Legions of Rome (86 page)

AD
357
LXX. BATTLE OF ARGENTORATUM
Decision at Strasbourg

It was early August when Roman scouts reported that an army of Alemanni tribesmen had made camp not far west of the Rhine between Argentoratum, today’s Strasbourg, and Drusenheim. Camped 21 miles (33.8 kilometers) away, Julian, Rome’s young deputy emperor, gave the order for his army to move. The sun was just rising as Roman trumpets sounded the order to march and the troops tramped from their camp. As the infantry led the way, cavalry units fell in beside them to guard the column’s flanks.

This was a very different Roman army from those that had marched this very road in centuries past: the armies of Julius Caesar, and of Drusus, Tiberius and Germanicus Caesar, and of Cerialis, the general who had put down the Civilis Revolt here on the Rhine. Four centuries earlier, those Roman armies had comprised as many as fifteen legions plus auxiliaries, with well over 100,000 men. Julian’s army totaled just 13,000.

Of Julian’s units only two legions are known. One was the Legio Primani, or 1st Legion. This may well have been the former 1st Minervia Legion, with the pagan goddess stripped from its title in these (officially) Christian times. The 1st Minervia, unlike the 1st Legion, was not to be listed in the Notitia Dignitatum, compiled shortly after this; but the 1st (or Primani) Legion was. The 1st, a Palatine legion, came under the control of the 2nd Master of Military Readiness. It was one of six legions and thirty cavalry and auxiliary units making up a “ready” force which was supposed to be thrown into any trouble spot in a hurry.

Julian’s other known legion was the Legio Regii, a reasonably recent creation of unknown provenance. The Regii was one of thirty-two
legiones comitatenses
, or “escort” legions, and was subject to the Master of Infantry. No other legions in Julian’s force are identified, if indeed there were any others. The majority of Julian’s troops were auxiliary units. There were one or more cohorts of Batavian infantry—both the Batavian Seniors and Batavian Juniors came under the control of the Master of Infantry. And Julian’s force also included several cohorts of Germans of the Bracchiati and the Cornuti tribes.

For cavalry, Julian had at least three squadrons of light cavalry including one commanded by the future emperor Valentinian. Julian also had the Equites Cataphractii, a heavy cavalry “ready” squadron whose men and horses both carried extensive mailed armor. Also coming under the Master of the Military, this unit appears to have accompanied Julian to Gaul from Milan, where the ready cavalry units were based. In Julian’s force the unit was led by a tribune by the name of Innocentius. Julian’s deputy was Severus, the emperor’s Master of Horse.

Despite the summer heat, Julian’s little army made good progress on the march during the morning. Just before noon, not far from Argentoratum, Julian called a halt, for his scouts had just warned him that the enemy was over a rise ahead. From the back of his horse, Julian addressed his troops. They had marched all morning, he told his men, so he now proposed that they build a marching camp with ditch, walls and palisade, and attack the Germans first thing next morning after a good night’s sleep. But his troops disagreed, and rapped their javelins on their shields to let him know it. They did not want rest, they wanted to come to grips with the enemy, now.

Julian’s troops, many of whom had come off the worst against the Alemanni in previous encounters, had come to respect their young commander after his successful campaigning of the past two seasons, and considered him a lucky general. [Amm.,
XVI
, 12, 13] Even the civilian administrator of Gaul, the Praetorian prefect Florentinus—Praetorian prefects having become financial officers since the abolition of the Praetorian Guard—urged the young Caesar to give the men their head and lead them to battle without delay. Seeing that his troops could not be dissuaded, Julian gave the order to recommence the march.

The standards went ahead with the troops of the vanguard, bunched together in time-honored fashion, with the first rank centurions of the legions marching with the standard-bearers. [Ibid., 12, 20] The gentle hill climbed by the marching Roman
army was covered with ripened wheat wafting in the late morning breeze. On the summit ahead, three mounted German scouts and several comrades on foot were watching the Romans approach. But the scouts lingered too long. As Roman light cavalry suddenly burst from the marching column and galloped toward them, the mounted Germans realized their danger, turned and rode off, leaving their unmounted companions to fend for themselves. All but one of the running Germans was sufficiently fleet of foot to get away; the odd man out was snared by Julian’s cavalry, and brought to Julian. Under questioning, the prisoner revealed that German forces had been crossing the Rhine for the last three days.

As the Romans broached the hill, they saw the German army spread not far below them on the river plain, formed up in close-packed wedge formations and waiting for them. The Roman vanguard halted, and spread in a solid line. Auxiliary units formed a front line. The legions came up and took the center of a second line, flanked by more auxiliaries. As had been the case for hundreds of years, the standard-bearers took their station between the lines, accompanied by the trumpeters. At Julian’s command, all his cavalry wheeled to one side and formed up on his right, for his scouts had warned him that the Germans had dug trenches on his left.

As was their custom, the Alemanni had elected two of their kings to act as generals for this campaign. The commander-in-chief was Chonodomar, and the Romans could see him riding along his left wing mounted on a massive charger—it had to be a large horse, for Chonodomar was a huge man, tall and of “mighty muscular strength” despite his immense weight. He wore shining armor, and a gleaming helmet distinguished by a red plume. In the opinion of Ammianus, who was then a junior officer in the imperial bodyguard, Chonodomar was both a tough fighter and the most skillful general in the Alemanni ranks. [Ibid.,
XVI
, 12, 24]

Chonodomar’s deputy was his brother’s son, Serapio, a young man who had yet to successfully grow a beard yet who possessed ability and maturity well beyond his years. Serapio’s father, previously a hostage of the Romans in Gaul for many years, had changed the boy’s name from Agenarich to Serapio after studying the Greek-Egyptian mysteries involving the all-powerful god Serapis, who was variously likened to a bull and to the sun. Young Serapio had command of the German right wing. The clans and tribes of the army were led by the other five Alemanni kings and ten princes. Around them spread the German wedges, made up of 35,000 warriors drafted from the various tribes. [Ibid., 12, 26]

Chonodomar and his fellow German leaders knew that their fighters outnumbered young Julian’s army by close to three to one. And as they spied the Roman units forming up on the rise, they recognized many of the unit emblems on their shields as belonging to the same units that had run before them in battles in Gaul over the past few years. [Ibid., 12, 6] The confidence of the Germans, already high, soared.

Julian had taken up his position. Trumpets blared orders on both sides. Julian’s left wing began to advance down the slope. Severus, the Roman commander on the left, was aware that trenches dug by the Germans lay in the path of his advance. The Germans had planned to spring out of the trenches and assault the Romans when they came close, but Severus, anticipating this, ordered his troops to halt well short of the Alemanni trenches.

Julian, accompanied by a bodyguard of 200 cavalry, moved along the front of the stationary Roman lines at the center, stopping every now then to give a brief speech to the troops in front of him. Each speech was a little different from the last. “The real time for fighting” had come, he told one group. When another part of the line called on him to give the signal to attack now, he urged them not to ruin their coming victory by disobeying orders and chasing the enemy too far on the one hand or in giving ground on another. To men in the rear ranks, he said, “Fellow soldiers, the long hoped for day has arrived.” It was time “to wash away the old stains and restore majestic Rome’s due honor.” [Ibid., 12, 31–2]

As Julian was still talking, a roar went up from the German ranks. As one, the Alemanni called on their kings and princes to fight on foot with their men. Without hesitation Chonodomar sprang from his horse, and his fellow royals followed suit and sent their horses away. Trumpets sounded. Missiles were exchanged by both sides for a time, with the air filling with arrows, javelins, spears and stones. And then, with a deep-throated roar, the long-haired, bearded warriors on the German left dashed forward to engage the stationary Roman cavalry, wielding their massive swords in their right hands as they ran. “Their flowing hair made a terrible sight, and a sort of madness shone from their eyes,” said Ammianus. [Ibid., 12, 36]

The Roman cavalry closed up. Auxiliary infantry moved close to protect their flanks. The Germans surged into their line. All the Roman infantry used their shields to protect their heads from the raining sword blows, jabbing back with their swords and hurling darts when they could. Soon, clouds of thick dust were raised by the struggling combatants. As the Romans stood their ground, forming a solid barrier
with their oval shields, whose bottom edges sat on the ground, Germans used their knees in an attempt to push the shields back while they swung their swords at the same time. Behind the combined weight of the Germans, some front-line Roman infantry on the right began to give a little ground.

On the Roman left, impatient Germans in the trenches had sprung out and launched themselves at Severus’ stationary front line. But Severus’ infantry beat them back, and, on Severus’ command, began to slowly advance in tight formation, wheeling a little to the right to avoid the trenches. With triumphant shouts, Severus’ men pushed into the German center.

On the right, the hard-pressed Roman cavalry, unaccustomed to standing and fighting in the one spot, lost its nerve, and broke. Many riders fell back, only to be confronted by the men of closed-up second-line infantry, who refused to let them through. The Roman cavalry officers were regrouping their formations when the cataphracts saw their commander Innocentio sustain a wound, and then a cataphract’s horse went down, catapulting the rider over its head to the ground. The heavy cavalry panicked, infecting all the Roman cavalry, which attempted to scatter. Again the second-line Roman infantry held their positions, and refused to let their own cavalry break their close-knit ranks.

Seeing the cavalry disperse this second time, young Julian kicked his horse into motion, and rode into their path, urging them back to the fight. Behind him rode his standard-bearer, with his purple draco standard streaming in the breeze. The tribune of one squadron, coming face to face with the deputy emperor, paled with guilt, turned his horse around, and dived back into the fight.

The Alemanni on the Roman right, having dispersed the cavalry, threw themselves on Julian’s front-line infantry, the Cornuti and the Bracchiati. These German auxiliary units gave their national battle cry, which, said Ammianus, “rises from a low murmur and gradually grows louder, like waves dashing against the cliffs.” [Ibid, 12, 43] But the Alemanni, taller, stronger and fiercer than their opponents, succeeded in encircling the Cornuti and Bracchiati, who seemed to be in dire trouble as the Germans repeatedly crashed their swords against the raised Roman shields, attempting to hack through them as they would hack through a forest. Among the Cornuti who now fell was a tribune commanding a cohort.

The Roman second line had been waiting and watching. On Julian’s command, the Batavian auxiliaries, and the “formidable” troops of the Regii Legion, who bore
the emblem of a thirteen-pointed star on their oval shields, advanced in formation at double quick time, and smashed into the Alemanni, to “rescue” their comrades. [Ibid., 12, 45; & Not. Dig.] But the Alemanni would not give way. Some were seen to drop to their left knee in their exhaustion, yet from that position they would continue to flail at the nearest Romans with their long swords.

In the center, a “fiery band of nobles” burst through the Roman first line, and dashed to the second line. These Alemanni nobles ran on to the immovable orange shields of the 1st Legion. The legion had taken up a close-packed formation called Praetorian Camp—a square—and with their shields locked together and employing iron discipline that kept them rooted to the spot, these men created an impregnable barrier. Through gaps in the shield line the Romans jabbed at the Germans’ unprotected torsos, and soon Alemanni were piled in front of them; the ground flowed with blood that made it difficult under foot for the next wave of Alemanni that came up to replace the first.

As the blood flowed, despair began to flow through the Alemanni ranks. The Romans held firm and dealt out death with each passing minute. Here, a German warrior broke and fled the battle, there another. Soon, it was an epidemic. The Germans were turning and running in their thousands. The Romans gave chase, overtaking many and slashing them down from behind. Now, the Germans’ size counted for nothing; it merely meant that they made larger targets for Roman weapons as they ran. Piles of corpses soon blocked retreat. Many Germans ran to the bank of the Rhine. A number jumped into the river to escape their Roman pursuers, and in the water some were transfixed by Roman spears, while others were swept away and drowned. Thousands of Alemanni swam the river, others floated away clinging to their shields. On the bank, Julian and his officers yelled to their men not to go into the river after the enemy, for that would be a death trap.

And then it was all over. The Battle of Argentoratum, or Battle of Strasbourg as some modern historians dub it, was at an end. For the Roman soldiers, who had not tasted success against the Germans for a long, long time, Argentoratum was a total victory. Roman losses were 243 rank and file and four tribunes including the commander of the cataphracts. Six thousand Alemanni dead were counted on the battlefield; many more had been killed in the Rhine. [Ibid. 12, 62] King Chonodomar was tracked by a Roman cohort to a wooded hill beside the Rhine. There, the Alemanni leader surrendered, together with three close friends and 200 men.