It was this very weapon, the composite bow, which was having such a devastating effect on Roman fortunes far to the east around the time that Hadrian's Wall was finally abandoned. The horse archers of the Huns were the supreme masters of the composite bow and their repeated assaults on the eastern front are described later in Part One. In the light of the evidence of these weapons, it is clear that the cultural exchange between Romans and barbarians was not simply flowing one way. The barbarian cultures were not simply sponges soaking up the knowledge and trappings of their imperial 'superiors'. The colonising power found itself drawing inspiration and innovation from its barbarian subjects.
There are many other archaeological finds that give us a picture of the ethnic diversity that existed among the occupying forces in this windswept northern outpost of the empire. Numerous memorial stones provide potted and incomplete thumbnail sketches of individual soldiers who were stationed at the wall. One such stone commemorates an auxiliary named Dagvalda who was from Pannonia, a Roman province in what is now Hungary. The stone was raised by his wife Priscina, yet the reason for his death remains untold. Other stones tell similar stories of men from all over the known world who served and died far from home on Hadrian's Wall. That their families came with them we know, but their life stories remain unrecorded and therefore unknown.
It is impossible to put a date on the abandonment of the wall as it was not a sudden event but a slow decline. Although 410 is the year when dramatic events elsewhere in the empire forced the Romans to finally leave Britain, many had already left long before then. The wall had already begun to crumble and its maintenance and upkeep had long since ceased to be a priority. In fact, while thousands of visitors make the trip to see the wall today, it did not seem to have made much of a stir at the time in the wider Roman world. Even Hadrian's biographer gives it only a line. In the greater scheme of things, it was simply a wall built far from the centres of power in an obscure part of the empire.
Britain after the Romans was certainly a different place. The towns that had provided the backbone of the Roman administration fell into decline as many people abandoned them in search of a more secure life in the countryside. The lack of a central Roman authority marked a return to more traditional Celtic systems of social organisation. In southern Britain the pressure coming from a host of foreign aggressors from various directions was felt keenly soon after the Roman departure. From the north the Picts (the barbarian tribes of Scotland) started to move southwards, while Irish and continental pirates sought to take full advantage of the fact that the legions were no longer around to repel them. There was, from the point of view of Roman civilisation, a gradual return to barbarism.
As the Romans were abandoning Britain, their empire was plagued by major threats from other barbarians far from British shores. Vandals and other tribes were pressing on the Rhine frontier, a situation that would culminate in a catastrophe for the Romans on New Year's Eve 406. And events in the Balkans, where the Goths and Huns were challenging the might of the empire, were to change the direction of history.
It is now time to leave the outpost of Britain (to which we shall return with the Anglo-Saxons later in the book) and focus once again on the bigger picture: central and eastern Europe. I wanted to get a real idea of what was happening at the time, and decided to go in search of archaeological clues that could bring back something of barbarian life that I could not get from the history books alone. I would go to Mainz on the banks of the Rhine, where sixteen hundred years ago there had been an extraordinary act of vandalism.
Chapter Three
WANDERLUST AND GOLDLUST
I shall now say a few words of our present miseries… Savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts… The once noble city of Mainz has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred… And those which the sword spares without, famine ravages within. I cannot speak without tears…
St Jerome, in one of his Letters written in 409 (epistle 125)
The main markers of the eastern edge of Roman dominion were two mighty rivers, the Rhine and the Danube. The Rhine was one of the most important natural avenues in the Roman world, both for trade and for its strategic significance: it was a key supply route for the commercial and military requirements of the empire. Around 12 BC the Romans set up a fortified camp as a base for two of their legions. This was to be the foundation of the city of Mogontiacum (later to be known as Mainz). Its original purpose was to be a settlement from which the legions could start campaigns to expand to the east, and by AD 70-80 Roman expansion had made the Rhineland an integral part of the empire. In Roman times the river at Mainz was about a hundred metres wider than it is today, making it an even more difficult barrier to pass. Naturally, defence of the Rhine was paramount for the security of the empire and it was regularly patrolled by river boats. In the 1980s the discovery in the centre of Mainz (in the environs of the Hilton hotel) of the wrecks of five such boats gave archaeologists and historians the opportunity to gain a rare glimpse into the way such Roman vessels were made. Numerous kinds of boats were built in the Roman shipyards, and these particular models were specially designed for use on the large rivers of the continent; as such, they would have been totally unsuitable for use along the coast or the open sea.
The archaeologist Dr Olaf Höckmann was instrumental in the discovery of these ancient river craft, and he kindly agreed to give me a guided tour of the stretch of the Rhine around Mainz. As we stood chatting on the open deck of a small boat, the sky was grey and overcast, a persistent light rain and a damp wind gradually chilling the flesh and seeping into the bones – a misery endured by the Romans too so long ago.
Dr Höckmann told me that it has been possible to pinpoint the date of the boats, thanks to the technique of dendrochronology, a very accurate form of dating by tree ring. It was worked out that one of them was built in 376, and careful inspection of two sections of the boat that were replaced in Roman times shows that these repairs took place on two separate occasions, the first in 386 and the second in 394. All five vessels were built from oak and hammered together with iron nails. Typically, they would have had between twenty-four and twenty-eight oarsmen, and therefore the full crew would probably have numbered over thirty men.
The boats could reach speeds of up to 11 knots, and patrolled the river like clockwork. They would travel between river stations set 20 miles apart, going downstream in the morning and returning upstream in the afternoon. The regularity of these patrols was designed to deter barbarian assaults by boat: surprise attacks were hardly possible under the constant and watchful eye of these ancient river police. There were also early-warning systems in place, forts across the Rhine on the eastern side and roving scouts – part of the strategy designed to thwart enemy incursions. But the real border remained the Rhine itself and the crucial defensive aim was to hold the river.
The Romans built a bridge at Mainz in AD 27 during the reign of the emperor Tiberius. It was about 8 metres wide and the only way into the city from the other bank. Later the city walls were built and further defended by a fort about a mile away from the bridge. The bridge, with its heavily armed guard, seemed to be impregnable to any barbarian force, which simply would not have been able to get sufficient numbers across so narrow an inroad. The Romans felt that the measures they had taken to defend both the bridge and the river itself were sufficient, but they had not allowed for a fateful night when freak weather conditions and the guile of their enemies conspired against them…
Barbarian Invasion
By the beginning of the fifth century barbarian peoples were massing threateningly in the lands east of the Rhine. Among them were the Germanic Vandals and Suevi, and the Alans who had wandered far to the west from their Iranian origins. These diverse tribes came together in a temporary alliance to mount an audacious attack on New Year's Eve 406/7. Legend has it that this was one of the worst winters the inhabitants of Mainz had had to endure as the Rhine itself became a s
ingle sheet of ice.
At the time, New Year's Eve was a Christian festival. Many barbarian tribes still held to their pagan beliefs and so had no respect for Christian observances. This was neither the first nor the last time they would seize their chance by attacking on a religious holiday. Many Christian troops refused to fight on holy days, but whether the Roman garrison this time was caught napping due to their piety or to their over-indulgence in drink we will never know.
Countless horsemen and barbarian wagons poured across the Rhine, gate-crashing the New Year's Eve celebrations in the most spectacular and bloody manner. The size of the attacking force has been estimated to be as much as 60,000 (a figure that includes whole families so perhaps a fighting force of 20,000 would be a more realistic estimate). Whatever the number involved, the resulting carnage was horrendous.
The barbarians who sacked the city seem to have had little comprehension of the possible advantages of urban life on the scale that confronted them in Mainz. As will become clear later, while many barbarian peoples were opposed to Roman rule, they nevertheless sought to overtake the infrastructure and exploit it for their own ends. Yet for the marauding hordes of 406/7, the seizing of slaves and booty seems to have been the only goal they had in mind – and to this end they not only remained in the city but moved deeper into Roman territory. The booty would not just have been the gold and jewellery of the rich townspeople but also fine clothes, household goods and iron – in great demand for the making of weapons and tools. We can imagine too that the wine cellars of the city would have been drunk dry by the rampaging mob.
This was not the first successful barbarian attack on Mainz; there had been a number of earlier catastrophes in the second half of the fourth century. In 368 Prince Rando, leader of the Alamanni tribe (their name means 'all men'), who had long since lived in the region east of the Rhine, had, also on a Christian holiday, forced his way across the river and plundered the city's coffers. But, unlike the attackers of 406/7, he had no desire to either stay in the city or go further into Roman lands. Rando and his army were happy to simply load their wagons with booty and return from whence they came.
The Rise and Fall of the Vandals
Of the tribes that made up the deadly and effective confederacy of 406/7 it was the Vandals whose subsequent history was to have a dramatic effect on the fortunes of Rome for a long time to come. Their extraordinary migrations and exploits show them to be a far more organised and sophisticated culture than might be thought from their popular reputation as the epitome of wanton and mindless violence. Their legacy was far more than simply the word vandalism.
They first appear in the annals of history as a rather small and insignificant tribe in western Poland. How they came to be such a powerful military force is something of a mystery. They migrated and fought their way across the heartland of Europe to the southern tip of Spain and into North Africa and, from there, mounted a massive sea-borne assault on Rome itself. The sheer speed and magnitude of their movements epitomises the Age of Migration, as this time is known among German historians and archaeologists.
Even before they sacked the city of Mainz in 406/7 the Vandals had begun to work inside the Roman machine, and one of the most powerful of their chieftains, Stilicho, rose swiftly to the highest echelons of the Roman military establishment in the 390s. He consolidated his position by taking the niece of Emperor Theodosius I as his bride. On his death Theodosius left the empire to his two sons – the younger, Honorius, under the guardianship of Stilicho. Although Stilicho held the Gothic enemies of the empire at bay for a decade and even saved Rome itself twice he was never fully accepted by the Roman establishment. Whatever compromises he had had to make in his military manoeuvres (which undoubtedly raised the hackles of many of his detractors), the real reason for disdaining him seemed to be his religious persuasion. He belonged to the sect of Christianity known as Arianism. This doctrine, which takes its name from its founder Arius, held that the Son did not share in the divinity of the Father. Not only had the Vandals become Arians but so had the Goths (later chapters on whom deal with their Arianism). That these two powerful Germanic peoples were Arians was of great concern to the Catholic Church. These barbarians who had once been pagans were now something even more odious to the Catholics – they were heretics.
The spiritual heartland of the Catholic Church was in Roman North Africa, the home of its mastermind St Augustine. With the very real threat of a Vandal invasion, he feared for the future of his Church. Augustine was the most powerful and influential Christian thinker of the world of late antiquity and, as bishop of the city of Hippo, he was inevitably enmeshed in the political fabric of North African politics.
At this time, North Africa was the granary of Europe and was therefore of paramount economic and strategic importance. Its significance was not lost on the barbarians, and the Romans did everything they could to prevent them overrunning the sea routes across the Mediterranean. In 419 a number of Romans were sentenced to death for revealing shipbuilding secrets to the Vandals. Once the cat was out of the bag, the Vandals wasted no time and invaded North Africa from their Spanish stronghold. St Augustine himself died inside the walls of Hippo as the Vandals lay siege to the city, leaving his magnum opus, The City of God, for posterity.
Once the Vandals were in control of the whole region, they were able to stop grain and oil from reaching Europe. Under the able leadership of Geiseric they shook Rome from afar. The eastern emperors also felt the shock waves of the Vandal activity emanating from lands far to the west. So in 440 a major naval force set sail from Constantinople with the aim of taking back Carthage, the capital of Roman Africa. This was a risky business as, in the east, the Huns were already on the warpath and posing a serious threat to the empire. The stakes were high and the decision to counter-attack the Vandals was clearly not taken lightly.
Nevertheless, the imperial fleet failed to achieve their goal and it was only much later, under the rule of the emperor Justinian I, that the Vandal rule in North Africa was finally brought to an end. In the summer of 533 an army of 15,000 troops sent by Justinian arrived in North Africa, landing without resistance in the Bay of Tunis. In the ensuing battle a few miles outside the city of Carthage, the Vandals were soundly defeated. A large Vandal force that had been sent to deal with an uprising in Sardinia returned to North Africa on hearing the news of their fellows' defeat. They, together with the survivors of the first battle, fought another battle near Carthage and were defeated once more.
Geilamir, the king of the Vandals, fled to an inland stronghold but this only delayed the inevitable and he was forced to surrender as the Romans starved him into submission. He, along with what remained of his force, was sent to Constantinople. Geilamir got off quite lightly, being given an estate on which he spent his twilight years in peace. The rest of the Vandals were put into the melting pot of Germanic soldiers serving the empire and, for all intents and purposes, they ceased to exist as a separate ethnic group. The era of Vandal fame and infamy was dead and buried.
A Barbarian Treasure Hunt
In the uncertain world of barbarian Europe it was not possible to deposit one's wealth in a bank. Depositing riches and hoards in the ground was as safe a way as any to keep valuables secure. Even today some people who are suspicious of banks still hoard cash under their mattresses or in biscuit tins. But the barbarian attitude towards material wealth went far beyond a naive distrust of the banking system.
For the nomadic herdsmen among the barbarians, wealth had to be, of necessity, portable since they were often on the move. They relied on their herds just as much as the barbarian farmers relied on their own livestock. But naturally their leaders – the noble clans and military elite – wanted something more ostentatious to embody their high social standing. Gold, whether in the form of bullion, coins or jewellery and other decorative objects, was hugely important to the barbarians both economically and culturally.
This goldlust (shared, it should be said, by the 'civilised
' Romans as well) needed to be slaked and a steady supply maintained. Where was all this disposable wealth to come from? Much of it was to come from the coffers of the empire. For example, the Romans paid off the barbarians in the Danube region by supplying agreed amounts of grain to feed their people and gold to satisfy their nobility. If they paid up then the barbarians would not invade. It would be wrong to think of this financial arrangement between the empire and the barbarians as nothing more than a vast protection racket. It was not simple extortion, as the Romans themselves were extracting all they could from the economies of the barbarian peoples whom they were able to dominate. The methods of the empire and of aggressive barbarians such as the Huns are best looked at as simply two sides of the same coin.
Annual payments to the barbarians varied, but were usually in the region of the high hundreds or low thousands of the Roman gold coins known as solidi. Some seventy-two solidi could be minted from a pound of gold, so considerable amounts of precious metal were changing hands. At the height of barbarian power in this relationship – under the reign of Attila the Hun – nearly half a million solidi per year were being paid out. Many of these coins were melted down and fashioned into all kinds of objects desirable to barbarian taste.
It would be quite wrong to think that these people were simply vulgar and unsophisticated nouveaux riches with no class or style. They and their craftsmen drew upon many influences from the Romans, Persians and other 'civilised' peoples but had their own cultural traditions that also inspired their artistic labours. In fact, one of the most powerful reminders of the richness of the barbarian cultures is their supreme skill as craftsmen. Although their woodworking and textile making were undoubtedly highly accomplished, it is their metalwork that has survived for us to admire today. The items they produced are all the more amazing as they often lacked the permanent workshops (and elaborate equipment and tools) of their Roman counterparts, creating their masterpieces in the back of a wagon or other makeshift setting.
Barbarians- Secrets of the Dark Ages Page 4
