Rome's Greatest Defeat

by Adrian Murdoch

  If trade was initially in one direction, this did not last long. All too soon, the Germanic tribes were trading in their own right and we begin to see a shift away from barter toward monetarisation. Tacitus specifically mentions that the Germanic people bordering Roman territory ‘value gold and silver for their commercial utility’. He continues, ‘They are familiar with and show preference for some of our coins.’ This begs the question what it was that the money was used for in what was presumed to be a mainly barter economy. Yet as Malcolm Todd has written, ‘it is increasingly difficult to resist the idea that Roman silver coinage acted as a form of primitive currency’.13 The wide distribution of coin finds, not just along the Rhine frontier but as far away as the Volga, does suggest the beginning of a monetary economy, albeit a primitive one. In all likelihood, Roman sesterces were used to oil general business and social deals rather than as currency in day-to-day transactions. Certainly by AD 18–19 there was a Roman community deep in German territory in Bohemia, living off the earnings of trade and money-lending, and signs of a healthy import/export market.14

  The Hermunduri, a tribe which occupied the land to the north of the Danube as far as Thuringia, showed an admirable early entrepreneurial zeal. ‘They are the only Germans who trade with us not only on the river bank, but deep inside our lines in the brilliant colony that is Augsburg,’ writes Tacitus.15 It is hard to believe that they were the only ones. There were no governmental roadblocks to interfere with the development of trade, and commerce appears to have remained unregulated. It was not until the latter half of the second century that Rome began to take an interest and specific places for trading were established. How much business had grown by then can be seen in the remains of an especially large and well-preserved trading house, a structure 40m by 14m, found in the mid-1980s in the town of Walheim in Baden-Württemberg, south-west Germany.

  So what did the Germans have to offer Rome? Apart from providing access to amber and enthusiastic consumption of Roman wine, other products of trade can be discerned from the philological evidence of Germanic loan words in Latin. What the Romans called ganta and sapo, for example – geese and hair-dye – were all highly regarded in Roman society. Agricultural produce such as animals, hides and meat were also staples. Take Feddersen Wierde, near Bremerhaven, a site occupied from the 10s BC to the fifth century AD, and some 250km from the Roman frontier. When it was excavated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it became apparent that although the settlement’s earliest phase had only five farmsteads, it looked after some ninety-eight stalls for cattle. This was clearly the hub of a cattle business tapping into what was presumably a lucrative Roman market.

  But the commodity which, in many ways, can be said to have done the most to open up Germany was slaves. The use of slaves by German tribes is well documented by Tacitus and a flourishing trade with the Roman Empire emerged. For the Germans this killed two birds with one stone. To start with, it allowed them to gain valuable Roman possessions while at the same time getting rid of prisoners. The deleterious effect that this had on society as a whole was that in the long term, raids would occur specifically to acquire the prisoners to sell on. A similar pattern may be observed in the growth of raids among West African tribes following the arrival of the Europeans seeking slaves in the seventeenth century.

  By the later Roman period, the Germans had learned their lessons in economics so well that they were exporting products that had previously been imported. From the second century onwards, the Treveri, who lived round what is now the city of Trier, began not only to dominate the local market in wine, but began to export as far afield as Lyons and Milan. The fourth-century Latin poet Ausonius, in a long paean to the Moselle, writes lyrically about the swelling grapes beside that river, and the remains of two huge warehouses by the Roman port on the Moselle are testament to the importance of the trade in the city. A wonderful carving on the Roman tomb of a wine merchant from Neumagen (now in the Landesmuseum Trier) shows the crew and a distinctly inebriated pilot steering a ship carrying four wine barrels.

  This broadly, then, was the environment, the political and economic landscape into which Arminius had been born. As for the man himself, he is difficult to get close to. In many ways, we know more about the food Arminius would have eaten, the kind of house he would have lived in and the weapons he would have used. All of the personal information we have about him comes from Roman sources and not only every date but virtually every fact that will now be discussed has opposing interpretations. Even when some classical writers, like Tacitus, attempt a more balanced characterisation, the fact that it is filtered through Roman eyes, experiences and values magnifies the distance even further. As if this were not enough, what has to a large extent crippled any serious discussion of Arminius is the nationalistic undertones to his revolt that made him into a folk hero in modern times. The very lack of knowledge has allowed writers to project their own mores and ideals on to him. As the historian Dieter Timpe admits, in what remains the only book-length critique of Arminius, this ‘has hindered the perception of history rather than facilitated it’.16

  We stumble at the first hurdle. It is not known what name Arminius was given at birth. It is not even certain what he was called by the Romans, a subject that has been and is still much debated by linguistic historians. Given the convention that auxiliaries of the period generally took on the name Julius, it is plausible that he was called Gaius Julius Arminius. But a further dimension of puzzlement is added since, in the manuscripts that have come down to us, mostly from the ninth century, there is no universal agreement about the spelling of his name. Sometimes he is Arminius, sometimes Armenus. Transliteration from surviving Greek manuscripts does not help either: they retain the same confusion.

  Nowadays not much credit is given to the theory that his name is a corruption of ‘the Armenian’, a nickname, so the argument used to go, that had been bestowed following a period of service on the eastern frontier. It is generally accepted that what has come down to us is a Latinisation of either a familial name or an honorific that he himself used. Erman or ermen is an old Germanic word meaning roughly ‘the eminent’ – not an implausible name for a boy born into the Cheruscan ruling elite. Certainly Germanic names were commonly transposed by Roman authors. For example, Tacitus calls Arminius’ father Segimerus: the Latin suffix ‘-us’ simply bolted on to the Germanic ending ‘-mer’.17

  Slightly surer ground is found for Arminius’ date of birth. Tacitus’ comment that ‘he completed thirty-seven years of life and twelve years of power’,18 in AD 19 suggests that he was born in roughly 18 BC, the year before the Lollian disaster and around the time that the Romans started giving serious consideration to the conquest of Germany.

  What little is known of Arminius’ background can be related in a few sentences. His father’s name was Segimerus and he was part of the Cheruscan ruling elite. Although leadership in general in Germanic tribes was not by kinship – rather it was by an aristocratic oligarchy – the Cherusci give some indication of passing leadership down from father to son. Segimerus’ other son, Arminius’ younger brother, was called Flavus. Nothing is known of their mother, other than she appears to have been still alive in AD 16.19

  It has been mooted that Arminius either came to Rome in his childhood as part of a diplomatic mission when his future father-in-law Segestes was given citizenship, or that he spent some of his childhood, like Maroboduus, as a blue-blooded hostage at Augustus’ Palatine School. While both of these are attractive thoughts, and not in and of themselves implausible, there is no evidence either for or against the theory.

  It is known for certain that Arminius served in the Roman army, not as a private, but as an officer. From the time of Julius Caesar onwards, many Celtic tribes had supplied the Roman army with auxiliary units. In AD 15 and 16, we know that the Chauci and Batavians, among others, bolstered Germanicus’ forces, while even earlier than this, it is known that an Ubian unit fought for Tiberius. There is little doubt that this was
a condition of being an ally of Rome. Following the peace treaty that Tiberius signed with the Cherusci in AD 4, the tribe must have been expected to supply the imperial army with troops.

  Tacitus states that Arminius ‘served . . . as commander of his fellow-countrymen’,20 the senior officer of an auxiliary corps. There is still debate over how formal the auxiliary unit that Arminius led was. The Latin phrase that Tacitus uses (ductor popularium) suggests something rather more ad hoc than either a cohort or a cavalry unit but this is only guesswork. The tone of the historian’s words may simply be a reflection of the troops Arminius commanded – that they were an ethnically homogenous unit – rather than any kind of slight on the commander’s status. While the nuances continue to be debated, what is certain is that Arminius’ service record was significant enough for him to have earned not just coveted Roman citizenship but equestrian status.

  More than that, we can broadly work out where it was that Arminius saw service, predominantly because he appears to have served with Velleius Paterculus. From the historian’s own statements we know that Velleius started his career in Thrace and Macedonia. After stints in Achaia and Asia he served in an eastern campaign against the Parthians and then in Yugoslavia and Germany. Velleius being a few years older than Arminius, it is apparent that the only time that the two could have served together was during the Pannonian uprisings, either after AD 4 or possibly between AD 6 and 8.

  We should consider for a moment the status of native soldiers like Arminius who fought with the Romans. It was perfectly normal for the Romans to use native troops, as indeed they did throughout the history of the empire. Primarily they were used in auxiliary units of 500 or 1,000 men, either as lightly armed infantry or as cavalry units. But there is a distinction between units that were recruited from conquered territory and those men who were volunteers. The former were draftees with the same twenty-five years of service ahead of them as legionary recruits. The latter wanted the money and it is to this latter group that Arminius belonged.

  Much in the same way that the Gurkha regiments have a relationship and reputation within the British army, so, too, German units had military cachet. They were even used as the emperor’s personal and private guards in the early principate, from Augustus to Nero. They were perceived as loyal because they were removed from Roman politics. And so it proved. Their commitment to the cause was seen most clearly in their – admittedly unsuccessful – attempt to protect the Emperor Caligula from his murderers, and their efficiency in maintaining order thereafter.

  But a willingness to use them in the military context does not indicate any sense of integration. Just as ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ was sketched by Rudyard Kipling, so, too, Arminius would have been seen as ‘a pore benighted ’eathen but a first-class fightin’ man’. Roman prejudices were too ingrained to accept a barbarian as an equal in almost any sphere outside the military. Examples are legion. The Emperor Augustus appointed a Gaul named Licinius as one of the province’s financial officers. Even after Licinius had been cleared in an imperial investigation for fraud and mismanagement, he remained on a watch-list because he exhibited ‘typical barbarian greed’.21 This cultural intolerance was still entrenched centuries later, when the future emperor Julian the Apostate wrote a letter to the Senate in Rome naming his cavalry commander Nevitta as consul for AD 362. That Julian was in revolt against his cousin Emperor Constantius II, they could forgive; that he wanted to appoint a German to the Senate, they could not.

  The Romans may have resisted this, yet on the German side what is apparent is the desire to integrate. So strongly does the desire to hang on to both Germanic traditions and Roman customs come across, that what may be observed may almost be termed cultural schizophrenia. This can be seen in the burials of auxiliaries of the period. A series of four graves was found in Goeblingen-Nospelt in Luxembourg in 1966. What is known as Grave B dates from between 25 and 15 BC. In it were found weapons (a long, iron sword and elaborately decorated scabbard), riding equipment and a bronze cauldron, all of which are wholly native. But the large amount of Roman tableware, including a bronze Roman wine service, shows how much Roman culture was valued. Another grave, from Putensen in northern Germany, which dates to roughly the time of Arminius’ revolt, is of a 30-year-old auxiliary cavalryman. He was buried with the physical manifestations of his relationship with the Roman world; his weapons – short sword, spear and shield – and his spurs are a poignant indication of the status that Roman service conferred upon him when he came home.

  It can be seen even more clearly in the images on gravestones. That of an auxiliary called Firmus which dates from the middle of the first century AD is wholly Roman. He is armed in the traditional Roman manner, with a long sword, a couple of spears, a dagger and an oval shield. His slave Fuscus is portrayed wearing a toga, standing, much smaller in scale, at his left foot. Yet the inscription underscores his tribal roots: ‘He is Firmus, son of Ecco from a cohort of Rhaetians belonging to the tribe of the Montani’.22

  Around AD 7, though possibly following the conclusion of the Pannonian war, Arminius left Roman service to return to his homeland. What prompted the move of this – in Velleius Paterculus’ backhanded compliment – ‘young man of noble birth, brave in action and alert in mind, possessing an intelligence quite beyond the ordinary barbarian’? It is not outside the realms of possibility that Rome had interfered to encourage Arminius’ return to act as some kind of standard bearer, an intermediary with the Cherusci.

  This is not as shocking a suggestion as it might seem at first. The Romans had a long tradition of manipulating Gaulish and Germanic accession. After all, it is precisely this that Ahenobarbus had attempted and failed to do seven years previously. There is also some elliptical literary evidence of a treaty with the Cherusci at this time.23 If Varus was attempting to speed up the Romanisation of the province, it made sense for him to want around him as many as possible allies and senior Germanic voices who were perceived to be pro-Roman. The point to bear in mind is that Rome will not have been remotely perturbed either by Arminius’ return or his elevation. Why should it? Why would someone who had seen civilisation, tasted its fruits, been promoted within its aristocracy and understood how it worked ever possibly turn his back on it?

  While the importance of Arminius to the Romans at the time is clear, the benefits of Roman service to the future Cheruscan leader should not be passed over. Above all, it had allowed Arminius to know his enemy. At its most basic level, from service with the legions, Arminius had become fluent in Latin. His linguistic skills were much better than serviceable. He was comfortable giving speeches in the language.24 Much more importantly, he had learned how the Roman army worked, seen its tactical innovations in action and had clearly begun to think about how to counter them. Inevitably the emphasis of the majority of archaeologists and historians, indeed this book, is on the conflict between Germany and Rome. Here it is true that the German tribes appeared to be at a disadvantage. But of course for the most part, warfare of the period involved Germans fighting Germans – conflicts which have left no mark on history. Although the Germanic tribes were familiar with the heavier weapons of the Romans, these were never adopted in any wholesale manner. A reason for this may be seen less in any innate technological conservatism, but more in the style of warfare they were used to. Arminius’ strength as a tactician and strategist was to find ways of using the very different Germanic manner of warfare to beat the technologically advanced Romans.

  How innovative Arminius was can be appreciated if we look at the conventional native style of warfare. The weapon of choice was the light spear, both a throwing and thrusting weapon. Tacitus’ detailed description will have been as terrifyingly familiar for a legionary in Julius Caesar’s army as for one in Varus’ legions, as indeed it was for Ammianus Marcellinus and his colleagues in the fourth century. Military equipment used by Germanic tribes appears to have changed little throughout the period of the Roman occupation and contact. This consistency is a great help to the
historian, as the paucity of remains from one period is helped by those from another.

  Few use swords or heavy lances, writes Tacitus. ‘The spears that they carry . . . have short and narrow heads, but are so sharp and easy to handle that the same weapon serves at need for close or distant fighting. . . . The infantry have also javelins to shower, several per man, and can hurl them to a great distance,’ he continues.25 His observation that they could be thrown a great distance is corroborated by the fact that slings have been found, dating to the pre-Roman Iron Age and from the second and third centuries, to help propel them.

  Physical evidence from graves as well as pictorial evidence from reliefs supports this description. Wooden shafts that have been found range from 1m to 3m in length, while the iron heads on average are 20cm in length. In a recent survey of Germanic graves, spears alone appear in 365 cases, shields alone in 339 cases and the combination of the two together in 162 cases.26 While Tacitus’ description is intended to compare the equipment of the Germans with the much more technically advanced kit of the Romans – it is obvious that to him the Germans are not only lightly armed, they appear poorly armed – their weaponry was much more appropriate for the type of warfare that they fought. Speed and agility were favoured over assembly-line pressure.

  The failure to mention swords is not an oversight on Tacitus’ part; expensive and rare as they were, it is not until the second century AD that they were available in any number at all. In the best weapons cache that has been found so far, dating from the fourth century and discovered in Jutland, we see 60 swords, compared to 200 javelins and 190 spears.27 They appear to have played a comparatively minor role in combat. This is hardly surprising, given the nature of intertribal warfare. An unarmoured man with a sword and a shield is rarely going to come off better against a man with a spear. This is not to say that they did not exist at all. As mentioned above, some of those whose remains have been found clearly used the legionary short sword as their model and there are some signs of innovation, for example a short, one-edged slashing weapon.