The most northerly battle ever fought by an imperial Roman army, and the last against war chariots, was a bloody victory for Agricola and for Rome, yet, apart from 10,000 bodies, glory and booty, it achieved little. With the summer almost at an end, Agricola and his troops withdrew to the south. No Roman army would ever progress this far north again.
The emperor Domitian recalled Agricola to Rome at once, and the Senate granted Agricola Triumphal Decorations. Agricola, fully aware that Domitian was jealous of his British success, immediately went into retirement and declined to be considered for any future official appointment.
AD 85–89
XXXVII. DECEBALUS THE INVADER
Prelude to Dacian conquest
Dacia, which encompassed much of modern-day Romania, was a mountainous country north of the River Danube populated by a Germanic people. Although theirs was primarily a rural economy, the Dacians had a high degree of commercialization and industrialization. Members of the Dacian ruling class were well educated, reading both Latin and Greek, and they also had substantial wealth, from Dacia’s rich gold, silver, iron and salt mines.
Up to this point in their history the Dacians had only seriously challenged Rome twice, and then only briefly, with raids into Moesia during the reign of Augustus and again in AD 69, when the Roman Empire was in turmoil during the war of succession following the demise of Nero. On both occasions the Dacians had come off badly from their encounters with Rome’s legions. That situation was about to change.
In AD 85, the elderly ruler of Dacia, King Dura, voluntarily abdicated in favor of a younger, more energetic man. Decebalus, the new king, was renowned for his military skills, both tactical and physical. The aggressive king Decebalus and his senior general Susagus, whose name meant “grandfather,” quickly assembled an army of foot soldiers from the tribes of mountainous Dacia, and led it across the Danube to invade the Roman province of Moesia, taking the Roman garrison there completely by surprise.
“One after the other,” Tacitus was to complain, “experienced officers were defeated in fortified positions.” [Tac., Agr., 41] The Roman governor of Moesia, Oppius Sabinus, hurriedly marched against the invaders with the 5th Macedonica Legion, then stationed at Oescus. [Suet., XII, 6] In the ensuing battle the governor was killed by the Dacians, and the mauled 5th Macedonica fell back in disarray. The Palatium rushed the 4th Flavia Legion and auxiliary units to Moesia from Dalmatia, but the damage had been done. By the time the reinforcements arrived, Decebalus and his troops had sacked cities, towns and farms and taken thousands of prisoners, and, by the end of the year, had withdrawn across the Danube with their loot and their prisoners.
Domitian mounted an AD 86 counter-offensive against the Dacians. He personally led an army into Moesia, but waited in the comfort of a Danube city as the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Cornelius Fuscus, crossed the river with several legions, cohorts of the Praetorian Guard and numerous auxiliary units. In a mountain pass, Fuscus’ army was ambushed by Decebalus and his waiting Dacians. Fuscus was killed. One of his legions was wiped out, with its eagle and artillery carried away by the enemy. This legion was almost certainly the 5th Alaudae, which disappeared from the records at this time.
The 5th Alaudae was apparently commanded by Marcus Laberius Maximus, who perished with his unit. Laberius’ personal slave Callidromus, made a prisoner by Dacian general Susagus, was sent by King Decebalus as a gift to King Pacorus of Parthia. Thirty years later, Callidromus would escape back to his home town, Nicomedia, in Bithynia-Pontus.
The bloodied remnants of Fuscus’ army flooded back across the Danube to bring Domitian the news of the brutal defeat in Dacia. Survivors would tell horrific stories of curved Dacian swords that sliced through Roman helmets and heads, and hacked off Roman limbs. As the Dacians occupied positions along the south bank of the Danube, Domitian issued orders for more troops to garrison Moesia and keep watch on the Dacians, then scurried back to Rome to plan a new counter-offensive in safety.
Domitian’s counter-offensive of AD 88 was led by Tettius Julianus, a former consul who had commanded the 7th Claudia Legion. Julianus’ army crossed the Danube and pushed over the mountains into central Dacia behind the back of Decebalus and his troops on the Danube. Late in the year, at Tapae, west of Decebalus’ capital of Sarmizegethusa (today’s Varhely), Julianus’ legions met a Dacian army led by a leading Dacian general, Vezinas, “who ranked next after Decebalus.” [Dio, LXVII, 10] The next most high-ranking individual in Dacian society after the king was the high priest of Zamolxis; Vezinas may well have been the high priest.
The Roman troops were fully aware that these Dacians had wiped out an entire legion only two years before, so, to inspire his men to great deeds, Julianus ordered each of his legionaries to paint their name and that of their centurion on their shield. This way, the most valiant fighters could be readily identified for later reward. Julianus’ incentive to excel had the desired effect. His troops routed the Dacians at Tapae, and “slew great numbers of them.” [Ibid.] Vezinas, the Dacian commander, finding himself trapped, threw himself down on the ground among the sea of Dacian corpses, and pretended to be dead. Once night fell, Vezinas rose from the dead and made good his escape.
When news of this defeat reached Decebalus, he ordered trees to be cut down to form barricades across the valley leading to his capital, and had armor nailed to tree trunks to give the impression that the barricades were manned. With the winter of AD 88–89 approaching, Julianus camped at Tapae, in position to advance on Sarmizegethusa the following spring. But Julianus’ plans were about to be influenced by events on the Rhine.
AD 89
XXXVIII. SATURNINUS’ REVOLT
Clash of the legions
“Only an amazing stroke of luck checked the rebellion.”
SUETONIUS, The Twelve Caesars, XII, 6
Several times during the first century, provincial governors had led rebellions against sitting Roman emperors. The AD 21 revolt of Julius Sacrovir in Gaul and Julius Florus of the Treveri had been put down so quickly by Tiberius, according to his subordinate Velleius Paterculus, “that the Roman people learned that he had conquered before they knew he was engaged in war.” [Velle., II, CXXIX, 3] Scribonianus’ AD 42 revolt against Claudius in Dalmatia was snuffed out five days after it had begun. Vindex’s AD 67 Gallic revolt was bloodily terminated in a battle between rebel Gauls and legions from the Rhine, but sparked the rebellion of Galba in Spain and demise of Nero the following year. By AD 89, Domitian had ruled for eight forgettable years when Lucius Antonius Saturninus, governor of Upper Germany, set a new revolution in motion.
Saturninus’ plan revolved around his own legions of the army of the Upper Rhine—the 14th Gemina and 21st Rapax, both based at his provincial capital, Mogontiacum, plus the 8th Augusta at Argentoratum and 11th Claudia at Vindonissa. In addition, Saturninus planned to bring German tribes from east of the Rhine into the uprising, paying them to take part. To raise the money to pay the Germans, Saturninus dipped into the savings banks of his own legions. Into these banks, administered by legion standard-bearers, legionaries deposited their savings—from their salaries, imperial donatives and the sale of war booty.
The revolt was scheduled to take place late in the winter, with the German tribesmen crossing the ice of the frozen Rhine to join Saturninus’ legions. It appears that once Lucius Maximus, governor of Lower Germany, heard of this plan, he marched his legions up the Rhine to take on Saturninus. With a pitched battle looming between the two Roman armies, “only an amazing stroke of luck checked the rebellion,” according to Roman biographer Suetonius, who was around age 20 that year. “The Rhine thawed at the very hour of battle,” preventing Saturninus’ German allies from crossing the ice to join him. In the light of this turn of events, “the troops who remained loyal disarmed the rebels.” [Suet., XII, 6]
As for Saturninus, “Lucius Maximus overcame him and destroyed him,” said Cassius Dio. [Dio, LXVII, 11] The heads of Saturninus and those men who had be
en in league with him were sent to Rome and exhibited in the Forum on Domitian’s orders. “It would be impossible to say how many he killed,” Dio was to say of Domitian’s subsequent retribution. Domitian did not bother to inform the Senate of the identities of those of its members who fell to the swords of his Praetorian execution parties, and he prohibited the entering of the victims’ names in the official records.
Julius Calvaster, a senior tribune with one of Saturninus’ Upper Rhine legions, pleaded not guilty to involvement in the conspiracy, declaring that the reason he had spent so much time in private with Saturninus prior to the revolt was because he was involved in a homosexual liaison with the governor, and knew nothing of the planned rebellion. He was believed, and acquitted. Lucius Maximus burned all the late governor’s correspondence, so that Domitian could not implicate and then execute any other leading Romans. “For his action,” said Dio approvingly, “I do not see how I can praise him enough.” [Ibid.]
As a result of Saturninus’ revolt, Domitian increased the annual salary of all Roman legionaries from 900 to 1,200 sesterces a year, to elevate his popularity with the rank and file. He also decreed that legionaries could in the future only keep a maximum of 1,000 sesterces in their legions’ banks, to limit the temptation that these legion savings might offer rebellious spirits. In addition, Domitian ordered that no longer could two or more legions share a base—to limit the opportunities for legions to conspire against him. From that time forward, said Domitian, only one legion could occupy each base. Both the salary increase and regulation regarding the number of legions per base were to involve significant expense by Rome’s Military Treasury, with the latter requiring several legions to leave their longtime bases and build new homes for themselves elsewhere.
AD 89
XXXIX. RETREAT FROM DACIA
Domitian’s humbling treaty
News of the Saturninus Revolt on the Upper Rhine spread fast. North of the Danube, Sarmatian tribesmen learned of it late in the winter. Believing that the Romans would be preoccupied by the Rhine affair, and with the Danube still frozen and passable, the Sarmatians mounted a raid into Moesia, surprised and savaged auxiliary garrisons, and ravaged towns and farms.
At Tapae in Dacia, as spring sunshine melted the winter snows, Tettius Julianus, preparing to march his Roman army against the Dacian capital, received word that the legions of the Upper Rhine were in revolt, and, worse, that the Sarmatians were swarming all over Moesia to his rear. He also learned that Decebalus, Susagus and their Dacian troops were withdrawing from the Danube to defend Sarmizegethusa. Fearing that he would be cut off in Dacia between the Dacians and the Sarmatians, Julianus fell back from Tapae and crossed the Danube to re-enter Moesia.
By this time Domitian had come up from Rome and was again personally leading an army north, aiming to deal with the Sarmatians. As he and Julianus linked up in Moesia, the Sarmatians withdrew across the Danube. Decebalus the Dacian king now offered Domitian a peace treaty, but only if the Romans paid him a vast amount. Domitian turned him down, executing the Dacian envoys who brought the peace offer.
Determined to exact revenge on someone, anyone, for the losses to the Sarmatians and the Dacians, and flushed with the success that Julianus had achieved at Tapae, Domitian sent his army marching into the province of Pannonia. The Quadi and the Marcomanni Germans beyond the Danube had earlier refused to assist him against the Dacians when he had asked them to, and he was intent on punishing them for that refusal. Hearing that the Romans were coming after them, the Marcomanni marched from their home territory in Bohemia, crossed the Danube into Pannonia and attacked and repulsed Domitian’s army, then returned to Bohemia laden with booty.
With his troops in Pannonia retreating, Domitian lost his nerve. When another Dacian envoy, the princely Diegis, came to him, Domitian agreed to a peace treaty with Dacia, even sending Diegis home wearing a crown. In this treaty, Domitian agreed to pay the Dacians large amounts of gold every year in return for peace, and to also provide Decebalus with engineering and military advisers. Apart from a Dacian withdrawal from the Moesian bank of the Danube, and a promise of future peace, all Rome received in exchange was the return of a few Roman prisoners from among large numbers of Roman captives held by the Dacians.
Back in Rome, Domitian celebrated a double Triumph, as if he was a victor. One Triumph was for his small-scale success against the Chatti in AD 83, when “he plundered some of the tribes beyond the Rhine that enjoyed treaty rights,” according to Dio, “a performance which filled him with conceit, as if he had achieved some great success.” [Dio, LXVIII, 3] Domitian’s other Triumph was for Julianus’ victory at Tapae. “He did not insist on recognition for his [failed] Sarmatian campaign,” Suetonius wrote, “contenting himself with the offer of a [victor’s] laurel crown to Capitoline Jupiter.” [Suet., XII, 6]
Following the signing of the treaty with the Dacians, Domitian divided Moesia into two provinces, Upper Moesia to the west, Lower Moesia to the east. This was intended to ensure that in the future the defense of Moesia did not become the lot of just one rash or cowardly consular commander who proved unequal to the task, as had been the case with the late Oppius Sabinus.
But much damage had been done to Rome’s pride at home and to her prestige abroad by Domitian’s capitulation. Cornelius Tacitus, who himself commanded a legion around this time, would rage at the incompetence that had cost Rome dearly: “It was no longer the frontier and the Danube line that was threatened, but the permanent quarters of the legions and security of the empire.” [Tac., Agr., 41]
Four legions were now stationed in the provinces of Moesia, with another four in neighboring Pannonia. They stood watch on the Danube, tensed for another attack from across the river by the Dacians or their allies. For, said Tacitus several years later, the Dacians were “a people which can never be trusted.” [Tac., H, III, 46] Over the next decade, there was an uneasy peace along Rome’s Danube frontier. But it was not to last.
AD 101
XL. FIRST DACIAN WAR
Following Trajan’s Column
“The Dacian war! There is … no subject so poetic and almost legendary, although its facts are true.”
PLINY THE YOUNGER, Letters, VIII, 4
Rome’s new emperor Trajan was going to war. It was March AD 101, and Trajan rode out of Rome followed by thousands of foot soldiers of the elite Praetorian Guard and hundreds of troopers of the Singularian Horse household cavalry, and headed for the Danube. Where Domitian had failed to cower the Dacians, Trajan was determined to succeed.
Trajan, a powerfully built man of 47 with a thick neck, long nose and hair combed in a severe fringe, had come to the throne in AD 98 on the death of Nerva, the elderly senator who had succeeded Domitian as emperor in September AD 96—after the unpopular Domitian was assassinated by a wrestler. Nerva, who reigned for less than two years, had in AD 97 adopted Trajan and made him his heir. An experienced general and son of a general, Trajan, one-time commander of the 7th Gemina Legion in Spain, had been made a consul by Domitian in AD 91 and appointed commander of the army of the Lower Rhine by Nerva. It was on the Rhine in February AD 98 that Trajan learned that Nerva had died in the last week of January and that the Senate had endorsed him as Nerva’s successor.
Trajan was in no hurry to go to the capital. Remaining on the Rhine, he ordered the creation of additional auxiliary units, such as a 1,000-strong light infantry cohort raised in Britain that spring, the Cohors I Brittonum Ulpia. Through AD 98 Trajan inspected all the troops on the Rhine, and the following spring he toured the Danube, ordering the legions there to construct new forts, military roadways and a canal in the Iron Gates region of the Danube. At the same time, the new emperor intensified the training of the legions stationed in the Danubian provinces.
After he finally reached Rome in AD 99, Trajan had his Palatium begin preparations for a major military campaign. Trajan had never forgiven Domitian for the humiliation of the peace terms with the Dacians. He “was grieved by the amoun
t of money they were receiving annually,” said Dio, “and he also observed that their power and pride were increasing.” [Dio, LXVIII, 15] Decebalus was welcoming Roman deserters into his army, which continued to grow stronger with each passing year.
Roman military preparations intensified throughout AD 100, with weapons and ammunition being produced and stockpiled in Moesia, where the resident 1st Italica, 4th Flavia, 5th Macedonica and 7th Claudia legions would have been training for river crossings. More ships would have been added to the Moesian and Pannonian fleets on the Danube. Food supplies were brought in. Baggage animals were procured, and legion carpenters built carts and collapsible boats. By the spring of AD 101, a further six legions had been quietly moved closer to the Danube or were on the march to Moesia from stations throughout Europe, accompanied by scores of auxiliary units from as far afield as Britain.
At Brigetio on the Rhine in Pannonia, the regulation imposed by Domitian stipulating that only one legion could occupy any military base was flouted as the 11th Claudia arrived from Vindonissa in today’s Switzerland and joined the 1st Adiutrix. The 14th Gemina arrived at Vindobona, modern-day Vienna, after marching from Mursa to free up the 13th Gemina, which was ready to march for Moesia. Not far away, at its Pannonian base at Carnuntum, the 15th Apollinaris was also preparing to march. The 1st Minervia Legion was tramping down the Rhine from Bonna in company with the 10th Gemina Legion from Noviomagus. And the 2nd Adiutrix was on the march from its base at Aquincum, today’s Budapest.
The logistical arrangements for the Dacian operation were enormous, involving 100,000 troops, almost as many non-combatants, thousands of sailors, plus up to 30,000 horses, mules and oxen, so it was no wonder that it took Trajan’s staff at the Palatium two years to bring the operation to fruition. The other factor that had to be borne in mind was the need for secrecy—the Dacians could not be permitted to know that Trajan was coming after them, for Decebalus had shown himself to be a wily military tactician who could be expected to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Romans if he learned that they were preparing to invade his country.
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