Drinkwater J.F. The Alamanni and Rome 213-496 (Caracalla to Clovis)
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Empire and under the inXuence of Rome, they began to see them-
selves collectively as Alamanni. However, they never acted together.
In this lack of cohesion they resemble the neighbouring Franks,
concerning whom we possess an important piece of evidence for
the emergence of ethnic identity in a period of political fragmenta-
tion. This is a personal inscription from Hungary which declares, ‘A
Frankish citizen, I fought as a Roman soldier’.34 Franks did not
cooperate militarily and politically until they produced strong lead-
ers in the later Wfth century. The Wrst signs of Alamannic unity
appeared only in the face of the emerging Frankish threat.
A remaining complication is that very often the rh ythm of English
makes it awkward not to write ‘the Alamanni’, so I do. Ho wev er, when the
deWnite article might erroneously suggest the deployment of a cohesion
and force which these people never possessed, I employ bare ‘Alamanni’.
A major line of argument in this study of the Alamanni and Rome is
the political and military inferiority of the former to the latter. Again
anticipating future discussion, I feel I should alert the reader to the
main points of my interpretation of the Germanic ‘threat’. It is
important not to judge Germanic history from the popular view of
what happened under the Late Empire: of a prolonged mass movement
of barbarian peoples who conquered the Roman west. This creates
deceptive images of, say, a rising Xood that eventually broke through
the dyke of imperial defences or, in Miller’s rightly critical words, of
‘a Europe full of restless tribes constantly itching to be somewhere
else, preferably at someone else’s expense and with as much attendant
violence as possible’.35 There were disruptive and destructive move-
ments of barbarian people and armies in the late fourth and Wfth
centuries. However, it is now realized that, say, Goths and Vandals
were extremely complex in their composition and aims (in particular,
that ‘people’, the raw material of ethnogenesis, are not the same as
‘peoples’, its product), and that elsewhere the process of domination
of Roman soil was much slower and even more convoluted.
Suchwas the case on the Rhine and upper Danube, where Rome Wrst
confronted Germani.IntheWrsttotheearlythirdcenturies this areawas
not subject to growing barbarian ‘pressure’. And during the mid-third
34 CIL 3.3576 (ILS 2814): Francus ego cives, Romanus miles in armis . . .
35 Miller (1996: 160).
8 Introduction
to the Wfth centuries it was not the target of massive migrations.
Instead, what we see are occasional disturbances by communities on
the border (sanctioned by and usually cooperative with the Empire),
and unpredictable attacks by long-distance raiders from the interior.
It would be perverse to deny that such trouble was highly unpleas-
ant for those caught up in it. For imperial soldiers and civilians alike,
life along the border and its hinterland could be made dangerous and
wretched by Germanic warriors intent on plunder and glory. These
needed to be policed and, from time to time, brought to heel w ith
punitive expeditions, often led by emperors. Roman rulers were
entitled to believe that there was a real threat, the countering of
which was a genuine serv ice to their subjects. On the other hand,
this threat was always tactical, neverstrategic. What it amounted to was
chronic banditry, of the type that Britain faced on the North-West
Frontierof India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.36 Like
the Pathans and the Raj, the Germani posed no danger to the existence
of the Roman Empire or its military and political dominance of the
region.Thus ‘policing’expeditions, to be turned into, orevenmounted
as, major campaigns, were aimed at increasing imperial prestige.
The essential question is: what would have happened if there had
been no Roman Empire, or if the Empire had not insisted on a
frontier on the Rhine? As Germanic raiding led to settlement in
Alamannia so, no doubt, earlier raiding would have led to settlement
west of the Rhine. There was much to entice Ger mani to lands open
to Mediterranean culture. However, this would not have led to their
complete conquest of the west: their population was too low. The
default position was the emergence of Germanic communities along
both sides of the Rhine and the upper Danube.37 Instructive here,
albeit undoubtedly somewhat exaggerated, are the comments of
Julian the Apostate and Ammianus Marcellinus on the extent of the
short-lived Germanic expansion over the Rhine in 355–7. 38 What they
describe—a zone c.55 km (33 statute miles) wide—would have given
these Germani an area comparable in size and location to historical
Germanophone settlement west of the river, in the Netherlands,
36 Elton (1993), a paper that has greatly shaped my thinking. For barbarian raiders
as ‘bandits’ on the middle Danube under Commodus, see Gru
¨
newald (2004: 21–2).
37 Cf. Pohl (2000: 13).
38 Julian, Ep. ad Ath. 279A–B; AM 16.11.8.
Introduction 9
Belgium, Luxembourg, western Germany, Lorraine, Alsace and
Switzerland.39 This process was arrested by Caesar’s conquest and,
down to the Wfth century, by continuing Roman control of the Rhine
frontier.
All dates are ad, and all English translations of Greek and Latin
texts are taken from Loeb editions, unless otherwise indicated.
Finally, while ‘upper’ Rhine (lower case) signiWes the general
southern course of this river, from Lake Constance to around
Mainz, ‘Upper’ Rhine (upper case) is used much more precisely,
following German hydrological usage, of the stretch between Basel
and Bingen. Likewise, ‘High’ Rhine denotes the river between Lake
Constance and Basel; ‘Middle’ Rhine from Bingen to Bonn; and
‘Lower’ Rhine from Bonn to the sea40 (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 The Rhine: High, Upper, Middle, and Lower regions.
39 Cf. Heinen (1985: 324).
40 For these deWnitions, see Ho
¨
ckmann (1986: 385–9).
10 Introduction
1
Prelude
As indicated, a major argument in this work is the inferiority of
Alamanni to Rome. Later Roman emperors habitually exploited
Germani for their own political ends. To a large degree, the very
structure of the western Empire in the fourth century was supported
by the careful fostering of the illusion of a ‘Germanic threat’.1 If this is
to convince, it must be shown that Roman superiority and exploit-
ation were a feature of imperial life in other regions and periods. A
comprehensive investigation would be a massive undertaking. Here, I
conWne myself to events on the Rhine from the Wrst century bc to the
third century ad, up to Rome’s Wrst contact with Alamanni. How-
ever, signiWcant aspects of Roman superiority and exploitation have
been identiWed from an eastern perspective in the Early Empire by
Isaac. These include emperors’ political dependence on the army,
which forced them to lead their troops in glorious foreign cam-
paigns; the very personal criteria on which they decided to go to
war; and even the idea of frontier troubles as an excuse for conXict.2
Guzma
´
n Armario’s study of Roman perceptions of barbarians of
every hue, from Caesar to Ammianus Marcellinus, demonstrates
the role of ‘the frontier’ in legitimizing not only emperors but also
the imperial aristocracy.3 And, in his survey of the northern frontier
in the Late Empire, Burns argues that the ‘barbarian threat’ was a
Roman construct, an essential element in creating and maintaining
1 Esp. below 359–62.
2 Isaac (1992: 372–418, esp. 379–83, 387, 389), on Septimius Severus’ decision to
conquer Britain for entirely non-military reasons: ‘It was, in other words, a war of
choice initiated by the emperor, who used frontier troubles as an excuse’ (392–3).
3 Guzma
´
n Armario (2002: e.g. 167, 285, 539–42).
the image of Rome’s manifest destiny and in justifying the continued
existence of the two pillars of imperial rule, emperor and army.4 All
these points will recur in what follows.
Hugh Elton recently asked, ‘What was the function of the army on
the frontier?’ Answering himself, he declared, ‘Its main priority was to
keep barbarians out of the Empire.’5 With regard to the Rhine/upper
Danube frontier from the Wrst to the third century, I take a diVerent
view. Here, the western Germani posed no real threat. Instead, they
were used to generate what have become known in the modern
geopolitical context as ‘the power of nightmares, the politics of fear’.
Contemporaries saw the great incursion into the west by Cimbri
and Teutones at the end of the second century bc as a ‘Celtic’, not a
Germanic, phenomenon. Rome’s dealings with ‘the Germani’ start, as
with so many things, w ith Julius Caesar. He is usually credited with
the very invention of the term: having come across the word Germani
in a way which remains unknown to us, he used it to identify a
distinct, non-Celtic, population, made up of various tribes (gentes)
living for the most part east of the Rhine.6 Caesar cited Ger mani to
justify his protracted intervention in Gaul (58–50 bc), which led to
the Roman conquest of the country. In his ‘Gallic War’, he describes
how the Celtic Helvetii, living in the area of modern Switzerland,
attempted to move westwards into Gaul, in part to escape Germanic
pressure from over the Rhine. Their migration enabled Caesar to
claim that Rome’s possessions in the south and her Celtic allies in the
north needed protection from the disruption that would result from
such movement and from the likely occupation of an abandoned
Helvetian homeland by Germani.7 Caesar was drawn further into the
aVairs of northern Gallic communities when these asked him for help
against speciWc Germani in the shape of the war-leader Ariovistus
and his followers. Invited in as mercenaries, these now seemed set on
4 Burns (2003: e.g. 30, 153, 176, 292); cf. Drinkwater (2004).
5 Elton (1996b: 59), though qualifying himself to some extent at 111, where he
concedes that some frontier dwellers might never have seen a barbarian raid.
6 e.g. Caesar, BG 4.1.3 (Suebi). For this and what follows see, e.g. Baatz (1975:
47–8); Drinkwater (1983a: 12–16); Pohl (2000: 12–13, 51–3, 89–90). For all the
sources, see Goetz and Welwei (1995: 1.275–361); here, I cite only the most signiWcant
or representative passages in Caesar’s ‘Gallic War’.
7 Caesar, BG 1.28.4.
12 Prelude
taking over the whole of Gaul.8 Since 59 bc, and thanks to Caesar,
Ariovistus had been recognized as ‘king’ and ‘friend’ of the Roman
Republic. However, Caesar, projecting his force as renascent
‘Germanic’ Cimbri and Teutones,9 now made him out to be a deadly
threat, and broke him in battle.10 Caesar’s subsequent destruction of
various small ‘Germanic’ communities west of the Rhine and his
spectacular construction and demolition of two bridges used to
launch punitive expeditions against transrhenish Germani in 55
and 53 bc ser ved to underline his designation of the river as the
boundary between the civilized and the Germanic worlds. The prox-
imity of alien and hostile Germani11 then served to justify the per-
manent presence of the Roman army in Gaul, and of the taxation of
Gaul to pay for the securit y it provided. As Tacitus made the Roman
general Cerialis declare to Gallic communities in ad 70:
We have occupied the banks of the Rhine not to protect Italy but to prevent a
second Ariovistus from gaining the throne of Gaul . . . Although often pro-
voked by you, the only use we have made of our rights of victors has been to
impose on you the necessary costs of maintaining peace; for you cannot
secure tranquillity among nations without armies, nor maintain armies
without pay, nor provide pay without taxes . . . For, if the Romans are driven
out . . . what will follow except universal war among all peoples?12
We must be careful as to how far we accept Caesar’s story. Rome
would anyway have inter vened in the aVairs of northern Gaul.
Ariovistus became ‘Friend of the Roman People’ as a result of a
Gallic war scare, and this is likely to have returned. Sooner or later
the Empire would have extended its sphere of inXuence to the Rhine.
What Caesar did was to accelerate the process, to ‘protect’ Italy
against ‘new’ Cimbri and Teutones.13 In other words, along with
Germani, Caesar also invented the Germanic threat. The Germani
were, as it turned out, a real phenomenon; but what was the validity
of their threat? Caesar’s activities in Gaul gave him the military
and Wnancial power to take a leading role in Roman politics, and
8 Caesar, BG 1.31.4–11.
9 e.g. Caesar, BG 1.33.3–4, 40.5.
10 Caesar, BG 1.53.1–4.
11 e.g. Caesar, BG 4.4.
12 Tacitus, Historiae 4.73–4. Cf. below 41–2.
13 e.g. Caesar, BG 5.29.1, 55.1; 6.2.1–2.
Prelude 13
eventually to dominate the state. He was playing a long game, and
the explanations of his actions which he proposes in his ‘Gallic War’
must be taken with a pinch of salt. What really happened?
Overall, we can identify two developments: the beginning of the
inevitable involvement of Germanic war-leaders in the aVairs of
western communities; and the temporary (until c.ad 450) disruption
of such involvement by Rome’s establishment of a political frontier.
In Ariovistus and his followers we can see the ‘natural’ course of
Gallo-Germanic history. Germanic raiding into Gaul made Gallic
communities aware of Germanic military strength and encouraged
them to cooperate with leading Germani for their own protection.
Allowed to proceed, such a process encouraged the spread of
Germanic inXuence and even the acquisition of territory by Germani
in eastern Gaul, but it did not threaten full-scale conquest of the
country: there were simply too few Germani available (Caesar’s many
thousands must be inXated).14 We are dealing with raiding-parties,
not peoples on the move.15 (The women present in Ariovistus’
baggage train should be seen as high-status dependants of leaders,
not as mothers and daughters of migrating families.16)
There was no rising Germanic tide that threatened civ ilization.
Rather, Germani were soon recruited into Roman armies;17 and in
the two devastating rounds of Roman civil war (49–45 bc; 44–31 bc)
that followed Caesar’s withdrawal from Gaul and then his assassin-
ation, we hear of no serious trouble with Germani. As the Roman
Empire was consolidated north of the Alps by Caesar’s heir, Octavian
(from 27 bc called Augustus), there developed a new pattern: of
routine border policing occasionally interrupted by major action
for imperial ends. The question is whether such ends were defensive
or aggressive.
In the civil-war period, Gaul was used as a holding-ground for the
armies of the various contestants.18 Octavian took over the country
14 e.g. Caesar, BG 1.31.5. Henige (1998).
15 Cf. Nicolay (2003: 359), citing the work of Hiddinck, that Germani fought for
booty and glory, not territory.
16 Caesar, BG 1.51.3; cf. below 49.
17 e.g. Caesar, BG 7.13.1, 7.65.4.
18 Drinkwater (1983a: 120).
14 Prelude
in 40 bc. From this date to 16 bc we see the Wrst round of
active imperial policing on the Rhine, involving Agrippa (38 bc),
C. Carrinas and Nonius Gallus (30–29 bc), M. Vinicius (25 bc), and
Agrippa again (21 bc). These took action against Germanic raiding,
the hiring of Germanic mercenaries by communities west of the
Rhine, Germanic action against Roman traders, and generally
showed the imperial Xag.19 In 16 bc, however, we have apparent
conWrmation of the continuing existence of the Germanic threat.
Sugambri, Usipetes and Tencteri cruciWed a number of Romans in
their own territories, then crossed the Rhine and plundered eastern
Gaul. They fell on the army of M. Lollius, commander-in-chief in the
region, and captured the standard of the Fifth legion. The incident
forced Augustus to travel to Gaul, where he remained for three
years.20 It is not surprising that this ‘Lollian disaster’ (Lolliana
clades)21 has been seen as the immediate stimulus for the subsequent
concentration of Roman forces on the Rhine and, from 12 bc, a great
push into Free Germany.22 This is unconv incing. Dio tells us that, in
16 bc, agreement was soon reached with the Germani; and Suetonius
comments that what happened to Lollius was more shameful than
damaging.23 We are again in the presence of high-level raiding, not
invasion. Probably, as was to happen in the mid-fourth century,24
Roman complacency led to events getting out of hand, with relatively
minor casualties (Lollius himself survived) but great Roman embar-
rassment.25 More likely is that, having arrived in Gaul, Augustus
took stock of the situation in the west and only then determined
on expansion into Germania. The time was ripe. Spain and Gaul
were now for the most part subdued. On the upper Rhine and
upper Danube all that remained was the subjugation of the Alpine
areas, achieved by the campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius, Augustus’
stepsons, in 16–15 bc.26 The transportation infrastructure that en-
abled men and mate
´
riel to be brought easily from the Empire’s
19 Dio 48.49.3; 51.20.5, 21.5–6; 53.26.4; 54.11.1–2.
20 Velleius Paterculus 2.97.1; Dio 54.20.4–5.
21 Tacitus, Annales 1.10.3.
22 e.g. Drinkwater (1983a: 122); Wolters (as cited by Gechter (2003: 146)).
23 Dio 54.20.6; Suetonius, Augustus 23.1.
24 See below 255, 260 (Libino), 267, 276–7 (Charietto).
25 Cf. Gechter (2003: 146).
26 Drinkwater (1983a: 122, 125); Goetz and Welwei (1995: 2.16, n.29).
Prelude 15
Mediterranean core to the military zone on the Rhine was complete.27
Drusus began the transrhenish campaign in 12 bc, nominally in
response to further attacks by Sugambri, Tencteri and others. He pursued
it until his accidental death in 9 bc, after which it was continued by his
older brother, Tiberius. As a result, by 7 bc direct Roman military
and political power had been extended to the Elbe28 (Fig. 2).
There have been many suggestions as to what motivated Augustus
to undertake such costly warfare, ranging from long-term strategic
planning via ambitions of world empire to ad hoc reaction to the
developing military situation in Germania. All acknowledge the
concomitant acquisition of military glory by the reigning ruler and
his possible successors.29 However, other, internal, factors need to be
taken into account. First is the advisability of moving troops from
Gaul to allow the country to develop without constant disruption by
the military.30 Second is the need to justify the continued mainten-
ance of large forces in the west—allegedly to protect the provinces,
but also to support the structure of political power that Augustus
had created in Rome.31 The latter returns us to the notion of the
‘Germanic threat’ as an essential element in the justiWcation of the
actions of Roman emperors and of the mechanisms of imperial
rule.32 What has to be recognized is the high degree of Roman
aggression that was involved in initiating and pursuing major con-
Xict. Habitual raiding by Germanic border communities was used to
excuse all-out war, and Germanic attempts to make peace were swept
aside.33 There was much destruction and loss of life. The severe
disruption to living-conditions in Germania is demonstrated in the
migration of Marcomanni to Bohemia, and the subsequent settle-
ment (ironically, by Rome) of Hermunduri on part of their former
territory.34 There was a threat on the Rhine frontier from 16 bc, but it
was Roman, not Germanic.
27 Gechter (2003: 147).
28 Livy, Perioch. 142; Velleius Paterculus 2.97.2–4; Dio 54.32.1–3, 33.1–4, 36.3;
55.1.2–2.1.
29 Cf. Florus 2.30.21; Suetonius, Claudius 14 (on desire for glory of Augustus and
Drusus). For the debate see Pohl (2000: 14, 94–5), noticing the work of Mommsen,
Wells, Timpe, Christ and Whittaker.
30 Drinkwater (1983a: 123).
31 Burns (2003: 18–19, 30, 141, 152–3, 175–6), with Drinkwater (2004).
32 Cf. Burns (2003: 30, 153, 176, 292).
33 See Dio 55.6.1–3.
34 Velleius Paterculus 108; Dio 55.10a.1–2; Schnur bein (2000: 51). Cf. below 39.
16 Prelude
Rhône
Rhône
Saône
Po
Limes
Moselle
SUPERIOR
SUPERIOR
NORICUM
PANNONIA
DALMATIA
Frisii
Bructeri
Lippe
Tencteri
Sugambri
Batavi
Canninefates
Chauci
Kalkriese
VETERA
GERMANIA
INFERIOR
RAETIA
Fig. 2 The north-western provinces, Wrst–second centuries.
Prelude 17