Germanic Urbanisation & Infrastructure Post Augustus

[Tim Hare]

Again, a very good theory. And when the flow of trade and subsidies are cut off for some reason (civil war, economic difficulties) these tribal leaders have the manpower and organisation to go hunting for it themselves...

I think you're coming up with some very good answers to your own questions in this thread!

Thanks.

It’s been really interesting talking with you on this. If it ever feels like we retreading what’s already been discussed don’t hesitate to say so, as the last thing I want to do is waste your time. (Otherwise I will just keep talking!)

What you’ve said above does seem to match my own idea of what triggered most of the conflicts between Germanic tribes and kingdoms and the traditional western side of the empire. I can certainly understand the motivation of early Roman’s Emperor’s after something like Teutoburg Forest to pay the Barbarian’s a pittance to keep them pacified rather then finance expensive military expeditions into territory that would never be productive enough to warrant holding, or worse suffer a defeat. It’s even more easier to imagine those Emperor’s successors steadily increasing those subsidies by what they would always see as incremental amounts every time they come to the throne as a way of both maintaining the peace and not suffering a military crises early into their reign, and then never thinking to challenge the rational behind that subsidy and whatever other advantages the Barbarian’s may be getting via trade. Of course anyone from the outside can see this would naturally be a self defeating prophecy in the long run, as future Emperor’s are left with an ever increasing financial liability to pay by their predecessors, but a Roman Emperor’s immediate concern would always be securing the stability of his reign as quickly as possible, and I’m guessing the potential of triggering a war with multiple if not all Germanic tribes and kingdoms by cutting of trade and subsidies to one was a scenario that became ever less appealing to successive Roman Emperor’s as the centuries rolled on.

I’m still not 100% sure with your view that the Roman’s deliberately tried to encourage the Germanic tribes you unite into politically stronger confederations and kingdoms, as I just don’t see what they would stand to gain from such an eventuality when it seems most of the benefits of trade were to be had on the German side of the border. On the hand I can easily imagine the more politically savvy Germanic leaders ‘playing’ Rome by convincing them ever more money or military support was needed to keep the peace and prevent a war spilling into Roman lands, all the while using this support to expand their territory and control and the expense of their neighbours.

I appreciate that we may just have to agree the irrefutable evidence that proves one theory or the other correct may simply not exist or has not yet been unearthed. At the same time we both might be severely underestimating the value of German goods flowing across the border into Roman territory and the coffers of the Roman treasury, and that simply made them too clouded by greed to seriously consider if they were unintentionally creating a grave military threat to their security.

This is a very convincing idea, and I would think it highly likely. I know (as you mention below) that any theories of population movement and migration, not to mention population replacement, tend to run into problems, and academic fashions swing back and forth on this, but the overall north-south movement does seem noticeable.

Thanks.

It’s interesting when you consider so many ‘successful’ warrior cultures which have later gone on to rule so many geographically remote locations across Europe seem to have originated from the same small corner of it. (Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Kievan Rus)

Is it still the accepted view that what we think of today as the Germanic people originated in Scandinavia, before migrating south and intermixing/conquering/supplanting the indigenous Celts?

I know tracing ethnic and cultural groups is difficult because these groups split off and merge with each other all the time. Whenever I try to research this I quickly get lost in all the talk of linguistics, genetics and pottery.

That's a good question. We do hear of Roman emperors from the late 3rd century employing large numbers of barbarians from outside the empire, presumably with their own arms and equipment. However, even a man in a tunic with a spear and a shield makes good ballista-fodder... By the time the Romans were using men of barbarian origin as front line elite troops, first as the 'auxilia palatina' and later in the foederati, they were (almost certainly) equipping them too.

The majority of major barbarian incursions in the 4th century were defeated (Adrianople being a glaring exception). In the 5th century too, when Roman armies took the field they were almost always victorious in the end. The problem was that in the period 405-410 the western empire was in a chaotic death-spiral of incompetence with the army temporarily neutralised by a combination of strategic, command and political factors that left them unable to act effectively against the 'barbarians' (many of whom were ex foederati anyway, and equipped by Rome).

I agree with you here up to a point but there are still a few holes in the above logic I’m having trouble reconciling. After the Battle of Adrianople the next big crisis I can think off is the various Germanic groups crossing of the Rhine in 406 AD, which I’m guessing corresponds with the Western Roman Empire going into its ‘Chaotic death spiral’ that you mentioned above. I understand that this event is not as well documented historically as the lead up and aftermath of Adrianople (as an example), but I also understand that the crossing of the Rhine was followed by the devastation of the majority of the major cities in Gaul and the wide scale plundering of a province that on paper should have had around 40,000 troops protecting it. (Almost half of which should have been mobile field troops)

I know it’s considered likely Stilicho withdrew some Gallic troops for his war in Illyricum and Italy around this time, however it’s unlikely this withdrawal consisted of every unit stationed in Gaul when you consider rapid redeployment of reserves was one of the late Roman armies key strengths. That would indicate the Germanic warriors who crossed the Rhine still must have overcame armed and armoured professional legionaries both potentially at the border and in the field. Otherwise I just don’t see how they they could have not encountered any organised resistance as they went on to devastate several cities throughout Gaul for the next three years before entrenching themselves into into the provinces with enough strength that the Romans were never able to dig them out even when more competent military and political leaders replaced the incompetents ones. This is where I have a little difficulty believing the Germans accomplished all this when over 90% of their army, presumably already itself a disunited host that likely only numbered in the tens of thousands of fighting men possessed little more spears and tunics. In this kind scenario a ready supply of metal armour and swords are just too significant a force multiplier in my opinion for the Germans to have overcome in pitched battles through simple weight of ballista fodder, let alone for them take, devastate and occupy presumably what would be walled and fortified cities. (Just to make a comparison, in the Roman-Jewish war in 66 AD there’s an account very early on of 20,000 lightly armoured (i.e. likely lacking metal armour entirely) Jewish rebel soldiers trying to storm Ascalon, which was protected by a garrison of no more then 1000 legionaries. Not only did the Romans apparently deploy to meet them outside the city, the Jewish troops allegedly suffered 18,000 losses before they were forced to withdraw. Even if this is a gross exaggeration by the victors, it still gives you an idea of how much an advantage widespread availability of armour gave to an army of this time, and I just don’t see how the exact same issue that hamstrung the Jews at Ascalon didn’t do the same to the Germans here every time they successfully devastated a Gallic city)

I appreciate a portion of the Germans who crossed the Rhine in 406 AD may have previously served in the Foederati, so would be familiar with Roman tactics and more importantly siege-craft. However I also doubt the Romans would have allowed them to return to their homelands with whatever armour and weapons they may have been furnished with while in Roman service. I’d also be very hesitant to overestimate the importance former Foederati may have played in Germans successes in this specific episode over other factors, on the basis that as far as I’m aware the idea that the Late Roman Army was over-dependant in Germanic migrants has been revised as an over-exaggeration by more modern historians.

I might be mistaken but I seem to recall reading somewhere that 3/4 of the Late Roman Army was still comprised of who the Romans would have termed native born citizens, so there is certainly a finite limit to the number of ex-Foederati who would have crossed the Rhine in 406 AD. Once you subtract those who successfully immigrated into the empire prior to the Rhine crossing and those who were likely killed fighting the Huns and Franks who as I understand it were thought to be the main reasons the Vandals and others tribes crossed the Rhine, I’d imagine former Foederati may be a very small minority in the Germans ranks. That then brings me back to my main problem with the notion of the Germans being so materially poor, but then going on to enjoy such success in plundering Roman Gaul. Even when taking into account poor central leadership in Italy the provisional Roman leadership in Gaul must still have enjoyed so many force multiplying advantages over the Germans. (A standing army even if some of it had been withdrawn, walled cities, internal infrastructure, a surplus population in the low millions to replace losses as an emergency measure, and the state fabricae’s necessary to arm and equip them to a level the Germans just couldn’t match. I may also be mistaken, but I understand that the notion Stilicho withdrew troops from the Rhine is just a theoretical explanation for how the the Germans were able to move into Gaul, and much as the the idea of the Rhine freezing over in that year actual sufficient evidence supporting a large scale military withdrawal from the Rhine at this time still has yet to be discovered. (I’m also aware that there is a renegade Romano-British field army stomping around Gaul at this point under the usurper Constantine III, which if I’m being honest I’m not sure if this helps or hinders my argument. From what I’ve read there does not seem to have been much in the way of fighting between Constantine’s rebels and Imperial loyalists in Gaul itself, and the province itself seems to have largely sided with Constantine so it’s not like the Germans were particularly able to take advantage off the Romans fighting each other here, because it doesn’t sound like they were actually fighting each other)

Off course, this all becomes infinitely more plausible in my mind if we assume the Germans crossing the Rhine unlike their predecessors from Caesar and Augustus’s day possessed sufficient armour and weapons manufactured from their own sources and comparable to Roman arms and equipment for the greater half of their troops, and craftsmen who could construct siege weapons on the move. When you consider the Germanic tribes started this war having already been bloodied and chased out of their own lands by the Huns and thus had no internal resources to fall back on (not exactly the best time or prospects to start a war with the Roman Empire), making the above 2 assumptions in regards to both equipment and the prevalence of Germanic craftsman goes along way to neutralising 2 of the Roman’s greatest force multipliers that I just don’t see how the Germans could have otherwise overcome.

As I recall, the Dacian king Decebalus made use of Roman 'deserters' in this way. But he had plenty of gold to pay them with, presumably...

The question is whether Decebalus was an exception to the typical ‘Barbarian’ Kings of his day who lived under the influence of Rome, or whether he was absolutely typical of what one might expect of Germanic/Sythian leaders before and after his reign.

I’ve read at little about his mountain top capital at Sarmizegetusa and as I understand it the sight was protected by Roman constructed stone walls and fortifications, and had several temples, workshops and houses on the inside. Not quite a town but not exactly a village either. (Maybe something more akin to a later medieval castle)

Do we know whether there are any similar sights to Sarmizegetusa in former Germanic and Scythian lands, or was Sarmizegetusa an anomaly in terms of the traditional dwellings of a Germanic Barbarian King?

Surely not - all societies evolve. But the kind of evolution we would see may not be the sort that leaves a lot of archeological traces; these were not urban cultures, prone to building roads and walls and infrastructure. But people, fashions, clothing, pottery, patterns of agriculture and village settlement, complexity of social organisation would certainly have changed and developed over time...

Other then the village or hamlet was there anything more economically complicated in Germanic society. Linking in with my question above did the German Chieftains and nobles make use of Hillfort’s, or were their homes and halls situated in small rural villages as well?

I’ve heard that there were some Celtic styled Oppida’s in Germania but they were abandoned in the first century AD, the exact reason of which I’ve never been able to concretely pin down considering they were the only comparable infrastructure to Roman and Greek towns. I’ve heard others speculate Caesar’s conquest of Gaul killed off the Germans most prominent trading partners in the first century AD, but this explanation never sits right considering the Romans themselves would have just replaced the Gauls in this equation.

---

Also, it was not very common for any such group to defeat a Roman army in the field, frankly I don't know any such occasion before Adrianople in 378. So I dare say there was no 'new' tactital outlook either.

The battle of Carnuntum in 170 AD saw a Roman army of 20,000 men defeated by the Germans within spitting distance of the Roman city of Carnuntum. The Marcomannic Wars of this period seem to be poorly documented compared to other conflicts, but there are accounts of the Roman Governor of Lower Moesia being defeated and killed by the Lazyges around the same time, which I imagine involved another Roman Army of comparable size being defeated in the field.

Fast forward to the 3rd century and the Roman Army suffers two further defeats in pitched battles in Moesia again against the Goths under Cniva. Once at the Battle of Beroe in 250, then again at the Battle of Battle of Abritus in 251 AD. I’m not saying the Romans lost every battle they fought with the Germans or Goths of this period. Far from it they still seem to win more engagements then they loose in the long run even after the 3rd century. But something certainly seems to change during and after the Marcomannic Wars considering for the 2-3 centuries previous, ever since Marius reformed the legions into a professional army the Germans seemed completely unable and most of the time unwilling to meet the Romans in a pitched battle in either their own territory or on the Roman’s own soil. For the Germans to suddenly go from this 300 year status quo of never winning a major pitched battle to suddenly having such increased success defeating Roman legions on their own soil in the field after the late 2nd century AD likely indicates a significant change had taken place within the Germanic tribes access to internal resources leading up to this point. (I don’t think you can chalk up all the above defeats to simple political instability inside the Empire.  The 1st and 2nd centuries had their own fair share of political disasters and internal strife the Germans of these times don’t take advantage off)

As a 5th example while it is not quite comparable, the so called Great Barbarian Conspiracy in late 367 saw virtually every Roman Army unit in Britannia either defeated or retreating to their barracks and at least 2 of the 3 senior most commanding officers in Britannia killed or captured by a mixed force of Irish war bands, Picts and Saxons. As I understand even after the event what astounded the Romans wasn’t so much that they’d suffered military defeats in Britannia, but the shear level of coordination and preparation that the ‘Barbarian’s’ had put into pre-planing stage of their attack, to the point that some Romans were convinced it could only have been a traitor inside the Roman Empire coordinating all these Barbarian groups from the outside.

I don't believe it either, especially not in this case, as we know the Goths (or later what would later become the Goths) spread from the Baltic to the Black Sea but after 161 they somehow did not cause such widespread confusion throughout Middle Europe or Scythia (not Sythia). 
So if you don't believe it, why mention it?

Because it looked like you were querying an earlier comment that we don’t know with 100% certainty what caused the Germans and Goths to attack Rome in the 3rd century with such success, or by extension what caused the Germanic people to attack the Roman Empire a century earlier during the Marcomannic Wars. The idea I hear most often is that the Germanic tribes were ‘pushed’ into Roman lands by the expansion/migration of the Goths into/past their lands, which I’ve already explained why I’m sceptical off as the whole episode of the Marcomannic Wars come across as a conflict of opportunity rather then desperation on the German side. I brought up the Gothic connection as it shows there is no clear answer to some questions, we can only theorise and speculate.

Yes, I think it is commonly accepted nowadays that the later Germanic 'supertribes' (such as the Goths) thanked their formation history to a large extent to the 'hard' Roman border. Their internal structure changed due to that contact, as well as weaponbry and tactics.

The question in my mind is what did this change to the Germans internal structure physically look like to anyone travelling through Germanic lands of this period. Would travellers notice villages becoming larger or more prosperous, or Germanic leaders leaving ancestral homes in villages or hillfort’s to build themselves bigger, grander and more defensive strongholds with all the subsidies Rome was paying them to keep the peace, or from a visual level did things stay exactly as they were?

No, there we disagree. Germanic tribes (as we know) never lost the incentive to fight each other, not even withing the new confederations. The drive to become larger would have been due to the aforementioned changes due to prolonged contact with the Empire, leading to larger military structures for both offensive as well as defensive purposes - if one group would become, the others would have to follow, and such groups could attack the Romans much better, or defend themselves against a Roman action.
The Romans could still defend themselves by buying off certain leaders, weakening any confederation. And as for instance the war against Atilla clearly shows, such confederations were never solid entities - their fighting each other within the Hun and Roman armies is telling enough.

Oh I never meant to suggest German tribes lost there willingness to fight each other, just that with the setting down of the Roman frontiers the Roman Empire became their preferred cash cow for their warrior elite and leaders to support themselves. Of course when Rome was military strong and under competent leadership, and thus not ripe for milking they off course began eyeing up each other. (Rather like a pack of over-fed and now starving wolves)

The only difference is rather then tribe against tribe I imagine it would now be confederacy against confederacy, or kingdom and kingdom. What I was emphasising here was that overall I think you’ll find the ‘willingness’ of the German tribes to fight each other decreased overall over the first half of the first millennia as most were likely savvy to the fact Rome could use any conflict as a pretext to intervene militarily at their expense. At the same time I think the Germans knew the riches they could extract from each other paled in comparison to the riches they could extract from Rome, so their first instinct may always have been to bide their time and hold off expending resources on their neighbours when there was always a possibility Rome could suffer some kind internal instability that they could then take advantage off in the next few years. (I’m not claiming cooler heads always prevailed)

In regards to your comment that Rome could still defend themselves by buying off one tribe against another, with respect I think this policy was always something off a poison chalice which steadily became less viable and more of a liability to Rome’s security as decades and centuries past. The fact that every century sees the Barbarian’s raids pushing deeper and deeper into the Roman territory is proof this policy wasn’t really working in Rome favour as time went on. (The Gothic War of 249 is thought to have occurred specifically because Emperor Decius cut off the Roman subsidies to the Gothic kingdoms)

I appreciate that you’ve already commented the increased German successes as the years go on could be explained by the Roman Empire becoming more politically unstable as time goes on, and the Germans are simply taking advantage of this increased instability but here I disagree. As mentioned above the Roman’s of the 1st and 2nd century up to the Marcomannic Wars had there fair share of incompetent leaders, civil wars, indigenous uprising and large scale military expeditions into Britannia, Dacia and Parthia. Each of these would have left their borders elsewhere dangerously under-defended, yet the Barbarian’s never seem to pick any of these occasions over the roughly 200 year period to kick the Romans when their down as they would do from the late 2nd century onwards. I still think the answer to this change in both behaviour and fortunes is because the ‘Barbarian’s’ of this time were much more comparable to the Romans in terms of locally produced military gear and equipment then many people give them credit for, even if the archeological evidence to support this is yet to be found.

I think that is not how archaeology sees it. Celt built towns long before any contact with the Romans and in areas far away from the Romans.

My understanding is that the Celtic Oppida’s that could support populations in the lower thousands start to appear in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, which roughly coincides  with the Roman Republic’s expansion into Southern Europe, Greece and Africa, which would suggest the two could be interconnected. Regardless my original point wasn’t that Celts developed hillforts and Oppida’s as centres of trade and defence as a result of their contact with Rome, but as a result of their contact with the Mediterranean world over the first millennium BC.

Where do you see evidence for the fact that they "possessed logistical and manufacturing capacity comparable to Rome"? Invading a province, stealing the crops from the land or the towns and returning home afterwards does not in any way show that. Indeed, there was no such thing as urbanisation in Germania or Scythia (not Sythia). Only in the former Roman provinces do we see anything developing like that after Germanic kingdoms were established. Any new developments there or outside the former Empire were centuries away.

I was specifically referencing Cniva’s exploits in the 1st and 2nd Gothic wars in the 3rd century in which he allegedly raised an army of 70,000 fighting men to invade Moseia, while as I understand it at the same time also sending a comparable sized force to invade Roman Dacia. To be clear I think this number of 70,000 is probably an exaggeration by the Roman historian’s, but I don’t think it was a wild exaggeration considering Cniva used this force to wipe out the 3 Roman legions under Decius, which as a understand would have constituted at least 30,000 professional legionaries and auxiliaries. (30,000 would probably be the minimal size of the Roman Army under Decius here, when you consider the 3 legion were the ‘core’ of the army, with additional auxiliary cohorts and vexillations from other legions and Praetorian Guard detachments probably padding the army’s total size out further)

If we’re generous and assume Cniva’s army was only marginally larger then Decius’s (which I think is a logical necessity considering it defeated Decius’s army) but not as large as the 70,000 men given in the sources, let’s say Cniva’s army was 50,000 strong. (Also assume the Gothic-Scythian army that invaded Roman Dacia around this time isn’t part of Cniva’s command or this equation)

That’s a huge army for a state to gather into one location and keep provisioned as Cniva certainly would needed to have done before the army crossed the Danube into Roman territory. Consider that the Germanic countryside this army was being gathered in was supposedly devoid of road networks, cultivated farmlands, trading stations, ports and towns and populated only by poorly interconnected rural villages who barely subsisted on the crops and livestock they were able to raise themselves. It’s the former kind of infrastructure that I think would have been needed to be present to provision such a large army gathered into one place for even a short space of time, otherwise it would be likely Cniva’s host would have dispersed before it ever crossed the border. (I appreciate that all the above becomes mute once the Goth’s cross the border on as they’d be able to live off the much wealthier and productive Roman countryside, but they still need to get there)

You’ve also got the the very strong possibility that the bulk of Cniva’s 50,000 strong army likely possessed comparable equipped to the Roman army in terms of armour and swords considering they were able to defeat the Romans in a 2 separate pitched battles. So you’ve also got the question of where all this high quality armour and weapons came from if the Goths were supposedly lacking in they ability to mass manufacture this gear like the Romans did. Maybe I’m overlooking something quite obvious, but most later European kingdoms of the medieval period would and did struggle to provision that number of professional soldiers in the field and they had all the benefit off roads, towns and logistical supply bases like castles to draw upon, so I don’t Cniva could have seemingly accomplished more with less. (I’m honestly struggling to think of a European nation state that was able to deploy 30,000 - 50,000 men into one place from 500 AD to 1500 AD with the exception of the multi-national Byzantine and various Islamic Empire’s of history)