 Chapter 6, Sections 5 and 6 of J. B. Bury's The Student's Roman Empire, Part 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Student's Roman Empire, Part 1 by John Bagnell Bury. Chapter 6, Provincial Administration under Augustus, the western provinces, 27 B.C. to 14 A.D., Sections 5 and 6. Section 5, Ratia, Noracum, and the Alpine districts. From the province adjoining Italy on the south, we passed to the lands on its northern frontier, which it devolved upon Augustus to conquer and to shape. The towns of northern Italy were constantly exposed to the descents of unreclaimed Alpine tribes, who could not be fully quelled as long as they possessed a land of refuge beyond the mountains, among the kindred barbarians of Ratia. For the security of Italy, it was imperative to subdue these troublesome neighbors, and in order to do so effectively, it was necessary to occupy Ratia and Vindalicia. This task was accomplished without difficulty in 15 B.C. by the step-sons of the emperor. Drusus invaded Ratia from the south and vanquished the enemy in battle. Tiberius, who was then governor of Gaul, merged from the north to assist him, and the Vindalisi were defeated in the naval action on the waters of the lake of Brigantium. The tribes of the Restless Genuani and the Swift Brueni appeared to have played a prominent part in the Vindalisian war. The decisive battle which gave Ratia to Rome was fought near the sources of the Danube under the fortunate auspices of Tiberius on the 1st of August. By these campaigns the countries which corresponded to Bavaria, Tirol and eastern Switzerland became Roman. The new military frontier was secured, and direct communications were established between northern Italy and the upper Danube and upper Rhine. The military province of Ratia was placed under an imperial prefect, and the troops which used to be stationed in Cissel Pine Gaul could now be transferred to an advanced position. Augusta Vindalisium was founded as a military station near the frontier of the new province, and still continues under the name of Augsburg, the name of the ruler who did so much in Romanizing western Europe. For Romanizing Ratia itself, indeed, neither he nor his successors did much. No Roman towns were founded there as in the neighboring province of Noracum. The conquest of the dangerous Salasi, who inhabited the valley of the Duria and the Greiland and the Penine Alps, was successfully accomplished by Tarentius Morena, brother-in-law of Masonus in 25 BC. The people was exterminated, and a body of Praetorian soldiers was settled in the valley, through which roads ran over the Greiland Alps to Lugudinum and over the Pianine into Ratia. The new city was called Augusta's Praetoria, the emperor's name survives in the modern Aosta, where the old Roman walls and grates are still to be seen. The western Alps between Gaul and Italy were formed into two small districts, the Maritime Alps and the Cotian Alps, of which the former was governed by imperial prefects. At first the Cotian district formed a dependent state, not under a Roman commander, but under its own prince Cotias, from whom it derived its name, Reginum Coti. Owing to his ready submission, he was left in possession of his territory with the title Perfectus Civitatium. His capital, Segusio, survives as Susa, and the arch which he erected in honor of his overlord Augustus, 8 BC, is still standing. Through this perfecture, as it seems to have been, ran the Via Cotia from Augusta Tarinorum Turin to Aralate Arals. The pacification of the Alps, though it presented nothing brilliant to attract historians, conferred a solid and lasting benefit on Italy, and Italy gratefully recognized this by a monument which he set up in honor of the emperor on a hill on the Mediterranean coast near Monaco. The reduction of 46 Alpine peoples is recorded in the inscription which has been preserved. Few relics of the Roman occupation have been found in Reitia. It is otherwise with the neighboring province of Noracum, which included the lands now called Styria and Carinthia, along with a part of Carniola and most of Austria. Here traffic had prepared the way for Roman subjugation. Roman customs and the Latin tongue were known beyond the Carnic Alps, and when the time came for the land to become directly dependent on Rome, no difficulty was experienced. An occasion presented itself in 16 BC when some of the Noric tribes joined their neighbors, the Pinonians, in a plundering incursion into Istria. That first treated as a dependent kingdom, Noracum soon passed into the condition of an imperial province under a prefect or procurator, but continued to be called Regnum Noracum. No legions were stationed in either Reitia or Noracum, only auxiliary troops, but the former province was held in check by legions of the Rhine army at Vindonisa, and Noracum was likewise surveyed by legions of the Pinonian army, stationed at Potovio, on the Drava Drave. The organization of Noracum on the model of Italy was carried out by the emperor Claudius, the land immediately beyond the Julian Alps, with the towns of Amona and Nauportus, belonged to Illyricum, not to Noracum, but it subsequently became a part of Italy. The occupation of Reitia and Noracum was of great and permanent importance for the military defense of the empire against the barbarians of central Europe. A line of communication was secured between the armies on the Danube and the armies on the Rhine. Section 6. Illyricum and the Hamas lands Pinonia and Dalmatia. The subjugation of Illyricum was the work of the first emperor. Istria and Dalmatia were counted as Roman lands under the republic, but the tribes of the interior maintained their independence and plundered their civilized neighbors in Macedonia. Roman legions had been destroyed, and the eagles captured by these untamed peoples in 48 BC under Gabinius and in 44 BC under Vitinius. To avenge these defeats was demanded by Roman honor, and to pacify the interior districts was demanded by Roman policy. The younger Caesar undertook this task when he had dealt with Sextus Pompeius and discharged it with energy and success. In 35 BC he subdued the smaller tribes all along the Hadriatic coast, beginning with Docleia, which is now Montenegro, near the borders of the Macedonian province, and ending with the Iapides, who lived in the Alpine district northeast of Istria. At the same time his fleet subdued the pirates who infested the coast islands, especially Cursola and Maleda. The Iapides, whose depredations extended to northern Italy and who had ventured to attack places like Turgeste and Aqualia, offered a strenuous resistance. When the Roman army approached, most of the population assembled in their town Arupium, but as Caesar drew nearer, fled into the forests. The strong fortress of Matulum, built on two summits of a wooded hill, gave more trouble. It was defended by a garrison of 3,000 chosen warriors who foiled all the Roman plans of attack until Caesar, with a grippa by his side, led his soldiers against the walls. On this occasion Caesar received some bodily injuries. The energy of the Romans, inspired by the example of their leader, induced the besieged to capitulate. But when the Romans on entering the town demanded the surrender of their arms, the Iapides, thinking that they were betrayed, made a desperate resistance in which most of them were slain, and the remainder, having slain the women and children, set fire to their town. Having thus subdued the Iapides, Caesar marched through their country down the river Colapis, Culpa, which flows into the save, and laid siege to the Panonian fortress of Sissia, whose name is preserved in Sissic, situated at the junction of the two streams. It was not the first time that a Roman force had appeared before the walls of Sissia, but it was the first time that a Roman force did not appear in vain. Having thrown a bridge across the river, Caesar surrounded the stronghold with earthworks and ditches, and with the assistance of some tribes on the Danube, got together a small flotilla on the save, so that he could operate against the town by water as well as by land. The Panonian friends of the besieged place made an attempt to relieve it, but were beaten back with loss, and having held out for thirty days, Sissia was taken by storm. A strong position was thus secured for further operations, whether against the Panonians or against the Dacians. A Roman fortress was built and garrisoned with twenty-five cohorts under the command of Fufius Geminus. Caesar returned to Italy towards the end of the year, thirty-five B.C., but during the winter the conquered Panonian tribe rebelled, and Fufius came into great straits. Dark rumors of his situation, for he was unable to send a sure message, reached Caesar, who was at that moment planning an expedition to Britain. He immediately hastened to the relief of Sissia and let the Britannic Enterprise fall through. Having delivered Fufius from the danger, he returned to Dalmatia and spent the rest of the year thirty-four B.C. in reducing the inland tribes, which now, forgetting their tribal feuds, combined in a great federation to fight for their freedom. He mustered an army of twelve thousand strong and took up a position at Pomona, now Teflin, northeast of Sebenico, a place impregnable by nature and strengthened further by art. The name of their leader was Versus. By a skillful piece of strategy, Caesar forced the enemy to give up their advanced lines of defense and retreat into the fortress, which he prepared to reduce by starving the garrison out and for this purpose built a wall five miles in circuit. Another large Dalmatian force under Testimus came to relieve the place but was completely defeated. The defenders of Pomona simultaneously made an excursion against the besiegers but were driven back and some of their pursuers penetrated into the fortress with them. A few days later it was surrendered. The fall of Pomona put an end to the war insofar as it was waged by the Dalmatians in common. But warfare continued here and there. Various tribes and fortresses held out by themselves. It was necessary to besiege Satovia and Caesar was wounded there in his knee. He returned after this to Rome to enter upon his second consulship, 33 BC, leaving the completion of his work to Statilius Taurus, who for his services on this occasion received a large share of the Illyrian spoils and laid the foundation of his great wealth. Caesar laid down his consulate on the very day on which he assumed it and returned to Dalmatia in order to receive the submission of the conquered peoples. The eagles which had been captured from the army of Gabinius were restored and 700 boys were given to the conqueror as hostages. The civilizing of these Illyrian lands was now begun in earnest. The chief towns on the coast were raised to the position of Italian communities and the epoch began in the history of Solone, Iater, Pola, Turgheste and other places, which made their mark in the later history of Europe. It was now doubtless that colonies were settled at Solone, Pola and Amona. Thus Solone became in full official language Colonia Martia Giulia Solone and Amona, which corresponds with Leibach, the capital of Carniola became Colonia Giulia Amona. Pola, called Colonia Pietus Giulia Pola, may have become in some measure for Illyricum what Lugudanum was for the three Gauls insofar as a temple of Rome and Augustus was built there during the lifetime of the First Emperor. A change was also made in the administration of Illyricum. Hitherto it had been joined to the government of Cisselpine Gaul with the exception of a small strip of land in the south of Dalmatia which was annexed to Macedonia. But after Caesar's campaigns Illyricum was promoted to the dignity of a separate province bounded by the Savus in the north and the Drillo in the south. At the division of provinces in 27 BC it was assigned to the senate but in the nature of things it could not long remain senatorial. The presence of legions on the northern frontier could not be dispensed with and it devolved upon the governor to watch over Noricum on the one hand and Moesia on the other. Such powers and responsibilities were not likely to be left to a procounsel and accordingly soon after the conquest of Reitia when hostilities in Pannonia seemed likely to break out we find a grippa sent thither 13 BC invested quote with greater powers than all the governors out of Italy end quote. The terror of a grippa's name held the Pannonians in check but on his death in the following year they took up arms and Tiberius was appointed to succeed a grippa. He brought the rebellious tribes to submission but in the next year 11 BC was again compelled to take the field against them and also to suppress a revolt of the Dalmatians. These events led to the transference of Illyricum from the senate to the emperor. Both the Dalmatian subjects and the Pannonian neighbors required the constant presence of military forces. At the same time the northern frontier of the province advanced from the Savas to the Dravas in consequence of the successes of Tiberius in his three campaigns 12 to 10 BC. Potovio on the borders of Noricum now became the advanced station of the legions instead of Sissia. This extension of territory soon led to a division of Illyricum into two provinces, Pannonia and Dalmatia, both imperial. The government of Pannonia was especially important because the intervention of the legatis might be called for either in Noricum or in Moesia. It is well to notice that the name Illyricum was used in two ways. In its stricter sense it included Pannonia and Dalmatia. In a wider sense and especially for financial purposes it took in Noricum and Moesia as coming within the sphere of the governors of Illyricum proper. Moesia and Thrace. The governors of Macedonia under the Republic were constantly troubled by the hostilities of the rude Illyric and Thracean peoples on the north and east. The Dardanians of the Upper Margus, the Dentalate of the Strymon, the Tribali between the Timicus and the Oescus and the Bessi beyond the Rhodo were troublesome neighbors. The lands between the Danube and Mount Hamas, which now form the Principality of Bulgaria, were inhabited by the Moesians and beyond the Danube was the Dominion of the Dacians, whom the Romans had reason to regard as a most formidable enemy. The Thraceans in the south, the Moesians in the center and the Dacians in the north were people of the same race speaking the same tongue. It was evidently a very important matter for the Roman government to break this line and to bring Moesia and Thrace directly or indirectly under Roman sway so as to make the Eister the frontier of the empire. The occasion of the conquest of Moesia was an invasion of the Bastarne, a powerful people perhaps of German race who lived between the Danube and the Deneister in 29 BC. As long as they confined their hostilities to the Moesians, Dardanians and Trebali, the matter did not concern the governor of Macedonia, Marcus Licinius Crassus, grandson of the rival of Pompey and Caesar. But when they attacked the Dentalite, allies of Rome, he was called on to interfere. The Bastarne retired at his command, but he followed them as they retreated and defeated them where the river Cyprus flows into the Danube. But at the same time he turned his arms against Moesia and reduced, not without considerable toil and hardships, almost all the tribes of that country. He had also to deal with the Surdi, who dwelt in the center of the peninsula under Mount Scomias in the direct way between Macedonia and Moesia. These he conquered and took their chief place, Surdica, which is now Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. He was also compelled to reduce the unfriendly tribes of Thrace. In that country the worship of Dionysus was cultivated with wild enthusiasm and the possession of one specially venerable grove, consecrated to that god, perhaps the very grove in which Alexander the Great had once sacrificed, was a subject of discord between two powerful rival tribes, the Odrisae and the Bessae. The Bessae were then in possession, but Crassus took the sacred place from them and gave it to the friendly Odrisae and constituted their prince the representative of Roman power in Thrace with lordship over the other peoples and protector of the Greek towns on the coast. Thus Thrace became a dependent kingdom. That Moesia also became at first a dependency of the same kind before she became a regular province seems likely. The Greek cities on the coast were probably placed under the protection of the Thracean kingdom, while the rest of Moesia and Trebalia may have been united under one of the native princes. After 27 BC it would doubtless have devolved upon the governor of Illyricum no longer upon the governor of Macedonia to intervene in case of need. The submission of the Thraceans was not permanent and the Odrisians were not equal to the task imposed upon them. The Bessae longed to recover the sanctuary of Dionysus and a sacred war broke out in 13 BC which resulted in the overthrow of the princes of Odrisae. The suppression of this insurrection ought perhaps to have devolved upon the governor of Illyricum but he had his hands full in his own province. The procouncil of Macedonia had no army at his disposal. Accordingly recourse was had to the troops stationed at Galatia and Lucius Piso, the empirical legatess in that province was summoned to cross into Europe and quell the insurgents who were threatening to invade Asia having established themselves in the Thracean Thersonace, 11 BC. Piso put down the revolt successfully and it was probably soon after this that Moesia was converted into a regular Roman province though Thrace still remained under the rule of the dependent Odrisian prince, who, with his son Cotus, was devotedly attached to Rome and unpopular in Thrace. Thrace, though not yet Greek, must even now be reckoned to the Greek half of the Roman world but its close connection with Moesia naturally led us to consider it in this place rather than in the following chapter. Moesia itself belonged partly to the Latin and partly to the Greek division. The cities which grew under Roman influence in western Moesia were Latin. The cities on the coast of Pontus were Greek and formed a distinct world of their own. But most of the inhabitants of these cities were not Greeks but Gretae and Sarmatians and even the true Greeks were to some extent barbarized by intercourse with the natives. The poet Ovid, who was banished to Tome gives a lively description of the wild life there. The plowmen plowing armed, the arrows of ferocious marauders flying over the walls of the town natives clad in skins and equipped with bow and quiver riding through the streets. Getic continued to be spoken in Moesia long after the Roman conquest like a lyric in a lyricum and Ovid says that it was quite needful for anyone resident in Tome to know it. He wrote himself a poem in the Getic tongue and we should be glad to barter some of his Latin elegiacs for his exercise in that lost language. The subjugation of the vast extent of territory reaching from the sources of the Rhine to the mouths of the Danube was a military necessity. The conquest of each province while it served some immediate purpose at the time was also part of an immense scheme for the defense of the empire from the northern ocean to the yoke sign. It was designed that the armies in Pannonia should be in constant touch with the armies on the Rhine and that operations in both quarters should be carried out in connection. Central Europe and the Germans who inhabited it presented a hard and urgent problem to the Roman government but before telling how they attempted to solve it it will be well to complete our survey of the subject and dependent lands. End of Chapter 6, Sections 5 and 6 All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Students Roman Empire Part 1 by John Bagnell Burry Chapter 7 The Provincial Administration under Augustus The Eastern Provinces 27 B.C. to 14 A.D. Sections 1 and 2 Chapter 7 Provincial Administration continued The Eastern Provinces and Egypt Function of Roman rule in the East Macedonia, Achaia and the free Greek states Nicopolis and the Actian games the Delphic and Fiktiani Asia and Bethenia The Provincial Diets Asiarchs and Betheniarchs Galatia and Pamphylia The Dependent States in Asia Minor The Lycian Confederacy Cappadocia Pontus Paphlegonia Little Armenia The States of the Tariq Peninsula Bosphorus and Chersinesis The Insular Provinces Cyprus and Crete with Cyrene Syria and the neighboring Dependent States Nabataea, Judea Chomegane Causis Abola Emesa Palmyra King Herod and His Hellenism Egypt The Romans, who were the teachers of the peoples whom they conquered in the West were themselves pupils in the East In Gaul, in Spain, in Northern Italy in Illyricum, they broke new ground and appeared as the pioneers of civilization but in the Eastern countries which came under their dominion they entered upon an inheritance which they were called upon, indeed to preserve and improve but where there was no room for them to originate new ideas of development Rome merely carried on the work of Alexander the Great and his successors and she was proud to be entrusted with the task She not only left Greek what was already Greek but she endeavored to spread Greek civilization in those parts of her eastern lands where it had not taken root The sole exception to this policy was Sicily and this was due to its geographical position The subject lands of the East naturally fall into four groups one, Macedonia and Greece two, Asia Minor in connection with which may be considered the Tariq Peninsula three, Syria and the neighboring vassal kingdoms four, Egypt which stands by itself both geographically and because strictly speaking it was not a province Section 1 Macedonia, Achaea and the free Greek states The institution of the empire was attended by a change in the administration of Macedonia and Greece which under the Republic had formed one large province Augustus divided it into two smaller provinces Macedonia and Achaea both of which he assigned to the Senate This division however did not altogether coincide with the boundary between Greece and Macedonia The province of Achaea was smaller than Hellas and the new province of Macedonia larger than Macedonia proper For Thessaly, Itolia, Acarnia and Epirus were placed under the rule of the northern proconsul Thus, Mount Etna instead of Mount Olympus was the boundary between Greece and Macedonia Imperial Macedonia was thus smaller in extent and importance than Republican Macedonia It also lost its military significance as a frontier district through the extension of Roman rule over the neighboring lands north and east Greek civilization though it had flourished for centuries in the old cities on both the seas which wash the coasts of Macedonia never penetrated far into the highlands eastward of Apollonia and Diracium northward of Thessalonica and the Calcitic Peninsula there were few Greek cities to form centers of culture Augustus settled colonies of Roman citizens in many of the old Greek towns in Diracium, the old Epidomenos and in Bilus on the Adriatic coast in Thracian, Philippi, in Pella in Dium on the Thermaea Gulf in Cassandra on the Bay of Pagasi But his purpose was merely to provide for veteran soldiers not to Romanize the province In general the towns retained their Macedonian constitutions and polytarchs and they formed a federation with a diet The capital of the province was Thessalonica and this alone stamped it as Greek Thessaly, although placed under the government of the proconsul of Macedonia held a position quite apart from the lands north of Mount Olympus It was a purely Greek district and its cities formed a federation of its own distinct from that of Macedonia The diet used to meet at Larissa whose fertile plain was so famous Julius Caesar had accorded the right of free self-government to all the Thessalians But for some active misconduct Augustus withdrew the privilege and the Thessalians, with the single exception of Pharsalus were degraded from the position of allies to that of subjects The Roman government, whether republican or imperial always treated the venerable cities of Greece with a consideration and tenderness which they showed to no other conquered lands The reverence, which was inspired in the Romans by the city of the Virgin Palace by patient Lachidaemon and by oracular Delphi is displayed not only in their literature but in their government Athens preserved a part of her dominion as well as her independence She can still regard herself as a sovereign city Thus, Greek fell politically into two parts Federate Greece and Subject Greece First of the free Federate states comes Athens with the whole of Attica and various other dependencies On the mainland she possessed Haleartos in Boatia and the surrounding district But as in old days most of her dominion was Insular Among the Cyclades she had Chaos and Delos The Northern Aegean, Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros The island of Salamis was also recovered for her in the reign of Augustus by the private liberality of a rich man, Julius Nikonor whom the grateful Athenians named the new Themistocles In spite of her privileged position perhaps in consequence of it Athens often gave the Roman government trouble A revolt in the reign of Augustus is recorded Next to Athens in Northern Greece came three famous Boetian towns Thespiae, Tanagra and Plataea In focus likewise three Delphi, Iletea and Abbe in Locris and Fissa In the Peloponnesus Sparta was permitted to retain her dominion over Northern Laconia while the inhabitants of the southern half of that country were formed into 18 communities of free Laconians in Luthoro Lacones Daime in Achaea was also a free city and it is highly probable though not certain that Elis and Olympia belonged to the free communities The Roman government interfered as little as possible with the affairs of these free states Athens coined her own drachmae and obels and the head of Caesar never appeared on her coins but she and her fellows knew that their privileges might at any moment be withdrawn as the example of the Thessalians taught them Patrai and Corinth as Roman colonies held a somewhat different position Corinth, like Carthage, rose again under the auspices of Julius Caesar as Colonia Giulia or Laus Giulia and rapidly recovered her prosperity thanks to her geographical position Patrai in Achaea was founded by Augustus who settled their large number of Italian veterans and granted to the new town Dominion of the Locrian Haven Nalpoctus which lay over against it on the opposite coast The rest of Greece, with the exception of the less developed districts in the west, Itolea, Eccarnia, Epirus constituted the province of Achaea The residence of the proconsul was at Corinth The sense of national unity in these subject states was encouraged by Augustus He received the Achaian League in an extended form as the League of Moetians, Aobians, Locrians, Phocians and Dorians or briefly the League of the Achaians In later times it assumed the more pretentious title of the League of the Pan-Helens The assemblies of this association used to meet in Argos which was thus in some measure recompensed for her exclusion from the list of free communities One important and singular state still has to be mentioned On the northern lip of the mouth of the Ambrosian Gulf near the scene of the Great Battle in which he won the lordship of the Roman world Augustus founded a new city Nicopolis, the city of victory rose on the very spot where the main body of his army had been encamped This foundation was not to be a Roman colony It was to be a Greek city like Thessalonica and it was founded in the same way by synchronizing the small communities of the neighborhood Nicopolis, like Athens and Sparta was a free and sovereign state Acarnia, the island of Loicus the neighborhood districts of Apyrus a part of Aetolia replaced under her control On the opposite promontory a new temple of Apollo was built at Actium and Quineo games were instituted in honor of that god on the model of the Olympian and actually called Olympian as well as Actium The cycle of four years was in Actiad Nicopolis and its dependents belonged politically neither to Macedonia nor to Acaya but they were more in touch with the southern than with the northern province The great bond of union among the European Greeks under Roman rule was the Delphic and Fiktiani and in this assembly as reorganized by Augustus Nicopolis had a prominent place The chief reform introduced by that emperor was the extension of the institution to Macedonia and Nicopolis but as many votes were assigned to the new city as to the whole of the Macedonian province The functions of the Fiktiani were purely religious it ordered the sacred festivals and administered the large income of the temple of Delphi From a political point of view it served the same purpose as the assembly of the three Gallic provinces which met at Lyon around the altar of Augustus It helped to maintain a feeling of unity and a sense of common nationality Section 2 Asia Minor Kingdoms of the Uxine Islands Asia and Bethenia From the Greeks of the motherland we passed to the Greeks of lesser Asia Here Rome had never to struggle for dominion as in the other parts of the empire of Alexander the Great and his successors The provinces of Asia and Bethenia dropped as it were into her arms Asia was the kingdom of the Atollids of Pergamum and was bequeathed to the Roman people by Atollus III Bethenia became Roman in the same way by the testament of King Nicomedes Both these provinces were assigned to the senate and governed by proconsuls Asia extended from the shores of the propontus to the borders of Lycia Eastward it included Phrygia and on the west took in the islands along the coast Bethenia was no longer confined to the original kingdom of Nicomedes It had been increased on the east side by Pontus after the overthrow of the empire of Mithridates by Pompeii and it stretched along the Bosphorus into Europe so as to take in Byzantium In the kingdom of the Atollids little was left for the Romans to do in the way of Hellenization In the interior of the country there were many Hellenistic cities and the growth of city life required no fostering from the new mistress The colonies of Parium and Alexandria in the Troas, founded by Augustus were for the purpose of settling veteran soldiers It was otherwise in the kingdom of Nicomedes Here Greek culture had not taken root so deeply or so widely Bethenia was far less developed than Asia Here accordingly there was room for Rome to step in and carry on the work of Hellenization and she gladly undertook the task Pontus, which was under the governor of Bethenia was more backward still There were no Greek centers there like Prusa and Nicaea in Bethenia so that the Hellenization of that country practically began under the empire The two most important towns on the coast of Pontus were Sinope, where a Roman colony had been planted Antropasus, which was the station of the Pontic fleet In Asia Minor, as in other parts of the empire Augustus promoted the institution of provincial councils The deputies of various cities met yearly in a center and the assembly could make known to the Roman governor the wishes of the province But this institution took a special shape and color by its association with the worship of the emperor In 29 BC, Caesar, not yet Augustus authorized the diets of Asia and Bethenia to build temples to himself in Pergamum and Nicomedia Hence the custom of paying divine honors to the emperor during his lifetime spread throughout the provinces In Italy and Rome, such worship was not yielded to him till he was deified after his death This worship involved the existence of high priests who, in the Asiatic provinces, became very important persons and gave their names to the year Whereas in European Greece, the ancient public festivals Olympian, Pythian, Ithsmian, and Nemian still lived and the new Ectian feast was celebrated in honor of Apollo In Asia, the public feasts were connected with the cult of the emperor The president of the provincial diet, the Asiarch in Asia and the Bethiniarch in Bethenia conducted the celebration of these festivals and defrayed the costs that those offices could only be held by rich men There was no lack of wealthy folk in Asia, the province of 500 cities It had suffered a good deal from piracy and from the mythodatic war and Augustus, in order to restore prosperity resorted to the measure of canceling old debts Rhodes was the only state that did not take advantage of this permission But Asia soon recovered and the bright cities enjoyed under the empire tranquility and prosperity 4. Galatia and Pamphylia When the provinces were divided in 27 BC between the senate and the emperor Asia Minor was only in small part provincial Besides Asia and Bethenia only eastern Cilicia was subject to a Roman governor The rest of the country consisted of dependent states holding the same relation to Rome as Mauritania in the west Chief among these vassal states was the kingdom of Galatia then ruled by Amintus Celtic civilization held its own for a long time against Hellenism in this miniature Gaul which was set down in the land of Hellenistic states somewhat like Messilia that miniature Greece set down in the land of Celtic cantons The visitor who came from western Galatia the Greek name of Gaul to eastern Galatia might hear spoken in the streets of Pessinus and Anchira the language with which he was familiar in the streets of Lugudunum Here too in the new Gaul were the same double names of towns as in the old Gaul the name of the place and the name of the tribe as Gallic Mediolanum is Santes Saints as Lutetia is Parisi So, Anchira is called by the name of the Tectosages Pessinus by that of the Tolistobogii But in Asia the Celts did not long maintain the purity of their race Gallic and Greek blood were mingled and the people were called Gallo-Greeks just as in Gaul they came to be Gallo-Romans The princes of Galatia were ambitious of empire and were rivals of Mithridates In the Mithridatic war they stood fast by Rome King Diotaris who had played a prominent part then died in 40 BC and his kingdom passed to one of his officers Amintus in 36 BC through the favor of Marcus Antonius who charged the new sovereign with the subjugation of Pesidia The dominion of Amintus extended over these mountainous countries south of Galatia which have always been so hard to civilize Pesidia, Lycaonia, Isaria and Western Cilicia The fall of his patron Antonius made no difference in the position of Amintus Caesar allowed him to remain where he was But when he died in 25 BC Galatia was transformed into a Roman province and, like all new provinces after 27 BC was administered by an imperial governor Pamphylia, over which the authority of Amintus stretched was now separated from Galatia and made a distinct province But Pesidia and Lycaonia still went with Galatia In the mountainous regions of these districts the Hellenistic kings had done little for civilization and there was a great field for the plantation of new cities Antioch, Ceyluchia, Apollonia and Northern Pesidia Iconium and Laodicia catechomene in Lycaonia were indeed something, but they were only a beginning Augustus founded the Roman colonies of Lystra and Pilaris in Lycaonia and Kremna in Pesidia and his successors carried on the work Many remains of theaters and aqueducts in these lands tell of prosperity under the early empire But even at the Besta times Mount Taurus was the home of wild mountaineers always ready under a weak government to pursue the trade of brigandage Five, the dependent states in Asia Minor and on the Eucsine The rest of Asia Minor did not become provincial until after the death of Augustus During his reign the Lycian Confederacy once subject to Rhodes but independent after the 3rd Macedonian War was permitted to retain its autonomy The kingdom of Cappadocia was ruled by king Archelaus Polymon ruled over a Pontic kingdom consisting of the territory between Caressus and Trapezius and also the land of Cultus There were three distinct vassal states in Cilicia In Paflegonia there were some small principalities held by the descendants of king Deotaris but these came to an end in 7 BC and rejoined to Galatia East of Galatia, north of Cappadocia was the kingdom of little Armenia of which more will be said in the next chapter where the position of great Armenia will also be described a kingdom dependent by turns on the Roman and the Parthian empires One state, or rather two states which up till very late times continued Roman dependencies not incorporated in the provincial system still call for notice These are the two cities on the Tariq peninsula Bosphorus or Panticapaeum on the eastern promontory at the entrance of the palace Myotus and Chersenesis or Heraclia at the opposite western side Bosphorus was governed by kings The original title was Archon who also ruled over Phanagoria on the opposite mainland and Theodosia, a town on the peninsula Chersenesis was a republic Both states had been conquered by Mithridates and formed into a Bosporus realm When he was overthrown, Bosphorus after some struggles came finally into the hands of Asandros who held it into his death, 16 BC and left the kingdom to his wife, Dynamus by marriage with her and the permission of Augustus Polamon, king of Pontus then obtained the kingdom and was succeeded by his children But the republic of the western city was no longer subject to its eastern neighbor though it might regard the basilis of Bosphorus as a protector in times of need These cities on the distant border of Skidia played an important part in commerce The Greek colonies on the northern shore of the Eucsine in the mouth of the river of like name Obia, near the mouth of the Hypanus although they sometimes received Roman protection never took a permanent place in the empire Lonely and remote they were left to hold their own as best they could in the midst of barbarous peoples Cyprus, Crete and Cyrene In the western Mediterranean there were two insular provinces Cilicia and Sardinia So likewise in the eastern parts of the same sea there were two insular provinces Cyprus and Crete Crete however was not an entire province it had been joined by its conqueror Metellus with the Cyrinaric Pentapolis The joint province of Crete and Cyrene was assigned to the senate The land of Cyrene remarkable for its delightful invigorating climate was also blessed by freedom from political troubles throughout its history Like Asia and Bithynia it had been willed to the Roman Republic by Ptolemy Appian its last Macedonian king 96 BC Cyprus was at first imperial but in 22 BC Augustus transferred it along with Gallia Narbonesis to the senate The early history of this island had turned like that of Sicily on the struggle between the Phoenicians and the Greeks Under Roman rule Unbroken tranquility but for the large population of Jews who sometimes rebelled Even the peaceful Cyreneica was at times disturbed by the abjections of the same race Crete once the home of piracy was lucky enough to play no part in history as long as the Mediterranean was a holy Roman sea End of chapter 7 sections 1 and 2 Chapter 7 Parts 3 and 4 Chapter 7 Parts 3 and 4 Section 3 The neighboring dependent kingdoms in Syria of the imperial provinces Cyprus Cyprus Cyprus Cyprus Cyprus Cyprus Cyprus Cyprus Of the imperial provinces Syria was the most important in the east as Gaul in the west The Legatis of Syria on whom it devolved to defend the frontier of the Euphrates against the Parthians had four legions under him the same number that was stationed on the Rhine but it was not only for a frontier service that the Syrian troops were needed they had also to protect the cities and the villages against marauding bands who infested the hills the legions were quartered in the cities and not like the Rhine army in special military stations on the frontier and this circumstance was the source of the demoralization and the lack of discipline which marked the Syrian army but not withstanding the existence of the hill robbers Syria was the most prosperous province in the way of Hellenization and the colonization the Seleucid kings had left nothing for the Romans to do Augustus founded Beirutis in order to provide for veteran soldiers and have remained an isolated Italian town in the midst of the Greek Asiatics like Corinth in Greece and Alexandria in the Troad the Greek names of the towns in Syria were called Macedonia as towns in Sicily and Magna Gratia were called Old Greece or as names of places in the United States were called the Mother Country but the older Aramaic names were set on side by side with the new Greek names and in some cases have outlived them as for instance Heliopolis which is called Baalbek at the present day people too had double names as well as places Thomas who was called Didimus and Tabitha also called Dorcus in the New Testament are familiar examples the Aramaic tongue continued to be spoken beside Greek like Celtic beside Latin and Gaul especially in the Remoter districts from the mixture of Greek and Syrian life a new mixed type of civilization arose sometimes called Serio Hellenic and characteristically expressed in the great Mausoleum erected on a hill near the Euphrates by Antiochus King of Comagni in his epitaph that monarch prays that upon his posterity may descend the blessings of the gods both of Persus and Persia and Macedonia in the busy factories of the great Syrian cities Laudikia, Apamea Tyre, Beirutus, Biblis were carried on the manufacturers Lenin, Silk etc for which the country was so famous but Antioch the capital was a town of pleasure rather than of work it was not well situated for commerce like Alexandria but it was rich and magnificent splendidly supplied with water brightly lit up at night in full of superb buildings it with its suburbs, the gardens of Daphne was probably the pleasantest town in the empire for the pleasure-seeker southern Syria on its eastern side bordered on the dependent kingdom of Nabat which extended from Damascus encircling Palestine on the east and south and included in the northern portion of the Arabian peninsula the regions however of Tracontis between Damascus and Bostra which had been committed to the charge of Zenedorus, Prince of Abola were subsequently transferred by Augustus to the king of Judea because Zenedorus, instead of suppressing the robbers who infested Tracontis made common calls with them Damascus itself however was subject to the Nabatean kings whose capital was the great commercial city of Petra, the midway station through which the caravans of Indian merchandise passed on the road from Luque Coma in Arabia to Gaza these kings were Arabs and Hellenism had only superficially touched their court they had officers named Aparcoy and Stratagoy in the northern part of their realm Damascus was Greek in the close neighborhood of Syria brought those border regions on the edge of the desert into connection with Greek civilization the kings of Petra were always at feud with their neighbors, the kings of Judea Obadas nearly lost his crown for taking up arms against Herod instead of appealing to Augustus their common lord civilization did not really begin for this Nabatean kingdom until more than a century later it was at length converted into a Roman province the kingdom of Judea restored and bestowed upon Antipater of Idumea by Julius Caesar he was fairly favored by that statesman being exempted from tribute and military levies after the death of Antipater the kingdom was won by his son Herod after many struggles at first the unwilling client of Antonius and the Queen of Egypt he performed some services in the final contest for Caesar who not only confirmed him in his kingdom but enlarged its borders Samaria was added to Judea and also the line of coast on Gaza as far as the tower of Straton which afterwards under Herod's rule was to become the city of Caesarea the chief port of southern Syria Herod, throughout his long reign prosecuted the work of Hellenism by no means acceptable to his Jewish subjects with generous zeal his policy was to keep religion and the government of the state quite apart and do away altogether with the Jewish theocracy there was thus a continuous rivalry between the king and the high priest the Hellenism of Herod was shown by his building a theater at Jerusalem and instituting a festival to be celebrated at the end of every fourth year an imitation of the Greek games at this festival musical as well as gymnastics and equestrian contests were held and people of every nation were invited he also imitated the Romans by building an amphitheater in the plain and exhibiting their combats of wild beasts and condemned criminals all this was a gross violation of Jewish traditions Herod founded two new cities both of which were named after the emperor Caesarea already mentioned intended to be the seaport of Jerusalem and Sebaste on the site of Samaria these cities were of Hellenistic and not a Jewish character the reign of Herod was stained by horrible tragedies which darkened his domestic life before his death which occurred in 4 BC his kingdom had been increased by the land beyond the Jordan the whole realm he divided among his three sons Archelaus was to receive Judea with Samaria and Edumia to Philip fell Betania and the adjacent regions with the title of tetrarch while Galilee and the land beyond the Jordan was assigned to Herod and Titus also as tetrarch but the kingdom was not destined to be of long duration the Jews preferred to be the direct subjects of the emperor to being under the rule of a king of their own and a deputation from Jerusalem waded upon Augustus in Rome to pray him to abolish the kingdom the emperor at first compromised he did not remove Archelaus from the government of Judea but he refused him the royal title and deprived him of Samaria a few years later however in consequence of the incapacity of Archelaus the wishes of the Jews were accomplished and Judea was made a Roman province 6 AD under an imperial procurator over whom doubtless the legatis of Syria was empowered to exercise a certain supervision in certain cases somewhat as the governor of Panonia might intervene in Noricum under the procurator the city communities were allowed to manage their own affairs in Asia or Achaia in Jerusalem the Sanhedrin an institution which had been founded under the Seleucids corresponded to the town council and the high priest appointed by the procurator to the chief magistrate everything possible was done under the new system to respect and deal tenderly with the customs and prejudices of the Jews out of consideration for their objection to images the coins did not bear in mind and when Roman soldiers went to Jerusalem they had to leave their standards behind them in Caesarea the difference of treatment which the occidental Jews experienced is striking the same emperors who persecuted Jews in the west scrupulously respected their customs in their own land but the Jews were not content they grumbled against the tribute not because it was oppressive but on the ground that it was irreligious to the war of Vespasian to which we shall come hereafter some other small vassal states were allowed to survive for a considerable time the kingdom of Comagene in the north was not incorporated in the provincial system until 72 A.D the principality of Calces northwest of Damascus survives still longer until 92 A.D Abola between Calces and Damascus was annexed about 49 A.D Iamblicous of Amessa had been executed by Antonius shortly before the battle of Actium and his territory was at first annexed by Augustus to the province of Syria but in 20 B.C. restored to a member of the native dynasty of Sampigoramis it finally became provincial before 81 A.D at what time the Syrian state of Palmyra called in the Syrian tongue Tadmor came to be a Roman dependency we cannot say for certain but probably in the reign of Augustus this flourishing city situated in an oasis of desert laid on the trade route from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean sea and was governed under Roman supremacy by its own municipal officers until its destruction by the emperor Aurelian in the third century section 4 Egypt the death of Cleopatra the last queen of the royal house of the Legidae was followed by the conversion of Egypt from the condition of a vassal kingdom into a directly subject land but although it is never counted with the imperial provinces it never stood in line with the other provinces it was the subject to the emperor in his own right not merely as representative of the populace Romanus Augustus ruled over Egypt not as proconsul as the successor of the Ptolemies a king all but in name in the country always remained a sort of imperial preserve the emperor was worshiped as a god by the Egyptian priests according to the same forms which had been used in the cult of the royal Ptolemies it was a logical consequence of this legal status of Egypt as the emperor's private domain that it should stand apart from the imperial provinces in its administration thus senators were disqualified to fulfill the post of governor hence the governor of Egypt did not hold the rank of a legatus but only of a prefectus he was in command however of three legions and this was the only case in which legions were commanded by men of the equestrian order but not only were senators excluded from the governorship they were even forbidden to set foot in the land without permission of the lord of the land this regulation which also extended the country's interest rates was made by Augustus in self-protection for if a prominent senator wished to excite a rebellion Egypt through its immense resources and its geographical position would have made a most favorable field for such an enterprise the military importance had been abundantly approved in the civil war whoever controlled the Egyptian ports could stop the corn supply on which Rome and Italy depended and thus forced them to capitulate without leaving Alexandria and besides Egypt was a country difficult to attack and easy to defend and had the advantage of an insular position without being an island the jealousy with which the emperors watched Egypt is illustrated by the fate of the first prefect Cornelius Gallus the poet he allowed his name and deeds to be inscribed on the pyramids and these indiscretions were interpreted as treasonable and in the senate he was removed from his command and his disgrace drove him to commit suicide Augustus is reported on this occasion to have complained that he was the only citizen who could not show anger against a friend without making him an enemy besides the prefect there was a euridicus to administer justice and an officer called Ililugus to manage the finances in organization also Egypt differed from the other provinces the system of the Ptolemies was continued no municipal self-government was granted city life was not encouraged as in the rest of the empire the country was divided into districts nomus which were placed under officers appointed by the government no diet was instituted to represent the political views of the people under the Ptolemies the native Egyptians had formed an inferior class possessing no political privileges and under the Romans their condition remained the same upper Egypt extended to Elephantine on the Nile and to troglodytic Berenice on the coast in the same line of latitude this Berenice must be distinguished from golden Berenice far away to the south opposite Aden which like Zula and Ptolemaea Stheron were not included in the Roman Empire the fertility of the land of the Nile was proverbial and it brought in an enormous revenue to the imperial purse Augustus did not reduce the heavy taxes which had been levied by his Greek predecessors but by judicious improvements along which must be especially mentioned the reopening and clearing of the Nile canals he enabled the country to bear them and Egypt soon recovered from the financial distress in which the rule of Cleopatra had plunged it the chief product was grain in which it supplied Rome in the production of linen Egypt rivaled Syria in glass manufacturers it stood first and it supplied the world with papyrus excellently situated for traffic Alexandria might claim to be the second city in the empire as a center of commerce she then stood at the head of all the cities in the world the traffic of the east and the west met in her streets and on her quays Greek philosophies and oriental religions mingled in her schools the buildings were magnificent above all the temple of Serapis the museum and the royal palace there were attractions for the scholar as well as for the merchant and the sites here the Greek library was the richest and the Greek professors of the museums the most learned in the empire everything a Greek writer says was to be had in Egypt wealth, quiet sites, philosophers gold, a museum, wine all one may desire there was a very large Jewish population in Alexandria composing a distinct community with its own chief entitled the ethnarch and the city was too often the scene of riots and tumults as was want to be the case where there were large colonies of Jews the capture of Alexandria by Caesar was commemorated by the building of a suburb called Nicopolis which served as a sort of fortress to command the city as a legion was stationed there the temple of Antonius incomplete when the city was taken was finished and dedicated to Caesar at a later period Augustus set up an obelisk in Alexandria which survives to the present day although no longer in its old station under the name of Cleopatra's needle Egypt had been accustomed to reckon time by the regnal year of the Ptolemies and the same system was continued under its new sovereign the era of the first Roman ruler was counted not from his day of victory August 1st 30 BC but from August 29th corresponding to the first day of the month Thoth which the Egyptians reckoned as the first day of the new year Cleopatra survived during the greater part of August and this circumstance may have determined the choice of the beginning of the new era list of provinces at the death of Augustus 1. Senatorials a. Governed by consular proconsuls Asia, Africa b. Governed by praetorian proconsuls Sicily, Biteca Narbonensis Macedonia, Achaia Bethenia and Pontus Cyprus, Crete and Cyrene 2. Imperial a. Governed by legati Augusti praetori 1. Governed by consular legati Terraconensis Pannonia Darmatica Moesia, Syria 2. Governed by praetorian legati Lusitania, Aquitania Longundanesis Belgica, Galatia b. Governed by prefects or procurators Egypt, Prefect Sardinia in Corsica Riteia, Prefect Noricum Alpes Meritimai, Prefect Alpes Kultai, Prefect Judea, Procurator End of Chapter 7, Sections 3 and 4 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Kalinda The Students Roman Empire Part 1 by John Bagnell Burry Chapter 8 Rome and Parthia Expeditions to Arabia and Ethiopia The Arsacid Dynasty in the fall of the Greek Seleucids ruled over the Iranian lands from the Euphrates to the Borders of India derived their origin from Parthia a land situated between Medea and Bactria southeast of the Caspian Sea Their empire is called Parthia in contrast to the earlier Persian empire of the Achaemenids and the later Persian empire of the Sassanids but it must not be forgotten that these kings were of Iranian race speaking an Iranian language maintaining the religion of Zoroaster and that the whole character of their court was Persian Thus it is quite true to say that the Romans in their Parthian wars not only maintained the same cause but fought against the same foes as Themistocles when he repulsed Xerxes and as Alexander when he overthrew Darius The Parthian Kingdom was composed of a number of subordinate kingdoms or Satrapies and cities in Mesopotamia formed an exception to which we must add the flourishing mercantile city of Cellusia which had taken the place of ancient Babylon In this respect the Parthian and Roman states have been sometimes contrasted In the Parthian realm dependent kingdoms were the rule city communities the exception In the Roman empire cities were the rule dependent kingdoms the exception Before the overthrow of their rival Mithridates the Parthian kings regarded Rome as a friendly power but after the victories of Pompeius when the common enemy had fallen Rome and Parthia stood face to face and became rivals themselves Syria then became a Roman province and the Euphrates was fixed by treaty as the boundary between the great European and the great Asiatic power But there were many causes for discord Armenia like Cappadocia became a Roman dependency and this circumstance could not fail to lead to war That country, very important to both states from a military point of view was destined to be tossed continually backwards and forwards between Parthia and Rome In language, society and nationality Armenia was far nearer to the eastern than to the western power and the political bonds which united it to Rome were always somewhat artificial Another source of discord lay the land south of Armenia For the vassal king of that country desiring to free himself from Parthian supremacy often sought to become the vassal of Rome The actual violation of the treaty came from the Romans who assumed over lordship over the Mesopotamian city of Edessa and attempted to extend the borders of the dependent kingdom of Armenia into Parthian territory How Parthia declared war against Armenia how this led to the fatal expedition of Crassus and the field of Carhay how in consequence of that defeat Armenia fell into the power of the Parthians need not be repeated here Elated by their success the Parthians began to demand the session of Syria While on the side of Rome it was regarded as a matter of honor to revenge the defeat at Carhay and recover the standards of Crassus The civil wars prevented the accomplishment of such designs One great defeat indeed the enemy experienced when they invaded Syria in 38 B.C. at the hands of Vintidias Bassas Pecorus the son of the great king fell on the field of Gondaras Marcus Antonius at length seriously faced the Parthian question in connection with his own ambitious design of founding a great eastern empire composed of dependent kingdoms It will be remembered how his expedition came to naught At that time the king of Parthia was Fratis who was highly unpopular with his subjects and Antonius supported the pretender Monasus The king of Armenia was Artivastes and he, wishing to increase his dominion by the addition of Atropatene ardently supported Antonius Another Artivastes was king of Atropatene Antonius blamed the Armenian king for his failure repaired to Armenia in 34 B.C. seized him and carried him to Egypt where he was put to death by Cleopatra His son, Artaxis, fled to the Parthians At the same time Antonius became reconciled with Artivastes of Atropatene obtained his daughter in marriage for a son of his own whom he set up as king of Armenia But at this moment Antonius was called upon to deal with Caesar and Fratis, seizing the opportunity deposed the two kings and combined both Armenia and Atropatene under the rule of Artaxis son of the Armenian Artivastes Fortunately for Roman interests, intestine struggles broke out in Persia simultaneously with the final contest between the two Roman triumphors Fratis was deposed and Tiridates was set up in his stead Augustus has been blamed for not dealing resolutely with the eastern question immediately after his victory over his rival It has been said that he should have at once plant his power in Armenia and make that country securely and permanently Roman At the same time establishing a recognized authority over the Colchians, the Iberians and the Albanians who inhabited the regions between Armenia and the Caucasus the Yuxain and the Caspian It seemed incumbent on him too to recover the standards captured at Carhay and at the same time two exiles were imploring his help Tiridates who had been overthrown soon after his elevation and Artivastes, king of Atrapatene The desire which the Romans felt at this time to see the Parthians humbled is reflected in the earlier writings of Horus Augustus is called Juvenis Parthes horrendous and will be regarded as a true god upon earth if he adds the Britons and the dangerous Persians to the empire Men clearly looked forward to a Parthian war but Augustus after the conquest of Egypt postponed the settlement of the eastern question Perhaps he was influenced by the ill success of Antonius and his army doubtless eager for rewards and rest would have been little disposed to undertake an arduous campaign in Armenia and above all, Augustus himself was not a general Observing the domestic discords in Parthia he hoped to settle the eastern frontier advantageously for Rome by diplomacy and not by arms He consoled Artivastes with the kingdom of Lesser Armenia and gave refuge in Syria to Tiridates In 23 BC an opportunity came for recovering the standards and captives which had been taken at Carhay Frates sent an embassy demanding that Tiridates should be given up to him and also an infant son of his own whom Tiridates had carried off The child was sent back but it was stipulated that in return the captives and the standards should be restored It was in connection with this affair that a grippa was sent to the east with proconsular Imperium Frates did not fulfill the conditions immediately but in 20 BC, Augustus appeared in the east himself and the Parthian king yielded The emperor was proud of his success which in his account of his own deeds he records thus I compelled the Parthians to restore to me the standards and spoils of three Roman armies to beg the friendship of the Roman people Those standards I deposited in the temple of Mars Ulter Poets celebrated the event as if it ranked with the most brilliant achievements of Roman arms Virgil sings of following Aurora and claiming the standards from the Parthians and imagines the Euphrates as flowing with less haughty stream and the ensigns, so peacefully recovered are described by Horus as torn from the enemy Here a more solid success was obtained the recovery of Armenia A conspiracy had been formed there against the king Artaxes and a message was sent to the emperor requesting that Tigranes the younger brother of Artaxes who was educated at Rome should be sent to reign in his stead Tiberius the emperor's stepson was entrusted with the task of deposing Artaxes and installing Tigranes Artaxes was murdered by the party that aspired against him and Tigranes was established in the kingdom which thus became once more a dependency of Rome Atropotene however was separated and given to Arrio Barzanes son of its former king Artavazdis but it seemed to have remained under Parthian supremacy Arrio Barzanes like Tigranes had been educated at Rome new troubles however soon arose in Armenia Tigranes died and the kingdom by struggles between the friends of Parthia and the friends of Rome Augustus again entrusted to his stepson the office of restoring order in Armenia but Tiberius from motives of private resentment declined the commission nothing was done during the next four years but then it was decided that the ordering of the east should be entrusted to the young grandson of the emperor Gaius Caesar and should form a brilliant beginning to the career of the destined Imperator the young prince started with high hopes dreaming perhaps of oriental conquests and of rivaling the fame of Alexander his enthusiasm seems to have been encouraged by perhaps to have affected his elders a courtly poet cried now far east thou shall be ours and Juba the literary king of Mauritania wrote an account of Arabia for the special benefit of Gaius whose vision was chiefly fixed on the honorable land the settlement of the Armenian question was in the first instance easily and peacefully accomplished Gaius and Fratases the son of Fratase met on an island in the middle of the Euphrates and the Parthian agreed to resign his claim to Armenia but it was still necessary to enforce submission to this decision in Armenia itself and accordingly Gaius proceeded thither to install Ariobarzanes son of Artavastis before the walls of the fortress of Artegira he was wounded by treachery and some months later he died of the effects of the hurt at Limera in Lycia 4 AD during the rest of the reign of Augustus no serious measures were adopted in regard to Armenia and that state was Wrathian and the Roman parties the unfortunate death of the young Caesar put an end to the design of conquering Arabia that enterprise had been seriously entertained by the Roman government and actually attempted at an earlier date the possession of southern Arabia would have been an important advantage not like that of Armenia or Mosia for military purposes but from a purely mercantile point of view the chief root of trade from India to Europe was by the Red Sea Adane, Aden was then as now an important port and the Arabians with their born genius for commerce had it in their hands the Indian wares were disembarked either at Luce Kome on the west coast of Arabia and then transported over land to Petra and on to some Syrian port or at Mayos Hormos on the opposite Egyptian coast whence they were carried by camels to Coptos near Thebes and shipped for Alexandria once in possession of Egypt the Roman government could not fail to see that it would be highly profitable to command the Red Sea root entirely and get the trade into the hands of their own subjects not long after the establishment of his power Augustus took up the question and here for once he was aggressive he planned an expedition of which the object was to reduce under Roman sway the land of Yemen the southwestern portion of the Arabian peninsula that land was known to the Romans as Arabia Felix and its people the Hemi-Rites as the Sabay it was a rich country which in itself invited conquest though in consequence of the remote situation the luxurious inhabitants had never been subdued as Horace tells us by a foreign master they supplied the empire with spices and perfumes cassia, aloes, myrrh, frankincense while in return they received the precious metals which they kept in their land the expedition started towards the end of 25 BC and was entrusted to the care of Elias Galas an officer holding a high post in Egypt 10,000 men half the number of troops in Egypt were placed under his command in addition to auxiliaries supplied by the kings of Nabataea and Judea the Nabataeans had constant intercourse with Arabia Felix and Sileas, a minister of the Nabataean king Obodas undertook to play the part of guide the whole expedition was miserably mismanaged it is hard to say how far Galas was to blame but how far his guide may have acted in bad faith his friend the geographer Strabo from whom we learn the details of the enterprise shifts the blame on Sileas and it is quite conceivable that the Nabataeans may have secretly wished the expedition to fail thinking that its success might divert the traffic that had hitherto passed through their country the army embarked at Arsenoa on the Isthmus of Suez in a fleet of war vessels such vessels were quite needless as there was no question of hostilities by sea they disembarked at Luce Comay which was perhaps at this time subject to Rome and passed the winter there in spring they marched southwards by circuitous and laborious routes and at length reached the capital of the Sabaeans but the army though the natives gave little trouble had suffered severely from disease and hunger and when at last they came to the residence of the Sabaean kings Mariba on its woody hill both the general and the men were too exhausted and despondent to set to the task of besieging it having spent six days there Gallus abandoned the undertaking and the expedition returned home but with more speed than it had gone thither something had been accomplished in the way of exploring the country but the Sabae were still as before unconquered Augustus however did not choose to consider the expedition a failure he speaks of it complacently among his achievements and he promoted Eleus Gallus to the prefecture of Egypt while half of the Egyptian army was absent on the Arabian Enterprise the other half was called upon to defend the southern frontier against the aggressions of a neighboring power Upper Egypt extended as far as Elephantine on the Nile and beyond that limit lay the land of the Ethiopians at this time ruled by the one-eyed queen Candace she had invaded and plundered the extreme parts of Upper Egypt the Nile was an A and Elephantine and after fruitless demands for satisfaction C. Petronius the prefect was obliged to take the field 24 BC at the head of 10,000 footmen and 800 horse he routed the enemy took the town of Selcas on the Nile and advanced as far as Napata where was the Queen's Palace in the neighborhood of the Ethiopian capital Maroë he raised Napata to the ground he did not attempt to occupy all this country a strong place named Premis or Premis his advanced post in the following years Premis was attacked by the Ethiopians and Petronius had to return again to relieve it he inflicted another defeat on the foe 22 BC and Candace was compelled to sue for peace her ambassadors were sent to Augustus who was then at Samos and peace was granted the prefect being directed to evacuate the territory which he had occupied Augustus drew the line of frontier at Sieny End of Chapter 8 Recording by Kalinda in Lüneburg, Germany on March 4, 2009 Chapter 9 Sections 1 and 2 of J. B. Bury's The Student's Roman Empire Part 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Student's Roman Empire Part 1 by John B. B. N. Bury Chapter 9 The Winning and Losing of Germany The Death of Augustus Sections 1 and 2 Section 1 The Conquest of Germany The subject of the present chapter is the story of the Roman Germany that might have been Caesar's conquest of Gaul pointed beyond the limits of that country to further conquests it pointed beyond the sea to the island of the north and eastward beyond the Rhine to the forests of central Europe Caesar had shown the way to the conquest of Britain he had likewise crossed the Rhine As far as Britain was concerned Augustus did not follow out the suggestion of his father that enterprise was reserved for one of his successors but in regard to Germany he was persuaded to act otherwise the advance of the Roman frontier to the Albus Elb and the subjugation of the intervening peoples must have seemed from a military point of view good policy the line of frontier to be defended would thus be lessened the defense of the Upper Danube from Vindanesa on the Rhine to Lariacum would not be needed and the Albus would take the place of the Rhine this project of extending the empire to the Albus into which perhaps the emperor was persuaded by the ardor of his favorite steppes on Drusus was well begun and seemingly certain of success when it was cut short by an untoward accident if there is not some deeper cause in the hidden councils of the Roman government but the winning and losing of Germany is a most interesting episode giving us our earliest glimpse of the rivers and forests of central Europe Caesar in his commentaries a brief sketch of the political and social life of the Germans in general and of the Swayvians in particular this sketch though somewhat vague and doubtless derived chiefly from the information of Gauls is valuable as the earliest picture of the life of our forefathers and one written by a great statesman he describes them as a hardy, laborious and temperate people dividing their life between hunting and war like exercises they practice agriculture but little and subsist chiefly on flesh, milk and cheese no one possesses a permanent lot of land but the chiefs assign a certain portion of land every year and for only one year's occupancy to the several communities which form a civitas at the end of each year the allotments are given up and each community moves elsewhere for this custom several reasons were given of which the most important were that the people might not by permanent settlement become agricultural and give up warfare that the more powerful might not drive the weaker from their possessions and that the mass of the people might be contented the territory of each tribe is isolated from those of its neighbors by a surrounding strip of devastated unpeopled land this is a safeguard against sudden attack in time of war special commanders were chosen in time of peace there is no central or supreme majesty in the state but the chiefs of the various districts, peji or tribal subdivisions administer justice the suave had a hundred peji of which each furnished a thousand men to the military host the rest stayed at home and provided food for the warriors the next year the warriors returned home until the land while those that stayed at home the previous year took their places from this sketch it may be inferred that the tribes known by Caesar were in a state of transition from the nomadic life to that of settled civilization end quote some tribes must have been in a more advanced stage of development than others and this development must have been proceeding during the age of Augustus but we have no means of tracing it the first disturbance in Gaul after the battle of Actium was the revolt of the Celtic Marini in the neighborhood of Gascoriacum alone and their rebellion perhaps was in some way connected with the invasion of the German suaveans from beyond the Rhine in the same year 29 BC the suaveans were driven back and the Marini subdued by Gaius Carinas while nonius Gaulis about the same time suppressed a rising of the Traveri on the Mocella the following years were marked by those measures of organization in Gaul which have been mentioned already chapter 6 there seems to have been a good deal of oppression in the taxation and dissatisfaction among the provincials in 25 BC German invaders came from beyond the Rhine and were repulsed by M. Vinicius but we know not whether they came by the invitation of Roman subjects more alarming was the invasion which took place nine years later Sugambri Usipetis and Tancteri tribes whose homes were on the right bank of the lower Rhine crossed the river on an expedition of funder and inflicted a defeat on the Legatis Emlolius carrying off the eagle of the 5th Legion this event was not a very serious loss but it was a serious disgrace Augustus hastened to Gaul himself taking Tiberius with him the question of the defense of the northern frontiers was becoming serious Tiberius was appointed to the military command in Gaul and offensive operations were begun by the annexation of Noricum and the conquest of Rhaetia and Vindalicia in 12 BC Drusus succeeded his brother as commander of the Rhine army he was a brilliant young man hardly 25 years old handsome, brave and popular of winning manners worshiped by the soldiers ardent and bold but a sagacious leader he lost no time in setting about the accomplishment of his scheme of conquest beyond the Rhine and the occasion was given to him by the hostilities of the Sugambri and their confederates having inaugurated the altar of Augustus at Legutinum and thus called forth a display of royal sentiment in Gaul he proceeded to the lower Rhine through a bridge across the river of the Yusipites who had already begun hostilities this tribe dwelled on the northern bank of the Lupia a tributary of the Rhine which still bears the same name in the form Lipe the land south of the Lupia belonged to the Sugambri and southward still as far as the Laugona now shortened to Laan dwelt the Tancteri having quelled the Yusipites who under their chieftain Mello had begun the hostilities but at present his way did not lie further in that direction his plan was to subdue the northern regions of Germany first and he had decided that this must be done in connection with the navigation of the northern coast there were three stages from the Rhine to the Albus the conqueror must first advance to the Amicia and then to the Visurgis before he reached the Albus limit the names of these rivers thus Latinized by Roman lips are still the same the Ems, the Wesser, and the Elb a canal connecting the Rhine with Lake Flevo as the sheet of water corresponding to the Zoidersee was then called was constructed by the army under Drusus from whom it was named the Fossa Drusiana so that the Rhine fleet could sail straight through the lake into the German ocean and coast along to the mouth of the Amicia the Batavians acknowledged without resistance the Lordship of Rome and helped the troops in cutting the canal and the Frisians who dwelled northeast of Lake Flevo likewise submitted to Drusus without resistance having thus secured the coast from the Rhine to the Amicia he occupied the island of Bercanus which we may certainly identify with Brocum at the mouth of that river and sailing up the stream defeated by the group Terri in a naval encounter returning to the sea he invaded the land of the Chaosi who inhabited the coast regions on either side of the mouth of the Visurgis but it does not appear whether the Roman fleet sailed as far as the Visurgis or whether Drusus advanced into the territory of the Chansi from the Amicia on the return voyage the ships ran some danger in the treacherous shallows but were extirpated by the friendly Frisians who had accompanied the expedition on foot thus the work of Drusus in the first year of his command was the reduction of the coast of lower Germany as far as the Visurgis in the next year 11 BC he determined to follow this up by the reduction of the inland regions in the same direction for this purpose he had to choose another way the chief military station on the lower Rhine was at this time Castro Viterra situated not far from the mouth of the Lupia starting from here in spring the legions crossed the Rhine subdued once more the unruly Usapides threw a bridge across the Lupia and entered the land of the Sugambri in order to advance eastward it was necessary to secure the tranquility of these troublesome tribes in the rear then following the course of the Lupia Drusus advanced into the land of the Cheruski the modern Westphalia as far as the banks of the Visurgis it was thought that the Sugambri might have thrown obstacles in the way of this achievement but they were fully occupied by a war with their southern neighbors the Chadi who dwelled about the Tannis Mountains want of supplies and the approach of winter prevented the Romans from crossing the Visurgis in returning they fell into a snare which but for the skill of the general and the discipline of the soldiers would have proved fatal at a place named Arbalo which cannot be identified they were surrounded in a narrow path by an ambushed enemy but the Germans confident in their own position and regarding the Romans as lost men took no precautions in attacking and the legions cut their way through and reached the Lupia in safety on the banks of that river at the point where it receives the waters of the Eliso Drusus erected a fort as an advanced position in the country which was yet to be thoroughly subdued this fort also named Eliso perhaps corresponds to the modern Elson the river being the Alm about the same time another fort was established on Mount Tannis in the territory of the Chadi whom the Romans drove out of their own land into that of the Sugambri the following year 10 BC seems to have been occupied with the subjugation of the Chadi who were fighting to recover their old homes between the Laugona and the Moines main during this year Drusus possessed the procounselor power that is the secondary Imperium as it is called subordinate to that of the Emperor which had been conferred upon him by designation in the previous year soon afterwards perhaps in the following year along with his brother Tiberius he received the title of Imperiator while Drusus was thus actively accomplishing his great design of a Roman Germany he was not neglectful of the defense of the Rhine which was secured by a line of 50 forts on the left bank between the sea and Vindonisa the chief station of the lower Rhine was Castra Viterra of the upper Moguntasium mains probably founded by Drusus among the most important stations which were established either at this time or much later were Argenteratum the southern Noviogamus which corresponds to Speyer Borbetum Magus Bingium Bona the northern Noviogamus which is still Nimeguin and the northern Lagudinum on the Rhine which was become laden in contrast with its southern namesake on the Rhon which has been transformed into the softer Leon in the following year who might now lay claim to the title of subduer of Germany entered upon his first consulship bad omens at Rome in the beginning of the year did not hinder the consul from setting forth in spring to carry on his work beyond the Rhine this time he was bent on a further progress than he had yet achieved hitherto he had not advanced beyond the Visergas it seemed now high time to press forward to the albus itself starting probably from Moguntiacum he passed through the subject land of the Chadi and entered the borders of the Swevy then taking a northerly direction he reached the Cheruski and the banks of the Visergas and crossing that river marched to the albus hitting it perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of the modern Magdeburg of his adventures on this march nothing is definitely recorded except that the Romans wasted the land and that there were some bloody conflicts on the bank of the albus he erected a trophy marking the limit of Roman progress a strange and striking story was told of something said to have befallen him there and to have moved him to retreat a woman of greater than human stature stood in his way and motioned him back quote wither so fast in satiable drusis it is not given to thee to see all these things back for the end of thy works and thy life end quote and so it fell out the days of drusis were numbered somewhere between the Salah a tributary of the albus and the Visergas he fell from his horse and broke his leg the injury resulted in death after thirty days suffering there seems to have been no competent surgeon in the army the alarming news of the accident was soon carried to Augustus who was then somewhere in Gaul Tiberius who was at Tissanum was sent for with all haste and with all haste he journeyed to the recesses of the German forest and reached the camp in time to be with his brother in the last moments the grief at this misfortune was universal both the emperor and the soldiers had lost their favorite in the state an excellent general drusis was not yet thirty years old he had accomplished a great deal and he looked forward to accomplishing far more perhaps nothing will enable us so well to realize his importance in history as the reflection that if he had lived to fulfill his plan his work could not have been easily undone the events which are presently to be related could not have happened and the history of central Europe would have been changed the corpse was carried to the winter quarters on the Rhine and thence to Rome where it was burned the ashes were bestowed in the mausoleum of Augustus the general speeches were pronounced one in the forum by Tiberius the other by Augustus himself in the Flominian Circus besides these salemnities more lasting honors were decreed to the dead hero the name Germanicus was given to the conqueror of Germany and to his children after him a cenotaph was built at Moguntiakum and a triumphal arch erected to record the founder of the new province it would seem that Moguntiakum was in some special way associated with Trusus these monuments in stone have not come down to us but there has survived a monument in verse an elegy addressed to his mother the emperous Livia we could wish that the author of the consolatio at Livia had given a more distinct picture of the qualities of the young general whom he deplores section 2 Tiberius in Germany the Panonian revolt it now devolved upon Tiberius who possessed the procounselor power in the title of Imperiator to carry on his brother's work he took the place of Trusus as governor of the three Gauls and commander of the armies on the Rhine and maintained the Roman supremacy over the half subdued German tribes between that river and the albis the pacification of the Sugombri was at length effected by strong measures and they were assigned territory on the left bank of the Rhine each summer the Roman legions appeared in various parts of the new province the Roman general dealt out justice and Roman advocates appeared beyond the Rhine there was still much to be done to place Germany on the level of other provinces it would have been perhaps unsafe as yet to require the Germans to contribute auxilia or to impose on them a regular tribute Tiberius possessed the confidence of the army but he did not like Trusus possessed the affection of the emperor in 7 BC the year of his second consulship he received triumphal honors but he did not return to Germany and in the following year he retired to Rhodes little is recorded of his successors but it is not to be assumed that they were idle or incompetent the courtly writers of the day had eyes only for the exploits of Trusus and Tiberius the princes of the imperial house the consolidation of the conquests of Trusus was doubtless carried on amid frequent local rebellions such as that in 1 BC which was put down by M. Vinicius another legatis El Demitius of Heno Barbis built a road called the Pontus Longhi connecting the Amicia with the Rhine these commanders however were not entrusted like Trusus and Tiberius with the government of the three Gauls after the deaths of Gaius and Lucius Caesar Tiberius was reconciled with his stepfather and undertook the command of the armies on the Rhine once more the legions were delighted to be commanded by a general whom they knew entrusted whose ability was proved and who was now marked out as the successor to the empire and there was a need of a strong hand for there had been many tokens of an unruly spirit in the first campaign or AD Tiberius advanced beyond the Visergus and reduced the Trusci who had thrown off the Roman yoke and for the first time the Roman army passed the winter beyond the Rhine in the fort of Elysio on the Lupia in the following year 5 AD the lower albus was reached and an insurrection of the Chowki was suppressed the Langombardi who dwelled in these parts and of whom we hear now for the first time a people destined in a later age to rule in Italy and to become famous under the name of Lombards were also reduced this expedition was carried out by the joint operations of a fleet and a land army Tiberius repeated on a larger scale what Trusus had done 18 years before but while on the earlier occasion the Roman fleet had not advanced beyond the mouth of the Visergus if so far under the auspices of Tiberius it reached the albus and even sailed to the northern commentary of the Cymbric peninsula some peoples east of the albus such as the Samones, the Charyves and the Cymbri in Denmark sent envoys seeking the friendship of the emperor and the Roman people the authority of Tiberius had thus pacified the trans-renamed dominion of Rome and in the following year 6 AD a new enterprise of conquest was entrusted to his conduct when Trusus in his last expedition marched up the Monus he entered the land of the Marcomani and they under the leadership of their chief Maroborus retreated before him into that lasened shaped mountain-gird country in central Europe which has derived its name Bohemian from the Celtic boy who then inhabited it the Marcomani dispossessed the Celts and Maroborus established a powerful and united state which extended its sway eastward and northward over the neighboring German tribes the ideas of this remarkable man were far in advance of his countrymen he had a leaning to Roman civilization and he was ready to learn from it the methods and uses of political organization he formed and disciplined in Roman fashion an army of 1,000 foot and 4,000 horse but his policy was essentially one of peace he desired to avoid a war with Rome and yet to make it plain that he was quite strong enough to hold his own he was willing to be a friendly ally but he was not disposed to be a vassal geography however rendered a collision unavoidable for Rome possessing Germany in the north and Noricum and Pannonia in the south it would have been impossible to allow the permanent presence of an independent German state wedged in between these provinces the actual occupation of the territory between the Dravis and the Danube if it had not already taken place was merely a question of time and it was obviously necessary to have a continuous line of frontier from the Aldis to the Danube policy demanded that the empire should absorb the realm of Maroborus and advance to the river Maris which flows into the Danube below Pressburg the legions of the Rhine under an experienced commander Sentius Aeternanus advanced from the valley of the Moanus breaking their way through the unknown depths of the Hercainian forest to meet the legions of the Illyricum which Tiberius led across the Danube at Carnuntum both armies together numbered 12 legions nearly double of the troops mustered by Marobodus of a cautious and experienced leader like Tiberius the success of the enterprise seemed assured but it was not to be before the armies met sudden tidings of a most alarming kind imperatively recalled the general a revolt caused by oppressive taxation had broken out in Dalmatia and Pannonia and of so serious a nature that not only were the Illyric legions obliged to return but the troops of Moesia beyond the sea probably from Syria were required to assist in suppressing it this would have been an excellent opportunity for Marobodus to take the offensive but he clung to his policy of neutrality and accepted terms of peace which were proposed by Tiberius the army of Sentius Aeternanus aced back to the Rhine to prevent a simultaneous outbreak there the Pannonian revolt lasted for three years for one year longer in Dalmatia the leader of the insurgents was one Bato he made an attempt to secure Solone but was obliged to retire severely wounded and had to content himself with ravaging the coast of Macedonia as far south as Opholonia the legatus of Illyricum M. Valerius Miscellinus son of the Orator Masala contended against him with varying success in Pannonia another Bato chief of the Baruchii was the most prominent leader as the Dalmatian Bato failed to take Solone so the Pannonian Bato failed to take Sermium and was defeated before its walls by Alas Ceicina Severus the legatus of Moesia who had hurried to the scene of action after this the two Batoes seemed to have joined forces and taken up a strong position on Mount Almas close to Sermium passed the winter in Sissia and made that place the basis of his operations in Pannonia as many as 15 legions were ultimately collected in the rebellious provinces under his command and the royal princes of Thrace had also come to the rescue an unusually large number of auxiliary troops fully 90,000 were employed in this war terror was felt not only in Macedonia but even in Italy and Rome Augustus himself had hastened to Araminum to be near the seat of war levies were raised in Italy and placed under Germanicus the son of Drusus a youth of 21 years in 7 AD the course of the hostilities was desultery the rebels avoided engagements in the open field Germanicus advanced from Sissia along the river Una into western Dalmatia and conquered the tribe of the Mese who dwelled in the extreme west of modern Bosnia subsequently 7 to 8 AD he captured three important strongholds which seemed to have been situated on the borders of Libernia and Hyepidia the next serious event was the long siege of Arduba in southeastern Dalmatia which was marked by the heroic obstinacy of the women who, when the place was captured threw themselves and their children into the fire but in the following autumn the Pannonian Bato was induced to betray his cause he surrendered in a battle fought at the stream of Bathinas, August 3 and handed over his colleague and rival Pines to Tiberias who in turn recognized him as prince of the Bruce but his treachery did not go unpunished he was caught and put to death by his Dalmatian namesake Germanicus hastened in person to carry the news of the Bathinas to Augustus at Araminum and the emperor returned to Rome where he was received with thank-offerings but although this victory practically determined the end of the war, Tiberias was obliged in the following year to bring his forces again into the field against the Dalmatians and Bato besieged in his last refuge and a trium near Saloni at length gave up the desperate cause and was sent as a prisoner to Ravenna where he died when he was led before Tiberias and was asked why he had rebelled he replied, quote it is your doing in that you send not dogs or shepherds to guard your sheep but wolves to prey on them end quote Germanicus who had taken part in the suppression of this dangerous and tedious war the hardest it was said since the war with Hannibal showed high promise of future distinction and like his father was a universal favorite triumphal ornaments were granted to him and he was placed first in the rank of Praetorians in the Senate to Tiberias himself the Senate decreed a triumph but it was not destined to be celebrated the people had hardly time to realize the successes of the legions of the Danube when the news came of a terrible disaster which had befallen the legions of the Rhine End of Chapter 9, Sections 1 and 2