The Plight of Rome in the Fifth Century AD

Mark Merrony

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351702782
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

The Plight of Rome in the Fifth Century AD argues that the fall of the western Roman Empire was rooted in a significant drop in war booty, agricultural productivity, and mineral resources. Merrony proposes that a dependency on the three economic components was established with the Principate, when a precedent was set for an unsustainable threshold on military spending.

Drawing on literary and archaeological data, this volume establishes a correspondence between booty (in the form of slaves and precious metals) from foreign campaigns and public building programmes, and how this equilibrium was upset after the Empire reached its full expansion and began to contract in the third century. It is contended that this trend was exacerbated by the systematic loss of agricultural productivity (principally grain, but also livestock), as successive barbarian tribes were settled and wrested control from the imperial authorities in the fifth century. Merrony explores how Rome was weakened and divided, unable to pay its army, feed its people, or support the imperial bureaucracy – and how this contributed to its administrative collapse.

1 The purple cloak of deceit

Janus Quirinus, which our ancestors ordered to be closed whenever there was peace, secured by victory, throughout the whole domain of the Roman people on land and sea, and which, before my birth is recorded to have been closed but twice in all since the foundation of the city, the senate ordered to be closed thrice while I was princeps.

Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Augustus

Widely regarded as the symbolical ‘entrée’ of the Pax Romana, Augustus’ proud statement about the Temple of Janus emphasizes a general climate of peace during his long reign.¹ This autobiographical account is pictorially supported by a multitude of coins that were minted to convey that the new Roman world was at peace under the influence of a great emperor.² In 9 bc the Ara Pacis Augustae, the Augustan Altar of Peace, was consecrated by the Senate.³ Its lower register depicts an exuberant scheme of vegetal decoration, alluding to the abundance and prosperity of the Augustan age.⁴ This comprehensive ideology became a feature of architectural sculpture on, and in, many public buildings in Rome and elsewhere, instilling the notion of peace in the hearts and minds of Roman citizens, a message that would have been emphatic in elite circles, whom Augustus counted on for support.

In the present chapter the military developments are examined from the Augustan period to the end of the first century, particularly the superficiality of the Pax Romana that was perpetuated by the successors of the princeps. This demands an appropriate historical narrative, and this is supplemented with a number of comments and observations in the primary sources, and also archaeological and dated building inscriptions in the capital, Italy, and the western provinces.

The focus here is on the extreme volume of conflict that is not normally associated with the ‘golden era’ of the Roman empire. In particular, how precipitous Roman security in fact was, the overextension of its militia, and how the economy benefitted from its booty income to fund monumental building projects in Rome and elsewhere in the empire. Crucial to the chapters that follow are the Augustan military reforms, which demanded persistent warfare from a massive military apparatus in order to preserve the state and its economic wellbeing; thereafter placing the reign of numerous emperors in a dangerous situation.

The Julio-Claudian period: Augustus (27 BC – AD 14)

Augustus’ first, and perhaps greatest, achievement was to heal a fragmented state that had been ripped to pieces by a vicious cycle of civil wars between the leading protagonists of Rome in the late Republican period. The bitter rivalries of the Second Triumvirate were prefigured by those of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus – the First Triumvirate. Collectively, these great men could raise massive armies with the inevitable consequence that the military were a constant threat to the political stability of Rome. For this reason, before he became emperor, Octavian drastically reduced the size of the armed forces, cutting the number of legions from around 50 to 28, but doubled the size of a legion’s first cohort; they were formed from citizens of the empire. He also established the auxilia, regiments that were numerically comparable but comprised non-citizens (peregrini).⁵

In the aftermath of the Battle of Actium in 31 BC Octavian had around 700 warships at his disposal, a number far in excess of what he needed and many were scrapped. Shortly after his accession to the throne he reorganized the navy with Agrippa to create the imperial fleets. For the next 300 years they held sway over the Mediterranean, which the Romans called ‘mare nostrum’ (‘our sea’), comprising the Black, Red, North, and Irish Seas, the English Channel, the north-west Atlantic seaboard, and the river frontiers of the Rhine and Danube.⁶

In spite of such a large militia, the fact that Augustus closed the doors of the Temple of Janus three times of course suggests that his reign was unstable. This edifice was depicted on coinage with lofty doors, possibly bronze, and described with similar details by Plutarch, who spent much of his life in Rome and was acquainted with the building.⁷ According to Dio, their first closure was after Actium in 29 bc following the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra: ‘the action which pleased him more than all the decrees was the closing by the senate of the gates of Janus, implying that all their wars had entirely ceased …’.⁸ They must have been hastily reopened since they were closed again after the successful conclusion to Augustus’ military campaigns in Hispania and Gaul in 25 bc: ‘After these achievements in the wars Augustus closed the precinct of Janus, which had been opened because of these wars’.⁹ We lack a commentary on the third closure, and there has been considerable debate about this. It could have been in 13 bc, to commemorate Augustus’ military successes in Gaul, which had recommenced in 15 bc.¹⁰ Alternatively, 7 bc has been suggested, to celebrate the Triumph of Tiberius after his Germanic campaign.¹¹ In any case, these closures postdate episodes of serious conflict in the provinces of the empire.

Augustus in fact devotes a substantial part of the Res Gestae to his military activities and achievements. The first reference in this context is his vengeance on Brutus and Cassius for assassinating Caesar, but he does not name them: ‘Those who slew my father I drove into exile, punishing their deed by due process of law and afterwards when they waged war upon the republic I twice defeated them in battle’.¹² Thereafter he is forthright: ‘Wars, both civil and foreign, I undertook throughout the world, on sea and land …’.¹³ Reference to his numerous triumphs follow: ‘Twice I triumphed with an ovation, thrice I celebrated curule triumphs … In my triumphs there were led before my chariot nine kings or children of kings’.¹⁴ His European campaigns, mentioned above, are also explicit, when he ‘… returned from Spain and Gaul… after successful operations in those provinces …’ Augustus’ immodesty reaches fever pitch in the closing paragraphs: ‘I extended the boundaries of all the provinces which were bordered by races not yet subject to our empire’.¹⁵ A favourite is: ‘Egypt I added to the empire of the Roman people …’.¹⁶

Absent from the Res Gestae, for obvious reasons, is the catastrophe of the Teutoburg Forest in ad 9 in which Legio XVII, XVIII, and XIX were destroyed under the command of Varus by the Germanic Cherusci coalition led by Arminius. According to Suetonius, this had such a shocking impact on the emperor that ‘upon hearing the news, Augustus tore his clothes, refused to cut his hair for months and, for years afterwards, was heard, upon occasion, to moan, “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!”’¹⁷

Suetonius mentions another defeat in Germania that he describes as ‘more humiliating than serious’.¹⁸ This alludes to the so-called ‘Lollian Disaster’ of 16 bc in which a raiding coalition of Tencteri and Usipetes gave Legio V Alaudae a bloody nose under Marcus Lollius, capturing their eagle standard. This reverse was rapidly avenged by Augustus who was in Gaul at the time.

This era was in fact fraught with major conflicts. The Bellum Batonianum (War of the Batons), also known as the Great Illyrian revolt, represented a significant struggle for the legions of the princeps. This was precipitated by territorial expansion into the region of Illyria. The uprising was instigated by Bato, chief of the Daesitiates in Dalmatia (ad 6), who gathered a coalition of tribes including the Breuci (led by another Bato). An unthinkable invasion of Italy seemed likely, and the general Velleius Paterculus, who was a participant in the subsequent counter-offensive, commented that:¹⁹

Roman citizens were overpowered, traders were massacred, a consi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• List of maps and illustrations
• Notes on the sources
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The purple cloak of deceit
• 2 The bloody peace
• 3 Crisis! What crisis?
• 4 The rise and fall of the new golden era
• 5 The plight of Rome
• Appendix: timeline of events
• Bibliography
• Index