Drinkwater J.F. The Alamanni and Rome 213-496 (Caracalla to Clovis)
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
The turn of th e Wrst centuries bc and ad saw further paciWcation
of the conquered territories by Domitius Ahenobarbus and
M. Vinicius—more police work.35 However, one cannot help but
suspect that this was undertaken with an eye to enhancing the military
reputation of the generals concerned, particularly Ahenobarbus, who
had married into the imperial family. The same may be said of Tiberius’
second phase of major campaigning in Germania in 4–5.36 This fol-
lowed a prolonged period of tension between Tiberius and Augustus,
which had ended with the latter making the former his heir presump-
tive. Tiberius’ great deeds in 4–5 would have served to conWrm his
Wtness for his position. Indeed, it appears that this campaigning was
in preparation for new expansion: Tiberius’ subjugation of the
Marcomanni, under king Maroboduus. This war, in Wells’ wor ds
‘another act of shameless aggression’,37 began in 6 but was soon
abandoned following serious uprisings in Pannonia and Dalmatia.38
In 9 came the ‘Varian disaster’ (Variana clades),39 in which forces
under the rebel Cheruscan, Arminius, destroyed the entire army of
the Roman governor of Germany, P. Quinctilius Varus.40 The mas-
sacre seems the classic demonstration of innate Germanic aggression,
but this is not the case. What happened was more the result of
Roman incompetence. Integration was proceeding (Arminius him-
self was an oYcer in the Roman army), but Varus pushed change too
far, too fast.41 German reaction was against the invader, not the
Empire. Some have even suggested that Arminius’ revolt began as a
military mutiny, not a nationalistic rebellion, and was thus even less
of a challenge to the imperial structure. It seems likely that Arminius
‘the Liberator of Germany’ was a Tacitean construct, in criticism of
the principate. Arminius did not lead a united Germania: he was
opposed by important pro-Roman Germanic leaders, including his
own brother.42 Crucial for this study is that, though the spectre of
35 Dio 55.10a.3; Tacitus, Annales 4.44.2. Wells (1972: 158–9).
36 Velleius Paterculus 2.104–6; Dio 55.13.2.
37 Wells (1972: 161).
38 Velleius Paterculus 2.108, 110.
39 Tacitus, Annales 1.10.3.
40 Velleius Paterculus 2.117; Dio 56.18.1–21.
41 Drinkwater (1983a: 23–4).
42 Tacitus, Annales 2.88.3; 1.55, 2.9. Goetz and Welwei (1995: 2.3) and Pohl
(2000: 96), both citing Timpe.
18 Prelude
returning Cimbri and Teutones again made an appearance, as far as
we know Arminius made no attempt to cross the Rhine, a decision
that was more important for Roman security than emergency meas-
ures to secure the line of the river.43
Roman reprisal raiding was undertaken in 10–11, involving
Tiberius and then his nephew and adopted son, Germanicus.44
These, though no doubt bloodthirsty, did not penetrate far beyond
the Rhine.45 A major change came in 14 when Tiberius, now
emperor, allowed Germanicus to avenge Varus in force. Continuing
Germanic disunity (including rifts in Arminius’ own family) meant
that there was no real threat to justify major campaigning.46 It was
probably against Tiberius’ better judgement and may have been in
accordance with the intentions of the recently dead Augustus.47
However, there were now additional reasons for attacking Germani.
The change of ruler had unsettled Roman armies in Pannonia (under
Tiberius’ son, Drusus II) and the Germanies (under Germanicus). In
Lower Germany there had even been talk of Germanicus’ taking the
throne. Once order had been restored, it was prudent for Germanicus
to give his men the opportunity to work oV their frustrations and to
redeem themselves after their recent sedition.48 The Wghting, from 14
to 17, was characterized by the worst excesses of Roman militarism.
Arminius suVered personal loss and strategic defeat, but was neither
killed nor captured. Germanicus’ most memorable achievement was
his visit to the site of Varus’ defeat, and his dutiful interment of the
bones of the Roman dead. As the cost in men and resources
mounted, Tiberius withdrew him, gave him a triumph, and packed
him oV to the east, where he died just over two years later.49
The destruction that resulted from Germanicus’ expeditions must
have been massive. The economic, social and political instability that
resulted was demonstrated in a signiWcant increase in internecine
43 Velleius Paterculus 2.120; Dio 56.22.2a–b (melodramatically attributing
Arminius’ ‘failure’ to the resistance of a single Roman stronghold), 32.1. Pohl (2000: 14).
44 Velleius Paterculus 2.120; Suetonius, Tiberius 18.
45 Dio 56.25.2.
46 Pohl (2000: 95).
47 Drinkwater (1983a: 26).
48 Tacitus, Annales 1.3.6, 49.5–6; Dio 57.6.1. Pohl (2000: 15).
49 For the details, see Tacitus, Annales 1.51, 54–5, 57, 61–70; 2.5, 8–19, 25–7, 41.
Prelude 19
warfare, in particular between Arminius and Maroboduus. What
Tacitus characterizes as ‘traditional’ strife had been raised to new
heights through contact with the Empire, and it is signiWcant that
both sides now used Roman battle techniques. Rome could look on
with satisfaction as her ‘enemies’ destroyed themselves.50 As Pohl has
remarked, Tacitus records more Wghting between Germani and
Germani than between Germani and Romans.51
It is worth asking why Rome did not try to exploit such weakness,
and why it to ok over 150 years for the Empir e to rec ommence fu ll-scale
campaigning in Germania under Marcus Aurelius. A rational explan-
ation is that Augustan and Tiberian experience had revealed the diY-
culties of Wghting in a land which, by imperial standards, was massively
under-developed and so un able to support large armies in the Weld.52
This may be correct, but it is by no means certain. We cannot say what
might have happened but for the Varian disaster. During the Wrst stages
of its occupation of land east of the Rhine, the Empire had taken great
pains (shown, above all, in the provision of urban buildings and
facilities at Waldgirmes, on the Lahn, and perhaps elsewhere between
the Rhine and the Weser53) to stimulate economic and social growth,
and not without some success.54 In rational terms, perhaps more likely
is that emperors realized that it was cheaper to control Germanic
communities through diplomacy than by direct intervention.55 How-
ever, in line with ‘the power of nightmares and the politics of fear’,
instinct may have proved more powerful than reason. The Varian
disaster had caused a loss of nerve; and Germania could serve imperial
political interests more easily as a source of external danger and, as
required, military glory than as the location of a new province.
Thus followed a period of relative tranquillit y. The Frisian revolt of
28, which resulted in major Roman casualties, was an internal aVair,
caused by imperial mismanagement of taxation.56 Later in Tiberius’
50 For all this see Tacitus, Annales 2.44.2, 45.3, 46.5, 62–3, 68. Pohl (2000: 15).
51 Pohl (2000: 16).
52 Groenman-van Waateringe (1979). Cf. Drinkwater (1983a: 23); Whittaker
(1994: 87). Most recently, Heather (2005: 57–8).
53 Schnurbein (2003: 98–105 (Waldgirmes), 96–7 (Haltern), 97–8 (Anreppen)).
54 Cf. below 39 (on the stimulation of the local economy).
55 Erdrich (2000a: 194–5).
56 Tacitus, Annales 4.72–4.
20 Prelude
reign, further imperial laxness appears to have encouraged habitual
raiding over the upper Rhine.57 Large-scale renewal of Roman
aggression threatened in the late 30s. Tiberius died in 37 and was
succeeded by Gaius, who showed an interest in Germania. The details
of Gaius’ notorious Germanic ‘campaign’ of 40 are very diYcult to
establish from our hostile sources, Suetonius and Dio. Contrary to
what they claim, the emperor must have journeyed to the Rhine on
more than a whim.58 Gaius needed military success, and it would
have suited him to distance himself from political troubles in Rome.
As a descendant of Julius Caesar, the grandson of Drusus I and the
son of Germanicus, it was Wtting for him to carry Roman arms over
the Rhine on a grand scale.59 That, in the event, there was little more
than small-scale Wghting, may have resulted from panic caused by the
supposed conspiracy of Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Gaeticulus in Upper
Germany. This cut across Gaius’ preparations, prompting him to
leave Italy in haste and making him nervous of unpredictable long-
distance undertakings.60 The western Germani continued to be left
for the most part in peace.
More border control characterized the reigns of Gaius’ successors,
Claudius (41–54) and Nero (54–68). (The former conWned his cam-
paigning to Britain; the latter, to his cost, took no interest in military
aVairs.) In 41, Gabinius Secundus, commander of Lower Germany,
fought against Chauci, was victorious, but perhaps exaggerated the
signiWcance of his achievements. In the same year, Sulpicius Galba,
the future emperor, then commanding Upper Germany, overcame
Chatti.61 In 47, the Cherusci asked for a king since—a further sign of
disruptive Roman inXuence on Germanic society—civil war had
destroyed their nobility. Claudius returned to them the sole surviving
member of their royal house, Arminius’ nephew, then resident in
Rome.62 In 48, temporary Roman administrative weakness allowed
Chauci to practise piracy along the coasts of Gaul. This was ended by
57 Suetonius, Galba 6.3, 8.1.
58 Suetonius, Gaius 43–5, 47; Dio 59.21.1–3. Barrett (1989: 125, 129).
59 Contra Barrett (1989: 129).
60 Drinkwater (1983a: 35–6); Barrett (1989: 103–12); Goetz and Welwei (1995:
2.144, n. 21).
61 Suetonius, Claudius 24.3; Dio 60.8.7. Goetz and Welwei (1995), 2.151 n. 35.
62 Tacitus, Annales 11.16–17.
Prelude 21
the general Corbulo, who also Wnally settled the still simmering
Frisian unrest.63 Nothing reXects a general Germanic ‘threat’. Indeed,
to prevent Roman reprisals from unsettling neighbouring Germanic
tribes, Claudius ordered Corbulo back from over the Lower Rhine.64
In 50, Chattian raiders attacked Upper Germany and caused panic.
However, laden down with booty, they were easily destroyed as they
returned. The Chatti as a whole refused to be drawn into the conXict
and, fearful of Roman intervention, meekly capitulated.65 In the
period 56–8 we hear of Roman border commanders eschewing war
and turning their troops to useful civil works.66 As a result, in 58,
Frisians were emboldened to settle in the restricted military zone
along the right bank of the Lower Rhine. The imperial authorities
intervened, and the Frisian leaders were sent to Nero in Rome to
petition for permission to remain. They caused a famous incident at
the Theatre of Pompey, in which they proclaimed their loyalty to the
Empire, but their request was refused, and force had to be used to
evict the settlers. The same land was then occupied by Ampsivarii.
Their case was put by an Ampsivarian who could claim years of
service to Rome, but this too was rejected. The Ampsivarii prepared
for war, calling on Bructeri, Tencteri and others, but a show of
Roman military force frightened o V the potential allies and the
Ampsivarii drifted eastwards as refugees.67 (Nero’s handling of
the Ampsivarii brings to mind Constantius II’s treatment of the
Alamanni in 357. Similarly, the great battle between Hermunduri
and Chatti, over salt sources in the summer of 58, was a precursor of
tension between Alamanni and Burgundians in the later third and
fourth centuries.68)
In 69–70, hig h drama returned with the ‘Batavian uprising’. In 68,
a short civil war had led to the death of Nero and to the accession of
Galba. Throughout 69, more protracted civil war resulted in
Vespasian becoming sole emperor. Most parts of the Empire were
drawn into the conXict. In summer, there began serious Wghting on
63 Tacitus, Annales 11.18–19.
64 Tacitus, Annales 11.19.6–20.1.
65 Tacitus, Annales 12.27.3–28.
66 Tacitus, Annales 13.53.
67 Tacitus, Annales 13.54–6.
68 Tacitus, Annales 13.57.1–3. Below 109–10, 190.
22 Prelude
the Rhine, instigated by a Batavian prince and senior oYcer in the
Roman army, Julius Civilis. Civilis eventually found powerful allies
among the Gallic aristocracy in the Treverans, Julius Classicus and
Julius Tutor (also high-ranking oY cers), and the Lingonian, Julius
Sabinus. Their activities prolonged the Wghting in the west late into
70. What happened can be examined in fairly close detail because
Tacitus’ account of the ‘Batavian revolt’ provides us with our most
detailed narrative of Romano-German dealings between Caesar’s
earlier writing and Ammianus Marcellinus’ later contribution.
Tacitus portrays outright nationalistic rebellion by Germani and
Gauls. Supporters of Vespasian believed that Civilis was following
their orders to stage a mock Germanic uprising in order to tie dow n
the forces of Vitellius, Vespasian’s imperial opponent.69 However,
according to Tacitus, Civilis already aimed at being the liberator of
the Batavians and of all Germany. In persuading his Gallic allies to
strive for the liberation of Gaul, and to set up a free ‘Gallic Empire’, to
which defeated imperial troops swore allegiance, he was simply
preparing his future prey: once Rome was defeated, Gaul would
suVer Germanic aggression.70 But characteristic Gallic division led
to the speedy collapse of the Gallic Empire; and Civilis was hunted
down by Vespasian’s general, Petillius Cerealis.
It has long been customary to accept Tacitus’ account of a brief but
sincere demonstration of Germanic and Gallic nationalism.71 How-
ever, in recent years there have been signiWcant attempts to qualify his
interpretation. In what follows I depend mainly, though not exclu-
sively, on Urban for my interpretation of Civ ilis, and on Heinen for
that of the ‘Gallic Empire’.72 Tacitus takes pains to depict Civilis and
his followers from the start as outsiders, Germani, intent on over-
throwing the Roman Empire. This will not do. By 69, Julius Civilis
had long been a loyal servant of the Empire, but had suVered grave
personal injustice at the hands of recent regimes. His community was
now the target of rapacious military recruitment in the name of
Vespasian’s opponent, Vitellius; and Batavian regiments already serv-
ing in the Vitellian army had their own legitimate grievances. From
69 Tacitus, Historiae 4.13.1: tumultus Germanici specie.
70 Tacitus, Historiae 4.61.
71 e.g. Syme (1958: 1.172–3); cf. Drinkwater (1983a: 45–7).
72 Urban (1985); Heinen (1985: 72–81). On the debate see Pohl (2000: 17–18, 96–7).
Prelude 23
his perspective, as from that of Vespasian’s backers, he had every right
to be involved in the process of establishing another, better, emperor.
Thus Civilis, like thousands of others, was drawn as an insider into
the civil war. In order to create the impression of Germanic insur-
rection, he appears to have incited raiding by Canninefates and
Frisians. When this did not work, he called out his own Batavi.73
(No doubt in all such cases, as Constantius II was to do with the
Alamanni, he promised the leaders of the peoples concerned that
Vespasian would treat their activities as those of allies.74) The strata-
gem succeeded. Embroiled in Wghting on the Lower Rhine, and
increasingly suspicious of the pro-Vespasianic sympathies of their
own senior oYcers, in 69 the Roman armies on the Rhine were in no
position to engage in the battle for Italy.
Change came with the defeat of the main Vitellian army in Italy in
October 69, the death of Vitellius in December, and the Vespasianic
party’s subsequent consolidation of its control over Rome and most
of the Empire. Civilis now confronted the problem of his own
success. In tying down Roman troops, he had humiliated Roman
arms. The Roman imperial establishment was not yet ready to accept
the rig ht of provincials to have a voice in central politics, especially if
they based their claim to such a voice on local power. In 68, the
Romanized Gallic aristocrat, Julius Vindex, had been destroyed for
daring to use native levies against Nero.75 Tacitus has the garrison of
Vetera declare in 69 that ‘it was not for a Batavian turncoat to sit in
judgement on matters Roman’.76 From early 70, Civilis must have
begun to fear that a victorious Vespasianic party might disown him.
This explains why he did not demobilize his troops and why, as
Tacitus terms it, he ‘began a second war’ alongside the leaders of
the ‘Gallic Empire’.77 The point of no return was reached following
the successful termination of Civilis’ second siege of Vetera, with
the massacre of the surviving members of its garrison by his
transrhenish Germanic allies.78 Civilis’ use of such Germani,to
73 Tacitus, Historiae 4.15–16, 21.
74 Below 202, 218.
75 Drinkwater (1983a: 40–3).
76 Tacitus, Histor iae 4.21: perfuga Batavus arbitrium rerum Romanarum ne ageret.
77 Tacitus, Historiae 4.54.
78 Tacitus, Historiae 4.60.
24 Prelude
which Tacitus makes constant critical reference, did not make him a
nationalistic leader. The recruitment of Germani in emergencies was
standard military procedure: there were Germani, alongside Bata-
vians, in Vitellius’ army;79 and Vespasian’s supporters enlisted the aid
of Suebi at the second battle of Bedriacum.80 The diYculty was to
keep these people in check; and at Vetera they ran out of control.
Like Julius Civilis, Julius Classicus, Julius Tutor and Julius Sabinus
should be seen not as nationalistic rebels but as Roman provincial
noblemen whose position depended on the maintenance of the
imperial hierarchy. They were supporters of Vitellius who, following
the death of that emperor, resolved to retain control of the Rhine
army in the hope that the Vitellian party might yet produce a
successful challenger to Vespasian. So Classicus and Tutor initiated
the rebellion by this army against Vespasian early in 70. The oath of
loyalty to a ‘Gallic Empire’ which they supposedly imposed on
Roman troops was in fact one to a Roman Empire which, for the
moment, was lacking a legitimate emperor. Civilis and Classicus and
his associates were from opposite sides of the imperial political fence,
and to start with operated entirely independently of each other.
However, the fact that Vespasianic forces were heading to crush all
opposition made both parties de facto allies: both were looking for a
new emperor to whom they could pledge their loyalty. This explains
Tacitus’ report that, just before the battle of Trier, Classicus and
Civilis oVered the throne to Cerealis.81 But the Gauls, like Civilis,
ran into the brick wall of Roman political prejudice. The breaking of
their power base at the battle of Trier made all the rebels into exactly
what Roman prejudice wanted to see them as. Civilis now had to
depend on Germanic recruits; and the Gauls ended up as refugees
with this Germanic renegade.82
The reports that have come down to us of these disturbances,
principally that of Tacitus, but also a summary assessment by
Josephus,83 were inXuenced by traditional prejudice and by a pro-
Vespasianic interpretation of events. The war on the Rhine had been
79 Tacitus, Historiae 2.17.
80 Tacitus, Historiae 3.5, 22.
81 Tacitus, Historiae 4.75.
82 Tacitus, Historiae 5.14, 16, 19.
83 Josephus, Bell. Iud. 7.42 (75–81).
Prelude 25
highly damaging to Roman military pride. It was dangerous for the
new dynasty to be seen as having been responsible for it. It was
therefore much better to explain Civilis’ activities as stemming from
barbarian nationalism rather than from imperial politicking. Tacitus’
attractive circumstantial detail, such as the Wrst secret assembly of the
Batavians in a native shrine, Civilis’ growing a long red beard, or
‘Germanic’ ambitions to annihilate Cologne, should be regarded
with suspicion.84 It is clear that in 69–70 there was no major
‘Germanic’ assault on the Roman Empire: generally, trans-Rhine
Germani did not take civil war as an invitation to begin extensive
raiding. There were incidents away from the main centres of action,
for example by the Chatti, Usipetes (Tacitus’ ‘Usipi’) and Mattiaci in
their attack on Mainz,85 but they were localized and easily dealt w ith.
Major conXict was, in Tacitus’ terms, ‘civil’, not ‘external’.86
Civilis, Classicus, Tutor and the rest may be seen as victims of their
age. By mid-70, what they lacked to give their activities legitimacy
and coherence was an emperor. Two hundred years later they could
simply have put up one of their own number. In the later Empire,
though it was still impossible for a man of Germanic stock to become
emperor, respectable provincials might act as Wgureheads. We see
Civilis stumbling in this direction in his alliance with Gauls. As far as
these Gauls are concerned, Classicus did not have the courage of
his convictions when he chose to become imperator, ‘commander-
in-chief’, but not Augustus, ‘emperor’.87 Julius Sabinus, however,
sensed what was necessary in his later-derided claim to be a ‘Caesar’,
descended from the great Julius Caesar.88
Vespasian (69–79) was succeeded by his sons Titus (79–81) and
Domitian (81–96). We know nothing of Romano-Germanic dealings
under the Wrst two of these, but from 82 Domitian waged war in
person on the Chatti.89 This was a return to aggression for imperial
84 Tacitus, Historiae 4.14–15, 61, 63–4.
85 Tacitus, Historiae 4.37.
86 Tacitus, Historiae 4.22, on the Roman and Germanic standards of Civilis’ forces
at the Wrst siege of Vetera: mixta belli civilis externique facies. Cf. Goetz and Welwei
(1995: 2.170, n.74).
87 Cf. Heinen (1985: 76).
88 Tacitus, Historiae 4.55, 67.
89 Drinkwater (1983a: 59); Jones (1992: 128–31).
26 Prelude
ends. Unlike his father and his elder brother, Domitian had no
military reputation. He needed a successful war to generate a
triumph; Germanic raiding would always provide a casus belli; and
the Chatti obliged. All our main sources are hostile to Domitian, but
there is probably some truth in Suetonius’ remark that Domitian’s
campaign against the Chatti was by choice, not necessity.90 From 84,
attention was diverted from the Rhine and upper Danube by a major
war in Dacia. In 89, however, there was trouble in Upper Germany,
involving the governor, L. Antonius Saturninus. As Jones says, ‘This
was a military revolt, nothing more.’91 It was quickly suppressed,
with Domitian journeying to the Rhine to take charge in person.
However, signiWcant for this study is the report that Saturninus
called on the Chatti for help, and that they were prevented from
crossing into the Empire only in the nick of time.92 The invocation of
the ‘Germanic threat’, of the shades of Cimbri and Teutones, to
malign a political enemy had become part of the repertoire of
imperial invective. In the event, the ‘real’ Chatti appear to have
quickly mended fences with the Empire.93
Then, for about 70 years, the western Germani more or less
disappear from the historical picture. There must have been custom-
ary raiding, prompting routine Roman reprisals, and we have odd
hints of colonial police work under Domitian and, perhaps, his
successor, Nerva (96–98),94 but no more. It appears that a waning
of imperial interest, with emperors no longer feeling the need to
attack Germani, resulted in the ending of imperial visits to the Rhine/
upper Danube frontier, and so the disappearance of references to
events in this region in our sources. The perception of a ‘Germanic
threat’ diminished; and the underly ing absence of danger from this
quarter (coupled, perhaps, with a desire to reduce the potential
political power of troop concentrations95) was reXected in a major
90 Suetonius, Domitianus 6.1: sponte in Chattos.
91 Jones (1992: 147).
92 Suetonius, Domitianus 6.2; Plutarch, Aemilius Paullus 25.5. Goetz and Welwei
(1995: 2.271, n. 55).
93 Jones (1992: 150).
94 Pliny, Epistulae 2.7.2; cf. Goetz and Welwei (1995: 2.270–1, n. 50). Dio 67.5.1;
cf. Goetz and Welwei (1995: 2.272, n. 56). Pliny, Panegyricus 14.2 (cf. 9.2); cf. Goetz
and Welwei (1995: 2.274–5, n. 64).
95 Cf. Syme (1999: 89).
Prelude 27