Legions of Rome

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  With a determined roar, the auxiliaries surged forward. Behind them, a line of foot archers loosed off a looping volley of arrows at the oncoming tribesmen. Soon, Germans and Roman front line were locked together.

  Stertinius and the cavalry drove into right flank and rear of the German horde. The impact of this cavalry onslaught drove a mass of Germans away from the trees, where they collided with thousands of other Germans running toward the forest to escape the cavalry attack from the rear. Cheruscans on the hill slopes were forced to give ground by their own panicked countrymen. After his men had charged without waiting for his orders, Arminius, on horseback, had been forced to join them. In the midst of the fighting, he was soon wounded.

  Realizing that the day was already lost, Arminius smeared his face with his own blood to disguise his identity, urged his horse forward, and with his long hair flying, headed toward the Roman left wing, by the trees, which was occupied by Chauci Germans from the North Sea coast. These men had fought alongside Arminius in the Teutoburg, but had since allied themselves with Germanicus. Tacitus was to write: “Some have said that he was recognized by Chauci serving among the Roman auxiliaries, who let him go.” [Ibid.]

  Arminius escaped into the forest, and kept riding, as, behind him, Germanicus sent his legions into the fight. The struggle between 128,000 men went on for hours. “From nine in the morning until nightfall the enemy were slaughtered,” said Tacitus, “and ten miles were covered with arms and dead bodies.” Arminius’ army was routed. “It was a great victory, and without bloodshed to us,” Tacitus declared. But Arminius himself was still at large. [Ibid., 18]

  AD 16–17

  XIV. BATTLE OF THE ANGRIVAR BARRIER

  No prisoners, no mercy

  After the bloody defeat of Idistavisus, Arminius was determined to have his revenge on Germanicus and his legions. In years past, when the Angrivari tribe was at war with the Cherusci, they had built a massive earth barrier to separate the tribes. The Weser river ran along one side of the Angrivar barrier; marshland extended behind it. A small plain ran from the barrier to forested hills. It was here at the barrier that Arminius planned to defeat Germanicus Caesar.

  Word reached Germanicus that Arminius and his allies were regrouping at the barrier and receiving thousands of reinforcements. From a German deserter, Germanicus also learned that Arminius had set another trap for him, hoping to lure the Romans to the barrier. Arminius would be waiting in the forest with cavalry, and would emerge behind Germanicus as he attacked the barrier, to destroy him from the rear. Armed with that intelligence, Germanicus made his own plans. Sending his cavalry to deal with Arminius in the forest, he advanced on the Angrivar barrier in two columns.

  While one Roman column made an obvious frontal attack on the barrier in full view of its thousands of German defenders, Germanicus and the second division made their way unnoticed along the hillsides. He then launched a surprise flanking attack against the Germans. But, in the face of determined defense, and devoid of scaling ladders or siege equipment, Germanicus’ troops were forced to pull back. After bombarding the barrier with his legions’ catapults, keeping the Germans’ heads down, Germanicus personally led the next attack, at the head of the Praetorians, removing his helmet so that no one could mistake who he was. The men of eight legions followed close behind their bareheaded general and the Praetorians. On clambering up the barrier they found a “vast host” of Germans lined up on the far side, commanded by Arminius’ uncle Inguiomerus, who, with blood-curdling war cries, surged forward to repulse the Romans.

  The intense hand-to-hand combat continued for hours. Germanicus ordered that no prisoners be taken. The situation was equally perilous for both sides. “Valor was their only hope, victory their only safety,” said Tacitus. “The Germans were equally brave, but they were beaten by the nature of the fighting and the weapons,” for they were too tightly compressed to use their long spears effectively. [Tac., A, I, 21]

  Pushed into woods, trapped with their backs to the marsh, the tribesmen were slaughtered. At nightfall, the killing stopped. The Germans had been dislodged from the barrier and butchered in their thousands. Inguiomerus escaped, but took no further part in German resistance. That night, Germanicus was joined by Seius Tubero, commander of the Roman cavalry that had gone after Arminius in the forest. Tubero, a close friend of Tiberius, had certainly prevented Arminius from attacking Germanicus in the rear, but after indecisive fighting had allowed the German cavalry to escape. While the battle at the barrier had been another crushing Roman victory, Arminius had again evaded capture.

  The Roman victory was soured when, on the return voyage to Holland, a number of Germanicus’ ships were wrecked in a storm. To prove that the legions were still to be reckoned with, Germanicus immediately regrouped his forces and led a new raid across the Rhine, this time returning with another of Varus’ lost eagles.

  The Senate heaped honors on Germanicus, and the adoring Roman people sang the prince’s praises. But Tiberius was unimpressed. When Germanicus asked the emperor for another year to complete the subjugation of the Germans, he recalled him. Germanicus returned to Rome, “though,” said Tacitus, “he saw that this was a pretense, and that he was hurried away through jealousy from the glory he had already acquired.” There would be no further Roman expeditions east of the Rhine during the reign of Tiberius. [Ibid., 26]

  After Germanicus celebrated his Triumph in Rome in AD 17, Tiberius made him supreme Roman commander in the East, and in Syria, in AD 19, Germanicus, Tiberius’ heir apparent as emperor, would die—apparently poisoned, with Tiberius the chief suspect. Ironically, in Germany that same year, Arminius would also die, and also at the hands of his own people. Many hundreds of years later, Arminius, or Hermann, would become the hero of German nationalists.

  As for Germanicus Caesar, many modern-day historians consider him a mediocrity. Yet Germanicus would be lamented by the Roman people for generations—as late as the third century, his birthday was still being commemorated on June 23 each year. [Web., RIA, 6] Fearless soldier and noble prince, Germanicus was, said Cassius Dio in the third century, “the bravest of men against the foe” yet “showed himself most gentle with his countrymen.” [Dio, LVII, 18]

  AD 17–23

  XV. TACFARINAS’ REVOLT

  Shame and fame in North Africa

  Tacfarinas was a native of Numidia in North Africa who joined the Roman army and served with a Numidian auxiliary unit for a number of years. Sometime before AD 17 he deserted and led a roving band of robbers, who plagued travelers and outlying farms in southern Tunisia. Like Robin Hood’s merry men, Tacfarinas’ band attracted more and more disaffected locals as its successes mounted. With the addition of auxiliary deserters, it grew to the size of a small army.

  By AD 17, using the skills he had learned in the Roman military, Tacfarinas had formed his men up behind standards in maniples and cohorts, and equipped and trained them like legionaries. That year, he began leading them against Roman outposts throughout the province of Africa, which was administered from Carthage on the coast. The site of the original Carthage and Roman Carthage is today a residential suburb of Tunis, capital of Tunisia.

  This was not the first time that a former Roman auxiliary had used the skills learned from Rome against her, nor would it be the last. Tacfarinas’ little army soon became more than a nuisance to the Roman authorities. The failure of those authorities to halt Tacfarinas’ raids on farms, villages and military outposts attracted many more rebel recruits to his force. The fighting men of Tacfarinas’ own people, the Musulamian tribe from territory bordering the Sahara Desert, willingly joined his ranks, while those of the neighboring Ciniphi tribe were compelled to do so by Tacfarinas.

  Dark-skinned Moors from neighboring Morocco also rallied to Tacfarinas; their cavalrymen were famous for riding like the wind without bridles, while their infantry were nimble. The leader of Tacfarinas’ Moorish allies was Mazippa, whom Tacfarinas put in charge of his mobile division, made up of cava
lry and light infantry. Tacfarinas himself retained command of the heavy infantry. In total, Tacfarinas now commanded a force of up to 30,000 men. Now, he was no mere bandit leader, he was a general, and his partisan army threatened Rome’s control over North Africa.

  To counter Tacfarinas’ army, just a single legion, the 3rd Augusta, was stationed in all of North Africa. Since the beginning of Augustus’ reign, the legion had been based at the city of Ammaedra—Haidra, in modern-day Tunisia. This town was well inland, close to the border with Numidia. The legion, together with the auxiliary units based in the provinces of North Africa, gave the governor of Africa, the proconsul Furius Camillus, little more than 10,000 troops. While Camillus’ ancestors had gained fame as Roman commanders, Camillus himself, said Tacitus, “was regarded as an inexperienced soldier.” [Tac., A, II, 52]

  Despite having no record as a field commander, Camillus combined the 3rd Augusta Legion with all his auxiliaries plus troops from Roman allies in the region, and marched against Tacfarinas. Knowing that he significantly outnumbered the Romans, and having trained his men in the Roman style, Tacfarinas possessed the confidence to meet Camillus in open battle rather than rely on the hit-and-run tactics that had previously brought him success. Camillus was not an ambitious man, but he was a loyal servant of Rome and had a steady nerve. [Ibid.] As the two armies formed up on the flat North African landscape, facing each other, Camillus calmly and deliberately allocated his units their places, putting the 3rd Augusta Legion in the center of his battle line and his light infantry and two cavalry squadrons on the wings.

  When the battle began, the Africans charged, but the Roman troops held their ground. Camillus drew the Numidians into close combat, after which the 3rd Augusta Legion soon overran Tacfarinas’ inexperienced and over-confident infantry. The victory was swift, and appeared complete. But Tacfarinas escaped the battlefield, and lived to fight another day. Once news of the Camillus’ victory reached Rome, the Senate voted him Triumphal Decorations, which was the next best thing to a Triumph. But the award was a little premature; Tacfarinas was far from conquered.

  Gathering fresh support, Tacfarinas began his raiding again the following year, so that, by the autumn of AD 19, the Palatium decided to take the unusual step of sending an additional legion to the African front to help the province’s new governor. That governor was Lucius Apronius, a personal friend of the emperor; Tacitus actually described him as a sycophant of Tiberius. [Tac., A, II, 32]

  The legions stationed in Africa and Egypt were generally considered to be inferior to those in Europe, so a “superior” European-based legion was now given the job of going to North Africa to complete the task which the local legionaries had not been able to accomplish. The legion chosen for the job was the 9th Hispana, which had been based in Pannonia ever since taking part in the Pannonian War of AD 6–9. Led by their senior tribune and second-in-command, Gaius Fulvius, in December AD 19 the men of the 9th Hispana Legion marched out of their winter quarters at Siscia and tramped to the city of Aquileia in northeastern Italy. From there they proceeded down to Rimini, on the Adriatic coast, then down the Aemilian Way and finally the Flaminian Way, the military highway to Rome.

  On the march, complete with its long baggage train containing all its artillery, officers’ furniture and plate and the other personal belongings of the troops, the legion was overtaken by the party of a senator, Gneius Calpurnius Piso. Until recently the propraetor of Syria, Piso was welcomed into the column, and he and his wife Plancina, son Marcus, and their companions and slaves accompanied the legion over the snow-covered Apennines. The men of the legion were unaware that Piso was in disgrace and on his way to Rome to face a trial in the Senate, accused of the murder of Germanicus Caesar.

  After mixing freely with the troops on the march—to the surprise and discomfort of Fulvius and his officers—Piso left the legionary column at Narnia and went by boat along the Narn and then the Tiber to Rome, traveling in style while the legion marched on to the capital. The men of the 9th would have camped on the Field of Mars, then continued their march the next day, passing down the Appian Way to Capua, then joining the Popilian Way for the last stage down the west coast of Italy to the port city of Reggio.

  There, they boarded transports which shipped them the short distance across the Strait of Messina to the Sicilian port of Messina. They would have marched along the north coast of Sicily to where another convoy waited at Marsala. Making a short crossing of the Mediterranean to North Africa directly opposite, the 9th landed at Utica early in the year 20. Geological changes over the centuries mean that today Utica is 7 miles (11 kilometers) inland; back then the town was the principal port of the North African provinces, located just a few miles along the coast from Carthage.

  The city of Carthage had been leveled by Rome after its capture in 146 BC. Caesar had sent Roman settlers there after his 46 BC victory at Thapsus, but only in the reign of Augustus was the city really reborn, when he established a military colony on the site. It had quickly grown to become the commercial hub of North Africa, and within another century would boast 250,000 inhabitants. At this point in its history it was a pleasant and bustling metropolis with all the adornments of a civilized Roman city, from public baths to theaters, circus to amphitheater, and, like most military colonies, a grand temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. The city was neither as large nor as influential as Antioch or Alexandria, second and third cities of the empire, but Roman Carthage’s leading citizens considered themselves to be just as sophisticated.

  The men of the 9th Hispana did not see Carthage. Nor were they posted to the headquarters of the 3rd Augusta at Ammaedra. The 9th Hispana was going even further into the North African wilds. Governor Lucius Apronius split up the cohorts of the 9th Hispana and divided them around forts on the far frontier of the province, under their tribune, camp-prefect and centurions, with many of the emplacements having to be constructed from scratch by the legionaries.

  There, in their forts in the blinding African sun, the men of the 9th Hispana Legion gazed unhappily out over the desert wastes to the south. This deployment of troops in isolated outposts, where they sat behind their camp walls, was an invitation to Tacfarinas to do what he did best; to range across the countryside making guerrilla raids. It was an invitation he was soon to take up. By the spring of AD 20, Tacfarinas was intercepting travelers on the roads and plundering and destroying villages.

  A cohort of new recruits of the 9th Hispana under an experienced centurion by the name of Decrius set off in pursuit after the raiders struck in their district. But Tacfarinas turned on his pursuers and hemmed in the cohort beside a river in southern Tunisia. Centurion Decrius and his men rapidly built a marching camp beside the river, but the centurion felt that to simply sit behind the walls and allow these natives to besiege his troops was a disgrace to the legion, so he led his nervous youngsters out and lined them up in battle order on the open river plain outside his entrenchments.

  Tacfarinas, commanding a much larger force, charged the 480 young legionaries, who buckled under the volleys of Numidian missiles and were forced to give ground. Before long, most of the legionaries, including the cohort’s standard-bearers, turned and ran for the camp. Centurion Decrius, disgusted by his men’s retreat, stood his ground, yelling to the retreating standard-bearers that they should be ashamed for allowing Roman soldiers to show their backs to the enemy. The centurion was struck time and again by javelins and stones. A missile took out one of his eyes, and he was bleeding from other wounds, but still he held firm as Tacfarinas’ men fell on him. He fought them off with his sword, sending Numidians reeling away with savage wounds, but eventually their numbers and his wounds told, and Centurion Decrius fell dead.

  The frightened young legionaries of his cohort barricaded themselves inside their camp, with the Numidian horde outside the walls baying for their blood. Before long, Tacfarinas led his men away; they had neither the skills nor the inclination to conduct a siege. Once the coast was clear, the men o
f the 9th Hispana cohort sent a messenger to their tribune Gaius Fulvius with the news of the attack and to explain the circumstances of the death of their centurion. Tribune Fulvius sent a full report to the governor at Carthage.

  Apronius was furious. The governor, by law the only magistrate in the province with the power over life and death, “flogged to death every tenth man drawn by lot from the disgraced cohort.” [Ibid., III, 21] This was the first recorded instance of decimation in the Roman army since the Civil War. And, ironically, it had been the 9th Legion which was decimated on that last occasion too, by Julius Caesar, in 49 BC. The punishment was duly carried out. Each of the men of the cohort drew a lot. Men who drew the marked tokens were taken from the ranks, stripped, and tied to whipping posts. Some fifty condemned men were then whipped to death.

  Tacitus would declare that the decimation had the desired effect on the morale and courage of the rest of the men of 9th Hispana Legion, for shortly after the punishment was meted out Tacfarinas attacked a fort at Thala, to the west, above Lambaessa. This was garrisoned by a veteran cohort of the 9th Hispana, made up entirely of mature, experienced soldiers. And they fought like demons, driving off the vastly superior force. [Ibid.]

  During this latest hectic battle, when a legionary of the 9th Hispana by the name of Rufus Helvius saved the life of a fellow soldier, his name was passed on to the governor with a recommendation that he receive an award for his bravery. Governor Apronius duly awarded Helvius the golden torque and silver spear, highly esteemed bravery awards. But the deed had deserved more, and, after Tiberius heard of the decorations conferred by Apronius on Helvius, he added the Civic Crown, Rome’s highest gallantry award, at same time writing to tell Apronius, “without anger,” that as proconsul he himself could have bestowed this great honor. [Ibid.]