Legions of Rome (75 page)

The three legions that returned to their bases on the Danube and Rhine in
AD
166 took back more than just spoils from Parthia; they brought back “the germ of that pestilence,” said Ammianus Marcellinus, “which, after generating the virulence
of incurable diseases in the time of the same [Lucius] and Marcus [Aurelius] polluted everything with contagion and death, from the frontiers of Persia all the way to the Rhine and Gaul.” [Amm.,
II
, xxiii, 6, 24] The plague brought back by the victorious legionaries would sweep through Europe.

AD
166–175
LI. MARCUS AURELIUS’ DANUBE WARS
Decade of death

Marcus Aurelius could not wait for the return of Lucius and his legions from the East. To counter German tribes now threatening Italy, he urgently raised two new legions, in Italy, the 1st Italica and 2nd Italica. By the end of
AD
165, both new legions were stationed at the city of Aquileia in northeastern Italy. This was the first time in 200 years, apart from the civil war of
AD
68–69, that legions had been stationed in Italy, and the move signaled the seriousness of Rome’s situation.

As soon as the seasonal winds had brought Lucius and his three depleted legions back to Italy by sea, Marcus and Lucius sat down to plan how they would counter the German tribes pressuring the northern frontier. Dacia, the only Roman province north of the Danube, and with just the 13th Gemina Legion at Apulum, stood particularly exposed. The 5th Macedonica Legion had been based at Novae in Moesia prior to going to the East; now, Marcus and Lucius sent it to Dacia, to establish a base at Potaissa.

That summer of
AD
166, 6,000 Suebi of the Langobardi and Obii tribes from along the Elbe in northwestern Germany crossed the Danube into Pannonia. But their incursion was cut short by Praetorian Prefect Marcus Macrinus Vindex. Sent north by Marcus and Lucius with a cavalry column, Vindex intercepted the Germans and delayed the enemy until joined by infantry. “The barbarians were completely routed,” said Dio. As a result, King Ballomarius of the Marcomanni, and ten other German leaders met with the governor of Pannonia, Jallius Bassus, to discuss a peace treaty. [Dio,
LXXII
, 3]

The Marcomanni and their cousins the Quadi and Iazyges had been allies of Rome since the reign of Augustus, with just one blemish on their record when the Marcomanni had made a pre-emptive strike into Pannonia during the reign of Domitian.
Time and again over two centuries, the Marcomanni had sided with Rome for the sake of peace. As for the Iazyges, they had not even complained when Trajan kept a parcel of their territory won from the Dacians and incorporated it into the province of Dacia. The German leaders now ratified a peace treaty with the Roman governor, the raiders withdrew across the Danube, and all seemed well again on the frontier.

But in
AD
167, more German tribes came flooding down through Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia and into northern Italy. This time, intent on plunder and unimpressed by Rome’s imperial duopoly, the Marcomanni, Quadi and Iazyges joined the surge.
Crossing the Danube at various points, they stormed into Rome’s Danubian provinces. In times past, Rome had even placed kings over these nations, and, in
AD
98, Tacitus had written that the Marcomanni and Quadi “occasionally received armed assistance from us; more often financial aid.” [Tac.,
Germ
., 42] But Rome was no longer seen as the power it once was, and its Danubian underbelly offered a tempting route to riches.

The German invaders reached northern Italy, besieging the Italian city of Aquileia, sweeping over the Venetian plain, and, 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of today’s city of Venice, the Germans sacked and destroyed the crossroads town of Opitergium, modern-day Oderzo. Countless Roman civilians were killed throughout the region, and many more taken captive as a dozen German tribes ravaged the countryside and drove off thousands of head of stock. It was as if the gods of Germany had announced open season on Roman territory; the people of Rome were in terror of the barbarians reaching the very gates of the capital.

To counter the invasions, Marcus and Lucius deployed legions under Publius Helvius Pertinax and Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus. A 40-year-old praetor, Pertinax was famously the son of a freedman, while Pompeianus was the husband of Marcus’ daughter Lucilla. Both generals would distinguish themselves in the campaigns ahead. This war also served as the baptism of fire for the two new Italica legions. It would be “a mighty struggle,” said Dio. [Dio,
LXXII
, 3]

Called the Marcomanni Wars by later historians despite the fact that many German tribes including the Marcomanni, Quadi, Iazyges, Buri, Vandili and Naristi took part, the conflict would be better described as the Danube Wars. With only the occasional pause, the fighting went on for a decade, and was all embracing, for both sides. When the Romans took the fight across the Danube and into Bohemia, even women warriors clad in armor were found among the German dead. Marcus’ co-emperor Lucius did not live to see the end of it; he died in
AD
169; as the result of poisoning, according to Dio. The following year, several lesser German tribes sued for peace, but it was when the Quadi came to the treaty table that year that it seemed as if “a brilliant victory” had been gained by Rome. [Ibid.]

To be closer to the battlefront, Marcus had relocated from Rome to Carnuntum, modern-day Petronell in Austria, 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Vienna. Carnuntum was a pleasant if undistinguished Pannonian village in rolling hills south of the wandering Danube. The permanent stone-walled base of the 14th Gemina Martia Victrix
Legion stood here. Marcus’ wife, the empress Faustina, who was the daughter of the previous emperor Antoninus Pius, joined Marcus at Carnuntum.

There at Carnuntum in
AD
170, the emperor received peace envoys from Furtius, king of the Quadi. To seal the peace, the Quadi delivered thousands of captured horses and cattle into Roman hands, and promised to hand over 13,000 Roman captives and military deserters at once. Marcus granted the Quadi peace, in the hope, said Dio, that this would separate them from the Marcomanni. Furtius also promised not to accept Marcomanni or Iazyge fugitives, nor to let them pass through Quadi territory. Although he agreed to the peace with them, Marcus banned the Quadi from markets in Roman territory while the war lasted, in case other Germans posed as Quadi to reconnoiter Roman positions and purchase provisions. [Dio,
LXXII
, 11]

Before the year was out, several other German tribes surrendered. Marcus formed their fittest fighting men and returned deserters into auxiliary units and sent them to serve in the farthest reaches of the empire. Other surrendered Germans were settled on land in Dacia, Pannonia, Moesia, the Rhine provinces, and even in Italy. Some were settled in the Italian naval city of Ravenna, but that proved a mistake—dazzled by the wealth around them, the Germans rose up before long and seized control of the city. They were soon dealt with, probably by marines and sailors from the Ravenna Fleet, and removed from the country. Marcus would not make the same error again.

In
AD
171, while Marcus was launching into the writing of his famous Meditations at Carnuntum, one of his armies, led by Praetorian Prefect Vindex, was defeated in Bohemia by the Marcomanni, with Vindex himself falling. Marcus, never a well man, was forced to assume a more prominent military role, and personally led one of his armies on the next campaign against the Iazyges. Marcus was so frail and sickly, said Dio, that when he stepped up on to the tribunal to address an assembly of his troops one wintry day he was chilled by the cold and could not open his mouth, and had to retire to the warmth of his praetorium. [Dio,
LXXII
, 6]

In Bohemia, the legions under Pertinax and Pompeianus fought the Marcomanni to a standstill, and by
AD
172 the king of the Marcomanni, Ballomarus, had sealed a peace treaty with Marcus and withdrawn from the conflict. “In view of the fact they had fulfilled all the conditions imposed on them, albeit grudgingly and reluctantly,” Marcus restored to the tribe half of what had previously been considered a neutral zone along the northern bank of the Danube, permitting them to settle to within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of the river. Both sides exchanged prisoners, and days for regular
trading between Roman and Marcomanni merchants were established. [Dio,
LXXII
, 15]

In theory, both the Quadi and the Marcomanni were now out of the war, leaving just the Iazyges further east to confront. But Marcus did not trust the Quadi. Since King Furtius had signed the peace treaty he had been overthrown by his own people, who had given themselves a new king, Ariogaesus. And under the new king’s reign, contrary to the peace conditions signed by his predecessor, Marcomanni fugitives fleeing Roman troops were helped by the Quadi.

When envoys came to Marcus from Ariogaesus to confirm the treaty signed by Furtius and offering to return another 50,000 Roman prisoners, the emperor steadfastly refused to recognize the new king. Furtius had been placed over the Quadi by Antoninus Pius, Marcus said, and he reserved the right to appoint a king of the Quadi of his choice. The envoys of Ariogaesus were sent away empty-handed. To encourage the Quadi to hand over their new ruler, Marcus offered a reward for Ariogaesus, alive, of 100,000 sesterces (the equivalent of eighty-three years’ salary for a legionary), half that for his head. [Ibid.]

When the Quadi failed to hand over their new king, Marcus lost patience with them. They did send back some Roman captives, but only the old and infirm; or, if they were in good physical condition, the Quadi retained the captives’ families so the men would come back to their territory to be with their loved ones. Marcus determined that the only way that Rome could remove the threat posed by the Quadi was with the sword.

AD
174
LII. THE THUNDERING 12TH
Triumphing for Marcus

With the Danube Wars dragging on and casualties mounting, Marcus Aurelius sent for reinforcements from the East. By the summer of
AD
174, the 12th Fulminata Legion had arrived in Pannonia from its long-time base at Melitene in Cappadocia. The 12th Fulminata Legion had not long been on the Danube when it was called out to follow the emperor to intercept a Quadi offensive. Led by King Ariogaesus, the tribe had re-entered the war, launching a surprise campaign across the Danube.
Marcus, with just the newly arrived 12th Fulminata plus auxiliaries and no doubt elements of the Praetorian Guard and Singularian Horse, marched to deal with them.

At the height of summer, on a battlefield in Pannonia, the two armies met. It was on ground favorable to the Quadi, and a blisteringly hot day, according to Dio, when the German tribesmen, “far superior in numbers,” apparently caught the legionaries on the march early one morning. [Dio,
LXXII
, 8]

“Only a few of them have swords or large lances,” Tacitus wrote of German warriors. “They carry spears called
framea
in their language, with short and narrow blades.” These were so sharp and easy to handle that they could be used at close quarters or in long-range fighting, for the Germans could hurl them great distances. The tribesmen frequently went into battle naked, or merely wearing a short cloak. Occasionally a breastplate could be seen, and here and there a helmet of metal or leather. Their most distinctive piece of equipment was the small wooden shield, painted with bright colors. Singing battle songs in honor of Donar, the German Hercules, and shaking their weapons at the Romans, the barefoot, long-haired and bearded Quadi were confident of victory. [Tac.,
Germ
., 6]

The situation looked grim for Marcus Aurelius and the surrounded 12th. With their shields locked together, said Dio, and apparently in orbis formation, the legionaries created a solid wall around themselves, with the cavalry and the emperor’s party in the middle of their formation. Despite expending several hours, many of their spears and much energy, the Quadi could not break through the legionary line. [Dio,
LXXII
, 8] King Ariogaesus therefore halted the attack and pulled his warriors back, continuing to encircle the 12th Fulminata and their emperor, waiting for a Roman capitulation. For Marcus and the 12th Fulminata Legion, said Dio, “were in a terrible plight, from fatigue, wounds, the heat of the sun, and their thirst.” [Ibid.]

With Marcus Aurelius was Arnuphis, an Egyptian who was, said Dio, a magician. Arnuphis now began to chant incantations to various deities, in particular the Egyptian equivalent of Mercury, god of the air, seeking intervention on behalf of the emperor and his troops. Clouds soon gathered; heavy rain began to fall. “At first, all turned their faces upward and received the water in their mouths. Then some held out their shields, and some, their helmets, to catch it.” The Roman troops not only drank deeply of the rainwater but also gave it to their horses. The blood of some wounded Roman soldiers flowed into their helmets, but that did not deter them; they gratefully drank the bloody water. [Ibid.]