Drinkwater J.F. The Alamanni and Rome 213-496 (Caracalla to Clovis)

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THE ALAMANNI AND ROME 213–496

(CARACALLA TO CLOVIS)

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The Alamanni and

Rome 213–496

(Caracalla to

Clovis)

JOHN F. DRINKWATER

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp

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ISBN 978–0–19–929568–5

10987654321

To Gillian

Without whom, nothing

Preface

This is a book that I never planned to write. It sprang unexpectedly

from work on Later Roman Gaul. While attempting to analyse the

interaction between the Empire and Germanic newcomers, I realized

that I knew little about the identity, organization and activities of the

Alamanni, and turned aside to see what I could Wnd out about them.

An exercise that I envisaged would take only a few days stretched into

years as I encountered the mass of recent work on Alamanni in

particular and Germani in general.

I was willing to devote time to this because it was a job that needed

doing, and because it allowed me to develop thinking on the rela-

tionship between Rome and the Rhine-Germani that I had only

sketched out elsewhere. This is to be found in papers for Sam

Lieu’s colloquium in honour of John Matthews and Ian Wood’s

conference on Gregory of Tours, held in Oxford in 1992 and 1994

respectively. The ideas developed here, on the reliability of Ammianus

Marcellinus and on Roman dealings with Franks and Alamanni,

formed the basis of further papers, at Ralph Mathisen and Hagith

Sivan’s ‘Shifting Frontiers’ conference in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1995,

and at Jan Willem Drijver and David Hunt’s ‘Ammianus’ conference

at Durham in 1997. I am greatly obliged to the organizers of these

events for inviting me to speak, and to Martin Heinzelmann for

publishing what amounted to an extension of my Lawrence paper

in Francia in 1997.

I was able to collect my Wrst thoughts on the Alamanni and Rome

in a paper for the Nottingham Classics Research Workshop, pub-

lished in the Festschrift to Carl Deroux in 2003. Again, I must thank

organizer and editor, Caroline Vout and Pol Defosse respectively, for

giving me this opportunity.

In looking back over the writing of this book, I am struck by how

much it may have been aVected by current events. It is a truism that

history is a product of its age: no historian can ever produce the

‘right’ answer about events in the distant past. All that he can do is

interpret these as conscientiously as possible, while acknowledging

the contemporary inXuences that are likely to have shaped his think-

ing. In proposing that we should look at the Alamanni and Rome in

the context of ‘the power of nightmares, the politics of fear’ (p. 12),

I guess I have been inXuenced Wrst by the apparent sham of the threat

of the Warsaw Pact and then, after 1997, by the growing acceptance in

British politics and public life of ‘spin’.

A number of scholars very kindly provided me w ith published

material that I would otherwise have overlooked or found very

diYcult to obtain: Profs. A. R. Birley, B. Bleckmann, R. Bratoz

;

Dr M. Carroll; Prof. H. Castritius; Dr H. Elton; Prof. F. J. Guzma

Armario; Drs J. Haberstroh, G. Halsall, A. Kreuz; Profs. H. Leppin,

J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, D. Miller, R. Rollinger; Dr I. Runde; and

Prof. C. Scha

fer.

Valuable advice on practical military matters was given to me by

my friend and neighbour, Col. R. G. Holdsworth T.D., R.E. (ret’d).

I am immensely grateful to Maureen Carroll, Angela Kreuz and

Wolf Liebeschuetz for reading and commenting on part or whole of

earlier drafts, as I am to the two anonymous readers of the Clarendon

Press (who subsequently allowed themselves to be identiWed as Hugh

Elton and Ralph Mathisen) for their identi W cation of toe-clenching

errors and omissions, and their suggestions as to how I might

improve the readability of the work. None is, of course, responsible

for how I have used their proposals.

The book is one fruit of a strange form of study-leave imposed on

me by chronic illness. The condition also gave me the inclination

and opportunit y to renew contact with two former teachers,

Ron Higginbottom and Ian Kane, whose inspiration I acknowledge

here. However, there have been bad times, through which I have,

as always, been carried by the absolutely unselWsh and unstinting

support of my wife, Gillian, to whom this book is dedicated.

JFD

Nottingham, 2005

Preface vii

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following for permission to repro-

duce published material: Archa

ologisches Landesmuseum Baden-

rttemberg (Figs 6, 7, 15, 26); Journal of Roman Archaeology,

Portsmouth RI (Fig. 12); Prof. A. Pabst, University of Erlangen (Figs

23, 24); Prof. C. Scha

fer, University of Hamburg (Fig. 24); Prof.

H. Steuer, University of Freiburg-im-Breisgau (Figs 13, 14); Jan

Thorbecke Verlag, OstWldern (Fig. 9).

Contents

Figures x

Introduction 1

1. Prelude 11

2. Arrival 43

3. Settlement 80

4. Society 117

5. Service 145

6. ConXict 285–355 177

7. ConXict 356–61 217

8. ConXict 365–94 266

9. The Fifth Century 320

Appendix: The Lyon Medallion 364

References 368

Index 391