Legions of Rome (54 page)

In the autumn, an army of pro-Vespasian troops marched into Italy to overthrow Vitellius, led by Marcus Antonius Primus—another Mark Antony. A native of Tolosa, today’s Toulouse in France, Primus, “a man of ready audacity” in the opinion of Tacitus, had been convicted of fraud during Nero’s reign and sent into exile. [
A
,
XIV
, 40] Galba, once on the throne, had canceled Primus’ exile and given him command of his new 7th Legion. Now, seeing an opportunity to become Vespasian’s leading general, Primus had entered Italy with just a small force based around auxiliaries and cohorts of the 3rd Gallica Legion—which had led the other legions in Moesia, Pannonia and Dalmatia in swearing allegiance to the Gallica’s old commander-in-chief, Vespasian. Those other legions would soon join Primus and the 3rd Gallica in Italy.

As Primus entered Italy, anxious to prevent reinforcements from reaching Vitellius from the Rhine, he sent a letter to the prefect of a cohort of Batavian auxiliaries at Mogontiacum on the Rhine, Gaius Julius Civilis. (Tacitus, in his
Histories
, gave Civilis’ first name as both Julius and Claudius; other sources say Gaius Julius Civilis.) Civilis, probably now in his early fifties, was a member of the Equestrian Order and a high-ranking descendant of the Batavian royal family, which had ceased to rule after the death of its last king, Chariovalda, during Germanicus Caesar’s German campaigns half a century earlier.

Civilis had commanded one of eight cohorts of Batavian auxiliaries until recently attached to the 14th Gemina Legion in Britain, and in the
AD
40s he had befriended the then commander of the 2nd Augusta Legion—Vespasian. After the eastern legions
had hailed Vespasian emperor in July, Civilis had written to him, pledging his loyalty and offering to help overthrow Vitellius. Now Primus urged Civilis to create the appearance of a revolt in northern Gaul, to keep the Rhine legions busy and prevent them from reinforcing Vitellius in Italy. This letter from Primus to Civilis was to sponsor one of the most devastating and humbling periods in legion history.

AD
69
XXVI. THE CIVILIS REVOLT
Blood on the Rhine

During the last months of Nero’s reign, Civilis and his brother Julius Paulus had been accused of fomenting revolt in their homeland. Paulus was executed; Civilis had been sent in chains to Nero at Rome. The governor of Lower Germany, Fonteius Capito, the man who imprisoned Civilis, was an opponent of Galba’s, and as soon as Galba became emperor he had Capito executed. Civilis was freed and returned to his unit.

Civilis did indeed harbor ambitions to lead a revolt against Roman rule, and when the message arrived from Primus urging him to create a diversion on the Rhine, the Batavian had the excuse and the authority he needed. After being forced from their lands east of the Rhine by the Chatti, the Batavi tribe had occupied that narrow part of the present-day Netherlands between the Waal and Meuse rivers on the North Sea coast which the locals called “the island.” Since becoming Julius Caesar’s allies, the Batavians had provided auxiliary infantry and cavalry to the Roman army as their sole contribution to the alliance; unlike other tribes, they paid no taxes. Their cavalry in particular were valued, for their ability to swim rivers with their horses and in full equipment “without breaking the order of their squadrons.” [Tac.,
H
,
IV
, 12]

As Vitellius recruited more troops to maintain his disputed rule, he played into the hands of Civilis, for he called up all the Batavian young men for auxiliary service. This was deeply resented by the Batavians, who felt they had contributed enough to Rome. Civilis, the most respected of men among the Batavians for his ability, royal blood and wealth, having inherited numerous estates from his father, hosted a banquet
for Batavian elders and young firebrands in a sacred grove. As his countrymen ate and drank, Civilis came to his feet to address them.

Civilis had lost an eye and bore an ugly scar on his face, probably in a battle in Wales, and he likened himself to Carthaginian general Hannibal, and to Sertorius, rebel Roman governor of Spain during Pompey the Great’s time, both of whom had also lost an eye. And, like Hannibal and Sertorius, the one-eyed Civilis felt that he could defeat the armed forces of Rome. In an impassioned speech, he fanned the indignation of his fellow Batavians until it burst into revolutionary fire. “We have a vast force of horse and foot, we have the Germans as our kinsmen, we have Gaul bent on the same object,” he assured his colleagues. [Ibid., 14]

The banqueters enthusiastically swore in the name of their gods to follow Civilis and free their homeland. Messages were sent to the Canninefates, a German tribe which also occupied “the island,” and to the Frisii on the North Sea coast of Germany, to bring them into the revolutionary movement. And Civilis spoke discreetly with Batavian and British nobles who commanded eighteen cohorts of auxiliaries stationed at Mogontiacum, and won over the nobles and their 9,000 men.

In the late summer of
AD
69, thousands of Canninefates and Frisians suddenly attacked the Rhine town of Vetera, which was garrisoned by just a Tungrian auxiliary cohort and another cohort of Ubian Germans. Twenty-four ships of the Rhine Fleet were also based there—light, shallow-draft vessels with single banks of oars. The auxiliary cohorts’ prefects ordered the warships to escape upriver, then set fire to buildings to prevent the camp from falling into German hands, as their men scampered away across the flat Low Country landscape.

After looting the burning camp and slaughtering sutlers and traders who lived outside, the attackers pursued the Roman troops, who made a stand a little way upriver. With the waters of the Rhine at their back, the cohorts were supported by the warships. Meanwhile, a rider galloped to Novaesium, where Civilis and his Batavian cohort were stationed, seeking aid. When the messenger arrived with news of the Vetera attack, Civilis sent a message to Hordeonius Flaccus, the old, lame Roman general left at Mogontiacum in command of both the Upper and Lower Rhine when Vitellius departed for Italy to take the throne. Civilis volunteered to lead a relief force to Vetera, and Flaccus told him to go ahead.

When Civilis and an auxiliary force reached the trapped cohorts, they found them lined up ready for battle at the riverside. The two dozen warships stood close by,
their marines and catapults at the ready to support the cohorts. Now Civilis and the so-called relief force changed sides, joining forces with the rebels, with Civilis assuming rebel command. The Tungrian cohort then defected to the rebels. The remaining, vastly outnumbered, Ubian cohort was cut to pieces.

On the ships on the river, Batavian crewmen suddenly turned against their skippers and centurions, killing those who would not join them. Within minutes, the Roman force on land was obliterated, and the ships captured. With these warships, Civilis could control the Lower Rhine. News of this “brilliant success” for Civilis and his rebels quickly spread throughout Germany and Gaul. Now Civilis remained faithful to a vow he had made when addressing Batavian leaders in the sacred grove, and dyed his hair red, as his ancestors had done when they went to war. [Ibid., 16]

From Mogontiacum, Roman general Flaccus sent orders to Munius Lupercus, commander of the 15th Primigeneia Legion at Novaesium, immediately to take the field against the rebels. Lupercus was senior to Numisius Rufus, legate commanding the other legion at Novaesium, the 5th Alaudae. Both legions were significantly under strength after many of their cohorts had gone to Italy. Between them, they fielded some 5,000 men on the Rhine. Leaving 1,000 men to garrison Novaesium, and adding a number of auxiliaries to their force, including a squadron of Batavian cavalry which had remained loyal to Rome, the young generals set off downriver to put an end to the revolt.

Some 65 miles (104 kilometers) beyond Cologne at Vetera—known as Old Camp—the 5th Alaudae and 15th Primigeneia came on the rebel army in battle array. Behind his troops, Civilis had stationed his mother and sisters, and the wives and children of his men, to encourage his fighters to victory. As rebels sang a war song and women and children cried shrill exhortations, the legionaries of Lupercus and Rufus responded with a roar of defiance.

As if on cue, the Batavian cavalry on Lupercus’ wing suddenly rode away, then wheeled and charged the very Roman flank they had been protecting. The remaining Roman auxiliaries fled into the countryside, abandoning the two legions. But when the rebel infantry charged, the discipline of the legionaries held, and they saw off the treacherous cavalry and repelled Civilis’ infantry. Maintaining good order, the two legions then retreated to the Old Camp fortification. As legionaries improved defenses and destroyed houses around the outside walls to establish clear fields of fire, the rebels encircled the fortress.

Meanwhile, four cohorts of Batavians and Canninefates had recently been sent off to reinforce Vitellius in Italy. When they received a note from Civilis urging them to return and join the revolt, they turned and began retracing their steps toward Mogontiacum. When Flaccus, Roman commander-in-chief, learned this, he timidly kept his legionaries behind the walls at Mogontiacum and sent a message to the 16th Gallica Legion at Bonna. That legion’s legate, Herennius Gallus, was ordered to intercept the four cohorts, with Flaccus assuring him that he would come up behind the Batavian and Canninefate column from Mogontiacum with his troops, and between the two forces they would crush the defectors.

But Flaccus made no attempt to leave Mogontiacum. Soon he sent Gallus a new order, countermanding the last, instructing him to let the auxiliaries pass. Gallus was trying to make sense of this when delegates from the column arrived at his Bonna headquarters. They told the general that if he failed to let the column pass, the Batavians and Canninefates would give battle and cut a path through Gallus’ legionaries.

Gallus hesitated. But his troops demanded a chance to teach these traitors a lesson. The men of six cohorts of the 1st Germanica Legion left at Bonna when its commander took part of the legion to Italy were especially keen to act, and before Gallus could restrain them they swarmed out of the camp gates accompanied by recently recruited Belgian auxiliary cohorts. On their heels hurried local farmers and merchants, full of bravado and wielding crude weapons, caught up by the confidence of the men of the legion. Gallus’ own 16th Gallica men obeyed orders; staying in camp, they manned the ramparts to see what transpired outside.

Although outnumbered, the 2,000 Batavians and Canninefates were experienced soldiers. Forming squares, they held firm against the 1st Germanica’s charge. The Roman line broke around the immovable columns, and then the rebels advanced with measured steps. As the attackers fell back on the camp in disarray, they became entangled with panicking civilians. The Belgian auxiliaries fled into the fields, and the 1st Germanica men found themselves hemmed in against the ditch skirting their camp. Scores of legionaries were killed by the Batavians and Canninefates, their bodies filling the trench at the foot of the wall. The remainder surged in through the Bonna camp gates before they closed.

The victorious rebels continued their march, skirting Cologne to link up with Civilis outside Old Camp, where the rebel siege continued. To give credibility to his uprising, Civilis now had all his followers swear allegiance to Vespasian. He then sent
envoys to the legions at Old Camp, advising them to throw off their allegiance to Vitellius and also swear for Vespasian. A message soon came back from Old Camp: “We don’t follow the advice of traitors or enemies.” [Ibid., 21]

Civilis now ordered the entire Batavian nation to take up arms. Soon, he was joined in the siege of Old Camp by thousands of Bructeri and Tencteri reinforcements from east of the Rhine. The rebels built crude assault machinery, but this was soon pulverized by stones lobbed from catapults on the fort ramparts, or burned to a cinder by fires started by flaming arrows. When an attempt to storm the walls with siege ladders also failed, Civilis decided to suspend the assault and starve out Lupercus and his legionaries.

Up the Rhine at Mogontiacum, Flaccus was finally on the move. Dispatching orders to Gallus at Bonna to send his 16th Gallica cohorts to meet him at Novaesium, and joined by auxiliary reinforcements from Vindonissa 200 miles (320 kilometers) away in present-day Switzerland, Flaccus sent his army south under his deputy, Dillius Vocula, legate of the recently reconstituted 18th Legion, which had six cohorts at Mogontiacum. Gout-ridden Flaccus himself followed the marching column in a boat on the Rhine.

On the march, rumor flourished among the troops. Those who were strongly pro-Vitellius became convinced that old Flaccus had deliberately muddled the response to Civilis’ revolt because he was a secret Vespasian supporter. Becoming aware of the unrest, Flaccus addressed the troops at their next marching camp, reading aloud a letter from Vespasian’s generals urging him to go over to Vespasian. To prove to his men where his loyalties lay, Flaccus had the soldiers from Vespasian’s army who had brought him the message clapped in irons and sent to Vitellius in Rome. This seemed to satisfy the men, and the march resumed.

When Flaccus and his force reached Bonna they were greeted enthusiastically by the cohorts of the 1st Germanica Legion. As the relief force camped at Bonna, men of the 1st complained bitterly to the new arrivals that Flaccus had failed to give them the promised support for their attack on the Batavians and Canninefates outside Bonna. To quiet his men, Flaccus took the unprecedented step of instructing the standard-bearers of the legions to read aloud his final written order to Gallus not to attack the Batavians and Canninefates, an order the men of the 1st Legion had chosen to flout. Flaccus’ most vocal critic in the 1st Legion ranks was then put in chains, but the soldier loudly declared that he had conveyed secret messages from Flaccus to Civilis the
rebel and he was only being pulled from the ranks so he could be silenced. General Flaccus hesitated, looking suddenly guilty.