The \'Germanic Threat\' - reality or propaganda?

[Nathan Ross]

I was reading Edward James' Europe's Barbarians recently, which seemed a very clear and insightful primer to the field of 'barbarian' studies (about which I know very little!)

In the introduction, James provides an eyeopening quote from John F Drinkwater:

The Franks and Alamanni may have been used to excuse the maintenance of a large military force in Gaul and along the Rhine, and thereby justify the continued maintenance of the whole imperial system in the west... The 'Guard on the Rhine', which the imperial establishment sold so successfully to contemporaries and to later historians, was a sham, an artefact, a 'style show'.

(Drinkwater, 'The Germanic Threat on the Rhine Frontier', in Shifting Frontiers (1996), pp20-30)

James goes on to claim that the Franks and Alamanni were 'no real military threat to the empire in the 4th century, but merely occasional violent irritants...' but that 'it was in the interests of the emperor and his apologists to emphasise the barbarian threat.'

This seems an extraordinary interpretation - how justifiable is it? I would have thought that evidence of large scale town and villa burnings, depopulation, the walling of cities all over Gaul (often in a hurry, as with Trier's Porta Nigra) and the numerous military campaigns in the region throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries pointed to a very real and sizeable menace from across the Rhine. Some of this could be explained by civil war (Trier could have been walled to defend against Albinus, perhaps?), but was the refortification of the Rhine by Constantine and Valentinian really just a 'style show'?

Seems like a contentious subject - what do people here think?

[Alanus]

Perhaps Edward James is publishing his doctorial thesis, looking for that "new" or "odd" angle. I would think that barbarians burning towns would be associated with some kind of "threat," coming from Germans or whomever. But I'm not writing a doctorial thesis.

[Robert Vermaat]

I think he is both right and wrong, maybe a bit too hasty or black & white?
As a ‘political scam’ (that the Germans were not a real threat) I think this goes too far.

Indeed, we see what happens when the Romans are not there to react military, tribes spill over the Rhine and raid the countryside. This occurs from the late 2nd c. onwards with a peak in activity during the troubles of the 3rd century, especially since the Germanic tribes begin the so-called ‘supertribe’ development (we could discuss that one at length elsewhere) into Franks, Alamanni etc.
During the 4th century, order was largely restored, but we still see occasional incursions. Julian was to accept large-scale settlements of the Franks in Toxandria, he has to ‘liberate’ the Rhine delta in order to sail his grain ships from Britain to inner Germany, and his battle against the Alamanni needs no further comment.
The turn of the 5th century, with the Romans fighting Alaric, saw even larger incursions, with Franks, Suevi and Vandals reaching Spain. The rest of the century this situation only worsens, ending in the Roman loss of the West.

I think the correlation is clear: less Roman military presence always leads to a larger rate of incursions by Germanic tribes.

However, there is also another matter to address. I could be argued that a Roman military presence along the border would be superfluous as long as a strong military presence in the inner provinces would be maintained. After all, it took Julian some time to liberate Gaul from the Franks and Alamanni, but with a relatively small force. We could argue that, had that force been present all the time, the Germans would not have invaded in the first place, or been dealt with sooner. The point being, the Romans never really needed a large force along the border. Why, then, did they maintain such a force?

One reason might be political: if we follow the British example, it’s clear that a Roman army could become dangerous to the central government at the moment when it turns its allegiance to a usurper. This happened more than once in Britain, and (to a lesser extent) in Gaul. The reason for a large army in Gaul may have been, arguably, that a larger force is not so easily turned as a smaller force.

Another reason might be economical: the real disintegration of Gaul in the 5th century begins with the redeployment of the army (replaced by loyal Frankish tribes), followed by the relocation of the Imperial court from Trier to Lyons and then Arles. The net effect of these reorganizations is the loss of trade in the area because the market disappeared. The Imperial court, but to a much larger extent the army, were a main market for the local villa economy. With the court the importance of the local magnates dwindles, but more importantly, with the army their wealth dwindles or even vanishes. As a result, the richer people also move south, adding to the effect.
Therefore, we could also argue that the larger army presence in Gaul was there to benefit the local economy.

[M. Demetrius]

...and the Franks never really left Gaul, did they?

[Nathan Ross]

Perhaps Edward James is publishing his doctorial thesis, looking for that "new" or "odd" angle.

I think James did his doctorate back in 1975. He's now Professor of Medieval History at University College Dublin.

Still, new angles are always going to be attractive to academics...

less Roman military presence always leads to a larger rate of incursions by Germanic tribes.

That seems true. So there must have been a significant barbarian pressure on the Rhine frontier, held in check by the Roman military presence. Perhaps the disasters of the third century were used as a sort of warning to the provincials - 'look what happens when control collapses' sort of thing - but that doesn't mean that the threat wasn't real... There were also repeated military expeditions, often led by emperors, against Germanic incursions; too many, surely, for propaganda alone. Imperial panegyrics often give the impression of an inexhaustible supply of barbarians pouring into Gaul to be gloriously massacred: an exaggeration, but there must have been some truth in it.

we could also argue that the larger army presence in Gaul was there to benefit the local economy.

Good point. There's an interesting-sounding essay by Drinkwater called 'Women and horses and power and war' (in Burns & Eadie, Urban centers and rural contexts in late antiquity) that appears to be something to do with the army supply economy. Has anybody seen it?