The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History - Karatunov.net

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The Roman A rmy
During the long reign of Augustus, his careful plans for the succession were
continually thwarted. When his first choice, his sister’s son Marcellus died, he
adopted as his own sons Gaius and Lucius, the offspring of Agrippa and Julia
and therefore his grandchildren. They were both young and apparently healthy,
and no one could have foreseen that they would both die while still young, leading
some ancient authors to speculate that Livia must have had a hand in the
m a t ter to rem ove all rivals to her own son Ti beriu s . Si n ce food hygi ene and
medical care in the Roman world left much to be desired, the deaths of Gaius
and Lucius may have been purely accidental, but it was one more stage on the
road to the accession of the Emperor Tiberius. He returned to Rome and was
formally adopted by Augustus, on condition that he in turn adopted his nephew
Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus. By ad 4, Tiberius was again at war
in Germany across the Rhine, pushing as far as the river Elbe in a campaign that
Tac i tus dismisses as fairly ro uti n e . Wh a tever the ulti m a te Roman plans may
h ave been for Germ a ny, t h ey were not fulfill ed , s i n ce revolt bro ke out in Illyricum
and Pannonia in ad 6, and the foremost general of the day, Tiberius,
was chosen to quell it. The task occupied the next three years, until Tiberius was
satisfied that he had done the job properly. He commanded as many as fifteen
l egi ons and accom p a nying auxiliari e s , a vast en terprise for one man, but his
thoroughness and careful planning won the day. He was recalled but would not
return to Rome until he had stamped out the last shred of rebellion.
If he hoped for some respite from fighting in the northern climate, hot in
summer and bitterly cold in winter, struggling to bring in adequate supplies and
to keep control of so many legions, Tiberius was to be disappointed. Just as the
rebell i on was cru s h ed , terri ble news came from Germ a ny, wh ere in ad 9the
General Quinctilius Varus was utterly defeated, with the loss of three legions in
the forests beyond the Rhine. The Romans had miscalculated, thinking the Germans
subdued and ripe for settlement and Romanization. Varus was more of an
administrator and lawyer than a military man and was chosen to supervise the
inception of Roman government. The disaster came as a shock: rough and unc
u l tu red tri be s m en , who were not con s i dered capable of u n i f i ed acti on or of
following orders, had surrounded and annihilated Roman troops. Many armies
since then have made the same mistake about the capabilities of supposedly unsophisticated
enemies.
Augustus was deeply despondent, and needed a tried and trusted general to
repair the damage. Tiberius took on the task with tremendous caution. He was
concerned that there should be no mistakes or disasters caused through rashness
or misunderstanding. He took no decisions without first consulting his circle
of officers and friends, inspected everything himself, sat on the ground like
the soldiers did when taking his meals, slept without a tent, and issued all his
orders in wri ting with the instru cti on that anyone who did not unders t a n d
them should come at any time of day or night to ask for clarification. The de-