The Barbarians Speak

How the Conquered Peoples Shaped Roman Europe

Peter S. Wells

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780691089782, 9780691058719
• eBook ISBN: 9781400843466
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Roman Ancient History
• Index: History

The Barbarians Speak re-creates the story of Europe's indigenous people who were nearly stricken from historical memory even as they adopted and transformed aspects of Roman culture. The Celts and Germans inhabiting temperate Europe before the arrival of the Romans left no written record of their lives and were often dismissed as "barbarians" by the Romans who conquered them. Accounts by Julius Caesar and a handful of other Roman and Greek writers would lead us to think that prior to contact with the Romans, European natives had much simpler political systems, smaller settlements, no evolving social identities, and that they practiced human sacrifice. A more accurate, sophisticated picture of the indigenous people emerges, however, from the archaeological remains of the Iron Age. Here Peter Wells brings together information that has belonged to the realm of specialists and enables the general reader to share in the excitement of rediscovering a "lost people." In so doing, he is the first to marshal material evidence in a broad-scale examination of the response by the Celts and Germans to the Roman presence in their lands.

The recent discovery of large pre-Roman settlements throughout central and western Europe has only begun to show just how complex native European societies were before the conquest. Remnants of walls, bone fragments, pottery, jewelry, and coins tell much about such activities as farming, trade, and religious ritual in their communities; objects found at gravesites shed light on the richly varied lives of individuals. Wells explains that the presence--or absence--of Roman influence among these artifacts reveals a range of attitudes toward Rome at particular times, from enthusiastic acceptance among urban elites to creative resistance among rural inhabitants. In fascinating detail, Wells shows that these societies did grow more cosmopolitan under Roman occupation, but that the people were much more than passive beneficiaries; in many cases they helped determine the outcomes of Roman military and political initiatives. This book is at once a provocative, alternative reading of Roman history and a catalyst for overturning long-standing assumptions about nonliterate and indigenous societies.

* CHAPTER 1 *

Natives and Romans

ROMAN DISASTER IN THE TEUTOBURG FOREST

TODAY THE countryside east of the small city of Bramsche on the northern edge of the Teutoburg Forest in northern Germany is a quiet rural landscape of small villages, open fields, and patches of light woodland. But in the year A.D. 9, one of the most important battles of the ancient world took place here, in which a powerful Roman army was ambushed and annihilated. Since 1987, archaeologists have excavated remains of swords, daggers, lanceheads, slingstones, shields, helmets, and chain mail in this bucolic landscape. These weapons, together with over 1,000 coins, fragments of military belts and uniforms, and bones of humans, horses, and mules, are all that survived of some 15,000-20,000 Roman soldiers who were waylaid by bands of warriors from small communities of peoples whom the Romans called Germans. Their leader was Arminius from the Cherusci tribe, who is thought to have served earlier as an auxiliary commander in the Roman army. But he changed his allegiance. In late September of that year, he led the attack on three Roman legions—the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth—together with three cavalry units and six cohorts of accompanying troops as they marched through a narrow passage between a steep hill to the south and a swamp to the north. According to Roman written accounts based on reports by a few men who escaped, the battle raged over three days. As the Romans realized that they were beaten, the commander, P. Quinetilius Varus, and other leaders committed suicide, and the local warriors accomplished a complete rout.

This event shocked the Roman world, and played a decisive role in the future configuration of the Roman Empire and in the subsequent course of European history. Prior to this catastrophe, the Roman armies had won a series of stunning victories in Europe as elsewhere, conquering all of continental Europe west of the Rhine and south of the Danube. This disaster in the Teutoburg Forest two thousand years ago was so devastating to the expansionary vision of the Roman leaders that it effectively ended Roman designs on territory further north and east. Shortly after the battle, the Emperor Augustus ordered his troops to strengthen the Rhine defenses, thereby shifting the Roman policy emphasis from offense to defense, and thus establishing a permanent imperial frontier along this river instead of pushing ahead to create a new one on the Elbe (Figure 1). Augustus’s decision established one of the most important cultural boundaries in world history, the effects of which are still clear today among the nations of modern Europe.

The excavations of the battle site at Kalkriese, north of Osnabrück in Germany, are revealing important new information about this critical event, about which only the barest outline was recorded in the Roman annals. Despite two centuries of searching, the site was only discovered in 1987. Besides recovering large quantities of weapons, military paraphernalia, and coins, the archaeologists have discovered an extensive fortification wall that the German attackers had built of sod, parallel to the track along which the Roman soldiers would march. Apparently they had planned their ambush well.

Why were some 20,000 Roman troops marching across northern Germany in A.D. 9? What did they hope to accomplish, and what does their resounding defeat by local warriors tell us about relations between Rome and the indigenous peoples of Europe?

THE WEAPON DEPOSIT AT ILLERUP

In 1950, workers digging to lay a new drainage pipe at Illerup near Skanderborg in Jutland, Denmark, came upon hundreds of metal objects from the Roman Period. Archaeological excavations between 1950 and 1956, and again between 1975 and 1983, uncovered a major weapon deposit. Sometime around A.D. 200, people threw the complete weaponry of more than 150 well-equipped soldiers into what was at the time a lake measuring about 1,200 ft. (400 m) long by 750 ft. (250 m) wide. Excavations of 40 percent of the now dry lake bed have recovered nearly 500 spearheads, 500 lanceheads, 100 swords, more than 300 shields, about 10 sets of horse-harness gear, along with bows and arrows and a variety of tools. Some of the equipment was highly ornamented, with gold and silver trim on harness gear, shields, sword belts, scabbards, and hilts. Solid gold bars and rings were part of the deposit. Four of the metal objects bore inscriptions written in runes, a new form of writing in northern Europe at this time.

Extraordinary as this site seems, it is just one of some thirty known weapon deposits in Denmark, northern Germany, and southern Sweden, most of which date between A.D. 200 and 400. They are believed to represent the victors’ offering of weapons of defeated enemies to gods who helped them win the battles. The assemblages of weapons tell us much about military and political organization in northern Europe during this period. The Illerup deposit is thought to represent the equipment of an army that consisted of about three hundred infantry soldiers, forty heavily armed warriors, and five commanders.

Fig. 1. Map showing the provinces of the Roman Empire in temperate Europe during the second century A.D. This map represents the situation as static, whereas changes took place in various boundaries over time. The rivers Rhine and Danube, and the limes boundary between them, formed the border between Roman territory and the unconquered lands. Sometimes Roman power extended beyond that border, as in the case of Dacia north of the lower Danube. The locations of Kalkriese, Illerup, and Rome, all discussed in this chapter, are shown. The square indicates the location of the map in Figure 2. Germ. Inf. = Germania Inferior. Germ. Sup. = Germania Superior. A.D. = Agri Decumates, a part of Germania Superior. Unless otherwise indicated, all maps in this book are oriented with north at the top.

Among the many surprises that have emerged from the analysis of sites such as Illerup is the fact that the great majority of swords are of Roman manufacture. Stamped marks, patterns of inlay, forging techniques, and shape all indicate Roman origin of the blades. The hilts, or handles, reflect a variety of traditions. Some are of Roman type, others of local Germanic character.

How did thousands, originally probably tens of thousands, of Roman swords come to be deposited ritually in Danish lakes, 280 miles (450 km) from the nearest Roman territory? We know from Roman writers that the defenders of the imperial frontiers feared groups to the east and north, who occasionally raided Roman territory. Why would Rome allow so many top-quality weapons to be in the hands of their potential foes to the north?

Kalkriese and Illerup are both outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, yet the discoveries made at both sites show significant Roman activity. Surviving texts by writers such as Caesar and Tacitus tell us something about the Roman perspective on interactions with these indigenous peoples. But only the archaeological evidence lets us examine their experiences and their attitudes toward the Roman world. This book is about what archaeology can tell us about the native side of interactions with the Romans.

THE SETTING

Geography

This study focuses upon a single major region of the Roman Empire, the frontier provinces in temperate Europe—lands that are now in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Austria (Figure 2). For the question I pose here—what role did the indigenous peoples play in the creation of the societies of the Roman Period?—such a medium-scale region is appropriate. Local societies varied greatly within the Roman Empire, and a more limited landscape might provide a too restricted and perhaps atypical picture of the processes of change during the Roman Period. A larger part of the Empire would be unwieldy, encompassing too much regional variety to handle in a study of this scope. The border provinces of Germania Inferior, Gallia Belgica, Germania Superior, and Raetia share certain essential features and form a coherent unit for the purposes of this study.

Fig. 2. Map showing the region of principal concern in this book, with major rivers and mountains indicated. At the top are the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. White area: North European Plain; shaded area: lands over 659 ft. (200 m) above sea level; hatched area: lands over 4,919 ft. (1500 m) above sea level.

In this chapter, it is necessary to define the essential geographical characteristics of this region as they pertain to the Roman conquests and to Rome’s establishing of the provincial infrastructure and administration. It is a truism that all human action takes place in a geographical context. Many of the features of the geography of the border provinces are essential for an understanding of the processes of change that communities experienced with the conquest and occupation.

The boundary of this region is defined by the two great rivers of Europe, the Rhine and the Danube. Julius Caesar in his conquest of Gaul used the Rhine as the easternmost extent of his military conquests. The importance of the Rhine in Caesar’s mind is apparent in the number of times he refers to the river and particularly in his repeated emphasis that the Rhine formed the border between Gauls and Germans (see chapter 5). Long after Caesar’s time, the Rhine remained a critical feature of the cultural geography of Roman Europe. The Emperor Augustus assembled the Roman legions on the left bank of the Rhine to prepare for the incursions across the river into the unconquered territories. After the defeat of Varus’s legions in the Teutoburg Forest, Augustus and later Tiberius oversaw the strengthening of the defensive network on the west bank of the Rhine. Roman incursions across the river continued intermittently throughout the first century A.D. After Domitian’s wars against the Chatti and the establishment of the Agri Decumates and construction of the limes boundary between the middle Rhine and the upper Danube, the lower Rhine remained the border of the empire for about four centuries.

The upper Danube was established as the imperial frontier following the conquest of southern Bavaria in 15 B.C. by the armies led by the Roman generals Tiberius and Drusus. After the construction of the limes wall, the uppermost course of the Danube from Eining upstream came to lie fully in Roman territory, but downstream from Eining the Danube remained the frontier.

We should not think of these two great rivers as impassible barriers, but rather as demarcations between Roman territory and the unconquered lands and as routes of communication. As major natural features in the landscape, they provided convenient lines along which the Romans arrayed their forts, but they offered little impediment to groups who wanted to cross them. As was the case everywhere before the development of motorized vehicles and the construction of railroads, transporting goods by water was much more efficient than over land, and the Roman authorities made full use of the Rhine and Danube waterways to move troops and materials along their frontiers. Recent discoveries of well-preserved wooden ships in both the Rhine and the Danube indicate the highly developed technology of river-going vehicles along these routes.

Topographically, we can understand our region in terms of three principal zones: the North European Plain, the hilly uplands of central Europe, and the Alps and their foothills. In the north, on both sides of the lower Rhine and along the shores of the North Sea and English Channel, the land is flat and the soil sandy; this is part of the extensive flat landscape known as the North European Plain. The sandy soils were not well suited to cereal cultivation, but these lands have a long tradition, from the Neolithic Period on, of cattle raising. Much of the land is damp meadow supporting rich grasses and other plants, well suited to the needs of grazing livestock. As we shall see, the specialized economy of this region played an important role in interactions between indigenous peoples and Romans. The branches of the Rhine, and other rivers that flow northward and westward through northern France, the Netherlands, and northwestern Germany, make this a landscape dominated by relatively shallow and slow-flowing water courses. Because of its alluvial character, this region offers little in the way of building stone or of ore deposits, except for bog iron ore.

Just south of the North European Plain, in the southern part of the Netherlands, northern Belgium, and northwestern Germany, loess soils cover the alluvial sands and offer much better conditions for agriculture. South of Cologne, the site of a major Roman center located on the boundary between the North European Plain and the hilly uplands of the central part of the European continent, the landscape is crossed by numerous rivers, including the Ahr, the Maas, the Moselle, and the Nahe, all of which flow into the Rhine, and the Doubs and the Saône, which flow into the Rhône. Much of the land, particularly on the river terraces and in valley bottoms, is fertile and productive of a range of crops. The hilly landscape offers a wide range of metals and building stone that were exploited in prehistoric and Roman times. The raw materials of the western Rhineland, including fine potting clays, limestone, basalt, and rich deposits of iron ore, made possible the great economic flourishing of this region during the first and second centuries A.D.

Most of the landscapes of eastern France and southern Germany consist of such hilly country with good agricultural land, river valleys providing routes for transportation, and substantial deposits of raw materials. The small mountain ranges of the Vosges and the Black Forest interrupt this general picture. They offered little in the way of farmland, but were productive of metal ores and of building stone. Much of southern Bavaria is flat open country lending itself to intensive agriculture, particularly around the city of Munich and along the Danube between Regensburg and Straubing. In the far south of Bavaria and in Switzerland, the Alps and their foothills comprise environments that include excellent pasturage for livestock and abundant mineral resources, but limited agricultural potential.

The landscape of this frontier zone of the Roman Empire was thus diverse in character, and it offered a rich variety of resources to the inhabitants of late prehistoric and Roman times, including good soils for agriculture, grazing land for livestock, metal ores, building stone, and fine clays for pottery and brick-making. Virtually all of the land was suitable for permanent habitation. Only the highest elevations of the mountains—the Vosges, the Black Forest, and the Alps—were unoccupied during the Late Iron Age and the Roman Period.

Changes since the Roman Period

The basic character of the landscape two thousand years ago was similar to that of today. Sea levels have risen along the English Channel and North Sea coasts, and the coastline is now a little over a mile (2 km) south and east of where it was in the Roman Period. (This change in sea level explains why the sanctuaries to the goddess Nehalennia at Dornburg and Colijnsplaat, with their numerous carved stone altars, were discovered under water off the coast of the Netherlands.) Except for these coastal environments, the landscape of western and central Europe probably did not look very different in Roman times from today. It is likely that the region was more heavil...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Natives and Romans
• Chapter 2: Europe before the Roman Conquests
• Chapter 3: Iron Age Urbanization
• Chapter 4: The Roman Conquests
• Chapter 5: Identities and Perceptions
• Chapter 6: Development of the Frontier Zone
• Chapter 7: Persistence of Tradition
• Chapter 8: Town, Country, and Change
• Chapter 9: Transformation into New Societies
• Chapter 10: Impact across the Frontier
• Chapter 11: Conclusion
• Glossary
• Greek and Roman Authors
• Bibliographic Essay
• Bibliography of Works Cited
• Index