Roman Emperors Dir Quintilius

Surviving evidence for the Roman conquest of the lands south of the Danube Valley and the rugged northern stretches of the Balkan Peninsula is both limited and biased. The pre-Roman peoples were pre-literate and of marginal interest to Greek and Roman writers who saw them as primitive and ferocious barbarians: at best one might trade with these unsophisticated folk, while at worst one might be compelled to wage war against them. No native inhabitant of these lands wrote a history of them and Greek and Roman writers were not sufficiently interested to take up the task. In other words, there is no equivalent to the ethnographical sketches found in Herodotus, Sallust's Jugurthine War, Caesar's Gallic War, Josephus's Jewish Antiquities and Tacitus' Germania. On the other hand, since these people were mostly Celtic, some of the remarks found in Diodorus Siculus (5.24-32) and Caesar (Gallic War 6.11-28) describing the customs and manners of the inhabitants of the Gallic lands farther west may at least give a few hints about their society. Commencing in AD 14, Tacitus' Annals do not cover the Augustan campaigns of conquest and suppression of the great Pannonian revolt in AD 6-9; and the books of his Histories which may have contained accounts of the Flavian campaigns are lost. On the whole, the natives are enveloped in silence, and a narrative history of them cannot be written.

Epigraphical texts only partly compensate for the dearth of literary evidence. There are far fewer inscriptions from the Danubian lands than for other Roman provinces - for instance, Africa, Spain and Asia - and most of them are from the borders and military in nature. Soldiers' tombstones and discharge "diplomas" are, however, quite useful, as they permit military historians to track locations of various army units, chart recruitment patterns, and obtain glimpses into social conditions on the limites, the frontier zones of the Empire. The cities of Roman Asia frequently carved for public display letters from emperors and governors conferring privileges on them, and Spanish cities made bronze tablets of the charters by which they were governed as coloniae et municipia. That there is nothing similar from the Danubian provinces is not surprising, as Asia, Africa, and Spain were the most literate and Romanized regions of the Empire, and had far more wealth available to spend on conspicuous monuments and texts. Recent excavations have yielded the almost complete text of the dedication inscription of Trajan's colony of Sarmizegetusa, the capital of Dacia,[[1]] and archaeological work is steadily if slowly and unevenly adding to our knowledge.

A rudimentary knowledge of the terrain is essential. The mountainous lands south of the Danube river restricted ancient agriculture, settlement patterns, the emergence of towns, trade routes, and the movement of armies. Whether trading, migrating, or invading, people moved along the mountain passes and river valleys. We will be following the Romans, and thus approaching the Danubian lands from inside the Roman empire. Except for Dacia, not annexed until after the chronological limit of this article, the Romans gained what knowledge they had of the lands and people north and east of the Danube through warfare and trade undertaken by businessmen venturing into "Free Germany" on their own.

The prehistoric trade route known as the Amber Road stretched from the Baltic Sea southwards along the rivers in what is now Poland and Germany and crossed the Danube a few miles downstream from the site of Vienna. In the early first century AD the Romans established a garrison here, at Carnuntum (Bad Altenburg or Petronell): the site is of great significance, so we shall return to it. Once south of the Danube the route forked: one branch headed up the Aenus valley to the Brenner Pass and into Italy; the other branch curved east around the Alps, picked up the Dravus or Savus, and made its way either into Italy over the Julian Alps or southeast to Macedonia and Thrace. Hardened resin was of course not alone in traveling along the Amber Road, for countless peoples utilized it as well. In the early Iron Age, from roughly 750 BC, Celtic peoples radiated out from an initial homeland somewhere in central Europe. In two and a half centuries they had established broad zone of relative cultural uniformity north of the Alps and Balkan peninsula, from the Marne and Seine rivers in the west to Transylvania and the shores of the Black Sea.

Around 450 Celts pushed into Italy and settled all through the Padus (Po) valley region in such numbers that it is frequently designated Gallia Cisalpina - Gaul 'this side of' (cis) the Alps, as opposed to Gallia Transalpina, Gaul 'beyond' the Alps.[[5]] On July 18 of 390 BC a Gallic raiding horde destroyed a Roman army at the Allia River, a tributary of the Tiber, occupied and sacked Rome. The disaster made an indelible impression on the collective Roman mentality that endured far longer than the damage to the city: not only was the anniversary of the Allia battle a black day (dies ater) in the calendar, but forever after the Romans regarded all Gauls with suspicion.[[6]]

Concern over the Gallic domination of northern Italy led directly to the Roman conquest of the area and subsequently to Roman expansion into the Danube valley, discussed in the following sections. Just to complete the sketch of Gallic warfare and migrations along the ancient Amber Route, let us observe that in 280 BC Gallic tribes swooped into Macedonia and Greece and then moved east to settle on the Anatolian plateau. From their new homeland in Galatia they posed a constant threat to the Greek kingdom of Pergamum until they were defeated by the Romans in 189; final conquest and annexation came under Augustus.[[7]]

The Celts never established large and coherent states but were always grouped into tribes and shifting tribal coalitions. Names and conglomerations that appear in one place at one time disappear or dissolve and sometimes reappear elsewhere.[[8]] Celtic contact with Italy and Greece was a combination of invasion, migration, and trade. Constant inter-tribal warfare steadily led to the formation of a Celtic elite which from 200 BC augmented its status through growing trade in luxury items with the Mediterranean lands. The best-known object of this trade was Italian wine, because dumps of the 5-6 gallon clay jugs (amphorae) in which the wine was shipped have been mapped along the rivers of France. Perishable or recyclable goods were certainly traded as well but leave little trace: slaves, ores, and agricultural produce, for examples. At a slightly later date, a center of the trade in metals was the settlement on the Magdalensberg adjacent to the Gallo-Roman town of Virunum in the kingdom of Noricum (near Klagenfurt in Austria).[[9]] Lack of excavation prevents a similar degree of knowledge of developments east of the Alps.

No sooner had Rome defeated Carthage in the Second Punic War (218-201) than she launched an era of tremendous expansion and rapidly acquired an empire. Victories against the kingdoms of Macedonia and Syria, a third war with Carthage, and diplomatic supremacy elsewhere gave Rome imperial possessions all around the Mediterranean by the middle of the second century.[[10]] Simultaneously and of greater importance here, Rome secured control of Cisalpine Gaul. Rome followed up battlefield victories over the Celts by founding colonies and lesser towns to garrison the newly won territories, by building roads to link these strongpoints and facilitate the rapid movement of her armies, and by encouraging migration from the south. A brief sketch illustrates events.[[11]] (Unless noted otherwise, all dates in this section are BC.)

Subsequent to defeating the Italian Gauls in the 190s and early 180s, Rome moved to anchor control by developing the area up to the Alps. The colonies of Cremona and Placentia (Piacenza) had been founded in 218 on the eve of the Second Punic War and had nearly died out by 200; they received reinforcements amounting to a refoundation in 190. In 189 year came the foundation of Bononia (Bologna). Two years later the consul M. Aemilius Lepidus conducted final pacification sweeps and initiated development of the region by constructing the Via Aemilia from the end of the Via Flaminia at Ariminum (founded in 268) across the Po plain to link Bononia with Cremona and Placentia. Rome founded colonies at Parma and Mutina (Modena) along the Via Aemilia in 183; Lepidus was the senior member of the three-man board of colonial founders. Two years later Rome founded another colony at Aquileia in the northeast corner of Italy. At first distant and exposed, it was soon linked to the south by paved roads. In 175 Lepidus was consul again and returned to Cisalpina where (if not in 187) he established a market town called Forum Regium Lepidi (Forlì). It's no wonder that much of this part of Italy now commemorates his achievements in its name, Emilia.

Aquileia is of special importance here, as it sits at the Italian terminus of the Amber Road, is well sited to take advantage of the emerging Celtic mines and trading depot around the Magdalensberg, and stands watch over the ancient routes from and to the Drava and Sava valleys. The Alpine passes northeast of the colony are under 2000 feet, much lower than those farther west such as the Brenner and Mont Blanc, so they are ready avenues for any peoples seeking to invade Italy.[[12]] Aquileia is also the real starting point for Roman expansion into the Danubian lands. In the last two centuries BC many Roman armies marched past it on their way to campaign in the lands east of the Adriatic Sea, imprecisely labeled Illyricum (later Dalmatia). In the spring of 58 Julius Caesar picked up three legions from their winter quarters at Aquileia at the start of his war against the Helvetii and Ariovistus' Germans. It is a safe guess that he came to this strategic city more than once in his years as governor of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum.[[13]]

In 42 Cisalpine Gaul ceased to be a province and was annexed to Italy, the first in a series of steps which completed the political unification of the entire peninsula. In minor subsequent alterations a colony was established at Tergeste (Trieste) and the northeast border of Italy was pushed from the Timavus (Isonzo) river to the Formio (between Trieste and Koper) in 42/41.[[14]] In 35-33 Octavian campaigned in Illyricum, justifying the action as necessary to protect the Roman communities along the Adriatic coast from incursions by hostile Dalmatian natives. In reality they may have been more about building up his own image as a commander and toughening his armies for the looming showdown war with Antony - the decisive battle of Actium came in 31 and in 30 the suicide of Antony (and Cleopatra) left Octavian master of the Roman world. He returned to Italy in 29 and in 27 engineered the so-called "Settlement" by which he became Augustus princeps, first emperor of Rome.[[15]]

In the 20s Roman armies completed the conquest of the Alps and by 15 they had pushed over the mountains and reached the headwaters of the Danube and Rhine. A legionary fortress was soon built at Vindonissa (Windisch). New colonies at Augusta Taurinorum (Turin) and Augusta Praetoria (Aosta) watched the high passes at the northwest corner of Italy, three new minor provinces were formed in the western Alps (the Maritime, Cottian and Poenine Alps), and in 7/6 BC Augustus commemorated his campaigns in the spectacular triumphal monument (tropaeum Alpium) at La Turbie above Monaco.[[19]] In circumstances that are poorly understood, Rome annexed the Celtic kingdom of Noricum and made it a province in 15. The emperor did not celebrate a triumph and no campaigns are known; consequently many scholars think the incorporation of Noricum was a peaceful process.[[20]] Simultaneously, Augustus adjusted the northeastern boundary of Italy by shifting it from the Formio to the Arsia river, thus bringing half of the Istrian peninsula into Italy. All this set the stage for the heavy fighting that brought the Roman Empire to the middle Danube.

A map of the Roman Empire in the 'teens would reveal that possessions east of the Adriatic were only tenuously linked to Italy. Only the Via Egnatia constructed in the 130s BC led from the Adriatic across the northern Balkans above the provinces of Macedonia and Achaea to the Hellespont and Bosporus and Rome's valuable provinces in Asia Minor and beyond. Emerging expansionist kingdoms among the Marcomanni and Dacians north of the middle and lower Danube were potential dangers. Immediately on completing Roman control of the Alps and consolidating northern Italy, Augustus determined to cross the mountains and push toward the Danube.[[21]] Thus began Bellum Pannonicum, the conquest of the imprecisely defined lands between the Danube and Macedonia called Pannonia. There were already many Roman and Romanized towns along the Adriatic coast. Thus the upcoming wars had two goals: protection of the inhabitants of the economically thriving coastal towns from the natives of the mountains to the interior; and secure the Drava and Sava valleys and thereby provide year-round land routes linking the western and eastern halves of the empire far more firmly than had been the case to date. The emperor's longtime chief general, M. Vipsanius Agrippa, was to command these campaigns but he died suddenly in the spring of 12.[[22]] As replacement the princeps appointed his step-son Tiberius, shifting him from his previous assignment across the upper Rhine and Danube.[[23]]

The ancient sources for the Pannonian conquest and subsequent revolt are frustratingly cursory: the contemporary Velleius Paterculus 2.110-117 (who perhaps gives too much credit to Tiberius and certainly downplays the contributions of the other commanders) and the later Dio Cassius 55.29-56.17. One would have thought the campaigns, particularly the revolt of AD 6-9, provided plenty of occasions for dramatic historical accounts, all the more since both writers had personal connections to the region; Velleius held a junior level command in the later stages of the fighting and Dio served a term as imperial governor of Pannonia. As in earlier wars, Rome suffered serious initial reverses but in the end triumphed through superior discipline, capable commanders, and a sweeping sense of strategy. But dramatic writing was beyond Velleius, who admittedly wrote only a highly condensed summary history of Rome, whereas Dio's narrative swept through all Roman history to the early 3^rd century AD.

In a nutshell, Roman commanders determined at all costs to conquer and holding the essential river valleys, all of them tributaries of the Danube: the Drava and Sava which as stressed above offer a ready land route into northeast Italy; and the Oenus (Unas) and Urbanus (Vrba) which give access over the relatively low passes to the Krka and thus the core of the Dalmatian civilian settlements. In 11 Augustus annexed the vast Pannonian territory as the imperial province of Illyricum. It is important to appreciate that this war occurred at a time when Roman armies were simultaneously heavily committed to the expansion of Rome's holdings east of the Rhine. More than that, the campaigns were evidently coordinated. In both areas, the initial campaigns went rapidly and fairly smoothly. Rome judged that the conquest phase was complete. This was a dreadful miscalculation, for in truth the natives were neither subdued nor eager to accept the lifestyle and values of their oppressors which were so different from their own traditions.

Just as Roman armies were poised to cross the Danube and crush the Marcomannian kingdom, widespread insurgencies broke out in Pannonia in AD 6.[[24]] Transdanubian operations were immediately canceled. Had Pannonians and Germans coordinated their efforts, Rome might have lost - at least temporarily - the middle portion of her Empire. The fighting in AD 6-9 was evidently more severe than that of the war of conquest in 13-9 BC. Rome committed ten legions to the effort; if one assumes 5,000 men per legion and that there was an equal number of auxiliary troops, then Rome had roughly 100,000 soldiers in the field. Tiberius took command and within a year summoned extensive reinforcements from as far away as central Asia Minor. To facilitate operations, in 8 Rome divided Illyricum into two new imperial provinces: Dalmatia along the Adriatic coast and Pannonia inland to the Danube. Tiberius conducted operations down the Sava or Drava; probably now Rome made Siscia and Sirmium legionary fortresses. At other times he moved from the Dalmatian coast inland. Tiberius'generals, hardly subordinate to him as regards the size of their armies, fought their way to the Danube and up the Sava from Moesia.[[25]] Rome finally crushed the opposition in 9 and learning from mistakes, imposed a heavy and permanent garrison of six legions throughout this region: VII and XI took up residence at Tilurium (Gardun/Trilj) and Burnum (Suplja Crkva, near Kistanje) in central Dalmatia; XV Apollinaris was at Emona, VIII Augusta at Poetovio, IX Hispana at Siscia - all guarding the Drava and Sava lines of communication - and IV Scythia at Naissos (Nish) in the Morava protecting the approach from Macedonia. Tiberius, as the emperor's adopted son and heir-apparent, was allowed to celebrate a triumph; his legates had to be content with the lesser ovationes and "triumphal insignia."

Developments in these years are not well understood, but they speak decisively about the nature of much military history in the Empire period. There were no major battles, and Rome gradually loosened the occupation in the hinterland and shifted the legions to the Danube. In 14, with the death of Augustus and accession of Tiberius, there occurred the great mutiny in both the Rhine and Danubian legions.[[27]] The former is of no concern here, and the latter only minimally so. Tiberius' son Drusus managed to quell the mutineers in legions VIII, IX and XV and disperse the legions to their winter quarters, thereby spreading out the discontent and preventing its reformation.

In 14 or 15 Tiberius decided to move legion XV Apollinaris from Emona to Carnuntum, which thus became Rome's first fortress on the Danube. As already noted, the new base was the major river crossing point of the ancient Amber Road, and Emona was near a fork where one branch went eastward and another crossed the Julian Alps into Italy where Aquileia was the next stop. Just as Aquileia, a colony from 181 BC, watched the Alpine passes in the northeast corner of Italy, so now Emona received a settlement of veterans and became a colonia to stand guard over the Pannonian end of those same passes. Between them these two colonies guarded the easiest route into Italy. Emona was also a precedent for imperial colonization policy: almost without exception, colonies in the Empire period were founded in decommissioned legionary fortresses and the settlers received allotments of land which had been military property (the territorium legionis). We will see this policy carried out elsewhere in the Danubian lands by Flavian emperors, but it is detectable around the Empire.[[28]]

Still further, Emona was an administrative center for Pannonia, as it was the headquarters of the imperial procurator who supervised much of the taxation and imperial revenues in the province.

At some point fairly early in his reign, perhaps in 20, Tiberius (14-37) made the old military zone of Moesia an imperial province under a legatus Augusti pro praetore of consular standing. In essence this reversed the previous situation: down to this time the legate of Macedonia had conducted operations to the Danube (i.e., the region which became Moesia), whereas now the legate of Moesia governed Macedonia as well as Achaea = Greece.[[29]]The Moesian garrison was V Macedonia at Oescus and perhaps IV Scythia at Naissos. Another legion came in under Claudius: see below. Caligula had little interest in military affairs, none in this portion of the empire, so we can pass over his brief reign and the first imperial assassination, without comment. Several developments in the reign of Claudius (41-54), however, are noteworthy.

The two Dalmatian legions, VII and XI, remained loyal to the new emperor when the provincial legate Camillus Scribonianus revolted in 42. The emperor recognized that their fidelity saved his throne and his life and rewarded them with the titles Claudia Pia Fidelis (generally abbreviated as Cl. p.f.). No translation rings right in English, but something like "Claudius' own, dutiful and loyal" is meant.[[30]]The following year Claudius gathered an army for the invasion of Britain. Among the legions dispatched to this island beyond the northwest corner of Europe, was IX Hispana, whose former fortress at Siscia was shut; Vespasian founded a colony there in the 70s. In 44 the emperor restored Macedonia and Achaea to senatorial proconsuls, thus terminating their subordination to the legate of Moesia dating from 20. In 45/46 Claudius shifted VIII Augusta from Poetovio to Novae (Svistov) in Moesia on the lower Danube and replaced it with XIII Gemina. In 55 the new emperor, Nero, closed the base of VII Cl. p.f. at Tilurium and transferred the legion apparently to Scupi. The decision may have been made by Claudius, whose mysterious death - probably assassinated by his niece/wife Agrippina, Nero's mother - prevented him from carrying it out.

The net effect of these legionary shifts is that by Nero's death and the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in 68, Rome had transferred most of her Balkan legions from the interior of the peninsula forward to the Danube. Still in the interior were the following: (1) XI Cl.p.f. at Burnum, but it participated in the civil war and wound up at Vindonissa on the uppermost Rhine where it stayed until 101 when that fortress was shut.[[31]](2) XIII Gemina at Poetovio; (3) VII Cl.p.f. at Scupi - though it may have left for the Danube. Now on the Danube were: (1) XV Apollinaris at Carnuntum; (2)VII Cl.p.f. at Viminacium (perhaps not till the 70s); (3) V Macedonia at Oescus; (4) VIII Augusta at Novae, but in 70 it was moved to Argentorate on the Ill and replaced by the new I Italica. As best as can be calculated, then, seven legions plus their associated auxiliary units garrisoned the Balkan peninsula and Danube valley. As the 70s and 80s revealed, that was far too few troops, and the heavy fighting under the Flavians caused the government to strengthen these forces considerably.

There is no need to discuss the events of the "Year of the Four Emperors", 68-69. The winner of this civil war, T. Flavius Vespasianus, reigned until 79 and his sons Titus and Domitian followed him in 79-81 and 81-96; the father and brothers compose the Flavian dynasty. Vespasian's reign was mostly a time of recovery and reorganization. Several legions were disbanded and disappeared and two new ones took their places, with the surnames Flavia firma and felix ("steadfast to"and "fortunate for the Flavians"). In several portions of the Empire the new emperor ordered substantial advances: in Britain the legions moved northward, the Ninth Hispana from Lindum to a new fortress at Eburacum (York), and the Twentieth Valeria Victrix[[32]] from Viroconium (Wroxeter) to the wilds of Caledonia where it was supposed to occupy Castra Pinnata (Inchtuthil) on the Tay river; in Germany commanders began to annex the triangle between the upper Rhine and upper Danube (the Black Forest), and VIII Augusta took up residence at Argentorate; in Africa Legio III Augusta pushed southwest from Ammaedara to Theveste; in eastern Asia Minor Rome created a huge province of Galatia-Cappadocia-Pontus-Armenia to bring the frontier to the upper Euphrates. Nothing so dramatic in Pannonia. Instead, Vespasian founded veteran coloniae in the decommissioned fortresses at Siscia and Sirmium. Now if not earlier legion VII Cl. p.f. moved from Scupi to Viminacium; and I Italica replaced VIII Augusta at Novae.

The eighties witnessed heavy fighting along the middle and lower Danube and revealed that Roman defenses were too thin to hold this long frontier, especially since new threats were rapidly forming. Various Indo-European peoples known collectively as Sarmatians had largely conquered the Celtic tribes across the sweep of lands north of the Roman Empire from the Hungarian plain opposite the Danubian double bend to the lower Volga above of the Black Sea.[[33]] The highly fragmentary nature of the sources make for much uncertainty as to exactly what happened and when; what follows is broadly correct but readers should know that the experts vary within a few years. Debate over details must not obfuscate the big picture: the middle and lower Danubian frontier was in crisis, Rome suffered heavy losses, two legions were apparently destroyed, replacements and reinforcements were moved from the Balkan hinterland and other provinces (Britain contributed one legion) into new fortresses, while a string of auxiliary forts filled the gaps between the fortresses. One substantial battlefield victory in 88 led to a negotiated peace treaty with the barbarians in 89. After he was safely dead and replaced by emperors who had no interest in assessing his reign fairly, Domitian was blamed for incompetence and cowardice. Uneasy stability had been restored by Domitian's last years, but then he was assassinated in September, 96 and was followed by Nerva and, quickly, Trajan in early 98.

The years 85-86 were critical: legion V Alaudae was heavily defeated (if not destroyed), and the Moesian legate killed; the praetorian prefect Cornelius Fuscus was defeated and killed; legion IV Flavia felix was hurriedly moved from Burnum to a new fortress at Singidunum (Belgrade).[[34]] Within a year Moesia was divided into Upper and Lower provinces, a policy move which provided a tighter command in this dangerous theater of war: two imperial legates of consular rank each commanded two legions plus auxiliaries. Domitian's campaigns against the Dacians had mixed results. Tettius Julianus won a substantial victory at Tapae in 88, but legion XXI Rapax was apparently destroyed in 92.[[35]] II Adiutrix was moved from Deva (Chester) in Britain[[36]] to a new fortress at Aquincum (Budapest) in 89/90. Downstream in Moesia,VII Cl. p.f. occupied Viminacium, V Macedonia held Oescus, and I Italica was at Novae. Ratiaria (Kostolac) has often been thought a fortress, but there is no proof.

This fighting and reallocation of military resources led directly to Trajan's Dacian Wars in 101-102 and 105-106 and an accompanying further rearrangement of Rome's forces along and north of the Danube: discussion of all this lies beyond the chronological limits of this entry. Pannonia was divided into Upper and Lower provinces in 106. As a closing glance, let us simply note that by 115 Roman legions had been pulled out of their old inland fortresses and were now all along the south (right) bank of the Danube or in the new province of Dacia, annexed in 106. Nine legions held the river and one more was far across it in Dacia. A list sets out the bald facts. Comparison of Maps 1 and 4 shows how far Rome had come since the campaigns of the early 2^nd century BC whose moderate but essential goal had been to secure control of northern Italy.

[[1]]  Full information is found in the Bibliography. Although they fall just outside the chronological period of this article, here are three examples of epigraphical contributions to our knowledge: for an informative tombstone, found in Macedonian Philippi but pertaining mostly to campaigns in Dacia, see the article by M. Speidel; for military construction, see the article by J. Sasel; and for Sarmizegetusa, see the monograph of I. Piso. The maps were created using the Microsoft Encarta Globe software; handwritten labels take up less space than do the labels available on the software program.

[[2]]  See Thomas H. Watkins, "Roman Legionary Fortresses and the Cities of Modern Europe" Military Affairs 47 (1983), pp. 15-24.

[[3]] Ancient names of places are preferred to modern forms throughout. The first time a place appears, the modern name appears in parentheses; afterwards only the ancient form. Where no form in parentheses appears either the ancient form endures - Cremona and Parma are examples - or there is no modern town on the site (as with Aquileia). The Romans penetrated to the lower Danube, like that of the Macedonian kings before them, by marching up the Axios (Vardar) valley from the Aegean and then crossing the low pass - under 2000 ft. above sea level. - near Scupi (Skopje) and going down the Margus.

[[4]] This principle is readily found elsewhere. For example, the Rhineland legionary fortresses at Castra Vetera (near Xanten) and Moguntiacum (Mainz) are opposite the mouths of the Lupia (Lippe) and Moenus (Main); Argentorate (Strasbourg) is near the junction of the Ill with the Rhenus (Rhine); Ara Ubiorum (from AD 50 Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, whence Cologne/Köln) stands guard over an easy crossing of the Rhine. As a parallel, one can think of the early American colonies along the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, the location of Fort Duquesne/Fort Pitt where the Monangahela and Allegheny rivers merge to form the Ohio, and that of St. Louis where the Missouri joins the Mississippi. Roman historians customarily use the word "fortress" to refer to the large camps that housed a full legion (in a few places in the early Empire, two legions); smaller castra are lumped together as "forts." In Britain but not elsewhere archaeologists have taken to labeling forts that evidently held a half-legion as "vexillation fortresses." A vexillatio was any portion of a legion, generally a temporary force of two or more of the ten cohorts which made up a full legion.

[[5]] Greeks and Romans generally used different terms for the same people. The Greeks referred to them as Celts (Keltoi) and their land as Keltike', whereas the Romans spoke of Gauls (Galli) living in Gallia. The designations 'this side of' and 'beyond' the Alps are from the viewpoint of someone in Rome. To anticipate later Roman designations, the northern portion of Cisalpina between the Padus and the Alps is Gallia Transpadana, Gaul across the Po. Gaul across the Alps was later divided: the lower Rhone valley and the coast between the Alps and the Pyrenees became Narbonese Gaul, named for the town of Narbo (Narbonne); the rest of Gaul - roughly modern France, Belgium, Luxembourg and part of Switzerland - became Gallia Comata or Bracchiata, "long-haired or trousered Gaul" (Gallic men wore pants and had longer hair than the Romans).

[[6]] For discussions, see T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome pp. 313-326; and Cunliffe, Ancient Celts pp. 75f. In the first century BC the polymath Varro calculated the date which converts to 390 BC; his calculation was accepted by Livy (5.30-55). The real date was probably 387 or 386: see Polybius 1.6.1 and Cornell's analysis. "Black days" were dies nefasti, days on which no public business could be conducted: see, e.g., J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (London, 1969), pp. 65-67.

[[7]] Romans defeated the Gauls of Asia Minor in 189 but preferred to regard their kingdom as a vaguely client state until Augustus annexed Galatia on the death of king Amyntas in 25 BC. See Cunliffe, Ancient Celts pp. 168-180; S. Mitchell, Anatolia vol. 1 pp. 11-41, 59-91.

[[8]] See Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts chapters 3-5. For present purposes we need note only the presence of Celtic tribal kingdoms across this broad zone and can omit the details of migration, settlement and cultural development.

[[9]] See D. P. S. Peacock and D. F. Williams, Amphorae and the Roman Economy (London and New York, 1986), pp. 52, 86-90; Cunliffe. Ancient Celts pp. 216-221 and map 28, p. 312. Dressel 1-4 amphoras contained between 22 and 25 liters = 5 to 6 gallons. Much of the wine was shipped up the Rhone and Saone rivers and then portaged overland for transshipment down the Loire, Seine, Moselle and Rhine. A second route was from Narbo to the Garonne river past Toulouse. For Virunum see the website listed below.

[[10]] Rome was thus an imperial power in the sense that her territorial possessions and interests outside Italy constituted an empire by 150 BC. Rome ruled her provinces directly; elsewhere she exerted a vaguer supremacy through diplomacy, clientship and economic power. Customarily historians speak of the Empire period in Roman history as beginning in the years after the death of Julius Caesar; while some date the inception of the Empire to 42 or 31 BC, most opt to start it in 27 when the civil wars came to an end and Octavian took the name Augustus.

[[11]] See E. T. Salmon, Roman Colonization Under the Republic chap. 6; ibid., The Making of Roman Italy chaps. 4 and 5; A. Toynbee, Hannibal's Legacy (2 vols., Oxford, 1965) passim; and G. F. Chilver, Cisalpine Gaul (Oxford, 1941). The primary sources for all events down to 29 BC are set out, year by year, in T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (2 vols., Cleveland, 1950-51).

[[12]] The Senate feared an invasion by the Cimbri and Teutones in 113 BC. Aquileia suffered in the civil war of 68-69 AD. Armies moved across these passes in the 380s and 390s AD, and Alaric destroyed the city in the 440s.

[[13]] Gallic War 1.10. Cisalpina and Illyricum were Caesar's provincia, his "sphere of duty" or "assignment." The word was gradually acquiring a territorial sense: the area in which a magistrate exercised his imperium. By Augustus' time a provincia was a geographical and governmental concept: a province.

[[14]] See A. Degrassi, Il Confine nord-orientale dell'Italia romana (Bern, 1954), pp. 54-82; Salmon, Making of Roman Italy, pp. 143ff.; Wilkes, Dalmatia p. 59; Appian, Civil War 5.12 and 87; Dio 4812.1 for Cisalpina joined to Italy. Border adjustments: Pliny, NH 3.127, 129; Strabo 7.5.3.

[[15]] These are some of the most-studied episodes in Roman history. See the collected papers by W. K. Lacey, Augustus and the Principate: the evolution of the system (London, 1996).

[[16]] For the gradual meaning of provincia cf. above note 12. A few generals returned to Rome and celebrated triumphs, a few were defeated or even killed, but nearly all spent must of their time in office waging war: the entries in Broughton, MRR 1 summarize the grim tale. The Achaean revolt that was part of the Fourth Macedonian War led to Rome's destruction of Corinth in 146 (the same year in which she obliterated Carthage). While the governors of Macedonia kept an eye on Greece proper, the Romans did not annex the area south of Macedonia until early in the reign of Augustus when Achaea became a senatorial province under a proconsul.

[[17]] M. Lucullus (cos. 73) was the brother of L. Licinius Lucullus (cos. 74), famed for his wealth and wars against Mithridates of Pontus in 74-66 and commemorated in a biography y Plutarch.

[[18]] Crassus (cos. 30 with Augustus, then still Octavian) was a grandson of the identically named triumvir (cos. 70, 55, killed 53). For spolia opima see V. Maxfield, The Military Decorations of the Roman Army (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1981), pp. 58f., 104 (discussing Crassus), 178f. See also R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), pp. 302f.; Wilkes, Dalmatia pp. 60f. M. Claudius Marcellus won them for killing a Gallic king at Clastidium near Milan in 222BC: Plut., Marcellus 6-8, remarking that nobody had won this award in the approximately 320 years since Marcellus.

[[19]] Salmon discusses Aug. Taurinorum and Aug. Praetoria in Roman Colonization Under the Republic pp. 27, 144; see Dio 53.25.4f.; Strabo 4.6.7; Pliny, Natural History 3.123. For a description of LaTurbie, see J. Bromwich, The Roman Remains of Southern France (London and New York, 1993), pp. 270-275. Pliny gives the text of the inscription in Natural History 3.136.

[[20]] For the annexation of Noricum in 15, see Alfoeldy, Noricum chaps. 5 and 6.

[[21]] For what follows, see the more detailed discussions by Wilkes, Dalmatia pp. 61-77; and Mocsy, Pannonia and Upper Moesia p. 31-52. The ancient sources are extremely disconnected and archaeology is of no help. The simultaneous campaigns across the Rhine to the Weser or Elbe are of no concern here, though one must keep in mind that Rome was engaged in massive efforts to conquer a huge amount of territory in these years.

[[22]] M. Reinhold's study remains the standard in English: Marcus Agrippa: a Biography (Geneva, N.Y., 1933). All studies of the Augustan age discuss this loyal adherent of the regime.

[[23]] For Tiberius' career, see e.g. the biography by Levick in the bibliography. Tiberius was the son of Augustus' wife Livia by her previous husband. Interestingly, he replaced Agrippa as Augustus' son-in-law as well as his chief general, for Tiberius soon dutifully divorced his beloved wife Vipsania (Agrippa's daughter) and married Agrippa's widow Julia. They were a most unhappy couple whose unfortunate drama cannot be retold here. What follows draws heavily on the account of Wilkes, Dalmatia pp. 62-77; cf. his map on p. 18.

[[24]] Dates henceforth are AD unless specifically stated as BC.

[[25]] The decisive years were 7 and 8. M. Valerius Messalla (cos. 3 BC) secured Siscia, vital for keeping open communications with Italy. Wilkes, Dalmatia p. 70 suggests that Legio XX was named Valeria Victrix to commemorate his valor; but cf. below, note 29. In 7 the legates of Moesia A. Caecina Severus (cos. 1 BC) and Galatia M. Plautius Silvanus (cos. 2 BC) pushed westward up the Danube and Sava valleys with a total of five legions, the same number as Tiberius had. The next year the new legate M. Aemilius Lepidus (cos. AD 6) fought his way from Siscia along the Oenus or Urbanus rivers and joined forces with Tiberius near Burnum. Plautius Silvanus built the landmark family mausoleum at the Ponte Lucano near Tivoli; cf. ILS 921. For Caecina Severus, see Tacitus, Annals 3.33; R. Syme, Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford, 1986), pp. 88, 95, 101, 128, 294. Lepidus (great-nephew of the triumvir of the same name) had been Tiberius' brother-in-law, as each was married to a Vipsania, daughter of Agrippa. In 10 Lepidus was legate of Dalmatia and in 14 was one of several men judged capax imperii by Tacitus (Annals 1.13.2); he died in 33: see Syme, Aug. Arist. chap. 10.

[[26]] The Teutoburgerwald defeat is perhaps second only to Cannae [216 BC] in notoriety in Rome's long existence. Leaving aside the Allia which threatened the very existence of a tiny Rome in 390 BC, the disaster at Arausio [Orange] in the lower Rhone in 105 BC probably entailed as many casualties but it is poorly recorded in our sources and Marius' victories in 102 - 101 quickly avenged it. In the late Empire one can compare Adrianople in 378 AD.

[[27]] Tacitus, Annals 1.16-30 for the mutiny in Pannonia; 31-49 for that on the Rhine.

[[28]] For instance, in 49 Claudius converted the former fortress of Ara Ubiorum in Lower Germany into Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium; simultaneously in Britain the abandoned fortress of legion XX Valeria (it acquired the name Victrix apparently in 61) became Colonia Claudia Victricensis Camulodunum (Colchester), on which see P. Crummy, City of Victory (Colchester, 1997) or the somewhat older studies by J. Wacher, The Towns of Roman Britain (London, 1974), R. Dunnett, The Trinovantes (London, 1975) and G. Webster, From Fortress to City (London, 1988). In the early 90s the former British fortresses at Glevum and Lindum, abandoned since the early 70s, became colonies; they are now Gloucester and Lincoln. The same pattern is found at Ammaedara (Haidra) and Theveste (Tebessa) in Tunisia, at Sarmizegetusa in Dacia, and elsewhere.

[[29]] See Moscy, Pannonia and Upper Moesia pp. 33, 36 (stressing campaigns but not annexation under Augustus), and 43-44. Appian, Illyr. 30: Tiberius annexed Moesia. Tacitus, Ann. 4.75 says the first legate, Poppaeus Sabinus, died still in office 24 years after arriving! In 44 Macedonia and Achaea reverted to senatorial proconsuls.

[[30]] See Wilkes, Dalmatia p. 83; Levick, Claudius pp. 59f.

[[31]] It then moved to the Danube and was permanently at Durostorum (Silistra) from 106/107. The new IV Flavia Firma replaced it for a few years at Burnum, but it moved up to the Danube ca. 86: discussed below.

[[32]] Although this remains a point of uncertainty, it seems probable that the legion was simply XX in the early Empire and won the designation Valeria Victrix for its role in defeating Boudica in 60-61: see L. Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army (London, 1984), pp. 138, 211; G. Webster, Fortress into City p. 136. Valeria Victrix can mean "Valiant and Victorious," as Keppie has it. But Wilkes prefers the hypothesis that Valeria honors the accomplishments of Valerius Messalla in the great revolt of 6-9 (Dalmatia pp. 70f.). Wilkes also notes a suggestion by A. R. Birley that Claudius may have honored his wife Valeria Messallina by naming a legion for her as he named their son Britannicus. But in the last case, the other legions in the invasion force should also have become Valeriae - and there's no trace of the name for them (II Augusta, IX Hispana, XIV Gemina). Another possibility is that the legion was Valeria from, say, 6/7 AD and Victrix only from 61

[[33]] See Wilkes's discussion in Rome and her Northern Provinces. The western Sarmatians -Jazyges and Roxolani- posed an immediate danger to the Romans, even though they and the Romans cooperated against their mutual enemies the Dacian kingdom of Decebalus. The eastern Sarmatian Alani were not a problem, as they lived far beyond Rome's northeastern frontiers. The arrival of the Huns in the 4^th century changed the picture.

[[34]] The transfer of IV Fl. f. left Dalmatia without a legion, since VII Cl. p.f. had departed the province in 55. Dalmatia was hereafter an unarmed province; its governor continued to be an imperial legate (not a senatorial proconsul), but he had only a few auxiliary troops and a detachment of the fleet.

[[35]] See L. Pitts and J. K. St. Joseph, Inchtuthil (Britannia monographs 6, 1985); P. Salway, Roman Britain (Oxford, 1981), pp. 138, 149f. For the fortresses at Aquincum and Singidunum, see Mocsy, Pannonia and Upper Moesia pp. 82- 92, 99, 101-111, 140. For the wars, see Wilkes in Rome and her Northern Provinces; Maxfield in Wacher, Roman World pp. 178ff.; Jones, Domitian pp. 135-143 and 150-55. For the loss of legions V Alaudae and XXI Rapax, see, e.g., Keppie, Making of the Roman Army pp. 206, 211, 214; Jones, Domitian p. 138. In 92, if not in 85, legion V Alaudae was destroyed.

[[36]]  XX V.v. abandoned Castra Pinnata, which was demolished, and took the place of II Ad. at Deva. See Pitts and St. Joseph (previous note) for the demolition at Inchtuthil.

Alföldy, G. Noricum. Boston and London, 1973. Detailed and authoritative, but now a bit dated.

Cornell, T. J. The Beginnings of Rome. London and New York, 1995.

Cunliffe, B. The Ancient Celts. Penguin, 1997. An archaeologically-based analysis of the complexities of Celtic history and a valuable updating of the older works of Alfoeldy and Mocsy.

Hoddinott, R. F. Bulgaria in Antiquity. London, 1975.

Jones, B.W. The Emperor Titus. London, 1984.

,The Emperor Domitian. London, 1992. Valuable analysis of the emperor's maligned Danubian policies.

LeBohec, Y, The Imperial Roman Army. London and New York, 1994

Levick, B.M. Tiberius the Politician. London, 1976.

________.  Claudius. New Haven, 1990.

________.  Vespasian New Haven, 1999.

Luttwak, E. The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. Baltimore and London, 1976. To be used with care; the author is a modern defense strategist, not an ancient historian.

MacMullen, R. Romanization in the Age of Augustus. New Haven, 1999.

Maxfield, V. The Military Decorations of the Roman Army. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981.

.________. "Mainland Europe" chap. 8, esp. pp. 171ff. in Wacher, The Roman World.

Mitchell, S. Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor. Two vols., Oxford, 1993-94.

Mocsy, A. Pannonia and Upper Moesia. Boston and London, 1974. A companion to the monographs by Alfoeldy and Wilkes, and like them part of the "Provinces of the Roman Empire" series.

Piso, I. Fasti Provinciae Daciae I. Die senatorischen Amstraeger. Antiquitas Reihe I "Abhandlungen zur alten Geschichte" Band 43;Bonn, 1993, pp. 13-18.

Salmon, E. T. Roman Colonization Under the Republic. Ithaca and London, 1970. Authoritative for the development of Roman colonies in Italy; colonies in the Empire receive relatively little attention.

________. The Making of Roman Italy. Ithaca and London, 1982. Chapters 4 and 5 are especially relevant.

Sasel, J. "Trajan's canal at the Iron Gate" Journal of Roman Studies 63 (1973), 80-85.

Speidel, M. "The captor of Decebalus: a new inscription from Philippi" Journal of Roman Studies 60 (1970), 143-153.

Syme, R. Danubian Papers. Bucharest, 1971.

.________. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford, 1986. Especially valuable for the careers of Tiberius and the legates at the time of the conquests of Pannonia and Moesia.

Talbert, R.J.A., ed. The Barrington Atlas of Greek and Roman History. Princeton, 2000. This supersedes all earlier atlases and its sheets, shaded to show contours, are invaluable.

Wacher, J., ed. The Roman World. New York, 1987. Maxfield's chapter for Danube (above).

Watkins, T. H. "Roman Legionary Fortresses and the Cities of Modern Europe" Military Affairs 47 (1983), pp. 15-24.

Webster, G. The Roman Imperial Army. London, 3^rd ed., 1985.

Wells, P. The Barbarians Speak. Princeton, 1999. Concentrated on the Rhine frontier, but showing how archaeology can supplement and correct the scanty literary evidence.

Whittaker, C. R. Frontiers of the Roman Empire: a Social and Economic Study. Baltimore and London, 1994.

Wilkes, J. Dalmatia. Boston and London, 1969. Basic for all aspects of the history of this area; good analysis of the conquest of Pannonia and the great revolt of AD 6-9.

________.  "Romans, Dacians and Sarmatians in the first and early second centuries" in B. Hartley and J. Wacher, eds., Rome and Her Northern Neighbours. Gloucester, 1983; pp. 255-288.

________. "Recent work along the middle and lower Danube" Journal of Roman Archaeology 10 (1997),

635-643. Review-discussion of P. Petrovic, Roman Limes on the Middle and Lower Danube (Cahiers des Portes de Fer, Monographies 2; Archaeological Institute, Belgrade, 1996).
 

Some web sites are very good and have lots of text, photos and useful links. But sites run the gamut from official government tourist agencies through archaeological excavations to personal travelogues. NOTE: (1)The following are mostly in English and have substantial historical content.Many sites allow the viewer to click a flag and get text in English. (2) Many Roman legions have their own websites, often compiled by re-enactors. Some are quite good, with summaries of what's known about a legion's movements and the different fortresses it occupied over time. On the other hand, enthusiasm sometimes outweighs sober scholarship, so use these sites with care.
 

ITALY: AQUILEIA and the AMBER ROAD:

https://www.aquileia.it/intro.htm The official site; 360o panorama photos

https://www.museoarcheo-aquileia.it/aquileia_eng/index.htm

https://www2.rgzm.de/Navis/Musea/Aquileia/MuseoAquileiaEnglish.htm A 5-page site devoted to The National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia, including the basilica and Paleochristian Museum of nearby Monastero

https://www.ancientroute.com/cities/aquileia.htm

https://www.ancientroute.com/HeadrFtr/amberoad.htm History of this ancient trade route from the Baltic Sea lands to Vindobona or Carnuntum over the Alps to Aquileia and Italy or, eastern branch, through Hungary to Greece and Anatolia. The web site is under construction, but will be quite good when completed.
 

AUSTRIA - NORICUM:

The starting-point for sites in Austria with links:

https://www.stefan-ramseier.ch/roemsich/ ... bericht2002/oesterreich/ueberblick.htm

https://www.buk.ktn.gv.at/landesmuseum/magdalensberg.htm The site for the Archaeological Park is in German but it's very informative; lots of photos of objects found at the site. Only a few miles distant is the site of Virunum, the Roman capital of Noricum - next entry:

https://www.stefanramseier.ch/reomisch/...gesbericht/2002/oesterreich/virunum.htm

https://www-sci.uni-klu.ac.at/archeo/archeost/63vind.htm Vindobona.Vienna/Wien; available in English

https://www.archaeologie-wien.at/roemer/legionslager.htm The legionary fortress.
 

HUNGARY - PANNONIA:

https://www.aquincum.hu/menuoldalangol.html "What to see in Aquincum" links to the visible Roman ruins in Budapest and the museum's collections.

https:///www.fsz/bme/hu/hungary/budapest/optour/opduna03.htm Description of the visible remains and of the chief contents in the Aquincum museum

https://www.aquincum.hu/kismuzeumok/kismuzeumokangol.htm Superb 8-page site with photos; discussions of museum collections and the visible remains - amphitheater, aqueduct, fortress gates,baths, and the small bridgehead forts across the Danube (wrongly said to be on the right bank: Pest is on the left bank of the river which is here flowing south).

https://www.multimediaplan.at/carnuntum/English/englisch.html Click on the U.S. flag icon to get English text - or the SPQR icon for one in Latin! The Danube has washed away of the fortress and settlement. The site includes a virtual tour via aerial views of a computer-drawn reconstruction of the town.

https://www.univie.ac.at/archeo2001/carn2.html "Carnuntum, capital of the Roman Province Pannonia Superior". Nice aerial overview leads into a good discussion of the history.

https://www.athenapub.com/carnuntum1.htm Historical overview.

https://www.provide.net/~ghogh/Euro/PetrCarn.html

https://www.stefan-ramseier.ch/roemisch/ ... sbricht/2002/oesterreich/carnuntum.html

https://www.carnuntum.co.at/english/news.html

http:www.belsak.de/English/ptuj-en.htm Poetovio is now Ptuj.

https://www.eurotravelling.net/hungary/pecs_history.htm Now Pecs, Roman Sopinae was a stopping point on the ancient Amber Route and a major road junction; the chief ancient remains are some early Christian graves, subject of several Christian websites.

Copyright (C), Thomas H Watkins. This file may be copied on the condition that the entire contents, including the header and this copyright notice, remain intact.

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