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The Date of the ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Roger Tomlin
Roger Tomlin
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Abstract

In 367, the enemies of Roman Britain concerted their attacks in what our sole literary source, the contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus, calls a barbarica conspiratio. In the archaeology of Hadrian's Wall, this conventionally dates the end of Period III; Period IV begins with the subsequent restoration of the frontiers by Count Theodosius. Damage and reconstruction are archaeologically attested, but how far they were due to enemy action is open to question. This paper is limited to a reconsideration of the literary dating evidence.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 5 , November 1974 , pp. 303 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © Roger Tomlin 1974. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 xxvii, 8.1. References are to the text established by C. U. Clark (but see Appendix A). J. C. Rolfe's translation in the Loeb Classical Library captures the idiosyncratic quality of Ammianus's Latin with remarkableskill, in spite of occasional mistakes, and thefailure sometimes to understand fourth-century technicalities.

2 Ammianus xxviii, 3.2, in integrum restituit ciuitates et castra … ibid. 7, instaurabat urbes et praesidiaria (ut diximus) castra, limitesque uigiliis tuebatur et praetenturis. Hadrian's Wall is not expressly mentioned, but is implied by the reference to limites, to the operation among peoples beyond a land frontier of the areani (xxviii, 3.8; for the reading see Stevens, C. E., Latomus xiv, 1955, 395)Google Scholar, and to the Picts (xxvii, 8.5, cf. xxvi, 4.5. and Claudian, de III cons. Hon. 54, de IV cons. Hon. 26 and 32).

3 Contrast I. A. Richmond, Roman and Native in North Britain (1961), 121, ‘All the forts and all the civilian settlements outside them had been sacked and burnt and stood in need of rebuilding’, with the scepticism of Breeze, D. J. and Dobson, B., Britannia iii, 1972, 182CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 200 ff. The best account of the ‘barbarian conspiracy’ is by S. Frere, Britannia; a History of Roman Britain (1967), 350 ff.

4 xxvii, 8.1-3. See Appendix A.

5 Jones, A. H. M., Martindalc, J. R. and Morris, J., The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, i, A.D. 260-395 (1971)Google Scholar, s.v. Iovinus 6. The importance of PLRE to the study of this period needs hardly to be stressed.

6 PLRE s.v. Theodosius 3. For his army, see below, note 31. Ammianus's references to him as dux are a literary archaism which implies no particular rank. His command of four auxilia palatina (legiones and cohortes at xxvii, 8.3 are also a literary archaism), and his succession to Jovinus as magister equitum (xxviii, 3.9) indicates that his rank was comes: see A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284-602 (1964), iii, 19 ff [n. 26]). He may have been Severus's (unrecorded) successor as comes domesticorum.

7 Frere (op. cit., note 3), 351. PLRE s.v. Theodosius 3 collects the literary evidence.

8 The evidence consists mostly of the date and place of issue of ‘constitutions’ preserved in the Theodosian Code, conveniently tabulated by its editor Mommsen, Th., Theodosiani Libri XVI2 (1954), vol. I.I, 240Google Scholar ff. The evidence is also collected under the relevant year, with some reconstruction, by O. Seeck, Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste (1919).

9 Ammianus xxvi, 5.6 ff., esp. 13, hostem suum fratrisque solius esse Procopium, Alamannos uero totius orbis Romani. Cf. Symmachus, or. 1, 14, 17 ff., esp. 19, ‘hic communis hostis est, tile privatus’. For the chronology, see Baynes, N. H., JRS xviii (1928), 222Google Scholar ff= Byzantine Studies and Other Essays (1960), 317 ff.

10 Ammianus xxvii, 2.10, dated by the arrival of the head of the usurper Procopius (executed in Phrygia, 27 May 366). Unless Parisios is an intrusive gloss, Ammianus is in error when he says that Jovinus returned to Paris.

11 CTh vii, 1.9 (January 367).

12 Ammianus xvii, 8.1, unde sumunt Gallicani procinctus exordia. The harvest had to be brought up from Aquitania (xiv, 10.2). Julian's attempt to campaign on biscuit rations before the corn was ripe provoked a mutiny when food ran out (xvii, 8.2 with xvii, 9.3).

13 PLRE s.v. Gratianus 2. Valentinian is otherwise attested at Amiens on 18 August 367 (CTh viii, 14.1). Between this date and 3 June 367 (Rheims), we do not know where he was, but Amiens may be surmised, to allow for his grave illness and, as will be argued, the previous despatch of Severus and Jovinus to Britain.

14 xxvii, 6.3, magister tunc peditum.

15 CTh xiv, 4.4 was issued at Rheims on 8 October 367. The transmitted date has been impugned, because Valnetinian is said by Ammianus to have left Amiens in a hurry (xxvii, 8.1, festinans) after proclaiming Gratian (24 August), and because on 13 October 367 he was over 100 miles from Rheims, in Trier itself (CJ vi, 4.2). However, the date is supported by CTh ix, 40.10, which is also addressed from Rheims to the same recipient on the same day, 8 October. (Its transmitted year, 366 instead of 367, is an obvious error, since its recipient was not then in office).

16 Ammianus xxvii, 8.6. Enemy raids may also have drawn Valentinian towards the Channel coast, if this is what we should understand by xxvii, 8.5, Gallicanos uero tractus Franci et Saxones, isdem confines, … violabant.

17 PLRE s.v. Dagalaifus, cf. Barbatio.

18 PLRE s.v. Severus 10.

19 This is the expedient of A. Demandt, RE Suppl. xii, 596, s.v. magister militum, on the grounds that Severus had done nothing in Britain to merit promotion (Jovinus's failure there having actually contributed, it would seem, to his dismissal). But Severus was recalled before he had the time or men to achieve anything, perhaps to replace Dagalaifus, who had failed against the Alamanns in 365, and is not attested in office after 366. The same excuse can be made for Jovinus, who was not dismissed until Theodosius had returned from Britain (Ammianus xxviii, 3.9), and whose ‘failure’ should be connected with the Solicinium campaign (368) in which he had recently taken part (xxvii, 10.6).

20 See note 5.

21 His situation was similar to that of the Caesar Julian's magister equitum Lupicinus, who was in Britain during winter 359/60, and unable to intervene when Julian usurped the rank of Augustus, since the news was kept from him (Ammianus xx, 9.9). The negative evidence for Jovinus's absence from court during Valentinian's illness, taken with the revised chronology that places the illness after Severus had returned from Britain, makes a new argument for the expansion of the reading uinus to Iouinus at Ammianus xxvii, 8.2. See Appendix A.

22 He reached Antioch in 363 in company with the emperor Jovian (xxv, 10.1, uenimus), but Jovian's movements thereafter are described in the third person singular. Ammianus says nothing of his own movements thereafter, if any, until in winter 371/2 he is in Antioch during the treason trials (xxix, 2.4, reptabamus).

23 See note 15.

24 See note 4.

25 Ammianus xxvii, 8.6-7, transmeato lentius freto. The point cannot be pressed, since Lupicinus had crossed the Channel with an equivalent force adulta hieme (xx, 1.3), like the emperor Constans in winter 342/3, mutato ac contempto temporum ordine (Firmicus Maternus, de errore profanarum religionum, 28.6). But on these occasions at least, the fact deserved explicit notice.

26 The units were the Heruli and Batavi, and the lovii and Victores, which in the late fourth century were the third and fifth pairs of auxilia palatina in the most important western field army (Not. Dig, Occ. 7.13-14, 16-17). They were the seniores which resulted from Valnetinian's division of the imperial field army with Valens: see my ‘Seniores—Iuniores in the Late-Roman Field Army’, AJP 93 (1972), 253Google Scholar, esp. 276.

27 xxvii, 8.8, mersam difficultatibus † suis antehac ciuitatem, sed subito, quam salus sperari potuit recreatam, ouantis specie laetissimus introiit. The text is corrupt, but t he context (xxvii, 8.7, cf. xxviii, 3.1) makes it clear that the ciuitas is London.

28 Theodosius spent the winter planning how to ambush diffusam uàriarum gentium plebem et ferocientem immaniter (xxvii, 8.9). cf. xxviii, 3.2 (his second campaign), fusis uariis gentibus et fugatis.

29 xxviii, 3.3 ff. PLRE s.v. Vatentinus 5. His execution is mentioned independently of Ammianus by Zosimus and Jerome, but not so as to provide accurate evidence of date for Theodosius's second campaign.

30 xxviii, 3.7. For the date, see Appendix B.

31 Tacitus, , Annals xiv, 38Google Scholar, missis ex Germania duobus legionarium milibus; RIB 1322, vexillatio … contributi ex Germaniis duobus (presumably from all four legions, to the three British legions). The strength of an auxilium palatinum is not known, but 300 men would have been a crippling loss (Ammianus xx, 4.2, cf. Libanius, or. xviii, go ff., Julian, ep. ad Ath. 282D). It must have been considerably less than 1,000, since a force of sagittarii this strong was commanded by a comes and a tribunus Scutariorum (Ammianus xxx, 1.11). Comes is the regular title of an officer commanding two palatine units (e.g. Ammianus xxvii, 1.2) or more: see above, note 6. At a guess, the sagittarii comprised a pair of auxilia palatina. Another episode also suggests that an auxilium palatinum was 500 strong. During Jovian's retreat from Persia, the Tigris was swum by mixti cum arctois Germanis Galli who had practised swimming rivers since childhood (Ammianus xxv, 6.13-14). The Batavi, whose sister-unit the Heruli certainly served on the Persian expedition (xxv, 10.9), spring to mind: cf. Tacitus, , Ann. ii, 8.3Google Scholar, Hist. iv, 12.3, ILS 2558, the Batavian who swam the Danube in full armour under the eye of Hadrian. Ammianus knows the exact strength of this force: it was 500 men (xxv, 7.3). It would seem that he had a particular unit in mind. For the suggestion that an auxilium numbered 600 to 700 men, see A. H. M. Jones, LRE, 681 ff.

32 J. W. Eadie, The Breviarium of Festus; A Critical Edition with Historical Commentary (1967), 1 ff.

33 PLRE s.v. Festus 3. For the identification, see Eadie (op. cit., note 32), 4 ff.

34 Ges. Schr. v (1908), 587.Google Scholar

35 Not. Dig. Occ. 1.77, 3.34, 23.4 = 11; Laterculus Polemii Siluii xi, 6.

36 Ammianus xxvii, 5.6 ff. Negotiations for peace took place only after the campaigning season of 369 was over, and Valens had retired to winter quarters at Marcial to Constantinople (ibid. 10), where he is attested on 29 December

37 Brev. 2.

38 Brev. 29; quotation from Eadie (op. cit., note 32), 153. His conclusion is different: Festus had run out of material.

39 Noted by Eadie (op. cit., note 32), 169, but not explained by him. As he observes (p. 170), ‘Valens, to whom the Breviarium was addressed, certainly did not require lists of provinces under his jurisdiction’.

40 Brev. 10, Nunc Eoas paries totumque Orientem ac positas sub uicino sole prouincias, qui auctores sceptris tuis parauerint, explicabo, quo studium clementiae tuae, quod in isdem propagandis habes, amplius incitetur.

41 Eadie (op. cit., note 32), 70 ff.

42 PLRE s.v. Festus 3. He came from Trent, and was a fellow-student and fellow-barrister of the Pannonian Maximinus, whose career was confined to the western Empire and (probably) the reign of Valentinian. Since Festus's first known post was that of consularis Syriae in 365 or 368, when he is said not to have known any Greek, it is likely that he went to the eastern Empire with Valens in 364, while Maximinus remained in the western.