Romans and Barbarians: Four Views From the Empire's Edge (3 page)

A corollary to the cessation of expansion would be an armed frontier, soon to evolve along the Rhine and Danube. It would continue to be strengthened throughout the period and be joined by others in the Near East and North Africa. This represented an exchange of the informal boundaries of the Republican period, held by treaty and supported by bribery or menace, for a precise line of exclusion guarded by Roman soldiers. The barbarians would be allowed through its checkpoints in time of peace and in numbers acceptable to the Roman authorities, providing entry was in daylight, unarmed and after payment of dues.
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Though the army would continue to patrol the near
Barbaricum,
gathering intelligence, mediating in disputes and paying stipends to friendly chieftains, the frontier could now be sealed at a moment's notice. However, that the mistress of the world should even consider hiding behind barriers suggests deep changes in attitude, whose origins are also described in Episode Two: a recognition of the size of the outside nations, an acceptance that the gulf between those inside and outside the empire was unlikely to be bridged and barbarian envy unlikely to be assuaged. Time confirms this pessimism. The centuries offer no example of a frontier's dismantling because improved relations made it unnecessary; or of voluntary fusion between the empire and its neighbours brought about by the onset of goodwill.

The First Episode sees the poet Ovid looking from the wall of a Black Sea outpost onto savage but skilful horsemen. This exemplifies the security problem of antiquity. On the one hand, a cultural gap and disparity of wealth between the classical and barbarian worlds too big to promise indefinite peace; on the other, advantages in military technique too small to guarantee a permanent Roman lead. Furthermore the
pax Romana,
with it laws against the bearing of arms, created a state whose civilian majority would forget how to fight.

The situation described by Ovid will not be revived till the 16th–19th centuries, when the age of exploration takes Europeans across oceans and the Old and New Worlds collide. Most obviously, his vision of mounted archers circling the walls reminds one of Indians round a paleface stockade. But the comparison is unfavourable to Rome in two respects: the American settlers had firearms; and their support, in terms of numbers migrating from the motherlands, was almost limitless. Rome's lacklustre technology would never put a decisive weapon into her soldiers' hands; and population pressures would work not outwards against the barbarians but inwards against the empire.

At present, however, Rome still disposed of muscle enough and her astuteness in co-opting other nations and diverting their energies to advantage has been mentioned. During the century covered by these episodes the last quarter of imperial territory will be acquired. It is only as the period ends that Hadrian dares flout Rome's glorious traditions by making pacifism a plank of policy. With his successor, Antoninus, the empire reaches its floodtide of prosperity. Yet, by the end of the 2nd century, the best will be over. Military dictatorship, assassination,
coup d'état,
overtaxation and inflation mark the down-path. Rome's sickness will be sensed by the outside peoples and as she neglects the art of unity they begin to cultivate it.

However, the rebound of the barbarians and their eventual part in the formation of Europe are still centuries away. At the time of this study the peoples ranged in relative docility round the empire were, to the north, Celts, Germans and Sarmatians; to the east, various Iranian groups, most notably Parthians, plus the Arab tribes; and, in Africa, Hamitic natives of Ethiopian and Berber strains. First, however, it should be asked what Romans understood by ‘barbarian'. The actual term seems to have arisen from Greek mimicry of unfamiliar language, i.e. ‘bar-bar', rather as we say ‘jabber-jabber'. The Latin
barbatus
(bearded) appears to describe a barbarian characteristic rather than to supply the expression. Though the name was applied to nations outside the classical orbit, not all the empire's neighbours were considered barbarians. Apart from bedouin, the Near and Middle Eastern races were seldom so described. Literary usage suggests that ‘barbarian' meant what it does today: the opposite to civilized; and that barbarians were seen as backward, wayward and dangerous. In practice, the barbarians with whom Rome had contact were largely European, though these extended indefinitely eastwards into northern Asia. In North Africa the surviving word ‘Berber' implies that the interior tribes were also called by this name. However, these were fewer and further from mainstream events, as demonstrated by the guarding of North Africa (other than Egypt) by a single legion, in contrast to Europe's fourteen.
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To concentrate on the three ethnic groups confronting the empire in Europe is to focus on the barbarians about whom most is known, whose importance for history is greatest and who offer the widest spectrum of development: from the creative Celts, on the verge of literacy, to the still nomadic Sarmatians, gruesome in their savagery.

In Egypt the barbarian problem would easily be solved by barring the Nile at its first cataract, while the Eastern and Western Deserts largely looked after themselves. In the remainder of North Africa the barrier of the Sahara shielded the Roman provinces from invasion, though nomadism on its fringes was a source of nuisance, as it was along the Syrian and Arabian frontiers. In the East, however, stability hinged on a single factor: the longstanding rivalry between Rome and Parthia, each coveting the other's nearer provinces but neither finding strength to hold them. Major conflict was in practice rare. Europe presented more complex problems, arising from fragmentation and the unsettled times. Here Rome faced a crazy paving of tribe beyond tribe, in which annexation of one simply brought her into contact with others. Continuing to advance offered conquest without conclusion; ceasing meant bribing unconquered tribes to keep the peace. It was the dilemma of power: to expand, overgrow and become unmanageable; or to halt and consolidate, but become the paymaster of covetous clans.

In recent years historians have built another bridge between classical and Iron Age studies by reinterpreting Roman influence upon the
Barbaricum
in economic terms. Whether a creature buffeted by such fickle winds as prehistoric man – or indeed man in any period – is a reliable basis for ‘model' construction, is doubtful. Nevertheless this theory deserves attention because it is compatible with archaeological facts. Some 100 or 150 miles east of the Rhine there begins a zone of chieftainly graves, containing prestigious goods of Roman origin. This continues for a further 200 miles into Central Germany. A similar zone is encountered on the barbarian side of the Danube. In pre-conquest Gaul archaeology traces a corresponding band of interments across Central France at a comparable distance from Roman Provence. In each instance there is the same gap of 100 or more miles between Roman territory and the start of the splendiferous burial belt.

To explain these grave-goods, which often include objects associated with sumptuous wining and dining, there is another theory, known as ‘prestige goods dependency'. According to this, a tribal society can be made dependent upon a more advanced neighbour simply by supplying novel and luxurious goods to its chieftain. For his part the chieftain will corner the supply by ensuring that no such products enter his territory other than through him. In this way he makes himself the sole source of bounty and giver of spectacular gifts, feasts and carousals, and his influence will be greatly enhanced. The situation is echoed in modern monarchy's monopoly in the bestowal of titles and decorations, except that in the barbarian case the rewards took the form of imports, which could be withheld by the outside supplier. Cessation of the flow could have dire consequences for a dependent chieftain.

Returning to the cross-frontier model: this proposes three zones and accounts for the entire near
Barbaricum,
to a depth of about 500 miles. To take the example of the Rhine: the zone nearest the river (Western Germany) was that in which the Roman army could intervene directly to influence tribal politics. It was therefore unnecessary to create an addiction to prestige goods. In any case, it would hardly be feasible for a chief to monopolize trade in a region so close to the frontier and its markets. Here coin prevailed, if not between Germans then as a medium of trade with the Romans. Chieftains would be paid in it; both to keep the peace and permit traffic through their territories to and from the belt beyond. This was the second zone (Central Germany), classic location for the exercise of ‘prestige goods dependency', being too far from the frontier for general access to its markets or for coinage to be useful. Supplies for this zone are likely to have moved in guarded consignment to chieftainly recipients. It is unclear what proportion was regular commercial traffic, for example wine, and what were diplomatic gifts, such as silver goblets and dinner services of finest craftmanship. No doubt there were both. What did Rome ask in return? The answer is, of course, the implementation of pro-Roman policies; but also, almost certainly, slaves. A third zone (Eastern Germany) is therefore postulated for procurement, where slaves were seized in raids or taken as prisoners of war.

The model is buttressed by the frequency of coins in the western zone, lavish interments in the central zone and so-called warrior burials in the eastern zone, where grave-goods emphasize weaponry, suggesting a region of tension and strife. It is also consistent with the imperial economy. Because industrial development was limited and tradition forbade senators to engage in commerce, agriculture was the principal outlet for investment available to the Roman rich. This led to the formation of large estates, worked mainly by slaves. As peace became the 1st-century norm, the flow of prisoners of war to the slave market dwindled and the search for sources within the barbarian lands must inevitably have intensified.

Based on a sustained flow of luxuries toward its centre and constant slave raiding along its edge, it need hardly be added that the model seems unstable. The movement of prestige goods could be interrupted owing to troubles within the empire. The procurement zone might seek a larger share of the middle zone's benefits; or, depopulated by the constant activities of slavers, more distant tribes might be tempted to invade, leading to an implosion toward the frontier whose security the system was supposed to support.

Little is gained by testing the model against written sources, which yield few details regarding cross-frontier transactions and tell us almost nothing of the deeper
Barbaricum.
The best information is from the 1st-century
BC
and earlier. The huge size of wine shipments is known from the case of a merchant arraigned for non-payment of export duty;
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while many a lost cargo tells underwater archaeology the same story. Diodorus of Sicily goes a step further in relating wine trade to slave trade:

Great guzzlers are the Gauls. They drink wine at full strength; and when sozzled either pass out or act crazy. Small wonder the Italian merchants rate them as their most valued customers, plying the plonk upriver by the boatload and overland by the cartload. And great is their reward, for the price of one amphora is one slave.
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Athenaeus (quoting from a lost work by Posidonius) offers a colourful instance of chieftainly craving for popularity in his vignette of a Gaulish prince, scattering gold and silver pieces from his chariot to tens of thousands of followers; then throwing a feast, lasting many days, in a field of one-and-a-half square miles extent!

In summary there is, however, no certainty during the Roman imperial period that major frontier troubles arose from the breakdown or over-exercise of the slave trade. It seems more likely that the 3rd to 5th century barbarian invasions were a result of migrational pressures from underfed regions: a Baltic unfavoured by sunlight and a Eurasian steppe unfavoured by rainfall. As for the economic model: whether or not it will stand the test of time, there is no denying the general impact of southern upon northern Europe. The needs of the empire for metals and manpower, the scope of the slave trade, the scale of the wine trade, the native aristocracy's deepening addiction to Roman products: all had profound effects on prehistoric Europe. In the thousand years between the emergence of the Greek trading colonies and the fall of Rome, much barbarian development was in reaction to Mediterranean influences and events. The picture is of two worlds in uneasy partnership, unable to do without one another but seldom at ease with each other.

It is time to look more closely at the three ethnic groups adjacent to the empire's European provinces. First, the Celts. The terms Celtic and Gallic are virtually interchangeable,
Keltoi
being either a Greek rendering of
Galatae
or, as Caesar suggests in the opening lines of the
Gallic Wars,
it was one of the names used by the Gauls themselves. The Celtic tribes were probably a merger of incomer and native, crystallizing as a recognizable people in Central Europe around 700
BC
. There was perhaps a racial relationship with the Germans, though shortly before our period the two were in conflict. A German exodus from the Baltic was squeezing the Celts out of what is now western Germany, leaving a transitional zone of mixed cultures on both sides of the Rhine. In response the Celtic centre had shifted westwards and all north-western Europe was either occupied or influenced by them. They were also in northern Italy, Austria, parts of the Balkans and even western Anatolia, as we are reminded by St Paul's
Epistle to the Galatians.

The Celts exceeded all barbarian groups in duration and intensity of contact with the Mediterranean. The southern coasts of Gaul and Spain were Celtic, and for five centuries Greek and Carthaginian traders had been busy along them. By the 2nd century
BC
these coastal Gauls had towns walled in square-cut stone, crowned with towers, containing rectangular houses arranged in paved streets. Further inland were earthen forts of Celtic tradition, enclosing settlements of thatched roundhouses; some crowning hills, spurs or other defensible positions. To meet the threat of Roman expansion, many had been refurbished with massively wide, dry-stone ramparts, braced with long beams. These impressive works of earth or stone were most numerous in a long arc, from western and central Gaul, round the north of the Alps, to the middle Danube; with clusters on the Seine and Somme, as well as in Britanny and Britain. The Belgic Gauls, whose way of life was largely pastoral, proved to be among Rome's toughest resisters. They favoured oval enclosures in low-lying situations, fitted into river bends or protected by marsh.