[IB AAR] At The Limes

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Third War Consilium

(Most of the notes and addendums from this section come from the stylus of ‘Virgil’ and so we conclude that the two notaries, ‘Florus‘ and ‘Probus‘, were accompanying both Posthumus and Ulfilas at this time)

The night was feverish with activity. Men ran about with lighted tapers. Sentries challenged all comers with nervous cries. Horses galloped past as if born on the wings of Pegasus himself. Despite our proud victory over the barbarians and their broken bodies which littered the ground to the north, we were not glorious with the wine of triumph now. Patrols flung out deep into the woods late in the afternoon had returned with alarming news. Our cavalry units were retiring in good order from the depths of the barbaricum and re-grouping about the smoke-smeared sky around Argentoratum. One of Felix’s men, a low-browed man of Saxon extraction called Ufwine, appeared within our tents and palisades like a shade of the dead and spoke with Allobich in low urgent tones none present could hear. Then he was gone like chaff upon the wind. The staff officers were summoned in haste. All wondered on what portends had occurred to turn our victory into such a state of anxiety. The remaining survivors of the Alemanni host which we had driven from the field had scattered, with some fleeing back into the grim woods and others scrambling in desperation past the cavalry patrols to clamber into the besieged town. I heard officers of the line, as they strode about the battlefield, pointing to the barbarian dead and wondering on their pitiable state. One, Conon, pointed to a Alemanni chieftain sprawled amid a heap of his spearmen, and marvelled on the signs of starvation and exhaustion which lay upon him like a shawl. I noticed then that many of these barbarians were marked with old wounds, as if they had already suffered a great defeat. We gazed upon our enemy and saw only broken men who had fallen upon our shields in despair.

Late in the night, as we all assembled in the wide campaign tent of the Magister, its deep red folds sheltering us like a cave, the awful truth was revealed to us. Allobich himself was sat upon his simple curial stool, with Ulfilas on one side and Posthumus on the other. The remaining staff officers and the higher commanders of the legions and the vexillations sat or stood about, drinking wine or breaking the rough bread to dip it in small bowls of olive oil. Torches flared uneasily about us, sending shadows across the red leather sides, and an image came into my mind then of my ink spilling over the heavy vellum, washing out all words and all reflections.

Allobich spared us neither words nor sophistry when he spoke. Curling his great fists into scarred balls of bronze, he told us that Felix brought ill news indeed from the north and the far lands around the middle Rhine limes. The Tribune Tertius had been forced closer to the lands about Augusta Treverorum and the forces of Constantine. His long months of careful marching were proving fruitless and now his troops were dangerously close to being discovered and butchered. His Frankish allies and scouts had retired and now he was alone and cut off. His last message had been one of reckless courage - bidding us not to search for him and his men or wait to rescue him from the lands he now found himself in. His men were determined to die an honourable death in the service of the most august emperor Honorius and now the dragon standards would scream high into the oncoming ranks of the betrayers. These words reported by Allobich caused us much consternation as we had hoped that Tertius would reinforce our already weakened forces here in the barbaricum - but I noticed that Ulfilas, alone of us all, hid a smile and I wondered on that. Then Allobich rose up and unravelled the map scroll. He outlined our position at the painted mark of Argentoratum and then the sinuous line of the Danube many days behind us to the south and east. Far away rested Augusta Vindelicorum and the limes of Raetia Secunda. Then he placed the tip of an ivory stylus deep in the woods to the north and the Vicus Alemanni, where the remaining barbarians were entrenched. His next words stunned us all.

Eight days ago, according to Felix and his iron-eyed men, the entire host of the Burgundian nation had erupted from the vastness to the north and west and descended with fire and rapine upon the Alemanni people. Even now, the Vicus itself was under siege by a host of Burgundii too numerous to count. Less than a week’s march north lay a host of German barbarians far more ruthless and bloodthirsty than the Alemanni had ever been. Here Allobich held all our eyes as if in a vice. This Roman Comitatus was now not so much a punitive expedition to put in place the Alemanni threat of raiding across the limes but now a tiny force alone in the barbaricum in the face of a barbarian nation on the march - and we were directly in its path.

Chaos erupted inside the campaign tent of the Magister and the shadows seemed to flutter as if in response. Some shouted out on the Burgundian embassy weeks ago in this very tent and their proud boast of brotherhood with the Alemanni - but here Allobich cut them short and told them that it was just a ploy to lure the Alemanni into thinking the Burgundians were their friends. These savage Germans has used the Roman troops as a cover to get closer to the northern boundary lines of the Alemanni lands - that was all. Goaric had merely been a player in a barbarian play and we had all fallen into his script without realising it. Anger flared up then and I saw some of the officers curse this Goaric with frightful oaths in both the Nazarene and the Hellene ways. I myself wondered then on this Goaric’s mettle - to have walked so brazenly into our camp and challenge us all to our faces and all for a ploy to lure the Alemanni into friendship. Allobich silenced us all after a while and then turned to Ulfilas and Posthumus to speak their council.

The Magister Equitum per Gallias rose and spoke slowly with careful deference to his fellow Goth on his left. He pointed out that we were now many miles from our province and many months also from its sheltering walls and castra. The trap of Allobich not only had not worked but now events had changed the landscape beyond all recognition. Clearly, the Burgundians were intent on marching as a nation south through the Alemanni and try their lot with their fellow Germans in the exposed lands of the Imperium. They had scented blood upon the body of the Roman state and now wanted their share of the meat. It was imperative that all available Roman troops retire back to the limes of Raetia Secunda with all haste and attempt to defend Roman soil from the Burgundians - as per the imperial writ of His Most Sacred Dominus Honorius. Posthumus Dardanus rose up and said that while it was impossible to divine the will of the Burgundian hordes, it was necessary to abandon this siege and retire back to the province while the Comitatus was still a coherent force. Who could forget the tragedy of the emperor Jovian’s shameful treaty with the Persians when cut-off and desperate for supplies after the death of Julian? This force could not afford a similar tragedy. The priority must be to regroup at Augusta Vindelicorum and organise the defence of the province as quickly as possible to honour the wishes of the emperor. John the Pannonian spoke next, throwing aside his bread in disgust. He told of the drudgery of the siege and its wasteful time, of how his III Italica was now no more than a rabble of miners and shovellers, of how his legion was reduced to carting away dirt and mud, where once it was a proud defender of the Raetias. Anger clouded his brow and I could see that his darting gaze was directed mostly at Allobich, who remained sitting, his golden hair hanging about him like rope. Rutilla agreed with his most esteemed colleague. His legion troops also were tired of the endless siege. Let it be ended and the men marched back to Roman lands where the wine amphora were plenty and the fields full with oxen pulling haywains and colonii tilling the long strips of the soil. His Senior Lions were anxious to taste Roman life again not this dull barbaricum.

Allobich nodded and smiled into the angry words as he sat upon the curial stool. Light sparkled fitfully from the heavy gold coins in his braids and he rested his chin upon one fist like a judge listening to a number of contentious suitors. Then he raised a hand and stilled the voices. So be it. On the morrow, the Comitatus would lift the siege and leave the Alemanni to their fate with the Burgundians. Tomorrow, the legions and the vexillations would march back to the Danube and Raetia Secunda, once more to defend the limes of Rome. Relief swept around the tent at those words and I saw Ulfilas grin once into Rutilla’s face and saw a look pass between them that spoke of something secret but I could not catch at its import. Allobich sat still in the centre of all the enthusiasm and noticing this I moved closer to him. His eyes caught mine then and I saw a sardonic light in his face and realised then that this Goth, who had been born a barbarian but was now one of the highest Roman officers in the army, had not spoken his own will or his own thoughts regarding the new plight of the Alemanni. No one had asked for his counsel or wanted to know what he wanted to do. Looking at Allobich in the curial stool, I realised then on the true quality of this man for in leading a pack of lions one must sometimes be the lamb to appease all their angry barks. Why was this Goth always surprising me, I wondered?

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Historia Francorum and the Manuscript E

(An often elided section of Gregory of Tour’s ‘History of the Franks’ which details an obscure clash between Roman troops and is therefore usually omitted from most modern translations now corroborates details of our manuscript. It is worth quoting the extract in full for the light it sheds on the Notes of Raetia Secunda in the late months of 412 AD -



(Book VI, xx-xxii . . . It was while these events were unfolding and that the Frankish embassies were returning from the Roman officials in the Italies that blood and fire swept the lands west and south of Augusta Treverorum, now in ruins from the great raid over the frozen Rhine. In the chaos of the barbarians flooding south and east into the heart of the empire of Rome, and the sudden emergence of the usurper, Constantine, from the Britains, the garrison of Novaesium on the Rhine retired from its post and marched south through the dark forests to find succour with its comrades. The Tribune, Tertius, and the remnants of his men, all limitanei now orphaned from their homes, marched through the long days into the short days of the year, living in the dark folds of ancient forests under the guides of the Franks by the Rhine, ever watchful to avoid the troops of the British usurper. Many were the torturous paths given to them and many were the twists and turns which took them in and out of the broken hills and defiles near the Rhine. Finally, as the months shortened into winter, the men of Tertius fell foul to the troops of Constantine and a battle was fought not far from the ancient watch-tower now known as the ‘Cell of St. Ambrosicus’, that venerable martyr. Here, in sight of the ruins, Tertius fell in defence of his men and heavy was the slaughter. I, myself, have spoken with men who fathers had fought these Romans and still speak of this Tribune’s courage in leading his men and his gallant fall which allowed some to escape the men of Constantine. It is not known what happened to these men who survived the battle but some have said that they retired into the dark forests and took to brigandage to revenge the death of their leader . . .)



(It is a small account not given much worth in the translations of Gregory as it adds little to the history of the rise of the Frankish states after the collapse of Roman authority in Gaul. It has often been read as a no more than a piece of sensational story-telling to justify the inclusion of a mention of St. Ambrosicus, given that Gregory was fond of describing saints and using them to edify his readers. With the unveiling of ‘Manuscript E’, however, new light can be shed on this episode and something of the valour and desperate heroism of those times can now be appreciated.)

(The ‘Cell of St. Ambrosicus’ survives to this day as a low mound of Roman stonework some twenty miles or so west of modern Trier, Gregory’s Augusta Treverorum, and was long regarded as a sacred site in which the local saint dwelt in seclusion performing miracles. The ‘cell’ appears from recent archaeological work to have in fact been originally a Roman military watch-tower or limes post sited to guard the heavily wooded reaches in the low hills which stud the area. Local memory has long preserved reports of battle artefacts turning up in the fields slightly east of the ruin on a low hill running down from a series of peaks and gorges. Escher himself has visited the site and returned with several late Roman objects purchased from the local farmers, including spatha fragments, military belt fittings and coins dated to Honorius and Theodosius. One local farmer, Otho Wienstraub, an amateur war gaming enthusiast, has outlined his theory of the battle-site, which was published in the German magazine - Das War - in November, 2005. His findings corroborate a small but fierce conflict in which the Roman units under Tertius took up position below the hills and the ‘cell’ in a line formation facing a downward rushing force some three times its size. Otho judges from the scatter of the fragments that the Limitanei were gradually pushed back through sheer force of numbers and eventually routed from the field. Bone fragments however would seem to indicate many frontal wounds inconsistent with a rout and so Mr Wienstraub’s account has remained to date inconclusive.)



(We are now able, thanks to Manuscript E, to develop and shed further light on this obscure moment in the dying years of the Roman empire. Although somewhat out of context regarding the narrative line of the Notes, an addendum elucidates several details which, together with Gregory’s narrative, allows us to read in some detail what actually took place under the shadow of the old Roman watch-tower.)

(We can conjecture that Tertius and his men were caught by a following column of troops at the foot of the hill upon which the tower rested. Perhaps they were simply tired of running and hiding and had decided to turn and face their fates. Certainly the position was disadvantageous to the Romans, it being downhill from Constantine’s men and we can imagine that the outcome in their minds must not have been in any doubt. The Tribune arrayed his infantry into a long in-depth line with the sagitarii to the rear and then placed his own light cavalry on the left flank and forward . . . The Ducenarius, Agricola, one of the survivors now offers up his version of the events . . .)







. . . The soldiers of the usurper Constantine advanced towards us in good order and with their barbarian foederates in the front lines. I ordered my men to tighten ranks and brace their knees against their shields to receive the oncoming charge. Behind us, the lighter troops fired off volley after volley of fire-arrows into their dense ranks. It was heartening to hear the whoosh of the fire-arrows arcing overhead. On my right, the second ordo also held its ground under Manutius who eyes found mine across the dust. His wide grin caused me to smile back and I briefly remembered how we had hunted together in the pine forests along Novaesium, tracking boar and bear in the Summer. The bucinas cried out then and I saw our blessed Tribune, Tertius, his wide red Gallic cloak flung back over his shoulders, order his cavalry forward into a charge against the right flank of the advancing troops. My mouth opened in shock. This was not what he had outlined in those desperate moments when we had wheeled about to face the enemy and let go of all our desires to escape. I looked back to Manutius and saw his face also covered in shock. Why was Tertius abandoning his place in the line? I could only watch in horror as his cavalry, all light troopers from Belgica and the little islands in the Rhine, dashed forward releasing a volley of javelins into the mass ahead. I did not understand what was happening. Tertius had planned on remaining on the left flank to harass their right once it was in contact with our own lines.







Now we were exposed. Still the fire-arrows arced overhead lending a hellish aspect to the battle but now the cavalry were ahead and obscured by smoke and dust. Then the main line of the enemy engaged our own and we fell into the battle like drunk men to the wine. I do not remember much of what followed - only that their numbers fell upon our lines like a deluge and despite the shouts of the biarchii and the centenarii, we could not hold them. Always the trails of fire flashed above us, rendering all into a ruby light which turned our faces into the old masks of the Greek plays - all satyrs and rams gripped with passion and violence. Our javelins were spent now and I ordered the front rank to revolve into the second so that a fresh line of men would receive the brunt of the foederate lines.







It was useless, however, as we were slowly being pushed back and separated from each other. I looked in despair at Manutius and his men in the second ordo and saw that they too were being stretched apart by force of numbers. I looked behind me and saw that our sagitarii were running our of arrows and preparing to draw their semi-spathas. I sensed then that now was the time to face our fate and make peace with God. Nearby, I heard an old soldier, his helmet split asunder and blood seeping down his forehead, raise his eyes up to heaven and start chanting the ‘Alelluia’. Others crossed themselves and then grinned to each other and in those grins I saw such valour and honesty that it made me curse this Constantine for all his perfidy against Rome - that one man should so ruin and wreck the Roman state so as to surrender it to the barbarians. I heaved aloft my sword then and prepared to throw myself bodily onto the oncoming weapons of the foederates - and then I heard a plaintive bucina cry out far to the rear of their right flank. I knew then that Tertius was dead upon the field of battle. Slain by outlaw Romans on Roman land plundered by marauding barbarians



What happened next took me by surprise, however. Their right flank - now pressed so savagely against out thinning lines - hesitated and then stepped back as though giving ground. For a moment, I could not understand what was happening and then my Centenarius, an Armenian, Arascius, called out to say that the Constantinians were halting to regroup. I glanced over to Manutius and saw also that his ordo was momentarily free from the engagement. He looked at me with questioning eyes - and then I understood in a moment of inspiration what had happened. Grabbing a dazed Draconarius, I yelled at him to signal a withdraw even as my fellow Ducenarius, Manutius, divined my intention and also ordered his ordo to withdraw in good order. Moments later, our remnants were retreating with our shields facing the enemy in good order from the field of battle leaving our dead and wounded at their feet as if placing on offering upon the altar of their mercy. We were few, so few, but we retired, our swords bloody and our eyes fixed steadfastly upon our foe, and as we left the field of battle by the old watch-tower, we looked in vain for the light cavalry of Tertius on the flank. We looked for our dead compatriots who had charged so recklessly into their lines and with such savage might that they had, against all the odds, caused their entire right flank to halt and disengage - to re-order before advancing again. Tertius had seen the futility of our stand and in a heartbeat had plunged recklessly forward to shock the enemy by his charge. His death had bought us time and that time we used to retire from the field intact. His death also bought us respect from the enemy and that also allowed us to retire with our arms and honour intact. I will not talk of our retreat through the broken lands of the Respublica, of the devastation we witnessed and of the atrocities we saw, all I will say is that here, now, in Raetia Secunda, we present ourselves to you as Roman soldiers, our standards intact, our unit intact, through the grace and duty of one man only, the Tribune Tertius. May all praise and grace bless God and our lawful Emperor, amen . . .









(From the following records, only five troopers of Tertius’ light cavalry ordo were able to retire from the field alive but severely wounded. Many of the light rear soldiers survived and about a quarter of the two ordines under Manutius and Agricola. While we admire his reticence regarding his details about the march south and east to join up with Allobich at Augusta Vindelicorum, we lament the loss of what must have been in its own right an epic as these few survivors marched across the ruined lands of Gaul into the Raetias. And we take no small pride in setting the record straight to correct Gregory of Tours for now we know that these valiant Romans did not live on as brigands in the forests but kept their honour intact despite appalling odds.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Fourth Consilium

(We have little in the way of notes or addendums throughout the Autumn and Winter of 412 into 413 AD. We can conjecture that after the withdrawal of the Comitatus back towards the limes of Raetia Secunda and the subsequent rendezvous with the remnants of the Limitanei from the middle Rhine under the Ducenarius Agricola, Allobich re-entrenched Augusta Vindelicorum and the remaining towns whilst also consolidating the few limitanei units along the Danube castra. The paucity of notes or meetings speaks to a common consensus of activity and therefore a dispersal of troops and commanders throughout the province on military business.



Throughout that Winter we know from other records that the emperor Honorius was engaged in desperate action to contain the Goths now plundering central Italy. The city of Rome itself had thrown off imperial control and was attempting to raise up its own puppet emperor in the wake of the great sack earlier. Brigandage was rife after the devastation wrought by the Gothic hordes. There was a general lack of food and provisions throughout Italy which rendered the ability of the remaining mobile units effectively useless. Most, if not all, of the Roman forces which belonged to the praesental armies dug in behind the strong walls of the cities which dotted Italy and used the famed artillery pieces to make sure that the hordes of Gothic warriors, with their attendant families and wagon trains, were forced to move on.

In southern Gaul, Constantinus consolidated Arelate and began the groundwork for a Summer campaign up the Loire valley into the heartland of Constantine’s usurping empire. This effective strategy was hindered by the Vandal hordes which finally succeeded in breaching Hispania and then into the north African provinces. Devastation flowed like a stream of lava through the western provinces of Honorius’ realm and it was said by one writer of the time that ‘the sky itself became a shroud for death’ (Empedicius, epistle xxiii). The Roman forces mustered at Arelate were incapable of protecting Hispania, focused as they were on the Gallic lands and the rival Roman troops under Constantine.

Now in the early months of 413 AD, Vandal galleys are sighted for the first time in the Mediterranean and this ancient inner sea becomes no longer safe.

We can presume that much if not all of this reached the ears of Allobich in Augusta Vindelicorum sometime in late Spring 413 AD. Strategically speaking, none of this matters as his orders remain fixed - hold the province against further barbarian encroachments and protect the Alpine passes so that northern Italy can rally itself. These months then are used by Allobich to deepen the limes defences and thicken the defence in depth strategy common to the mind of the late Roman military.

A word at this juncture would seem appropriate regarding late Roman strategic thinking. Following on from Edward N Luttwak’s ground-breaking study (The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire - John Hopkins 1976), the principal structure of the Roman defensive limes in the 4th and 5th Centuries involved a layered defensive system in which several echelons of Roman troop types operated in conjunction at both the tactical and strategic level. This created an elastic structure which responded in a reactive manner to barbarian incursions.

The first or outer layer would be the limitanei troops stationed along the perimeter of major boundary lines such as the Rhine or the Danube rivers, the Vallum of Hadrian, or the more nebulous desert tracts in Asia and Africa. These limitanei have in the past been categorised by scholars as part-time or territorial troops, settled with families in the immediate vicinity and who received lower grade armour and weapons. They were often the remnants of the original Imperial legions. This is now generally agreed to be a gross misrepresentation of Roman border troops as proven by the fact that several units were transferred to the regional and praesental armies with the designation of ’pseudo-comitatenses’ - thus illustrating that such troops were not always or irretrievably tied to the local farming communities. Limitanei were in fact light-armed border troops designed to patrol along the limes, scout into the barbaricum and defend the hard-points of the Roman military and civilian structures which studded the frontiers. They acted principally as border guards and militia able to contain and prevent low-scale raiding or penetration of the limes.

Behind the limitanei stood the regional field armies under the command of a Comes and usually stationed near or within the main civilian centres deep in the province. These troops were disciplined regulars consisting of Roman units and federate barbarians. The bulk of the mobile field armies comprised of such men. Their function was to intercept and destroy the invading barbarian tribes through large-scale operations designed to either force a battle in the field or prevent foraging and so starve out the ill-equipped and often booty-laden enemy. Behind the Comitatenses stood the large praesental armies usually under the direct command of the emperor or an equally prestigious imperial figure.

The actual defensive structures of the limes thus worked as follows, according to Luttwak: the limes either in its manifestation as a river boundary or a solid stone or turf vallum impeded barbarian penetration but could never physically stop it. It would however allow the limitanei time to prepare defensive actions which included moving populations and food stocks into secure defended sites. The barbarians would then turn aside from such refuges and move deeper into the interior for ‘soft’ targets. This exacerbated their supply or foraging activities and allowed time for the Roman regional commanders to concentrate not just the field army but also assemble the appropriate troops dispositions to counter-act the specific threat. The main aim then was blockade of major passes and transit points, denial of food and provisions via well-placed defensive castra along the military roads, and carefully targeted harassing operations designed to wear down the enemy, force their surrender, and/or precipitate a major battle. A careful reading of Ammianus Marcellinus and the events leading up to and after the battle of Hadrianople illustrates these tactics in superb detail.

However, with the aftermath of the Gothic eruption into Italy and the sack of Rome, the entire defence-in-depth strategy has been over-thrown. The Goths are simply in too deep and too large in numbers. The regional armies are in disarray or - as in Gaul - embroiled in civil war. The limes are devastated and needing desperate repairs. Crops have been neglected and so food supplies are low, leading to bitter fighting between the Romans and the Goths over what little provisions remain. The entire defence-in-depth strategy has collapsed under the weight of too many incursions across too broad a front.

It is within this chaos that Allobich’s measures stand out and explains why his initial advance into the Alemanni lands was both provocative and also brilliant. It is an irony of history that it coincided with another barbarian migration and ultimately failed.

Raetia Secunda, then, over the Winter of 412/13 AD, is in a position where Allobich has upgraded the remaining Limitanei units of the old III Italica into a regular ‘modern’ legion and left the long run of the limes along the Danube and the old Agri Decumantes denuded of static troops. He has in effect concentrated all his units into a single regional army centred on Augusta Vindelicorum. He must have been aware that he simply did not have enough troops left to main the limes as it was designed to be and pulled back his forces to concentrate them. Raetia Secunda, then, is an inviting target for barbarian raiders or hostile tribes but when we look at the situation in more detail it becomes apparent that the Alemanni are in no position to make war on Rome and the Burgundians are far too strong for any limes to hold then anyway. Allobich’s apparent abandoning of the limes strategy is in fact a brutal piece of realpolitik.

With the first snowmelt of Spring coming early, Augusta Vindelicorum received a welcome convoy of weapons and armour from the imperial fabrica at Mediolanum, along with urgent news from the emperor himself. It is within this context that Manuscript E resumes in more detail as Allobich absorbs the imperial orders from Honorius . . .)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Fifth Consilium

(Spring 413 AD moves quickly into the Summer months and the start of the proper campaigning season. The two cavalry vexillations under the Magister Militum per Gallias occupy Castra Regina and its environs, patrolling along the Danubian limes in conjunction with the riparienses patrols, and also begin to marshal provisions for the coming months. At Augusta Vindelicorum, the two Companion legions are dispersed over the limes which form the frontier of the broken ground between the upper reaches of both the Rhine and the Danube - the old Agri Decumantes - but remain clustered in large detachments for security. Allobich, together with Faustinus and Posthumus Dardanus, confer daily on reports from Felix and the rest of the empire, while the province as a whole gradually begins to knit itself together; sowing crops, ploughing the fallow land, repairing the supply depots, rebuilding the post-houses, tending the herds of cattle and sheep, etc. Little barbarian activity is reported and despite the chaos enveloping Gaul, Hispania and Italy, Raetia remains somewhat secure. But it is a precarious security and always somewhat of an illusion. High Summer shatters that illusion.)

. . . The acts we feared came upon us in the middle of the Summer months. It was not the Alemanni nor the Burgundians, who seemed only to drift eastwards north of the Danube, who threatened our porous limes but the perfidious troops of the British usurper, Constantine. Word came via Felix and his shadowy men that high in the upper reaches of the Rhine limes, Roman forces were re-investing the ruined limes castra. The glitter of arms was seen upon the crumbling walls and along the old turf ramparts. Soon we all knew that the Constantinians had seized the lands south and west of the Alemanni runs now that Suomar was cowed by the Burgundian hordes.



Allobich was fired by this news and ordered the infantry units to re-assemble on the provincial capital with all haste. The town councillors were alarmed by the movement of the enemy and divined that this was the initial thrust into the soft over-belly of the Italies. They petitioned the Magister Equitum to safeguard Augusta Vindelicorum as per the rescript of the emperor and he took all pains to allay their fears. Orders were dispatched to Ulfilas and the cavalry to enact a crossing of the Danube in force and proceed with all haste across the old Alemanni lands west and north of Argentoratum, with the view to flanking the Constantinian troops now re-entrenching the Rhine limes.

Days passed as the ordines of the two legions re-assembled into the town under their Ducenarii and then word came to us from our scouts that the Magister Militum per Gallias was deep into the barbaricum and moving westwards with ease. Suomar was content to remain behind his walls and the Burgundians, it seems, had drifted ever deeper away from the limes. Allobich sent word back not to trust either the Alemanni or the Burgundians as each may be now in the employ of the men of Constantine. The omens, however, seemed good as slowly our two legions arrayed themselves within the walls of Augusta.



Felix, ever elusive like a manes of the dead, sent word back via the monotone Saxon, Ufwine, that the Constantinians were commanded by a certain Gaius Macrinus, and that under him were many units of foederates and regular Roman troops from the lower Rhine limes and the distant tracts of the Britons. He estimated a force numbering in the thousands but was as yet unable to give detailed accounts. Days slid past and then on one dark night, with a hollow moon frosting the old buildings and the walls of our town, the Saxon appeared slumped at the north gate across his small Gallic pony. Blood oozed from a dozen wounds and his right hand gripped a short Frankish axe which he refused to let go.

He was carried in secret to Allobich and only myself and a Jewish doctor attended to him. Lighted tapers threw a mottled glow over his pallid features as this Saxon unburdened his words, which he had fought so hard to bring to us - and their import stunned all three of us into silence. His death as his wounds sprang open and gouted blood across the floor was a merciful release for him. We three stood above his twisted corpse and only the mute anger of betrayal lurked in our eyes. Vowing mighty oaths, we carried the body of the loyal Saxon out into the night and disposed of him with a much dignity as we could muster without betraying our purpose.

The next morning, as the soldiers of the III Italica assembled in the Field of Mars beyond the town walls, Allobich stood before them upon a turf dais and held aloft the Frankish axe like the fasces of old. He bade the soldiers gaze upon the blood which encrusted its dull and splintered metal, asking them if Roman honour would leave this weapon unavenged? Should he who had wielded this in the defence of Rome perish without his blood avenged? Was Roman honour so easily mocked? The men of the III, all descended from ancient bloodlines of Roman soldiers back to the time of Augustus himself roared back their indignation and called out for the blood of those who had defiled Roman honour. They clashed their swords against their shields, raised the old ‘barritus’ war-cry, and surged about the turf dais in anger. Allobich drink in their fury and then without a pause tossed the gore-clotted axe into the hands of the startled Ducenarius, Agricola, and bade him strike off the head of the Tribune, John the Pannonian. I swear that no plan had been made in secret to this officer who had braved the barbaricum to bring his survivors into Raetia - that only myself, Allobich and the doctor only knew of this man’s perfidy, but it was without a moment’s hesitation, and before even John himself could divine the import of Allobich’s words, that the axe flashed in a high arc and then the Tribune’s head span into the mud at his feet.

Allobich held all our eyes then and elevated Agricola to the command of the III and bade the men gaze upon their avenger. A score of officers, all cronies of John, started forward, hands on swords - but the Magister caused them to pause with his next words. Words which repeated the Saxon’s dying speech and caused all about the corpse of John the Pannonian to spit upon his bloodied body in disgust, even the officers who had shared his wine in the past.

Allobich gestured wide across the barbaricum to where Ulfilas and the two cavalry vexillations were roving and told them all that the Magister Militum per Gallias had taken the troopers across the Rhine into the Gauls against all orders with the intent of joining up with the Patrician at Lugudunum to smash the Constantinians. Ulfilas had betrayed his emperor’s orders, betrayed Raetia, and betrayed them all to death at the hands of the barbarians now that the province was denuded of its cavalry. John the Pannonian knew about the perfidy as did Rutilla for Ufwine had intercepted messengers between all three of them. Messages which revealed their plan to abandon the Raetias to the British usurper in exchange for gold and office in the new empire of the Patrician, Constantius

These words drove the men of the III mad with rage and as one they burst from the Field of Mars and ransacked the town until Rutilla was dragged from hiding among the slaves and torn to pieces before the eyes of the astounded officers of the Senior Lions. Manutius gained the mantle of the legion’s Tribune in his place. Others were slain in the aftermath but I will draw a veil over such carnage lest I besmirch the name of good men.



(Ulfilas’ betrayal signalled the end of the détente between the Roman forces stationed in Raetia and was the principle cause of the horrors which followed.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Sixth Consilium

(There is some confusion in the records regarding the sequence of events which now unfolded in the light of Ulfilas betrayal. We can be reasonably sure that the late Summer months saw the two cavalry vexillations move rapidly across Alemanni land, over the Rhine frontier, and then into the eastern reaches of the lands ruled by the forces under Constantine. The patrician, Constantinus, is concentrating his forces at Lugudunum, north of Arelate, in preparation for an advance in force northwards to, one presumes, finish off the usurper’s remaining troops and so finally bring the Gallic Diocese back under imperial control. With this in mind, we can conceive of the Magister Militum per Gallias’ advance westwards from Raetia into Germania Prima as a politically motivated attempt to support Constantinus’ final campaign to the detriment of both Allobich and the specific orders of the emperor. It is entirely possible that Ulfilas is operating under secret orders from the Patrician who himself is playing a wider political game which involves Honorius himself.)

(It is certain that the forces under Constantine and his son Constans are taken utterly by surprise. The sudden arrival of Roman cavalry from the east into the flank of the usurping forces throws everything into disarray. Late Summer now sees a dual pronged Roman attack on the usurper, one moving north up from Lugudunum and one from the east and the lands of Germania Prima.)

(Allobich, in a vigorous move typical of his character, engineers the removal of all of Ulfilas’ perceived supporters which is triggered by the murder of the two legionary commanders, John and Rutilla, and then sends dispatches south through the alpine passes to Mediolanum and Ravenna. We know that Bishop Faustinus is imprisoned by the soldiers of Allobich but have no extant sources to described exactly on what charges. Posthumus Dardanus, another colleague of Constantinus, and now the Praeses
Of Raetia Secunda, remains in his post and is thus exonerated from the betrayal.)

(We must admit that in the patch-work politics and back-stabbing which characterised the final years of the Roman Empire in the West, it is not entirely impossible that Constantinus is in fact manoeuvring to make a play for the imperial purple and is using Allobich to discredit Honorius in Ravenna. It is equally possible that Honorius himself through Faustinus has ordered Ulfilas to abandon Allobich and Raetia in a deliberate move to undermine the Magister Equitum, who is perhaps too close to the seat of imperial authority and thus a threat. That, in other words, the entire Raetia Secunda mandate is a set up. We will never know for sure. What is certain is that Allobich surprised everyone and again did the one thing no-one was expecting.)

(Late in Summer, with the campaigning season drawing to a close, he marched the entire Roman force out of Augusta Vindelicorum and deep into the barbaricum in pursuit of the errant cavalry.)



. . . The deep golden light of Summer with its tang of apples and honey was fading now. Again, the harsh lands of the barbaricum surrounded us with hostile woods and twisting tracks which seemed always to tempt us into an unwary ambush. The Alemanni remained hidden, though, behind their stout walls and palisades, and so we covered many miles as the days filed slowly past. Without our cavalry, we were dependant on the few men of Felix to guide and protect us and he worked tirelessly to achieve this aim. In two wide columns, the III Italica and the Senior Lions advanced onwards towards the Rhine limes through the uncultivated lands of the barbarians. Daily, Allobich, all anger and fiery purpose now, consulted with Agricola and Manutius over the routes they had taken from their castra across this land so that at least some knowledge guided us. All remained quiet, however, and for that we must thank the providence of God and His Mercy . . .

(Late in Autumn, the Roman Comitatus reaches the outer zone of the east bank of the Rhine. They have travelled long distances through barbarian territory in pursuit of Ulfilas and have left Raetia Secunda unguarded as a result. It is not hard to fathom Allobich’s reasoning here, however. Without the cavalry supporting the legions, his forces in the province would have been rendered effectively static and useless. Allobich needs those two cavalry vexillations as a city needs walls. So we can imagine that his gamble was to intercept the Roman cavalry under Ulfilas and convince them of the need to switch allegiance and return their standards back to his control. What happened next, as an early snow fell over northern Gaul and Germany, only added to the confusion of all involved.)

. . . Ahead of the main column, seated upon his Hunnish mount, Allobich spotted the riders advancing out of the dense woods before even his guards had seen them. They were Roman light cavalry, holding only the scutum, or large shield, for protection and were galloping in haste up to the brow of the hill. A veil of thin snow was falling softly over the frost-baked ground, and I heard a staff officer near me swear in surprise that these riders were from the Senior Honorian Horse. Instantly, a guard sprang up about the Magister but he contemptuously dismissed them even as the riders, a dozen tired men, reined in and leapt to the ground at his feet. Their leader, a Biarchus called Severus, gabbled out his tale and we could only listen on in wonder as his words fell about us almost as thickly as the snow.

Ulfilas had brought the two vexillations over the Rhine limes at the old stone bridge at Augusta Rauricum and so into the province of Germania Prima. There was much contention among the troopers for they all wondered on why they were moving so far from Raetia Secunda and the mandate of the emperor but the Magister Militum per Gallias had liberally sowed gold among the officers and so had bought an uneasy peace. Five days west along the main road, the cavalry column had topped a rise and below spread out in battle array were the forces Gaius Macrinus, all eager to confront the imperials and cut them down in defeat. Even as the officers had turned to order the standards and bark out commands to the rank and file, Ulfilas had galloped past in alarm and ordered the entire column to retreat back across the bridge at Augusta Rauricum.





Allobich started up at that. He demanded that this Biarchus repeat his words and this Severus said again that Ulfilas had turned the cavalry about and retreated them eastwards back across the Rhine into the barbaricum. This ‘Little Wolf’ had shown his true colours in the face of the enemy and as a result, the two vexillations were now south and west of the legions forces here. Some days ago, men of Felix had infiltrated the columns on the move and whispered about how the loyal infantry were even now only days from them eager to save them from the weak temper of Ulfilas. I saw Agricola grin then and urge Allobich to march south to join the cavalry units and oust this intemperate Goth from his command. Regain the cavalry, turn eastwards, and once again secure Raetia Secunda, the Tribune of the III Italica urged. Others about him supported Agricola in his words - and then Severus re-affirmed that the men of the Senior Honorian Horse and the Equites Raetianii Passerentiaci would as one throw their support back to the legitimate Roman commander.

Allobich smiled into their eagerness then and stretched his arms wide into the glittering snow. He cried out then and wondered on all their naivety and foolish blindness. Did they not see that Ulfilas’ stupid and vainglorious pride had brought them all an unlooked for triumph? That the retreating vexillations in all their haste had opened a door to Roman victory in the most unlooked for direction? His laughter echoed around the crown of the hill as we all stared at him in amazement.

That very next morning, we marched in battle-array westwards to Augusta Rauricum and the Rhine bridge.





(Eight days later, on the Ides of November, with early snows lying all about, the men of the III Italica and the Senior Lions engaged the Constantinian Comitatus under Gaius Macrinus, some miles westwards of the old stone bridge. Battle was joined.)

(This represents the ending of the first Book of Manuscript E, concerned as it had been with documenting in detail the orders and manoeuvres of the Roman authority in the province of Raetia Secunda. Book II and Book III covers the consequences of Allobich’s daring thrust in Gaul and the final fall of the province and those committed to defending it. Both Escher and myself are now in the process of translating and annotating the final drafts of Book II which we expect to publish early in December some time after the 3rd or thereabouts. We appreciate all critical comments made so far and look forward to even more debate once Book II emerges onto the scholarly field.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Winter, province of Raetia, 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

Consulships of the Most Illustrious Flavius Lucius and Heraclianus

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 Book II of Manuscript E. The formal tone echoing the opening section of Book I in an attempt, one wonders, to underline the official nature of the writings and stamp some legitimacy on the proceedings in the wake of Ulfilas and the desertion of the two cavalry vexillations. Book II is different from the earlier writings in that more interpolations pepper its records and both Escher and myself see in this development both a need to vindicate with external commentary the harsh decisions which were forced upon Allobich and his staff at Augusta Vindelicorum and also to shed light upon events which at the time could not be elucidated clearly for political reasons.)

(Book II begins with ‘Virgil’ and the Comitatus deep in the province of Germania Prima, having made a surprise move across the Rhine limes from the barbaricum into Constantinian-held Roman territory. What became known as the Battle of Mons Arcades took place late in November, 413 AD, after what seems to have been some days of adroit manoeuvring by the Raetian Comitatus around and between the Constantinian forces led by Gaius Macrinus and a certain Basilicus who seems to have commanded the Limitanei troops along this stretch of the Rhine border. Clearly, Basilicus, a Dux under Constantine III, held the superior command and co-ordinated the two Roman columns which tried to outflank and pin Allobich’s troops. The latter, in a superb piece of strategic cunning, seems to have enticed Macrinus towards him with the lure of battle only to then fall back into the rough hills which fringed the Rhine river. In the confusion which followed, as both Macrinus and Basilicus jockeyed for position, the Raetian Romans appeared to have tempted Macrinus in a false direction even as they brought the Rhine Dux deeper into the rough hills. Four days after the initial confrontation, in November, much to the Dux’s dismay, Allobich turned his men around and pounced upon the rebel Roman troops along the undulating ridges of Mons Arcades.)

(While many Roman historians have dwelt upon the horrors of civil war and decried its waste, the Battle of Mons Arcades is particularly poignant in that while the slaughter took place barbarians were pillaging and destroying not only Gaul and Hispania but had also crossed the Mediterraneum and were now beginning a particularly savage rampage of the rich breadbasket of the African provinces. The ultimate results, as Peter Heather demonstrates in his excellent work ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’, contributed decisively to the end of the empire in the West. Here, as Roman fought Roman in a bloody civil war, the fabric of the Roman state was already being unwoven. ’Virgil’ himself acknowledges this state of affairs when he writes about the Constantinian troops especially. Agricola, the newly-promoted Tribune of the III Italica Legio also records his reaction to fighting fellow Romans in the shadow of the barbarian destruction - something he has already alluded to in his report regarding the death of his Praepositus, Tertius.)





. . . Our Magister Equitum, in the wisdom of his grace, allowed the Constantinians to follow hard upon our heels after we offered them battle in the lands west of the Rhine. In the days which followed, as we marched in cunning steps in the hills near the Rhine, their forces dispersed in confusion until, at last, Allobich turned like a sphinx and pounced upon the straggled lines of the Dux, Basilicus. On the slopes of Mons Arcades, in a bitter mist which caught at the eyes like nails, and in the shroud of falling snow, we arrayed our lines and waited for their advance up towards us. The Goth lined up the legions in battle with the heavy infantry to the front and the light troops and archers to the rear. The III Italica formed the right wing and the Senior Lions the left. To the rear and on the right, waited the Palatine soldiers with Allobich and his Gothic guard. The snow fell in heavy sheets over us and muffled the shouts of the Ducenarii and the Centenarii to dress ranks and close the files. It was cold but the heat of our blood was up and now it was time to show these betrayers what it was to be a true Roman under the eyes of the old gods. As the men settled down into their lines, we heard a soft rhythmic tread emerge from the veils of snow and slowly we could see - as if emerging from a dream - the faint outlines of their own lines and standards moving uphill towards us. In the distance, echoes of our own Latin commands came back to our ears and for a moment it seemed as if we were facing mirrors of ourselves in the narcissism of war. I trembled then at the horror of what was happening as we drew our weapons and readied them to slaughter fellow Romans . . .

(The Tribune, Agricola, commander of the III Italica Legio, contributes the next section which deals mainly with the action on the right wing.)



. . . We felt the coldness through our scale and mail corselets despite the warmth of the thick Gallic cloaks. Some of us had managed to stuff straw or woollen rags under the rims of our helmets to stave off the icy nails clawing at our heads. Our breath hung in the air like tattered standards. Everything was gray and misty. As we formed up along the brow of the hill, with the Senior Lions off to our left, and Allobich with the reserves behind us, it felt like we had strayed into that grey underworld the Celts from Gaul and Britain speak so much of: Annwn, or ‘antumnos’. I wondered then on the ankou or demons that prowled in that deep and dark place which even the cuccullati guardians could not keep back.



A soft rhythmic tread in the snow halted my reverie and my gaze fell upon the blanket of falling snow before us. It seemed to pulse as though alive and then slowly dim forms emerged from it as if shaped by the ice and the snow into human figures; gray caryatids or statues which advanced towards us in implacable silence. I glanced along the line and saw our Raetian legionaries shift their feet and brace themselves behind the oval shields. Endless snow fell across our sight but now the tread of the approaching soldiers wrapped us up and swept away our fancies. By my side, the Draco glistened with snow and ice like a beast from the pages of Homer or Xanthipicus, its teeth all shards of white. In my breast, I felt the old rage begin to rise but checked it with the discipline of my years and experience. I was not a line officer now, able to stab and slay with the men, but a Tribune of the III Italica and although I stood on foot with my legion, I was there to direct and order before all else.



Then the light rose slightly and the snow fell away from a thick blanket into a slight gauze and there before us were the ranks of the Romans of Constantine; Romans who laboured to defend the Gauls and the Britains from the barbarians and in doing so also sought to drag down the Augustus himself. I looked long and hard at these men as they toiled through the snow and saw old veterans from the Saxon Shore who had manned the crumbling castra across the Belgic Straights, all weary now, and young pups from the ancient Sixth at Eboracum, that city where emperors had been proclaimed, and where now the last remnants of Roman rule were being squabbled over by upstarts, and there among the centre of the line were my old companions of the Rhine limes - the men of the Cohorts who had defended the limes against the Burgundians and the Alans and the Vandals in that great dark Winter which had seen the river itself freeze over and the hordes come pouring across like Fate itself. I looked at these men, driven now in desperation to revolt from lawful Roman rule and pledge allegiance to a British usurper, and my old rage faded away like the falling snow. These men were honourable Romans fighting to protect their families from the barbarians and had cleaved only to those who could promise that protection - Constantine and his kin. These Romans, all Limitanei from the Rhine and the Saxon Shore and the great Vallum itself, were marching now uphill towards our Raetians and all I could see in their narrowed eyes was the awful pit of hopelessness.

They closed to missile range and then even as I shouted out ‘Silentium. Nemo demittat, nemo antecedat signum’, I heard my own words echo back at me from the opposing ranks and a shiver went down my spine. The air above my head became blackened with arrows and javelins, like angry serpents hissing back and forth. I was glad then for the cold armour of my corselet and my helmet. As the barbed missiles sped overhead, I involuntarily glanced behind me to the ranks of the light troops - the skirmishers and sagitarii - and found myself searching for the familiar faces of my Rhine comrades who had endured that awful retreat from the river to finally find refuge in Raetia. All had refused to don the armour of the front line legionaries and now remained alert and nimble in the rear four lines - limitanei to the last. Faces appeared through the mist and snow all along the line - old Pacatus with the scar along his brow, the disgraced Frank chieftain, Alardinic, all garbed now in Roman manners and clothes, the Syrian Melanus, far from the shimmering deserts, and there, on the far flank, his arms raised high firing his curved bow, Domitius, the last of a family gens stretching back to days of Marcus Aurelius and the old IV Flavian ‘Ever Lucky’ Legio, with its ancient emblem of the lion. A small part of me smiled as I realised that now he fought for the III which the old veterans whisper used to hold aloft the stork as its symbol. More missiles feathered the snowy air and then the lines crashed together and tumult enveloped my mind . . .

(‘Virgil’, it seems, has acted somewhat in the manner of an editor for the next section of Manuscript E contains notes from the Tribune, Manutius, commander of the Gallic Senior Lions. At some point, as the armies collided, the mist and falling snow evaporated, with the clouds vanishing like phantoms. This was obviously seen by many as a good omen.)



. . . As if God himself blew the snow away, the clouds parted and sunlight fell around us in great splashes of golden light, burnishing the ice at our feet. The ground trembled and then the Constantinians were upon our shields, pressing hard with swords into the hunched down figures of our men. The curve of the slope aided us, however, and with a measured shout the dracos dipped forward and echoes of ‘Percute’ rippled along the lines. Being on the downward lip of the brow, I could not see my old friend, Agricola, ever the introspect, or his men but I could hear their shouts and the clang of arms. Before us, fought the stubborn men of the Britains and the Germans, now so far from their old limes, and here and there I recognised an old face from the days before the Rhine crossing in that awful Winter when the river froze over and the barbarians poured across.. I knew Agricola would ponder on this fact with a philosophical heart but I am made of a different cloth and yelled my encouragement to my men as we strove to push them back down the slippery slopes. Crimson flowers sprouted against the snow and we heaved our lines forwards over the dead and the dying. I tried not to look down then at the torn cloaks and emblems of our fellow Romans . . .







. . . The whole line of our front - both legions - shivered and then surged forwards and by my side, I saw our Magister, Allobich, tense and raise himself up in his saddle, all the better to survey the battle. Now that the sun was blazing down on us all, throwing sparks and shards of fire from the helmets and shield rims, our hearts seemed to uplift with the joy of battle, and even I, a lowly notary by trade, felt my blood quicken and my pulse race with fire. There, on our right, the lines of the III Italica moved steadily forward down the through the slush of the slope. Cries of mercy and despair seemed to hang about them like empty banners. Behind us, the soldiers of the decimated Palatine legion stiffened in expectation and I could see their officers staring hard at Allobich, awaiting the orders to advance. Over to the far left, down the slight curve of the hill, the men of the Senior Lions were also advancing slowly and in victory as the Constantinians seemed to melt before them like the snow had done.





A mad laugh startled me and then I saw Allobich gesture savagely to his standard-bearer and then goad his Hunnish horse forwards. Around him, careered his Gothic guards, now all laughing too in that mad way barbarians do when the bloodlust is upon them. The ground trembled as together they charged forwards and through our lines into the heart of the crumbling enemy. I looked up then at Sol and gave thanks for his blessing on this most auspicious day . . .





. . . I urged the line officers and the file closers to move the lines downhill after the fleeing men. Thunder and shouts enveloped me and I had time to glance behind to see that our Magister was charging his guard cavalry towards us and the retreating men of the Constantinians. I urgently signalled the ‘part-ranks’ and the men smartly opened up to let the horse gallop through. Allobich grinned at me, his gold hair all bunched up under his jewel-encrusted helmet, as he swept past in a cloud of snow and dirt - and then they were among the routing troops even as the Palatine soldiers jogged out over the far right to cut off their retreat. My arm wearied then of cutting down Roman and I sheathed my dulled spatha and wondered on Manutius and his men . . .





(The Battle of Mons Arcades was to all intents and purposes a rout. It seems that Allobich had been astute enough to outmanoeuvre the more disciplined men under Macrinus and instead lure the worn-out Rhine and British Limitanei under the Dux, Basilicus into a one-sided battle. We summarise the remaining words of ‘Virgil’ here as his rhetoric gets the batter of him and he adds little in the way of fact but it seems that neither the right wing nor the left wing was able to overcome the Raetian lines and that they soon melted away. Allobich’s charge deep into the fleeing Romans wrought untold slaughter upon them and in effect decimated what was left of the Constantinian Comitatus. We know from the Gallic Chronicle that the Dux, Basilicus, fell in the rout, caught in a gully and cut down by the Goths of Allobich. The Raetians were victorious on the field of battle in the province of Germania Prima.)







(This account raises some interesting details which both Escher and myself feel add substantially to our knowledge of late Roman history. In the first instance, it has often been found controversial when Vegetius writes that the Roman soldier of his day refrains from wearing armour in battle and complains about its weight. This has often been either dismissed as alarmist exaggeration designed to prove his thesis regarding resurrecting the old legions of the early empire or evidence of the barbarisation of the Roman army via heavy recruitment from the Goths under Theodosius. Agricola’s comments regarding his fellow limitanei soldiers re-enrolling into the III Italica but refusing front-line positions in favour of the rear or skirmishing roles points at a third theory. Namely, that with the decimation of the eastern field army at Hadrianople and the massive upgrading of limitanei units into the Comitatus under the designation of ‘pseudo-comitatenses’ (see Heather’s astute analysis of this statistic - ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’), many of these so-called ‘barbarians’ now in the Roman army were in fact limitanei troops who chose to remain light troops as befitted their training and experience. That, in fact, this was not a weakening of Roman valour but Vegetius’ miscomprehension of why these men refused armour. These men preferred to deploy on the field of battle and across country on operations as they had been used to all those years while protecting the limes of the Empire.)

(The second instance of note is Agricola’s mention of the limitanei from Britain, specifically the Saxon Shore limes and the Vallum limes, no doubt brought over in the original van of Constantine’s assault upon the authority of Honorius. It is somehow regretful to read of these men’s demise in the low hills of Germania Prima so far from home - sentiments which Agricola himself almost seems to echo in his writings. It is a shame that no current battlefield site has been found which approximates Mons Arcades and that this battle must for the foreseeable future remain present only in these writings.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Correction XXIX

(We do not know the precise events which occurred with Ulfilas, the Magister Militum per Gallias, in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Mons Arcades. We do know that the Goth abandoned the two cavalry vexillations in secret and fled westwards with his immediate bucellari guards. At some point, they must have crossed the Rhine, perhaps lower down from Augusta Rauricum, and then proceeded by swift stages to Lugudunum and the assembling Gallic field army under Constantius. It was on this swift flight that the Tribune, Felix, our ‘postmaster’, details one of his reports which we feel appropriate to enter here.)

. . . They were not subtle in their flight from the barbaricum and it was with ease that some of my men were able to track them over the Rhine and into Germania Prima. Ever boastful and vain, this Goth known as ‘little wolf’ used his authority to requisition fresh horses from the public post houses and those few castra still manned by Limitanei in the area. Once into the province, their paced slowed and on not a few nights drunkenness overtook them like a plague. I divined that their route would pass through a small latifundia know as the Villa Alobricius and that Ulfilas would gain a day’s respite there under the enforced hospitality of its owner, Macrus. I made plans accordingly.

A day’s travel north of the villa lies a large wild forest in which legend tells of a Roman defeat some two hundred years ago. It is a tangled forest given over to hunting of the boar and bear. It now plays refuge to a band of bacaudae led by a disgraced Roman Ducenarius known as the ‘Boar’s Head’, no doubt after the military formation of the same name. I sent Cunellus and Brioarius to find this man and his band of brigands. They were not hard to find as superstition alone conceals them in the forests and my two men will have no time for such fool’s stories. This ‘Boar’s Head’ proved amenable to our gold and promises of a pardon and a return to the standards and so on the night in which Ulfilas arrived at the Villa Alobricius we sprang our trap.

The villa’s slaves and freedmen fled as we infiltrated the outer walls and then barred the main gates. The horses we turned loose and then tossed firebrands high onto the thatched roofs of the outer buildings. Fires flared up in the night and, in an drunken stupor, the Goths of Ulfilas blundered out into the inner courtyard, all rough shouts and beery curses. It was then that the bacaudae struck with vengeance. I remained with my men to the rear and encouraged the ‘Boar’s Head’ on to wreak havoc with the men of Ulfilas. As the Goths were being cut down, I saw the Magister Militum per Gallias leave via the roof and jump down onto the ground at the rear of the villa. A dozen men were with him, shielding him with their bodies from our desperate bow-shots. I was able to order the bacaudae near me to give pursuit but it was too late. Ulfilas was able to mount some horses which were nearby and then speed off into the night. It was too dark to pursue and in the confusion of the fighting which still remained much slaughter was still to be effected.

In the dawn light, with the smoke still trailing high into the Winter sky, we found many of the Goths dead about the villa. The leader of the bacaudae also was slain. The owner was distraught but reassurances from myself and promises of much gold mollified his sadness at the destruction of his property. We learned some days later that Ulfilas had reached the city of Lugudunum alive with only seven survivors of his bucellari guards. Rumour has it that the patrician, Constantius, is in a violent rage and has stripped the ‘little wolf’ of his rank and privileges.



(One can only wonder here on the possible ‘what if’ had Felix in fact managed to slay Ulfilas at the Villa Alobricius. Certainly, much bloodshed might have been avoided in the months and years to come as Ulfilas sought to avenge himself upon Allobich for this perceived treachery and the murder of his close-companions.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Seventh Consilium

It was deep in the month of Januarius when the last of the legion ordines assembled again in the decaying streets of Augusta Vindelicorum. A bitter Winter held the province of Raetia Secunda in a deep grip and banks of snow lay piled up in the fossa around the town walls. Cold winds knifed down from the Alpine passes. There was little celebration as the Magister Militum entered the north gate attended by his staff and guards. Even the embrace of our Praeses, Posthumus Dardanus, now working hard to repair the injuries suffered by the province, was formal and distant. The betrayal of Ulfilas and his flight to the patrician at Lugudunum had left a sour taste on all our lips and now distrust hung in the air along with the cold and the wind.

Across the Danube, the barbarians stirred little in the days which followed the return of the Comitatus. Allobich, ever restless, sent the cavalry east along the limes back to winter quarters at Castra Regina under the command of a newly appointed Tribune. Outside our vallum, the heads of the betrayers rotted on poles - John, Rutilla, and a score of lesser officers and notaries. The assembled consilium of the province, headed by our Praeses, was forced to release the Bishop Faustinus, as no evidence other than the dying words of the Saxon Ufwine could be admitted against him. He stood in the great basilica in his black robes like an angel of death and muttered solemn oaths to his innocence but we saw Allobich stir in the curial chair like a man fevered and wondered on the enmity between them. Missives from the imperial court at Ravenna ordered that Faustinus was to remain in the provincial capital to minister to the locals and tend to their religious needs. Palladius revelled in that news and admitted his Christian brother into his fold like a prodigal.

The winter days scrapped past in the slow fall of snow and ice. The live-stock was tended to with hay in the low barns. The grain houses were ventilated from the dampness which rots. Wine casks were laid up in the deep cellars of the rural villas which still remained intact from the depredations those few years ago. The military roads were re-metalled and the post-houses repaired by slaves and those in the legions who still knew the old skills.

It was during this time that Allobich worked tirelessly to drill his men. With the passes snowed in, no supplies could reach us from Mediolanum but thanks to the victory of Mons Arcades, our Magister was now well-provided with arms and equipment once requisitioned from the fabricae of the Gauls. In the short days, under a brittle sun, our Romans drilled in line and file under the stern command of the Ducenarii and Centenarii. Mock battles were staged below the vallum to cheer the townsfolk and revive in them the martial glory that is Rome. Along the limes, the river-patrols moved slowly in the icy waters, ever watchful for the tread of the Aleman or the Goth or the Hun. At night, all along the Danube and the Agri Decumantes, the old castra glowed again with watch-fires and torches like stars in the night - and only a few of us knew with trepidation that no soldiers manned these posts. That the fires were attended by manumitted slaves to give the impression that our soldiers once again guarded the limes; the frontier of Rome, and of civilisation itself.

Was that all we were now? Tiny beacons in the darkness of winter lit only by shadows of true Romans? Beacons that, one by one, were fated to flicker and die, all alone in the night . . .

(This notary remains unclassified and rarely has a voice in Manuscript E but we suspect he was a local Raetian given his use of ‘our’ several times and that he had witnessed personally the destruction of the province by the barbarians which accounts for his pessimistic trait. A trait, alas, not proven wrong.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Eight Consilium

We prayed devoutly through the months as Winter slowly retreated before the unfurling of the leaves and the birthing of the lambs. God’s mercy fell upon us like the sun which crested the sparkling ridges of the mountains around our little plains and we welcomed Spring with relief in our hearts. As our psalms and hymns rang loudly in the basilicas and in the small monastic cells in the high valleys, the snows faded away and the first carts and wagons arrived from over the Alps and the distant provinces of the Ligurian and Aemilian peoples. Olive oil, wool, silk, spices and the hunting dogs of the Hibernians appeared in the markets of Augusta Vindelicorum and Castra Regina; and many remarked that indeed the army alone garnered trade to itself.

The snowmelts made the Danube rise and this also allowed us to gain some respite from the barbarians. Under the watchful eye of Posthumus Dardanus, the province slowly emerged from its winter garb and began the long toil into fertility as crops were sown, the livestock tended, and the returns for taxes calculated. Patrols ranged warily along the limes but all was still and pregnant with the promise of a fine Spring. Blossom filled the air like prayer.

The Magister, ever restless like the wind, interrogated each patrol that came back and daily sent missives out to the Tribune Felix and his iron-eyed men deep in the barbaricum. Word of the events in the Gauls slowly filtered across to us here in this little province: lawlessness was rife with the bacaudae entrenched in the forests and in the high hills; the troops and foederates of Constantine were in disarray after Allobich’s foray across the Rhine limes at Augusta Rauricum and the death of the Dux Basiliscus; the patrician, Constantinus, awaiting more troops from the passes guarding Hispania, remained in Lugudunum and word told that Ulfilas dripped poison in his ear daily. But we were content here in Raetia Secunda. The Danube flowed with the cold waters of the mountains and now flowers were gilding the embankments in splashes of purple, crimson and gold. Easter arrived and all across the province celebrations were held and the people arrayed themselves in their best garments to attend the basilicas. Here, in the basilica of St John, Faustinus held mass and even the Arians among us sang like angels before the glory of God.

It was three days after the last liturgy had been sung in the Easter Triduum, that the dying rider fell in the shadow of the South Gate. His wounds were not martial but instead those of exhaustion while a grim resolve steeled his face even as he was carried, still dusty and caked in sweat, into the basilica of the consilium. An imperial rod tumbled from his hands, its ivory length and gold caps all dirty and streaked with mud. His sun-burnt face and olive skin proclaimed him a Roman of ancient stock and his scars spoke of service under the standards of the legions. Allobich arrived in haste pulling his great military cloak off to throw it over the rider. Others swiftly assembled as this rider choked out his words and then tossed to our feet a vellum scroll. Faustinus kneeled beside him and blessed him even as this man passed away, his face falling back into shadow and anonymity.

All eyes fell upon the Magister then as he picked up the scroll and unwound it by the light of a high window. Posthumus Dardanus, Agricola, Manutius and a score of lesser officers and decurions waited tensely until the Magister Equitum turned to us and told us in cold, hard, words that His Most Sacred Dominus, Flavius Honorius, was slain, cut down before the walls of Arretium while attempting to bring succour to the people there. Our emperor was dead and the empire tottered now like a rudderless galley heaving in a storm which encompassed the horizon.



(It is, of course, that fateful date of April 14th, 414 AD, according to modern reckoning, in which Honorius was slain while moving from Ravenna to Arretium with only his personal bodyguard of Candidati troops. Manuscript E gives no details regarding these events - no doubt because it had little need to. All was obvious to those who compiled and read those notes and addendums. However, it is worth quoting in full from the Breverarium of Victor Coruncanius given the light it now sheds on developments and personae in our document. His narrative forms the only extant source of the death of Honorius - all later historians and compilers citing his text - and is generally believed to be an accurate description of the events, even if it does elide over some of the more questionable decisions behind them. Our extract begins at Book XII, iii -

. . . During the consulship of Honorius and Theodosius, word came from the patrician Constantinus in the Gauls that aid was desperately needed at Arretium, north of Rome. The Senators and high imperial officers at Ravenna counselled the emperor not leave the marshy sanctuary of the city and travel south into the heartland of the Italies, now ruined by the Gothic hordes and the lawlessness of those traitors in Rome itself and its surrounding towns. They argued that it was better to send his esteemed generals with seasoned foederates or palatine troops - men skilled in war and the arts of ambuscade. The emperor, after a divine dream, demurred from their counsel and instead ordered his own guard forth so that he could ride in haste to succour the citizens of Arretium and so aid his patrician in the Gauls. (1)

So it was that Honorius accompanied by his bodyguard, commanded by a noble Roman called Maxentius, travelled south from Ravenna into the heartland of the peninsula. Much ruin met his eyes and he wept untold tears at the suffering of his subjects and the devastation of his realm. Word came to him that the Goth barbarians were ravaging the east coast and the cities which girdled it and also that Rome itself, now sundered from the authority of the emperor after its calamitous sack, was in tumult with rebels and mock emperors claiming authority with little shards of purple cloth in their hands. The Senate House remained empty and desolate with leaves and dirt decorating its marble floors. (2)

Near the ancient woods known as the Cloak of Silvanus, a day’s ride from Arretium, the guard of Honorius was forewarned that the Goths had marched west from the coast and were now ravaging the lands and villas near the town itself. In alarm, for the emperor had been told that the route south was secure, Honorius ordered all speed to be made for Arretium and to travel through the Cloak in all secrecy. Maxentius argued against such a route but was overruled and so the column turned off the road and into the dark woods.

Here the Goths in their thousands fell upon the emperor and slaughtered his guards with impunity so that only he alone and two of his companions were able to fight free and make for Arretium in desperation. Near the city, it was discovered that the bulk of the Gothic hordes were besieging the walls with mantlets and towers and that already sections of the stone defences were crumbling from the assault. Pinned by Goths on all sides, the Roman emperor resolved to fight with his remaining guards and Aurelianus, praying to the mercy of God and his only begotten Son. It was then that Jovius, commander of the city’s garrison divined the plight of the emperor and resolved to lead his legionaries out in a futile effort to avert his doom. So it was that on the Kalends of April that Honorius fell on the field of battle even as his soldiers fought and died to reach him, with Jovius himself cut down in sight of the sacred emperor. Arretium was sacked by the Goths and brutally put to the sword. Thus fell the youngest son of Theodosius and with him the last of the Theodosian house in the West. (3)

1 - The entire reign of Honorius was characterised by weakness and vacillation. Academics and scholars have puzzled for centuries on why at the last this young emperor who had rarely left the sanctuary of Ravenna should now vacate it with only his bodyguard to bring support to Arretium. Much has been made of the fact that Constantinus himself seemed to urge on the young emperor and that perhaps some amount of shame after the sacking of the Eternal City was now at work in him. They see this as a failed attempt at redemption. Others, seeing in Constantinus a more manipulative heart, concoct the idea that the whole episode was a cunning plot which the Goths were involved in. Durry, in particular, argues that the patrician planned to remove Honorius and allowed knowledge of his movements to fall into the hands of the Goths so as to facilitate this. The Cloak of Silvanus was thus an ambush which failed in its immediate aim but which forced Honorius and his three guards to make a break for Arretium little knowing that it was already besieged. The end was inevitable. Durry presents a convincing account but it was one which always lacked any real evidence and so remained largely conjectural. Manuscript E now lends more credence to his hypothesis.

2 - Arretium remains alone of the cities in central Italy loyal to the house of Theodosius and so is crucial to maintaining support for the armies further north in the Gauls and beyond the Alps. It is not difficult to fathom the patrician’s strategic aims here but the fact that no one in Ravenna supports his request for the emperor himself to travel there raises the interesting dilemma that suspicion was already rife in the imperial capitol regarding Constantinus’ designs. Their failure to prevent Honorius from leaving is a sad testament to how much the young emperor trusted his patrician. A trust which even extended to making his own sister, Galla Placidia, the wife of Constantinus.

3- ‘Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it’ shorn of its Shakespearian irony would be an epitaph worthy of Honorius. The last few days of his life were unlike anything he had ever experienced in the cocooned world of the imperial court and it must be admitted that despite his flaws as an emperor who had presided over the sack of Rome his last acts were worthy of any emperor who had worn the purple. Michael Hornden’s novel ‘Twilight’s Gleaming’ (Fontana ‘87) which fictionalises those last days is worth reading for the sense of the desperation and panic which must have gripped those few Romans who had fought free of the Cloak of Silvanus, only to find Arretium entombed, as it were, in barbarians. We take the luxury of quoting in full the fictional trooper Aurelianus’ account taken from pp. 167-8 of the ‘95 reprint:








‘We were all arrayed in a tight column with the emperor, god bless his soul, up front riding with Maxentius like a real veteran. I don’t give two olives for what those perfumed eunuchs say about him in the marbled basilicas. With us, he was a soldier like young Julian had been or the stories tell of Hadrian. We rode hard for the fringes of the Cloak, knowing that the Goths would be hard on our heels and keen to capture a prize such as Honorius would present. Within heartbeats, we were in amongst the outer trees and away from the old Roman road. It was then that they poured out of those trees like a plague - thousands of barbarians, all howling and cheering each other one in their crude tongue.







In a flash, we divined that it was a trap. The trees closed in around us even as the Goths ran towards us, their spear-tips glinting in the half-light. Then Maxentius, our old dear friend and commander, smiled once at the startled emperor and then ordered the standards to dip forwards. Our horses surged ahead and we rode straight towards the milling mass of barbarians. We knew at once that speed was our only ally and so Maxentius hoped to punch through their centre - a tactic they would least expect, thinking that we would rally to defend the emperor. And it almost worked, too, god damn his soul, it almost worked! Oh, how we fought then as we lowered our kontos points and charged into their ranks. Young Scipio at my side was wrenched out of his saddle by a spinning axe. Old lame Pretorius surrendered to his killing lust and leapt from his saddle into a knot of snarling faces. A single horse, Julianus’, I think, remained upright, smashing her hooves into the skulls and shields about her long after her rider had been torn from her and riven into bloody bits. Onwards we rode but the numbers of the Goths and the wood itself seemed to always hinder us.







Maxentius cursed then in his fluid Hispanic dialect and quickly ordered us to fall back and re-group. As one, we wheeled about and with the emperor in our centre we cantered back to where we had first seen the Goths. We rallied into a long line, even as they poured out of the Cloak in their thousands and seemed to spill across the grass like a flood. A third of our number had fallen now and I looked to Maxentius to see that a broken spear haft protruded from his left side. Blood flowed in a sickly stream down his leg. Our emperor, seeing this wound and noting the numbers of our fallen, urged his horse forward to face the line and our weary faces. His smile was forced, that I could see, and sweat pricked his young brow, but his words touched us as only the words of gods can do - he spoke of Rome and an idea so slight you could crush it on your hand if you could but catch it. An idea so precious there were those who even now sought to drag it down into blood and ruin. An idea only whispered in the wind by those brave enough to think beyond the tribe and the ties of blood. That idea was the peace Rome brought to all. The Pax Romana which was the envy of all who thought only of greed and gold and revenge. And nowhere was this idea more cherished and more envied than when those who valued it gave up their lives in defending it as we were about to do now. He looked into our eyes then, this young emperor, son of the great Theodosius, his lips trembling with fear but one hand grasped resolutely around his spatha, and then he wondered on how many emperors of Rome had ever known the privilege of dying in the company of true Romans? We roused ourselves at those words and grinned at his bravura - so fragile and so fleeting - and we shouted out that the honour was all ours for he was our emperor - an emperor and Augustus of Rome!





Without more ado, Honorius wrenched the reins of his horse about and charged towards the Goths, his sword held high and shining in the light like a beacon. As one, we followed our emperor to our doom. I alone saw Maxentius crumple from his saddle and fall to the grass already dead but I did not heed his death for now another led us into the bloody jaws of battle and to us he was Rome incarnate. How many did we kill amongst those trees, you ask? Sooner count the tears on a face or the feathers of an angel’s wings. It did not matter how many we felled for always more rose to fill their loss. Around us, horses and men littered the ground in a crimson ruin and one by one we fell into that winepress never to rise again. I found myself alongside my emperor and used my battered scutum to shield him from the worst of the fighting. How young he looked and yet upon his face rested a serene calm. His arm rose and fell with cruel precision and yet to look upon him was to look upon mercy, it seemed to my old eyes, a mercy which taught that death was only the beginning not the end. I thought then that around his head glowed the great golden pinion wings of the eagle of Rome itself, shining like a halo, but of course I was merely blurry-eyed from sweat.











Then there was a lull and we, Honorius, myself and the Briton, Appolicius, reined back. The Goths had pulled back for a moment, stunned by our ferocity, and in that brief hesitation Honorius signalled to us pull free. As one, we gave rein and galloped out of their tangled lines, triumphant in our flight. In a heartbeat, we were out of the trees and racing across the low hills towards distant Arretium and sanctuary. We were alive! God had blessed us with his mercy in our darkest moment and the emperor would live to carry the standard of Rome high into the darkness and banish it from this world! I could almost hear the crowds of Arretium cheering our arrival, the creak of the gates being opened, and taste the wine offered to us for our deliverance! . . .’







While it might seem inappropriate to quote a fictional work within an academic text, Horden’s extract here seems especially apt given the irony of what happened next and the death of Honorius on the field of battle. There is something heroic and somehow poignant in the death of Honorius for he not only fell as a true Roman but also inspired those fighting along the walls of Arretium to sally forth in a doomed attempt to save him. An attempt which saw not only their general, Jovius, slain but also the city taken and brutally sacked as a result. We feel that Hornden’s work of fiction, in some way, captures something of the emotions and the truth of what was happening - and allows us to re-live a moment of history often academicised into dry facts and social analysis. Both Aurelianus and the Briton named Appolicius survived the death of Honorius and both Escher and myself wonder if it was one of those two who delivered the imperial baton and the vellum scroll to Allobich some days later. If so, then, at least, we can now raise from anonymity that rider who fell at the South Gate bearing ill news and perhaps a desire also not to outlive that news . . .









The patrician Constaninus was proclaimed Augustus five days later at Lugudunum.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Ramon, thanks for the suggestion regarding a pdf file. Not sure if know how to do that at the moment but certainly something worth looking into!

By the way, any word on the AAR contest?

[Ramon Gonzales y Garcia]

Ramon, thanks for the suggestion regarding a pdf file. Not sure if know how to do that at the moment but certainly something worth looking into

I'll help you (and midnite) do it if need be

By the way, any word on the AAR contest

nope , you being the ones who submitted your work would be the ones to hear if there is anything, I think

re: Honorius
I didn't think I'd be that sorry to see him go brought tears to my eyes...

[midnite]

SeniorBatavianHorse, a friendly reminder. Sat. the 24th is the deadline for the AAR contest. It would be nice if either one of us won or placed high in the contest. It would bring more publicity to the IBFD mod and more recognition to the team. They deserve it. very excellent writing by the way

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Thanks, Midnite. Likewise with your own AAR. I have been enjoying it immensely so far and must say am very gripped by the adventures of the Romano-British in Europe! I, too, hope we reflect well on the IBFD team!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Fourth Consilium (cont)

(The Spring thaws of 413 AD see renewed activity across northern Italy and once again our notaries become prolific with stylus and commentary. ‘Florus’ provides the bulk of the initial entries.)



. . . The arrival of the wagons from the fabrica at Mediolanum was a joyous occasion for all. As the oxen pulled the study carts under the high arch of the South Gate, escorted by a numeri of Vandal horse, our troops lined the streets to cheer and offer up wine to the tired drivers. Our Magister, Allobich, his golden hair gleaming in the sun, pulled back the wraps on the first cart to reveal the dull iron of helmets and corselets, all waxed and waiting for the first taste of battle. The Augustus in his most divine wisdom had not abandoned us and still cared for our little province north of the Alps.

To the rear, with an honour guard of Imperial Candidati, rode the Bishop, Faustinus, with mandates from Honorius. He rode his large Hunnish horse with dexterity and we all remembered that this Faustinus was once a military Comes before he surrendered to the black robes of the Catholic church. In the main square before the basilica, he reared his horse up high before Allobich and then leapt from the saddle, his robes flying out from him like the black wings of the raven. I saw him kneel then and make supplication to our Magister but noticed that he adored the onyx ring on his finger - that mark of respect from the emperor himself - and in so doing honoured not Allobich himself but Honorius. This, I think, rankled the Goth and caused some around him to look with uncertain eyes upon Faustinus. It was then that our Bishop, Palladius, stood forth and grasped his brother in a warm embrace.

That evening, after the psalms had been sung and the blessings performed with due diligence, a consilium was held in the basilica and Faustinus was invited to step forth and speak for the emperor. What a contrast was to be seen between the armoured ranks of the military in their wide cloaks and heavy belts, all studded with links and jewels and pins, and the austere dark robes of the Bishop and his brothers from Ravenna and here at Augusta Vindelicorum. Only Palladius demurred from the black and instead invested himself in the rich gold and purple robes of his office. As the audience was a formal one, all rank and privilege was adhered to and so each man stood or was seated as dictated by imperial decree. A large curtain veiled the proceedings from the lesser nobles and functionaries lower down the hall.

Once the customary adoration and praise of the emperor was performed with all diligence, Faustinus was invited to claim the floor and present the words of His Most Sacred Will. What followed was brutal in its brevity and took us all by surprise - although I must admit that, alone, Allobich seemed unmoved. The Gauls were in ruin, Faustinus proclaimed. The Patrician by imperial decree had now reclaimed Lugudunum from the British usurper and regained some measure of control over the southern and central provinces but the power of Constantine was not broken and now also bacaudae were pillaging the interior. The Augustus, too, was most displeased to hear of the failure of the advance into the Alemanni lands and also the news of the Burgundian hosts advancing south and east from the Rhine interior to the upper reaches of the Danube limes. These barbarians were not to be permitted to cross into Roman lands. To this effect, and to strengthen the authority of Allobich, Magister by imperial decree, Posthumus Dardanus was invited to resume his civilian office of Praetorian Prefect and govern the two Raetias until such time as his presence was required in the Gauls again. All civilian power was now removed from Allobich to help him focus solely upon the military aims and goals of Roman polity. To this end, Our Honorius, blessed by Christ and God, deemed it worthy that the Magister Militum per Gallias, as requested by the Patrician now at Lugudunum, remain here in the Raetias as the strong right arm of Allobich until such time as he is summoned to respond to the call of Constantinus. Ulfilas, may Christ damn my soul if I lie, winced at those words, and I swear the ‘Little Wolf’, as his name is so known in his Gothic tongue, stepped back deeper into the shadows around the hanging veils. Faustinus then spoke heavy words of defeat and blood regarding Rome’s lands in Africa and Hispania, which even now the Vandals were putting to the torch. The Roman state was in a parlous condition indeed but only the valour and courage of those who guarded the limes would avert disaster and ensure that Roman genius would arise again. Faustinus crossed himself then and all present followed his lead.



Much food and wine was then brought forth, and we all relaxed away from the heavy protocols into a more intimate evening. Allobich, Posthumus and Ulfilas congregated together with Faustinus and Palladius, and the leading members of the town curia, and seemed to be discussing in some detail the import of the emperor’s message. Ulfilas stood near to Rutilla, the Tribune of the Gallic legion, and looks passed between them frequently. Palladius and Faustinus seemed deep in matters of doctrinal interest and only politely included the Goths, who adhered to the Arian heresy. John of Pannonia, Tribune of our noble III Italica, tarried by the arm of the Ducenarius, Agricola, that remarkable officer who had led the survivors of the Rhine limes here to Augusta Vindelicorum - but this lean, scarred, officer smiled mirthlessly into John’s face and stepped away almost in disgust. I swear that had I had four hands, each wielding a stylus like a spatha, I would not have been able to record all that happened as the wine flowed deeper into the night - but I will write that all is not well. I know from my time before I became a brother in Christ’s bosom that the more the smiles grow into the wine the more men’s hearts grow cold and calculating. I looked then up at Allobich, a Roman Goth with hair like straw in the Summer fields, and a heavy hand fell over my heart but I did not know why.

In the morning, after the fumes of the wine had lifted a little, men from the Tribune Felix arrived from the north with word of the Burgundian barbarians. The Vicus Alemanni had revolted from allegiance to their rex and accepted the overlordship of the Burgundian hosts. Suomar, rex of the Alemanni, now remained at Argentoratum and was much reduced in power and prestige. So much so that he had acquiesced to Roman overtures of peace and now averred from all hostilities with the emperor. The Burgundians had migrated eastwards in large numbers, spoiling the barbaricum as they went, and were now encamped in the low hills north of the upper Danube limes. Their intent was unknown but Felix warned Allobich to watch them like hawks and trust them like a rabbit trusts a fox.

With the Alemanni subdued and meek now, our province might have a moment in which it could recover from the devastations which had shaken it. Allobich dispatched Ulfilas with the cavalry vexillations east along the limes so that these barbarians would not surprise us if they decided to cross into Roman lands. The ‘Little Wolf’, in his Roman armour and crested helm, looked down from his horse upon the face of Allobich, and smiled farewell before turning his horse to lead his cavalry out of the East Gate. His eyes, however, remained darkened by the rim of the helmet and we saw not such humour as was reflected in them.

(So begins the dance of betrayal which will see the fall of the Raetias into the duplicity and chaos which marks the final end of the Roman Empire in the West. ‘Florus’, a simple notary, remains sweetly unaware of the larger power politics being played out yet senses, if only innocently, the tensions among the higher Roman commanders. Loyalties and destinies swim about him as intoxicatingly as the wine which was supped the evening before, and his stylus only catches at the merest hint of it all.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Tribune Felix and the ‘Corrections’

(Manuscript E preserves some extraordinary documents as quotes or addendum to the main Consilium Notes - Agricola’s deposition being an example. Another is a series of reports styled ‘corrections’ which detail activities and personalities both within Raetia Secunda and outwith it. These ‘corrections’ primarily involve the figure of Felix, an ‘agens in rebus’, the imperial courier service which in the later empire operated as inspectors of the post to the provinces. These figures were classed as cavalry troopers in terms of pay and rank; and were closely associated with monitoring the transmission of information along the imperial highways. There is a general conception that these men acted clandestinely also as spies and informers however A H M Jones is careful to point out that only under the reign of Constantius II were these figures associated with such attributes and that generally such men were not ‘secret police’ in the terms as we would understand them.)

(Half a century later, we now have preserved the reports of an actual agens in rebus and clearly our Felix is half-spy and half covert ops. Allobich has used him and his men to scout and sabotage Alemanni settlements and also report on the wider political and military events around Augusta Vindelicorum. Felix clearly is ranked as a Tribune and operates with a retinue of irregular soldiers, all of whom remain sequested away from the normal Roman military routines. These men are both Roman and barbarian and are characterised several times as ‘iron-eyed’, or wearing ‘iron-coloured cloaks’, or more generally as being dour and monotone.)

(While it is difficult to draw a wider picture from a single set of reports, it is admissible that Felix is styled as an agens in rebus and that he specifically operates in the trade of information and covert operations. We speculate on whether Felix is acting officially or is rather improvising a new role for himself and his men after the chaos of Alaric’s invasion of Italy and the Rhine crossings by the Vandals and the other barbarians in that savage Winter when the waters froze over.)

(An example illustrates in detail the manner in which this agens in rebus conducted his ‘postal’ business in the Spring of 413 AD - )

(Taken from ‘Correction xxi - The Fourth Consilium’) . . . My men had been trailing this merchant along the upper Danube limes for several days. On the surface, nothing was untoward. He moved cautiously with his retinue of slaves and hired barbarian guards, using mostly river cargo boats and barges, as and when convenient. He manifested Greek and Syrian customs, bartered in spices and amphorae of dull wine - Ufwine will attest to that - and attempted to bribe his way past local Alemanni chieftains to pass north of the Danube when the occasion allowed.

It fell to my notice that this merchant, who styled himself Archilon, invariably made camp in or near our limes castra, whether intact or ruined. One of my men ascertained that he kept a papyrus which he assiduously updated. I arranged a meeting with him posing as a Alemanni hunter eager to sell him some hides and amber. He responded readily and we met on the ‘Avittia’, a Liburnian river galley moving upstream towards Castra Regina. We conversed in rough Gothic. During the lengthy and protracted bargaining, I was able to steal a glance at his writings which lay upon a low desk and saw that his handwriting was neither Greek nor Aramaic as I supposed it might be. It was Latin. I knew then that this man called Archilon was not a merchant from the Oriens.



I liaised with the Magister Militum per Gallias, Ulfilas, at Castra Regina and infiltrated my men onto the ‘Dona’, a sluggish river barge. Those onboard were rendered drunk one night - Archilon’s wine being useful for that purpose - and then cast off downstream. Next morning, we arranged to bring aboard this merchant as if we were the regular Danube barge, and then in mid-stream, away from the eyes of the colonii and the barbarians, we butchered his guards and slaves and tipped their bodies into the deep muddy waters. ‘Archilon’ confessed under torture to being an ambassador from Constans, the son and heir of Constantine in the Gauls, tasked with suborning the Danube garrisons and gathering information along the limes. I personally read his writings and can conform that they were filled with troop listings and dispositions. I blinded him and cut out his tongue before drowning him in the waters which he had sought to use to overthrow us and then sent his body back with a single slave we had kept alive for such a purpose to the usurping forces in the Gauls . . .



(Hardly the reports of an imperial courier and postal officer. I expect, although Escher disagrees, that this Felix, while styled an agens in rebus and carrying the title of Tribune, is in fact closer in action to the old Areani which were disbanded by Theodosius in Britain after the Great Conspiracy. Perhaps his father had been such an officer and Felix had merely followed in his footsteps, as it were, given the unprecedented emergency now overwhelming the empire.)

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Hello again, SeniorBatavianHorse, I must say I am sorry I did not see this sooner! This is the best AAR of yours yet, I think. I really need to find a copy of BI if only to play this mod.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Hey The Fuzz - good to see you again in this forum - and thanks for the kind words. You should definitely get BI, play the mod and get your own AAR up and running! (Although I hear rumours in the wind of a IBFD mod for MTW2 . . .)

[Ramon Gonzales y Garcia]

after this AAR is finished may I suggest making this (and your other AARs) into a .pdf file with embedded pictures? as mentioned elsewhere, pictures hosted on sites tend to disappear after some time, having it in a .pdf format will help preserve it for, well if not for posterity, then for a longer time at least.

btw, this is great winter reading, it goes well with the cold and damp

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Honorius!

I look forward to the next installment. And I'm enjoying the tea.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Ninth Consilium

(Emily Collins’ authoritative account of the Constaninus’ rule as emperor remains definitive - ‘The First Patrician of Rome’, Oxford Press ‘97 - and we remain indebted to her in-depth analysis and exhaustive source material. Manuscript E in itself adds little, it must be said, to her research but does shed further light on the more shadowy figures surrounding this controversial emperor. A more general but slightly dated account might be sought from either J M Bury’s work or that of Gibbon, of course, who has much to say about his fiscal acumen or rather lack thereof, disloyalty and anti-barbarian prejudices - the latter stemming from the death of his father, an unnamed Tribune, at the battle of Hadrianople, almost some thirty years earlier.







Concerning our rescued text from the Venetoria Monastery, the news of the death of Honorius threw all into confusion. It seems that voices in the province argued for abandoning all the Raetias to shore up Italy beyond the Alps; while others argued that until a new Augustus had been elected by both the army and divine mandate, it was foolish and premature to abandon the limes. The Magister Equitum remained steadfast to the orders of his dead emperor and refused to countenance withdrawal on any terms. The military officers supported him but in the main the decurions and the senators, fronted by Palladius and Faustinus, stood against him in the debates. It took the Tribune, Agricola, to point out that supreme authority resided in Allobich and that his word was final.

Some weeks later, a shadowy figure arrived from the Gauls and elucidated the situation further . . .)

We were barely out of the days of April and new snows had unexpectedly fallen like a severe blanket over the province, blocking some of the higher passes, when a small, dour, man rode unbidden into the town and sought audience with the Magister. He was a stocky Hispanic with grey hair who glared angrily at those around him as if they were always in his way. He brushed all courtesy aside and paced the marbled floor of the basilica until finally Allobich arrived attended by his slaves and escorts. Without deference, this Hispanic rider unveiled a ring hidden on a chain around his throat and I was shocked to see Allobich dismiss his attendants without courtesy or ritual. He bade me alone stay to record what transpired next.



This man introduced himself as Crispus Annaeus, under special orders from a certain eunuch at Ravenna who was to remain unveiled at this time. I saw Allobich nod then and understood that our Magister knew implicitly who was being referred to. This Crispus threw himself upon a stool and drew Allobich in towards him with his words which followed -

The patrician had been acclaimed by the army as the new Augustus at Lugudunum in the old Amphitheatre outside the walls in a pre-ordained ceremony presided over by the leading tribunes and bishops of the Gauls. A purple cloak and diadem had been mysteriously procured and, to the braying of the dragons and the trumpets, Constantinus had ascended a raised dais with the sister of Honorius upon his arm. Cries of ‘Imperator, Imperator!’ had shattered the cold air, and the newly raised emperor accepted with reluctance the mantle of the empire about his shoulders. The army of the Gauls was behind him and he was now adopted as the last of the House of Theodosius in the West.

I saw Allobich frown at this news but we all knew that it was inevitable. Crispus went on - Eight days after the election - now ratified by the church in the Gauls - the Augustus Constantinus assembled elements of the Comitatus and marched east towards the Italies and Ravenna to secure support from the senators and officers there who remained following the fall of Honorius. Messengers were dispatched across the western dioceses to herald the new emperor, and Octavius Aemilianus, a former Praetorian Prefect of the Gauls was sent via galley to win approval from the young Theodosius in Constantinople. The sudden snowfall had slowed the Augustus somewhat but he was even now marching in train through the eastern reaches of the Gauls and the old province of Narbonensis Secunda. He was expected to reach Ravenna within the month.

Allobich poured out some Falernian wine which this Crispus devoured and then asked about the patrician - and here he used his former title and not that of augustus - and his companions. Crispus nodded as if understanding and launched into a mocking account of the toadies and servile officers who flattered the new emperor like gulls screeching over a high pinnacle of rock, all eager for a good nest in its high crags. It was Ulfilas which most consumed their conversation and this Crispus told Allobich that the Goth had been re-instated as Magister Equitum per Gallias and left at Lugudunum to carry on the fight with the usurper in the north of the Gauls. Troops were thin now, though, and the Augustus was anxious to win support at Ravenna and in Constantinople so that he could procure new monies, levy troops, and push northwards on to the Rhine limes and then re-unite the diocese. There was little confidence in Ulfilas, however, and discontent could be heard along the walls and towers of the town at night now that the emperor was gone eastwards.

Allobich paused to digest all this news and I remember him standing by the light of a single tallow candle, illumined like a icon, his golden hair flashing with sparks and the gold solidii gleaming like miniature suns. He turned back to Crispus then and asked him what his plans were now? This Hispanic man with grey hair and the rude face grinned at that and told us that the ‘eunuch’ who could not be named had ordered him to remain here at the service of the Magister until such time as he was needed back in the cold and whispering halls of Ravenna. The relief and gratitude on the face of our Magister surprised me with its openness and I was left feeling odd that so slight a man as this Crispus should evoke such feelings in the Goth.

The next day, Crispus met with one of Felix’s anonymous riders and vanished north to the Danube.

(There is some confusion regarding the title of ‘patrician’ in late Roman studies and the general trend has been to regard it as a military title which supersedes the old Magister Equitum and Peditum (or Horse and Foot) which was later combined into the Magister Ultriusquae Militae, or ‘Master’ of both services. In the later years, under Aetius, for example, we can be relatively certain that that was the case, but recently, John Michael O’Flynn has argued quite cogently that in fact the title of ‘patrician’ was not a military rank as such but instead a mark of honour improvised in the wake of Constantius II, who increased greatly imperial ranks and distinctions. Time served to define this title as one of the highest one could possibly attain which saw figures such as Constantinus and Aetius use it to procure a higher status over defined military ranks. In other words, a Patrician, in late Roman society was a highly favoured Roman, intimately connected to the ruling house, often through marriage, who also operated a high military command. The addition of the ‘patricianate’ status allowed such individuals even more power than the official commanders could hope to wield and thus served to either reinforce imperial control or undermine it - Aetius and Valentinian being a prime example. O’Flynn’s research thus adds an interesting dimension to the title outwith its immediate military applications and so develops a particular strand of late Roman study (Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire, John Michael O’Flynn, The University of Alberta Press, ‘83)