Is there any hard archaeological evidence within Segestica, modern-day Sissek, for this uprising? There have been many Roman artefacts found within the western Balkans that can be dated to the reign of Caesar Augustus or to the first half of the first century AD, including helmets, weapons, pieces of armour and coins. However, when it comes to specifically placing these artefacts within the context of the Great Illyrian Revolt, that is much more difficult. It is easier to place the dating of Roman artefacts in Germany, because we know of specific instances in which the Romans ventured into the land beyond the Rhine. Artefacts found there can be accurately dated because we can establish a connection between the artefact and a date of known Roman activity within Germany. It is far harder to do that in the land that is still called ‘Yugoslavia’ by a lot of people. The Romans occupied this region continuously for approximately 170 years prior to the revolt, and occupied it continuously for another 470 years afterwards. While broad date ranges can be applied to a Roman artefact found in the western Balkans, establishing a narrow and precise date is very difficult, and ascertaining whether or not a specific artefact definitely and unquestionably was involved in the Great Illyrian Revolt is practically impossible unless it bears an inscription saying something like ‘This belonged to Gaius who fought against the Illyrian rebels.’ Therefore, while it is likely that these artefacts could be connected with that dire three-year-long war, it is also equally likely that these artefacts date to either the years immediately before the war or immediately after it.44
So, based upon what has been discussed thus far, I believe that the opening phase of what would become known as the Great Illyrian Revolt occurred in the city of Segestica sometime during mid to late March of 6 AD. The historical records do not state if the rebels actually seized control of the city or if they just went on a rampage through it and killed all of those who came against them. However, I am inclined to think that the rebels under Bato the Daesidiate actually did, in fact, take possession of the city of Segestica. Remember, the Illyrians were not your standard common or garden barbarians. Others, like the Celts and the Germans, may have been satisfied with loot and pillage, and then moved on. Many Romans criticized the barbarian tribes for lacking strategic thinking, which is why they reacted so strongly when faced with the likes of someone like Arminius who had a knack for military strategy. The Illyrians were not like the Celts or Germans; they had professional armies with generals and strategists. They knew the value of seizing targets and holding on to them as opposed to just plundering them and moving on to the next destination. Furthermore, the fact that Tiberius would later seize control of Segestica must mean that the Illyrians had taken control of it first. So I say that the rebels not only attacked Segestica, but actually captured it and claimed it as their own, and also routed a Roman military unit that had been stationed in the area. Not bad for one day’s bloody work. One wonders if they slaughtered the city’s population, as was customary (actually, almost a requirement) in those days. The authors don’t make any mention of it, but the rebels very well might have done it in order to better secure their hold on the city. If they had, it would have added all the more to the growing sense of crisis in the region.
The First Big Battle: The Battle of the Dravus River
As serious as the Dalmatian uprising was, it would have been considered a local problem, not a threat to the empire as a whole. It certainly would have immediately grabbed the attention of all the local town and city magistrates, who would have been desperate to take measures to protect their settlements, not to mention saving their own skins. The rebels would have been considered a problem, but the Roman government officials and army officers in the area may have felt that if it was dealt with promptly and swiftly, it could be managed. After all, there had been numerous uprisings and revolts in this region before and they had been dealt with. Why should this newest one be any different?
However, things moved much faster than the Romans had anticipated. After the mass uprising of the Dalmatian auxiliaries in Segestica (again, it’s only a hypothesis, but since I think it’s the most plausible, I’m running with it), eventually seizing possession of that city, and after they scored first blood against the Roman army by destroying a small unit stationed in the nearby fort, the rebellion spread. Others who heard about the outbreak of violence were other Illyrian tribes in the area, and one of them was a Pannonian tribe called the Breucians. Led by a man named Bato (no relation to the other Bato who was leading the rebellion in the south), they conducted a simultaneous uprising in the north. In fact, the historian Festus, who wrote a brief history of Rome in the fourth century AD, actually stylized Bato the Breucian as ‘King of the Pannonians’.45 Now things were getting very serious: another tribe had joined in the revolt and the hostility was spreading. If something wasn’t done right away, the entire Balkans would be overrun.46
One can never be sure about the time span between various events recorded in ancient history unless it is specifically stated in the records.
I won’t be so bold as to propose a certain number of days or weeks that may have passed between the Dalmatian and Pannonian uprisings. The Spartacus-like revolt within the city must have made big news, and word of it would have travelled fast. Some of those who heard about it would have been the people living in nearby villages, towns and cities, and I imagine that the magistrates had to use all of their power to prevent a state of panic from breaking out in the areas that they controlled.
One of the first people to respond to the growing threat was Aulus Caecina Severus, the governor of the province of Moesia. This province corresponds roughly to modern-day Bulgaria, with its capital city in Sardica (modern-day Sofia, Bulgaria). This region had been acquired by the Romans years earlier, but it had remained little more than a territory under military occupation until recently. Moesia was a frontier province, wedged between the vassal state of Thrace to the south and the wild and woolly barbarian north. To the north of Moesia were the Dacians and Sarmatians, who occasionally crossed the Danube River and raided into Roman territory, as attested by the Roman poet Ovid.47
We don’t know that much about Aulus Caecina Severus before the events of 6 AD, but we certainly know about him afterwards. He was born to an eminent family from Tuscany and served as a consul suffectus (a man who was made a consul because the original Senatorial consul had died or had been removed) in the year 1 BC. By 6 AD or possibly earlier, he had been made governor of Moesia. He took part in the Great Illyrian Revolt of 6-9 AD, the mutiny of the legions in 14 AD, and in the war against Arminius and his German rebels following the Battle of Teutoburg. Tacitus says that he was married and had six children.48
It is not known how Governor Severus learned of the rebellion, nor is it known if he was aware of just how extensive it was by this point. If it is true that the rebellion erupted in the city of Segestica, how long would it have taken information to reach Severus in his headquarters in Sardica? Messengers must have been desperately sent out in all directions, informing people of the situation and asking them for help. It surely took several days for the information to reach Severus, although it may never be known precisely how long it must have taken for a dispatch rider to arrive at the governor’s house in Sardica, telling him of the growing disaster.
With Tiberius being in command of a powerful force gathered to the north, one would suspect that he would have been one of the first to act. Yet every available record of this war shows that he acted slowly. In fact, he only committed himself after the rebellion was well under way and the rebels had already done a great deal of damage. Could it possibly be that word of the rebellion simply did not reach Tiberius until much later than expected? I don’t buy that. He must have been concerned when the Illyrian recruits that he had been promised didn’t arrive. In a straight line, the distance between Segestica and Tiberius’ base at Carnuntum is about 180 miles. By contrast, the distance between Segestica and the Moesian provincial capital of Sardica is almost 400 miles, more than twice the
distance to get to Tiberius and his legions. Given that Tiberius was closer and was in possession of a much larger military force at hand, why didn’t Tiberius respond sooner? Why did another man, with a presumably smaller military force and who was located much further away, respond to the crisis in the Balkans first?
In order to come up with possible answers to these questions, we must enter the hazy realm of conjecture. As stated earlier, the Marcomanni tribe possessed a large professionally-trained and professionally-armed force. Rome had become very wary of the Marcomannis’ power in recent years and began to fear it as a growing force in the region. Besides, Romans had always had a certain bogeyman-like phobia of the northern tribes.
Tiberius was also becoming more and more cautious as he grew older. Granted, he was never one of those mighty sword-wielding heroes of ancient lore, but he had sufficient boldness to enable him to be an adept military commander and had carried out several successful wars. However, Tiberius appeared to lose his taste for fighting as the years passed. The historian Suetonius, who wrote a biography of the general- turned-emperor-turned-tyrant, says that Tiberius’ dash had faded, and that he was becoming much more private and introverted. Perhaps Tiberius was not far from hanging up his sword permanently. Due to his increasingly cautious nature, Tiberius might have been unwilling to tackle the Illyrian rebels, believing that his force, as large as it was, was still not yet big enough to resist the rebels, and so he waited for more troops before taking the offensive. After all, Saturninus was due to arrive in a short while with more men from Germania and Tiberius’ strength would be significantly bolstered by these new arrivals. Another possibility is that Tiberius was afraid that if he turned his whole army around, the Marcomanni might launch an attack upon his men from behind. This would explain why he kept his troops in position at Carnuntum while the province of Illyricum went up in smoke. It wasn’t until much later, when he presumably felt assured that King Maroboduus would not attack, that he finally agreed to mobilize his troops.
While Tiberius waited, the rebels were rampaging across Illyricum virtually unopposed. Since Tiberius had no intention of doing anything until he felt sure of his strength, someone else had to take the initiative. That certain someone was Aulus Severus, Governor of Moesia. Governor Severus knew that he had to do something immediately. He quickly cobbled together as many men as he could get his hands on and sent them westward. I imagine that the troops were marching flat out during that whole time. How long would it have taken Governor Severus to get his men together and march to meet the rebel threat? Under optimal conditions, on flat ground in good weather with no unforeseen problems or distractions, the average marching pace is twenty miles per day, but in an emergency you can easily push your men to march faster than that, even double-pace. It is probable that he would have picked up other small units of soldiers along the way, gathering them together as he marched.
However, keep in mind that this was in the mountainous landscape of south-eastern Europe. If it’s true that the war erupted in the springtime before the spring campaign season began, then it would have been chilly. The temperatures for this region in the months of March and April are typically between 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 to 10.5 degrees Celsius). Imagine being pushed double-time… in the mountains… in 45-degree weather. It isn’t unusual for it to snow in March, and sometimes even in April, in that region. Typically, the area around modern-day Sofia gets five inches of snow in March. I haven’t the faintest idea what the exact temperature or the exact weather was like at the time of Severus’ march, but I’m sure that they were not the ‘optimal conditions’ that I mentioned beforehand.
Which units were likely to have accompanied Severus on his mission? There were three legions stationed in Moesia during this time: the 4th Legion Scythica, the 8th Legion Augusta and the 11th Legion.49 I highly doubt that he would have brought in everyone; he needed someone to guard the home front. After all, Moesia was a frontier province and prone to frequent attacks by the horse-riding barbarians of Eastern Europe. There’s no way whatsoever of knowing how many men Severus gathered under his command for this mission, and any numbers that I were to spit out would be entirely unsubstantiated guesswork. If I were in his shoes, I would think that it would be safe to take one-third of the soldiers with me, and certainly no more than half. So at most, I would have had one and a half legions marching with me. I would have likely had a sizeable force of auxiliaries accompanying me as well, and I might have even taken the rather desperate measure of press-ganging men from the local population to march with me, outfitted with whatever weapons and gear they could get their hands on.
While Governor Severus and his men raced to face the rebels, the rebels had pressed the offensive. The Breucians attacked the Roman town of Sirmium (modern-day Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia), located on the north side of the Sava River where it converged with the Bacuntius River (now known as the Bosut or the Bosset River). Sirmium was originally a settlement of the Amantini tribe, until the Romans seized control of this town during the Pannonian War of 12–9 BC. Sirmium was deep in the Illyrian interior, approximately 160 miles away from the hypothetical epicentre of the revolt in Segestica. The fact that the rebels were launching an attack here shows just how quickly the revolt had spread throughout the province. It is not recorded when the rebels’ attack on Sirmium began, nor does it state how long the town was under siege, but the rebels were unable to break into the town. During the siege, Governor Severus and his troops arrived, like the cavalry coming to the rescue in so many Wild West movies.50
Governor Severus must have been informed of the attack on Sirmium while en route to meet the Illyrian rebels. Sirmium is located approximately 250 miles north-west of Sardica in a straight line. The actual route in reality was not a single straight line at all, so considerable mileage must have been added to the travelling distance and travelling time. According to a map that I saw of Roman roads in Eastern Europe, this was Severus’ most likely route. After departing from the Moesian provincial capital city of Sardica (Sofia, Bulgaria), he and his men travelled north-west until they reached the city of Naissus (Niš, Serbia). From there, they continued marching north-west but at a slightly more northern angle, until they reached Margus, also called Horreum Margi (Ćuprija, Serbia). After this, they turned north until they reached the Danube River city of Viminacium (Kostolac, Serbia). Travelling westwards along the route of the Danube River, they reached Singidunum (Belgrade, Serbia). It was probably at this stage that they heard about the rebels’ attack on Sirmium, if not before. After this stop, they marched east until they hit Sirmium. The angular route adds at least fifty miles onto the journey for a total trip of 300 miles. The undulating nature of the landscape adds more miles to that.
Normal marching pace for infantry has been traditionally set at twenty miles per day. In the mountains, in chilly weather, even if you were pushing your men hard, you’d be lucky to break past fifteen miles per day. If Severus and his men were marching at this rate, it would have taken him and his men fifteen whole days to reach Sirmium after departing from Sardica. The fact that it would have taken his men at least two weeks to complete their march means that they must have been prepared to set up camp for the night. At the end of each marching stage, a camp would have been laid out and tents arranged in rows for various men to sleep in. The following day, everything had to be hastily packed up and the army would move on.
So far, the only contact that the rebels had with the professional Roman army was a small unit that had been stationed near Segestica; that unit had been quickly overwhelmed and slaughtered. The next big fight between the Illyrian rebels and the Roman legions would come now, and it would take place at the Dravus River.
The Dravus River of antiquity is almost certainly the Drava River of modern times. It is one of the major tributaries of the Danube, and it forms a large section of the boundary between modern-day Croatia and Hungary. The Drava River is located forty or so miles to the north-west of Sirmium, so this must mean
that the arrival of Severus and his men forced the rebels to quit their siege of Sirmium.
Although Cassius Dio states that Severus and his men arrived at the city of Sirmium while the siege was in progress, I would caution against believing this. If the Roman army had arrived on the scene while the Illyrians were still in the process of laying siege to the city, then a big battle would have taken place just beyond the city walls. Since there is no record of the Romans actually fighting the Illyrians on the spot, this means one of two things: the sudden sight of the Romans led the Illyrians to hastily abandon their siege and run for their lives, or the Illyrians were informed in advance of the Roman army’s approach and decided to abandon the siege and withdraw to another location before Severus and his reinforcements arrived. Personally, I believe the second of these two options. If the Illyrians saw the Roman forces appear on the horizon, it would give them only a short time to pack up their necessary gear and get out of there. By the time they got under way, the Romans would have been very close behind. If the Romans pursued, it would have only taken them a short time to close the gap and Severus and his men would have attacked the retreating Illyrians long before they would have been able to reach the marshes of the Drava River. So this suggests that the second option is the correct one. While the Illyrians were laying siege to Sirmium, their intelligence network was made aware of the approach of a large Roman force from the south-east. Knowing that they couldn’t handle the city garrison and Severus’ reinforcements at the same time, the Illyrians decided to abandon the siege and fall back to a more defendable location where the odds were a bit more in their favour.
The Great Illyrian Revolt Page 17