ROMAN GERMANY AND THE FREE GERMANS.

Limitation of Roman Germany.The two Roman provinces of Upper and Lower Germany were the result of that defeat of the Roman arms and of Roman policy under the reign of Augustus which has been already (p.55f.) described. The original province of Germany, which embraced the country from the Rhine to the Elbe, subsisted only twenty years, from the first campaign of Drusus, 742 U.C.12., down to the battle of Varus and the fall of Aliso, 762 U.C. A.D.9.;but as, on the one hand, it included the military camps on the left bank of the Rhine—Vindonissa, Mogontiacum, Vetera—and, on the other hand, even after that disaster, more or less considerable portions of the right bank remained Roman, the governorship and the command were not, in a strict sense, done away by that catastrophe, although they were, so to speak, placed in suspense. The internal organisation of the Three Gauls has been already set forth; they embraced the whole country as far as the Rhine without distinction of descent—except that the Ubii, who had only been brought over to settle in Gaul during the last crises, did not belong to the sixty–four cantons, while the Helvetii, the Triboci, and generally the districts elsewhere held in occupation by the Rhenish troops, doubtless did so belong. The intention had been to gather together the German cantons between the Rhine and Elbe into a similar association under Roman supremacy, as had been constituted in the case of the Gallic cantons, and to bestow upon it, in the altar to Augustus of the Ubian town—the germ of the modern Cologne—an executive centre similar to that which the altar of Augustus at Lyons formed for Gaul; for the more remote future the transference of the chief camp to the right bank of the Rhine, and the restoration of the left, at least in the main, to the governor of the Belgica, were doubtless in contemplation. But these projects came to an end with the legions of Varus; the Germanic altar of Augustus on the Rhine became or remained the altar of the Ubii; the legions permanently retained their standing quarters in the territory, which properly belonged to the Belgica, but—seeing that a separation of the military and civil administration was, according to the Roman arrangement, excluded—was placed, so long as the troops were stationed there, for administrative purposes also under the commandants of the two armies.62 For, as was formerly stated, Varus was probably the last commandant of the united army of the Rhine; on the increase of the army to eight legions, which was consequent upon that disaster, the division of it to all appearance also ensued. What we have to describe in this section therefore is not, strictly speaking, the circumstances of a Roman province, but the fortunes of a Roman army, and, as most closely connected therewith, the fortunes of the neighbouring peoples and adversaries, so far as these are interwoven with the history of Rome.

Upper and Lower Germany.The two headquarters of the army of the Rhine were always Vetera near Wesel and Mogontiacum, the modern Mentz, both doubtless older than the division of the command, and one of the reasons for introducing that division. The two armies numbered in the first century four legions each, thus about 30,000 men63; at or between those two points lay the main bulk of the Roman troops, besides one legion at Noviomagus (Nimeguen), another at Argentoratum (Strassburg), and a third at Vindonissa (Windisch not far from ZÜrich) not far from the Raetian frontier. To the lower army belonged the not inconsiderable fleet on the Rhine. The boundary between the upper and the lower army lay between Andernach and Remagen near Brohl,64 so that Coblenz and Bingen fell to the upper, Bonn and Cologne to the lower military district. On the left bank there belonged to the upper German administrative circuit the districts of the Helvetii (Switzerland), the Sequani (BesanÇon), the Lingones (Langres), the Rauraci (Basle), the Triboci (Alsace), the Nemetes (Spires), and the Vangiones (Worms); to the more restricted lower German circuit belonged the district of the Ubii, or rather the colony Agrippina (Cologne), those of the Tungri (Tongern), the Menapii (Brabant), and the Batavi, while the cantons situated farther to the west, including Metz and Treves, were placed under the different governors of the three Gauls. While this separation has merely administrative significance, on the other hand the varying extent of the two jurisdictions on the right bank coincides with the varying relations to their neighbours and the advancing or receding of the bounds of the Roman rule conditioned by those relations. With these neighbours confronting them, matters on the lower and on the upper Rhine were regulated in ways so diverse, and the course of events was so thoroughly different that here the provincial separation became historically of the most decisive importance. Let us look first at the development of things on the lower Rhine.

Lower Germany.We have formerly described how far the Romans had subjugated the Germans on both banks of the Rhine. The Germanic Batavi had been peacefully united with the empire not by Caesar, but not long afterwards, perhaps by Drusus (p.28). They were settled in the Rhine delta, that is on the left bank of the Rhine and on the islands formed by its arms, upwards as far at least as the Old Rhine, and so nearly from Antwerp to Utrecht and Leyden in Zealand and southern Holland, on territory originally Celtic—at least the local names are predominantly Celtic; their name is still borne by the Betuwe, the lowland between the Waal and the Leck with the capital Noviomagus, now Nimeguen. They were, especially compared with the restless and refractory Celts, obedient and useful subjects, and hence occupied a distinctive position in the aggregate, and particularly in the military system, of the Roman empire. They remained quite free from taxation, but were on the other hand drawn upon more largely than any other canton in the recruiting; this one canton furnished to the army 1000 horsemen and 9000 foot soldiers; besides, the men of the imperial body–guard were taken especially from them. The command of these Batavian divisions was conferred exclusively on native Batavi. The Batavi were accounted indisputably not merely as the best riders and swimmers of the army, but also as the model of true soldiers, and in this case certainly the good pay of the Batavian body–guard, as well as the privilege of the nobles to serve as officers, considerably confirmed their loyalty. These Germans accordingly had taken no part either preparatory to, or consequent upon, the disaster of Varus; and if Augustus, under the first impression of the terrible news, discharged his Batavian guard, he soon became convinced of the groundlessness of his suspicion, and the troop was a short time afterwards reinstated.

Cannenefates.On the other bank of the Rhine next to the Batavi, in the modern Kennemer district (North Holland beyond Amsterdam), dwelt the Cannenefates, closely related to them but less numerous; they are not merely named among the tribes subjugated by Tiberius, but were also treated like the Batavi in the furnishing of soldiers. Frisians. The Frisians, adjoining these further on, in the coast district that is still named after them, as far as the lower Ems, submitted to Drusus and obtained a position similar to that of the Batavi. There was imposed on them instead of tribute simply the delivery of a number of bullocks’ hides for the wants of the army; on the other hand they had to furnish comparatively large numbers of men for the Roman service. They were the most faithful allies of Drusus as afterwards of Germanicus, useful to him in constructing canals as well as especially after the unfortunate North Sea expeditions (p.53). They were followed on the east by the Chauci, Chauci.a widely extended tribe of sailors and fishermen along the coast of the North Sea on both sides of the Weser, perhaps from the Ems to the Elbe; they were brought into subjection to the Romans by Drusus at the same time with the Frisians, but not, like these, without resistance. All these Germanic coast tribes submitted either by agreement or at any rate without any severe struggle to the new rule, and as they had taken no part in the rising of the Cherusci, they still continued after the battle of Varus in their earlier relations to the Roman empire; even from the more remote cantons of the Frisians and the Chauci the garrisons were not at that time withdrawn, and the latter still furnished a contingent to the campaigns of Germanicus. On the renewed evacuation of Germany in the year 17 the poor and distant land of the Chauci, difficult of protection, seems certainly to have been given up; at least there are no later evidences of the continuance of the Roman dominion there, and some decades later we find them independent. But all the land westward of the lower Ems remained with the empire, whose boundary thus included the modern Netherlands. The defence of this part of the imperial frontier against the Germans not belonging to the empire was left in the main to the subject maritime cantons themselves.

Limes and desert–frontier on the lower Rhine.Farther up the stream a different course was taken; a frontier–road was here marked off, and the land lying between it and the Rhine was depopulated. With the frontier–road drawn at a greater or less distance from the Rhine, the Limes,65 was associated the control of frontier–intercourse, as the crossing of this road was forbidden altogether by night, and, as regards armed men, by day, and was permitted in the case of others, as a rule, only under special precautions for security and on payment of the prescribed transit–dues. Such a road was drawn opposite to the headquarters on the lower Rhine, in what is now MÜnster, by Tiberius after the disaster of Varus, at some distance from the Rhine, seeing that between it and the river stretched the “Caesian forest,” the more precise position of which is not known. Similar arrangements must have been made at the same time in the valleys of the Ruhr and the Sieg as far as that of the Wied, where the province of the lower Rhine ended. This road did not necessarily require to be militarily occupied and arranged for defence, although of course the defence of the frontier and the fortification of it always aimed at making the frontier–road as far as possible secure. A chief means for protecting the frontier was the depopulation of the tract of land between the river and the road. “The tribes on the right bank of the Rhine,” says a well–informed author of the time of Tiberius, “have been in part transferred by the Romans to the left bank, in part withdrawn of their own accord into the interior.” This applied, in what is now the MÜnster country, to the Germanic stocks earlier settled there of the Usipes, Tencteri, Tubantes. In the campaigns of Germanicus these appear dislodged from the Rhine, but still in the region of the Lippe, afterwards, probably in consequence of those very expeditions, farther southward opposite to Mentz. Their old home lay thenceforth desolate, and formed the extensive pasture–country reserved for the herds of the lower Germanic army, on which in the year 58 first the Frisii and then the Amsivarii, wandering homeless, thought of settling, without being able to procure leave from the Roman authorities to do so. Farther to the south at least a portion of the Sugambri, who likewise were subjected in great part to the same treatment, remained settled on the right bank,66 while other smaller tribes were wholly dislodged. The scanty population tolerated within the Limes were, as a matter of course, subjects of the empire, as is confirmed by the Roman levy taking place among the Sugambri.

Conflicts with the Frisii and Chauci under Claudius.In this way matters were arranged on the lower Rhine after the abandonment of the more comprehensive projects, and thus a not inconsiderable territory on the right bank was still held by the Romans. But various inconvenient complications arose in connection with it. Towards the end of the reign of Tiberius (28) the Frisians, in consequence of intolerable oppression in the levying of tribute in itself small, revolted from the empire, slew the people employed in levying it, and besieged the Roman commandant acting there, with the rest of the Roman soldiers and civilians sojourning in the territory, in the fortress of Flevum, where, previous to the extension of the Zuyder See that took place in the Middle Ages, lay the eastmost mouth of the Rhine, near the modern island Vlieland beside the Texel. The rising assumed such proportions that both armies of the Rhine marched in concert against the Frisians; but still the governor Lucius Apronius accomplished nothing. The Frisians gave up the siege of the fortress, when the Roman fleet brought up the legions; but it was difficult to get near the Frisians themselves in a country so much intersected; several Roman corps were destroyed in detail, and the Roman advanced guard was so thoroughly defeated that even the dead bodies of the fallen were left in the power of the enemy. The matter was not brought to a decisive action, nor yet to a true subjugation; Tiberius, the older he grew, became ever less inclined to larger enterprises, which gave to the general in command a position of power. With this state of things was connected the fact that in the immediately succeeding years the neighbours of the Frisians, the Chauci, became very troublesome to the Romans; in the year 41 the governor Publius Gabinius Secundus had to undertake an expedition against them, and six years later (47) they even pillaged far and wide the coast of Gaul with their light piratical vessels under the leadership of the Roman deserter Gannascus, by birth one of the Cannenefates. Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, nominated governor of Lower Germany by Claudius, put a stop with his fleet to these forerunners of the Saxons and Normans, and afterwards vigorously brought back the Frisians to obedience, by organising anew their commonwealth and stationing a Roman garrison among them.

The occupation of the right bank abandoned.Corbulo had the intention of chastising the Chauci also; at his instigation Gannascus was put out of the way—against a deserter he held himself entitled to take this course—and he was on the point of crossing the Ems and advancing into the country of the Chauci, when not only did he receive counter–orders from Rome, but the Roman government wholly and completely altered its attitude on the lower Rhine. The emperor Claudius directed the governor to remove all Roman garrisons from the right bank. We may well conceive that the imperial general with bitter words commended the good fortune of the free commanders of Rome in former days; in this step certainly there was a conclusive admission of defeat, which had been but partially owned after the battle of Varus. Probably this restriction of the Roman occupation of Germany, which was not occasioned by any pressure of immediate necessity, was called forth by the resolve just then adopted to occupy Britain, and finds its justification in the fact that the troops were not sufficient for accomplishing both objects at once. That the order was executed, and matters remained afterwards in that position, is proved by the absence of Roman military inscriptions on the whole right bank of the lower Rhine.67 Only isolated points for crossing and sally–ports, such as, in particular, Deutz opposite Cologne, formed exceptions from this general rule. The military road keeps here to the left bank and strictly to the course of the Rhine, while the traffic–route running behind it, cutting off the windings, pursues the straight line of communication. Here on the right bank of the Rhine there is no evidence of Roman military roads, either through the discovery of milestones or otherwise.

Its subsequent position.The withdrawal of the garrisons did not imply giving up possession, strictly speaking, of the right bank in this province. It was looked upon by the Romans thenceforth somewhat as the commandant of a fortress looks upon the ground that lies under his cannon. The Cannenefates and at least a part of the Frisians68 were afterwards subject, as before, to the empire. We have already remarked that subsequently in the MÜnster country the herds of the legions still pastured, and the Germans were not allowed to settle there. But the government thenceforth relied—for the defence of such border–territory on the right bank as still existed in this province—in the north on the Cannenefates and the Frisians, and farther up the stream substantially on the space left desolate; and, if it did not directly forbid, at any rate did not give scope to Roman settlement there. The altar stone of a private person found at Altenberg (circuit of MÜlheim), on the river DhÜn, is almost the only evidence of Roman inhabitants in these regions. This is the more remarkable, as the prosperity of Cologne would, if special hindrances had not here stood in the way, have of itself carried Roman civilisation far and wide on the other bank. Often enough Roman troops may have traversed these extensive regions, perhaps even have kept the roads—which were here laid out in large number during the Augustan period—in some measure passable, and possibly laid out new ones; sparse settlers, partly remains of the old Germanic population, partly colonists from the empire, may have settled here, similar to those that we shall soon find in the earlier imperial period on the right bank of the upper Rhine; but the highways, like the possessions, lacked the stamp of durability. There was no wish to undertake here a labour of similar extent and difficulty to that which we shall become acquainted with further on in the upper province, or to provide here, as was done there, military defence and fortification for the frontier of the empire. Therefore the lower Rhine was crossed doubtless by Roman rule, but not, like the upper Rhine, also by Roman culture.

The situation in Gaul and Germany after the fall of Nero.For the double task of keeping the neighbouring Gaul in obedience and of keeping the Germans of the right bank aloof from Gaul, the army of the lower Rhine would, even after abandoning the occupation of the region on the right of the river, have quite sufficed, and the peace without and within would not presumably have been interrupted, had not the downfall of the Julio–Claudian dynasty, and the civil or rather military war thereby called forth, exercised a momentous influence on these relations. The insurrection of the Celtic land under the leadership of Vindex was no doubt defeated by the two Germanic armies; but Nero’s fall nevertheless ensued, and when the Spanish army as well as the imperial guard in Rome appointed a successor to him, the armies of the Rhine did the same; and in the beginning of the year 69 the greater portion of these troops crossed the Alps to settle the point on the battle–fields of Italy, whether its ruler was to be called Marcus or Aulus. In May of the same year the new emperor Vitellius followed, after arms had decided in his favour, accompanied by the remainder of the good soldiers inured to war. The blanks in the garrisons of the Rhine were no doubt filled up for the exigency by recruits hastily levied in Gaul; but the whole land knew that they were not the old legions, and it soon became apparent that these were not coming back. If the new ruler had had in his power the army that placed him on the throne, at least a portion of them must have returned to the Rhine immediately after the defeat of Otho in April; but the insubordination of the soldiers still more than the new complication which soon set in with the proclamation of Vespasian as emperor in the East, retained the German legions in Italy.

Preparations for the insurrection.Gaul was in the most fearful excitement. The rising of Vindex was, as we formerly remarked (p.82), in itself directed not against the rule of Rome but against the rulers for the time being; but it was none the less on that account a warfare between the armies of the Rhine and the levy en masse of the great majority of the Celtic cantons; and these were none the less subjected to pillage and maltreatment resembling that of the conquered. The tone of feeling which subsisted between the provincials and the soldiers was shown, for instance, by the treatment which the canton of the Helvetii experienced as the troops destined for Italy marched through it. Because a courier despatched by the adherents of Vitellius to Pannonia had here been seized, the columns on the march from the one side, and the Romans stationed as a garrison in Raetia on the other, entered the canton, pillaged the villages far and wide, particularly what is now Baden near ZÜrich, chased those who had fled to the mountains out of their lurking–places, and put them to death by thousands or sold the captives under martial law. Although the capital Aventicum (Avenches, near Murten) submitted without resistance, the agitators of the army demanded that it should be razed, and all that the general granted was that the question should be referred not, forsooth, to the emperor, but to the soldiers of the great headquarters; these sat in judgment on the fate of the town, and it was merely the turn of their caprice that saved the place from destruction. Outrages of this nature brought the provincials to extremities; even before Vitellius left Gaul, a certain Mariccus, from the canton of the Boii, dependent on the Haedui, came forward a god on earth, as he said, and destined to restore the freedom of the Celts; and people flocked in troops to his banner. But the exasperation in the Celtic country was not of so very great moment. The very rising of Vindex had most clearly shown how utterly incapable the Gauls were of releasing themselves from the Roman embrace.

Rising of the Batavian auxiliaries.But the tone of feeling of the Germanic districts reckoned as belonging to Gaul—in the modern Netherlands—of the Batavi, the Cannenefates, the Frisians, whose distinctive position has already been dwelt on, had a somewhat greater importance; and it happened that, on the one hand, these very tribes had been exasperated to the utmost, and on the other, that their contingents were accidentally to be found in Gaul. The bulk of the Batavian troops, 8000 men, assigned to the 14th legion, had for a considerable time a place along with the latter in the army of the upper Rhine, and had then under Claudius, on occasion of the occupying of Britain, gone to that island, where this corps shortly before had, by its incomparable valour, gained the decisive battle under Paullinus for the Romans; from this day onward it occupied indisputably the first place among all the divisions of the Roman army. When it was recalled on account of this very distinction by Nero, in order to go off with him to the war in the East, the revolution breaking out in Gaul had brought about a quarrel between the legion and its auxiliary troops; the former, faithfully devoted to Nero, hastened to Italy; the Batavi, on the other hand, refused to follow. Perhaps this was connected with the fact that two of their most noted officers, Civilis. the brothers Paulus and Civilis, had, without any reason and without respect to many years of faithful service and honourable wounds, been shortly before put on trial as suspected of high treason, and the former executed, the latter placed in captivity. After the downfall of Nero, to which the revolt of the Batavian cohorts had materially contributed, Galba released Civilis and sent the Batavians back to their old headquarters in Britain. While they, on the march thither, were encamped among the Lingones (Langres), the legions of the Rhine revolted from Galba and proclaimed Vitellius emperor. The Batavi, after considerable hesitation, ultimately joined the movement; Vitellius did not forgive them for this hesitation, but did not venture directly to call to account the leader of the powerful corps.

Progress of the movement.Thus the Batavians had marched with the legions of lower Germany to Italy and had fought with their usual valour in the battle of Betriacum for Vitellius, while their old legionary comrades confronted them in the army of Otho. But the arrogance of the Germans exasperated their Roman comrades in victory, however much these acknowledged their valour in battle; the very generals in command did not trust them, and even made an attempt to divide by detaching them—a course, which, in this war, where the soldiers commanded and the generals obeyed, was not capable of being carried out, and had almost cost the general his life. After the victory they were commissioned to accompany their hostile comrades of the 14th legion to Britain; but when matters came to a skirmish between the two at Turin, the latter alone went to Britain, and the Batavians to Germany. Meanwhile Vespasian had been proclaimed emperor in the East, and, while in consequence of this Vitellius gave to the Batavian cohorts marching orders for Italy as well as ordered new comprehensive levies among the Batavi, commissioners of Vespasian opened communications with the Batavian officers to hinder this departure, and to provoke in Germany itself a rising which should detain the troops there. Civilis entered into the suggestion. He resorted to his home, and gained easily the assent of his own people as well as the neighbouring Cannenefates and Frisians. The insurrection broke out among the former; the camps of the two cohorts in the neighbourhood were surprised and the Roman posts seized; the Roman recruits fought ill; soon Civilis with his cohort—which he had caused to follow, ostensibly to employ it against the insurgents—threw himself openly into the movement, along with the three Germanic cantons renounced allegiance to Vitellius, and summoned the other Batavians and Cannenefates, who just then were breaking up from Mentz for the march to Italy, to join him.

Its character.All this was more a soldiers’ rising than an insurrection of the province, or even a Germanic war. If at that time the Rhine legions were fighting with those of the Danube, and further with these and the army of the Euphrates, it was but in keeping that the soldiers of the second class, and above all their most distinguished troop, the Batavian, should enter independently into this divisional warfare. Any one who compares this movement among the cohorts of the Batavians and the Germans on the left of the Rhine with the insurrection of those on the right bank of the Rhine under Augustus, may not overlook the fact, that in the later rising the alae and cohorts took up the part of the general levy of the Cherusci; and, if the perfidious officer of Varus released his nation from the Roman rule, the Batavian leader acted in the commission of Vespasian; in fact, perhaps, on the secret directions of the governor of his province privately inclined towards Vespasian, and the rising in the first instance was directed simply against Vitellius. It is true that the position of things was such that this soldiers’ revolt might change itself at any moment into a German war of the most dangerous kind. The same Roman troops who covered the Rhine against the Germans of the right bank were, in consequence of the corps–warfare, placed in an attitude of hostility to the Germans on the left bank; the parts were of such a nature, that it seemed almost easier to exchange them than to carry them out. Civilis himself may possibly have left it to depend on the sequel, whether the movement would end in a change of emperor or in the expulsion of the Romans from Gaul by the Germans.

State of the armies on the Rhine.The command of the two armies on the Rhine was held at this time, after the governor of lower Germany had been made emperor, by his former colleague in upper Germany, Hordeonius Flaccus, a gouty man advanced in years, without energy and without authority, either, moreover, in fact secretly holding to Vespasian, or at any rate very much suspected of such faithlessness by the legions, who zealously adhered to the emperor of their own making. It is characteristic of him and of his position that, to clear himself of the suspicion of treason, he gave orders that the government despatches on arrival should be sent unopened to the eagle–bearers of the legions, and these should read them in the first instance to the soldiers, before they forwarded them to their address. Of the four legions of the lower army which had primarily to do with the insurgents two, the 5th and the 15th, were stationed under the legate Munius Lupercus in the headquarters at Vetera; the 16th, under Numisius Rufus, in Novaesium (Neuss); the 1st, under Herennius Gallus, in Bonna (Bonn). Of the upper army, which then numbered only three legions,69 one, the 21st, remained in its stated quarters Vindonissa, aloof from these events, if it had not rather been drawn off wholly to Italy; the two others, the 4th Macedonian and the 22d, were stationed at the headquarters Mentz, where Flaccus also was present; and in point of fact, his able legate Dillius Vocula exercised the chief command. The legions had throughout only half of their full complement, and most of the soldiers were half–invalids or recruits.

First conflicts.Civilis, at the head of a small number of regular troops, but of the collective levy of the Batavi, Cannenefates, and Frisians, advanced from his home to the attack. In the first instance, on the Rhine he met with remnants of the Roman garrisons driven from the northern cantons and a division of the Roman Rhenish fleet; when he attacked them, not merely did the ships’ crews, consisting in great part of Batavians, go over to him, but also a cohort of the Tungri—it was the first revolt of a Gallic division; such Italian soldiers as were present were slain or taken prisoners. This success brought at length the Germans on the right of the Rhine into the movement. Participation of the Germans on the right of the Rhine.What they had long vainly hoped for—the rising of the Roman subjects on the other bank—now came to be fulfilled, and as well the Chauci and the Frisians on the coast, as above all, the Bructeri on both sides of the upper Ems as far down as the Lippe, the Tencteri on the middle Rhine opposite to Cologne, and in lesser measure the tribes adjoining these on the south—Usipes, Mattiaci, Chatti—threw themselves into the struggle. When, on the orders of Flaccus, the two weak legions marched out from Vetera against the insurgents, these could already confront them with a numerous contingent drawn from beyond the Rhine; and the battle ended, like the combat on the Rhine, with a defeat of the Romans through the defection of the Batavian cavalry, which belonged to the garrison of Vetera, and through the bad behaviour of the cavalry of the Ubii and of the Treveri.

Siege of Vetera.The insurgents and the Germans who flocked to them proceeded to invest and besiege the headquarters of the lower army. During this siege news of the events on the lower Rhine reached the other Batavian cohorts in the neighbourhood of Mentz; they at once wheeled round towards the north. Instead of ordering them to be cut down, the weak–minded commander–in–chief allowed them to go, and when the commandant of the legion in Bonn sought to intercept them, Flaccus did not support him as he might have done and had even at first promised. So the brave Germans dispersed the Bonn legion and succeeded in joining Civilis—henceforth the compact core of his army, in which now the banners of the Roman cohorts stood by the side of the animal–standards from the sacred groves of the Germans. But still the Batavian held, at least ostensibly, by Vespasian; he swore in the Roman troops in Vespasian’s name, and summoned the garrison of Vetera to join him in declaring for the latter. These troops, however, saw in this, probably with warrant, a mere attempt to overreach them, and repelled it as resolutely as they repelled the assailing hosts of the enemy, who soon found themselves compelled by the superiority of Roman tactics to change the siege into a blockade. But, as the leaders of the Roman army had been taken by surprise in these events, provisions were scarce and speedy relief was urgently called for. In order to bring it, Flaccus and Vocula set out with their whole force from Mentz, drew to themselves on the way the two legions from Bonna and Novaesium as well as the auxiliary troops of the Gallic cantons appearing at the word of command in large numbers, and approached Vetera.

Vocula.But instead of throwing at once the whole force from within and without on the besiegers, however great their superiority in numbers, Vocula pitched his camp at Gelduba (Gellep on the Rhine, not far from Krefeld) a long day’s march distant from Vetera, while Flaccus lay farther back. The worthlessness of the so–called general and the ever increasing demoralisation of the troops, above all, the distrust towards the officers, which frequently went so far as to maltreat and attempt to kill them, can alone at least explain this halting. Thus the mischief gradually thickened on all sides. All Germany seemed desirous to take part in the war; while the besieging army constantly obtained new contingents from that quarter, other bands passed over the Rhine, which in this dry summer was unusually low, partly in the rear of the Romans into the cantons of the Ubii and the Treveri to lay waste the valley of the Moselle, partly below Vetera into the region of the Maas and the Scheldt; further bands appeared before Mentz and made pretext of besieging it. Then came the accounts of the catastrophe in Italy. On the news of the second battle at Betriacum in the autumn of the year 69 the Germanic legions gave up the cause of Vitellius as lost and took the oath, though reluctantly, to Vespasian, perhaps in the hope that Civilis, who had in fact inscribed the name of Vespasian on his banners, would then make his peace. But the German swarms, who had meanwhile poured themselves over all northern Gaul, had not come to install the Flavian dynasty; even if Civilis had ever wished this, he now had no longer the power. He threw off the mask, and openly expressed—what indeed was long settled—that the Germans of north Gaul intended, with the help of their free countrymen, to shake off the Roman rule.

Relief of Vetera.But the fortune of war changed. Civilis attempted to surprise the camp of Gelduba; the attack began successfully, and the defection of the cohorts of the Nervii brought Vocula’s little band into a critical position. Then suddenly two Spanish cohorts fell on the rear of the Germans; what threatened to be a defeat was converted into a brilliant victory; the flower of the assailing army remained on the field of battle. Vocula indeed did not advance at once against Vetera, as he possibly might have done, but he penetrated into the besieged town some days later after a renewed vehement conflict with the enemy. It is true that he brought no provisions; and, as the river was in the power of the enemy, these had to be procured by the land–route from Novaesium, where Flaccus was encamped. The first convoy passed through; but the enemy, having meanwhile assembled again, attacked the second column with provisions on its way, and compelled it to throw itself into Gelduba. Vocula went off thither to its support with his troops and a part of the old garrison of Vetera. When they had arrived at Gelduba, the men refused to return to Vetera and to take upon themselves the further sufferings of the siege in prospect; instead of this they marched to Novaesium, and Vocula, who knew that the remnant of the old garrison of Vetera was in some measure provisioned, had for good or evil to follow.

Mutiny of Roman troops.In Novaesium meanwhile mutiny had broken out. The soldiers had come to learn that a largess destined for them by Vitellius had reached the general, and compelled its distribution in the name of Vespasian. They had scarcely received it, when, in the wild carousing which ensued upon the largess, the old grudge of the soldiers broke out afresh; they pillaged the house of the general who had betrayed the army of the Rhine to the general of the Syrian legions, slew him, and would have prepared the same fate for Vocula, if the latter had not escaped in disguise. Thereupon they once more proclaimed Vitellius emperor, not knowing that he was already dead. When this news came to the camp, the better part of the soldiers, and in particular the two upper German legions, began in some measure to reflect; they again exchanged the effigy of Vitellius on their standards for that of Vespasian, and placed themselves under the orders of Vocula; he led them to Mentz, where he remained during the rest of the winter 69–70. Civilis occupied Gelduba, and thereby cut off Vetera, which was most closely blockaded; the camps of Novaesium and Bonna were still held.

Insurrection in Gaul.Hitherto the Gallic land, apart from the few insurgent Germanic cantons in the north, had kept firmly by Rome. Certainly partisanship ran through the several cantons; among the Tungri, for example, the Batavi had a strong body of adherents, and the bad behaviour of the Gallic auxiliary troops during the whole campaign may probably have been in part called forth by such a temper of hostility to the Romans. But even among the insurgents there was a considerable party favourably disposed to Rome; a Batavian of note, Claudius Labeo, waged a partisan warfare not without success against his countrymen in his home and its neighbourhood, and the nephew of Civilis, Julius Briganticus, fell in one of these combats at the head of a band of Roman horse. All the Gallic cantons had without more ado complied with the injunction to send contingents; the Ubii, although of Germanic descent, were in this war mindful simply of their Romanism, and they as well as the Treveri had offered brave and successful resistance to the Germans invading their territory. It is easy to understand how this was so. The position of things in Gaul was still much as it was in the days of Caesar and Ariovistus; a liberation of their Gallic home from the Roman dominion by means of those hordes, which, in order to lend to Civilis the help of his countrymen, were just then pillaging the valleys of the Moselle, Maas, and Scheldt, was tantamount to a surrender of the land to its Germanic neighbours; in this war, which had grown out of a feud between two corps of Roman troops into a conflict between Rome and Germany, the Gauls were, properly speaking, nothing but the stake and the booty. That the tone of feeling among the Gauls, in spite of all their well–founded general and special complaints as to the Roman government, was predominantly anti–Germanic, and that the materials for kindling such a national rising suddenly bursting into flame and reckless of consequences, as had spread through the people in an earlier time, were wanting in this Gaul now half–Romanised, events up to this time had most clearly shown. But amidst the constant misfortunes of the Roman army the courage of the Gauls hostile to the Romans gradually grew stronger, and their defection completed the catastrophe. Two Treveri of note, Julius Classicus, the commander of the Treverian cavalry, and Julius Tutor, commandant of the garrisons on the banks of the middle Rhine, Julius Sabinus one of the Lingones, descended, as he at least boasted, from a bastard of Caesar, and some other men of like mind from different cantons, professed in thoughtless Celtic fashion to discern that the destruction of Rome was written in the stars and announced to the world by the burning of the Capitol (Dec. 69).

The Gallic empire.So they resolved to set aside the Roman rule and to set up a Gallic empire. For this purpose they took the course of Arminius. Vocula allowed himself to be really induced by falsified reports of these Roman officers to set out, with the contingents placed under their command and a part of the Mentz garrison, in the spring of 70 for the lower Rhine, in order with these troops and the legions of Bonna and Novaesium to relieve the hard–pressed Vetera. On the march from Novaesium to Vetera, Classicus and the officers in concert with him left the Roman army and proclaimed the new Gallic empire. Vocula led the legions back to Novaesium; Classicus pitched his camp immediately in front of it; Vetera could not now hold out long; the Romans could not but expect after its fall to find themselves confronted by the whole power of the enemy.

Capitulation of the Romans.The Roman troops refused to face this prospect and entered into a capitulation with the revolted officers. In vain Vocula attempted once more to urge the ties of discipline and of honour; the legions of Rome allowed a Roman deserter from the 1st legion to stab the brave general on the order of Classicus, and themselves delivered up the other chief officers in chains to the representative of the empire of Gaul, who thereupon made the soldiers swear allegiance to that empire. The same oath was taken at the hands of the perfidious officers by the garrison of Vetera, which, compelled by famine, at once surrendered, and likewise by the garrison of Mentz, where but a few individuals avoided disgrace by flight or death. The whole proud army of the Rhine, the first army of the empire, had surrendered to its own auxiliaries; Rome had surrendered to Gaul.

End of the Gallic empire.It was a tragedy, and at the same time a farce. The Gallic empire lapsed, as it could not fail to do. Civilis and his Germans were doubtless, in the first instance, well content that the quarrel in the Roman camp delivered the one as well as the other half of their foes into their hands; but he had no thought of recognising that empire, and still less had his allies from the right bank of the Rhine.

As little would the Gauls themselves have anything to do with it—a result, to which certainly the split between the eastern districts and the rest of the country, which had already become apparent at the rising of Vindex, materially contributed. The Treveri and the Lingones, whose leading men had instigated that camp–conspiracy, stood by their leaders, but they remained virtually alone; only the Vangiones and Triboci joined them. The Sequani, into whose territory the Lingones marched to induce their accession, drove them summarily homeward. The esteemed Remi, the leading canton in Belgica, convoked the diet of the three Gauls, and, although there was no lack there of orators on behalf of political freedom, it resolved simply to dissuade the Treveri from the revolt. How the constitution of the new empire would have turned out, had it been established, it is difficult to say; we learn only that Sabinus, the great–grandson of Caesar’s concubine, named himself also Caesar, and in this capacity allowed himself to be beaten by the Sequani; whereas Classicus, who had not such ascendency at his command, assumed the insignia of Roman magistracy, and thus played perhaps the part of republican proconsul. In keeping with this there exists a coin, which must have been struck by Classicus or his adherents, exhibiting the head of Gallia, as the coins of the Roman republic show that of Roma, and by its side the symbol of the legion, with the genuinely audacious legend of “fidelity” (fides). At first, doubtless, on the Rhine the imperialists, in concert with the insurgent Germans, had full freedom. The remnants of the two legions that had capitulated in Vetera were put to death, contrary to the terms of surrender and to the will of Civilis; the two from Novaesium and Bonna were sent to Treves; all the Roman camps on the Rhine, large and small, with the exception of Mogontiacum, were burnt. The Agrippinenses found themselves in the worst plight. The imperialists had certainly confined themselves to requiring from them the oath of allegiance; but the Germans in this case did not forget that they were properly speaking, the Ubii.A message of the Tencteri from the right bank of the Rhine—this was one of the tribes whose old home the Romans had laid desolate and used as pasture–ground, and which had in consequence of this been obliged to seek other abodes—demanded the razing of this chief seat of the Germanic apostates, and the execution of all their citizens of Roman descent. This would probably have been resolved on had not Civilis, who was personally under obligation to them, as well as the German prophetess Veleda in the canton of the Bructeri, who had predicted this victory, and whose authority the whole insurgent army recognised, interceded on their behalf.

Advent of the Romans.The victors were not left long to contend over the booty. The imperialists certainly gave the assurance that the civil war in Italy had broken out, that all the provinces were overrun by the enemy, and Vespasian was probably dead; but the heavy arm of Rome was soon enough felt. The newly confirmed government could despatch its best generals and numerous legions to the Rhine; and certainly an imposing display of power was there needed. Annius Gallus took up the command in the upper, Petillius Cerialis in the lower province; the latter, an impetuous and often incautious, but brave and capable officer, took the really serious action. Besides the 21st legion from Vindonissa, five came from Italy, three from Spain, one along with the fleet from Britain, and, in addition, a further corps from the Raetian garrison. This and the 21st legion were the first to arrive. The imperialists had possibly talked of blocking the passes of the Alps; but nothing was done, and the whole country of the upper Rhine lay open as far as Mentz. The two Mentz legions had no doubt sworn allegiance to the Gallic empire, and at first offered resistance; but, so soon as they perceived that a larger Roman army confronted them, they returned to obedience, and the Vangiones and Triboci immediately followed their example. Even the Lingones submitted—merely upon a promise of mild treatment—without striking a blow on the part of their 70,000 men capable of bearing arms.70 The Treveri themselves had almost done the same; but they were prevented from doing so by the nobility. The two surviving legions of the lower Rhenish army that were stationed here had, on the first news of the approach of the Romans, torn the Gallic insignia from their standards, and withdrew to the Mediomatrici that had remained faithful (Metz), where they submitted to the mercy of the new general. When Cerialis arrived at the army, he found a good part of the work already done. The insurgent leaders exerted themselves, it is true, to the utmost—at that time by their orders the legionary legates delivered up at Novaesium were put to death—but in a military sense they were impotent, and their last political move—that of offering the Roman general himself the sovereignty of the Gallic empire—was worthy of the beginning. After a short combat Cerialis occupied the capital of the Treveri, the leaders and the whole council having taken refuge with the Germans. This was the end of the Gallic empire.

Last struggles of Civilis.More serious was the struggle with the Germans. Civilis, with his whole fighting strength, the Batavi, the contingent of the Germans, and the refugee bands of the Gallic insurgents, suddenly assailed the much weaker Roman army in Treves itself. The Roman camp was already in his power, and the bridge of the Moselle occupied by him, when his men, instead of following up the victory which they had won, began prematurely to pillage, and Cerialis, compensating for his imprudence by brilliant valour, restored the combat and ultimately drove the Germans out from the camp and the town. There was no further success of importance. The Agrippinenses again joined the Romans, and killed the Germans, who were staying among them, in their houses; a whole Germanic cohort encamped there was shut up and burnt in its quarters. Whatsoever in Belgica still held to the Germans was brought back to obedience by the legion arriving from Britain; a victory of the Cannenefates over the Roman ships which had landed the legion, and other isolated successes of the brave Germanic bands, above all, of the more numerous and better managed Germanic ships, did not change the general position of the war. On the ruins of Vetera Civilis confronted the foe; but he had to give way to the Roman army, which had meanwhile been doubled, and at length, after an obstinate resistance, had to leave his own home to the enemy. As ever happens, discord ensued in the train of misfortune. Civilis was no longer sure of his own men, and sought and found protection from them among his opponents. Late in the autumn of the year 70 the unequal struggle was decided; the auxiliaries now on their part surrendered to the burgess–legions, and the priestess Veleda went as a captive to Rome.

Nature of the Roman task and its issue.When we look back on this war, one of the most singular and most dreadful in all ages, we cannot but own that hardly ever has an army had a task set before it equally severe with that of the two Roman armies on the Rhine in the years 69 and 70. In the course of a few months soldiers successively of Nero, of the senate, of Galba, of Vitellius, and of Vespasian; the only support to the dominion of Italy over the two mighty nations of the Gauls and the Germans, while the soldiers of the auxiliaries were taken almost entirely, and those of the legions in great part, from those very nations; deprived of their best men, mostly without pay, often starving, and beyond all measure wretchedly led, they were certainly expected to perform feats physically and morally super–human. They ill sustained the severe trial. This was less a war between two divisions of the army, like the other civil wars of this terrible time, than a war of soldiers, and above all of officers, of the second class against those of the first, combined with a dangerous insurrection and invasion of the Germans, and an incidental and insignificant revolt of some Celtic districts. In Roman military history Cannae and Carrhae and the Teutoburg Forest are glorious pages compared with the double disgrace of Novaesium; only a few individual men, not a single troop, preserved a pure escutcheon amidst the general dishonour. The frightful disorganisation of the political and, above all, of the military system, which meets us on the fall of the Julio–Claudian dynasty, appears—more clearly even than in the leaderless battle of Betriacum—in those events on the Rhine, to which the history of Rome never before and never after exhibits a parallel.

Consequences of the Batavian war.The very extent and general diffusion of these misdeeds rendered a corresponding chastisement impossible. It deserves to be acknowledged that the new ruler, who happily had remained in person aloof from all these occurrences, in a genuine statesmanly fashion allowed the past to be past, and exerted himself only to prevent the repetition of similar scenes. That the prominent culprits, whether from the ranks of the troops or from the insurgents, were brought to account for their crimes, was a matter of course; we may measure the punishment by the fact that when five years afterwards one of the Gallic insurgent leaders was discovered in a lurking–place, in which his wife had up to that time kept him concealed, Vespasian gave him as well as her over to the executioner. But the renegade legions were allowed to share in the fighting against the Germans, and to atone for their guilt to some extent in the hot conflicts at Treves and at Vetera. It is true, nevertheless, that the four legions of the lower Rhenish army were all dismissed, as was one of the two upper Rhenish legions that took part—one would gladly believe that the 22d was spared in honourable remembrance of its brave legate. Probably a considerable number of the Batavian cohorts met with the same fate, and not less, apparently, the cavalry regiment of the Treveri, and perhaps several other specially prominent troops. Still less than against the rebellious soldiers could proceedings be taken with the full severity of the law against the insurgent Celtic and German cantons; that the Roman legions demanded the razing of the Treverian colony of Augustus—this time for the sake not of booty but of vengeance—is at least as intelligible as the destruction, desired by the Germans, of the town of the Ubii; but as Civilis protected the one so Vespasian protected the other. Even the Germans on the left of the Rhine had, on the whole, their previous position left to them. But probably—we are here without certain tradition—there was introduced in the levy and the employment of the auxilia an essential change, which diminished the danger involved in the auxiliary system. The Batavi retained freedom from taxation and a still privileged position as regards service; a part of them, not altogether inconsiderable, had withal championed in arms the cause of the Romans. But the Batavian troops were considerably diminished, and, while hitherto—as it would appear of right—officers had been placed over them from their own nobility, and the same had been at least frequently done as respects the other Germanic and Celtic troops, the officers of the alae and cohortes were afterwards taken predominantly from the class from which Vespasian himself was descended—from the good urban middle class of Italy and of the provincial towns organised after the Italian fashion. Officers of the position of the Cheruscan Arminius, of the Batavian Civilis, of the Treverian Classicus do not henceforth recur. As little is the previous close association of troops levied from the same canton met with subsequently; on the contrary, the men serve, without distinction as to their descent, in the most various divisions; this was probably a lesson which the Roman military administration gathered from this war. It was another change, probably suggested by this war, that while hitherto the majority of the auxiliaries employed in Germany were taken from the Germanic and neighbouring cantons, thenceforth the Germanic auxiliary troops found preponderantly employment outside of their native country, just like the Dalmatian and Pannonian troops in consequence of the war with Bato. Vespasian was a soldier of sagacity and experience; it is probably in good part a merit of his if we meet with no later example of revolt of the auxilia against their legions.

Later attitude of the Roman Germans on the lower Rhine.That the insurrection, which we have just narrated, of the Germans on the left of the Rhine—although it, in consequence of the accidental completeness of the accounts preserved respecting it, alone gives us a clear insight into the political and military relations on the lower Rhine and in Gaul generally, and therefore deserved to be narrated in more detail—was yet called forth more by outward and accidental causes than by the inner necessity of things, is proved by the apparently complete quiet which now ensued there, and by the—so far as we can see—uninterrupted status quo in this very region. The Roman Germans were merged in the empire no less completely than the Roman Gauls; of attempts at insurrection on the part of the former there is no further mention. At the close of the third century, the Franks invading Gaul by way of the lower Rhine included in their seizure the Batavian territory; yet the Batavians maintained themselves in their old though diminished settlements, as did likewise the Frisians, even during the confusions of the great migration of peoples, and, so far as we know, preserved allegiance even to the decaying empire.

The free Germans on the lower Rhine.When we turn from the Romanised to the free Germans to the east of the Rhine, we find offensive action on their part not less brought to an end with their participation in that Batavian insurrection, than the attempts of the Romans to bring about an alteration of the frontier on a grand scale in those regions came to a close with the expeditions of Germanicus.

Bructeri.Of the free Germans, those dwelling next to the Roman territory were the Bructeri on both banks of the middle Ems, and in the region of the sources of the Ems and Lippe; for which reason they took part before all the other Germans in the Batavian insurrection. To their canton belonged the maiden Veleda, who sent forth her countrymen to the war against Rome and promised them the victory, whose utterance decided the fate of the town of the Ubii, and to whose high tower the captive senators and the captured admiral’s ship of the Rhenish fleet were sent. The overthrow of the Batavi affected them also; and perhaps, in addition, a special counterblow of the Romans since that virgin was subsequently led as a captive to Rome. This disaster, as well as feuds with the neighbouring tribes, broke their power; under Nero a king whom they did not wish was obtruded on them by force of arms on the part of their neighbours with the passive assistance of the Roman legate.

Cherusci.The Cherusci, in the region of the upper Weser, in the time of Augustus and Tiberius the leading canton in central Germany, is seldom mentioned after the death of Arminius, but always as sustaining good relations to the Romans. When the civil war, which must have continued to rage among them even after the fall of Arminius, had swept away the whole family of their princes, they requested from the Roman government the last of that house, Italicus, a brother’s son of Arminius living in Italy, to be their ruler; it is true that the return home of one who was brave but answered more to his name than to his lineage, kindled the feud afresh, and, when he was driven off by his own people, the Langobardi placed him once more on the tottering throne. One of his successors, king Chariomerus, so earnestly took the side of the Romans in Domitian’s war with the Chatti, that he after its close, when driven away by the Chatti, fled to the Romans and invoked—although vainly—their intervention. Through those perpetual inward and outward feuds the Cheruscan people was so weakened that it henceforth disappears from active politics. The name of the Marsi is no longer met with at all after the expeditions of Germanicus. That the tribes dwelling farther to the east on the Elbe as well as all the more remote Germans took as little part in the struggles of the Batavians and their allies in the years 69 and 70, as these took in the German wars under Augustus and Tiberius may, considering the detailed character of the narrative, be described as certain. Where they meet us subsequently they never appear in a hostile attitude to the Romans.Langobardi.That the Langobardi reinstated the Roman king of the Cherusci, has already been mentioned.Semnones.Masuus, the king of the Semnones, and—what is remarkable—along with him the prophetess Ganna, who was held in high repute among this tribe famous for its special credulity, visited the emperor Domitian in Rome, and met with a friendly reception at his court. In the regions from the Weser to the Elbe during these centuries various feuds may have raged, the balance of power may in various cases have shifted, various cantons may have changed their name or joined another combination; as regards their relations to the Romans a permanent frontier–peace set in, after it came to be generally felt that these had positively abandoned the subjugation of this region. Even invasions from the far East cannot have materially disturbed it at this epoch; for they could not but have reacted on the Roman guarding of the frontier, and we should not have lacked information had more serious crises occurred in this domain. All this is confirmed by the reduction of the army of the lower Rhine to half of its former amount, which occurred we know not exactly when, but within this epoch. The army of the lower Rhine, with which Vespasian had to fight, numbered four legions; that of the time of Trajan presumably the same number, at least three;71 probably already under Hadrian, certainly under Marcus, there were not more than two—the 1st Minervian and the 30th of Trajan—stationed there.

Upper Germany.Germanic affairs in the upper province developed themselves after another fashion. Of the Germans on the left of the Rhine who belonged to this province, the Triboci, Nemetes, Vangiones, there is nothing historically worth mentioning, except that they, for long settled among the Celts, shared the destinies of Gaul. Here too the Rhine always remained the chief line of defence for the Romans. All the standing camps of the legions were at all times on the left bank of the Rhine; not even that of Argentoratum was transferred to the right bank, when the whole region of the Neckar was Roman. But while in the lower province the Roman rule on the right bank of the Rhine was restricted in course of time, here on the other hand it was extended. The project of Augustus to connect the camps on the Rhine with those on the Danube by advancing the imperial frontier in an eastward direction—which, if it had been carried out, would have enlarged upper more than lower Germany—was perhaps never completely abandoned in this command, and was resumed subsequently, though on a more modest scale. Historical tradition does not give us the means of presenting a connected view of the operations continued with this object for centuries, the construction of roads and walls pertaining thereto, and the wars waged on this account; and even the great military structure still existing, whose rise and progress—likewise embracing centuries—must include in itself a good part of that history, has hitherto not been investigated throughout, as it well might be, by the eyes of military experts. The hope that unified Germany would combine for the investigation of this its oldest historical monument, has not been fulfilled. We shall here attempt to put together what has hitherto been brought to light on the subject from the fragments of the Roman annals or of the Roman strongholds.

Mogontiacum.On the right bank, not far from the northern end of the province, there stretches in front of the level or hilly country of the lower Rhine, in a direction from west to east, the range of the Taunus, which abuts on the Rhine opposite to Bingen. Parallel to this mountain–range, shut off on the other side by the spurs of the Odenwald, stretches the plain of the lower Main–valley, the true access to the interior of Germany, dominated by the key of the position at the point where the Main falls into the Rhine, Mogontiacum or Mentz, from the time of Drusus down to the end of Rome the stronghold out of which the Romans sallied to attack Germany from Gaul,72 as it is at the present day the true barrier of Germany against France. Here the Romans, even after they had abandoned their rule in the region of the upper Rhine generally, retained not merely the tÊte–de–pont on the other bank, the castellum Mogontiacense (Castel), but also that plain of the Main itself in their possession; and in this region a Roman civilisation might establish itself.Mattiaci.This land originally belonged to the Chatti, and a Chattan tribe, the Mattiaci, remained settled here even under Roman rule; but, after the Chatti were compelled to cede this district to Drusus, it remained a part of the empire. The hot springs in the immediate neighbourhood of Mentz (aquae Mattiacae, Wiesbaden) were used by the Romans demonstrably in Vespasian’s time, and doubtless long before: silver was worked here under Claudius; the Mattiaci already furnished troops to the army at an early date like other subject districts. They took part in the general rising of the Germans under Civilis; but, after they were vanquished, the earlier relations were re–established. From the end of the second century we find the community of the Taunensian Mattiaci under authorities organised after the Roman model. 73

Chatti.The Chatti, although thus driven away from the Rhine, appear in the sequel as the most powerful among the tribes of inland Germany who came into contact with the Romans; the lead which, under Augustus and Tiberius, had been possessed by the Cherusci on the middle Weser, passed, amidst the constant feuds with these their southern cognate neighbours, over to the latter. All the wars between Romans and Germans, of which we have any knowledge from the time after the death of Arminius down to the time when the migrations of the peoples began at the end of the third century, were waged against the Chatti; as in the year 41 under Claudius by Galba, who became afterwards emperor; and in the year 50 under the same emperor by Publius Pomponius Secundus, celebrated as a poet. These were the usual border incursions, and the Chatti had taken a part, but only a secondary one, in the great Batavian war (p.133). But in the campaign which the Emperor Domitian undertook in the year 83 the Romans were the aggressors; and this war led, not indeed to brilliant victories, but doubtless to a considerable and momentous pushing forward of the Roman frontier.74 At that time the frontier–line was arranged, as we find it thenceforth drawn; and within that line, which in its most northern portion was not far removed from the Rhine, must have been included a great part of the Taunus and the region of the Main as far as above Friedberg. The Usipes, who, after their already–mentioned expulsion from the region of the Lippe, appear about the time of Vespasian in the neighbourhood of Mentz, and may have found new settlements to the east of the Mattiaci on the Kinzig or in the Fuldan district, were then annexed to the empire, and, at the same time with them, a number of smaller tribes thrown off by the Chatti. Thereupon, when in the year 88, under the governor Lucius Antonius Saturninus, the upper German army rose against Domitian, the war was on the point of renewal; the revolted troops made common cause with the Chatti;75 and it was only the interruption of the communications, when the ice broke up on the Rhine, that made it possible for the regiments which had remained faithful to settle matters with the revolters before the dangerous contingent arrived. It is stated that the Roman rule extended from Mentz towards the interior 80 leugae, and thus even beyond Fulda;76 and this account appears worthy of credit, if we take into consideration that the military frontier–line, which certainly seems not to have gone far above Friedberg, doubtless kept here also within the territorial boundary.

The region of the Neckar.But not merely was the valley of the lower Main in front of Mentz brought within the military frontier–line; in south–western Germany also the boundary was pushed forward in a still greater degree. The region of the Neckar, once possessed by the Celtic Helvetii, then for long a debateable borderland between these and the advancing Germans, and therefore named the Helvetian desert, subsequently perhaps occupied partially by the Marcomani, before these retreated to Bohemia (p.29), came on the regulation of the Germanic boundaries after the battle of Varus into the same position as the greater portion of the right bank of the lower Rhine. Here, too, there must have been a frontier–line already at that time marked off, within which Germanic settlements were not tolerated. Thereupon individual, mostly Gallic, immigrants, who had not much to lose, settled down, as on an unenclosed moor, in these fertile but little protected regions, which went at that time by the name of agri decumates.77 This private occupation, which was, it may be conjectured, merely tolerated by the government, was followed by the formal taking possession of it probably under Vespasian. As already, about the year 74, a highway was carried from Strassburg on the right bank of the Rhine as far as Offenburg,78 there must have been instituted about this time in this region a more earnest protection of the frontier than the mere prohibition of Germanic settlement furnished. What the father had begun the sons carried out. Perhaps even through the construction—whether by Vespasian, by Titus, or Domitian—of the “Flavian altars”79 at the source of the Neckar, near the modern Rottweil—a settlement of which indeed we know nothing but the name—there was procured for the new upper Germany on the right of the Rhine a centre similar to what the Ubian altar was formerly intended to become for Great Germany, and soon afterwards the altar of Sarmizegetusa became for the newly–conquered Dacia. The first institution of the frontier–defence, to be described further on, by which the Neckar valley was brought within the Roman line, is thus the work of the Flavii, chiefly, doubtless, of Domitian,80 who thereby carried further the construction at the Taunus. The military road on the right of the Rhine from Mogontiacum by way of Heidelberg and Baden in the direction of Offenburg—the necessary consequence of this annexation of the Neckar region—was, as we now know,81 constructed by Trajan in the year 100, and was a part of the more direct communication established by that emperor between Gaul and the line of the Danube. There was employment for the soldiers at these works, but hardly for their arms; there were no Germanic tribes dwelling in the region of the Neckar, and still less can the narrow strip on the left bank of the Danube, which was thereby brought within the frontier line, have cost serious struggles. The nearest Germanic people of note there, the Hermunduri, had more friendly dispositions towards the Romans than any other tribe had, and carried on lively commercial intercourse with them in the town of the Vindelici, Augusta; of the fact that this advance met with no resistance from them, we shall find traces further on. Under the following reigns of Hadrian, Pius, and Marcus, further progress was made with these military arrangements.

The upper Germanic Limes.We cannot historically follow out the mode in which the frontier–fence between the Rhine and the Danube—still in great part subsisting as regards its foundations at the present day—came into existence, but we are able to recognise not merely the course which it took but also the purpose which it served. The work was as to its nature and purpose different in upper Germany from what it was in Raetia. The upper German frontier–fence, with a length in all of about 250 Roman miles (228 English miles82) begins immediately at the northern boundary of the province, embraces, as has been already said, the Taunus and the plain of the Main as far as the district of Friedberg, and turns thence southward to the Main, which it meets at Grosskrotzenburg above Hanau. Following the Main thence as far as WÖrth, it here takes the direction of the Neckar, which it reaches somewhat below Wimpfen and does not again leave. Afterwards in front of the southern half of this frontier–line a second was laid out, which follows the Main by way of WÖrth as far as Miltenberg, and thence is led for the most part in a straight direction to Lorch between Stuttgart and Aalen. Here to the upper German frontier–fence is joined on the Raetian, only 120 miles (108 English) long; it leaves the Danube at Kelheim above Ratisbon and runs thence, twice crossing the Altmuhl, in a curve westward likewise as far as Lorch.

The upper Germanic Limes consists of a series of forts which are distant from each other, at the most, half a day’s march (about nine English miles). Where the lines of connection between the forts are not closed by the Main or the Neckar, as stated above, there was introduced an artificial barrier, at first perhaps merely by a palisade,83 afterwards by a continuous earthen rampart of moderate height, with a fosse outside and watch–towers built in at short intervals on the inner side.84 The forts are not introduced into the rampart, but constructed immediately behind it at a distance seldom exceeding one–third of an English mile.

The Raetian Limes.The Raetian frontier–fence was a mere barrier, produced by piling up quarry–stones; there were no fosses or watch–towers, and the forts, constructed behind the Limes without regular succession and at unequal intervals (none nearer than two and a half to three miles), stand in no immediate connection with the barrier–line. As to the order in time of the constructions there is no definite testimony; it is proved that the upper Germanic line of the Neckar was in existence under Pius,85 that placed in front of it from Miltenberg to Lorch under Marcus.86 The idea of a frontier–bar was common to the two structures, otherwise so different; the preference in the one case for the piling up of earth—whence the fosse for the most part resulted of itself—in the other case, for layers of stone, probably depended only on the diversity of the soil and of the materials for building. It was common to them, further, that neither the one nor the other was constructed for the defence, as a whole, of the frontier. Not merely was the hindrance, which the piling up of earth or stone presented to the assailant, slight in itself; but along the line we meet everywhere with commanding positions, morasses lying in the rear, a want of outlook towards the country in front, and similar clear indications of the fact, that in the tracing of it warlike purposes generally were not contemplated. The forts are of course arranged for defence, each by itself, but they are not connected by paved cross–roads; and so the individual garrison relied for support not on those of the neighbouring forts, but on the rear–base, to which the road led, whereby each was kept garrisoned. Moreover, these garrisons were not dovetailed into a military system of frontier defence; they were rather fortified positions for a case of need than strategically chosen for the occupation of the territory, as indeed the very extent of the line itself, compared with the number of troops at disposal, excludes the possibility of its defence as a whole.87

Object of these structures.Thus these extensive military structures had not, like the Britannic wall, the object of checking the invasion of the enemy. The intention rather was, that, like the bridges over the river–frontier, so the roads on the land–frontier should be commanded by the forts, but in other respects, like the river as the water–boundary, so the wall on the landward should hinder the uncontrolled crossing of the frontier. Other uses might be combined with this; the preference, often apparent, for the rectilineal direction points to its application for signals, and occasionally the structure may have been used directly for purposes of war. But the proper and immediate object of the structure was to prevent the crossing of the frontier. The fact, withal, that watch–posts and forts were erected, not on the Raetian but on the upper Germanic frontier, is explained by their different relations to the neighbours, in the former case to the Hermunduri, in the latter to the Chatti. The Romans in upper Germany did not confront their neighbours as they confronted the Highlanders of Britain, in whose presence the province was always in a state of siege; but the repulse of predatory invaders as well as the levying of the frontier–dues demanded at any rate ready and near military help. The upper German army, and in keeping with it the garrisons on the Limes, might be gradually reduced, but the Roman pilum could never be dispensed with in the land of the Neckar. It might, however, be dispensed with in presence of the Hermunduri, who, in Trajan’s time, alone of all the Germans, were at liberty to cross the frontier of the empire without special control and to trade freely in the Roman territory, especially in Augsburg, and with whom, so far as we know, border–collisions never took place. There was thus at this period no occasion for a similar structure on the Raetian frontier; the forts north of the Danube, which can be shown to have subsisted already in Trajan’s time,88 sufficed here for the protection of the frontier and the control of frontier–intercourse. This accords with the observation that the Raetian Limes, as it stands before our eyes, corresponds only with the more recent upper Germanic barrier–line perhaps laid out for the first time under Marcus. Then occasion for it was not wanting. The wars of the Chatti, as we shall see (p.161), seized at this time also on Raetia; the strengthening too of the garrison of the province might reasonably stand in connection with the erection of this Limes, which, however little it was arranged for military ends, was at any rate doubtless constructed with a view to its being a frontier–bar, though of less strong character.89

Their effect.In a military as well as a political sense the shifting of the frontier, or rather the strengthening of the frontier–fence, was effective and useful. While formerly the Roman chain of forts in upper Germany and Raetia probably went up the Rhine by way of Strassburg to Basel and along by Vindonissa to the lake of Constance, then from thence to the upper Danube, now the upper German headquarters were in Mentz and the Raetian in Ratisbon, and generally the two chief armies of the empire were brought considerably nearer to each other. The legionary camp of Vindonissa (Windisch near ZÜrich) became thereby superfluous. The army of the upper Rhine could, like the neighbouring one, be reduced after some time to the half of its former strength. The original number of four legions, which was only accidentally diminished to three during the Batavian war, subsisted, at all events, probably still under Trajan;90 but under Marcus the province was only occupied by two legions, the 8th and the 22d, of which the former was stationed at Strassburg, the second at the headquarters Mentz, while most of the troops, broken up into smaller posts, were stationed along the frontier–wall. Within the new line urban life flourished almost as on the left bank of the Rhine; Sumelocenna (Rottenburg on the Neckar), Aquae (civitas Aurelia Aquensis, Baden), Lopodunum (Ladenburg), had, if we except Cologne and Treves, to fear no comparison as respects Roman urban development with any town of Belgica. The rise of these settlements was chiefly the work of Trajan, who began his government with this act of peace;91 “the Rhine Roman on both its banks” is what a Roman poet entreats speedily to send to Rome its yet unseen ruler. The great and fertile region, which was placed in this way under the protection of the legions, needed that protection and was worthy of it. Doubtless the battle of Varus marks the beginning of the ebb of Roman power, but only in so far as its advance was thereby ended, and the Romans thenceforth contented themselves in general with shielding more vigorously and continuously what was retained.

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. Twenty years later the inroads of the barbarians on the Danube as on the Rhine were so constant and so serious, Alexander.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. But when the emperor, recalled by the still more dangerous position of affairs on the Danube, resorted thither and left behind as representative in Gaul his elder son still in boyhood, one of the officers, to whom he had intrusted the defence of the frontier and the guardianship of his son, Postumus.Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus,94 got himself proclaimed by his men as emperor and besieged in Cologne Silvanus the guardian of the emperor’s son. He was successful in capturing the town and in getting into his power his former colleague as well as the imperial boy, whereupon he had them both executed. But during this confusion the Franks burst over the Rhine, and not merely overflowed all Gaul, but penetrated also into Spain and indeed pillaged even the coast of Africa. Soon afterwards, when the capture of Valerian by the Persians had filled up the measure of misfortune, all the Roman land on the left bank of the Rhine in the upper province was lost, passing doubtless to the Alamanni, whose eruption into Italy in the last years of Gallienus necessarily presupposes this loss. He is the last emperor whose name is found on monuments on the right of the Rhine. His coins celebrate him on account of five great victories over the Germans, and not less are those of his successor in the Gallic rule, Postumus, full of the praise of the German victories of the deliverer of Gaul. Gallienus in his earlier years had taken up the struggle on the Rhine not without energy, and Postumus was even an excellent officer and would gladly have been a good regent; but amidst the utter unruliness which then prevailed in the Roman state or rather in the Roman army, the talent and ability of the individual profited neither himself nor the commonwealth. A series of flourishing Roman towns was at that time laid desolate by the invading barbarians, and the right bank of the Rhine was for ever lost to the Romans.

Aurelianus.The re–establishment of peace and order in Gaul was primarily dependent on the cohesion of the empire generally; so long as the Italian emperors stationed their troops in the Narbonensis to set aside the Gallic rival, and the latter in turn made as though he would cross the Alps, effective operations against the Germans were of themselves excluded. It was only after that, about the year 272,95 the then ruler of Gaul, Tetricus, weary of his ungrateful part, had himself brought about the submission of his troops to Aurelianus, the emperor recognised by the Roman senate, that the thought of warding off the Germans could be again entertained. The raids of the Alamanni, who had for almost ten years ravaged upper Italy as far down as Ravenna, had a stop put to them for long by the same able ruler who had brought Gaul back to the empire, and he emphatically defeated one of their tribes, the Juthungi, on the upper Danube. If his government had lasted he would doubtless have renewed the protection of the frontier also in Gaul; after his speedy and sudden end (275) the Germans once more crossed the Rhine and devastated the country far and wide.

Probus.His successor Probus (from 276), also an able soldier, not merely drove them out afresh—he is said to have taken from them seventy towns—but also advanced again on the aggressive, crossed the Rhine, and drove the Germans back over the Neckar. He did not, however, renew the lines of the earlier time,96 but contented himself with erecting and occupying at the more important positions of the Rhine tÊtes de pont on the other bank,—that is, he reverted nearly to such arrangements as had subsisted here before Vespasian. At the same time the Franks were defeated by his generals in the northern province. Great masses of the vanquished Germans were sent as forced settlers to Gaul, and above all to Britain. In this way the frontier of the Rhine was won back and handed over to the later empire. No doubt, like the rule on the right bank of the Rhine, peace on the left had passed away beyond recall. The Alamanni stood in a threatening attitude opposite to Basel and Strassburg, the Franks opposite to Cologne. By their side other tribes presented themselves. The fact that the Burgundiones, once settled beyond the Elbe, advancing westward as far as the upper Main, threatened Gaul, is first mentioned under the emperor Probus; a few years later the Saxons, in concert with the Franks, began their attacks by sea on the north coast of Gaul as on the Roman Britain. But under the—for the most part—vigorous and capable emperors of the Diocletiano–Constantinian house, and even under their immediate successors, the Romans kept the threatening inundation of peoples within measured bounds.

Romanising of the Germans.To depict the Germans in their national development is not the task of the historian of the Romans; for him they appear only as hindering or as destroying. An interpenetration of the two nationalities, and a mixed culture thence resulting, such as the Romanised land of the Celts presented, Roman Germany has none to show; or—so far as concerns our conception of it—it coincides with the Romano–Gallic all the more, since the Germanic territories on the left bank of the Rhine, which remained for a considerable time in the Roman possession, were pervaded throughout with Celtic elements, and even those on the right, deprived for the most part of their original population, obtained the majority of the new settlers from Gaul. Communal centres, such as the Celtic system possessed in large number, were wanting to the German element. Partly on that account, partly in consequence of outward circumstances, the Roman element was able, as has been already brought out (p.102), to develop itself sooner and more fully in the Germanic east than in the Celtic regions. The encampments of the army of the Rhine, all of which fell within Roman Germany, were of essential influence in this respect. The larger of them obtained, partly through the traders who attached themselves to the army, partly, and above all, through the veterans who remained in their wonted quarters even after their discharge, an urban appendage—a town of huts (canabae), separate from the military quarters proper; everywhere, and particularly in Germany, towns proper grew in time out of these at the legionary camps and especially the headquarters. At their head stood the Roman town of the Ubii, originally the second largest camp of the army of the lower Rhine, then from the year 50 onward a Roman colony (p.99), exercising the most important effect in elevating Roman civilisation in the region of the Rhine. Here the camp–town gave place to that of the Roman plantation; subsequently urban rights were obtained, without shifting the quarters of the troops, by the settlements belonging to the two great camps of the lower Rhine—Ulpia Noviomagus, in the land of the Batavi, and Ulpia Traiana, near Vetera—from Trajan, and in the third century by the military capital of upper Germany, Mogontiacum. No doubt these civil towns always retained a subordinate position by the side of the military centres of administration independent of them.

Roman Germanising.If we look beyond the limit where this narrative closes, we certainly find, instead of the Romanising of the Germans, in some measure a Germanising of the Romans. The last phase of the Roman state was marked by its becoming barbarian, and especially becoming Germanised; and the beginnings of the process reach far back. It commences with the peasantry in the colonate, passes on to the troop as modelled by the emperor Severus, seizes then on the officers and magistrates, and ends with the hybrid Romano–Germanic states of the Visigoths in Spain and Gaul, the Vandals in Africa, above all, with the Italy of Theoderic. For the understanding of this last phase there is certainly needed an insight into the political development of the one as of the other nation. Unfortunately, the enquiry into early German history is here at fault. It is true that the political arrangements into which these Germans entered as servants or joint rulers are well known, far better than the systematic history of the same epoch. But over the primitive condition of the Germans floats that gray morning–haze in which sharp outlines are lost. German heathenism, apart from the far north, perished before the time of which we have knowledge; and the religious elements, which are never wanting in a national war, we know doubtless for the Sassanidae, but not for the Marcomani. The beginnings of the political development of the Germans are delineated for us in part by the picture of Tacitus—many–coloured, hampered by modelling itself on the ideas of a fading past, and but too often keeping silence as to elements of really decisive moment—while in part we must take them from the hybrid states which arose on formerly Roman soil and had Roman elements everywhere inwoven. Here our records seldom give us German technical terms, but substitute Latin descriptions which are plainly inadequate, and here, in general, we miss those sharply–defined ideas which our studies of classical history offer us in plenty. It is characteristic of our German nation that it has not been permitted to develop itself by German effort from German origins, and we may connect with this the fact that German scholarship has studied the beginnings and characters of other nations with more success than it has won in the study of its own.