Chapter IV: Roman Germany and the Free Germans (3)

[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.]