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

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The Roman A rmy
were rec ru i ted all at on ce . The more unru ly rec ruits were sent to other
provinces, removing them from their homes so that they could not incite their
k i n s folk to make tro u bl e . For instance , u n der Tra jan or Had ri a n , nu m bers of
British tribesmen were sent to the frontier forts of Germany, and Marcus Aurelius
sent 5,500 Sarmatians from the Danube regions to northern Britain.
The northern tribes beyond the Rhine and Danube were relatively stable in
the first two cen tu ries of the Empire , but then a com bi n a ti on of cl i m a ti c
changes and political developments altered the balance. In what is now northwestern
Europe, prolonged and unusually high rainfall rendered primitive agricultural
methods untenable, and in the absence of sophisticated drainage techn
i qu e s , whole set t l em ents disappe a red . The sea levels rose and ru i n ed the
farmlands of the western coast and the mouth of the Rhine, resulting in food
shortages on a grand scale. Further north, in Denmark and Jutland, there is evidence
of serious warfare starting around ad 200, which is thought to have displaced
whole populations as more aggressive tribal groups took over their lands
(Southern, 2001). Hunger and the need for land caused large-scale movements
of tri be s m en who tu rn ed tow a rd the Roman Empire , wh ere many of t h em
hoped to be allowed to settle. Absorption of thousands of tribesmen had been
or ga n i zed in the past, s t a rting with Au g u s tus who bro u ght in 50,000 set t l ers
from across the Danube into the province of Moesia, and later Tiberius allowed
40,000 Germans to take over land in Gaul. The status of the new settlers may
have varied, but they provided a source of recruitment for the army. The problems
of displaced peoples continued into the following centuries. In the mids
econd cen tu ry ad Ma rcus Au rel ius set t l ed 3,000 Na ri s t ae within the Empire ,
and in the third cen tu ry Probus was said to have bro u ght in a staggeri n g
100,000 Ba s t a rn ae . If the figures are su s pect , at least the process is aut h en ticated,
and for the first two centuries of the Empire it worked reasonably well.
During the third century the pressure mounted as the movement of tribes became
more vi o l en t , and su ccessful attacks were made on the fron ti ers , wh i ch
were never designed to withstand assaults on a grand scale. Political evolution
a m ong the tri be s m en re su l ted in the em er gen ce of tribal federa ti ons of m en
f rom va rious tri be s , with new names su ch as the Al a m m a n i , wh i ch simply
means “all men,” or the Franks, which may mean “fierce warriors” or alternatively
“free men.” There was no distinct homogeneous or racial connotation in
the new tribal names. The tribal groupings evolved as a result of the tribesmen’s
conscious po l i tical dec i s i on s , and these dec i s i ons direct ly affected the Rom a n
Empire. The third century Roman army was neither large enough nor mobile
enough to deal with all the attacks at once, especially as there was another threat
in the east, from the new dynasty that had taken over the Parthian Empire.
Pa rthia was the on ly state that riva l ed Rome at the same level of s oph i s ticated
political and military organization, but most of the wars were preemptive
strikes by the Romans rather than serious invasions by the Parthians. The major