Rome's Greatest Defeat

by Adrian Murdoch

  More urgent even than calming the populace were the security implications, not just for the western provinces, but for Italy itself. Any armchair general was aware that Arminius, riding high on his successes east of the Rhine, could easily consider an invasion of Italy. The frontier had to be contained and that required a massive military escalation not just to bring the Rhine armies back up to strength, but to escalate the army’s presence altogether. Germany went from five to eight legions. Legion I Germanica and Legion V ‘The Larks’ had survived with Lucius Nonius Asprenas in Mainz, and Augustus rapidly found a further six legions, scouring Switzerland, Spain and Illyricum. The logistical challenges posed by such rapid rearmament can be only dimly perceived, but there are mentions of the draft and re-enrolling those who had retired. Every aspect of this must have caused headaches. For example, the need for horses so outstripped supply that much of the western empire was drained of stock. ‘Gaul had been exhausted by supplying horses,’ writes Tacitus and horses from Spain and Italy had to be imported.5

  The thorny question of what to do with the survivors had to be addressed. The Legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX could never be used again. Most of the legionaries, like Legion XVIII’s Marcus Caelius, now lay in the Teutoburg Forest, but there were those who had survived. A number escaped German captivity relatively soon afterwards, made their ways back to civilisation and were redrafted into the imperial army. Despite the morale issues of introducing defeated former captives back into service, they even appear to have served in the Rhine army with Legion II ‘The Emperor’s Own’, Legion XIII and Legion XIV ‘The Twins’ and Legion XVI ‘The Gauls’. Certainly there were enough eye-witnesses from that terrible battle to give Germanicus a guided tour of the battlefield six years later. A second group was ransomed by their families during the second decade of Tiberius’ reign, though forbidden to set foot in Italy. A final group languished in captivity for many years. They were not freed for another forty-one years, until the reign of the Emperor Claudius.6

  Amid all the upheaval, Varus’ family did not become the pariahs that might be expected. Various nephews continued their political careers unhindered and Augustus treated Varus’ wife, Claudia Pulcher, and son, Varus the Younger, with respect. Maroboduus had declined Arminius’ invitation to join him and had sent the general’s head to Rome as a token of good faith. This, Augustus returned to the family for decent burial.7 The sins of the father clearly were not passed on to the son. Any problems the family was to have later on had nothing to do with Varus.

  But Rome needed a dramatic gesture if she was to secure any chance of recovering her aura of military invincibility. The conquering hero Tiberius was sent out west. His recent successes in Pannonia as much as his campaigns in Germany four years previously would bolster the demoralised troops who had survived. It was hoped that his reputation might at the very least make the German troops think twice before they attacked.

  In the end, the much-feared German invasion never materialised. Tiberius’ first year on the wrong side of the Alps seems to have been spent reassuring a presumably edgy Gaulish population and garrisoning the frontier towns. By now, Arminius and his troops had vanished back into the forests and in AD 11 Tiberius was confident enough to authorise several punitive sorties across the Rhine both by land and sea, his army reopening military roads, laying waste German farms and attacking all who crossed their paths. It did not go unremarked that he had not crossed that river for the past two years. But gone was the gung-ho general of years ago. His leadership was now much more cautious and disciplined, consulting with advisers, checking baggage in person, putting all orders in writing. He had not lost his nerve. The region remained tense and the military was on high alert for his entire tour of duty. Tiberius’ priority was security. It may seem excessive that the commander demoted one legionary commander for ordering a security detail for one of his freemen on a hunting expedition across the Rhine, but there is the report of at least one German assassination attempt on Tiberius’ life.8

  Although we do not know how far into Germany Tiberius had campaigned, he does appear to have secured a significant zone, including the Lippe line of forts, and on 23 October AD 12 Tiberius was back in Rome and able to hold his long-delayed triumph. His presence was needed back in the capital by an aged and now ailing Augustus. The new governor of the provinces and commander-in-chief of the eight legions on the Rhine was Drusus’ son, Tiberius’ nephew, commonly called Germanicus. As heir to the throne (Augustus had insisted that Tiberius adopt him to ensure an acceptable successor) and a veteran of the Pannonian revolt, for the next three years it was his job to consolidate his uncle’s work, to finish the job his father had started, to repair the damage caused by Varus and to pursue and punish Arminius.

  Although Germanicus was nominally in charge of eight legions, for practical purposes these were in fact split into two, the upper and lower Rhine armies. The upper Rhine was under the command of Gaius Silius, who was in charge of Legion II ‘The Emperor’s Own’ at Mainz-Weisenau, the Legion XIV ‘The Twins’ and Legion XVI ‘The Gauls’, which shared a base in Mainz, and Legion XIII ‘The Twins’, which was also probably at Mainz to start with, before being moved to Vindonissa, now Windisch in Switzerland.

  Aulus Caecina Severus, older than his colleague by a couple of decades, was in charge of the lower Rhine. Born in the 40s BC into an old Etruscan family from Volterra in Tuscany, Caecina was a career soldier. He was in charge of Legion I Germanica out of Cologne; Legion XX ‘Valiant and Victorious’ from Neuss; and two, Legion V ‘The Larks’ and Legion XXI ‘The Predators’, based in Xanten.

  As for Germanicus, like his father he was the heir that never was. His credentials were impeccable. He was born on 24 May 15 BC. The public swooned over him even more than over Drusus. His good looks and his athletic and intellectual achievements made him the empire’s pin-up – a moral stick with which to beat the much duller Tiberius. He certainly encouraged his adulation. So vain was he about his looks, it was rumoured, that he specifically exercised to beef up his legs. The public image of a hero was supported by the perfect marriage. His wife, Agrippina, was the emperor’s granddaughter. The attitude of the ancient sources is hagiographic with a taste for the sensational. Tacitus goes so far as to suggest that he was greater than Alexander the Great.9

  Germanicus is a curious figure to write about. While considerable, justifiable and occasionally successful attempts have been made over the last two decades to rehabilitate a number of ancient characters traditionally deemed monsters – Tiberius and even Caligula have all to a greater or lesser degree been reassessed – it is a completely different proposition to do the reverse. In reality, Germanicus appears to have been little like his public image. Tiberius’ suspicions of his heir, rather than jealousy on the part of the emperor, are both understandable and not entirely unreasonable. As one modern historian has it, ‘a closer inspection of Germanicus’ career reveals serious errors of judgement and even a degree of emotional instability’.10

  The myth that grew up around Germanicus was based not on what he actually did, but on what he might have achieved. He was much more important to Rome in death than in life. So strong was his mystique that, thirty-five years later, much of the iconography at the start of the Emperor Nero’s reign emphasises his famous grandparent: his coins mention it (the first emperor to mention his maternal ancestors at all) and in one famous relief, a young Nero is dressed and carved to look like him. An even later and more potent testimony to the magical power of his name occurred in the spring of AD 59 towards the end of his reign. Then plotting against his mother, Nero was told quite bluntly that he could not count on the praetorian guard to execute Agrippina – they would never take up arms against a daughter of Germanicus. It was a tradition so strong in western thought that in the French artist Poussin’s 1627 oil The Death of Germanicus, now held by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, he becomes a self-sacrificing and moral Christ-figure.

  The following year, however, on 19 August A
D 14, Augustus died, thirty-five days before his seventy-sixth birthday. Two eulogies were delivered, one by Tiberius, the other by his own son. Senators carried the emperor’s body to the Campus Martius and there it was cremated. The ashes were gathered up by leading men from the equestrian class, bare-footed and their tunics unbelted in mourning. His remains were placed in the mausoleum, to join so many of his family who had preceded him. After a decade in the wings, it was time for Tiberius, now 55, finally to take the throne, the position for which he had trained for so many years.

  From here on, there was a slow shift in policy towards Germany. Augustus’ handwritten will from 3 April the previous year, advised Tiberius not to follow as aggressive a policy of imperial expansion as he had done. It would be hard to guard, Augustus said, and this would lead to danger of losing the territory that had already been civilised.11 Had the Romans at any stage between now and the end of AD 16 comprehensively beaten the Cherusci, then the Elbe would have been maintained as the border. But before too long into his reign, the new emperor heeded his predecessor’s advice and he began to pull back from all forts east of the Rhine.

  The Rhine itself was strengthened with the establishment of two more bases: one at Strasbourg to protect one of the main routes into Gaul, and another at Windisch in Switzerland, to guard a crossing of the River Aare. This protection laid the basis for what evolved into the Limes – the Latin for ‘path’ – the protective frontier that would eventually stretch from Koblenz on the Rhine to Eining on the Danube, a distance of some 570km, and would last up until the third century. The Limes was not a continuous barrier (for that you have to look at either Hadrian’s Wall or the Antonine Wall in northern England and Scotland respectively); nonetheless, as seen in Romania and Syria, this line of forts and watchtowers proved an effective border.

  The difficulties that now emerged in Germany were the result, for once, not of activities beyond the Rhine but of events in Rome. The news of Augustus’ demise had unsettled the empire. Few could recall a time before his reign, and those who could cannot have remembered those years of continual civil war with any fondness. Political uncertainty combined with a lack of military campaigning that year fanned disquiet that became rebellion in several regions. It is essential to understand this revolt and the behaviour of the army, as it casts light not just on the character of Germanicus, but on subsequent Roman military action against Germany in general and Arminius in particular.

  Germanicus was overseeing the census and tax collection in Gaul when news of Augustus’ death broke on the Rhine at the beginning of September. The uprising appears to have kicked off with the Legion V ‘The Larks’ and Legion XXI ‘The Predators’ at their summer camp around Cologne (they were normally stationed together) but soon dragged in Legion I Germanica and Legion XX ‘Valiant and Victorious’ with them – in other words the whole of Lower Germany. Fortunately for the commander, discontent appears to have been confined to this region. ‘The troops under Silius, with minds still not made up, watched the issue of mutiny elsewhere,’ writes Tacitus.12

  What could Lucius Poblicius have made of this? Then a new and young recruit to ‘The Larks’ from Italy, he was many years away from the incredible wealth that would allow him to leave the mausoleum that is one of the centrepieces of the Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne. Was he egged on by Plautius Scaeva Vibianus, one of his legion’s military tribunes? Did Gaius Ventienus Urbiqus, trumpeter with Legion I take part? How far through the legion did it go? Was even Gaius Deccius, the Legion XX’s veterinary surgeon involved?13 Inevitably the focus of history is on the leaders, the commanders and the politicians who shape the momentous events of history. These names and their stylised images on gravestones take the attention off weightier matters for a moment and give an intimate and personal colour that these incidents all too often are lacking.

  There was no one single reason for the revolt, but a common underlying factor appears to have been the fallout of the military emergency created by Varus. The mass enlistment to replace those who had fallen at Kalkriese resulted in a large number of draftees unsuited to military life. The impatience with hardship that Tacitus credits them with has the ring of truth about it; complaints about harsh discipline (an infamously strict centurion in Pannonia was nicknamed ‘Cedo alteram’, or ‘Bring another’, because when he broke a stick over a hapless legionary’s back he called for another, then another), bad pay and excessive deductions from what was left, and the rigours of square-bashing.14 Even at the best of times it is clear that the army was not the route to riches. The pay record of an auxiliary soldier stationed in Egypt from the second half of the first century makes this abundantly clear:

  Gaius Valerius Germanus from Tyre received the first salary instalment of the third year of the emperor, 247½ drachmas out of which

  Hay

  10 drachmas

  For food

  80 drachmas

  Boots, socks

  12 drachmas

  Saturnalia of the camp

  20 drachmas

  For clothes

  100 drachmas

  Expenditure

  222 drachmas

  Balance deposited into his account

  25½ drachmas

  And had

  21 drachmas

  Makes a complete total of 46½ drachmas.15

  It is not easy to put the 250 sesterces payments (drachmas were on parity with the Roman sesterces – the 2½ drachma deduction presumably a currency exchange charge) into a context that is understandable today. The 46½ sesterces that Germanus had in his account was the equivalent of 465 asses, the bronze coins in common usage. To give some indication of purchasing power, a litre of good wine cost four asses and a week’s worth of grain around twelve asses. It is easy to see how even the slightest increase in deductions or delay in payment would cause resentment.

  More specific were the complaints about length of service. Under Augustus, legionaries were supposed to serve for twenty years – sixteen in the ranks and four as veterans. With the constant campaigning of the past years, and the pressure to push back the boundaries of the empire, service times began to stretch. In Cologne, veterans who had thirty years under their belts were losing their sense of humour.

  Germanicus’ deputy, Aulus Caecina Severus, seemed unable to cope as normal military and disciplinary structures splintered in the city. Tacitus was convinced that it was the sheer scale of the disturbance that ‘broke his nerve’,16 though there appears to have been more to the story than that. Caecina’s behaviour is certainly questionable and not for the first time either. He had behaved similarly indecisively and ineptly during one of the Pannonian campaigns seven years previously. Yet there is no doubting the extreme nature of the revolt. A self-regulating commune emerged as centurions were lynched and either thrown out of camp or tipped into the Rhine.

  When Germanicus did return from Gaul, he was faced with a barrage of protests. To emphasise their complaints about the length of service, some veterans grabbed his hand and pushed his fingers into their mouths so that he could feel their toothless gums, while others showed him their bent and broken limbs.

  Even if Germanicus, strictly speaking, had no authority with which to make any concessions, he miscalculated badly. Rather at odds with his reputation as an intuitive commander, he now displayed such a lack of any real sense of his troops that he almost lost his life into the bargain. The frenzied soldiers tried to acclaim him as emperor. Objecting to this lèse-majesté, he tried to leave the camp, but protesters blocked the way. Theatrically Germanicus pulled his sword and ordered the men to return to normal duty or he would kill himself. It was an oratorical gesture, not uncommon in Rome, but the soldiers took him at his word. While some indeed did hold back their commander’s hand, a significant number called his bluff and urged him on. One legionary went so far as to offer his own sword, saying that it was sharper. Humiliated, Germanicus had to be rescued by friends and hurried to his quarters.

  A semblance of order was a
chieved sullenly, unwillingly and predominantly by forging a letter from Tiberius agreeing to the rebel demands. Legion I and Legion XX caved in, returned to normal duties and were marched back to their camp in Cologne. Legion V and Legion XXI took more convincing. They did not knuckle down until Germanicus and the high command had bribed them out of their own pockets. Only then did they calm down enough to march back to their winter camp in Xanten. With Lower Germany soothed, Germanicus turned to the continued rumblings in Upper Germany. It quietened down more easily. When asked to, three brigades, Legion II, Legion XIII and Legion XVI, all accepted the oath of allegiance. Legion XIV ‘The Twins’, which was later to win glory during the revolt of Boudicca in Britain in the 60s AD, took more persuasion. But to bring the affair to as rapid a conclusion as possible, as soon as they began to hesitate, the legionaries were immediately offered the same financial and discharge inducements as the army in Lower Germany.

  Many must have hoped that this would have drawn a line under the unfortunate incident, but tempers flared up again with the arrival in Cologne of two envoys from the Senate in the first week of October. Knowing nothing of the mutiny, they had in fact come bringing Germanicus official condolences on the death of his grandfather, rumours inevitably circulated that the Senate had come to remove the concessions recently granted. A mob from Legion I and Legion XX began to riot and the chief envoy was almost lynched.