110 - A Gothic Horror

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Since we're getting into the period where barbarian migrations will play more and more of a role in our story, I'm going to recommend this week, The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians by J.B. Berry, which is based on a series of lectures by the Cambridge historian and should give us a great deal of background as we move forward. Just remember to go to audiblepodcast.com forward slash roam, so they know who sent you.

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, episode 110, A Gothic Horror. We left off last time in 248 AD, when a short-lived rebellion in Moesia prompted Philip the Arab to send the respected Senator Gaius Decius to the Danube to get the situation back under control. Sending out Decius was supposed to help secure the future of Philip's rule, but instead, it was the catalyst for his demise.

Decius arrived in the north and began making the rounds, inspecting this and telling someone to tuck in that, and all the while, believed that he really was going to spend the next year or so restoring discipline to the Danube legions. But the Danube legions had other ideas. They had flinched from their first rebellion, possibly because Pecateonus was too much of a nobody to be taken seriously as emperor, but Decius, well, you could really picture him draped in the purple. So with their grievances still unaddressed, they decided to make another play at revolution, this time with Decius as their leader.

In the spring of 249, the troops surprised their new commander one morning by hailing him as emperor. They demanded that he lead them to Italy, where together they would unseat Philip and force the Senate to recognize Decius as the new master of Rome. Philip's dishonorable peace with the Parthians, coupled with his unwillingness to confront the Goths, had caused them to lose all respect for the man, and they strongly hinted that come hell or high water, they were going to replace Philip with someone. If Decius wanted the job, they were willing to give it to him. If not, then, as Philip's loyal agent, they were going to kill him. Reluctantly, Decius agreed to lead them. His noble reluctance is always noted in the histories, but it is worth remembering that he was not so reluctant that he refused what they were offering.

Leaving behind the troops necessary to garrison the frontier, Decius led, or followed, as some of the histories imply, the rest of the men on a march to Italy, where they planned to confront Philip and force him to abdicate. Word reached Rome soon after that the troops were on the move, and Philip scrambled to assemble a defense force. There was no such thing as a nice, quiet abdication at this point in Roman history, and Philip knew that if he wanted to keep his head, he was going to have to keep his throne, and if he wanted to keep his throne, he was going to have to fight for it. The preparations were no doubt fraught with desperation. Philip knew full well he wouldn't be able to raise enough troops to match the size of Decius' force. But the year of the six emperors had proved that Italy could ward off an angry legionary force given the right amount of luck and determination, so it's not like Philip necessarily believed he was preparing for some suicidal last stand. But luck and determination were not on Philip's side.

Decius was no Maximilius Thrax, and Philip was no hardy brotherhood of senators valiantly defending the honor of Italy from an evil tyrant. So the story played out differently this time. In the summer of 249, Decius and Philip faced off near Verona in northern Italy. Despite frequent letters swearing fealty to the emperor, Decius was unable to calm the temper of his men, and however he felt in his heart, that all took a back seat when it came time to act. The two sides joined in a short battle, and Philip's army was easily routed. It is unclear whether he and his son were killed during the fighting itself or a few days after their defeat, but within a week of the battle, Philip was dead and Decius was on his way to Rome to have the senate ratify his ascension to the throne.

Philip the Arab was 44 years old and had ruled the empire for five years. As I said, Decius was no Maximilius Thrax, and the senate was more than happy to raise one of their own to the purple. In addition to the title Augustus, they also gave Decius the honorific Traianus, a hopeful nod that the new emperor would prove to be as wise and as capable as the great Trajan had been. Decius sent the legions who had carried him to power back to the Danube, while he himself stayed in Rome to consolidate power and take stock of the empire he now led. The Moesian legions received a healthy donative for their day's work, temporarily stilling their desire for a war with the Goths. Eventually though, they would get their war, and soon come to realize that maybe they shouldn't have been quite so eager to take on the northern barbarians. This moment of realization probably came right around the time they were all being hacked to death in a muddy, bloody swamp.

When Decius was done taking stock of the empire, he declared that he did not much like what he saw. The Sassanids had been dishonorably paid off in the east, the Goths menaced the north, and Rome itself was a cesspool of vice and corruption. The Roman empire had lost its way, and the new emperor was determined to get it back on the right track. The main problem, Decius decided, was not shifting demographics or economic fluctuations or the threat of foreign invasion, but rather the loss of public virtue. That virtue, which had helped Rome win the favor of the Goths, had been abandoned, and so the Goths had abandoned Rome.

To help the empire get back on the good side of those supernatural forces that obviously determine the course of earthly affairs, Decius dreamed up two major initiatives. First, he was going to demand that every citizen in the empire offer sacrifices to convince the Goths that Rome had not forsaken them. And second, he was going to revive the long-abandoned office of censor, so that someone would be in place to regulate and legislate public morality. Taken together, Decius figured that this would be enough to please the Goths and prevent them from heaping any more misery on the Romans. It seems, though, that given what's about to happen, the Goths were not at all impressed by these offerings.

Decius started in January of 250 by issuing his famous edict that every citizen of the empire must offer a sacrifice to the Goths on behalf of the emperor. The edict seems innocuously pious enough, but it was well known that a certain minority of citizens were going to have a big problem with this seemingly simple request, and it is completely plausible that Decius' idea of getting back on the good side of the Goths had nothing to do with sacrifices at all, but instead had everything to do with the complete suppression of Christianity.

The mechanics of the edict were simple. A magistrate would announce that everyone in his municipality had, say, thirty days to offer the proper sacrifices, and then you would be issued a ticket after having performed said sacrifices. The officials would then come around after the thirty days were up and make sure everyone had their ticket, and if you didn't have it, well, that was treason, and treason meant torture and death.

Across the empire, Christians heard about the edict, immediately recognized it as being totally incompatible with their belief system, and tried to figure out what exactly they were going to do. Some broke right away, made the necessary sacrifices, and either left Christianity behind forever or asked for forgiveness after the fact. But most refused, and hoped that the Roman authorities would not pursue any heavy-handed reprisals. What was the big deal if a few Christians didn't take part in these pagan rituals? They paid their taxes and kept out of trouble, and for the last few years that had been more than enough to keep them flying below the imperial radar. But Decius had no intention of pursuing a policy of toleration, and when the first batch of Christians let time expire without making a sacrifice, Decius recommended to the local authorities that they go ahead with the torture and the executions.

Like a wave spreading across the empire, defiant Christians were rounded up and killed as the deadline for sacrificing came and went in each new province. Over the course of 250, thousands of Christians, both prominent and obscure, were executed, including Pope Fabian, who set the tone for the faithful by accepting martyrdom at the end of January 250, not long after the edict was first issued. Perhaps revealing what this was all really about, Decius then prevented the Christians from electing a new bishop of Rome, and the office remained vacant until the emperor left the capital to go fight the Goths 18 months later.

Not to get too far off into ecclesiastic history, but when a new pope finally was elected a gain, it set off a minor schism within the church over the question of how exactly to treat those Christians who had made the sacrifices and now wanted to return to the church. Did they need to be rebaptized, or was sincere repentance enough? This was a heavy question that caused a great deal of angry debate, so, while not succeeding in eliminating Christianity, Decius did do much to sow some serious discord within the church.

While the persecution of Christians raged across the empire, Decius made a play to further reintroduce the Romans to the virtuous ways of their forefathers by reviving the office of censor. But rather than claiming the title for himself, as previous emperors had done, Decius picked a man he thought worthy of the job, and offered Publius Licinius Valerianus the opportunity to lead Rome's moral revival. But Valerian, as we know him today, thought long and hard about the offer, and in the end risked the wrath of the emperor by declining to take the job.

Not only was the task shaping up to be an impossible one, hey, you see that water over there? Make it run uphill, okay? But the censorship was, when you read the fine print, an incredibly powerful office. To don the title of censor would be to don a title that would make Valerian practically the equal of Decius, and that was a very dangerous place to be. He could see that in time, that kind of power would probably make Decius violently paranoid, even if it had been his idea to begin with. Valerian was a smart guy, the job was impossible, and the position was just too dangerous. No good could come of it, so he declined. He told Decius that the office was too august to be held by anyone but the Augustus himself, and asked instead for a regular old military posting in Germany. Decius granted the request and let Valerian slip away with his head intact.

We do not know whether the emperor planned to let the matter drop completely, or whether he was dead set on bringing the censor back to Rome, because shortly after Valerian's refusal, the Goths once again invaded the empire, bringing an end to Decius' experiments with public virtue. In late 250, a Gothic king named Cniva, that's the pronunciation I'm going with, led an army across the Danube, and began running amok in Thrace and Moesia.

Though we call this army the Goths, they were actually a far more cosmopolitan force than the name suggests. Cniva raised a standard that Germans and Sarmatians, and even a healthy number of Roman deserters flocked to. So while we call them the Goths, remember that a number of different nationalities all fought for Cniva, not just the Goths themselves, though they were the thick trunk of the invading army. Cniva's forces overran the border defenses easily, which was what prompted so many Roman soldiers to desert, and after extracting a large payment from Marcianopolis not to sack their city, the Goths were soon laying siege to the city of Nicopolis. The leaders begged Decius to personally lead a relief army to evict these most unwelcome guests, and Decius, recognizing how dire the situation was, immediately began preparations for the march north.

In early 251, he was on his way along with his 24-year-old son Herennius, who Decius had induced the senate to make his co-Augustus shortly before their departure. This new father and son team was supposed to destroy the Goths, and then go on to found a great new dynasty, but instead what happened is that they both died and went down in history as the first emperors to fall in battle against a foreign enemy. The Persians will tell you that honor really belongs to Gordian III, but let's not concern ourselves with that for now.

The Goths had not taken Nicopolis by the time Decius and his reinforcements arrived, so Caneva abandoned the siege and headed off for greener pastures. But for the Romans, this was not about simply coming to the aid of Nicopolis, it was about throwing the Goths out of the empire entirely. So Decius and his army pursued Caneva across the countryside. No slouch when it came to strategy and tactics, the Gothic king saw the Romans coming hot on his heels and decided to use their headlong charge against them. Decius was pushing his troops hard on the assumption that Caneva was running as fast as he could, but what the Gothic king was actually doing was turning his army around and pointing them straight back at the unsuspecting legions.

Believing the Goths to be nowhere near them, the Romans set up camp for the night, and though guards were of course posted, no one was expecting to be doing any fighting for at least a couple of days. But then, out of nowhere, the full Gothic army appeared over a hill and came barreling at the Roman position. Caught completely off guard, Decius tried to keep his men in line, but the shock of the attack scattered the legions, and the subsequent retreat involved a lot more running than the emperor probably would have liked. Satisfied that he had spooked the Romans off the chase, Caneva then headed off to the nearby city of Philopopolis, which he planned to sack before the Romans were able to regroup. The Goths were, after all, here to plunder the wealth of the empire, not engage the legions in unproductive battles.

But by not following up on his surprise attack, Caneva allowed Decius time to reform his embarrassed army. The emperor rebuilt their confidence by leading them against a series of much smaller German forces who were attempting to join Caneva's invincible army, and pretty soon they were feeling okay about themselves again. Caneva's invincible army, though, was only invincible when fighting in head-to-head battles. When it came to laying siege to cities, they lacked the kind of sophisticated equipment necessary to do the job right, and the siege of Philopopolis, like the siege of Nicopolis, took longer than it was supposed to. And while the Romans regained their strength, Caneva saw the strength of his own army slowly slipping away.

But eventually, the citizens of Philopopolis could hold out no longer, and they were forced to surrender their city. In the subsequent sack, it is reported that 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Caneva, emboldened, then grabbed Titus Julius Priscus, the governor of Thrace, who may or may not have been in on the whole thing, and been the one who betrayed Philopopolis to the Goths, and proclaimed Priscus emperor of the Roman Empire under the generous protection of the Gothic king. This attempt to seize the empire in one fell swoop was short-lived, though. Not only did Priscus die shortly after becoming emperor, cause of death unknown, but Decius and his reinvigorated army arrived on the scene and slowly began to surround the Gothic position.

Aware that the siege had depleted his forces dangerously, Caneva decided it was time for the Goths to make their getaway. They piled their carts high with accumulated treasure, and made a run for the northern border. Confident both in his numerical superiority, and just the superiority of the legions in general, Decius chased down the fleeing Goths, and made every effort to fight them as soon as possible. A decisive battle would prove to the Goths that messing with Rome got you nowhere, and would prove to the Romans themselves that the dominance of the legions was still a matter of fact, not a matter of imagined reputation. But boy did he wind up proving just the opposite.

The mistake Decius made was that he was so eager to engage the Goths, that he basically ceded the decision of where the battle would take place to Caneva. The Gothic king chose a spot just south of the Danube near the town of Abritus, and arranged his men in three lines, strategically positioning the third line just behind some marshy swampland, so that the front Gothic ranks kept the sight screened from the Romans. I won't say that the battle was already decided before the first spear was tossed, but allowing Caneva to pick the time and place of the battle was a fatal blunder.

Remember kids, if there is one thing the history of warfare has proven again and again, it's that, like real estate, the name of the game is location, location, location. Don't let your enemy pick the battle site. Chances are the spot he will pick is a spot that complements his strengths and negates yours. If he offers battle someplace you're not sure of, avoid the temptation to fight it out, and instead focus on drawing him into a spot of your choosing. I can promise you, you will like the results a whole lot better. Just ask Theseus.

According to legend, the battle of Abritus started ominously for the Romans, as Herennius was struck by an arrow and killed in the opening minutes of the fight. Theseus, however, used the shocking death of his son as a way to rally his men. Crying out, let no one mourn, the death of one soldier is no great loss to the Republic. This stirring scene is of course apocryphal, but I figured I'd pass it along since that was the way the Romans told the story to each other. Regardless, the moment was soon forgotten as the legions plunged into the damp hell that awaited them in front of that third Gothic line.

The legions pushed the Goths back, and pushed the Goths back, and pushed the Goths back, leaving the Romans with the impression that the battle was now going great. The first Gothic line broke, and then the second gave way, and the Romans pursued the fleeing barbarians with reckless abandon, sure that victory was just within their grasp. But the legions pursued the fleeing Goths right into the marshlands, and right into Cineva's trap. Bogged down in the marsh, the Romans were surrounded by the last Gothic line. Fierce combat followed, but the terrain was too much for the Romans to overcome, and the battle turned into a slaughter. Theseus himself disappeared in the fighting, and his body was never recovered from the swamp. He was fifty years old, and had ruled the empire for two years.

The governor of Upper Moesia, a general named Trebonianus Gallus, was left in command of the remnants of the Roman army, and soon after the battle, he negotiated a peace with Cineva. The Goths would be allowed to leave Roman territory unmolested with all the treasure they had accumulated, which, yeah, it's not like the Romans could have stopped Cineva from doing anything he wanted anyway. But the Roman general also worked out a deal that would pay Cineva an annual tribute in exchange for the Gothic king agreeing to stay out of Roman territory. This last bit became the source of a later rumor that Gallus had actually conspired with Cineva before the battle to ensure a Roman defeat. But given all the other circumstances of the battle, and his later conduct, there is no reason to believe that Gallus had anything at all to do with the defeat at Abrittus.

The battle of Abrittus was one of the most shocking setbacks in Roman history. Though not quite as existentially terrifying as Cannae, the results of the battle still came as a mortal shock to the folks back home. The emperor was dead, his army destroyed, who or what is going to protect us now? Decius had set out to prove that the Romans were still the biggest kid on the block, and had wound up proving exactly the opposite, and this new Gothic terror filled the Romans with a dread they had not really felt since the days of Hannibal. How are we going to survive if our supposedly invincible legions are so easily destroyed? There was no ready answer, and the citizens of the empire began to live with a fear in their hearts that they had never experienced before. Really, at that moment, it did not seem like the end was that far off.

I want to end this week with a quick note on the tours. The first trip, as I already mentioned, is sold out, but we do have some space available on trips 2 and 3, which will run from May 17 to May 26, and from May 28 to June 7, respectively. It will be exactly the same itinerary, just over a different span of days, so if the first set of dates didn't work out for you, or you thought you had already missed your chance to go, then by all means, come along on one of the other trips. I should also note that we have removed the transatlantic airfare from the tour package. Once we started to get a feel for what would work out best for everyone, especially since so many international travelers will be along, it became obvious that the airfare to Rome and from Istanbul was more of a hindrance than a help to most people, so we made the decision to drop that part of the package. We will by all means help everyone make the proper arrangements, but just know that the price you see no longer includes those tickets.

So, thehistoryofrometour.com. Act now, because, as they say, good seats are still available, but won't be forever.