It was not just urban communities who fortified themselves, for the same inclination is visible in rural areas. The grander villas had often been built with towers, but these were essentially ornamental, increasing the visible presence of a great house and also providing an impressive view. In parts of North Africa during the second century some villas had already taken a more defensive form as a response to the threat from bandits and raiders. Now this became more common in other areas close to exposed frontiers. In Gaul before the arrival of Rome it had been common for settlements to be placed on hilltops. Roman peace brought a move down into the plains as communities grew in size and had no fear of enemy attack. In the later third century the trend was reversed and more and more walled villages appear on high ground as places of refuge during attacks.
The Gallic Empire
The Roman doctrine had always been that the best way of dealing with attacks was to defeat the enemy in open warfare. Ideally, the army presented a facade of overwhelming strength so that potential enemies were deterred from aggression. Every defeat weakened this impression, as did the frequent withdrawal of troops from the frontiers to fight each other in civil wars. Valerian's capture by the Persians was another humiliation at a time when there were already plenty of cracks in the facade. His son Gallienus was later vilified in most of our sources as indolent and far too fond of the luxuries of life in Rome. This was more than a little unfair, as he spent a good deal of time on campaign on the frontiers in Europe. In 268 he was in Greece chasing the bands that had plundered Athens and many of the other famous cities of the classical past. He is said to have won a victory, but the terms extended to the defeated Goths were very generous. Their king was taken into Roman service and given senatorial rank. Gossips also declared that the emperor was infatuated with a Gothic princess whom he took as a mistress."
Soon after his father's defeat, Gallienus lost real control over many of the western provinces as usurpers emerged. In 26o the governor of Germania Inferior, Postumus (fully, Marcus Cassianus Latinius Postumus) declared himself emperor. He had already arranged the murder of Gallienus' infant son and the latter's guardian who had been left in overall charge on the Rhine. Both the German provinces and all of Gaul soon rallied to Postumus, who may well have come from the Gaulish aristocracy. In time they were joined by Britain and much of Spain. Almost uniquely amongst usurpers who lasted for any length of time, Postumus made no effort to march to Italy and defeat Gallienus. Instead, he was content to remain on the defensive, fighting against Roman rivals only when they attacked him. Gallienus' armies were driven back twice. In 269 a challenger emerged in Mainz. Within a few months Postumus had defeated him, but his refusal to let his troops plunder the city led to his murder. The man the army appointed as emperor lasted twelve weeks before he too was killed. His successor Victorinus remained in power for the best part of two years, his murder allegedly being caused by an attempt to seduce one of his officers' wives.
Historians conventionally refer to this regime as the Gallic Empire. There is no historical basis for this, although one fourth-century historian does talk of Postumus `assuming power over the Gallic provinces'. As far as he and his successors were concerned they were the legitimate emperors of the whole empire. Consuls for each year were appointed - ignoring the fact that Gallienus continued to appoint them in Rome as well. It is uncertain whether a second Senate was formed. Aristocrats from Gaul filled many of the jobs in the imperial service, but this had more to do with the fact that it was difficult to draw men from further afield and provinces that did not acknowledge these emperors. Culturally, there was nothing particularly Gallic or `western' about the new regime. The titles and iconography - and also the law - employed by these emperors were entirely conventional. The only unusual thing was their reluctance to seek control of the remaining provinces of the empire.26
For much of his reign, Gallienus' rule extended over only Egypt, North Africa, the southernmost parts of Spain, Italy and the provinces behind the Danube. He is counted as the legitimate emperor because he came to power before his various rivals, and ultimately it was the men who succeeded him who would reunite the empire. Rather large claims have been made about his achievements, but these are based on hindsight and tend to ignore the peculiar conditions of his reign. One is a question of strategy. Defeats on all the frontiers are supposed to have shown the need for a central strategic reserve, which could move to confront any enemy who broke through the outer perimeter. Gallienus kept an important part of his army in or near Milan. Coins attest the presence of detachments from at least thirteen different legions - several of them whose parent unit was stationed in provinces no longer loyal to Gallienus. Especially prominent are the cavalry, who seem to have been grouped together under their own distinct commander. Septimius Severus had greatly increased the troops at his immediate disposal by raising II Parthica and augmenting the guard. Now, Gallienus had taken this much further by forming a complete army as his reserve and placing a new emphasis on the importance of mounted troops.
None of this makes much sense. We have no real idea of the numbers of troops involved or the proportion of cavalry to give an indication of how revolutionary this force may have been. Cavalry are faster than infantry over short distances, but on longer marches the advantage markedly decreases. Horses are also a lot more difficult to feed and keep in good condition than men. The idea of using a cavalry force as a mobile reserve only makes practical sense if the forces involved were relatively small. Also, northern Italy may at first sight seem like the heart of the empire, but for Gallienus, Milan was actually only just behind the frontier with the `Gallic Empire'. The circumstances were exceptional, but the deployment of these troops, and as far as we can tell their actual use on campaign, was entirely conventional.17
Gallienus' reign was long by the standards of the period, but his ultimate fate was reminiscent of many other usurpers whose power was briefer. In 268 the commander of his cavalry - we do not know the precise title and it may simply have been a senior rank commanding both horse and foot - rebelled against him. Gallienus came back from Greece to attack him, and after a victory in the field began to besiege the usurper in Milan itself. However, he had clearly alienated his other officers and these conspired to murder him. A false alarm was sounded and when the emperor rushed out of his tent to deal with the supposed enemy attack, he was stabbed to death.Z"
Gallienus was about fifty when he was killed. His successor Claudius II (fully, Marcus Aurelius Claudius) was a few years older and was an equestrian from one of the Balkan provinces. It is difficult to know how far he was involved in the conspiracy, but it is clear that a number of officers from this same region formed a powerful group in this period. The usurper in Milan was swiftly dealt with, and then Claudius spent the next two years fighting against barbarian raiders, first in Italy and then in the Balkans. In 269 he won a victory over the Goths and took the names Gothicus and Maximus in celebration. Early in the next year he was one of the victims of an outbreak of plague, achieving the distinction of being the first emperor to die of natural causes since Septimius Severus. His brother Quintillus was proclaimed emperor, but a few months later faced a challenge by one of the senior generals, Aurelian (fully, Lucius Domitius Aurelianus). When the rival armies moved to confront each other, Quintillus' men quickly decided to change sides. He either was killed or committed suicide when he realised what was happening.29
Aurelian was another equestrian from Illyria and had been heavily involved in the plot against Gallienus. He was a tough and experienced commander who within five years had reunited the empire. Occupied first on the frontiers and then dealing with the disorder in the eastern provinces, in 274 Aurelian attacked the `Gallic Empire'. Victorinus' successor Tetricus seems to have had little enthusiasm for the struggle and had serious problems maintaining the loyalty of his own troops. It is even claimed that he betrayed them, sending them out to fight in a hopeless position against Aurelian. Tetricus himself surrendered. Unusually,
he was spared by the victor and even appointed to an administrative post in Italy. Similarly, many men who had held office in the army and administration within the `Gallic Empire' continued their careers in imperial service afterwards. None of the Gallic emperors had their names formally damned and wiped from the record.3°
The Barbarian Hordes
It is possible that in the third century some stretches of the empire's frontiers faced an increased threat from the peoples who lived outside. The very existence of the empire, as well as its diplomacy, encouraged the rise of powerful leaders within the tribes. There may have been other factors, too. The archaeological record suggests that the population may have been rising amongst the tribes beyond the Rhine and Danube at this time. It is possible that there were also problems caused by climate change and the exhaustion of soils through farming, although as yet there is not enough evidence to understand this in detail. Sea levels on parts of the North Sea coast do appear to have been rising, so that some parts of the coastline were flooded and in other places the soil became too salty to cultivate."
The scale of the threat to the frontiers had always fluctuated, but the biggest difference between this and earlier periods was the frequency of civil war within the empire. Troops were drawn off from the frontiers time and again to support the ambitions of their commanders. With so many changes in the senior ranks of the army - presumably often followed by considerable alterations at lower levels - it can only have been difficult for the army to train properly. The frontiers were thus weakened. It became easier to mount a successful raid, and each success only encouraged more attacks. It is notable that emperors and usurpers alike invariably saw foreign enemies as less of a threat than internal rivals. Time and again they settled with foreign attackers - including the Persians - or granted them generous peace terms so that they could deal with a challenge for the throne.
There was another side to civil wars. When one Roman army met another in battle it could not count on any superiority in discipline, tactics or equipment. This made numbers crucial, but it was difficult to raise and train new soldiers quickly. Frequent warfare also thinned the ranks of the regular troops and disrupted normal recruitment and training. Hiring the services of a barbarian chieftain and his followers was an attractive option chosen by many Roman leaders. These warriors might lack the discipline of professional Roman troops, but they were certainly more effective than hastily raised conscripts or volunteers. Yet when their Roman paymaster was beaten or murdered, such contingents could not be sure of welcome and employment from the next emperor. It is more than likely that some of the groups to maraud through the provinces had initially been invited into the empire. The desire of Roman leaders to recruit warriors in this way was another factor encouraging the emergence of powerful chieftains. These men were even more dependent on continuous warfare than was normally the case for leaders amongst the tribes. If they were no longer able to find a Roman willing to pay them, then the only other options were fighting against other tribes or attacking the empire. Even usually peaceful farming communities may have found trade disrupted so badly by civil wars that raiding became an attractive alternative. Others no doubt found themselves under attack by emperors keen for quick and clean glory won over foreign enemies and not other Romans.
The victims of a marauding band are unlikely to have been too concerned over the reasons that had prompted the warriors to go on the warpath. The local impact of a raid could be appalling, especially if other raids came in subsequent years. It was probably not much worse to be caught up in a civil war, since even fortifications were not always enough to hold back a Roman army. Civil war and barbarian invasion alike smashed communities and ruined livelihoods, adding to the ranks of the desperate and hopeless. The barbarians who swept across the Black Sea were said to have learned how to make boats and then sail them from the survivors of the cities they had overrun. It is clear that many army deserters and runaway slaves joined the raiding bands, while others set up as bandits on their own. The Marcomannic Wars had been followed by a so-called `Deserters War' in Gaul, and in the third century there were similar outbreaks of violence.31
Some areas - parts of North Africa, southern Italy, Sicily and most of Spain - escaped harm during these disturbed decades and other regions were only lightly touched. Gallia Belgica, the region nearest to the Rhine, suffered badly in spite of the best efforts of the Gallic emperors. Most Roman outposts on the far bank of the river were permanently abandoned and so was the Agri Decumates, the patch of land between the Rhine and Danube. Several forts along the frontier in this area show signs of violent destruction. At the auxiliary fort in Pfunz in Raetia three human jawbones were found inside its south-east tower. The nineteenth-century excavator guessed that these were the remains of sentries. It looked very much as if the soldiers had been taken by surprise, for they did not have their shields - traces of the bindings of these were found outside. If anything, the finds at the fort at Niederbieder in Upper Germany were even more dramatic. The skeleton of a soldier still wearing his hob-nailed army boots was found in the headquarters.
Such finds indicate the difficulty of interpreting some of the archaeological evidence for this period - particularly when it was acquired in early excavations using unsophisticated techniques. These military bases were clearly destroyed by enemy action, but it is harder to identify that enemy. The original excavators assumed that the attackers were Germanic tribesmen. More recently it has been suggested that they were other Roman soldiers, hence the degree of surprise at Pfiinz. At Niederbieder a crushed plaque decorated with the head of a youthful emperor was found in the remains of the headquarters building. The young Caesar has been identified as the son of Gallienus who was killed early on in Postumus' rebellion. Hence the garrison may have been attacked because it stayed loyal to the old regime. These interpretations are attractive, but remain conjectural. In the end, we do not know who stormed these bases. It may have been Roman soldiers or barbarian warriors, and if the latter then these could equally have been acting for themselves or as mercenaries and allies hired by one faction in a Roman civil war.
The archaeology does not suggest that the Romans were ejected by a barbarian onslaught from these frontier regions. In time tribes settled in the area, but it does seem to have been a slow and cautious process. After the initial struggles, the Agri Decumates effectively fell in the border region between the territory controlled by Gallienus and the regions loyal to the Gallic emperors. It may have made sense for each side to fall back on the line of the Rhine and Danube, respectively, in case the other attacked. Yet, whatever the cause for abandoning the advanced frontier line and the territory behind it, it is clear that the Romans were either unable or unwilling to reoccupy this region after the Gallic emperors had been defeated and some stability returned to the empire."
On the Danube the situation was similar and there was an even greater loss. Dacia was one of the more recent additions to the empire, but it was rich in mineral resources and for a century and a half had been extremely prosperous. Although it lay beyond the Danube, the natural barrier of the Carpathians protected much of the province from attack. During Marcus Aurelius' wars it had suffered a number of Sarmatian raids, but its major cities had been provided with walls from the beginning and damage was limited to the structures outside. The bulk of the raiding in the third century bypassed the province, yet there are signs of serious problems. From the middle of the century the archaeological record suggests a huge drop in the circulation of coinage. The provincial mint shut down and virtually no new coins seem to have been brought in from outside. Perhaps this was a sign of much of its legionary garrison being posted elsewhere. There is no trace of the auxiliary units moving anywhere else, they just seem to vanish from the record. Government control seems simply to have stopped, perhaps through lack of funds. Aurelian formally abandoned the province, although a new Dacian province was formed west of the Danube. Some of the population from the real Dacia may have moved there or els
ewhere within the empire. Others remained behind. There was no rapid inrush of barbarians and for a while a form of Roman lifestyle seems to have continued, perhaps for some time. At the old provincial capital Sarmizegethusa, someone was able to convert the amphitheatre into a defensive redoubt sometime in the fourth century.34
6
The Queen and the `Necessary' Emperor
Zenobia `was accustomed to hardship, and many even thought her braver than her husband, for she was the noblest of all women of the east and ... the most beautiful.'
`So died Aurelian, an emperor who was necessary rather than good.'Anonymous author of the Historiae Augustae, fourth century.'
n the monuments commemorating his victory, King Shapur grasps Valerian by the wrist. Envoys were sent to the Roman's senior subordinate, Macrianus, but he refused even to discuss ransoming the captive. Valerian's son and co-ruler Gallienus was far away and never had the ability - and perhaps even the desire - to buy back or rescue his father. Valerian lived out the remainder of his life as a prisoner. Shapur was supposed to have employed him as a mounting block, stepping on the crouching Roman as he climbed on to his horse. One fourth-century source claims that when the emperor died, the Persians flayed his skin, painted it red and then hung it up in a temple as a trophy. The author was a Christian and his book recorded the grisly ends of all those responsible for persecuting the Church - something that Valerian had renewed - so perhaps he let his imagination run away with him. However, he did claim that the trophy was seen by Roman ambassadors in later years.
Shapur had won a great victory. City after city fell and was plundered. In time, the Persian army divided into smaller groups, and some began to make their way home with their spoils and captives. Simultaneously, the Romans started to recover and counter-attacked, winning a few skirmishes. Macrianus exploited these minor successes to declare his two sons joint-emperors - he was lame, so felt himself disqualified from such a public role. Taking his older boy and a large part of the army, he crossed into Europe and marched on Italy. They were destroyed by forces loyal to Gallienus in 261.3
How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower Page 15