stretches in front of the level or hilly country of the lower Rhine,
in a direction from west to east, the range of the Taunus, which abuts
on the Rhine opposite to Bingen. Parallel to this mountain-range,
shut off on the other side by the spurs of the Odenwald, stretches
the plain of the lower Main-valley, the true access to the interior
of Germany, dominated by the key of the position at the point where
the Main falls into the Rhine, Mogontiacum or Mentz, from the time of
Drusus down to the end of Rome the stronghold out of which the Romans
sallied to attack Germany from Gaul,[72] as it is at the present day
the true barrier of Germany against France. Here the Romans, even
after they had abandoned their rule in the region of the upper Rhine
generally, retained not merely the _tête-de-pont_ on the other bank,
the _castellum Mogontiacense_ (Castel), but also that plain of the Main
itself in their possession; and in this region a Roman civilisation
might establish itself. This land originally belonged to the Chatti,
and a Chattan tribe, the Mattiaci, remained settled here even under
Roman rule; but, after the Chatti were compelled to cede this district
to Drusus, it remained a part of the empire. The hot springs in the
immediate neighbourhood of Mentz (aquae Mattiacae, Wiesbaden) were
used by the Romans demonstrably in Vespasian's time, and doubtless
long before: silver was worked here under Claudius; the Mattiaci
already furnished troops to the army at an early date like other
subject districts. They took part in the general rising of the Germans
under Civilis; but, after they were vanquished, the earlier relations
were re-established. From the end of the second century we find the
community of the Taunensian Mattiaci under authorities organised after
the Roman model.[73]
[Sidenote: Chatti.]
The Chatti, although thus driven away from the Rhine, appear in the
sequel as the most powerful among the tribes of inland Germany who
came into contact with the Romans; the lead which, under Augustus and
Tiberius, had been possessed by the Cherusci on the middle Weser,
passed, amidst the constant feuds with these their southern cognate
neighbours, over to the latter. All the wars between Romans and
Germans, of which we have any knowledge from the time after the death
of Arminius down to the time when the migrations of the peoples began
at the end of the third century, were waged against the Chatti; as in
the year 41 under Claudius by Galba, who became afterwards emperor; and
in the year 50 under the same emperor by Publius Pomponius Secundus,
celebrated as a poet. These were the usual border incursions, and
the Chatti had taken a part, but only a secondary one, in the great
Batavian war (p. 133). But in the campaign which the Emperor Domitian
undertook in the year 83 the Romans were the aggressors; and this war
led, not indeed to brilliant victories, but doubtless to a considerable
and momentous pushing forward of the Roman frontier.[74] At that time
the frontier-line was arranged, as we find it thenceforth drawn; and
within that line, which in its most northern portion was not far
removed from the Rhine, must have been included a great part of the
Taunus and the region of the Main as far as above Friedberg. The
Usipes, who, after their already-mentioned expulsion from the region
of the Lippe, appear about the time of Vespasian in the neighbourhood
of Mentz, and may have found new settlements to the east of the
Mattiaci on the Kinzig or in the Fuldan district, were then annexed
to the empire, and, at the same time with them, a number of smaller
tribes thrown off by the Chatti. Thereupon, when in the year 88, under
the governor Lucius Antonius Saturninus, the upper German army rose
against Domitian, the war was on the point of renewal; the revolted
troops made common cause with the Chatti;[75] and it was only the
interruption of the communications, when the ice broke up on the Rhine,
that made it possible for the regiments which had remained faithful
to settle matters with the revolters before the dangerous contingent
arrived. It is stated that the Roman rule extended from Mentz towards
the interior 80 _leugae_, and thus even beyond Fulda;[76] and this
account appears worthy of credit, if we take into consideration that
the military frontier-line, which certainly seems not to have gone
far above Friedberg, doubtless kept here also within the territorial
boundary.
[Sidenote: The region of the Neckar.]
But not merely was the valley of the lower Main in front of Mentz
brought within the military frontier-line; in south-western Germany
also the boundary was pushed forward in a still greater degree. The
region of the Neckar, once possessed by the Celtic Helvetii, then for
long a debateable borderland between these and the advancing Germans,
and therefore named the Helvetian desert, subsequently perhaps occupied
partially by the Marcomani, before these retreated to Bohemia (p. 29),
came on the regulation of the Germanic boundaries after the battle of
Varus into the same position as the greater portion of the right bank
of the lower Rhine. Here, too, there must have been a frontier-line
already at that time marked off, within which Germanic settlements were
not tolerated. Thereupon individual, mostly Gallic, immigrants, who
had not much to lose, settled down, as on an unenclosed moor, in these
fertile but little protected regions, which went at that time by the
name of _agri decumates_.[77] This private occupation, which was, it
may be conjectured, merely tolerated by the government, was followed
by the formal taking possession of it probably under Vespasian. As
already, about the year 74, a highway was carried from Strassburg
on the right bank of the Rhine as far as Offenburg,[78] there must
have been instituted about this time in this region a more earnest
protection of the frontier than the mere prohibition of Germanic
settlement furnished. What the father had begun the sons carried
out. Perhaps even through the construction--whether by Vespasian, by
Titus, or Domitian--of the "Flavian altars"[79] at the source of the
Neckar, near the modern Rottweil--a settlement of which indeed we know
nothing but the name--there was procured for the new upper Germany on
the right of the Rhine a centre similar to what the Ubian altar was
formerly intended to become for Great Germany, and soon afterwards the
altar of Sarmizegetusa became for the newly-conquered Dacia. The first
institution of the frontier-defence, to be described further on, by
which the Neckar valley was brought within the Roman line, is thus the
work of the Flavii, chiefly, doubtless, of Domitian,[80] who thereby
carried further the construction at the Taunus. The military road
on the right of the Rhine from Mogontiacum by way of Heidelberg and
Baden in the direction of Offenburg--the necessary consequence of this
annexation of the Neckar region--was, as we now know,[81] constructed
by Trajan in the year 100, and was a part of the more direct
communication established by that emperor between Gaul and the line of
the Danube. There was employment for the soldiers at these works, but
hardly for their arms; there were no Germanic tribes dwelling in the
region of the Neckar, and still less can the narrow strip on the left
bank of the Danube, which was thereby brought within the frontier line,
have cost serious struggles. The nearest Germanic people of note there,
the Hermunduri, had more friendly dispositions towards the Romans
than any other tribe had, and carried on lively commercial intercourse
with them in the town of the Vindelici, Augusta; of the fact that this
advance met with no resistance from them, we shall find traces further
on. Under the following reigns of Hadrian, Pius, and Marcus, further
progress was made with these military arrangements.
[Sidenote: The upper Germanic Limes.]
We cannot historically follow out the mode in which the frontier-fence
between the Rhine and the Danube--still in great part subsisting as
regards its foundations at the present day--came into existence, but
we are able to recognise not merely the course which it took but also
the purpose which it served. The work was as to its nature and purpose
different in upper Germany from what it was in Raetia. The upper
German frontier-fence, with a length in all of about 250 Roman miles
(228 English miles[82]) begins immediately at the northern boundary
of the province, embraces, as has been already said, the Taunus and
the plain of the Main as far as the district of Friedberg, and turns
thence southward to the Main, which it meets at Grosskrotzenburg above
Hanau. Following the Main thence as far as Wörth, it here takes the
direction of the Neckar, which it reaches somewhat below Wimpfen and
does not again leave. Afterwards in front of the southern half of this
frontier-line a second was laid out, which follows the Main by way of
Wörth as far as Miltenberg, and thence is led for the most part in a
straight direction to Lorch between Stuttgart and Aalen. Here to the
upper German frontier-fence is joined on the Raetian, only 120 miles
(108 English) long; it leaves the Danube at Kelheim above Ratisbon and
runs thence, twice crossing the Altmuhl, in a curve westward likewise
as far as Lorch.
The upper Germanic Limes consists of a series of forts which are
distant from each other, at the most, half a day's march (about nine
English miles). Where the lines of connection between the forts are not
closed by the Main or the Neckar, as stated above, there was introduced
an artificial barrier, at first perhaps merely by a palisade,[83]
afterwards by a continuous earthen rampart of moderate height, with
a fosse outside and watch-towers built in at short intervals on the
inner side.[84] The forts are not introduced into the rampart, but
constructed immediately behind it at a distance seldom exceeding
one-third of an English mile.
[Sidenote: The Raetian Limes.]
The Raetian frontier-fence was a mere barrier, produced by piling up
quarry-stones; there were no fosses or watch-towers, and the forts,
constructed behind the Limes without regular succession and at unequal
intervals (none nearer than two and a half to three miles), stand
in no immediate connection with the barrier-line. As to the order
in time of the constructions there is no definite testimony; it is
proved that the upper Germanic line of the Neckar was in existence
under Pius,[85] that placed in front of it from Miltenberg to Lorch
under Marcus.[86] The idea of a frontier-bar was common to the two
structures, otherwise so different; the preference in the one case for
the piling up of earth--whence the fosse for the most part resulted
of itself--in the other case, for layers of stone, probably depended
only on the diversity of the soil and of the materials for building.
It was common to them, further, that neither the one nor the other was
constructed for the defence, as a whole, of the frontier. Not merely
was the hindrance, which the piling up of earth or stone presented to
the assailant, slight in itself; but along the line we meet everywhere
with commanding positions, morasses lying in the rear, a want of
outlook towards the country in front, and similar clear indications
of the fact, that in the tracing of it warlike purposes generally
were not contemplated. The forts are of course arranged for defence,
each by itself, but they are not connected by paved cross-roads; and
so the individual garrison relied for support not on those of the
neighbouring forts, but on the rear-base, to which the road led,
whereby each was kept garrisoned. Moreover, these garrisons were not
dovetailed into a military system of frontier defence; they were rather
fortified positions for a case of need than strategically chosen for
the occupation of the territory, as indeed the very extent of the line
itself, compared with the number of troops at disposal, excludes the
possibility of its defence as a whole.[87]
[Sidenote: Object of these structures.]
Thus these extensive military structures had not, like the Britannic
wall, the object of checking the invasion of the enemy. The intention
rather was, that, like the bridges over the river-frontier, so the
roads on the land-frontier should be commanded by the forts, but in
other respects, like the river as the water-boundary, so the wall on
the landward should hinder the uncontrolled crossing of the frontier.
Other uses might be combined with this; the preference, often apparent,
for the rectilineal direction points to its application for signals,
and occasionally the structure may have been used directly for
purposes of war. But the proper and immediate object of the structure
was to prevent the crossing of the frontier. The fact, withal, that
watch-posts and forts were erected, not on the Raetian but on the upper
Germanic frontier, is explained by their different relations to the
neighbours, in the former case to the Hermunduri, in the latter to the
Chatti. The Romans in upper Germany did not confront their neighbours
as they confronted the Highlanders of Britain, in whose presence the
province was always in a state of siege; but the repulse of predatory
invaders as well as the levying of the frontier-dues demanded at any
rate ready and near military help. The upper German army, and in
keeping with it the garrisons on the Limes, might be gradually reduced,
but the Roman _pilum_ could never be dispensed with in the land of
the Neckar. It might, however, be dispensed with in presence of the
Hermunduri, who, in Trajan's time, alone of all the Germans, were at
liberty to cross the frontier of the empire without special control
and to trade freely in the Roman territory, especially in Augsburg,
and with whom, so far as we know, border-collisions never took place.
There was thus at this period no occasion for a similar structure on
the Raetian frontier; the forts north of the Danube, which can be shown
to have subsisted already in Trajan's time,[88] sufficed here for the
protection of the frontier and the control of frontier-intercourse.
This accords with the observation that the Raetian Limes, as it stands
before our eyes, corresponds only with the more recent upper Germanic
barrier-line perhaps laid out for the first time under Marcus. Then
occasion for it was not wanting. The wars of the Chatti, as we shall
see (p. 161), seized at this time also on Raetia; the strengthening too
of the garrison of the province might reasonably stand in connection
with the erection of this Limes, which, however little it was arranged
for military ends, was at any rate doubtless constructed with a view to
its being a frontier-bar, though of less strong character.[89]
[Sidenote: Their effect.]
In a military as well as a political sense the shifting of the
frontier, or rather the strengthening of the frontier-fence, was
effective and useful. While formerly the Roman chain of forts in upper
Germany and Raetia probably went up the Rhine by way of Strassburg
to Basel and along by Vindonissa to the lake of Constance, then from
thence to the upper Danube, now the upper German headquarters were in
Mentz and the Raetian in Ratisbon, and generally the two chief armies
of the empire were brought considerably nearer to each other. The
legionary camp of Vindonissa (Windisch near Zürich) became thereby
superfluous. The army of the upper Rhine could, like the neighbouring
one, be reduced after some time to the half of its former strength. The
original number of four legions, which was only accidentally diminished
to three during the Batavian war, subsisted, at all events, probably
still under Trajan;[90] but under Marcus the province was only occupied
by two legions, the 8th and the 22d, of which the former was stationed
at Strassburg, the second at the headquarters Mentz, while most of
the troops, broken up into smaller posts, were stationed along the
frontier-wall. Within the new line urban life flourished almost as on
the left bank of the Rhine; Sumelocenna (Rottenburg on the Neckar),
Aquae (_civitas Aurelia Aquensis_, Baden), Lopodunum (Ladenburg), had,
if we except Cologne and Treves, to fear no comparison as respects
Roman urban development with any town of Belgica. The rise of these
settlements was chiefly the work of Trajan, who began his government
with this act of peace;[91] "the Rhine Roman on both its banks" is what
a Roman poet entreats speedily to send to Rome its yet unseen ruler.
The great and fertile region, which was placed in this way under the
protection of the legions, needed that protection and was worthy of it.
Doubtless the battle of Varus marks the beginning of the ebb of Roman
power, but only in so far as its advance was thereby ended, and the
Romans thenceforth contented themselves in general with shielding more
vigorously and continuously what was retained.
[Sidenote: Germany under Marcus.]
Down to the beginning of the third century the Roman power on the Rhine
showed no indications of tottering. During the war with the Marcomani
under Marcus all remained quiet in the lower province. If a legate
of Belgica had at that time to call out the general levy against the
Chauci, this was presumably a piratical expedition, such as often
visited the north coast at this time, just as earlier and later. The
surge of the great movement of peoples reached to the sources of the
Danube and even as far as the region of the Rhine; but it did not shake
the foundations there. The Chatti, the only considerable Germanic
tribe on the upper German and Raetian border-fence, pushed forward in
both directions, and were probably at that time even among the Germans
invading Italy, as will be shown further on when we describe this war.
At any rate the reinforcement of the Raetian army at that time ordained
by Marcus, and its conversion into a command of the first class with
legion and legates, can only have taken place in order to check the
attacks of the Chatti, and proves that they did not treat them lightly
as regards the future. The already-mentioned strengthening of the
border-defence would likewise stand connected with this movement. These
measures must have sufficed for the next generation.
[Sidenote: War with the Alamanni.]
[Sidenote: Severus Antoninus.]
[Sidenote: Alexander.]
Under Antoninus the son of Severus a new and more severe war once more
(213) broke out in Raetia. This also was waged against the Chatti; but
by their side a second people is named, which we here meet for the
first time--the Alamanni. Whence they came, we know not. According to a
Roman writing a little later they were a conflux of mixed elements; the
appellation also seems to point to a league of communities, as well as
the fact that afterwards the different tribes comprehended under this
name stand forth--more than is the case among the other great Germanic
peoples--in their separate character, and the Juthungi, the Lentienses,
and other Alamannic peoples not seldom act independently. But that it
is not the Germans of this region who here emerge allied under the
new name and strengthened by the alliance, is shown as well by the
naming of the Alamanni alongside of the Chatti, as by the mention of
the unwonted skilfulness of the Alamanni in equestrian combat. On the
contrary it was certainly, in the main, hordes coming on from the East
that lent new strength to the almost extinguished German resistance on
the Rhine; it is not improbable that the powerful Semnones, in earlier
times dwelling on the middle Elbe, of whom there is no further mention
after the end of the second century, furnished a strong contingent to
the Alamanni. The constantly increasing misgovernment in the Roman
empire naturally contributed its share, although only in a secondary
degree, to the shifting of power. The emperor took the field in person
against the new foe; in August of the year 213 he crossed the Roman
frontier, and a victory over them on the Main was achieved or at least
celebrated; further forts were constructed; the tribes of the Elbe and
of the North Sea sent deputies to the Roman ruler, and wondered when
in receiving them he wore their own dress, with silver-mounted jacket,
and hair and beard coloured and arranged after the German fashion. But
thenceforth the wars on the Rhine are incessant, and the aggressors
are the Germans; the neighbours formerly so pliant had as it were
exchanged characters. Twenty years later the inroads of the barbarians
on the Danube as on the Rhine were so constant and so serious, that
the emperor Alexander had on their account to break off the less
immediately dangerous Persian war and to resort in person to the camp
of Mentz, not so much to defend the territory as to purchase peace from
the Germans by large sums of money. The exasperation of the soldiers
at this led to his murder (A.D. 235), and thereby to the fall of the
Severian dynasty, the last that existed at all until the regeneration
of the state.
[Sidenote: Maximinus.]
[Sidenote: The Franks.]
His successor Maximinus, a rough but brave Thracian who had risen
from the position of a common soldier, compensated for the cowardly
conduct of his predecessor by an energetic expedition into the heart
of Germany. The barbarians did not yet venture to face a strong and
well-led Roman army; they retreated to their forests and morasses, and
the brave emperor, following them even thither, fought in front of all
hand to hand. From these conflicts, which were doubtless directed from
Mentz primarily against the Alamanni, he could with right call himself
Germanicus; and even for the future the expedition of the year 236, for
long the last great victory which the Romans gained on the Rhine, bore
some fruit. Although the constant and bloody changes on the throne and
the grave disasters in the East and on the Danube allowed the Romans
no time to breathe, during the next twenty years, if peace was not
strictly preserved on the Rhine a greater disaster did not occur. It
appears even that one of the upper German legions was at that time
sent to Africa without its place being supplied, and so upper Germany
was held as tolerably secure. But when in the year 253 the different
generals of Rome were once more fighting each other for the imperial
dignity, and the Rhine-legions marched to Italy to fight out the cause
of their emperor Valerianus against the Aemilianus of the Danube-army,
this seems to have been the signal[92] for the Germans pushing forward
especially towards the lower Rhine.[93] These Germans were the Franks,
who appear here for the first time, perhaps new opponents only in name;
for, although the identification of them, already to be met with in
later antiquity, with tribes formerly named on the lower Rhine--partly,
the Chamavi settled beside the Bructeri, partly the Sugambri formerly
mentioned subject to the Romans--is uncertain and at least inadequate,
there is here greater probability than in the case of the Alamanni that
the Germans hitherto dependent on Rome on the right bank of the Rhine,
and the Germanic tribes previously dislodged from the Rhine, took at
that time--under the collective name of the "Free"--the offensive in
concert against the Romans.
[Sidenote: Gallienus.]
[Sidenote: Postumus.]
So long as Gallienus himself remained on the Rhine, he, notwithstanding
the small forces that were at his disposal, kept his opponents to some
extent in check, prevented them from crossing the river, or drove
out again the intruders, although he doubtless ceded to one of the
Germanic leaders a portion of the desired territory on the river-bank,
under the condition of his acknowledging the Roman rule and defending
his possession against his countrymen--which indeed almost amounted
to a capitulation. But when the emperor, recalled by the still more
dangerous position of affairs on the Danube, resorted thither and left
behind as representative in Gaul his elder son still in boyhood, one of
the officers, to whom he had intrusted the defence of the frontier and
the guardianship of his son, Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus,[94]
got himself proclaimed by his men as emperor and besieged in Cologne
Silvanus the guardian of the emperor's son. He was successful in
capturing the town and in getting into his power his former colleague
as well as the imperial boy, whereupon he had them both executed.
But during this confusion the Franks burst over the Rhine, and not
merely overflowed all Gaul, but penetrated also into Spain and indeed
pillaged even the coast of Africa. Soon afterwards, when the capture
of Valerian by the Persians had filled up the measure of misfortune,
all the Roman land on the left bank of the Rhine in the upper province
was lost, passing doubtless to the Alamanni, whose eruption into Italy
in the last years of Gallienus necessarily presupposes this loss. He
is the last emperor whose name is found on monuments on the right of
the Rhine. His coins celebrate him on account of five great victories
over the Germans, and not less are those of his successor in the
Gallic rule, Postumus, full of the praise of the German victories of
the deliverer of Gaul. Gallienus in his earlier years had taken up the
struggle on the Rhine not without energy, and Postumus was even an
excellent officer and would gladly have been a good regent; but amidst
the utter unruliness which then prevailed in the Roman state or rather
in the Roman army, the talent and ability of the individual profited
neither himself nor the commonwealth. A series of flourishing Roman
towns was at that time laid desolate by the invading barbarians, and
the right bank of the Rhine was for ever lost to the Romans.
[Sidenote: Aurelianus.]
The re-establishment of peace and order in Gaul was primarily dependent
on the cohesion of the empire generally; so long as the Italian
emperors stationed their troops in the Narbonensis to set aside the
Gallic rival, and the latter in turn made as though he would cross
the Alps, effective operations against the Germans were of themselves
excluded. It was only after that, about the year 272,[95] the then
ruler of Gaul, Tetricus, weary of his ungrateful part, had himself
brought about the submission of his troops to Aurelianus, the emperor
recognised by the Roman senate, that the thought of warding off the
Germans could be again entertained. The raids of the Alamanni, who had
for almost ten years ravaged upper Italy as far down as Ravenna, had
a stop put to them for long by the same able ruler who had brought
Gaul back to the empire, and he emphatically defeated one of their
tribes, the Juthungi, on the upper Danube. If his government had lasted
he would doubtless have renewed the protection of the frontier also
in Gaul; after his speedy and sudden end (275) the Germans once more
crossed the Rhine and devastated the country far and wide.
[Sidenote: Probus.]
His successor Probus (from 276), also an able soldier, not merely drove
them out afresh--he is said to have taken from them seventy towns--but
also advanced again on the aggressive, crossed the Rhine, and drove
the Germans back over the Neckar. He did not, however, renew the lines
of the earlier time,[96] but contented himself with erecting and
occupying at the more important positions of the Rhine _têtes de pont_
on the other bank,--that is, he reverted nearly to such arrangements
as had subsisted here before Vespasian. At the same time the Franks
were defeated by his generals in the northern province. Great masses
of the vanquished Germans were sent as forced settlers to Gaul, and
above all to Britain. In this way the frontier of the Rhine was won
back and handed over to the later empire. No doubt, like the rule on
the right bank of the Rhine, peace on the left had passed away beyond
recall. The Alamanni stood in a threatening attitude opposite to
Basel and Strassburg, the Franks opposite to Cologne. By their side
other tribes presented themselves. The fact that the Burgundiones,
once settled beyond the Elbe, advancing westward as far as the upper
Main, threatened Gaul, is first mentioned under the emperor Probus; a
few years later the Saxons, in concert with the Franks, began their
attacks by sea on the north coast of Gaul as on the Roman Britain.
But under the--for the most part--vigorous and capable emperors of
the Diocletiano-Constantinian house, and even under their immediate
successors, the Romans kept the threatening inundation of peoples
within measured bounds.
[Sidenote: Romanising of the Germans.]
To depict the Germans in their national development is not the task
of the historian of the Romans; for him they appear only as hindering
or as destroying. An interpenetration of the two nationalities, and a
mixed culture thence resulting, such as the Romanised land of the Celts
presented, Roman Germany has none to show; or--so far as concerns our
conception of it--it coincides with the Romano-Gallic all the more,
since the Germanic territories on the left bank of the Rhine, which
remained for a considerable time in the Roman possession, were pervaded
throughout with Celtic elements, and even those on the right, deprived
for the most part of their original population, obtained the majority
of the new settlers from Gaul. Communal centres, such as the Celtic
system possessed in large number, were wanting to the German element.
Partly on that account, partly in consequence of outward circumstances,
the Roman element was able, as has been already brought out (p. 102),
to develop itself sooner and more fully in the Germanic east than in
the Celtic regions. The encampments of the army of the Rhine, all
of which fell within Roman Germany, were of essential influence in
this respect. The larger of them obtained, partly through the traders
who attached themselves to the army, partly, and above all, through
the veterans who remained in their wonted quarters even after their
discharge, an urban appendage--a town of huts (_canabae_), separate
from the military quarters proper; everywhere, and particularly in
Germany, towns proper grew in time out of these at the legionary camps
and especially the headquarters. At their head stood the Roman town of
the Ubii, originally the second largest camp of the army of the lower
Rhine, then from the year 50 onward a Roman colony (p. 99), exercising
the most important effect in elevating Roman civilisation in the region
of the Rhine. Here the camp-town gave place to that of the Roman
plantation; subsequently urban rights were obtained, without shifting
the quarters of the troops, by the settlements belonging to the two
great camps of the lower Rhine--Ulpia Noviomagus, in the land of the
Batavi, and Ulpia Traiana, near Vetera--from Trajan, and in the third
century by the military capital of upper Germany, Mogontiacum. No doubt
these civil towns always retained a subordinate position by the side of
the military centres of administration independent of them.
[Sidenote: Roman Germanising.]
If we look beyond the limit where this narrative closes, we certainly
find, instead of the Romanising of the Germans, in some measure a
Germanising of the Romans. The last phase of the Roman state was
marked by its becoming barbarian, and especially becoming Germanised;
and the beginnings of the process reach far back. It commences with
the peasantry in the colonate, passes on to the troop as modelled by
the emperor Severus, seizes then on the officers and magistrates,
and ends with the hybrid Romano-Germanic states of the Visigoths in
Spain and Gaul, the Vandals in Africa, above all, with the Italy of
Theoderic. For the understanding of this last phase there is certainly
needed an insight into the political development of the one as of the
other nation. Unfortunately, the enquiry into early German history is
here at fault. It is true that the political arrangements into which
these Germans entered as servants or joint rulers are well known, far
better than the systematic history of the same epoch. But over the
primitive condition of the Germans floats that gray morning-haze in
which sharp outlines are lost. German heathenism, apart from the far
north, perished before the time of which we have knowledge; and the
religious elements, which are never wanting in a national war, we know
doubtless for the Sassanidae, but not for the Marcomani. The beginnings
of the political development of the Germans are delineated for us in
part by the picture of Tacitus--many-coloured, hampered by modelling
itself on the ideas of a fading past, and but too often keeping silence
as to elements of really decisive moment--while in part we must take
them from the hybrid states which arose on formerly Roman soil and had
Roman elements everywhere inwoven. Here our records seldom give us
German technical terms, but substitute Latin descriptions which are
plainly inadequate, and here, in general, we miss those sharply-defined
ideas which our studies of classical history offer us in plenty. It is
characteristic of our German nation that it has not been permitted to
develop itself by German effort from German origins, and we may connect
with this the fact that German scholarship has studied the beginnings
and characters of other nations with more success than it has won in
the study of its own.
Footnotes.
[62: This division of a province among three governors is without
parallel elsewhere in Roman administration. The relation of Africa
and Numidia offers doubtless an external analogy, but was politically
conditioned by the position of the senatorial governor to the
imperial military commandant, while the three governors of Belgica
were uniformly imperial; and it is not at all easy to see why the
two Germanic ones had districts within the Belgica assigned to them
instead of districts of their own. Nothing but the taking back of the
frontier, while the hitherto subsisting name was retained--just as
the Transdanubian Dacia continued subsequently to subsist in name as
Cis-Danubian--explains this singular peculiarity.]
[63: The strength of the _auxilia_ of the upper army may be fixed for
the epoch of Domitian and Trajan with tolerable certainty at about
10,000 men. A document of the year 90 enumerates four _alae_ and
fourteen _cohortes_ of this army; to these is to be added at least one
cohort (_I Germanorum_), which, it can be shown, did garrison-duty
there as well in the year 82 as in the year 116; whether two _alae_
which were there in the year 82, and at least three cohorts which
were there in 116, and which are absent from the list of the year 90,
were doing garrison work there in 90 or not, is doubtful, but most
of them probably were away from the province before 90 or only came
into it after 90. Of those nineteen _auxilia_ one was certainly (_coh.
I Damascenorum_), another perhaps (_ala I Flavia gemina_), a double
division. At the minimum, therefore, the figure indicated above results
as the normal state of the _auxilia_ of this army, and it cannot have
been materially exceeded. But the _auxilia_ of lower Germany, whose
garrisons were less extended, may well have been smaller in number.]
[64: At the frontier bridge over the rivulet Abrinca, now Vinxt, the
old boundary of the archdioceses of Cologne and Treves, stood two
altars, that on the side of Remagen dedicated to the Boundaries, the
Spirit of the place, and Jupiter (_Finibus et Genio loci et Iovi optimo
maximo_) by soldiers of the 30th lower German legion; the other on the
side of Andernach, dedicated to Jupiter, the Genius of the place, and
Juno, by a soldier of the 8th Upper Germanic (Brambach, 649, 650).]
[65: _Limes_ (from _limus_, across) is a technical expression foreign
to the state of things under our [German] law, and hence not to be
reproduced in our language, derived from the fact that the Roman
division of land, which excludes all natural boundaries, separates
the squares, into which the ground coming under the head of private
property is divided, by intermediate paths of a definite breadth;
these intermediate paths are the _limites_, and so far the word
always denotes at once the boundary drawn by man's hand, and the road
constructed by man's hand. The word retains this double signification
even in application to the state (Rudorff, _Grom. Inst._ p. 289, puts
the matter incorrectly); _limes_ is not every imperial frontier,
but only that which is marked out by human hands, and arranged at
the same time for being patrolled and having posts stationed for
frontier-defence (_Vita Hadriani_, 12; _locis in quibus barbari non
fluminibus, sed limitibus dividuntur_), such as we find in Germany
and in Africa. Therefore there are applied to the laying-out of
this _limes_ the terms that serve to designate the construction of
roads, _aperire_ (Velleius, ii. 121, which is not to be understood,
as Müllenhoff, _Zeitschr. f. d. Alterth._, new series, ii. p. 32,
would have it, like our opening of a turnpike), _munire_, _agere_
(Frontinus, _Strat._ i. 3, 10: _limitibus per CXX m. p. actis_).
Therefore the _limes_ is not merely a longitudinal line, but also of
a certain breadth (Tacitus, _Ann._ i. 50; _castra in limite locat_).
Hence the construction of the _limes_ is often combined with that of
the _agger_--that is, of the road-embankment (Tacitus, _Ann._ ii. 7:
_cuncta novis limitibus aggeribusque permunita_), and the shifting
of it with the transference of frontier-posts (Tacitus, _Germ._ 29:
_limite acto promotisque praesidiis_). The Limes is thus the imperial
frontier-road, destined for the regulation of frontier-intercourse,
inasmuch as the crossing of it was allowed only at certain points
corresponding to the bridges of the river boundary, and elsewhere
forbidden. This was doubtless effected in the first instance by
patrolling the line, and, so long as this was done, the _limes_
remained a boundary road. It remained so too, when it was fortified
on both sides, as was done in Britain and at the mouth of the Danube;
the Britannic wall is also termed _limes_ (p. 187, note 2). Posts
might also be stationed at the allowed points of crossing, and the
intervening spaces of the frontier-roads might be in some way rendered
impassable. In this sense the biographer of Hadrian says in the
above-quoted passage that at the _limites_ he _stipitibus magnis in
modum muralis saepis funditus iactis atque conexis barbaros separavit_.
By this means the frontier-road was converted into a frontier-barricade
provided with certain passages through it, and such was the _limes_ of
upper Germany in the developed shape to be set forth in the sequel.
We may add that the word is not used with this special import in the
time of the republic; and beyond doubt this conception of the _limes_
only originated with the institution of the chain of posts enclosing
the state, where natural boundaries were wanting--a protection of the
imperial frontier, which was foreign to the republic, but was the
foundation of the Augustan military system, and above all, of the
Augustan system of tolls.]
[66: The Sugambri transplanted to the left bank are not subsequently
mentioned under this name, and are probably the Cugerni dwelling
below Cologne on the Rhine. But that the Sugambri on the right bank,
whom Strabo mentions, were at least still in existence in the time of
Claudius, is shown by the cohort named after this emperor, and thus
certainly formed under him, doubtless of Sugambri (_C. I. L._ iii. p.
877); and they, as well as the four other probably Augustan cohorts of
this name, confirm what Strabo also in a strict sense says, that these
Sugambri belonged to the Roman empire. They disappeared doubtless, like
the Mattiaci, only amidst the tempests of the migration of nations.]
[67: The fortress of Niederbiber, not far from the point at which the
Wied falls into the Rhine, as well as that of Arzbach, near Montabaur,
in the region of the Lahn, belong to upper Germany. The special
significance of the former stronghold, the largest fortress in upper
Germany, turned on the fact that it, in a military point of view,
closed the Roman lines on the right bank of the Rhine.]
[68: The levies (_Eph. Epigr._ v. p. 274) require us to assume this,
while the Frisians, as they come forward in the year 58 (Tacitus,
_Ann._ xiii. 54) rather appear independent; the elder Pliny also (_H.
N._ xxv. 3, 22) under Vespasian names them, looking back to the time
of Germanicus, as _gens tum fida_. Probably this is connected with the
distinction between the _Frisii_ and _Frisiavones_ in Pliny, _H. N._
iv. 15, 101, and between the _Frisii maiores_ and _minores_ in Tacitus,
_Germ._ 34. The Frisians that remained Roman would be the western; the
free, the eastern; if the Frisians generally reach as far as the Ems
(Ptolem. iii. 11, 7), those subsequently Roman may have settled perhaps
to the westward of the Yssel. We may not put them elsewhere than on the
coast that still bears their name; the designation in Pliny, iv. 17,
106, stands isolated, and is beyond doubt incorrect.]
[69: The fourth upper German legion was sent in the year 58 to Asia
Minor on account of the Armeno-Parthian war (Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 35).]
[70: Frontinus, _Strat._ iv. 3, 14. In their territory the advancing
troops must have constructed a reserve station and a depot; according
to tiles recently found near Mirabeau-sur-Bèze, about fourteen miles
north-east of Dijon, men of at least five of the advancing legions had
executed buildings here (_Hermes_, xix. 437).]
[71: Under the legate Q. Acutius Nerva, who was probably the consul of
the year 100, and so administered lower Germany after that year, there
were stationed, according to inscriptions of Brohl (Brambach, 660,
662, 679, 680), in this province four legions, the 1st Minervia, 6th
Victrix, 10th Gemina, 22d Primigenia. As each of these inscriptions
names only two or three, the garrison may then have consisted only of
three legions, if during the governorship of Acutius the 1st Minervia
came in place of the 22d Primigenia drafted off elsewhere. But it is
far more probable--seeing that all the legions were not always taking
part in the detachments to the stone quarries at Brohl--that these four
legions were doing garrison-duty at the same time in lower Germany.
These four legions are probably just those that came to lower Germany
on the reorganisation of the Germanic armies by Vespasian (p. 159
note), only that the 1st Minervia was put by Domitian in the place of
the 21st, probably broken up by him.]
[72: According to the ingenious decipherings of Zangemeister
(_Westdeutsche Zeitschrift_, iii. 307 ff), it is established that a
military road was already laid out under Claudius on the left bank
of the Rhine from Mentz as far as the frontier of the upper German
province.]
[73: The full name _c(ivitas) M(attiacorum) Ta(unensium)_ appears
on the inscription of Castel in Brambach, _C. I. Rh._ 1330; it
occurs frequently as _civitas Mattiacorum_ or _civitas Taunensium_,
with Duoviri, Aediles, Decuriones, Sacerdotales, Seviri; peculiar
and characteristic of a frontier town are the _hastiferi civitatis
Mattiacorum_, probably to be taken as a municipal militia (Brambach,
1336). The oldest dated document of this community is of the year 198
(Brambach, 956).]
[74: The accounts of this war have been lost; its time and place
admit of being determined. As the coins give to Domitian the title
_Germanicus_ after the beginning of the year 84 (Eckhel, vi. 378,
397), the campaign falls in the year 83. Accordant with this is the
levy of the Usipes, which falls on this same year, and their desperate
attempt at flight (Tacitus, _Agr._ 28; comp. Martialis, vi. 60). It was
an aggressive war (Suetonius, _Dom._ 6: _expeditio sponte suscepta_;
Zonaras, xi. 19; λεηλατήσας τινὰ τῶν πέραν Ῥήνου τῶν ἐνσπόνδων). The
shifting of the line of posts is attested by Frontinus, who took part
in the war, _Strat._ ii. 11, 7: _cum in finibus Cubiorum_ (name unknown
and probably corrupt) _castella poneret_, and i. 3, 10: _limitibus per
cxx. m. p. actis_, which is here brought into immediate connection
with the military operations, and hence may not be separated from the
Chattan war itself and referred to the _agri decumates_, which had
for long been in the Roman power. The measure of 108 miles is very
conceivable for the military line which Domitian planned at the Taunus
(according to Cohausen's estimates, _Röm. Grenzwall_, p. 8, the later
Limes from the Rhine round the Taunus as far as the Main is set down at
137 miles), but is much too small to admit of its being referred to the
line of connection from thence to Ratisbon.]
[75: The Germans (Suetonius, _Dom._ 6) could only be the Chatti, and
their earlier allies, perhaps in the first instance just the Usipes and
those sharing their fate. The insurrection broke out in Mentz, which
alone was a double camp of two legions. Saturninus was assailed from
Raetia by the troops of L. Appius Maximus Norbanus. For the epigram of
Martial, ix. 84, cannot be understood otherwise, the more especially
as his conqueror, of senatorial rank as he was, could not administer
a regular command in Raetia and Vindelicia, and could only be led
into this region by a case of war emerging, as indeed the _sacrilegi
furores_ clearly point to the insurrection. The tiles of this same
Appius, which have been found in the provinces of upper Germany and
Aquitania, do not warrant the making him legate of the Lugdunensis,
as Asbach (_Westdeutsche Zeitschrift_, iii. 9), suggests, but must be
referred to the epoch after the defeat of Antonius (_Hermes_, xix.
438). Where the battle was fought remains doubtful; the region of
Vindonissa most naturally suggests itself, to which point Saturninus
may have gone to meet Norbanus. Had Norbanus encountered the insurgents
only at Mentz, which in itself seems conceivable, these would have had
the crossing of the Rhine in their power, and the contingent of the
Germans could not have been hindered by the breaking-up of the Rhine
from reinforcing them.]
[76: The detached notice is found subjoined to the Veronese provincial
list (_Notitia dignitatum_, ed. Seeck, p. 253): _nomina civitatum trans
Renum fluvium quae sunt; Usiphorum_ (read _Usiporum_)--_Tuvanium_ (read
_Tubantum_)--_Nictrensium--Novarii--Casuariorum: istae omnes civitates
trans Renum in formulam Belgicae primae redactae trans castellum
Montiacese: nam lxxx. leugas trans Renum Romani possederunt. Istae
civitates sub Gallieno imperatore a barbaris occupatae sunt_. That
the Usipes afterwards dwelt in this region, is confirmed by Tacitus,
_Hist._ iv. 37, _Germ._ 32; that they belonged to the empire in the
year 83, but had perhaps been made subject only shortly before, is
plain from the narrative, _Agr._ 28. The Tubantes and Chasuarii are
placed by Ptolemy, ii. 11, 11, in the vicinity of the Chatti; that
they shared the fate of the Usipes is accordingly probable. No certain
identification of the other two corrupt names has hitherto been
found; perhaps the Tencteri had a place here, or some of the small
tribes named with these only in Ptolemy, ii. 11, 6. The notice in its
original form named Belgica simply, as the province was only divided
by Diocletian, and named it rightly in so far as the two Germanies
belonged geographically to Belgica. The specified measurement carries
us, if we follow the Kinzig valley to the north-east, beyond Fulda
nearly to Hersfeld. Inscriptions have been found here far eastward
beyond the Rhine, as far as the Wetterau; Friedberg and Butzbach were
military positions strongly garrisoned; at Altenstadt between Friedberg
and Büdingen there has been found an inscription of the year 242
(Brambach, _C. I. Rh._ 1410) pointing to protection of the frontier
(_collegium iuventutis_).]
[77: What the designation _agri decumates_ (for the latter word is
at anyrate to be connected with _agri_) occurring only in Tacitus,
_Germ._ 29, means, is uncertain. It is possible that the territory
regarded in the earlier imperial period certainly as property of the
state or rather of the emperor, like the old _ager occupatorius_ of
the republic, might be used by the first who took possession upon
payment of the tenth; but neither is it linguistically proved that
_decumas_ can mean "liable for a tenth," nor are we acquainted with
such arrangements in the imperial period. Moreover it should not be
overlooked that the description of Tacitus refers to the time before
the institution of the line of the Neckar; it does not suit the latter
period any more than does the designation, which doubtless is not
clear, but is at any rate certainly connected with the earlier legal
relation.]
[78: This has been proved by Zangemeister (_Westdeutsche Zeitschrift_,
iii. p. 246).]
[79: The fact that here several altars were dedicated, while elsewhere
at these central sanctuaries only one is mentioned, may be explained
perhaps by the cultus of Roma falling into the background by the side
of that of the emperors. If at the very outset several altars were
erected, which is probable, perhaps one of the sons caused altars to
be set up as well to his father and perhaps his brother as to his own
Genius.]
[80: That the transfer took place shortly before Tacitus wrote the
Germania in the year 98, he himself states, and that Domitian was its
author, follows from the fact that he does not name the author.]
[81: This, too, has been documentarily established by Zangemeister
(_Westdeutsche Zeitschrift_, iii. 237 f.).]
[82: This measurement holds for the line of forts from Rheinbrohl
to Lorch (Cohausen, _der Röm. Grenzwall_, p. 7 f.). For the earthen
rampart there falls to be deducted the stretch of the Main from
Miltenberg to Grosskrotzenburg, of about thirty Roman miles. In the
case of the older line of the Neckar the rampart is considerably
shorter, since, instead of that from Miltenberg to Lorch, here comes in
the much shorter one of the Odenwald from Wörth to Wimpfen.]
[83: If, as is probable, the statement that Hadrian blocked the
imperial frontier-roads by palisades against the barbarians (p. 122)
relates in part and perhaps primarily to the upper Germanic, the wall,
of which remains are extant, was not his work; whether this may have
carried palisades or not, no report would mention these and pass over
the wall itself. Dio. lxix. 9, says that Hadrian revised the defence
of the frontier throughout the empire. The designation of the pale
[_Pfahl_] or pale-ditch [_Pfahlgraben_] cannot be Roman; in Latin the
stakes, which, driven into the wall of the camp, form a palisade-chain
for it, are called not _pali_, but _valli_ or _sudes_, just as the wall
itself is never other than _vallum_. If the designation in use from of
old for this purpose apparently along the whole line among the Germans
was really borrowed from the palisades, it must have been of Germanic
origin, and can only have proceeded from the time when this wall stood
before their eyes in its integrity and significance. Whether the
"region" Palas which Ammianus mentions (xviii. 2, 15) is connected with
this is doubtful.]
[84: In such an one recently discovered between the forts of Schlossau
and Hesselbach, 1850 yards from the former, about three miles from the
latter, there has been found a votive inscription (_Korrespondenzblatt
der Westdeutschen Zeitschrift_, 1 Jul. 1884), which the troop
that built it--a detachment of the 1st cohort of the Sequani and
Raurici under command of a centurion of the 22d legion, erected as a
thanksgiving _ob burgum explic(itum)_. These towers thus were _burgi_.]
[85: The oldest dated evidence for these is two inscriptions of the
garrison of Böckingen, opposite Heilbronn, on the left bank of the
Neckar of the year 148 (Brambach, _C. I. Rh._ 1583, 1590).]
[86: The oldest dated evidence for the existence of this line is the
inscription of _vicus Aurelii_ (Oehringen) of the year 169 (Brambach,
_C. I. Rh._ 1558), doubtless only private, but certainly not set up
before the construction of this fort belonging to the Miltenberg-Lorch
line; little later is that of Jagsthausen, likewise belonging to that
line, of the year 179 (_C. I. Rh._ 1618). Accordingly _vicus Aurelii_
might take its name from Marcus, not from Caracalla, though it is
attested of the latter that he constructed various forts in these
regions and named them after himself (Dio, lxxvi. 13).]
[87: As to the distribution of the upper German troops there is a
want of sufficient information, but not entirely of data on which to
rest. Of the two headquarters in upper Germany, that of Strassburg
can be shown to have been after the construction of the line of the
Neckar occupied but weakly, and was probably more an administrative
than a military centre (_Westdeutsches Correspondenzblatt_, 1884,
p. 132). On the other hand, the garrison of Mentz always demanded a
considerable portion of the aggregate strength, all the more because it
was probably the only compact body of troops on a large scale in all
upper Germany. The other troops were distributed partly to the Limes,
whose forts, according to Cohausen's estimate (_Röm. Grenzwall_, p.
335), were on an average five miles apart from one another, and so in
all about fifty; partly to the interior forts, especially on the line
of the Odenwald from Gündelsheim to Wörth; that the latter, at least
in part, remained occupied even after the laying out of the outer
Limes, is at least probable. Owing to the inequality in size of the
forts still measurable, it is difficult to say what number of troops
was required to make them capable of defence. Cohausen (_l.c._ p.
340) reckons to a middle-sized fort, including the reserve, 720 men.
As the usual cohort of the legion as of the auxiliaries numbered 500
men, and the fort-buildings must necessarily have had regard to this
fact, the garrison of the fort in the event of siege must be estimated
on an average at least at this number. After the reduction the upper
German army could not possibly have held the forts, even of the Limes
alone, simultaneously in this strength. Much less could it, even before
the reduction, have kept the lines between the forts even barely
occupied with its 30,000 men (p. 119); and, if this was not possible,
the simultaneous occupation of all the forts had in fact no object.
To all appearance each fort was planned in such a way that, when duly
garrisoned, it could be held; but, as a rule--and on this frontier
the state of peace was the rule--the individual fort was not on a
war-footing, but only furnished with troops, in so far that posts might
be stationed in the watch-towers, and the roads as well as the byways
might be kept under inspection. The standing garrisons of the forts
were, it may be conjectured, very much weaker than is usually assumed.
We possess from antiquity but a single record of such a garrison; it
is of the year 155, and relates to the fort of Kutlowitza, to the
north of Sofia (_Eph. Epigr._ iv. p. 524), for which the army of lower
Moesia, and in fact the 11th legion, furnished the garrison. This troop
numbered at that time, besides the centurion in command, only 76 men.
The Raetian army was, at least before Marcus, still less in a position
to occupy extensive lines; it numbered then at the most 10,000 men, and
had, besides the Raetian Limes, to supply also the line of the Danube
from Ratisbon to Passau.]
[88: This is proved by the document of Trajan of the year 107, found at
Weissenburg.]
[89: The investigations hitherto as to the Raetian Limes have but
little cleared up the destination of this work; this only is made
out that it was less adapted than the analogous upper German one
for military occupation. A weaker frontier-bar of that sort may
reasonably, even before the Marcomanian war, have been chosen to face
the Hermunduri; nor does what Tacitus says of their intercourse in
Augusta Vindelicum by any means exclude the existence at that time of a
Raetian Limes. Only in that case we should expect that it would not end
at Lorch, but would join the line of the Neckar; and in some measure it
does this, inasmuch as at Lorch instead of the Limes comes the Rems,
which falls into the Neckar at Canstatt.]
[90: Of the seven legions which at Nero's death were stationed in
the two Germanies (p. 132), Vespasian broke up five; there remained
the 21st and the 22d, to which, thereupon, were added the seven or
eight legions introduced for the suppression of the revolt, the 1st
Adiutrix, 2d Adiutrix, 6th Victrix, 8th and 10th Gemina, 11th, 13th
(?), and 14th. Of these, after the close of the war, the 1st Adiutrix
was sent probably to Spain (p. 65, note), the 2d Adiutrix probably to
Britain (p. 174, note 4), the 13th Gemina (if this came to Germany
at all) to Pannonia; the other seven remained, namely, in the lower
province the 6th, 10th, 21st, and 22d (p. 147, note), in the upper the
8th, 11th, and 14th. To the latter was probably added in the year 88
the 1st Adiutrix, once more sent from Spain to upper Germany (p. 65
note). That under Trajan the 1st Adiutrix and the 11th were stationed
in upper Germany is shown by the inscription of Baden-Baden (Brambach,
_C. I. Rh._ 1666). The 8th and the 14th, it can be shown, both came
with Cerialis to Germany, and both did garrison duty there for a
considerable period.]
[91: Traian was sent by Nerva in the year 96 or 97 as legate to
Germany, probably to the upper, as at that time Vestricius Spurinna
seems to have presided over the lower. Nominated here as co-regent in
October of the year 97, he received the accounts of Nerva's death and
of his nomination as the Augustus in February 98 at Cologne. He may
have remained there during the winter and the following summer; in the
winter 98-99 he was on the Danube. The words of Eutropius, viii. 2:
_urbes trans Rhenum in Germania reparavit_ (whence the often misused
notice in Orosius, vii. 12, 2, has been copied), which can only be
referred to the upper province, but naturally apply not to the legate,
but to the Caesar or the Augustus, obtain a confirmation through the
_civitas Ulpia s(altus?) N(icerini?) Lopodunum_ of the inscriptions.
The "restoration" may stand in contrast not to the institutions of
Domitian, but to the irregular germs of urban arrangements in the
Decumates-land before the shifting of the military frontier. There
is no indication pointing to warlike events under Trajan; that he
planned and gave his name (Ammianus, xvii. 1, 11) to a _castellum in
Alamannorum solo_--according to the connection, on the Main not far
from Mentz--is as little proof of such events as the circumstance that
a later poet (Sidonius, _Carm._ vii. 115), mixing up old and new, makes
Agrippina under him the terror of the Sugambri--that is, in his sense,
of the Franks.]
[92: Not merely the causal connection, but even the chronological
succession of these important events is obscure. The account,
relatively the best, in Zosimus, i. 29, describes the Germanic war as
the cause why Valerian immediately on ascending the throne in 253 made
his son joint-ruler with equal rights; and Valerian bears the title
_Germanicus maximus_ as early as 256 (_C. I. L._ viii. 2380; likewise
in 259 _C. I. L._ xi. 826), perhaps even if the coin in Cohen, n. 54,
is to be trusted, the title _Germanicus maximus ter_.]
[93: That the Germans, against whom Gallienus had to fight, are to be
sought at least chiefly on the lower Rhine, is shown by the residence
of his son in Agrippina, where he can only have remained behind as
nominal representative of his father. His biographer also, c. 8, names
the Franks.]
[94: It is difficult to form a conception of the degree of historical
falsification which prevails in a portion of the Imperial Biographies;
it will not be amiss to present here a specimen of it in the account of
Postumus. He is here called (no doubt in an inserted document) _Iulius
Postumus_ (_Tyr._ 6), on the coins and inscriptions _M. Cassianius
Latinius Postumus_, in the epitomised Victor, 32, Cassius Labienus
Postumus.--He reigns seven years (_Gall._ 4); _Tyr._ 3, 5; the coins
name his _tr. p. X._, and Eutropius, ix. 10, gives him ten years.--His
opponent is called _Lollianus_, according to the coins _Ulpius
Cornelius Laelianus_, _Laelianus_ in Eutropius ix. 9 (according to the
one class of manuscripts, while the other follows the interpolation
of the biographers) and in Victor (c. 33), _Aelianus_ in the epitome
of Victor.--Postumus and Victorinus rule jointly according to the
biographer; but there are no coins common to both, and consequently
these confirm the report in Victor and Eutropius that Victorinus was
the successor of Postumus.--It is a peculiarity of this class of
falsifications that they reach their culmination in the documents
inserted. The Cologne epitaph of the two Victorini (_Tyr._ 7), _hic
duo Victorini tyranni (!) siti sunt_ criticises itself. The alleged
commission of Valerian, whereby the latter communicates to the Gauls
the nomination of Postumus, not only praises prophetically the gifts
of Postumus as a ruler, but names also various impossible offices;
a _Transrhenani limitis dux et Galliae praeses_ at no time existed,
and Postumus ἀρχὴν ἐν Κελτοῖς στρατιωτῶν ἐμπεπιστευμένος (Zosimus, i.
38) can only have been _praeses_ of one of the two Germanies, or, if
his command was an extraordinary one, _dux per Germanias_. Equally
impossible is, in the same quasi-document, the _tribunatus Vocontiorum_
of the son, an evident imitation of the tribunates, as they emerge
in the _Notitia Dign._ of the time of Honorius.--Against Postumus
and Victorinus, under whom the Gauls and the Franks fight, Gallienus
marches with Aureolus, afterwards his opponent, and the later emperor
Claudius; he himself is wounded by a shot from an arrow, but is
victorious, without any change being produced by the victory. Of this
war the other accounts know nothing. Postumus falls in the military
insurrection instigated by the so-called Lollianus, while according
to the report in Victor and Eutropius, Postumus becomes master of
this Mentz insurrection, but then the soldiers kill him because he
will not deliver up Mentz to them for plunder. As to the elevation of
Postumus, by the side of the narrative which agrees in the main with
the ordinary one, that Postumus had perfidiously set aside the son
of Gallienus entrusted to his guardianship, stands another evidently
invented to clear him, according to which the people in Gaul did this,
and then offered the crown to Postumus. The tendency to eulogise one
who had spared Gaul the fate of the Danubian lands and of Asia and had
saved it from the Germans, comes here and everywhere (most obviously at
_Tyr._ 5) to light; with which is connected the fact that this report
knows nothing of the loss of the right bank of the Rhine and of the
expeditions of the Franks to Gaul, Spain, and Africa. It is further
significant that the alleged progenitor of the Constantinian house is
here provided with an honourable secondary part. This narrative, not
confused but thoroughly falsified, must be completely set aside; the
reports on the one hand in Zosimus, on the other in the Latins drawing
from a common source--Victor and Eutropius, short and confused as they
are, can alone be taken into account.]
[95: The rule of Postumus lasted ten years (p. 164, note 1). That the
elder son of Gallienus was already dead in 259, we learn from the
inscription of Modena, _C. I. L._ xi. 826; the revolt of Postumus thus
falls certainly in or before this year. As the captivity of Tetricus
cannot well be placed later than 272, immediately after the second
expedition against Zenobia, and the three Gallic rulers reigned,
Postumus for ten years, Victorinus for two (Eutropius, ix. 9), Tetricus
for two (Victor, 35), this brings the revolt of Postumus to somewhere
about 259; yet such numbers are frequently somewhat deranged. When the
duration of the expeditions of the Germans into Spain under Gallienus
is definitely stated at twelve years (Orosius, vii. 41, 2), this
appears to be superficially reckoned according to the Chronicle of
Jerome. The usual exact numbers are unattested and deceptive.]
[96: According to the biographer, c. 14, 15, Probus brought the
Germans of the right bank of the Rhine into dependence, so that they
were tributary to the Romans and defended the frontier for them (_omnes
jam barbari vobis arant, vobis jam serviunt et contra interiores gentes
militant_); the right of bearing arms is left to them for the time,
but the idea is, on further successes, to push forward the frontier
and erect a province of Germania. Even as free fancies of a Roman of
the fourth century--more they are not--these utterances have a certain
interest.]