Barbarian invasions of the 3rd century | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of Roman-Germanic wars | |||||||
The barbarian invasions of the 3rd century | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Roman Empire | Germanic and Sarmatian peoples | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Caracalla Severus Alexander Maximinus Thrax Gordian III Philip the Arab Decius Trebonianus Gallus Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian Marcus Aurelius Probus Diocletian Maximian | Cannabaudes of the Goths, Cniva of the Goths, Gabiomarus of the Quadi, Genobaud of the Franks, Igillus of the Burgundians or Vandals, Naulobatus of the Heruli, Ostrogotha of the Goths, Semnon of the Lugii | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
At least 23 legions and about 150/200 auxiliary units involved, totaling 200/250,000 armed men | Numerous peoples, amounting to a few hundred thousand armed men |
The barbarian invasions of the third century (212-305) constituted an uninterrupted period of raids within the borders of the Roman Empire, conducted for purposes of plunder and booty [1] by armed peoples belonging to populations gravitating along the northern frontiers: Picts, Caledonians, and Saxons in Britain; the Germanic tribes of Frisii, Saxons, Franks, Alemanni, Burgundians, Marcomanni, Quadi, Lugii, Vandals, Juthungi, Gepids and Goths (Tervingi in the west and Greuthungi in the east), [2] the Dacian tribes of the Carpi and the Sarmatian tribes of Iazyges, Roxolani and Alans, as well as Bastarnae, Scythians, Borani and Heruli along the Rhine-Danube rivers and the Black Sea.
Since the time of Marcus Aurelius during the Marcomannic Wars (166/167-189), Germanic-Sarmatian tribes had not exerted such strong pressure along the northern borders of the Roman Empire.
The growing danger to the Roman Empire of Germans and Sarmatians was mainly due to a change from previous centuries in the tribal structure of their society: the population, constantly growing and driven by the eastern peoples, needed new territories to expand, or else the weaker tribes would become extinct. Hence the need to aggregate into large ethnic federations, such as those of the Alemanni, Franks and Goths, in order to better attack the neighboring Empire or to defend themselves against the irruption of other neighboring barbarian populations. For other scholars, however, in addition to the pressure of outside populations, it was also the contact and confrontation with the Roman imperial civilization (its wealth, language, weapons, and organization) that prompted the Germanic peoples to restructure and organize themselves into more robust and permanent social systems, capable of better defending themselves or seriously attacking the Empire. [3] Rome, for its part, had been trying since the first century A.D. to prevent the penetration of the barbarians by entrenching itself behind the limes, that is, the continuous line of fortifications extended between the Rhine and the Danube and built precisely to contain the pressure of the Germanic peoples. [4]
The breakthrough by the barbarian peoples along the limes was also facilitated by the period of severe internal instability that ran through the Roman Empire during the third century. In Rome, there was a continuous alternation of emperors and usurpers (the so-called military anarchy). Not only did the internal wars unnecessarily consume important resources in the clashes between the various contenders, but – most seriously – they ended up depleting precisely the frontiers subjected to barbarian aggression.
As if this were not enough, along the eastern front of Mesopotamia and Armenia from 224 onward the Persian dynasty of the Parthians had been replaced by that of the Sasanids, which on several occasions severely engaged the Roman Empire, forced to suffer attacks that often joined the less strenuous but nonetheless dangerous invasions carried out along the African front by the Berber tribes of Moors, Baquates, Quinquegentiani, Nobati and Blemmyes. Rome showed that it was in serious difficulty in conducting so many wars at once and almost collapsed two centuries early.
It was also thanks to the subsequent internal and provisional division of the Roman state into three parts (to the west the Empire of Gaul, in the center Italy, Illyricum and African provinces, and to the east the Kingdom of Palmyra) that the Empire managed to save itself from ultimate collapse and dismemberment. However, it was only after the death of Gallienus (268) that a group of emperor-soldiers of Illyrian origin (Claudius the Gothic, Aurelian, and Marcus Aurelius Probus) finally succeeded in reunifying the Empire into a single bloc, even though the civil wars that had been going on for about fifty years and the barbarian invasions had forced the Romans to give up both the region of the Agri decumates (left to the Alemanni in about 260) and the province of Dacia (256-271), which had been subjected to incursions by the Dacian population of the Carpi, the Tervingi Goths, and the Iazigi Sarmatians. [5]
The invasions of the third century, according to tradition, began with the first incursion conducted by the Germanic confederation of the Alemanni in 212 under Emperor Caracalla and ended in 305 at the time of Diocletian's abdication for the benefit of the new tetrarchic system. [6]
After about thirty years of relative quiet along the Rhine-Danubian frontiers, a new crisis broke out along the Germanic-Rhaetian Limes in 212, caused by the first invasion of the Alemanni confederation.
In Central and Eastern Europe, the barbarian world was shaken by strong internal unrest and migratory movements of populations that tended to change the balance with the neighboring Roman Empire. These peoples, seeking new territories in which to settle due to the increasing population growth in ancient Germania, were also attracted by the wealth and affluent life of the Roman world. [7]
Fifty years earlier, on the fringes of the Germanic area, along the Danubian and Carpathian frontier, there had been movement and mixing of peoples, with the advent of a new phenomenon among the Germans, which represented an overcoming of the tribal dimension: entire peoples (such as Marcomanni, Quadi and Naristi, Vandals, Cotini, Iazigi, Buri, etc.), had grouped together in coalitions, mostly military in nature, implementing greater pressure on the nearby Roman limes.
Under Caracalla the phenomenon of aggregation had evolved further, going so far as to establish in the area of the Agri decumates some real ethnic confederations of tribes: the Alemanni, who aggregated Catti, Naristi, Hermunduri and part of the Semnones and positioned themselves on the upper Rhine from Mogontiacum to the Danube near Castra Regina; the Franks, on the lower Rhine from the mouth of the river to Bonn; [8] and the Saxons, composed of the seafaring peoples between the mouths of the Weser and Elbe rivers. [9] [10]
At the same time the thrust of the East Germans from Scandinavia also increased, such as the Goths (in the various branches of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Heruli), who came from the Vistula: they had been slowly moving southeastward for more than fifty years, and had now come close to the northern shores of the Black Sea. In that region they came into conflict with the Sarmatian peoples of Roxolani and Alans. Also from the Silesian-Vistula region came two other major populations: the Vandals, who had already come into contact with the Roman legions of Pannonia and Dacia Porolissensis at the time of the Marcomannic wars under Marcus Aurelius, and the Burgundians, who were heading westward toward the rivers Elbe and Main. [8] [11]
In 166/167, the first clash occurred along the Pannonian frontiers by a few bands of marauding Lombards and Osii, which, due to the prompt intervention of the border troops, were promptly repelled. The peace stipulated with the neighboring Germanic peoples north of the Danube was handled directly by the emperors themselves, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, who were now wary of the barbarian aggressors and traveled for these reasons as far as distant Carnuntum (in 168). [12] The untimely death of Lucius (in 169 not far from Aquileia), and the breaking of pacts by the barbarians (many of whom had been "clients" since the time of Tiberius) led a never-before-seen wave of troops to swarm devastatingly through northern Italy all the way to below the walls of Aquileia, the heart of Venetia. The impression caused was enormous: it was since the time of Marius that a barbarian population had not laid siege to centers in northern Italy. [13]
Marcus Aurelius fought a long and exhausting war against the barbarian populations, first repelling them and "cleaning up" the territories of Cisalpine Gaul, Noricum, and Rhaetia (170-171), then counterattacking with a massive offensive in Germanic territory, which took several years of fighting, until 175. These events forced the emperor to reside for several years along the Pannonian front, never returning to Rome. However, the truce signed with these peoples, particularly the Marcomanni, Quadi and Iazyges, lasted only a couple of years. By the end of 178 the emperor Marcus Aurelius was forced to return to the castrum of Brigetio from where, in the following spring of 179, the last campaign was conducted. [14] The death of the Roman emperor in 180 soon put an end to Roman expansionist plans and resulted in the abandonment of the occupied territories of Marcomannia and the making of new treaties with the "client" peoples northeast of the Middle Danube. [15]
Numerous were the legionary and auxiliary forces fielded during this period by the Roman Empire. The numbers are difficult to estimate, since in the course of the century some units were destroyed and replaced with new ones; moreover, when Diocletian's new tetrarchical system took over, it was the overall strategic organization itself that changed.
In the 3rd century the Roman Empire deployed numerous legions against barbarian invasions: I Adiutrix, I Illyricorum (recruited under Aurelian), I Italica, I Maximiana (under Maximian), I Minervia, I Pontica (under Diocletian), II Adiutrix, II Italica, legio II Parthica, III Italica, IIII Flavia, IIII Italica (under Alexander Severus), V Macedonica, VII Claudia, VIII Augusta, X Gemina, XI Claudia Pia Fidelis, XIII Gemina, Legio XIIII Gemina Martia Victrix, XV Apollinaris, XX Valeria Victrix, XXII Primigenia and XXX Ulpia Victrix. [16] The total forces fielded by the Roman Empire may have exceeded 200 to 250,000 armed men from the beginning to the end of the third century; of these, one half were legionaries, the remainder auxiliaries. [17]
At the death of Caracalla out of 33 legions along the entire system of imperial fortifications, as many as 16 were along the Rhenish and Danubian limes (accounting for 48.5% of the total), as well as 2 others in the rear as "strategic reserve" (in Hispania and Italy), as is highlighted below in the summary table on their deployment (in 217):
A little less than a century later, during Diocletian's Tetrarchic period, the number of legions placed along the northern front (Rhine and Danube) was increased to 24, in addition to the 3 positioned to guard the Alps (legio Iulia Alpina, legio II Iulia Alpina, and legio III Iulia Alpina), [18] out of a combined total of 56 (or 48.2%), as highlighted below: [19]
Concerning the massive forces that the barbarians were able to field in the course of the invasions of the 3rd century, it is briefly summarized below as follows:
Date | Total number of armed men | Peoples involved | Warships | Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
248 [22] | more than 60,000 [22] | Goths, Taifals, Hasdingi and Carpi [22] | Moesia and Thrace [22] | |
249 [23] | more than 70,000 [23] | Goths and Carpi [23] | Dacia, Moesia and Thrace [23] | |
267-268 [24] | 320.000 [24] [25] | Peucini, Greuthungi, Ostrogoths, Tervingi, Visigoths, Gepids, Celts and Heruli [24] | 2.000 [24] /6.000 [26] ships | Moesia, Thrace, Greece and Asia Minor [24] |
269 [27] | more than 50,000 [27] | Goths [27] | Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia [27] | |
277-278 [28] | more than 400,000 barbarians killed [28] | Franks, Lugii, Burgundians and Vandals [28] | Gaul and Raetia [28] | |
281 [29] | 100,000 people settled [29] [30] | Bastarnae [29] [30] | Thrace [29] [30] | |
283 [31] | 16,000 killed and 20,000 captured [31] | Sarmatians [31] | Pannonias [31] | |
298 [32] | 60.000 [32] | Alemanni [32] | Limes Germanicus [32] | |
Caracalla: Denarius [33] | |
---|---|
AD ANTONINVS PIVS AVG BRIT, laureate head toward right; | Profectio AVG, Caracalla standing, holding a spear; behind him two military banners. |
2.74 g, coin probably minted when Caracalla had succeeded his father, after the death of his brother Geta, sometime between 212 and 213. It celebrates here the Profectio of the Emperor leaving for a military campaign to the northern front. |
Caracalla defeated the Germans north of the Limes and obtained legality and friendship from them, so much so that he dressed his auxiliary troops like them and created with them his own personal bodyguard with selected men of great strength and good looks.[...] He also used to use an elaborate blond wig so as to appear with a Germanic type of hairstyle. The barbarians by this were pleased and adored him.
— Herodian, History of the Empire after Marcus Aurelius, IV, 7.3-4.
The pressure of the barbarians along the northern frontiers and the simultaneous pressure of the Sasanians in the East had not only intensified but had spread the feeling that the empire was totally encircled by its enemies. [61] The tools of traditional diplomacy, used since the time of Augustus and based on the threat of the use of force and the fomenting of internal dissensions among the various hostile tribes to keep them engaged against each other, were now proving ineffective. Immediate recourse to force was necessary, deploying tactically superior armies capable of intercepting every possible avenue of invasion by the barbarians as quickly as possible; however, the strategy was made difficult by having to garrison immense stretches of frontier with mostly sparse military contingents. [9] Many of the emperors who were gradually proclaimed by the legions over a period of twenty-five years did not even manage to set foot in Rome, let alone, during their very short reigns, undertake internal reforms, as they were permanently occupied with defending the imperial throne from other claimants and the territory from external enemies.
[Maximinus] went through Germania with the entire army and troops of Moors, Osroenes, and Parthians, as well as all the others that Alexander had brought with him for the military campaign. And the main reason he took the eastern auxiliary troops with him was that no one was worth more in combat against the Germans than lightly armed archers. Alexander also had an admirable war apparatus, to which Maximinus is said to have added many new devices. He entered Trans-Renan Germania for three hundred or four hundred miles of the barbarian territory, burned villages, raided cattle, plundered, killed many of the barbarians, generated considerable booty to his soldiers, took numerous prisoners, and if the Germans had not retreated to the swamps and forests, would have subdued all of Germania to Rome.
— Historia Augusta - The two Maximinians, 11.7-9 and 12.1.
Having completed his campaigns in Germania [against the Alemanni], Maximinus went to Sirmium, preparing an expedition against the Sarmatians, and planning to subdue to Rome the northern regions as far as the Ocean.
— Historia Augusta - The two Maximinians, 13.3.
Gordian left for war against the Sasanian Persians with a large army and such a large amount of gold that he could easily defeat the enemy either with legionaries or auxiliaries. He marched through Moesia and, in the course of his advance, destroyed, put to flight, and drove away all the enemies who were in Thrace.
— Historia Augusta - Gordian III, 26.3-4.
Philip the Arab: antoninianus [76] | |
---|---|
IMP PHILIPPVS AVG, head with crown, wearing breastplate; | VICTORIA CARPICA, Victoria advancing to the right, holding a palm and a laurel wreath. |
23 mm, 4.35 g, coined in c. 245. |
Under the empire of that Philip [...] the Goths displeased that tribute was no longer paid to them, [73] turned into enemies from the friends they were. For although they lived under their kings in a remote region, they were federates of the empire and received an annual contribution. [...] Ostrogotha crossed the Danube with his men and began ravaging Moesia and Thrace, while Philip sent against him Senator Decius. The latter reporting no success, dismissed his soldiers sending them back to their homes and returning to Philip [...]. Ostrogotha, king of the Goths, [shortly thereafter and again] marched against the Romans at the head of thirty thousand armed men, to whom were also added Taifal warriors, Hasdingi, and three thousand Carpi, the latter a very warlike people and often fatal to the Romans.
Decius: antoninianus [87] | |
---|---|
IMP C M Q TRAIANVS DECIVS AVG, head with crown, wearing breastplate; | D-ACIA, Dacia standing, holding a stick with a donkey-shaped end. |
4.99 g, coined in 250. |
Decius, with the purpose of relieving the city of Beroea [...], had his troops and horses resting there when Cniva suddenly attacked him and, after inflicting heavy losses on the Roman army, drove the emperor and the few survivors from Thrace back through the mountains to Moesia. In Moesia Gallus, commander of that frontier sector, had numerous forces. By reuniting them with as many of his own who had survived the enemy, Decius prepared to continue the military campaign.
And immediately Decius' son fell fatally pierced by an arrow. At the news the father, certainly to cheer up the soldiers, reportedly said, "Let no one be sad, the loss of one man must not affect the forces of the Republic." But shortly thereafter, not withstanding his father's grief, he launched himself at the enemy, seeking either death or revenge for his son. [...] He therefore lost both his empire and his life.
Decius: antoninianus [91] | |
---|---|
IMP CAE TRA DECIVS AVG, head with radiate crown, wearing a breastplate; | VIC-TORIA GERMANICA, Decius on horseback to the left, raising his right hand and holding a scepter in his left one; on the left the goddess Victoria is advancing to the left, holding a branch in her right hand and a palm tree in her left one. |
3.33 gr, 12 h; coined in 251 (Temple of Juno Moneta). |
Since Trebonianus Gallus administered power poorly, the Scythians [meaning the Goths, ed.] began to invade neighboring provinces, and they advanced by plundering even the territories washed by the sea [the Black Sea, ed.], and so no province of the Romans was spared their devastation. All the cities without fortifications and most of those provided with walls were taken. And as well as the war, an epidemic of plague also broke out everywhere, in villages and towns, eliminating the surviving barbarians and causing so many deaths as never before.
— Zosimus, New History, I.26.
Valerian: antoninianus [98] | |
---|---|
IMP P LIC VALERIANO AVG, head with crown, wearing breastplate; | VICTORIA GERMANICA, Victoria standing toward the left, holding a shield and a palm tree. |
21 mm, 3.90 g, coined in 253 |
Continued raids by barbarians in the two decades following the end of the Severan dynasty had brought the economy and trade of the Roman Empire to its knees. Numerous farms and crops had been destroyed, if not by barbarians, then by bands of brigands and by Roman armies seeking sustenance during military campaigns fought against both external and internal enemies (usurpers to the imperial purple). Moreover, food shortages generated a demand that exceeded the supply of foodstuffs, with obvious inflationary consequences on basic necessities. Added to all this was a constant forced recruitment of soldiers, to the detriment of the labor force employed in the agricultural countryside, resulting in the abandonment of many farms and vast areas of fields to be cultivated. This pressing demand for soldiers, in turn, had generated an implicit race to raise the price of obtaining the imperial purple. Each new emperor or usurper was forced, therefore, to offer his army increasing donations and ever more rewarding wages, to the serious detriment of the imperial treasury, which was often forced to cover these extraordinary expenses with the confiscation of huge estates of private citizens, victims in these years of "partisan" proscriptions. [99] These difficulties forced the new emperor, Valerian, to partition the administration of the Roman state with his son Gallienus, entrusting the latter with the western part and reserving the eastern part for himself, as had previously been the case with Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161-169). [100] [101]
The Goths, as soon as they noticed that the soldiers inside the walls were lazy and drunken and did not even go up along the walkways of the walls, pulled over a few logs to the wall, where it was possible, and in the middle of the night, went up in small groups and conquered the city. [...] The barbarians seized great wealth and a large number of prisoners [...] and after destroying the temples, buildings and all that was beautiful and magnificent, they returned home with many ships.
— Zosimus, New History, I, 33.
[Gallienus] had as a concubine a girl named Pipa, whom he received when part of the province of Upper Pannonia was granted under a treaty to her father, king of the Marcomanni, given to him as a wedding gift.
— Sextus Aurelius Victor, De Vita et Moribus Imperatorum Romanorum, 33.6.
From 260 onward, and until about 274, the Roman Empire suffered the secession of two vast territorial areas, but these allowed its survival. In the west, the usurpers of the Gallic Empire, such as Postumus (260-268), [132] Laelian (268), Marcus Aurelius Marius (268-269), Victorinus (269-271), Domitian II (271), and Tetricus (271-274), succeeded in defending the borders of the provinces of Britain, Gaul, and Hispania. Eutropius writes:
Since Gallienus had thus abandoned the state, the Roman Empire was saved in the West by Postumus and in the East by Odaenathus.
— Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita, 9, 11.
Postumus had succeeded in establishing an empire in the West, centered on the provinces of Germania Inferior and Gallia Belgica, and which was joined shortly afterwards by all the other Gallic, British, Hispanic, and, for a short time, even the province of Rhaetia. [133]
These emperors not only formed their own senate at their major center of Augusta Treverorum and gave the classical titles of consul, pontifex maximus or tribune of the plebs to their magistrates in the name of Roma Aeterna, [134] but also assumed the normal imperial titling, minting coins at the mint of Lugdunum, aspiring to unity with Rome and, more importantly, never thinking of marching against the so-called "legitimate" emperors (such as Gallienus, Claudius the Gothic, Quintillus or Aurelian) who ruled over Rome (i.e., those who ruled Italy, the West African provinces up to Tripolitania, the Danubian provinces and the Balkan area). They, on the contrary, felt they had to defend the Rhine borders and the Gallic littoral from attacks by the Germanic populations of Franks, Saxons, and Alemanni. The Imperium Galliarum turned out, therefore, to be one of the three territorial areas that allowed Rome to retain its western part. [135]
In the East, on the other hand, it was the Kingdom of Palmyra that took over from Rome the government of the provinces of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, defending them from Persian attacks, first with Odaenathus (260-267), appointed "Corrector Orientis" by Gallienus, and then with his secessionist widow, Zenobia (267-271). [135]
To these negative things had also been added that the Scythians [meaning the Goths, ed.] had invaded Bithynia and destroyed some cities. Eventually they burned and severely devastated the city of Asta, now called Nicomedia.
— Historia Augusta - The Two Gallieni, 4.7-8.
Since the Scythians [i.e., the Goths, ed.] had brought great destruction to Hellas and besieged Athens, Gallienus sought to fight against them, who by then had occupied Thrace.
— Zosimus, New History, I, 39.1.
invaded Cappadocia. There they occupied some cities and, after a war waged with uncertain outcome, headed for Bithynia.
— Historia Augusta - The Two Gallieni, 11.1.
The Scythians [to be understood as Goths, ed.], sailing through the Pontus Euxinus penetrated the Danube and brought great devastation to Roman soil. Gallienus knowing these things gave the Byzantines Cleodamus and Athenaeus the task of rebuilding and walling the cities, and when a battle was fought near Pontus the barbarians were defeated by the Byzantine generals. The Goths were also beaten in a naval battle by General Venerian, and he himself died during the fight.
— Historia Augusta - The Two Gallieni, 13.6-7.
And so the different tribes of Scythia, such as Peucini, Grutungi, Ostrogoths, Tervingi, Visigoths, Gepids, Celts and Heruli, attracted by the hope of looting, came to Roman soil and wreaked great devastation there, while Claudius was engaged in other actions [against the Alamanni, ed.] [...]. Three hundred and twenty thousand armed men from the different peoples [146] were fielded [...] in addition to having two thousand ships (six thousand according to Zosimus), [26] that is, twice as many as were used by the Greeks [...] when they undertook the conquest of the cities of Asia [the Trojan War, ed.]
— Historia Augusta - Claudius II Gothicus, 6.2-8.1.
They fought in Achaia, under the command of Marcian, against the Goths, who, defeated by the Achaeans, retreated from there. While the Scythians, always part of the Goths, ravaged Asia [these are the invasions that began in 267/268 and ended in 269/70, ed.], where the temple at Ephesus was burned.
— Historia Augusta - The Two Gallieni, 6.1-2.
Beginning with Claudius the Gothic, [161] but especially with his successor, Aurelian, the ideal of a restoration of the unity of the Roman Empire became firmly established. The main task awaiting this last emperor was to have to reunite the two "trunks" that had been formed during the reign of Gallienus, namely, the Gallic Empire in the West and the kingdom of Queen Zenobia's Palmyra in the East. [162]
Claudius Gothicus: Antoninianus [163] | |
---|---|
IMP CLAVDIVS P(ius) F(elix)? AVG, emperor's head toward right wearing breastplate | VICTORIAE GOTHIC, a trophy is depicted with two Gothic prisoners at its feet. |
19 mm, 4.68 g, coined in 269/270 |
We have defeated three hundred and twenty thousand Goths and sunk two thousand ships. The rivers are covered with the enemy's shields, all the beaches are covered with swords and spears. The fields can no longer even be seen hidden by bones, there is no clear road, numerous chariots have been abandoned. We have captured so many women that our victorious soldiers can keep two or three each for themselves.
— Historia Augusta - Claudius, 8.4-8.6.
Many cities in Gaul and also many fortresses that Postumus had built in barbarian territory [across the Rhine River, ed.] over the course of seven years and that, after his death, had been destroyed and burned during a sudden incursion of the Germans [these were either the Franks or the Alemanni, in early 269, ed.], had been rebuilt, restoring them to their previous state.
— Historia Augusta - The Thirty Pretenders, Lollianus, 4.
Aurelian: Aureus [181] | |
---|---|
IMP C L DOM AVRELIANVS P F AUG, laureate head and torso with armor toward the right, wearing an'aegis (armor of Minerva); | V-IRTVS AVG, Mars advancing to the right, holding a spear forward and a trophy over his left shoulder; at his feet a bound prisoner sitting toward the right. |
21 mm, 4.70 gr, 6h; Mint of Mediolanum (Milan), third issue, minted in 271/272 |
Aurelian wanted to face the enemy army all at once, gathering his forces together, but near Piacenza he suffered such a rout that the Roman Empire almost fell. The cause of this defeat was a treacherous and cunning movement on the part of the barbarians. They, unable to meet the fight in the open field, took refuge in a very dense forest and towards evening attacked ours by surprise.
— Historia Augusta - Aurelian, 21.1-3.
The assassination of Emperor Aurelian, on his way to lead a campaign against the Sasanian Empire, produced deep mourning throughout the empire, but also triggered new assaults by barbarians along the northern borders.
Marcus Aurelius Probus: antoninianus [209] | |
---|---|
IMP PROB VS AVG, head with crown, wearing breastplate; | VICTOR IA GERM, Victoria advancing to the right, two captive Germans bound at her feet, with the inscription R A on the bottom and a star in the center. |
25 mm, 3.91 g, coined in 278 |
Marcus Aurelius Probus: antoninianus [221] | |
---|---|
IMP PROB VS P F AVG, head with crown, wearing breastplate; | VICTOR IA GERM, two German prisoners on the right at the foot of a trophy, with the inscription R A on the bottom and a crown in the center. |
22 mm, 3.45 g, coined in 280 |
[...] in a very few days [Emperor Carus] was able to restore security to Pannonia, killing sixteen thousand Sarmatians and capturing twenty thousand of both sexes.
— Historia Augusta - Carus et Carinus et Numerianus, 9.4.
With the death of the emperor Numerian in November 284 (to whom his father Carus had entrusted the Roman East), and the subsequent refusal of the eastern troops to recognize Carinus (Carus' eldest son) as their natural successor, Diocletian, a very capable general, was elevated to the imperial purple. The resulting civil war saw Carinus at first prevail over the Pannonian armies of the usurper Julian, and later the defeat of his armies by Diocletian at the Margus River, near the ancient city and legionary fortress of Singidunum. Carinus died due to a conspiracy of his own generals (spring of 285). [231]
Having obtained power, in November 285 Diocletian appointed as his deputy (caesar) a valiant officer, Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus, whom a few months later he elevated to the rank of augustus (April 1, 286): he thus formed a diarchy, in which the two emperors divided on a geographical basis the government of the empire and the responsibility for the defense of the frontiers and the fight against usurpers. [232] [233]
Given the increasing difficulty in containing the numerous revolts within and along the borders, a further territorial division was made in 293 in order to facilitate military operations: Diocletian appointed Galerius as his Caesar for the East, while Maximian did the same with Constantius Chlorus for the West. [234]
Galerius: Argenteus [250] | |
---|---|
MAXIMIANVS CAES, laureate head right with draped shoulders. | VICTORIA SARMAT, the four tetrarchs sacrifice above a tripod in front of a city with six towers; Γ below. |
18 mm, 3.33 g, coined in 295-297 (celebrating the Sarmatian victory of Galerius in 294). |
At the same time Caesar Constantius Chlorus fought in Gaul with good luck. At the Lingons in a single day he experienced bad and good luck. Because the barbarians were advancing fast, he was forced to enter the city, and because of the necessity of closing the gates so quickly, he was hoisted on the walls with ropes, but in only five hours the army arrived and tore to pieces about sixty thousand Alemanni.
— Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita, 9, 23.
Also along the fourth and final frontier sector of the Roman Empire, the southern one, were numerous and continuous incursions by semi-nomadic African peoples, beginning in the mid-3rd century. This sector, which had always been protected to the south by the natural barrier of the Sahara Desert, and thus poorly manned by armies, was forced, like the other three, to defend itself against the growing pressure of Berber peoples.
In the crisis that the Empire experienced in the third century, barbarian invasions undoubtedly constituted an extremely important element in the political, social, and economic evolution that led to the new Diocletian and Constantinian state. After two centuries of apparent calm along the western and eastern borders, from the beginning of the century populations of different ethnicities, mostly Germanic, engaged Roman forces in long and exhausting campaigns of containment, often fruitless, sometimes catastrophic. Since the time of Hadrian, it had been decided in Rome, out of expediency or prudence, to stop venturing into the conquest of new territories and to take precautions along the thousands of kilometers that constituted the Empire's limes; this was not enough, however, and already with Marcus Aurelius, the Marcomanni reached Italy and pushed as far as Aquileia, the heart of Venetia, causing a huge impact: it had been since the time of Marius that a barbarian population had not besieged centers in northern Italy.
The cadence with which the barbarian incursions followed one another from the third decade of the century onward constituted only the most conspicuous consequence of a phenomenon that had been going on for several decades, causes and consequences of which were both internal and external to the Roman world. While it is well true that from the end of the second century onward the migrations of Germanic peoples accentuated their westward reach, it is equally true that until then the Empire's system of defence-in-depth had held up more or less admirably, through fortifications, legions, and patronage alliances. However, in the face of increasing pressure on the borders, the center of Roman power found itself in difficulty: after a century the imperial purple again became with Septimius Severus a conquest of arms.
Inevitably, the coexistence of internal political uncertainty and external military difficulties resulted in the destabilization of the entire apparatus of power; the army became the sole arbiter of Roman politics, effectively depriving the already agonizing Senate of its power. Thus, for Augustus and his successors Concordia ordinum was the slogan of the new system; in the third century imperial coinage relentlessly bore the words "Fides exercitus." The principate, understood by Mommsen as a military dictatorship characterized by the figure of the prince, the Senate and the army, [274] lost an essential element in the delicate balance established by Octavian. Although, as early as the Year of the Four Emperors, the most attentive observers [275] noted with regret that the emperor could well elect himself far from Rome, by the third century this circumstance became routine. In the face of external threats, military commanders endowed with ever-increasing powers had an easy time being acclaimed augusti by an army aware of its decisive role in choosing princes; if before the praetorian cohorts had their decisive weight in this regard, now the new situation created along the borders of the Empire undoubtedly privileged the limitanean legions, [276] revolutionizing a balance that had seen, in the first two centuries of the Empire, the praetorian cohorts represent, in their own ranks, a good part of the municipal Italic elites and of the provinces of ancient Romanization.
From the advent of Maximinus the Thracian, there was instead a gradual but ineluctable change of direction; figures who were expressions of the army, the viri militares, often of modest origin and raised in the ranks of the legions of the limes, obtained roles and powers that had previously been reserved for members of senatorial, Italic or provincial families. It was from the armies most engaged on the containment front that these men arose; and among them, the broad Danubian and Pannonian sector in particular brought forth emperors such as Decius, Claudius the Gothic, Probus, [277] and Valentinian I. [278] Although of greater importance, the Danubian area was not the only cradle of emperors and usurpers, and the lack of a strong central power in Rome represented by the Senate caused on more than one occasion the momentary disintegration of the Empire, as in the case of the Gallic Empire and the Kingdom of Palmyra. However, this also showed that the defense of the Empire could by then no longer be entrusted to one man, unless the entire administrative structure of the provinces was revolutionized: something that, once the storm had passed, Diocletian tried to implement.
The slow ousting of the senatorial class from military leadership had a turning point with Gallienus, [279] who went on to entrust such positions to figures of equestrian rank, who had come out of the army after a long career: they anticipated and gave rise to those duces who from the end of the century replaced the provincial governor in the defense of the borders. Inevitably, the growing burden of the army, accompanied by political instability and the struggle for power, caused a monetary decline due, moreover, to the long-standing lack of liquidity from the conquests of previous centuries. A growing tax burden affected the ruling classes of the municipalities and colonies, setting the stage for the contraction of the urban fabric as documented for the fourth century. Private evergetism, the real driving force behind the redistribution of wealth in the centers of the empire, gradually came to a standstill. Silver, which was along with the denarii the most widespread currency, slowly declined, so much so that it caused the inflation that was at the center of every emperor's thoughts in the third century, [280] and which Diocletian tried in vain to save with his Edictum De Pretiis Rerum Venalium . Constantine understood that gold would be the dominant metal of the new course. [281]
However, in this climate of continuous internal and limitaneous alertness, not all cities suffered from the aforementioned economic contraction: other centers, which had previously been nothing more than legion headquarters, became during the third century the new capitals of the Empire. Augusta Treverorum, [282] Sirmium, [283] Mediolanum [284] were the habitual seats of the emperors.
The effort undertaken by the successive augusts during the third century, either because of the lack of a long-term plan or because of the economic crisis that affected the Roman tributary system, failed to save the integrity of the Empire as it stood at the end of the second century: in particular the province of Dacia, and the so-called Agri Decumates between Germania and Rhaetia were abandoned. The Empire was now entirely west of the two great European rivers, the Rhine and the Danube. It was clear that any effort to maintain the status quo would not produce results within the institutional framework created in its time by Augustus: a new era was coming, and although the barbarian invasions had not by themselves caused the crisis of the third century, they accelerated the process of disintegration and estrangement between West and East that would be the basis of Late Antiquity. Rome, for its part, lost during the third century its role as caput mundi : the frontiers were never so distant and so close at the same time. Aurelian was convinced to endow the city with walls; seven centuries had passed since the last stone was laid to defend the city.
The Bastarnae, sometimes called the Peuci or Peucini, were an ancient people who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited areas north of the Roman frontier on the Lower Danube. The Bastarnae lived in the region between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Dnieper, to the north and east of ancient Dacia. The Peucini were a subtribe who occupied the region north of the Danube Delta. Their name was sometimes used for the Bastarnae as a whole.
Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus was Roman emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260 and alone from 260 to 268. He ruled during the Crisis of the Third Century that nearly caused the collapse of the empire. He won numerous military victories against usurpers and Germanic tribes, but was unable to prevent the secession of important provinces. His 15-year reign was the longest in half a century.
Marcus Claudius Tacitus was Roman emperor from 275 to 276. During his short reign he campaigned against the Goths and the Heruli, for which he received the title Gothicus Maximus.
The 270s decade ran from January 1, 270, to December 31, 279.
Aurelian was a Roman emperor who reigned from 270 to 275 during the Crisis of the Third Century. As emperor, he won an unprecedented series of military victories which reunited the Roman Empire after it had nearly disintegrated under the pressure of barbarian invasions and internal revolts. Born in modest circumstances, most likely in Moesia Superior, he entered the Roman army in 235 and climbed up the ranks. He went on to lead the cavalry of the emperor Gallienus, until Gallienus' assassination in 268. Following that, Claudius Gothicus became emperor until his own death in 270. Claudius' brother Quintillus then ruled for three months, before Aurelian took the empire for himself.
Marcus Aurelius Claudius "Gothicus", also known as Claudius II, was Roman emperor from 268 to 270. During his reign he fought successfully against the Alemanni and decisively defeated the Goths at the Battle of Naissus. He died after succumbing to a "pestilence", possibly the Plague of Cyprian that had ravaged the provinces of the Empire.
The Battle of Naissus was the defeat of a Gothic coalition by the Roman Empire under Emperor Gallienus and the future Emperor Aurelian near Naissus. The events around the invasion and the battle are an important part of the history of the Crisis of the Third Century.
Flavius Valerius Constantius, also called Constantius I, was a Roman emperor from 305 to 306. He was one of the four original members of the Tetrarchy established by Diocletian, first serving as caesar from 293 to 305 and then ruling as augustus until his death. Constantius was also father of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome. The nickname "Chlorus" was first popularized by Byzantine-era historians and not used during the emperor's lifetime.
Marcus Aurelius Probus was Roman emperor from 276 to 282. Probus was an active and successful general as well as a conscientious administrator, and in his reign of six years he secured prosperity for the inner provinces while withstanding repeated invasions of barbarian tribes on almost every sector of the frontier.
Marcus Aurelius Carus was Roman emperor from 282 to 283. During his short reign, Carus fought the Germanic tribes and Sarmatians along the Danube frontier with success.
Gaius Pius Esuvius Tetricus was the emperor of the Gallic Empire from 271 to 274 AD. He was originally the praeses (governor) of Gallia Aquitania and became emperor after the murder of Emperor Victorinus in 271, with the support of Victorinus's mother, Victoria. During his reign, he faced external pressure from Germanic raiders, who pillaged the eastern and northern parts of his empire, and the Roman Empire, from which the Gallic Empire had seceded. He also faced increasing internal pressure, which led him to declare his son, Tetricus II, caesar in 273 and possibly co-emperor in 274, although this is debated. The Roman emperor Aurelian invaded in 273 or 274, leading to the Battle of Châlons, at which Tetricus surrendered. Whether this capitulation was the result of a secret agreement between Tetricus and Aurelian or necessary after his defeat is debated. Aurelian spared Tetricus, and even made him a senator and the corrector (governor) of Lucania et Bruttium. Tetricus died of natural causes a few years after 274.
P. C. Regalianus, also known as Regalian, was Roman usurper for a few months in 260 and/or 261, during the Crisis of the Third Century, a period of intense political instability in the Roman Empire. Regalianus was acclaimed emperor by the troops along the Danube river, a region of the empire that frequently experienced barbarian raids, probably in the hope that he might be able to secure the frontier.
Aureolus was a Roman military commander during the reign of Emperor Gallienus before he attempted to usurp the Roman Empire. After turning against Gallienus, Aureolus was killed during the political turmoil that surrounded the Emperor's assassination in a conspiracy orchestrated by his senior officers. Aureolus is known as one of the Thirty Tyrants and is referenced in ancient sources including the Historia Augusta, Zonaras' epitome and Zosimus' Historia Nova.
The Carpi or Carpiani were a Dacian tribe that resided in the eastern parts of modern Romania in the historical region of Moldavia from no later than c. AD 140 and until at least AD 318.
This is a chronology of warfare between the Romans and various Germanic peoples. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings, later Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire that started in the late second century BC, and more. The series of conflicts was one factor which led to the ultimate downfall of the Western Roman Empire in particular and ancient Rome in general in 476.
The so-called Free Dacians is the name given by some modern historians to those Dacians who putatively remained outside, or emigrated from, the Roman Empire after the emperor Trajan's Dacian Wars. Dio Cassius named them Dakoi prosoroi meaning "neighbouring Dacians".
The Marcomannic Wars were a series of wars lasting from about 166 until 180 AD. These wars pitted the Roman Empire against principally the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi and the Sarmatian Iazyges; there were related conflicts with several other Germanic, Sarmatian and Gothic peoples along both sides of the whole length of the Roman Empire's northeastern European border, the river Danube.
The Battle of Mediolanum took place in 259, between the Alemanni and the Roman legions under the command of Emperor Gallienus.
Marcus(?) Aurelius Heraclianus was a Roman soldier who rose to the rank of Praetorian Prefect in the latter part of the reign of the Emperor Gallienus. He was a member of the cabal of senior commanders of the Imperial field army that plotted and achieved the assassination of the Emperor Gallienus. His subsequent fate is uncertain. The only ancient reference has him committing suicide, but the circumstances are unclear.
The German and Sarmatian campaigns of Constantine were fought by the Roman Emperor Constantine I against the neighbouring Germanic peoples, including the Franks, Alemanni and Goths, as well as the Sarmatian Iazyges, along the whole Roman northern defensive system to protect the empire's borders, between 306 and 336.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)