The Tide Turns
The Spring Offensive: Enter Germanicus
It was now the spring of 7 AD. Quintus Caecillus Metellus and Aulus Licinius Nerva Silianus were made the new consuls for that year. The winter of 6–7 AD had been harsh. The weather had been unusually cold and the snow was heavy, and in contrast to the custom of the time, the fighting had not stopped. Instead, the Illyrians had persistently launched numerous raiding and harassment missions against their Roman enemies, and the Romans could do little to stop it. Now that the snows were thawing, full-scale operations against the Illyrian rebels could begin once again.
Now that the campaign season for 7 AD had begun, it was time for Germanicus to get his own troops moving. Late in the previous year, he had been granted a commission by his grandfather Caesar Augustus to suppress the Illyrian rebels. Germanicus had absolutely no military experience whatsoever, and now he was being asked to take charge of an entire army at the age of 21. None of the ancient sources state how many men Germanicus had under his command.
Cassius Dio says that the ‘troops’ commanded by Germanicus were soldiers in name only. In fact, they were nothing more than a gaggle of draftees that had been hastily cobbled together from here and there in order to create one more military unit to fight the rebels. These were not soldiers but ordinary people, presumably with no military training, like Germanicus himself, composed of citizens, ex-slaves and even slaves that had to be bought from their owners. An untested commander leading untested troops into battle. This sort of thing sounds like a recipe for disaster.1
However, Germanicus had three things in his favour: his charming charismatic personality, a little bit of time to prepare himself and his men, and the full unwavering support of the imperial government. Germanicus was highly skilled in rhetoric and public relations. He knew how to put on a show, he knew exactly which buttons to push, and he was able to be very persuasive and inspiring. When he spoke, other people listened. Germanicus was a natural leader because he acted like one; it was as simple as that. Over the years, he would further cultivate his public image and he would become more and more popular with the Roman people.
By the time Augustus had granted Germanicus his military commission, winter was approaching. Germanicus would not be sent into action until the campaign season next year, so he had a couple of months to give his green recruits a little bit of military order and training. Since he didn’t have that much time, it was likely a crash-course affair teaching only the basics, and even then it was certainly done to a rushed schedule. Lindsay Powell proposes that since public festivals and entertainments had to be cancelled for the sake of wartime frugality, this left a lot of gladiators and gladiator trainers looking for work. Having the gladiators and their lanistae teaching Germanicus’ would-be legionnaires the art of fighting might have been just the break that they were looking for. Germanicus, ever the charmer, had developed relationships with the gladiator schools earlier in life, and I’m certain that he was able to use his smile and a few well-placed flattering words to convince the arena fighters to train his men out of duty to their country and to their families. It’s also likely that Germanicus paid the lanistae a few gold coins for their trouble.2
Finally, being a member of the imperial family and being well-liked by the emperor himself meant that anything that he asked for was at his disposal. Any type or any quantity of military equipment could have been sent to him any time that it was requested. Blacksmiths and armourers were likely working around the clock to provide enough gear for the troops, and even old unused items that had been mouldering away in storage were brought out for front-line service once more. Using every method at his disposal, Germanicus managed to get his unit in something approaching proper shape in time for the campaign season of 7 AD. His soldiers marched towards the front.
Where did Germanicus and his men march from, and where did they march to? It is fairly obvious that Germanicus’ men were recruited from Italy. He could not assemble a unit anywhere in the Balkans since the entire region was a war zone. The provinces of Rhaetia and Noricum were under threat of an Illyrian attack, since a large portion of the rebels was making plans for a mass invasion of Italy and in order to get there, they had to pass either through or very near to these two regions. Gaul and Spain were too far away to provide any effective and timely means of sending troops to the front. This left the Italian peninsula as the only option to expediently send some more men into the fight.
Did Germanicus and his men march overland, or did they sail across the Adriatic and land on the Illyrian coast? All of the sources that go into detail in these matters say that Germanicus marched, and furthermore, the first target for his men was a tribe of Pannonians called the Mazaei. Because the Pannonians, and the Mazaei in particular, were a northern tribe that dwelled in the interior, that could only mean that Germanicus and his men marched north through Italy, likely picking up more volunteers and supplies along the way, arced around the northern end of the Adriatic and marched upon the rebels from the north. It is also stated, or at least implied, that Germanicus’ role was not to act as an independent force but rather to assist his uncle Tiberius in defeating the rebels. Germanicus’ army was probably too small to act as an effective field force that could take on the Illyrians all by themselves. Therefore Germanicus and his troops were not an independent army but were instead Tiberius’ reinforcements. This means that Germanicus was fighting with his uncle stationed in the north.
Germanicus’ soldiers were probably a motley bunch, likely armoured in whatever helmets and body armour they could quickly get their hands on, and equipped with a variety of weapons and shield types. It’s fairly certain that his unit consisted almost entirely of infantry. No ancient source makes any mention of there being horsemen within Germanicus’ ranks and besides, the Romans had to import cavalry by ordering the Thracians to send their mounted warriors into the fighting. This demonstrates a lack of available horses, not only for Germanicus’ unit but for the Roman military in general. If there were any horses, then it’s likely that there were only a handful reserved for Germanicus and other high-ranking officers. Even so, records of the battles in which Germanicus fought during his career showed that he preferred to fight on foot side-by-side with his infantry. No doubt this, too, was a means of cultivating favour with the soldiers by showing that he was one of them.
As Germanicus and his troops marched northwards up the Italian peninsula, it is highly likely that he regularly gathered intelligence as to what the Illyrian rebels were up to and what the sentiments of the population were like. Also, seeing armed troops marching through the towns and villages would help to boost the morale of the people as well as dissuade anyone thinking about using the chaos in Illyria to their advantage. As they neared the northern part of Italy, Germanicus and his men would act as a security force, blocking the path of any would-be invaders. Granted, their small number would not be formidable enough to deter the hordes of rampaging rebels (if indeed they were as numerous as the historian Suetonius would have us believe), but it was still something. Confident that the rebels would not push further southwards, Germanicus and his men pressed onwards, with the goal of linking up with Tiberius’ army.
Severus Strikes Back: The Battle of the Volcaean Marshes
While Germanicus was busy training his men and thereafter having them march to the front, others were already on the way. Once again, the first person to take action was Aulus Caecina Severus, the governor of the province of Moesia. When the rebellion first broke out the previous year, Severus was the first person to send in troops to suppress it, but he was not successful; he managed to defeat the Illyrians at the Battle of the Dravus River, but many of his men had been killed in the process. Later on, with the help of Rome’s Thracian vassals, he won another Pyrrhic victory in a battle whose location, name and date are unknown. Still, despite his losses, he continued to hold his own against the rebel forces, but he was apparently not making much progress. When winter was coming on,
Severus had been forced to withdraw his troops from Illyricum and return to Moesia because the Dacians and Sarmatians had crossed the frozen Danube and were rampaging across his province. Now that spring had come, the ice that covered the Danube River had melted, which meant that the barbarians who lived to the north could no longer cross the frozen river to attack Moesia. The end of winter had ended the barbarian threat, at least for the time being.
Now that the threat from the Dacians and Sarmatians had been mitigated, Governor Severus could once again turn his attention to other matters and take the offensive against the Illyrian rebels. Ivan Radman-Livaja and Marko Dizdar say that Severus commanded three legions in the opening offensive of 7 AD.3 Cassius Dio says that Severus and his men set up their marching camp in a place called the Volcaean Marshes, and it would be here that the first major battle of the new campaign season would take place.4
Unfortunately the historical sources do not state where exactly the Volcaean Marshes were and this has led to a lot of guesswork by secondary authors. Peter Swan hypothesizes that it corresponds to the lowlands of the Sava River, 5 while Ivan Radman-Livaja and Marko Dizdar say that the Volcaean Marshes were in south-eastern Slavonia.6
The names for this landscape that are recorded in the ancient documents are Volcae paludes and Hiulca palus.7 The Latin noun palus (pl. paludes) means ‘marsh, swamp or bog’. Volca might be an archaic form of Hiulca, which in turn may be related to another geographic feature, the Ulca fluvius, ‘Ulca River’, which, according to Byzantine sources, was located somewhere in Pannonia.8 Bishop Ennodius of Pavia mentions an Ulca fluvius, but he also describes the landscape around the river as a boggy fenland. This would explain why in Sextus Aurelius Victor’s Epitome de Cesaribus, written in the late 300s AD, he states ‘near Cibale, a marsh named Hiulca’.9 He specifically calls it a marsh rather than a river. Cibalae, also written as Cibalis, is believed to be modern-day Vinkovci, Croatia. The Byzantine writer Zosimus also makes mention of Cibalae in conjunction with swampy ground, stating:
Cibalis, a city of Pannonia, which stands on a hill; the road to which is rugged and narrow. The greatest part of this road is through a deep morass, and the remainder up a mountain, on which stands the city. Below it extends a spacious plain, which entertains the view with a boundless prospect.10
The Volcae paludes may have been located within the territory of the Andizetes, 11 and one modern source claims that the Volcae paludes is actually Lake Balaton in modern-day Hungary.12
I wish to offer another proposal as to the location of the enigmatic Volca paludes. I believe that the Volcaean Marshes of ancient times were located where the Vuka River converges with the Danube, where the modern-day town of Vukovar, Croatia now stands. In ancient times, this would have been a very marshy environment. Besides, the modern name ‘Vuka’ might be a modern rendition of the ancient names Ulca, Huilca and Volca. The modern town of Vinkovci, Croatia, the site of the ancient fortified settlement of Cibalae, is located not far from the Vuka River, and is itself located upon a prominent bend in the Bosut River. This whole region would have appeared as Ennodius described it – a boggy fenland – with the fortified town of Cibalae standing atop a hill overlooking the marshy swampy landscape, making this settlement a well-defended position.
It specifically says in Cassius Dio’s account of these events that Severus set up his camp in the middle of a swamp. Why, especially if Cibalae was located nearby (if we are to believe the reconstructed geography)? One wonders why Severus and his men didn’t take Cibalae itself, considering that the settlement was situated in an ideal tactical location. As said before, it was a fortified town built atop a hill located on a prominent bend in a river and surrounded by swampland. It was an ideal location for defence. The fact that Severus chose to have his men make camp within the marshes shows two things. First, there were areas of solid ground within the marsh that would have enabled him and his men to establish a sizeable marching camp. It wasn’t all water and mud. Second, Severus must have been prevented from entering Cibalae. This could only mean that the Illyrian rebels held the town at this time. Knowing that Cibalae was an important location and likely a key rebel stronghold in the area, Severus decided to direct his first offensive there. Because he couldn’t invest the town itself, at least not yet, he set up his camp in the marshes just beyond the town. The river and the boggy terrain around the campsite would act as a natural moat and would hinder any attackers. He would do the same thing years later when fighting against the German rebel leader Arminius.13
Wherever a Roman army marched, it always set itself up in a camp at the end of the day’s journey. These camps were all constructed more or less to a standard square or rectangular-shaped blueprint. A V-shaped trench about five feet deep would be dug around the encampment, and the excavated earth would be used to create an earthen wall inside. This would then be crowned with sharpened wooden stakes that the legionnaires carried with them, tied into bundles of three, which the military historian Vegetius called tribuli and resembled the familiar D-Day anti-tank obstacles seen at Normandy. Within the rampart, the tents were laid out in a grid pattern in a specific order, and every squad knew exactly where to pitch their tent in the line. Within the camp, there were open areas called intervallum which were used for quickly moving troops about as well as for keeping tents somewhat distant from any enemy missiles. There was an open square in the centre of the camp for arranging troops in formation, and there were also open streets running along the length of the rampart so that soldiers could quickly be moved from one section of the wall to the other without tripping over the tent pegs. There would be four entranceways, placed in line with a cross-intersection of two main paths that ran through the camp. It is believed that a full-sized legion numbering around 5,000 men could be accommodated in a camp measuring thirty acres in area.14
Because Roman soldiers had to construct these camps everywhere that they went, they were highly-skilled construction engineers as well as battlefield warriors. I’ve heard it said that for each day that a legionnaire held a sword, he spent nine days holding a shovel. That may be an oversimplification, but it does illustrate that the men of the legions were required to quickly and properly construct such fortifications regularly, and to do so far more often than engaging in combat.
The dangers of assaulting the Romans while they were still encamped were evident. True, the Romans did not have the same degree of flexibility that they would have in an open field battle, but it is always a difficult matter to take a fortified defensive position. From the cover of deep trenches and steep ramparts crowned with sharpened stakes, the Roman legionnaires and auxiliaries could keep their attackers at bay while at the same time showering them with missiles. Having all of the troops in a compact area as opposed to having them spread out over a wide distance meant that it would be easier for a commander to relocate troops from one location to another in a hurry in the event that reinforcements were needed at one section of the perimeter or another. Moreover, it would be next to impossible to flank or out-flank a defensive position, since the men would be arranged in a box formation. However, a large army could be very capable of surrounding a camp and besieging it, either by blockading it or by bombarding it with artillery.
As far as we are aware, the Illyrian forces did not possess any artillery – no ancient source makes any mention of the Illyrian rebels possessing ballistas or catapults – but the rebels certainly had numbers. As said before, it is a very likely possibility that the Volcaean Marshes, to which Severus had marched his soldiers and set up his camp, is mentioned by the Byzantine historian Zosimus as being close to the hilltop town of Cibalae. This settlement was likely held by an Illyrian rebel garrison at the time of Severus’ arrival. Once again, the Illyrian rebels did something that we might find stupid. Cassius Dio states that, rather than holding their position within Cibalae’s walls and waiting for the Romans to come to them, the Illyrians instead decided to attack Severus and his men head-on within the swamp.15
At first glance, such a decision appears to be completely and utterly illogical. A large Roman force was stationed within a fortified encampment in the middle of swampy terrain. Meanwhile, the Illyrians, who may have been stationed only a short distance away at Cibalae, held a fortified town atop a hill. Coming down from their stronghold to attack through the marsh seems foolhardy. What on earth would induce the Illyrians to make such a decision?
There are two possible answers to this. The first is the threat that Cibalae would be cut off from escape if the Romans laid siege to it, therefore the Romans had to be knocked out before they could launch their attack upon the town itself. The historical sources don’t mention if Severus brought any siege engines with him, such as ballistae. A full-sized legion of 4,800 men would have been accompanied by a contingent of artillery, one ballista for every century within the legion; that’s sixty ballistae per legion. If Severus did indeed have three legions under his command and if all three legions were at full strength, then that means he could have brought 180 giant crossbows with him, launching three-foot-long spears and rocks the size of fists at the Illyrian garrison manning the walls.
Even if Severus didn’t assault the town by bombarding it with artillery, he could still pin the rebel garrison in place by blocking off the escape routes. Many people don’t realize this, but hilltop positions have one serious drawback: although they command the landscape, they can be easily cut off. If you’re on top of a hill and the enemy is advancing upwards, your mobility options are drastically limited. Zosimus stated that there was only one narrow road leading up the slope to the town’s gate. Severus likely didn’t need to actually attack Cibalae; all he had to do was block off access in or out of the town and simply wait for the garrison inside to starve. Perhaps the rebels realized that Severus could easily do just that with the numbers he had brought with him, and therefore the Roman threat had to be dealt with before Severus and his troops actually arrived at Cibalae.
The Great Illyrian Revolt Page 22