Germanic Urbanisation & Infrastructure Post Augustus

[Tim Hare]

The incentive may have come from the Romans themselves - by paying subsidies to certain tribal leaders they established them as kings (reges, or iudices) who in turn kept wider tracts of lands on the far side of the frontier in relative peace, and in thrall to the Romans.

This didn't always work - those same kings could mobilise more effective forces against Rome too - but it seems the pay-off was worthwhile. These 'allied' kings also provided a ready market for Roman trade goods, of course, and good suppliers of slaves and raw materials. A similar sort of thing happened in West Africa during the period of the European slave trade in the 17th-19th centuries.

Thanks for the very informative feedback, I appreciate it.

I know the Romans made use of ‘divide-and-rule’ when conquering tribal people since Caesar’s Gallic wars and before by favouring one tribe over its neighbours with generous subsidies, gifts and trade agreements. Then of course just as quickly switch the friendship ‘tap’ to another tribe when it suited them.

I ways always assumed over time this turned into a bit of a monster they couldn’t control, as subsidies that were being paid to one tribe to keep those around it in line became subsidies to prevent that new coalition of tribes from crossing the border and invading, with the amount of money the Roman paid them year after year always increasing. (Ironically tilting the balance of strength more and more in the ‘Barbarians’ favour until both sides inevitably came to blows)

I’m curious, do you think this remained a viable policy for the Romans right up until the collapse of the west, or do you think at some point it turned from mostly being a beneficial relationship for Rome to being a mostly disastrous relationship for Rome?

It’s also interesting that you mention the economic side of this relationship on Rome, when I’d only really considered the security side. Is there any compelling evidence that the Roman Empire’s internal economy was dependant on stability within the Germanic Kingdoms?

I’d always assumed in comparison to modern economies the economy of the Roman Empire was relatively self sustaining in terms of essential resources (food/building materials/oil/metals etc), and that they only imported ‘luxury’ non-essential products from abroad. (i.e. stuff they could do without in an emergency or time of peril)

Not sure about that - it's very hard to distinguish 'Roman' from 'barbarian' arms and equipment, but generally the Germanic peoples seem to have remained fairly poorly equipped. The only evidence we have for the composition and armament of war bands comes from the deposits at Illerup and Nydam, which are a long way from the Roman frontier: plenty of swords (either Roman or copies of Roman originals) and spears, buckles and metalwork, but little to no body armour and no helmets. The only mail shirt is probably ex-Roman and dates (IIRC) to the later 2nd century.

It's possible that tribal groups closer to the frontier were better equipped, but the easy availability of Roman arms may have counted against the development of native manufactures. The so-called 'francisca' axe, for example, supposedly common to the Franks, was apparently developed and produced in Roman territory. The barbarians certainly had nothing like the Roman fabricae systems, with its massives reserves of fuel and metal and manpower.

For all you might want to know about Nydam/Illerup, and Roman trade routes to the north, this book is fantastic if you can find a copy: The Spoils of Victory.

Thank-you, I’ll be sure to look up that book up.

The specific book that referenced armour being in wide spread use by Germanic Kingdoms was ‘Germanic Warrior AD - 236 - 568’, written by Simon MacDowall. What he states specifically is that while armour fragments are rarely recovered from the graves of Germanic warriors, that doesn’t mean what is recovered is the sum total of what the warrior possessed in life. If they did possess mail armour this likely would have been there single most expensive possession, and on death would have either been passed onto another family member or returned to the tribal chieftain or king who had originally gifted the armour to the warrior in return for his service.

Admittedly I’ve not heard this theory on Germanic burial practices repeated anywhere else so its probably worth me consulting the sources MacDowall quotes in the book. He also expands on this by stating that particularly in the accounts of Ammianus Marcellinus there are often widespread references to armour being used in equal numbers on both sides during Rome’s various battles with the Germans and Goths during the 4th century. I’m aware that most people will point to the Battle of Adrianople and say that most of the Goths armour and weapons were looted from the Romans from past defeats. To be fair MacDowall does state that a warrior’s armour may have come from a Roman state fabricae, or alternatively it may have been taken from fallen enemies on the battlefield or ‘built to order’ from a Germanic Smith on request from a King or warlord for his troops.

Regarding your comments that “Germanic peoples seem to have remained fairly poorly equipped“, there does seem to be a definitive improvement in the German’s ability to ‘take a punch’ after the mid second century. If you look at all the wars waged between Rome and the various Celtic or Germanic states from Caesar and Trajan in Gaul, Germania, Britain and Dacia every pitched battle ends in a decisive and overwhelming Roman victory, presumably because the Roman’s has access to superior quantities of armour and swords. Then look at the Marcomannic Wars, the Gothic and Germanic invasions of Thrace and Gaul in the 3rd century and the later battles of the 4th century and suddenly the Germans seem to win almost as many pitched battles against the Roman’s as they lose. There seems to be a draught of information as to why the the Roman Empire seems to have a much harder time suppressing Barbarian’s during and after the 3rd century, and most historians point to the Late Roman Army being much less capable then its predecessor. However I understand these initial views of the Late Roman Army’s competence as a military dominated by poorly disinclined foreign soldiers is a view that’s been heavily criticised and revised more recently. The other view I’ve heard that explains this paragon shift in Rome’s fortunes is that the common warriors that comprised the Germanic warbands of the mid-late 2nd century onwards were simply better equipped, organised and chiefly comprised of full time professional warriors who wore metal armour, as appose to the ‘poor peasant levy’ soldiers that had comprise the rank and file of Celtic and Germanic armies in the past.

If this is the case, then I’m aware the answer to the question of where this armour came from could be that the Goths and Germans of these era’s took it as the spoils of Roman armies that they defeated, but then this turns it into a chicken and an egg scenario in my opinion. For the Germans to achieve their first victories in pitched battles against the Romans during the Marcomannic Wars and later wars of the 3rd century, they would have had to have had a reliable supplier of armour and weapons in the first place. It’s possible that the Roman’s may have supplied the armour and swords to the Germanic tribes themselves as a way of keeping their fellow tribesmen in line and part of their divide and rule strategy, but that really implies a comedic level of stupidity and incompetence amongst the Romans if they were the sole supplier of such equipment to the ‘Barbarians’ that later united against them into probably single largest threat since Hannibal.

It would be more easy for me to believe that this was a gradual ‘snowball’ effect, in that the Roman’s began paying a very modest sum in to money to keep the tribes divided and at each other’s throats. Then over long periods of time and as less effective Emperors came to power what began as a modest expenditure of money became a large and permeant source of revenue for these newly emerging tribal kingdoms, who could then pull their numbers to demand more from the empire when it suited them with the implicit threat of force. While this was all going on these Germanic Kingdoms ironically used the very wealth Rome furnished them with every year to purchase from Rome what they could not manufacture themselves in large quantities, such as swords and metal armour, which I understand was pretty much the as case during Attila’s reign. Still, the fact the Rome itself may have been the main supplier of everything the ‘Barbarians’ needed to in turn make war on Rome is the pill I’m finding a little difficult to swallow, as that would give the Romans a huge advantage over these ‘Barbarian’ kingdoms of the 2nd - 5th centuries we never really see evidence of them leveraging. If on the other hand the Germans or Goths of this period had the ability to at least partially equip and provision their armies from self sufficient manufacturing facilities within their own territory thanks to the internal stability the permeant threat of the Roman Empire had ‘intimidated’ the Germanic tribes into, the slow decline and fall of the Western Empire at the hands of the Germanic ‘Barbarian’s’ over the 2nd to 5th centuries makes a lot more sense in my opinion.

Not really, no. It's possible there was some sort of construction in timber that's left no trace, but otherwise the only 'towns' we know about in barbarian territory are places like Feddersen Wierde, again far from the frontier and very unlike Roman settlements.

Ammianus Marcellinus mentions the Alamanni living in 'Roman style' villas, but this is in the old ex-Roman territory of the Agri Decumates, just east of the Rhine, and it's possible that he was just seeing actual Roman villas that had been repaired and reinhabited.

There are suggestions that some Germanic hillforts were constructed or repaired by Roman engineers, or prisoners of war - the Glauberg east of Mainz is one possibility, and maybe Zähringer Burg a little further south. However, this may be an outdated notion; the native Alamanni may have been perfectly capable of building big walls themselves!

The best book on the frontier peoples of the middle Rhine is Drinkwater's The Alamanni and Rome; again, worth tracking down a copy!

Regarding the 'Romanized Barbarian elite' - it seems most likely that their material culture was still largely Roman, whether from trade or plunder, and they lived in a sort of parasitical relationship with the empire. That's exactly how the Romans wanted it, of course!

Again thank you for your recommendation. Book is looking a little pricy on Amazon right now but I will keep an eye out for it, looks to be just to subject matter I was looking for.

The Goths repairing existing Roman villa’s in former Roman territory makes sense. It would be interesting if there was any evidence that this ‘trend’ of Roman styled housing amongst those who could afford it extended outside of former Roman territory. The book ‘The Day of The Barbarian’s’ by Alessandro Barbero specifically states that the the German leaders on the far side of the Rhine had learned to construct themselves fortified villas in the style of great villas of the Roman countryside. I still need to check the references Alessandro quotes, however I also seem to remember the same book referencing as well that this was also the practice along the frontier as far away as North Africa, with these tribal chieftain’s extravagant lifestyles presumably funded by Rome in exchange for keeping order on their side of the frontier. If I remember correctly, I believe there is also a reference by Priscus to Attila the Hun constructing a Roman Villa in Hunnish territory for the express purpose of receiving Roman diplomats, though I can’t remember if this was constructed inside or outside former Roman territory and so may have been of Roman origin.

I accept I may be incorrect on a lot of this and may simply be incorrectly interpreting events. The one thing I don’t really understand is why in the roughly 500 years between the the Roman Empire establishing its borders along the Rhine and the Danube, and the eventual collapse of the Western Roman Empire and formal end of the migration period in the 6th century did the geographical region we now think of as eastern europe seemingly not advance economically like Gaul had. Its possible like you said that that the Roman trade provided everything the Germans would have otherwise needed to manufacture themselves in terms of surplus food, weapons and consumable goods, thus out pricing indigenous Germanic trades. I can even accept this is what might have killed off the last Celtic Oppida’s outside Roman territory, but you would think the huge increase in tradable goods flowing across the border would have some kind of impact on Germanic and Gothic transportation infrastructure over a protracted period of time, so that those Roman’s goods could reach anyone who may have money or goods to barter for them.

The exact circumstances surrounding the founding of most Eastern European cities and their relation to pre-migration Germanic people have always confused me a little. Most major inland cities in Western Europe today can trace their founding back to the Roman Empire, either as centre’s of trade or military camps for active or retired soldiers. By comparison most eastern cities seem to have been founded in the Dark Ages after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, so I’ve always wondered if this collapse contributed to permeant and concentrated human settlement in these regions as if not, I don’t understand why these cities would not have been founded in antiquity as the logical successor to the Germanic Oppida’s. Apparently at the eve of the Mongol conquest of modern day European Russia in 1200 AD the Kievan Rus numbered somewhere around 300 urbanised cities with populations in the lower tens of thousands, which would make them comparable to the post Roman western cities of London and Paris at that time. I recognise that I’m taking about events over 700 years after the collapse of the Western Empire, but most of these cities would likely have been founded a few decades or centuries after this collapse. (Kiev, capital and largest city of the Kievan Rus may have been founded in 482 AD, or alternatively some historians put the founding to the late 9th century. Even if the later date is correct, it’s seem odd that the destruction of such a massive potential trading partner and potentially hostile incentive for unification of settled tribes would spur on the urbanisation of these civilisations. I would have thought it would have had the oppressive effect)