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During the years succeeding the rule of Antoninus Pius, the Roman Empire began to be attacked upon all sides. A war with Parthia lasted from 161 to 166 (under the joint rule of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus), and although it ended successfully, its unforeseen consequences for the Empire were great. The returning troops brought with them a plague (the so-called Antonine Plague), which would eventually kill an estimated 5 million people,[4] severely weakening the Empire. At the same time, in Central Europe, the first movements of the Great Migrations were occurring, as the Goths moved from Scandinavia into mainland Europe (see Wielbark culture), putting pressure on the Germanic tribes from the north and east. As a result, Germanic tribes and other nomadic peoples launched raids south and west across Rome's northern border, particularly into Gaul and across the Danube. First Marcomannic War First invasions Beginning in 162 and continuing until 165, an invasion of Chatti and Chauci in the provinces of Raetia and Germania Superior was repulsed. In late 166 or early 167, a force of 6,000 Langobardi and Lacringi invaded Pannonia. This invasion was defeated by local forces (vexillations of the Legio I Adiutrix commanded by Candidus and the Ala I Ulpia Contariorum commanded by Vindex) with relative ease, but they marked the beginning of what was to come. In their aftermath, the military governor of Pannonia, Marcus Iallius Bassus, initiated negotiations with 11 tribes.[5] In these negotiations, the Marcomannic king Ballomar, a Roman client, acted as a mediator. In the event, a truce was agreed upon and the tribes withdrew from Roman territory, but no permanent agreement was reached. In the same year, Vandals (Astingi and Lacringi) and the Sarmatian Iazyges invaded Dacia, and succeeded in killing its governor, Calpurnius Proculus. To counter them, Legio V Macedonica, a veteran of the Parthian campaign, was moved from Moesia Inferior to Dacia Superior, closer to the enemy. First Roman expedition in Pannonia (168) During that time, as plague was ravaging the empire, Marcus Aurelius was unable to do more, and the punitive expedition he was planning to lead in person was postponed until 168. In the spring of that year, Marcus Aurelius, together with Lucius Verus set forth from Rome, and established their headquarters at Aquileia. The two emperors supervised a reorganization of the defences of Italy and the Illyricum, raised two new legions, Legio II Italica and Legio III Italica, and crossed the Alps into Pannonia. The Marcomanni and the Victuali had crossed the Danube into the province, but, at least according to the Historia Augusta, the approach of the imperial army to Carnuntum was apparently sufficient to persuade them to withdraw and offer assurances of good conduct. The two emperors returned to Aquileia for the winter, but on the way, in January 169, Lucius Verus died.[6] Marcus returned to Rome to oversee his co-emperor's funeral. Roman expedition against the Iazyges and the Germanic invasion of Italy The Roman expedition against the Iazyges in the eastern Pannonian Plain and the great Marcomannic invasion (which may have taken place in either 167 or 170, see main text for details). In the autumn of 169, Marcus set out from Rome, together with his son-in-law Claudius Pompeianus, who would become his closest aide during the war. The Romans had gathered their forces and intended to subdue the independent tribes (especially the Iazyges), who lived between the Danube and the Roman province of Dacia. The Iazyges defeated and killed Claudius Fronto, Roman governor of Lower Moesia. However, while the Roman army was entangled in this campaign, making little headway, several tribes used the opportunity to cross the frontier and raid Roman territory. To the east, the Costoboci crossed the Danube, ravaged Thrace and descended the Balkans, reaching Eleusis, near Athens, where they destroyed the temple of the Eleusian Mysteries. The most important and dangerous invasion however, was that of the Marcomanni in the west. Their leader, Ballomar, had formed a coalition of Germanic tribes. They crossed the Danube and won a decisive victory over a force of 20,000 Roman soldiers near Carnuntum. Ballomar then led the larger part of his host southwards towards Italy, while the remainder ravaged Noricum. The Marcomanni razed Opitergium (Oderzo) and besieged Aquileia. This was the first time hostile forces had entered Italy since 101 BC, when Gaius Marius defeated the Cimbri and Teutones. The army of praetorian prefect Furius Victorinus tried to relieve the city, but was defeated and its general slain. There is no consensus amongst scholars as to the year that the great Gemanic invasion towards Aquileia took place. Several authors, like Marcus Aurelius' biographer Frank McLynn, accepting the date of defeat near Carnuntum as 170, place the great Germanic invasion itself three years earlier. They maintain it happened in 167 because by the year 170 the Germans would have been checked by the Praetentura Italiae et Alpium—the fortifications which were erected in 168–169 to block a breakthrough though the Alps to Northern Italy - whereas all sources confirm it to be a military walkover. A further argument is that the panic which gripped Rome in 167-168 would make no sense if the Germanic tribes were still on the opposite side of the Danube. Also no source mentions the emperor being near the front when the disaster occurred, whereas by 170 Marcus Aurelius had settled there. McLynn maintains that Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus went to Aquileia in 168 to restore morale after the disaster as Aquileia makes no geographical, logistical or military sense as a base of operations for launching a campaign on the Danube in Pannonia. The reason McLynn maintains that 170 is proposed by other authors is that too much weight is given to Lucian's testimony regarding the influence of Alexander of Abonoteichos as a scapegoat for the disaster whereas it is uncertain whether Alexander was still alive by 170 and Lucian's chronology is at certain points suspect.[7] The Marcomannic Wars (Latin: bellum Germanicum et Sarmaticum, "German and Sarmatian War")[1][2] were a series of wars lasting over a dozen years from about AD 166 until 180. These wars pitted the Roman Empire against, principally, the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi and the Sarmatian Iazyges as well as related conflicts with several other barbarian peoples along both sides of the whole length of the Roman empire's northeastern European border, the river Danube. The struggle against the Germans and Sarmatians occupied the major part of the reign of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and it was during his campaigns against them that he started writing his philosophical work Meditations, whose book 1 bears the note "Among the Quadi at the Granua".[3] |
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