[IB AAR] At The Limes

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

This is a post to introduce a new AAR I will be writing. I will be submitting it to the TWC competition posted here -

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...38#post2322138

Along with Midnite's excellent AAR, I hope that submitting this will raise awareness and appreciation of this mod and all the hard work everyone has put into to developing it!

This AAR will be centred in the province of Raetia, in the diocese of the Italians, and will follow the fortunes of the remaining units of the Limitanei and Comitatenses under its surviving officers as they struggle to maintain the line of the Respublica along the Danube frontier. I will be heavily indebted to the outstanding work Pompeius Magnus has put in to elucidating the structures of the Later Roman Empire -

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=106375

Some house rules -

I will be playing on H/H.

I will never autoresolve.

I will be playing 4 tpy.

I will only re-play if and when the result fatally compromises the AAR and then only for no more than 3 attempts. The third attempt will always stand for the will of the gods.

I will play character traits as best I can given the overall strategic aims.

Due to the dire straits the WRE will be in, there will be in all likelihood no re-supply or reinforcements for the province and so the decline in manpower and materiel will be realistic.

Other rules and/or interventions as decided on the hoof - author's prerogative!

I will post tonight around teatime.

[julianus heraclius]

Looking forward to it my friend.

[midnite]

Very happy to see you write SeniorBatavianHorse. Your writing raises the bar for AARs. I agree with your thoughts on this mod. This mod is the EB of IB if that makes sense. This mod and EB are my two favourite mods that I would install if could only keep 2 on my hard drive. Good luck.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

THE ‘MANUSCRIPT E’

Translated and Annotated by Profs. Holbein and Escher


Winter, province of Raetia Secunda, Diocese of the Italians

Augusta Vindelicorum, headquarters of the Praeses and the civil administration for the province, and the Dux of the Limitanei for the provinces of Raetia Prima and Secunda (now deceased)

Consulship of his Most Sacred Dominus Flavius Augustus Theodosius, son of Augustus Flavius Theodosius Magnus

This being the Lists and Notes of the said Consilium of the provincial capitol, by the divine grace of God and the blessings of his Son.

. . . So begins the most unusual document so far to be excavated from the Venetoria Monastery, high in the Cottian Alps. Bound up in a single leather thong and tossed in amongst remnants of some fragments of Aristotle and Seneca, these notes and records were obviously deemed unworthy of archiving or being re-used as scrap vellum. Due to the unique preservative nature of the well behind the ruins of the monastery, we are lucky in that we now have in our possession a singular glimpse into the final months of one Roman province to the north of the Italian mainland in those years which saw the western Roman empire totter and finally collapse before the encroaching hordes of Germans and Goths beyond the Rhine and Danube rivers.

What follows in the document - albeit in a somewhat fragmentary and oblique form, complete with lacunae and interpolations - is a report compiled by the notaries of the governing Praeses of the province of the main events and officers who struggled to maintain or prevent the collapse of Roman authority in the area. While much of the notes are still damaged and incomplete, it is with some pride that myself and Escher and the various experts here at the Ancient Texts Library at Glasgow University, in conjunction with scholars from the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Historical Research Archive at London Imperial College, present at this early stage a partial reconstruction of the Notes. We must advise all concerned readers that what follows is in places a contested translation and we have endeavoured to illustrate in the accompanying notes where critical opinion differs regarding key areas of interpretation. We are also very aware that as this is the first time that this document has been made available in translation to the public that there will be debate about some of our conclusions. We welcome this in the spirit in which it is intended.

INTRODUCTION

The curious document know here as Manuscript E recovered from the Venetoria Monastery three years ago is a specific record of the civil and military events in the two provinces of Raetia dating from the year 411 AD until the final collapse of Roman rule in the area. It lists the disposition of troops, the key figures in authority, the intelligence known, and references events also occurring primarily in Gaul and Italy at that time. What it does not cover, and what some of my colleagues find surprising as a result, is religious debates or philosophical issues arising from certain edicts promulgated by either the residing emperor in the west, Honorius or his colleague in the east, Theodosius II, sole Consul for the year in which records are kept in Manuscript E. We deduce from this that the records are archival in nature and not intended for public use or to be circulated to the various libraries which would be keen to store such information.

While some of the records are detailed and shed light on previously unknown or obscure events of the time, others are cryptic and even deliberately obscure, prompting us to wonder whether several antagonistic notaries were involved with the document or that indeed current politics necessitated a very careful wording. As such, we treat with caution some entries and make these known to the reader when they occur.

SETTING

As the opening notes make clear, the records begin in the early Winter months of 411 AD, when only the Emperor Theodosius II held the Consulship. This is a year after the sack of Rome by Alaric and his Goths and which also sees the western Empire in a parlous state indeed. Vandals are moving aggressively south into Hispania, Alemanni and Franks are massing north of the Rhine and Danube rivers, a usurping Roman general, Constantine III, is carving out a separate empire in Gaul and Britain. The economy of the empire is almost dry and the armed forces at the disposal of the Magisters under Honorius led by Constantius consisted of a mixed bag of regular Roman units and federate barbarians whose loyalty was increasingly becoming questionable. Several high ranking Roman generals were of barbarian origins and this was leading to tensions in the higher echelons of the Roman government. As will be seen, these factors played a decisive role in the final fall of Raetia and the city of Augusta Vindelicorum.

It is to be conjectured that the sudden adoption of accurate notes and records in some way represents an attempt to make the key players referenced within accountable - that in some way, the presence of legal accounts was a guarantee of intent or source to be used in the future should action be needed against possible traitors or agitators. We read these notes then with an eye towards mistrust and suspicion and feel that the reader would do well to be as wise. Nevertheless, having said that, one must not overlook the obvious heroism recorded nor the desperate valour towards the end when all was lost and left in utter ruin. These notes and records, then, we feel, are a testament not just to a desperate time when old certainties were falling (and with them loyalties) but also to the unfailing courage made manifest in the face of overwhelming odds.

As such, Manuscript E remains a unique document which should be read with compassion foremost.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Thanks, guys. Midnite, I wish I could play EB but my crappy PC is too laggy for it. I'm just glad it can play this, though!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Danube Border



Augusta Vindelicorum stood as the provincial capital to Raetia Secunda, the upper province of the two Raetias, north of the Italian peninsula. It acted as a pivot for the two main Roman roads which traversed the lands south of the upper Danube river and was therefore of a vital strategic importance. It held the offices of the Praeses of the province, together with his administrative staff, and was also the seat for the regional frontier commander, the Dux Raetia, whose command included both provinces. While devastated and now lying fallow for some months, the fields and pastures of the province were fertile. The mountains around it shielded it from inclement weather and the sinuous Danube provided a third gateway to the lands further south and ultimately into Illyricum and Greece. The province was renowned for its produce of Raetian wine, honey and cheese. The capitol also housed one of the late Roman thesaurii or Imperial treasuries, which added to its importance.





However, in the context of our manuscript, this province is already devastated and in ruin. Repeated invasions of Alemanni and Goths, and the passing of Roman armies, have brought the province to the brink of destruction. With the sack of Rome in 410 AD, a crisis is precipitated and in the subsequent confusion, the Dux of the two provinces, Amalifida, clearly a Goth of the royal line, is slain and panic sets in among the remaining Limitanei troops stationed along the Danube border and also amongst the regular field troops currently in the area. As Winter closes in, the Magister Equitum, Allobich, assumes control of the civilian apparatus, ousting the residing Praeses, Jovianus, who retires in disgrace to Ravenna and the seat of the Augustus. This new Praeses, with full authority from Honorius, combines civil and military rule against normal Roman practice and attempts to shore up the two provinces and also quell the disorder among the line and frontier units.



We can assume with some confidence that it is as a result of Allobich’s initiative that Manuscript E exists. Given the unusual nature of his office, one can imagine that Allobich is determined to ratify his authority and so deems it necessary to record as fully as possible all which happens under his tenure.

As Magister Equitum, Allobich supersedes the authority of the office of the Dux and so gains order over the Limitanei in the two provinces. He also brings with him, one assumes, the full confidence of the emperor who must be painfully aware that the hostile troops of the usurping Constantine are nearby and that the Raetian units might all too easily revolt from lawful Roman rule. The province is thus a painfully thin spear tip separating on the one hand barbarian forces across the Danube and on the other break-away Roman troops eager to enter Italy and oust Honorius.

It is in such a morass of confusion and betrayal that the surviving fragments of Manuscript E begin.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The First Consilium

These being the records of the consilium of Allobich and the office of the civitatus of the Praeses at Augusta Vindelicorum, in the province of Raetia Secunda, under the divine will of his most sacred majesty, Flavius Honorius. It has been ordained that all knowledge and information deemed pertinent to his office and the lawful discharge of it shall be made known here. The scribes and notaries of the governor’s staff shall be directed henceforth to maintain this record with all due diligence, by the grace of God, his Son and the charity of the Virgin, amen.

It is to be noted that with the arrival of the Magister Equitum, Allobich, senator of the second class, and his attendant forces, the previous Praeses, Jovianus, senator of the third class, is removed and escorted to Ravenna for judgement by our Augustus. By special decree, Allobich now stands as the last appeal in the provincial court along with that of the military.

(A guarded reference to the unusual position Allobich finds himself in. Late Roman governance was strict in maintaining a division between military and civil law. A practice only reversed finally by Justinian with his reconquests of Italy, Africa and Spain. What is unusual here is the fact that Allobich is graded only at the second rank of senatorial prestige. A Roman officer of his rank would expect to be a vir spectabalis not a vir clarissimi. This is perhaps a result of his barbarian ancestry and reflects the unease with which the Romans dealt with the German and Goth officers in the higher echelons of the army. It should also be noted that as senator of the second class, Allobich outranked the remaining governor, Flavianus, of Raetia Prima to the south, an area over which he had no civil jurisdiction but in which he controlled all military assets.)

It is to be reported that this, our blessed city, Augusta Vindelicorum, now battered and laid low before the fury of the barbarians, is home again to the standards and eagles of the legions. Supplies are being brought in from the fields and depots along the roads and the soldiers of the Magister toil without complaint in repairing the ancient walls and in clearing the refuse from the ditches. All that we have regarding our poor state and the men who guard our borders is confided in Allobich being now his to do with as the Emperor deems fit.

The skies lie low upon our broken walls and the old winds from the east scour the empty fields so that dust and leaves tumble about like refuse. Our fair city is a ruin now and her people cower inside the walls like frightened lambs. We pray to Jesus and all the Saints for deliverance in these dark times and have hope in the wisdom of the Augustus and his servant, Allobich.

(After some study, 3 different notaries have been identified as having a hand in the transmission of Manuscript E. Escher, rather fancifully, identifies this early entry under the rubric of ‘Florus’ on account of his hyperbolic style and underlying worry. Although it is true that this notary’s rather ‘florid’ accounts lend a certain gloss to the entries, I am not sure I quite subscribe to my colleague’s colourful designation. To be sure, the remaining 2 notaries definitely identified produce rather more factual and in some cases epic entries.)

(A new notary is identified as taking over at this point.)

The lists and notes of the army were brought to Allobich and an assessment was made of the forces available in the province of Raetia. There was difficulty in reconciling all the lists as the units were scattered about the province, some in disarray and some in refuge - it is not for me to say hiding as I am a simple notary and know nothing about such manly things.



It was determined that garrisoned within the city lay the men of the III Italica legion resting now at the strength of over six hundred men in four ordines, all being well armed and armoured. With the Magister stood two ordines of palatine troops totalling three hundred, which formed his escort, two ordines of light auxiliaries to the total of four hundred, and the Magister’s own guard cavalry of barbarian nobles, some fifty strong.



To the west, along the Danube, camped out in the field remained the cavalry vexillations of the province. These consisted of survivors of the lists under the Dux, two ordines of light horse archers, one ordo of light scouts, and one ordo of barbarian Vandal cavalry to the total of four hundred equites. With them also were detached units from the Gauls and the East who had lost their officers and now lacked direction. These included two ordines of barbarian royal cavalry amounting to a hundred armoured horse, an ordo of Dalmatian cavalry, another hundred, and four ordines of the Senior Honorian Horse totalling some three hundred equites. These last were ‘lost’ from the diocese of the Gauls and in need of succour.

(This, the second notary, named by Escher as ‘Probus’ for his moral compass, reveals here and earlier his slightly ironic or sarcastic tone in contrast to ‘Florus’.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The First Consilium (cont)

The Tribune (unattached) Maxentianus arrived in the late glow of evening as the torches flared along the city walls, with word of events in Gaul and the fighting which had occurred between the troops of Honorius and those of the usurper, Constantine. His words brought joy to the decurions and councillors for he said that our patrician Constantius had defeated the tyrant in a great battle outside the walls of Arelate and that even now this tyrant was hemmed in and starving. Allobich demanded to know what news of the troops marked for the defence of northern Italy and the Alpine passes and Maxentianus declared that the patrician had dispatched several detachments from his field army to Raetia and that they would arrive within a month. Ulfilas, the Magister Equitum of the Gauls, and Posthumus Dardanus, the Praetorian Prefect of the Gauls had been ordered to bring the troops north through the passes before the snows closed in and fortify the limes frontier of the upper Danube. The rump of a field legion and some guard cavalry were all that the patrician, Constantius, could spare.







Allobich was pleased that reinforcements would be arriving but wondered on the news that two of the high dignitaries of the Gauls would be with them. The Augustus himself had given him command of the north of the Italies with orders to secure the passes and the limes so that no more barbarians could spew down into Italy and join the hordes of Alaric after the sacking of Rome. The Tribune reassured Allobich that Constantius had utter faith in him and had urged both his Gallic commanders to place their trust in the wisdom of the man chosen by the young emperor. It was remarked that it takes no little wisdom to keep chickens well-fed whereupon Allobich swore a barbarian oath and then ordered the consilium to cease its deliberations.





Word spread throughout the city of Augusta Vindelicorum that more troops would be arriving and that Roman valour had triumphed over the British tyrant in the Gauls. There was little rejoicing however as food was in short supply and the billets of the soldiers took up all the secure rooms and buildings. Tenants shouldered what little they owned and sheltered in hallways or in the taverns, wrapped in thin cloaks, anxious to avoid the demands of the army and the swaggering manners of those barbarians who fought under Roman standards. No few wondered on what would happen once even more soldiers descended upon their poor ruined city.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Second Consilium

(Escher’s third notary takes over at this point - a man he insists on referring to as ‘Virgil’ for his obvious literary and classical leanings - in complete contrast to Florus, for example. While it is a welcome break from the moralising christianity of the latter notary we are also lucky in that Virgil seems to have taken it upon himself not just to record the main council meetings between the higher military and civil figures, he also interpolates some extraneous detail which fleshes out much of the material.)

In the days following the arrival of Allobich, Magister Equitum in the presence of the Sacred Augustus, much work was accomplished in expectation of the arrival of the troops and officers from the Gauls. The walls of our city were repaired, the annona was collected from those military storehouses which still remained secure, the river flotillas of the riparienses were rebuilt and once more Roman patrols guarded the mighty Danube river. There was much toil to be done due to the continuous devastations visited upon us by the barbarians now that we had abandoned our ancient gods and adopted the superstitions of the Nazarenes. The old temples lie now like broken trees struck in a Winter storm. No incense burns in the evening glow. The lower of sacrificial oxen are not heard as the knife flashes scarlet amongst the torches. This is not true high up in the hills and valleys beyond Augusta Vindelicorum where the little vicii cling to the unforgiving slopes and still worship the old gods with reverence and awe. But even those the barbarians have not spared in their wrath.

We are a poor province now, this Raetia Secunda, winnowed by war, famine and disease. Our crops are failing, the drainage ditches and the roads are falling into ruin, and the bonds between patron, freedman and slave are collapsing. We do build and make wealth but it is always to raise new churches or gild the cross of a bishop. These things are not the ancient Roman way and I fear for Raetia, my home.



A slave arrived with bound scrolls from beyond the Danube and a hasty meeting was convened in the city’s basilica. Allobich and his senior Tribunes together the remaining decurions - I make no apologies for using this archaic term - and those senators who still remained gathered to hear this slave read out their contents. It was word from Drusus Magnus far to the north beyond the Danube, a senator of the highest rank, and cousin to the emperor. His mission from the Augustus to the tribes of the Riparian Franks along the Rhine limes had gone as the emperor had wished, for which we all gave thanks, and now his retinue was returning south and east across the tumultuous lands between the high reaches of the Rhine and the Danube. Lands riddled with the violent tribes of the Alemanni. He warned that hordes were massing north of the Danube limes around the location of Argentoratum and that rebel Roman troops of the usurper Constantine were operating further south. He feared that they were in league and that a move was afoot to break down into the Italies via the Alpine passes south of the two Raetias. Drusus Magnus warned also that significant forces of local bacaudae, the two-shaped monsters, were also lodged in the remote valleys and presenting a problem for legitimate Roman authority. He wished all true and noble Romans all charity and duty to God and the Augustus and bade us look to our defences.

Turmoil ensued once the slave had finished and tied up the rolls again. Allobich revealed his barbarian colours and roared down the petty voices like a lion silencing lambs, if you will forgive the scriptural allusion. He ordered that the maps and scrolls of the lands beyond the Danube be brought forth and then hung up so that all could see. His officers, rough men, scarred and grim of eye, pointed out our two remaining bridges across the Danube and into the barbaricum and bade their Magister to break them down. This would limit the Alemanni and their ability to bring significant mounted troops over the mighty river and our river flotillas would then be able to prevent the barbarians from improvising a rough bridge in response. Allobich nodded in approval, despite the protests of the senators and the decurions who pointed out that the bridges were vital for trade north of the Danube. These protests he dismissed as chaff upon the wind.

It is not inopportune now to discuss this Allobich and his character in some small detail although I must protest that my poor writing arts are no match for the great panegyrics written by men such as Claudian or Themistius . . .

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Second Consilium (cont)

. . . It is said that Allobich rose through the ranks from the position of pedes, or soldier, in the Sixth, Victory, Legion stationed in the northen province of Britain at Eboracum and that he left that wintry island, where the woad-painted bodies of the Picts stain the bitter snow in crimson and the keels of the Saxons fasten on its shores like the claws of the wolves, to join Stilicho and the court of the Sacred Augustus Honorius as a Tribune. Favour fell upon this Goth in the wars with the barbarians as Alaric forced his way into the Italies and honours lay strewn at his feet like leaves in an autumnal breeze. With the fall of the Vandal general, Allobich claimed the honour from the Emperor of Magister Equitum and rallied the remaining troops to the Imperial Labarum. Through a long and weary campaign, the Goth contested the northern routes around the Po valley and Mediolanum in a desperate attempt to contain the barbarian hordes around Rome from sacking what was left in the Italies. It is said that under his command, the dragon standards again raised up their heads in pride and that Roman swords knew once more the smoking blood of a slain barbarian.

As for his physique, this Goth is tall and broad-shouldered, with a mane of wheaten hair caught up in long braids, each one weighted at the end with a solidus stamped with the holy face of Constantius, he who passed away for the advent of the divine Julian, our last true Roman emperor, blessed be his memory. His excels in the arts of the javelin and the axe, and reads passably well our Latin. His faith is of the Arian heresy as espoused by Constantius but I confess, and how apt is this word, I know little of these doctrinal disputes which so wrack our ancient Respublica in these bitter days.

Like Mars with his flashing eyes, this Allobich moves now through the littered paths of our little province and great deeds are expected from him.


(‘Virgil’ makes no attempt here to praise Allobich as a personal panegyrist would do but is careful to report his reputation as it is perceived at the time. Both Escher and myself agree in that this notary carries within himself an innate anti-barbarian prejudice which colours his ability to assess Allobich. It is, of course, ironic, given what follows and the fate of the province, that ‘Virgil’ profoundly re-assess his relationship with Allobich. A re-assessment which is sadly never forth-coming from those other Romans who this Goth general had vowed to protect.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

. . . As the days drifted slowly into the cold hard snows of Winter, word reached Augusta Vindelicorum that the relief forces from Gaul were approaching the lower Alpine passes, having cleared the Po valley and the outer districts of Mediolanum. Progress was slow as the troops resented moving so far from their homes in Gaul and Hispania, and Ulfilas was forced to raid the treasury at Mediolanum to hand out late donatives to appease their mutinous spirits. Other messengers, braving the bitter winds and the danger of falling snow and ice, brought word from Ravenna and Arelate. The barbarians of Alaric, having sacked the Eternal City, had ravaged east across the high roof of the Apennines, laying waste to several towns on their route to the coast by the Adriatic. Our Dominus, Honorius, remained steadfast in his resolve not to treat with the Goths, yet refused to reinforce what little legions still shadowed the barbarian hordes. The Italies were in chaos. The British usurper, Constantine, remained in Arelate, braving a siege by Constantius our Patrician, but the end would be inevitable. News from the diocese of Hispania was equally grim with Vandal hordes plundering south and east even to the walls of New Carthage itself. As Allobich and his staff officers paced the rough walls of our poor city, their military cloaks wrapped up tight against the mountain winds, it seemed that even he despaired to see the next agens in rebus riding out of the south with more dark news. Our little Troy here in Raetia seemed almost a haven from the rest of the Roman empire - but we knew, watching the anxious bowed heads of the Protectors around Allobich, that that was an illusion. Our time would come soon enough.

(These reports by ‘Virgil’ on the state of the Roman Empire in the year 411 AD reflect the crisis enveloping most of the western half at this point. Only the Africa diocese remained relatively untouched by barbarian invasions - though that was to change soon enough - and it must have seemed to most provincial Romans that the end was imminent. Both Escher and myself agree in that while it has become fashionable over the last decade or so to refer to the collapse of the Roman Empire in terms which stress the continuing life of the institutions which defined it (christianity, the legal structure, the great rural latifundia estates, etc.) and which also refer to the collapse as a restructuring or evolving of a Romano-Germanic Europe, it is plainly apparent to us that the locals on the ground did not see it so cosily. Horror, shock and fear predominate again and again in late Roman writings and I doubt very much if a Roman soldier or farmer would look kindly on the academics of today who talk with such carelessness of a ‘Romano-Germanic’ accommodation.)



(Probus takes over the records at this point.)

The inhabitants of Augusta Vindelicorum looked with joy upon the arrival of more troops to billet and more mouths to feed from their meagre stocks - those that remained within the thin walls, that is, and who had not fled to their kin high in the alpine valleys above the town. Our town, once so prosperous and adorned with civic monuments, lies now a worthy testament to Imperial prestige and valour. The walls are decaying despite the engineers of the legionaries under Allobich, the town tenements are falling down, the merchants and craftsmen all long since either sold into slavery or vanished into the honourable monasteries hidden away in the high mountains or the thick forests around the banks of the Danube. It is preferable, it seems, these days, to wear the tonsure or hack at the thumb than to pick up a spatha and enrol under the dragon standards of Rome.







God shone his benevolence upon us, though, as a sudden thaw came unbidden and the Gallic troops were able to march suddenly up the long pass from Mediolanum and arrive in the depth of Winter into Raetia Secunda and Augusta Vindelicorum.

Finally, with the foederatii and the regular troops quartered throughout the town, Allobich summoned Ulfilas and Posthumus Dardanus and all the Tribunes and Praepositii of the province to a war council in the basilica, with the senators and decurions in attendance. There he outlined a shocking plan . . .

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Third Consilium

As the evensong faded away and the lighted tapers were brought out to illumine the great hanging tapestries around the walls of the basilica, Allobich and the imperial commanders, arrayed in all their splendour with gleaming military belts, encrusted swords, fine rings and torcs, assembled in the curial seats, now ghosted by discreet slaves and framed by low tables filled with goblets and flasks of the famed Raetian wine. Wine prized, some said, by Octavian Augustus above all other wines, even the Maeotic wine of Alexandria. Waiting with dignity below the curial chairs remained the town’s illustrious senators. A humble priest muttered a benediction to the mercy of Christ in the Catholic manner which was seen to irk those of the Arian faith in the basilica.

Allobich rose up then and swept aside his fringed cloak, resplendent with woven designs and claviculii, and spoke then in the simple army Latin of his trade. What he said shocked us all and caused many among us to cross ourselves in fear. His words, though simple, were powerful and carried the authority of the emperor himself. By his side, Ulfilas looked startled but kept his peace and the Roman, Posthumus Dardanus, a veteran of the wars with Magnus Maximus, smiled with eagerness at Allobich’s words. The Goth urged us all then to consider that there could be no peace with the barbarians. They rampaged across the Italies, had sacked Rome itself, trampled the Gauls and even now plundered south through the Hispanian provinces towards Carthage and the Africas, the food basket of the empire. Peace would never settle in the Roman lands while a single barbarian remained standing astride the ruins of this ancient civilisation. But - and here the Magister looked frankly at us all - the sacred emperor, Honorius, while loving us all as his children, could not care for us all equally. The Imperial treasuries were thinned now by endless payments to the Goths of Alaric, the Huns to the north, the Franks and Saxons around the lower Rhine, and so it must fall to us all to look to ourselves for valour and defence.



This little province north of the Alps, thrusting into the barbaricum like the head of an ancient pilum, must look to its own now in these desperate times. The grace of God and the Augustus had brought into these shattered lands what small forces could be spared and these must do what they could to hold the Alpine passes and halt the barbarians from flooding like a plague south into what was left of imperial lands. Honorius himself had placed a ring upon Allobich’s hand and kissed it in supplication to urge him to hold this province even despite its own survival. Here the Magister held aloft his right hand and revealed a onyx ring which gleamed in the light of the tapers. Raetia must hold its borders here north of the mighty mountains to the south even to the last breath of the last colonii and slave. Even to the smoking ruins of her towns and vicii. If Raetia allowed the barbarians to pass, all of the diocese beyond the Alps would fall forever and so too would Rome itself.

In the hushed silence which fell after Allobich ceased talking, men looked at each other with fear and trepidation in their eyes. Only the military men, standing around the two Magistii and the Praetorian Prefect like statues, remained stoic, casting disdainful eyes upon those nobles and priests who shrank back from the frame of Allobich.

This Goth, his solid gold coins hanging around his neck in the barbarian style, spoke into this awed silence and laid his second horror upon us that evening.

Raetia stood like a blade into the barbarian lands; a razor in the flanks of the enemy. Behind the province, lay the bastion of the mountains and the passes which led to Mediolanum and Ravenna and Rome. The limes here to the north along the southern flanks of the Danube river and the interior garrison castra and supply depots were all either ruined or in disrepair. The limitanei troops were indolent or derelict in their duties, the river patrols corrupt and negligent. What had once been a thorn in the side of the barbaricum was now more than a mote to be swept aside. The barbarians, the Alemanni beyond the Danube and the Burgundians further north, viewed Raetia as now no more than a stepping stone after the Danube towards the Alpine passes. They treated its inhabitants with contempt and bribed the limitanei with provisions stolen from the towns. Raetia was weak like a woman who swoons over paste baubles or the empty words of a poet.

Allobich looked us all in the eye then and not one among us, Senator, decurion, notary, or priest dared, God forgive us, look back into his hard eyes. Then he laughed like an ancient pagan god and threw himself back into the curial chair. His hand, scarred like the crisp veins on an autumnal leaf, clenched into a ball. Weakness was also a strength and therein lay the salvation of Raetia and the doom of the barbarians. Weakness would be all our salvations. Here Allobich gestured to one of his notaries and this man, thin and elegant like a reed, pulled back one of the heavy tapestries to reveal the large map of the province hanging against the brick of the wall.

The Magister bade us all scrutinise this map and gestured north along the Danube river to the old city of Castra Regina where even now the remnants of the cavalry vexillations were quartered some leagues south in the fallow fields. Here the bridge of the Danube was broken down eight days ago on the orders of the office of the Magister Equitum. The Senior Honorian Horse was ordered into the city in preparation for an early Spring campaign. The remaining units of mixed cavalry were reformed into a new unit, the Equites Raetianii Passerentiaci, or ‘Sparrows’, and were even now as he spoke moving west along the limes and the Danube to take up Winter quarters at the ruined town of Brigantium by the great lake. Look hard at the map, Allobich had urged. To the east, the vexillation of the Honorians and to the west, the vexillation of the Sparrows. While here in the centre, at Augusta Vindelicorum, lay the two legions - one brought up from the Gauls and the old III Italica which had always called Raetia its home.







Albinus, a senator of the third order, spoke up then and gestured to the hanging map, his heavy rings glinting in the light. What, he wondered in his nasally voice, crafted with the ornate Latinisms of his university upbringing, would all that achieve when the Alemanni could simply wait beyond the Danube until the river ran low and they would be able to cross as they had done in the past at a spot of their choosing away from the few defended castra or towns. All the Magister had done was to split up the meagre numbers of the emperor’s soldiery and open the gates to the province.

Allobich nodded as if agreeing to Albinus’ words and then looked hard at him as one looks down upon a cur. He said simply then that we had all misunderstood him. A pilum does not rest like a post upon a palisade - it strikes hard across the battlefield right into the heart of the advancing enemy. He, Allobich, was going to cross the Danube with the two legions and march straight into the lands of the Alemanni to strike while they all thought this province was weak and devastated. He would poke his fist into the beehive and stir up the angry drones - then he would fall back across the Danube as though in rout, drawing the barbarians after him towards Augusta Vindelicorum - then, and only then, would the two cavalry vexillations erupt from east and west closing a door upon the Alemanni and sealing them up in a trap from which none of them would emerge alive.

Raetia would be their sarcophagus. His legions would be the iron wall of their doom.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

(There is some confusion in the subsequent ordering of the notes and addendums following on from the Third Consilium. What we do have is incomplete and lacking internal order or linearity. Conjecturing backwards from the more cohesive records from the Spring campaign, it is possible to deduce that in the months following Allobich’s startling statement regarding a new offensive against the barbarians across the Danube, the town became a hive of activity with messengers, troops, supplies and civilians all pouring in and out in a somewhat chaotic manner. The main figures in the province, Allobich, Ulfilas, Posthumus and the company commanders, together with the heads of the civil authorities involved with taxation, billeting, collecting the annona or military supplies, and supernumerary agents would all have been very active across the whole province in order to prepare the ground for a new campaign.)

(It is hard now to appreciate just how horrifying Allobich’s proposal must have been. To our historicized eyes, used to reading about Roman punitive expeditions, a two legion advance across the Danube seems almost trivial compared to, say, the Germanic campaigns of Germanicus or the Hibernian campaigns of Agricola or the fateful expedition into Persia by Julian. However, in the context of recent events and the reliance placed by Roman authorities on using barbarian troops wholesale as almost tribal allies within the limes, this period is noted for the defensive actions of Roman field armies. Military action occurs in the main within the empire as punitive retaliation for an enemy incursion. The idea of actually crossing over the limes into the barbaricum was really no longer part of Roman strategic thinking since the days of Valentinian, especially along the Rhine and Danube limes, studded as they were with defensive structures and in-depth zones.)

(This sudden change in strategic thinking on the part of Allobich seems to underlie his concept of strength in weakness. Given Raetia Secunda’s unique geographical location protruding into barbarian lands and the fact that the Alemanni in particular viewed the Roman province as no more than a stepping stone towards the rich lands south of the Alps, a sudden violent offensive would throw them all into confusion resulting in impetuous action. The roman trap is built around the fact that all the fighting and defences were geared towards the southern side of the Danube - no Alemannic trenches or vallums protected the north side from a Roman attack.)

(Therefore we can imagine that in the subsequent explosive activity, the various notaries - Florus, Probus, Virgil, and the others - were either accompanying the three generals throughout the province or liaising with other figures regarding the build-up to the Spring offensive - hence the paucity of records for the period.)

(Interestingly enough, the obscure ‘Life of St. Vivienus’ lends some corroboration to ‘Manuscript E’ with the following excerpt from Ch. XXI-XXIV (following Teuber’s 1879 translation) -

. . . there, at the old spring near the eighth milestone, Vivienus tended to the weary men of the legion who had fought so long on the border of the Respublica, and as he did so many complained of thirst after the march of so many days. Vivienus, blessed be his memory, struck his staff into the edge of the old military wall and - lo - water bubbled forth like milk from the earth. All rose up and praised his holiness and foretold that he would become a saint. Then the men of the legion filed passed across the rude bridge and the waters of the Danube, still high from a late snow-melt, and vanished into the lands of the Alemanni, like the ancient heroes of Homer and Virgil . . .

(We can conclude that buried within this piece of early hagiography is a fragment of a moment on the march over the Danube where the field army under Allobich reinvests an old limes castra and unblocks its main well on the advice of Vivienus, the local priest who would have had knowledge of the ruins and its secrets.)

(To compare the fate of another province with Raetia’s, it is worth reading the equally cryptic stories which detail the life of St. Severinus. Again, underneath the myth-building, can be sensed the awful collapse of the Roman world and what it meant to the people who had to live through such a calamity - those interested would do well to consult the following online translation -

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/severinus_02_text.htm

We are lucky in that Raetia Secunda survives now for us not as a mass of superstitious tales but in the hard facts of Roman records and annals.)

[bomberboy]

This is good SeniorBatavianHorse.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

(From archaeological evidence and scattered references in various ‘Lives’, it is apparent that early in Spring 412 AD, with the snows stubbornly clinging to the peaks and high valleys of Raetia Secunda, the main force of Roman infantry under Allobich reached the small ruined castra of Vetoniana, listed in the Notitia Dignitatum as the base for an old-style cohort, and then pushed on north to the edge of the Danube river. There it encamped and re-victualed, awaiting intelligence from across the river and a lowering of the river swells. We can assume that some weeks passed with the troops kept occupied with drilling and long range patrols along the southern edges of the Danube. Then, in the first onrush of fine weather, the entire force crossed the river on a pontoon of logs and bladders specially carried for such an operation - see Vegetius for a fuller description - and advanced into the Alemanni lands in full battle order. For those interested in the strategic and military structures in the province, the following sites might be of interest-

http://www.mfraenz.de/orbis/html/published_sheets.html which gives a detailed breakdown of the military castra and civilian settlements so far known and excavated in the province

http://www.intratext.com/IXT/LAT0212/_PX.HTM which details the relevant army lists of Limitanei under the Dux‘s command. The latter list should be read with caution as from 410 AD onwards these records were certainly corrupt and it must be remembered that the bulk of the forces now under Allobich‘s command were comitatenses - that is, field army troops, not the Limitanei listed under the Dux.)

The First War Consilium

A most glorious sight greeted all our eyes as we rode up to the banks of the Danube on the Ides of Martius, and despite the pagan demon who graced this month with his name, how auspicious such a name was, for arrayed all along the banks and on the long pontoon of rough wood stood the serried ranks of our legionaries, standards aloft, the cornu’s braying and the bucinas shrieking. To my raw eyes, used only to the leaves of parchment and the flickering of tallow candles in the gloom, such finery and martial spirit lifted my heart as only the psalms of Christ can do. All around us, as we cantered along the river’s edge, watching the soldiers of the two legions cross the mighty Danube, joy burst forth from our souls like sunlight. The sacred ‘Alelluia’ fell upon our ears as the soldiers of our Augustus, the soldiers of Christ, moved over the swelling waters, like a tide of conviction, singing ‘alleluia, vidimus, stellam . . . Alleluia, song of sweetness, voice of joy that cannot die . . .’ (This is one of the few entries by ‘Florus’ in which he betrays an uncharacteristic optimism. We should savour it while it lasts.) The morning passed as the files crossed in good order under the watchful eyes of the legion commanders and the file leaders. All morning, the hymns of Christ filled our ears and it was a pleasure to be part of this wondrous march. Even the odd pagan chant or rude ditty about the ancient Roman emperors did not dull our rising faith.

Line after line of soldiers, shining in burnished corselets and helms, sunlight gleaming from shield-rim and spear-tip, vanished over the wide river into the woods beyond, with the light-armed units spreading out on the flanks and far ahead like eager puppies before the old grizzled war-hounds. The honour of the first to cross was given to the old III Italica Legion, guardian of Raetia since the days of Octavian himself, and now long since relegated to the ranks of the Limitanei. Raised under special order by Allobich to the rank of Pseudo-Comitatenses and admitted to the standing of the field army lists, the III Italica under the command of the Tribune, John the Pannonian, moved with alacrity into the lands of the Alemanni like avenging saints. Behind them, marched the ordines of the Leones Seniores, the Senior Lions, formerly under the Magister Ulfilas in the Gauls, led by the Tribune, Rutilla the Scyth. After both legions, came the remaining units of guards and escorts with Allobich and his staff officers.



Only in the afternoon, once all were across and the pioneers had dismantled the pontoon, did the Comitatus of Allobich advance swiftly north along an old trade track into the hinterland of the Alemanni. With the falling light, the woods seemed to close in around us like wary sentinels, and soon my companions and fellow notaries began to cast uneasy glances about us into the trees and the thickets which obstructed our views. Our guards laughed at this, however, and bade us take comfort in the valour of Roman arms and the lucky star which guided the destiny of the Goth, Allobich.

Days passed and our Roman Comitatus advanced deeper northwards into the barbaricum. Hovels were burnt, the inhabitants butchered like cattle, the livestock herded along with us for victualing. The little children of the barbarians, weeping and crying, were dashed against the rocks before their mother’s eyes. Great joy swelled in our hearts as we avenged years of rapine and slaughter and visited vengeance on the Alemanni with Roman precision and efficiency. Always the ‘Alleluia’ rang in my ears as we stained our swords on the enemies of Rome who even now despoiled Italian soil itself. Our Magister only encouraged the rapine of his troops as we marched ever north day after day. And yet he kept a tight fist upon the soldiers - always disciplining them if they strayed too far or disobeyed his orders, and then it dawned upon us that this was not at all Roman vengeance upon the Alemanni but instead his very deliberate provocation of these people. Allobich was waging war in the coldest and cruellest manner to goad and shame their leaders into action. We, our little band of notaries, in our stained robes and cloaks, understood then the mettle of our Magister.

Towards the end of Martius, deep into the hinterland of the barbaricum, with the Danube now a vague memory behind us, the work of Allobich bore fruit, and the hive stirred up its contents . . .

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The First War Consilium (cont)

(‘Virgil’ takes up the records after ‘Florus’)

It was in a small clearing where a low hill rose up around a stream. The endless woods had receded somewhat and an old Roman column crowned the hill, its Latin marks now long since eroded away by the rain and wind. The Comitatus was encamped in a low vallum and fossa fort, all rough breastworks and fresh dirt, and the patrols were changing places to the cries of ‘Jupiter’ and ‘Hercules’. A glint in the woods alerted the exchanging guards and a swift phalanx of light scouts dashed out to challenge the newcomers. They strode out of the fringe of the trees, haughty and proud, clad in mail and wearing tall helmets with nasal guards and plumed tails. The lead barbarian held aloft a tall sapling bursting with a spray of green to signal their status as ambassadors. To the cries of the line Ducenarii and Centenarii, the legionaries tumbled out of the small camp and formed a honour guard as these tall warriors strode as though without a care in the world straight through the north entrance and to the wide leather papilio tent of Allobich himself.

He greeted them with deferential nods and bade them enter the tent as his Palatine guards arranged themselves about the outside of the tent in a double line facing outwards. We were bidden to enter with our papyri and record the ensuing debate.

In the simple confines of the campaign tent, seated on low cushions and curial stools, Allobich gestured for the newcomers to begin and then sat back as if studying them with a polite eye and an easy smile. He pulled tight about him his campaign cloak as if to shield out the cold of the day. To our surprise, the leader, a tall, broad-shouldered, man with reddish hair, rose and introduced himself as Goaric, of the Burgundians, around the Rhine. He unclasped one of his armbands and held it aloft saying that the Alemanni were to him as this armband was to his skin. Our violation of their land was a violation also of his people, the Burgundians. Neither the Alemanni nor the Burgundians would look with mercy upon men who murdered babes and despoiled women in their own hearths. This Goaric then tossed the armband at the feet of our Magister and bade him scoop it up for it would be all he would have from them should they stay any longer here in the dark forests above the mighty Danube. Take it and be thankful for such a small trinket when so many of the barbarians in the forests now waited to drink deep of their blood and avenge their kin.



Allobich remained in polite silence, his eyes resting easily upon the glower of this Burgundian chieftain, resplendent in furs and iron and leather wraps. Silence attended him and all those others in the tent - ambassadors, notaries, guards, slaves and priests - then, finally, the Magister curled one scarred hand into a fist and raised it aloft as had done this Goaric. As the Alemanni were to the Burgundians so too was this fist to Rome. Roman prestige and might strode unhindered again upon these tribal lands as it had done so many times in the past beyond the memories of all their fathers and grand fathers and their father’s fathers back beyond the birth of Christ himself. Rome held the world in its compass. That was why even petty tribes like the Alemanni and the Burgundians and the Saxons battered at its doors to be let in like petulant boys. Now these barbarians in their forest garb had broken the gates to the Eternal City itself and plundered her like a cheap tavern. The sandals of the forest dwellers had scuffed the marbles of the Coliseum, the mosaics of the Antonine Baths, the hangings of the Mausoleum of Hadrian. Did they really think Rome would leave itself unavenged before such a wrong? Do not throw trinkets at the feet of the army of Rome unless you desire to know what violation really is. Allobich stood up then and cast aside his military cloak, revealing a gold-chased cuirass clasped in the senatorial sash, with the diadem of the emperor himself upon his breast like a icon of a saint. What I heard next made my stylus tremble and caused me to glance in wonder again at the Goth - for he cried aloud in the pristine Latin of Tacitus that we came to make a desert of all here and call it peace. Roma Victa.

I swear on all the shades of my ancestors that on the utterance of those hallowed words, the air shivered in expectation and I felt the breath of the gods numbing the back of my neck. I looked upon this Goth in the employ of Rome, standing there in his dazzling armour which shone like a beacon, and slipped into the ancient histories of Rome as written by Tacitus and Livy and Suetonius. Allobich dropped his cloak and revealed not a Goth but a Roman from the old world of Jupiter and Mars. Tears clouded my vision then and I mumbled the ancient formulae and invocations heedless that my brothers around would hear.

Goaric stepped back in surprise and we saw his hand slip instinctively to the pommel of his sword - but then he checked himself and relaxed. The other Burgundians at his feet rose and formed up about him like a shieldwall. Then without a word, they turned and left the tent with its ring of guards and vanished into the dark woods not looking back once. When I turned back from watching them go, Allobich was slumped again in the curial stool with his cloak once more wrapped about his form and I wondered then if I had only imagined this vision of Rome.

The rest of the day was spent in sending out patrols and fortifying the camp against an attack but no word came back from our scouts regarding enemy movement. The woods remained ominously quiet and only the rough shouts of the Comitatus broke the arboreal silence. As I hurried from my duties to my own little tent within the turf walls, I remembered that despite Allobich’s fearsome resolve, it was all a charade and that we were all just bait, dangling here in the barbaricum, waiting for the Alemanni and now the Burgundians to sting us with their innumerable hosts.

(This bait had not long to wait, it seems. The Magister Equitum diverted their march westwards towards the main trade road which linked Argentoratum with the many settlements along the northward turning Rhine. A few more villages were torched and their inhabitants massacred and then it seems that Allobich deliberately turned the field army eastwards as though retreating back towards the Danube. Somewhere midway between the river and Argentoratum, the Alemanni finally mustered an attack.)

(Our records are slim here as no notary no matter how brave would be expected to keep detailed records during a time of ambush and attack but we know from battlefield archaeology that a major engagement was marked some twenty miles south and east of the old town and we are lucky in that some fairly detailed relics have been plotted which allows us to work out with some degree of accuracy how the battle played out. Obviously, there is a degree of speculation but both Escher and myself remain confident that in the main our analysis is accurate.)

(The bees did indeed swarm as Allobich intended.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Battle at the Twentieth Milestone

(The early spring rains finds the Comitatus arrayed some twenty Roman miles from Argentoratum when the Alemanni finally appear upon the stage, as it were. Allobich’s strategy of devastation has roused the chiefs and warriors and brought their wrath down upon his small force of some two half-strength legions - not, it must be stressed the old Republican legions of six thousand but the newer post-Diocletianic legions of between one thousand and one thousand two hundred - with accompanying guards and escorts.)

(Albright’s study of the ‘battle’ at the twentieth milestone raises some interesting questions which it is hoped further archaeology will elucidate but in the main he argues that this was not one major engagement fought out across the Roman road between the stolid lines of the infantry and the light Alemanni horse but instead a series and irregular clashes designed to test the resolve and patience of the Romans. See: ‘Space and Time in Battlefield Archaeology’, Harvard Monograms, 2006. While the material excavated at the sight supports the argument for a major engagement, Albright argues that this mass of material was deposited over a series of days not hours and that it supports his thesis of a drawn-out probing strategy on the behalf of the Alemanni. His topographic plot (page 36, ibid) demonstrates his survey in quite startling detail and if true illustrates an Alemannic foe more sophisticated that perhaps Allobich had imagined.)

(What Albright purports to have found is the main static lines of the two-legion front facing north-west across the old Roman road. The line of material is long and so argues for a classic eight-man depth to the line with the first four bearing the main heavy infantry with the lighter troops and archers to the rear. It seems that Allobich’s two ordines of escort troops - Palatine legionaries - formed an in-depth column on the right wing, with Allobich himself between the main line and the column. The Roman road seemed to act as a pivot point between the III Italica and the Senior Lions.)

(Remains of barbarians cavalry trappings, bones, weapon shards, fragments of armour, all litter this long front but in an irregular way which hints at not a combined continuous assault but instead a series of pin-prick strikes designed to wear the line down. If this is true, Allobich’s strategy has misfired quite spectacularly. His legionaries are now not the bait he hoped they would be but instead caught within the web of a more adaptable and intangible foe.)





(Albright posits the battle a series of light cavalry skirmishes against the Roman lines designed to keep them pinned down across the road and limit their manoeuvrability. We can hypothesise an engagement as follows, with the rains pouring down, and the Romans tired from standing all day in the amour, hearing the rumble of yet more Alemanni horse erupting from the woods and tightening up the ranks. The line officers would be barking out orders to stand to the dracos while the file closers would be tensing up towards the rear. Then the light horse of the barbarians would gallop forward to hurl javelins into the tightly-packed ranks, shouting out insults and taunts, as the legionaries raise up in their turn the large oval shields to turn away the incoming missiles. Given the flexibility of the Roman legions with their tactical structure, we can imagine Allobich ordering sections forward on the wings perhaps to box in the barbarian horse or attempt to flank it. A sudden charge from his own Gothic bucellari horse would no doubt end the sudden flurry of missiles and neighing horses, with the Alemanni turning in retreat back to the safety on the woods and what lay deep in its twisted interior.)













(Did this battle happen over days or weeks? We can never know but Albright contends that some few days must have passed and that the Comitatus was also harassed at night which would account for the lack of a secure vallum or fossa.)

(If Albright is correct, and his first-hand experience at the site lends his conclusions much authority, it seems that the Alemanni refused to fall for his bait. We can wonder if perhaps a further force of Burgundians were expected under Goaric and so they held off from a full engagement or perhaps their king was too shrewd to fall for the Magister’s hack and burn policy. We will never know for certain. What is known is that a short time later, against all expectations, Allobich forced-marched west along the Roman road and pinned the main Alemanni force inside Argentoratum, thus committing himself and his Comitatus to a lengthy siege for which they were plainly ill-equipped.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Second War Consilium


The Kalends of Aprilis found our Roman Comitatus in low spirits indeed. A month of weary siege operations deep in Alemanni territory with little in the way of resupply or victualing had left the men hungry and morose. The Ducenarii and the Centenarii of the ordines were pressed hard to keep the discipline in the ranks as day after day saw the flower of our legionaries reduced to manning the hasty vallum breastworks or conduct foraging raids in strength deeper in the barbaricum in search of food. Always the hordes of the Alemanni taunted us from the walls of Argentoratum, hurling insults and allowing their women to reveal their private parts, may Christ forgive them their lewdness and wantonness. Always the rains fell. Never a day passed without the heavens opening up and drenching us - our cloaks are sodden, the bowstrings lax, our tents dripping - and now the fossa are drowned in mud and refuse. The two great Roman legions are reduced now to grimy men with faces smeared in dirt and ash. The dragon tails hang limp and bedraggled in the pearly rain.

Allobich remains steadfast, however. The last council in his campaign tent found him in a bullish mood as his officers pressed for a withdrawal back to Raetia Secunda and Augusta Vindelicorum. John the Pannonian described how his troops were eager to reach Roman soil again after this fruitless toil and Rutilla stood up and agreed with his compatriot. Both legion commanders seemed to my tired eyes angry with their Magister. They pointed out that without the support of the cavalry vexillations, they were all at the mercy of the Alemanni horse and whatever Burgundian allies had deigned to join them. Pinned down like this in a fruitless siege now left them vulnerable and distracted. The plan had failed. It was time to admit that and retreat. Allobich smarted at that, at the suggestion of failure, and I remember watching as he struggled to contain his anger. He gestured to his aide, Promotus, a Briton, who then read out from that venerable historian Ammianus of the glorious victory the apostate emperor Julian won over the Alemanni near these very lands. The burnished Latin fell about our ears like a martial hymn and we fancied that we saw with our own eyes the Roman lines crushing the barbarians like wheat. To our ears, came the cries of the dying and the sounds of men running away in flight. When Promotus had finished and the syllables had died away into our awed silence, Allobich turned to both John and Rutilla and asked them should we retreat where Roman valour had once won so resounding a victory? Both Tribunes were shamed into silence and could not meet him in the eye.

And so we stay now in this mud and endless rain far beyond the Roman limes wondering on events at Augusta Vindelicorum or Brigantium and Castra Regina where our fellow soldiers wait, eager to wage war on the barbarians. I wonder on the worth of it all and compose myself in the knowledge that this is but a test from God to try our resolve. Victory goes only to those he deems worthy, amen. But it is hard here in the barbaricum below the walls and the shameless women who act like animals or Eve in the Garden.



Towards the end of Aprilis, a rough convoy rode into the breastworks and ditches from out of the forests to the north - a dozen iron-eyed men on small ponies lathered in sweat. Without a word, they passed the first line of pickets and rode in silence straight up to Allobich, who was standing outside his tent as if in expectation. He greeted them all by names which I could not hear and then these grim men disappeared into the faded purple of his tent. I was summoned as I was near at hand and told to record what news they brought. Their leader, an agens in rebus called Felix, unrolled a crude map of the Gauls and spoke quickly so that I had to hurry to pin his words down with my stylus. He told the Magister that the Ripuarian Franks had ratified the treaty proposed by Drusus Magnus which allowed them to hold the lands south of the middle Rhine. We could rely on the Frankish tribes not to ally with the usurper Constantine. This was good news. Drusus had done good work along the Rhine. More startling was the news Felix spoke next. The last Roman garrison on the Rhine had abandoned its castrum and was even now retreating south and east through Frankish territory in a desperate attempt to reach Raetia Secunda and the Comitatus here at Argentoratum. The soldiers were avoiding Constantinian troops by remaining in the deep forests and following the remote tracks using guides provided by the Franks and their allies. Felix warned that if Allobich retreated back across the Danube, these Roman units would be left to the spears and axes of the Alemanni and the Burgundians in the wild hills which parted the Rhine and the Danube rivers.

This galvanised the Goth and he ordered Felix and his men to move back out into the woods around Argentoratum; to hunt now the hunters and seek out the locales where the barbarians were hiding, to distract them with sabotage and butchery in the night. Nodding as one, these men, all the colour of an iron blade, gathered up their Gallic cloaks to their tight forms and then vanished once more out of the palisades on their tired ponies.

It was then that Allobich turned to me and grinned like a wolf. And I sensed then that our Comitatus would not so much devastate the barbaricum now as rescue fellow soldiers from out of the unimaginable vastness that existed beyond the limes of civilisation, of the empire. We were not destroyers now but saviours instead. I will admit that as his eyes fell upon me, my heart was moved with a sense of purpose and joy as if this Felix had brought an angel into the tent.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Second War Consilium (cont)

(The following months remain confused and indeterminate as the records are corrupt at this point due to damage to the surviving portions of Manuscript E. Escher has attempted to reconstruct some of the events leading up to the Second Battle of Argentoratum - based on a careful study of the Gallia Chronicle (455 AD) and the Ausonium Breverarium but it must be born in mind that it is at best a provisional account:

- The Tribune, Tertius, commanding the unnamed unit of milites or limitanei withdrawing south through Frankish lands encounters a large horde of Burgundians and detours west into the provinces held by the British usurper, Constantine. Summer passes with the lonely unit involved in careful and painfully slow manoeuvres to avoid contact which are on the whole successful but still leave the Roman troops far from either the Rhine frontier or the besieging forces of Allobich further south.

- Arelate is finally captured by loyal Roman forces and a major campaign is prepared to drive north up the Loire valley into the heartland of Constantine’s Imperium, commanded by the patrician Constantinus.

- In late Spring, with morale low and grumblings becoming louder in the ranks, Allobich makes the surprising move of ordering the two cavalry vexillations quartered at Brigantium and Castra Regina to move north across the Danube and support his two infantry legions around Argentoratum. The shadowy figures referred to in the manuscript as agens in rebus, imperial spies and agents provocateurs, locate the main Alemanni settlement to the north of Argentoratum although it has now been determined that their Alemannic chieftain is in fact bottled up inside the latter town. With the main legion forces involved in besieging Argentoratum, the cavalry units under Ulfilas and Posthumus raze the countryside around them and act as a shield, protecting them from sudden ambuscades by Alemanni horse.

- Escher now concludes that Allobich is in fact far outside his original remit from Honorius in protecting the province of Raetia Secunda and that the entire province’s military assets are now deployed either in besieging a barbarian town deep beyond the Danube, or deployed on mobile patrols further north even to the Vicus Alemanni itself, or, and here Escher refers to the vague figure of the Tribune, Felix, on long range reconnaissance trying to maintain contact with Tertius and the withdrawing milites in northern Gaul.







The more legible sections of the records pick up in late Autumn of 412 AD with Virgil’s stylus notating the lead up to the Second Battle of Argentoratum)

. . . The bitter winds have begun to sweep out of the north again and now hail and dust occlude our eyes as we stare endlessly at the stout walls of Argentoratum. The Tribunes, John and Rutilla, argue daily with Allobich now and the latter storms about the breastworks, his face all gloomy and mottled with frustration. Daily, riders gallop in from the north and the south and each direction brings only bad news. The Alemanni stay hidden in the deep recesses of the forests or behind the walls of Vicus Alemanni, avoiding all Roman contact. Foraging is getting harder and harder and now our soldiers look emaciated and tired. Little supplies reach us from Raetia Secunda and Augusta Vindelicorum despite the urgings of Allobich. The city’s curia argue that not enough colonii survived the barbarians' devastations to have sowed and reaped food for the province and the Comitatus here in the barbaricum. Each rider returning from the south only shakes his weary head to the Goth as though acknowledging the futility of even asking about the military annona.

I understand now why Allobich will not storm the walls here. The losses will be too great despite our assured victory. The III Italica and the Senior Lions are understrengthed as it is. Only in the open fields, with the legion ranks arrayed in all their martial splendour can the Magister afford to risk a battle. So we wait and each day sees us raise our tired eyes towards the walls of Argentoratum in the expectation of seeing the gates groan open and the barbarians pour forth. The gods will it otherwise, however, and now the cold winds of an early Winter begin to creep into our tents and watch-towers.

Last night, Allobich received a deputation from Augusta Vindelicorum urging him to forsake this futile siege and return to the Roman lands. They rent their cloaks and placed ash in their hair in supplication all the while turning to Bishop Palladius, who was their leader, begging him to convince this Goth but this Palladius saw the obstinacy in our commander’s eyes and could only turn away in mute anger. They left this morning glancing at our dirty standards and muddy paths to return to a province naked of troops. I sensed that all would not be well from this encounter and that dark seeds would spring up from it.

Then, this morning, Sol himself smiled upon us as our scouts raced out of the woods with news that an Alemanni force was marching in haste towards us in full martial display. Battle was imminent. They would be upon us by midday. The Goth sprang up like a reborn lion and shouted for his commanders as word spread throughout the tents. Suddenly men who only yesterday were dejected or mute were now galvanised into action. To my eyes, it seemed as if the gods themselves had stepped among us touching us on the shoulders with their blessings and whispering old invocations into our ears. Even I, who am not of the military, felt my blood race as helmets were donned and the Roman dragons were hoisted into the air.

Around Allobich congregated the staff officers and the two Tribunes, a small island of focused energy in the chaos around us. Now they could all vent their frustrations and muster their anger upon a foe who had so far proved elusive in the extreme. John the Pannonian gripped his ornamented helmet under the crook of his arm as he listened to the Magister outline the disposition of his troops to the north of the barbarian town. Beside him, Rutilla, his Hunnish eyes now blazing slits, shook loose the sword in his scabbard and nodded quietly as he divined the thinking of the commander. I gathered up all my writing implements and tarried beside these men, waiting for instructions. Seeing me in my composure, Allobich smiled once and then turned back to hurried discussion. Then I heard the barbarian cries from the woods to the north and knew that they would be on us in moments.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Second Battle of Argentoratum (412 AD)

(This engagement seems to have occurred late in the day some few miles northeast of the barbarian town alongside the Roman road but not directly straddling it. From hints in Virgil’s ‘AAR’, to use a current acronym, Ulfilas and Posthumus were tasked with remaining in the rear of the battle to maintain pressure on the Alemanni inside Argentoratum thus leaving Allobich free to engage in an infantry battle. It also obvious that at the time no one seems surprised that a barbarian force would recklessly throw itself upon the serried ranks of the Roman heavy infantry against all expectations of the campaign so far. I speculate, and Escher concurs with me, that the relief of finally being able to fight a decisive engagement outweighs any speculation as to why the barbarians have changed tactics. Had Allobich and his staff officers made this leap then perhaps the battle would not have been fought and instead the Roman army would have retired intact back to Raetia Secunda in advance of the doom which was trailing the bloodied Alemanni.)







. . . The most glorious legions advanced in battle-array towards the yelling barbarians, standards high and our shields emblazoned in all their regimental colours (1). The men of the proud III Italica formed up on the right flank in place of honour, with the Senior Lions on the left. Our Magister, astride his doughty steed, and surrounded by his bucellari, rode out far on the right beyond the dense columns of the escort legionaries from Gaul (2). Ahead, through the rippling sunlight, we could see the mass of the Alemanni waving swords and angons and shouting rough curses into the late afternoon air. Jove himself beckoned us onwards, urging us to let loose our discipline and charge the insolent barbarians but our Roman training overcame our impetuosity and we remained tied to the standards awaiting the orders and signals from our line officers.







A sudden roar from the barbarians and then they were moving towards us. Dust riddled the air and their martial cries caused us to glance to our companions seeking reassurance in their steady eyes. Here and there, the sharp Latin of the Ducenarii and Centenarii kept the ranks and files in order - ‘sta’, and ‘ad latus stringe’, and ‘cum ordine seque’ - (3) and we gazed proudly over the tops of the dragons to the insignia of Allobich himself on the far right, as if seeking his approval for our discipline. All along the lines, men tensed and hunched down behind the oval scutum. Ahead, the barbarians were resolving from a mass of movement and colour into the warbands and boar’s heads that were their orders of battle. Their crude German shouts fell about us like chaff upon the wind. Closer now and as we raised up our light weapons they broke into a charge screaming like all the furies from Mount Olympus itself. A dash of cavalry sped out from their ranks, ahead of their bristling columns, and was the first to impact our lines with valleys of javelins and throwing axes. Instantly, the sun seemed blotted out as the command to release was given and our rear ranks let loose with arrow and javelin over the helmets of the front-line troops. Like two might breakers colliding at sea, the Alemanni dashed against our lines in a tumult of blood, screams and the harsh clanging of weapons. I stood amazed at the rear, deafened by the enormity of it all. The standards thrust up high as the cornus and bucinas sounded out above the din of carnage - and I sensed that they were bidding me to stay true - remain fixed - or die in the sudden melee.



All along the lines now the barbarians were dashing themselves recklessly against the overlapping shields, heedless of their flesh or souls. Our front lines around the III Italica were locked and heaving back into their ranks, jabbing and cutting in the Roman way like automata. I heard whistles signaling and our front rank revolved into the second and then the third so that fresh men stepped into the fighting even as the barbarians desperately hacked at the wide shields. To the rear of the lines, the lighter-armed legionaries kept up the hail of missiles now falling down upon thebarbarian's unarmoured heads, and avoiding, through long training, the returning missiles via double spacing and nimble use of the scutum. Then it was that I noticed the left front ordines of the Senior Lions advancing to flank the exposed right wing the Alemanni. Our length although thin was longer than the barbarians’ and now the cadence of the cornus changed and the standards dipped forwards in response. ‘Move’ - ‘Percute’ (4) could be heard above the clash of arms along the front. To the right, trumpets sounded and the Palatine troops advanced at speed to complement the envelop and I saw also Allobich himself gallop ahead and then wheel left into the flank of the confused barbarians. Now the trap was being closed and our Roman lines swung slowly shut about them, cutting them down as they tried to move to face us. It was useless. They paused in confusion and we gave them no mercy. Our wings closed in like a vice and it was then that we sensed victory on the wind.









As if guided by a divine star, all our lines surged forward then, a roar of triumph rising above the din, and the Alemanni broke in despair, throwing away their weapons and turning in flight. Bodies were hacked down without mercy and the command to open ranks was given so that the light troops could advance forward to harry the retreating enemy without respite. Screams rent the late afternoon air as Roman blades sought out and cut down fleeing barbarians and the ground became drenched in Alemanni blood. We had won a second victory here at Argentoratum over the Alemanni barbarians no less notable than that glorious victory of the Augustus Flavius Julius some fifty years ago. Roman valour had prevailed on the field of battle deep in the barbaricum.







(We must excuse ‘Virgil’s’ hyperbole here. There would have been no possible way for him to know yet what exactly was happening regarding the Alemanni attack and its sudden collapse before the iron lines of the Roman legions. In the heat of battle and its immediate aftermath as he struggled to note down the particulars, word would not yet have reached either Allobich or his notary on the battlefield to tell him why these Alemanni were already in the main wounded and desperate and why they were in fact not attacking the Roman Comitatus in support of their chieftain holed up in Argentoratum but instead attempting to break through the Roman lines to seek shelter or sanctuary inside the walls from an even greater threat. This ‘victory’ which seemed to have been won so easily was in fact far more hollow than anyone would have believed and which cost the Romans some two hundred casualties which they could ill-afford. We can conjecture that even as ‘Virgil’ penned his last sentence, messengers were arriving from the scouts to alert Allobich to the true state affairs.)

1 - Late Roman troops bore their regimental designations as shield emblems for the purpose of identification on the battlefield. There is some argument to the effect that each ordo within the legion or vexillation would also have a different colour so as to be able to distinguish itself.

2 - the two ordines of Palatine troops from Gaul which arrived with Ulfilas and Posthumus remain unidentified in Manuscript E but Escher conjectures that it was the remnant of a legion which had been decimated and thus never fully reconstituted. From a careful survey of the Notitia Dignitatum, he suggests the ‘Octavani’ or Eight Legion, which disappears from our records around this period.

3 + 4 - late Latin battle commands as evinced by Maurice’s ‘Strategikon’ which although dealing with the later Greek speaking Roman period of the eastern empire, preserves a number of Latin technical terms now substantiated by Manuscript E.