Rome's Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric (Key Conflicts of Classical Antiquity) (5 page)

Such improvements were not simply measures of passive self-defence – they were also bases from which imperial campaigns could be supplied and supported. Already in the 280s, Diocletian and Maximian showed a renewed imperial willingness to campaign beyond the frontiers, and Maximian’s general
Constantius – his caesar after 293 – won several spectacular victories against
Franks on the lower Rhine. Meanwhile, Diocletian campaigned on the Danube against
Tervingi and
Taifali, winning victories in 289 and again in 291. That campaign is significant for us because it marks the first appearance of the Tervingian name in Greek or Latin writing. Our source is a panegyric – a speech in praise of the emperor Maximian, delivered in Gaul in 291 – and it refers to the Tervingi as
pars Gothorum
, which is to say, a section of the Goths.
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As we shall see in the following chapters, the Tervingi were throughout the fourth century the most important subdivision of the Goths. They were the Gothic group with which the Roman empire had the most regular dealings, and for that reason they are the one about which we know the most. It was the Tervingi with whom the emperor Constantine would conclude a lasting peace in the 330s; descendants of these same Tervingi made up the majority of the Goths who crossed the Danube into the Roman empire in 376, eventually taking part in the Balkan settlements from which Alaric himself would emerge.

For all these reasons, therefore, this first hint of the Tervingi’s existence will automatically seem significant to the modern historian of
the Goths. We cannot, unfortunately, tell just how important these third-century Tervingi were at the time, particularly as they are mentioned in the same breath as
the Taifali, a group of barbarians who often appear together with the Goths in later sources, but always in an inferior position. What is more, this couple of lines in the panegyric of 291 is the last we hear of the Tervingi or any other Goths for more than a decade. By that point, the internal politics of the empire had changed dramatically yet again. As we shall see, the joint reign of Diocletian and Maximian broke the vicious political cycle of the preceding half century. In the process of doing so, they reinvented the governmental system of the Roman empire, strengthening the central government and laying the foundations of a political system that lasted for several hundred years. Just as important, by finally establishing a secure hold on the imperial office, Diocletian and his colleagues were also able to secure more stable relations with barbarian groups along the frontiers. We will return to the government of Diocletian and to the imperial frontiers in chapter four, paying particular attention to the lower Danube. There, by the 320s, the Goths were unquestionably the dominant political force immediately beyond the frontiers, a position they had achieved partly because the emperors wanted them to. In the meantime, however, we must turn to an important interpretative question which is raised by our discussion of third-century invasion and civil war.

If, as we have suggested, the middle of the third century can be defined by this constant cycle of internal and external violence, we are still left to ask why it was that barbarian groups along the northern frontiers could exploit imperial weakness, and particularly imperial rivalry, so successfully and widely. After all, this ability was something quite new, unknown in the early empire, when imperial generals could rampage at will through the land beyond the imperial frontiers. Then, the central European lands beyond the Rhine and Danube were a patchwork of very small political units that could be brought together for coordinated action only for very short periods of time, if at all. That is the situation depicted in the classic account of
Tacitus’
Germania
, written in A.D. 98, and corroborated by the political history of the period. The later second and the third centuries stand in very sharp contrast to this early imperial
picture. Now, beginning in the 160s and 170s, barbarian groups along the northern frontiers challenged the empire in ways that had always eluded them previously, and did so on a scale never before seen. If we are to understand this exponential growth in the ability of Rome’s northern neighbours to pose a threat to the empire, we need to look at the social and political history of barbarian Europe. There, during the first and second centuries, society was transformed in ways that paralleled changes inside the imperial provinces.

Just as an increasingly coherent Roman identity was spreading throughout the Roman provinces, so too were major social changes at work in the barbarian societies of northern and central Europe. Soon after the
Antonine Constitution made all the inhabitants of the empire Roman citizens for the first time, a new word appears in our sources to describe the world outside the empire:
barbaricum
, the land of the barbarians, and the antithesis of the civilization that was synonymous – and coterminous – with the empire.
[25]
The catalyst for social change in the
barbaricum
was the simple fact of the empire’s existence and with it the growth of Roman provincial life. That fact is hardly surprising, particularly in light of modern studies showing how advanced and relatively complex societies exert unconscious pressures to change on less developed neighbours. The Roman empire was, by the standards of the ancient world, a very complex state. The sophistication of its economic life and its hierarchies of government impinged upon the peoples who lived in its shadow. As provincials became Romans, so they provided instructive models to neighbouring peoples outside the provincial structure, and offered a conduit by which the more portable aspects of Roman provincial life – from luxury goods
to a monetized economy – were transmitted to lands that were not, or not yet, provincial.

We can conceive of Roman cultural influence as a series of concentric circles radiating out beyond the Roman frontier. In the band nearest to the frontier, it can sometimes be hard to distinguish the archaeological culture of the natives from their neighbours on the Roman side of the frontier, at least below the level of the social elite; indeed, the fact of imperial government and its regular demands for taxation may have been the only real factor distinguishing a Pannonian peasant on one side of the Danube from a Quadic peasant on the other. Further away from the frontier, differences became starker. Roman export goods, where they could be found at all, were luxury items and
Roman coins circulated as bullion not money. Still further out, in Lithuania or Scandinavia, only the most portable of Roman goods are visible – coins, medallions, and the occasional weapon or piece of armour – and from the Roman perspective, these distant people were half-legendary
. Even here, however, one finds traces of Roman economic power imposing itself on the indigenous population: on the island of
Gotland, for instance, the quantity of Roman coin finds is out of all proportion to the regional norm and seems to suggest a regional distribution centre to other parts of ancient Scandinavia
. Such distant regions had products that were valued inside the empire – semi-precious material like amber, but also slaves and raw materials like animal pelts. Such materials leave no trace in the archaeological record available to us, but we can still study the regional distribution of Roman products in central Europe. Such distribution patterns indicate the existence of well-established trade routes from east to west and, especially, from north to south, and it is likely that supplying the economic needs of the Roman empire helped to organize political units far beyond the Roman frontier.
[26]

Be that as it may, economic and political interdependence is strikingly visible closer to the imperial frontier, particularly in the context of the Roman army. From the first century onwards, many barbarians served in the Roman army, and the proportion of such barbarians probably
increased as the provincialization of the imperial interior made army service less and less attractive to Roman civilians. The benefits of service in the army to a barbarian from beyond the frontier were substantial – not only did service in an auxiliary (non-citizen) unit pay well, it brought with it Roman citizenship after honourable discharge and often a substantial discharge bonus. As we shall see, the Goths were enmeshed in this pattern of service with the Roman army from very early in their history. Even if the famous inscription of a soldier’s son named
Guththa, who died in Arabia in 208, may or may not refer to a Goth, Gothic troops are definitely attested among the Roman units defeated by the Persian king
Shapur and commemorated by him in a famous inscription.
[27]
Service in the Roman army had profound effects on Rome’s neighbours, and not just those who enlisted. Many barbarians who served in the army became entirely acclimatized to a Roman way of life, living out their lives inside the empire and dying there as Roman citizens after long years of service. Others, however, returned to their home communities beyond the frontier, bringing with them Roman habits and tastes,
along with Roman money and products of different sorts. Their presence contributed to the demand for more Roman products beyond the frontiers, which helped increase trade between the empire and its neighbours. Roman installations on the frontiers found a ready market for their goods among barbarians close to the frontier, and Roman coins that found their way out into barbarian lands often found their way back through trade.

Depending upon one’s political standpoint, this sort of economic influence may seem quite sinister or it might seem benign. Either way, it certainly represents what modern commentators call ‘soft power’. Rome’s ‘hard power’ was equally enormous, and could have a painfully severe impact on its neighbours when it was exercised. Even in times of peace, Roman military power was always present as a threat. As we saw in the
last chapter
, military victories were a vital legitimizing device for imperial power and very few emperors were secure enough on their thrones to pass up the occasional aggressive war. The need for imperial victories translated into periodic assaults upon the neighbours, the imposition of tribute, the taking of hostages, the collection of slaves,
the pillaging of villages by Roman soldiers. Roman military pressure was by no means relentless – it could hardly be so after the imperial frontiers ceased to expand – but it was never beyond the realm of possibility. Every generation born along the imperial frontier at some point experienced the attentions of the Roman military. The empire and its army were thus in and of themselves an ongoing spur to social change in the barbarian societies that flanked the imperial provinces: barbarian leaders had every incentive to make themselves more potent militarily
.

Paradoxically, this drift towards greater military competence amongst the barbarians was only exacerbated by direct Roman interference in barbarian life.
Roman dogma held that all barbarians were dangerous and that it was therefore best to keep them at odds with one another as much as possible. In order to keep barbarian leaders in a state of mutual hostility, Roman emperors frequently subsidized some kings directly
. This support built up royal prestige and hence governing capacity, while reducing the importance of those leaders who were denied the same support. This type of interference allowed emperors to manage not just relations between barbarians and the empire, but also the relationships among different barbarian groups. Along the barbarian fringe of the empire, access to luxury goods – whether coin or the various items that could be made from the same precious metals as coin – was often as important as the items themselves. The ability to acquire wealth meant the ability to redistribute it, and to be able to give gifts enforced a leader’s own social dominance. In other words, conspicuous wealth translated into active power. For these purposes, gold and silver were especially important, and were the dominant medium for storing wealth.
Distribution patterns of silver coinage beyond the Roman frontier tend to vary according to the political importance of particular regions at particular times: in Germania, for instance, we find huge concentration of 70,000 silver
denarii
in just a few decades between the reigns of
Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) and
Septimius Severus (r. 193–211), when campaigning along that frontier was regular and intense
. What that and other evidence demonstrates is that emperors and their generals
regularly manipulated political life in the
barbaricum
through economic subsidy. Yet this strategy, however necessary it might seem within the mental paradigms of Roman government and however effective it might be, was also fraught with dangers.

Raising the status of some leaders above that of their neighbours and natural peers could provide them with both means and motive for military action that they would otherwise have lacked. Leaders buttressed by Roman subsidy were able to attract more warrior clients into their following, thus enlarging the political groups they led. As with Roman soldiers, barbarian warriors were better behaved when kept employed at the tasks for which they were suited. Fighting one’s barbarian neighbours was useful in this respect, but nearby Roman provinces – with their accessible wealth and a road system that made it easy for raiding parties to move rapidly about – became a hugely tempting target when imperial attentions were preoccupied elsewhere. The attractions of Roman wealth, combined with the hostility that might be generated by periodic incursions of Roman soldiers, meant that there were strong structural reasons for barbarian attacks on the Roman frontier. These same structural reasons might occasionally inspire a particularly powerful barbarian king to conceive more grandiose plans.

Examples of this phenomenon are apparent even quite early in the history of the empire, as with the famous
Dacian king
Decebalus. His power was deliberately shorn up by
Trajan (r. 98–117) after that emperor’s first campaigns beyond the Danube. This support, however, made Decebalus locally predominant, so that he felt able to break his agreements with the emperor and menace the imperial provinces. It took two years of costly warfare to suppress a threat that had only emerged because of imperial subsidy
.
The Marcomannic wars of the second century obeyed a similar dynamic. They broke out in the mid-160s for reasons that remain disputed, but they precipitated invasions into the Balkans and northern Italy by neighbours of the Marcomanni. The settlement which
Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) initially imposed on the region failed precisely because it punished some of the chieftains on the middle Danube and rewarded others. Favoured chieftains first threatened and then attacked their less favoured neighbours, driving them into the
imperial provinces and making further imperial campaigns necessary
. Third-century emperors continued to manage barbarian leaders according to these long-standing habits, but they did so from a position of much greater weakness than had their predecessors. For that reason, the third century witnessed the multiplication of barbarian disturbances all along the frontiers
.