The 3rd c crisis & its impact on the Germanic frontier

[D B Campbell]

Hi Duncan

Sorry, Robert -- completely overlooked your reply. :oops:

Gifts for a chieftain are very different from a client kingdom - the latter is in fact in a relation of servitude to you, the Romans would not have to 'buy' the loyalty of a client king.

Hmmm ... I think the similarity is closer than you imply. As I see it, it was a back-scratching relationship. Each party stood to gain something from the other. The Romans basically made an arrangment with a neighbouring king/queen/chieftain in order to avoid the hassle of direct rule. But as soon as things became troublesome, they weren't shy about sending the legions in.

Maybe there were simply no barbarian tribal structures to 'form into' a client kingdom. In the East, we see a different picture, with Armenia and Palmyra being the most notable client kingdoms.

In my opinion, Armenia is atypical, being a puppet tossed back and forth between Rome and Parthia; both empires were playing Armenia against one another. Each successive Armenian king was simply a pawn in the ongoing power games. And Palmyra was a city entirely within the Roman province of Syria. (Maybe you were thinking of Edessa?) So neither one is (strictly speaking) a client kingdom.

Around the periphery of the empire, we see the same system of bribes and gifts in order to bolster a particular regime as a "friend of Rome". The same applies whether it's the king of the Iceni in Britain, the king of the Dacians in Transylvania, or the king of the Jews in Judaea. The Romans don't seem to have had a problem dealing with "barbarian tribal structures", because the arrangement was purely with the "head man" (or, occasionally, woman).

I hope I haven't derailed the original topic too much! :oops:

[jho]

I have just finished reading Steidl, Bernd, Die Wetterau vom 3. bis 5. Jahrhundert n. Chr. (2000). He has very interesting information and conclusions with respect to the fall of the LIMES of upper Germany:

First of all, for non-German RATers, the Wetterau covers the North-Eastern part of the LIMES of Germania superior and and his conclusions may likely be generalized for at least the larger part of the LIMES of that province. His relevant findings are:

[list=]Forts and Vici of this area contain a surprisingly large number of Germanic finds dating to the 3rd century.

Coins in forts and vici do not stop at the traditional end date of the limes (259 AD) but rather continue in a declining fashion until the early 270s AD.

Except for some early Postumus types, coins are mainly those types issued by the central government.

Germanic settlement of the ex-Roman areas set in earlier and was much more intensive than believed before.

The early Germanic settlers used large amounts of imitation Roman coins.
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His reconstruction of events (although he admits that it is still very speculative given the limited amount of archaeological evidence) is basically as follows:

The Germanic incursion of 233 AD created wide spread destruction. Forts were repaired but were garrisoned in a much reduced fashion and many vici never recovered (villas and other farms appear to have been less damaged or coped better with the effects thereof). In order to bolster the limited numbers of troops and repopulate the country side, the Romans settled Germanic groups around the forts. When Postumus revolted, he also gained control of the limes area for a short time but lost it again to Gallienus (a similar development us evidenced for Raetia by the Augsburg victoria altar but it is difficult to see how the limes area could have been held by Gallienus with the Rhineland being controlled by Postumus). These internal events probably saw a steady decline in regular Roman units and the Germanic groups taking over step by step. The ultimate decision to relinquish control of the limes area may have been taken only by Aurelian. At that point, the Germanic settlers - who will likely have still maintained some sort of treaty relationship with the Romans - at least for a limited period preserved the life style they had become accustomed to by minting large numbers of imitation coins.

Steidl speculates that the formation of the Alamanni may have taken place around this time by the amalgamation of the "Romanized" German settlers and Suebian immigrants in this area.