Authors: Stephen Dando-Collins
The Quadi, meanwhile, became so fed up with Roman troops garrisoned on their territory telling them where they could graze their flocks and till the land, that they decided to migrate en masse north across the River Elbe to join their cousins the Semnones. When Marcus heard of this, he mobilized his forces in Bohemia. The Quadi, finding their route to the Elbe blocked by Roman troops, were forced to return to their homes. The Iazyges could not take anymore from Roman garrisons either, and sent envoys to Marcus asking for
more lenient treatment. So that the tribe did not become completely alienated, and in recognition of their recent good behavior, Marcus granted some of their requests.
Cassius Dio, whose father was alive during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, had no doubts that Marcus would have subdued the entire region in time. But, in March
AD
180, while Marcus was at Vindobona (Vienna), a day’s march to the west of Carnuntum, he fell seriously ill, and on March 17 he died. Dio wrote that he had been told that Marcus’ physicians killed him, as a favor to his son and heir. [Dio,
LXII
, 21] At just 19 years old, Commodus, who was at his father’s deathbed, was hailed emperor of Rome.
Commodus “hated all exertion and was eager for the comforts of the city.” [Dio,
LXXIII
, 2] So, he quickly made a truce with the barbarians threatening Moesia and sealed new peace treaties with the German tribes beyond the Danube above Pannonia and Noricum. As his part of the agreement, Commodus withdrew all Roman occupying forces from the German tribes’ territories to the 5-mile (8-kilometer) neutral strip north of the Danube. In return, the Quadi provided 13,000 cavalry to serve in the Roman army, and the Marcomanni sent a lesser number of foot soldiers. Fifteen thousand Roman captives still in the hands of these tribes were returned to Rome. Commodus also agreed a peace treaty with the Buri, who provided hostages and returned Roman prisoners. Commodus then went home to Rome, and an idle life.
Under Marcus, Rome may have been almost constantly at war, but the ship of state had been in good hands. Insecure, unstable young Commodus soon executed many of his father’s wisest advisers and best generals. As a consequence, the Roman Empire, said Cassius Dio, now descended “from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust.” [Dio,
LXII
, 36]
AD
193–195
LVI. SEVERUS VERSUS NIGER
Defeating the eastern usurper
Septimius Severus, the 47-year-old governor of the province of Upper Pannonia, was a slight yet vain man with curly hair and a curly beard that was deliberately grown into two points to set him apart from others. He had been an admirer of the soldier emperor Pertinax, who had succeeded the murdered Commodus at the start of
AD
193. Severus was so incensed by the murder of Pertinax by 200 men of the Praetorian Guard after a reign of less than three months that he called on his troops to avenge Pertinax’s death. On April 13, the legions of Pannonia—the 10th Gemina and 14th Gemina Martia Victrix in his own province, and the 1st and 2nd Adiutrix legions from neighboring Lower Pannonia—had hailed Severus the new emperor, and joined him in a march on Rome to take the throne.
Severus had three rivals. One was the senator Marcus Didius Julianus, who, on Pertinax’s death, had won the support of the Praetorian Guard in a bizarre auction for their loyalty in which he had outbid the city prefect, Titus Flavius Sulpicianus, after which the Praetorians proclaimed Julianus emperor. There was also the ambitious Decimus Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain—Severus placated him for the time being by appointing him his Caesar, or deputy emperor. And then there was Gaius Persennius Niger, governor of Syria, who also claimed the throne and won the backing of much of the Roman East. To make the throne his, Severus would have to deal with all three rival claimants.
Sixty-year-old Julianus soon departed the scene, murdered in his bath on June 1 by the very Praetorian Guard that had proclaimed him emperor just two months earlier, after the approaching Severus had sent the Guard letters promising to punish only those Praetorians who had participated in the murder of Pertinax. With the murderers of Pertinax put in chains by their own comrades, the Senate met and named Severus emperor.
But Severus was unimpressed by the Praetorians. He did indeed execute the men responsible for the murder of Pertinax, but he went much further. On arriving outside Rome shortly after Julianus’ murder, he summoned the full Praetorian Guard to an assembly. There, the unsuspecting Praetorians were surrounded by Severus’ legions, stripped of their arms, and their officers deprived of their horses. All former Praetorians were then banished from Rome. Severus would recruit a new Praetorian Guard by transferring the most meritorious legionaries into it from legions throughout the empire.
Severus wasted no time in proceeding against his most threatening rival, Niger. A native of Italy whom Commodus had made governor of Syria even though he was only a member of the Equestrian Order, Niger had by this time come west to Byzantium,
on the European side of the Hellespont. The city, like all the Roman East, had come out for Niger. In July, just weeks after arriving in Rome, and after conducting an elaborate funeral service for the dead emperor Pertinax, Severus set off for the East to deal with Niger. While Severus marched overland, the Misene and Ravenna Fleets transported his legions across the Adriatic to Dyrrachium, from where they marched into Macedonia. The fleets then sailed around Greece to participate in the campaign against Niger. [Starr,
VIII
]
From Byzantium, Niger attacked nearby Perinthus, but, unsettled by unfavorable omens, returned to Byzantium. [Dio,
LXXV
, 6] As Severus’ forces drew near, Niger and most of his forces withdrew into Asia, but Byzantium remained loyal to him and closed its gates against Severus. While Severus launched a siege of Byzantium, he sent his generals in pursuit of Niger’s army. Niger’s chief lieutenant, a senator named Aemilianus who was a relative of Albinus, governor of Britain, did battle with Severus’ generals near Cyzicus, on the northern coast of Asia. Severus’ troops were victorious—Aemilianus was killed in the battle, and his army defeated.
Niger himself was tracked to Nicaea, today’s Iznik, and was drawn into battle beside Lake Ascania (Iznik), by Severus’ general Tiberius Claudius Candidus. Niger marshaled his army on the plain, while Candidus occupied the higher ground on the nearby hillsides. Some enterprising troops, apparently from Severus’ army, commandeered local fishing boats and, using these, discharged arrows at Niger’s troops from the lake. Candidus’ troops had the better of the early part of the battle, until Niger himself took personal command. Niger forced Candidus’ men to fall back, and Severus’ general had to seize hold of his standard-bearers and turn them to face the enemy again before he could take the offensive once more. Candidus’ troops had gained the upper hand by the time that darkness descended. It was a moonless night, and this enabled Niger and his surviving troops to escape to the safety of nearby Nicaea.
This so-called Battle of Nicaea had been a moral victory for Severus’ troops, but Niger was able to continue his withdrawal to the East toward Syria. Severus’ troops gave chase, and come the spring of
AD
194 they had overtaken Niger’s regrouped army camped at Issus in Cilicia, near the Cilician Gates. A narrow pass between the mountains and the sea which offered entry to Syria, the Cilician Gates had been the scene of many a battle down through the centuries. Even Alexander the Great had fought and won here. At the pass, the two Roman armies again met in mortal combat.
Niger had in excess of 20,000 infantry, but no cavalry to speak of. Having built a well-fortified camp on a hill, he formed up his army on the sloping ground outside, with his legions in the front ranks, then javelin and stone-throwers behind them, and archers in the last line. His baggage train was arrayed in the rear, to prevent his men from retreating. Severus’ general Publius Cornelius Anullinus, who had less infantry than Niger but a sizeable force of cavalry, mimicked Niger’s battle formation with his infantry but ordered his mounted troops under his deputy Valerianus to attempt to skirt the forest that was protecting Niger’s rear and find a way to attack him from behind.
The battle began under a clear sky. As Niger’s troops held their ground, Anullinus’ infantry ran to the attack. Fighting raged for some time, as Niger’s troops, with superior numbers and the high ground, held their positions against Anullinus’ men. Out of the blue, a storm sprang up, and, just as it looked as though Niger’s army would prevail, amid thunder and lightning, heavy rain swept in from behind Anullinus’ army and into the faces of Niger’s troops. Anullinus’ troops were given courage, believing that the gods were with them, while Niger’s troops lost heart for the same reason. Men began to peel away from Niger’s rear ranks. Now the Severan cavalry under Valerianus appeared, having found their way through the forest, and attacked from the rear.
Niger’s men who had fled were forced back to the battle by the onset of the cavalry. Meanwhile, Niger’s remaining troops had begun to give ground to Anullinus’ infantry. Niger’s ranks disintegrated. Men ran in all directions trying to save themselves. In the carnage that ensued, “20,000 of Niger’s followers perished.” [Ibid., 7, 8] Niger himself managed to escape the battle, and fled south to Antioch. Severus’ army then advanced down into Syria and easily took Antioch, forcing Niger again to flee. Niger had plans to cross the Euphrates, but he only got as far as the suburbs of Antioch, where he was killed by “a common soldier.” [Amm.,
II
, xxvi, 8, 15] Severus, who was himself hastening to Syria at the time, ordered Niger’s head sent to his forces besieging Byzantium, to be displayed on a pole to the defenders of the city in the hope that the sight would induce the Byzantines to surrender.
Despite Niger’s death and the sight of his severed head, Byzantium held out. Under cover of a storm, the city’s defenders had sent ships from its fleet of 500 mostly single-banked vessels to pillage nearby coastal towns and bring back supplies. But the next time the Byzantine fleet attempted a similar breakout to find desperately needed
provisions, it was met by the triremes of the combined Roman fleets from Misenum and Ravenna and utterly destroyed, by which time the starving people of Byzantium had resorted to eating leather, and even, it was said, to cannibalism. [Ibid., 13] Following the loss of its fleet, the city surrendered to Severus’ army, which put to death all the fighting men and magistrates of Byzantium. As a further reprisal for opposing him, Severus ordered the massive walls surrounding the city to be demolished.
Severus himself was in Mesopotamia when news reached him of the fall of Byzantium, and he gloated about it to his troops. He had been brought to Mesopotamia by a revolt of the people of the Osroene kingdom. Situated east of the upper Euphrates, with the famous city of Edessa as its capital, Osroene had been garrisoned by Roman troops at several forts for a number of years. Seeing the civil war between Niger and Severus as an opportunity to throw off Roman overlordship, both Osroene and its neighbor the kingdom of Adiabene had revolted, seizing several Roman forts in their territory and making prisoners of survivors from the Roman garrisons. They then laid siege to the Roman-occupied city of Nisibis.
Severus had linked up with his victorious legions in Syria, and now, as he approached the Euphrates, the rebels withdrew from Nisibis and the Osroenes sent envoys to the Roman emperor, offering to return the Roman captives if he withdrew the remaining Roman garrisons from their territory. Ignoring this offer, Severus crossed the Euphrates with his army. Tramping through the desert, he went close to losing a number of men to lack of water and a dust storm. When they did find a spring, the water looked so strange that the men refused to drink until Severus himself drank it in clear view of his troops.
Severus now based himself at Nisibis and, sending his army in three divisions ranging throughout Osroene under his generals, he captured all its cities. They then crossed the Tigris river and did the same to the mountainous kingdom of Adiabene. With its capital at Arbel, the present-day city of Irbil in Iraq, Adiabene straddled today’s Kurdish Iraq and parts of southern Armenia and Iran. Toward the end of
AD
196, Severus’ war in the East was brought to a conclusion by the conquest of Adiabene.
But now Severus had to turn his attention to his rival Albinus in the West, who had entered Gaul from Britain and been hailed emperor by his troops. As he himself set off west, Severus ordered the navy to ferry his Danube legions and Praetorian Guard back to Europe.
AD
197
LVII. BATTLE OF LUGDUNUM
Severus versus Albinus
“Roman power suffered a severe blow.”
C
ASSIUS
D
IO
,
Roman History
,
LXXVI
, 7
The February air was still wintery when two armies came together on the plain north of the River Rhône near Lugdunum, today’s Lyon in central France. Both armies were Roman; each was determined to destroy the other; and between them they fielded 150,000 men.
After Septimius Severus, governor of Upper Pannonia, had been declared emperor by the Pannonian legions on April 13,
AD
193, he had given the governor of Britain, Decimus Clodius Albinus, the title of Caesar, or deputy emperor, to conciliate him. While Severus was in the East dealing with his rival Niger, in
AD
195 Albinus had moved to take the throne for himself, after Severus had declared his sons Caracalla and Geta his new Caesars and heirs.
Crossing the English Channel from Britain, Albinus had brought men of the three legions stationed in Britain—the 2nd Augusta, 6th Victrix, and 20th Valeria Victrix—to Gaul, where he had installed himself at Lugdunum. The principal city of Gaul and capital of the province of Gallia Lugdunensis, Lugdunum housed an imperial mint and a cohort of Rome’s City Guard, which appears to have gone over to Albinus. He was hailed emperor by his troops and the people of Lugdunum, and there at Lugdunum he was soon joined by Lucius Novius Rufus, governor of one of the Spanish provinces, who brought him reinforcements from the 7th Gemina Legion and auxiliary units based in Spain.