attempts at insurrection on the part of the former there is no further mention. At the close of the third century, the Franks invading Gaul by way of the lower Rhine included in their seizure the Batavian territory; yet the Batavians maintained themselves in their old though diminished settlements, as did likewise the Frisians, even during the confusions of the great migration of peoples, and, so far as we know, preserved allegiance even to the decaying empire.

The free Germans on the lower Rhine.When we turn from the Romanised to the free Germans to the east of the Rhine, we find offensive action on their part not less brought to an end with their participation in that Batavian insurrection, than the attempts of the Romans to bring about an alteration of the frontier on a grand scale in those regions came to a close with the expeditions of Germanicus.

Bructeri.Of the free Germans, those dwelling next to the Roman territory were the Bructeri on both banks of the middle Ems, and in the region of the sources of the Ems and Lippe; for which reason they took part before all the other Germans in the Batavian insurrection. To their canton belonged the maiden Veleda, who sent forth her countrymen to the war against Rome and promised them the victory, whose utterance decided the fate of the town of the Ubii, and to whose high tower the captive senators and the captured admiral’s ship of the Rhenish fleet were sent. The overthrow of the Batavi affected them also; and perhaps, in addition, a special counterblow of the Romans since that virgin was subsequently led as a captive to Rome. This disaster, as well as feuds with the neighbouring tribes, broke their power; under Nero a king whom they did not wish was obtruded on them by force of arms on the part of their neighbours with the passive assistance of the Roman legate.

Cherusci.The Cherusci, in the region of the upper Weser, in the time of Augustus and Tiberius the leading canton in central Germany, is seldom mentioned after the death of Arminius, but always as sustaining good relations to the Romans. When the civil war, which must have continued to rage among them even after the fall of Arminius, had swept away the whole family of their princes, they requested from the Roman government the last of that house, Italicus, a brother’s son of Arminius living in Italy, to be their ruler; it is true that the return home of one who was brave but answered more to his name than to his lineage, kindled the feud afresh, and, when he was driven off by his own people, the Langobardi placed him once more on the tottering throne. One of his successors, king Chariomerus, so earnestly took the side of the Romans in Domitian’s war with the Chatti, that he after its close, when driven away by the Chatti, fled to the Romans and invoked—although vainly—their intervention. Through those perpetual inward and outward feuds the Cheruscan people was so weakened that it henceforth disappears from active politics. The name of the Marsi is no longer met with at all after the expeditions of Germanicus. That the tribes dwelling farther to the east on the Elbe as well as all the more remote Germans took as little part in the struggles of the Batavians and their allies in the years 69 and 70, as these took in the German wars under Augustus and Tiberius may, considering the detailed character of the narrative, be described as certain. Where they meet us subsequently they never appear in a hostile attitude to the Romans.Langobardi.That the Langobardi reinstated the Roman king of the Cherusci, has already been mentioned.Semnones.Masuus, the king of the Semnones, and—what is remarkable—along with him the prophetess Ganna, who was held in high repute among this tribe famous for its special credulity, visited the emperor Domitian in Rome, and met with a friendly reception at his court. In the regions from the Weser to the Elbe during these centuries various feuds may have raged, the balance of power may in various cases have shifted, various cantons may have changed their name or joined another combination; as regards their relations to the Romans a permanent frontier–peace set in, after it came to be generally felt that these had positively abandoned the subjugation of this region. Even invasions from the far East cannot have materially disturbed it at this epoch; for they could not but have reacted on the Roman guarding of the frontier, and we should not have lacked information had more serious crises occurred in this domain. All this is confirmed by the reduction of the army of the lower Rhine to half of its former amount, which occurred we know not exactly when, but within this epoch. The army of the lower Rhine, with which Vespasian had to fight, numbered four legions; that of the time of Trajan presumably the same number, at least three;[71] probably already under Hadrian, certainly under Marcus, there were not more than two—the 1st Minervian and the 30th of Trajan—stationed there.

Upper Germany.Germanic affairs in the upper province developed themselves after another fashion. Of the Germans on the left of the Rhine who belonged to this province, the Triboci, Nemetes, Vangiones, there is nothing historically worth mentioning, except that they, for long settled among the Celts, shared the destinies of Gaul. Here too the Rhine always remained the chief line of defence for the Romans. All the standing camps of the legions were at all times on the left bank of the Rhine; not even that of Argentoratum was transferred to the right bank, when the whole region of the Neckar was Roman. But while in the lower province the Roman rule on the right bank of the Rhine was restricted in course of time, here on the other hand it was extended. The project of Augustus to connect the camps on the Rhine with those on the Danube by advancing the imperial frontier in an eastward direction—which, if it had been carried out, would have enlarged upper more than lower Germany—was perhaps never completely abandoned in this command, and was resumed subsequently, though on a more modest scale. Historical tradition does not give us the means of presenting a connected view of the operations continued with this object for centuries, the construction of roads and walls pertaining thereto, and the wars waged on this account; and even the great military structure still existing, whose rise and progress—likewise embracing centuries—must include in itself a good part of that history, has hitherto not been investigated throughout, as it well might be, by the eyes of military experts. The hope that unified Germany would combine for the investigation of this its oldest historical monument, has not been fulfilled. We shall here attempt to put together what has hitherto been brought to light on the subject from the fragments of the Roman annals or of the Roman strongholds.

Mogontiacum.On the right bank, not far from the northern end of the province, there stretches in front of the level or hilly country of the lower Rhine, in a direction from west to east, the range of the Taunus, which abuts on the Rhine opposite to Bingen. Parallel to this mountain–range, shut off on the other side by the spurs of the Odenwald, stretches the plain of the lower Main–valley, the true access to the interior of Germany, dominated by the key of the position at the point where the Main falls into the Rhine, Mogontiacum or Mentz, from the time of Drusus down to the end of Rome the stronghold out of which the Romans sallied to attack Germany from Gaul,[72] as it is at the present day the true barrier of Germany against France. Here the Romans, even after they had abandoned their rule in the region of the upper Rhine generally, retained not merely the tête–de–pont on the other bank, the castellum Mogontiacense (Castel), but also that plain of the Main itself in their possession; and in this region a Roman civilisation might establish itself.Mattiaci.This land originally belonged to the Chatti, and a Chattan tribe, the Mattiaci, remained settled here even under Roman rule; but, after the Chatti were compelled to cede this district to Drusus, it remained a part of the empire. The hot springs in the immediate neighbourhood of Mentz (aquae Mattiacae, Wiesbaden) were used by the Romans demonstrably in Vespasian’s time, and doubtless long before: silver was worked here under Claudius; the Mattiaci already furnished troops to the army at an early date like other subject districts. They took part in the general rising of the Germans under Civilis; but, after they were vanquished, the earlier relations were re–established. From the end of the second century we find the community of the Taunensian Mattiaci under authorities organised after the Roman model. [73]

Chatti.The Chatti, although thus driven away from the Rhine, appear in the sequel as the most powerful among the tribes of inland Germany who came into contact with the Romans; the lead which, under Augustus and Tiberius, had been possessed by the Cherusci on the middle Weser, passed, amidst the constant feuds with these their southern cognate neighbours, over to the latter. All the wars between Romans and Germans, of which we have any knowledge from the time after the death of Arminius down to the time when the migrations of the peoples began at the end of the third century, were waged against the Chatti; as in the year 41 under Claudius by Galba, who became afterwards emperor; and in the year 50 under the same emperor by Publius Pomponius Secundus, celebrated as a poet. These were the usual border incursions, and the Chatti had taken a part, but only a secondary one, in the great Batavian war ([p. 133]). But in the campaign which the Emperor Domitian undertook in the year 83 the Romans were the aggressors; and this war led, not indeed to brilliant victories, but doubtless to a considerable and momentous pushing forward of the Roman frontier.[74] At that time the frontier–line was arranged, as we find it thenceforth drawn; and within that line, which in its most northern portion was not far removed from the Rhine, must have been included a great part of the Taunus and the region of the Main as far as above Friedberg. The Usipes, who, after their already–mentioned expulsion from the region of the Lippe, appear about the time of Vespasian in the neighbourhood of Mentz, and may have found new settlements to the east of the Mattiaci on the Kinzig or in the Fuldan district, were then annexed to the empire, and, at the same time with them, a number of smaller tribes thrown off by the Chatti. Thereupon, when in the year 88, under the governor Lucius Antonius Saturninus, the upper German army rose against Domitian, the war was on the point of renewal; the revolted troops made common cause with the Chatti;[75] and it was only the interruption of the communications, when the ice broke up on the Rhine, that made it possible for the regiments which had remained faithful to settle matters with the revolters before the dangerous contingent arrived. It is stated that the Roman rule extended from Mentz towards the interior 80 leugae, and thus even beyond Fulda;[76] and this account appears worthy of credit, if we take into consideration that the military frontier–line, which certainly seems not to have gone far above Friedberg, doubtless kept here also within the territorial boundary.

The region of the Neckar.But not merely was the valley of the lower Main in front of Mentz brought within the military frontier–line; in south–western Germany also the boundary was pushed forward in a still greater degree. The region of the Neckar, once possessed by the Celtic Helvetii, then for long a debateable borderland between these and the advancing Germans, and therefore named the Helvetian desert, subsequently perhaps occupied partially by the Marcomani, before these retreated to Bohemia ([p. 29]), came on the regulation of the Germanic boundaries after the battle of Varus into the same position as the greater portion of the right bank of the lower Rhine. Here, too, there must have been a frontier–line already at that time marked off, within which Germanic settlements were not tolerated. Thereupon individual, mostly Gallic, immigrants, who had not much to lose, settled down, as on an unenclosed moor, in these fertile but little protected regions, which went at that time by the name of agri decumates.[77] This private occupation, which was, it may be conjectured, merely tolerated by the government, was followed by the formal taking possession of it probably under Vespasian. As already, about the year 74, a highway was carried from Strassburg on the right bank of the Rhine as far as Offenburg,[78] there must have been instituted about this time in this region a more earnest protection of the frontier than the mere prohibition of Germanic settlement furnished. What the father had begun the sons carried out. Perhaps even through the construction—whether by Vespasian, by Titus, or Domitian—of the “Flavian altars”[79] at the source of the Neckar, near the modern Rottweil—a settlement of which indeed we know nothing but the name—there was procured for the new upper Germany on the right of the Rhine a centre similar to what the Ubian altar was formerly intended to become for Great Germany, and soon afterwards the altar of Sarmizegetusa became for the newly–conquered Dacia. The first institution of the frontier–defence, to be described further on, by which the Neckar valley was brought within the Roman line, is thus the work of the Flavii, chiefly, doubtless, of Domitian,[80] who thereby carried further the construction at the Taunus. The military road on the right of the Rhine from Mogontiacum by way of Heidelberg and Baden in the direction of Offenburg—the necessary consequence of this annexation of the Neckar region—was, as we now know,[81] constructed by Trajan in the year 100, and was a part of the more direct communication established by that emperor between Gaul and the line of the Danube. There was employment for the soldiers at these works, but hardly for their arms; there were no Germanic tribes dwelling in the region of the Neckar, and still less can the narrow strip on the left bank of the Danube, which was thereby brought within the frontier line, have cost serious struggles. The nearest Germanic people of note there, the Hermunduri, had more friendly dispositions towards the Romans than any other tribe had, and carried on lively commercial intercourse with them in the town of the Vindelici, Augusta; of the fact that this advance met with no resistance from them, we shall find traces further on. Under the following reigns of Hadrian, Pius, and Marcus, further progress was made with these military arrangements.