The Third Century BC in Five Roman Battles

In which Tim continues his Roman history via five battles per century. Read about previously explored centuries and their battles here.

Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Cannae, Fabius Maximus, war elephants, the crashing together of galleys in the Med, drowned chickens; the third century was a pivotal century in the development of Rome.

At the start of the century (299BC - to be clear!) Rome was a small, but growing, Italian power. By the end of the century it was a major Mediterranean player with an overseas empire and poised to get much larger. The common theory is that Rome never sought to be an empire, it just fought one defensive war after another, each success leading to a new enemy further and further from the actual city of Rome. Maybe that theory is true, maybe not (later date: Caesar & Pompey rather argue against it) but the 3rd century BC does demonstrate how each entanglement could lead to the next.

We all know about Hannibal and his crossing of the Alps with elephants. It’s one of those basic touch points from history - a bit mythical, a bit hazy, but we all sort of know the story. The 2nd Punic War was an epic conflict, a life and death struggle that could have caused the collapse of Rome. From this period (218 to 202) we’ll take two epic battles - Cannae 216 and Zama 202.

But the wars of Hannibal are but part of the tale of the third century BC. The Battle of Telemon 225 was a significant battle that ended one question only to open another. Plagued by the troublesome Celts on their northern border, Telemon (and it’s follow up victories), removed the immediate menace of the Celts. But it also made the Celts resentful and ripe for an alliance with a certain Carthaginian general as he passed through their territory seven years later. From the killing grounds of Telemon begat the massacres of Cannae and Lake Trasimene.

Skipping over the 1st Punic War, we go back a bit further and meet another historically well remembered figure - King Pyrrus of Epirus. From this earlier part of the century, we’ll take a look at The Battle of Asculum 279 where all those pyrrhic victories started to catch up with Pyrrhus.

And starting off the century, we have Rome clearing the way to Italian dominance with The Battle of Sentinum 295 which was the decisive battle in the Third Samnite War.

---

A quick word on the Roman armies of this period. This was pre-Marian reforms and so the army was made up from levies of eligible citizens who put down their ploughs for the campaign season and went off to fight for the Roman state. Each year two consuls were elected and each consul had a consular army of roughly 20,000 men made up of two Roman legions and two allied legions. The legions themselves were made up of three classes of soldiers, divided by age and experience - the hastati, principes and, the veteran triarii. Light troops the verites and the cavalry made up the rest of the army.

---

The Battle of Sentinum 295

Simon de Vos - Death of Decius Mus. The Roman counsel pushes too far and is killed at The Battle of Sentinum

The Samnites were Italian rivals - a large confederation of tribes in middle Italy. As Rome grew, they tended to butt against their neighbours more and more. Three wars were fought agaionst the Samnites and Sentinum was the pivotal battle of the third and final war. Interestingly enough, although conquered, resentment continued between the two tribes which came to a head in the Social Wars two hundred years later and - following the battle of The Colline Gate - Sulla massacred 8000 Samnite prisoners as the Senate - next door but hearing the cries of the dead and dying - voted through his dictatorial powers.

Rome always prided itself that it only fought defensive wars but often acted as a provocateur - goading other states to declare war. Alarmingly, in the 290’s, they managed to provoke the Samnites into joining with three other tribes - the Etruscans, Umbrians and Senone Gauls - to take on the growing arrogance of their upstart neighbour. Consuls and proconsuls were dispatched to face this threat and two, Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius, squared up to a large army of Samnites and Gauls at Sentinum in 295.

The battle is remembered best for the sacrifice of one of the consuls - Publius Decius - seeking to rally his troops as their lines were broken by the Gauls following a failed cavalry charge. His sacrifice worked - or at least the reinforcements Quintus Fabius sent stiffened the resolve of the wavering troops - and the battle turned in Rome’s favour. Quintus outflanked the Samnites with his cavalry and they were routed leaving just the Senone who were now surrounded and destroyed.

The Samnite coalition broke up following this loss, leaving just the Samnites themselves to face the victorious Romans who prosecuted the war for a further five years before Samnite capitulation. The dominance of Italy pushed further down the peninsular.

The Battle of Asculum 279

"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

And so King Pyrrhus of Epirus gave us the phrase ‘Pyrrhic Victory’ after his ‘victory’ against the Romans and allies at The Battle of Asculum 279BC. Pyrrhus is an interesting character from ancient history. He was king of Epirus, the border Greek state next to Macedonia and opposite the Italian peninsular. In the south of Italy at this time, there were many Greek cities. As we have seen, Roman power was extending down the peninsular and it was only a matter of time before the Romans and Greeks clashed.

This happened in 282BC. The cause is disputed. A Roman fleet was attacked by one such Greek city, Tarentum. Maybe. Or provoked into attacking. But it had the same effect; war between Rome and her allies and the Greek cities and their allies. One such ally came from Epirus back on the Greek mainland. The king of Epirus, Pyrrhus, crossed the narrow sea with an army organised around the phalanx, supported by war elephants and the dreams of creating an Italian empire.

Pyrrhus was a talented general - he beat the coalition of Roman led Italians at The Battle of Heraclea (280BC). He followed this up by marching on Rome itself but failed to take the city and so returned south for the winter. The two sides met again at Asculum the next year with around 40,000 troops each. Crucially, Pyrrhus’ elephants were to play a major part in the subsequent Greek victory (though the Greek coalition had now been joined by many Italians including the ever present Samnites).

The armies lined up and locked into an infantry melee whilst on the wings the elephants and cavalry fought it out. The Roman infantry was having the better of the day in the middle and all sides watched as some Daunians - Roman allies - sneaked up from behind and sacked the Greek camp. However, at this moment the elephants broke free of their blockers on either flank and started to roll up the Roman infantry from left and right.

The Roman army retreated from the field losing nearly twice as many troops as the Greeks. The Romans though could make up these losses whereas Pyrrhus and the Greeks could not. Therefore, Asculum became the archetypal Pyrrhic victory. Rome’s advance down the Italian peninsular continued.

Pyrrhus himself went off adventuring and losing in Sicily against the Carthaginians, losing to the Romans back in Italy and was finally went back to Greece itself where he was killed in some street fighting in the Peloponnese by a tile thrown on his head by a woman from her roof.

First Punic War and the Chickens

Claudius Pulcher orders the chickens over the side.

We shall skip the First Punic War (264-241) where Rome took on the might of the African Carthaginian Empire. Not that there weren’t battles a plenty with lots of noteworthy anecdotes but are limited to just five battles. The two powers fought for twenty years with battles centred around Sicily and - new for the Romans - the sea. Large sea battles were fought in the Med and Rome quickly got good at this form of warfare.

One anecdote about Publius Claudius Pulcher and the chickens needs to be told. Romans were a suspicious lot and always looking for signs of blessings from the divinities. One ritual involved examining the behaviour of the sacred chickens before a battle. Depending on how they ate the seeds laid out for them, the Romans could predict good fortune or not. Before the important naval battle of Drepana, Pulcher’s chickens refused to eat - a very bad omen. So he threw them overboard and into the sea: ‘Since they do not want to eat, let them drink!’ he apparently said - wit being important even back in ancient Rome. Obviously he then went onto catastrophically loose the oncoming battle with most of the Roman fleet annihilated. Lesson: Don’t mess with the chickens!

Telemon 225 BC

Rome was sacked in 390 BC by an army of Gauls. Subsequent generations of Romans never forgot this humiliation and so harboured a long held resentment and fear of the Celtic tribes to the north. As Rome expanded over the next one hundred and fifty years with various tribal wars and alliances, the Gauls began to fear they would be next on the hit list, especially after Rome started sending settlers into nearby lands. Deciding that attack was the best form of defence, a large confederation of Gauls from both Cisalpine Italy and France got together and started heading towards Rome in search of plunder.

But this was not the Rome of 390. Having emerged stronger and more disciplined followed the first Punic War, Rome and her allies (who also feared the Gallic invasion) fielded three large armies. One army took the fight to the Gauls’ homelands whilst the other two - under consuls for the year Gaius Regulus and Lucius Papus created, in effect, a pincer movement with the marauding Gauls trapped in between. The site of the battle was Telemon (modern Telemone) about 70 miles from Rome.

The Romans and allies outnumbered the Gauls (something like 100,000 to 70,000) and were better organised and disciplined. Some of the Gauls - like the Gaesatae - fought naked which - with arrows and spears and sling shot flying around - didn’t help much in the ensuing battle. As is often the case in ancient battles, there were in fact, two engagements, an infantry crush and a separate cavalry battle nearby. At Telemon, the Romans won the cavalry battle and so returned to the infantry battle to tip the scales for their side.

The Gauls stood and fought but 40,000 - surrounded - were massacred and 10,000 captured. The consul Regulus died in the battle but his colleague Papus didn’t and led his victorious troops into the Gaulish territories to extract revenge, plunder and lands. Further victories followed in the next couple of years and more Roman settlers were given lands previously occupied by the Gauls.

So, when Hannibal was looking for allies soon after to support his invasion of Italy, guess which bunch of dispossessed and angry tribes he found favour with?

Cannae 216, Zama 202 & The Second Punic War

“Such was the result of the battle between Hannibal and the Romans at Cannae, which was begun after the second hour of the day and ended within two hours of night-fall, and which is still famous among the Romans as a disaster, for in these few hours 50,000 of their soldiers were slain and a great many taken prisoners.” Appian - The Foreign Wars

Games of Thrones recreated Cannae as The Battle of The Bastards. Hannibal out thought and out fought two consular armies and eight legions and massacred them in this battle down in the south of the Italian peninsular. The way to Rome lay open but Hannibal inexplicably missed his opportunity being more concerned with ransoming captives than following up on his stunning victory (though it is true, Carthage perversely ignored Hannibal’s requests for more troops and money to win the war).

Hannibal had invaded Italy two years earlier by crossing the Alps with a Carthaginian army made up of many nations, many tribes. Early victories in 218 and 217 made the Romans wary of tackling Hannibal so, at Cannae, they gathered a huge army led by the two consuls to put an end to him once and for all. What happened next was that Hannibal used the sheer weight of Roman numbers against them by enveloping their army with his own troops providing no way out of the slaughter for the penned in legionaries. The Roman army was systematically annihilated with perhaps 50,000 deaths and around 20,000 taken prisoner.

Rome lost its Italian allies in the South and the majority of its fighting forces. The City mourned for 30 days, human sacrifices were reinstated to appease the gods but, ultimately, more armies were raised and Hannibal was pinned down in the bottom of Italy for the next ten years. He’d won the battle but lost the war. In fact, a young Roman survivor from Cannae, Scipio Africanus, would come back to avenge the losses on this day.

Young Scipio - bearer of a famous name - was also personally invested in the fight against the Carthaginians. Some might say that Punic War 2 became a grudge match between the Scipios and the Barcas. As the Romans fought Hannibal in Italy, a second front was being busily engaged in Spain. Early in the conflict Scipio’s father and uncle were both killed in the Iberian conflict. This was personal for Scipio and he begged the Senate to allow him to take command of the depleted and demoralised Roman forces in Spain. His confidence (arrogance even) impressed them and - with no other candidates - gave the young man charge of the army.

Scipio turned the war around, eventually driving the Carthaginians out of Spain. He now took the fight to the Africans and invaded their homeland. Hannibal, still in Italy, was recalled and the stage was set for the final showdown of the Second Punic War.

Battle of Zama 202 BC

It is rumoured that Hannibal and Scipio met in person in the land between their two huge armies before the Battle Zama. (Interestedly enough, they also met many years later at a banquet). If they did then it was an historic meeting; the two famous generals whose personal qualities and leadership summarised the Second Punic War.

At Zama, Hannibal had the larger army, Scipio had the larger cavalry forces. Hannibal used elephants which proved ineffective and even counter productive. Whilst the infantry slogged it out over many hours, pretty evenly matched, the cavalry fought at the wings with the Romans (and their Numidian allies) proving the stronger. So it was that the Roman cavalry returned at a crucial point and attacked the Carthaginians from the rear. The Carthaginian army was destroyed though Hannibal escaped. The Second Punic War was over.

---

So the Third Century ended with the Romans triumphant in the Western Mediterranean. Her existential enemy for much of the century - Carthage - had been humiliated and forced to pay huge tributes as well as other harsh treaty terms. The next century would see the final defeat and destruction of Carthage.

However, more than the defeat of Carthage, the Romans had established themselves as the preeminent power on the Italian peninsular taking out the Samnites and Celts and many others. From now on, whilst there were the occasional challenges, there was only one real power in Italy.

But more than this. The third century had shown that Rome was resilient. The disaster of Cannae - so very nearly a knockout blow - had been dealt with, more armies raised and the war won. With the west secured, Rome would now increasingly look East to that other great power, Macedonia and the Greek city states. Her star was in the ascendent. At home though, things started to fall apart for the republic. That though, is in the next episode.

If you enjoyed reading about the battle of the 3rd century BC, why not try some other centuries in my Five Battles series?

ROME: The First Century in Five Battles

(In which Tim maps the Roman Empire in the first century AD through five battles)

“Varus, give me back my legions!”

So the ageing Emperor Augustus is said to have shouted, driven mad by the loss of three legions at The Battle of The Teutoberg Forest in AD 9. Quinctilus Varus was the Roman commander who led those legions into the dark German forests, never to return. This is the first battle of the first century. Rome’s devastating response following the campaigns of the aptly named Germanicus shall be my next focus as exemplified by The Battle of Idistaviso in AD 16.

The invasion of Britain under the Emperor Claudius in AD 43 merits a mention. As does the defeat of Boudicca at the Battle of Watling Street in AD 61 where Rome firmly put down her revolt. The Battle of Mons Graupius in AD 83 finally consolidated Britain (minus Caledonia) into the Empire.

The siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is an obvious landmark battle. The Jewish revolt was a major uprising and occurred during one of the few periods of outside instability the Roman Empire faced in the first century. Its impact is probably still felt today.

Whilst Titus was dealing with the Jewish revolt, his father Vespasian had marched on Rome to throw his laurel wreath into the ring to become Emperor. The ‘Year of the Four Emperors’ in AD 69 was the first Roman civil war in 100 years. Previously Emperors had just been assassinated, poisoned or committed suicide. This violent transfer of power though was limited to the unfortunate Emperor and his immediate supporters and didn’t lead to a full-scale civil war as had been the norm in the late Republic. Although, Rome soon came back to normalcy - and indeed the Emperors improved - this respite would be only temporary and civil wars would come back in a big way towards the end of the second century.

A note on the army itself: The Roman army of the 1st Century AD looked exactly like the Roman Army in popular imagination. They wore curved helmets protecting the back of their necks, segmented armour, carried long curved rectangular shields, held short thrusting swords and threw devastating volleys of weighted spears. A legion consisted around 5120 men divided into 10 cohorts (the 1st being double sized). There were 28 legions in Augustus’ time, later increased to 30. Auxiliaries assisted the legions (archers, calvary, skirmishers etc) and their number was around the same. Therefore, a reasonable assessment of the size of the Roman Army of this period is 300,000 men under arms.

---

The first century began with Augustus in the 28th year of his principate. Unlike much of the previous century, The Roman world was pretty much at peace with itself. The civil wars were over. Augustus stealthily added nations that were protectorates - like Egypt - to the Empire avoiding outright conquering. However, his sons-in-law - Drusus and Tiberius - added Raetia (modern Switzerland). But this Caesar - unlike his famous uncle - was content to be imperator in name if not in deed.

However, one recurring trouble spot in the Empire was the Germanic tribes beyond Gaul. Could Augustus add Germania to the Empire and, if not, where was the defensive line of the empire to be drawn? It was going to be the river Elbe but - following the loss of the legions in the forests - Rome pulled back to the Rhine where it stayed for the next four hundred years.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was the shock that caused this retrenchment. Three legions (plus assorted auxiliaries and camp followers) operating beyond the Rhine, were betrayed by a supposed friendly German ally, Arminius, and massacred. Arminius led Varus into the dense forest and then sprang his trap. The army was wiped out and their totemic eagles taken.

At this point in time, Rome had just 28 legions. The loss of three meant a sizeable chunk of the available forces had just disappeared. No wonder Augustus was upset. Revenge came slowly and - as was the wont at these times - through a member of the Imperial family.

Germanicus was nephew to the new Emperor Tiberius and was sent to the Rhine to sort out the mess left after Arminius’ triumph. Fighting many battles and chasing many tribes into many forests, Germanicus skirmished and harassed the Germans time after time over three years until he finally tempted them into an open pitched battle. This was at the Weser River and became the Battle of Idistaviso AD 16. The result was a massacre of the German tribes. Arminius survived only to be beaten again that same year at The Battle of the Angrivarian Wall. (He was later killed by members of his own tribe. He is still celebrated as one of the founders of the German nation. His massive 19th has century statue stands above the Teutoburg Forest to this day.)

Rome had won the conflict but Tiberius, ever cautious, withdrew Germanicus to Rome and the Empire’s frontier was settled back at the Rhine.

Julius Caesar had come across the Channel to Britain a couple of times but he never made a serious invasion attempt - he was too busy conquering Gaul. These incursions provoked a few fights, garnered some tributes and alliances, but Caesar didn’t stick around to conquer Britain. One hundred years later though, in AD 43, the unwarlike Emperor Claudius - another nephew of Tiberius - launched the invasion of Britain.

The conquest was a slow process taking over 40 years. The south of the country was relatively passive, having interacted with the Romans for years. However, the North and West and Wales proved much more difficult. Whilst the Romans were distracted subduing the Welsh tribes in AD 60, the Iceni under Boudicca rebelled back in the conquered south. The rebellion was short, violent with the rebels burning and massacring the Roman towns of St Albans, Colchester and a little town called Londinium.

The governor, Seutonius Paulinus, gathered up a force centred around one and a half legions and met Boudicca and her army somewhere along what became known later as Watling Street. He chose his battlefield well, funnelling the Britons into a narrow front. As had happened many times previously in Roman history, well-trained legions overcame a larger but undisciplined horde. The rebels were massacred - hemmed in by their own carriages - and Boudicca committed suicide not long after.

Twenty of so years later, the Romans had turned their attention to the north of Britain. Up in Scotland, the Caledonian tribes were causing problems. However, the usual rules applied; tracking a tribe into an open pitched battle was difficult and whilst traipsing around the wet and cold of Scotland, the Roman army was prey to ambushes and lightning strikes. Governor Agricola finally lured the Caledonians into battle somewhere in the mountains of Scotland (the precise site is unknown). The Battle of Mons Graupius AD 83 was unique in that the Romans won it using only their highly trained Germans auxiliaries with assistance from the cavalry.

Tacitus, who wrote the account of the battle, famously put words into mouth of the Caledonian leader, Calgacus, “They make a desolation and call it peace.” All Britain was conquered. For now.

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850)

Back a few years, and we have the brutal Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 part of the First Jewish-Roman war. Pompey had added Judea to the empire back in the Republican days. He’d even successfully laid siege to Jerusalem. This time though, the struggle was more bitter as a hardcore sect of rebels within the city - the Zealots - refused to surrender. As Vespasian had left for Rome, his son Titus (later emperor too) led the four legion assault on the city. Starvation, disease and the terrors of war were meted out to the inhabitants of the city, bolstered as they were by hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping the wider war. The end was a massacre:-

“They poured into the street sword in hand, slaughtering indiscriminately all they came across and burning houses with those who had fled there still inside… Since the troops had run out of victims to kill or property to loot, Caesar ordered the army to raze to the ground the whole city and the temple…” Josephus, The Jewish War (Book 6:404 / Book 7:1)

Jerusalem and its population was destroyed. This was quite a consequential siege in history.

---

Read more ROME: Five Battles here.

Rome: The 4th Century in Five Battles

(In which Tim discusses the five most important battles within the wider history of the 4th Century Roman Empire)

The fourth century was bookended by two famous ‘Christian’ battles - The Milvian Bridge in 312 and The Frigidus in 394. They mark - apocryphally - both the entry point of Christianity into the Roman Empire and its ultimate victory. Each led to climatic events; The Milvian Bridge led directly to the Nicene Council of 325 which formalised the Christian creed. The Frigidus began the series of events that ended with Alaric’s sack of Rome just sixteen years later.

So we have our beginning and end. What in between? Adrianople, of course. The defeat of Valens and the Eastern Roman Empire’s army at the hands of the Goths in 378 is popularly associated with the eventual downfall of the empire itself. Can’t argue that it’s important.

For me, Julian is the most interesting fourth century Emperor. His metamorphosis from bookish princeling to ass-kickin’ Caesar began in Gaul. The most famous battle in his journey to pacify the province was his victory over the Alamanni in the Battle of Strasbourg 357.

Our fifth battle is The Battle of Mursa 351 where the forces of Constantius II defeated those of the usurper Magnentius in the biggest and bloodiest battle of the century. As an exercise in damaging futility this was the daddy of them all.

*****

The Empire at the beginning of the fourth century was a very different animal to that ruled over by Septimius Severus one hundred years earlier. The crisis of the third century had brought about chaos, short lived emperors, and the temporary division into three mini empires. The gradual restoration of control was brought about by the Illyrian emperors Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, Probus and finally Diocletian.

Diocletian instituted the tetrarchy - a system where two senior Augustii and two junior Caesars ruled quadrants of the Empire. It was a neat idea. It didn’t last. Diocletian, who resigned along with his co-Augustus Maximian, lived long enough to see not only his fine cabbages grow in his retirement home in Split, but his system of government fall apart as his successors squabbled amongst themselves to gain and maintain power.

Constantine (The Great), son of one of Diocletian’s successors Constantius I, was chief amongst those squabbling. He was annoyed that he was left out of Diocletian’s succession plans and, on the death of his ailing father in York in 306, declared himself emperor. This led ultimately to the first battle of our series - The Milvian Bridge.

In this battle, Constantine marched into Italy in 312 - then under the rule of one of the many post-Diocletian claimants - Maxentius. With a smaller army, Constantine’s troops feared losing the climatic battle outside Rome the next day. That night Constantine dreamed of a cross in the sky. So the story goes, he had his army paint the Christian symbol on their shields and, with God on their side, they routed Maxentius and his army the next day at The Milvian Bridge.

The Arch of Constantine was completed to mark this famous victory. The fact that it was originally going to be the Arch of Maxentius and repurposed bas reliefs from earlier monuments, is now somewhat forgotten. He who wins writes the history and gets the arches. It still stands today under the shadow of the Colosseum.

The next twelve years were a history of Rome fighting itself as Constantine gradually consolidated his power to become sole emperor in 324 with his defeat of Licinius. Famously, Constantine left three legacies to the Empire when he died - after converting on his deathbed to Christianity - in 337:

• The Council of Nicene which produced a unified - though disputed for many years - Christian doctrine still in use today,

• The founding of Constantinople as the ‘new Rome’ on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium,

• An utterly chaotic carve up of the Empire between his three sons and two nephews which set the scene for nearly twenty years of civil wars.

The intrigues between the three sons of Constantine deserve a blog of all their own. The imaginatively named Constantine, Constans and Constantius battled it out for years until only the latter remained standing as Constantius II. The second of our landmark battles occurs in this period when Constantius - in the East - took on his brother Constans’ murderer, Magnentius at Mursa in 351.

Mursa was a triumph for Constantius but a tragedy for the empire. Crack units of the East and Western Roman armies fought each other in a bloodbath in Pannonia (modern day Croatia). The battle saw the flowering of the late Roman cataphracts - heavily armoured cavalry - as they mowed down Magnentius’ legions. It was a victory but a pyrrhic one.

One of the consequences of Rome turning in on itself was that units were inevitably withdrawn from the Empire’s borders. The tribes living beyond took advantage of this and increasingly began to run amok amongst the frontiers. Constantius proved Diocletian’s theory that the Empire was too big for just one ruler and so appointed first his cousin Gallus, and then his other cousin, Julian, as junior Caesar. Gallus proved himself unfit to rule and so was executed. Julian however, proved himself quite the opposite.

Bookish, sceptical and a lover of philosophy, Julian was an unlikely warrior Caesar. Sent to Gaul to restore order, Julian did just that. And more. Let down by his supporting army (who may have been acting on the orders of Constantius) Julian was left facing a much larger force of Alamanni near Strasbourg in 357. The battle was a complete rout with the Alamanni destroyed by Julian’s infantry and then chased all the way back to the Rhine where many survivors drowned. Over the following years, Julian followed up by a process of forward-defence - raids into enemy territory whilst repairing and reinforcing the border.

Inevitably the two last descendants of Constantine The Great squared off against each other in 361 (see previous blogpost). Luckily for the Empire, Constantius died on the way to confront Julian allowing the latter to become the undisputed ruler of the whole empire. Julian met his ‘spear of destiny’ just two years later fighting the Persians and bringing to an end Constantine’s line and any anti-Christian fight back. Rome was henceforth a Christian empire.

The Empire now fell into the hands of Valentinian who appointed his brother Valens Augustus of the East. This proved a fatal decision as Valens allowed a massive Gothic migration into his lands in 376. The Goths crossed the Danube to escape the growing power of the Huns expanding and terrorising from the east. Stupidity, betrayal and pride (Valens refused to wait for the army of his nephew Gratian - now Emperor of the West) led Valens and the Eastern Roman army to take on the Goths alone at Adrianople (now part of European Turkey) in 378.

Adrianople was a disaster for the Romans. Their army was destroyed by the Goths and the emperor himself allegedly died after been burnt alive in a peasant house while attempting to flee the battlefield. The defeat left the Eastern empire defenceless and leaderless and at the mercy of the Goths who now rampaged at will throughout Thrace and Greece.

Slowly, piece by piece, Roman general and later emperor Theodosius (The Great) put the East back together. He fought defensive actions and eventually made peace with the Goths in 382 allowing them to stay within the empire’s borders. Once inside the Goths became a combustable element, fighting for the Empire when it suited them but, equally likely to go marauding and looting.

Over in the Western half, Valentinian’s younger son Valentinian II - now Emperor - allegedly hanged himself. His all-powerful advisor and military commander Arbogast was more than implicated. Arbogast was a Frank by birth and so ineligible to take the throne himself and so he chose Eugenius, an obscure Roman official to be the new Emperor in the West. Over in the East, Theodosius bided his time. But when Arbogast and Eugenius started to favour the old Roman gods over Christianity, Theodosius reacted. The showdown took place at The Battle of The Frigidus (modern day Slovenia) in 394.

This two day battle was notable for several things.

• Theodosius won the battle becoming the last sole Emperor of East and West. Not for long though as he died in 395.

• The battle marked the final victory of Christianity over paganism. Much is made of the high winds that allegedly blew at Arbogast’s forces on day two of the battle rendering their missiles useless. A divine wind, it was claimed.

• Theodosius’ use of Gothic auxiliaries (foederati) was controversial. He put them in the front line and used them as cheap cannon fodder. It allowed him to win the battle but incensed his surviving allies. One of the Gothic leaders fighting for Theodosius that day was a young noble named Alaric. Sixteen years later, Alaric led the Goths into Italy and sacked Rome for the first time in eight hundred years. It wasn’t the end of the Roman Empire but it marked the beginning of the last stages of the Western half.

The fourth century ends with the young sons of Theodosius - Honorius and Arcadius - in charge of the West and East respectively. Both of them were weak, dominated by advisors and unfit for their times. It was a sad end to such a lively century.

So what have learnt in this brief canter through the years 300-399?

First, and most obvious, the rise and rise of Christianity. A persecuted sect at the start of the century - the worst repression occurred under Diocletian for example - it was the undisputed religion of the Empire by the end.

The Roman military was still powerful throughout much of the century. Although the legions were no longer the primary unit, it still packed a punch. Borrowing from Palmyra and Persia, the military incorporated heavy calvary units alongside smaller vexallations of infantry. When it worked, armies could criss-cross the empire and successfully see off threats. Under strong leaders - Constantine, Julian - the army could be formidable.

The increased use of foederati - allied non Roman troops. By the end of the century, the traditional auxiliary units - trained and led by Romans - had largely been replaced by unincorporated bands of barbarians who fought under their own banners and leaders.

Civil wars were as deadly to the empire as attacks by outside forces. Roman v Roman battles were as common and - pace Mursa - could be much more deadly.

The idea of a single emperor ruling the whole empire was the exception rather than the rule throughout the fourth century. It was a rare period that saw just one ruler.

Read other Rome: In Five Battles here.

---

(I attach David Bowie’s Velvet Goldmine. When I was younger, reading about the later Roman Empire, I always associated this song with the heavily armed Cataphracts riding East to West, West to East, protecting the Empire. I misheard a line so it read “I’ll be your faithful prince who will ride for you again and again.” Unfortunately I now know that’s not the lyrics!)

ROME: The First Century BC in Five Battles

Everybody know the first century BC; it is, without doubt, the most well-known period from ancient Rome. Films, TV series and books all tend to focus in on this era*. And usually the timeframe of interest is just the thirty year period between 60-30BC.

The last stages of the fall of the Roman Republic - and its transformation to imperial rule - are well known; Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Cato, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Octavian / Augustus, Brutus, Agrippa, Cassius… Some pretty big names - well known even now. Rightly so. There’s much to discuss. However, the century is more detailed, nuanced and action packed than just those central years. Lots more happened in the century before Jesus than Caesar crossing The Rubicon. Telling the story in just five battles is going to be difficult!

I’m dividing 100BC - 1BC into three eras. Most of the battles will, of course, come from that climatic middle thirty-year period. Can’t help that.

1) Marius and Sulla, The Social and Mithridatic Wars 100-60BC.

A confrontation between more than just two men, Marius and Sulla, this internecine struggle for the soul and power of the Republic led ultimately to the first Roman invasion of, well, er, Rome. The Battle of the Colline Gate 82BC comes from this period as Sulla marched on the capital and fought a huge battle outside the walls of the city.

Also from this period, Rome fights, defeats and then grants citizenship to its Italian allies in The Social War.

Rome defeats a slave revolt at home (you may have heard of this. Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas take on the might of the British Empire. Sorry Roman Empire) and Lucullus and Pompey fight King Mithridates over a twenty five year period and add huge swaths of the Levant to the Empire.

2) The Fall of the Republic 60-31BC. Caesar invades and conquers Gaul, returns and fights Pompey and the Senate, wins, establishes himself as dictator, is assassinated, the assassins are caught and killed by Octavian and Antony, who divide up the empire, fall out and square off. Octavian defeats Antony, becomes Emperor and changes his name to Augustus. Bye bye Republic. From this busy period we have The Battle of Carrhae 53BC - Crassus’ disastrous folly taking on the Parthans, Caesar’s triumph over the Gauls at Alesia in 52BC, Caesar defeating Pompey at Pharsalus 48 BC and the climatic battle of Actium 31BC which finishes off the civil wars.

3) The Augustian settlement - 31BC to the end of century. Augustus as primus unter pares. There were wars, there were battles. Large amounts of territory were formally added to the Empire (Egypt & Switzerland for example), but the modus operanti of empire reverted to the old Roman model - bit by bit, as circumstances dictated. Beginning of the German wars. I have selected no battles from this era. The gates of Janus - opened when Rome was at war, and they usually were, were closed three times during this period.

---

Civic life in the Republic had been getting progressively worse, and more violent, over the last third of the 2nd century BC. The causes of this degradation were many; paradoxically Rome’s victories abroad - culminating in the twin victories over Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC - sowed the mauvaises herbes back at home. These, and other triumphs over the past half century, brought home too much money and too many slaves. The new funds tended to go to aristocrats who bought up the farmsteads of their countrymen, creating large estates, using slave labour to work them. Rome’s small scale agrarian economy was already disrupted by the demands placed on its citizen army who had to put down their ploughs and serve in the military, sometimes faraway and often for years at a time. So foreign success had tilted the equilibrium in Roman society between the haves and the have nots.

Marius was a nouvo homme who had held the consulship an unprecedented six times whilst fighting off the menace of The Cimbri and the Teutones at the end of the second century BC. He reformed the army, making it a paid profession and not a citizen duty. This had important ramifications for the future of the republic and, perhaps, into the Imperial era. Admittedly, the reforms stabilised and professionalised the army - making it an even more fearsome force. But they also severed a link between the army and the state. From now on, armies fought more for their general and less for Rome, with devastating results to the stability of the state. Throw in class warfare, demagogues, constant wars and the republic’s days were numbered.

Sulla - one of Marius’ ex lieutenants, came to symbolise the reactionary optimates through opposition to land reform and resentment at the increasingly bold populist interventions from the people’s tribunes. This party disdained where Rome was going, the wealth, the lack of morals, the appeal to the masses. The clash has familiar strains with one side wanting to return to the purity and stability of earlier Republican days and the other looking to reform a faltering system.

The wars between these two visions of the republic took place against the backdrop of the First Mithridatic War. Sulla - the consul at the time - was appointed to lead Rome’s army in the near east and, whilst he was away, the forces of Marius took over Rome. This happened twice. The second time provoked a full scale civil war culminating outside the walls of Rome itself at The Battle of The Colline Gate 82 BC.

Though Marius was dead by this point, his son had picked up his causes and factions. Returning from the east, Sulla rushed to Rome where the Marian party - with Etruscan and Samnite allies were holed up. The battle lasted from mid afternoon onwards and into the night. It was a bloody and confused affair taking place in front, and within, Rome. It is said that 50,000 men died that night as gradually Sulla’s forces forced their way into Rome.

The ramifications - proscriptions, the massacre of 8000 Samnite prisoners, dictatorship - were fearful. Sulla was a contradiction as a man. He took dictatorial powers only to resign them - Cincinnatus style - months later before standing himself for election. During that time he reformed the constitution, giving more power to the Senate, less to the Tribunes of the people but also making it harder for people like him to seize control. It didn’t last.

“No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” Sulla.

Externally, Rome fought a long running war with Mithridates VI, King of Pontus (in modern day Turkey). The wars - there were three - lasted from 88 BC to 63 BC and took place against a backdrop of increasing violence back in Rome which worked to Mithradates advantage. The conflict started with the massacre of all Romans in the East by Mithradates and ended with his suicide - alone and defeated - as Pompey created a huge Eastern Empire (modern Turkey, Syria and the Levant). This new general-led conquest model spread. When Pompey formed the First Triumvirate with Crassus and Caesar in 59 BC, the other two were eager to replicate his successes. They had - shall we say - variable results.

Crassus first. There are three or four really large and consequential Roman defeats across the thousand or so years of the Empire. Along with Hannibal’s Cannae slaughter and, say, the wipe out of three legions at the Teutoburg Forest or Valens’ defeat at the hands of the Goths at Adrianople 378 AD, Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae 53BC was one of the largest Roman defeats ever. A poor general let his troops down.

Over on the Eastern border of the Empire, the Parthian Empire abutted the expanding Romans. Crassus was eager to take advantage of a proxy dispute with the Parthians over succession within the buffer state of Armenia. He set off to Mesopotamian with seven legions and associated auxiliaries. Many marched out. Hardly any came back. The few survivors of the battle were nearly all captured never to return.**

The legions died hard under a hail of arrows at Carrhae.

It was arrogance and stupidity that caused the Roman army under Crassus to die in such numbers. Foolishly taking a short cut across the desert, where they were vulnerable and with little cavalry support, the legions were attacked by wave after wave of horse archers and heavily armoured cataphracts. They were literally picked off. Crassus himself was killed whilst trying to parlay with the Persians. It was a total disaster and one brought about needlessly by a poor general seeking personal glory. This was not the Roman way.

However, someone else who could also be accused of putting personal aggrandisement ahead of the state’s interests, was one Gaius Julius Caesar. However, unlike Crassus, Caesar was a ruthlessly good general, able to both inspire his troops and be inspirational in battle. After his consulship in 59BC, Caesar’s reward was the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul. Most governors were happy to grow fat on the taxes of their province but not Caesar! From this springboard he spent the next eight years conquering the whole of Gaul - a massive area consisting of modern day France, Belgium and parts of Germany. He even ventured to Britain a couple of times.

The Gauls had long been a mythical foe to the Romans; they sacked Rome in 390 BC and as recent as 100BC threatened to overwhelm the Italian peninsular before being turned back by Marius. So Caesar’s victories and conquests were astounding to the Roman people. He won victory after victory throughout Gaul, rushing here and there to urge on his spread out forces suffering only the occasional reverse. The Gauls didn’t unite until it was almost too late. Finally they rallied behind Vercingetorix who massed forces and destroyed crops to starve Caesar’s troops.

Caesar pinned down Vercingetorix and 80,000 of his troops in the hilltop fortress of Alesia 52BC. He had around eleven legions under his command plus various allies. Probably around 65,000 men. He built a wall all around the hilltop fortress but, when the relief force of 250,000 Gauls turned up, he then built a second wall facing the other way. He was now besieged himself and fighting on both fronts.***

But the Romans held against frequent double sided attacks. Caesar was everywhere rallying his troops and making sure the defences held. They did. The besieging army was driven off with huge casualties and the starving Gauls in the hilltop fortress had no option but to surrender to Caesar (see main picture). Vercingetorix was sent to Rome and held in prison for five years before taking part in one of Caesar’s triumphal parades. He was then ritually throttled to death.

Gaul was conquered. Alesia was Caesar’s greatest victory.

“Then after a short interval they renewed their charge, threw their javelins and, as ordered by Caesar, quickly drew their swords. Nor indeed did the Pompeians fail to meet the occasion; they stood up to the hail of missiles and bore the onset of the legions; they kept their ranks, threw their javelins, and then resorted to their swords.”

— Caesar - The Civil War describing The Battle of Pharsalus

His term as proconsul in Gaul up, Caesar famously crossed the Rubican River into Italy, muttered something in Greek about dice, and headed off to Rome with his army. His speed and audacity caught his rivals in the Senate and Pompey by surprise. They didn’t have an army to hand and so bolted from the city and crossed the Adriatic in order to gather troops from the East. Civil war had again begun.

Caesar firstly destroyed the Senate’s forces in Spain and then, the following year followed Pompey over the Adriatic. There was an inconclusive battle at Dyrrhachium before the decisive showdown at Pharsalus in Greece. Caesar was outnumbered, his troops were starving and he’d been tactically boxed in. The smart move for the Senate forces would have been to starve him out. But they weren’t smart.

Caesar’s troops were battle hardened veterans from the long Gallic Wars whereas many of Pompey’s were raw recruits. As described by Caesar in the quote above, although outnumbered, his troops charged Pompey’s lines taking the initiative against the larger force. Pompey’s overwhelming calvary charged Caesar’s cavalry as expected but were in turn cut down by a fourth line of infantry Caesar had concealed. From there, Caesar’s forces routed Pompey’s legions and chased them and their general back to their camp. As the camp was in danger, Pompey threw off his general’s cloak and escaped through the rear gate. He crossed to Egypt where he was traitorously beheaded by Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra’s brother.

Following his victory at Pharsalus, Caesar spent the next couple of years tracking down the remains of the Senate party before returning to Rome as dictator for life. Which is when he was assassinated in 44BC. The next couple of years were a wearying round of civil wars and proscriptions as Antony and Octavian tracked down and defeated the assassins - Brutus and Cassius. With Lepidus, they formed the second triumvirate in 43 BC and carved up the Roman world between the three of them.

The following ten years were relatively peaceful militarily but gradually the two head triumvirs - Octavian and Antony - perhaps inevitably - fell out. They prepared huge armies for war in a winner-takes-all campaign in Greece.

Technically, Actium wasn’t the last battle of the Roman Republic. That honour goes to the Battle of Alexandria the year after in 30 BC where Octavian chased down Antony and Cleopatra. But this decisive victory off the coast of Greece made the ending inevitable and anti-climatic.

Antony was the better general. He’d proved this many times under Gabinius in the East and then Caesar in Gaul and, following the latter’s death, in the wars against the assassins. One shouldn’t get too hung up on his latter day portrayal as a lovestruck drunk who fell for Cleopatra and let her rule him. But certainly the quality of his generalship declined in the years 40-30BC. He received the East in the carve up between himself, Lepidus and Octavian following the Battle of Philippi and, as overlord, attempted without success to avenge the loss of Carrhae against the Persians.

Actium was a sea battle but it was a sea battle only because Octavian’s general, Agrippa, was using his fleet to blockade Antony’s land forces on Western coast of Greece. The Battle of Actium was Antony’s attempt to break this blockade. The forces were evenly matched - Agrippa had more ships, Antony had heavier ships. The battle went back and forth until, inexplicably, the squadron under Cleopatra made a break for it and headed off back to Egypt. Antony, transferring to a lighter and faster ship, followed, leaving his remaining forces to fend for themselves.

Agrippa’s fleet then destroyed Antony’s fleet and Antony’s army of nineteen legions (yes, 19!), left stranded without provisions in Greece, surrendered. Octavian, dealing with some troop mutinies and pirates, only followed up on this success the following year. Landing in Egypt, he easily defeated Antony’s remnants of an army. We know what happened next; Antony committed suicide, and Cleopatra, sensing Octavian wanted her as prize exhibit in a subsequent triumph through Rome, did likewise. The civil wars were over.

Octavian, became Augustus (majestic) and gradually consolidated his powers over the Roman people with the willing help of the Senate - purged, cowed and sick of war. The previous century of civil wars, proscriptions, and turmoil had taken the heart out of the Republic. Although Augustus was careful to keep up the facade of the Republic’s institutions (consuls, senate, pontiffs etc) there was no doubt who was really in charge. Augustus faced no serious challenges to this ascendency or rule.

So the first century BC was a transitional period for Rome as it moved away from hundreds of years of Republican rule to five hundred more years (or fifteen hundred including the Byzantine Empire) of quasi monarchy. Despite the internal turmoil and wars, externally, Rome consolidated her power, grew her Empire and was, by the end, much more powerful than she was at the beginning.

“I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one of marble,” said Augustus on his deathbed. Architecturally, he may have been right, certainly many fine public buildings were built during his era. It could also - as has been pointed out - be taken metaphorically; he took chaos and brought order at the expense of liberty.

Read other Rome: In Five Battles here.

NOTES

* Or 180 AD and the hand over from Marcus Aurelius to his son Commodus - The Fall of the Roman Empire & more recently Gladiator.

** Cassius (of Caesar assassin fame) led the few forces not killed or captured back to Roman Syria. There are rumours that some of the survivors left in Mesopotamia were forced marched by the Persians to their Eastern border to man the defences against incursions. There are even stories of Roman prisoners making their way to China.

*** You should always be wary about numbers listed in ancient sources. Caesar, writing in his campaign book - The Civil Wars - probably overestimates. It was a common practice.

The First Century BC in Five Battles

The first century BC is without doubt the most well-known period from ancient Rome. Films, TV series and books all tend to focus in on this era*. And usually the timeframe of interest is just the thirty year period between 60-30BC.

The last stages of the fall of the Roman Republic - and its transformation to imperial rule - are well known; Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Cato, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Octavian / Augustus, Brutus, Agrippa, Cassius… Some pretty big names - well known even now. Rightly so. There’s much to discuss. However, the century is more detailed, nuanced and action packed than just those central years. Lots more happened in the century before Jesus than Caesar crossing The Rubicon. Telling the story in just five battles is going to be difficult!

I’m dividing 100BC - 1BC into three eras. Most of the battles will, of course, come from that climatic middle thirty-year period. Can’t help that.

1) Marius and Sulla, The Social and Mithridatic Wars 100-60BC.

A confrontation between more than just two men, Marius and Sulla, this internecine struggle for the soul and power of the Republic led ultimately to the first Roman invasion of, well, er, Rome. The Battle of the Colline Gate 82BC comes from this period as Sulla marched on the capital and fought a huge battle outside the walls of the city.

Also from this period, Rome fights, defeats and then grants citizenship to its Italian allies in The Social War.

Rome defeats a slave revolt at home (you may have heard of this. Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas take on the might of the British Empire. Sorry Roman Empire) and Lucullus and Pompey fight King Mithridates over a twenty five year period and add huge swaths of the Levant to the Empire.

2) The Fall of the Republic 60-31BC. Caesar invades and conquers Gaul, returns and fights Pompey and the Senate, wins, establishes himself as dictator, is assassinated, the assassins are caught and killed by Octavian and Antony, who divide up the empire, fall out and square off. Octavian defeats Antony, becomes Emperor and changes his name to Augustus. Bye bye Republic. From this busy period we have The Battle of Carrhae 53BC - Crassus’ disastrous folly taking on the Parthans, Caesar’s triumph over the Gauls at Alesia in 52BC, Caesar defeating Pompey at Pharsalus 48 BC and the climatic battle of Actium 31BC which finishes off the civil wars.

3) The Augustian settlement - 31BC to the end of century. Augustus as primus unter pares. There were wars, there were battles. Large amounts of territory were formally added to the Empire (Egypt & Switzerland for example), but the modus operanti of empire reverted to the old Roman model - bit by bit, as circumstances dictated. Beginning of the German wars. I have selected no battles from this era. The gates of Janus - opened when Rome was at war, and they usually were, were closed three times during this period.

---

Civic life in the Republic had been getting progressively worse, and more violent, over the last third of the 2nd century BC. The causes of this degradation were many; paradoxically Rome’s victories abroad - culminating in the twin victories over Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC - sowed the mauvaises herbes back at home. These, and other triumphs over the past half century, brought home too much money and too many slaves. The new funds tended to go to aristocrats who bought up the farmsteads of their countrymen, creating large estates, using slave labour to work them. Rome’s small scale agrarian economy was already disrupted by the demands placed on its citizen army who had to put down their ploughs and serve in the military, sometimes faraway and often for years at a time. So foreign success had tilted the equilibrium in Roman society between the haves and the have nots.

Marius was a nouvo homme who had held the consulship an unprecedented six times whilst fighting off the menace of The Cimbri and the Teutones at the end of the second century BC. He reformed the army, making it a paid profession and not a citizen duty. This had important ramifications for the future of the republic and, perhaps, into the Imperial era. Admittedly, the reforms stabilised and professionalised the army - making it an even more fearsome force. But they also severed a link between the army and the state. From now on, armies fought more for their general and less for Rome, with devastating results to the stability of the state. Throw in class warfare, demagogues, constant wars and the republic’s days were numbered.

Sulla - one of Marius’ ex lieutenants, came to symbolise the reactionary optimates through opposition to land reform and resentment at the increasingly bold populist interventions from the people’s tribunes. This party disdained where Rome was going, the wealth, the lack of morals, the appeal to the masses. The clash has familiar strains with one side wanting to return to the purity and stability of earlier Republican days and the other looking to reform a faltering system.

The wars between these two visions of the republic took place against the backdrop of the First Mithridatic War. Sulla - the consul at the time - was appointed to lead Rome’s army in the near east and, whilst he was away, the forces of Marius took over Rome. This happened twice. The second time provoked a full scale civil war culminating outside the walls of Rome itself at The Battle of The Colline Gate 82 BC.

Though Marius was dead by this point, his son had picked up his causes and factions. Returning from the east, Sulla rushed to Rome where the Marian party - with Etruscan and Samnite allies were holed up. The battle lasted from mid afternoon onwards and into the night. It was a bloody and confused affair taking place in front, and within, Rome. It is said that 50,000 men died that night as gradually Sulla’s forces forced their way into Rome.

The ramifications - proscriptions, the massacre of 8000 Samnite prisoners, dictatorship - were fearful. Sulla was a contradiction as a man. He took dictatorial powers only to resign them - Cincinnatus style - months later before standing himself for election. During that time he reformed the constitution, giving more power to the Senate, less to the Tribunes of the people but also making it harder for people like him to seize control. It didn’t last.

“No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” Sulla.

Externally, Rome fought a long running war with Mithridates VI, King of Pontus (in modern day Turkey). The wars - there were three - lasted from 88 BC to 63 BC and took place against a backdrop of increasing violence back in Rome which worked to Mithradates advantage. The conflict started with the massacre of all Romans in the East by Mithradates and ended with his suicide - alone and defeated - as Pompey created a huge Eastern Empire (modern Turkey, Syria and the Levant). This new general-led conquest model spread. When Pompey formed the First Triumvirate with Crassus and Caesar in 59 BC, the other two were eager to replicate his successes. They had - shall we say - variable results.

Crassus first. There are three or four really large and consequential Roman defeats across the thousand or so years of the Empire. Along with Hannibal’s Cannae slaughter and, say, the wipe out of three legions at the Teutoburg Forest or Valens’ defeat at the hands of the Goths at Adrianople 378 AD, Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae 53BC was one of the largest Roman defeats ever. A poor general let his troops down.

Over on the Eastern border of the Empire, the Parthian Empire abutted the expanding Romans. Crassus was eager to take advantage of a proxy dispute with the Parthians over succession within the buffer state of Armenia. He set off to Mesopotamian with seven legions and associated auxiliaries. Many marched out. Hardly any came back. The few survivors of the battle were nearly all captured never to return.**

The legions died hard under a hail of arrows at Carrhae.

It was arrogance and stupidity that caused the Roman army under Crassus to die in such numbers. Foolishly taking a short cut across the desert, where they were vulnerable and with little cavalry support, the legions were attacked by wave after wave of horse archers and heavily armoured cataphracts. They were literally picked off. Crassus himself was killed whilst trying to parlay with the Persians. It was a total disaster and one brought about needlessly by a poor general seeking personal glory. This was not the Roman way.

However, someone else who could also be accused of putting personal aggrandisement ahead of the state’s interests, was one Gaius Julius Caesar. However, unlike Crassus, Caesar was a ruthlessly good general, able to both inspire his troops and be inspirational in battle. After his consulship in 59BC, Caesar’s reward was the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul. Most governors were happy to grow fat on the taxes of their province but not Caesar! From this springboard he spent the next eight years conquering the whole of Gaul - a massive area consisting of modern day France, Belgium and parts of Germany. He even ventured to Britain a couple of times.

The Gauls had long been a mythical foe to the Romans; they sacked Rome in 390 BC and as recent as 100BC threatened to overwhelm the Italian peninsular before being turned back by Marius. So Caesar’s victories and conquests were astounding to the Roman people. He won victory after victory throughout Gaul, rushing here and there to urge on his spread out forces suffering only the occasional reverse. The Gauls didn’t unite until it was almost too late. Finally they rallied behind Vercingetorix who massed forces and destroyed crops to starve Caesar’s troops.

Caesar pinned down Vercingetorix and 80,000 of his troops in the hilltop fortress of Alesia 52BC. He had around eleven legions under his command plus various allies. Probably around 65,000 men. He built a wall all around the hilltop fortress but, when the relief force of 250,000 Gauls turned up, he then built a second wall facing the other way. He was now besieged himself and fighting on both fronts.***

But the Romans held against frequent double sided attacks. Caesar was everywhere rallying his troops and making sure the defences held. They did. The besieging army was driven off with huge casualties and the starving Gauls in the hilltop fortress had no option but to surrender to Caesar (see main picture). Vercingetorix was sent to Rome and held in prison for five years before taking part in one of Caesar’s triumphal parades. He was then ritually throttled to death.

Gaul was conquered. Alesia was Caesar’s greatest victory.

“Then after a short interval they renewed their charge, threw their javelins and, as ordered by Caesar, quickly drew their swords. Nor indeed did the Pompeians fail to meet the occasion; they stood up to the hail of missiles and bore the onset of the legions; they kept their ranks, threw their javelins, and then resorted to their swords.”

— Caesar - The Civil War describing The Battle of Pharsalus

His term as proconsul in Gaul up, Caesar famously crossed the Rubican River into Italy, muttered something in Greek about dice, and headed off to Rome with his army. His speed and audacity caught his rivals in the Senate and Pompey by surprise. They didn’t have an army to hand and so bolted from the city and crossed the Adriatic in order to gather troops from the East. Civil war had again begun.

Caesar firstly destroyed the Senate’s forces in Spain and then, the following year followed Pompey over the Adriatic. There was an inconclusive battle at Dyrrhachium before the decisive showdown at Pharsalus in Greece. Caesar was outnumbered, his troops were starving and he’d been tactically boxed in. The smart move for the Senate forces would have been to starve him out. But they weren’t smart.

Caesar’s troops were battle hardened veterans from the long Gallic Wars whereas many of Pompey’s were raw recruits. As described by Caesar in the quote above, although outnumbered, his troops charged Pompey’s lines taking the initiative against the larger force. Pompey’s overwhelming calvary charged Caesar’s cavalry as expected but were in turn cut down by a fourth line of infantry Caesar had concealed. From there, Caesar’s forces routed Pompey’s legions and chased them and their general back to their camp. As the camp was in danger, Pompey threw off his general’s cloak and escaped through the rear gate. He crossed to Egypt where he was traitorously beheaded by Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra’s brother.

Following his victory at Pharsalus, Caesar spent the next couple of years tracking down the remains of the Senate party before returning to Rome as dictator for life. Which is when he was assassinated in 44BC. The next couple of years were a wearying round of civil wars and proscriptions as Antony and Octavian tracked down and defeated the assassins - Brutus and Cassius. With Lepidus, they formed the second triumvirate in 43 BC and carved up the Roman world between the three of them.

The following ten years were relatively peaceful militarily but gradually the two head triumvirs - Octavian and Antony - perhaps inevitably - fell out. They prepared huge armies for war in a winner-takes-all campaign in Greece.

Technically, Actium wasn’t the last battle of the Roman Republic. That honour goes to the Battle of Alexandria the year after in 30 BC where Octavian chased down Antony and Cleopatra. But this decisive victory off the coast of Greece made the ending inevitable and anti-climatic.

Antony was the better general. He’d proved this many times under Gabinius in the East and then Caesar in Gaul and, following the latter’s death, in the wars against the assassins. One shouldn’t get too hung up on his latter day portrayal as a lovestruck drunk who fell for Cleopatra and let her rule him. But certainly the quality of his generalship declined in the years 40-30BC. He received the East in the carve up between himself, Lepidus and Octavian following the Battle of Philippi and, as overlord, attempted without success to avenge the loss of Carrhae against the Persians.

Actium was a sea battle but it was a sea battle only because Octavian’s general, Agrippa, was using his fleet to blockade Antony’s land forces on Western coast of Greece. The Battle of Actium was Antony’s attempt to break this blockade. The forces were evenly matched - Agrippa had more ships, Antony had heavier ships. The battle went back and forth until, inexplicably, the squadron under Cleopatra made a break for it and headed off back to Egypt. Antony, transferring to a lighter and faster ship, followed, leaving his remaining forces to fend for themselves.

Agrippa’s fleet then destroyed Antony’s fleet and Antony’s army of nineteen legions (yes, 19!), left stranded without provisions in Greece, surrendered. Octavian, dealing with some troop mutinies and pirates, only followed up on this success the following year. Landing in Egypt, he easily defeated Antony’s remnants of an army. We know what happened next; Antony committed suicide, and Cleopatra, sensing Octavian wanted her as prize exhibit in a subsequent triumph through Rome, did likewise. The civil wars were over.

Octavian, became Augustus (majestic) and gradually consolidated his powers over the Roman people with the willing help of the Senate - purged, cowed and sick of war. The previous century of civil wars, proscriptions, and turmoil had taken the heart out of the Republic. Although Augustus was careful to keep up the facade of the Republic’s institutions (consuls, senate, pontiffs etc) there was no doubt who was really in charge. Augustus faced no serious challenges to this ascendency or rule.

So the first century BC was a transitional period for Rome as it moved away from hundreds of years of Republican rule to five hundred more years (or fifteen hundred including the Byzantine Empire) of quasi monarchy. Despite the internal turmoil and wars, externally, Rome consolidated her power, grew her Empire and was, by the end, much more powerful than she was at the beginning.

“I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one of marble,” said Augustus on his deathbed. Architecturally, he may have been right, certainly many fine public buildings were built during his era. It could also - as has been pointed out - be taken metaphorically; he took chaos and brought order at the expense of liberty.

NOTES

* Or 180 AD and the hand over from Marcus Aurelius to his son Commodus - The Fall of the Roman Empire & more recently Gladiator.

** Cassius (of Caesar assassin fame) led the few forces not killed or captured back to Roman Syria. There are rumours that some of the survivors left in Mesopotamia were forced marched by the Persians to their Eastern border to man the defences against incursions. There are even stories of Roman prisoners making their way to China.

*** You should always be wary about numbers listed in ancient sources. Caesar, writing in his campaign book - The Civil Wars - probably overestimates. It was a common practice.

The First Century in Five Battles

(In which Tim maps the Roman Empire in the first century AD through five battles)

“Varus, give me back my legions!”

So the ageing Emperor Augustus is said to have shouted, driven mad by the loss of three legions at The Battle of The Teutoberg Forest in AD 9. Quinctilus Varus was the Roman commander who led those legions into the dark German forests, never to return. This is the first battle of the first century. Rome’s devastating response following the campaigns of the aptly named Germanicus shall be my next focus as exemplified by The Battle of Idistaviso in AD 16.

The invasion of Britain under the Emperor Claudius in AD 43 merits a mention. As does the defeat of Boudicca at the Battle of Watling Street in AD 61 where Rome firmly put down her revolt. The Battle of Mons Graupius in AD 83 finally consolidated Britain (minus Caledonia) into the Empire.

The siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is an obvious landmark battle. The Jewish revolt was a major uprising and occurred during one of the few periods of outside instability the Roman Empire faced in the first century. Its impact is probably still felt today.

Whilst Titus was dealing with the Jewish revolt, his father Vespasian had marched on Rome to throw his laurel wreath into the ring to become Emperor. The ‘Year of the Four Emperors’ in AD 69 was the first Roman civil war in 100 years. Previously Emperors had just been assassinated, poisoned or committed suicide. This violent transfer of power though was limited to the unfortunate Emperor and his immediate supporters and didn’t lead to a full-scale civil war as had been the norm in the late Republic. Although, Rome soon came back to normalcy - and indeed the Emperors improved - this respite would be only temporary and civil wars would come back in a big way towards the end of the second century.

A note on the army itself: The Roman army of the 1st Century AD looked exactly like the Roman Army in popular imagination. They wore curved helmets protecting the back of their necks, segmented armour, carried long curved rectangular shields, held short thrusting swords and threw devastating volleys of weighted spears. A legion consisted around 5120 men divided into 10 cohorts (the 1st being double sized). There were 28 legions in Augustus’ time, later increased to 30. Auxiliaries assisted the legions (archers, calvary, skirmishers etc) and their number was around the same. Therefore, a reasonable assessment of the size of the Roman Army of this period is 300,000 men under arms.

---

The first century began with Augustus in the 28th year of his principate. Unlike much of the previous century, The Roman world was pretty much at peace with itself. The civil wars were over. Augustus stealthily added nations that were protectorates - like Egypt - to the Empire avoiding outright conquering. However, his sons-in-law - Drusus and Tiberius - added Raetia (modern Switzerland). But this Caesar - unlike his famous uncle - was content to be imperator in name if not in deed.

However, one recurring trouble spot in the Empire was the Germanic tribes beyond Gaul. Could Augustus add Germania to the Empire and, if not, where was the defensive line of the empire to be drawn? It was going to be the river Elbe but - following the loss of the legions in the forests - Rome pulled back to the Rhine where it stayed for the next four hundred years.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was the shock that caused this retrenchment. Three legions (plus assorted auxiliaries and camp followers) operating beyond the Rhine, were betrayed by a supposed friendly German ally, Arminius, and massacred. Arminius led Varus into the dense forest and then sprang his trap. The army was wiped out and their totemic eagles taken.

At this point in time, Rome had just 28 legions. The loss of three meant a sizeable chunk of the available forces had just disappeared. No wonder Augustus was upset. Revenge came slowly and - as was the wont at these times - through a member of the Imperial family.

Germanicus was nephew to the new Emperor Tiberius and was sent to the Rhine to sort out the mess left after Arminius’ triumph. Fighting many battles and chasing many tribes into many forests, Germanicus skirmished and harassed the Germans time after time over three years until he finally tempted them into an open pitched battle. This was at the Weser River and became the Battle of Idistaviso AD 16. The result was a massacre of the German tribes. Arminius survived only to be beaten again that same year at The Battle of the Angrivarian Wall. (He was later killed by members of his own tribe. He is still celebrated as one of the founders of the German nation. His massive 19th has century statue stands above the Teutoburg Forest to this day.)

Rome had won the conflict but Tiberius, ever cautious, withdrew Germanicus to Rome and the Empire’s frontier was settled back at the Rhine.

Julius Caesar had come across the Channel to Britain a couple of times but he never made a serious invasion attempt - he was too busy conquering Gaul. These incursions provoked a few fights, garnered some tributes and alliances, but Caesar didn’t stick around to conquer Britain. One hundred years later though, in AD 43, the unwarlike Emperor Claudius - another nephew of Tiberius - launched the invasion of Britain.

The conquest was a slow process taking over 40 years. The south of the country was relatively passive, having interacted with the Romans for years. However, the North and West and Wales proved much more difficult. Whilst the Romans were distracted subduing the Welsh tribes in AD 60, the Iceni under Boudicca rebelled back in the conquered south. The rebellion was short, violent with the rebels burning and massacring the Roman towns of St Albans, Colchester and a little town called Londinium.

The governor, Seutonius Paulinus, gathered up a force centred around one and a half legions and met Boudicca and her army somewhere along what became known later as Watling Street. He chose his battlefield well, funnelling the Britons into a narrow front. As had happened many times previously in Roman history, well-trained legions overcame a larger but undisciplined horde. The rebels were massacred - hemmed in by their own carriages - and Boudicca committed suicide not long after.

Twenty of so years later, the Romans had turned their attention to the north of Britain. Up in Scotland, the Caledonian tribes were causing problems. However, the usual rules applied; tracking a tribe into an open pitched battle was difficult and whilst traipsing around the wet and cold of Scotland, the Roman army was prey to ambushes and lightning strikes. Governor Agricola finally lured the Caledonians into battle somewhere in the mountains of Scotland (the precise site is unknown). The Battle of Mons Graupius AD 83 was unique in that the Romans won it using only their highly trained Germans auxiliaries with assistance from the cavalry.

Tacitus, who wrote the account of the battle, famously put words into mouth of the Caledonian leader, Calgacus, “They make a desolation and call it peace.” All Britain was conquered. For now.

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850)

Back a few years, and we have the brutal Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 part of the First Jewish-Roman war. Pompey had added Judea to the empire back in the Republican days. He’d even successfully laid siege to Jerusalem. This time though, the struggle was more bitter as a hardcore sect of rebels within the city - the Zealots - refused to surrender. As Vespasian had left for Rome, his son Titus (later emperor too) led the four legion assault on the city. Starvation, disease and the terrors of war were meted out to the inhabitants of the city, bolstered as they were by hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping the wider war. The end was a massacre:-

“They poured into the street sword in hand, slaughtering indiscriminately all they came across and burning houses with those who had fled there still inside… Since the troops had run out of victims to kill or property to loot, Caesar ordered the army to raze to the ground the whole city and the temple…” Josephus, The Jewish War (Book 6:404 / Book 7:1)

Jerusalem and its population was destroyed. This was quite a consequential siege in history.

---

The 4th Century in Five Battles

(In which Tim discusses the five most important battles within the wider history of the 4th Century Roman Empire)

The fourth century was bookended by two famous ‘Christian’ battles - The Milvian Bridge in 312 and The Frigidus in 394. They mark - apocryphally - both the entry point of Christianity into the Roman Empire and its ultimate victory. Each led to climatic events; The Milvian Bridge led directly to the Nicene Council of 325 which formalised the Christian creed. The Frigidus began the series of events that ended with Alaric’s sack of Rome just sixteen years later.

So we have our beginning and end. What in between? Adrianople, of course. The defeat of Valens and the Eastern Roman Empire’s army at the hands of the Goths in 378 is popularly associated with the eventual downfall of the empire itself. Can’t argue that it’s important.

For me, Julian is the most interesting fourth century Emperor. His metamorphosis from bookish princeling to ass-kickin’ Caesar began in Gaul. The most famous battle in his journey to pacify the province was his victory over the Alamanni in the Battle of Strasbourg 357.

Our fifth battle is The Battle of Mursa 351 where the forces of Constantius II defeated those of the usurper Magnentius in the biggest and bloodiest battle of the century. As an exercise in damaging futility this was the daddy of them all.

*****

The Empire at the beginning of the fourth century was a very different animal to that ruled over by Septimius Severus one hundred years earlier. The crisis of the third century had brought about chaos, short lived emperors, and the temporary division into three mini empires. The gradual restoration of control was brought about by the Illyrian emperors Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, Probus and finally Diocletian.

Diocletian instituted the tetrarchy - a system where two senior Augustii and two junior Caesars ruled quadrants of the Empire. It was a neat idea. It didn’t last. Diocletian, who resigned along with his co-Augustus Maximian, lived long enough to see not only his fine cabbages grow in his retirement home in Split, but his system of government fall apart as his successors squabbled amongst themselves to gain and maintain power.

Constantine (The Great), son of one of Diocletian’s successors Constantius I, was chief amongst those squabbling. He was annoyed that he was left out of Diocletian’s succession plans and, on the death of his ailing father in York in 306, declared himself emperor. This led ultimately to the first battle of our series - The Milvian Bridge.

In this battle, Constantine marched into Italy in 312 - then under the rule of one of the many post-Diocletian claimants - Maxentius. With a smaller army, Constantine’s troops feared losing the climatic battle outside Rome the next day. That night Constantine dreamed of a cross in the sky. So the story goes, he had his army paint the Christian symbol on their shields and, with God on their side, they routed Maxentius and his army the next day at The Milvian Bridge.

The Arch of Constantine was completed to mark this famous victory. The fact that it was originally going to be the Arch of Maxentius and repurposed bas reliefs from earlier monuments, is now somewhat forgotten. He who wins writes the history and gets the arches. It still stands today under the shadow of the Colosseum.

The next twelve years were a history of Rome fighting itself as Constantine gradually consolidated his power to become sole emperor in 324 with his defeat of Licinius. Famously, Constantine left three legacies to the Empire when he died - after converting on his deathbed to Christianity - in 337:

• The Council of Nicene which produced a unified - though disputed for many years - Christian doctrine still in use today,

• The founding of Constantinople as the ‘new Rome’ on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium,

• An utterly chaotic carve up of the Empire between his three sons and two nephews which set the scene for nearly twenty years of civil wars.

The intrigues between the three sons of Constantine deserve a blog of all their own. The imaginatively named Constantine, Constans and Constantius battled it out for years until only the latter remained standing as Constantius II. The second of our landmark battles occurs in this period when Constantius - in the East - took on his brother Constans’ murderer, Magnentius at Mursa in 351.

Mursa was a triumph for Constantius but a tragedy for the empire. Crack units of the East and Western Roman armies fought each other in a bloodbath in Pannonia (modern day Croatia). The battle saw the flowering of the late Roman cataphracts - heavily armoured cavalry - as they mowed down Magnentius’ legions. It was a victory but a pyrrhic one.

One of the consequences of Rome turning in on itself was that units were inevitably withdrawn from the Empire’s borders. The tribes living beyond took advantage of this and increasingly began to run amok amongst the frontiers. Constantius proved Diocletian’s theory that the Empire was too big for just one ruler and so appointed first his cousin Gallus, and then his other cousin, Julian, as junior Caesar. Gallus proved himself unfit to rule and so was executed. Julian however, proved himself quite the opposite.

Bookish, sceptical and a lover of philosophy, Julian was an unlikely warrior Caesar. Sent to Gaul to restore order, Julian did just that. And more. Let down by his supporting army (who may have been acting on the orders of Constantius) Julian was left facing a much larger force of Alamanni near Strasbourg in 357. The battle was a complete rout with the Alamanni destroyed by Julian’s infantry and then chased all the way back to the Rhine where many survivors drowned. Over the following years, Julian followed up by a process of forward-defence - raids into enemy territory whilst repairing and reinforcing the border.

Inevitably the two last descendants of Constantine The Great squared off against each other in 361 (see previous blogpost). Luckily for the Empire, Constantius died on the way to confront Julian allowing the latter to become the undisputed ruler of the whole empire. Julian met his ‘spear of destiny’ just two years later fighting the Persians and bringing to an end Constantine’s line and any anti-Christian fight back. Rome was henceforth a Christian empire.

The Empire now fell into the hands of Valentinian who appointed his brother Valens Augustus of the East. This proved a fatal decision as Valens allowed a massive Gothic migration into his lands in 376. The Goths crossed the Danube to escape the growing power of the Huns expanding and terrorising from the east. Stupidity, betrayal and pride (Valens refused to wait for the army of his nephew Gratian - now Emperor of the West) led Valens and the Eastern Roman army to take on the Goths alone at Adrianople (now part of European Turkey) in 378.

Adrianople was a disaster for the Romans. Their army was destroyed by the Goths and the emperor himself allegedly died after been burnt alive in a peasant house while attempting to flee the battlefield. The defeat left the Eastern empire defenceless and leaderless and at the mercy of the Goths who now rampaged at will throughout Thrace and Greece.

Slowly, piece by piece, Roman general and later emperor Theodosius (The Great) put the East back together. He fought defensive actions and eventually made peace with the Goths in 382 allowing them to stay within the empire’s borders. Once inside the Goths became a combustable element, fighting for the Empire when it suited them but, equally likely to go marauding and looting.

Over in the Western half, Valentinian’s younger son Valentinian II - now Emperor - allegedly hanged himself. His all-powerful advisor and military commander Arbogast was more than implicated. Arbogast was a Frank by birth and so ineligible to take the throne himself and so he chose Eugenius, an obscure Roman official to be the new Emperor in the West. Over in the East, Theodosius bided his time. But when Arbogast and Eugenius started to favour the old Roman gods over Christianity, Theodosius reacted. The showdown took place at The Battle of The Frigidus (modern day Slovenia) in 394.

This two day battle was notable for several things.

• Theodosius won the battle becoming the last sole Emperor of East and West. Not for long though as he died in 395.

• The battle marked the final victory of Christianity over paganism. Much is made of the high winds that allegedly blew at Arbogast’s forces on day two of the battle rendering their missiles useless. A divine wind, it was claimed.

• Theodosius’ use of Gothic auxiliaries (foederati) was controversial. He put them in the front line and used them as cheap cannon fodder. It allowed him to win the battle but incensed his surviving allies. One of the Gothic leaders fighting for Theodosius that day was a young noble named Alaric. Sixteen years later, Alaric led the Goths into Italy and sacked Rome for the first time in eight hundred years. It wasn’t the end of the Roman Empire but it marked the beginning of the last stages of the Western half.

The fourth century ends with the young sons of Theodosius - Honorius and Arcadius - in charge of the West and East respectively. Both of them were weak, dominated by advisors and unfit for their times. It was a sad end to such a lively century.

So what have learnt in this brief canter through the years 300-399?

First, and most obvious, the rise and rise of Christianity. A persecuted sect at the start of the century - the worst repression occurred under Diocletian for example - it was the undisputed religion of the Empire by the end.

The Roman military was still powerful throughout much of the century. Although the legions were no longer the primary unit, it still packed a punch. Borrowing from Palmyra and Persia, the military incorporated heavy calvary units alongside smaller vexallations of infantry. When it worked, armies could criss-cross the empire and successfully see off threats. Under strong leaders - Constantine, Julian - the army could be formidable.

The increased use of foederati - allied non Roman troops. By the end of the century, the traditional auxiliary units - trained and led by Romans - had largely been replaced by unincorporated bands of barbarians who fought under their own banners and leaders.

Civil wars were as deadly to the empire as attacks by outside forces. Roman v Roman battles were as common and - pace Mursa - could be much more deadly.

The idea of a single emperor ruling the whole empire was the exception rather than the rule throughout the fourth century. It was a rare period that saw just one ruler.

---

(I attach David Bowie’s Velvet Goldmine. When I was younger, reading about the later Roman Empire, I always associated this song with the heavily armed Cataphracts riding East to West, West to East, protecting the Empire. I misheard a line so it read “I’ll be your faithful prince who will ride for you again and again.” Unfortunately I now know that’s not the lyrics!)