THE AUGUSTEAN EMPIRE (44 B.C.—A.D. 70)

CHAPTER XXIII

THE NORTHERN FRONTIERS FROM TIBERIUS TO NERO

I.

ROMAN FRONTIER POLICY

SUB Tiberio quiet: here as elsewhere the Principate of Tiberius was a period of peace and retrenchment. An ambitious plan of conquest in the north had ended in disaster, unsuspected dangers had been revealed, even victory was costly or barren. Had the destinies of the Empire been guided by a ruler lacking the caution and the experience of Tiberius, he could have followed no other policy.

In AD 6 fifteen legions were stationed in the lands bounded by Rhine and Danube. The same garrison was maintained after AD 9, but with a changed distribution and a changed purpose. There were now five armies, each under a consular legate, those of Upper and Lower Germany, of Pannonia and Dalmatia (Illyricum had been divided in or shortly after AD 9), and of Moesia. It was not intended that the legions should be employed to make fresh conquests; and frontier defence was not their main function—it was the control of the interior that more urgently demanded their attention. The loyalty and tranquillity of the Gallic provinces under Augustus did not conceal from the Romans the presence of danger. Their apprehensions, which were confirmed by the revolt of Floras and Sacrovir in AD 21, were strengthened still further by the formidable rising of Vindex—whatever may have been his aims, thousands flocked to the standard of a descendant of an Aquitanian royal house. Raetia and Noricum appeared to be safe; but the Pannonians and Dalmatians, a recent conquest, had risen at the first opportunity. They were crushed, but only with difficulty, and though this was the last of their revolts, the character of the land and of its inhabitants forbade the Romans to assume that it would be so. That after AD 9 law and order should have endured unbroken in Bosnia is a remarkable testimony to the thoroughness of the final subjugation, if not to the influences of civilization. Farther to the south-east were other warlike peoples that needed watching. Their resistance had been broken by Piso in his great Thracian War which lasted for three years, and the Balkans had thus been pacified; but here too trouble might again be expected sooner or later. This view of the function of the legions is confirmed by the fact that in Spain after AD 9 a large garrison remained, of three legions.

Hampered by these grave responsibilities, the legions would perhaps not have been able to guard the frontiers as well. They did not need to. Care had been taken that the enemies of Rome beyond the great rivers should be kept weak, disunited and harmless. This had been one of the objects of three great expeditions beyond the Danube in the decade before the attack on Maroboduus; they had not been all in vain and no further intervention on a comparable scale was needed. A similar aim, it might be argued, was the only real justification for the campaigns of Germanicus; whether it was attained might, however, be doubted, for the power of Arminius emerged strengthened rather than weakened. However that may be, when the Roman pressure relaxed, the feuds of tribe against tribe, of faction against faction, could pursue their unimpeded course. Roman encouragement was seldom required. In the year following the recall of Germanicus, Arminius turned his arms against Maroboduus. The Semnones and the Langobardi deserted the king, a loss which can hardly have been compensated by the accession to his cause of Inguiomerus, the uncle of Arminius. A battle ensued which illustrated how much the Germans had already learnt from their warfare against disciplined armies. Although the issue was indecisive, Maroboduus was seriously weakened and his empire began to crumble. In vain that he appealed for Roman aid: Roman diplomacy turned the scales against him. Before long an exile, Catualda, appeared on the scene and expelled him from his capital and his kingdom. The fallen monarch sought refuge on Roman territory. He was interned at Ravenna where he lingered on for eighteen years. Such was the melancholy fate of the first statesman in the history of the German peoples. The career of Arminius the liberator had been more dramatic, his end was sudden and violent. In emulation of Maroboduus he aspired to kingly power among the Cherusci, and was treacherously slain by his own kinsmen (AD 19).

The triumph of Roman policy had been rapid and complete, and its fruits were not lost. In order to illustrate the economy with which the frontier could often be held it will be convenient to pursue further the story of Roman relations with the Germans of Bohemia and Moravia, the Marcomanni and the Quadi. Catualda succumbed almost at once to an attack of the Hermunduri; his followers and those of Maroboduus were established north of the Danube, with Vannius of the nation of the Quadi as their king. Vannius enjoyed a long and prosperous reign until at last, in AD 50, he was assailed by the Hermunduri, the Lugii and other tribes which were supporting his nephews Vangio and Sido against him. Vannius fell, for the governor of Pannonia had been instructed not to intervene, and Vangio and Sido divided the kingdom between them. Like their neighbours to the east, the princes of the Sarmatae Iazyges, they maintained a steady loyalty to Rome. But in AD 89, during Domitian’s war against the Dacians, these friendly relations were disturbed. The situation was critical—Roman policy had been based upon the risky but by no means irrational calculation that there would not be serious trouble on different parts of the frontier at the same time. To check the Sarmatians Domitian therefore made peace with Dacia, and against the Marcomanni and Quadi he negotiated with the tribes in their rear, the Semnones and the Lugii. But this was not enough. The most vulnerable section of the whole northern frontier of the empire, the Middle Danube eastwards from Vienna, had been laid bare; it now required the protection of several more legions.

The emperors of the Julio-Claudian house were not confronted by any problem of this gravity, a bitter disappointment to their historian who complained that his task was dull and tedious. The frontiers were secure and satisfactory, and there was another reason for not going beyond them—the responsibility and the glory of war could not be resigned to a subject, conquest must be achieved, if at all, by or at least in the presence of the emperor himself. After a generation of peace, however, the accession of a youthful prince might promise a change; but the designs of  Gaius were never clearly revealed, and it was Claudius who disregarded the testament of Augustus and added Britain to the empire. The remarkable tranquillity of the European frontiers appeared to justify this step. The Rhine was still thought to require eight legions, it is true; but over a vast extent of territory between the camps of Vindonissa near Bale and Carnuntum a little to the east of Vienna, there was no legion at all—military protection was almost absent because superfluous. In Raetia the auxiliary troops were at first scattered over the country, and were not posted along the line of the Danube until the time of Claudius. Noricum too has no history: and although the area under Roman control on the Lower Danube was extended, such was the peace on and within the frontiers that legions could be withdrawn to the East. For a time (AD 63—8) during Nero’s reign only five were left instead of seven. But danger was soon to threaten from beyond the river, and by the end of the century the centre of interest shifts to the Danube. During this period, however, the Rhine is still the more important military frontier.

II.

THE RHINE

When a political boundary corresponds to a geographical limit such as the sea or the mountains, virgin forest or barren desert, it may be called a natural frontier. Though a river is not a limit of this kind, it may form a convenient line of demarcation and lend itself to military defence, especially if its valley is such as to offer good lateral communications. For various reasons the whole length of the Rhine was not equally well suited for these purposes; above Mainz its passage across the plain was capricious and unregulated, below Mainz it plunged into winding gorges, near Nijmegen the stream divided. Indeed, after the annexations made by the Flavians, it was to form the frontier of the Empire only for a comparatively short stretch, below Coblence; and in this period it is not always easy to discern exactly where the frontier was conceived to run, for beyond the river were Roman outposts and native tribes in varying degrees of dependence.

The Island of the Batavians and Canninefates was always regarded as within the empire. These tribes paid no tribute but supplied soldiers. To the north-east dwelt the Frisii; beyond them were the Chauci, who had probably, like the Frisii, remained loyal after the disaster of Varus. The Chauci appear to have been neglected after AD 16, but the Frisii were governed by a Roman military officer. In AD 28 the Frisians revolted, inflicting a defeat on the Romans, and enjoyed impunity and independence until in AD 47 Corbulo reasserted Roman authority over them. This did not content his ambition. The Chauci had already been defeated by Gabinius Secundus in AD 411, but before the arrival of Corbulo they had made piratical raids on the Gallic coast. He resolved to chastise, if not to subjugate them, but was arrested in his enterprises by the jealousy or the prudence of the Emperor. He obeyed the summons, but with reluctance, and his posts were withdrawn across the Rhine. Whether this meant the total abandonment of Roman control over the Frisians is uncertain. They are hostile in AD 69—70, but later contribute auxiliary regiments to the army. Along the Rhine north-east of Vetera was a strip of territory which the Romans kept empty of inhabitants and preserved for the requirements of their own garrisons. In Nero’s reign first the Frisii and then the Angrivarii sought to occupy these lands, but were repulsed by force or threats. Beyond this zone lived the Bructeri, against whom there were hostilities in the Flavian period, to the south along the Rhine were the Tencteri and next to them the Usipi, neither of which tribes appeared to be formidable, while the Mattiaci, dwelling between the Lahn and the Main, were friendly if not already dependent. It was in their territory that Curtius Rufus employed his troops in silver mining, and Pliny the Elder inspected the hot springs of Aquae Mattiacae (Wiesbaden), where Roman occupation had probably been permanent and unbroken since the days of Drusus. There was probably an earth-fort at Wiesbaden itself; another was constructed at Hofheim, a few miles to the east, in AD 40—2, but appears to have been destroyed by the Chatti in AD 50. There was as yet, however, no permanent bridge across the river at Mainz. Above Mainz the protection of the frontier, if such it can be called, presented no difficulty. Southern Germany had a thin and mixed population with no large tribes. The Suebi Nicretes in the neighbourhood of Heidelberg were a small and innocuous people, and it was not likely that an enemy would emerge from the Black Forest. As yet this region has no history; Baden-Baden may, however, have attracted visitors, and beyond the Upper Rhine northwards from Vindonissa an earth-fort of Claudian date has been discovered at Hufingen.

The presence of this line of weak or dependent tribes made the task of frontier defence easy and economical. But there was one large and formidable nation of Germans in dangerous proximity, the Chatti. They were not only a hardy and warlike stock—they preserved an iron discipline when they marched forth to war; and, if this were not remarkable enough, they carried with them rations of food and tools for entrenching1. In AD 50 the legate of Upper Germany, Pomponius Secundus, had to check one of their incursions, and they were to be heard of again. The Chatti had neighbours and enemies who could be employed against them, to the north the Cherusci and on the east the Hermunduri. The Cherusci, it is true, were but a shadow of their former greatness; and their internal discords were intensified rather than assuaged when in AD 47 Italicus, the son of Arminius’ renegade brother Flavus, was sent from Rome to be their king. None the less, they might be a cause of anxiety to the Chatti, and later Domitian is found supporting their king Chariomerus. The Hermunduri needed no encouragement to serve the interests of Rome. Like the Alemanni and the Burgundians in a later age the Hermunduri and the Chatti disputed the possession of certain salt-springs. In AD 58 a great battle was fought with results disastrous to the Chatti.

A frontier is no less a frontier when it does not happen to be bristling with camps and forts. There had been no legions on the Rhine in the generation between Caesar and Drusus, and there were hardly any on the Danube in the Julio-Claudian period. Drusus, however, had brought up the legions from the interior of Gaul and established them on the Rhine in positions from which they were to invade and conquer Germany. Here they remained. Before the Varian disaster there had been five legions on the Rhine and two in Raetia: there were now, and there continued to be for the greater part of the century, eight legions along the Rhine, from Vetera to Vindonissa. After AD 9, or perhaps rather after AD 17, their arrangement was as follows. At Vetera (Xanten) were the legions V Alaudae and XXI Rapax, at Oppidum Ubiorum (Cologne) I and XX (Valeria Victrix). In AD 50 a colony of veterans was established at the town of the Ubii, which thereafter became known as Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium; but the legions had departed long before, during the reign of Tiberius, I to Bonna (Bonn), XX to Novaesium (Neuss). In Upper Germany legions XIV Gemina and XVI were stationed at Moguntiacum (Mainz), II Augusta at Argentorate (Strasbourg), XIII Gemina at Vindonissa (Windisch). Argentorate and Vindonissa had not been legionary camps before AD 9, for they could not have served as bases for invading Germany; nor did this part of the frontier require any protection. But it was the duty of this great army of eight legions to intervene, if necessary, in Gaul. The colony of Lugdunum had an urban cohort; but, except perhaps for a few auxiliary regiments and detachments of legionary troops, the Gallic provinces were without garrisons.

While the army was still regarded as a field-army, the camps of the legions were not fortresses, but merely bases for mobile troops. In Augustan days the winter-camp of a legion is still rudimentary, often abandoned at the opening of the campaigning season and rebuilt at its close, as the excavations at Vetera have clearly shown. In the course of the next fifty years or so, as the legion gradually loses mobility, its camp begins to acquire permanence and stability: the ramparts of earth, reinforced with timber, become more massive, the inner appointments more comfortable. Indeed some camps were constructed in stone during this period (Argentorate and Vindonissa), but this practice does not become general on the Rhine before the time of the Flavians.

Like the camps of the legions, the earth-forts occupied by the auxiliary regiments gradually assume strength and permanence. The defence of the Rhine had formerly been entrusted to the tribes dwelling along its bank. This system was not completely superseded—at least it is sometimes difficult to draw a distinction between the militia of a tribe and a regular regiment, for in this period most of the regiments serving on the Rhine are themselves Gallic or Rhenish in origin. The regiments of Vangiones and Nemetes which helped Pomponius Secundus in repelling a raid of the Chatti were stationed in their own territory; and the Helvetii garrisoned a fort with their own troops and at their own cost.

It was therefore a simple task to preserve inviolate the western bank of the Rhine. The garrisons were more than adequate to repel an invasion, even if Roman policy had not rendered that danger remote and improbable. A fleet patrolled the river, raiders were deterred, even harmless natives were not suffered to cross the stream how and where they pleased. But on that frontier was a menace to the security of the empire far more formidable than the Germans—eight legions conscious of their power. And so the history of the Rhine armies is a large part of the history of the first century. Two of their commanders were elevated to the purple, Vitellius by force of arms, Trajan by adoption; three others, Lentulus Gaetulicus, Verginius Rufus and Antonius Saturninus, were suspected or unsuccessful. Six of the legions lay in contagious proximity on a short stretch of the Rhine from Moguntiacum to Vetera. The armies of the Danube, scattered over a wide area, were better behaved; continuous warfare occupied and diverted the British legions. But expeditions beyond the Rhine were unnecessary and inexpedient. Baffled of conquest, Corbulo set his troops to dig a canal; other generals followed his example, but public works or mining were a sorry substitute for the discipline of war. The choice of the commanders of the armies was a delicate question—birth, ambition or even ability were qualities suspect to the emperor and often fatal to themselves. Competent men of no family like Verginius Rufus were favoured, and aged mediocrity became a qualification for military command. But an elderly martyr to gout like Hordeonius Flaccus was unable to control the troops, and even a Vitellius was acceptable when once they had tasted blood and were eager to elevate any candidate providing he were their own. To secure the loyalty of his armies and the peace of the world it was advisable for an emperor to visit them; a neglect of this elementary precaution was perhaps the ultimate cause of the fall of Nero. The Emperor Gaius, however, showed some discernment—two years after his accession he appeared upon the Rhine (AD 39).

In the ten years of his governorship of Upper Germany Lentulus Gaetulicus had won the affection of his troops and built up for himself an almost impregnable position. Not long after the arrival of Gaius he was put to death on a charge of conspiracy against the Emperor; it might therefore appear that what brought Gaius to the Rhine was the danger from Gaetulicus, that his gigantic military preparations were undertaken to deceive a domestic rather than to intimidate a foreign enemy. None the less, even if this be admitted, Gaius may also have contemplated new conquests in Britain or in Germany. In the absence of direct evidence, a solution of the problem whether it was Gaius or Claudius who raised the two new legions XV Primigenia and XXII Primigenia would be of paramount importance1. For Gaius as against Claudius there are no conclusive arguments, and almost the only argument of any value is an inference from the numbers which were given to the legions. XV was surely chosen in order that that legion should garrison Upper Germany along with XIII, XIV and XVI: XXII to fit in with XX and XXI in Lower Germany (while the legions with the low numbers I, II and V were perhaps to be withdrawn from the Rhine). Yet when the legions are rearranged after the Claudian invasion of Britain it is found on the contrary that XV has been placed in Lower Germany, XXII in Upper Germany. It might therefore be argued that the emperor who distributed the legions in AD 43 to the neglect of this numerical sequence was not the same as he who had raised them with such a nice regard for it. But this is not all—it appears that XV Primigenia had indeed been stationed for a time in Upper Germany, as the theory of the numbers demands, for there have been discovered at Weisenau near Mainz four gravestones of its soldiers, all of whom died in their first year of service. Gaius, therefore, is the probable creator of the two legions. It follows that he meditated, sooner or later, a war of conquest; it does not follow, however, that the expedition which he made across the Rhine from Mainz was of any great importance. The four soldiers of the legion XV Primigenia, if they fell in battle, may have fallen in the campaign against the Chatti conducted by Galba, the successor of Gaetulicus. Similarly the building of an earth-fort at Hofheim in AD 40—2 is in itself of no great sig­nificance, whether it occurred during the presence of Gaius on the Rhine or after his departure.

Whatever may have been the designs of Gaius, they were postponed or abandoned. If it was he who created the two new legions, there was an added reason to incite Claudius to his conquest of Britain—eight legions on the Rhine were a danger, ten were a catastrophe. Claudius took to Britain three of the Rhine legions (II, XIV and XX); this did not mean, however, that the permanent establishment on the Rhine was thereby weakened, salutary though that would have been, for there were three legions to take their place, the two which had been recently enrolled and IV Macedonica, withdrawn from Spain. The legions were now rearranged. At Vetera were V Alaudae and XV Primigenia; XVI was at Novaesium; I at Bonna. In Upper Germany IV Macedonica and XXII Primigenia shared the double camp of Moguntiacum. XXI Rapax seems to have spent several years at Argentorate before going to Vindonissa where it was required to take the place of XIII Gemina which was dispatched to Pannonia in AD 45—6. This reduced the garrison to seven legions, which still occupied the same positions when, in the year of the Four Emperors, they felt themselves called upon to play a part worthy of their power and their prestige.

In the meantime the other three legions and the Ninth from Pannonia had conquered and held Britain for the Roman Empire.

III.

THE ROMANS AND BRITAIN

Julius Caesar’s invasion proved that Britain was within reach of Rome; not that it was within her grasp. A Roman army under vigorous leadership could land in Britain and carry out a campaign there. It could break up the most powerful confederacy in the island and impose its own terms on the tribes. But, on the other side of the account, Caesar had demonstrated that this could only be done by overcoming great difficulties and by running grave risks. The Channel was a dangerous sea; expeditions to its further shore could never be lightly undertaken; and therefore invasions like that of Caesar could never permanently impose the will of Rome on a recalcitrant British prince. Unless the Britons were ready to be subservient, it was idle to hope for the develop­ment of a client-kingdom across the Channel, and no less idle to expect that a governor of Gaul would be able to govern Britain as well. These were the lessons that Caesar’s invasion taught him and his successors.

It also taught the Britons something. They found that, north of the Channel, Rome could neither protect her friends nor exact more than a momentary obedience from her enemies. Hence, if there was any disposition on their part to truckle to Rome before that event, the event must sensibly have diminished it. Caesar failed to increase Rome’s prestige in Britain; and in such circum­stances a failure to gain prestige amounts to a loss of it.

We do not know whether the Britons ever paid the tribute Caesar made them promise, or, if they paid it at first, how soon they stopped; but we do know that within a generation or less their other and more important promise had been broken. The enemy against whom Caesar had been operating in Britain had been the Belgic Confederacy under Cassivellaunus; he had found allies in the Trinovantes, a non-Belgic tribe which had good reason to fear Belgic encroachments; and at his departure he had (in his own words) given Cassivellaunus orders to leave the Trinovantes alone. But there is no reason to think that Rome even protested when the Catuvellauni conquered the Trinovantes and planted among them a new Belgic town at Lexden, by Colchester, soon to become the virtual capital of Britain under Cunobelinus. The date of this decisive step is not known, but it was most probably taken not by Cassivellaunus himself but by Tasciovanus, perhaps his son or grandson, who came to the throne about 20-15 BC.

This was not the only way in which the Belgic element gained in power and territory soon after Caesar’s invasion. Commius broke with Caesar in the crisis of Vercingetorix’ revolt, and after its failure despaired of pardon; he fled to Britain, and soon afterwards we find him reigning as king of the British Atrebates at Silchester. There were no Atrebates in Britain, so far as we can tell, at the time of Caesar’s campaigns there; it seems that they and other new Belgic immigrants came over afterwards and settled down in Hampshire and Berkshire, gradually extending westward into Wiltshire and Somerset.

By the time of Claudius, the Belgic area thus includes not only Kent and Hertfordshire, the two original centres, but Essex and a part of East Anglia, marching with the non-Belgic Iceni somewhere near Newmarket, and with the non-Belgic Dobuni in the Cherwell valley. It includes all Berkshire except its northern fringe, and all Hampshire. Its influence is felt in west Sussex, in Dorset and in Wiltshire; and as far west as Glastonbury scattered bands of the same race are, if not settling, at least raiding and destroying.

This region was the heritage of two royal houses, that of Cassivellaunus and that of Commius. Cunobelinus, son of Tasciovanus, reigned at Colchester from about AD 5 to between AD 40 and 43; coins struck by his brother Epaticcus are found in Surrey and Wiltshire, and it has been fancied that he inherited the former district and then, with the westward movement of Belgic power, conquered the latter. Commius, as we saw, created a new kingdom at Silchester; his sons Tincommius, Verica, and Eppillus, are thought to have had kingdoms in Sussex, Hampshire and Kent. But Tincommius was expelled from Britain, and took refuge with Augustus, together with another British king, Dubnovellaunus, who seems to have been driven from Essex into Kent by the house of Cassivellaunus and, later, driven from Kent also; and these incidents seem parts, or effects, of a process by which the older dynasty at last acquired the ascendency over all its rivals, so that, during the reign of Augustus, Cunobelinus came to be called king of Britain. How far his power extended we cannot precisely tell; but we may suppose him to have been immediate sovereign of all south-eastern England, except for a few regions—that of the Iceni in East Anglia and that of the Regni in west Sussex are the only examples to which we can point—where independent kings must have recognized him, not without jealousy, as overlord. Whether in any effective sense he controlled the Dobuni of the Cotswolds, the Dumnonii of the west, the Welsh tribes, or the northern midlands and the great Brigantian confederacy, we do not know; certainly the Brigantes had a dynasty of their own, which may well have been completely independent.

With this political consolidation went an advance in wealth and a progressive adoption of Roman ways. The Belgic settlement had already improved British agriculture and increased the density of the population; and with these changes the trade between Britain and Gaul, already appreciable in Caesar’s time, expanded also. We begin to find in Britain not only objects evidently imported from northern Gaul, but bronze and silver goods from Italy, in growing bulk. The most remarkable among many instances comes from a burial-mound at Lexden, containing large quantities of Roman and Celtic metal goods, among them a head of Augustus cut from a Roman silver coin and mounted in a medallion as if for use as a brooch; it is just conceivable that the tomb was that of Cunobelinus himself. Writing about the same time, Strabo tells us that there was a large export of corn, cattle, gold, silver, iron, hides, slaves, and hunting-dogs, and a corresponding import of jewellery, glassware and other manufactured goods1.

The same romanizing tendency appears in the British coinage. Coins minted in Gaul reached Britain about the beginning of the first century before Christ; but it was not until the Belgic invasion that any were struck in Britain itself, and the earliest British inscribed coins are those of Commius. These earlier examples are decorated with barbaric types derived, through a long chain of copies and modifications, from the gold staters of Philip II of Macedon, which were introduced to the central Gaulish tribes by their intercourse with Rome late in the second century. But in the next generation after Commius a new set of types came into use. Cunobelinus, Verica, Eppillus, and their contemporaries introduced such motives as a vine-leaf, an eagle, a gorgon head, and other types directly copied from the coinage of Rome and Magna Graecia. At the same time, the iron currency-bars which Caesar had found still used in Britain were being superseded by minted coins, until, by the time of the Claudian invasion, they had altogether disappeared.

These changes in Britain could not be a matter of indifference to Rome. Even if Gaul were tranquil, the growth of a rich and powerful monarchy across the Channel would keep alive the unsolved problem bequeathed to posterity by Caesar. And for some time Gaul was not tranquil. The Bellovaci revolted in 46 BC, the Aquitani in 39, the Morini and Treveri in 30 and 29, the Aquitani again shortly afterwards. The leading Britons, who had learnt to recognize in Rome an enemy, but one whose power was too remote to be formidable, must have looked upon these rebellions with favour, or even lent them aid; and Augustus repeatedly showed how far he was from being satisfied with the position of affairs. In 34, according to Dio, he actually set out on a British campaign, but was recalled by news of a revolt in Dalmatia. He returned to the same project, we are told, in 27, but the affairs of Gaul proved more pressing; he tried to deal with Britain by diplomatic means, but these broke down, and in the next year he is again said to have resolved on invasion, but was once more turned from the plan by urgent matters nearer home, in Spain and the Alps. If Dio’s stories are true, we must credit Augustus with the design of conquering and permanently occupying a part, at any rate, of Britain; Dio hints that he wished to outdo Caesar, and he must have learnt from Caesar’s example that no permanent results could come from a mere raid. It is probable that the stories, as an account of his actions, are not true. Britain was dangerous, but so was Parthia; and Augustus, who always had plenty to do nearer home, was inclined to shirk remote frontier problems. It was more characteristic of him to advertise an intention which he did not really entertain, than to abandon an enterprise he had once undertaken. For our present purpose it is not important to decide between these alternatives. The decision affects our view of Augustus’ character, but not our view of the British question as it existed in his time. Whether he actually planned the conquest of Britain, only to be diverted from it by other tasks, or whether, recognizing from the first that these other tasks had a prior claim, he only allowed others to think he was planning it, in either case he was bearing witness to an unsolved problem on the northwestern frontier, and the necessity of solving it, sooner or later, by conquest.

After the Gaulish settlement of 27 BC the project of conquering Britain dropped into the background. Gaul tranquillized, Britain was less dangerous. Augustus could afford to change, if not his real policy, at least his ostensible policy, and make public what may very well have been his private opinion from the first, that for the present Britain had best be left alone.

The change of policy is reflected in two passages of Strabo which, with their curiously argumentative and apologetic tone, must embody an ‘inspired’ answer to the question ‘why is the conquest of Britain not being pushed forward?’. In the first place, Strabo tells us, some of the British kings are good friends of Augustus, and a great part of the island is now in close relations with Rome, so that there is no need for a military occupation; secondly, the tribute resulting from annexation would have to be set off against the cost of maintaining a garrison, plus the loss of portoria on trade between Britain and Gaul, so that it would not pay. The financial argument is probably, within limits, genuine, though it must not be taken too seriously; it reads more like a plausible excuse for disappointing popular hopes, than a candid statement of the grounds of Augustus’ policy. The political argument is plainly sophistical, as Augustus himself implicitly confessed in his Res Gestae, where Britain is conspicuously absent from his list of countries whose rulers ‘sought my friendship,’ and the most he could claim was that he had been visited by two exiled kings, whose names are identifiable as the Dubnovellaunus and Tincommius of British coins. Strabo’s passage in fact contains some suggestio falsi as well as much suppressio veri; Augustus, like Caesar, shelved the British question without solving it.

During the reign of Augustus Britain was undergoing a certain degree of romanization in manners; and, if the above reading of Strabo’s words is correct, Augustus wished his contemporaries to think that with this Romanization in manners went a friendly or submissive attitude towards Rome in politics. But the two things do not necessarily go together; and the tacit admissions of the Res Gestae point to a very different reality. When that document was written, Cunobelinus had been reigning for nearly ten years, and during the whole of that time it is plain that he had never once attempted to make his peace with Augustus. Such neglect, amounting to defiance, was natural enough. Caesar’s expedition had come to nothing; and Rome’s prestige in British eyes, shaken by that failure, had not been restored by the empty rumours of invasion that had been heard in the earlier part of Augustus’ reign. The Britons felt themselves safe, and believed that the Channel would be the permanent frontier of the Roman Empire. We cannot suppose that Augustus shared that belief. He knew from the experience of Caesar how close were the connections between Britain and Gaul; he knew that a powerful and not uncivilized monarchy was growing up across the Channel; he knew that the spirit of this monarchy was unfriendly to Rome; and, since Julius had proved that there was no third alternative except to conquer Britain or to leave it alone, he must still have intended that, some day, it should be conquered. In the meantime, like the subtle politician he was, he kept his intention to himself.

Tiberius also knew how to play a waiting game. During his reign the situation changed little. The power of Cunobelinus was increasing, and his policy remained unaltered; there is no evidence that the overtures to Rome which he never made in Augustus’ lifetime were forthcoming after his death. But towards the end of Tiberius’ reign new factors began to appear, both in Britain and at Rome.

In Britain, so long as Cunobelinus held the reins of power, affairs were directed by a ruler too strong to be easily assailable—Britain was now far more able to defend itself than it had been in the days of Julius—and too wise to provoke a war, whether by needlessly annoying Rome or by creating an opposition likely to turn traitor and invite Roman help; and the British reguli who sent home certain castaway soldiers of Germanicus evidently meant to maintain a correct attitude. But Cunobelinus was growing old, and the anti-Roman policy which he had pursued in a cautious and moderate manner was taken up by his sons Togodumnus and Caratacus in a spirit of something like fanaticism. It was natural that a pro-Roman party also should appear at the court of the aged king, and the leader of this seems to have been another son, Amminius. Matters were moving towards a crisis in which Roman intervention would be natural, if not inevitable.

On the side of Rome, it can hardly be doubted that Augustus shelved the British question because he could not afford the troops to deal with it in the one effective way. But in the later years of Tiberius the military problems which blocked the road to Britain began to disappear. The East was quiet at last, and it was becoming evident that Spain no longer needed the large garrison Augustus had left there. The time was approaching when the whole problem of the north-western frontier would have to be reconsidered; and when that was done, the conquest of Britain was a necessary part of any permanent settlement.

The abortive invasion of Gaius, in AD 40, may have been ill-judged in its hasty inception and hasty abandonment; but in the light of these new factors it is clear that Gaius had good reasons for his project. It was part of a sweeping scheme for the reorgani­zation of the north-western frontier, of which the other chief element was an invasion of Germany. What seems to have happened is that Gaius, correctly judging that the conquest of Britain could not be much longer deferred, assembled an expeditionary force on the Channel, and was visited by Amminius, an exiled son of Cunobelinus, promising submission. Gaius pub­licly interpreted this act as equivalent to the annexation of Britain; perhaps deceived by the claims of Amminius, who may have re­presented himself as certain to be occupying the throne before long, perhaps merely seizing the excuse to defer an enterprise whose dangers were notorious. In either case, the story implies that Cunobelinus had never done anything which could be twisted into an act of submission to Rome. To his own people Gaius could now announce that the threat of invasion had at last brought Britain to her senses; but to the Britons he had merely given fresh reason to believe that Rome was afraid of attacking them.

IV.

THE CONQUEST OF BRITAIN

The conquest of Britain, which had been the distant goal of Roman policy ever since Augustus, became with Gaius a project ripe for immediate execution, and in that state he bequeathed it to Claudius. Between AD 40 and 43 no decisive event happened; but various considerations helped to precipitate the invasion.

The exile of Amminius was a triumph for the more violently anti-Roman party at Colchester. It showed that when Cunobelinus died, as he did soon afterwards, that party would dictate the official policy of Britain. Togodumnus and Caratacus were ready to defy Rome openly; at the same time they saw their discontented kinsmen and vassals—first Amminius, then Bericus—slipping away to Rome and, no doubt, promising to find support in Britain for an invading army. In their false sense of security, not realizing that Rome’s hands were now free to deal with them, they allowed themselves to threaten reprisals upon the Empire that harboured these exiles. They went so far as to take hostile action, perhaps in the shape of a raid on the Gallic coast.

It was a sufficient casus belli; but Claudius would not have used it unless the conquest of Britain had been a project necessary on other grounds and feasible for military reasons. The true motives for the conquest of Britain were those which had been permanent factors in the British question ever since Julius had first raised it. Of these permanent factors the need to attack Druidism in its home was one temporary aspect. The increasing wealth of Britain may have modified the financial arguments of Augustus; and the expediency of employing the army on a glorious enterprise may have appealed to the successor of Gaius; but it is doubtful if Britain ever really paid for its occupation, and the expeditionary force was so backward in its pursuit of glory that it mutinied to escape the dangers of the Channel. Whatever part was played by economic causes or personal motives, the determining element was reasons of State; and the right way of putting the question why Claudius invaded Britain is to ask, not why it was done, but why it was done then and not earlier. The conquest was merely the execution, at the right moment, of a policy long accepted.

The primary objective, as in Caesar’s time, was the conquest of the Belgic tribes1. Their capital was now not Verulam but Colchester; but otherwise the strategic situation was unaltered, and Caesar’s plan of campaign was still the best. The main seat of the Belgic monarchy was north of the Thames; Kent was an outlying province of the same people, and Kent was the natural gate to Britain. In Sussex and East Anglia there were tribes hostile to the Belgae and ready to welcome the Romans as friends and de­liverers; but strategy and policy alike forbade the Roman force to land in their territory. Not only was it a longer and more dangerous sea voyage to their shores, but they do not seem to have shown their hand until after the expedition had reached Britain.

Aulus Plautius’ army of four legions and auxiliaries was not much superior in strength to that of Caesar in 54 BC. He sailed, Dio tells us, in three divisions, and it has been conjectured that these landed at the three ports of Richborough, Dover and Lympne. Excavation has brought to light traces of a very large encampment, dating from the earliest days of the Roman occu­pation, at Richborough, and this was always the official seaport of Roman Britain; but there is no evidence of early camps at Dover or Lympne, and even if detachments were landed at these other places it is clear that Richborough became the naval base of the expeditionary force. The army can only have been divided in one way: a main body of two legions with auxiliaries under Plautius himself, and two units of half this size. Plautius, whose staff-work throughout the campaign was excellent, cannot be credited with the elementary blunder of dividing his forces in the face of the enemy and risking the total loss of 10,000 men in the event of the British main body encountering one of his detachments; Dio’s story can only mean that the smaller units were ordered to make feints, perhaps at Dover and Lympne, while the main body sailed round to Richborough, there to be joined by the rest. A study of Caesar’s narrative might easily have suggested such a plan. It was, however, unnecessary. The Britons had learnt of the mutiny, and thought that Gaius’ fiasco of three years before was to be repeated. Accordingly they took no measures of defence—an extraordinary proof of the contempt into which Roman prestige had fallen—and Plautius landed at Richborough unopposed.

Togodumnus and Caratacus had begun the war with a grave mistake; but they now did their best to retrieve it. Hurrying into Kent with what troops they could instantly muster, they instructed their main forces, as soon as they could be mobilized, to hold the line of the Medway. They themselves, though too weak to fight a general action, could perhaps delay the Romans’ advance until the Medway position could be occupied in force. They found their Kentish subjects already engaged in guerilla warfare against Plautius, and put themselves at their head; but Plautius was equal to the occasion and succeeded in defeating first Caratacus and then Togodumnus, who fell in the engagement. The defence of the Medway proved formidable and was obstinately maintained; but after a two days’ battle the Britons were driven back on their next position, the line of the Thames.

A small trading settlement had lately begun to grow up on the site of London, and the Thames had been bridged1; just below this were the fords for which the retreating Britons made. Pursued by the Roman vanguard they crossed the river, and inflicted a check on their pursuers in the marshes of the Lea valley. The Romans fell back, and the Britons were able to organize a defen­sive position on the left bank of the Thames.

It had always been part of the plan of campaign that Claudius should show himself to the army. The official version of the plan was that if Plautius found himself in difficulties he was to send for the Emperor; but in point of fact the difficulties of the Thames crossing were exaggerated in order to give an excuse for the Emperor’s appearance, and it had probably been settled in advance that there should be a check at the Thames for this purpose. The long halt while the expeditionary force awaited Claudius’ arrival served also a further end: Caratacus, like Cassivellaunus, found his army melting away as the weeks went by and his unwilling vassals, emboldened by his initial failures, went over to the winning side. When Claudius came up with fresh troops and elephants, all effective resistance was over: the Thames was crossed without delay and the emperor rode into Camulodunum among the cheers of his troops.

The Belgic kingdom founded by Cassivellaunus, and extended over a great part of Britain by Cunobelinus, had fallen. Its immediate territories became a Roman province, with its capital at Camulodunum and Aulus Plautius as its first governor. But outside these territories lay the land of various non-Belgic tribes which had unwillingly recognized the house of Cassivellaunus as overlords, but were now glad enough to see its fall and pay their respects to its conqueror.

Two of these can be identified with certainty. North-east of the Belgic area lay the kingdom of the Iceni. Archaeology shows that they were untouched by the peculiar civilization of the Belgae; the narrative of the conquest shows that they were left alone in the first years of the Roman invasion; and as late as Nero’s time they still had a king, Prasutagus, of their own. Plainly their part in the Claudian invasion was parallel to that of the Trinovantes in the Julian: fearing and hating the Belgic power which was Rome’s chief enemy, they submitted to Rome as soon as they could do so with safety, and thus bought a temporary and nominal freedom.

The same action was taken by the Regni, whose capital was Chichester. Their territory was cut off from the chief Belgic area by the dense and hardly penetrable forest of the Weald; archaeologically we know it as a backwater untouched by the movements of peoples and cultures that impinged upon Britain in Kent on the one side and in Dorset on the other. Here too we find, side by side with a non-Belgic type of civilization, a native king, Cogidubnus, kept on his throne by Claudius with the title rex (et) legatus Augusti in Britannia. His status—the invention, it would seem, of Claudius—was somehow intermediate between that of a client- king and that of the governor of an imperial province; and we can hardly doubt that the same title was conferred on Prasutagus.

It is possible that a similar attitude was taken up by the Dobuni, whose hill-forts still crown the heights and spurs of the Cotswolds: but of that we have no direct evidence, for the Dobuni must not be confused with the Boduni, an East Kentish tribe whose submission was received by Aulus Plautius in the early days of the invasion.

With the occupation of the Belgic capital and the voluntary submission of Cogidubnus and Prasutagus, the primary objective of the invasion was attained. But the Roman plan of campaign envisaged the complete conquest of Britain; and for that purpose the army was once more divided into three columns. Plautius himself, with the Fourteenth and Twentieth legions, operated north-westward along the line of Watling Street; Vespasian, with the Second (Augusta), moved west and south-west into what had been the realm of Commius; and the Ninth, on the right wing, advanced northward. The midlands, heavily timbered but sparsely inhabited, cannot have given much trouble either to the centre or to the right: but Vespasian on the left had to deal with the Atrebates, who inherited a Belgic military tradition and hostility to Rome, the various other Belgic clans that had settled in what was to be Wessex, and the Durotriges, a partially Belgicized tribe whose capital, Maiden Castle, is the most stupendous fortification of any age in England.

By AD 47, when Aulus Plautius was succeeded by Ostorius Scapula, the whole Belgic area was permanently pacified, and the conquerors’ main task seemed at an end. Scapula drew a frontier, the Fosse Way, from Lincoln to South Devon, so as to include all the Belgic tribes together with the client-kingdoms of Cogidubnus and Prasutagus; the Dobuni and Coritani were partly included, the frontier-road passing through the centre of their territories—evidently they were not hostile—and the tribes outside this frontier might be expected to yield before a judicious mixture of conciliation and force.

This expectation was very nearly fulfilled. There were three tribes or groups of tribes immediately in question: the Dumnonii in Devon and Cornwall, the Silures, Ordovices and Degeangli in Wales, and the Brigantes north of the Humber. The Dumnonii submitted without striking a blow. The Brigantes were divided in counsel, but their queen Cartimandua was on the whole ready to become a client of Rome. Only in Wales trouble arose, and that was brewed by Caratacus. Heir to the empire of Cunobelinus, he had failed alike in policy and in war, and had alienated his subjects and lost his crown; now, a defeated and discredited exile, he accomplished the extraordinary feat of rousing first the Silures, and then the whole of Wales, to resistance. Even his defeat in 51, though it ended his career—he fled to the Brigantes, and Cartimandua gave him up to Ostorius—did not destroy his work; he had lit a fire in Wales which it cost Rome thirty years to extinguish.

Behind the Ostorian frontier the work of romanization went rapidly forward. London, under the new impulse to trade which followed the conquest, leapt into prominence as a commercial town thronged with native and foreign merchants. At Camulodunum, the capital of the province, a colony was planted, whose members settled down to a peaceful life on the lands of the dispossessed Belgic nobles, and the temple of the deified Claudius, where Colchester Castle now stands, seemed to symbolize the ascendency which the idea of Rome had established for ever in the minds of Britons. At Verulamium the old earthworks in Prae Wood were deserted, and a new city by the river, with the rank of a municipium, grew quickly in size and wealth1. The Belgic area, which had now become Roman Britain, had reconciled itself to its new political status and was continuing, with accelerated pace, its old process of Romanization in manners. The event had amply justified both articles in the Roman policy: deferring the decisive step until the death of Cunobelinus, and taking it then.

One element in the Roman policy was less successful. Owing to the tradition of the Belgic dynasty, Claudius was obliged to bring its own dominions directly under an imperial governor; but there remained native Britain, the dominions of kings friendly to Rome. Of these, Cogidubnus proved loyal; but Prasutagus or his people found the rule of Rome less easy to accept, and as early as 47 they resented the action of Ostorius when, drawing the Fosse frontier, he placed them in the conquered half of the country. They broke out in revolt, which Ostorius was obliged to suppress; but they still fancied that their monarchy, the symbol of their independence, was secure. It was probably Rome’s intention from the first to treat these kingdoms as transitional; to absorb them, on the death of their present holders, into the imperial province. When therefore Prasutagus died in 61, his widow Boudicca was informed that she was not to succeed him. The Iceni were made aware, with every circumstance of indignity, that they had misunderstood their position. Instead of introducing the new regime with tact and moderation, the Roman officials left nothing undone to outrage the feelings of their new victims. The Iceni rose, Boudicca at their head; the Trinovantes were swept into the revolt; the centres of Romanization went up in flame; and the rebellion was only put down, at terrible cost to both sides, after a crisis in which it seemed that the Roman armies might easily be annihilated and Roman rule brought to an end.

The Icenian revolt, complete though its failure was, shows that the conquest of Britain had been no mere military parade. The comparative ease with which the first stage had been achieved was not due to lack of spirit or fighting power in the Britons; it was due to political events and conditions which were acutely watched and justly weighed at Rome. The only serious trouble which the Romans encountered in the conquest of Britain arose when they failed to control political factors in the situation: when Caratacus, against all reasonable expectation, made the Silures instruments of his hatred for Rome, or when subordinate officials, in the governor’s absence, alienated the good will of the Iceni. '

V.

THE DANUBE

The lessons of the great revolt of the Pannonians and Dalmatians (AD 6-9) were not lost upon the Romans. War and famine had thinned the rebel tribes; they were further weakened by the sending of their levies to serve in other lands. The auxiliary regiments stationed at various points in Pannonia and Dalmatia were at first almost all of foreign origin, but gradually lost their foreign character with the spread of local recruiting. After their rapid and easy conquest of Illyricum in 13—9 BC the Romans had neglected to make its subjugation permanent by driving roads through the interior. This oversight was now repaired—early in the reign of Tiberius the legions of Dalmatia were employed in the construction of a series of roads which penetrated the rough and mountainous interior of Bosnia. A similar, even if less in­tense, activity must have been displayed elsewhere—in the north and north-west of Spain it is attested by adequate evidence; but for the provinces bounded by the Danube there is hardly any evidence at all. In AD 14 soldiers of the Pannonian legions were improving the road across the Julian Alps between Aquileia and Emona; and Claudius was to build a road where the armies of his father Drusus had passed, across the Alps to Augusta Vindelicorum in Raetia and then as far as the bank of the Danube; and an inscription of the year AD 33—4 shows that in Moesia a road was being hewn in the rock along the gorge of the Danube above the Iron Gates.

Two consular governors and the legati of five legions had charge of all Illyricum from the Adriatic to the Danube. Their duties were considerably lightened by a delegation of authority which was a characteristic of Roman administration, and one of the secrets of its success. Roman prefects controlled the Bosnian tribes of the Maezaei and Daesitiates, and among the Iapudes a native chieftain was tolerated. As the inhabitants gradually accustomed themselves to the peace which had been imposed upon them, some of the garrisons could be removed.

After the division of Illyricum in AD 9 the new province of Dalmatia (which embraced most of Bosnia and extended northwards almost to the Save) was garrisoned by two legions placed at important strategic points commanding routes into the interior. Legion XI was at Burnum(near Kistanje, a little to the south-west of Knin), legion VII at Gardun, about eight miles south-east of Sinj. The camps of the three legions of Pannonia cannot be accurately determined. The legion VIII Augusta appears to have been at Poetovio, where the great highway to the North crossed the Drave. Claudius was to plant a colony at Savaria on the same road, and veterans may have been established at Scarbantia even earlier. But the terminus of the road, Carnun turn on the Danube (Petronel, some twenty miles east of Vienna) is the position of cardinal importance. Tiberius had intended it for winter-quarters at the end of the campaign of AD 6; and it has been conjectured that the legion XV Apollinaris came to Carnuntum not long after the beginning of the reign of Tiberius if not earlier. The strategic importance of Sirmium is clearly revealed in the wars of Augustus, but it is not known whether Sirmium was a legionary camp in the time of his successors. In the absence of evidence Siscia has been claimed as the station of the third legion, IX Hispana. This legion was absent in Africa for a few years (AD 20-4) and in AD 43 was permanently withdrawn to Britain; but when VIII Augusta departed to Moesia, c. AD 45-6, its place was taken at Poetovio by a legion from Germany, XIII Gemina. The two Dalmatian legions received the title of ‘Claudia pia fidelis’ as a reward for their rapid desertion of a rebellious governor in AD 42. In AD 57, if not earlier, one of them, VII, was sent to Moesia.

The Pannonian section of the Danube frontier neither received nor required much protection. The setting up of the client-kingdom of Vannius in AD 19 relieved Rome from anxiety about the most critical portion of it. A single legion at Carnuntum, though at some distance from its two fellows, would not be in any danger and might be of use. The Dacians had once been the eastern neighbours of the Germans, in dangerous proximity to Pannonia. But at some time between AD 20 and 50 the Sarmatae Iazyges poured over the Carpathians, swept them out of the Hungarian plain and confined them to Transylvania1. They were a welcome ally against a common enemy, and they repaid toleration with loyalty—at least until the time of Domi tian. An officer in charge of the Boii and Azalii eastwards of Carnuntum bore the title of praefecius ripae Danwuli. There was a fleet to patrol the river, and there were probably a few regiments stationed here and there along its bank.

The lower reaches of the Danube did not share this tranquillity. The Dacians made light of the submission to which Augustus claimed he had reduced them, the Sarmatians were always ready to participate in a raid. In AD 6 Caecina Severus the legate of Moesia had been called back to deal with these enemies, and there was again trouble in the closing years of the reign of Augustus. Troesmis and Aegissus, situated not far from the mouth of the Danube, were assailed and sacked3. Though Roman aid was forthcoming it was tardy, for the legions were far away. No permanent protection could yet be given to the Greek cities of the Dobrudja, which were left to their own devices or to such assistance as the kingdom of Thrace might provide. The extent and the status of Moesia are alike obscure. Probably a few years before AD 6 the legions hitherto under the proconsul of Macedonia were transferred to an imperial legate of Moesia; but Moesia was perhaps not a province in the strict sense of the term, but a military zone, like the two Germanies. A not inconsiderable part was administered by an equestrian officer, ‘the prefect of the tribes of Moesia and Treballiap. Somewhere along the Moesian stretch of the Danube, as on the Pannonian, a praefecius ripae appears to have been stationed; and there may even have been another official of this type farther down the river on the Dobrudja, a praefecius ripae Thraciae or a praefectus orae maritimae. In AD 15 Achaia and Macedonia were transferred from the Senate to the princeps and attached to Moesia, an arrangement which lasted until AD 44. The consular governor in charge of this large province, the administration of which presents analogies to Tarraconensis, seems to have delegated the governorship of Moesia to one of his legates. Which were the camps of the two legions in the time of Tiberius, IV Scythica and V Macedonica, is not known. One or both of them may still have been in the interior. Naissus (Nish), a very important strategic position where five roads met, had perhaps been the site of a legionary camp in the days of Augustus; the function of the legions of Moesia was still, almost of necessity, the control of the interior rather than the protection of the frontier, and Thrace, as in the days of Augustus, called for their intervention more than once.

The kingdom of Thrace was an institution of value as long as it could impose order upon its turbulent subjects. But Rome could not look on with equanimity when its princes emulated in discord and crime the notoriety of the house of Herod. After the death of the able Rhoemetalces Augustus divided the kingdom between his brother Rhescuporis and his son Cotys. They quarrelled; the perfidious uncle entrapped and slew the nephew. In AD 19 he was deposed, and a Roman resident guided the affairs of eastern Thrace in the name of the children of Rhoemetalces, son of Rhescuporis, was allowed to hold his father’s kingdom of western Thrace, but soon he and the Roman resident earned the ill-will of the Thracians, who, in AD 21, rose and besieged Philippopolis, but were easily dispersed: five years later a serious insurrection was quelled by Poppaeus Sabinus, the consular governor of Moesia. At length, in AD 45—6, after disturbances provoked by the assassination of Rhoemetalces (the last king, one of the sons of Cotys) at the hand of his wife, the kingdom was abolished and Thrace became a procuratorial province.

Macedonia and Achaia had been restored to proconsuls two years before, and the legate of Moesia could now give to the Lower Danube and the Pontic Shore the attention it had so long lacked. The accession of a third legion to the garrison of Moesia, VIII Augusta from Pannonia, is evidence of added responsibilities; and if a legionary camp had not already existed at Oescus on the Danube, facing the valley of the Aluta, one was now established there, and perhaps another at Novae some forty miles to the east. The camp of the other legion was probably Viminacium. The direct control of Rome extended to the Lower Danube, her influence was dominant far beyond it. The historians are silent; but a lengthy inscription records and perhaps exaggerates the exploits of a legate of Moesia in Nero’s reign, Plautius Silvanus Aelianus. He brought more than a hundred thousand natives across the river to pay homage and tribute to the majesty of Rome, quelled an incipient disturbance among, the Sarmatians and successfully negotiated with the chieftains of many peoples, Dacians, Bastarnae, and Roxolani. In this way, no doubt more by diplomacy than by force of arms, he secured the peace of the frontier. It was perhaps very much like a repetition of the campaigns of Lentulus in the days of Augustus. And so the suzerainty of Rome was acknowledged far beyond the frontier, but it does not appear that the bounds of the province of Moesia were thereby extended. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the governor commanded strong enough forces for extensive conquests, since during Nero’s reign the Danube armies had been called upon to supply three legions for the East. IV Scythica was withdrawn in AD 57-8, but its place was no doubt taken by VII Claudia pia fidelis from Dalmatia. The departure of V Macedonica, however, in AD 61—2 reduced the garrison of Moesia to two legions (VII and VIII), and it is probably this weakening of the army which is referred to on the inscription of Silvanus. As for Pannonia, in 63 XV Apollinaris departed from Carnuntum, but X Gemina came from Spain (which was now left with a single legion, VI Victrix) to fill the gap and maintain the total of two legions. In the last year of Nero the arrival of a Syrian legion, III Gallica, brought the army of Moesia again to a strength of three legions. When the time came they refused to be outdone by the German armies in the game of emperor-making.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE YEAR OF THE FOUR EMPERORS