Romans and Barbarians: Four Views From the Empire's Edge

by Derek Williams

  In the northern sector only the Lippe offered comparable benefits. Its valley is straight and open. Furthermore it was navigable for at least three quarters of its 100-mile course. This was a far greater asset than it seems today. The Romans used every known device to bring supply vessels upriver (flat bottoms, inflatable skins to reduce draught, poling, towing, dredging, lighterage, portage and so on), for this reduced the need for pack animals who in turn required fodder. Another advantage of the Lippe is apparent from its wider setting. The northernmost tributary, it flows for most of its course along the line where plain and foothills meet, entering the Rhine 130 miles from the mouth. It could thus be employed as the southern prong of a forking movement to envelop the North German Plain, whose northern counterpart would be a seaborne attack from the North Sea itself.

  Drusus gave special attention to what we would today call the Dutch sector: a land much drained since Roman times and whose river system is greatly altered. The Rhine, as we now know it, begins its deltaic phase just inside the Dutch border, dividing into Waal and Lower Rhine, of which the Waal is decisively the mainstream, heading west to enter the sea at The Hook (Hoek van Holland). The smaller, Lower Rhine heads north-west via Arnhem, dividing northwards again into an even smaller branch, the Old Rhine, crooked and silted. This passes through Utrecht and Leiden, entering the sea at Katwijk, a small resort twenty miles north of the Waal mouth. Two thousand years ago this pattern was reversed. The Lower Rhine-Old Rhine was then the major channel and the Waal a minor river. So Tacitus: ‘On entering Batavian territory the Rhine divides into two: the one running without change of name or force of flow from Germany to the Ocean; and the other, on the side toward Gaul, becoming a wider but more placid stream, called the Vahales (Waal).’79 The Waal stole the water during the Middle Ages. Had it not, then Katwijk-aan-Zee rather than Rotterdam might today be Europe’s principal port.

  Let us return to the Old Rhine, now the backwater, then the mighty Rhine itself. At Utrecht it is within twenty miles of the former Zuider Zee. This was a huge embayment80 where the greedy sea had bitten sixty miles into the Netherlands. In the 1930s it was sealed by the construction of a causeway across its mouth, renamed the Ijsellmeer, and is now in large measure reclaimed.

  Near Utrecht the River Vecht branches (northwards, yet again) from the Old Rhine into the Ijsellmeer. This is believed to have been the Fossa Drusiana (Drusus’ Ditch), a fifteen-mile channel cut by the Roman Army to link the Rhine to the Zuider Zee and thence to the North Sea. This ingenious feat gave Drusus a short cut to Germany. It avoided the open sea entirely, connecting into the sheltered and shallow Waddenzee,81 inside the Frisian Islands, whose long chain, bending back from the brow of Holland like a windswept plume, shields the entire coast as far as Jutland. From here the German rivers Ems, Weser and Elbe are of easy access.

  The North Sea, surly but familiar, was, to the Romans, a place of dread; for it was part of exterior Oceanus atque ignotum mare (the Outer Ocean, with its seas unknown),82 believed to encircle the three continents. Northwards from here was only Thule,83 the ‘Congealing Sea’84 and the freezing pole. However Drusus’ Ditch would allow him to avoid such perils, putting an army and its supplies deep inside Germany. An all-land invasion would have meant that the interior tribes were alerted from the moment of crossing the Rhine. Now the Lippe column could start first, drawing the Germans westwards, while a fresh force suddenly landed by river in their rear. Such, at any rate, was the theory; and the discovery of a sheltered passage persuaded Drusus that it could be done without a mutiny, brought on by the sight of the waves.85

  The first summer was spent in coastal reconnaissance and also in clearing the Lippe and the tribes on either side of it. Depots were laid along its valley, as stepping stones on the landward invasion route. Of these, four show on aerial photographs and perhaps another four await discovery. The pattern suggests camps at twelve-and-a-half-mile intervals, each of two-legion size. A larger force could of course have used the same chain by operating a day or more apart. However the Lippe corridor is not totally trouble-free. Though it begins in open country it ends, from Paderborn eastwards, among steep, wooded hills, which eventually bring the route to a halt. The answer was to strike northwards from Paderborn, through about thirty miles of broken, forested country, until the Weser was reached near Hameln. This dangerous though short section seemed a small price to pay for an otherwise perfect route. It passed not far from the Grotenburg, on which von Bandel’s mighty statue stands.

  At the beginning of the second summer both columns advanced. It is known that Drusus reached the Weser by the land route, and presumed that one of his lieutenants led the seaborne arm. The campaign was successful. It is said, however, that Drusus met one of those frightful German priestesses, ‘a woman of superhuman size’,86 who cursed him and prophesied doom. The army retired to winter behind the Rhine, Drusus being summoned to Rome to celebrate a Triumph. North Germany had, it seems, been conquered.

  Attention now switched to the middle Rhine, where Drusus’ third summer, of 9 BC, was one of mighty accomplishment. Striking eastwards from Mainz, he defeated the Suebians, then pressed on toward the upper Main. Branching left over the narrow ridge of the Thuringian Forest, he picked up the north-flowing Saale, following it down to the Elbe, near today’s Magdeburg. It was a 300-mile advance, not counting the winding of waterways and twisting of tracks. Few generals of the imperial period would match it. But on the return a fall from a horse, a broken leg and gangrene claimed him; dying in some God-forsaken camp on a night of shooting stars to the howling of forest wolves. He was not yet thirty. Augustus sent Tiberius to bring back his brother’s body. With full ceremonial and universal mourning the ashes were deposited in the mausoleum which his stepfather had already built for himself on the Tiber bank. Patriotic fervour was now attached to this German war.

  The command passed to Tiberius. Finding a Germany already reeling from his brother’s onslaught and determined to keep up the pressure, the new general sent his armies forward from their various bases, criss-crossing the ravaged country almost at will for two more summers. Truculent tribes were uprooted and resettled on the Gallic side of the Rhine. Augustus forbade crossing the Elbe so as not to provoke more tribes than Rome could presently handle. Their turn would come later. Meanwhile the new province of Germania, from the Rhine at least to the Weser, was ready for formation.

  But Tiberius was discouraged: Drusus dead and all the work falling on his shoulders; Julia’s sons growing up and tongues wagging that their grandfather’s favour and the likelihood of succession were inclining toward them rather than him, a mere stepson. Germany had been exhausting. Like all Romans he detested the melancholy forest and stinking swamp. Nor, though a sound and systematic commander, did he share his younger brother’s keenness for this conflict. It was said that Drusus, who set his heart on the spolia opima,87 had horrified his staff by rushing through the thick of battle to get at the enemy’s leader. Tiberius, sombre and introverted, was of less spectacular stuff. Perhaps the Germans had proved disappointing opponents. Certainly their showing had been indifferent, with range of weaponry narrow, tactics crude, commissariat a joke, grasp of siegecraft nil, leadership limited and loyalty localized. It seemed clear that conquest was now inevitable, if not achieved already. He decided to retire to a Greek island.

  His successor L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Augustus’ nephew by marriage, continued the good work. We know principally of his operations in the south, based on the Roman province of Raetia (Bavaria). Meanwhile the Fates (or Livia) were again busy on Tiberius’ behalf. The emperor’s grandsons Lucius and Gaius died under mysterious circumstances. The third grandson, Agrippa Postumus (who would later be exiled to an island) was still a minor. Tiberius’ services were suddenly at a premium. Augustus was notoriously nervous of putting military reins into non-family hands, making nepotism a corner-stone of his policy. This so narrowed the field that there was now no other first-class runner left. He coaxed Tiberius to retu
rn from Rhodes; and since nothing soothes the sulker more than the knowledge that he is needed, Tiberius allowed himself to be persuaded.

  So, two years later, he was back, preparing a new offensive across the Rhine. Had something gone wrong? Surely the attack phase should by now be over? Surely they should already be inside Germany, organizing, building and teaching the Germans to be Romans. The fact was, however, that they had terrorized all western Germany but Romanized none of it. Sixteen years after Drusus had first taken command, the province was still being held by bullying enemies and bribing friends. Though the legions advanced at will the Roman hold on the interior was based on little substance. There were still no roads and few forts. According to Velleius88 it was not until this first year of Tiberius’ return (AD 4) that the whole army dared winter in Germany; and then no deeper than the Lippe Valley. Seasonal withdrawal meant that each winter Rome’s enemies could dismantle last summer’s work.

  In fact events had revealed a blindspot. The high command was failing to grasp the difference between this conquest and others. Nations had normally passed into Roman receivership with assets intact and functional framework in place. The task had been to improve. Here it was to build from scratch. Even essential measures for the army’s own security were incomplete. Germany needed a comprehensive fort network, strong points and signal towers linked by all-weather roads and bridges; with massive tree-felling to reduce concealment and extensive drainage and causeway building to assist movement; a strong naval presence on the internal rivers, fortified ports of entry, jetties, quays, arsenals and granaries; in short the infrastructure for a big garrison on a long stay. Tiberius’ error was not in shirking responsibility but in continuing to see it as a fighting general rather than as a planner, builder and engineer. With hindsight it seems clear that the priority was not more victories and Triumphs, but a military highway linking Rhineland with interior. This was a project which must await Adolf Hitler.

  In AD 5 the pincer movement was applied for a third time. Again the army marched up the valley, again the navy sailed up the rivers and north-west Germany was said to be subdued. It is probable that on this occasion Tiberius met the young prince, Armin of the Cherusci. Many German-speaking officers would soon be needed for the so-called ‘Bohemian campaign’, planned as stage two of the German War, with its simultaneous drives eastwards from the Rhine and northwards from Vienna. However, this was not to be. In the mountainous central Balkans, 200,000 men, outraged by the greed of Roman tax farmers, were suddenly in arms. Extirpation of the Illyrican Revolt would involve Tiberius for three years and draw in fifteen legions. As a commander of auxiliary cavalry, Armin served with distinction in this costly and unnecessary war. It was on its completion that he was posted back to Germany to assist the next governor, P. Quintilius Varus.

  Varus was another of the emperor’s relatives, in this instance the husband of a great-niece. A jurist by training, he had been consul with Tiberius in 13 BC. Since then he had governed Africa and Syria, two of the choicest provinces. In the latter he is mentioned by Josephus as intervening in one of the Jewish uprisings and crucifying two thousand insurgents. That he lined his pockets at those provinces’ expense was seemingly kept from Augustus. It is from his governorship of Africa that we have the only known likeness. A coin issue from the mint of Carthage carries on its reverse a profile of Varus, whose weak and smirking face reveals no hint of a soldierly disposition.89

  The colonel and senator C. Velleius Paterculus, who dashed off a potted History of Rome to celebrate his own consulship in AD 30, is the only contemporary chronicler. Ironically, where many an historical masterpiece sank without trace, his enthusiastic if naïve effort survived in its entirety. It is of no great value until the final third, which deals with the events of his own day. Velleius may be taken seriously in military matters, since he served nine years as commander of Tiberius’ cavalry and of one of his legions, both in the German and Balkan theatres. He must have known both Varus and Armin personally and has left precious portraits, together with a brief account of the fateful circumstances of which his beloved army was to be the principal victim.

  Varus was sent to govern Germania in the year of Ovid’s exile, by an over-optimistic Augustus, who either saw the German conquest as a fait accompli, or had lost patience with his cautious generals and believed it should be. Now that the imperial stepsons had supposedly done their work it was time to implement the lex provinciae.90 This was the system by which Roman law was adapted to the traditions of each new territory, the inauguration of a province being normally accompanied by the formulation of its particular code. Who better to send than a lawyer? It would also be Varus’ task to introduce the reluctant but cowed Germans to the blessings of Roman taxation and a way of life in which the bearing of arms was superfluous. Of course, as governor, Varus would automatically be commander of the German legions. Because of the drain on manpower caused by the Illyrican Revolt these were presently reduced to three: XVII, XVIII and XIX. It was normal to phase down the military presence after a province had been won. However, for Germany at this stage, the establishment was dangerously low. On the other hand, these were legions Varus did not expect to use, except for policing and other peacetime work.

  By now Ovid had arrived in Tomis and begun the composition of his Tristia. Six months from Rome in postal terms, he could only guess at events in Germany. Naturally he assumed a ‘best-case scenario’, the usual outcome when the legions marched:

  Already wild Germany may have followed

  All the rest in kneeling to the caesars …

  But I, obliged to live apart, see nothing

  Of such celebration; and can only

  Go by rumour’s distant echoes.91

  Turning to the actual scenario, Velleius writes as follows:

  Quintilius Varus, of a well-known rather than aristocratic family, was of mild and quiet temperament, somewhat ponderous both in mind and body; and more at home in the camp than on the battlefield. During his spell as governor of Syria he had shown no aversion toward cash: for that episode began with a poor man’s arrival in a rich province and ended with a rich man’s departure from a poor one.

  When given the German command he went out with the quaint preconception that here was a subhuman people which would somehow prove responsive to Roman law even where it had not responded to the Roman sword. He therefore breezed in – right into the heart of Germany – as if on a picnic, wasting a summer lording it on the magistrate’s bench, where he insisted on the punctilious observance of every legal nicety.

  Meanwhile the Germans, a race combining maximum ferocity with supreme guile (and being born liars besides) fawned upon Varus, making much of their lawsuits, marvelling at his jurisprudence and flattering him regarding his civilizing mission; until the poor fellow came to think he was still handing down verdicts from the judge’s seat in the Roman forum; quite forgetting he was in fact field commander of an expeditionary force deep within darkest Germany.92

  Vain, pedantic and gullible, Varus had spent years presiding over servile provinces which Rome had inherited from others. Now, overconfident and under-armed, incapable of comprehending that Drusus and Tiberius might have done their work with less than total thoroughness, he held court in the heart of Germany and spent a summer on the bench instead of building forts and roads. Tragically he allowed his army to be accompanied by a large number of women and children, with servants and a cumbrous baggage train; giving the impression of not being on a war footing or even in a state of preparedness at all.

  Though Varus’ force was less than half that of recent invasion armies it was enough for self-protection, amounting perhaps to 35,000 men, including auxiliaries. Among these he was doubtless comforted by the presence of a large German brigade, of proven loyalty to Rome. All around was evidence of a defeated people, cringing and eager to please. But, as in the Balkans three years earlier (and in Africa five years hence),93 the danger would not be immediately after conquest but later, when the r
ealities of taxation, disarmament and other restrictions had begun to sink in. As then, success or failure could depend on how tactfully these medicines were ministered. Unfortunately Varus tended to arrogance as well as self-deception.

  Here was a difficult job and the wrong man to do it; a mismatch so total it reminds us in an odd way of Ovid. Both were directed, in that same year to places which suited their temperaments least. Both were sent from safety and comfort to an unstable and frightening frontier region. Was Augustus entirely unaware that Varus had acted so venally in Syria and Africa? Is it possible he had found out; and determined that his next governorship would be of a more bracing and less lucrative kind? Can one detect Livia’s hand in this spiteful appointment?

  Dio (the Greek historian Cassius Dio of Nicaea), writing in the early 3rd century, takes up the story:

  The Romans had by now established themselves in parts of Germany, wintering there and founding cities.94 On their side the barbarians had begun to accept Roman ways: holding markets and peaceful meetings. But they had not forgotten their ancestral customs. Nor had they lost their sense of freedom, or of what may be accomplished by arms. When Varus became governor he tried to force the pace of change, dishing out orders as if to slaves and squeezing money as if from docile subjects. However, in view of powerful regiments on the Rhine and within their borders, the Germans bided their time, pretending obedience and drawing Varus far into Cheruscan territory, near the Weser; while always behaving peaceably and amiably. The outcome was that he failed to keep his legionaries together, detaching many to different duties.95