ROMAN GERMANY AND THE FREE GERMANS.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: Cannenefates.]
[Sidenote: Frisians.]
[Sidenote: Chauci.]
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. 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, 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: Its subsequent position.]
The withdrawal of the garrisons did not imply giving up possession,
strictly speaking, of the right bank in this province. It was looked
upon by the Romans thenceforth somewhat as the commandant of a fortress
looks upon the ground that lies under his cannon. The Cannenefates
and at least a part of the Frisians[68] were afterwards subject, as
before, to the empire. We have already remarked that subsequently
in the Münster country the herds of the legions still pastured, and
the Germans were not allowed to settle there. But the government
thenceforth relied--for the defence of such border-territory on the
right bank as still existed in this province--in the north on the
Cannenefates and the Frisians, and farther up the stream substantially
on the space left desolate; and, if it did not directly forbid, at
any rate did not give scope to Roman settlement there. The altar
stone of a private person found at Altenberg (circuit of Mülheim),
on the river Dhün, is almost the only evidence of Roman inhabitants
in these regions. This is the more remarkable, as the prosperity of
Cologne would, if special hindrances had not here stood in the way,
have of itself carried Roman civilisation far and wide on the other
bank. Often enough Roman troops may have traversed these extensive
regions, perhaps even have kept the roads--which were here laid out in
large number during the Augustan period--in some measure passable, and
possibly laid out new ones; sparse settlers, partly remains of the old
Germanic population, partly colonists from the empire, may have settled
here, similar to those that we shall soon find in the earlier imperial
period on the right bank of the upper Rhine; but the highways, like
the possessions, lacked the stamp of durability. There was no wish to
undertake here a labour of similar extent and difficulty to that which
we shall become acquainted with further on in the upper province, or
to provide here, as was done there, military defence and fortification
for the frontier of the empire. Therefore the lower Rhine was crossed
doubtless by Roman rule, but not, like the upper Rhine, also by Roman
culture.
[Sidenote: The situation in Gaul and Germany after the fall of Nero.]
For the double task of keeping the neighbouring Gaul in obedience and
of keeping the Germans of the right bank aloof from Gaul, the army of
the lower Rhine would, even after abandoning the occupation of the
region on the right of the river, have quite sufficed, and the peace
without and within would not presumably have been interrupted, had not
the downfall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and the civil or rather
military war thereby called forth, exercised a momentous influence
on these relations. The insurrection of the Celtic land under the
leadership of Vindex was no doubt defeated by the two Germanic armies;
but Nero's fall nevertheless ensued, and when the Spanish army as well
as the imperial guard in Rome appointed a successor to him, the armies
of the Rhine did the same; and in the beginning of the year 69 the
greater portion of these troops crossed the Alps to settle the point on
the battle-fields of Italy, whether its ruler was to be called Marcus
or Aulus. In May of the same year the new emperor Vitellius followed,
after arms had decided in his favour, accompanied by the remainder of
the good soldiers inured to war. The blanks in the garrisons of the
Rhine were no doubt filled up for the exigency by recruits hastily
levied in Gaul; but the whole land knew that they were not the old
legions, and it soon became apparent that these were not coming back.
If the new ruler had had in his power the army that placed him on the
throne, at least a portion of them must have returned to the Rhine
immediately after the defeat of Otho in April; but the insubordination
of the soldiers still more than the new complication which soon set in
with the proclamation of Vespasian as emperor in the East, retained the
German legions in Italy.
[Sidenote: Preparations for the insurrection.]
Gaul was in the most fearful excitement. The rising of Vindex was, as
we formerly remarked (p. 82), in itself directed not against the rule
of Rome but against the rulers for the time being; but it was none the
less on that account a warfare between the armies of the Rhine and the
levy _en masse_ of the great majority of the Celtic cantons; and these
were none the less subjected to pillage and maltreatment resembling
that of the conquered. The tone of feeling which subsisted between the
provincials and the soldiers was shown, for instance, by the treatment
which the canton of the Helvetii experienced as the troops destined for
Italy marched through it. Because a courier despatched by the adherents
of Vitellius to Pannonia had here been seized, the columns on the march
from the one side, and the Romans stationed as a garrison in Raetia
on the other, entered the canton, pillaged the villages far and wide,
particularly what is now Baden near Zürich, chased those who had fled
to the mountains out of their lurking-places, and put them to death
by thousands or sold the captives under martial law. Although the
capital Aventicum (Avenches, near Murten) submitted without resistance,
the agitators of the army demanded that it should be razed, and all
that the general granted was that the question should be referred
not, forsooth, to the emperor, but to the soldiers of the great
headquarters; these sat in judgment on the fate of the town, and it was
merely the turn of their caprice that saved the place from destruction.
Outrages of this nature brought the provincials to extremities; even
before Vitellius left Gaul, a certain Mariccus, from the canton of the
Boii, dependent on the Haedui, came forward a god on earth, as he said,
and destined to restore the freedom of the Celts; and people flocked in
troops to his banner. But the exasperation in the Celtic country was
not of so very great moment. The very rising of Vindex had most clearly
shown how utterly incapable the Gauls were of releasing themselves from
the Roman embrace.
[Sidenote: Rising of the Batavian auxiliaries.]
[Sidenote: Civilis.]
But the tone of feeling of the Germanic districts reckoned as belonging
to Gaul--in the modern Netherlands--of the Batavi, the Cannenefates,
the Frisians, whose distinctive position has already been dwelt on, had
a somewhat greater importance; and it happened that, on the one hand,
these very tribes had been exasperated to the utmost, and on the other,
that their contingents were accidentally to be found in Gaul. The bulk
of the Batavian troops, 8000 men, assigned to the 14th legion, had for
a considerable time a place along with the latter in the army of the
upper Rhine, and had then under Claudius, on occasion of the occupying
of Britain, gone to that island, where this corps shortly before had,
by its incomparable valour, gained the decisive battle under Paullinus
for the Romans; from this day onward it occupied indisputably the first
place among all the divisions of the Roman army. When it was recalled
on account of this very distinction by Nero, in order to go off with
him to the war in the East, the revolution breaking out in Gaul had
brought about a quarrel between the legion and its auxiliary troops;
the former, faithfully devoted to Nero, hastened to Italy; the Batavi,
on the other hand, refused to follow. Perhaps this was connected with
the fact that two of their most noted officers, the brothers Paulus
and Civilis, had, without any reason and without respect to many years
of faithful service and honourable wounds, been shortly before put on
trial as suspected of high treason, and the former executed, the latter
placed in captivity. After the downfall of Nero, to which the revolt of
the Batavian cohorts had materially contributed, Galba released Civilis
and sent the Batavians back to their old headquarters in Britain. While
they, on the march thither, were encamped among the Lingones (Langres),
the legions of the Rhine revolted from Galba and proclaimed Vitellius
emperor. The Batavi, after considerable hesitation, ultimately joined
the movement; Vitellius did not forgive them for this hesitation, but
did not venture directly to call to account the leader of the powerful
corps.
[Sidenote: Progress of the movement.]
Thus the Batavians had marched with the legions of lower Germany to
Italy and had fought with their usual valour in the battle of Betriacum
for Vitellius, while their old legionary comrades confronted them in
the army of Otho. But the arrogance of the Germans exasperated their
Roman comrades in victory, however much these acknowledged their valour
in battle; the very generals in command did not trust them, and even
made an attempt to divide by detaching them--a course, which, in this
war, where the soldiers commanded and the generals obeyed, was not
capable of being carried out, and had almost cost the general his life.
After the victory they were commissioned to accompany their hostile
comrades of the 14th legion to Britain; but when matters came to a
skirmish between the two at Turin, the latter alone went to Britain,
and the Batavians to Germany. Meanwhile Vespasian had been proclaimed
emperor in the East, and, while in consequence of this Vitellius
gave to the Batavian cohorts marching orders for Italy as well as
ordered new comprehensive levies among the Batavi, commissioners of
Vespasian opened communications with the Batavian officers to hinder
this departure, and to provoke in Germany itself a rising which
should detain the troops there. Civilis entered into the suggestion.
He resorted to his home, and gained easily the assent of his own
people as well as the neighbouring Cannenefates and Frisians. The
insurrection broke out among the former; the camps of the two cohorts
in the neighbourhood were surprised and the Roman posts seized; the
Roman recruits fought ill; soon Civilis with his cohort--which he had
caused to follow, ostensibly to employ it against the insurgents--threw
himself openly into the movement, along with the three Germanic cantons
renounced allegiance to Vitellius, and summoned the other Batavians and
Cannenefates, who just then were breaking up from Mentz for the march
to Italy, to join him.
[Sidenote: Its character.]
All this was more a soldiers' rising than an insurrection of the
province, or even a Germanic war. If at that time the Rhine legions
were fighting with those of the Danube, and further with these and
the army of the Euphrates, it was but in keeping that the soldiers of
the second class, and above all their most distinguished troop, the
Batavian, should enter independently into this divisional warfare. Any
one who compares this movement among the cohorts of the Batavians and
the Germans on the left of the Rhine with the insurrection of those
on the right bank of the Rhine under Augustus, may not overlook the
fact, that in the later rising the alae and cohorts took up the part
of the general levy of the Cherusci; and, if the perfidious officer
of Varus released his nation from the Roman rule, the Batavian leader
acted in the commission of Vespasian; in fact, perhaps, on the secret
directions of the governor of his province privately inclined towards
Vespasian, and the rising in the first instance was directed simply
against Vitellius. It is true that the position of things was such that
this soldiers' revolt might change itself at any moment into a German
war of the most dangerous kind. The same Roman troops who covered the
Rhine against the Germans of the right bank were, in consequence of the
corps-warfare, placed in an attitude of hostility to the Germans on
the left bank; the parts were of such a nature, that it seemed almost
easier to exchange them than to carry them out. Civilis himself may
possibly have left it to depend on the sequel, whether the movement
would end in a change of emperor or in the expulsion of the Romans from
Gaul by the Germans.
[Sidenote: State of the armies on the Rhine.]
The command of the two armies on the Rhine was held at this time, after
the governor of lower Germany had been made emperor, by his former
colleague in upper Germany, Hordeonius Flaccus, a gouty man advanced in
years, without energy and without authority, either, moreover, in fact
secretly holding to Vespasian, or at any rate very much suspected of
such faithlessness by the legions, who zealously adhered to the emperor
of their own making. It is characteristic of him and of his position
that, to clear himself of the suspicion of treason, he gave orders that
the government despatches on arrival should be sent unopened to the
eagle-bearers of the legions, and these should read them in the first
instance to the soldiers, before they forwarded them to their address.
Of the four legions of the lower army which had primarily to do with
the insurgents two, the 5th and the 15th, were stationed under the
legate Munius Lupercus in the headquarters at Vetera; the 16th, under
Numisius Rufus, in Novaesium (Neuss); the 1st, under Herennius Gallus,
in Bonna (Bonn). Of the upper army, which then numbered only three
legions,[69] one, the 21st, remained in its stated quarters Vindonissa,
aloof from these events, if it had not rather been drawn off wholly to
Italy; the two others, the 4th Macedonian and the 22d, were stationed
at the headquarters Mentz, where Flaccus also was present; and in point
of fact, his able legate Dillius Vocula exercised the chief command.
The legions had throughout only half of their full complement, and most
of the soldiers were half-invalids or recruits.
[Sidenote: First conflicts.]
[Sidenote: Participation of the Germans on the right of the Rhine.]
Civilis, at the head of a small number of regular troops, but of the
collective levy of the Batavi, Cannenefates, and Frisians, advanced
from his home to the attack. In the first instance, on the Rhine he met
with remnants of the Roman garrisons driven from the northern cantons
and a division of the Roman Rhenish fleet; when he attacked them, not
merely did the ships' crews, consisting in great part of Batavians, go
over to him, but also a cohort of the Tungri--it was the first revolt
of a Gallic division; such Italian soldiers as were present were slain
or taken prisoners. This success brought at length the Germans on the
right of the Rhine into the movement. What they had long vainly hoped
for--the rising of the Roman subjects on the other bank--now came to
be fulfilled, and as well the Chauci and the Frisians on the coast,
as above all, the Bructeri on both sides of the upper Ems as far down
as the Lippe, the Tencteri on the middle Rhine opposite to Cologne,
and in lesser measure the tribes adjoining these on the south--Usipes,
Mattiaci, Chatti--threw themselves into the struggle. When, on the
orders of Flaccus, the two weak legions marched out from Vetera against
the insurgents, these could already confront them with a numerous
contingent drawn from beyond the Rhine; and the battle ended, like the
combat on the Rhine, with a defeat of the Romans through the defection
of the Batavian cavalry, which belonged to the garrison of Vetera, and
through the bad behaviour of the cavalry of the Ubii and of the Treveri.
[Sidenote: Siege of Vetera.]
The insurgents and the Germans who flocked to them proceeded to invest
and besiege the headquarters of the lower army. During this siege news
of the events on the lower Rhine reached the other Batavian cohorts
in the neighbourhood of Mentz; they at once wheeled round towards
the north. Instead of ordering them to be cut down, the weak-minded
commander-in-chief allowed them to go, and when the commandant of the
legion in Bonn sought to intercept them, Flaccus did not support him as
he might have done and had even at first promised. So the brave Germans
dispersed the Bonn legion and succeeded in joining Civilis--henceforth
the compact core of his army, in which now the banners of the
Roman cohorts stood by the side of the animal-standards from the
sacred groves of the Germans. But still the Batavian held, at least
ostensibly, by Vespasian; he swore in the Roman troops in Vespasian's
name, and summoned the garrison of Vetera to join him in declaring for
the latter. These troops, however, saw in this, probably with warrant,
a mere attempt to overreach them, and repelled it as resolutely as they
repelled the assailing hosts of the enemy, who soon found themselves
compelled by the superiority of Roman tactics to change the siege into
a blockade. But, as the leaders of the Roman army had been taken by
surprise in these events, provisions were scarce and speedy relief was
urgently called for. In order to bring it, Flaccus and Vocula set out
with their whole force from Mentz, drew to themselves on the way the
two legions from Bonna and Novaesium as well as the auxiliary troops of
the Gallic cantons appearing at the word of command in large numbers,
and approached Vetera.
[Sidenote: Vocula.]
But instead of throwing at once the whole force from within and without
on the besiegers, however great their superiority in numbers, Vocula
pitched his camp at Gelduba (Gellep on the Rhine, not far from Krefeld)
a long day's march distant from Vetera, while Flaccus lay farther back.
The worthlessness of the so-called general and the ever increasing
demoralisation of the troops, above all, the distrust towards the
officers, which frequently went so far as to maltreat and attempt to
kill them, can alone at least explain this halting. Thus the mischief
gradually thickened on all sides. All Germany seemed desirous to take
part in the war; while the besieging army constantly obtained new
contingents from that quarter, other bands passed over the Rhine,
which in this dry summer was unusually low, partly in the rear of the
Romans into the cantons of the Ubii and the Treveri to lay waste the
valley of the Moselle, partly below Vetera into the region of the Maas
and the Scheldt; further bands appeared before Mentz and made pretext
of besieging it. Then came the accounts of the catastrophe in Italy.
On the news of the second battle at Betriacum in the autumn of the
year 69 the Germanic legions gave up the cause of Vitellius as lost
and took the oath, though reluctantly, to Vespasian, perhaps in the
hope that Civilis, who had in fact inscribed the name of Vespasian on
his banners, would then make his peace. But the German swarms, who
had meanwhile poured themselves over all northern Gaul, had not come
to install the Flavian dynasty; even if Civilis had ever wished this,
he now had no longer the power. He threw off the mask, and openly
expressed--what indeed was long settled--that the Germans of north Gaul
intended, with the help of their free countrymen, to shake off the
Roman rule.
[Sidenote: Relief of Vetera.]
But the fortune of war changed. Civilis attempted to surprise the camp
of Gelduba; the attack began successfully, and the defection of the
cohorts of the Nervii brought Vocula's little band into a critical
position. Then suddenly two Spanish cohorts fell on the rear of the
Germans; what threatened to be a defeat was converted into a brilliant
victory; the flower of the assailing army remained on the field of
battle. Vocula indeed did not advance at once against Vetera, as he
possibly might have done, but he penetrated into the besieged town some
days later after a renewed vehement conflict with the enemy. It is true
that he brought no provisions; and, as the river was in the power of
the enemy, these had to be procured by the land-route from Novaesium,
where Flaccus was encamped. The first convoy passed through; but the
enemy, having meanwhile assembled again, attacked the second column
with provisions on its way, and compelled it to throw itself into
Gelduba. Vocula went off thither to its support with his troops and a
part of the old garrison of Vetera. When they had arrived at Gelduba,
the men refused to return to Vetera and to take upon themselves the
further sufferings of the siege in prospect; instead of this they
marched to Novaesium, and Vocula, who knew that the remnant of the old
garrison of Vetera was in some measure provisioned, had for good or
evil to follow.
[Sidenote: Mutiny of Roman troops.]
In Novaesium meanwhile mutiny had broken out. The soldiers had come to
learn that a largess destined for them by Vitellius had reached the
general, and compelled its distribution in the name of Vespasian. They
had scarcely received it, when, in the wild carousing which ensued upon
the largess, the old grudge of the soldiers broke out afresh; they
pillaged the house of the general who had betrayed the army of the
Rhine to the general of the Syrian legions, slew him, and would have
prepared the same fate for Vocula, if the latter had not escaped in
disguise. Thereupon they once more proclaimed Vitellius emperor, not
knowing that he was already dead. When this news came to the camp, the
better part of the soldiers, and in particular the two upper German
legions, began in some measure to reflect; they again exchanged the
effigy of Vitellius on their standards for that of Vespasian, and
placed themselves under the orders of Vocula; he led them to Mentz,
where he remained during the rest of the winter 69-70. Civilis occupied
Gelduba, and thereby cut off Vetera, which was most closely blockaded;
the camps of Novaesium and Bonna were still held.
[Sidenote: Insurrection in Gaul.]
Hitherto the Gallic land, apart from the few insurgent Germanic cantons
in the north, had kept firmly by Rome. Certainly partisanship ran
through the several cantons; among the Tungri, for example, the Batavi
had a strong body of adherents, and the bad behaviour of the Gallic
auxiliary troops during the whole campaign may probably have been in
part called forth by such a temper of hostility to the Romans. But
even among the insurgents there was a considerable party favourably
disposed to Rome; a Batavian of note, Claudius Labeo, waged a partisan
warfare not without success against his countrymen in his home and its
neighbourhood, and the nephew of Civilis, Julius Briganticus, fell in
one of these combats at the head of a band of Roman horse. All the
Gallic cantons had without more ado complied with the injunction to
send contingents; the Ubii, although of Germanic descent, were in this
war mindful simply of their Romanism, and they as well as the Treveri
had offered brave and successful resistance to the Germans invading
their territory. It is easy to understand how this was so. The position
of things in Gaul was still much as it was in the days of Caesar and
Ariovistus; a liberation of their Gallic home from the Roman dominion
by means of those hordes, which, in order to lend to Civilis the help
of his countrymen, were just then pillaging the valleys of the Moselle,
Maas, and Scheldt, was tantamount to a surrender of the land to its
Germanic neighbours; in this war, which had grown out of a feud between
two corps of Roman troops into a conflict between Rome and Germany,
the Gauls were, properly speaking, nothing but the stake and the
booty. That the tone of feeling among the Gauls, in spite of all their
well-founded general and special complaints as to the Roman government,
was predominantly anti-Germanic, and that the materials for kindling
such a national rising suddenly bursting into flame and reckless of
consequences, as had spread through the people in an earlier time, were
wanting in this Gaul now half-Romanised, events up to this time had
most clearly shown. But amidst the constant misfortunes of the Roman
army the courage of the Gauls hostile to the Romans gradually grew
stronger, and their defection completed the catastrophe. Two Treveri
of note, Julius Classicus, the commander of the Treverian cavalry, and
Julius Tutor, commandant of the garrisons on the banks of the middle
Rhine, Julius Sabinus one of the Lingones, descended, as he at least
boasted, from a bastard of Caesar, and some other men of like mind from
different cantons, professed in thoughtless Celtic fashion to discern
that the destruction of Rome was written in the stars and announced to
the world by the burning of the Capitol (Dec. 69).
[Sidenote: The Gallic empire.]
So they resolved to set aside the Roman rule and to set up a Gallic
empire. For this purpose they took the course of Arminius. Vocula
allowed himself to be really induced by falsified reports of these
Roman officers to set out, with the contingents placed under their
command and a part of the Mentz garrison, in the spring of 70 for the
lower Rhine, in order with these troops and the legions of Bonna
and Novaesium to relieve the hard-pressed Vetera. On the march from
Novaesium to Vetera, Classicus and the officers in concert with him
left the Roman army and proclaimed the new Gallic empire. Vocula led
the legions back to Novaesium; Classicus pitched his camp immediately
in front of it; Vetera could not now hold out long; the Romans could
not but expect after its fall to find themselves confronted by the
whole power of the enemy.
[Sidenote: Capitulation of the Romans.]
The Roman troops refused to face this prospect and entered into a
capitulation with the revolted officers. In vain Vocula attempted once
more to urge the ties of discipline and of honour; the legions of Rome
allowed a Roman deserter from the 1st legion to stab the brave general
on the order of Classicus, and themselves delivered up the other chief
officers in chains to the representative of the empire of Gaul, who
thereupon made the soldiers swear allegiance to that empire. The same
oath was taken at the hands of the perfidious officers by the garrison
of Vetera, which, compelled by famine, at once surrendered, and
likewise by the garrison of Mentz, where but a few individuals avoided
disgrace by flight or death. The whole proud army of the Rhine, the
first army of the empire, had surrendered to its own auxiliaries; Rome
had surrendered to Gaul.
[Sidenote: End of the Gallic empire.]
It was a tragedy, and at the same time a farce. The Gallic empire
lapsed, as it could not fail to do. Civilis and his Germans were
doubtless, in the first instance, well content that the quarrel in the
Roman camp delivered the one as well as the other half of their foes
into their hands; but he had no thought of recognising that empire, and
still less had his allies from the right bank of the Rhine.
As little would the Gauls themselves have anything to do with it--a
result, to which certainly the split between the eastern districts
and the rest of the country, which had already become apparent at the
rising of Vindex, materially contributed. The Treveri and the Lingones,
whose leading men had instigated that camp-conspiracy, stood by their
leaders, but they remained virtually alone; only the Vangiones and
Triboci joined them. The Sequani, into whose territory the Lingones
marched to induce their accession, drove them summarily homeward. The
esteemed Remi, the leading canton in Belgica, convoked the diet of the
three Gauls, and, although there was no lack there of orators on behalf
of political freedom, it resolved simply to dissuade the Treveri from
the revolt. How the constitution of the new empire would have turned
out, had it been established, it is difficult to say; we learn only
that Sabinus, the great-grandson of Caesar's concubine, named himself
also Caesar, and in this capacity allowed himself to be beaten by the
Sequani; whereas Classicus, who had not such ascendency at his command,
assumed the insignia of Roman magistracy, and thus played perhaps the
part of republican proconsul. In keeping with this there exists a coin,
which must have been struck by Classicus or his adherents, exhibiting
the head of Gallia, as the coins of the Roman republic show that of
Roma, and by its side the symbol of the legion, with the genuinely
audacious legend of "fidelity" (_fides_). At first, doubtless, on the
Rhine the imperialists, in concert with the insurgent Germans, had
full freedom. The remnants of the two legions that had capitulated in
Vetera were put to death, contrary to the terms of surrender and to the
will of Civilis; the two from Novaesium and Bonna were sent to Treves;
all the Roman camps on the Rhine, large and small, with the exception
of Mogontiacum, were burnt. The Agrippinenses found themselves in the
worst plight. The imperialists had certainly confined themselves to
requiring from them the oath of allegiance; but the Germans in this
case did not forget that they were properly speaking, the Ubii. A
message of the Tencteri from the right bank of the Rhine--this was one
of the tribes whose old home the Romans had laid desolate and used
as pasture-ground, and which had in consequence of this been obliged
to seek other abodes--demanded the razing of this chief seat of the
Germanic apostates, and the execution of all their citizens of Roman
descent. This would probably have been resolved on had not Civilis,
who was personally under obligation to them, as well as the German
prophetess Veleda in the canton of the Bructeri, who had predicted
this victory, and whose authority the whole insurgent army recognised,
interceded on their behalf.
[Sidenote: Advent of the Romans.]
The victors were not left long to contend over the booty. The
imperialists certainly gave the assurance that the civil war in Italy
had broken out, that all the provinces were overrun by the enemy,
and Vespasian was probably dead; but the heavy arm of Rome was soon
enough felt. The newly confirmed government could despatch its best
generals and numerous legions to the Rhine; and certainly an imposing
display of power was there needed. Annius Gallus took up the command
in the upper, Petillius Cerialis in the lower province; the latter, an
impetuous and often incautious, but brave and capable officer, took
the really serious action. Besides the 21st legion from Vindonissa,
five came from Italy, three from Spain, one along with the fleet from
Britain, and, in addition, a further corps from the Raetian garrison.
This and the 21st legion were the first to arrive. The imperialists
had possibly talked of blocking the passes of the Alps; but nothing
was done, and the whole country of the upper Rhine lay open as far
as Mentz. The two Mentz legions had no doubt sworn allegiance to the
Gallic empire, and at first offered resistance; but, so soon as they
perceived that a larger Roman army confronted them, they returned to
obedience, and the Vangiones and Triboci immediately followed their
example. Even the Lingones submitted--merely upon a promise of mild
treatment--without striking a blow on the part of their 70,000 men
capable of bearing arms.[70] The Treveri themselves had almost done the
same; but they were prevented from doing so by the nobility. The two
surviving legions of the lower Rhenish army that were stationed here
had, on the first news of the approach of the Romans, torn the Gallic
insignia from their standards, and withdrew to the Mediomatrici that
had remained faithful (Metz), where they submitted to the mercy of the
new general. When Cerialis arrived at the army, he found a good part of
the work already done. The insurgent leaders exerted themselves, it is
true, to the utmost--at that time by their orders the legionary legates
delivered up at Novaesium were put to death--but in a military sense
they were impotent, and their last political move--that of offering the
Roman general himself the sovereignty of the Gallic empire--was worthy
of the beginning. After a short combat Cerialis occupied the capital of
the Treveri, the leaders and the whole council having taken refuge with
the Germans. This was the end of the Gallic empire.
[Sidenote: Last struggles of Civilis.]
More serious was the struggle with the Germans. Civilis, with his
whole fighting strength, the Batavi, the contingent of the Germans,
and the refugee bands of the Gallic insurgents, suddenly assailed the
much weaker Roman army in Treves itself. The Roman camp was already
in his power, and the bridge of the Moselle occupied by him, when his
men, instead of following up the victory which they had won, began
prematurely to pillage, and Cerialis, compensating for his imprudence
by brilliant valour, restored the combat and ultimately drove the
Germans out from the camp and the town. There was no further success of
importance. The Agrippinenses again joined the Romans, and killed the
Germans, who were staying among them, in their houses; a whole Germanic
cohort encamped there was shut up and burnt in its quarters. Whatsoever
in Belgica still held to the Germans was brought back to obedience
by the legion arriving from Britain; a victory of the Cannenefates
over the Roman ships which had landed the legion, and other isolated
successes of the brave Germanic bands, above all, of the more numerous
and better managed Germanic ships, did not change the general position
of the war. On the ruins of Vetera Civilis confronted the foe; but he
had to give way to the Roman army, which had meanwhile been doubled,
and at length, after an obstinate resistance, had to leave his own
home to the enemy. As ever happens, discord ensued in the train of
misfortune. Civilis was no longer sure of his own men, and sought and
found protection from them among his opponents. Late in the autumn of
the year 70 the unequal struggle was decided; the auxiliaries now on
their part surrendered to the burgess-legions, and the priestess Veleda
went as a captive to Rome.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: Cherusci.]
[Sidenote: Langobardi.]
[Sidenote: Semnones.]
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.
That the Langobardi reinstated the Roman king of the Cherusci, has
already been mentioned. 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: Mogontiacum.]
[Sidenote: Mattiaci.]