The Provinces of the Roman Empire (Illustrated Edition). Theodor Mommsen
as well as a political sense the shifting of the frontier, or rather the strengthening of the frontier–fence, was effective and useful. While formerly the Roman chain of forts in upper Germany and Raetia probably went up the Rhine by way of Strassburg to Basel and along by Vindonissa to the lake of Constance, then from thence to the upper Danube, now the upper German headquarters were in Mentz and the Raetian in Ratisbon, and generally the two chief armies of the empire were brought considerably nearer to each other. The legionary camp of Vindonissa (Windisch near Zürich) became thereby superfluous. The army of the upper Rhine could, like the neighbouring one, be reduced after some time to the half of its former strength. The original number of four legions, which was only accidentally diminished to three during the Batavian war, subsisted, at all events, probably still under Trajan;90 but under Marcus the province was only occupied by two legions, the 8th and the 22d, of which the former was stationed at Strassburg, the second at the headquarters Mentz, while most of the troops, broken up into smaller posts, were stationed along the frontier–wall. Within the new line urban life flourished almost as on the left bank of the Rhine; Sumelocenna (Rottenburg on the Neckar), Aquae (civitas Aurelia Aquensis, Baden), Lopodunum (Ladenburg), had, if we except Cologne and Treves, to fear no comparison as respects Roman urban development with any town of Belgica. The rise of these settlements was chiefly the work of Trajan, who began his government with this act of peace;91 “the Rhine Roman on both its banks” is what a Roman poet entreats speedily to send to Rome its yet unseen ruler. The great and fertile region, which was placed in this way under the protection of the legions, needed that protection and was worthy of it. Doubtless the battle of Varus marks the beginning of the ebb of Roman power, but only in so far as its advance was thereby ended, and the Romans thenceforth contented themselves in general with shielding more vigorously and continuously what was retained.
Germany under Marcus.
Down to the beginning of the third century the Roman power on the Rhine showed no indications of tottering. During the war with the Marcomani under Marcus all remained quiet in the lower province. If a legate of Belgica had at that time to call out the general levy against the Chauci, this was presumably a piratical expedition, such as often visited the north coast at this time, just as earlier and later. The surge of the great movement of peoples reached to the sources of the Danube and even as far as the region of the Rhine; but it did not shake the foundations there. The Chatti, the only considerable Germanic tribe on the upper German and Raetian border–fence, pushed forward in both directions, and were probably at that time even among the Germans invading Italy, as will be shown further on when we describe this war. At any rate the reinforcement of the Raetian army at that time ordained by Marcus, and its conversion into a command of the first class with legion and legates, can only have taken place in order to check the attacks of the Chatti, and proves that they did not treat them lightly as regards the future. The already–mentioned strengthening of the border–defence would likewise stand connected with this movement. These measures must have sufficed for the next generation.
War with the Alamanni.
Under Antoninus the son of Severus a new and more severe war once more (213) broke out in Raetia. This also was waged against the Chatti; but by their side a second people is named, which we here meet for the first time—the Alamanni. Whence they came, we know not. According to a Roman writing a little later they were a conflux of mixed elements; the appellation also seems to point to a league of communities, as well as the fact that afterwards the different tribes comprehended under this name stand forth—more than is the case among the other great Germanic peoples—in their separate character, and the Juthungi, the Lentienses, and other Alamannic peoples not seldom act independently. But that it is not the Germans of this region who here emerge allied under the new name and strengthened by the alliance, is shown as well by the naming of the Alamanni alongside of the Chatti, as by the mention of the unwonted skilfulness of the Alamanni in equestrian combat. On the contrary it was certainly, in the main, hordes coming on from the East that lent new strength to the almost extinguished German resistance on the Rhine; it is not improbable that the powerful Semnones, in earlier times dwelling on the middle Elbe, of whom there is no further mention after the end of the second century, furnished a strong contingent to the Alamanni.
Severus Antoninus.
The constantly increasing misgovernment in the Roman empire naturally contributed its share, although only in a secondary degree, to the shifting of power. The emperor took the field in person against the new foe; in August of the year 213 he crossed the Roman frontier, and a victory over them on the Main was achieved or at least celebrated; further forts were constructed; the tribes of the Elbe and of the North Sea sent deputies to the Roman ruler, and wondered when in receiving them he wore their own dress, with silver–mounted jacket, and hair and beard coloured and arranged after the German fashion. But thenceforth the wars on the Rhine are incessant, and the aggressors are the Germans; the neighbours formerly so pliant had as it were exchanged characters.
Alexander.
Twenty years later the inroads of the barbarians on the Danube as on the Rhine were so constant and so serious, that the emperor Alexander had on their account to break off the less immediately dangerous Persian war and to resort in person to the camp of Mentz, not so much to defend the territory as to purchase peace from the Germans by large sums of money. The exasperation of the soldiers at this led to his murder (A.D. 235), and thereby to the fall of the Severian dynasty, the last that existed at all until the regeneration of the state.
Maximinus.
His successor Maximinus, a rough but brave Thracian who had risen from the position of a common soldier, compensated for the cowardly conduct of his predecessor by an energetic expedition into the heart of Germany. The barbarians did not yet venture to face a strong and well–led Roman army; they retreated to their forests and morasses, and the brave emperor, following them even thither, fought in front of all hand to hand. From these conflicts, which were doubtless directed from Mentz primarily against the Alamanni, he could with right call himself Germanicus; and even for the future the expedition of the year 236, for long the last great victory which the Romans gained on the Rhine, bore some fruit. Although the constant and bloody changes on the throne and the grave disasters in the East and on the Danube allowed the Romans no time to breathe, during the next twenty years, if peace was not strictly preserved on the Rhine a greater disaster did not occur. It appears even that one of the upper German legions was at that time sent to Africa without its place being supplied, and so upper Germany was held as tolerably secure. But when in the year 253 the different generals of Rome were once more fighting each other for the imperial dignity, and the Rhine–legions marched to Italy to fight out the cause of their emperor Valerianus against the Aemilianus of the Danube–army, this seems to have been the signal92 for the Germans pushing forward especially towards the lower Rhine.93
The Franks.
These Germans were the Franks, who appear here for the first time, perhaps new opponents only in name; for, although the identification of them, already to be met with in later antiquity, with tribes formerly named on the lower Rhine—partly, the Chamavi settled beside the Bructeri, partly the Sugambri formerly mentioned subject to the Romans—is uncertain and at least inadequate, there is here greater probability than in the case of the Alamanni that the Germans hitherto dependent on Rome on the right bank of the Rhine, and the Germanic tribes previously dislodged from the Rhine, took at that time—under the collective name of the “Free”—the offensive in concert against the Romans.
Gallienus.
So long as Gallienus himself remained on the Rhine, he, notwithstanding the small forces that were at his disposal, kept his opponents to some extent in check, prevented them from crossing the river, or drove out again the intruders, although he doubtless ceded to one of the Germanic leaders a portion of the desired territory on the river–bank, under the condition of his acknowledging the Roman rule and defending his possession against his countrymen—which indeed almost amounted to a capitulation.
Postumus.
But when the emperor, recalled by the still more dangerous position of affairs on the Danube, resorted thither and left behind as representative in Gaul his elder son still in boyhood, one of the officers, to whom he had intrusted the defence of the frontier and the guardianship