The History of Rome - 149- The Great Conspiracy

Episode Date: August 29, 2011

In the winter of 367 Britannia was hit from all sides by a coordinated barbarian invasion. It would be more than a year before the Romans were able to reassert control over the island.

Hello and welcome to the history of Rome. Episode 149, The Great Conspiracy. Last time, we focused mostly on the brief revolt of Procopius, the last man to wave Constantine's banner. After his defeat in May of 365, the torrent of history would blindly rush on, and the combined Valentinian Thedonian-theodosian dynasty would supplant the Constantinian dynasty as the ruling family of the Roman Empire. With Valens now secure on the throne in the east, this week I want to focus on Valentinian's problems in the West, of which there were two main centers of action.

The first was the ongoing and frustrating campaign against the Alamani on the Upper Rhine, and the second was the short-lived but very nearly catastrophic war on the island of Britain. Valentinian thought that he was only going to have to deal with the former, But in the winter of 367, completely out of nowhere, the northernmost reaches of the empire were overwhelmed all at once by old adversaries like the Picks and the Franks and new adversaries like the Saxons. The simultaneous assault was clearly a coordinated effort between these otherwise disparate tribes, and it took the Northern Roman command completely by surprise.

though for a time the barbarians held the initiative and control of Britain was suddenly in doubt, the main upshot of the war was that it brought the theodosians to the forefront of imperial politics and paved the way for their entry into the ruling dynasty. The trouble in Britain likely began as a result of simple neglect. The last time the island was really a top-level priority was way back when, prior to the creation of the tetrarchy when Corotius revolted. Constantine later paid a decent amount of attention to the island because of his own personal ties to the province, but once he was gone, his sons essentially left the Britons to their own devices.

So for a generation at least, a sort of decaying inertia took over. The Roman administration had become one part lazy and one part corrupt. The Roman soldiers were far removed from the main action of the fourth century, and so had no access to the kind of bonuses and donatives enjoyed by other legions. The local citizens were just sort of going through the motions, too Romanized to be considered wild natives, but not Romanized enough to really love the imperial bureaucrats who ruled them. And finally, trade across the English Channel, the lifeblood of the Romano-British economy, was frequently disrupted by opportunistic

Franks or Saxons, a new confederation that we'll get to in a second. The whole thing had just become stagnant, unhappy, and unprofitable. Unfortunately for us, really good details about who started talking to who, when, and why are lacking in the historical record. But it appears that a few of the leaders from a few of the different tribes surrounding Britannia looked at the state of the province and saw a golden opportunity. The barbarian leaders calculated that with the imperial apparatus as atrophied as it was, if it was hit from multiple sides all at once, the chances of it cracking completely were likely pretty high.

Then it would just be a matter of marching around and picking up whatever you wanted and carting at home. This sounded like a pretty good idea to a lot of different people, and so using whatever channels they used to communicate, the picks up in Caledonia, some tribes from over on Hibernia, Ireland, to you and me, the Franks down on the northern continental coast and the Saxons from over near the Jutland agreed to simultaneously invade Britannia. The assumption was that the Romans would not at all be prepared for that kind of coordinated offensive, and even though assumptions usually make an ass out of you and me, this time the assumption was spot on.

The Romans were not at all prepared for that kind of coordinated assault. But before we get into the guts of this thing, I do want to formally introduce the Saxons. Though in the end, they are comparatively minor player in the history of Rome. In the history of the world, they are a pretty big deal, as they formed a key part of the German migration that swept into Britain following the collapse of the empire, helping to establish the foundations of modern Anglo-Saxon Britain in the process.

In the 300s AD, though, they were little more than a loose collection of German tribesmen who lived at the base of the Jutland, the Danish peninsula that sticks out of the top of mainland Europe like a little periscope. Much less organized than the Franks or the Alamani. Scholars are none too confident about what exactly makes a Saxon, a Saxon at this point in history. But references to pirate bands bearing that name begin to pop up during Julian Scallet campaign, and it is clear that some group identified as Saxon played a major role in the barbaric. conspiracy that we're about to dive into. On a side note, it is possible that it was primarily Saxon piracy that led the Romans to develop the so-called Saxon shore military district,

which was a string of military forts on the southern coast of Britain unified under a single command. That said, some have argued that the network was actually set up by Corotius, during his revolt to defend the island against Maximian and Constantius, and others have argued that the term Saxon shore actually refers to the fact that the area was heavily settled by the Saxons, not because these forts were designed to repel them. Either way, the fortification network was likely up and running as a single command at this point in our story, and they were absolutely, completely, and totally ineffective. I have seen it reported in a number of different places that the coordinated invasion of

Britannia began when the PICS bribed the garrison guarding his. Hadrian's Wall to let them pass. But I can't figure out exactly where this detail is coming from, since neither Zosimus nor Marcellinus mentions it. It is certainly a plausible detail, since both historians explicitly state that deserting soldiers were as big a problem as foreign barbarians during the next year, and I can definitely see members of the Hadrian's Wall garrison, having now committed some light treason, simply abandoning their posts after letting the picks through.

But I can't nail down a source for this fun little nugget, and so I don't want to say that this is how it happened. If anyone knows where this is coming from, though, by all means, drop me a line. Because all I have in the way of detail right now is that in early 367, Britannia was overwhelmed from all sides by barbarian raiders. And so that's as far as I'm willing to go right now. Once the barbarians were inside the province, though, there is no confusion. about how things went from there.

Hit by surprise from all sides, the Roman defenses crumbled. The commander of the Saxon Shore Military District was killed when the first wave of Franks and Saxons hit the southeast coastline. The picks who poured down from Caledonia and the tribesmen who crossed over from Hibernia met no real resistance, and everywhere Roman garrisons were put to flight. Most of the cities of the province were unable to fend off the invaders, and were easily sacked, creating a wave of refugees, runaway slaves, and deserted soldiers, all roaming the countryside seeking safety, freedom, or plunder.

The leading imperial officials left on the island gathered what forces they could in the southeast corner of the island, or they hold up in a few of the larger cities. Outside of these few urban holdouts, though, anarchy reigned across the island, as roving bands of varying size and purpose wandered around plundering, raping, and killing, whatever struck their fancy. Had there been any sort of larger purpose to the invasion, or any sort of coordinated political agenda to go along with the initial coordinated attack, this might have spelled the end for the Romans in Britain. After all, trade lines to the island had become harder and harder to protect over the years, and with the empire facing huge problems elsewhere, the process.

province of Britannia, like Dacia before it, might have become a casualty of prioritization. But it appears that there was no larger purpose to the invasion. Not only were the various tribes not at all united politically, none of them appeared to even have a political agenda of their own. This was not a war of liberation for the Picks or a war of conquest for the Franks. This was plundering for plundering's sake. And so, it was a war of liberation for the Picks. And so, the Romans were eventually able to reassert control over the island and hold on to it for at least a little while longer. However, in less than 50 years, the Romans will indeed withdraw from Britain for good, leaving the island to King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable. Events up in the north unfolded so rapidly that Valentinian was essentially presented with a large-scale fate accompli.

Not the barbarians are attacking our forts in Britannia, not we are losing ground, not, oh, we've lost control of some territory. But rather, Britannia is completely overrun. We are trapped behind the walls of like three cities and probably aren't going to be able to hold out much longer. You'll recall from last week that Valentinian was in the middle of organizing an invasion of his own. But when the first report started filtering down from the north,

he was forced to break off what he was doing and turn his attention to the problem of Britannia. well, at least break off some of the forces he was gathering, and turn their attention to the problem of Britannia. As he had shown in his dealings with the Alamani, Valentinian's M.O. early in his reign appears to have been to send subordinate commanders to actually lead the Roman field armies into dicey situations. In preparation for future episodes, I've been reading up on Theodosius lately, and I think something that someone mentioned about Theodosius' military political strategy during the Gotha,

war applies to Valentinian as well. Namely, that since military defeat would have been a crushing blow to the emperor's legitimacy if he was actually there in person, there emerged a tendency to let subordinates actually fight the battles. Victories could be easily claimed by the emperors, as was the accepted custom, but defeat could be fobbed off on the losing general. In a chaotic and dangerous time, this strategy was not merely in the best, interests of the emperor personally, but it was in the best interest of the empire as a whole.

Stability at the top of the political pyramid has real value. By not risking defeat, the emperors ensured that there would be no crisis of political legitimacy to go along with some crisis of military defeat. As we will soon see, this strategy was not as completely entrenched as it would become during the Byzantine era, but it was working its way into the imperial fabric. As when the Alamani crossed the Rhine in 365, it took a little while for Valentinian to find a commander whose victory he could take credit for in Britain, rather than a commander whose defeat he needed to distance himself from. Responding immediately to the calls for help, Valentinian dispatched an officer named Severus, who had distinguished himself already as

one of the generals who couldn't push back the Alamani in the winter of 365-366. The hope, I suppose, is that this would be an easier job and not require the same degree of, no, no, it was a hard job, and Severus once again failed to get any kind of coherent relief effort going. So, likely in the spring of 367, Valentinian upped the ante and dispatched Jovenus, the general who had eventually gotten the better of the Alamani, the year before. But he too floundered in his attempt to get a foothold on the anarchic island. We don't have many details, but all of 367 AD appears to have been dogged by repeated failures

and embarrassments for the Romans. Hoping that the third time would be the charm, in the spring of 368, Valentinian sent off a much larger relief army under the command of a highly regarded veteran officer named Theodosius. No, not that Theodosius, that Theodosius is Father. Not much is known about the Elder Theodosius, but we do know that he and his family hailed from Spain, and that like most of the Christians in Hispania, he was a staunch supporter of the Nicene Creed. He was married around 3.40, and in either 3.46 or 347, his wife gave birth to the future Emperor Theodosius. though, of course, it would be over 30 years before anyone realized that the younger Theodosius

had in fact been future Emperor Theodosius the whole time. The elder Theodosius probably joined the army at some point in his late teens or early 20s, and displayed enough talent to earn promotion after promotion. By the time the Roman response to the barbarian invasion of Britain was proving to be completely ineffective, Theodosius was in his mid-40s and ready to make the leap into the big time. So as I just said, in the spring of 368, Valentinian tapped Theodosius to lead another larger relief army north to secure the troubled province of Britannia. It was the kind of assignment that could make or break a career, and Theodosius took his job

seriously. He was not heading north just to knock a few heads around. He was also interested in making sure this sort of thing didn't happen again. The relief army sailed from Boulogne and landed without incident on the southeast tip Britain and then marched up the Thames to Lundinium. Establishing a secure base in that city, Theodosius then set about methodically retaking the island. Working in his favor was the fact that after a year of successful plundering, the various raiding parties had become lax with their guard and were weighed down by all their captured treasure.

So when Theodosius split his army up into small groups and ordered them to scour the countryside looking for enemy raiders, these raiders were now easily captured. Once the immediate area around Lindenium was cleared, Theodosius used intelligence gleaned from his prisoners to extend these operations to the whole island. Relying on small mobile detachments rather than a large field army, the Romans were able to travel light, travel fast, and surprise enemy bands any time their whereabouts became known. Pretty soon, the tide had turned in Rome's favor, allowing Theodosius to pull a completely different rabbit out of his hat. While lawlessness reigned, Roman soldiers who had deserted their posts had no incentive

to abandon their own plundering and return to the army. all that would be waiting for them was execution. Desertion, after all, was a capital crime. But now that Theodosius was making headway, these soldiers began to worry about what might happen to them if they were captured. So, when things started going well, Theodosius alleviated these fears and announced a general amnesty for AWOL soldiers.

With the party pretty clearly winding down anyway, the AWOL soldiers flocked back to their bases, which had the dual effect of reducing the number of pillagers in the field and increasing the number of troops in the Roman army. With that stroke of lenient genius, the ballgame was pretty much over. Over the course of 368 and into 369, Theodosius was able to regarison all the cities of Britain and drive off whatever barbarians remained on the island.

Most of the wealth that had been seized was recovered, and though Theodosius was careful to make sure the majority of it went back to the original owners, he was also careful to make sure that some of it was directed to his soldiers, who had done the dangerous work of actually getting it back. By the end of 369, Britannia was at peace. Theodosius was a bona fide hero, and Valentinian had a victory that he could finally take credit for. Happy days for everyone. Though the war in Britain had stalled Valentinian's plans for a punitive expedition into Alamani territory in 367, that by no means meant that the expedition was going to be put off for good. But that said, the emperor did come perilously close to never being able to actually lead this campaign because in the summer of 367, he got sick.

Really, really sick. so sick that there was genuine fear that he was going to die. With these fears haunting the imperial court, factions began to form around the top military and civilian officials, who naturally began to jockey for position. Should Valentinian die, everyone wanted to make sure that their man was the man picked to succeed him. When the emperor recovered, though,

he found out about all this morbid maneuvering and decided to put a stop to all questions of succession once and for all. In August of 367 AD, he elevated his eight-year-old son, not to the rank of Caesar, but to the full rank of Augustus, and began to make a concerted effort to give the boy the skills he would need to survive in the dangerous world of imperial politics. Meanwhile, the Alamani were getting restless. Since they had been driven back home, they had been waiting nervously for the U.S. counter-invasion everyone knew was coming, but then the counter-invasion just sort of didn't happen. Between the war in Britain and the Emperor's illness, the Romans had stayed put on their side of the Rhine,

and so the Alamani poked their heads up and decided to see what the deal was. By the end of 367, the Germans decided that the coast might actually be clear, and so they up and sacked the fortified city of Mainz. Valentinian's blood had to be boiling at this point, but there was little he could do about it just yet. He did, however, manage to exact a small measure of vengeance by arranging for the assassination of one of the leading anti-Romanai kings. That was at least something.

In the spring of 368, a Valentinian was finally ready to do a whole lot more. Probably right around the time Theodosius was setting off for Britain. The emperor personally led the Rhine legions across the river to pay the Alamani back for all the trouble they had caused him. This time, he would not be delegating the job to subordinates. Like I said, the policy of utilizing subordinate generals to do the actual fighting was not completely entrenched yet. And besides, this was supposed to be a stomp and mash campaign against a weakened opponent. it, not a by-the-skin-of-the-teeth attempt to turn back an enemy who had momentum. But though it started out as the bloody walk in the park it was supposed to be,

it quickly turned into one of those by-the-skin-of-the-skin-of-the-teeth campaigns that very nearly cost Valentinia not just his throne, but his life. With his son Gratian along for the ride, things started out well for the Romans. The Alamani were quick to run and hide whenever the legions came near. and Valentinian seized or burned whatever the Germans left behind. So far, so good. This will teach him to mess with us, et cetera, et cetera. But then suddenly, a little bit south of the modern city of Heidelberg,

the Alamanii grouped for a massive counterattack. We know almost nothing about the ensuing battle, except that it was a huge affair, closely contested until the very end, and that in the midst of the chaos, Valentinian was very nearly killed in the fighting. The Romans emerged from the battle victorious, but the emperor determined that they were too weak to continue the campaign.

With both sides exhausted, a temporary truce was agreed to, and Valentinian withdrew to Trier to recuperate and plan his next move. Far from pursuing a policy of peaceful coexistence, though, Valentinian's next move would all but guarantee that as soon as everyone's wounds were healed up, that the fighting would begin all over again. Before we go this week, I'd like to take a second to revise and extend my remarks about Valentinian's early career. The whole period is a mess of confused chronology and conflicting details, and I inadvertently missed a whole alternate version of Valentinian's pre-imperial service.

This version is based primarily on Amionis Marcellinus' account, which states that Valentinian was not promoted into Constantius' army around 360 AD, but rather that he was discharged from the service in 357 after being falsely accused of cowardice. Cowardous? Really? Yes, really. Remember that band of Germans that Barbaccio had failed to stop while Julian was campaigning in Gaul? Well, he penned all of that on two of his tribunes, one of whom turned out to be Valentinian.

This version of history thus implies that the future emperor did not, in fact, fight at the Battle of Straussborg. Like I said, he likely did. Beyond this, Walter Roberts of Emory University argues that Valentinian was not recalled to the army by his old General Julian at all, and that the future emperor was only reinstated to service after Jovian was. was in power. According to this version, Valentinian was then assigned to the somewhat dangerous mission of telling the troops of the Western Empire that their beloved Julian was dead. It was in gratitude for this service that Jovian promoted Valentinian to his fateful post in Ankara. From there, I think we got back on firmer footing. These are minor details in the big picture,

but if it's true, then this version does undercut some of what I said about Julian not caring that his officers were Christian so long as they were good at their jobs. I think the point still stands, but Valentinian may not have been the best example to use. Okay, next week we'll dive more into the now perpetually chaotic western half of the empire. War with the Germans would continue as a result of Valentinian's provocations and one Alamanii king and particular will wind up driving the emperor absolutely crazy. Meanwhile, Africa will go to hell in a handbasket after years of misrule, and poor Theodosius the elder, after proving himself to be one of the most capable officers in the army, will be executed following the sneaky dealings of sneaky courtiers.

Like everything else during these years, events are badly dated, and who was doing what, when, is a difficult thing to nail down. I'm going to do my best to wade through the mess, but I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks as circumstances dictate.