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

by Derek Williams

    62. M. Todd, The Northern Barbarians (Oxford, 1975) 19.

    63. P. Salway, Roman Britain, (Oxford, 1984), 544–5.

    64. dB G, 4.1. The largest German group; opp. the middle Rhine.

    65. Ger., 5.

    66. e.g. Pliny NH 5.10.3., 6.15.40; Tac. Ger., 1.6–8; Strabo, Geog., 2.5.12.

    67. Surveyor = agrimensor (lit. ‘field measurer’).

    68. NH, 6.38.210.

    69. id., 3.5.39.

    70. Arch., 6.1.12.

    71. Ger., 33.1.

    72. Aeneid, 1.278–9.

    73. id., 6.851.

    74. Aug., 18. Dio (51.16.5) tells us that part of Alexander’s nose fell off during the ceremony.

    75. id., 31.

    76. Life of Caesar, 58.

    77. Ger., 46.

    78. 20.30.26.

    79. An., 2.6.

    80. Then called Lake Flevo.

    81. i.e. the ‘Wading Sea’.

    82. Tac. Ger., 17.

    83. Iceland?

    84. Reported by the Greek explorer of the North Sea and beyond, Phytheas of Marseilles, c. 300 BC.

    85. As perhaps befell Caligula (Dio, 59.21.3).

    86. Dio, 55.1.33.

    87. The ‘supreme souvenir’: when a commander, in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy commander, seized his armour or similar spoils.

    88. Velleius, 2.105.

    89. J. von Elbe, Die Römer in Deutschland (Berlin, 1977), 107.

    90. The author’s assumption. There is no direct evidence that Varus was charged with this function.

    91. Tristia, 4.2. 1–2 and 16–17.

    92. 2.117–18.

    93. The rebellion of Tacfarinas, AD 14–24.

    94. Nearer the truth would have been ‘deciding where cities might be founded’. There is no record of a Roman town in trans-Rhenine north Germany during the Augustan or any other period; nor of wintering beyond the Lippe.

    95. 56. 18–19.

    96. 2.118.

    97. id.

    98. 56.19.

    99. Dio, 56. 20–22.

  100. Suggested by W. John, Die Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht bei Tacitus, (Göttingen, 1950).

  101. A tactic of desperate defence, by which the enemy is made to pay twice; eg. Rorke’s Drift, Natal, 1879.

  102. 56.22.

  103. A lineage of battlefield suicide: his father, S. Quintilius Varus, after fighting on the losing side at Philippi; his grandfather’s fate unknown.

  104. 2.119

  105. Either today’s Haltern or Hamm.

  106. Frontinus, Strat., 2.9.4.

  107. Velleius, 2.111.

  108. By Dio’s time the western Rhine bank was called Upper and Lower Germany.

  109. Dio, 56.23.

  110. To reduce unsettling changeovers.

  111. Aug., 23.

  112. Known as the Res Gestae, inscribed in his temples and best preserved at Ankara.

  113. Hist., 1.89.

  114. At the time of writing, a century later.

  115. An., 2.88.

  116. Correctly, Boudicca.

  117. Meaning his ancestry included the opposing leaders at the time of Actium; An., 2.53.

  118. An., 1.13.

  119. Pron. ‘vike’ by English tongues; ‘fake’ by Dutch.

  120. In military areas also the name given to civilian settlements near forts.

  121. The next tribe westward from the Cheruscans.

  122. An., 1.60–61.

  123. Henry V, prologue to act IV.

  124. Quotations on Caecina battle from Tac., An., 1.63–8.

  125. id., 1.70.

  126. id., 2.23–4.

  127. In Tac., An., 2.10 and Strabo, Geog., 7.14.

  128. An., 1.11.

  129. 56.33.5.

  130. An., 2.26.

  131. Suet., Tiberius, 43 (caper = billy goat).

  132. An., 2.26.

  133. J. F. C. Fuller, The Decisive Battles of the Western World (London, 1954), 181. Also E. S. Creasy, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World (London, 1931), 19.

  134. Die Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht (Berlin, 1885).

  135. W. Schlüter, Römer in Osnabrücker Land (Osnabrück, 1991).

  136. An., 1.60. See also Livy, 1.165–70 and 1.184–5, on Trasimene (217 BC), when a Roman army was caught on constricted ground (saltus) between lake and hills.

  137. J. A. S. Clunn, forthcoming: Auf der Suche nach den verlorenen Legionen, epilogue. His account proposes that Varus committed suicide in a temporary camp at Felsenfeld, a few miles east, on the previous day.

  138. Hist, 28.5.8.

  139. Amm., 21.11.12.

  EPISODE 3: The Soldiers

      1. The tour of Greece is described in Dio, Bk. 52.

      2. Museo Nazionale.

      3. Dio, 59.12.3.

      4. Vespasian, 5.

      5. It was usual for a commander to march in the middle.

      6. The job of the second in command. Vespasian was perhaps a busybody.

      7. Tac., Hist., 25.

      8. Today’s Sousse, Tunisia.

      9. Suet., id., 4.

    10. JW, 6.331.

    11. Strabo, Geog., 2.5.8.

    12. Suet., Nero, 18.

    13. dB G, 4.22.

    14. Leaving place-names from Brentwood to Borehamwood via Theydon Bois, Northwood, Cheshunt and so on.

    15. The divisions we call England, Wales and Scotland did not exist. Their names are used here for convenience only.

    16. Twenty centuries have not invalidated this view.

    17. dB G, 5.12.

    18. Caligula, 46.

    19. Gk. thanatos = death. Related in garbled form by Procopius, de Bello Gothico, 1.4.20.

    20. Dio, 60.19.

    21. Claudius, 17.

    22. Dio, 60.19.1.

    23. 55.19.4.

    24. Claudius, 17.

    25. 153 BC.

    26. 19.2.3. At the siege of Amida, on the Tigris, AD 359.

    27. As artillery would launch another future emperor: Napoleon and the siege of Toulon.

    28. Vespasian, 4.

    29. A post-Roman term. Approximately Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.

    30. Older readers may recall the difficulties with gut-stringed tennis rackets.

    31. Amm., 23.4.5.

    32. Josephus, JW, 5.63.

    33. The anonymous de Rebus Bellicis, 18.5.

    34. 23.4.14.

    35. For a recent exposition, S. James and V. Rigby, Britain and the Celtic Iron Age (London, 1997) which, despite new insights into British separateness, fails to face serious problems posed by language and place-names.

    36. Fr. = Wales.

    37. Et gallos quidem, qui Celtae sunt (as for the Gauls, who are the Celts); Amm., 15.11.12.

    38. The Galatians of St Paul’s Epistle.

    39. S. Piggot, Ancient Europe, (Edinburgh, 1965), 16.

    40. The Conn Cétchathach cycle, 8th century AD.

    41. Livy, 1.36.1 and 1.44.3.

    42. Eclogues, 66.

    43. Nr. Christchurch, Hants.

    44. Most notably the gold stater of Cynobellinus, minted about 25 AD.

    45. Geog., 4.1.2.

    46. As proven at the Iron Age Experimental Farm, Butser, Hants.

    47. A name deriving from the eponymous Greek colony of Emporion.

>     48. dB G, 7.23.

    49. By comparison, Britain’s largest medieval castles (Dover, Windsor and Caerphilly) are in the thirty-acre class.

    50. Geog., 4.4.3.

    51. Chainmail seems to have been a Celtic invention.

    52. dB G, 5.21.

    53. Pliny, NH, 4.14. 102.

    54. Mature Celtic style, 500 BC to the Roman conquest. Continental and centred to the north of the Alps.

    55. dB G, 4.5.

    56. Ger., 28.

    57. 62.9.2.

    58. Agr., 12.

    59. Hist., (intro) 5.

    60. 72.14.

    61. Welsh Derwydd = druid and derwen = oak.

    62. Amm., 15.9.8 and Strabo, 4.4.4–5.

    63. dB G, 4.33.

    64. Geog., 4.5.2.

    65. S. C. Standford, Native and Roman in the Central Welsh Borderland, RFS, 8 (1989) 52.

    66. Vespasian, 4.

    67. Today’s Jodefat, ten miles north of Nazareth.

    68. JW, 3.166–7.

    69. id., 243–9.

    70. Suet., Nero, 40. also C. Cavafy’s poem on these same events: Poems (Athens, 1948) and various anthologies.

    71. 3.118.

    72. Father of one of our sources, the historian G. Suetonius Tranquillus.

    73. Dio, 61.33.3.

    74. Tac., An., 14.29–30.

    75. 62.2.

    76. 62.5.

    77. Compare Tac. Hist., 4.17: ‘Slavery might serve for Syrians and the East, but many in Gaul had been born before there was such a thing as Roman taxes.’

    78. 62.6.

    79. Tac., An., 14.33.

    80. Hist., 4.74.

    81. No longer believed to have been at Stanwick, where a 1980s dig uncovered enough Roman material to suggest that this Brigantian stronghold remained pro-Roman.

    82. Agr., 20. For the same method applied in North Africa, see An., 3.74.

    83. id., 9.

    84. id., 3.

    85. Though the generally more important Histories and Annals are partially missing.

    86. Agr., 11.

    87. id.

    88. id., 12.

    89. id., 14.

    90. id., 21.

    91. id., 10.

    92. id., 12.

    93. id., 24.

    94. id., 23.

    95. id., 27.

    96. id., 24.

    97. Due to storms, dB G, 4.29, 5.11, 5.23.

    98. Agr., 25.

    99. Lit. ‘under skins’.

  100. Though there are different schools of thought.

  101. Near Braco, Perthshire, some six miles west of Gleneagles.

  102. Agr., 25.

  103. id., 30.

  104. id., 35.

  105. The Antiquary, Ch. 4.

  106. The Camp at Durno, Aberdeenshire and the Site of Mons Graupius, Britannia, 9 (1978), 271–87.

  107. Pron. ‘ben-a-kee’. Stress on final syllable and the ch guttural.

  108. Agr., 33.

  109. id., 38.

  110. Satires, 4.111.

  111. Dio, 67.6.

  112. id., 67.4.

  113. id., 67.6.

  114. id., 67.9.

  115. id., 67.12.

  116. Agr., 39. 1–2.

  117. id., 40.

  118. Dio, 60.20.3.

  119. Hist., 1.2.

  120. Estimated by S. S. Frere, Britannia (London, 1967) 135.

  121. G. S. Maxwell, Sidelight on the Roman Military Campaigns in North Britain, RFS, 13 (1983), 62.

  122. Near Edzell (ten miles north-west of Montrose), the empire’s most northerly fort. Invisible on the ground.

  123. Tu vero felix Agricola, opportunitate mortis (happy in the timeliness of your death). Agr., 45.3.

  124. Earlier passed on Caligula, later on Commodus.

  125. Panegyricus, 52.4–5.

  126. Decline and Fall, Ch. 1, 7–8.

  EPISODE 4: The Artist

      1. T. Nagy, Traian und Pannonien, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Pannoniens, RFS, 13 (1983) 377.

      2. Fronto, to Lucius Verus, 17.

      3. The Column’s emphasis on construction may thus be in part a personal quirk.

      4. Epitome de Caesaribus, 41.13.

      5. Dio, 68. 7.6.

      6. id., 68.6 and 7.

      7. The Acta Diurna, begun by Julius Caesar. No trace remains of this priceless source.

      8. Panegyricus, 20 and 65.

      9. id., 88.

    10. Sculptor Torrigiano, erected by Sixtus V in 1587.

    11. From Ulpius, Trajan’s family name.

    12. Museo della Civilità Romana, Piazza G. Angeli, EUR, Rome.

    13. Die Reliefs der Traianssäule (Berlin, 1896–1900).

    14. Die Traianssäule: ein römisches Kunstwerk zu Beginn der Spätantike (Berlin-Leipzig, 1926).

    15. A. Malissard, La comparison avec le cinéma: permet-elle de mieux comprendre la frise continue de la Colonne Trajane? Mitteilungen des deutchen Archaeologischen Instituts; 83 (1976).

    16. There are, however, changes of elevation, for example to allow the viewer to see inside encampments.

    17. Hy. V: 1, Prologue, 16 etc.

    18. id., IV, Prologue, 53.

    19. Cichorius, 1896; Petersen, 1899; Stuart-Jones, 1910; Davies, 1920; Lehman-Hartleben, 1926; Richmond, 1935; Patsch, 1937; Rossi, 1971; Syme, 1971; Gauer, 1977; Lepper and Frere, 1988; Settis et al., 1988; to mention but a quarter of contributors.

    20. Römische Geschichte, Bk. 5, Ch. 6, 205 (1919 edn, Berlin).

    21. Trajan’s Army on Trajan’s Column (London, 1935), 3.

    22. id.

    23. Trajan’s Column and the Dacian Wars (London, 1971).

    24. op. cit., 3 and 4.

    25. i.e. papyrus or other temporary medium.

    26. 68.6.1.

    27. 68.8.1–2.

    28. Mentioned by Dio, 68.9.4.

    29. By G. Tocilescu in 1900.

    30. A common classical motif and origin of the English word pelmet.

    31. Nuovi Risultati Storici della interpretazione della Colonna Traiana, Roma, 2.3.

    32. Tac, Ger., 46.

    33. Tristia, 3.10.75.

    34. Here we have a contradiction in that the oaks are shown in leaf.

    35. Eng. scythe, from Scythia.

    36. Ger., 46.

    37. Domitian’s Praetorian Prefect, killed in the earlier fighting.

    38. Laberius Maximus, one of Trajan’s commanders.

    39. 68.9.3.–10.2.

    40. The adjacent Roman province.

    41. 68.10.3.–11.3.

    42. As, today, outward-tending walls are sometimes held by cramping irons, with discs showing at each end.

    43. 68.14.4–5.

    44. The denarius is believed to have been the biblical ‘silver penny’, specified in Matthew 20.2. as a worker’s daily pay.

    45. M. Speidal, The Captor of Decebalus: a new inscription from Philippi, JRS, 60 (1970) 142–53.

    46. R. Vulpe, Les Valla de la Valachie, de la Basse Moldavie et du Boudjak, RFS, 9 (1972), 267.

    47. K. T. Erim, The School of Aphrodisias, Archaeology, 20 (1967) 18–27.

    48. 69.4.

    49. 69.3.3.

  EPILOGUE: Barbarians and Romans


      1. Agr., 12.

      2. Ger., 33.

      3. F. Križek, Die Römischen Stationen in Vorland des Norisch-Pannonischen Limes bis zu den Marcomannkrieg, RFS, 6 (1967), 131–7.

      4. An., 2.62.

      5. 72.36.4.

      6. Amm. 23.6.68. This curious passage describes the Chinese donating silk to the barbarians, presumably as payment to maintain peace on their frontiers.

      7. Roman Commerce with the East, ANRW (Berlin, 1987).

      8. Dio, 72.11.3.

      9. id., 72.15.1.

    10. Getica, 4.25.

    11. 20.4.6., 31.4.9., 31.8.9., 31.10.1.

    12. Letters, 20.

  Index

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Ancient versions of place names are given in italics, modern versions in upright letters. While lesser Roman characters are usually given under cognomen (surname) celebrities are indexed under the name by which they are best known.

  Adamclisi (Romania)

  Agricola, Julius

  Tacitus

  in Britain

  roadbuilding

  ‘Scottish’ campaign

  naval support

  Domitian’s jealousy

  recall

  death

  loss of gains

  summary

  agriculture, Roman

  Agrippa, Marcus

  Agrippa, Postumus

  Ahenobarbus, Domitius

  Airs, Waters and Places

  Alamans

  Alexander the Great

  Aliso (Germany)

  amber road

  Ammian, historian

  Anglesey

  Antoninus Pius, emperor (AD 139–61)

  Apollodorus (see also Danube bridge)

  Aquae Sextae, battle

  Ardoch

  Armenia

  Armin (Arminius, Hermann)

  army, Roman

  size

  deployment

  artillery

  Athenaeus, author

  Augustus, emperor, (27 BC–AD 14)

  as Octavian

  as princeps

  policies

  world view

  birth rate

  family misfortunes

  nepotism

  peace

  Britain

  Germany

  German War

  death

  testament

  ‘accomplishments’

  Bandel, E. von

  barbarians (see also Roman-barbarian relations, Roman view of, human sacrifice, commerce)