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IMPACT OF GOTHIC TRIBAL WARFARE ON LATE ROMAN EMPIRE.
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Foundations of Roman imperial security. Rome's Balkans frontier. Origins of Goth migratioin. Roman-Gothic relations. Decline in effectiveness of Roman Army & victories of Goths.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Foundations of Roman imperial security. Rome's Balkans frontier. Origins of Goth migratioin. Roman-Gothic relations. Decline in effectiveness of Roman Army & victories of Goths.
Paper Introduction:
LATE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE GOTHIC INCURSIONS
This research paper examines the relations between the late Roman Empire and the Gothic tribes which pressed upon Rome's frontiers in the southeast Balkans in the late 4th century A.D. The focal point is the period covered by Ammianus Marcellinus in his The Late Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378) which culminated in a devastating defeat by the Goths of the Romans outside Adrianople in Thrace in 378. The vulnerability of the empire to barbarian pressures in this area was revealed by the Gothic wars of the mid-3rd century. Despite the efforts of its reforming Illyrian emperors of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, which temporarily restored an uneasy peace on its Balkan frontiers, Rome found itself militarily overextended and internally weakened by a series of developments which rendered it incapable
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New York: Columbia UP, 1955.Marcellinus, Ammianus. He has now softened the soldiers by exposing them to shows and luxuries (472). Napthali and Reinhold said "by the time of Constantine manyoccupations (including military service) had been transformed withcompulsory hereditary obligations to the state" (476). Julian'scampaign to disestablish the Christian church and replace it with ancestralpagan gods was also an attempt to restore Rome's past glory, but it, too,had little chance of success and had a divisive effect. Conclusion The victory by the Goths outside Adrianople in 378 was theculmination of a long process of external military weakness and internalpolitical and economic decay which undermined the integrity of the outerdefense perimeter of the Roman Empire. Marcomannian Wars. According to Heather, "Gothic mayhem . The Fall of Rome Can It Be Explained? Moreover, the revivalof the Persian threat and the ever present barbarian threat in the Balkanson the doorstep of the populous and wealthy eastern cities required closerattention to those fronts. In 377, a partially reinforced Roman army fought a major engagementwith the Goths in Dobrudja in modern Bulgaria which ended in a stalemate.By 378, Heather said "Gothic raiders" with some reinforcements from AlansandHuns "spread out over the Balkans" and threatened Adrianople, a majorThracian city north of the Bosphorus (134). The Roman legionsconstituted a magnificent fighting machine, noteworthy for their courage,discipline and cohesion as an aggressive fighting force. The focal point is theperiod covered by Ammianus Marcellinus in his The Late Roman Empire (A.D.354-378) which culminated in a devastating defeat by the Goths of theRomans outside Adrianople in Thrace in 378. Gothic officers and enlisted men served with Roman legionsin their battles with the Persians in the early 4th century. Julian The Apostate. Marcus Aurelius hadinitiated the policy of receptio, the selective practice of permittingcertain outside groups to settle within the empire. II. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1978.Burns, Thomas. In the East, leading generalswere blamed for military failures, charged with various crimes and tried bykangaroo courts, sometimes without substance. W. Ammianus had grudging respect forValentinian who possessed "unfailing shrewdness in matters of state," andalthough cruel, bloodthirsty and greedy, "took some pains to control hissavage impulses" (34 and 344). Julian's intentions were good, but he perhaps undertook toomuch too quickly with an intolerant crusading zeal which offended manycitizens, such as the pleasure-loving leaders of Antioch, who mocked him.Bowerstock said "his troubles at Antioch had weakened his judgment," andled him to seek vindication in battle against the Persians (11 ). The Reach of Rome. According to Ammianus, Romans at Valens' court at first viewed theGoths' request as "good fortune which unexpectedly presented him [theemperor] with a large body of recruits" (375). The Roman Empire 27 B.C.-476 A.D.. Beginning with raids across thelower Danube in 238, the Goths and their tribal allies conductedintermittently savage wars of plunder which peaked in the 25 s and 26 s.They ambushed and killed the Emperor Decius in a frontier battle inThessalonika in 251. As a result, Starrsaid "eventually every revolt in the first two centuries was suppressed.Open challenge to the imperial system was not permitted" (121). They invited the Trevingian leaders to a banquet where theyintended to kill them; however, one of them, Fritigern, escaped. Roman-Gothic Relations under the Illyrian Emperors From roughly 271 to 328 when the Emperor Constantine built a bridgeover the Danube at Sucidava, the Romans and the Gothic tribes weregenerally at peace with each other, except for occasional Gothic raids.According to Burns, the Goths were largely preoccupied during this periodwith further migrations into the areas of present day Romania and Bulgariaand along the northern shore of the Black Sea and in inter-tribal strugglesand internecine wars with other Germanic and Scythian tribes in their path(3 -32). The Provinces of the Roman Empire. For thisand other steps to rip off the refugees, Ammianus blamed the local Romancommanders, Lupicinus and Maximus, whom he said were beset with "sinistergreed" (417). Roman Civilization Vol. From332 to 365 relations between Romans and Goths were generally peaceful, buttensions periodically erupted over Roman efforts under Constantius toChristianize the Goths. He also greatly increased thesize of the legions and supporting auxiliary troops from about 35 , toabout 5 , and divided the army between frontier garrisons and a centralmobile reserves, comitanses, which could be moved to the most threatenedfront. Nevertheless, these isolated units, roughly 3 , , were able to holdown along an elongated frontier (1,65 miles from the North Sea to theBlack Sea). . The Roman army's commanders had beendrawn into the struggles for imperial succession long before Constantius,but, as Ammianus pointed out, Constantius and his court advisers playedegregious politics with the high command. . Foundations of Imperial Security Due to its superiority in organization, governance and militaryprowess, Rome had extended its sway by the time of Caesar Antonius Pius(139-161 A.D.) over all the lands bordering on the Mediterranean Sea andmost of Western Europe. He is less kind to Valens, who he said was"something of a dunce," and "liable to intolerable fits of rage" and proneto act upon unwise and spiteful advice from his counselors (37 -371). H. Gothic Wars (238-27 ). Valens' nephew Gratian assumed command in the West and acted as regent.Meanwhile, Valens was preoccupied with Persian machinations in Armenia. By the mid-2nd century theGoths were on the move southwards into southern Poland and the Ukraine. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 2d ed., 197 . Julian himself whilesuccessful as a commander in the West was subjected to calumnies at court.He was regarded suspiciously by Constantius who begrudged Julian hisvictories and feared (rightly since Constantius had murdered his father andmany of his relatives) that Julian had imperial pretensions of his own,which were aggravated when Julian's troops proclaimed him Augustus in Parisin 36 . They were principally attracted bymore fertile land in the southern forested steppes and access to theprofitable trade up and down the rivers leading to the Black Sea. Seaborne raids across the Black Sea in 255-257ransacked the northern coast of Asia Minor and in 268 burst through theDardanelles and into the Aegean. The impetus for their arrival was demographic pressures emanatingfrom the Huns in the east. Taxes were increased to levels whichoppressed freeholders and further depressed food production. Williams said the Germanic tribes along the Rhine"detonated along its entire front" (212). Walter Hamilton. The new system of command worked fairly well so long as Diocletian'sforceful personality held it together, but after he abdicated, Williamssaid "six pretenders were soon fighting in its ruins" (243). He was succeeded bythe Christian officer, Jovian, who gave up all of Julian's conquests in theEast and died within a year. Others have suggested that decay in Rome's legions ran deeper thanpolitical rivalries among the generals and their sponsors. Gothic Victories in the 37 s In 376, Tervingi and Greuthingi Goths (later the Ostrogoths) appearedon the lower Danube and requested receptio, permission to settle within theempire. They werefinally pushed back by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-18 ) who conqueredmost of Hungary in the process. New York: St. Then,in alliance with some of the Alans, they attacked the Greuthingi, who weremainly concentrated between the Dnieper and Dniester Rivers. In 376-377 Goths raided the areas south of theDanube. Impact of the Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine The emperors whose deeds Ammianus chronicled, Constantius (337-361),Julian (361-363), Jovian (363-364) and Valens in the East (364-378) andValentinian I (364-375) and Gratian (367-383) in the West, took advantageof, and dealt with the consequences of, the reforms instituted byDiocletian and Constantine, as well as introducing some changes of theirown. Under the rule of Augustus (27 B.C.-14 A.D.) peace and prosperity hadbeen established over this vast expanse. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 2d ed., 197 .Heather, Peter. He also separated the military and civilian bureaucracies andexpanded both. Heather said "a whole series of armed groupsleft northern Poland to carve out new niches for themselves, east and westof the Carpathians" (45). . As emperor, Julian, who was personallyascetic in his habits, introduced reforms designed to reduce the corruptand cloying household imperial staff and bloated military and civilianbureaucracy, to alleviate tax burdens and restore some local governmentalprivileges which had been eroded under the centralizing Illyrian emperors.Ammianus greatly admired Julian's attempts to restore the sense of respublica or community spirit ("he set great store by citizenly behavior")which had animated Rome in earlier periods and to reduce corruption(Ammianus 296). During 235-285 Rome waspreoccupied with the Third-century Crisis, what Williams described as acombination of "an army out of control, coup[s] de etat, civil war,barbarian invasions and frontier disruptions" (21 ). Aftertwo of them, Constantine II and Constans, were killed in 34 and 35 ,respectively, Constantius, who had been in charge in the East, ruledsupreme but had to put down a revolt in the West led by a generalMagnentius (35 -355). He was succeeded by his four year old son, ValentinianII. 37-46.Starr, Chester. Trans. By2 they came into contact with the Romans along the northern frontier ofDacia. The Romans were to regroup and to repel the Goths at the gates ofConstantinople. Ammianus regardedConstantius as adept at maintaining himself in power, but said "his foreignwars had generally ended in disaster" (53).Until he had the wisdom to appoint his cousin and brother-in-law Julian tohead the army in Gaul in 351, it had performed poorly against the Alamanni.Commanders selected for their political loyalty often did not functioneffectively in combat situations. Victories of the Goths in the 37 s Ammianus said that during the reign of Valens and Valentinian,"practically the whole Roman world heard the trumpet-call of war, as savagepeoples stirred themselves and raided the frontiers nearest to them,"Alamanni in Gaul and Raetia, Sarmatians and Quadi in Pannonia, Picts andScots in Britain, Moors in Africa, Goths in Thrace and Moetia (Romania-Bulgaria) and Persians in Armenia (318). . .became an increasing and, for the first time, direct threat to the Romanempire in the middle of the third century" (42). Fritigern was then in the process of withdrawing with a large baggagetrain full of plunder. Heather said "frontier tribes were feeling considerablepressure from the north" (33). OnAugust 9, 378, Valens and two thirds of his army were slain in the Battleof Adrianople. TheGoths were not directly involved, but their migrations south from Polandwere believed to have squeezed the Vandals and Langobards out of the upperVistula who in turn placed pressure on the Marcomannis and Quadis to crossthe Danube. Ammianus described this wholesale slaughter in graphicdetail: "the barbarians poured on in huge columns, trampling down horsesand men and crushing our ranks so as to make an orderly retreat impossible"(436). Taxes were raised and their method of assessment regularizedbased on an empire-wide census. Williams said"there was no home army, no Italian command or centrally based reserve"(4). William P. The Later Roman Empire (A.D.354-378). AfterGreuthingi King Ermenaric committed suicide, remnants of the Greuthingireinforced with Trevingi Goths held off the Huns for sometime along theDniester but both were eventually pushed back into the Balkans. Its economy dependedon agriculture which declined. With hismajor flanks secured, Constantine "undertook a general pacification of thewhole Danube frontier area, and of his Gothic neighbors in particular"(Heather 59). Failure of Julian's Reforms. They crossed the Don River in about 35 andconquered the Iranic nomadic neighbors of the Greuthingi, the Alans. In this sense the Battle of Adrianople was a greatturning point in history. Decline in the Effectiveness of the Roman Army. He added "triumphs in battle were replacedby triumphs at table" (237). Mortimer Chambers. Julian and Constantius were headed for a showdown when the latterdied. Diocletian's and Constantine's reinforced armies performed wellagainst the Persians in the East and the Alamanni in the West. The Goths unwisely in 366 supported Procopius, amilitary challenger to the rule of Valens, who after disposing ofProcupius, conducted a three year campaign against the Goths (367-369)which ended in a stalemate. Economic strains. The Huns were a fierce warrior-led nomadic groupwho emanated from Central Asia. Origins of the Goths and Their Migrations The Goths originated in Scandinavia and migrated across the Baltic tothe upper Vistula in the first century A.D. Despite the efforts of its reforming Illyrian emperors ofthe late 3rd and early 4th centuries, which temporarily restored an uneasypeace on its Balkan frontiers, Rome found itself militarily overextendedand internally weakened by a series of developments which rendered itincapable of withstanding a new surge of Gothic peoples across the Danubein the 37 s which was in turn prompted by powerful demographic pressuresfrom the east. Others have suggested that the conversion of the legions from an all-volunteer force robbed them of their internal discipline, courage andcohesion. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984.Chambers, Morton (Ed.). This system of command was designed toregularize imperial succession and thereby discourage the emergence ofrebellious military commanders and to enable separate commands to cope withthreats in widely separate border regions. Gothic princes studied atConstantinople. . Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.Jones, A. Salmun said the resultwas a great dilution in the fighting quality of the legions which "were nowonly likely to be drawn from the rawest and most primitive elements" (45).Although the Gauls had been gradually assimilated into the army over acentury or more and had generally fought well under Roman officers, the'barbarization' of troops in less attractive regions such as the Balkansappeared to have occurred over a more abbreviated time frame with less thansalutory results. The Goths and othertribes on the lower Danube were allowed to trade with the Romans who soughtto induce them through a combination of financial inducements, subsidiesand honors into becoming dependent client-states. The western half ofthe empire eventually succumbed in 476 after it was invaded by the Gothsand other barbarian tribes while the eastern or Byzantine Empire was tolast for another thousand years. Various Germanic tribes, including the Marcomanniand Quadi in Bohemia and Moravia, disrupted the Roman lower Danubianfrontier in upper Pannonia and in 17 invaded northern Italy. Dacia was, however, permanently lost to the Goths. By 37 , "the Goths wereonly a partially subordinated Roman client state" (Heather 63. He called the Roman defeat the worst massacre since Cannae (437). According toNapthali and Reinhold, Constantine destroyed [Rome's] security by removing the greater part of the solider from the frontiers and stationing them in cities that did not require protection thus he stripped those of protection who were harassed by the barbarians and brought ruin to peaceful cities at the hands of soldiers. The empire waspreoccupied in the East with the invasions of the Persian king Sapor (r.241-271) whose minions recaptured most of Roman Mesopotamia, sacked Antiochand invaded Asia Minor. II. "The Roman Army And The Disintegration of the Roman Empire." The Fall of Rome Can It Be Explained? Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1968.Salmun, Edward T. Before theyresettled the Trevingian refugees, they played one of their old divide andconquer tricks. Their principal opponents were disunited, scattered barbariantribes in Europe and the Parthian Empire in Asia which until it wasoverthrown by the Persian Sassanid dynasty in 226 threatened to go to warmuch more often than it engaged in hostilities. Ammianus said "shameful defects in military discipline" marred theperformance of the Army (238). The Romans eventuallypermitted the Trevingi (with whom they had a treaty) to enter their lines,but kept the Greuthingi on the other side of the Danube. By the mid-4th century, they dominated the entire region along thenorth coast of the Black Sea from the Don River eastward into the Balkanswhere they eradicated or assimilated other nomadic tribes and assumedcontrol of ancient Greek port cities. The Goths were the first to breachit, largely because of the pressures which impelled them forward and thetactical errors of the Romans which enabled them to rampage through theBalkans. Dickson. For various reasons, the empire found itincreasingly difficult to maintain the large army and civilian bureaucracywhich developed in the late 3rd and early 4th century. The capital was moved unofficially to theEast by Diocletian to Nicomedia (Izmit) in Asia Minor which Constantineformalized by erecting his capital at Constantinople. westwards" (27 ). In 395, the empire was split in two. This first major crack in the empire's hitherto largelyimpregnable frontier defenses helped open the floodgates to laterdisasters. Heather said the "new treaty freed the Gothsfrom much of the substance of Roman hegemony" (62). Anxious to obtainrespite from the continual Balkan wars of the late 3rd century, theIllyrian emperors extended this practice to resettle barbarian tribes suchas the Carpi who had been squeezed out by the Goths. . London: Penguin, 1986.Mommsen, Theodor. Nevertheless, many barbarian officers, including severalgenerals who later became emperors, served the empire well. Heinvaded Mesopotamia and advanced to Tigris, where after he made tacticalmisjudgments, he was killed in combat outside Ctesiphon in 363. and with a mistakenintelligence report [that] he was facing only half the Goths . The use of barbarian troopsappears to have been dictated by manpower shortages which began to appearin the late 2nd century and grew worse thereafter. Augustus placed almost all hislegions and supporting auxiliary troops along the frontiers. Norman, OK: U of Oklahoma P, 1964.Lewis, Napthali and Meyer Reinhold (Eds.). Martin's P, 1997.----------------------- 16 The brothers Valens in the East andValentinian I in the West then became co-emperors. The Goths were defeated by Emperor Claudius II (268-27 ) at Naissus(Nish) in 27 and their King Cannabaudes by the Emperor Aurelian (27 -275)in 271. Valens then entered the fray personally with reinforcements from theEast. The Later Roman Empire 284-6 2 Vol. The Gothswere divided into many tribes. Most of theboundaries of pre-199 western Yugoslavia fell under Roman control. Trans. A History of the Ostro-Goths. In the two Dacian wars, Trajan crossed theCarpathians and defeated an ancient steppe people, the Dacians, inTransylvania which attracted theRomans because of its gold mines. Some of Valens' generals urged him to awaitreinforcements being sent from the West by Gratian, but Heather said Valens"reportedly jealous of his nephew's successes . Frontier fortifications were strengthened and the main BalkanGothic tribe, the Tervingi, the forerunners of the later Visigoths whosacked Rome in 41 , were forced to enter into a peace treaty in 332. Rome's Frontier on the Balkans Under Augustus, the legions had conquered Asia Minor, Greece, theAegean islands, Thrace which commanded the approaches to the Bosphorus, andthe Dalmatian coast. . The result was open revolt in which bothGothic tribes joined forces. The Goths. Jones summedup the situation: "the basic economic weakness of the empire was that toofew producers supported too many idle mouths" (1 45). Diocletian introduced the concept of Tetrarchy, the appointment ofseparate co-emperors in East and West, augusti, each of whom were supportedby seconds in command or caesars. The latter move wasdictated largely by economics. Heather suggested that "hijacking important tribal leaderswas standard Roman practice" and that Valens probably was complicit in theattempt to decapitate the Gothic leadership because he knew he could notthen reinforce the area (131-132). Barbarian raids by various nomadic steppepeoples troubled the frontier all along the length of the Danube. The Goths spread over vast areas ofwestern and central Europe after the long frontier against the barbariansin the Balkans which had held since the time of the Caesars had beendecisively overrun. This request of the Goths caught the Romans off-balance. The Romans under the great Illyrian emperors, especiallyDiocletian (284-3 5), who was born in Dalmatia, and Constantine (the Great)(3 6-337), who came from Dardania, pursued a policy of divide and conquertowards their barbarian neighbors in the Balkans. . New York: Oxford UP, 1982.Williams, Derek. Williamssaid the result was a vast cascading effect as "two huge, human waves werenow moving . . Others havesuggested that Rome made a fatal error by incorporating barbarians throughenlistment and conscription into the auxiliaries at the time of MarcusAurelius and later into the legions themselves. Starr said by the 4th century, although two-thirds of the army was tied down in the west, more than 65 percent ofimperial revenues were derived from the east (165). LATE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE GOTHIC INCURSIONS This research paper examines the relations between the late RomanEmpire and the Gothic tribes which pressed upon Rome's frontiers in thesoutheast Balkans in the late 4th century A.D. Athens was sacked by their Herulian alliesin 267. Works CitedBowerstock, G. Later Caesars, notably Vespasian (69-79) and Trajan(98-117), expanded further in the lower Danube region. Ammianus attributed this poor decision to Valens'"fatal obstinacy and the flattery of some of his courtiers" (378). However, Mommsen said that "Daciaremained an advanced position on the left bank of the Danube" whichremained "the limit of Roman civilization" (24 ). did notwant to wait" (134). Ed. M. The vulnerability of the empireto barbarian pressures in this area was revealed by the Gothic wars of themid-3rd century. Its principal frontiers extended along three greatrivers, the Rhine and the Danube in Europe, and the Euphrates in the NearEast. Constantineacquired dominion over his rivals by 324 but, after his death in 337,another bloody battle for succession erupted among his three sons. Valentinian,who had succeeded in shoring up the defenses along the Rhine, conducted afierce campaign in Lower Pannonia in 375 against the Sarmatians and Quadi.He died during a peace parley with the Quadi whose demands rendered himfatally apopletic. Bordercontrol was maintained from fortifications built along the lower Danube inBavaria (Raetia), Austria (Nordicum), in Upper Pannonia in the Vienna-Budapest region and in Lower Pannonia between Budapest (Aquincum) and southof Belgrade (Carnuntum).
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