The Great Illyrian Revolt

by Jason R Abdale

  The Conquest of Pannonia, 12–9 BC

  Before we get into a serious discussion of Romano-Illyrian affairs in the early stages of the empire, I wish to provide a short vignette as to what sort of man Rome’s first emperor was. Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, now known as Caesar Augustus, was not a physically imposing or intimidating man. According to the ancient accounts, he was short, thin, pale and sickly. He had a handsome face (numerous busts attest to his Hollywood heart-throb chiselled features) with short blond hair and serious deep-set eyes.86

  Like most ruling families, Augustus was conscious that the behaviour of himself and his kin was supposed to set an example for the behaviour of the rest of society. Keeping that in mind, Augustus maintained a ‘common man’ persona, partly to curry favour with the Roman peasants by identifying with them, partly to show that he was not an extravagant spendthrift, and partly out of his own lack of concern for his appearance. He preferred to wear ordinary home-made wool tunics rather than the expensive garments worn by the Roman elite. He was a family man who enjoyed being around children, he exercised regularly, and his favourite hobby was fishing. He was religiously and socially conservative in almost all aspects, which endeared him well to the ruling class. As examples of this, he was financially frugal, ate lightly and drank moderately. A typical breakfast for him was only bread and cheese.87

  Like all male members of the Roman elite, he had received a rounded education involving Latin and Greek literature, but Augustus didn’t take well to studying Greek and struggled with the subject. Even so, despite his handicap in studying foreign languages, he was a bookish person by nature, far more comfortable in a school or library than on a battlefield or within a royal palace. No wonder that he used his war booty to fund the establishment of a library. Augustus probably would have been an author if he had not been an emperor. He loved reading and writing, and dabbled in composing histories and poems. All of his speeches were written beforehand and recited; he never ad libbed anything.88

  Augustus was not the hardiest of men. He hated cold weather, often wearing multiple tunics, and never went outside without wearing a hat to protect his pallid skin from the glaring sun. His cautious attitude towards the cold can be explained by his often poor health. He was especially susceptible to chills and chest congestion. Yet, in spite of the fact that illnesses beset him for much of his life, he was a man of massive energy and pushed through with his duties. He might not have had an iron constitution but he did have an iron will, and this in no small part helped to keep the empire under his control for the better part of forty years.89

  It seems that there are two ways in which people think about Caesar Augustus. One image of Augustus is of an intelligent kind sage sitting comfortably in the palace dispensing justice and wisdom to his officials and subjects. The other image of him is as a brutal narcissistic adventurer and obsessive micro-manager who had no qualms about solving a seemingly never-ending cascade of problems and crises using the quickest and often bloodiest methods available. Personally, I lean towards the second option, as you may have already guessed.

  One of the matters of government that Caesar Augustus attended to was figuring out how to better consolidate the province of Illyricum. Remember that at this time only the southern half of Illyria had been incorporated into the Roman Empire as a province. The northern half, Pannonia, extending from the Sava River to the Danube, was still independent though under a great deal of Roman influence. After the various campaigns waged by Augustus in Illyria prior to his accession as Rome’s first emperor, Augustus needed to find homes for the veterans who fought beside him. During his reign, he undertook a policy of settling large numbers of Italian-born citizens and subjects within the coastal settlements of the Illyrian shore. Coloniae were established in Iader, Narona and Salona, and possibly elsewhere. However, unlike the veterans’ colonies set up by Julius Caesar, Augustus’ colonies were meant for civilian settlement. The colony at Narona is of particular interest because the civilian population that relocated there had an unusually high proportion of ex-slaves. Augustus must have felt that this area, which was a hostile zone for so many decades, was now sufficiently pacified to undertake a serious commitment to civilian plantation. Also, now that Illyricum was coming under increasing attention with regard to civil matters as opposed to military matters, some of the people who already lived there were beginning to see the benefits of being under Roman rule. In particular, the Liburnian tribe appears to have been singled out for preferential treatment. Members of the Liburnian aristocracy were granted perks by the Roman imperial government and found themselves in privileged positions, unlike the elite class of other tribes in Illyria. One man named Lucius Tarius Rufus, who was a Liburnian that obtained Roman citizenship, was made a Senatorial consul in the year 16 BC.90

  In terms of government, Augustus realized that he couldn’t attend to every matter personally, but he nevertheless insisted on constantly inserting his opinions and commands onto his provincial governors. In this way, Augustus bears the appearance of a boss who is officially-speaking ‘hands off’ but in reality is an irksome micro-manager. His attitude towards government was mirrored in his attitude towards military affairs. Although he had a lot of battlefield experience behind him, Augustus was not a particularly adept or inspiring military commander and so he preferred to appoint generals who would lead his armies in his place.91

  One of those who would lead the Roman Army was Caesar Augustus’ own stepson Tiberius Claudius Nero. The gens Claudia were of patrician stock, descended from the Sabine tribe, one of Rome’s neighbours which it conquered in its very early history. Tiberius was the oldest son of Augustus’ second wife Livia. He had a background as a lawyer and civil magistrate, but although he was a member of the imperial family and was therefore expected to take a leading role in the empire’s bureaucracy, Tiberius was not really suited to administrative and government duties. He felt more at home among the grit and sweat of the legions rather than among the perfumed aristocrats of the Roman elite. He was first and foremost a fighting man by profession and by nature, and it would be on the battlefield that he would find his true calling.92

  His first taste of combat was during the campaign against the Cantabrian tribe of Spain as a tribune (in a modern military, he would have held the rank of major). Afterwards, he commanded an army in the empire’s eastern provinces and restored the ousted King Tigranes back on the throne of Armenia; Tiberius personally crowned him. While in the east, he collected the lost Roman eagle standards that had been captured by the Parthians during the Battle of Carrhae. Then he journeyed to Gaul, which was suffering from barbarian raids as well as violent feuds between the various subjugated Gallic tribes. In the year 16 BC, the Pannonian Illyrians as well as their western neighbours, the Norian Celts, invaded and overran the Istrian Peninsula at the head of the Adriatic Sea. The impetus for this was the lack of a Roman military presence in the region, since the legions were occupied fighting the Alpine tribes of what is now northern and north-eastern Italy. In response to these attacks, Publius Silius advanced upon the Pannonians and forced them to agree to peace, which left the Norians to face the Roman legions alone. They were easily crushed by Tiberius, who conquered the whole land of Noricum, which today corresponds to eastern Austria, and made it a Roman province. The following year, he and his younger brother Drusus conquered the neighbouring regions of Rhaetia and Vindelicia, comprising western Austria, southern Germany and eastern Switzerland.93

  Tiberius’ next chance for battlefield glory would come in Pannonia. This region had been considered part of Illyria for centuries, but since the Roman acquisition of the coastal regions, Pannonia and the province of ‘Illyricum’ were classified as separate entities. Many years before, Augustus had invaded and subjugated this land, but he hadn’t conquered it; he simply beat up the Pannonians and expected them to be subservient to Rome from now on. It didn’t work. For years, the people of northern Illyria had been a troublesome nuisance. They had caused distu
rbances in the region in the year 16 BC and again in 14 BC. As long as the Pannonians remained independent, they would always cause problems. It was time to teach them a lesson once and for all.94

  Figure 12: Marble bust of Tiberius Claudius Nero, British Museum, London, United Kingdom. (Photograph by Simon Speed, 22 August 2009. Public domain image. Wikimedia Commons)

  There were concrete reasons for launching a large-scale military operation in Pannonia right away. The civilian colonies established by Augustus only a decade or so earlier in southern Illyria were under threat. So too were Rome’s communication and trade routes that connected Illyricum to Italy, and also those routes that extended from the Illyrian interior to the Adriatic coast. Simply, a lot was at stake, and this time, after so much work had been put into the region, Augustus could not afford to let the northern Illyrians ruin all of that hard work. Also Augustus likely saw the advantages of pushing Rome’s reach to the Danube River and controlling the various tributaries of it, such as the Sava and Drava Rivers.95

  Caesar Augustus originally ordered that his reliable-but-aging warhorse Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa should go to Pannonia, a land ‘which was eager for war’, 96 according to Cassius Dio, and crush the Pannonian tribes into complete and total submission. The emperor granted Marcus Agrippa a great deal of power in order to get the job done. Joining Agrippa on the expedition would be Marcus Vinicius, a close friend of Augustus who had been made the governor of Illyricum and who was serving as a consul of the Senate that year; later, he would be made the military governor general of Germania Magna. In 13 BC, Agrippa and his troops got under way. When the Pannonians learned that Agrippa was marching against them, they immediately begged for peace. Without shooting a single arrow, Agrippa had forced the Pannonians to back down. Satisfied, he returned to Italy, but fell gravely ill soon after coming home and died shortly thereafter. When the Pannonians learned that Agrippa had passed away, they immediately renewed their plans to make war upon the Romans.97

  With Agrippa dead, Tiberius became the second most powerful man in the whole Roman Empire. Caesar Augustus’ first duty was to further ensure that Tiberius’ position as the number two man in the empire was strengthened. Tiberius had been married to Vipsania Agrippa, the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and he was deeply devoted to her. Agrippa himself had been married to Augustus’ daughter Julia and that had made him the heir to the throne, but when Agrippa died, a new heir was needed. So, for political reasons, Tiberius was forced to divorce his dear wife and marry Julia, who he couldn’t stand being around. Augustus’ second task for Tiberius was for him to take Agrippa’s place as the commander of the Roman troops stationed on the Danube.98 The Illyrians, although under Roman dominance, were still edgy, and Danube defences were weak. For decades, the Dacians, who lived on the other side of the Danube in what is now Romania, had launched raids into Roman territory. Troops had been deployed along the border to deter them, but it was a flimsy defence and the Dacians could easily exploit the empty gaps in between the military border posts. After so much time behind the lines without seeing any action, Tiberius could see his men becoming soft and lazy. For a hard blood-and-guts commander like himself, this was intolerable. He needed to get his men back into fighting shape quickly, and he knew exactly how to do it: the Roman legions would attack and conquer a foreign tribe in order for Tiberius to give his soldiers some much-needed ‘practice’.

  For his campaign to conquer Pannonia and incorporate it into the existing province of Illyricum, Tiberius employed a pincer movement. Earlier, he had suppressed the Scordisci, a Celtic tribe that inhabited central Illyria and had been frequently employed as mercenaries by the Dacians. Now, Tiberius intended to use these people in his planned attack. While Tiberius and his men attacked from the west, the Scordisci would attack from the east, trapping the Pannonians in between.99 Even though the plan looked fine, Tiberius still needed the reassurance of the gods that things were going to go well. On his way to Illyricum, Tiberius stopped off at the Italian city of Patavium to consult an oracle there, the same oracle that had predicted that Julius Caesar would emerge victorious at the Battle of Pharsalus. Tiberius was ordered to throw some golden dice into the Fountain of Aponus and when he did so, the highest possible score came up; a good sign.100

  Tiberius must have assumed that the Pannonian campaign would be a cakewalk, an easy brief affair taking only a few months, like his previous campaigns against the Norians, Rhaetians and Vindelicians. However, the Pannonians were not to be taken lightly. When the Romans launched their invasion in the year 12 BC, the Pannonians resisted ferociously. Tiberius must have been shocked to see how much spirit and fight the Pannonians had in them. The war dragged on for three blood-soaked years, and the Pannonians made the Romans pay dearly for every inch of ground that they conquered. Paterculus described the conflict as magnum atroxque, ‘great and atrocious’.101

  Unfortunately, details of the Pannonian War are scant. Gaius Paterculus’ description of the whole war consists of just one paragraph:

  Shortly after, the Pannonian war, which had been begun by [Marcus Vipsanius] Agrippa in the consulate of your grandfather, Marcus Vinicius, was conducted by [Tiberius Claudius] Nero, a war which was important and formidable enough, and on account of its proximity a menace to Italy. In another place I shall describe the tribes of the Pannonians and the races of Dalmatians, the situation of their country and its rivers, the number and extent of their forces, and the many glorious victories won in the course of this war by this great commander; my present work must keep to its design. After achieving this victory Nero celebrated an ovation.102

  Cassius Dio’s chronology of events for the war can at times be a bit difficult to follow. A lot was going on during these years, and the events that took place during Tiberius’ conquest of Pannonia are mixed in among details of other events and they are spread out over several chapters. For the opening campaign season of 12 BC, Cassius Dio relates:

  Tiberius subdued them [the Pannonians] after ravaging much of their country and doing much injury to the inhabitants, making as much use as possible of his allies the Scordisci, who were neighbours of the Pannonians and were similarly equipped. He took away the enemy’s arms and sold most of the men of military age into slavery, to be deported from the country. For these achievements the senate voted him a triumph, but Augustus did not permit him to celebrate it, though he granted him the triumphal honours instead.103

  Tiberius could probably be forgiven for thinking that he had managed to crush the Pannonians in a single campaign season. He had accomplished a lot, and to all appearances the region appeared to have been pacified. However, scarcely had he put his sword back in the scabbard when the following year in 11 BC, the Dalmatians of southern Illyria rebelled against Roman rule. Tiberius was forced to move his troops southwards, leaving only a small number of his men behind in Pannonia to maintain security in the newly-subjugated lands. Seeing the small number of troops in their country, the Pannonians rose up again. Cassius Dio wrote:

  Tiberius subdued the Dalmatians, who began a rebellion, and later the Pannonians, who likewise revolted, taking advantage of the absence of himself and the larger part of his army. He made war upon both of them at once, shifting now to one front and now to the other.104

  As a result of this, control of the province of Illyricum was transferred from the Senate to Caesar Augustus. It was also now accepted by the Roman government that a permanent military force always needed to be stationed in the region due to the numerous revolts and uprisings that were occurring there.105

  It was also during this time that Tiberius’ younger brother Drusus Claudius Nero had begun his grand campaign to conquer Germania. After defeating the Pannonians and Dalmatians, Tiberius ordered that they should pay a tribute to Rome as a mark of their submission, and then went with Caesar Augustus to Gaul. However, while he was there, the Dalmatians, angry at having to pay tribute to Rome, rose up in defiance and so once again, Tiberius was forced to go there with an
army and suppress them. I imagine that he was becoming increasingly tired of having to do this.106

  The Roman military strategist Frontinus provides a description of one of the battles in which Tiberius’ legions fought:

  In the campaign against the Pannonians, when the barbarians in warlike mood had formed for battle at the very break of day, Tiberius Nero held back his own troops, and allowed the enemy to be hampered by the fog and be drenched with the showers, which happened to be frequent that day. Then, when he noticed that they were weary with standing, and faint not only from exposure but also from exhaustion, he gave the signal, attacked and defeated them.107

  The writer Publius Florus writes of how the war ended:

  Caesar [Tiberius] sent Vinnius [sic] to subdue them, and they were defeated on both rivers. The arms of the conquered enemy were not burnt, as was the usual custom in war, but broken to pieces and hurled into the current, that the fame of Caesar [Tiberius] might thus be announced to those who were still resisting.108

  In 9 BC, after three years of battle, Pannonia was finally declared ‘pacified’. The newly-conquered land was incorporated into the province of Illyricum. Caesar Augustus lauded this victory in his list of accomplishments, the Res Gestae, which adorned his tomb:

  The tribes of the Pannonians, to which no army of the Roman people had ever penetrated before my principate, having been subdued by Tiberius Nero who was then my stepson and my legate, I brought under the sovereignty of the Roman people, and I pushed forward the frontier of Illyricum as far as the bank of the river Danube.109