“When I returned from Spain and Gaul,” Augustus wrote, “after successful operations in those provinces, the Senate voted the consecration of an altar to Pax Augusta [the Augustan Peace] in the Campus Martius in honor of my return.” That had been in 14 BC. [Res Gest., II, 12]
It took five years to create the Ara Pacis Augustae, the Altar to the Augustan Peace. It was formally dedicated on Rome’s Field of Mars on January 30, 9 BC. The altar’s marble panels show the entire imperial family attending the ceremony. Two months later, following the lustration ceremonies which preceded the year’s campaigning season, Drusus and Tiberius rode off to launch their latest military ventures. For Tiberius, it would be a brief campaign in Pannonia. More ambitiously, 29-year-old Drusus, one of the consuls for the year, led fifteen legions deep into Germany.
Confronted by the Chatti and the Suebi, and “defeating the forces that attacked him only after considerable bloodshed,” Drusus marched his legions through the homelands of the Cherusci tribe, crossed the Weser river, and reached the Elbe, “pillaging everything on his way.” [Dio, LV, 1]
At the height of the summer, Drusus’ army was withdrawing toward the Rhine when the young general was thrown from his horse. It seems that Drusus sustained a broken limb, after which gangrene set in. As his army neared the Rhine, Drusus became too ill to be moved. News of his deteriorating condition reached Tiberius in northern Italy, and he rode all the way to the Rhine, crossed it, and after a journey of 400 miles (640 kilometers) found the army still inside Germany with his brother near death. Thirty days after Drusus’ fall, he died in Tiberius’ arms.
Tiberius walked in front of his brother’s cortège all the way to Rome. Legion tribunes and centurions carried the bier as far as the Rhine, then leading men of every city the cortège passed through took turns as pallbearers. At Rome, Drusus’ body was laid in state in the Forum. Tiberius delivered one funeral oration there, Augustus another in the Circus Flaminius. [Suet., III, 1]
The body was then borne to the Field of Mars. There, in sight of the Altar of Peace, whose dedication Drusus had attended only months before, the popular young prince of Rome was cremated. His remains were deposited in Augustus’ own circular mausoleum. It would be another twenty-two years before Augustus joined him.
AD 6–9
VIII. THE PANNONIAN WAR
Four testing years
In the summer of AD 6, the Roman provinces of Pannonia and Dalmatia ran with blood.
The Roman subjugation of the Balkans had been completed by Augustus in 14 BC, with the regions of Pannonia and Dalmatia annexed to Rome. These new provinces covered parts of modern Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. In AD 5, Augustus’ stepson Tiberius withdrew troops then garrisoned in Dalmatia and Pannonia and levied a number of Dalmatian auxiliaries, who joined him on the Danube for a campaign in Germany. Rebellions had broken out in Pannonia several times in past years, with many locals never entirely accepting Roman overlordship. The departure of the troops left a much reduced Roman military presence. In their absence, revolt flared in Pannonia and Dalmatia under two unrelated leaders, both named Bato, and a third native commander, Pennes.
Velleius Paterculus, who served as a Roman commander in this war, wrote that the revolt began in the north with the Pannonians, who brought the Dalmatians into the conflict as their allies. Velleius estimated that there were 800,000 native people in the two provinces, and that of these the rebel leadership would eventually arm 200,000 foot soldiers and 9,000 cavalry. In the north, the Breuci tribe elected their Bato as the chief Pannonian general; his army set its sights on marching on Italy. Pennes took a second Pannonian army east into Rome’s province of Macedonia and began plundering. [Velle., HR, II, CX, 1–6]
In the south, Bato of Desidiatia initially led a small band of rebels which struck their first blow for the Dalmatians that summer: “Roman citizens were overpowered, traders were massacred, a large vexillation of auxiliaries, stationed in the region which was most remote from the commander, was massacred to a man.” This success encouraged many more Dalmatians to join the uprising. In the overall rebel war strategy, the Dalmatian army would have the task of defending their own territories, while the Pannonians took the war to Rome elsewhere. [Ibid.]
Cassius Dio, writing two centuries later, said that the governor of Dalmatia, Marcus Valerius Messalinus, had gone to the Rhine to participate in Tiberius’ latest German campaign. [Dio, LV, 29] But Velleius Paterculus, who was a participant in this war, wrote that Messalinus had remained in Dalmatia, and, “at the outbreak of the rebellion, finding himself surrounded by the army of the enemy and supported by only the 20th Legion, and that at half its strength” (because half of its cohorts were serving with Tiberius in Germany) “he routed and put to flight more than twenty thousand, and for this was honored with Triumphal Decorations” by Augustus. [Velle., II, CXII, 1]
Pannonian rebels laid siege to Sirmium, modern Sremska Mitrovica, not far from present-day Belgrade, a strategically placed city that controlled the Sava Valley. According to Dio—in a story not verified by Velleius—Caecina Severus, governor of the adjacent province of Moesia, quickly marched west with Roman troops, met Bato the Breucian and his troops near the Drava river and defeated them in a stinging battle, taking heavy casualties himself. News of Dacian and Sarmatian raids into Moesia then caused Severus to withdraw to deal with that threat. [Dio, LV, 29] In the south, said Dio, the Dalmatian Bato attacked Salonae, near Split on the Adriatic coast. Salonae resisted the attack, and Bato himself received a head wound from a sling stone, but his troops overran other Roman communities all the way down the coast to Apollonia in Greece. [Ibid.]
With much of the Adriatic coast opposite Italy in rebel hands, there was uproar in Rome. “Such a panic did this war inspire,” said Velleius, who was in Rome at the time, “that even the courage of Caesar Augustus, made steady and firm by experience in so many wars, was shaken by fear.” That fear was of an invasion of Italy. [Velle., II, CX, 6] Augustus, who told the Senate that “the enemy might appear in sight of Rome within ten days,” sent urgently to Tiberius to abort his German campaign and march for the Balkans with five legions. [Ibid., CXI, 2]
Augustus also summoned five legions from the East, while at the capital he ordered mass mobilization. From throughout Italy all legion veterans were recalled from retirement to serve behind their Evocati standards. New troops were levied, and wealthy citizens were required to supply many of their freedmen servants to be equipped as soldiers. [Ibid.]
As for Velleius, who was around age 30 at this point: “I was now, at the end of my service with the cavalry, quaestor designate.” Velleius, “even though not yet a senator,” was immediately made an imperial legate by Augustus, the equivalent of a modern-day brigadier, and put in charge of the non-citizen recruits raised in this scramble to arms at Rome. The overall command of this force of Evocati and non-citizen troops was given to Augustus’ grandson, Germanicus Julius Caesar. Just 21 years of age, Germanicus, the son of Drusus Caesar, Tiberius’ late lamented brother, had already impressed Augustus as a young man of ability.
Led by Germanicus and Velleius, the mixed force marched with all speed from Rome for the Balkans. The fact that the much admired Germanicus was in charge of this motley force had a calming effect on the people of Rome. Meanwhile, from the Danube, Tiberius marched into Pannonia to Siscia, today’s Sisak, near Zagreb, with his five legions—apparently the 8th Augusta, 9th Hispana, 14th Gemina Martia Victrix, 15th Apollinaris and the remaining cohorts of the 20th Legion. At Siscia, Tiberius linked up with local commander Messalinus, and with Germanicus and Velleius from Rome.
“What armies of the enemy did we see drawn up for battle in that first year!” Velleius was to recall. Tiberius, with his combined force vastly outnumbered by the rebels, decided to play for time until the five legions arrived from the East. Tiberius, considered by Augustus the “bravest of men” and “the most conscientious commander alive,” actively evaded an all-out battle, inste
ad harassing smaller enemy columns and blockading rebel supply routes. [Suet., III, 21]
The fact that a large Roman army was in Pannonia was enough to prevent the Pannonians from going through with their plan to march on Italy. To do so would have put Roman troops at their backs.
In the new year, two Roman generals of consular rank marched into Pannonia: Aulus Caecina, who had more than twenty years’ experience as a soldier, and Silvanus Plautius, who had arrived from the East. They came with their five legions, of which only the 7th Legion, which had been in Galatia up to this point, can be identified with some certainty, and were accompanied by a large number of allied troops including Thracian cavalry led by King Rhoemetacles of Thrace. The two Batos, learning of the approach of this Roman column, hurried toward it with their combined armies.
At the Volcae Marshes, west of Mitrovica in the Sava Valley, the rebels surrounded and attacked the camp of the five legions. When the Roman commanders led the legions, auxiliaries and cavalry out to fight, the rebels closed with the Thracian cavalry. “The king’s horsemen were routed,” said Velleius, and “the cavalry of the allies put to flight.” Auxiliary cohorts turned and ran, “and the panic extended even to the standards of the legions.” It was “a disaster that came near being fatal.” [Velle., HR, II, CXII, 5–6]
Tribunes and first-rank centurions were killed by rebels swarming around the prized legionary eagles. Legion camp-prefects and prefects of auxiliary cohorts were cut off and surrounded. “In this crisis the valor of the Roman soldier claimed for itself a greater share of the glory than it left to the generals.” With their men “shouting encouragement to each other,” the legions mounted a charge and “fell upon the enemy.” The legion charge broke through the rebel line “and wrested a victory from a desperate situation.” [Ibid.]
After their units had patched up their wounded, Caecina and Plautius pushed on to Siscia and joined Tiberius. There were now, in one Roman camp, 10 legions, in excess of 70 auxiliary cohorts, 14 cavalry wings, more than 10,000 Evocati militiamen, and the so-called “volunteers,” the freedmen of Rome. [Ibid., CXIII, 1] With this force, totaling more than 100,000 men, Tiberius should have been able to confront the largely untrained rebel troops on an equal footing. But Tiberius did a strange thing. After giving the five newly arrived legions a few days to recover, he sent them back to the East, escorting them through rebel territory to see them on their way.
Velleius claimed that Tiberius found the force “too large to be managed and was not well adapted to effective control.” [Ibid., 2–3] Reading between the lines, this suggests a falling out between Tiberius and the generals who had come from the East. Yet Tiberius did receive more legion reinforcements during the course of the Pannonian War; Suetonius was to say that before the war was over it would involve “fifteen legions and a correspondingly large force of auxiliaries.” [Suet., III, 16] At the war’s end, the 7th Legion, one of the those from the East, was based permanently in Pannonia.
After a particularly severe winter, in the spring of AD 7 Tiberius launched offensive operations exclusively in Pannonia, ignoring Dalmatia for the time being. On campaign, Tiberius himself always rode, and always sat at the dining table in camp rather than lounged on a couch as was the habit of the Roman upper class. [Ibid., CXIV, 3] This was a demanding campaign, with the Roman army driving the Pannonians high into the mountains. But Augustus was not satisfied with its progress. Leaving Rome, the emperor traveled up to Arminium, today’s Rimini, on the Adriatic coast, where he based himself in order to be closer to operations.
Now, the Romans had a little luck. The two Batos fell out. Dio writes that the Pannonian Bato had come to suspect the loyalty of his southern allies, and began making surprise visits on the southern Bato’s strongholds, taking hostages from among the Dalmatian leaders’ families. Seeing this as a grab for power, the Dalmatian Bato ambushed his co-commander—the troops of the Pannonian Bato’s bodyguard were killed, and the man himself captured and imprisoned in a Dalmatian fortress. The Dalmatian Bato then had his rival brought before an assembly of his troops, condemned him, and executed him on the spot. [Dio, LV, 34]
With the northern Bato out of the way, Velleius considered the Pannonian campaign as good as won. Sure enough, the summer of AD 8 saw the Pannonians sue for peace. Velleius was present at a riverbank meeting when the Pannonians laid down their arms. Pennes and other Pannonian leaders surrendered to Tiberius, “prostrating themselves one and all before the commander.” [Velle., 4]
As if the war was won, Augustus recalled Tiberius, who left Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a consul in AD 6, in charge in Pannonia. With Dalmatia still in rebel hands, the emperor sent young Germanicus there with a strike force which later events indicate included the 20th Legion. In “regions both wild and difficult,” Germanicus overwhelmed the Mazaei tribe and laid siege to a number of Dalmatian towns. [Velle., CXVI, 1]
At one such town, Splonum, which had “a vast number of defenders,” Germanicus tried frontal assaults and siege equipment, but Splonum’s high walls were built of timber, turf and stone, which made them impervious to battering rams. A German cavalryman by the name of Pusio then threw a stone at a section of wall, whereupon—to everyone’s astonishment—the parapet and the rebel soldier leaning on it fell away, and the Dalmatians manning the wall fled in terror. Fearing that Germanicus had secret powers, the town surrendered. [Dio, LVI, 11]
At Raetinum, rebels set fire to buildings as Germanicus’ troops poured in through a breach they had made in the town wall. A number of Roman soldiers were trapped in the flames, dying a fiery death. Only those townspeople who hid in caves survived the inferno. Germanicus’ sieges continued unabated. Seretium, a town which Tiberius had previously unsuccessfully besieged, was now stormed by Germanicus and destroyed. “After this some other places were more easily won.” [Ibid., 12] In the opinion of Velleius, who soldiered beside Germanicus, the young prince “gave great proof of his valor.” [Velle., CXVI, 1] Just the same, progress was too slow for some at Rome, and Augustus sent Tiberius back to Dalmatia to conclude the campaign as quickly as possible.
Once he returned to the Balkans in the summer of AD 9, Tiberius created three task forces. Lepidus was to advance from the northwest, and Marcus Plautius Silvanus, a consul in 2 BC, from the northeast. Tiberius, with Germanicus as his deputy, would push along the Adriatic coast in pursuit of Bato, who was believed to be near Solonae. The northern advances encountered significant resistance from rebels, who emerged from hilltop strongholds and fought pitched battles; as a consequence, the Perustae tribe and Bato’s Desiadate tribe “were almost entirely exterminated.” [Velle., RH, CXV] In the south, Tiberius had less success. Bato, refusing to fight on Roman terms, withdrew ahead of Tiberius’ advance, until he was finally cornered at Andetrium, in the vicinity of today’s Split.
Andetrium was located on a rocky mount surrounded by deep ravines filled with rushing streams; not an easy place to assault. As Tiberius surrounded the hill and settled in for a long siege, Dalmatian guerrillas appeared in his rear and harassed his supply columns, reducing his supplies and at times making the Romans themselves feel under siege. But eventually Bato sent an envoy seeking peace terms. Tiberius responded that Bato would have to convince all rebels still holding out throughout Dalmatia to throw down their arms before he would agree to peace, a guarantee Bato was unable to give.
A number of men who had deserted from the Roman army and gone over to the rebels knew that execution awaited them if they surrendered, so they convinced their Dalmatian hosts not to capitulate. In response, Tiberius broke off negotiations and resumed the assault on Andetrium.
As Tiberius watched operations from a seat on an earth platform, Roman troops in a tightly packed square formation went against the front of the town, struggling up a rutted slope as Dalmatians rained missiles down on them. Wagons were brought out from the town, loaded with stones, then propelled down the hill at the oncoming troops. Loose wheels and round wooden chests, which were a local specialty
, were rolled down the slope at the easy targets. It was like a giant bowling alley for the Dalmatians, with their projectiles skittling Roman troops. All the while, other Roman forces lining the bottom of the hill noisily cheered on their struggling comrades.
Tiberius sent in reinforcements, and also sent a force around behind the town; the latter climbed a rock face unobserved and fell on defenders outside the front wall, cutting them off from the town. Throwing off their armor, these rebels tried to flee down the slopes, with Roman troops gleefully giving chase. Most were captured. After Bato later slipped out of Andetrium, the townspeople sent out envoys to arrange a surrender.
Germanicus, meanwhile, leading one of two columns dispatched by Tiberius to assault towns still holding out along the Dalmatian coast, laid siege to Arduba, which was built on an elevated position on a river bend. Here, the male rebels were keen to give in, but German deserters and Dalmatian women disagreed, and it was not until the rebels had overpowered the deserters that they were able to send to Germanicus to arrange a surrender. In the meantime, the women set fire to part of the city. Then, rather than surrender, and clutching their children to them, the women flung themselves into the flames or hurled themselves from the city walls into the swirling river below. Germanicus accepted the surrender. On hearing of the fall of Arduba, other communities sent envoys to Germanicus seeking surrender terms.
As town after town fell in this way, Bato ran out of hiding places. He sent his son Sceuas to Tiberius with an offer of surrender, on condition that he and his followers receive full pardons. Tiberius agreed. A few days later Bato was discreetly admitted to the Roman camp at night, kept under guard until the morning, then brought before Tiberius. According to Dio, in the discussions that followed, Bato blamed Rome for the war: “We are your flocks, yet you didn’t send shepherds to look after us, you sent wolves.” [Dio, LVI, 16]
The Pannonian War, which Suetonius was to characterize as “the most bitterly fought of all foreign wars since Rome defeated Carthage,” was at an end. [Suet., III, 16] Bato was pardoned, and given a house at the Italian naval city of Ravenna. He apparently lived out the rest of his life under house arrest at Ravenna. Tiberius was granted a Triumph and the title of imperator by the Senate for terminating the revolt. Germanicus was made a praetor, and he and all the other Roman generals involved in the campaign were granted Triumphal Decorations.
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