The Provinces of the Roman Empire (Illustrated Edition). Theodor Mommsen
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had fought successfully; and ten years later Cicero’s colleague in the consulate, Gaius Antonius, unsuccessfully in the year 692[62.]. Below the Dardanian territory, again, there were settled close to the Danube Thracian tribes, the once powerful but now reduced Triballi in the valley of the Oescus (in the region of Plewna), and farther on, along both banks of the Danube to its mouth, Dacians, or, as on the right bank of the river they were usually called by the old national name which was retained also by their Asiatic kinsmen, Mysians or Moesians, probably in Burebista’s time a part of his kingdom, now once more split up into different principalities. But the most powerful people between the Balkan and the Danube at that time were the Bastarnae. We have already on several occasions met with this brave and numerous race, the eastmost branch of the great Germanic family (ii. 308)[ii. 290.]. Settled, strictly speaking, behind the Transdanubian Dacians beyond the mountains which separate Transylvania from Moldavia, at the mouths of the Danube and in the wide region from these to the Dniester, they were themselves outside of the Roman sphere; but from their ranks especially had both king Philip of Macedonia and king Mithridates of Pontus formed their armies, and in this way the Romans had often already fought with them. Now they had crossed the Danube in great masses, and established themselves north of the Haemus; in so far as the Dacian war, as planned by Cæsar the father and then by the son, had doubtless for its object to gain the right bank of the lower Danube, it was not less directed against them than against the Dacian Moesians on the right bank. The Greek coast towns in the barbarian land, Odessus (near Varna), Tomis, Istropolis, hard pressed by these movements of the nations surging around them, were here as everywhere from the outset clients of the Romans.
At the time of Caesar’s dictatorship, when Burebista was at the height of his power, the Dacians had executed that fearful devastating raid along the coast as far down as Apollonia, the traces of which were not yet obliterated after a century and a half. It may probably have been this invasion that at first induced Caesar the elder to undertake the Dacian war; and after that the son now ruled also over Macedonia, he could not but feel himself under obligation to interfere here at once and with energy. The defeat which Cicero’s colleague, Antonius, had sustained near Istropolis at the hands of the Bastarnae may be taken as a proof that these Greeks needed once more the aid of the Romans.
Subjugation of Moesia by Crassus.
In fact soon after the battle of Actium (725)[29.] Marcus Licinius Crassus, the grandson of him who had fallen at Carrhae, was sent by Caesar to Macedonia as governor, and charged now to carry out the campaign that had twice been hindered. The Bastarnae, who just then had invaded Thrace, submitted without resistance, when Crassus had them summoned to leave the Roman territory; but their retreat was not sufficient for the Roman. He, on his part, crossed the Haemus,2 at the confluence of the Cibrus (Tzibritza) with the Danube, defeated the enemy, whose king, Deldo, was left on the field of battle; and, with the help of a Dacian prince adhering to the Romans, took prisoners all that had escaped from the battle and sought shelter in a neighbouring stronghold. Without offering further resistance the whole Moesian territory submitted to the conqueror of the Bastarnae. These returned next year to avenge the defeat which they had suffered; but they once more succumbed, and, with them, such of the Moesian tribes as had again taken up arms. Thus these enemies were once for all expelled from the right bank of the Danube, and the latter was entirely subjected to the Roman rule. At the same time the Thracians not hitherto subject were chastised, the national shrine of Dionysos was taken from the Bessi, and the administration of it was entrusted to the princes of the Odrysians, who generally from that time, under the protection of the Roman supreme power, exercised, or were assumed to exercise, supremacy over the Thracian tribes south of the Haemus. The Greek towns, moreover, on the coast of the Black Sea were placed under its protection, and the rest of the conquered territory was assigned to various vassal–princes, on whom devolved accordingly, in the first instance, the protection of the frontier of the empire;3 Rome had no legions of her own left for these distant regions. Macedonia thereby became an inland province, which had no further need of military administration. The goal, which had been contemplated in those plans of Dacian warfare, was attained.
Certainly this goal was merely a provisional one. But before Augustus took in hand the definitive regulation of the northern frontier he applied himself to reorganise the provinces already belonging to the empire; more than ten years elapsed over the arrangement of things in Spain, Gaul, Asia, and Syria. How, when what was needful in these quarters was done, he set to work on his comprehensive task, we have now to tell.
Subjugation of the Alps.
Italy, which bore sway over three continents, was still, we have said, by no means absolutely master in her own house. The Alps, which sheltered her on the north, were in all their extent, from one end to the other, filled with small and but little civilised tribes of Illyrian, Raetian, or Celtic nationality, whose territories in part bordered closely on those of the great towns of the Transpadana—that of the Trumpilini (Val Trompia) on the town of Brixia; that of the Camunni (Val Camonica above the Lago d’Iseo) on the town of Bergomum; that of the Salassi (Val d’Aosta) on Eporedia (Ivrea)—and whose neighbourhood was by no means wont to be peaceful. Often enough conquered and proclaimed at the Capitol as vanquished, these tribes, in spite of the laurels of the men of note that triumphed over them, were constantly plundering the farmers and the merchants of Upper Italy. The mischief was not to be checked in earnest until the government resolved to cross the Alpine chain and bring its northern slope also under their power; for beyond doubt numbers of these depredators were constantly streaming over the mountains to pillage the rich adjoining country. In the direction of Gaul also similar work had to be done; the tribes in the upper valley of the Rhone (Valais and Vaud) had indeed been subdued by Caesar, but are also named among those that gave trouble to the generals of his son. On the other side, the peaceful border–districts of Gaul complained of the constant incursions of the Raeti. The numerous expeditions arranged by Augustus on account of these evils do not admit, or require, historical recital; they are not recorded in the triumphal Fasti and do not fall under that head, but they gave to Italy for the first time settled life in the north. We may mention the subjugation of the already named Camunni in 738[16.] by the governor of Illyria, and that of certain Ligurian tribes in the region of Nice in 740[14.], because they show how, even about the middle of the Augustan age, these insubordinate tribes pressed directly upon Italy. If the emperor subsequently, in the collective report on his imperial administration, declared that violence had not been wrongfully employed by him against any of these small tribes, this must be understood to the effect that cessions of territory and change of abode were demanded of them, and they resisted the demand; only the petty cantonal union formed under king Cottius of Segusio (Susa) submitted without a struggle to the new arrangement.
Subjugation of the Raeti.
The southern slopes and the valleys of the Alps formed the arena of these conflicts. The establishment of the Romans on the north slope of the mountains and in the adjoining country to the northward followed in 739[15.]. The two step–sons of Augustus reckoned as belonging to the imperial house, Tiberius the subsequent emperor, and his brother Drusus, were thereby introduced into the career of generalship for which they were destined; very secure and very grateful were the laurels put before them in prospect. Drusus penetrated from Italy up the valley of the Adige into the Raetian mountains, and achieved here a first victory; for the farther advance his brother, then governor of Gaul, lent him a helping hand from Helvetia; on the lake of Constance itself the Roman triremes defeated the boats of the Vindelici; on the emperor’s day, the 1st August 739[15.], in the vicinity of the sources of the Danube, fought the last battle, whereby Raetia and the land of the Vindelici—that is, the Tyrol, East Switzerland, and Bavaria—became thenceforth constituent parts of the Roman empire. The emperor Augustus had gone in person to Gaul to superintend the war and the organisation of the new province. At the point where the Alps abut on the Gulf of Genoa, on the height above Monaco, a monument commanding a wide prospect of the Tyrrhene Sea, and not even yet wholly effaced, was erected some years later by grateful Italy to the emperor Augustus, because under his government all the Alpine tribes from the Upper to the Lower Sea—the inscription enumerates forty–six of them—had been brought under the power of the Roman people. It was no more than the simple truth; and this war was what war ought to be—the guardian and the guarantee of peace.
Organisation of Raetia.
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