Legions of Rome

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  The 10th Fretensis Legion advanced down the banks of the Jordan, taking Jericho in May. Not far from the Jewish monastery of Qumran, the curious Vespasian tested the Dead Sea’s famed buoyancy by having Jewish prisoners thrown in; they floated. In 1947, the now famous Dead Sea Scrolls were found, located in eleven caves behind the ruins of Qumran, hidden there during Vespasian’s offensive. It was only June, but Vespasian ordered a halt to operations. In Rome, Nero’s rule was increasingly shaky. In Spain the governor, Sulpicius Galba, was raising the new 7th Galbiana Legion and planning to march to Italy to take Nero’s throne, having written to all provincial governors and Vespasian seeking their support.

  For the moment, Vespasian suspended his offensive. Until the political air cleared, and with Jerusalem, the last major target in the Roman offensive, still in rebel hands, Vespasian’s legions went into camp: the 10th Fretensis at Jericho, the 5th Macedonica at Emmaus in the Judean Hills and the 15th Apollinaris at Caesarea. A year later, Vespasian’s legions still had not moved.

  AD 69

  XXIV. THE ROXOLANI BATTLE

  3rd Gallica’s greatest victory

  Snow was still on the ground in Moesia in February when “To Arms” was trumpeted throughout the Danube camp of the 3rd Gallica Legion. The legion, which had been at its new posting for less than a year, was ordered to march at once. Led by their legate Fulvius Aurelius, the 3rd Gallica hurried to intercept a force of many thousands of Sarmatian cavalry from the Roxolani tribe that had crossed the frozen Danube to raid northern Moesia. To counter the Roxolani, both the 3rd Gallica and 8th Augusta legions had been ordered out by Moesia’s governor, Marcus Aponius Saturninus.

  The 3rd Gallica, several cohorts down after being savaged in the Jewish Revolt in Judea, would have been keen to spill some blood after being transferred away from Vespasian’s command. Their Sarmatian opponents were from the Volga river. Natural horsemen who originated in Asia and migrated to the Ural Mountains from today’s Iran, the Sarmatian tribes had overwhelmed the Scythians, the original inhabitants, to control what is today southern European Russia. Fierce fighters, Sarmatians wore fish-scale body armor and conical helmets, and used long lances and bows but not shields. The sword of the Roxolani Sarmatians was so long that it was worn in a scabbard strapped to the back and was drawn, two-handed, over the shoulder.

  Roman cavalry scouts located the Roxolani camp; on ice-covered ground, it extended over a wide plain close to frozen marshes. The Roxolani built no defensive camps. Their hundreds of wagons spread across the landscape, with their thousands of horses tethered in groups. The 3rd Gallica camped some distance away, and lit no fires. Rather than wait to be joined by the 8th Augusta, legion commander Aurelius decided to attack at dawn while he had the element of surprise.

  Come morning, with mist overlying the silent countryside, the men of the 3rd Gallica silently moved into position. The mist had risen when Roman trumpets sounded “Charge.” The Sarmatians, with no sentries, were caught entirely off guard. Desperately they tried to pull on their armor, to saddle their horses, to mount and to fight. Tacitus said of Sarmatian cavalry: “When they charge in squadrons, scarcely any infantry line can stand against them.” [Tac., H, I, 79] But the Roxolani had no chance to mount a charge. Legionaries employed their javelins as lances, and used their shields to knock heavily armored opponents off their feet, then quickly dispatched them with the sword. The Roxolani were, says Tacitus, virtually defenseless once knocked to the ground, as the weight of their armor made it difficult to rise again. [Ibid.]

  Those Roxolani able to mount found their horses slipping under them on the icy ground. With Roman troops pressing in, the long Sarmatian lances were useless. Many Roxolani were hauled bodily from the backs of their horses and thrown to the ground. And once brought down, the Sarmatians’ courage vanished. “No soldiers could show so little spirit when fighting on foot,” said Tacitus of them. [Ibid.]

  A handful of wounded Sarmatians escaped to the marshes, only to freeze to death overnight. Every last member of the Roxolani force was killed—9,000 men. The 3rd Gallica’s losses were not even worth counting. For this victory, commanders Aurelius of the 3rd Gallica, Tettius Julianus of the 7th Claudia and Numisius Lupus of the 8th Augusta were all awarded purple consular ensigns by the Palatium, while provincial governor Aponius was awarded Triumphal Decorations.

  AD 69

  XXV. YEAR OF THE FOUR EMPERORS

  Legion versus legion

  “A year … which well nigh brought the commonwealth to an end.”

  TACITUS, Histories, I, 11

  From the moment that 70-year-old Emperor Galba was assassinated in the Forum by a legionary named Camurius from the 15th Apollinaris Legion, on January 15, AD 69, Rome was destined for a year of turmoil.

  Even as Galba’s successor Otho was being hailed emperor by the Praetorian Guard at Rome, the legions on the Rhine were preparing to march on the capital to install their choice for emperor, Aulus Vitellius, governor of Upper Germany, on the throne. Three separate task forces marched for Italy in Vitellius’ name. From the Rhine came vexillations of between four and six cohorts from each of the 1st Germanica, 4th Macedonica, 5th Alaudae and 15th Primigeneia legions, as well as the entire but under-strength 21st Rapax Legion. From Lugdunum in Gaul came the Italian recruits of the recently created 1st Italica Legion. With these legionaries came as many auxiliaries, so that 75,000 men marched into Italy at the beginning of April, bent on dethroning Otho.

  On April 14, these units clashed with an army taken north from Rome by Otho, at Bedriacum, above the Po river in Italy’s central north. Otho’s army, commanded by his brother Sextus, comprised cohorts of the Praetorian Guard, the newly formed 1st Adiutrix Legion, the Evocati militia, plus several cohorts from the 13th Gemina and 14th Gemina legions which had just marched all the way from Pannonia.

  In the battle, Otho’s 1st Adiutrix seized the eagle of the 21st Rapax, only for the Rapax to regroup and overrun the Adiutrix’s youngsters and kill their general. Otho’s 13th Gemina gave way to a charge by the 5th Alaudae, exposing the famous 14th Gemina, which had triumphed over Boudicca but which was now surrounded and forced to fight its way back to the Othonian camp. Otho’s army negotiated a surrender, and Otho committed suicide. Once Vitellius’ generals had secured victory, he himself came down from the Rhine, in July entering Rome and taking the throne. But he soon learned that this very same month the legions in the East had hailed their commander-in-chief, Vespasian, as their emperor.

  In the autumn, an army of pro-Vespasian troops marched into Italy to overthrow Vitellius, led by Marcus Antonius Primus—another Mark Antony. A native of Tolosa, today’s Toulouse in France, Primus, “a man of ready audacity” in the opinion of Tacitus, had been convicted of fraud during Nero’s reign and sent into exile. [A, XIV, 40] Galba, once on the throne, had canceled Primus’ exile and given him command of his new 7th Legion. Now, seeing an opportunity to become Vespasian’s leading general, Primus had entered Italy with just a small force based around auxiliaries and cohorts of the 3rd Gallica Legion—which had led the other legions in Moesia, Pannonia and Dalmatia in swearing allegiance to the Gallica’s old commander-in-chief, Vespasian. Those other legions would soon join Primus and the 3rd Gallica in Italy.

  As Primus entered Italy, anxious to prevent reinforcements from reaching Vitellius from the Rhine, he sent a letter to the prefect of a cohort of Batavian auxiliaries at Mogontiacum on the Rhine, Gaius Julius Civilis. (Tacitus, in his Histories, gave Civilis’ first name as both Julius and Claudius; other sources say Gaius Julius Civilis.) Civilis, probably now in his early fifties, was a member of the Equestrian Order and a high-ranking descendant of the Batavian royal family, which had ceased to rule after the death of its last king, Chariovalda, during Germanicus Caesar’s German campaigns half a century earlier.

  Civilis had commanded one of eight cohorts of Batavian auxiliaries until recently attached to the 14th Gemina Legion in Britain, and in the AD 40s he had befriended the then co
mmander of the 2nd Augusta Legion—Vespasian. After the eastern legions had hailed Vespasian emperor in July, Civilis had written to him, pledging his loyalty and offering to help overthrow Vitellius. Now Primus urged Civilis to create the appearance of a revolt in northern Gaul, to keep the Rhine legions busy and prevent them from reinforcing Vitellius in Italy. This letter from Primus to Civilis was to sponsor one of the most devastating and humbling periods in legion history.

  AD 69

  XXVI. THE CIVILIS REVOLT

  Blood on the Rhine

  During the last months of Nero’s reign, Civilis and his brother Julius Paulus had been accused of fomenting revolt in their homeland. Paulus was executed; Civilis had been sent in chains to Nero at Rome. The governor of Lower Germany, Fonteius Capito, the man who imprisoned Civilis, was an opponent of Galba’s, and as soon as Galba became emperor he had Capito executed. Civilis was freed and returned to his unit.

  Civilis did indeed harbor ambitions to lead a revolt against Roman rule, and when the message arrived from Primus urging him to create a diversion on the Rhine, the Batavian had the excuse and the authority he needed. After being forced from their lands east of the Rhine by the Chatti, the Batavi tribe had occupied that narrow part of the present-day Netherlands between the Waal and Meuse rivers on the North Sea coast which the locals called “the island.” Since becoming Julius Caesar’s allies, the Batavians had provided auxiliary infantry and cavalry to the Roman army as their sole contribution to the alliance; unlike other tribes, they paid no taxes. Their cavalry in particular were valued, for their ability to swim rivers with their horses and in full equipment “without breaking the order of their squadrons.” [Tac., H, IV, 12]

  As Vitellius recruited more troops to maintain his disputed rule, he played into the hands of Civilis, for he called up all the Batavian young men for auxiliary service. This was deeply resented by the Batavians, who felt they had contributed enough to Rome. Civilis, the most respected of men among the Batavians for his ability, royal blood and wealth, having inherited numerous estates from his father, hosted a banquet for Batavian elders and young firebrands in a sacred grove. As his countrymen ate and drank, Civilis came to his feet to address them.

  Civilis had lost an eye and bore an ugly scar on his face, probably in a battle in Wales, and he likened himself to Carthaginian general Hannibal, and to Sertorius, rebel Roman governor of Spain during Pompey the Great’s time, both of whom had also lost an eye. And, like Hannibal and Sertorius, the one-eyed Civilis felt that he could defeat the armed forces of Rome. In an impassioned speech, he fanned the indignation of his fellow Batavians until it burst into revolutionary fire. “We have a vast force of horse and foot, we have the Germans as our kinsmen, we have Gaul bent on the same object,” he assured his colleagues. [Ibid., 14]

  The banqueters enthusiastically swore in the name of their gods to follow Civilis and free their homeland. Messages were sent to the Canninefates, a German tribe which also occupied “the island,” and to the Frisii on the North Sea coast of Germany, to bring them into the revolutionary movement. And Civilis spoke discreetly with Batavian and British nobles who commanded eighteen cohorts of auxiliaries stationed at Mogontiacum, and won over the nobles and their 9,000 men.

  In the late summer of AD 69, thousands of Canninefates and Frisians suddenly attacked the Rhine town of Vetera, which was garrisoned by just a Tungrian auxiliary cohort and another cohort of Ubian Germans. Twenty-four ships of the Rhine Fleet were also based there—light, shallow-draft vessels with single banks of oars. The auxiliary cohorts’ prefects ordered the warships to escape upriver, then set fire to buildings to prevent the camp from falling into German hands, as their men scampered away across the flat Low Country landscape.

  After looting the burning camp and slaughtering sutlers and traders who lived outside, the attackers pursued the Roman troops, who made a stand a little way upriver. With the waters of the Rhine at their back, the cohorts were supported by the warships. Meanwhile, a rider galloped to Novaesium, where Civilis and his Batavian cohort were stationed, seeking aid. When the messenger arrived with news of the Vetera attack, Civilis sent a message to Hordeonius Flaccus, the old, lame Roman general left at Mogontiacum in command of both the Upper and Lower Rhine when Vitellius departed for Italy to take the throne. Civilis volunteered to lead a relief force to Vetera, and Flaccus told him to go ahead.

  When Civilis and an auxiliary force reached the trapped cohorts, they found them lined up ready for battle at the riverside. The two dozen warships stood close by, their marines and catapults at the ready to support the cohorts. Now Civilis and the so-called relief force changed sides, joining forces with the rebels, with Civilis assuming rebel command. The Tungrian cohort then defected to the rebels. The remaining, vastly outnumbered, Ubian cohort was cut to pieces.

  On the ships on the river, Batavian crewmen suddenly turned against their skippers and centurions, killing those who would not join them. Within minutes, the Roman force on land was obliterated, and the ships captured. With these warships, Civilis could control the Lower Rhine. News of this “brilliant success” for Civilis and his rebels quickly spread throughout Germany and Gaul. Now Civilis remained faithful to a vow he had made when addressing Batavian leaders in the sacred grove, and dyed his hair red, as his ancestors had done when they went to war. [Ibid., 16]

  From Mogontiacum, Roman general Flaccus sent orders to Munius Lupercus, commander of the 15th Primigeneia Legion at Novaesium, immediately to take the field against the rebels. Lupercus was senior to Numisius Rufus, legate commanding the other legion at Novaesium, the 5th Alaudae. Both legions were significantly under strength after many of their cohorts had gone to Italy. Between them, they fielded some 5,000 men on the Rhine. Leaving 1,000 men to garrison Novaesium, and adding a number of auxiliaries to their force, including a squadron of Batavian cavalry which had remained loyal to Rome, the young generals set off downriver to put an end to the revolt.

  Some 65 miles (104 kilometers) beyond Cologne at Vetera—known as Old Camp—the 5th Alaudae and 15th Primigeneia came on the rebel army in battle array. Behind his troops, Civilis had stationed his mother and sisters, and the wives and children of his men, to encourage his fighters to victory. As rebels sang a war song and women and children cried shrill exhortations, the legionaries of Lupercus and Rufus responded with a roar of defiance.

  As if on cue, the Batavian cavalry on Lupercus’ wing suddenly rode away, then wheeled and charged the very Roman flank they had been protecting. The remaining Roman auxiliaries fled into the countryside, abandoning the two legions. But when the rebel infantry charged, the discipline of the legionaries held, and they saw off the treacherous cavalry and repelled Civilis’ infantry. Maintaining good order, the two legions then retreated to the Old Camp fortification. As legionaries improved defenses and destroyed houses around the outside walls to establish clear fields of fire, the rebels encircled the fortress.

  Meanwhile, four cohorts of Batavians and Canninefates had recently been sent off to reinforce Vitellius in Italy. When they received a note from Civilis urging them to return and join the revolt, they turned and began retracing their steps toward Mogontiacum. When Flaccus, Roman commander-in-chief, learned this, he timidly kept his legionaries behind the walls at Mogontiacum and sent a message to the 16th Gallica Legion at Bonna. That legion’s legate, Herennius Gallus, was ordered to intercept the four cohorts, with Flaccus assuring him that he would come up behind the Batavian and Canninefate column from Mogontiacum with his troops, and between the two forces they would crush the defectors.

  But Flaccus made no attempt to leave Mogontiacum. Soon he sent Gallus a new order, countermanding the last, instructing him to let the auxiliaries pass. Gallus was trying to make sense of this when delegates from the column arrived at his Bonna headquarters. They told the general that if he failed to let the column pass, the Batavians and Canninefates would give battle and cut a path through Gallus’ legionaries.

  Gallus hesitated. But
his troops demanded a chance to teach these traitors a lesson. The men of six cohorts of the 1st Germanica Legion left at Bonna when its commander took part of the legion to Italy were especially keen to act, and before Gallus could restrain them they swarmed out of the camp gates accompanied by recently recruited Belgian auxiliary cohorts. On their heels hurried local farmers and merchants, full of bravado and wielding crude weapons, caught up by the confidence of the men of the legion. Gallus’ own 16th Gallica men obeyed orders; staying in camp, they manned the ramparts to see what transpired outside.

  Although outnumbered, the 2,000 Batavians and Canninefates were experienced soldiers. Forming squares, they held firm against the 1st Germanica’s charge. The Roman line broke around the immovable columns, and then the rebels advanced with measured steps. As the attackers fell back on the camp in disarray, they became entangled with panicking civilians. The Belgian auxiliaries fled into the fields, and the 1st Germanica men found themselves hemmed in against the ditch skirting their camp. Scores of legionaries were killed by the Batavians and Canninefates, their bodies filling the trench at the foot of the wall. The remainder surged in through the Bonna camp gates before they closed.

  The victorious rebels continued their march, skirting Cologne to link up with Civilis outside Old Camp, where the rebel siege continued. To give credibility to his uprising, Civilis now had all his followers swear allegiance to Vespasian. He then sent envoys to the legions at Old Camp, advising them to throw off their allegiance to Vitellius and also swear for Vespasian. A message soon came back from Old Camp: “We don’t follow the advice of traitors or enemies.” [Ibid., 21]

  Civilis now ordered the entire Batavian nation to take up arms. Soon, he was joined in the siege of Old Camp by thousands of Bructeri and Tencteri reinforcements from east of the Rhine. The rebels built crude assault machinery, but this was soon pulverized by stones lobbed from catapults on the fort ramparts, or burned to a cinder by fires started by flaming arrows. When an attempt to storm the walls with siege ladders also failed, Civilis decided to suspend the assault and starve out Lupercus and his legionaries.