ROMAN-GERMAN BORDER RELATIONS

            The limitation of Roman documentation on the Germanic tribes is that they are mainly concerned with the border tribes and tend to be speculative about the interior.  This focus on the border tribes allows for some insight into the perceptions of the Romans toward the Germanic tribes.  Granted, many of these references are concerning attacks and warfare, but trade and peace are also mentioned.

            From the Gallic Wars of Caesar, there has been hostility and death between the two peoples (Caesar, Gallic War, 5.55).  Initially, the Romans felt that nothing could stand between them and their goals and the Germanic tribes were no match for them (Caesar, Gallic War, 5.28).  But, even in midst of the successes in the Gallic war, the Romans slowed their advances along the Rhine River and patrolled these fortified zones with much caution (Hirtius, Continuation of Caesar’s Gallic War, 8.10).  Some Romans, such as Polybius, blame a lack of Roman intelligence reports and that Caesar allowed the Germanic tribes to run to the Alps and recuperate after attacks for the lack of Roman success in Germania (Polybius, Histories, 57).  The last major Roman attacks across the Rhine River ended at the battle in the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, where the two Roman legions were wiped out and essentially initiated the Roman frontier defenses against the Germanic tribes at the rivers Rhine and Danube.

            Rome had a seemingly endless supply of soldiers that, when defeated would return in greater numbers (Thompson, 1982) .  Initially these frontier defenses against the Germanic tribes were essentially a road or a communication route by which those charged with protecting the interface between Rome and the barbarians could move quickly to the points of conflict (Cunliffe, 1993a) .  These developed into a series of fortifications linked by roads along a fixed boundary, marked in many, but not all parts of the Empire by a river or an artificial boundary (Isaac, 1988) .  The term “limes” was used by contemporaries as if it were self-explanatory (Isaac, 1988) .

            Until the barbarian pressure in the 3^rd century AD, the frontier defenses had been seen largely as a means of controlling, but not necessarily halting, the movement of people (Cunliffe, 1993a) .  By the third century AD, Herodian, a contemporary, writes that it is the general opinion the barbarian wars were no longer struggles to secure the frontiers but to save the very existence of the Empire (Herodian, 4.14.6) (Alflödy, 1974) .  The limes become a physical barrier between barbarism and the civilization. 

In Themistius, Orations, 8 and 10, he states: “This view of events cannot stand without challenge.  In the first place, our evidence indicates that it was the Goths, and not the Romans, who were the real aggressors in the 360’s.  Even before Procopius, Valens sent troops to the Danube because the Goths were threatening the frontier” (Heather and Matthews, 1991) .

But blaming the failure or the protection of the frontier is not all one sided, favoring the Romans.  Quite often, the frontier tribes had working relationships with the Romans and protected the limes from the interior of Germania (Caesar, Gallic War, 2.4).  In AD 245, there is evidence of the Ostrogoths under king Ostrogotha obtaining payment from Rome to protect them from the Sarmatians who lay beyond them (Bradley, 1888) .  Tacitus lists the Germanic tribes in several categories, one of which is an ally of Rome.

Some tribes learned that there could be refuge found inside the Roman Empire through the feodus, a peace treaty allowing the Germans to inhabit the Empire in return for service in the military.  This fit the tradition of ver sanctum (the concept of the youth coming of age through test of arms) of the Germanic tribes (Musset, 1975) .  This too became a source of displeasure when Julian’s army, consisting of mostly Goths forced into servitude was forced to attack the Huns.  They were almost completely destroyed due to poor battlefield decisions (Heather and Matthews, 1991) .

            Aside from the trade routes set up due to the bartering nature of the Germanic tribes, some tribes learned that money could be extracted from the Empire to not attack (Tacitus, Germania, XIV).  Emperor Trebonianus paid the Goths a large sum of money and land to appease them (Bradley, 1888) .  In the fourth century, Emperor Valens turned away a number of Gothic ambassadors before eventually listening to their entreaty.  The Goths were keen to make peace because they were short of supplies, but when Valens banned them from the market place they attacked (Heather and Matthews, 1991) .

            Commerce was an important necessity to the barbaric tribes, who traded for their necessities (Hughes, 1994) .  By the first century AD, trade with areas such as the Baltic is heavy between the Germanic tribes and Rome as evident in burial mounds (Kaul, 1993) .  Unfortunately, the use of burial mounds stops in the third century when cremation is the main form of burial (Musset, 1975) .  But, through numismatology there is evident of independent coinage in individual towns as early as 100 BC (Hachmann, 1971) .  This includes hordes found to contain numerous Roman coins (Todd, 1987) .  These were concentrated in the western Germania and not so in the east (Wells, 1980) .

            Not all of the interactions between the Romans and the barbarians involved war and destruction.  As late as AD 359, the Burgundians settle in Rhone and Swabia and develop strong economic ties with Rome (Musset, 1975) .  The Romans sought refuge with the barbarians on several occasions (Bradley, 1888) .  There is evidence of peaceful co inhabitation in the lower Rhine valley (Associated_Press, 1999) .  But perhaps the real source of tension between the barbarians and the Romans is that the Roman citizens never moved to Gaul and, unlike every other province, Dacia was never colonized but occupied (Burns, 1984) .

            The relationship between the Romans and the Germanic tribes along the frontier varied but was one of Roman moral superiority.  It was even against the law in Rome to depict the Germanic tribes as anything but submissive (Heather and Matthews, 1991) .  These tribes did maintain relations across the limes and there is also evidence of the Romans crossing into Germania on many occasions (Wells, 1999) .

These frontiers were initially a buffer marking where the barbarian tribes started but were trafficked by both sides.  The limes slowly came to define a frontier that marked where the barbarians were repelled from the Empire.  These “barbarians”, however, had great numbers on either side of the limes due to previous feodus, percentages in the army, and legal settlers.  The limes eventually fell to various attacks and because of the lack of Roman citizens in Gaul and Dacia had little trouble infiltrating the interior of the Roman Empire.  The interesting component of this transition is the transformation from a limes that was equally trafficked to one of repelling and falling to invaders.