The Ancients - The Roman Secret Service

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

When you think of spies, images of suave men in suits sipping martinis tend to come to mind - not, well, the Romans. But espionage has been used throughout Rome's history, from it's enemies using intelligence gathering techniques against the empire, through to even the most pragmatic of Emperor's recruiting secret agents. But what do we actually know about the Roman Secret Service, and how was it used across the empire?In this episode Tristan welcomes back Dr Simon Elliot to the podcast to delve into the world of Roman Espionage. Looking at it's uses in the Punic Wars, how different Emperors employed different tactics, and the archaeological evidence we have of their actions today - what did it take to be a Roman Spy, and how many of them were there actually?Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code ANCIENTS sign up now for your 14-day free trial HERE.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, well, it's a very fun episode. It's an exciting episode because we're talking about a very mysterious part of Roman history, all to do with spies and intelligence gathering.

We are talking about the Roman secret service. What do we know about the gathering of state-level intelligence by the Romans? Joining us to talk through it, well I was delighted to get back on the podcast a good friend of the podcast, none other than Dr Simon Elliott. We explore the situation in the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire which led to the forming of an official Roman secret service and then how that service evolved over the following centuries. So we're going to be going from topics like Hannibal all the way to the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries AD. I really do hope you enjoy and without further ado

here's Simon to talk all things the Roman secret service. Simon, pleasure as always. Good to have you back on the podcast. I love coming on the podcast. The Ancients is one of my favourite podcasts to record with. Always fabulous to talk to Tristan. One of your favourites is the favourite, let's be honest. But we're going to kick it off with another big topic and it is the Roman secret service. The Romans, this is quite mad, they had their own secret service. They did indeed. The James Bonds of the Roman world Tristan. The James Bonds of the Roman world, well we'll get to that. I'm sure there's a bit more to it than just the James Bonds of the Roman world. However, that is obviously

the catch line. Now if we start with the background, there was evidently a real need for state level intelligence, for gaining this intelligence in the Roman Empire, for the Roman imperial administration and before that. Absolutely right. Yeah, it's interesting because the whole thing is very confusing. It's confusing for the Romans from their viewpoint, especially if you're a Roman aristocrat. The Roman aristocrats didn't like doing dodgy things like the Greeks, for example. And one of the things that their enemies were famed for doing in the Roman world was having spies and gathering intelligence. So for a Roman aristocrat to do that kind of thing would lower themselves. So the Roman aristocrats of the

mid and late Republican period, all the way into the early Principate Empire, completely refused to publicly acknowledge that they were doing any kind of intelligence gathering at all. And what do we mean by state-level intelligence gathering? So this is governmental level. So in the Republic, it's based around the Senate and it's based around all the aspects of Republican administration, which the Senate controls. Into the Pre-Incupate Empire, it's the the concilium which is advising the emperor himself and also the senate again doing the same kind of thing so it's basically

either pan-republic or pan-empire so it's from the top we mentioned republic if we start with the republic i mean what do we know about the secret service or this state level intelligence gathering during this period in Roman history? Going back to my initial point, the Romans themselves would not admit they were doing it. But clearly, it was happening. So I think in the Middle and Late Republican period, if you were either the Roman government or you were an army on campaign, you would obviously have intelligence-gathering assets. You'd obviously have spies and resources giving you intelligence what your opponents are doing but you wouldn't admit it overtly it was happening you wouldn't admit it overtly oddly actually you can see the

kind of things that these people who the Romans wouldn't admit were doing it for them what they were doing through the way the Romans record their opponents doing the same kind of thing so if you go to the first Mithridatic war, when you have Mithridates VI fighting, for example, Sulla, there's a story in the primary sources which talks about Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, their enemy, dressing himself up as a shepherd and then going through Bithynia in the west of modern Anatolia, modern Turkey, basically looking at the lie of the land for a future campaign before he invaded Roman Asia, the province of Asia. So therefore, it was happening for the Romans. It was happening for their opponents. The Romans admitted their opponents were doing it.

They would not admit they were doing it themselves. And just to highlight there also, when we look at the Republic, there are some notable defeats that occur whether it's hannibal or the kimberi and those defeats they are close to home in italy proper i remember noticing this in your book that could potentially this kind of desire by these romans by romans themselves not to be involved in this state-level intelligence gathering or them thinking it was beneath them and therefore kind of giving it to others. This potential lack of focus on that could have contributed as to why you sometimes get these massive armies arriving on Rome's doorsteps and the Romans seeing completely powerless or oblivious until too late that they are in their vicinity. Some great examples already mentioned, Tristan. Look at the Second Punic War where

Hannibal decides to invade Italy from the north through from Spain through southern Gaul through the Alps and into northern Italy. That was a complete intelligence failure on the part of the Romans they just didn't see it coming until it was too late and Hannibal was effectively approaching the Alps and you can look at every specific Roman defeat and by the way the Romans did not win all the time in terms of conflict the Romans lost as much as they won they were just very good at learning from the losses nicking the ideas that are opponents and then actually making good the loss in terms of winning the longer war or wars. So they didn't always win. And absolutely every single time the Romans lost in a campaign or battle, you can put

one of the key reasons down to the lack of intelligence gathering, or the lack of overt admittance they needed to gather intelligence. And quickly, how does state level intelligence therefore differ from military intelligence gathering? So in the book, so the book's called Roman Special Forces, and in the book what I do is I tease out different levels of intelligence gathering. You have state-level intelligence gathering. So state-level intelligence gathering, so the reader understands what I mean, in the modern world would be, for example, the FBI and the CIA or the MI5 and MI6. That's state-level intelligence gathering. At a military level, when an army's on campaign, a Roman legionary spearhead, and this is the army at the moment of the Republican period, predominantly legionaries, they would have

people gathering intelligence for them, specific types of intelligence gatherers who have names like speculatories or exploratories, gathering intelligence locally, but also they'll be employing state level assets as well. So they will be getting information coming into the Senate, coming into the apparatus of government in Rome, which is then fed out to the army on campaign. And probably it's that level, that state level where the failure is occurring. Well, let's now delve more into it at the state level. When do you start to see the emergence of an official secret service in the Roman Empire? What's really interesting is you can see at each stage of the development of Roman intelligence gathering, it's one of the great emperors involved.

So the first emperor involved in actually bringing state-level intelligence gathering out of the darkness and into the light, as it were, is the first emperor, Augustus, the most pragmatic of emperors. Now, imagine Augustus is the last man standing after the centuries worth of sanguineous civil wars. He's got a nation. He creates the Roman emperor, of course, an empire on its knees because of all these civil wars. He brings in his Pax Romana because everybody wants peace. But he then has to maintain the peace. And he rationalizes everything and revolutionizes the way that the republic is run into the empire. And one of the things he introduces is an unofficial intelligence gathering service, which is still not out in the open that he would admit exists.

But we have names for the operative now. So these operatives who are reporting to Augustus are given a name for the first time, and they're called deletories, which is based on the phrase deletorio, which is the, in Latin, the legal act of denunciating one citizen by another. So that's where deletorio comes from. This is the first name that's given to somebody that's providing the imperial centre, This is the first name that's given to somebody that's providing the imperial center, as I style it. In this case, Augustus, the first emperor, with official intelligence he can use and talk about openly with his own peers. Do we know anything else about the De La Torres?

I'm guessing, as it is only at the beginning, and given it must be quite a secretive, covert operation, this intelligence gathering, do we know much else about this unit? No, we don't. In actual fact, I'm not sure you would call it a unit, actually, in the same way that the later organizations develop. I think it genuinely was unofficial. The name is there for the first time. We now know the names of the operatives, but it was still highly unofficial in that sense. But we do know that they continued in use all the way through the Julio-Claudian emperors, through the Flavian emperors as well. So with the later Flavian emperors, look at Titus and into Domitian, they're much more overt in actual fact. Domitian, this feels like the time where we can see this next great leap up, this next step up in the story of the Roman secret service. So that's a great phrase there, Tristan, step up. So it's a leap up. That's exactly what happens. You go through the sequence of Julio of Julia Claudian and Flavian emperors and you end up with Domitian the ill-favored

Domitian one of my least favorite emperors very unpopular especially latterly in his reign of course assassinated and it's he who creates the first official Roman state level intelligence gathering service which has got a fantastic name it's called the frumentum so where does the name frumentum come from the name frumentum actually is the name at the time the mission became the emperor which was given to the supply section of the praetorium imperial general staff so the general staff reporting directly to the emperor and based on an early latin term for weak distribution so what we're looking at here are basically officials working for the imperial center who are making sure that the military on the frontiers around the empire remember at this time all the legions are based on the frontiers

not the interior making sure all these legions are fed properly and supplied properly and so they use the imperial trunk roads up and down east and west north and south all the time giving a direct link in terms of supply of grain and everything else from the imperial center in rome all the way through to the frontiers on the rhine or the danube in syria in egypt and in north africa so they're traveling all the time along these roads and the people who are doing this on the supply section the frumentum are called the frumentari. So this service originates from a logistics system, but actually you say because of all of that travelling around the empire, going to all of these places, when you delve

more into it, I mean at first it might seem quite bizarre that it's its origins, but when you delve more into it, it actually makes quite a lot of sense. i think it's a genius idea actually because these individuals are frumentari the grain supply officers are the eyes and ears effectively of rome when they come back so they're going to the borders through all imperial territory they're seeing everything that's happening and they're reporting it back when they get back probably unofficially even casually and actually twisting that on its head and saying well in actual fact if they're back probably unofficially even casually and actually twisting that on its head and saying well in actual fact if they're doing it unofficially let's make it official so by the end of the mission's reign the name frumentum had to become the official name for the state

gathering intelligence apparatus for the emperor and the name frumentari were their operatives so the first official roman james bonds as it were the were their operatives. So the first official Roman James Bonds, as it were, the intelligence gathering operatives are the Frumentari. Do we know who they were reporting to? Who was therefore the Roman M? It's a great question. So the Roman M would have been one of the principal advisors in the Emperor's Concilium. So the Emperor at the time would have a head of the libertarian guard he would have two or three senior military leaders he would have representatives from the senate but also in there he'd have the person who would by the end of his reign be in charge of intelligence

gathering and in actual fact by the end of his reign they had their own location for the headquarters as well which is called the castra peregrina camp so it's the Camp of Strangers, the Castra Peregrina Camp, the Camp of Strangers, which is on the Caelian Hill. It's a great place to put it on the Caelian Hill. You think about it, the Caelian Hill is on the opposite side of the Palatine Hill with the Forum Romanum running between them. So from the top of the Caelian Hill, you're looking straight down into the place of governance of the Roman Empire at this time,

which is going to be the Forum Romanum, and across the valley where the Forum Romanum is looking straight towards the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill. Great location for it. It's a great location for the Camp of the Strangers, for this HQ. It sounds like we actually have quite a lot of information about the Frumentari, about the Frumentum. What sorts of sources do we have available to learn about this, about the frumentum and what sorts of sources do we have available to learn about this well we can now say unit by the mid-second century there are lots of references to them so they get made official by the end of the reign of the mission they have their own headquarters brilliant location they've become an essential part of the imperial center's entire operation so by the middle of the

second century they're operating everywhere around the roman empire and also outside the roman empire as well providing intelligence back to the emperor back to the emperor's advisors in the concilium and the thing to remember here is they're providing intelligence not just about rome's enemies outside the borders of the empire but about what people are doing inside as well. Roman emperors are very paranoid and they're very paranoid for good reason because a lot of them didn't die in their beds. Domitian's a good example.

So therefore, having the ability to understand what everybody else is thinking about the emperor and if anybody's plotting against them is vital to the emperor. So they become a really important part of the imperial center and that's also a really important point to stress isn't it that these from Antari they

were responsible for a whole load of different duties related to intelligence gathering and what was supposed to go on or how they were supposed to deal with problems with gathering information on far-flung corners of the empire. Rome. So in Britain, by the mid-second century, you've got three legions based there. You've got Ligio II Augusta and Celeon, Ligio XX Valerio Victrix in Chester, and Ligio VI Victrix in York. That's a long way from Rome. And later in the empire, Britain, as an example, becomes famous for having usurpers, people who try and take the purple from Britain. You've got similarly large military presences on the eastern frontier, and also on the Danube and on the Rhine as well. So there's a long way from Rome. And then supporting them, you've got Fabrique state manufacturers, which are maybe in the centre of Gaul in terms of the Rhine frontier,

which provide all the equipment for the military. So we know from the primary sources that the Frumentari were being deployed by the Frumentum, not just to keep an eye on the opponents outside the empire, not just to keep an eye on the opponents outside the Empire, not just to keep an eye on the legions themselves, but to also keep an eye on the people running the Fabrique state manufacturers to make sure that the supply of stuff to the Imperial frontier continued and abated.

A lot of the time in that sense, what they were looking for was people actually being dishonest. So they were looking for potentially people trying to subvert the state in the way a usurper might, just people trying to make too much money on the side by selling kit off, which should be going to the borders of the empire. And that's almost where the logistics origins of this unit kind of continues, doesn't it? And ensuring that these routes are maintained. And as you say, almost kind of corruption, trying to avoid that corruption occurring in certain industries

that might be linked to manufacturing and bringing goods, arms and armour to the legions at the front door. Actually, corruption is a great word because not only were they uncovering corruption or making sure the corruption didn't happen in the fabriques and if it did, uncovering it, but they themselves ultimately gained a reputation for being corrupt. Interesting. Well, come on then, explain that. Because as you move into the 3rd century, you get the crisis of the 3rd century, which is this huge event where effects of the Roman Empire as a whole almost implodes,

and a series of multiple threats. So multiple usurpations, civil wars, the first deep incursions of the Germans and Goths over the Rhine and Danube, the emergence of Sani Persia in the east, the plague of Cyprian, which is a full fat 20 year plague which brings the empire to its knees. The whole lot causes an economic crash. Within that, you have a lot of emperors on short cycles before they're assassinated themselves. It's initiated in 235 by the assassination of Alexander the Severus, the last of the seven emperors, as an example. Within that, these emperors on short cycles end up relying more and more on the frumentari, and increasingly they use them as a tool for state coercion and to make sure taxes are being paid. And then they get a reputation within that for being corrupt,

and they become hate figures as the empire begins to emerge from the crisis of the third century in the early 280s. So they become hate figures. I mean, could they potentially also be linked to political assassinations too? Absolutely. If you're a senior member of the frumentum, you have the eyes and ears of whoever the emperor is on a given day. This is the crisis of the third century. All the time. And also everybody around them. So you know who's in and who's out.

So a lot of these assassinations would have been done almost certainly with the knowledge of the frumentum, if not with their involvement itself. So they seem to have gained quite an infamous reputation by the end of the third century. So therefore, what happens next when we get to this titanic figure that is Diocletian? Diocletian, one of my favourite Roman emperors. So Diocletian becomes the emperor in 284, and it's Diocletian who drags the empire kicking and screaming out of the morass of the crisis of the third century. And to do that, he basically initiates what we call today the Diocletianic Reformation, which is a complete restaging of the Roman Empire, a reboot. So we now call it the Dominate Phase, with the emperor being a dominus,

not the earlier Principate Phase, with the emperor being the princeps. So it's a completely different phase of the Roman Empire for a start. And a number of things he introduces actually are part of this reformation. So for example, he's well known for introducing the tetrarchy with two senior augusti two junior caesar emperors and one of each in eastern west he introduces a civil service of a scale for the first time which we today would call a civil service he restructures the empire away from being the provinces into introducing much larger dioes, which gives him much greater control of the empire. He reorganizes the army and is one of the biggest reformers of the Roman military. But it's also he who then completely destructures and removes the frumentum.

So the frumentum ceases to exist at that point. And he introduces a completely new system in state-level intelligence gathering. So for him, he introduces two different types. So for the first time, we don't have a frumentari in state-level intelligence gathering. So for him, he introduces two different types. So for the first time, you don't have a frumentari in the frumentum. You have specifically the frumentum replaced in one sense by the scholar agentes in rebus, and on the other hand, by the scholar notarium. And therefore, you have two different types of operative, the agentes in robust and the notary and they're both two very different roles they both do very different roles and this is

really now kind of delving into the detail of the roman secret service isn't it because it feels that with the removal of the frumentari and the introduction of these two other classes and i want you to go into detail about both of them in a moment simon but this does feel once again like a step change how the evolution of the secret service how it's changed and is going to still change how it differs from how it was in the first century compared to how it is let's say at the end of the third century now i mean it's absolutely spot on you can see incrementally throughout the discussion to date you get a level of organization and then an improvement and an improvement and this gets it to

the top level so what you're looking at effectively here is a level of state intelligence gathering which is recognizable to us today so the first time it's recognizable to us today where you have the agentes in reverse effectively being the agents who are looking out of the empire so they are in modern parlance you're're looking at the CIA or MI6. That's where James Bond's going to sit. And then with the notary, the note-takers, you're looking at people looking internally and keeping notes effectively and eyes on people and records on people.

So that's your MI5 or your FBI. And it's very reflective of this change style of imperial administration that dominate now where effectively the emperor is an eastern potentate so there's a massive degree of separation now between the emperor and the rest of the Roman society and state he's not the first among equals he effectively is a godlike figure completely removed from Roman society and therefore the people allowing him to do that including state level intelligence operatives are facilitating him being this godlike figure so they're also effectively sitting above the rest of society and they're not hate figures in the same sense as the frumentari

were in the crisis of the third century but they are absolutely definitely feared and there's a fascinating apocryphal story in the reign of constantius ii so this would be in the first half of the fourth century so constantius ii is the emperor and a dinner party takes place with one of his regional governors in anatolia so it's in Anatolia. And at the dinner party, there's a conversation taking place. And a lot of people say, I don't like the Constantius II very much. Not a very nice chap. And then other people say, with the right circumstances, I know somebody who could take over. What about me? And quite a few other people say, I'll join in then, shall I? I could be the emperor as well. What they don't know is that

one of their guests is a notary. So he takes the notes down of everything. It's passed to the emperor, Constantine II, who is very paranoid. And they end up in the arena. This is a provincial governor and the senior sort of Roman aristocrats in this particular region, they all end up in the arena. You don't know who's spying on you, especially if you're in the elites. Absolutely right. Well, therefore, let's delve into these a bit more. Talk to me about the agentes in Rebus. What do we know about these particular agents? So firstly, going back to an early part of our conversation, these are not military intelligence gathering assets. They're state-level intelligence

gathering assets. So they're not directly supporting military campaigns and operations around the borders of the now straining empire in the dominate phase of empire they're operating very specifically for the emperor or emperors and they have a direct umbilical to the emperor and they're given specific missions and the missions might be to an argentasian reverse, go and find out what the Alemanni are doing on the north side of the Rhine. Because I'm not getting all the intelligence I want from my military advisors and from my legates, from my magister militum. I'm not getting what I want. So I want you to find out.

So you're given a specific job to go and find out what the Alemanni are. It might well be, actually, that if the emperor decides he wants to out what the Alemanni are. It might well be actually that if the emperor decides he wants to pay off the Alemanni so they don't invade the empire because he's busy fighting the Sasanid Persians in the east, the person who's paying them off is actually an Ajante and Rebus. So there's almost covert diplomacy they can get involved in as well? And everything else. Covert diplomacy, assassinations, anything that the emperor wants them to do. Remember, they're operating for a godlike figure removed removed from society so therefore in the way they operate they're also removed from society.

Do we hear much therefore about their activities if they are that kind of they're always acting beyond the borders of the empire mainly it's covert activities whether it's assassinations or covert diplomacy? Funnily enough actually we know more about what the notari did because they were the note takers. So the notary actually were the people who kept records on all the individuals the emperor wanted to have eyes and ears on. So if there was somebody who the emperor was worried was going to be usurping on him, it would be the notary, the FBI or MI5, who would actually be keeping an eye on them for him. And actually, we have lots more records of the activities of the notary than we do of the Agentes in Ribus. Well, let's explore some more of these activities. You've given that case study

already with the provincial governor, and you mentioned these note takers. But what other activities were they expected to oversee to do? It's very interesting, actually. So the notary are a phenomena in the dominant phase of empire, the later Roman Empire. And what is something which is emerging into being for the first time at a level of critical mass the state center needs to keep an eye on it in the late roman empire in the dominate is christianity so one of the things that we pick up the notaria doing is keeping an eye on the emergence of the church as an unofficial sense and it's intriguing you get to the Theodosian period when the the church becomes an official Roman religion and then the classical pantheon is shunned and people are

encouraged to look towards the church it's the notari who are then keeping an eye not just on the church and making sure the church is moving in a direction that favors the state but also keeping an eye on the people who used to worship the classical pantheon to make sure they didn't try and bring it back into being, which is interesting. You look at the reign of Julian the Apostate, of course, when Julian the Apostate comes in, tries to bring back the good old days of the classical pantheon,

the notary must have been very confused. Exactly. It's almost kind of a changing of the guard, almost. It must have been in regards to who was in the notary. Do we know who would have been involved in the notary, who the people were? What's really fascinating about the romans at all these levels of state gather intelligence gathering all the way through to the later empire we're talking about now is that they weren't shy and recording the fact that they'd done a certain job like this on their tombstones so frequently you get tombstones throughout the empire where or mentioned that at some stage for example on the senators cursus and aurum that at some stage he

served on the staff of an otari or he served on the staff of the argentis and rebus it feels like we've covered it all therefore what we can know about these different parts of the roman secret service system your book of course in which you mention this, is all about special forces and special ops. Can we call these units, whether it's the frumentarii or the notarii or the agents in rebus, can we call them special forces? No, because in the book, what I've done is I've come up

with a set of criteria by which to measure what special forces would do based on modern examples and extrapolate that back through history to the Roman period. And then I've gone through every different candidate to see whether they would be called special forces today. And I begin actually with intelligence gathering and none of the intelligence gathering assets or resources I have talked about today all the way through to the Notorian, the Argentasian Rebirth, sources I have talked about today all the way through to the Notorian, the Argentasian Rebirths, which by the way, continued in service post the collapse of the empire in the West and then probably into the seventh or eighth centuries in the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire in the East. So they did carry on in use.

So they did prove highly successful, but they weren't special forces in the way that we describe them today. So basically what you're saying is that we have to do another podcast all about special forces because they're completely different. That's what we just talked about with the Secret Service. We certainly do, Tristan. All right. Well, Simon, this has been great.

Last but certainly not least, your book on all of this and more is called? It's called Roman Special Forces, which is through Pen and Sword Books, available on all good online platforms and in all good bookshops. Well, Simon, it just goes to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast. Thank you for having me as well, Tristan. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Simon Elliott explaining what we know about the Roman secret service,

these spies of ancient Rome, this intelligence gathering of ancient Rome. I really do hope you enjoyed today's episode. Now, December is just around the corner and that not only signals the start of our very special Sparta miniseries, but also the beginning of the ancients releasing a special bonus episode

every once in a while that you can access if you subscribe to History Hits. You can do it via subscribing to History Hit on Apple Podcasts or if you're listening on a different service by clicking the link in the description. So stay tuned. Our first very special bonus episode for you subscribers

is coming out very soon. And of course, you won't be surprised that it's on a topic close to my heart. But that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.